#and then feel personally betrayed when they hold a contrary opinion

[aviaris]

i love that the AI art discourse has like. long ago moved past the point of any sensible material analysis leaking in between the firmly set up PRO SKUB/ANTI SKUB camps. people are out here feeling betrayed by self-declared marxists whom they had previously looked up to for their cutting critique, all because said marxists believe in organized labor as a tool for prying justice from the bourgeoisie (which comes as a shock, I guess?) instead of believing in the power of class action lawsuits that are attempting to set a precedent of copyrighted art-styles or whatever the fuck, as if THAT would be the true defense of the downtrodden animation laborer.

just imagining the world these people think they live in gives me a headache.

[parlerenfleurs]

In the notes of the previous post I've reblogged I saw a discussion about why Ringo isn't considered (by the fandom) as a romantic interest for Mizu despite treating her better than all the other men in her life, and how this is tied to fatphobia. Also the fact that the fat character is often the comic-relief and the fact that if he is indeed intended as platonic why make him the only fat (="unattractive") man among the three (others being Taigen and Mikio) that can or have been considered love interests for her?

And that's really interesting because indeed, I never considered Ringo a potential love-interest for Mizu... And so I have to wonder if it's because he's fat. But I also never saw him as a comic-relief character, and I want to expand on why first.

He is indeed funny, and brings levity. But it's not "comic-relief", it's "positivity-relief", in my eyes. I don't feel like we're supposed to take him unseriously at all. Characters take him unseriously, sure, because of his social class, his disability, his seemingly naïve and weak character (never his size, in any case).

But the story shows, and Mizu comes to know, that he's anything but weak and naïve. We know right from the start that he's endured a terrible childhood and life up until meeting Mizu. He doesn't have hands, his father is abusive both physically and psychologically. The way the flesh-trader mistreats him in the first episode isn't anything unusual to Ringo. Everyone despises him and feels free to exert force against him. Taigen in his arrogance, deigns offer him a menial job in his household with the condescension reserved for a nobody who is also a child, or mentally a child.

Ringo was forged at this cruel relentless fire and what came out is a formidable strength. It doesn't manifest itself as obviously as Mizu's but it's, in my opinion, superior, and also extremely great and loveable. Ringo is neither naïve nor stupid. He knows when he's being beaten and condescended to. He's like that because, in spite of everything, he wants to see beauty in everything, and enjoy the good things in life, and he chooses to be kind. He CHOOSES to be kind. With an unbreakable, fluid, infinitely bending strength.

I am not well-versed enough in Japanese culture to make a meaningful comment about this, probably, but my personal reading of Ringo is that he might be a Buddha figure. East of India, the Buddha is fat. The Buddha smiles serenely, even in adversity, because he's reached a state of zen. His ego isn't touched by insults and beatings. Of course Ringo prefers to be treated well, like anyone else! That's why he follows Mizu around! She's an outcast and "deformed" like him, but she's also able to hold her own against physical violence, against the tyrants of the world, and that obviously appeals to him.

He kills, he has sex, he likes good food, he's obviously not detached from the world at all. But still, like a Buddha, his sense of self cannot be shaken by outside mockery or hostility. He's incredibly persistent once he has a goal, but he doesn't bother affirming himself to others for the sake of ego. He's the polar opposite of Taigen in that respect. Taigen's background has made him desperate for outside sources of strength - admiration, prestige, money, social standing...

On the other hand Ringo is really similar to Mizu, a thing he sees immediately but she does not. Hers is an inner unbreakable strength, too. The same fluid, adaptable, water-like strength. Can't break water. It will shape itself around you and your obstacles without ever losing its nature.

But contrary to Ringo, Mizu feels all the pain, the slights, the shame, the self-hatred. Ringo is pure love, or water, not poisoned by betrayal. Perhaps, or even probably, he has been betrayed but he hasn't let it poison his love, his water nature.

Even when Mizu betrays his love (respect, admiration, regard), he's no pushover, he lets her know that he won't stand for it, but still he rescues her because... despite everything his love is still pure. His love is the agape kind. He loves life, he obviously loves himself. There is no shame or shrinking of the self in him. No shame of his body, among other things. He's the only one in the main cast who doesn't wear a mask. What you see is what you get, and it's only people's own preconceptions that blind them to his depth and merit.

On the subject of fatness, I'm not sure he's even really... considered fat, in-universe? Or not negatively so, in any case. When Akemi has to serve her first client, HE is called fat by the characters. Fat enough to crush someone, and to hinder his own libido - the fatness of being extremely rich and eating too much rich food while being extremely idle. This one has the prostitutes reluctant, and his fatness is viewed in a negative light. Ringo has a very pleasant and cordial interaction with the two prostitutes who service him, and sure we're not privy to their thoughts on the matter, but I bet they found him cute, polite, not troublesome at all to service, and I feel like his size wasn't even a question that was posed. We see him naked, running around, carrying things, and being extremely active. His is a common build, sturdy, not a hindrance to his libido, his health, his self-image, or anything. What I mean is, he's not presented to us in a negative way on account of his fatness, and isn't viewed negatively for it in-universe.

All of this to say, I might indeed be blind to his potential as a love interest to Mizu, but I'm not sure it just has to do with the fact he's fat? It might be! I don't know. The first thing I think about on why I don't ship them is they show no romantic or sexual interest in each other that I see. Except, perhaps, that it might be significant that she's the one to arrange his first sexual experience and that it's the framework he has when seeing her naked. But as his attitude remains strictly the same and he shows no change in the kind of interest he has for her, it didn't feel significant to me. I might be wrong, I don't know. But again, Taigen is the opposite: he might be bi, but let's say he isn't, or at least isn't aware of it (I would be sad if he's not but it would better serve the parallel if he's straight) - the guy shows unmistakable chemistry with, and attraction to Mizu without even knowing she's got peaches underneath it all. (I love that he feels attraction to her at the precise moment where she's her playful self again: wrestling, battling and winning, while laughing and having fun... everything that Mikio couldn't handle is the very thing Taigen feels attracted to, aaah so good.)

When I think about it, the loyal, protective role Ringo has, where he saves her physically and emotionally, cares for her, protects her secret, admires her for who she is as a whole, his place as the person who sees the most of her without rejecting a single part of it, should indeed make me feral....

But if he's the opposite to Taigen in so many ways, he might be in this too, in that he has no attraction to Mizu, and they've no such chemistry between them. It's also so lovely as a platonic relationship! For once it is! He's her apprentice, after all, and she takes on the Swordfather role for him as Swordfather did for her (she even used the same persistent-as-hell-I-will-stay-look-I'm-useful method as Ringo did on her - when I say they're so similar...). She used to make noise to signal things to Swordfather and she makes Ringo make noise so that she can keep track of him, too. It's very cute! He uses her kitchen knives and she makes him start to fight with that just like she started to forge by forging them. To me, they're firmly in this master-apprentice dynamic. And friends.

I've said repeatedly that he's not naïve but actually in some ways he is, and that's what Mizu needs more of. She needs to reconnect with that younger, less hurt version of herself. And Ringo helps her with it, because she does ask for his help, does recognise she needs it (healing!) when she asks him to write on her back. He literally has her back. He's his own character, his own person, but they mirror each other a lot, and in some ways he's her master too. A master in gentleness.

Oh. I've said that Ringo's love/water is pure, but that it HAS been touched by the poison that affects Mizu: he's a better sword, has a better strength because he let the impurity be a part of him, didn't push it away or let it consume and change him. No wonder she must learn from him/needs his help to forge her new sword.

IF the story started signaling attraction between them, I don't think it would occur to me that Ringo is fat or anything (or it wouldn't have before, now I'll pay attention to that). It didn't occur to me when he was with the prostitutes, I was only thinking about the fact he has no hands, but the prostitutes shrugged it off with grace, and it made me happy.

[demaparbat-hp]

Even if zuko has a plan to end the war, making katara work amongst people who likely hold racism towards her and aided and supported the genocide of her people is still weird, especially since zuko benefits from the fire nations oppression of people throughout s1 when hunting the Avatar. Not good choices to make in a zutara au :/

Believe me, I've made these arguments against myself over and over again.

I know I'm putting Katara in an extremely difficult and unjust position in this AU with—from an outsider's point of view—little to no reason other than "I just wanted to see her in Fire Nation armor and kicking ass" and no consideration for the context. I'm not trying to somehow forgive nor redeem the Fire Nation's actions in war just because...well...just because. Not at all. People who've read Soundless (or any other of my wips, really) know that's not the case. On the contrary—I always do my best to see the war through a realistic, mature lense. And that includes everything that makes the Fire Nation so terrible in the first place.

That being said, there are some things I considered when deciding to make Katara side with them (even if her true motives lie elsewhere) in this AU. And they are not excuses. Just, different layers of context.

First of all, she was desperate. By this point in her life, her mother was dead, her father had left to fight the war, her brother followed behind a few years after, and she was left filling the empty spaces when, by all means, she wasn't ready for the responsibility. She had been feeling helpless and hopeless for years, and ached to do anything to help her people beyond doing chores and taking care for the children.

Let it be known that Aang's apparent betrayal comes from a place of trauma and misplaced anger on Katara's part. Much like how she put the Fire Nation's sins on Zuko's shoulders in S3. She is not on the right here, but this is her natural way to process and understand grief. There are many different aspects of her development as a child involved in how she views the Avatar—and, by extension, Aang—but more on this later.

Katara was young, and reckless, and she had just been "betrayed" by the first person who ever looked at her and saw more than the perfect caretaker she was forced to be. She was not in the right state of mind to make a decision like that and, to be honest, she couldn't have predicted the consequences. She saw a clear path to contribute to the end of the war, and by La she would take it.

On Zuko's end, you might argue that he should have known better than to let her join him and, well, you would be right. But there were many things about Katara's trauma response and state of mind that—unless he had known her for a long time—he couldn't have known. He will definitely blame himself later on, when the racism and cruelty towards Katara begins, and especially when word reaches her family at sea.

It's Katara's job to smack some sense into him from time to time and tell him that, yes, he should have tried harder to stop her (and she would probably be better off because of it) but what's done is done. And, by all means, the decision was hers to make. If anything, it's their fault, not his alone.

Now, Katara doesn't suffer the entire AU. That would just be cruel.

Zuko's crew was handpicked by Uncle Iroh, so you can expect dissidents, traitors and a few White Lotus agents who were smart enough to keep their true opinions quiet. There are...mixed opinions in that bunch, of course, but that's expected and, to be honest, rather easily dealt with. They are mostly honourable people just doing their best to end the war from the inside.

The real problem comes when they cross paths with, say, Zhao's fleet (or Hakoda's, let's be real).

And you may ask why Zuko is hunting down Aang, then, if he's secretly a goody-two-shoes himself... I'll explain that later in depth, so stay tuned.

In short, I know the decisions I've made, as a creator, are debatable at best, and downright blasfemous at worst. But they're deliberate.

I want the readers to feel conflicted about Katara's choices in this AU. I want people to have mixed opinions about the war, the (apparent lack of) morality, the characters, you name it!

I'm not trying to glorify a victim of war joining the side of the ones responsible for her people's genocide, even if it's just for show and she's actually set on destroying their government from within. Not at all.

Katara made a stupid, horrible decision, and she's going to suffer the consequences. But she's also going to fight to reach her goals, because she's stubborn like that.

I know most people may have a little trouble understanding where I'm coming from, because they don't have all the information necessary to make a full opinion.

I'm really thankful for these kind of asks. They let me explore these concepts and AUs in depth, and see what you think about them. I'm only human—my opinions are not infalible, nor The Right Ones, and this is a kind of discussion that I love to have.

So, keep the asks coming!!!

[yeah-thats-probably-it]

hi its the ring for jeeves analysis anon sorry im so illusive can't help my mysterious nature its inexplicable, quick question: have you read any psmith??? if so thoughts on them do you hold any opinions, postulations, assumptions etc. in re: queercoding, possibly even queerer coded than jeeves series??

Mysterious Ring for Jeeves anon! Just when I thought you forever borne away on the four winds, you have returned again to the masked ball to drop your calling card (three black goose feathers and a shard of mother of pearl collected from the silver sands by the light of the season's first full moon) into the hollowed-out tree stump at the edge of the garden. I receive and understand your message, and shall await your signal directly the cock crows thrice.

Now, to answer your question, Psmith had been on my "should really get around to it" list for ages, but this ask prompted me to finally download the Psmith in the City audiobook and put it on while I was packing and now I DO have thoughts! My first thought was that I had no idea working in a bank was so much like working in hospitality, but that's a post for another day.

Short answer: yes, this is queer as hell. And it isn't even the first non-Jeeves Wodehouse book I've read that felt even more queer coded than Jeeves-- the first was Ukridge (aka It's Always Sunny in London), which I'm going to go ahead and compare and contrast with Psmith, because I feel like I'm starting to uncover a pattern in Wodehouse's POV characters that I think could lend support to queer readings of a lot of his works.

For those who aren't familiar, Ukridge is ALSO the tale of an extremely blatant self-insert character inescapably captivated by the magnetic personality of an old school friend. Corky, a starving writer who's always struggling to get his articles published in magazines and is totally not Wodehouse by a different name, is deeply irritated by the get-rich-quick schemes of his freeloader friend Ukridge. He knows Ukridge is taking advantage of him, and rarely has a positive thing to say about him, yet clearly finds something about his indefatigable spirit immensely compelling: "to me this tame subsidence into companionship with a rich aunt in Wimbledon seemed somehow an indecent, almost a tragic, end to a colourful career like that of S. F. Ukridge. [...] I should have had more faith. I should have known my Ukridge better. I should have realised that a London suburb could no more imprison that great man permanently than Elba did Napoleon."

This quotation is followed by Corky finding out that Ukridge has acquired six Pekinese dogs (which will turn out to have been pinched from his aunt) that he's planning to train for show biz, and would Corky like to invest. If you wanted to know.

The queerness is rather more unilateral in Ukridge than in Psmith, but no less glaring for that. Corky really doesn't seem to like it when Ukridge is interested in a woman, and shows little to no interest in women himself, iirc. I mean, the first time he sees Ukridge in the company of a woman he sounds almost betrayed: "Never in the course of a long and intimate acquaintance having been shown any evidence to the contrary, I had always looked on Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, my boyhood chum, as a man ruggedly indifferent to the appeal of the opposite sex. I had assumed that, like so many financial giants, he had no time for dalliance with women—other and deeper matters, I supposed, keeping that great brain permanently occupied." THIS is his reaction to Ukridge announcing that he wants to get engaged: "The thing was too cataclysmal for my mind. It overwhelmed me." GIRL.

If I had no prior familiarity with Wodehouse and I read this book, I would be asking which straight boy hurt him.

Finally, one of the Ukridge stories contains this exchange between Corky and a pugilist Ukridge has decided he's going to make a star, which I would like to present here without comment before moving on:

“You ever been in love, mister?” I was thrilled and flattered. Something in my appearance, I told myself, some nebulous something that showed me a man of sentiment and sympathy, had appealed to this man, and he was about to pour out his heart in intimate confession. I said yes, I had been in love many times. I went on to speak of love as a noble emotion of which no man need be ashamed. I spoke at length and with fervour.

Skipping merrily along, let us now come back around to Psmith in the City, starting with the primary POV character and then bringing in Psmith's relationship to him.

Mike is an even more blatant self-insert than Corky. This would have been obvious even if I didn't already know that in his young adulthood Wodehouse, owing to the fact that his father could no longer afford to send him to Oxford, had worked as a clerk at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. The jokes are too precise to not be from personal experience. As Mike is our audience avatar, he's naturally the more normal, less distinctive character. Despite his relative nondistinctness, though, he's written in such a way that it's clear Wodehouse deeply identified with him. The sections where he's feeling emotions like homesickness or out-of-placeness or sympathy, for instance, are very vivid and evocative. You really feel what Mike is feeling.

Then there's Psmith, manic pixie dream boy and destroyer of bad managers. He handles every situation with a debonair smile on his face and breezy condescension in his voice, completely unflappable... except with regards to Mike. His feelings typically aren't described in as much detail as Mike's are, but it's obvious he adores him, to the point of slight codependence. He needs Mike near him to hear his thoughts on life, and nobody else will do. As much as he tries to maintain his air of blithe nonchalance at all times, real emotion slips through whenever the situation involves separating him from Mike or Mike being in danger.

When Mike is moved to the Cash Department, Psmith is immediately desolate. I love the way he's like, "but- but if you relocate Mike, then WHO pray tell will PAY ATTENTION TO ME?" and this is a genuine crisis for him. He resents the new guy just for not being Mike. Local annoyingly imperturbable gadfly inconsolable due to boybestfriend going to work in a different department than him, more at eight. Then, when Mike gets into the fight at Clapham Common, Psmith feels genuine fear as he prepares to intervene in the fight and tell Mike to make a run for it.

Another factor I feel makes the queer coding stronger here is that unlike Bertie and Jeeves, there isn't an obvious plausibly deniable reason for Psmith and Mike to always be together. Jeeves is Bertie's employee. He's an unreasonably devoted and loyal employee, but you expect a gentleman to be accompanied by his valet about town, and for the gentleman and valet to share accommodation.

Psmith and Mike are just like that. They live together because they like each other and want to. Psmith spends the whole book essentially treating Mike like his boyfriend and sugar baby, again, simply because he wants to. I mean, the novel literally opens with Psmith bringing Mike home to meet his parents, and Psmith's father later refers to Mike as the "youngster [Psmith] brought home last summer." Psmith invites Mike to go out on an excursion with him "hand in hand" not once, but twice. The end goal of all his scheming is for him and Mike to be together at Cambridge.

'I need you, Comrade Jackson,' he said, when Mike lodged a protest on finding himself bound for the stalls for the second night in succession. 'We must stick together. As my confidential secretary and adviser, your place is by my side. Who knows but that between the acts tonight I may not be seized with some luminous thought? Could I utter this to my next-door neighbour or the programme-girl? Stand by me, Comrade Jackson, or we are undone.' So Mike stood by him.

I find it very notable that despite one of the big themes of the book being Mike and Psmith feeling uncertain about the future and trying to figure out what they want to do in life, neither of them ever mentions or thinks about marriage as something they might want someday. From what I've seen it looks like that might change in later books, but it stuck out in this one. And it's not like they couldn't have! Mr Waller's daughter and her on-again-off-again fiance were at that extremely awkward dinner, and that could have prompted a thought about whether or not the prospect of engagement sounded personally appealing to either of the boys.

This book feels like a wish fulfillment fantasy in much the same way the Jeeves books do. Imagine you have a fascinating friend who, using his money and/or resourcefulness, can rescue you from your terrible job and terrible shitty apartment (or other, richer varieties of soup, if you're Bertie Wooster), freeing you to pursue the life you truly want. He's clever, and quotes all your favorite Shakespeare lines, and is intensely devoted to you (he's also kind of a weird stickler about clothes but you can put up with that). And all he asks for it is that you look at him with awed wonder and gratitude and tell him he's a genius a few times a day.

So! In conclusion, I think you could read this as romantic or queerplatonic according to your fancy, but there's certainly nothing straight about it. And loath as I am to speculate about the personal lives of people who were alive in recent memory, I'm kind of starting to have some questions about P. G. Wodehouse. But that's neither here nor there. I'm going to go read some fanfic. Thank you so much for the question, Mysterious Ring for Jeeves Anon!

[cmyknoise]

I don't know about others but the reason I didn't listen to "you are a person techno" it's because it felt empty, like it had no meaning and it was just static. I don't know if that is actually true (I don't understand his character very well and I can't get inside his mind) but it didn't feel like it (but maybe if he were to say it again I would listen and believe)

in my opinion it's the 'i'm a person part' from techno that is empty. and techno's pov was the one i watched first on doomsday.

techno holds people like dream on a higher step than tommy, despite dream being the one to view techno like an actual weapon.

tommy has treated techno like a person far more than dream ever has, and dream isn't even subtle about it. he only ever talks to techno when he needs something or wants to use him because he's powerful.

on november 16th dream was in part reason for techno setting off the withers, as he riled him up in chat and egged him on. he only saved techno's life on his execution date because he knew he could use the favor against techno (something he would then hold over his head for the next few months by saying 'no i'll save it'). on doomsday, dream only went along with things because he knew techno had tommy, or had suspicions of things, and once it was obvious techno was freshly wounded over a 'betrayal' (which i'll speak of later) did he ask him to join him for doomsday.

and yet he views dream more neutrally than tommy.

tommy ran to techno after exile. did he steal things? sure. did he hide? yeah. but during their later companionship, tommy went along with each and every thing techno wanted him to do. tommy treated him with respect and put his trust in him. he never treated him as anything less than a person. the biggest argument i see is usually people saying that well, tommy called him 'the blade'. on a meta standpoint: that is cc!tommy's nickname for cc!techno. it has been for a very long time and still is. it also sounds badass. use of it doesnt mean he sees techno as only a weapon.

tommy sat with techno on a bench and reminisced about stars. he helped techno get his weapons back, despite his hesitance toward doing anything of ill will towards new l'manburg.

on the contrary i'd argue that despite them both betraying each other, it was techno who betrayed tommy on a much deeper level, which makes his 'im a person' argument feel much more hollow. because if you look back at both of their vods from that era, which i've watched both perspectives from them of that area, you see that it was techno who used tommy for far much than vice versa.

tommy got nothing out of his companionship with technoblade other than protection against dream after his abuse in exile, but we see that not even that was promised as techno was willing to give him up for the deal if dream had so asked.

all tommy had voiced to technoblade that he wanted was his discs, and that he didnt like the idea of destroying the place.

techno made no moves- not once to even help him get his discs back. who, at the time, tubbo had one and skeppy had one (dream got one from skeppy right before he'd caught them at the nether portal).

it wasn't a hard feat, there was never an attempt at techno getting anything tommy wanted. but he sure had tommy come along with him to get his armor and weapons. to do recon on l'manburg. to set up the army of wolves.

in fact, techno had a list, as did tommy, of things he'd wanted to do. top of the list had been to destroy and get revenge on l'manburg, and once tommy had voiced he didnt want to do that, techno stopped bringing it up. but to chat, when he'd go over his list of things to do, he'd purposefully highlight that part of the list, not read it, but show that he wouldn't budge on that idea.

sure, he offered tommy to sit it out. but tommy was vocal on tubbo still being his friend- on him still having friends in that place. that offer was to essentially let tommy sit by and do nothing as his home, which he was still attached to, and his friends, suffered. not to mention there were several times where techno had asked if those people were really friends or really worth it (which directly echoes things dream said in exile. i wont hold that detail against him because he doesnt know what happened in exile, but it is still very shitty to do)

then you have the community house scene. where tommy had been up front about his position on destroying l'manburg since the beginning. he'd nearly told techno every stream he didnt want to do it, or it wasnt a good idea. so, when he'd shouted 'the discs were worth more than you ever were' he realized something.

they weren't. he said it in anger because he knew it'd hurt, and regret it immediately.

and that is when he 'betrayed' techno. as if in the same situation of choosing someone like tommy or phil, techno wouldn't have chosen phil. emerald duo and clingy duo are two sides of the same coin in the sense that they'd chose each other over anyone else.

tommy didnt want to destroy the place. he'd only wanted his discs and to go home and he couldnt get one- and he'd realized that techno and dream were putting him in a mindset of this cycle of revenge that he didnt want a part of, so he immediately rectified the situation and stood at tubbo's side.

that was tommy's betrayal, as if techno hadn't been betraying tommy's trust the entire time they were working together. as if techno wasn't betraying tommy by siding with dream. which you can not even argue techno wouldn't have known did nothing, as tommy may not have said what dream did, he knew whatever it was warranted tommy to go into panic attacks multiple times whenever it was brought up.

but doomsday arrives. tommy fights alongside tubbo. they die many times, they dont have any gear left by the time they have the confrontation with techno. there is a long back and forth between tommy and techno.

but it essentially boils down to techno blaming the outcome on government, tommy and wilbur not helping techno out of a 'high pressure situation' when he executed tubbo (when may i remind you during those vods neither tommy or wilbur had any weapons or armor fit to fight anyone, let alone the fact that they werent allowed to be there. techno said he couldn't 1 v 20, yet he did anyway and killed tubbo) tommy not being loyal, l'manburg being corrupt and not free, etc.

and tommy shouting about how techno had betrayed him, asking why he couldnt just leave people alone because they weren't bothering him, why he couldnt just let people love what they love, why techno killed tubbo even before he was president or apart of a government, etc.

the lines of 'i'm a person' and 'you are techno, but so are we!' come in.

techno solidifies the idea that he's a person, which he is! he's a person, not a weapon, but he's telling the wrong person. because tommy hasn't been the one to treat him like anything less than a person. he very much considers techno a friend and voiced/shouted it many times.

then tommy's part comes in, which i think is a catch because he's not talking about himself. not entirely. tubbo is standing beside him. someone who, according to even techno's own admittance, was killed innocently in his execution. tubbo has to this day not recieved an apology and is infact very much been a target of techno.

behind him you have a battle. you have people like jack manifold, quackity, sapnap, eret, ranboo, etc all fighting. the 'we' is referring to all of them, because based on the surrounding conversation, thats what he's talking about.

because as much as techno is a person, so is everyone else. and this line is so important but overlooked because i think people forget the true devastation of doomsday. because it wasn't just a take down of a government. they didn't only target the government. the entire country was destroyed. peoples homes, their livelihoods. all of their items, gear. several pets were losts. memories were lost. the entire library which held almost every single historical document on that server was lost.

after doomsday so many people had no where to go- which is directly why so many people are divided now. and how many people, even now, don't have homes, that had once found a place to stay in l'manburg. how many people wondered aimlessly with no direction. because lmanburg wasnt just buildings and a government. it was a place people gathered to talk. it was a meeting place, and where so so many people lived.

i also beg you to look at ghostbur's speech to philza, because he says it perfectly. there were people in that town, entirely innocent of techno's devastation. jack manifold, niki, ranboo, and people in surrounding areas like karl, sapnap, george, who all had homes near or within l'manburg.

not only that, doomsday wasnt even casualty free on the lives front, because jack manifold lost his last canon life to techno.

there were people there, and as tommy and techno spoke they were being actively treated like they weren't.

whatever you want to say about doomsday, whether it was an act of revenge or a political move from an anarchist, it wasn't techno that wasn't being treated like a person.

it was all the people he hurt that day, who's whole existence was ignored.

the line 'we're people too' isn't tommy saying 'i'. he's referring to everyone else, and even acknowledging that techno is a person. he's confirming what he said!

i want to even move on to now, to the more recent events of the dsmp since doomsday. how about the night before the final disc confrontation. it was the next time he spoke to techno. tommy fully well and believed he'd die the following day, stole a few potions, but then talked with techno. he said he knew he fucked up, he apologized, and left the door open to right wrongs at a later date or talk more if he came back.

techno hasn't even apologized to tubbo over the execution, let alone given a mutual apology back to tommy.

and he left the door open. he even had invited phil and techno to his hotel opening.

tommy has always had some sort of respect for techno and has never once viewed him as anything less than a person, a friend. he's even apologized and left the door open for them to talk it out someday, a door which techno metaphorically slams shut each time.

meanwhile techno has laughed about tommy's death and imprisonment, and actively continues to help someone who DOES view him as only a weapon. dream to this day views techno as a weapon. even when he had nothing in prison and entirely relied on techno for escape, he'd written down attachments techno had, like steve, just like how he had wanted the axe of peace (then no longer cared for it once he found out techno didnt care), and carl to use against techno so that he could use techno's power like a weapon.

but yeah, yeah tommy's 'we're people too' is the empty statement.

techno didnt just hurt tommy on doomsday. and there were more people there that were hurt by techno than just tommy. funnily enough two of which he consider close friends, and one of which he vows to avenge the death of, but still cant even apologize to that friend's spouse. but he's happy to go on a journey with his friend's spouse to go find and protect their kid.

but yeah. yeah uh, no techno treats other people like people guys! its not like he actively makes it out that in order to even have basic respect from him you have to earn it first. or makes it out that once you wrong him, there's no second chances. no other people don't make mistakes, other people aren't people, only he is, i guess! and he's the only one being treated poorly. he's not doing that and hasn't been doing that since he killed a kid, no! never. /s

anyway anon /nm. i encourage you to rewatch the vods from that time period, because technoblade's biggest character trait imo is that he's a huge hypocrite. which makes him an interesting character, but his statement of 'im a person' is almost always the one clinged to in things. from analysis posts to fanfictions to animatics. but not the follow up of 'we are too'.

because it makes it out as if techno was the only one hurt in that situation. he wasn't. not by a long shot.

[helliontherapscallion]

Sweet Betrayal

Part 2     Part 3     Part 4

Spotify Playlist (collaborative)

Warnings: swearing, neglect, successful suicide attempt, death, insanity

(A/N): I had a little too much fun writing this

“I’ll help you.”

Tommy cheered and clapped a hand on your shoulder. Wilbur gave you a slightly manic smile, his plan is going to work out perfectly with you working with them. Techno merely grunted in acknowledgement. Something about your tone threw him for a loop, but he just summed it up to the voices and his growing trust issues. The voices were screaming at him not to trust you, that you were a traitor, that you’d betray them. But there’s no way his youngest sibling would ever betray them; they couldn’t hurt a fly. They were basically defenseless. 

Tubbo looked slightly hesitant to accept you as his spying partner, but he figured that you joining him would take most of the stress off from his shoulders. You were close to Schlatt, he basically treated you as if you were his own. He was slightly jealous at how close to his father you were when he, Schlatt’s biological son, was often standing in the same room as them. He knew that Schlatt was a shitty father and could never shape up to being as good of a father figure than Philza was to him, but he just couldn’t help but feel hurt at the fact that his own father, who abandoned him at the side of the road as a kid, so readily took on another kid that wasn’t himself. Despite his resentment towards you, he accepted having you as a partner. Maybe once he got to know you better you weren’t so bad. 

On the outside, you were giving your ‘brothers’ a sweet smile. Almost sickeningly sweet as you plastered it on your face to hide the resentment and hatred brewing inside of you threatening to escape and fill this ravine with it’s raging waves. They were never your brothers, always choosing to exclude you from everything they were doing. As a kid, you had nobody to rely on. Tommy had Tubbo and Wilbur had Techno and Philza. You were completely, utterly alone as a kid. 

You were always deprived of social interaction, always being told to ‘suck it up’, ‘quit whining’, and ‘just accept it’. You watched from the sidelines as your brothers received all the love and support from each other and Philza, and you were sick of being left out. Their proposal has made you finally reach your breaking point. You came to the realization that you were only going to get their support only when you were of use to them. 

Even as adults and as teenagers, they’re always acting like children. Whining over losing power, getting exiled, how ‘tyrannical’ every single government was, like get a grip. You brought this upon yourself. Manberg would be much better off without you two. Just accept leadership, it’s there to bring natural structure to society. This isn’t high school, stop overreacting. Oh, how you longed to scream in their faces, drop the happy, sweet, and defenseless facade you always wore. You were broken down by them, and you were going to be their downfall. You would make sure of it. At least, that’s what Schlatt promised you. 

You met Schlatt one day when you were alone in the forest far from the house you called home. It was dark out and you were hiding from the mobs that threatened to take one of your lives. He found you by following your whimpers, taking you back to his house and giving you shelter for a few days. He treated you like you were a person, an actual human being, and that made you realize that you weren’t alone in the world afterall. Philza and your brothers didn’t even notice that you were gone until after a week of staying with Schlatt. You remembered how Philza stormed into Schlatt’s house, grabbed you by the ear, apologized to Schlatt, and drug you home lecturing you the entire time. You were grounded for a month after that and banned from talking to Schlatt.

However, you still talked to Schlatt in secret. He eventually treated you like you were his own, showering you with the love and support that you were deprived of. You supposed you craved constant reassurance and kindness, and you chopped it up to how you were raised. You had trauma and Schlatt was there to fix that. He gave you constant support, something your ‘family’ has never done. Well, they did once when you finally broke and fell into a deep depression, never leaving your room. They didn’t notice that, but what they did notice was the death message that flashed across their comm tablets: “(Y/n) suffocated.”

When they ran to your room, they caught the last of the golden dust that used to be your body drifting into the atmosphere. In the center of your room hanging from an exposed pipe in the ceiling was a noose fashioned from an old rope they had noticed had gone missing a few weeks ago. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that you hung yourself. 

For a solid month after that, they treated you like they treated each other and you felt like you were soaring the entire time. Philza even told you that he loved you and that he was proud of you when you ate your first meal in a week!  All of the attention and support faded when they saw you smile more and laugh louder. You faded again into obscurity and all that came out of that successful suicide attempt was not your family’s unconditional love like you had hoped, but an ugly scar that wrapped around the entirety of your neck.  

You were going to fuck up their plans. They deserved it for ostracizing you all those years. 

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

Your and Schlatt’s plan was unfolding swimmingly. Your idiotic brothers had no clue of your betrayal and that always made you want to laugh hysterically, but you held it in until you got back to the White House. You would laugh in Schlatt’s office with him. The cabinet often heard loud, boisterous laughter booming from behind the closed office doors, but they’ve long since learned not to question it. 

They grew wary of you two, it seemed that your sanities were turning into slippery slopes. The Emperor and the Secretary of Defense could not be fully trusted to make any decisions anymore. Even Quackity, who loved his adopted kid to death, agreed that they couldn’t be trusted. You and Schlatt had changed so much from when he first started dating Schlatt. It hurt him to see his husband and his child slip into insanity.

While you were planning the festival with Schlatt and Tubbo, it was extremely hard for you to keep a straight face. Whenever Schlatt wasn’t looking, Tubbo would smirk and glance at you from the corner of his eyes. It was in those moments specifically that you would struggle the most with containing your laughter. Originally, Schlatt was only going to exile Tubbo for his treachery, but after the fiasco with the lame excuse of ‘farming totems of undying’, you convinced him to turn it into an execution. You organized every single part of Tubbo’s execution, it was perfect in your opinion. At the same time, you were giving Schlatt information of your brother’s whereabouts during the festival. You were going to put on a show for them.

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

On the stage, you were shifting and fidgeting relentlessly from your position between your adopted dads. From an outside perspective, one would assume that you’re nervous to be on stage in the middle of the spotlight. Everybody outside of the cabinet and your fathers still saw you as the innocent kid that wouldn’t hurt a fly. How wrong they were. Tubbo’s speech was the hardest to sit through, Quackity had to have a tight grip on your hand to prevent you from rushing the teenager and caging him too early. 

After Schlatt gave you the signal, you, him, and Quackity quickly trapped him in a cage made of yellow concrete. You could hear the shocked gasps of the audience and saw Wilbur holding Tommy down from revealing their hiding spot. Schlatt gently nudged you up to the microphone with a kind smile. 

You walked confidently up to the podium and gave the audience the widest closed-eyed grin they’d ever seen on you. “Hello citizens of Manberg, other guests,” you opened your eyes and shot a smug smirk over to your older brothers on the roof. You took great pleasure in the look of hurt, anger, and betrayal in their eyes. 

“What you are going to witness today is my pride and joy. As it turns out, our dearest Tubbo here,” you turned around to give a grandiose gesture at the cage behind you, “is a filthy little traitor.” The last word ripped itself from your mouth like a rattlesnake spitting venom at its victims. 

Tubbo banged on the walls in a rage, “you were a spy too! YOU WERE A SPY FOR POGTOPIA TOO!” 

“On the contrary, dearest Tubbo. I was a double agent working for Schlatt, my father. I was never loyal to Pogtopia. Why would I be when you all used me?” You gave him a gentle smile. The insane and malicious glint in your eyes contrasted the kindness of your features. You turned back to the podium with that same smile. The combination of your words and your expression sent cold chills down the spines of the Manbergians. They now saw you as who you really were. 

“Now, since I was so rudely interrupted,” you shot a glare at the shocked boy behind you, “hm, where was I?” You rubbed your chin in false confusion before you perked up, “oh right! What you are going to witness today is the public execution of our dear friend Tubbo.” You broke into a series of manic giggling, pounding your fist against the wood of the podium. The gasps of the audience sounded like music to your ears.

“TECHNOBLADE, GET THE HELL UP HERE BROTHER! YOU HAVE THE HONORS.”

You shouted through your laughter. Technoblade climbed up the stairs and stood facing you with a harsh glare. You grinned at him as he spoke to you with his usual monotone voice. This time, there was an undeniable angry undertone you could clearly detect, “what do you want me to do?”

“You still have that rocket launcher, right?”

He pulled it out of his satchel. You squealed happily and jumped up and down clapping your hands excitedly, “good! I’ve always liked fireworks. Now be a dear and make Tubbo go out with a bang!”

He walked over to face Tubbo’s cage and pointed the crossbow at him. You could see his finger trembling over the trigger and a nervous sweat gathering at his brow. After a while of seeing no firework action, you grew impatient and started to furiously shout at him.

“WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, BLOOD GOD? WHAT, ARE YOU TOO MUCH OF A PUSSY TO DO IT NOW? KILL HIM! BLAST HIM TO SMITHEREENS! FUCKING DO IT.”

With every word that left your mouth, you stepped closer to him until you were screaming into his ear. You felt immense pleasure when you saw him start to shake. When you heard the shooting of fireworks and the agonized screams of Tubbo and saw the colorful blasts, you felt like you were on cloud nine. It was beautiful. 

Your insane laughter was heard over the chaos that followed. Schlatt and Quackity, seeing Techno’s growing anger after killing Tubbo, moved to push you behind them. Quackity wrapped his wings around you in a tight hug before fireworks were shot at your family. After you pushed Quackity away from you, you saw your father’s corpse lying on the stage floor. It was clear that he had just lost a life. 

Quackity collapsed to the stage with a groan before he briefly passed out. You checked if he was still breathing before you looked at Technoblade with anger written clear on your features. You gave a furious shout before you charged at him, determined to kill the unkillable. 

You dodged the fireworks that he shot at you before you finally reached him. He dodged your flailing arms and the attempts to push him off from the stage with ease. “I SHOULD’VE KNOWN NOT TO TRUST YOU!” 

His shout was dismissed by you, not registering in your clouded mind at all. He grabbed your arms and threw you to the edge of the stage. Before you could get up, he stomped a foot down on your chest and pointed the rocket launcher at your face. You were not phased by this, grinning and laughing with insanity-filled glee.  “KILL ME TECHNO! DO IT, GO ON! FUCKING DO IT. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!”

He stared at you with the most anger you’ve ever seen from him before he pushed you off the stage with a simple kick of his foot. As you were plummeting to your death, you saw Technoblade point the rocket launcher at you before you saw the colorful rockets shooting at you. Your laughter ending abruptly with the explosion of fireworks and the thump of your bloodied corpse against the pavement was something the citizens of Manberg would never forget. 

Your brothers stared at your corpse as it disappeared with shock and anger. They never suspected you of all people to be a traitor, they thought you were the sweet, naive kid they knew growing up. They thought your allegiance to them would be unbreaking and you’d follow them blindly. Obviously, they were wrong. There was no saving you. You were too far gone. 

When you woke up with Schlatt and Quackity holding your hands at your bedside, all of the memories flooded back to you. They held you as you cried in frustration, wiping at your tears with gentle, reassuring smiles and loving words. Rage filled you as you remembered how they got away with their lives. You had one life left, and you were going to dedicate it to their downfall. Even if you died in the process. They should fear the day you return. There was no saving them from your wrath. 

[animeomegas]

Who are most likely to forgive their alpha for flirting with others and who would resent them for it? (Not seriously flirting, just always being charming and giving compliments to other omegas)

(Ooh, an interesting idea! Thanks for sending this is! <3)

Who is chill/happy with a flirty alpha:

1. Asmo – Of course he has no problems with it! Flirting with people is fun, after all, and he certainly didn’t stop flirting with random alphas after he got mated. Asmo would love a flirty alpha so much because it would make him feel less guilty for being himself and also, he really wants to try flirting with someone at the same time as his alpha. He wants to see how people react when faced with 2x the charm!

2. Simeon – He thinks that being charming and sweet to everyone is one of his alpha’s best qualities. Simeon views it as pure friendliness and he loves that his alpha takes the time to brighten other peoples’ days. Everyone knows that the best people to go to when you’re feeling down is Simeon and his alpha, who between them have a perfect balance of good advice, charming ego boosters and overwhelming charisma.

3. Sai – Being charming and nice to people is how one makes friends, so he thinks it’s perfectly normal. He tries similar strategies but somehow, they don’t have as high a success rate… Maybe he should take notes next time his alpha is making friends at a party or bar and try it like they do?

4. Zen – Hell yeah, his alpha has game! He is so attracted to the idea of being in a power couple, so an alpha who can more than hold their own socially is right up his alley. Together they can charm anyone and everyone! They can make anyone envious! Him and his alpha are truly an unstoppable couple, and he definitely takes this as a sign that you are soulmates.

5. Denki – Denki has so much love to give, so he assumes that his alpha is the same and that they choose to express love through charm and compliments. His alpha always makes people smile, and that makes Denki smile in turn. Bringing a little happiness wherever they go is something Denki admires about his alpha. And anyway, Denki is a sucker for joke flirting, so he can hardly criticise.

6. Hairo – He adores an alpha who gives lots of compliments to everyone because he does the same! There is nothing more rewarding than bringing out the best in someone by reminding them of their capabilities and good qualities in his opinion, so he’s thrilled that his alpha agrees with him on that. Going through a hard time? Go visit Hairo and his mate, they’ll fill you with motivation and confidence, free of charge.

7. Julian – He feels so proud whenever he watches his mate spit game whenever they go out. He watches from afar, arms crossed over his chest, a small smile on his face as you charm the bartender into giving you discounted drinks. Julian can be quite the flirt himself, so he is quite relieved that his alpha is the same and understands him in that way. He also finds it very hot when his alpha oozes charm. Julian is a flirt, but it all crumbles when someone calls his bluff, but you on the other hand? Always smooth and collected. It makes Julian more than a little hot around the collar.

Who despises a flirty alpha:

1. Levi – He is not the avatar of Envy for no reason. Levi is very insecure and very jealous. When his alpha gives compliments to other omegas, Levi takes it as a direct attack on his character and assumes that he doesn’t have whatever you’re praising and therefore you are inevitably going to leave him for this obviously superior person. He throws little tantrums whenever his alpha is too flirty with someone else and they always end in tears. Even an alpha who is just socially adept, not flirty, will make his jealously raise its head, because why would someone who can be so confident in public want to be with a shut-in, loser otaku like him?? He will eventually get over very innocent socialisation, but actual flirting is something he can never deal with.

2. Sasuke – He hates it. He always scoffs and rolls his eyes whenever his alpha is too friendly with someone else, making his displeasure known. He’s a jealous person by nature, most Uchiha are (they have stronger possessive instincts over mates in their clan), so this would make him surly and frustrated. If the flirting was too obvious and continuous, he would grow to doubt his partner’s fidelity, which is never a good sign for a relationship, so Sasuke’s alpha would need to tone it way down for him, or at least stick to flirting when Sasuke wasn’t there, but that might make him even more suspicious if he ever found out.

3. Neji – Neji feels humiliated if his alpha is flirting with others. How dare they make a show of flaunting themselves like they’re single?! He fumes with an angry and humiliated flush on his cheeks as his alpha flirts. He feels like everyone is judging him and his relationship when his alpha is too friendly with other omegas, after all, people must be thinking that he is doing a poor job of keeping his mate happy if they have to find other people to act like that with. He thinks it’s shameful to act that way when mated, and he will tell his alpha that. For the sake of their relationship, his alpha better cease that behaviour immediately.

4. Yoosung – He is another one who is very insecure. He gets pouty and upset when his alpha flirts and compliments other omegas because they should be complimenting him and giving him attention. He’s their mate, right? He doesn’t know how to manage these feelings and will either get drunk and cry, or follow his alpha everywhere and drape himself over them constantly to ward off other omegas. If it continues, he will take this flirting as a sign that he loves his alpha more than his alpha loves him. Yoosung is very in love with the idea of a fairy tale romance, and this definitely wasn’t part of the plan!

5. Bakugou – He gets angry to hide his conflicting feelings. On one hand, of course his alpha would be stupid to leave him, he’s the best! On the other hand, he’s a very non-traditional omega and while he loves who he is in many ways, that doesn’t mean that everyone else does, quite the contrary in fact. He confronts his alpha every time, shouting at them to just leave if they’re planning on cheating on him. Flirting with certain people (cough Midoryia cough) will make him very, very angry/upset. It’s best for his blood pressure if his alpha learns new ways of social interaction that don’t include flirting.

6. Kusuo – Kusuo is quite possessive, even if he won’t admit that to himself. He craves affection and attention from his alpha in a way he’s never felt before. He likes to spend time with his alpha alone, just the two of them, and that’s when he’s the happiest, so when other people appear to be getting in the way of that? Huh, the other person just remembered that they left the oven on and have to go home. What a coincidence. Whenever his alpha goes anywhere, Kusuo invites himself along, and this goes double if his alpha is flirty. They won’t be flirting with anyone, not of Kusuo’s watch.

7. Light – He’s too arrogant and possessive to deal with a flirty alpha. He’s the only one that should be receiving compliments and romantic attention from his alpha. They’re his, and only his. Light very much understands playing a perfect charismatic character in public, but his alpha always seems a little too genuine, a little too willing to flirt even when there’s nothing for them to gain from it. It makes him suspicious. It’s all or nothing. His alpha either commits fully to him, or he gets rid of them.

8. Jumin – That sort of behaviour is far too close to that of his father for him to be comfortable. He’s seen his father go through girlfriend after girlfriend, flirting with everyone and anyone, and it always ends badly. Jumin feels betrayed and shuts down before he can be hurt by a rejection. Cheating/flirting is too traumatic a topic for him to deal with on a daily basis. He appreciates an alpha that can be charming with his clients when it’s required, but any more than that will lead to serious trust issues. He promised himself that he would never turn into his father or allow someone to treat him like his father treats his conquests and he intends to keep that promise.

[zodiactalks]

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT CAPRICORN ZODIAC SIGN

Responsible, disciplined, reserved. It's easy to assume Capricorns are one of the most boring and predictable signs in the Zodiac, but that's not always the case.

Capricorns are hard-asses, sure, but the following facts prove there's more to them that meets the eye.

#1. Capricorn loves being on their own.

While they're not necessarily hermits, Capricorns love being on their own, away from other people and their problems.

Sure, they enjoy hanging out with their friends and family, and won't shun a party or a reunion here and there, but they treasure their solitude and often need to get away from it all.

#2. Capricorn can't stand insecure people.

If you want to attract the attention of a Capricorn, you need to be assertive and confident, or else, they'll overlook you entirely.

It's not only that they find those traits attractive –who doesn’t? but instead that they don't like people depending on them. They want to spend time away from their partners from time to time, so they search for people confident enough in themselves and their relationship to understand this.

#3. They're a lot more fun than they appear.

On first impressions, Capricorn might seem like a reserved, aloof, even cold individual, but that's not always the case.

The truth is that Capricorns may be downright hilarious and the life of the party, but you need to get to know them before they show this side of theirs.

Capricorns know how to party, but they need to want to party with you first.

#4. They're incredibly loyal.

If there's something Capricorns treat seriously, it's romantic relationships.

Capricorns don't start relationships lightly. They'd rather be alone than being in a relationship where they're not happy, and they don't feel the need to be in a relationship just so that they're not on their own.

When a Capricorn does want to be in a relationship, though, they'll treat it quite seriously, committing themselves to their partner wholeheartedly.

#5. They're private individuals.

Most Capricorns don't like sharing their personal business with the rest of the world.

They're firm believers of 'to each their own' and excel at keeping people's at arm's length for long periods, never revealing what they like, what they think, or even what they do.

They're not purposefully mysterious either. Capricorns can be pretty open about their interests and preferences, but only when they've grown to trust you.

They take a while to open to new people. That's it.

#6. Capricorns bottle up everything.

Part of their reputation as cold and distant comes from the fact that Capricorns tend to bottle up their negative emotions.

They're so independent they'd rather face their own problems, so they tend not to share their feelings until they can't hide them anymore.

#7. When they want something, they get it.

Some people call them stubborn; others call them disciplined. Whatever you call them, the truth is that Capricorns can make anything happen.

They're patient, dedicated, consistent, and ambitious, so whenever something catches their fancy, they give it their all to succeed.

#8. They give excellent advice.

Capricorns have the ability to distance themselves from emotional matters long enough to come up with a logical and well-thought-out opinion.

All this means that Capricorns tend to give great advice, as they're able to look at issues from multiple perspectives before coming up with a solution.

#9. They have very high standards.

Capricorns can be pretty particular about the things they like and how they like them.

Everything must be just right, and if they're not, Capricorns aren't shy about pointing it out.

More often than not, though, Capricorns will take a proactive approach and change the things that bother them.

#10. They don't forgive easily.

It takes a long time for Capricorn to feel comfortable enough to trust someone, so they take betrayals very seriously.

Convincing them to forgive you can be challenging, if not downright impossible, and even if they do, you can bet they won't forget anytime soon.

If you betray a Capricorn's trust, you might salvage your relationship, but it'll never be what it was.

#11. They hate impunctuality.

Capricorns value efficiency and organization, which means they're usually very punctual, and they expect others to be as well.

They'll try their best to show up to meetings and reunions on time, and they hate it when they have to wait. After all, not only is it a lack of respect, but it can take up time from other planned activities, which is even worse.

#12. They're very sarcastic.

Contrary to popular belief, Capricorns do have a sense of humor; it just tends to be dry, if not downright dark, and definitely not for everyone.

Those who understand their sense of humor agree, though. Capricorns can be hilarious, and their casual, witty observations make hanging out with them a treat.

#13. They're very logical.

Capricorns are evidence-based people who find it hard to believe in things without evidence.

They tend to stick to facts and demonstrable things, which makes them hard to fool and even harder to lie to.

#14. They abhor gossip.

If there's something that Capricorns hate, it's gossip, particularly when it comes to Celebrity gossip.

For the most part, they don't care deeply about other people's personal life, especially if they don't know them, so whenever people start gossiping around them, they stop listening.

#15. They're an ambitious bunch.

They might dream big, they might dream small, but they all have the drive and determination to achieve their goals no matter what stands on their way.

One way or another, Capricorns make things happen, and they're perfectly capable of moving mountains to get shit done.

#16. They can be cruel when angry.

It takes a lot to anger a Capricorn, but when you manage to do it, they hold nothing back.

They tend not to be physically violent, but they can be vicious with their words, and some of the things they say can be more painful than any punch.

#17. They're very good at reading people.

Thanks to their analytical personalities, Capricorns excel at reading others, fixating on their habits, looks, and gestures to draw surprisingly accurate assessments about them.

To Capricorns, people can be open books, and we all know how much Capricorns like to read.

#18. They're pragmatic to a fault.

Capricorns are one of the most practical Zodiac signs out there, and this stretches to every aspect of their life.

When making a decision, no matter how big or small, they analyze all aspects of it to find the easiest, most effective way of achieving the desired result. Everything else tends to be ignored.

[xiyao-feels]

Following on this post, I was thinking—I feel like there's this idea that at the beginning of MY and NMJ's relationship, when it was good, that MY starts out by idolizing NMJ? And I really don't think it's supported by the text.

I'm pulling the whole first meeting here, from chapter 48, and I want to take a close look at it.

Right after the Sunshot Campaign began, Meng Yao joined the QingheNie Sect’s troops.

The cultivators under Nie MingJue’s command, both rogue cultivators and those from the QingheNie Sect, were stationed in various locations. One of these was a nameless mountain ridge in Hejian. Nie MingJue went up the mountain by foot. Before he was even close to the station, he saw a boy dressed in cloth leave the emerald forest, a bamboo tube in his hand.

The boy seemed as though he had just finished collecting water, legs betraying some fatigue. As he was about to enter the cave, he suddenly stopped. He stood outside the mouth of the cave and listened for a while, as if debating between whether or not to go in. In the end, with the bamboo tube still in his hand, he walked in another direction in silence.

After a while of walking, he found a spot on the side of the road and squatted down. He fished out some white-colored food from his provisions and washed it down with water.

Nie MingJue walked toward him. As the boy was eating, his head hanging low, he suddenly found himself enveloped in a tall shadow. He looked up, then put his food away and stood up, “Sect Leader Nie.”

The boy’s figure was on the smaller side. He had fair skin and dark brows, precisely those favor-gaining features of Jin GuangYao. At this point in time, he hadn’t been accepted by his clan in Koi Tower yet, which was why he didn’t have the bright mark of vermillion on his forehead. Nie MingJue clearly remembered the face, “Meng Yao?”

Meng Yao answered respectfully, “Yes.”

Nie MingJue, “Why didn’t you rest inside the cave like everyone else did?”

Meng Yao opened his mouth, but only smiled awkwardly, as though he didn’t know what to say. Seeing this, Nie MingJue went past him and walked in the direction of the cave. Meng Yao looked as he wanted to pull him back, though he didn’t dare to. Nie MingJue concealed his breathing so that nobody noticed him even as he arrived at the mouth of the cave. The people inside were still chatting loudly.

[Ten dialogue paragraphs of people being horrible about MY]

A flame of anger sprout within Nie MingJue’s heart, burning all the way into Wei WuXian.

His hand immediately pressed onto the hilt of his saber. Meng Yao hurried to stop him, but failed. The saber had unsheathed already, and a boulder in front of the cave crashed down. A few dozens of cultivators originally sat resting within the cave. All of them jumped up and unsheathed their swords, surprised by the fallen boulder. The bamboo tubes in their hands scattered over the ground.

Without any hesitation, Nie MingJue scolded, “Drinking the water he brought you while speaking such spiteful words! Did you join my forces not to kill the Wen-dogs, but to make idle talk?!”

The entire cave was in a muddle. Everyone knew ChiFeng-Zun’s personality—the more one tried to explain, the angrier he was. Seeing that they probably couldn’t escape punishment and would have to tell the truth, nobody dared to speak a word. Nie MingJue laughed coldly. He didn’t walk inside the cave either. Instead, he turned to Meng Yao, “You, follow me.”

He turned around and walked toward the foot of the mountain. Meng Yao followed. As the two walked, Meng Yao’s head hung lower and lower. His pace had slowed as well.

He only spoke after some hesitation, “Thank you, Sect Leader Nie.”

Nie MingJue, “A proper man should carry himself with proud righteousness. There’s no need to care for the talk of those idlers.”

Meng Yao nodded, “Yes.”

Although he answered as such, his face still bore a streak of worry. By lending him a hand, today Nie MingJue was able to hold the others down for him. In the future, though, the cultivators would definitely make him pay a price tens or hundreds of times greater. How could he not be worried?

Yet, Nie MingJue continued, “The more these people talked drivel behind your back, the harder you’re going to work to have them speechless. I’ve seen you on the battlefield. Everytime, you’re on the foremost lines and stay behind to help with the commoners in the end. Well done. Keep it up.”

Hearing this, Meng Yao paused for a moment, his face blank. His head raised up slightly. Nie MingJue added, “Your swordwork is quite nimble, but not solid enough. More work is needed.”

This was already an obvious encouragement. Meng Yao hurried, “Sect Leader Nie, thank you for your advice.”

Wei WuXian, however, knew that it wouldn’t be solid no matter how hard he practiced. Jin GuangYao wasn’t like the other disciples. His foundation was so poor that he’d never reach new heights. Thus, with cultivation, he could only aim for quantity instead of quality. This was why he rounded all of the sect leaders and learned their techniques. It was also why he was criticized as the “stealer of techniques”.

--

So that's the whole scene, to have all the context; I'd like to pull out some parts and look at them one by one.

Nie MingJue clearly remembered the face, “Meng Yao?”

Meng Yao answered respectfully, “Yes.”

Nie MingJue, “Why didn’t you rest inside the cave like everyone else did?”

So here we have NMJ asking MY directly why he isn't inside the cave, even though—knowing MY's name, and therefore knowing his story (this is established earlier in the chapter)—he probably has some idea. That he has some idea is perhaps also suggested by his not pressing MY when he doesn't answer but continuing on to the cave. Obviously this isn't the worst thing in the world! But it is somewhat characteristic of his lack of grace in handling the situation.

Seeing this, Nie MingJue went past him and walked in the direction of the cave. Meng Yao looked as he wanted to pull him back, though he didn’t dare to.

So MY would rather NMJ not, but NMJ doesn't notice—it doesn't seem to occur to him to consider MY's preferences on the matter.

Nie MingJue concealed his breathing so that nobody noticed him even as he arrived at the mouth of the cave. The people inside were still chatting loudly.

[Ten dialogue paragraphs of people being horrible about MY]

A flame of anger sprout within Nie MingJue’s heart, burning all the way into Wei WuXian.

His hand immediately pressed onto the hilt of his saber. Meng Yao hurried to stop him, but failed.

Now, since MY "hurried to stop him" and also is right there when NMJ is leaving despite having found a place to eat after "a while of walking" away from the cave, and in general there doesn't seem to be a suggestion to the contrary, it seems pretty likely that MY was there with NMJ the whole time he was listening to people be awful about MY. NMJ does not wave him away so he doesn't have to listen to people being awful, or for that matter even seem to consider MY having to listen to people being awful about him at all.

The saber had unsheathed already, and a boulder in front of the cave crashed down.

Here we see NMJ taking out his anger on physical objects.

He turned around and walked toward the foot of the mountain. Meng Yao followed. As the two walked, Meng Yao’s head hung lower and lower. His pace had slowed as well.

He only spoke after some hesitation, “Thank you, Sect Leader Nie.”

Nie MingJue, “A proper man should carry himself with proud righteousness. There’s no need to care for the talk of those idlers.”

Meng Yao nodded, “Yes.”

Although he answered as such, his face still bore a streak of worry. By lending him a hand, today Nie MingJue was able to hold the others down for him. In the future, though, the cultivators would definitely make him pay a price tens or hundreds of times greater. How could he not be worried?

Although NMJ is being supportive, MY knows that it's going to end up costing MY down the road. And what he knows, and what NMJ doesn't realize, is that MY does indeed need to care about the talk of those idlers, and people like them.

>>Yet, Nie MingJue continued, “The more these people talked drivel behind your back, the harder you’re going to work to have them speechless. I’ve seen you on the battlefield. Everytime, you’re on the foremost lines and stay behind to help with the commoners in the end. Well done. Keep it up.”

Hearing this, Meng Yao paused for a moment, his face blank. His head raised up slightly. Nie MingJue added, “Your swordwork is quite nimble, but not solid enough. More work is needed.”

This was already an obvious encouragement. Meng Yao hurried, “Sect Leader Nie, thank you for your advice.”

Wei WuXian, however, knew that it wouldn’t be solid no matter how hard he practiced. Jin GuangYao wasn’t like the other disciples. His foundation was so poor that he’d never reach new heights. Thus, with cultivation, he could only aim for quantity instead of quality. This was why he rounded all of the sect leaders and learned their techniques. It was also why he was criticized as the “stealer of techniques”.

It's praise and support, and that's absolutely meaningful! But the advice is both obvious and useless; the problem MY has is that his foundation is weak, and no matter how much he practices, he can't make it actually solid.

Like, I don't want to dismiss the positives. This is a sect leader, a /major/ sect leader, actually caring about people treating MY unfairly, intervening on his behalf, praising him for what he's done well, encouraging him! Quite seriously, it's genuinely impressive of NMJ that he's so much less prejudiced here than pretty much all the rest of society, and his kindness to MY however clumsily executed is still meaningful; and given how shitty pretty much everyone is to MY, like, all the time, this is absolutely very important to MY, and I can 100% see why it lead to NMJ mattering to him, and to his caring about NMJ and even NMJ's opinion.

....but it also very much demonstrates NMJ's flaws—his temper, the way he really fails to actually account for the impact MY's circumstances necessarily have on him—and I don't think there's anything in the text to suggest that MY is too starry-eyed or anything to notice those flaws; rather the opposite.

Even when NMJ promotes him to be his deputy, a little later on—and again, I'm sure that's something MY is very grateful for!! It's a recognition of his competence and hard work, and in a way that really matters!—well, consider the teacup scene. I usually talk about this in the context of LXC's graceful intervention, but it's worth remembering that NMJ is also right there and notices absolutely nothing:

After an exchange of small talk, Meng Yao, who had been standing by Nie MingJue’s side, walked up and offered everyone teacups. In the frontlines, one person was used as though there were six; there wasn’t any space for maids and servants at all. And so, these everyday trivalties had also been willingly accepted by Jin GuangYao, his deputy. A few of the cultivators hesitated as they saw his face, their expressions varied. Jin GuangShan’s “intimate tales” had always been widespread conversation starters. Meng Yao had been a famous joke for a certain period of time, which was why a few recognized him. Likely thinking that the son of a prostitute perhaps also carried some unclean things with him, the cultivators didn’t drink from the cups that he had presented with both hands. Instead, they put the cups to the side and even took out white handkerchiefs. As though it felt too uncomfortable, they repeatedly wiped the fingers that they’d touched the teacup with, either intentionally or not. Nie MingJue wasn’t someone mindful to such things. Wei WuXian, though, caught sight of this through the corners of his eyes. Meng Yao acted as if he didn’t see anything, his smile unfaltering as he continued to pass around tea.

It is true that I don't think he anticipates that NMJ will end up condemning him for his mother after all (although the expectation that NMJ won't might actually be stronger after the first couple times NMJ comes near to killing him, as he still doesn't condemn him in that way). But I don't really think that's the same as idolizing NMJ, especially since, credit where credit is due, that does seem buried fairly deep in NMJ.

(Also I think it's worth remembering, when considering NMJ's impact on MY here, that at this point in the novel MY has already met and bonded with LXC, to the point of telling him about his hopes about his father—so NMJ isn't even the first cultivator, or even the first head of a major cultivator clan, who's treated MY with respect. ETA: LXC wasn't the clan leader at the start, but the old clan leader died while LXC was still missing per JC's report at the end ch 56. That said even if we think they didn't learn this while they were on the run, LXC was still of course the clan heir of a major clan leader, and they might or might not have been aware of the injuries QHJ had taken earlier. Which is all to say, whether or not they knew he'd become clan leader, he was still absurdly high-status)

[imaginesandinserts]

Irreverent Pt. 58 - Golden Age

Title: Irreverent Pt. 58 - Golden Age

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Reader Rating: M Words: ~5K

Irreverent Series Masterlist

You stare at the closed door to McKinney's office, shifting once again in the seat. You'd been there for what felt like hours, though reasonably speaking it was closer to thirty minutes. Beside you, Aaron sat stoically calm, his shoulders pressed to the chair, back straight. He eyes you when you shift and reaches out, placing a hard on yours that was sat against the armrest. You meet his eyes for a second, knowing he was simply trying to calm the anxiety in your bones. It was no use – your gaze wanders back to the heavy closed oak door once more.

You'd arrived at McKinney's office early that morning, as directed to in the email sent by Gladys. Both Rossi and Aaron had received similar instructions and when you'd arrived, Gladys had waved Rossi into the room, stating that the Director would like to speak to him on his own first, and asked you and Aaron to take a seat.

You knew that McKinney and Rossi went way back. They'd done training together and worked in organized crime for a couple years before going their separate ways. You can only imagine that McKinney wanted Rossi's take on Pierce's take down and to perhaps run his ruling for you by someone whom he trusted and who would be able to comment on you personally. That was your hope, at the very least.

You knew Aaron thought the same as you, because he hadn't seemed put out by being told to wait. He too recognized that McKinney not delivering judgment against you in one fell swoop could only be a good thing. It meant he was thinking it over, getting other opinions. He'd had time to evaluate through the course of events and the idea was that he would see greater value in keeping you – see that everything you'd done had been strategic and purposeful.

Gladys had directed you both towards the coffee in the little waiting area outside the office, which you'd both politely declined. Now she was clattering away against the keyboard and fielding pretty much nonstop phone calls.

You turn your stare from the door, back to Aaron, whose eyes are fixed on you. He prompts you with a slight raise of his eyebrows, his hand still blanketing yours, thumb running back and forth soothingly.

"We should take another vacation," you whisper conspiratorially, speaking as though the idea of you two going on vacation together might scandalize someone listening in.

He bites back a smile but you can see the amusement dance across his eyes. He knows you're trying to distract yourself. Your shoulders are still taut and you've barely glanced away from McKinney's door since the two of you sat down. "Where'd you have in mind?" he asks, leaning down towards you and matching your covert tone. If a distraction was what you needed, then he'd play along.

"Bora Bora is nice this time of year. Hawaii maybe. Somewhere tropical with a childcare center," you joke, easily planting images of you and him on a beach by yourselves into Aaron's head.

"Better yet, an adults only resort," he smirks back, sitting straight once more, his eyes facing straight.

You're the one who has to bite back the smile now. He'd responded with barely a glance at you. Onlookers might've thought he'd commented on the weather. Only you could guess at the thoughts running through his mind right then – waves and sand, you in skimpy bathing suits, the two of you alone without having to worry about waking Jack up...

God it had been forever.

You can feel yourself become heated and have to stop that train of thought short, reminding yourself that you're still seated outside the Director's office, awaiting what is at best a disciplinary hearing and at worst a dismissal notice.

"We'll go," he promises, squeezing your hand gently.

You nod, leaning against his shoulder ever so slightly before straightening back up once more. Aaron had been quiet that morning, which you're chalking up to the solemnity of the occasion. The previous night had been quite a lot and you know that you're both still feeling a bit raw from it all. Better – in many ways. Stronger too. However that didn't mean that you expect everything to be washed away overnight. You imagine there's quite a few more conversations like that in your future. The work needed to help you both feel whole once more.

Already, you feel his eyes on you a lot more than ever before. Trained on you when you leave a room. Searching yours when you enter. Eyes trailing over the length of you. Ensuring that you're alright. Making sure that you're safe. Confirming that you're there.

*------------*

The door to McKinney's office opens and you both watch as Rossi exits. He turns to the both of you, obviously in attempt to speak, but before he can, he's directed by Gladys towards the door taking him outside of McKinney's lobby. Following her instructions, he walks out, nodding at both you and Aaron, his face betraying nothing.

"Agent Hotchner, the Director will see you now."

At Glady's instruction, Aaron stands rebuttoning the bottom button of his jacket, and with a quick, reassuring smile towards you, strides through the doors to McKinney's office, closing the door behind him.

"Agent Hotchner," Director McKinney stands to greet him, motioning towards the chair in front of his desk.

"Director."

Aaron takes a seat, sitting up incredibly straight, shoulders rigidly tense. He knows that McKinney asking to speak to him before he speaks to you has certain implications. Implications which, he fears, don't bode well if McKinney's goal is to prod at you choosing to reach out to him and the team rather than your direct supervisor on the project. If you would go around him once, chances are, you'd do it again.

Try as he might, Aaron hasn't been able to determine what exactly McKinney aims to get from speaking with him first. He hadn't been your superior on the assignment. Your personal relationship with him effectively negated anything Aaron could say in your favor.

"Aaron, I will cut straight to the chase." McKinney speaks authoritatively and plainly, his eyes focused on Aaron, betraying nothing of what he's thinking. Even to an experienced profiler such as himself. "Agent L/N broke numerous rules regarding the chain of command, defied security clearance protocols, and acted alone – entirely against Bureau training and procedure."

Aaron stays silent. McKinney hadn't said anything that wasn't true and they both knew it.

"However," McKinney continues, "I must concede that she drew results and ultimately is the reason why the threat to the Atlantis program was eliminated."

Aaron offers only a short nod in response, choosing to hold everything else close to his chest until required otherwise.

McKinney shuffles, placing his hands on the table and leaning in closer. "If this was one of your agents – and you did not share the personal relationship that you do in this situation – what would you do in my position?"

There it was.

Aaron would like to think that Director McKinney was being sincere in asking him. That asking him wasn't some sort of trick question, aimed towards discrediting you.

With a quiet shift, Aaron meets McKinney's gaze head on, and begins to speak slowly. "Director, I've made the mistake before of not trusting one of my agents. I vowed to never make that mistake again. Agent L/N, she's proven – time and again – that she makes the right decisions, no matter the complicated subject matter or the potential personal nature of the circumstances."

Aaron stops there. Less was more. He wanted to make sure whatever he said to McKinney would be impactful. Display the full breadth of his faith in you.

McKinney has a thoughtful look on his face as he contemplates Aaron's words.

In the silence that follows, Aaron's eye is drawn to the Director's American flag pin on the left jacket collar. He's never seen without it. While Directors in the past have worn the pin for formal events – public speeches, Congressional hearings, White House balls – McKinney is always seen with his. Aaron recalls in the early days, when McKinney had first taken the reins, the pin used to be different. It used to be a pin of the Bureau seal. Sometime after the events of September 11th, it had changed. Replaced by the American flag pin, proudly displayed no matter where he went.

Aaron sees McKinney's shoulders move up and then back down as the man releases a large breath, nodding as he does, seemingly having reached some sort of conclusion. Aaron is at a loss to determine which conclusion that might be.

He doesn't share his thoughts with Aaron.

"I've forwarded the video that Agent Garcia shared, on to the Director of Interpol," McKinney informs him. "They will be conducting an internal investigation. Agent Easter has already been stripped of all privileges and is currently on a suspension until further determinations regarding his negligence on the Atlantis case along with the results of the internal review can be made."

Aaron's glad to hear that Easter wouldn't be getting away entirely scot free. He has a strong feeling that, had things not happened exactly the way that they did, you wouldn't have reported Easter for what he did to you. Aaron – fortunately or unfortunately – knows you well enough to realize that there was a small part of you that considered what Easter had done, to be some sort of favor to you. Making you understand what was at stake. Preparing you for the worst. He doesn't need to hear you admit to it, in order to know that. Anything he said to the contrary would only result in you doubling down and insisting, that without him threatening Jack and Aaron, you might not have realized exactly how grave of a danger your role could pose to them.

You could be quite maddening in what you chose to direct your fury at. Easter lying to you was unforgiveable. Him torturing you – apparently par for the course.

"Thank you." Aaron nods his gratitude to McKinney, knowing that he is also being effectively dismissed as the Director moves to stand.

Standing as well, Aaron meets McKinney's outstretched hand across the table, shaking it quickly, before turning away and exiting the room.

*------------*

The door closes behind you with a heavy thud.

Aaron had nodded you in towards McKinney's office, electing to ignore Gladys's gesture to exit via the lobby and taking your recently vacated seat. He wasn't about to leave. He'd be there, waiting for you.

"Good morning Director." You offer a small smile and nod your greeting to McKinney, taking the seat in front of his desk.

Your shoulders are pulled back straight, you're meeting his unreadable gaze head on. Aaron hadn't been able to provide any insight into McKinney's thoughts before you were ushered in, so there you sat, awaiting the gauntlet.

You're fairly convinced McKinney will fire you. Aaron disagrees but you've had the unshakeable apprehension in your bones, that's grown into a nebula of dread. No matter your brave words to Aaron about saying no to Director Richards' offer and taking a break if you were indeed terminated, the actual thought of being dismissed is terrifying. What on earth would you even do? There were only so many bake sales to host and field trips to chaperone before you went postal.

"How are you doing?" he asks, leaning back in his chair and appraising you.

You feel McKinney's eyes run over you in an inspecting manner, lingering on your face. You know him well enough to recognize this as genuine concern on his behalf. Garcia had mentioned that she'd sent him the video they'd all seen of what Clyde had done to you. You're aware that McKinney would shoulder some of the blame for that on himself.

"Better," you answer cautiously, figuring that was close enough to the truth without being a mere perfunctory response.

He eyes you once more, letting the quiet wash over you both, forcing you to linger in that awkward tension of being examined by him. The seconds go by, marked by the loud click of the seconds hand on the clock mounted to the wall.

Deciding that he'd made you suffer long enough, McKinney leans in again, fingers interlaced on top of the desk carefully, deep set eyes focused on you alone. "So, you have a job offer from Artie?"

Who the hell was Artie?!

At the confused look on your face, he clarifies, "Director Richards – Arthur and I go back. Did you know that?"

You can see the suppressed smirk hidden beneath a veneer of professionalism as McKinney leans back in the chair once more, having left you to silently ponder at the incredulity of anyone referring to Director Richards as Artie and the sheer surprise at McKinney knowing about the job offer. When you'd considered them speaking, you hadn't thought that Richards would mention that. Though, it made sense. Tell your current boss that you have another offer. Make you look bad to McKinney, as though you'd been soliciting an offer from the CIA. Ensure that you'd want to leave for the Agency instead, by souring your relationship with McKinney.

"You call Director Richards…Artie?" It was the only thing you could think of to say, at a loss for much else.

"You think you're the only one he takes to fancy French restaurants?" This time, McKinney's words are accompanied by a real smile, one that you can't help but return.

*------------*

Aaron starts when the door to McKinney's office reopens and you exit. He'd had his gaze locked on the door ever since you disappeared behind it, anxiously awaiting the final decision. Despite his relatively good meeting with the Director, he didn't know what to expect as the outcome.

Your eyes lock with his, your expression entirely unreadable. Silently, you motion towards the exit with your eyes, the message clear. Whatever happened, you two wouldn't be discussing it there.

Aaron quickly stands, nodding towards McKinney's assistant when she looks up at the movement. He's quick to follow you as you make your way down the hallway, deftly moving past anyone in the hallways. He's loathe to ask what happened. The journey from McKinney's office has his heart beating fast, as he reckons with what news could have led to you moving through the hallways at such a pace, him struggling to keep up as you maneuver through a break room full of people, finally arriving at an unused office, into which you slip with him close behind.

You wait for him to enter, before shutting the door while he turns to look towards you. You've turned as well, back pressed against the door when Aaron finally has the chance to assess you properly.

Your eyes dart around the room, not meeting his. Your lips are pressed together.

Aaron feels the pit in his stomach tighten into a lead ball, weighing him down. It would be alright, he reminds himself. He had known you being let go was a possibility. The two of you have planned for this.

He releases a deep breath before he speaks. "What did McKinney say?"

Your tongue peaks out, running over your lips as you tilt your head to meet his eyes finally. Apprehension exuding from you as you nervously fidget with your hands. He sees you force yourself to swallow before you reply.

"He told me that I can hand in my official resignation from the BAU to you."

Aaron closes his eyes. He had thought, after his conversation with McKinney, that the Director had no intention of letting you go. He'd never been quite so off on reading someone.

Opening his eyes, he looks deep into yours. "Alright," he nods, attempting to reassure you as well as himself. "We knew this could happen." Already a thousand different scenarios are playing in his head – telling the team, next steps for you, what you're going to want to do after you grow tired of the break, maybe he needs to take a step back as well…

"We can appeal it, sweetheart," he reminds you. The two of you had discussed that as a possible option as well. He walks towards you, wanting nothing more than to hold you close to him again. "We can appeal – Rossi, Morgan, hell even Strauss would put in a good word for you. McKinney's word isn't final, and – "

Aaron breaks off his mile a minute speech, distracted at the sight of a smile twitching at your lips. Why were you smiling?

"He told me to hand in my letter of resignation to the BAU," you repeat yourself as he falters, trying to understand what you're saying. He asked you to give him the letter of resignation from the BAU…

"I'm getting my own team, Aaron," you whisper, as if you could scarcely believe it yourself.

You were getting your own team. You were getting…your own team.

"You're getting – " His mouth can't seem to quite get the words out as he watches your face split into a grin that his is slow to mirror.

Of all the possibilities that you'd considered, this had hardly been one of them.

"I'm getting my own team," you repeat, eyes focused fully on him. You have the largest smile he's ever seen on your face.  He can  feel that pit replaced by this bouncy feeling in his chest as he looks at your face –the bubble of the moment broken by the laughter and squeal that follows as he sweeps you into his arms.

This was good.

You were happy.

*------------*

"I think this is the last box," Aaron says, striding into your office, eyeing you cautiously as you're balanced atop your chair, trying to hang up some of the frames with your certificates on the wall.

You mutter a quick thank you, concentrating on hammering the nail in without hurting yourself by falling off of the wheeled chair. Aaron moves to start putting the books he'd brought up into the bookshelves, hovering close to you in case you did end up slipping.

It had been a week since McKinney had offered you your own team as a counter to Richards' offer from the CIA. Turns out, as long as you get results, the government tends to look the other way when you break any number of clearance regulations. Your conversation with McKinney in his office that day had been entirely centered around what he could do to ensure that you stay with the Bureau.

Intelligence and Threat Assessment, or the ITA, was a group within the Bureau that examined any number of domestic and international threats, analyzed changing political spheres, and partnered with the Justice Department, Congress, and external organizations to spearhead the American democratic manifesto. In short, that was the group that determined who was and wasn't an enemy.

McKinney had offered you your own team within that umbrella to tackle special cases that rose to the level of further assessment by or direct involvement of the Bureau. The sight of your name, followed by the words Unit Chief would never get old.  

You'd had a busy week, settling back into regular life, catching up with everyone, and ensuring that you were spending time with Jack and Aaron once more. In that time, you'd also put out the word that you were building a new team and connected with the Bureau Human Resources department. Interviews were being set up. Thankfully you had one team member picked out – from your office, you can see the bullpen where your team will sit, Anderson's desk the only one occupied so far.

"So Strauss is retiring," Aaron comments idly, opening yet another box of items for you to decorate your office with.

You hum, encouraging him to continue, as you carefully get off the chair and grab one of the boxes, setting it on your desk. You'd long shed your blazer and the heels had come off ten minutes ago when Aaron had left to grab the last of the boxes. It was late anyways and you two were the last ones left, as you'd insisted on wanting to be all moved in so you could get a head start the following Monday. As soon as the two of you were done moving you into your new office, you couldn't wait to get home and sink into the tub.

"Rossi thinks it'll happen by the end of the month," he continues, handing you the box cutter you'd been searching for.

"Well, your only real competition could be external," you remark, handing him back the box cutter. You know that Aaron wouldn't have commented on Strauss's retirement if he wasn't considering the Section Chief position. With your new role keeping you closer to home a majority of the time, it would make your home life a lot more stable.

He makes a disbelieving sort of noise at your comment that has you smiling and rolling your eyes.

"Oh hush," you chide him, continuing to move things off of the box and into the shelf. "Now, if we have to consider the hiring committee for the position, then it'll be Wilson and Shaw – both of whom already like you – "

Aaron smiles as you start to lay out all the details for a role he's only mentioned in passing, but he knows that you will take entirely seriously. It's what you did. You planned and you executed and you achieved at a rate that was entirely remarkable.

" – Adams is a total pushover, and Rossi can probably help you out there –"

He smiles, nodding along to your strategizing, knowing you'd have Dave over for dinner soon enough and run Aaron's odds for getting the position by him and ensure that Dave would throw his weight around as needed.

"Davidson is the only one on the committee that'll pose any real issue, I suppose. I'm guessing you two haven't made nice yet after the Atlanta case?" You quirk a brow in his direction, asking a question that you already know the answer to. Really, it's your way of making sure he feels like he's part of the process, despite you being full systems ahead from the get go.

Aaron's forehead crinkles as he shakes his head.

"Yeah, I figured. Well, it's nothing to worry about. I heard from Lisa from research that he has a new girlfriend –  one that drives his ex-wife entirely insane. Garcia can do some additional digging and get some more dirt."

He makes a face at you, which you elect to ignore, continuing on with your plan for targeted subterfuge.

"We can have them both over for dinner. I just got that new shipment from the Napa winery and we can ask Eric to cook for us again. He can make that dessert, and based on what Garcia manages to find, Davidson shouldn't be terribly difficult to persuade. After all, how could anyone not love you." You throw him a coquettish smile and wink, your arms laden with books that you'd lifted out of the box.

Aaron can feel himself grow warm – you tend to have that effect on him with only the smallest of gestures. The ever faithful butterflies, his constant companions in the early days of the two of you entering into this relationship, have infiltrated his stomach with a vengeance.

"Once you're Section Chief, we can figure out Department Chief next. Carlton won't be around forever," you forge ahead, intent now on your plan to launch his career to the next phase and the next after that. Pretty soon you'd be planning world domination with him by your side. You'd manage to convince him that it was alright because he'd be the one in charge and he makes good decisions so why wouldn't the entire world simply bow to his will. No matter how ridiculous the notion or how bizarre the proposition, your faith in him was unyielding.

Aaron reaches into his pocket, feeling the sharp edges of the box there. It's been on hand this entire week since your return, just waiting for him to find the right time. His heartrate picks up, his hand grasping the box tight.  

Your back is still turned to him as you continue to arrange the books on your shelf in order of subject and size, going up on the tip of your toes to reach the top shelf as your voice carries on. Something regarding convincing Carlton that he would be well suited for a jump to the West Coast offices, leaving the pathway wide open for Aaron's surge to the top.

"Do you remember," he interrupts, watching you carefully, "a while back, you said something to me. Something along the lines of, Director Hotchner has a nice ring to it?" He does his best to keep his voice casual, regulate his breath as he speaks.

You pause, the memory of that afternoon flitting into your mind. So early in your relationship, back when you'd thought that maybe, that would be something appealing to a man like Aaron – ambitious and righteous, wanting to protect and serve at the highest of levels. That had been before  – before you'd known, that for him, the BAU was the chance to put away monsters. It was a personal mandate that he couldn't disconnect himself from. Contending with the bureaucracy and politics that came with truly running the entire Bureau was not something that he found at all appealing. Despite all of your planning and machinations, you knew already that the best you could hope for with him would be Section Chief. He'd never leave the team further than that, no matter the number of steak dinners you served up.

"Yeah, what about it?" you ask, a bemused smile playing at your lips, wondering why he'd ask you that. He'd shot it down then, and you knew for a fact that it wasn't something he was about to begin entertaining now, despite the Section Chief role being a shift away from the BAU directly.  

"I can't help but agree with you."

His voice was closer than it had been before, you can feel him right behind you. There's a prickling at the back of your neck, your brows furrowing in confusion as you attempt to decipher the meaning behind his cryptic words.

You turn, eyes widening at the sight in front of you.

Bent down on one knee, with the most beautiful ring in his hand. The gold in his eyes warm and sparkling for you. A hopeful smile on his face as he watches yours.

You could scarcely believe it as you struggle to meet his eyes, trying to string together something that sounded vaguely intelligible, while your lungs struggled to pull in enough air to keep you standing.

Your mouth feels dry and you have to force yourself to take a deep breath, licking your lips as you do. You push away the first question that comes to your mind – Are you sure? Of course he was. There was no doubting it. No doubting him.

When your eyes finally do meet his, your breath hitches, overwhelmed by the surrounding quiet, only the sound of your breath and your heart and the wondrous, exuberant buzzing of the sparks surrounding you in anticipation of the inevitable.

"You really think I'm going to be Director one day?" Your question is accompanied by an incredulous sort of laugh, the kind that causes his heart to skip a beat at the mere sound.

"I really do, sweetheart." His words carried with them a promise – he was pledging himself to you and anything you set out to achieve.

You feel yourself bound towards a feeling you haven't felt much as of late. Elation – that euphoric ecstasy that courses through your veins and causes your chest to beat wildly. You can do nothing but smile big and nod hard, for once, words completely failing you.

Aaron needs no further encouragement besides the sparkling note of your laugh, the effervescent joy of your nod as you reach for him and he rises. He's quick to slip the ring on your finger before his mouth meets yours, hands winding around his neck and pulling him as close as possible.

Hearts beating jubilantly in sync at the feel of his lips against yours and his arms around you, yours around him, and that persistent and everlasting feeling of belonging to one another in every manner possible.

When the two of you finally break apart, breathless, matching grins on both your faces, you can't help but ask. "How long has Jack known?"

He smiles, his eyes twinkling. "Since Paris."

You let out a breathless, short laugh. You can scarcely believe he'd been able to keep it from you that long. Though, looking back, a number of instances with Jack made a lot more sense now. The faint memory a shopping trip with him, sometime after Paris, when Jack had been quite taken with the window display of a wedding store.

"We might have to do a reenactment for him," Aaron jokes, keeping you close to him. He weaves his fingers through yours, admiring how the ring sits perfectly on your hand, sparkling just right in the light.

You laugh, tightening your hand in his. "Let's go home then."

Everything else could wait.

[always-mimits]

Derek Hale Appreciation Week 2021 Day 4:

Thursday Nov 25 - Character Study // Favorite Scenes

For the other days I’ve done fanfics, but this is going to be more of an essay with quotes and scenes mentioned. It’s going to be a look into the parallels between Derek’s relationship with Kate and Derek’s relationship with Scott and how each one affects Derek overall. This is not going to be proScott just to warn you. Scott is the Kate in the situation. I have evidence to back my opinion on Scott, I’m not trying to cause issues. Anyway on with the controversial character study.

We’ll start with the parallels to do with hunting. We know that Kate is clearly a hunter and a radical one at that. She doesn’t care about following the code at all. She’s willing to kill anyone supernatural or in relation to anyone supernatural, which we can clearly see based on the Hale fire. She’ll use any means to get who she wants, even exploit minors to get information, specifically Derek and Allison as well. Scott tends to side with the hunters, despite being supernatural himself. Part of it is admittedly because of his relationship with Allison, but he also just hates what he is. He always leans towards the hunter side of things, until the end of the series.

Kate is quick to claim that she had nothing to do with the fire, though she clearly did. She also doesn’t feel the need to take responsibility for her actions. She likes to play little miss innocent when it benefits her. Scott is quick to blame anyone else for his actions or things that happened to him. Like when he betrays Derek for Gerard, or even blaming Derek and Stiles for him getting bit in the first place.

Kate thinks she was right to light the Hale house on fire, killing even human children in doing so. Scott also says to Derek that she clearly had reason to do it since they were werewolves, despite not everyone in the house being a werewolf.

Kate always feels like she’s doing the right thing even when there is ample evidence to the contrary, Scott does this as well. Kate feels like she’s in the right to exploit a minor to get the information she needs to kill his entire family. Scott feels like he has the right to side against Derek all the time, even when they really should be on the same side.

Kate gathers evidence to kill his family and Scott gathers evidence to feed to Gerard. Kate sexually abuses and exploits Derek to gather the information she needs to kill his whole family or at least as many as she can. Scott pretends to be in Derek’s Pack to give information to Gerard.

Kate rapes him, Scott bite rapes him. Kate, even if Derek consented, was raping him throughout their entire ‘relationship’. He was a child and she was a fully grown woman. That’s not even taking into account that she was lying about who she was and was definitely using sex as a weapon against him to get what she wanted from him. Scott forces Derek to bite the father of the woman who burned his family alive, the man who was gunning to kill everyone. He physically forces Derek to bite Gerard. Holds him by the neck while he’s paralyzed and forces him to bite the person who was trying to kill them all.

Kate feels like the end justifies the means, Scott does often as well. Kate feels like killing as many of the Hales is a valid reason to rape and abuse a 15 or 16 year old boy. Scott always feels like taking advantage of Derek or hurting Derek is for the greater good, even when there are better ways to handle things, such as going behind Derek’s back when it came to Gerard and making Derek give him the bite.

Kate gets off on Derek's pain and suffering, Scott feels powerful when he hurts Derek. It’s pretty clear in canon how much Kate gets off on the fact that she killed Derek's whole family. Not to mention she also gets off on taking advantage of him. Also she loved stringing him up half naked to torture and cause him any kind of pain she can. Scott clearly feels a power rush when he forces Derek to bite Gerard and shoves it in his face that he betrayed him. Also he seems to slightly get off on getting Derek arrested and blaming him for Peter’s murders as well.

Kate has a Black and white view of the world, so does Scott (only admittedly a slightly different one). Kate feels like it’s her right to kill anyone who is a supernatural creature and only humans actually have rights. Scott feels like his way is always the right way, no matter how anyone feels, also he feels that somehow being humane is letting people get away with things as long as he doesn’t personally have to kill.

Kate always has an ulterior motive when interacting with Derek, Scott often seems to as well. Kate always has an ulterior motive when dealing with pretty much everyone, but it’s clear that she always has an ulterior motive when having anything to do with Derek. Scott seems to also only have anything to do with Derek with an ulterior motive. Only having something to do with him when he can get something out of it.

Kate betrays his trust in a horrible way and Scott does it as well by siding with the bad guys more often than not. Kate betrays Derek and it ends up with most of his family burning to death. Scott will more often than not side with the bad guys, betraying Derek’s trust along with many others.

Kate always acts like the hero in her story and Scott does the same thing. Kate feels like she is the hero in her story, that she did the right thing and had every right to do what she did to Derek and his family. Scott also feels like he is the hero and has every right to do whatever he wants, no matter who he hurts doing so, more often Derek and Stiles.

Kate only wanted him for what she could get from him and Scott only really cares about Derek when he needs him. Kate used Derek to get what she wanted and threw him away after. Scott will pretty much only pay attention to Derek when he can get something out of it.

Now that I have shown the parallels between Kate and Scott I will get into the canon evidence to do with the Scott side of things, since most of Kate’s canon evidence is in two scenes and we all know what she does. So we’ll focus on Scott for this part. To support the first point I will point out the scene in Magic Bullet where he tells Derek to leave him and Stiles alone or he will go to the Argents. The second point is hard to pin down an exact scene that shows it, but if you think about it you can see it throughout the series. The third point is proven in Magic Bullet when Derek takes Scott to see Peter to tell him about the fire and he looks Derek in the face and says that they had reason to burn his family alive, purely due to some of them being werewolves. There are also many points in canon that proves my fourth point, but I will only choose a few, one being him siding with Gerard, giving information to him while pretending to be on Derek’s side. The second is forcing Derek to bite Gerard and not telling him about the plan ahead of time. The third and last one I will list for this point is him leaving with Deucalion, leaving Derek under the Darach’s influence. The fifth point is pretty clear to see in the season as a whole, so I don’t know how to pick a specific scene to prove it.

The sixth point is shown in the scene where Scott grabs a paralyzed Derek by the neck, opening his mouth and forcing Derek to bite Gerard and then making him watch a body rejecting the bite once again. Which was more than likely double traumatising, since he feels the bite is a gift and also the last time we know he has to fully watch a body rejecting the bite was when he had to kill his first girlfriend. The seventh point is also pretty clear in the scene with Gerard. The eighth point is proven both when he rubs his plan with Gerard in Derek’s face after forcing him to bite Gerard and when he is quick and unapologetic about blaming Derek for the murders Peter commited, multiple times. It’s hard to pick out a specific scene to prove my ninth point, but you can see it throughout the whole series and it is also something Deaton breathes life into. The tenth point is hard to pin down a scene for in specific but Scott never really seems to trust Derek so he will frequently only associate with him when he needs something.

My eleventh point is proven by Scott working with Gerard, leaving them to work with Deucalion and working with Theo. My twelfth point is proven by the fact he likes to act like he is amazing every time he ignores a call for help only to still come in the eleventh hour to save the day. And finally my thirteenth point is proven by how he only really has anything to do with Derek when he needs help.

I think Kate might have desensitized him to getting taken advantage of and Scott thrives in that fact. Derek only truly trusts Stiles in a serious way, but he still continues to give Scott chances to be different. Though he doesn’t possibly do so until the very end. We didn’t get enough information to know for sure though. Derek is constantly used and abused, it’s easy to see that it affects him. He is healing though by the end of the series, after going away for over a year.

@softranswolves

[laurore-stormwitch]

Did someone say Zoya and Genya getting ready for a ball? I had this sitting in my computer for a while. I've written it at the same time of the Nikolai/Genya interaction and went for that instead, leaving this unfinished, so that's the reason why they're similar. But even if this is not wildly original I decided to post it, maybe some of you will enjoy it anyway!

together now - AO3

word count: 2661 (cause I can’t write short fics sorry)

______________________________________________________________

“Zoya, if you move again, I’m going to turn your hair purple.”

Zoya rolled her eyes. Drama queen. Whoever believed that getting ready for a party with your friends was fun, clearly never had to deal with Genya’s perfectionist and dictatorial tendencies. She purposely shifted in her chair in front of the vanity, making Genya glare at her.

“Do you want me to complete my masterpiece or not?”

No, not really. Nothing about going to Sainkt Nikolai’s ball seemed to be exciting. Dreadful and annoying were the only two terms she could come up with to describe the evening in front of her. Mainly having to do to the fact that she was going to have to watch Nikolai and his future wife simper over courtiers and nobles, with the bride-to-be practically coerced to attend the ball. And she wasn’t even allowed to get drunk; saints forbid someone attempted to murder the king again.

“Do you want your hair up or down?” Asked Genya, moving some strands of her hair over her ears.

“Are you really inquiring for my opinion?” The squaller noted ironically, pouring herself another glass of wine.

“No, of course not. Down is better, they make you seem wilder.”

She winked at her and Zoya huffed again. Genya began braiding some thin locks away from her face, leaving the rest of her mane free on her shoulders. She weaved the fine tresses with silver threads and held them in place with diamonds pins. Zoya relaxed under her delicate touch.

“A bit more practice with breaking Grisha’s orders and I’m going to tailor myself at some point. What are you going to do when the day comes?”

She had meant it as a joke, the tone light. But through the mirror she saw a shadow pass behind Genya’s eyes and immediately regretted her words and lack of tact. They knew only one person who had held as much power as Zoya was wielding now; he was rotting in a cell beneath them, and Genya would forever wear his marks on her skin. Of course her mind would have run to him; she tended to darken whenever they touched the argument surrounding Zoya’s newly acquired abilities.

“I hadn’t meant to make you think about that, Genya. I’m sorry.”

Genya smiled at her, coming back to her delightful self.

“It’s okay. I’m just a bit worried about - well, about everything. How is it going with these powers? I’ve spied on you summoning fire the other day. You were glorious.”

Zoya curled her lips and held up her arm, making the fetter made of dragon scales dangle. Juris rumbled inside her. She had told Genya what happened in the Fold, in broad outline. Zoya knew that even if they didn’t say it, they were all concerned with this. She caught them glancing at her sometimes, as if they were waiting for a ticking bomb to go off. It was unpleasant, but she understood them; after all, she was waiting for herself to go off too.

“I’m managing. I’m still not so sure of what I can or cannot do.”

Genya kept working on her hairstyle thoughtfully, letting the quiet stretch between them. She bit her lower lip before adding something else, voice dropping to a whisper.

“Does it feel good?”

Zoya understood that question too. Power is protection. No matter the cost, it would always hold its appeal for a Grisha. That was the pull they felt towards the Darkling too.

“It feels risky.” She answered after a while, releasing a long breath. It was not like her to betray uncertainty or weakness, but she hadn’t anticipated how both frightening and fascinating it would feel to be in this position. “It’s so much power, Genya. What if I can’t control it?”

“If there’s anyone who can do it, it’s you, Zoya.” There was not hesitation in this answer. Yet, Zoya didn’t feel much reassured. She didn’t have a sense of who – or what – she was becoming.

“What if it’s too much power?” She realized that was not the right question, the one thing she dreaded to come true. She corrected herself. “What if it’s not enough, and I want more?”

At this, Genya paused, avoiding Zoya’s gaze, and fell terribly silent. She looked worried, almost scared. A shiver went through Zoya’s spine at the idea of eliciting something like fear in one of the people she loved most. She felt a stabbing guilt and the sudden realization that she didn’t want to explore this topic more and find out what Genya was thinking. She waved a soothing smile at her friend, hoping to stir this exchange away.  

“Enough of this. Don’t you want to show me the dress?”

Genya’s eye lightened up as she was pulled out from her gloom towards a more delightful diversion. She turned to the bed and pulled up Zoya’s gown, handing it to her. As usual, Genya had outdid herself. The gown matched the decor in her hair: Zoya thought of the dark midnight sky over Pachina while looking at it, one of the few memories she held from her childhood. When Genya moved it towards her, a million tiny crystals sparkled like stars against the sheer fabric. Zoya slipped inside it gracefully and turned to her, making the dress shimmer; the red head was gloating.

“I always give you the best dresses. All eyes are going to be stuck on you.”

Zoya doubted it, considering how equally gorgeous the other girl was looking right now, hugged by velvet the colour of blood. Genya made her wirl around on herself while she smoothed the dress; Zoya tried to reach for the wine, but Genya snatched the glass from her hands. She shrugged her shoulders at her outraged look. “What? I’m not going to let you stain this magnificent gown, excuse me.”

“You know, you have David’s adoration all for yourself.” Zoya pointed out, scowling. “Don’t get greedy. Let them admire me instead. If I can’t get drunk, I can at least have a different kind of fun.”

Genya rolled her single eye turning her gaze to Zoya, furrowing a brow at her.

“I do hope that by now you know that you have someone’s adoration all for yourself, too.”

Genya had clearly noticed the subtle shifts in Zoya and Nikolai’s behaviour, since she had been dropping this casual and mildly vague comments for a while now. At first, Zoya just ignored them; but then it occurred to her that denying what was going on was not the way to fight this. That maybe the right angle was to approach it much like a military campaign: know your enemy before you defy it. Which for her, it meant to understand what was happening so that she could crush it. And since feelings were not an area of expertise for Zoya, she had figured Genya could come in handy. So at some point she had just let it become a mutual understanding that this whatever-it-was-thing was out in the open, and she started posing carefully pondered question of her own. Zoya crossed Genya’s eye for an instant, replying with a sceptical click of her tongue.

“Both his adoration and his efforts better be for Ehri, for all our sakes. Much like his gaze better be kept on her all night like she’s the most beautiful creature to ever grace this earth. If he cannot sell it to her, at least he has to sell it for the rest of the world.”

“With you in that dress it’s going to be a challenge to look at anyone else.” Teased Genya, grinning. Zoya glared at her, pushing down the uncomfortable satisfaction this remark brought.

“He seems rather immune to my appearance and my presence.”

A poor and unconvincing objection, to say the least. Genya scoffed, handing her the wine as if she was going to need it to hear what came next. Zoya gladly took the offering.

“You do realize I’m a Corporalki, right?”

“What would that mean, apart from making people faint every now and then?”

“It means he can keep his eyes trained on the ceiling all night for all I care, because I’ll still feel his heartbeat spike up every time you pass beside him.”

Zoya didn’t much like to have this particular piece of information, that stirred some unpleasant feelings in her lungs. She swallowed the rest of the alcohol, her throat burning for something else entirely.

“Do you peer in all your friend’s visceral reaction for fun?”

“Just the two of you. Want to know what happens with you?” Mused Genya, knowing damn well the curiosity that sparkled in Zoya’s eyes and even more well feeling her breath itch. Know your enemy, right? Zoya grunted, not even bothering to try and look unfazed.

“Fine. Rip the band aid off.”

“Your heart usually beats like it’s at war. On the contrary, it slows down when he’s around, like you feel- I don’t know, safer. At home.”

Zoya fell silent, turning the words over in her head. It was always a punch in the gut when she wondered when things have started to turn and understood just how much they had turned. Instead of lingering on this painful realization, she did what she knew best and deflected the conversation again where it hurt most. She had the strange belief that if the heart was indeed a muscle, you had to train it like any other one in your body. The more pressure and blows you would put into it, the less you would feel the pain with time. Yuyeh sesh. Be cruel to your heart.

“How are the preparation for the wedding going?”

“As good as they can be.” Genya’s gaze turned sweet and affectionate, and she went along. “No one would say anything, you know. If you wanted to stay away for a while or get some distance.”

“We both know that a lot of people would say a lot of things.” Zoya held her chin high. “And you know that’s not my way of doing things. This is my place; I’m not going to let anyone take it away.”

I don’t want to live in darkness. She fought and lost and suffered to get to where she was. She was certainly not going to give it up for a bad timed and poorly chosen crush. An idiotic and simple crush. Genya nodded, getting the hint that it was enough for today. She seemed to remember something and got back to her tailoring kit.

“Speaking of Nikolai, there’s one thing missing. He gave them to me before I came here.”

Genya walked towards her and clipped what looked like a pin on her dress. She made her turn around to look herself in the mirror. Zoya felt something warming her from the inside when she looked at it; it was more of a medal than a pin. Ravka’s double eagle was shining on her chest, pleated gold, with Alina’s sun behind it and an Etherealki blue ribbon. It resembled the medals she saw on the supposedly war heroes’ generals that worked with Nikolai, but it was more elegant. She brushed her finger on it, full of pride.

“Me and David have one too.” Genya showed her the other one she was holding before securing it on herself. It was Corporalki red. “David has a Materialki purple ribbon. Nikolai told me people should always know we are his most trusted generals and friends. That we work for Ravka as much as he does, and we are owed the same respect, even at a ball.”

Respect. Recognition. Another time, Nikolai managed to surprise her. Because this wasn’t just a pretty thing, a nice embellishment. And while she had been his general for almost three years, that didn’t mean people had accepted and treated her with the appropriate regard. This was a symbol of the king’s trust, something that would force the nobles and the army to behave accordingly, even at events where it would be so easy to down-play her and treat her like another beautiful hollow courtier. Stupid thoughtful Nikolai. She was torn between wanting to kill him for making her feel like this or kiss him senseless for the same reason. Get a grip, Zoya.

“You’re not going to be like him, Zoya.” Zoya startled at Genya words, confused for a moment. She cleared her throat, shoving the treacherous thoughts she was having away. Genya had moved beside her, taking her hand in her own. Looking at Genya firm and proud gaze, she realized they were not talking about Nikolai anymore, and that she hadn’t dropped the conversation before because she was scared or angry at her. It was because she understood where Zoya’s fears were coming from, and she was facing them head on now.

“The Darkling.” She added to clarify, lingering on his name with a tremor in her voice. “Even with all the power you have, you are nothing like him. You managed to do what he had always claimed he wanted, and he had never done: you are saving Grishas, you are rebuilding the Second Army and you hold a position as the King’s right hand. What drives you is not the hunger for power; is the care you have for Ravka and your people. The Darkling wanted to control them, to own them. You protect them.”

Zoya tightened the hold of her hand, while looking at their reflections in the mirror, in the stunning gowns and the triumvirate’s pins. Two women who had believed in the wrong man and kept paying the price for their ingenuity, who had saved themselves in the end. She sucked in a breath, seeing someone she barely recognized; there was almost nothing left of the scared little girl. With the medal on her chest, diamonds in her hair and a glowing fierce light in her eyes she really looked like the leader she aspired to be. She wondered if she was still pretending, or some of the act was now true.

“Stop me before I can become like him.” Zoya blurted out, the words unsteady and whispered. Genya shook her head, leaning in towards her.

“You are different in every way. And you have something he never had; you have people who love you. Believe me, Nikolai is going to burn down all of Os Alta before he lets anything happen to you. None of us is going to let anything happen to you.”

“I’m not afraid of something happening to me, rather than to others.” What if I hurt Nikolai? What if I hurt anyone of you? Genya lowered her head on her shoulder, still holding her hand.

“We fought our way out of his grip once. We’re not going to let him bring us down. We’re stronger than we were before.”

“And we’re together, now.”

Zoya needed something to anchor herself on; the words felt uncertain, more like a question. Because she knew, deep down she knew she was still somehow living by what he had taught her: love is a weakness. And she knew that while Genya talked of friendship, Zoya herself was distancing from everyone. That she was suffocating her feelings for Nikolai, effectively cutting out the person she had relied on the most. That she didn’t know how to be close to someone. That, like the Darkling, she felt destined to be alone. And yet a part of her still needed to believe that a strand of what she conquered was going to save her, that someone was going to reach for her.

“And we’re together.”

Genya repeated, more firmly. We’re not going to let him bring us down another time. A litany. It was our blood on the skiffs, in the sand, on the rocks of a mountain. I’m nothing like him. An enchantment. And we’re together. He had taught her wrong. One day she would be free of this last cage, too.

[dwimpala-67]

Whatever Happens....

My two cents on the whole Prequel-Gate ...

Warning: The opinions expressed are purely personal and have no bearing on any person and if they do it’s merely coincidental and are without intention. If you choose to read this, it’s solely at your own risk and the writer is not responsible for any consequences thereof.

Jared and Jensen have been at the heart of Supernatural for past fifteen years. J2 - along with the show have been the source of joy for everyone in the fandom.  We’ve seen them grow up, seen their friendship evolve and seen the way they interact with each other. We fell in love with them, with the beautiful friendship they share, and their compassion and empathy and strength and understanding. These two beautiful individuals weaved their way into our hearts. Somehow, they’ve become a part of our lives. And we trusted them, like we do with any individual that is close to us in real life.

The end of Supernatural was bitter sweet for many of us, especially the J2 shippers. We could see our beloved show being ruined and we all thoughts perhaps, it was time to end it but secretly still wanted a miracle to happen and the story line to be back to its true canonical nature without the OOC story line that was being fed to us. Then came the announcement that Supernatural would end with season 15. Even if we knew the it was inevitable, it was still a shock. We have a saying back in my culture: “Whatever has a beginning, has to have an ultimate end.” And true to that, it was time for Supernatural to end. It doesn’t mean we had to be happy about it. After all, this was the show that meant a lot, personally to many of us.  To see it coming to an end was painful, shocking, even heartbreaking. But we accepted it eventually because life must go on.

With end of the show, we had to accept another reality. To watch our lovely pair - Jared and Jensen- go their separate ways. For 15 years, there never has been a moment where J2 weren’t in each other’s pockets. We saw them refusing to acknowledge personal space, saw them making heart eyes at each other, saw them going on dinner and lunch dates, saw them living together, getting married the same year, saw them grow their family together, saw them living in Austin together, saw them doing campaigns together, saw them golfing together, saw them being there for each other, making each other smile, saw them having each other’s back. We practically saw their love blossoming - for some it was a unique friendship and for some it was more than that. I don’t mean to point anyone out here, but the bottom line is that everyone of the J2 fans saw an ideal relationship between two people we loved the most. We choose to believe in what we saw.  And for us to suddenly see them being away form each other was hard to digest. It still is!

But we chose to believe everything was good, because we believed what our eyes saw. The way Jared and Jensen talked about each other in interviews even after the finale, the way they spoke at the virtual conventions, the way they interacted on social media and even the few instances of fans seeing Jared in Colorado exactly the time it was Jensen’s birthday, the way Jared knew about Jensen’s Soldier Boy suit before anyone else, and I could mention countless such instances that made us believe that the relationship these two idiots share was special and perfect. The kinda thing that can be called “made for each other.”

One fine day, we came to know not everything was as we believed it to be. It turned out Jensen did something by not telling Jared anything about it when the latter has been an integral part of the original concept. Everyone was beyond shocked. Each one of us felt betrayed, angered, pained at the way our beloved pair had a public fallout. Some chose to take sides and some decided to leave the fandom while others decided to be angry and disappointed in Jensen. There was despair all around and no one knew what was going on behind the closed doors. The only thing we knew was Jared was hurt and Jensen was the reason behind it.

I won’t go into the what, why and how of the whole fiasco, because by now, everyone has their own theories as answers to these questions. I have mine too. I see these theories as some sort of “justification” from our side to make sense of the situation. It’s not wrong because we’re searching for answers. We’re also searching for answers we will never get. (Unless either of the J’s decide to speak on it.) But there are a few questions that I feel are important to be addressed.

Do we have the right to feel angry and hurt over the issue? Absolutely Yes.

Do we have the right to take sides? Of course.

Are our feelings of hurt and pain that we resonated with Jared valid? Hell yes.

Everyone has a coping mechanism and the initial emotions or reactions were absolutely valid. However, it’s what happened later that has me thinking.

1. Do we have the right to know what happened behind the scenes? Probably but we would never. There lies the uncertain feeling of “how should I proceed from here?” and “How do I feel about it?”

2. Do we have the right to demand an explanation or an apology from Jensen? Absolutely no.

3. Do we have the right to throw vile words at/abuse the people involved? Hell no.

I would like to look at the whole thing in perspective. This has affected many of us and perhaps woken us up with a hard slap of reality.

For all of the 15 years, we’ve been fed with the “happy couple” image and for us, maybe the boys became the image of the “perfect couple with no issues” and when there was a very public spat between the two, there was a serious damage to our perception. This is where people didn’t know how to react. Many spoke out their emotions clearly, many were sad, confused and scared and many decided to be bitter. Few decided to leave I have no problem with it, I don’t judge, as I said earlier everyone has their own coping mechanism.

I feel like the issue is, as fans we are here to celebrate and have fun and not become entitled to know the truth or demand answers from the celebrities. Sometimes we forget entitlement is a delusion based on self centeredness. The demand to know what happened or the demand for Jensen to apologize in a particular manner cannot be the way we deal with the situation.

We need to consider the fact that the people we idealize, in this case J2, are also that - “people” or “Humans” to be more precise. Humans make mistakes. Just like we do in our everyday life. the problem with celebrities is, anything they do feels like “more than life” size. Even a small compliment makes us go “aww” and a disagreement/misunderstanding makes us go “Omg! They’re enemies.” It’s normal reaction because we hold them in the highest regard like “celebs/fan favs can do no wrong.” So, when this happened with J2 everyone had a reaction like this was the end or it has ruined it for me, or I’m done with this fandom. There were also a few reactions like anger and entitled demands. I always say false sense of entitlement always brings you doom rather than happiness.

The fact remains, Jensen disappointed all of us. A huge blow was dealt to the “happy couple” image and we all were left floundering. I was observing the reactions and I suddenly realized I’m far too much invested into the lives of two actors whose lives are already complicated. I mean, after the entire chaos, I too felt sad, angry and disappointed. It was upsetting me more that it should. Fandom is a space where I come to escape from real life. But if Fandom starts affecting my real life so bad as to make me upset, I felt like there’s something wrong. It shouldn’t be the reverse of what I would rather have the fandom to be, which is a happy place or the place where I go too relive my stress. And if the apparent relationship status of two actors affects me this much, it’s time to take a step back, evaluate and then proceed.

the other day, I was reading a twitter thread full of theories and according to the fans who was right and who was wrong and etc, etc, etc. I found, it shouldn’t matter to me to judge who was right and who was wrong. I’m in no position to judge who felt what, because in no way am I the party involved in the conflict. It’s a conflict between J2, who had some issues obviously and they manages to talk about it and even let us know that they are good. Now, I personally, felt like if the J’s claim they’re alright, then why should I doubt or even theorize about how their friendship has taken a toll. If someone tells me they’re fine, I usually believe them to be fine, unless I see something contrary to the fact. In this case, either of the J’s didn’t comment further on the matter and just as I was watching everyone calm down, other elements decided to jump into the muddy waters and splatter it everywhere.

The interesting thing about Kripke’s tweet was “assumption.” This word “assumption” is a very interesting word and has the capacity to blow up even the most calming waters. So, Kripke assumed, and then based on Kripke’s assumption, everyone else assumed. I’m just pointing out what happened, in no way am I justifying any of the J’s behavior. Just a thought. So assuming Kripke was right we assumed Jensen deliberately kept Jared out of the project and the issue escalated even more. Everyone was jumping the gun and then as miraculously Kripke has tweeted, he also deleted those tweets. Then came the damage control.

When Jensen and Jared had tweeted about the “truce” I thought the matter was supposed to be put to rest. Perhaps Kripke deleting the tweets and then Jensen going back to promoting his prequel was their way of brushing off the conflict and focusing more on what was more important to them: The Winchesters prequel. Another theory to add to the already existing million ones..lol.

Does this mean we should be hateful and abusive towards Jensen? No.

Our feelings of disappointment are valid but it doesn’t mean I have aright to be abusive at Jensen. No matter how he acted nothing gives me the right to throw abuse at anyone unless I’m the one who’s directly involved in the conflict. They way I see it, as a fan, I was hurt and caught off guard but I am in no position to judge either Jensen or Jared, especially when they say they’re alright. I decide to trust them. I choose to trust them, just I chose to decide they were the made for each other friends in the past.

There’s this another saying that I remember “To Err is human, to forgive is Divine.” It’s not as if either of the J’s have been flawless as a person. Everyone has some shortcomings and so do they. As a fan, I need to find the same level of “acceptance” that I do when I’m in the similar situation in real life. As a fan I need to accept that Jared and Jensen too are going to have some issues going ahead in life. Just because they are actors doesn’t mean there won’t be miscommunication or misunderstanding. They’re not perfect. They are bound to make mistakes. Just think that because this was a very public fallout, we came to know about the disagreement, try to think that in past 15 years how many times did the J’s had these disagreements and had to deal with them without telling us? No matter how huge fan you are, no one can ever claim that they now what goes behind the scenes in the celeb’s lives and same goes with J2.

We know what kinda place Hollywood is, and the J2 tinhats already have theories about bearding and stuff, and yet the J’s have remained positive throughout. There must have been contracts and papers and the “powers that be” who are involved in regulating their lives. It’s one of the many countless possibilities. We don’t know many things about their lives (even we’d like to claim otherwise). The information we get is just a 0.01% of what actually is happening. All we do is “assume” on the basis of their SM interaction or the way J2 appear in public. It’s all imagery.

They’ve been a source for inspiration for many. So, a public fallout doesn’t mean we should overlook the past. But we choose to look at it in a way that is suitable to us. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that. If some of us feel like siding with Jared, it’s all good and if some of us feel like siding with Jensen, it’s all good. It’s their personal opinion and no one has the right to judge them or call them out for that.

For me, I’ve come to a conclusion that the secured bubble that I was living in has finally burst and given me a chance to look at things objectively. No matter what happens in future, I’m here to stay as long as I enjoy the fandom. If I let it affect me more than is plausible, perhaps then it’s time for me to rethink about the power I give the Fandom over me. Because it’s my choice. I alone have the choice to either let the negativity affect me or see the positive side. There’s a saying that goes, “You yourself alone are your own enemy and your true friend. The choice is yours.”

If J2 claim to be alright with each other, then I choose to believe them. Reason is simple. Because it helps me find some peace. It helps me cool down my emotions and helps me go back to enjoying the little things in fandom that bring me happiness.

 Don’t get upset with people and solutions because both are powerless without your reactions.

Let the drama continue....

After this, if you fell like unfollowing me, the door is always open.

In the end, whatever happens, happens for good. If it’s meant to be, then I’ll be the happiest and if it’s not, well, it’s beyond my control.

I love them both.

Peace and Love.

- A J2 fan.

[projectwkm]

Okay, so... I’ve been seeing you posting a lot of stuff about Actor Mark being just misunderstood and actually nice- but, I’m not convinced. (Which is surprising considering I’m usually the one who likes the “villain,,,”) If I may ask, what’s this theory based off of?

This post has been a long time coming, so sorry! I totally didn’t realise I had asks on this blog,, I’m a fool.

So this is less of a theory of mine and more of an expansion on character and what we know! Do I think for a second Actor is going to be redeemed? No, and I hope he’s not, because I love him so much as a villain. Do I think he is redeemable? Absolutely. Everyone is.

Let’s get into why I think that!

1. ‘A Heartbroken Idiot’

This is the nickname our Mark (in this post I’ll call Actor Mark ‘Actor’, and real Mark ‘Mark, just to avoid confusion) gives Actor. In the WKM Explanation Stream, he calls him ‘a heartbroken idiot’ in reference to his plan on poker night. And if we think about what we canonly know to be true, then there is good reason for this:

The Actor, the Colonel and the Mayor were all childhood friends. The Colonel practically grew up in the Manor with the Actor.

The Actor married Celine. Do we know for certain that they loved each other? No. But we can gather that at some point they were happy, for reasons I’ll go into later.

The Colonel slept with Celine behind the Actor’s back while they were married, and also borrowed copious amounts of money from the Actor to do so (?). The last part could be slightly biased or inaccurate considering Abe was on the Actor’s side for the most part, but I don’t see why he has reason to lie.

The Actor found this out, the Colonel and Celine left, and the Actor spiralled. So far he tried to kill him self. He did kill himself — over and over until his desire to die turned into a desire to understand the Manor he lived in and its oddities.

There are a lot of gaps there, in all honesty. A lot of questions unanswered. Did the Actor and Celine really love each other? Did Celine really love the Colonel? Why was the Colonel so willing to go behind the Actor (his close friend, remember)’s back and have an affair with his wife? Why was Celine so willing to leave her husband if she married him in the first place?

But those questions aren’t important right now, because I’m sticking as close to canon as I possibly can. What matters is that the Actor was betrayed by one of his best friends and that his wife left him in an awful way. They hurt him so badly that he tried to kill himself. Now, this isn’t me ignoring the Entity’s part in all this — we’ll get to that later.

But the purpose of Mark calling Actor a ‘heartbroken idiot’ is that it shows his only motive initially was heartbreak. His actions, initially, weren’t the actions of a man who wanted to destroy his friends and loved ones. In fact, by looking at his attempts to die, especially the first ones, we can see that the only person he wanted to destroy initially was himself. He’d been hurt, badly, by people he called “his close and trusted friends (WKM)”. And he wanted an out. He turned aggressive and revenge-twisted was when his very basic autonomy over his own life was denied to him by the Manor not letting him die.

“After Celine and the Colonel left, Mark was left in this super spiral downwards. He was just completely out of it, didn’t know what to do, and he may have at one point tried to kill himself. But it didn’t work.” (Mark, WKM Explanation Stream)

So before the Manor Entity intervened, was he a bad person? No. Most definitely not. How do we know this, apart from what I’ve said above? This brings us on to point 2:

Celine and Damien

The braincells of the WKM gang, truly. Do you really think they’d stay friends with Actor if he was a bad person? Scratch that, do you think Celine would have married him if he was a bad person? Ruling him as an awful evil person from the start completely undermines the intelligence of the other characters who had been ‘fast friends for years’ with Actor.

That’s not to say he’s flawless. He has an abundance of flaws that the Entity brings out in him (see point three), but even before the Entity, his flaws were probably very visible, especially to his friends and wife. Actor was no doubt an egotistical ass, don’t get me wrong, he was no saint, but he also wasn’t evil. If he was, Celine, who could sense the energy of the Manor as soon as she walked in, would have surely refused to marry him.

It’s hinted that they didn’t have the best relationship by Mark in the DAMIEN Explanation Stream, that much is true. Their reasons for marrying could have been anything — from a passionate spur of the moment decision they didn’t properly think about, to a marriage potentially motivated by finance or power — and we don’t know if they were ever truly happy. We don’t know if Celine loved Actor, but it is implied she at least felt something for him, judging by the look of distress on her face in Chapter Three of WKM when it is revealed Actor is dead.

We also don’t know if Actor loved Celine. I’m inclined to say he did, considering his original plan was to steal the Colonel’s body and get back together with Celine, but there’s a fine line between love and obsession. (In my personal opinion, their relationship started off well before the Manor Entity began to shape them, but my personal opinion doesn’t come into it right now.)

But do you really think if he’d been evil or abusive (as I’ve seen some call him) that Celine or Damien would even be upset about his death, nonetheless have stuck by his side for so long? I doubt it. Mark says nowhere that Actor was a bad person to start off with, and goes into detail of what the Manor Entity actually did to him in the Explanation Streams of DAMIEN and WKM, so read below for more notes on that!!

The Manor Entity

Aha.... my least favourite character of all time...

Words cannot describe how much I despise this thing (whatever it is, Mark described it as more of a concept than anything else). Even as I write this, I feel a boiling rage inside me. Nonetheless! I will keep as fair and as unbiased of a take as I can while I analyse Actor’s relationship with the Manor Entity.

So let’s start with its affects BEFORE the Colonel and Celine left. These characters were fucked the moment they lived in that house. The Colonel and the Actor have been affected worst by it due to living in the house as kids; as Mark says, they grew up together in the Manor. So they’ve probably had the worst effects from it. Let’s see what Mark says about the Entity in the Manor!—

“The thing [about the Manor] that causes people to change, and the thing that curses people, it’s this…. Not a thing, but it’s this idea that whispers in your ear, and the worst thing it could possibly do is that it makes you think that the ends justify the means, in whatever situation…. It’s this thing gently over time just whispering.”

An idea. A whisper in your ear, exacerbating worse qualities and constantly suggesting. Something you don’t even know about until it’s too late. It’s not so hard of a leap to make that it could have made the Chef so aggressive (he’s been there the second longest, other than George the Groundskeeper), could have made the Colonel more hot tempered and liable to cause trouble between a husband and wife, could have very easily twisted the Actor to be a worse person.

We’ve already made it clear that the Actor is not without his flaws. On the contrary, he might be the most flawed from the group. Cocky and stubborn and prideful, passionate and a performer, it’s not so hard to see the Entity delighting at being able to plant seeds in his head. Just little suggestions: “maybe you’re better than them” “maybe they’re holding you back” “maybe they’re conspiring against you”. Just little, back-of-your-head thoughts that, over time, would change him into someone worse, something else.

Something that could have potentially driven him away from Celine and driven Celine into the arms of the Colonel.

Am I saying this is definitely what happened? No. As I say, a lot of canon from Before The Poker Night is missing, and left to speculation. But from what we know about the Entity, and what we know about what it does, it’s increasingly likely it’s been manipulating things from behind the scenes for a while even before the Actor takes his own life.

Cut to Celine and the Colonel leaving. Damien is gone too (God knows where, perhaps the Actor just shuts him out too), leaving the Actor alone in the Entity’s puppet strings. Another Mark quote!

Imagine [the Actor]: his wife left him, his friend betrayed him, the [Entity] whispers “that’s not fair, no, that’s not fair”.... “No, you’re right, that’s not fair.....” “Why should they be happy?....” “No, no, of course, no, they shouldn’t be happy.....” “Maybe they don’t deserve to be happy, maybe you should do something about them not being happy, maybe you should set something up to make sure they’ll never be happy again.”

The Entity is a powerful thing. Its powers are subtle, so subtle that the Actor probably didn’t even notice he was being changed in the first place. As Mark said “the more you stay in that House, the more it drives you toward things it wants you to do… and the worst part is it convinces you that you thought of it in the first place.”

The Entity could have been the one to suggest that he keeps killing himself. It could have very well been the one to lead him to his death in the first place. And the worst thing is that the Actor wouldn’t have a clue they weren’t his thoughts. He is a puppet without realising it, an actor for the Entity to direct in whichever way it wants.

It’s a gradual, awful process. And Actor? As the ‘heartbroken idiot’, the man Mark describes as being a ‘pawn’, that had a lot of time alone in the Manor depressed and bitter over being hurt? He didn’t stand a chance against it.

By the time we meet Actor in WKM, it is very unlikely much of the original man remains at all. While he acts cheery and cocky as usual in the beginning, the bitter puppet we see in the Void after we die and the mania-driven ‘hero’ from DAMIEN is most likely all that remains of the original. Mark from the WKM Explanation Stream explained that “every time [Actor] died, he got sent to this [Void], and was able to get a deeper understanding of it”. Doing so pushed him further and further into the embrace of the Entity, until he was nothing more than a pawn. A puppet.

Actors have little to no control over the scene they play out. It’s the director’s job to push them in the direction they want. And the relationship between the Actor and the Entity seems to function as such: even if the Actor himself doesn’t realise that yet.

And finally, my last point:

No characters are good.

Mark gave a very good quote in the DAMIEN Explanation Stream that I rely on when writing Actor, Dark and Wilford — “no one’s truly, fully, 100% evil”. In the same way, no one is truly, fully, 100% good all the time. It’s impossible. And incredibly relevant when it comes to our three Main Boys, who are all so flawed and broken that it’s not even funny.

We’ll start with Wilford first. It’s easy to forget (for me, at least) all the things he’s done wrong because he’s such a goddamn sweetheart. But- and I won’t go into too much detail- here are some of his ‘crimes’: poaching, murder (several times, as the Colonel and as Warfstache), an affair with his best friend’s wife, with multiple other offences written somewhere in the detective’s study / office (I can’t be bothered finding them dhdjdjnej). Arguably, he also has reason for people to point to him being guilty: he broke his best friend’s heart to the point he tried to kill himself. Which.... is not good.

This is not me hating on William or Wilford as a character. Au contraire, I love them both. But it’s very rare that I see anyone admit Will’s fault in this, or Celine’s (without laying it all on them, naturally, but that’s another story). Will/Wilford is a complicated character who now seems to be far more good than bad (or simply just mad) and has atoned for the past, but more often than not, people overlook his crimes and mistakes and flaws.

The same with Dark, though honestly to a lesser extent. As far as we know, there is very little that Dark has done. We don’t know if he’s killed anyone (other than perhaps Actor in HEIST), we don’t know what his true crimes are because his role is still heavily influenced by the Actor’s bias. But Dark still has his faults and flaws. He’s obsessive and clearly incredibly angry and bitter over what happened, trapped somewhat in the past the same way that Wilford is in the present and Actor in the future. Once again, this isn’t me hating Dark (he’s one of my favourite characters dfhjvffhh), but simply pointing out the negative sides to him, rather than ignoring them. It’s to point out that people — and characters — aren’t 100% good or 100% evil (honestly, they’d be less interesting that way). That includes fan favourites.

Actor is probably the worst out of them. He’s delusional, painfully narcissistic, arrogant and a self-righteous asshole. Nobody is denying that. But underneath that, Mark also describes him as a ‘broken thing’: he’s not the man he used to be. Can he be easily seen as evil now, after everything he’s done? Yes. He’s murdered and he’s betrayed, but let’s not forget he too was murdered and betrayed. This doesn’t excuse what he’s done, but rather offers us insight into his thinking — an eye for an eye. In his eyes, the poker night (at the time) was justified. William and Celine and Damien all betrayed and hurt him, so he was going to hurt them.

Things didn’t go according to plan for him, though. I very much doubt murder was in his original plans, but alas, the Entity twisted his plans unrecognisably. (Whether or not he now regrets the poker night and his actions is up for speculation, and for another post sghcdgb.)

If it is Actor in HEIST and DATE (which I’m very inclined to say it is), it’s clear to me he’s changed: even slightly. Sacrificing himself over and over for Y/N, wooing them with dates and flashy heists, planning everything perfectly for them and giving them the choice on their adventures: now, this could just be me, but that sounds rather far from an evil man. Instead, it sounds to me like Actor knows he’s done bad things, but instead of trying to confront them, he simply runs away from them; he escapes from the reality he’s created by delving into fictional fantasies of adventure where he can finally be the hero.

And that’s not action of a man who is entirely evil. That’s action of a desperate man. A coward, perhaps, but not wholly bad or awful. “A pawn in all this”, as Mark describes him, unable to come to terms with the atrocity of the poker night and what he’s done to his old friends.

To Conclude My Answer!

Actor Mark is my favourite character of all time and has turned into a special interest of mine, but I hope he’s not redeemed. That being said, he is not an ‘evil’ character, and could certainly be redeemed if he ever fully escaped the Entity’s control and owned up to stone for the past (though being redeemed would almost certainly break him — another post for another time).

Everyone’s interpretations of Actorare valid, but I also think it’s important when writing him as close to canon as possible to remember some of Mark’s comments on him, and also to remember his past and how he’s been manipulated by the Entity into something different entirely. While doing so doesn’t excuse his behaviour or awful actions, it offers insight and a way to understand why he’s done certain things!

Ultimately, it’s up to Mark himself to canonise or develop the story and character arcs, which he has done so much already. I cannot WAIT to see where Actor and everybody’s stories end up going, and big preesh to him for making such a heartbreaking wonderful story!!!

If anyone would like to hear me rant more about Actor or the story of WKM and it’s sequels, leave a question or ask and I’ll certainly do it!!

[redvoid-40]

Gaara SFW Alphabet - F to K

Hi everyone! I know it’s been a while since I posted any Gaara headcanons, but thing is, I watched the whole Tales of Arcadia series on Netflix and fell in love with it! So lately I’ve been focusing on writing for it. =.=

I do have some more Gaara stuff on-the-go (specially for my “fic”) so I shouldn’t completely stop posting about him though :)

Well, hope you enjoy these headcanons! Remember there’s more stuff n my Masterlist (link in profile) if you want. ;)

And if anyone else is in the ToA wagon, let me know! :D

Warning: copious amounts of fluff under cut.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

Like I said before, I think this boy would be ready to settle down as soon as he found someone he loved. Relationships are serious to him, so I don’t see him dating someone if he didn’t see their relationship growing. As soon as he and his SO start dating, he’s committed to them 100%.

However, despite being quick to commit, he might not be as quick to actually get married. Not that he wouldn’t want to get married, it’s just… life is busy, okay? Gaara is the village’s Kazekage and I personally headcanon his SO as being someone active in the village and just as busy as him. So the wedding may end up being postponed for a long time. Gaara and his SO are together and that union is solid; they don’t need a ceremony to prove it; at least not as much as they need to get things done for the village to function properly.

Most likely their wedding would only happen because Kankuro and Baki took pity on their poor, busy, exhausted souls and organized the whole thing for them, so the only thing they had to do was show up.

Gaara was late for his own wedding. I can’t see it any other way.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

The gentlest boy you could find! His hugs and kisses are feather-soft and warm; his voice is always calm and reassuring. Even during fights Gaara doesn’t lose his cool; there are no abrupt mannerism, no screaming or cussing. On the contrary, as soon as he sees a chance for peace Gaara will grab it and end that fight would a soft I love you that melts his SO’s heart every time.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

YES! Gaara loves hugs of all kinds!

When they’re alone, in a more private setting, their hugs are long, mellow things. He’ll hold his SO, bury his face in their neck and stay like that for a long time, planting kisses here and there and swaying a bit on his feet.

And public settings will not deter our boy! He might not embrace his SO for long periods of time when there are other people around, but he will hug and kiss them as a greeting every time. And if they are close together you bet Gaara will be touching his SO in some way, even if it’s just a bit of hand-holding.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

Not fast and also super fast?

I think it would take long time for Gaara to evolve from friendship into romance. Gaara didn’t do crushes so when he started to fall for his SO he didn’t understand it. What do you mean this warmth in my chest and fluttering in my stomach aren’t indigestion, Temari? What else could it be?

Also, that boy’s life was eventful and he wouldn’t have the time to ponder his emotions until he found himself fully stable in his life. In other words: it would take years of knowing each other before Gaara said ILY.

But as soon as they start dating those three words are out of his mouth. This boy doesn’t play games: if he loves someone he’ll let them know without hesitation, even if they don’t say it back.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

Jealousy? I don’t know who that is.

Seriously, in ideal conditions (aka: not the ones described in my Ending HC) Gaara trusts his SO with all of his heart. If they are on a stable relationship I doubt there would be anything that would make him jealous because he knows his SO would never betray his trust in any way. Someone else is in love with his SO? He can’t blame them, after all he knows exactly how amazing and lovely his SO is; if anything he feels sorry for his “rival” for their unrequited love and hope they find someone for them, like he did.

BUT! If we go back to my personal HC that Gaara met his SO during the Chuunin Exams I can see Gaara being jealous of his future SO. Not a romantic sort of jealous though. He’d watch them being sweet and caring towards people and he would envy that, because no one had ever given him such carefree affection and it was not fair that they could give it to everyone! Gaara would never get the chance to understand what this emotion was though; he’d just channel his jealousy into hate and anger and that would be it.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Gaara’s kisses are warm and soft and just the sweetest thing his SO has ever tasted. Unpopular opinion here, but I don’t think Gaara shies away from PDA with his SO. I mean, he won’t press them against a wall and make-out in public, but he doesn’t hesitate in soft pecks and touches here and there.

The second question should be: where he DOESN’T like to kiss them? Outside the bedroom Gaara will plant soft kisses in any expanse of skin he finds: their lips, cheeks, nose, the top of their head, the back of their hands, the little bit of skin showing on the back of their neck… everywhere is perfect for a kiss!

Inside the bedroom Gaara’s pecks become full-out make-out sessions that, while just as soft and warm, are extremely intense and long. He loves to wake up with his SO in his arms and engage in a long - and slightly messy - kissing session that might or might not evolve into something more. Either way he doesn’t mind; his SO’s kisses are the best thing ever.

[finzphoenix]

Rasgo, you say? I'm intrigued. Can I get any headcanons?

Sure! ;3 It contains the beginnings of the ship, a special thanks goes to @blackiraven who helped me a lot with these hcs <33 ^^ (since I’m really bad at keeping things short, here’s a cut)

- Hugo and Ra's found each other during the months before Arkham City.

- Ra's was impressed by the strength of will Hugo represented, the fact that he had dared to get in contact with his assassins and face the Demon Head himself. The doctor had managed to find out his whereabouts despite all security precautions and strict secrecy. A difficult task considering how many hideouts he owns all over the world.

- The second fact, Ras recognized Hugo's potential as a worthy successor. Enormous strength, bravery and energy are usually his demands on his potential replacement. And well, Hugo has already proven all this. He has strength and bravery (because he came to him, even at the risk of losing his life and also because he is not afraid to act against people who wants to bring him down, manipulate him or wants to exploid him for their own purposes). Hugo had the energy to withstand this over several years. He kept getting up after a defeat. Furthermore, Hugo has already come close to death and has survived again and again; he did not owe his resurrection to doctors or a lazerus pit, it was his own willpower. And who would be better to inherit the legacy of immortality than someone who has conquered death once, even several times?

- Ra’s tends to analyze all the people who join him, in Hugo's case, he didn't have the time he normally would have. When entering into an alliance with someone, he need to make sure that he can trust his partner (and potential successor). At anytime. So he has one or the other conversation with Hugo outside of their plans and due to the fact that such a cooperation requires a perfect strategic interaction, both work together for a while on the implementation, which in turn means that Hugo stays with the League for quite a bit time.

- The members themselves are loyal to Ra’s and obedient to the death, but there was an incident...

- An adept was too fixated on seeing his destiny in the succession as a leader, the overzealousness seized him. Strange was a potential threat, a shadow that hung over them like the sword of Damocles. It was surely only a matter of time before he betrayed them. After all, this man was so nervous the whole time, as if he had something big to hide... So, in a cloak-and-dagger operation, he decided that he didn't want to jeopardize his future. -> Hugo had been working all day untill late night and decided to give his mind a few hours of rest. All this time he was in the library, reading books on psychology and hypnosis, mind control, studying old maps of Gotham, and so on. When he finished and was about to leave for his room, he heard a strange noise... Then the assassin attacked him out of the darkness.

At first, he managed to dodge and fend off the sword with the book he was holding. Hugo immediately realized that he would not be able to defeat a professional assassin, so he decided to neutralize him with the help of the environment. He lured the assassin to the bookcases (and had to put up with a deep vertical sword wound on his stomach) that allowed Hugo to knock over one of the bookshelves with the last of his strength and to escape the library. And then, as he struggled down the corridor and left a trail of blood behind himself, a sudden large shadow appears. It's Ra's who was drawn to the noise. Hugo first thought is that he came to finish him off and tries anxiously to come up with arguments and not flinch when his opponent carefully moves towards him. Contrary to his expectations, Ra's assures him that he had not command anything like this and that he would like to help... if he lets him.

- After he had been pached up by Ra's after a long night, his trust was of course shaken. Sure, Ra's assured that it had nothing to do with him... he even had said assassin executed to make a statement and a memorial. And yet there was still a doubt. But especially the tension in this new surroundings made it difficult for him to concentrate on nearly... everything. He knew that he was being watched from the shadows. The whole time. And he had no guarantee that Ra's deterrent method had worked... Ra's in turn could already feel when Hugo entered the room. The tension was palpable. If this working relationship, which was also a relationship of trust, had to work, he had to get Hugo to talk to him. But since he didn't seem to wanna face it with words - maybe out of fear of showing weakness - Ra's decides to invite him to a game of chess and puts him under zugzwang, so to speak. In his opinion, chess finally enables both subjectivity and a sense of identity to be expressed with its ideal of unity and authenticity, as well as conveying a clear picture of the private flow of emotions and thoughts, the as a direct self-expression, truth and authenticity guaranteed.

Tied to the basics of intersubjective reason, to a linguistic system of norms that meets the criteria of general comprehensibility

the possibilities of what a person can say and experience in an individually authentic way seem extremely narrow - but if he can let actions speak for themselves... the whole thing looks completely different.

And it actually worked. Hugo's concerns were expressed whether intentionally or unintentionally through his moves and Ra’s responded to them with forbearance and understanding.

At some point Hugo even completely forgot that it was not just a conversation, but also a game and made wrong, more aggressive moves, which in turn made Ra's smile. The mischief that flashed in his eyes as he gradually took Hugo's pawns out of the game made his counterpart realize how counterproductive his behavior was, but also surprised him with this new... playfulness?

That was what finally convinced him to rebuild his trust and to watch the game much more relaxed and pleasant.

- The game is also reflected in their behavior towards each other afterwards. They slowly opened up to each other, exchanging views on medicine and research (when the time allowed), and even talked about family relationships; like, for example, about Hugo's son. A bond of trust slowly weaved around them, laying the foundations for... something more.