#and yes we're reasonably vindictive

[prismit]

thinking about how, when disney was starting to do their live action remakes, they probably went "shit, we made most of our villains stereotypically gay. we can't do that now, that's Homophobic!" and then proceeded to butcher their old villains by taking away everything that made them interesting and beloved characters.

[transhitman]

Ok I posted about this in anger a while back but I'm gonna say it more intelligently and actually tag it because I think it's something people need to hear. Something that bugs me about how people talk about the morality of the men in this game is that a lot of analysis totally glosses over Anya's motives and what she actually asks of people, and in doing so once again strips her of agency. Like. The reason Curly sucks isn't because he failed to properly punish Jimmy, it's because he ignored Anya in favor of her abuser. He didn't listen to her regarding how to move forward, he didn't give her a way to protect herself. No matter what he would have done to Jimmy, Anya is still traumatized and in danger, and that's the most important point of failure.

I think a lot of people are projecting a revenge fantasy on Anya, and while I'm not gonna argue about the validity of revenge here, for Anya specifically I think that's a major mischaracterization. She's the one who says that our worst moments don't make us monsters. And while yes, this could just be her trying to appease her abusers, she still doesn't strike me as a particularly vindictive person. She's a nurse, symbolically in a role associated with care and healing. Before the crash, she seems like a very soft-spoken and restrained person. Hell, she can't stand giving Curly his meds because she feels so bad for him. There isn't really a point in the game where she calls for violence at all. And even if punishing Jimmy or Curly is morally correct (subjective), saying that it's what anyone Should have done still glosses over Anya's wants and needs. It still centers the abuser, even in vitriol.

It's especially weird to see people judge Swansea on these grounds, because like... We don't know what his dynamic with Anya was like. We don't actually know what she said to him, if she even confided about her pregnancy or the SA at all! I honestly think Swansea's actions give more credence to the idea that Anya herself wanted a peaceful resolution. The whole "Oh, I'm holding it together" thing, him becoming more hostile after speaking with Anya... He waits until Daisuke AND ANYA are dead before trying to kill Jimmy. I think the obvious reading is that he wants Jimmy dead, but Anya asked him not to do anything crazy. Genuinely, I think Anya just wanted to be safe. She wanted out above everything. She didn't want more violence. The only violence she commits is against herself in the end, in order to escape this hell her coworkers made for her.

And like. Swansea is kind of the only one who actually did try to protect Anya in a meaningful way. I won't say that he couldn't have done more for her - all of the men on that ship failed her in some regard - but Swansea intentionally keeps the axe out of Jimmy's hands. He keeps the pod a secret, probably to give to Daisuke, but we can't say anything for sure. I joke that Swansea should have killed Jimmy from the start, but if we're being real that would have been an insane thing to do given what the characters know. But Swansea isn't the point of this post. Like. Idk I just think it's really bizarre that when people discuss Anya's assault, they still do it from the perspective of the men involved. It's weird and I don't like it. Like people have said before me: it's not enough to hate abusers, you have to love victims.

[bambi-kinos]

Thank you so much for replying to my ask! Sorry for the long reply back but I just love discussing these two.

Yes the rock and roll lifestyle and Paul’s infamous cheating before Linda has me very sceptical about him being 100% faithful to Linda too. That Jane Asher story is insane! The idea of Wings being a way to keep an eye on it is very interesting and not implausible at all. However in my opinion, Linda gives me the impression of someone with a strong sense of self, who would decide to walk instead of being disrespected in that way.

I also find it strange that decades and decades on, no one has said anything other than Paul being absolutely devoted to Linda. Not even anonymously, someone who doesn’t like Paul could seriously hurt his reputation spilling that information, not to mention the potential money, fame from it ect. This goes hand in hand with having a sexual relationship with John. I mean, surely they couldn’t have hidden it from everyone. Some people must of known, and not just an inner circle of loyal friends. Take tour managers or hotel staff for example.

So why do you think nothing has come out all these years later?

What comes to mind is the phone call Paul had with a biographer very soon after John’s death (I’m sorry I’ve forgotten his exact name) where he secretly recorded all he said and later published it. (Ouch!) Paul’s completely baffled at Yoko’s statement that no one had hurt John more than Paul had. (Said by John himself)

If they had a sexual, emotionally intense relationship, wouldn’t Paul have known that it was this John was referring too? He comes across as very smart, surely he could have put the dots together? His bewilderment seems completely sincere, not a pr trick. What’s your opinion?

I honestly go back and forth on this because I can see a relationship between those two being way more than just platonic. On and off hook ups in the 70s amongst the angst could also explain John’s sporadic comments about Paul throughout this decade. One day praising him, the other cursing him. Both parties not being brave enough (and a whole host of other factors) to not commit or acknowledge what was going on fully would have been very confusing to say the least.

But I still can’t get my head around the points I made earlier that counter this argument. Would love to hear your take on things!

EXTREMELY based ask anon, your mind is very sharp and I love it!

okayyyy there's a lot here so let's take it bit by bit

However in my opinion, Linda gives me the impression of someone with a strong sense of self, who would decide to walk instead of being disrespected in that way.

If we're anywhere close to the ballpark then Linda nearly called off the wedding when Paul told her about him and John. But then after that, she would chaperone Paul when he went to see John and hang out with him like when they went to LA. It's hard to say what Linda would or wouldn't stand for IMO because she saw the real Paul, all of him, and stuck that out for over twenty years.

I don't think that Linda would be okay with Paul cheating on her necessarily but I wouldn't write off her pretending not to see when he was sneaking out under her nose. It's not the same thing as having an open relationship but she and Paul had agreed to try for Mary sometime in 1968 before she knew about him and John and witnessed the messy break up. She doesn't strike me as the vindictive type so I wonder if knowing she was pregnant and wanting her kid to know who her father was played any role in her decision. And Linda purportedly didn't like the idea of getting married again according to a quote floating around here -- Paul had to convince her it was a good idea, not the other way around. There's reason to believe that Linda may have been happy just being a common law couple or whatever the UK's equivalent is and that Paul insisted on getting married.

I'm not saying definitively one way or another, Linda is much more opaque than Paul. But I'm hesitant to say that she wouldn't tolerate cheating or she wouldn't look the other way on it, because why else did she let Paul visit John so much otherwise? She knew what was going on.

Just something to think about I guess.

I also find it strange that decades and decades on, no one has said anything other than Paul being absolutely devoted to Linda. Not even anonymously, someone who doesn’t like Paul could seriously hurt his reputation spilling that information, not to mention the potential money, fame from it ect. This goes hand in hand with having a sexual relationship with John. I mean, surely they couldn’t have hidden it from everyone. Some people must of known, and not just an inner circle of loyal friends. Take tour managers or hotel staff for example.

So why do you think nothing has come out all these years later?

The biggest reason is that The Beatles worked very hard as a unit to cover up their infidelities. Paul was two paternity accusations lodged against him, one was the German girl and the other was Liverpool girl. Blood tests proved that both of these paternity claims were false (and Anita later admitted that she had a second boyfriend concurrent to Paul at the time, she just didn't think he was actually the dad until her son spilled the beans that Paul's paternity test proved false.) Despite these two paternity suits being lodged against Paul, he still paid the girls hush money through Brian. There's another story of a paternity claim being lodged against John that Brian paid to go away. The hookers they engaged with in the hotels were also paid for their time and to not launch any paternity suits against The Beatles. And so on.

The most encompassing answer is simply that Paul and the other Beatles paid off their babymamas AND that they have lots of legal representation on their side to make offers that can't be refused. I have long thought that the sudden muzzling of Heather Mills was the result of a super injunction, a feature of British law where a person with enough money and influence can forcibly shut someone up. A super injunction is, to put it mildly, a massive pain in the ass to obtain yet Paul is well positioned to have used one to make her shut her mouth and stop libeling him in the press. If Paul is ruthless enough to use something like that against his ex wife and mother to his child then he is absolutely willing to turn it on lays from the 1960s and 1970s. Most of the time I would bet he does not have to; we all have a price and for a sufficient amount of money, I wouldn't bother Paul with a paternity suit either.

Then there's just love and personal loyalty. The Beatles inspire incredible loyalty in their fans and their hook ups. Peggy Lipton went completely insane for Paul after meeting him only a handful of times including showing up at his hotel in a swimsuit hoping to be taken on Paul's Dirty Weekend with Linda. Now imagine that loyalty in a 19 year old girl who hooked up with Paul during 1966. Why would she say shit to anyone about having sex with Paul or getting pregnant by him? She would absolutely feel inspired to protect him. I think this would be just as true in 1976, the loyalty that the boys inspired in their fans is remarkable.

And think about it: if you had slept with one of the Beatles, would you out him to anyone? Or would you keep it a secret? Think carefully about it. By outing him, you are also outing yourself. Especially if Paul was married at the time. Do you want to admit you're complicit in Paul McCartney's adultery? That sounds like a very unpleasant prospect to me and besides, you want to keep a little piece of him to yourself.

Tour managers and hotel staff likely suspected something but it was truly a whirlwind for them too and I think a lot of them just second guess what they know. Homosexual activity was completely unthinkable and virtually unknown in the 60s and 70s. The only people who would truly know is the housekeeping staff. They would see the telltale signs of who slept where and what they were doing; those room manifests don't tell us shit because we can be sure that the boys swapped beds and rooms all the time depending on what they wanted. For John and Paul especially, I imagine there was a lot of wandering in the night and seeking each other out.

Take that story of Ringo disappearing during the 1964 tour to go on a joyride with a police man with Paul waking up and alerting Mal and Neil that he was gone. Why was Paul awake in the night? Why didn't he just go ask John and George where Ringo was first thing? Surely if your third band member goes missing your first instinct would be to ask the other two if they've seen him but instead Paul, for some reason, seems to have known immediately that Ringo was not with John and George in their hotel room and promptly tattled to the roadies. This is despite the room set up which was supposed to be Paul/Ringo and George/John. Hm!

Only housekeeping would know the truth of the situation and those men and women are dead or lost in the crowd. However even then we don't have reason to think they had proof: John and Paul being intimate would only leave behind the remains of...sex. And the truth is that The Beatles liked having sex with girls while they were in the same room together, including switching. What reason was there to think that it was just two guys boning instead of two guys and two girls?

What I'm driving at is that tour managers and hotel staff and housekeeping servicewomen had a lot of circumstantial evidence but unless they caught John and Paul in the act, then they had no reason to understand what they were seeing. Anyone who did catch them would have been paid off with the brown paper bag money Brian picked up from the bootleg merch vendors that sold fanmerch outside their concerts. And if that failed then yes legal action would have been launched through Capitol's legal arm because Capitol had plenty of superstars before The Beatles that had to be managed. They knew the drill, they weren't angels. Managing sex addicts and homosexual activity was business as usual for a suit even in 1964. They wouldn't want to scuttle that secret either because if Paul throws a fit and buys out his song catalogue then it's good night Felicia.

So in between those three things -- personal loyalty, bribes, and the threat of legal action especially since Paul has rich boy privileges -- no one is saying shit. Not any of the groupies, none of the women Paul was probably hanging out with while married, no one who ever caught him with John. It's just not worth it.

What comes to mind is the phone call Paul had with a biographer very soon after John’s death (I’m sorry I’ve forgotten his exact name) where he secretly recorded all he said and later published it. (Ouch!) Paul’s completely baffled at Yoko’s statement that no one had hurt John more than Paul had. (Said by John himself)

If they had a sexual, emotionally intense relationship, wouldn’t Paul have known that it was this John was referring too? He comes across as very smart, surely he could have put the dots together? His bewilderment seems completely sincere, not a pr trick. What’s your opinion?

Hunter Davies. The phone call with Hunter Davies is very interesting because he was someone Paul knew...but otoh he's still a reporter. Paul knows that. Hearing more about the Lennon McCartney feud soon after John's death was a hot story so could Paul reasonably assume that Hunter would write up the story.

I posit that Paul, in an act of true cynicism and spite towards Yoko, deliberately leaked some of his issues with John in order to spit in Yoko's eye. Especially with that pointed line about how he knows things about John that Yoko never knew...and that he won't publish them until after she is dead. You want to talk about ouch?!

I think that Paul is being genuine when he's confused about how he could have hurt John which makes me think @menlove is right and that India may have been a nothingburger or didn't feature Paul getting cold feet about John.

There are a couple of candidates for "John said no one hurt him like Paul did." We'll probably never know what they are but these are my personal options:

John asked for a relationship with Paul in India; Paul did something John interpreted as a rejection especially in light of Paul self destructing and John going on a multi-day bender when he got home.

Paul suddenly bringing Linda into the limo during the New York City trip to promote Apple. John seems genuinely baffled and confused about this with the "and next thing I know she's married to him" line. It was completely out of left field and John was caught by surprise.

Paul getting the drop on John with regards to announcing the Beatles break up. John expressed bitterness about this (because it was a ploy to force Paul to stay with him, Paul wasn't actually supposed to follow through with it) because it humiliated him publicly.

John was still hung up on the Family Way score and was destroyed by that and by Paul going "fuck it we'll do it live" and recording so much stuff solo for the White Album.

You may have spotted a problem with this already: there are multiple instances where Paul could have profoundly hurt John that would linger in John's memory. How can you possibly choose just one?

What if it was all of these and that eventually the hurt and abandonment mounted and John couldn't take it anymore?

Ultimately though I think Paul is/was confused and angry because the narrative was all about how Paul hurt John, and nothing about how John hurt Paul, another thing Paul brought up with Hunter during the interview. If John was pissy about Paul announcing the break up first, then why was no attention paid to John announcing "I want a divorce"? Why is it so important to sweep John being a dickhead under the rug? I think that's what had Paul so confused and pissed off, to the point that he couldn't really pinpoint one single thing that could have hurt John. 'Are you serious, I hurt him when he's the one who abandoned me multiple times through out our relationship and never apologized for any of it?' That would piss me off monumentally if I were Paul, I'd deny all knowledge of hurting John too since he refused to own up to hurting Paul in the first place.

I honestly go back and forth on this because I can see a relationship between those two being way more than just platonic. On and off hook ups in the 70s amongst the angst could also explain John’s sporadic comments about Paul throughout this decade. One day praising him, the other cursing him. Both parties not being brave enough (and a whole host of other factors) to not commit or acknowledge what was going on fully would have been very confusing to say the least.

That's pretty much it. Keeping in mind that Yoko kept John hooked on drugs to keep him from making up with Paul as well.

I think the confusion and frustration Paul expressed/expresses is a byproduct of the fog of war. He's too close to the subject matter, he can't figure it out because he can't see the big picture.

[staypuffy]

Okay, so I know prefacing something with "hear me out" virtually guarantees that not one motherfucker will, but, heart me out...

Jim was default Gabriel. He was Gabriel without all the corruption and pressure and complacency he had from being the Supreme Archangel of Heaven for so many years. When he takes away all his own memories, the things that led to this corrupt person we know from season 1, we're left with the basic blueprint of his personality and that's this: just a nice guy. He was helpful, apologetic, thoughtful, kind and even self-sacrificing to an extent (when he offered himself up to Shax's legion to save everyone.) We can assume then, that this is what Gabriel was like before The Fall.

We see some of Jim, or the old Gabriel, start to come back out during his interactions with Beelzebub, for example, miracling the jukebox because he remembers Beelzebub likes the song. Would the Gabriel who sentenced Aziraphale to burn and told him to "shut his stupid mouth and die already" think to do something like that?

No, because love brought him back to himself.

When he's around Beelzebub, the person he loves, we start to see more of Jim, Gabriel's softer side. Eventually, it is this love for Beelzebub which causes a complete reversion back to his old self. As you can see in Gabriel's final scene, he is very pointedly acting much more like the Jim character we became acquainted with over season 2 than the vindictive, wrathful bureaucratic Gabriel from season 1.

Now that Aziraphale has assumed Gabriel's old position, there is a chance the very same thing could happen to him. That the monotony, the responsibility, the corruption of running Heaven, of having everyone look to him for the answers, could do the very same thing to him that it did to Gabriel. Since Jim and Aziraphale's characters are actually quite close to one another (soft, somewhat childlike and innocent, geuinely kindhearted and good) there is a precedent.

(I think Crowley might suspect all this and it's part of the reason why he's so suspicious of and resentful of Heaven for calling Aziraphale back; because he's too loyal for his own good and can't accept that there's something fundamentally wrong with Heaven as an institution, but that's an entirely different post).

When Aziraphale goes back, Crowley knows this is what he's risking. That he's not only leaving Crowley behind, but that he's risking completely changing who he is because of what that position will do to him. It's why he tries so fucking hard to get him to stay. It's why he kisses him. He does everything he can think of to keep Aziraphale there, he puts everything he has on the line to show Aziraphale how he feels in the hopes that he’ll stay so Heaven won’t corrupt him.

But Aziraphale goes anyways.

IN WHICH CASE...

If Aziraphale does let the position change him, like it did Gabriel, the only way to bring him back from being a hard-bitten, cruel and ruthless husk of his former self would be with Crowley's help (vis a vis Beelzebub, a demon, doing it for Gabriel, an angel). And Crowley, no matter how damaged and heartbroken and traumatized, would do it.

It's hard to imagine Aziraphale becoming this way, but could you imagine Jim in a bedsheet toga with a feather duster sentencing someone to death? Me either.

Is it unlikely? Yes. Will it happen? Probably not. Do I like asking myself rhetorical questions to reinforce my point? Also, yes.

That has been my keynote speech, thank you for hearing me out.

[cloverskentwells]

outtake from Now If We're Talking Body... (summary: clove needs to study for her anatomy test, and Cato is an excellent live human model)

Pure instinct has Cato following wherever she leads, making an allowance for her insistent tug on his wrist without a single protest. Her small hand doesn't quite manage to match the full circumference of his arm, but her grip is firm, demanding, never lacking in strength. Even if it wasn't, he would still do as Clove asked within seconds, not needing to be told twice, even in the cases, like now, where she neglects to use her words.

Of course, this tendency to obey his best friend's whims predisposed him to jeering from his teammates, the boys on the football team teasing him for his fond indulgence - borne more out of loyalty and affection than fear - of a girl half his size. Their mockery and barbs mean little to him, hitting as ineffectively as bullets against body armor. Spending all his free time with a girl whose witty sarcasm was as sharp and cutthroat as blades gave him a thick skin. Sometimes, he even craved her dry, scathing humor, no matter how ruthlessly she attacked him with her words.

Cato only barely remembers to exercise some responsibility and caution, locking his car that he'd used to drop Clove off at her house before leaving it parked on the street when she'd ordered that he come inside with her. He does have the presence of mind to let his mother know where he is, not wanting her to worry, and managed to fire off a quick text before Clove lost her patience and began to drag him inside, untrimmed nails digging slightly into his oddly sensitive skin. Pain isn't the word he'd use for how it feels. His skin heats up slightly with this thought.

They stumble through the doorway, her weaving them around the living room furniture to the stairs which would lead them to a hallway with the second door on the right being Clove's room. Having been here thousands of times, he has little trouble navigating and breaks free of her vindictive grasp to make a beeline for her door, leaning against it as if he lived here too, gracing her with his signature smirk.

"What do you need me here for so badly, Clovey?" Yes, he is in fact teasing her, but the question also arises from genuine curiosity, especially when last minute plans are a rarity for Clove, who preferred to have her social schedule arranged in advance. Given how close they were - she is more precious than anything else to him, and he can only hope that the sentiment is returned - it would make sense if Cato is the exception. Still, Clove must need something in particular, because he doubts that she just has a sudden impulse for an impromptu hangout with him, much as that would delight him.

"My mom's at work until seven tonight," she tells him, and for a brief moment she almost seems strangely hesitant before quickly brushing past him to enter her room, gesturing for him to join her. He finds a seat on the edge of her bed, tentatively lowering himself to the sheets, maintaining a mindful distance from her.

Even with Clove's mom not even being home at the moment, he still has no desire to tempt fate, and he always liked Mrs Kentwell enough to respect her boundaries. As had been the rule since he and Clove turned 14 and 13, once it occurred to Clove's mother to put such a condition in place, the door remains wide open.

He tries not to let his mind wander to all the reasons why that door would need to stay open, and what exactly his friend's mom was concerned about, because that was a dangerous path leading to thoughts which he'd worked hard to repress for quite a while.

"Aww, you afraid of being in the house alone?" Light bullying serves as an excellent distraction. "Want me to protect you from the burglars?" She huffs irritatedly, displeased with his reference to a movie that had for some reason scared her so badly when they'd watched it together years ago. Ridiculous, really, given her unsettling adoration for gory slasher films (luckily for her, it is so endearingly creepy and very Clove-like that he can't help but find it charming). The ban on Home Alone was still in place, and Cato is expressly forbidden from even suggesting another viewing of the beloved holiday comedy during their winter break hangouts.

"No, idiot," she snaps at him. "I have an anatomy test on Wednesday that I need to study for. Figured having a human model would help me out. We're on the muscles unit, and I need to be able to talk about muscle locations and functions." Her voice wavers slightly with these next words, eyes staring at the ground with some newfound fascination for her carpet. "So I would palpate the muscles on your body where I think they are, and then I tell you what they do."

Cato remembers looking over her shoulder as she learned the terminology for her class, the words all blending together into a vague blur of textbook pages and clinical images. Palpate... right, meaning touch. He would help his best friend study for her exam by allowing her to touch him and identify the different muscles underneath his skin. He nods agreeably, eager to be of assistance, giving no thought to why his mouth is inexplicably dry and breathing seems like a more laborious task.

"Yeah, sure, happy to help." Cato swallows thickly past the burdensome lump in his throat. Any mild discomfort he feels - odd enough on its own, since her touch never really bothered him, or maybe discomfort simply is not the right word here - is swiftly replaced by an incandescent joy when her eyes light up with his words, emerald green blazing with pleased gratitude.

A happy Clove is always a lovely sight to him. He'd rather lose every football game he ever plays again than admit this, of course, but he knows the truth of these words deep in his bones.

She approaches him with smooth, even strides, her movements always so confident and self assured. Cato glances down contemplatively at her hand which is now perched on his shoulder, squeezing the solid bulk underneath the cloth of his T-shirt. "It's a good thing you have plenty of muscle to work with," Clove comments wryly, her voice deep and raspy, a sound that always fell on his ears like the acoustic equivalent of honey.

Damnit, he needs to stay on task. She stands above him looking down while he cranes his neck. Smugness is plain on her face, so obvious that it almost pisses him off. Annoyed and not comprehending the fluttering that occurs behind his stomach, Cato decides to knock her down a peg with his shameless flirting that he reserved only for her. (Many people flirted with their best friends, it was a normal ritual in the dynamic, especially one like theirs that thrived on a push and pull.)

"Wouldn't it be more useful to you if I took my shirt off? Then you could really see the muscles in action, feel them contract." Satisfaction feeds his healthy ego when she narrows her eyes at him, the pinkness newly visible in her cheeks the only outward sign of her embarrassment. Although she is ordinarily not so squeamish - the girl literally takes a class to learn about the human body, not avoiding visceral imagery and even welcoming it, irrevocably attracted to the good, bad, and ugly - Clove always seemed to react in such a way when even the slightest allusion to the removal of clothing is made.

"Right," she retorts mildly with raised eyebrows, voice now almost imperceptibly higher in pitch, "so my mom can come home and find an undressed boy in her daughter's room. She'd fucking kill you."

"Nah, she wouldn't. Your mom likes me!" He boasts what they both know is a true fact with a wide, playful grin. "I have a special way of charming Kentwell women into caring about me. It's one of my talents," Cato reminds her with a lick of his lips, reaching out and holding her chin in his unrelenting grip so she can't face away from him.

Clove's blood rushes to her cheeks, and she talks with a shuddering, uneven breath, clearly impacted by his words. "Yeah, maybe... but my mom won't like if she finds you shirtless in her daughter's room, and she understandably won't believe me when I tell her we were studying." She frowns at him, shaking her head in exasperation, and her tone becomes harsher, more clipped when she continues, "Besides, your only special talent, as you call it, is pissing me the hell off and getting on my nerves."

The comeback he is about to release from his irreverent tongue is blocked with the weight of her palm on his mouth. Cato doesn't even have the presence of mind to be shocked, briefly distracted by the warmth of her palm against his lips and her grim, determined expression.

"Enough. We're here to study," she reminds him, ever the disciplinarian. Her scolding has an effect that he would give anything not to think about right now, and he would do far more to keep her from seeing it.

Without bothering to wait for his response, she begins their study session, her hand now against his forehead as if checking for a fever. "Starting with the basics. The epicranius has two parts connected by an aponeurosis of connective tissue across your scalp. The frontal belly here raises your eyebrows and gives you forehead wrinkles." Her hands then cradle the back of his head, just above his neck. His hair is cropped a bit too short to be grabbed, yet he can still feel her fingers and how they absentmindedly pull a little at the blondness covering him. "Occipitalis. Pulls your scalp posteriously."

So far, so good. He beams encouragingly at her, resisting an overpowering urge to hold her arms so that they would rest on his shoulders for just a bit more, prolong the experience of her fingers on his hair. If Cato didn't know better, he could almost swear that her nails lightly scraped at this area as if with the intention of massaging. He is certain he must have imagined the way she bites her lower lip.

Clove's hands find the front of his face again, the movements fluid and quick. She rattles off a list of muscles and their functions - damn, he didn't know face movements were so complex - even as the flood of information goes in one ear and out the other. Small fingers glide down his cheeks and leave a trail of provoked nerve endings that force the feel of her touch to linger even long after her hand has moved on to a different area, leaving a tingling behind with it.

Naturally, he is clocked out the entire time, distracted by how her eyes trail across the planes of his face, sizing him up the way a carnivore does when it catches sight of fresh meat - only fitting, because, well, muscles. The awareness of her touch, provoking a reaction out of him that seemed to be unique only to physical contact with her, is almost painful. There's the additional fact that she's positioned in the gap between his knees, and her hips were right there, easy to grab and pull closer to him...

He jerks violently when her thumb lands on the rim of his mouth, snapping back to attention. "Orbicularis oris. It's what you use to open your mouth, to... kiss," Clove finishes hesitantly with a rare timidity that contradicted her withdrawn, detached nature. Seizing his opportunity, Cato grins at her cheekily. "That your favorite muscle, Clovey?" he taunts, rewarded with the sight of her face becoming a deep shade of red.

"Shut up," Clove growls at him, the sound guttural and deep and sending a deep, powerful vibration through his body. "You're a mannequin. Supposed to be quiet. I need you to not talk."

Laughing in disbelief, he feigns offense. "Wow, I never expected to be objectified by you, of all people. Is that all I am, Clove?" Joking around with her, especially at her expense, has always been one of his favorite hobbies, and never has the sight of her exasperated frown been more sweet.

Clove bulldozes on, evidently determined to ignore him, trailing down his face and rattling off names and functions. "Zygomaticus minor, medial to zygo major. Smiling." He grins arrogantly at her as if in demonstration, baring his teeth and relishing in her scowl.

Her hands migrate over his facial features, touch light and delicate and careful in a way he never expects with her.

"Levator labii superiorius. Elevate upper lip." She's on his chin now, primarily using her thumb and finger to keep it locked. "Mentalis right in the center of the chin for a pout. Depressor labii inferioris, depress the lower lip. Depressor anguli oris, the grimace muscle. Risorius," her thumb is currently at the edge of his mouth, settling on the corner just shy of his lip, and the association of her fingers connecting and perhaps, in his wildest dreams, entering his mouth, sets an almost agonizing wave of heat alight deep in his belly. "Pulls corner of mouth straight laterally. Then, deep to the risorius is the buccinator, which holds food between the cheeks, is well developed in nursing infants, and compresses for whistling and sucking."

Did she... did she say something about sucking? He had barely been paying attention, and fully blames this on his consuming, strenuous efforts of fighting off the vague heat of desire bubbling in his chest. Best not to dwell too much on that, he decides.

"You're doing so great," he murmurs awkwardly, the statement coming from nowhere. Clove bites back a small, pleased smile, the tilt of her lips still visible anyways. His hand raises almost of its own volition, without needing conscious command from him, to the corner of her lip, thumb stroking pink skin. "I always thought you had a pretty smile," he admits softly, even if he has no reason to and can't for the life of him discern why he'd share this with her now, why the admission spills forth from him like a waterfall of truth. "You look nice when you contract your zygomaticus."

Pride swells through him. He used an anatomy phrase in a compliment! Correctly! Or at least he would hope so. Since she isn't correcting him, he must have, and Cato counts this as a victory.

"Yeah, yeah," Clove waves him off dryly, but her breaths come out more shallowly now, and he catches the way she gulps, eyes slightly widened. "Anyways," she continues on pointedly, her fingers returning to their journey, exploring him.

Cato can't be blamed if he tunes her out for the rest of the hour, or if he almost crashes into a parked car on the way home, thinking about how she looked hovering above him with her hands on his face... neck... chest... lower and lower, approaching a place where only in his wildest dreams would she be there...

[shiny-jr]

Hi! I just want to say that I've read all of your takes on how the overblot crew don't get held accountable for what they've done and I am so happy to find another person that agrees with me.

Listen, I understand that we're dealing with incredibly traumatised teenagers who were pushed into it and overblotting was what ultimately lead them towards their healing but put aside the damage that they did during their overblot and think about how awfully they treated yuu beforehand.

Azul: took away their home and the only comfort family they had in twst (the ghosts), and sent the tweels to attack and harrass them during their attempts to get back their home and free their friends from servitude

Jamil: Kidnapped them, locked them up in a room against their will, again took away their home, isolated them from their friends/adeuce and prevented them from contacting anyone, hypnotised them and manipulated them, forced them to participate in long marches in the desert and literally turned a blind eye during their clear suffering

Vil: (he is literally my least favourite character - and yes, I do understand that he has just as much trauma and issues as the others due to his past and the pressure he puts on himself to be perfect - but I just don't like him) he was downright cruel and needlessly awful to not only Yuu but everyone else. He not only was horrid to poor Epel but he was dismissive and uncaring to the point of upsetting Deuce and making him run off so that no one would see him in that state. And that was before he tried to murder an innocent teenager in cold blood pre-overblot.

Yuu has gone through so much because of them and not once do they ever actually acknowledge the damage they've done to them. No one ever thinks: hey, maybe we should check up on that traumatised child that we've most definitely emotionally scarred and try to make amends instead of brushing their feelings under the rug.

You know why I love Ace so much? He actually calls people out for what they've done. He rightfully admonishes Trey for being a bystander during Riddle's reign of terror whilst Heartslabyul was suffering, he rightfully tells Riddle that crying won't erase the way he treated them before he overblotted (I was shocked that he had the guts to say that but I agreed with him - I stan a real one), he punches Riddle when he maliciously insults Yuu for no reason (that was the moment I fell for him. Yes I have a 5% hunch he did that also because he just wanted to punch him but the fact that it was Yuu's feelings getting hurt that made him actually lose it after everything else Riddle did to him is just everything to me), and he rightfully gets mad at Malleus when his prank made him think that his friends were dead.

I actually have a Yuu/OC that's so traumatised by the overblots that the only people they fully trust are Adeuce and Grim. They don't know if anyone that's nice to them are actually manipulative or will just use them in the future so they've developed serious trust issues and have PTSD from the actions of the overblots that they don't even look at them or greet them in the hallways. This is a Yuu that will forgive and never forget. It sounds petty and vindictive but I want them to suffer in their guilt whilst Yuu gets the support and help from Adeuce that they need.

Okay, I held off on responding to this because goddamn is it a long ask. Hold on, I gotta put this under the cut because it's too much, and my responding just makes it longer. Also, you read all the takes? That's impressive, considering I don't remember half of what I said. Spoilers for all overblots, including from the diasomnia chapter.

I'm just gonna summarize this in one simple statement. I know people aren't gonna agree, but here it is. The overblotted students deserved more punishments. As you said, yes, they're traumatized, but they were still conscious of their decisions before they overblotted. And they all did some questionable stuff before overblotting.

You literally said everything I was going to say. None of them are innocent. Even if they didn't overblot, their actions before the disaster were bad.

Idk, I feel like Yuu should be a little more acknowledged sometimes. I mean, yeah, ultimately, the characters do get close to Yuu and help them out. (1) Riddle helping Yuu investigate against Leona, (2) Leona helping Yuu get rid of Azul's contracts to free everyone, (3) Azul stepping in to help Yuu while they were stuck with Jamil, (4) Jamil getting them out of that dangerous overblot situation with Vil, (5) Vil helping fight against Idia and giving Yuu and co. a kiss, etc. But half of these felt like they had ulterior motives when they did this, and yeah, they treat Yuu differently, but we don't see that too much.

Ace is like one of the only real ones. The realest. Yeah, he was a massive jerk in the beginning, but that character development? In the beginning of the prologe, he was just being rude for no reason. But then, by the end of the prologe, he's actually begrudgingly friends with Yuu, and then towards the end of chapter one, as you said, he defends Yuu after Riddle made that unnecessary comment. Find yourself a bro like Ace (also because, as mentioned in other posts, he did not stand for Malleus' and Lilia's bs prank).

Honestly, Yuu should be super messed up mentally and emotionally by now. Probably even physically. Because of all the stuff they've gone through.

[ernmark]

could you maybe please write a malevolent story about john taking care of arthur - maybe when he's confused for some reason? concussed?

Thank you so much for the prompt. It's genuinely a tremendous help to me to take my mind off what's happening right now and focus on these characters instead.

If anyone else wants a ficlet, please feel free to send me a prompt.

Fandom: Malevolent

Characters: John and Arthur

Rating: PG, maybe T for language

John has known it for months now, but apparently he needed the reminder right fucking now: snarling at Arthur to just fucking listen to him is a fast track to make him dig his heels in. Even more so, apparently, when he's... like this.

"No," he declares again, his voice slurring on that one syllable. "This is my body and I say where it goes, you parrah..." His mouth gets caught on that favorite cruelty. John would like very much to throttle him right now, but he's done that before, and he knows that it won't get him anywhere.

He swallows down his fury (fuck, how is Arthur so good at getting under his skin like that?) and changes tack.

"You're right," he says, his voice going smooth despite how much it galls him to say it. "I'm sorry. Of course, you decide where we go."

Arthur humphs at him, and John clenches his fist to keep from grabbing his collar. Still, it's not more shouting, which is a step in the right direction.

"It's just..." Fuck, he hates this, even as a lie. "I'm... dizzy."

That makes Arthur stop short. "Dizzy? You?"

"Yes." It's not entirely untrue, with the way Arthur keeps swaying like that. "Ever since we passed that garden, my vision has been swimming."

"Are you-- okay?" All the bite has left his voice. Concern gives it a degree of steadiness.

"I... don't know."

"Would it help to cover our eyes?"

"But then how will I watch where we're going?"

"I can manage on my own for a while."

No you fucking can't.

But he can't say that, not when Arthur prizes his independence so highly-- all the more when he's feeling weak.

"But what if something comes out at us? What if there's a ditch or something?" Because if there's one thing Arthur Lester is good at, it's finding a hole to fall into. "Could we just... sit for a moment? Until my vision clears a little."

"Right. Yes, of course." He wobbles so sharply that he nearly falls over, but he manages to get to the ground without injury, and he heaves a long sigh. "How is that? Any better?"

John could crow with triumph if he thought that wouldn't give him away. "A little, yes." He counts silently to fifteen in his head, so as not to sound eager. "What about you? Did the garden affect you at all?"

"I don't think so," Arthur says quickly enough to make the lie obvious. But slowly he admits, "maybe a little trouble balancing?"

John makes sure his answering hum is sympathetic and not vindictive. "Maybe some rest will help. Just for a few minutes. I can keep watch."

"That... that does sound nice," Arthur says, and now that his guard is down, the slurred speech makes him nearly unintelligible. "Will you be okay?"

"Much better if I don't have to focus on walking." It's getting easier to tell the lie-- getting Arthur to take care of himself is more than worth a little sting to his pride. He reaches for the bag with their left hand, and takes the opportunity to pet soothingly at Arthur's hip. "Do you want something to drink?"

"I... yes." And he accepts the flask of water into his right hand while John unscrews the top with their left. If he notices John helping him guide the flask to his lips, he doesn't complain.

[seriousbrat]

imo it's not so hard to accept that SWM takes place after the prank. I mean it is canon so too bad but it makes complete sense to me. there's no evidence the prank was some big life-altering character development moment for any of the characters involved and that they all learnt their various lessons. in fact we see that they don't. in SWM the marauders are clearly still tormenting Sev. In Sev's conversation with Lily post-prank he's still just as obsessed with the marauders and exposing their secrets as ever, if not more. he doesn't consider what lily's saying at all because he's too focused on his hatred towards them.

my hc is that sirius (rather masterfully) used reverse psychology on sev to get him to go down the willow. Sev isn't stupid, he wouldn't have let himself willingly be led into a trap by his worst enemies. I think Sirius probably "let it slip" and then "backtracked" and acted like Snape wouldn't be brave enough to go down there anyway and that he should just forget it. I doubt Sirius directly told him to go down the willow, I think cleverly he told him not to, knowing that Sev would do so anyway (not that this makes a difference ethically bc his intent is still clear, but anyway. this isn't about who is morally better because idgaf honestly lol, I'm just trying to work through their mindsets)

the marauders received no real consequences for the prank, so why would they learn their lesson? Objectively you can't really punish someone for telling someone not to do something if they do it anyway. Not particularly fair, but still. Which brings me to Sev's responsibility in the matter (which yes, does exist imo) we're shown that he was obsessed with finding out what the marauders were up to and particularly obsessed with Remus's secret. Yes, this is understandable given how they treated him, but absolutely not healthy and he still chose to go down there, whether out of pride, greed, curiousity, vindictiveness. He obv was manipulated but there's a reason he was so easily manipulated. As I said previously, his obsession with revenge is what causes him to be blind to lily's feelings.

James rescuing him wasn't some moment of epiphany about how bullying is bad actually. It was just a fundamental part of James's character already. He would never have let him die regardless of how he felt about him.

All of this makes SWM the PEAK moment of hatred between Sev and the Marauders, which explains a lot of their responses. Sirius and James hate Sev more than ever for trying to expose Remus. Sev, justifiably, hates them more than ever for trying to kill him (and he ropes James into this, which is incorrect but understandable in his position)

James "deflating his head" probably wasn't just based on one event in particular. He just grew up and learned what was more important- being a good person, fighting against voldemort. But Sev also had growing up to do of his own during this time. As I talked about in in this post yesterday I think post-swm Sev was beginning to realise that his lack of control over his emotional responses (calling lily a mudblood out of humiliation, for example) was dangerous both to lily and to himself.

Yeah they still hated each other and attacked each other in seventh year. There's too much bad blood there to do anything else. I've talked about the dynamic between Sev and James here and how that might have developed as they grew older. I honestly find it extremely interesting, I could go on about these two for hours rip. My point is that the development of these characters into adults wasn't instant or linear, it was messy and rough. people don't usually change overnight, it happens slowly over time because they have to.

[yohohonabottle]

A "what-if" idea similar to the one where Pirin frights Cel and Ael... Except this time Rila's thrown her hat in the ring. And added Magister Zelda for fun.

The reason can vary and what led up to this point, go wild, but what if Rila gets into a scuffle with Celestino and Aelius (both at once) --And Zelda? Could be a 3v1 fight or 2v1 then 1v1.

Round 1! 1v1 matchup - Rila v.s Magister Zelda | Ready? Fight!

...Well, Zelda would tank that anarchy gremlin's attacks really well and send her flying a good amount of times. I can see this being a hard tie match, like immovable mountain meets a lightning. Both would get equally ghastly damaged in this throw-down. Maybe it can seem like Rila's taking the lead at some points, only to get hard countered and pummeled back by Magister Zelda. (We're ignoring these two's Suns..for obvious reasons as it's just taking it straight-up to the Directors. Directors = Character creators. And the Suns of these two are literally their respective Directors.)

Now throw in Zelda's ex-Seraphim angel another realm - Celestial (Heaven) nature and abilities, and you got extra power. Extra seriously potent strikes that can and do make this gremlin see stars. But Rila would bounce right back somehow, dodge the next last second, retaliate just as aggressively, inflict all the ''debuffs'' on her..which will get tanked like it's barely a dent at all. Inflicting her own debuffs on the lil menace in turn.

How would it end? Draw/Tie. Either one or both parties disengage. Otherwise they'd be stuck in this impasse for not even gods know how long. And I suspect both Rila and Zelda can/will body Celestino and Aelius. Maybe Rila has a decent chance to actually win if she pulls a Berial ultimate move and dodge all of magister Zelda's attacks, and lands a critical surprise hit. I could be wrong.

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

Round 2! 2v1 matchup - Rila v.s Celestino & Aelius tag-team | Ready? Fight!

..And then there's Rila going toe to toe against both Cel and Ael for...honestly? Most likely no reason, just the hell of it, because she can and felt like being a lil shit. Plus woke up and chose war/violence, just because. (We all know this anarchy goblin doesn't know or care about reason or justification. If she feels like doing- or not doing- something/wants - doesn't want that thing-- then that's how she'll act. And that's that.)

So! The scuffle happens, she instigated it and drew the two of them out onto the metaphorical ring to rumble and tussle.

Aelius is not be taken lightly nor is Celestino. ...Except one small problem. Ael's incubus powers are effectively rendered as meaningless against this fiend as she on her own, without her status as Pirin and Finch's Esperia's Sun, is wicked. Her skills of Creation/Destruction still are valid as they're her own abilities.

Refer to my Paragon lore post where I delve into Rila's kit.

So the incubus's next best bet is back to his old Hypogean fire magic--which Hurts, considerably. But not enough to be a killing blow. (Kind of parallels how Pirin's attacks mean nothing huh..fun.) And he just gets messed up real bad by this thing. (Berial himself is terrified of her..) And Celestino once again comes in to dish his own retribution which does ridiculous, brutal damage yes-- But the vindictive bitch just comes back swinging in retaliation blow for blow. Plus got serious bloodlust streak going on, loving the intensity and seeing this show-down as a very fun game.

Both parties get severely damaged, it's a ghastly sight very horrifying. But this eldritch lil nuisance takes all the hits from the duo like it's next to nothing. Legit comes/lunges from the flames like effing Terminator, half-melted like wax candle and disfigured but still keeps throwing strikes all over the place. And, because she mimics Berial, you bet she'll be bouncing over the place rapidly. Not stand still for long if at all, which would make landing a really good blow consistently bit difficult. Not impossible! Just difficult.

How would this round end? Rila wins. In the end I think Rila would win against them. Again, I could be wrong!

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

Round 3! 3v1 matchup - Rila v.s Magister Zeld, Cel & Ael tag-team | Ready? Fight!

For round 3 of this hypothetical Mortal kombat scenario, it's a 3v1. Celestino and Aelius + Zelda against Rila. This would be quite the scuffle and the chaotic midget will actually struggle considerably, barraged with attacks on all sides. She simply won't be able to retaliate at all, due to being caught in this crossfire.

As a result, Rila will take insane amounts of damage-- What of Cel's 'kit' fails, Aelius compensates and vise versa. What the duo's 'kits' lack or fail, Magister Zelda compensates with her own. And Rila won't be able to dodge so well either-- Where she dodges Zelda's strike, she runs right into either or both Celestino and Aelius, and vise versa.

Overwhelmed, Rila would most likely either choose to flee -- Or level out the fight by going for the '''''weakest'''' link, bring the number of foes down. (If going in blind into this fight and hasn't fought with Zelda prior to this round, then she'll charge at random and possibly go for her first. Which will give the other two opponents ample of time + openings to pelt her with attacks. Otherwise Rila would go for the duo to bring them down, knowing of Magister Zelda's abilities due to the prior fight with her.)

How would this round end? Rila looses. Most likely Rila would loose unless playing it smart/not going in blind--- in which case it would get dragged out but ultimately devolve from a 3v1 to a 1v1 like in round 1. However, for the sake of this round, I'll assume it Rila going in blind/has no experience fighting against the Ex-Seraphim prior to this round.

------------------------------------------------- Hope you enjoyed this silly idea, lemmie know if I got something(s) wrong and if I should correct! Plus your thoughts are welcomed gladly!

[ineffable-human]

Season 2 Hot Take - We're Being Manipulated

Yes I know this is going to sound like a conspiracy theory, but is it really a conspiracy if its true? So, as someone who spent the last four years obsessing almost entirely about Gabriel's character and arc (do not get me started on him in S2) and not much else, I feel like I have a different approach to Aziraphale and his actions. I mean, I'm sorry but I just don't buy the fact that Aziraphale is so deeply traumatized that he would return to heaven just like that. I just don't.

Like, c'mon, season 1 Aziraphale, the utter bastard who straight up lied to God's (metaphorical) face, who got gut punched by some 'bad angels', who was sentenced to death, who tried to talk to God for help and got the run around, merged with season 2 Azirpahale who saw that heaven would just let kids die and not understand why it's bad (also please don't get me started on his 'you really were truly awuful' line, I cannot), who learned the that line between right and wrong is blured and that sometimes graverobbing can be good, who found out he could do magic the real, human way, would not just be like fuck yeah heaven is the good guys let's gooooo. I just don't buy it. And I want to trust that the writing in season 2 was purposeful and for a reason, because I want to trust that Neil Gaiman knows what he's doing (weird plot-device of the miracle block aside of course because idk how that could possibly be explained properly). And one of my friends pointed out to me that season 2 was/felt very influenced by the fandom. So what makes the most sense? That Neil Gaiman would just write some really weird and off-character stuff to match what the people want? Or that he would use the fandom's expectations to influence how they react to a situation and event in order to hide what's actually going on? I mean, look at all the information we're missing.

We don't know what Aziraphale's relationship was like with heaven between seasons (and I'm thinking he had to have some kind of relationship for the Bookshop to still be considered an protected embassy. Because let's face it, vindictive lil heaven isn't gonna keep a triator safe for no good reason).

We don't know the full conversation between Aziraphale and the Metatron (and the fact that Aziraphale's response after the whole Crowley as an angel thing is blocked off is the most interesting tidbit of all. We never actually find out what Aziraphale said, and we know he hadn't given Metatron a real answer before he went to talk to Crowley {yet the Metatron walks in after as if Aziraphale already said yes})

We don't know how and why it was so easy for Gabriel to sneak off after the trial. (Like, I know all the other angels are clueless, but the Metatron has clearly shown himself to have a strategic mind and, let's be honest, he would have seen something like that coming).

There's so much we don't know about, that's being hidden and held back, and we don't question it too much because it's easier to just fill in the blanks with our four years of headcanons and ideas.

And all the posts that Neil Gaiman interact with just further these ideas! I mean, let's face it, he's not gonna like this one because it's too close to the TRUTH (and also because he's busy and there's like a million posts a day but MAINLY BECAUSE OF THE TRUTH)

Aziraphale is a smart character, who knows that heaven is toxic. He's strong and stubborn, and I truely don't believe he's going to just slide right back into that abusive relationship without a Plan. Aziraphale doesn't want to go back to heaven because he knows they aren't really the good guys, but that's the argument he uses because that's the only one he knows how to use. It's his default setting. (and the Metatron is most definitely probably listening in on them so Aziraphale clearly can't say what he actually wants to say, which only contributes to their horrible communication skills).

Aziraphale doesn't need to learn that heaven is in bad shape. He already knows that. But what he didn't know was that he could fix it. He's spent 6,000 years seeing all the cracks in the foundation and not having the power to do anything about it. That's his whole arch in season 1; taking control and doing what he can to fix the wrongs he sees.

But even now the idea that he actually has the power or influence to make the changes he knows are needed is a foreign concept. And the Metatron offering him the job is kind of like Crowley offering him the food. Azirpahale didn't know he could want to actually change things. That he could be the one to put in a suggestion box. He's not going back to learn the hard truth, he's going back to change the hard truth before others have to suffer a similar fate.

Our ideas and expectations were shattered, but that's only because we were coming at it with those expectations. We let them cloud the real story and distract us from the TRUTH.

This whole entire season was a magic act of the highest form using fan-service and shotty writing (dear god please let it be on purpose) as smoke and mirrors. and we're falling for it.

(And while we're on the topic, may I just slip in as an added bonus, Crowley has only himself to blame for Aziraphale thinking him becoming an angel would be a good thing, because how can he expect to go around calling Aziraphale angel all the time and looking at him the way he does and NOT expect Aziraphale to just assume that Crowley thinks being an angel is the best thing since sliced bread????)

[kaixserzz]

Hope you've had a great day so far 💓 ( ˃ ⩌˂)∡ because I am NOT!! I'm feeling quite saddened 😓 anyways,, eat THIS‼️

Dottore adores you in ways that cannot be told, all for reasons he himself won't even bother to explain, but you understand him wholly even if he is hard to understand at times. Dottore does care for you in other ways and you notice it, even if he won't verbally state that he cares about you he does express his emotions and words to you in acts of service or quality time. His place as a fatui Harbinger takes up days worth of his time but even he has an issue detaching from his work, for you though? He'd make time. Even if Dottore has loads of responsibilities that the fatui entrust to him as a Harbinger, it's only his own experiments that would him away from you. As he derives his knowledge and satisfaction from his personal work, he can enjoy your presence and antics in the same area. So Dottore had never really without you and you're never without him, not even the fatui can come between you two. As said before, he's never explicitly stated that he caters to your needs because he cares, but you can sense it. That's just how Dottore is, are you contempt with this? Yes. You understand how hard he works, you know how dedicated he is to his work. You've known since you both had attended and shared a dorm together in the Akademiya, this was the way he showed you his affection. You're both contempt with how your relationship is.

As his assistant, though, you still take on many heavy duties aswell. Even you're not safe from the hard labour of the fatui. This leads to some unwanted separation between you and Dottore. You'll be in a whole other continent for a mission and poor Dottore would be left in the lab all alone with his segments! He misses you dearly and it's very apparent. He becomes more antsy and more argumentative, all as he spares no one of his wrath. So with his increase in vindictiveness? Yikes. Even his segments start acting up more just like their creator.

You have no clue of this. You're never informed of this behaviourism. You've never seen Dottore act in such a way because of your absence. Truth be told, though Dottore has a huge temperament and can easily snap at anyone for the most minor of issues, he actually makes an effort to tone those traits of his down, for you. Do you know about this? Maybe. Fellow subordinates have told you of his change of attitude with you nearby, favoritism is what they claimed, in which hearing that made you feel even more assured of Dottore's love for you, but you weren't sure of how he acted when you weren't there, so you had guessed that he is probably just the same as always, just being himself.

Oh, how wrong you are to assume that Dottore would be acting normal without you. You're his person! You are the only one he's ever given a second glance to when back in the Akademiya. You're the reason why everything hasn't gone to hell yet in his lab! Why? Because you are literally the only person who can calm him when he does get pissed off or stressed out.

So when you're back and everything looks the same, you are never more than oblivious to his indifference towards your departures, he actually doesn't do this often as he keeps you cooped you in his lab as much as possible.

.　₊ ✦ .　 + .✦ ₊ ㅤ.✦

Sorry for any typos or mistakes, I am writing this all on phone (- ‸ - " )

I just love the idea of Dottore missing us while we're gone, he just seems like the type to be so cold and demeaning but also the most attentive and yearning for us 😞❤

Does this count as a request? Because I'd love to see you write this in your own style Kai!! I wrote this with male reader in mind ૮꒰ ៸៸៸៸ ก꒱১

- 🐠

AAAA 🐠 ANON THIS IS LITERALLY HOW I WRITE DOTTORE

in my head, dottore is so obsessed with you and he doesn't even realize this :( he's super in love and clingy in his own way that when you leave for a while, he doesn't know why he's so pissy AHAHAHA he thinks its because someone is annoying him so some poor fatui soldiers meets the end of his wrath for absolutely no reason ..

but i swear dottore is SOOO different when he's with you!! it just, kinda stuck since you've known each other so long, its just comes off so natural that you both dont even notice it!! dottore coos at you while he caresses your cheek? not weird at all, but for others it is! you lightly punch him in the arm? just something you usually did especially back at the akademiya. i think it'd be funny if you're like "my baby ain't that bad" because you have no idea how he acts when you're away 🥺🥺

when you're away, he'd always go to your shared chambers and just look at the pictures you've framed of the two of you together... or he'd be too distracted to continue on with his projects just thinking about you... he could be doing something, then something pops up and makes him think about you and he's distracted for the whole day :3 he says he's not into the sappy nostalgic bullshit because it's a waste of time but between you and him? he reminisces more of the past than you actually do. he just remembers them so clearly!! like it just happened yesterday!! each touch and affections etched so deeply into his mind it's impossible to forget !! he's romantic in his own ways i guess..

and when you come back?? he'd always complain if you don't come greet him first!! he's soo jealous when you greet the segments before him.. but he's suupperr touchy and refuses to let you leave his side for the rest of the week :3 you're not gonna receive any order from the fatui for a while and you're staying with him and him only!! to make up for the time you were goen yk??? but he's 10000% deny he misses you. well, depends on his mood!1

ik you said rq nonnie but YOU KINDA LAID IT ALL OUT FOR ME!! so i just added my thoughts ^^ srry :( BUT I WILL WRITE A DOTTIE FIC FOR YOU <3

[howtowhumpyourhiccup]

As for Hiccup's downward spiral in the post-Httyd 2 comic trilogy, really makes me think back to Stoick instilling the message in Hiccup to not seek vengeance in RttE's "The Longest Day."

"I won't lie to you, son. A good measure of vengeance can go down a treat-- But that feeling is short-lived and the violence only gets worse-"

This is what Stoick tells Hiccup in that episode and these words come from a man who has led himself be taken by vengeance. To the point even that he was almost named Chief Stoick the Vindictive.

And then a little later in that same season, in the episode "Shell Shocked: Part 1," when Stoick is face to face with Viggo for the very first time, his first instinct is to strangle him.

"You come after my son. You come after my home. Now you get to deal with me!"- Stoick

"Dad, wait! Revenge is not a plan. Remember." - Hiccup

"That was for you. For me, it goes down a treat." - Stoick

That is the interaction between father and son as Stoick is seconds away from dishing some of that famous cold dish on Viggo after bringing both his son and his people harm. It's very obvious that these lessons Stoick has been instilling into his son don't seem to count for him.

And probably for a good reason, too. Stoick makes a comment that Hiccup "is just like his mother" when it comes to stubbornness, but I would make the unsurprising argument that Hiccup takes just as much after his father as he does his mother.

That sense of duty to his village as he grows older? His father. His patience and ability to hold back? His father. His pride? His father. Even Gobber says during the battle with the Red Death; "Every bit the boar-headed stubborn Viking you ever were." So while Stoick likens Hiccup to his mother, Gobber likens Hiccup to his father.

So what about that vindictive streak in Stoick that has popped up in Hiccup from time to time in the franchise?

Tl,dr: Hiccup has a history of getting back at people in some way or other and does it more often when he's under stress. Stoick knows about this side to his son. This side of him gets cranked up to 11 after his father's death.

The long story is under the "keep reading."

RoB

The very first example that comes to mind is; "In Dragons We Trust."

In this episode Hiccup and the Riders have this exchange:

The episode then cuts to the next scene and, lo and behold, Astrid is wearing a sash that says "Dragon United Monitoring Brigade," a.k.a "D.U.M.B." A name a Berkian woman points out, to which Astrid says "Yes, that is correct. Not my idea." and this is then followed up by Astrid giving the woman to instruction to yell "DUMB" at the top of the lungs in case of dragon problems.

"Permission to shoot first and ask questions later!" - Ruffnut

"Permission to skip the questions!" - Tuffnut

"We're just patrolling! Nobody is shooting anyone." - Hiccup

"Okay, I have a question; what's fun about that?" - Tuffnut

"It's not supposed to be fun it's a Hiccup idea." - Astrid

"Exactly- What?!" - Hiccup

So after calling all of Hiccup's plans boring, he got back at her by having her wear an embarrassing sash and give out embarrassing instructions.

Want more evidence? Then I suggest you look back at that episode and see who's actually wearing the sash.

Astrid, we've already established that. Snotlout, but Hiccup always finds a reason to be upset with him at this point in their friendship.... And that's it. Fishlegs, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, Hiccup himself? They're all on patrol, but only two of the six Riders are wearing a sash that says "Dumb."

Then there's RoB's "Portrait of Hiccup as a buff young man," in which Hiccup's search for Hamish's treasure is entirely because he wants to prove that skinny smart Hiccup is better than buff Portrait!Hiccup. He even asks at some point; "How's that for a Hiccup?"

You could make the argument that's what Httyd 1 is all about. Hiccup proving once and for all that he's just fine the way he is, that he doesn't need to be their ideal of a Viking, but that was about acceptance and not vindictiveness.

In this episode, this feels very much more like a "oh, I'll show you!" type of thing specifically because of that line and because Hiccup chose to one-up his father in something he failed to do. A.k.a find Hamish' treasure.

Then there is the famous "Thawfest" episode, which is entirely Hiccup getting back at Snotlout for past Thawfests during the dragon portion until Snotlout's fears of failing in his father's eyes snap him out of it.

Another episode that comes to mind is "When Lightning Strikes," in which Hiccup gets himself hurt in a desperate attempt to prove Toothless' innocence when Mildew has everyone convinced that he's to blame for the recent massive storms on Berk.

This is more of an act of vengeance on the part of Snotlout and the twins as they blame Mildew for the harm that befell Hiccup. They were the ones to come up with and enact this plan, but Hiccup certainly didn't stop them from getting it. He just gave them a "I'm not sure that's what my dad had in mind, guys" and just leaves it at that.

Another good example is "Defiant One," in which Hiccup is once again getting back at Snotlout, this time for getting them crashlanded inside enemy territory and for doing everything in his power to be a nuisance. And what better way to get back at him than to give him a bowl of Toothless' spit and tell him that Night Fury saliva has healing properties after Snotlout has a reaction to eating berries? Again, this is reminiscent of "In Dragons We Trust."

And then there's a part 2 to this particular example as Hiccup brings it up three years later in RttE season 2's "Snotlout Gets the Axe."

"What about flying us into the waterspout and crashlanding us on Outcast Island? That was terrific." - Hiccup

So yeah, great at convincing people to let things go, not so great at letting things go himself.

And who can forget "We Are Family, Part 2," in which Alvin's heckling of Hiccup convinces both him and Toothless to attack him, almost ruining their escape as an ambush was lying in wait. And the specific comment that did it was "That's what I would expect from Stoick's little runt," referring to leaving their business unfinished.

Interestingly enough, it's once again Stoick who tries to stop Hiccup from going, reminding him that they got what they came for (saving Hiccup and Toothless) and that they should just leave. He even tries to stop Hiccup before he even made a move to climb up in Toothless' saddle, because he knew Hiccup was going to go after Alvin for that comment.

Alvin makes his comment, Gobber says "Oh boy," followed immediately by Stoick looking at his son and calling his name. Stoick knew.

DoB

After that two-parter, I think Hiccup must've gotten a scare, because the vindictive streak that was very present in the first season is almost completely absent here.

You could make an argument for "The Night and The Fury"s "You don't need a lot of help with that, Dagur," in response to Dagur's "By making a fool? Out of me?!" But otherwise, very little avenging going on here.

As a matter of fact, I can't remember anytime in which Hiccup makes an attempt at getting back at Dagur, certainly not in DoB. That season he spends more time trying to delegate and even spends time trying to keep Astrid away from the Flightmare that ruined her family's name until she convinces him to help her cut them of before they reach Berk.

This is similar to how Hiccup was also the one to tell Toothless to leave the Whispering Death alive in the RoB episode "What Flies Beneath," long before his conversation with Stoick in RttE.

RttE

Three years later, Hiccup's streak makes a little bit of a return.

For example:

Astrid asks him what "he's up to" when Hiccup suggests they should all make a design for the dragon base and vote on it. Literally she asks him "what are you up to?" as she wasn't expecting Hiccup to agree to any of their ideas. Not a vindictive sign, perse, but definitely a sign that Astrid always expects him to be up to something.

He almost preferred to let the twins burn down their island just so they could see what it's like to be a leader.

He reminds Snotlout of the time he crashlanded them on enemy territory.

Almost takes out Heather for siding with the enemy, not knowing she's acting as a double agent.

Biting sarcasm, which was also very much present in RoB/DoB.

But all of this is pretty low-level, nothing like making a friend wear a sash that says "Dumb" for the entire village to read.

And then Viggo comes along and he gets to Hiccup to the point that he grows obsessed with the need to one him up and take him down.

The Riders call him out on it, Dagur calls him out on it, Stoick feels the need to give him that piece of advice in season 4 that I've stated at the top of this post.

Dagur even has a conversation with Hiccup about how revenge changes a person in season 3's "Enemy of My Enemy."

"Hmm. That stuff can kill you from the inside, Hiccup. Revenge. Anger. Obsession. Trust me, I know. It can make you do things you never thought you were capable of. Cause you to take chances, make mistakes. If that doesn't end you, it'll eat away at you slowly."

Dagur is basically telling Hiccup to let his obsession with Viggo go. But he doesn't. He certainly tries to lighten up when he notices that his obsession at getting back at Viggo causes him to work his friends to the bone. (Which they do. Because they love him and they can see what this obsession is doing to him.) But the need for vengeance doesn't disappear until Viggo's supposed death during the Shell Shocked two-parter. The only one he holds a grudge against then is Gruffnut.

The most notable episode left to talk about then is "No Bark, All Bite." In this episode, Stoick projects his frustrations with Johann onto Hiccup, who gets the brunt of it and who in turn gets frustrated and angry as well. At some point, he even calls his own father a complete idiot. Beyond this episode, nothing of note.

Httyd 2 and Comics

It's in the second movie that we can see that war after war has taken a bit of a toll on Hiccup. By the time he's 20 years old, he has ended four to five of them, so naturally, when Drago comes knocking and immediately proves himself a threat, all Hiccup wants is to avoid conflict as much as possible.

Unfortunately, this original path ends in Stoick's death, even though Hiccup implies a change of mind just before Drago's attack, a diplomatic approach as a last resort ended up fatal for one of his loved ones.

Interestingly enough, something Viggo warned him against in the RttE episode "Triple Cross." The ruthlessness to deal with his foes is there, but so is his goodness, his purity, and that inevitably holds him back.

Until after his father's death and Hiccup falls into a downward spiral in the post-Httyd 2 comic trilogy.

In "The Serpent's Heir," he burns Calder alive, a very brutal way of dealing with a comparatively harmless villain. He also basically shames the Nepenthe's young King Mik into actually working for his village by shoving a shovel in his hands.

"Dragonvine" comes along and when said Dragonvine poisons Toothless and Silkspanners attempt to eat the vine off him and suck the poison out, Hiccup is so petrified by the idea of losing Toothless again that he almost kills the very young Silkspanners in order to save him from more pain.

A clear-headed Hiccup most likely would've noticed what the Silkspanners were trying to do, but this Hiccup didn't. He's mourning his father, angry, afraid. And he is especially afraid of someone taking Toothless away from him like Drago did when he took Toothless' mind and turned him on Hiccup and killed his father.

In "The Fire Tides" it would turn out that Drago had survived when Hiccup is forced to face him once again and pretty much alone as none of the other Riders are there. I don't remember if the interview directly mentions what was going to happen (I think Richard Hamilton left that out on purpose in case the comic ever got published) but I know that whatever happened in this comic was going to be the conclusion to Hiccup's downward spiral following the death of his father.

Either way, Hiccup went from giving his friends dumb sashes and saliva bowls to get back at them to burning an ill man alive. Viggo knew that ruthless was in there and Hiccup sure found it after Httyd 2.

And just like Viggo noticed that, Stoick has been seeing this vindictive streak inside of Hiccup for a long time now. And it's probably a side he's very familiar with as it's one Hiccup probably inherited from him. This led to the lesson he tried to impart to his son in an effort to keep him from going down that same path, but whether that worked or not... Calder would probably say "no."

Anyway, I guess here is where I'll conclude my analysis on Hiccup's more vengeful side.

[alittlextrathatway]

"Wonder how many girls he had loved and left haunted" -any location

Going back to visit the High School AU.

Location: Library

You can find part one: here.

***

It didn't take Matt long to realize he and Sylvie had the same free period. She typically spent hers in the library either getting a head start on homework or studying for her next class. Like him, her grades were important to her. For different reasons, he's sure, but it didn't really matter why. It only mattered that they had that in common.

And that it meant he knew he would always have at least a half hour of one on one time with her every day.

He's leaving his AP English class, after an impassioned lesson from Mr. McHolland. Matt never really enjoyed reading, especially not fiction, but when Mr. McHolland teaches it he has to admit he can see the appeal.

Normally, he can zip out of English and make it to the library before Sylvie, but today Dawson decides to get in his way.

"We should probably figure out when we're gonna work on our group project," she says, crossing in front of him and planting her feet.

He skids to a stop, just short of running her over. "Don't you need to leave for City College so you can make your next class?"

Gabby is dual enrolled at City College in an effort to get her freshman humanities courses out of the way. He admires her drive. Like many of his friends, college is only option if you work exceptionally hard. For Gabby that means reducing the amount of years she'll need to be in college to earn a degree. For him, it means needing scholarships.

"The professor cancelled class today," she says, shrugging. "Besides, my early college courses aren't gonna matter if we don't nail our Senior Project. It's twenty-five percent of our grade."

"We have the whole semester, Gabby. We have plenty of time. I've gotta go, I'm running late."

She smirks and lifts a brow at him. "Isn't this your free period? What are you running late for, exactly?"

He winces. He really tried to keep his interest in Sylvie away from Gabby. He knows he's no good at being subtle. He can't hide it, but he can avoid talking about it with her. He knows Gabby still has a thing for him almost a year after they broke up. If he's honest, until Sylvie, he always assumed he and Gabby would get back together eventually. But now...

Well, the new girl changed everything.

"How much do you know about her, really?" Gabby asks, seeing straight through his hesitance to answer her question. "I've seen her around talking with that Junior on the football team -- Grainger? And at lunch yesterday that Sheffield Kid came up to our table to talk to her about joining Key Club. She's got plenty of options. How do you know she's not one of those people that just likes to flirt? The farm girl act is cute and all, but that doesn't mean she's the right fit for you. I mean, I like her. I do, but how sweet and innocent can she be, really? She might have left a trail of broken hearts between here and Indiana, for all we know."

He can't tell if Gabby's jealous or genuinely looking out for him. She seems to get a long well with Sylvie. She and Shay have welcomed her into their group. But her speech reminds him of all the reasons they broke up. Gabby cares about the people around her. She's very protective. But she can also get wrapped up in her own interests and dive so far down into self involvement that she becomes petty and vindictive. She seemed to be that way with him when they were dating more-so than anyone else they knew. He loves her as a friend. She's been by his side through a lot of tough times. But, as a couple, they bring out the worst in each other. That's the last thing he needs right now.

"That's kind of the point, isn't it?"

"The point of what?" She asks.

"Of getting to know her. That's all I'm doing right now, Dawson. So far, I really like what I've seen and I'm excited to learn more. That's enough for now."

"For now?"

"Yes, for now." Because he's almost certain he's going to ask Sylvie to be his date to the homecoming dance. Which he needs to do sooner rather than later considering, as Gabby mentioned, he has plenty of competition.

"Do what you think is best, I guess," Gabby tells him, her tone flat and hard.

"Gee, thanks for your permission," he snaps, shaking his head as he side steps her and leaves her standing alone in the hallway. "I'll see you for our stats class at three."

By the time he reaches the library Sylvie's deep into her history homework, making notes out of a resource book for a paper that's due at the end of the week. She looks up and smiles at him as he approaches their usual table.

"I was about to send out a search party for you," she whispers as he sits down next to her. "You're never late for free period."

"Yeah, sorry about that. Got a little tied up after English." He gets out his stats book and notes, deciding to double check his homework before he turns it in later. He did it in a rush late last night.

"Everything okay?"

The concern on her face runs deep as if his potential problems are the most pressing issue in her world right now. Gabby was way off base in her assumptions about Sylvie. He doesn't know how he knows, he just does.

"Yeah, just Gabby being Gabby. No big deal."

She bites her bottom lip, apprehension suddenly shining in her baby blue eyes. "Ah, okay. So, are you and Gabby -- I don't know -- a thing, I guess?"

Does she think he would flirt with her so blatantly if he was still into Gabby? God, he hopes not. "No. Not anymore. I mean, we used to be, but we weren't good together. We're much better off as friends."

"Oh, right." Wincing while amusement overtakes her apprehension, she says, "does Gabby know that?"

He laughs at her sympathetic expression and shrugs. "I have no idea what Gabby thinks. Never did. She doesn't exactly put her cards on the table most of the time."

"I've noticed that," Sylvie replies. "I wonder why that is?"

He can tell her interest is earnest. She's wholeheartedly trying to fill in the puzzle that is Gabby Dawson, hoping she'll end up with a better understanding of why Dawson is the way that she is. "If you figure it out, let me know. I could never get to the bottom of it. Did I miss anything in the last few minutes?"

"No, not really. Just Grainger asking me to the Homecoming Dance." She shrugs as if that one sentence doesn't crush every bit of hope in his chest.

"Oh?" He asks, cursing inwardly as his voice pitches up an entire octave. Being outwardly disappointed won't help his case. It'll only hurt Sylvie's feelings.

"Yeah, but...I said no. He's a nice guy, for sure, but I don't feel like it would be fair to him to say yes. There's plenty of other girls who would be thrilled to go with him. I am not one of those."

He had to have heard her wrong or hallucinated or something. "You said no?"

She twists her watch band, looking away from him shyly as she nods. "I'm sort of holding out for someone else. It probably won't happen, but I don't think I could go with someone else and not feel like I was leading them on or something, you know?"

Dammit. Of course she already has someone else in mind. And he has a feeling he knows exactly who she's waiting on. But also her reasoning speaks exactly to Gabby's concerns, not that Matt ever doubted Sylvie in the first place. "I get it," he assures her. "So, who are you holding out for? Sheffield?"

Looking up and meeting his eyes again, she blushes. "No, not Kyle. He's okay, I guess. But I don't know him that well."

"Then who...who else is there?" He asks, confused.

"Oh my god," Sylvie says, rubbing a hand over her face with a grimace. "Am I really that bad at this?"

Ms. Platt, the no nonsense librarian, glares over at them from where she's leaning against the circulation desk. "Pipe down over there, will ya?"

Sylvie's eyes widen and she immediately returns to her notes. "Sorry, Ms. Platt."

"No," Matt whispers, leaning closer to her. "Wait. We're not done with this topic yet. Who else is there, Sylvie?"

"Matt," she pleads, face red with embarrassment. "Just drop it, please. Pretend I never said anything."

The blushing, the embarrassment, the hesitant way she looked away from him earlier...

"Holy shit."

"Matthew Casey," Platt huffs, crossing her arms over her chest. "Don't make me send you to Grissom's office. I'll do it."

He winces and holds his hands up in surrender. "No more outbursts. I promise."

"If you're gonna curse, whisper at least. My god," Platt mutters, forcefully unloading books from a nearby cart.

When he looks back over at Sylvie, she's slid down in her seat and hidden her face behind her book. He cranes up to look up and over the book and notices her face is somehow an even deeper shade of red.

"You meant me," he whispers, sliding his chair over to hers to joining her in her hiding spot.

"Forget it," she urges him, speaking softly. "I thought--I thought you knew that I was -- or that you were flirting back with -- but clearly I was wrong."

He ignores the fact that she didn't finish a single sentence. To him, her meaning was clear. "No, I don't want to forget it. Sylvie, I have been flirting with you. I'm not very subtle. Never have been. I'm positive you read everything accurately. But I thought maybe you were just being nice or polite and then Gabby mentioned she'd seen you talking to Grainger and Sheffield so I just--"

"You assumed instead of asking me?"

He nods, running a hand through his hair while meeting her eyes with a sheepish expression. "Yeah, I kinda did."

"Well, if it helps," Sylvie supplies, leaning so close her forehead brushes against his. "Nothing's changed. I'm still waiting to be asked to the dance by a particular person."

He beams at her, so wide his cheeks begin to hurt. This is his moment. Before he even begins to ask, her face transforms into one as joyful as his. He's sure they look like idiots -- huddled behind a shared book and grinning like creeps -- but he can't help himself.

He really likes this girl.

"Sylvie Brett, will you go to Homecoming with me?"

"Why, Matt Casey, there's no one else I'd rather go with than you."

"Took you long enough," Platt mutters as she snatches the book out of Sylvie's hands. "If you're not gonna read this, then I'm putting it back. It's a shared reference book. Not an invisibility shield."

"Sorry, Ms. Platt," Sylvie replies, barely stifling an elated giggle.

Platt rolls her eyes and meanders by them to reach the reference section. As she passes them she murmurs, "you're a terrible liar."

"You wanna get out of here?" Matt asks, eying Platt warily. "We should make official plans without an audience."

Sylvie finally releases her giggle and the tinkling sounds causes a weird fluttery sensation in his chest. God, she's so damn cute. How is she this cute?

"Sure, the choir room should be empty right about now. Is that okay?"

"Sounds perfect."

[quill-of-thoth]

Letters from Watson: The Cardboard Box

Crimes in Context:

Trigger warning for the whole story, since it's pretty much just spousal abuse, and we're going to cover that (briefly) here.

We have previously covered the inability to divorce in Victorian England, where you could practically separate, and be legally divorced under very specific circumstances, but it took an act of parliament to be allowed to remarry, and it was therefore de-facto impossible for many women to leave abusive husbands or to support themselves at the same level after leaving one. Reasons for a divorce to be granted included adultery and extreme cruelty. Yes, extreme cruelty. The bar for proving that to ecclesiastical court and being alive at the same time would be a high and thin one. (Historically: not being able to leave abusive husbands is a factor in MANY historical poisonings. This is not confined to the 1800's or 1900's either - Giulia Tofana, whose wikipedia entry is weirdly short, was famous, posthumously, for providing poisons to women seeking to end their marriages.) Reading between the lines of Jim Benson's tale, we have a more unreliable than usual narrator. Everything he says is through the lens of "she made me do it" which is both a very common pattern of abusers telling their story and prevents his final letter from being the good-faith explanation of events that we often see in other dead, dying, or condemned criminals in this series. The events are also not reconstruct-able by anyone else besides Sarah, and we have no knowledge of whether or not she ever recovers. He never has proof of anything he says regarding Sarah's feelings or what she may have said to Mary, and the only proof he has of Alec and Mary's affair is the custom that a married woman would likely NOT be going on a day trip to New Brighton alone with a male platonic friend.

(Its possible that Mary was not having an affair with Alec or even considering it, but Mary would have been well aware that absolutely nobody would have taken her word that nothing was going on - so I tend to think that either she was having an affair with Alec or she was engineering a plausible reason, i.e. her adultery, to leave her husband. She had two elder sisters with the means to live independently, if she tired of Jim's drinking and jealousy, she had some options.) We especially don't have evidence that Sarah loved Jim - at best, we have an awkward exchange where Jim interpreted a lessening of formality as love (or lust) and Sarah awkwardly backing out of the situation. It's equally ambiguous whether Sarah was attempting to put more distance between the two of them or if she genuinely felt vindictive about unreciprocated feelings. Whether Mary's suspicion had more do do with Jim's violent words and history of drinking than anything Sarah said, or if Sarah took it upon herself to, belatedly, vet her baby sister's husband's character. Hell, she could have been nitpicking their financial arrangements and Jim's career progression. In effect, we don't know anything about this case, and that, more than the gruesome clues and the murder, may have been why it was left out of the story collections for so long.

Why else wasn't it included in collections?

It's not the only story that contains abuse, spousal and otherwise, and it's not the goriest one. When it comes to abuse and very probable murder of a wife, not to mention abuse of his stepdaughters, we have Dr Roylott of the Speckled Band. When it comes to gore, we've had Rucastle getting his throat torn mostly out by a dog in The Copper Beeches, and we're about to have The Engineer's Thumb, which starts with Hatherley missing a thumb. We've also had the prolonged torture via starvation of Kratides in The Greek Interpreter. It is, however, probably the most hopeless story in the entire canon that deals with abuse. Absolutely nobody is saved, and absolutely nobody is given any closure - in fact, Susan Cushing is probably having a much worse time overall now that Holmes has solved the case. Yes, she would eventually know that her baby sister has been murdered by her own husband and it's absolutely broken her middle sister, who she clearly cares about even if she wants to never live with her, ever. But I posit that it's measurably worse if she has any access to Jim Benson's account - because at one point she approved of him as a match for Mary, and his account will make it very clear how wrong she was, and how Sarah, whose concerns or pessimism have probably been dismissed more than once among the sisters, was Mary's only resource.

[queen-mabs-revenge]

OK so first of all i am not a nate-needs-to-mortify-his-flesh-to-be-redeemed girlie so fucking jot that down. i don't think he needs to grovel, i don't even think we need an extended boo hoo apology scene for anyone involved. nate's story is about reconciliation with himself and others through real self-esteem and contentment, not about whatever christian penance brainrot ppl are coming up with.

but i am fucking baffled by that opening scene with isaac, colin and will visiting nate at work and how -- yet again -- really essential character beats are just happening off screen and we're supposed to be super chill and emotionally swept along by it all?

(long ass v critical post under the cut)

"we want you to come back to richmond" uhhhhhhhhhh "the whole team talked about it and it was unanimous" …….?????????????? like besides the fact that there is literally no established tactical reason why the team feels that they need nate to come back considering they're pretty fucking successful at the moment, the show has given us no reason to believe that would be a decision made by a team that is and needs to be protective of its current interpersonal dynamic!

now again, i want to be very fucking clear as i go through the following that i don't think that nate is homophobic and i'm not accusing him of that, and again i'm not here like 'oh colin needs an uwu special apology'. but lay out the facts as far as the players know (because that's all that's been on screen): nate tore up the sign and ~~someone~~ exposed information about ted's panic attacks to the press - they're himbos but i mean come on. the last interactions between nate and the team - and especially colin - were pretty targeted cruelty and belittlement laced with misogynistic language (that yes, has been used pretty casually throughout the dressing room - not just a nate thing), and then nate goes to work for a club owned by the man who fostered the toxic swamp richmond was to begin with? bro. bro.

literally my first thought was -- how is colin eager to invite someone back who - as far as he knows - clearly very personally hates him, and has leaked information about someone he supposedly liked and respected that he was told in confidence to cause targeted harm to that person… when he just came out within a trusted organization with no intention of coming out publicly??? like no matter how this show tries to shorthand that everything is OK now, because they put no work into reestablishing trust… there is no way colin would take his safety as 100% guaranteed in this situation, and him being the person to insist on talking to nate doesn't shorthand that away!!!

like for me, this mismatch stands out as some fucking straight nonsense again bc you cannot use the horrifically queerphobic atmosphere in and around professional men's football irl for your very special episode and then just never address the personal vindictiveness involved in the character dynamic that was created between nate and colin previously, especially in the face of seeding the idea that someone would be afraid to come out to their trusted best friend because of the 1% chance the casual homophobia they tossed around was indicative of their actual beliefs.

and like ok the tendency of this show to just use experiences that reflect stuff of incredible real life consequence without considering the context or implications is already established. i get it. but like this is just another example of how by not actually engaging with the full consequences of the experiences they're capitalizing on, they've not done justice to any of the characters or representative stories involved.

the reconciliation between nate and the team had such great potential to bring out everyone's issues and have a real chewy resolution! nate getting tossed back into the rupertsphere and seeing the manipulative bullying inherent to rupert's concept of power, and consequently really understanding how that created the environment mirrored in the team's treatment of him, and how he held on to that concept of power and mirrored it back in vindictiveness.

maybe if they brought forward the bex and ms. kakes story to play out earlier (during one of these insanely bloated episodes), and if nate is tied in with letting them both know what was happening with rupert, the two women going to rebecca for advice could have been something that one of the players found out about (idk overhearing rebecca asking keeley for press/legal advice while passing her office or smth). that could have precipitated a conversation among the team that we were actually privy to about how nate stood up to rupert, put whole ass career on the line to protect people being deeply wronged instead of cozy up to power, and did it without publicly Exposing Their Business in order to get public kudos.

that conversation could have been the perfect way to get the team to understand nate's growth from what he did to ted by revealing and having them work through the implications of nates willingness to put protecting people from being harmed above his own need for power and validation, while also protecting their privacy and not seeking public validation at their expense! colin could have had a part in that conversation that both brought his queerness back into the story as something of actual consequence and not just a token feel-good moment, and it could have showed why the team would trust nate enough to hold a vote to ask him to come back to richmond while also showing the audience that the team has truly grown from its unhinged emotional reaction during the west ham match, and not just because they lost a game bc of it!

like idk man this just isn't good enough for me. this whole thing just isn't good enough for me, especially because they've made the implications and the stakes so fucking high by bringing in the incredibly consequential social issues they have. nothing feels earned, and everything feels cheap and flimsy because of it! everything from the journey we deserved to go on with all of these characters, to the seriousness and respect with which the show has treated the experiences they've profited off of, to the patronizing chintz of the last minute emotion-bombs being tossed to us as good enough wallpaper over the structural cracks we're meant to ignore.

[salpho]

So instead of making this private via a group discord or just not risking it at all, you've decided to continue on with a project that poses a risk to not only Joey Drew Studio's copyright, but also Scholastic's copyright as they were the publishers of the OG novel and the graphic novel, under the assumption that should they see it, they'll take away that they need to get their QC under control and not 'We need to make our Fan Content Policy harsher' or 'Our fans will make us stuff for free if we push them hard enough regardless of what it is'?

And that's just assuming it's just JDS and Scholastic and not other game devs who'll catch wind of this situation and see this is what happens when you do something the fanbase doesn't like for whatever reason, prompting them to be restrictive or harsh with their own content policies? Like if the dev team catch wind of this, which is the vibe I'm getting as this project seems to be born of "I/We can do it better", JDS and Scholastic would well be in their right to blacklist everyone that's attach to this, especially since it's clear you've been told multiple times that this is a bad idea and given alternatives that aren't as vindictive. That's also assuming that it will just be Joey Drew Studios or the major publishing house Scholastic will deal out the "don't hire or interact with" buttons to anyone that joins this project, and not other indie studios or projects that catch wind of what's going on and decide it's not worth it to interact with individuals who decided this is a respectful course of action.

Yes, I am. As I've said before, the opening pages will clearly state the reason behind the project and what messages are intended. It will also link to and encourage readers to support Kress and Arizmendi in their work.

Some of these messages are that we're not ok with what happened behind the scenes of the graphic novel first and foremost, the art being a result of it which is why it's disliked. We're not trying to say that only the fans can do better, but rather that They can do better - Scholastic can pay their artists more and give them more time to draw the pages.

And since that is possible, I'll be sure to warn those wanting to participate that there are risks of being blacklisted from the industry if you're part of it or plan to be. They'll be able to weight their risks and make the decision themselves.