#but anyways i think she does in fact keep developing and its clear in how as the seasons go on she cares less and less how ppl percieve her

[kradogsrats]

Schrödinger's King in the Bird Box

Time for a return to the single topic that most torments me in this entire franchise canon: is Harrow in the goddamn bird or not?

Except not really. I'm not going to go over the evidence again. I've done it before. Almost everyone has done it before. It has only gotten stronger. At the absolute minimum, an attempt was made to put Harrow in the bird. That's not really disputable. I admit it. It's over.

This is actually the second time that I've struggled with narrative cognitive dissonance regarding a real core factor of this show (like not "what's the deal with Archdragon reproduction," but something that is clearly supposed to be thought about with the intent that it will eventually make sense), and eventually managed to rotate it so hard in my mind that the way I wanted to see it slipped out of my grasp and I saw it the way it's actually intended. Ironically, I think I may have been thinking about the Ocean arcanum at the time.

Anyway, what previously always bothered me about this question was mainly two things:

It would have a devastating impact on Ezran's character development if Harrow reappeared during s1-s3, but the timeskip and arc of s4-s5 made it so it would also be deeply weird for him to reappear before the show ends.

If Harrow is in Pip's body, both Viren and Pip's subsequent behavior, as well as how Pip is treated by the narrative on a meta level, make absolutely no fucking sense.

But... if Viren doesn't know whether the spell was successful or not? If we are meant to not know whether the spell was successful or not, because it's not going to get resolved in the show itself?

If we accept that the earliest point with any chance of the hooks for this plot being set is late s7—because yes, Aaron Ehasz would do an exact beat-for-beat repeat of Zuko and his mom—that both puts Ezran far enough in his growth for it not to be threatened by the "real" king returning, and keeps Harrow out of the loop for long enough that it doesn't really make sense for him to do anything but step down from the throne in favor of Ezran, anyway. As for Viren and Pip's behavior, if the show isn't going to advance that plot much further during its runtime, there's no reason for us to be constantly reminded of it. The setup has been made, and they can just let it stew because it's not actually relevant.

That being said, Viren's behavior actually does make a lot of sense if "is Harrow in the goddamn bird or not" is a question that is also tormenting him. To that end, I'll be doing some digging here on the nature and context of the body-switching spell, Pip/Harrow's behavior post-swap, and what the hell is going on in the Harrow section of Viren's dark magic dream.

The Spell is Made Up (Unlike All Those Real Spells)

First of all, I think there's been some long-term incorrect assumptions made about the body-switching spell. It's not a known spell: this is Claudia and Viren essentially flying by the seat of their pants... but we rarely stop to think about how that contextualizes the rest of the discussion around it.

The initial plan is to find the assassins and ambush them before nightfall. As Soren points out and Viren himself confirms: if they fail, the assassins will be unstoppable under the full moon and Harrow is as good as dead. Claudia decides to put her mind to that problem, so naturally she stops to flirt with Callum in the library and gets the inspiration for the spell from something he says.

(Fun fact: none of that happens in the novelization. Zero amount.)

She brings the idea to Viren, and they develop the spell from there. It's not really clear if Claudia actually knows whether something like that would be possible, but Viren does know that transferring the essence of a person can be done—he's got a nice little coin collection that proves it.

As for the snake, there's no way Viren "acquired" a two-headed soulfang serpent because he has a book somewhere on how to use a rare, malformed specimen of a dangerous Xadian creature to switch people between bodies. He probably thought "that's weird, but could be useful," or maybe whoever sold it to him just had a great sales pitch. A non-trivial amount of success at dark magic is in having access to rarer and more powerful reagents than your competition.

Anyway, what this means is that Viren has absolutely no idea what success looks like for this spell, particularly when using it on subjects of different species. When he describes it to Harrow, he is 110% talking out of his ass. He sounds like he knows exactly what the spell will do and how, and I think a lot of us kind of fell for that. He needs to sound confident, because if he admitted that he doesn't know if it will even work, with a possible failure condition of "snake eats your soul," well... a) Harrow rightfully wouldn't go for it, and b) he'd look incompetent, which is the worst thing ever.

When he goes to Harrow's room, he casts the spell... but did it work? I think that whatever it did, it did it in a way that Viren can't tell whether it worked or not. Maybe both Harrow and Pip passed out. Maybe Viren just didn't want to hang around for the aftermath—in the novelization, when he exits the room and runs into Callum, his eyes are still black from spellcasting.

Activities of Dr. Pip Harrow, Ph.D.

Probably the thing that has always bothered me the most about the entire Harrow-Pip theory is that yes, literally everything in the lead-up and immediate aftermath of the assassination points to that being exactly what happened... and then the narrative lens of the show completely drops the rope. Pip doesn't even appear in the novelization until Viren's pre-coronation scene, which is funny given his looming presence over half the scenes with Harrow in the show.

Pip appears exactly twice after the assassination—once in s1 and once in s2—otherwise he goes completely ignored. He's not in the background of Viren's office, or the throne room, or Harrow's bedroom. No one ever mentions him ever again. Ezran never mentions him again, in the show or in any supplementary materials. You'd think the boy who can talk to animals might have some interest in his dead dad's beloved pet... but who knows, maybe Pip has always been an asshole and Ezran's actually like "thank goodness I never have to speak to that dude again."

Anyway, in all of Pip's appearances, he behaves like... a bird. A trained bird—Harrow can rely on him not just fucking off—but he doesn't demonstrate human-like intelligence the way Bait does. That being said, Bait is essentially a main-cast character (at least as much as, say, Corvus... maybe even Soren) while Pip is a plot device, and even then it takes until well into the first arc for Bait to show the kind of complex reasoning and initiative that separates him from an unusually smart dog. Pip's human is also a stressed-out king, rather than a rambunctious ten-year-old, so he's probably a bit more sedate overall. I would personally bet, given the way the show has progressed with regard to Xadian creatures, that Pip is as intelligent as Bait.

The point of that is: even if Harrow's consciousness is occupying Pip's body, he's not really doing anything with it. He's pissy, sure:

But is that Harrow's pissy-ness or Pip's? Even if Pip is only as intelligent as a trainable bird, that's plenty intelligent enough for both grieving/confusion that their human is gone and holding a grudge against obvious assholes. Viren cages him, but is that because he flipped out and got bite-y? And was it Harrow flipping out, or Pip? Or is he caged just because Viren's of the general attitude that animals belong in cages? Those who fail tests of love... We just don't know.

A lot of us also, to circle back to assumptions about the spell, have tended to think of a body swap between Harrow and Pip resulting in Harrow flailing his arms around wildly and screeching... but again, we know literally nothing about this spell, nor do we actually know anything about Harrow's behavior after Viren leaves his room. Maybe his body sat catatonic on the bed until Runaan came in and shot him. Maybe Pip, being intelligent, was able to maintain the facade—once everyone's in the heat of battle, it would be hard to notice even significant deviations from normal behavior. Even if "Harrow" appeared to fight only halfheartedly, or give up entirely... well, he hasn't been the same since he lost Sarai. Maybe the spell only partially worked, and only half of his soul is inside Pip, with minimal or no influence over the bird body's behavior.

Viren does appear to take some precautions in case Harrow is alive inside Pip. The cage, for one... but he also has nearly all subsequent important conversations outside of his office. Like I said earlier, Pip's cage isn't rendered in the background of any scene, but since he escapes from Viren's office I'm assuming that's where he's been. Even if Pip was just out of frame in every scene in Viren's office post-assassination through end of s2, the only things he's seen are... Viren eating butterflies, and the conversation between Viren and Claudia about the mirror and her side mission to bring the egg back at all costs. He doesn't know about Soren's instructions to murder the boys. He knows about the mirror and Viren's obsession with it (which he could have known before), but he doesn't know about Aaravos. He may know that Viren stole his seal but only if Viren was stupid enough to stamp the letters with it in front of him (which... look, he could be). The only things he's really learned are that a) his sons are alive, and b) Viren lied to him and the egg is alive.

Now, realistically, if we were meant to hang on to the is-Harrow-in-the-bird plot thread because it's going to be significant within the scope of the show... I'd be expecting to see at least one cut to Pip glowering at some point during all these machinations. If it weren't for the mirror and Aaravos, I'd expect Viren to be yelling all his monologuing at Pip, too. But the show does none of that. Instead, the next time we see Pip, we see him peace-ing out of the show for at minimum the next three seasons, and possibly the remaining two, as well. If Harrow's in there... why? Did he go to find Callum and Ezran himself? It's not actually clear that he knows Ezran can understand animals, so it would be reasonable for him to think Viren is his only chance at ever not being a bird again. Maybe he thinks that chance is gone with Viren's arrest and would rather not spend the rest of his life in a cage. Maybe he really isn't in control of the body.

Back to Viren, though: since Pip refuses to demonstrate any behavior that could be taken as distinctly Harrow's, Viren actually has no idea at any point whether Harrow's in there or not. He doesn't know if Harrow lived. He doesn't know if he succeeded or failed. It's a constant reminder that he's almost, but not quite, in control. Almost, but not quite, good enough to achieve what he wants.

It probably drives him absolutely insane.

Did You Think You Were Somehow Getting Out of This Without Me Mentioning Kpp'Ar?

Just kidding, it's finally time to talk about Viren's dream. We've gone two entire seasons and a two-year timeskip without any mention of Harrow or Pip (though those maniacs dropped the fucking snake basket on us as an incidental but obvious prop early in s4), and then suddenly we get punched in the face by Viren's subconscious.

First, though, I do actually need to point something out in the scene with Kpp'Ar. Bear with me, I promise this is relevant.

Viren sealed Kpp'Ar's soul in a coin 12-ish years ago, and the coin has been sitting collecting dust in his secret dungeon for... some amount of that time. Now he opens the door and finds Kpp'Ar standing there, free—and I will note that I don't believe Viren actually knows how to free people from the coins, or whether it can even be done. His reaction is surprise, followed by suspicion and wariness:

When he encounters Harrow—dead—his reaction is horrified shock, which is fair since the last time he entered the room that way there was no surprise body chilling out waiting for him in it:

Then, when Harrow speaks to him, suddenly alive and unharmed, he drops straight into relief:

Some of this is undoubtedly due to the differences between Viren's relationship with Kpp'Ar and his relationship with Harrow. With Kpp'Ar, after that initial moment of confusion, he's absolutely determined to not show a single hint of ignorance or weakness—this is a trick, or a test, and a passing grade in "light verbal sparring with the mentor you're pretty sure you remember betraying" is a thing that is both normal to want and possible to achieve. For Harrow, who he wants so desperately to call him brother, who he walked into this very room ready to die for, before everything went horribly awry—he not only immediately and willingly goes to his knees, he literally prostrates himself.

... I'll give everyone a moment to get all the innuendo and suggestiveness out of their systems, because that's not the point. This time.

What is the point is that Viren's reaction to Harrow isn't disbelief, but relief. Hope. Kpp'Ar is supposed to be in a coin, and Viren immediately questions how he got out. Harrow is supposed to be dead but Viren doesn't give a second thought to how he's not. Fortunately, Harrow helpfully explains:

Fun fact: back in s1, we don't actually see Viren actually taking action against the assassins. We don't even see evidence that he re-entered the room at all—it's only Soren and Claudia who participate in Runaan's capture.

I haven't actually touched a lot on the complex shit going on for Viren, emotionally, throughout all of this—I mentioned it's was probably driving Viren insane over the course of the first two seasons, but let me elaborate. If Viren successfully switched Harrow and Pip, that means Harrow survived... but he expressed his feelings on the proposal in no uncertain terms, and there's a good chance he will literally never forgive Viren. I don't think Viren thought far enough ahead to consider how to get Harrow into a human body again, but I do think he's dragging his feet on it a little because if he can work things to his advantage—unite the Pentarchy against Xadia and follow through on the war Harrow was avoiding—he'll prove to Harrow that he was right all along. Any chance of that flies out the window with Pip at the end of s2.

If the body-switching spell failed, it means Viren essentially killed Harrow himself. That's the reality I think he grows more and more resigned to over the course of s1 and s2, when Pip remains unresponsive. He had no choice but to take the best chance at saving someone he loved—but this time, instead of saving Harrow, he murdered him.

In the dream, Harrow has not only survived, but credits Viren with his survival. He doesn't just dismiss Viren's show of remorse, but makes his own apology to Viren. He calls Viren brother. After an impossibly long nightmare, everything is okay. All is forgiven. Maybe there was nothing to forgive, in the first place. Maybe Viren was right all along.

Then it all turns sinister with the callback to the coin incantation, and we have a sharp return to reality:

The cinematography here treats Pip a lot more like how I would expect him to be treated in s1/s2 if we were meant to know he was actually Harrow. There's focus actually on him, instead of just other characters' reaction to him. He "speaks"—as I noted in another post—in raspy sounds very unlike his songbird chirps from s1. This is absolutely Harrow as Viren actually left him—even if he's not dead, he's in a warped prison of dark magic, a perverse mockery of himself.

Oh wait.

Harrow-who-is-both-human-and-alive was never an option, and what we've got now is mirror images of Harrow-the-dead-human and Harrow-the-live-bird, and they're going to do to Viren what he did to them.

Now, it's not that none of this makes sense if Viren knows for sure that Harrow is in the bird... but it makes a lot less sense and has less emotional resonance. If Viren knows Harrow survived as Pip, he'd be more likely to question Harrow's human form than his survival—the way he does with Kpp'Ar. He might be more guarded, expecting hostility—which, I will note, is what he gets when Pip enters the scene. Instead, because until now he believed that he actually killed Harrow in his attempt to save him, he's so relieved to see Harrow alive that for that one moment he loses all pride and is ready to beg for forgiveness at Harrow's feet.

Since legitimately none of this makes sense if Viren didn't at least attempt to put Harrow in the bird, we're left with Harrow maybe or maybe not alive, Viren having maybe or maybe not been the one to actually kill him (gonna be a fun one with the Runaan context), and a plotline that is definitely not going to be resolved in the remaining two seasons of the show. I'd be kind of surprised if they even did any more setup for it (like Callum/Ezran finding out it's a possibility, or even a hint drop like Runaan being all "it was fucking weird, he just sat there" or something) outside of future supplemental media.

Conclusion

Either Harrow is alive and in the bird, with the future intent being to do a spinoff story The Search-style, or we're in for a huge bummer of a "actually, it was Viren all along who killed Harrow, therefore Runaan is a good guy and we can all be one happy family" pile of absolute bullshit. Yes, they said Harrow's dead. Harrow's body is dead, we knew that all along. There's a note in the artbook that Viren was actually going to rip the shroud off at Harrow's funeral in order to publicly prove it's his body, because that is an extremely normal thing to do.

The show just treats it extremely weirdly because, even as the only person with any chance of knowing, Viren is in the same uncertain boat as the rest of us. (Actually more uncertain than the rest of us, since he's not genre-aware.) Also it's another chance to torment Viren emotionally, and they'd never pass that up.

Thanks for coming to my absolutely ridiculous TED Talk on this topic, I hope this screenshot now does as much psychic damage to you as it does to me:

[thelazyhermits]

Got some info about Ace's relationship with my Yuu that I wanna share underneath the cut.

Okay, so I've mentioned before that Ace has a crush on Yuu, but he's in total denial about it. Since that's all I've really said on this subject, I thought I should provide some more details.

For starters, the main reason Ace is in denial about his crush is cause when he came to NRC he was bound and determined to steer clear of girls and romantic relationships for a while cause of how things turned out with his ex.

While Ace still ends up befriending/getting close to Yuu anyway, his feelings about not wanting to have a romantic relationship anytime soon haven't changed since he really does wanna take a break from all that.

That's why he keeps telling himself that his feelings for Yuu aren't like that. After all, there's no way he could seriously fall for a delinquent tomboy like her. He just gets flustered cause Yuu is good at getting those kinds of reactions outta people.

Ironically, this is why Yuu won't ever catch onto Ace's true feelings since she truly believes that she's the exact opposite of his type.

Yuu partially believes this cause of the typical quips he makes about her being a tomboy and a delinquent, but another reason is cause, from what she has heard, she's nothing like his ex, whom she assumes is the type of girl that Ace is usually drawn to.

(This is just my personal opinion, but I consider Ace to be the most normal guy of the NRC cast cause he really is a stereotypical teenage boy as compared to all the other guys who definitely aren't what I'd consider normal lol

For that reason, I think it'd be funny if his ex was just as normal as him. Plus, it seems like a reasonable assumption based on the little info he has given us about her, such as how she loves cute things/animals and hates action/horror movies and would rather visit and take pictures with theme park mascots rather than ride thrill rides, which are common traits for a lot of girls in anime/manga.)

Yuu is well aware of the fact that she's not normal. That's why she fits in so well at NRC lol 😂

She considers herself the exact opposite of a normal girl thanks to her cage fighting background which makes her come across as a delinquent to most people.

Plus, she acts like a mother hen, which is another thing that Ace often complains about.

Yuu also loves to tease/fluster Ace cause his flustered reactions are always so cute, and considering how unaccustomed he seems to be to such treatment, that makes her assume that his ex never did that and that Ace was the one who did all the playful teasing in that relationship.

The only traits she shares with Ace's ex are a love of cute things/animals and a fear of horror, the latter of which was one of the things he complained about cause he enjoys those movies.

That's why the idea of Ace ever having a romantic interest in Yuu has never even crossed her mind, and it likely never will unless someone other than her brings up this particular topic.

(Not even the fact that Ace will check her out whenever she's wearing cute clothes or clothes that show off her skin/muscles will lead Yuu to thinking he has a serious interest in her cause Yuu is unfortunately so used to guys staring at her thanks to her time in Japan's underworld that she just thinks that's normal, although she knows Ace is nothing like those guys.

Yuu just thinks Ace is being a stereotypical teenage boy since it's not like he's the only one she'll catch staring at her lol)

What makes this so funny is that both of them are wrong cause its these unusual qualities about Yuu that leads to Ace developing a serious crush on her.

No matter what how much he implies otherwise, Ace actually loves how strong and muscular Yuu is and how she can easily kick his ass. He finds that extremely attractive, although he'll never actually admit it out loud.

(This is my HC since I just can so easily see Ace falling for a girl who can kick his ass. Like I'm not saying he's a masochist since he definitely doesn't like being in pain, but I could just easily imagine him finding a powerful woman to be extremely attractive.

He also seems like the type who lowkey likes muscles and cant stop staring at them when they belong to someone he finds attractive.

I just love the idea of Ace just totally melting after either getting bridal-carried or pulled into an embrace where he can get wrapped up into some strong muscular arms XD

Also, I think Ace would totally swoon and get extremely flustered if Yuu was ever to pull off something like crushing a watermelon with her thighs 😂)

Another thing Ace really likes about her is the fact that Yuu can give as good as she gets. Contrary to what Yuu believes, Ace loves a girl who's good at teasing, like him.

(Another HC of mine is that Ace wants the kinda treatment he dishes out, so while he'll never admit it, he loves it whenever Yuu flusters him via teasing and physical affection.

So a scenario where Yuu pulls Ace into her muscular arms and whispers praise/words of affection into his ears is basically an instant KO to his heart 😂)

Regarding Yuu's mother hen tendencies, Ace does find them exasperating at times, but he also really enjoys being doted on. This boy LOVES being spoiled and just thrives whenever he gets all of Yuu's attention in moments like that.

While Yuu's fear of horror is a bummer, Ace honestly doesn't really mind it too much, not as much as Yuu thinks. He just hates that he can't experience her clinging onto him while she's scared since he really loves when she relies on him, and he wants her to come to him for comfort, which is not something Yuu regularly would do under normal circumstances due to her independent nature.

Out of all of Yuu's distinct qualities, it's her fiercely independent nature that Ace really has the most issue with cause he dislikes when she doesn't rely on him when she should.

While he sees nothing wrong with her being independent in general since I do think he'd like that in a girl, Ace doesn't like how Yuu typically tries to do everything on her own and doesn't willingly show much weakness around him since she always tries to be tough around her sons.

My HC is that Ace's love language is acts of service cause he's the type who doesn't wanna be vocal about his affection since he can't be honest, so instead, he shows his feelings through his actions, albeit subtly since he doesn't like doing overt displays of affection either cause he finds them embarrassing.

His ideal way of showing that he cares is being there when the person he likes needs help, and he "grudgingly" lends a hand since he just can't leave them alone.

Despite the complaints he'll make to save face, Ace truly likes being relied on, so it annoys him when Yuu doesn't do that a lot during the first half of the school year since relying on others is something that takes time for her to learn how to do naturally.

He especially hates whenever it looks like Yuu is relying on someone other than him, like Jamil, who's the first person whom Yuu becomes truly comfortable relying on, so there's definitely some jealousy there on Ace's end.

Despite this, Ace still ends up crushing on Yuu anyway, although it was a gradual development that started with Book 1 events when Yuu helped him out and stood up for him during the unbirthday party and just steadily grew as the months passed.

Fortunately for Ace, this crush never really causes him any trouble since he's so good at shoving those feelings to the back of his mind and being in denial lol

Also, in the end, things end up working out rather nicely for Ace since he's able to get the best of both worlds with Yuu.

By that, I mean, Ace is able to enjoy getting lots of Yuu's love and attention without having to date her cause of her affectionate nature and the fact that he's one of her sons, making him one of the people who gets the most of her affection/attention.

This is truly an ideal arrangement for Ace since he gets all of the good parts of dating without having to worry about committing to anything lol

The only real downside is that he doesn't get Yuu all to himself like he'd prefer and has to share her attention with the rest of her sons.

At the start, when this little family was coming together, Ace was not a fan of this turn of events since he thought that all Yuu needed was him, Deuce, and Grim, but eventually, he does come to accept that Yuu has other people in her life that she also cares about.

Of course, Ace is still quite possessive of Yuu, just as much as Grim, but he's in denial about that as well, which just makes his behavior all the more exasperating to Yuu lol

In summary, Ace is a total Yuu simp and is absolutely crazy about her. This boy is down so bad lol 😂

[lu-is-not-ok]

what are your thoughts on the AEDD egos? I can see how the theme of experimentation and exploitation relate to Gregor but i don't really see what Heathcliff has to do with it

Alright, cracks knuckles. Time to figure out what I can come up with here.

Under the cut we go.

Let's start with the Shock Centipede itself. Cruelty and exploitation is absolutely one of its main themes, but I think there is something more we can look into here.

The Centipede's Mirro Dungeon event involves a choice between shocking it or forcing it into water, two different methods of inflicting pain on it for the sake of a nebulous "better result". I'm going to focus on this aspect of this theme of exploitation specifically - putting someone or something in pain for the sake of progress or improvement.

Another potential theme I want to note here is perserverence. As a boss fight, Shock Centipede does not die upon reaching 0 HP, but rather stays on 1 HP for several turns as a "final struggle", as it's put in its Observation Logs.

Likewise, in its Mirror Dungeon event, while it is noted to stop moving upon being shocked, it notably does not drown when its tank is filled with water. It's clearly in pain, writhing and "dancing", but it doesn't succumb.

Let's apply both of those themes - pain for the sake of progress and perserverence - to Gregor and Heathcliff.

The connections here are immediately obvious for Gregor. Hermann put him through horrible trauma and likely invasive procedures for the sake of making him into what she considered a good soldier. I think the fact that Gregor ended up not suffering from as many side effects as the other Old G Corp soldiers adds to this theme. Gregor was treated as an improvement on the formula, in exchange of him having to go through a war and serve a role in it that he didn't ask for.

However, just like the Centipede, Gregor persevered through it. He survived the war, and he continued to try and live a somewhat normal life. Even as he trauma got in the way, he kept on living. Survival is a Sin, he'd tell Yuri, but who cares? Even if it is a Sin, you should keep on living anyway.

While we don't have enough information on Heathcliff to be able to make as clear of a connection as we did with Gregor... I think we can reverse-engineer here a little bit and speculate on what AEDD means for Heathcliff's potential backstory.

For one, we know two things for sure about Heathcliff's background - he's from the Backstreets, and he was part of a Syndicate at one point in his life.

I think in this case the theme of Pain for the sake of improvement still applies, but in a noticeably different way to Gregor's. Say, have you ever heard of the saying "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger?", the idea that the pain you're going through will leave you a better person for it?

In my opinion, that's exactly what Heathcliff's AEDD signifies. The idea that the pain and cruelty he might have gone through in the past is what made him stronger. What is impossible for me to tell at this stage is who would hold that opinion. Is it the opinion of someone Heathcliff knew and who had put him through a significant amount of pain, or is it his own opinion that he developed as a way to cope with his trauma? There simply isn't enough information to know for sure just yet.

Applying the theme of perserverence is a lot simpler here. It's clear that Heathcliff's life was rough, likely full of abuse and heartbreak. And yet, even having gone through all of that, he keeps going. He keeps living on with his chin held high and doesn't let anyone get in his way.

I'd also like to look at their dialogue lines real quick, as I think there's something interesting to be read from them.

When it comes to their Awakening lines, I think they're meant to signify the kind of torment they've been put through in their lives.

Gregor was forced through horrible trauma because Hermann wanted him to endure it, to become a better soldier for it. It was calculated, "just enough to kill", or in this case, just enough to leave lasting damage, but no more or less.

For Heathcliff, it was pain that aimed straight for his heart. While it's in Heathcliff's character to be excited about violence, I think in this case the tone of his line could signify that the person who hurt him saw him as just something to play with. Either that, or that's how Heathcliff views them in retrospect.

Likewise, I think their Corroded lines have both of them almost fully take the role of their own abusers, something that is already hinted at by the E.G.O taking on the form of a labcoat-like suit, the uniform of the people that likely tortured the Centipede itself.

When Corroded, Gregor takes on the role of someone like Hermann, a mad scientist who hurts other people because they are the test subjects. They aren't "people" to her. An idea that gets further carried over by the ID on the AEDD's outfit being crossed out in its Corroded version.

If it wasn't already obvious that Heathcliff considers Cathy as his abuser from his Awakening line, I think his Corroded line cements this. While I haven't read Wuthering Heights, I do know one thing about it - and it's that Cathy and Heathcliff were both toxic to each other. I think that's what Heathcliff's Corroded line ties back to, how Cathy was horrible to Heathcliff partially because he was also horrible to her.

Alright, that was a lot. Thankfully, I think the Sin analysis here is actually quite straightforward!

AEDD is a Gloom damage E.G.O. Gloom as a Sin represents actions done under the pressure of negative emotions. It implies severe emotional stress which. Yeah. Yeah I would fucking think an E.G.O representing the effects of the abuse its users perservered through would be Gloom.

There's also another angle to look at here, and that is the fact that AEDD has its users act in the shoes of their abusers, as implied by the dialogue lines. Whether it's biting back at their own abusers with the exact same tactics they were hurt with, or whether this ties into an idea of a cycle of abuse, I'm not entirely sure. The one thing I am sure of is that it would still count as something motivated by emotional stress, thus Gloom.

When it comes to Sin requirements, they're the same for both Gregor and Heathcliff, that being Gloom and Envy.

Gloom, of course, makes sense, as it's the severe emotional stress that distates one's actions when forced into a situation that AEDD represents.

Envy, on the other hand, represents actions done as a reaction to other people's actions. Which. Yeah. Yeah that is exactly what's happening here. It's Gregor and Heathcliff reacting to and lashing out at the abuse they suffered at the hands of other people.

I never know how to properly end these E.G.O analysis posts but uh. Yeah. There you go. That's what I got on the funny electric bug that symbolizes abuse E.G.O.

[elfdyke]

RED EMOJI OC ASKS i know its 20 hours after u reblogged it but shhhhhh dont worry about it

roe 💔🥩🧣 !!

20 hours dont matter hehe I ALWAYS WANA TALK ABT THIS BITCH💖

under the cut bc im the yapper (terminal)

💔 (broken heart) - Who has your character hurt most? Physically or emotionally? How did it feel? Do they regret it?

THOUGHT ABOUT IT AND TBH.... maria 😭 OH ROE.... maria is roe's rebound after her and pewter break up, she's by no means just an innocent victim but roe is not kind to her and uses her and absolutely takes advantage of maria's obvious infatuation for her 💔 i fear its not even intentional either, not entirely, roe's just trying to keep her head above water, she'd grown so used to consistent reliable love and intimacy with pewter that having that stripped away from her is really life shattering. its definitely her lowest point imo.

id say she mainly only hurt maria emotionally, im sure she was physically rough with her too (they were in a gang together) but its moreso using her and toying with her emotions, esp when pewter comes back into the picture, at first anyways. roe's desperation to try and make pewter jealous and hurt the way roe hurt 💔 SIGH

roe doesn't even really see what shes doing at the time i think, its only after the fact that she's forced to grapple with hkw unhealthy and cruel she had been. after roe ditches her maria goes on to lead the gang in roe's absense, and she is a lot more violent and volatile than roe ever was. so i was thinking roe and pewter end up having to track her down to put an end to this, and roe really has such a terrible time reckoning with what she did, i fear 💔 finding bodies of victims of maria and roe trying to act unbothered but stumbling outside to throw up bc shes so horrified by it all...! UNFORTUNATE! while i think she'd initially try and excuse her own behavior and act like marias overreacting, roe definitely has matured at this point and part of her growth in that regard is seeing what she did here was wrong and owning up to it, seeking forgiveness and trying to fix what she'd done.

🥩 (steak) - Does your oc have any coping mechanisms? Healthy or unhealthy?

UNHEALTHY OF COURSE 😍 sex is her #1 go to coping mechanism, even though pewter kind of ruins this for her after making her realize she was just using sex to try and emulate the intimacy and affection she really longed for ..💖 bc pewter can give her both sex and love.. JAWDROP! but yeah she has quite an unhealthy relationship around sex, smth i love love love exploring with her. and also she does dabble in drinking to excess, of course ^_^ it being fantast medieval ages and all. but its nowhere near like dangerous addiction levels, she can just severely overdo it sometimes

oh but she actually Does develop a healthy coping mechanism later on 💖 keeping a journal and self reflecting with that ^_^ its at pewters suggestion and roe finds it silly and annoying at first but she takes to it really well after struggling through getting used to it <3 her little journal collection that she lets pewter read through. AND ONLY her. even though shes still embarrassed about it

🧣(scarf) - What comforts your oc? Is it an item? An action? A person? Whatever it is, how any why does it comfort them?

s... s.... SEX AGAIN 😇 sorry ..! but mainly pewter tbh..... even if its not sex just being near her, pewter petting her, holding her, just being close to her is really so crazy comforting to roe. she likes laying across pewters lap while she reads and pets roes head 💖 running her fingers through her hair, rubbing her ears a little, brushing her knuckles across her cheek... WAH . roe's just a very physical person and so getting this kind of focused intimacy, where its clear how loved and trusted she is, does a lottttt for her. esp after the events in canon, roe really longs for pewters physicality

[leoruby-draws]

in your training wheels AU w rose, jay, and eddie … i think it’s clear that eddie has a crush on rose, but who would end up being the pairing between the two boys with rose considering jason and rose are a “couple” in main continuity? also, love the au and amazing art! :)

Yes, there does seem to be something going on with all three of them, doesn't it? Atm, everyone's just kids, so romance won't really pop up (unless like, for a gag or whatever). Maybe as they hit their teens, there might be crazy love triangle drama going on. Its ok if it does, they are superheroes, dumb drama is the name of the game in DC comics lol. Lemme see if I can get my thoughts in order for this..

Your 100% correct that Eddie has an enormous crush on Rose, just like in canon. Also like canon, it was pretty much a love at first sight kinda thing. As for why, well there's the fact that he thinks Rose is very pretty and cute. But also he loves how skilled she is as a fighter and how dedicated she is to her craft. She can do anything according to him! Even as they grow older, that infatuation never really goes away. If anything, it grows stronger.

It's also extremely obvious to just about everyone on the team (and off!), only question is if Rose knows and just ignores it. Or if she's genuinely oblivious, she's pretty focused on protecting her mom and training her martial art skills.

As for Rose, she's not interested in romance at the moment (she is a kid after all), that might change as she gets older and gains more control over her life. And while she may or may not be aware of Eddie's crush on her, she might have a minor thing for Jason. It's not nearly as overt at Eddie's thing, so only some of the more perceptive team members might know. It's kinda of embarrassing for her to be all 'girly' like that.

As for why Jason, well not only is it a reference to canon JayRose, there's also the fact that in this au Jason was willing to help her out when he didn't even know who she was. He's a dedicated fighter like her, smart, and she thinks he's cute (at least once he reveals his secret id).

This crush is something that develops very slowly over the years, it kinda catches her off guard almost. I don't know if she ever tries to ask him out or anything, once Jason hits his fifteenth birthday, she might just miss her chance perhaps...

As for Jason, well that's just a mystery! But seriously, whatever his own opinions on all this, he seems to be keeping his cards close to his chest. Does he gain a crush on Rose too? Is it Eddie he has a crush on? Is he jealous of how easily Rose steal's Eddie's attention? Or does he see Eddie as competition for Rose? Every member of the Outlaws has a different idea on what's happening on Jason's end, and none of those idea's overlap lol. Just like in the fandom, every member of the team seems to read Jason differently (and for some, just straight up don't understand him).

It seems for now, Jason would rather not think about stuff like that and just concentrate on having fun with friends! He's just a kid you know!

Anyways here's a funny doodle that's just perfect for this question:

Thanks for the question, that was interesting to think about! Have a good day!

[thegoldencontracts]

So. You know promise rings? Not exactly an engagement ring but a little more serious than boyfriend-girlfriend... merfolk wear promise shells. Shells that represent the person they're with... Azul's partner (It's Ri--💥) wearing a small spiral shell that's wide at the opening with bumps along it, its coloration a deep purple and black. You could almost confuse it for a tentacle from afar.

How many biographies and autobiographies do you think he'll have? Self-help books?

Annnd what do you think Azul's future mega corporation would be called? Because I've seen some iterations use the 'Mostro' name and I used 'Ashengrotto' because... come on. It's his name! People need to recognize him!

The more I think about it, the more I need to see Azul meet his future self. Would he love the guy or treat him like... Cece? Hehe.

OH MY GOD PROMISE RING JUST GIVES ME THE CUTEST IDEAAA (in my opinion at least)

Azul with ri- I mean, his totally anonymous partner... He gives them a promise she'll and he tries to act as nonchalant as he can but he's also so embarrassed about ITTTT and he's trying to be smug and everything but then rid- I MEAN his partner is like "wow, this truly is quite important to you I'm pleased to see you so greatly value our relationship" not even in a teasing way just genuinely trying to be good faith and appreciate Azul's efforts yk...

But of course Azul gets embarrassed T_T I-It isn't like that, he's just... Yeah he has no defense for himself and he gets so pouty and huffy "Not now, I'm losing" (This line is paraphrased from a tootally random fic that you toooootally didn't write and I toooooooooootally didn't reread 5 gorillion times lmao)

A bunch, Azul is all about that grind 💪💪💪 he will power through the writers block

Anndd if Azul has a restaurant chain I feel like he'd actually keep Mostro because despite him acting aloof and business-minded he actually truly cares for the Lounge (one of the funniest parts of twst imo is that fact that Azul in canon is basically... A FUCKING TSUNDERE OVER HIS LOVE FOR IT'S CRAFT IT'S THE FUNNIEST THIGN EVER Jade says it's clear he cares about the lounge, Azul says "Hah! Do you honestly believe me to be capable of an illogical sentiment such as 'attachment'?" And Floyd and Jade are like... Yeahh... Sure we totally believe you Mann he's literally a tsundere for his restaurant HOWEW-)

Anyways sorry the temptation to yap was there and I couldn't resist but back to what u were saying so I feel like he'd be attached to the name too and no matter how he tried he can't bring himself to change ittt

CECAELIA FAIRBANKS MENTION SPOTTED I WILL NOW RAMBLE Cecaelia is Azul's worstie she breaths within 1000000000 miles of him and he's immediately like "SHUT THE FUCK UP NO ONE ASKED YAP YAP YAP RIZZLESS BETA WHITE KNIGHT L + RATIO + I HAVE MORE CONTRACTS THAN U" nothing can compare to his hate /j

But actually though I feel like it depends on whether or not Azul knows this is his future self bc with cecaelia that's the conflict it's literally a better version of Azul bc... Azul from the future but Azul doesn't realize thatttt

But the version you're bringing up? Even better version of Azul. More successful and more skilled. If Azul doesn't know... Poor dude's gonna be put through the emotional wringer (and develop a strong hatred for what is quite literally himself) His hatred will be stronger than what he harbors for cecaelia lmaooo-

If he does tho I feel like he might have mild jealousy that's overshadowed by "HOLY SHIT THIS IS WHST I'LL BE IN A FEW YEARS" kind of thing...

Anyways that concludes my ramble thank you

[cherrymoonvol6]

so... about lunter.

...i'll understand if you stop reading now, but i still have some meta to squeeze from this so tag along for that at least.

well. if you know me at all you'll know i have a thing for problematique pairings. i crave complex romantic dynamics that have a lot of narrative potential and explore every aspect of its characters and their development throughout (and after) the story. usually, that means being into stories that involve trauma and grief. think asgore and toriel in undertale.

this is not my first time keeping up with the owl house: to satisfy my curiosity, i would check the tumblr tag every time it trended [tumblr trending tab is my newspaper], but it never caught my attention beyond that. well, that's until i came to know about lunter. see, there's something about fandom hated pairings that just speaks to me - what is it that people are so outraged about? is it because the dynamic it's too complicated? well then give me it, i will chomp it down! anyways.

so, what's the verdict? before i go into that, let me talk about Luz and Hunter™.

BUT…. BUT, SIBLINGS!: i was well aware of this claim while watching the show and i was worried that i wouldn't be able to dispute it. look, i wouldn't jump ship either way (ha, get it?). i've survived dear ships of mine becoming incestuous through weird loops (vlr/ztd i am looking at you). it's fine. not the end of the world. but, to be honest, i don't necessarily think the sibling aspect is the point of hunter and luz's dynamic.

i think their dynamic is definitely playful, and i can see how people can say it's sibling-coded. tbh, i'm just tired of every platonic relationship between guy and girl being labeled as sibling-like: it's a trend that started as a response of the opposite case when people assume guy and girl getting along equals romance (along with the “dumb of ass & lesbian”), but lately it's plasted over EVERYTHING and i just miss when people would be like "you know guys and girls can be just friends, right?" my point is that both luz and hunter have other clearly defined sibling-like relationships: luz and king, and hunter with gus. although the later isn’t as clear-cut as the former (luz and king refer to each other as siblings a handful of times), i believe that’s what the point of the episode is when hunter consoles gus in his “room”. the mere domesticity of it, and the fact that hunter is the first in the show to breach gus��� space like that and encourage him is, IMO, enough imagery to justify that claim. if anything it’s way more explicit than what is done with luz and hunter. i am open, however, to revise the claims that might indicate that siblifying luz and hunter could be the show’s point. in my eyes, the evidence is:

the fact that hunter has a deeper connection with luz out of everyone in the group.

how hunter is neither witch nor demon nor human and he's up for "adoption".

i won’t count the family line because, found family, duh - it’s the whole point of camila taking care of the kids in TTT, and the only person who has a genuine parental link to camila besides luz is vee. previous to FTF’s release i was genuinely considering an ending where hunter would migrate to the human realm, in which case him staying with luz and camila could lead to the canonification of the sibling claims. however, a main point in that argument was about hunter not having magic - with the newfound knowledge that hunter does have powers due to flapjack’s sacrifice, i believe the chances for hunter ending in the human realm are significantly less, especially when we consider that it’s very likely that luz will stay in the boiling isles.

dynamic wise, i would take the playfulness claim a lot more seriously if that ever developed past their first (real) meeting in hunting palismen. i think playfulness is just something that is baked into luz - we see it when she sticks out her tongue at amity after she sees her belittle willow, for example. however, these instances are just meant to be humorous, as i believe that what their dynamic truly is (pre-hollow mind) is more of a commentary on hunter’s self-seriousness contrasted with luz’s carefree “i’m here to make friends” attitude. hunter expects her to be afraid of him and to treat him with respect, and the times that she doesn’t he either gets mad or retaliates back. to me, it proves a point about how young hunter actually is, something that is remarked a handful of times during hunting palismen - luz won’t treat him like that because she can see hunter is a kid, just like her. even the most sibling-like they get (smacking each other after the fake-kiss) is just meant to subvert expectations via using the trope of the waking up kiss and then turning it around where they act like siblings instead [it’s also a way to establish hunter as far as it can from being a love interest for luz]. again, those instances are not part of hunter and luz’s dynamic as it stands now. like, if someone could point out the supposed “playfulness” in their interactions in TTT… nah, you can’t. their friendship has evolved past that. and you know, you can interpret that however you want. but your reading of their dynamic as “sibling-like” is just that: a reading. therefore not supported by canon atm and i’ll take full advantage of that.

speaking of siblings… it’s time to talk about the wittebane brothers.

BUT THE PARALLELS!: i do think in the show there's a real attempt to parallel phillip and caleb to luz and hunter, but i wouldn't say it's with the intentions of siblifying them. in actuality the point of it is that it's "debunked" at the end of TTT, when hunter states that belos fools people - and breaks the cycle of the "you and i are very alike" villain speech that luz has internalized due to her guilt.

[side note: i love that such a strong realization for hunter is also so narratively sound for luz’s own guilt. a testament of how great both characters are.]

therefore, the parallels are subverted by the show itself. another part of it is the foreshadowing: the show wants to make it clear that belos continues to be a threat and that he'll appear by the third act of the episode, and that we'll get to see some background of the wittebros too. besides that, the parallels do NOTHING to establish luz and hunter as siblings. after all, the whole point is that phillip betrayed caleb and he chose to shatter their bond, which is absolutely not what happens with luz and hunter. the subversion is a huge part of that, and then there’s also other aspects like belos never making that connection when he reveals himself to the main group. he goes out of his way to identify flapjack as evelyn and hunter as caleb, yet he never projects onto luz, instead only indulging in her guilt. moreover, it’s an aspect that only lasts during this one episode - kinda how most of the playfulness dies in hunting palismen. even if it gets referenced in the last episode, the fact that the connection will only be made in two episodes makes it so it’s not strong enough.

and honestly, i don’t have a lot of reasons to believe luz and hunter will become “siblings” by the end of the show in the likes of king and luz’s dynamic. for starters, they barely interact in FTF, hammering the point that luz and hunter’s connection grew based on the secrets they were keeping from the others - and so they could only rely on each other. now that everyone knows that hunter is a grimwalker and that luz helped belos, there’s no real reason for them to be paired up, much less during the neck-braking pace that these last episodes have been forced to take. moreover, i believe at this point hunter and luz are headed for very different paths, and it wouldn’t make that much sense for hunter to either become eda’s protegee (he wants to study magic at hexside and eda is anything but a traditional “teacher”) or be adopted by the nocedas back in the human realm (so many hints that luz will decide to stay in the demon realm, and we’ll see what camila will choose then).

HOW THE FUCK DO PEOPLE THINK LUZ IS NOT EVELYN: at this point, with only one 45 minute episode left for the entirety of the show, it’s impossible that the writers could imply that luz and hunter have a romantic connection. i’ll take the L on that, don’t worry. but holy FUCK if it isn’t clear as day that luz and hunter mirror the story of caleb and evelyn.

i hate to not start chronologically but let’s look at hollow mind first: there are pointed parallels to the silhouettes of caleb and evelyn and luz and hunter running away from belos.

this becomes even more pointed when you realize that this is the first time that hunter unambiguously rejects belos, by taking luz’s hand.

i actually love that look belos gives hunter because my god. he’s once again seeing how caleb rejects him. he has to watch yet again as he runs away with a witch.

allow me some indulgence as i repeat this: the show is explicitly paralleling evelyn to luz. she’s the evelyn in that situation. the imagery is there and it’s clear as water.

but okay. by those standards, luz and hunter being paralleled to imagery of the wittebane bros would support the point that they’re uhhh sibling-endgame. you got me there. counterpoint: who is evelyn supposed to be in the story?

evelyn, as the story masha told says, is the witch that dazzled caleb with her magic and drew him away from philip and their witch hunting agenda. now, it’s important to note that this story is obviously told from belos’ perspective: we also see how masha is skeptical to the recounting, judging philip as a jealous brat. we’re meant to criticize the story because we know it comes from philip’s perspective. therefore, while the story portrays evelyn as a bad influence that took caleb down the wrong path with her temptations, it’s most likely that caleb had already changed his mind about witches and wild magic, and him falling for a witch is just further proof that, at that point, he didn’t see them as threats anymore. this would make sense taking into account how hunter behaves in the show: he’s eager to help belos and to do that he’s accumulated a lot of knowledge about everything concerning wild magic, but also it’s extremely clear that hunter is deeply interested by it. even when he’s convinced that wild magic decimated his family, he’s still fascinated by it. it is for that reason that is really important that the first time luz and hunter bond is through their knowledge and passion for magic.

this is because, in my eyes, that’s exactly how caleb and evelyn would have bonded all those years ago. evelyn doesn’t show him something new that caleb is entranced with: she’s part of a system that he’s already warmed to, that he probably studies in his own time. evelyn just happened to be the last straw that made caleb fully commit to abandoning witch-hunting.

and as we just revised in hollow mind, that’s exactly what happens between luz and hunter. she reaches out, and he accepts her.

luz is hunter’s first real connection to wild magic: it’s clear by the way he simply doesn’t contain his fascination and catches himself after the fact. up to that point, no one has filled that spot for him. not even flapjack!

it’s funny to me because of hunter’s little monologue at luz about her not planning ahead. at this point, he’s just projecting onto her: hunter clearly doesn’t know what to do about this revelation that he likes talking about magic with luz. he folds so easily the moment that she expresses her disappointment. and i love how flapjack is completely divorced from this moment: he clearly has no problems with belos feasting on palismen, even understanding how crucial it is for the emperor’s survival, and since flapjack is yet to choose him he doesn’t even have that connection to a palisman to understand the real horror of putting them in danger. no, he lets luz go because she’s the first person that he’s talked to about magic without mincing his words or expecting punishment. the fact that luz doesn’t consider him a friend is reason enough. and not only does he let her go: he reveals his real name to her. i wish this moment would’ve been given more weight by hunter like, not telling his name to every person who crosses his path from that episode onwards, but oh well. still it’s a real moment of connection and vulnerability that is absent from any other relationship hunter has in the show (especially fucking willow sdjfhdjsk like you could argue for gus, darius and even AMITY but NOT willow), especially during the time hunter was 100% still on belos’ side.

again let me bring up the imagery: hunter lets a wild witch go, during a mission where whatever she’s taking is key for the emperor’s survival. he makes that decision, and then he goes and makes that decision again when he takes luz’s hand in hollow mind. think about this moment compared to hunter’s behavior in eclipse lake: the moment he sets eye on the titan’s blood, he doesn’t rest until he takes it for himself, relentlessly fighting amity to do so. in hunting palismen, he deliberately avoids fighting luz - and even protects her from kikimora -, even when she’s proven that she’s capable enough to kick his ass in combat. not out of pity, just genuinely out of a desire to honor the connection that they now have.

flapjack is also pretty important in this whole equation. masha makes a point in using the imagery of flapjack (not any other bird: flapjack) to show the things evelyn used to “charm” caleb away.

if they’re drawing from philip’s notes to create the imagery for the story, then it’s almost guaranteed that flapjack used to be caleb’s palisman, and it checks out as flapjack suggests the name “caleb” when hunter is undercover in the flyer derby episode. if flapjack was able to find hunter now, then it’s really possible that he’s detected most of the other grimwalkers and even been a crucial piece to allow them to break free out of belos’ control. again, belos saying “goodbye, evelyn” when he mortally wounds flapjack also contributes to this.

it’s not my intention to draw significance away from flapjack’s connection with hunter. it’s clear to me that the writers want to highlight this dynamic and flapjack transferring his powers to hunter when he brings him back to life is their way to homage their link. however, flapjack seems to immediately take a liking to luz even before hunter arrives to take the palismen away. i hate not being able to draw a clear conclusion (aka, flapjack knew that hunter would be arriving soon, for some reason) because palismen behavior is uhhh kinda erratic? and i’ve felt this way since the palismen episode in S1. but still, as the palismen cower in fear when they’re kidnapped, flapjack confidently heads out along with luz to confront hunter. if anything, he might be the exception to the rule, having identified the fact that hunter was indeed coming in close contact during that night.

what i want to highlight in the hunting palismen episode is that flapjack sticks to luz first and foremost. again, coming back to the imagery used in TTT, it’s implied that evelyn either carved caleb’s palisman or gave him the tools to do so. likewise, it’s important that flapjack uses luz as a vehicle to get closer to hunter, and as it happens in the show, luz meeting hunter is what leads to flapjack becoming hunter’s palisman. and if we take into account what i discussed earlier about hollow mind, to me it’s abundantly clear that luz is hunter’s evelyn in that moment. and this is supported by the fact that flapjack allows luz to use him to get closer to hunter once he gets possessed by belos during TTT, after we see the story of the wittebanes.

furthermore, all these little hints take on a deeper meaning when you realize that none of these parallels are given to willow, ever. not even by showing that evelyn specialized in plant magic or something like that. even in TTT hunter’s crush on willow is inconsequential to the larger plot, as the show frames hunter with luz during the wittebros story.

OKAY. LUZ IS EVELYN. WHAT NOW?: well. not much else, unfortunately. even if caleb and evelyn are explicitly stated as having a romantic relationship, luz being paralleled to evelyn doesn’t have to mean that she gets to be hunter’s romantic partner. there’s intentionality in luz meeting hunter after she gets a crush on amity, which leads me to believe that hunter was absolutely never meant to be seen as a possible LI for luz (the “sibling-like” interactions also contribute to that) as canon stands right now. like i said, i’ll take the L on that.

however i still feel that this should’ve been pointed out in the show, since the imagery is purposeful in linking luz and evelyn together. like i said on my review of the show, i feel like an easy fix to the boring dynamic between hunter and willow should’ve been to make hunter crush on luz instead. IMO, that’s the easiest way of following through the parallels without putting luz into a dumb love triangle: let her have her endgame with amity as hunter grows out of his crush and considers luz as a loving platonic companion. that way, it avoids the problem of making hunter betray belos just because he’s crushing on a witch. but, y’know, there are options beyond what we can already do with canon.

so, what’s the verdict?

i’ll be completely honest with you and say i fell completely in love with luz and hunter’s dynamic and was actively seeking their [romantic] endgame. as i said in the beginning, i love me a great, narratively compelling pairing, and luz and hunter fill the quota to perfection. whereas eda and raine do nothing with their complicated backstory (read my review for more thoughts on them), luz and hunter connection is implemented really well in canon and there’s a very compelling back-and-forth as they figure themselves out. unlike amity, hunter is crucial in the plot (amity only gets her parents’ business, which is not even that impactful either). and unlike willow, luz has a very defined dynamic with hunter that has evolved as the plot progresses.

just… part of me wonders if luz and hunter not being together is yet again part of the trope deconstruction. you expect luz and hunter to get together? sike! they get other LIs that aren’t half as interesting as what they could be together. and what annoys me is that the show could’ve done the same with belos: imagine if the show found a quick replacement for belos as the new big bad that’s not even half as interesting as the emperor, just for the sake of subverting expectations. and before you tell me “ummm, the collector?”, by now it’s clear that belos continues to be the big bad, since he’s now back in action manipulating the collector once again.

i just really, genuinely wish the show was able to go through a main ship comparable to luz and hunter’s potential together. like, if the representation is so important in the story, then make hunter a girl! like, i don’t know. there’s just unlimited potential in lunter. they’re foils to each other (both believed they were put in roles by a greater force and great things were waiting for them, only to realize that was a lie/a fantasy); they’re both deeply integral to the plot; they’re characters that challenge each other and become better people because of that; their dynamic grows and transforms due to their connection to the larger story; they’re paralleled to the couple that kickstarted this whole conflict to begin with; extremely long etcetera.

as canon stands right now, i’m very unsatisfied with luz and hunter’s romantic endgames. that won’t stop me from appreciating and loving the potential of a lunter endgame. however, potential is the key word here. in a world where they were meant to end up together, this show would’ve been a lot better as a narrative. it’s a shame that it isn’t, and i will mourn that forever.

[also. luz and hunter have the delicious size difference that lumity is lacking :)]

[theurgic-necromancer]

Jack of Hearts - How does your muse view their friends, both old and new?

Card Suits

((He cares them all very much :)

His old friends are people he spent a lot of time traveling with, getting to know them and coming to like them. ...For the most part. There are a couple of companions he never really liked. Often because they often antagonized other people he liked for no good reason, or in one particular case, were actively manipulating someone who was fairly naive to the ways of the world. And also happened to be someone he liked lmao

Still, he cares deeply for his old friends, and hates to think about how many of them are likely dead of old age. (Because he's optimistic enough to hope they all lived very long and fruitful lives, no matter what they chose to do.) It would be nice to reconnect with the ones who are still alive, but that's likely going to be an undertaking and a half on its own.

I'm not going to go into too much detail about individual companions because, well. There's like... I want to say 31 potential companions between the first two games? So I'm not going to bother going over his relationships with Every Single One in this post. Feel free to send asks about them, though.

His new friends he's still getting to know, but he likes them! They've all got their charms, even despite their flaws.

He likes Gale a lot! Fellow wizard who knows his stuff and was willing to set him up with a new spellbook and help him re-learn how to do magic in this day and age. You mean he doesn't need to individually memorize each spell he wants to cast in a day? Fuck yeah, that's so much easier. They've hung out and chatted about everything from magical theory to cooking, and Sayran has been a very avid listener which Gale appreciates. Sayran has no idea that Gale has developed a bit of a crush on him.

He clicked with Astarion remarkably quickly lmao. What can I say, he's always had a thing for rogues. He does recognize that Astarion is kind of duplicitous and was maybe a little bit suspicious of him at first... but after finding out he's a vampire he's actually not all that suspicious of him anymore. Like, sure, the guy's clearly trying to manipulate him, but Sayran is reasonably confident that he's not angling to betray them all. And anyway, he's traveled with a vampire before. He knows the drill.

He likes and respects Lae'zel. Her bluntness and tendency to get straight to the point is honestly a little refreshing. And her commitment to getting them all cured of this whole mind flayer infection is actually a little touching? She's the most compassionate githyanki he's ever met—which is admittedly not a very high bar to clear, but the point still stands. He trusts her with his life, which is good because she knows about the Slayer form.

He and Shadowheart get along surprisingly well. Even moreso since both of them revealed they know the others' secrets: that Shadowheart is a priestess of Shar, and that Sayran is a Bhaalspawn. Shadowheart is the only one so far who's managed to figure that out on her own. There's a certain mutual understanding between them. While Shadowheart is open with the group about her worship (kinda got dragged out into the open regardless of her attempts to hide it), she also understands Sayran's desire to keep his heritage secret and is willing to help keep it under wraps.

He had Karlach for less than a day and he instantly liked her. She's just so... fun and excitable and full of life! It's hard not to like her. Also he is reasonably certain that the only thing keeping her from hauling him around like a sack of potatoes is the fact that she would literally set him on fire.

Wyll... he likes him, for the most part. However, he has one rather big, glaring flaw: his tendency to view the world in shades of black and white, Good™️ vs Evil™️. He's a little wary of Wyll possibly turning on him (or Zia) out of a misguided desire to purge the world of evil—and what could possibly be more Evil™️ than the half-mortal child of the Lord of Murder? On the other hand, he knows Zia and is very clearly fond of her, so he can't exactly bring himself to hate the guy outright.

And speaking of Zia! She is firmly in the category of Beloved Niece, and he lowkey wants nothing more than to dote on and spoil her like he should have been doing to her whole family line damn it. There is a bit of wistfulness there, a desire to hang onto her as the only living remnant of his now-dead sister. But also he's just... curious about her! He wants to get to know her as a person, on her own merits. Because it wouldn't be fair to her or Imoen to treat her like a replacement. And hey, if he can lend her a hand in dealing with some of the awful instincts she's inherited as a Bhaalspawn, all the better.))

[notsuch]

Anyway it makes perfect sense for Junker Queen to go through the effort of makeup, piercings, and personal presentation grooming, the same way Howl wears golden grills, Junkrat as clearly ornamented his bombs and Roadhog has tattoos.

When life is violence and pain, people by a large seek out beauty and ornamentation. Junkers are clearly no longer just a bunch of army vets sitting around desperate, they're a stabilising society. Maybe it's just barely, maybe it's on the edge of burning rubble of their suffering, maybe the rest of the world wishes they would fade away and forget. But they are. Theyre in fact clearly three generations deep now. That means families, communities, trade connections, development of group presentation to identify themselves. It follows the same rules as any other group of humans. Ornamentation is one of the first things we learn to do from the time we are hunters in the PALAEOLITHIC. The more we live hand in hand with violence, the more we seek it out. When the world will not be kind, we seek that kindness for ourselves, to ourselves, but also as a statement to the rest of the world.

Junkers both have to show their strength physically like a lions mane to ward off the threats of each other, raiders, scavs and whatever the fuck a feral omnic is, and having enough excess to decorate oneself tends to speak to skill and ability to procure it. It's politic as much as its self healing. Its far more direct and immediate, but it's the businessmans rolex. In fact I'd argue it matters more to them to wear and do these things than a millionaire cares about his Rolls Royce. Especially for a person who is about to take the throne. They are a community, and maybe its fucked to hell and back, but they have an identity and they are expressing with what they have available to them.

It's just probably a war crime or something, since they all wear omnic dead body parts.

Odessa isn't smart, dont get me wrong, I don't think she's aware that she's part of a new emerging cultural group, but she's cunning. She's ruthlessly cunning. Motherfucker was thrown into the desert with her family and out of 5-6 kids, was the ONLY one to walk out again that we have seen so far. Then she fought her way through the scrapyard for what was clearly a decent length of time, whilst keeping her mouth shut long enough to get that place fighting Howl. She then spent 50% of that fight doing knife diplomacy so hard with clear and obvious intentions that she needed too, and appealed in words and actions to Meri and Geiger to stage the shortest and most efficient coup you've ever seen Howl didn't even realise it until way too late. It might be the slow watch and predation of a crocodile under the water waiting to take the bite, but she is watching and learning.

And defining that she'll be a strong and commanding Queen who knows how to present herself? Yeah. She's probably looked at how other people do it that to get respect and command and went THAT LOOKS COOL, THEY LOOK TOUGH, ILL DO THAT. Because we do all care what our leaders look like, and she'd want to put her best foot forward. Especially when that foot is walking a tight rope of people now trying to challenge, fight and kill her constantly to get the throne themselves. Appearing put together and displaying like that? Already is taking care of 20% of those fights before they even started.

Also PSA from an Aussie to all non Aussies: it's physically impossible to make us wear shirts. We hate it. I know you're like BUT WHY DOESNT SHE HAVE A WHOLE SHIRT. because no one does. Literally no one. Restaurants in hot areas have to desperately put up signs that say YOU GOTTA HAVE A SHIRT AND SHOES ON. The most accurate thing about Roadhog, Junkrat and Junker Queen is that they only have one full outfit spread out between three people. The way everyone wears shorts and nothing else isn't a apocalypse omnic war crises shortage supply of clothes it's that we never had them to begin with.

[lesbiten]

i think one of my favorite things abt the office is how much of a shit pam stops giving as time goes on

[boop-le-snoot]

@buckyownsmylife hey babe! Remember that one time you threw that cool challenge? Here's my entry. Prepare to get absolutely ruined because daddy!Bruce is exactly that sort of man.

main masterlist ☀️ taglist

emotional support nerd

Your best friend's dad, Dr. Bruce Banner, is hotter than you thought he would be. 6k words, NSFW. Kind of Alt!Reader - she refers to herself as 'goth' in one instance. Tony Stark makes an appearance because God forbid I write a fanfic without him in it.

This is filthy pron, ft. age difference (reader is college aged) daddy kink, throat fucking, dirty talk, praise kink, cream pie, possessiveness, belly bulge and ending with a hint at a threesome. I really crammed all I could from Eyre's wheel in here, didn't I. Oh well.

"How much longer, dad?" Lyra's annoyed voice struck a chord within me. I tried to hide my snickering - unsuccessfully might I add - causing my best friend to shoot me a hurt look, equally fed up with me as she was fed up with her forgetful adopted father. "You know what, we'll take the subway."

Lyra's father's voice, both agitated and apologetic, reached my ears in bitten-off phrases as the traffic noises around us grew in volume, NYC rush hour rapidly approaching its peak.

With a sound huff, Lyra removed the phone from her ear, staring me down with the most amount of petulance I've ever seen on her usually reserved, placid face. "It's twenty more minutes. Apparently he's driving Tony's car," she offered in the way of explanation, like it actually did anything to better the cold, wet situation we found ourselves in. "Please, and I can't stress this enough, please don't be weird."

I felt a flood of amusement at Lyra's pleading tone. "Darling, if you wanted a normal friend, you should have looked elsewhere," I gestured to my outfit. I looked like a goth boy's wet dream: chunky platformed boots, fishnets, heavy eyeliner. Of course, all in black.

"You know what I mean," she whined, waving off my pointing hand and fixing me with a hard stare. "The least my dad needs is someone that is terrified of him just because sometimes he turns into a big green monkey. It's not as exciting as internet thinks, anyway," the last part of the sentence was mumbled but I heard it nonetheless as Lyra stared out into the traffic, clever eyes looking for a particular car model.

What Lyra didn't know was that I was not at all considering to be terrified by the man who dosed himself with radiation and developed an advanced version of split personality disorder. I could be intimidated by him, sure, because he was incredibly intelligent, a world class scientist with more PhDs than I had zeroes in my bank account, but even despite his green problem, Dr. Bruce Banner was about as far away from 'scary' as a man could be.

The few scarce pictures of him on the internet showed a short, stocky man with kind eyes and salt-and-pepper curls, always dressed in un-ironed, crumpled button-ups with dorky patterns. Looking at him, I mused that there was a high chance he spoke with a stutter and that fact amused me to no end. Jekyll and Hyde, alright.

Lyra was much the same way. Shy and reclusive, with curly brown hair and doe eyes, she spent a good chunk of her first semester in college being avoided by everybody because of her last name; I, on the other hand, avoided everyone out of habit, I'd never been a social butterfly, but the way people subtly made sure to exclude Lyra from all the activities filled me with quiet, seething rage, and I stepped over my general distaste of people and removed my bag from the seat next to me so Lyra could at least study in relative peace.

Yeah, yeah, you've heard it all, I'm sure. Weird goth chick adopts a socially awkward, shunned nerd and they become best friends forever. I had to admit that under the shy exterior, Lyra was smart, witty and even funny sometimes. She was willing to entertain my crude jokes without moaning, at least, and I was perfectly okay with listening to her rant about science every now and then.

Rain banged on the slanted roof of the café we were hiding in, the autumn wind howled, making both of us shiver at the prospect of having to go outside, even if it was for a short moment to run to Lyra's dad's car. The day had started out warm and sunny, but much like a badly calculated chemical formula, it all went downhill a split second after we had set out to leave campus.

"There he is," the grouch in Lyra's expression had me once again unsuccessfully attempting to conceal my snorting.

Nonetheless, I followed her out into the rain, struggling to keep up with the brisk running in my platformed shoes, unceremoniously crawling into the car behind her without sparing a glance at the driver in my eagerness to get out of the freezing downpour.

"Hi, dad," Lyra's tired voice spoke up at the same time as I angrily shook out my hair.

"I've just about McFuckin' had it with New York," I was afraid the dye in my hair would bleed out into my clothes, or even worse, the nice, cream-colored car seats.

"Hello, ladies," the voice that greeted us was low, gravelly and apologetic to boot.

My eyes shot up, meeting an expression full of surprise and amusement. I stared at the shockingly handsome face of Dr. Bruce Banner like a deer in the headlights.

The fine mimic wrinkles had stretched into a resemblance of a smile, soft, plush lips revealing a set of straight, white teeth. The five o'clock shadow framed his jaw, giving it a sharp, defined edge, his clever brown eyes slid down my form, faltering on the pentagram on my belt and my fishnet-covered legs, settling on my chunky boots before hastily snapping back up to my face.

"Dad, this is..." Lyra's voice was full of suspicious bewilderment as she attempted to dissipate the sudden awkwardness.

"Oh, yeah, I'm Dr. Bruce Banner, but you can call me Doc or Bruce," he cleared his throat, turning himself towards the windshield and starting up the car.

"Nice to meet you," I busied myself with putting away any stray hair just to occupy myself with something during the time I needed to recuperate from being just... Looked at by Lyra's dad.

It sounds ridiculous, I know, but I was so taken aback by his handsomeness and his aura of a gentle but powerful man that the ride to Stark tower, however swift, went on in slightly awkward silence. The streets outside were, thankfully, noisy, and the lack of an attempt to have a conversation could easily be attributed to Bruce's need to focus on the road, but Lyra's increasingly concerned looks did very little to settle the sudden racing of my heart.

"C'mon, I'll give you some sweats so you can let your..." Lyra's vague gesture towards my upper body disappeared behind her side of the door. "Hey, Tony," she suddenly interrupted her sentence, very obviously addressing another person who I managed to miss as Bruce parked in the spacious garage.

"I've been told you're finally bringing your friend, Green Pea," a voice I'd heard a thousand times on the TV poked fun at Lyra.

She bent down to retrieve her bag, shooting big eyes at me and mouthing an exaggerated "Sorry!"

Tony Stark looked about a week in debt on sleep, a contrast to the way he usually appeared in public. The exaggerated eyebrow raise made me shuffle awkwardly in my spot; the Led Zep tee caught my eyes as I lingered on it, aware of my own Mötorhead top on display. He noticed it too, causing his face leave the snide territory.

"Wow, I didn't expect kids these days to have any resemblance of taste in music but you've surprised me, Corpse Bride," he gave me a quiet wolf-whistle, watching me through lidded eyes.

I felt my eyebrow crawl upwards at his attitude but Bruce spoke up before I could say anything: "Tony, no," so firmly, I had to raise both of my eyebrows. I felt a smile tug at my lips, the situation strikingly familiar in it's essence. Like father, like daughter...

"No," Lyra's identical expression, fond and annoyed, topped up with an accusing finger pointed in my direction had everyone snorting a giggle at the situation.

"Lyra," I whined, just so I could coax her grin that she was very obviously trying to conceal. "See, I told you, every crazy genius needs their emotional support nerd," I fixed her with a pointed look.

She promptly grabbed me by the arm, leading all of us to the elevator as the two men behind us shared a hearty laugh at my well-timed joke. It was either that or I would have completely embarrassed myself by gaping and drooling over both THE Tony Stark and Lyra's father.

The rush didn't stop there. I was promptly and generously offered not only a spare pair of pants but also a whole room to stay in after an invitation to dinner I simply could not refuse. Dr. Banner firmly coaxed me into staying overnight with his pleading eyes and a hearty seasoning of guilt tripping, softly crooning how he simply could not let a young woman to wander the cold, rainy night in NYC alone.

Tony added something too, in a tone way too surefire and patronising. I guessed he noticed my eyes lingering on Dr. Banner, being a genius and all.

In a short amount of time, I found myself seated at a dinner table next to a happy, giggling Lyra who'd downed a glass of wine and was well into her second. I found it adorable how much of a lightweight she was; not hesitating in the slightest to point out that fact when she made hands for a pitcher of water.

Tony was the first one to snark back something vague about his college days and all the wild parties he used to throw, booing Bruce upon discovery that he, in fact, actually studied in college in favour of partaking in various illicit activities. That had both me and Tony giggling with Lyra promptly joining in, both of us losing it over the running joke or her being either a test tube baby or the result of immaculate conception.

Bruce's face blushed scarlet. He sputtered, a few stray drops of his lemonade landing on the (ironed!) collar of his purple shirt, cough disappearing in the wake of Tony's truly amused cackling. Dr. Banner was well on his way to either choke on his Lo Mein or turn green; thinking quickly, I decided to defuse a situation by sharing a harmless, funny story that happened to me as a freshman.

"I went on a date with this guy who said that music was the most important thing in his life, and I thought, wow, that's so beautiful!" I began my story over Lyra's incessant snickering. "So we had dinner and went back to his place because I'm a whore," the whole table erupted in laughter at my deadpan remark, Tony reaching over to give me a high five.

"And as we got there, he put on one of his demos which was just a bunch of sampled and remixed Guns'n'Roses songs, and I thought wow, that's gotta be one of the worst things I've ever heard," I pointedly looked away as Lyra's cackling grew in volume, having heard the same story several times by now and the outrage I expressed at the situation first hand.

"But instead of that I said, wow, that's so cool! Then we did the thing and his whole bedroom was covered in Axl Rose posters and I'm sure at some point Mr. Rose stared right up my asshole," there were tears streaming down Lyra's face as Tony flopped his upper body onto the table and Bruce convulsed helplessly in a silent fit of giggles. "And then I thought to myself: wow, I would have to pretend to like his music if I dated this guy and I just couldn't do that..." I breathed out, succumbing to the mirth at the dinner table. "It was good but not November Rain good, y'kno?"

Bruce snorted loudly, sliding down his chair with a hand over his face. The table shook with the force of Tony's cackling; I didn't see his expression but the howling, rasping noises sent me into another fit of laughter, right on par with Lyra.

"Is this..." Tony rapidly inhaled the much-needed oxygen. "Is this why you keep wincing whenever I play the 'Roses in the lab?" Tony wheezed and Lyra nodded.

"I just... I can picture it, and I-" she made a vague, encompassing gesture and a face.

"Please, don't," I urged with a snort. "There are better ways to get disappointed."

Dinner went on by smoothly after that, everybody happily making remarks on my dating fail, the topic of Lyra's birth and Tony's college shenanigans dismissed.

I caught Dr. Banner's pointed look as we finished our dessert - he was studying me, eyes searching for something that he very obviously wished was there. From the damp roots of my hair to the soft, cotton top clinging to my chest, I wasn't left unscrutinzed and unexamined. Like one of the many specimens he studied on a daily basis, Bruce lingered on the many characteristics that made me stand out in the grey crowd.

"Would you like to see the labs?" He asked, appearing behind me without a single sound.

The freshly cleaned dishes clattered in my arms. I'd almost dropped them, startled, but Bruce's hand landed on the top of the stack right before the top plate would have slipped off and shattered into pieces on the cold tile of his kitchen.

Blood rushed to my ears. "I'd love to," my brain had briefly returned to reality, the rush of meeting both Stark and Banner succumbing to logic and reason. My and his fields of study briefly overlapped, the question he posed was more than reasonable. In fact, many people would cheat, lie and steal to be in my position.

Bruce smiled, opening a cabinet and taking half of the dishes I was holding to stack them up in their proper place. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, exposing wide, muscular forearms littered with dark, coarse hair.

I was sure my face was flaming. After waving off Lyra's attempts to put shoes on me and leaving her to watch her TV show, a wide, warm palm rested on the back of my waist, gently steering me towards the elevator.

I tried to keep my eyes off Bruce in the large mirror on the walls of the car as it swiftly moved down, scrutinizing my appearance instead. My throat bobbed, the elevator car suddenly too small and too hot.

His eyes left marks on me - invisible ones, the kind that I knew were there just from the scorching heat sizzling on my skin.

There was a certain je ne sais quoi about him. Perhaps, it was in the way he was acting - a polar opposite of what I'd had expected, Dr. Bruce Banner possessed a quiet confidence and his patience appeared to be endless, heartily doused with an appreciation for his closest ones. The way his eyes lit up in response to people smiling around the dinner table was hard to miss.

When Bruce spoke about his research - whatever wasn't classified, anyway - the spark expanded into a mischievous fire. I could hardly understand the nuances in his work, scratch that- I could not understand a single word he was saying, at all. The individual syllables registered as they should, but my traitorous brain could only focus on the way he licked his lips in between quickly inhaled breaths.

"You're not... Following, are you?" The corner of his mouth lifted upwards, clever brown eyes fixed on my face.

God, I hoped I wasn't drooling. But to deny the obvious would have been a stretch. "No, not really," I swallowed, willing my eyes to lift from the large veins on the hand that was pointing at a set of equations. Reasonably good at math any day, they looked like the scribbles of a madman to me at the time.

Dr. Banner sighed, letting silence creep among the whirring machinery in the lab for a brief moment. "I don't scare you?" He removed his glasses, cleaning them with the corner of his shirt.

The question reeked of self-doubt and, perhaps, insecurity. "No," I answered simply, not giving him the slightest chance to find doubt in my words. I was barely holding my voice from shaking, afraid he'd misunderstand my reaction to the sudden change in atmosphere.

He was closer to me than I recalled. My hip was almost brushing his, the bulk of his shoulder millimeters from touching against my bare skin, the smell of something herbal, like tea, and sharp chemicals clouding my senses. It was such a contrasting experience.

Bruce turned to me, an expression between hunger and regret forcing me to shiver and look him straight in the eye. A hand landed on my waist, holding me in place with gentle firmness. "I'm a monster, I could hurt you," he whispered, leaning into me like a touch starved kitten. The man screamed contradiction. "We shouldn't."

Vivid images of the Hulk and the rampages years prior flashed through my mind; the rubble, the collateral damage in the form of many lives. I barely remembered it, having been too little to really understand what was going on. One thing, though, I knew for sure: ever since the world became aware of Lyra's existence, there had been no incidents. Sure, the Hulk still appeared when there was a threat, but there were no documented incidents of the green creature running amok, accidentally.

"You won't hurt me," I spoke with conviction. Perhaps, I was bluffing just slightly but I wouldn't lie like that to myself. The variable, the... Twelve or so percent chance of things going... Awry, it made a small, malicious worm inside of me rejoice and fill my limbs with familiar adrenalised yearning. "You're not a monster. Far from it, actually," I used the hand that was not supporting me against the desk to gently cradle the side of his face, letting my fingertips brush over the rough five o'clock shadow on his cheek.

Bruce emitted a sound somewhere between an agitated grown and a pleading whine, sagging with the sound exhale, pressing himself flush with my chest. His face slipped from my palm, the warm tip of his nose running a steady line up my neck, sending goosebumps running wildly down my back as his hot breath tickled the arch of my throat.

"Baby," the nickname punched a stuttered gasp out of me with the intensity contained in just that one word. "I've been hearing all these amazing things about you," his voice dropped, low baritone rumbling straight into my ear. "I won't be able to hold back. I'll want you all to myself," his bicep flexed under my hand.

My knees would have bucked if I wasn't grasping onto Bruce for dear life after those words. I had some sense of personal pride in me, so while my body was an easy, traitorous thing, my mind was more than eager to participate in this game, to ping pong a little bit before... "Yeah? What things?" I breathed.

Teeth briefly closed around my tender skin, nipping for just a second. "You're kind, beautiful," his hand took a steadfast hold on the back of my neck, exposing my throat to his mouth. More skin to mark, more time to whisper. "Intelligent, bright and clever," the more he spoke, the fiercer he became. Bruce's grasp tightened until I was pliant in it, willingly following his silent commands. "A bit of a pain in the ass," a healthy dose of humour was added into the mix as my ass was roughly grabbed, our fronts pressed together at his insistence.

"That sounds about right," I didn't resist the sudden urge to snark, thoughts lazily floating in my head, like clouds on a bright sunny day, fleeting and sparse. None of them caught on. I was focused on feeling the need, on my need to feel.

A sharp smack landed on the plump of my ass, the sound resonating in the eerily quiet lab. The sounds of machinery had dulled at some point, leaving just the two of us panting our lust into each other's space. "I know you can be a good girl. Will you, princess?" His fingertips dug into my flesh, surpassing the soft sweatpants as if they weren't even there.

I could only nod, dumbly, overcome by the sudden rush of blood to my body. The life coarsing through me sang, demanding a release of the pent-up tension.

"What's that?" Bruce removed himself from my neck, catching my unfocused eyes with a crooked smirk on his lips.

"Yes," I swallowed, breathing through my mouth.

"Mmm," he hummed, running both hands over my sides, over the frayed edges of my Mötorhead top. He admired it, briefly, setting his eyes on the band logo that was right over my breasts. Having decided something to himself, Bruce promptly removed it, lifting it over my head with ease and leaving it right on the science lab table.

Taking hold of my hand, he walked over to a hidden set of sliding doors that revealed a rather large, frequently used bed, shutting them just as I walked in, wearing only my bra and borrowed sweats. My back was pressed to the door in mere seconds, hot palms chasing away the chill of the lab as Bruce slotted his lips over mine.

He tasted like something I've never had before. His lips - so plush and supple, took hold of the kiss with practiced gusto, sucking me in without a chance or the desire to escape. I drank from him, sucked on the bottom lip as his tongue explored my mouth, danced with mine.

The room was spinning, the ringing in my ears growing in volume. I was only partly aware of the sensation of sliding down the wall; our knees thudded on the carpeted floor simultaneously, heavy breathing the only noise I could distinguish.

"Breathe, baby, that's it," Bruce coaxed, gently stroking my nape. The soft cotton of his shirt crumpled under my fingers where I held onto him, desperately searching something to ground myself with.

The buckle of his belt clattered and then clinked again as he wrapped the worn leather around my wrists, bringing them together in front of my chest. I exhaled sharply at the intimate gesture, a whine bubbling up from my chest when Bruce used a single fingertip to raise my chin.

My eyes met his; a brown iris tinged with the faintest of green around the outer edge. "This okay, princess?" He sought my face for confirmation, for agreement, for anything.

I nodded, stuttering mid-gesture, remembering our previous interaction. My mouth did not want to cooperate but I forced it to, even if it came out as little more than a pitiful mewl. "Yes, daddy," the word, sweet and sticky like fruit syrup, poured from my lips.

My eyes slid shut as my conscience - or was it common sense? - took hold of the situation. I was on my knees in front of my best friends dad, a virtual stranger, and I'd just-

Bruce's soft chuckle stopped the negative spiral of my thoughts. "That's my girl," he sounded a tad more breathless now, a hairliner in his perfect façade of self-control. As if he'd sensed my indecisiveness, he tugged on the makeshift restraints, pulling me closer, closer and into his lap.

A warm, solid chest with a healthy amount of fluff greeted me. Bruce let my lax, pliant body fall into his arms, catching me effortlessly and bringing my face to his lips. "You have nothing to be ashamed of, you're my good girl," he peppered soft kisses all over my flaming cheeks, my twitching nose, my fluttering lashes.

"Please," I begged, shame giving way to the flood of arousal that seemingly hit me all at once. I was aware of the dampness collecting in my panties, the stiffness of my limbs from holding back the ravenous desire to paw at Bruce like a wild animal. "Please, daddy..."

"I know, I know, baby girl," he soothed, not stopping his tender assault on my face. "Daddy will make it all better. I know just what you need," Bruce finally pulled away. I heard the sound of him undoing his zipper and then the awkward shuffle of him shucking off his pants.

Somewhere in between of all that, he'd ended up sitting down on the bed, wearing only his boxers, his shirt hanging open. The red crawled down his chest, partially masked by the coarse salt and pepper hair; his lips were cherry red and his hair was sticking out in odd directions. Bruce looked sinful.

My eyes inadvertently landed on the impressive bulge in his boxers; in response to my widened eyes, he reached out for it, stroking the outline of his thick cock through his boxers. "Like what you see, baby?"

"Yeah," My mouth watered.

"Baby wants a fat cock?" He teased, sounding like he knew exactly what he was doing, testing my self-control like that. With a flick of his wrist, it sprang free, slapping against his tummy, coating the fine hairs with drops of clear, musky fluid.

I swallowed, feeling the taste of him from afar and yearning for more where I was parked between his spread legs.

In a gesture almost loving, he tugged on the belt still wrapped around my wrists, bringing my face to his leaking shaft and my hands to the base of it, letting me feel the weight of his balls in them. The cock throbbed, neglected, weighed down by the heaviness of his full balls.

"Go ahead, baby, suck my cock," the encouragement came with a gentle push to my head.

I obediently followed, wrapping my lips around the pink, moist crown of it, a hum beginning in the back of my throat. My God, Bruce tasted heavenly... I whirled and slipped my tongue a around his head, I dipped into the slit to drink the nectar right from the tap, idly coming to awareness of the broken, choked moans coming from the man above me.

Raising my head got me a view of his chin; head thrown back, the lax O of his mouth glistened in the meager light. My eyes slid lower, to the flex of his abs. Bruce fought hard to stay still. The desire consumed me, a sudden rush of power at having Dr. Bruce Banner's cock in my mouth and the man at my mercy; I inhaled, sliding my mouth further and further down his throbbing length.

"Fuck," I heard him mutter before his hands gripped the sides of my face. "Hungry, baby, are you?" His eyes glowed a faint green; I shuddered at the power he held within himself. Held back for me. "Tap my thigh twice," he spoke and I had no choice but to obey. "Okay. Do that if it gets too much, alright?" I nodded. He gave me a wide, beaming smile. "Good girl," he praised, experimentally bucking his hips into my mouth a few times.

In and out. I focused on my breathing, sharp, little inhales: his girth took up all the free space in my mouth, the tip of it barely fit into my throat. The burn, the stretch; I felt every tenth of an inch, every bulging attempt of my body to accommodate Bruce's huge cock. It was delicious, I couldn't help but crave the same stretch in my neglected, sopping wet pussy.

"Fuck, you're taking it so well," Bruce moaned wetly. "Your mouth... S'like heaven... Could fuck it all day, that's my good girl," the rambling increased in it's intensity as the pace of his hips hastened. Drool and tears flowed like a river; my chin was dropping with it, spit connected my face to his pelvis. "Oh," there was a brief pause to his movements; suddenly, he pulled out, fisting the base of his cock, staring me down with a ferocious gleem in his eye.

I must've looked a straight mess; my face like a crime scene, my clothes disheveled, covered in fluids and most of all - I was desperately grinding against my own feet, too focused on the glorious cock in front of me to notice the weakness of my own flesh. "Daddy?" I questioned, wincing at the grating of my own voice.

Without a word, the belt was tugged once more; in a set of movements just slightly north of acrobatic, I found myself laying on my back in the middle of the bed, my sweatpants suffering a haste demise in the corner of the room.

Bruce crawled atop me, leaving a trail of sloppy kisses on every inch of my skin he could reach, mouthing something inaudible into every pore of my body. As he drew closer, I discerned bitten-off phrases, stringing my desire into sticky, tangy mess at the apex of my thighs.

"My perfect baby girl," the words reached me; all tongue, he kissed me once more, arching into me as much as I arched into his hot grasp. A brief inspection of my face - he was satisfied with what he saw - and Bruce crawled back, settling in between my spread legs, breathing hot air on the lips of my sex still covered by a sopping wet piece of fabric.

"Oh fuck," I yelped, feeling him smooch it soundly, the hot wetness of his tongue penetrating the meagre lace barrier with ease.

He moved it aside anyway, with a single finger, giving my pussy a broad lick, moaning into my cunt like a man gone mad. It took a few more licks for him to feel sated enough to surface, all the while holding my hips down. I was so sensitive, I felt even the tiniest flicks to my clit, I was sure if I didn't cum then and there, I would explode.

"Such a pretty pussy, princess," his heavy breathing paused briefly. He nipped my thigh. "So wet, is that all for me?"

"Yes, yes, daddy," I rasped, pushing my cunt into his face, losing all shame and trepidation.

"So tasty," he continued the torture, outlining my lower lips before taking another nosedive right into it, swirling his tongue around every fold, sucking onto my clit.

Bruce ate my pussy until my thighs shook, until my core quivered and I could no longer hold back the choked, ragged screams starting somewhere in the low of my belly and coming out as unholy, all-consuming yowls filled with unadulterated lust.

"Louder for me, baby," he inhaled rapidly, and then, he sucked on my clit.

The world stopped, halted on it's axis, every muscle going rigid in my body and every nerve ending simultaneously coming alive. Faintly, I heard a chant, repeating two syllables over and over, it sounded like my voice - but I had no control over myself. All I could do was weakly grind my hips against Bruce's mouth, faltering when the crashing waves of my orgasm began to recede.

The infuriating overstimulation stopped; blinking hazily, I saw Bruce's eyes glimmer brown and green in front of my face. His nose and his chin was glistening with a thin coat of sticky fluid; disheveled and red, he looked a man on the verge of a revelation.

Something hot and blunt nosed at my cunt, bringing back the moment to me - I realized, with a great deal of impatience - how empty I felt. The decision was minute. "Daddy, fuck me, please, I want your cock," the words came easily.

"That's my girl," his eyes fluttered shut as the first inches squeezed through the snug of my cunt. I was sopping wet and as relaxed as I'd be, but even then, it was a stretch. "Good girl, good baby," the mumbled praise made me whine and my pussy clamp on his cock. "Relax, let daddy fill you up." Breathing through it, I consciously unwound myself around him, letting my palms rest freely on his shoulders. "Let daddy take care of you."

Like melted sugar, his husked words stuck to me inside and out. Short, sharp thrusts; Bruce was patiently burrowing himself inside of me, making his way to reach the deepest parts of me I didn't even know existed. His cock head pressed against something hard and spongy inside of me; stars burst behind my eyes I'd clamped shut on reflex.

I moaned weakly, tugging on his arm, pressing myself closer. It felt so, so good. Like a raw nerve had been exposed and he was stroking it, pushing that little switch with every stroke of his hips.

"I'm not gonna last," he muttered as once again, my cunt squeezed him snugly in place, just as greedy as I was to feel that tiny explosion spark up within me again.

"I want..." I panted. Bruce set in a punishing pace after that, a palm under my ass, squeezing it so hard there would definitely be bruising. I craved it, I needed to see the evidence this was not some elaborate fever dream. "I want... Daddy to fill me up," words came out garbled; it sounded like gibberish to my ears but Bruce - they spurred him on.

"Oh yeah?" That breathless, boyish cockiness was back in his voice again; despite how fucked out he sounded, I prepared myself for something truly out of this world. I just knew.

He sat back on his shins, dragging me by the hips with him, making me shiver and moan and twitch and clamp onto him again as his throbbing cock hit that special spot again. And again. And again.

"Look at me, baby," a hand on my belly and his eyes burning right through me. As they slid down, towards the apex of my thighs where he was still moving within me almost lazily, I saw it.

"Oh fuck," I couldn't utter much more than a two-syllabled profanity. There was a bulge in my belly, just above my pelvis, moving in rhythm with Bruce's hips. And then he pressed on it and I-

Something, someone, somewhere was screaming. The noise was loud and pitched, but even then, I could barely hear it though the neverending waves of bliss that enveloped my whole being. Gold and silver at the edges of my rapidly darkening vision; I was drowning in something that smelled and felt like Bruce. The safety of his arms, the warmth of his heated body, the rapid snapping of his hips-

Oh.

"I'm gonna, fuck," the last word was but a ghost of a human speech. Growling low and filthy, Bruce leaned into my ear, his breath hot and moist. "Mine," his hips stuttered, his cock nestled deep, the sensation bordering on painful, forcefully extracted pleasure. It throbbed with every spurt of his seed; each one felt like a solid punch in the gut to my abused pussy.

"Daddy," I mewled, my body jerking away from him but my mind and my soul yearning for more. His rapidly softening flesh made the idea of being separated unbearable.

"S'good, s'my good girl, m'so proud," he mumbled, looking slightly disoriented as he removed himself from me, immediately pressing me to his side and interwining any free, flailing limbs.

We laid in silence, each of us slowly coming back to Earth after the completely unreal experience we just had. I didn't know what to think, didn't know what to do as the realization set in, the post-orgasmic haze giving way to a sudden rush of clarity.

"I can hear you overthinking," Bruce's voice was fond.

Before I could muster up the courage to snark back, the divided doors opened, one very concerned Tony Stark standing there, armed with a tranquilizer gun in one hand and a pack of cookies in the other. His mouth, previously open to (probably) yell at us, remained as open when his eyes had registered the scene in front of him.

I stared at Bruce. Bruce stared at Tony.

"The noise," he offered in the way of explanation, dangling the pack of cookies, looking, for once - speechless. He recovered quickly, however, even if the remark was a thin ghost of his usual sass: "You pick the nerd over me? I'm hurt," he scoffed in mock irritation, although I was pretty sure I saw some satisfaction in there, too.

Bruce looked at me. I looked at Bruce.

A mischievous grin slowly crept up his face, an identical one beginning to appear on my own face seconds after.

"Hey, two nerds is better than one, right?" My response is what did it; or, rather, it was the evidence of my previous throat-fucking clearly audible in my voice... Tony dropped the cookies and then, the tranq gun.

Bruce Banner taglist: @pilloclock @mikariell95 @letsby @sleep-i-ness @toomanyrobins @persephonehemingway @mostly-marvel-musings @schemefrenzy @lillsxd @bluecrazedandbeautiful @slothspaghettiwrites @sapphicnoodle69 @couldntbedamned @xoxabs88xox @marvelsbanner @tripleyeeet @tatestripedsweater @stuckybarton

[forestlingincorporated]

I wanna talk about Janet Drake

I’m not against exaggeratedly evil versions of Tim’s parents, tbh. It’s fanfiction, if we can depict an Exaggeratedly Good version of Bruce (which we can, and I do, and I love) then we can depict the Drakes as Exaggeratedly Bad. As someone who personally identifies with Tim, and his brand of complicated parental abuse in particular, I find it cathartic to uncomplicate that abuse and rescue him from the Obviously Evil Bad People. 

That said, since much of comics lore is passed down word of mouth, the oral tradition surrounding Tim has developed this idea of Janet as The Worse Parent between her and Jack that was never really present in the comics. We see much LESS of Janet, and we have 20 years worth of comics depicting Jack as a neglectful hotheaded idiot who ultimate does love his son. More importantly, Jack isn’t very much LIKE Tim, so there is a habit to attribute Tim’s traits to his mother... and, as someone who really really identifies with Tim, Tim has... some negative traits. Tim can be a bitch sometimes. He’s fiercely intelligent and sweet and kind, with a strong sense of justice, but he can be cold and judgmental and unthinking - he fights those traits, but he does have them. 

And it is perfectly fine to depict Janet that way. I’ve enjoyed depictions of Cold Calculating Janet Drake, but it’s not the ONLY option, and I want to challenge fans to consider different avenues. Tim could pick up these traits from anywhere: a nanny, Mrs. Mc Ilvaine (”Mrs. Mac”), a teacher, tv, Sherlock Holmes novels, Bruce Wayne himself. Tim is capable of not being like EITHER parent. 

So, what do we KNOW about Janet? (I’ll also touch on Jack, but only in scenes he appears with Janet.) 

When Janet was first introduced she was depicted as a gentle but “modern” woman. This was written in 1989, told by a 13 year old Tim, so this theoretically was meant to take place in 1979. I’m not here to give a lecture on the history of sex discrimination in the united states, but much of the legislation protecting women in the workforce or surrounding women’s bodily autonomy would have been very very new in this initial depiction. 

Here, Janet is shown to be encouraging, emotional, maternal, and projects her own feelings onto Tim. Jack is shown to be slightly sexist, possibly discouraging, but not overbearing. And the artist is shown not to know how to draw children. 

To insert some speculation, I think it’s important to note all the Drakes witnessed a terrible murder/accident that day. I point this out, because this is the last time Jack and Janet are depicted this way. It’s possible they changed as a result of this event specifically. 

However, this is also a story being told by Tim. It’s also possible these events aren’t really “real” at all, and Tim is misremembering what his parents were like as a three-year-old, possibly projecting a more palatable version of his parents into the narrative. This is entirely up to personal interpretation. 

In fact, the Drakes are shown in Legend of the Dark Knight attending Haly’s Circus, and the artist knows what a toddler looks like and they’re depicted as already having a slightly strained relationship. Jack is clearly on the defensive, and Janet seems to be passive-aggressive, though she could just be attempting to explain the situation to her toddler honestly. The intended tone isn’t especially clear. 

I do want to point out, in this depiction, Tim isn’t being carried like he was in the previous one. He’s walking ahead of his parents, which isn’t a terrible horrible crime, but could be dangerous in a crowded place like the circus. Might be a subtle hint to his parents overall neglect. 

Back to A Lonely Place of Dying, in Tim’s memories of the night he discovered Robin and Dick Grayson were the same person at nine-years-old, his parents are home, and watching TV together while Tim played... trucks, idk, in the living room with them. (This is semi-interesting, because you could say “oh, Tim liked vehicle toys as a kid” or you could extrapolate that this is another subtle indication of Jack’s sexism, providing Tim with appropriately “boy toys.” Either interpretation is valid. If Tim was assigned female at birth, would they have been given “girl toys,” or allowed to play with whatever they wanted?) 

This is, to my knowledge, the only panel of the Drakes when Tim is between ages 3 and 13. They’re all together, which might indicate that the Drakes were home more often when Tim was 9, only later going on business trips when Tim was “old enough” but... 

This is Tim’s boarding school when he’s 13. While most boarding schools in the US are for grades 9-12, Tim is clearly not a freshman at age 13; look how much younger the other kids in this panel are. In the US, the youngest you can attend most boarding schools is 7. 

That means Tim could have begun going to boarding school anytime between 7 and 13. He most likely spent all of middle school in boarding school, at least. There are an almost infinite number of possible ways the Drakes handled having a business that required lots of international travel, an archeology hobby, AND a very young child. Janet staying home until Tim was 7, 11, 13, is equally possible as the Drakes having a nanny until 7, 11, 13. Tim just doesn’t talk about that period of his life very much.

(”What about Mrs. Mac?” - it is unclear when Mrs. Mac begins working for the Drakes. We only see her when Jack comes out of his coma. She could either be a long standing staff member, or a recent hire.) 

Note: I’ve seen it said that it’s canon that “According to Tim, when his parents were home, they made a point to try and include him in their activities, bringing him along to events that were normally adults only.” I have never seen this panel, or I don’t remember it, so I cannot confirm, but I also cannot debunk this because... comics. 

By the time Tim is 13, Jack and Janet are away on business trips a lot, with limited communication, and no firm return date. If I’m feeling generous, I’d say it was harder to communicate internationally in 1990 than it is today. If I’m not feeling generous, I’d say the Drakes are extremely wealthy, and international communication was easier than ever before in the 80s and 90s. They’re not even going home to see Tim in a week or two, they’re going home and calling Tim at boarding school in a week or two. 

Even Bruce thinks its weird, though he doesn’t say so to Tim’s face. It’s written almost as if Tim’s parents’ neglect was meant to be a plot point that just got forgotten about. 

Tim’s parents are fighting at this point (their poor assistant), but Janet still goes with Jack on these business trips. And she’s clearly involved in the business, somehow, but the comics never SAY what Janet’s JOB is. We’re told Jack is the exec, but Janet is ONLY ever referred to as Jack’s wife, though they’re later described as the “heads” of the company, plural. 

Just to be clear, this is Jack’s business. There’s a perception that Jack is a bad business man because he and Janet fight over company decisions, and Jack looses the business after Janet dies, but Jack looses the company YEARS after Janet dies, and maintains it for about a year after No Man’s Land at that. We’re not told how Jack looses the business, but he’s got to be doing something right. Janet isn’t necessarily the “real brains” of Drake Industries. 

And I’m not... gonna... touch the... exploitation and racism because... I’m not qualified to do that. But, here’s the panel. The Drakes sure seem exploitative and racist in their business decisions. Someone else can... analyze that with more nuance. 

Regardless how how long they’ve been fighting, when their lives are in danger, the Drakes fall back into a loving husband and wife. Their marriage may be falling apart, but they do care about each other. 

I want to show these panels because it shows that Tim and Jack do have things in common. They’re both level headed in a crisis and can be somewhat cold in their practicality. Janet meanwhile and silent. Jack is later willing rant and rave at their captors, but Janet remains silent. 

That is, until they’re alone, and she finally lets herself fall apart. 

God, Jack can be obnoxious. Janet just looks miserable and resigned. I actually think Tim takes after his parents in this respect in equal measure. Tim can have a temper, but he can also be fairly melancholy and defeatist. 

Jack keeps reminding Janet to be strong and in control, which could be period typical sexism? But Jack seems so practiced and ready with the words of encouragement, and with Tim’s history with depression, I wonder if Janet has an inclination towards it as well. 

As the end approaches, when Jack brings up Tim, Janet seems to have a lot of regret. She talks about “wasting” the good things, and I don’t think it’s too big of a stretch to assume she’s talking about time spent with her only child. 

From this point on, Janet is at times spoken of, but not seen. Like here, when Jack says Janet wouldn’t approve of him and Tim being so “far apart.” He says this after he tells him he takes back his threat to send him back to boarding school, which might imply Janet was against the idea of boarding school? Though she obviously lost that argument when she was alive. 

Jack will of course renege on this later, but that’s Jack Drake for you. 

Or here in Tim’s illness induced dream, where he gets everything he wants. Though, since this is a fantasy of Tim’s, where his father and girlfriend are both more accepting and understanding than they are in real life, I would take this depiction of Janet with a grain of salt. 

After loosing Drake Industries, Jack thinks about Janet (though, they call her Catherine/Cathy for some fucking reason) during his depressive episode. And... uh... 

Hallucinates a Valkyrie???? Is this symbolic of suicidal thoughts, or is she... real? Or is he seriously hallucinating? 

Anyway, we’re not here to discuss Jack’s mental state, the fact that he forgot Tim’s birthday, or that concerning “I was going to knock some sense into you but you’re still bigger than me” statement from Tim, we’re here to talk about Janet. And even though this entire arc is about Jack mourning his first wife, they don’t SAY anything about Janet herself at all. I mean, they don’t even get her name right, so I guess what was I expecting. 

Then there’s Origins and Omens, which also doesn’t say anything about Janet, except that Tim’s memory of her is faulty - Janet was poisoned, her assistant Jeremy’s throat was slit on television, but Tim seems to have conflated the death he did see with the death he didn’t. 

The only piece of canon to suggest that Janet might be cold, is Tim compares her to Thalia. And even then, he’s really just saying Janet was protective of him. It’s kind of a scary look to make at your kid, but Bruce does the same thing, so. 

I do want to say... it’s not 100% clear if Tim is even talking about Janet. He could be talking about Dana. Dana was observably protective of Tim, though I don’t think he’s ever called her mom. He PROBABLY means Janet. 

And finally we have Tim visiting his mother’s grave (in a duel Christian/Jewish cemetery, make of that what you will), where Tim says she was “a little religious.”

And that’s it! That is all we know about Janet Drake in New Earth. Hardly the Mom From Hell, but she isn’t perfect. I’d be interested in seeing some alternate depictions of her within the fandom. 

I’m still gonna eat up Terrible Parents From Hell like a starving puppy dog, though. Just some food for creative thought. 

[orionsangel86]

I came across a post today that asks the question why fandom despises Thessaly so much for being a TERF when fandom is so happy to ship Dreamling and make Hob a central character when he was a slaver in the 1700s.

I did think of reblogging the post directly and adding my thoughts to it, but I get the impression that the OP and their circle would not welcome my comments and I don't want to put them on blast to wider fandom either. They are well within their rights to their opinions and their anger towards wider fandom, which lets be honest certainly includes its fair share of racism and misogyny.

But I also wondered if maybe this post of mine had some part to play in that post. It was a very critical post towards fandom and people wanting Thessaly cut from the show, and implied that fandom will happily cut out and proudly hate on transphobic characters, but turns a blind eye to racism and makes a literal slaver their protagonist.

So I wanted to delve into this a bit deeper and go some way to explaining my viewpoint on this. I'm not here to cause discourse or arguments, hence me keeping to my corner on my own post, but perhaps if this does come across some people who saw the other post its a worthy contender for explanation - as well as maybe a defence of myself if the above post was partly the inspiration for it.

Under a cut as it gets long.

The comments I want to address specifically are about how the OP and their circle see no difference between Thessaly and Hob. In their eyes, Hob Gadling is just as horrible as Thessaly, and deserves to be cut from the show more than she does. They view Hobs position in the story as minor and non relevant to Dream's arc, compared to Thessaly who plays a significant role in his narrative.

This is where I disagree with them. I wrote the above post because I was looking at the story through an adaptation lense. It's a Doylist viewpoint of a difficult character to adapt to a wider audience. I may have been a bit heavy handed on the "because she's a TERF" narrative but to stress this isn't the primary reason why she should be cut. I also want to make it clear that when writing the above meta, aside from one comment about immortality being a motivation for Thessaly, Hob Gadling didn't even cross my mind.

The above meta is nothing to do with Hob or Dreamling. It's in fact a big advocate for canon Morphanna more than anything else, so I want to make it clear that there is no "getting rid of Thessaly to make room for Dreamling" about it. As much as literally ALL corners of this fandom want to make EVERYTHING about Dreamling for good or for bad, this post ain't one of em.

So why hate on Thessaly and not Hob? Well I think that's pretty simple actually.

One was able to change where the other wasn't.

The problem with Thessaly is that at no point does she even remotely attempt to be a decent person. At no point does she try to develop, to grow a moral compass, to do the right thing. She is a murderous transphobic witch when she is introduced, and she is still a murderous transphobic witch at the end of the story - I haven't read the Thessaly comics and have no intention too - non Gaimanverse Sandman does not interest me - so I don't know if she finds a conscience in those but thats irrelevant to the Sandman story anyway.

The reason Thessaly as a character annoyed me SO much when I first read the comics was because at literally every single point, every choice she makes is selfish, harmful to others, and cruel at times. She just doesn't care about people. At all. She's the epitome of a selfish person and she gets away unharmed at the end. When she was protecting Lyta in TKO I hoped that it would be revealled that she was helping her out of some empathy, or because of her feelings for Dream and wanting to get back at him, or just, I don't know, ANY emotional input here Thessaly would be nice but nope. It was just so she could get more years of life from the Kindly Ones. She has no relationships with other people, no connections beyond what she can gain from others, she only shows emotion when she is angry and murderous, and otherwise is just kind of dead between the eyes.

The reason why this person with these specific character traits would be hard to adapt isn't because she would make a bad villain - Thessaly would make a brilliant villain - you just gotta look at Esther Finch in DBDA to see what Thessaly COULD be (if she had ANY rizz at all lol). No, the reason she is hard to adapt is because keeping her exactly as she is in the comic AND making her the show protagonists only current love interest just isn't doable and wouldn't work in a show where every effort has already gone into making Dream more likeable and palatable to a wider audience. Even old school comic book fans don't like Thessaly and are confused by the way the comic treats Dream's relationship with her. None of it makes sense in the comic, so how is it gonna look in the show?

Even if you drastically changed Thessaly in the show to make her more palatable it would be a struggle because her arc as villain AND as love interest conflict so much. If you chose one but cut the other it reduces her character and changes the story. It makes more sense to cut her and replace her with a magic user who is already known to the audience who has chemistry with Dream whilst still being slightly antagonistic towards him when their motives don't align. Hence me once again circling back to Johanna being a better fit.

I am sure there are plenty of ways they could explore Thessaly in canon if they wanted to, but Johanna is right there. So why is Thessaly needed when Johanna would fit her arc perfectly AND add an emotional lense to it which would add depth and better conflict between the characters. There is no conspiracy here. No desire to cut her and replace her with fucking HOB. The two are completely separate conversations and the attempts to compare them as some social commentary on fandom feeling on transphobia vs fandom feeling on racism isn't really fair in my opinion.

But lets talk about Hob Gadling. Sure, like enough essays haven't already been written about this guy. Why does fandom not want him sent to the cutting room floor like Thessaly? Well for starters he has a completely different role in the story that can't really be replaced the same way. Hob is a symbol of change. He is positioned as a narrative foil to Dream in many ways. Quite simply, the Thessaly problems in adaptation don't exist for Hob.

This is a show about change, and about the protagonists inability to change. It is fitting then that we are introduced to a character who makes change his entire personality. The point of Hob is that he is adaptive to his environment and is able to survive and thrive because of change - either for good or for bad. Hob is also a symbol for humanity - or at least a specific type of white European humanity and how that specific demographic has evolved over time. What Hob does in the story is show Dream how important change can be. It's also fitting that he desires to keep living and manages to find joy in life no matter what whereas Dream seeks out Death in all its/her forms and struggles to find any joy at all in his function and being. It is through Hob and Hob's growth and change that Dream finds a friend in him, and through Hob, Dream comes to love humanity in a way he didn't before. I cannot think of another character that could replace Hob in this very specific role.

Yes, Hob was a slaver. Emphasis on was. The comic tries very hard to show that Hob is not who he was, and by the end it is made textually clear that not only does he deeply regret his role in the slave trade, but that he is absolutely not racist at all in the modern era. I think this is the part that people who want to hate on Hob like to pretend isn't true. They talk about him as if he is still a slaver, still a racist, and still therefore completely worse than all other characters in the story. Yes what he did was absolutely horrific and I am not saying he is redeemable here. The comic doesn't allow him redemption. He admits himself that he can never make reparations for what he has done. But this is the glaring difference between him and Thessaly, this is the bit that the people comparing them fail to acknowledge.

Hob regrets. Thessaly does not.

Hob has changed, and wishes he could undo his actions. Thessaly has no such considerations.

Hob may have been a slaver, but as history moved on so did he, and he changed and based on what we learn about him in Hob's Leviathan and Sunday Mourning appears to have become a better person.

Thessaly is just as much a transphobe at the end of the story as she was at the beginning. She shows no remorse and no indication that she has grown or become a better person. She gets away unscathed and unbothered by the events that unfolded and it is infuriating that she does not learn. She does not care. She gets away with all her crimes whilst others died.

This is why I find it difficult to view the two characters under the same banner. I have seen a few posts of this nature claiming Hob is just as bad if not worse than Thessaly, but in my opinion, a characters ability to accept responsibility and feel regret and guilt for their past actions is a far better character than one who doesn't change, doesn't grow, and doesn't ever show remorse or regret.

If Hob was shown in the comic to have not changed, and to have not cared about his past actions - say for instance he was bragging about all the money he made in the 1700s and how those were the good old days! Wish the world would go back to how it was back then! Then I think that would be absolutely horrible and I would be the first person to state that the character needed to be changed or cut from the show because how could Dream be friends with someone who was clearly a white supremacist? How does that look for our protagonist who is supposed to be likeable! But the thing is that Hob HAS changed, and he HATES the past. If you pay any attention to the way Hob talks throughout the comics you'll find that at every opportunity Hob bemoans the past and is excited for the future.

But Thessaly doesn't look good for Dream. Because she is STILL a transphobe. STILL a murderer. STILL a selfish evil witch. Dream courting her and making her his lover is an absolutely batshit insane choice for the show to make. So I stand by my above meta. I don't know what direction the show will take, and if they have cast Thessaly and it turns out she is a brilliant new character and love interest then fine (at least give her some Esther Finch charisma please). But I refuse to accept this accusation that by wanting Thessaly cut and not Hob that this is some glaring example of fandom double standards and racism. It boggles the mind and of course, as always, everyone is forgetting the real reason for my original post - MORPHANNA. It's never been about Thessaly, not really, it's just about me being a rabid Morphanna shipper and wanting them to be canon. So by all means come at me with all the reasons Morphanna is problematic because I would LOVE to hear it.

The Problem With Thessaly

I’m sure plenty of fans would agree with me that there are certain elements of the Sandman comics that are going to be very difficult to adapt for television. I don’t envy the mammoth task Neil and the creative team on the show have ahead of them. But one element in particular which has been on my mind frequently is how they are going to introduce Thessaly to our screens.

It’s not just that she’s a TERF. It’s that she’s a cold, cruel, selfish, and inconsiderate bitch who only ever thinks about herself. Oh yeah, and she’s a huge TERF. There isn’t a single likeable element to her.

And yet.

We are supposed to somehow believe that our main protagonist, idiotic as he may sometimes be, depressed and seriously down on his luck as he is, will fall head over heels in love with her.

Sorry. But it ain’t happening. Something has gotta change. So here are my thoughts on how they could fix the Thessaly Problem.

Under a cut for comic spoilers (and its a bit long)

Keep reading

[scott-mccall-the-hot-girl]

my ultimate guide to thiam fic !!

( as a new teen wolf stan )

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the classic post war, long ass (multi chapter) fic !!with great development that genuinely made me laugh out loud, they have the best friendship in this & i love it very much. ( like theo teaches liam to drive and i just *happy sobs* ) a fundamental in thiam fanfiction !! all stans have probably already read it but if you haven’t this is in fact a threat ,, go show this vv iconic story some love !!

Airplanes - Captainmintyfresh

Summary: After the Anuk-ite and the hunters are dealt with Liam needs a break. Cue Theo and a road trip that Liam should know better than to think will be peaceful.

Not Rated, No Archive Warnings Apply, Completed, 43/43 Chapters, Words: 236,875 (236k)

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okay okay so this one is also post 6B !! but ,, now we introduce fighting monroe & the hunters again ,, so we get the boys & a new mission !! so if you like an intresting plot 11/10 would recommend !! just to be clear this ISN’T complete ,, if that turns you off i understand but definitely give this one a read !! it litterally have theo doing crossword puzzles & fighting zombies

Vacancy Signs - LovelyLittleGrim

Summary: Theo and Liam are in Manhattan negotiating a pack allyship when the zombie apocalypse breaks out. Now, the two of them have to find their way back to Beacon Hills without getting eaten by zombies or killing one another.

Rated: Explicit, Graphic Description of Violence, Not Completed, 15/17 Chapters, Words: 89,605 (89k)

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Royalty AU !! I REPEAT ROYALTY AU !! a fantastic au where i stan their moms more than i stan them !! genuinely so good at the childhood rivals to lovers trope !! i’m genuinely obsessed with this one. has made me cry more than once ,, hurts in a good way <3 the ending is just *chefs kiss* also one of the tags is genuinely: # theo and liam make bad choices for over 130k straight !! if that doesn’t sound appealing i don’t know what does !!

Artificial Love - songbvrd

Summary: Prince Theo and Prince Liam are forced to spend every Summer together from age five onwards. They hate each other, and usually find ways to make each other miserable as much as possible in their six weeks together. But when they're reunited because of intended unions as adults, things change. They're both supposed to be married to noble women, but neither of them is as interested in anyone else as they are with their childhood rival.

Rated: Mature, No Archive Warnings Apply, Completed, Chapters: 32/32, Words: 172,935 (172k)

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so if you are in the mood for a crack fic that’s not explicitally a crack fic this is for you !! okay so i’m really hit or miss with AU’s ,, sometimes i feel like they don’t quite capture the characters right but this story have the BEST dramatic liam i have ever seen in my life !! basically they all live in the same apartment building & it’s fantastic !! i saw this one floating around a lot but the summary didn’t really unrest me until i have it a shot !! so go read it rn !! also nolan & brett are genuinely fantastic and make me wheeze ,, LIKE ACTUALLY VERBALLY LAUGHING !! all i’m gonna say is that my fav characters are scott & the beetles but that won’t make actual sense until you read it !!

The Neighbors Song - TheodoreR

Summary: “I always hear you singing on your balcony every morning, but suddenly you’ve stopped?”

Or the one where Theo annoys Liam every morning with his awful singing until he doesn’t anymore and Liam is even more annoyed. Liam hates every single thing about his mornings -the fact that they happen in the morning alone is enough. The thing Liam hates the most about his mornings though is the terrible voice of the guy who lives below him. He can’t sing for shit and Liam tried to politely let him understand that by throwing flour and water on his balcony, and also by shouting it to him, you can’t sing for shit!, and then by writing it into a note he proceeded to attach to his door, but this Raeken guy just keeps doing it, every single morning, like a fucking rooster. Liam did nothing to deserve this. He probably didn’t do anything to deserve better either to be fair, he doesn’t expect to open his window and be welcomed by some angelic voice singing him good morning, he’d just be happy with nothing. Silence. That’s something Liam can appreciate in mornings. Just some bark from his dog and the sound of his misery and that’s it. But no, god forbid the new guy lets him have that.

Rated: Explicit, Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Wanrings, Completed, 8/8 Chapters, Words: 42,814 (42k)

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me: i’m not a big fan of AU’s ,, proceeds to talk about ANOTHER au… OKAY BUT THIS ONE !! it’s not complete but the author has been updating regularly ,, vv slow burn !! but in a REALLY intresting way !! i lOVE LIAM IN THIS SO MUCH ,, he is such a diaster of a person and it’s wonderful !! they have a great dynamic & i’m sucker for general puppy pack content ( and erica reyes being a badass ) !! also theo plays lacrosse in this & i really like it ahhhhh ,, also liam is just being an artic monkeys stan the whole time & theo is like *que confused repressed gay noises*

Inglorious Roommates - honeyscape

Summary: A roommate is defined as “a person with whom one shares a room.”

Theo would say a roommate was more along the lines of, “The person who's the bane of his existence. The weirdo that sleeps for days. The spaz that exercises at 3am. The guy with a revolving door of annoying friends. An insufferable human being that Theo has no control over living in his room.”

Example: Theo hates his roommate Liam.

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okay okay i hate myself but i have another WIP for y’all !! this one is jUST FANTASTIC. i’m genuinely so upset it’s most likely not going to updated again *incoherent screaming ensues*. for this story ,, it’s very theo-centric bUT thats bc it ends right before liam becomes a concrete member of the story !! ANYWAY: basic plot = theo & acquiring not one but two children ,, so #dad theo but he is still crusty & homeless and i love him very much. it’s just so GOOD !! just read if you want to experience my fav theo coming out story & him etching high school musical

Look who's talking - Captainmintyfresh

Summary: Theo had been labeled many things in his life. Evil, failure, monster. He'd never thought Father would be one of those things but as he looked across the table to a six year old with blue smears of bubble gum icecream across her face trying to coax the first words out of her sister. Finger jabbing towards Theo's face as she repeated 'Daddy' again and again he couldn't bring himself to dispute the label.

(Theo accidentally adopts two young werewolves)

Not Rated, Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings, Not Completed, Chapters: 16/?, Words: 48740 ( 48k )

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so here me out: post-canon ( poetry like angst ) summer get away !! just the boys doing cute little domestic things together whilst pining !! theo’s guilt in this is just so powerful & aGjffkgkkfkvkdlv !! i think it’s so interesting to see how they interact in this one, it’s just very heart warming !! and it features one of my favorite niche teen wolf tropes of theo being great with like seven year old girls- it’s just so good ,, very much a wonderful little one shot that just makes your heart happy.

(next time i see you you'll show me) a hundred different ways to say the same things - cherrysprite

Summary: “...You deserve good things,” Liam says eventually. He makes sure not to look at Theo even though he can feel his eyes turn on him. Somehow he can already tell that Theo doesn’t believe him.

Liam instantly makes that the goal of this summer - making Theo believe him.

Rating: Teen and Up, No Archive Warnings Apply, Chapters: 1/1, Words: 28875 ( 28k )

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okay so this next section of fic recs is a bit different !!

two of my favorite authors !! and a compilation of fics i’ve read by them both !!

for context: these two have written some genuinely gorgeous fics, like pure poetry, they explore the real gritty & scary side of our boys relationship in such a wonderful way. they’ve both used some of my favorite tropes & i love them very much !!

whenever i need something soothing but so genuinely intresting & enticing these are my go to !! ( also they both write a lot of good nolan angst & some vv good fics with hayden )

go check out:

eneiryu

as well as fallingforboys

here are some of my favorite fics by them ~

darling i want you here in my arms (kiss the pain away, i know you can) - fallingforboys

even before you touched me, i belonged to you (all you had to do was look at me) - fallingforboys

memories linger like tattoo scars (but your touch on my skin is just as permanent) - fallingforboys

skin, bones, a stolen heart, and an ugly creature lurking underneath -fallingforboys

i don't know how to breathe in the place i called home - fallingforboys

whisper your gossamer truths into the shadow, maybe you'll find the answers you're searching for - fallingforboys

between the mountains and the valley we built a monument to our regret - eneiryu

cracked the hinges of the cage and waited for you - eneiryu

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okay and finally: since i am a self centered whore

my own fic: an rendition of the # elevator scene

it’s basically my version of post canon if we did get the kiss in the elevator. we got a classic liam pov in which he is has 12/10 for extreme bi diaster energy even whilst being shot at !! so go him ig…

Fuck Off, Fuck This & Fuck It! - nefelibata_peach

Summary: Liam thought to himself heart rate climbing, they were bound to be dead by morning. So he thought with everything but his brain and he kissed him.

Where Liam Dunbar is very confused, slightly traumatized, and just a bit scared but hey, aren't they all! Bad decisions ensue as two boys fight in a war they never did sign up for.

Rating: Teen and Up, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Chapters: 1/1, Words: 3558 ( 3k )

[bi-demon-ium]

Constance Contraire and the no good very bad terrible day.

i mean there's the obvious place to start which is Constance Is Having A Bad Fucking Day, Man. but i think it would be about a) her relationship to the other kids, and how she often feels isolated from them even as she pushes them away herself (her antagonism with sticky, her fragile budding mutual respect/friendship with kate, and reynie's earnest but clumsy attempts to include her that sometimes do more harm than good--i imagine she sometimes sees them as more pity/just him doing it for himself "to feel good"/"be a goody two shoes" rather than actually liking her, so she might feel it's condescending--etc) and b) her relationship to mr benedict (who she genuinely has grown to like and feel safe with, but also is in the unique position of him being both a paternal figure and someone she's very, very aware of like. the flaws/issues he has, how he himself is a hurting, imperfect person. + her attempts to distance herself from him, too, like refusing the adoption, despite the fact part of her wants to stay, and how he reacts to that differently than the kids do)

so like. i think first it would start with her having a bad day in little ways--little, stupid things going wrong--and then it just builds and builds, she ends up first getting into fights with the other kids unintentionally (they think she's fucking with them and she's genuinely not and really annoyed) and then just sort of picking fights because she's upset and tense and it's all built up and she ends up storming off and then--there's mr benedict. and he tries to help, and maybe normally it would have worked. but constance is just. she is having the worst fucking day. (i think maybe it's even an anniversary no one else knows about--like the day her parents left, or something.) so she ends up snapping at him, and not just her usual mildly amusing rudeness. something really meant to hurt. and his eyes go wide and. i mean. constance is psychic. even if his voice hadn't gone a little wobbly before he forced it calm she would have known he was hurt. but fuck. it's so much worse when you're Literally Psychic bc she can almost feel it. and it's like. fuck. he's very good at pretending to be fine and keeping his face and voice steady but she ends up... well, does she quietly, while backing away, stutter out an apology? (uncharacteristic but she is extremely upset) or does she just run out right then and there? or does she keep up the uncaring facade a little longer, arms crossed, and calmly excuse herself? maybe he actually collapses, falls asleep, and she's gone when he wakes up. (does she leave him a pillow under his head, or does she just run?) whatever the case, she flees, and feels. even more awful.

maybe it's then she talks to one of the other adults--milligan's a great choice, or perhaps rhonda. or maybe she ends up talking to reynie (great choice) or sticky (to continue that theme of their relationship being a little rocky and him, now with more confidence, basically telling her while her rudeness has its charms, she can be genuinely hurtful, and she has to come to terms with that--but that it doesn't mean they want her to change entirely or suddenly be a reynie clone in braids. although... i think reynie would be too nice to tell her the first part but sticky is too close to it tell her the second part. hm.) (also i want to be clear i adore constance and her mean poetry and bluntness and contrariness, and i don't think she should change, but she can be genuinely hurtful or cause unnecessary tension, just like the other kids have their own issues. but also she's like twelve i'm not saying she's a bad person she is a traumatized isolated orphan and a whole child 😩)

anyway. constance introspection time. interiority and all. thinking about why and maybe even how she developed these coping mechanisms. she's not going to suddenly be super nice or anything, but like. she quietly slips into mr. benedict's study. maybe he's talking with one of the other adults, maybe he's silently reading or taking notes, but he stills when she comes in, even though she was silent. and then he looks up and--he's not mad. he greets her like always does, and she can feel that he's tired but genuinely glad to see her. she doesn't get it. maybe she confronts him about this (oh, constance, my dear. i'm not angry with you. and a little shouting like that certainly isn't enough to drive me away.) or maybe she just. sits. quietly next to him. he scoots over a little to give her more room, gently nudges her shoulder and offers her a biscuit. when she--very quietly, almost reluctantly--says i'm sorry, it's not reluctant or begrudging or angry, but almost a little ashamed. very unlike her. mr benedict (desperate desire to hug her vs respecting her boundaries: fight) says it's alright, my dear. it's alright. maybe one of them quietly moves forward one of the pieces on the chessboard--i think mr benedict, eyes twinkling, and constance says i will destroy you, old man, and then winces, but he only laughs, loud and delighted, then collapses back for a moment. it's nice--no longer overstimulating, in the quiet of the study. none of the others to deal with, although she isn't sure if mr benedict has somehow asked one of the adults to keep them out.

and--it's not such a bad end to the day. playing chess together quietly. maybe, after a few games, when it's a little late, constance even begins to talk.

[tinnictheguardian]

Fodlan Checks & Balances

So earlier I wrote a two part post on what I think Fodlan would be like after the events of Azure Moon. I.e. if we kept the stimulation running, what would we see? I posted both parts together on Reddit and got some pretty good interactions. I ended-up expanding some of my ideas and also got a request to do the same for Claude and Edelgard.

I have many, many thoughts on both but I’ll probably only share my thoughts on Claude as the ruler of Almyra and what I think of Byleth being the combined leader of church and state, which they are in both Silver Snow and Verdant Wind.

I will never share my thoughts on Edelgard because it’s entirely pointless. No one who likes Edelgard is interested in looking deeply into the world she’s creating and more importantly, HOW she’s creating it. 

Edelgard is pure wish fulfilment. She is a rebel and she is rebelling against an institution that is old, that has arrested development and isn’t entirely truthful. It makes people feel good that something is being done. That the house is being burnt down and will be rebuilt “better”, whatever better means. Or as one commentator on the Reddit thread asserted, “Edelgard is willing to make major structural reforms”, which in turn assumes that major structural reforms are inherently good.

Change is just change. Whether a change is good or bad needs the hindsight of history. Because we often don’t know the full impact of a change until much, much later. Some changes, might give short term dividends but in the long term prove disastrous.

So this brings me to the topic of this post, what are the checks on the power of the ruler in Fodlan?

Obviously, its the church. In fact, in Hopes, Seteth explains that the Eastern Church while not an instrument of the Alliance Nobles, is happy to just exist. The Western Church is supposed to be fanatical and we know they roped in Christophe in their plot to kill Rhea and later encouraged Lonato to rebel. There is no such thing as a Southern Church in Houses. Instead, the Empire had a ministry of religious affairs that was basically a state instrument. In Hopes, Edelgard turns the ministry into the Southern Church and we are never told exactly how they differ from the Central Church. But what Seteth does make clear is that Rhea worked hard to keep the Central Church independent of all territories and it is this independent institution to which Dimitri willingly subjects himself too.

Now you in 2022, living in an era that’s come after the age of enlightenment, might think that the church should NOT be a check on the power of the state. That’s understandable but Fodlan is not in 2022, it’s in 1185 and in Europe, in 1185 the check on the power of Catholic Rulers was the Catholic church.

Many historians think that the fact that these medieval rulers couldn’t just act anyway they wanted and had to hold themselves accountable to an external institution did put these regions on the path to eventually have rulers who were accountable to the people and the laws of the land. I.e. its much easier to turn “we are all equal before the Goddess” to “we are all equal”. 

By contrast, regions where the ruler was not accountable to any independent organisation, remains to this day, resistant to the idea that power doesn’t give you carte-blanche to do whatever the hell you want.

In Azure Moon, Byleth and the Church of Serios are a check on Dimitri’s power. But Dimitri is also a check on the Byleth and the church. Also, in-general, Dimitri is not too arrogant to hold himself accountable to others.

Which is why his end card says, “he was known for listening intently to the voices of all, and for instituting a new form of government in which the people were free to be active participants.” In other words, he’s sown the seeds of another institution that will check the power of the ruler.

However, I want to make clear that the church is not the only form of checks and balances we see in Fodlan. Yes the Eastern Church seems to just be happy to vibe but you can argue that the Alliance didn’t need the Eastern Church to check their powers because the Lords checked each others power. Now this is the tragedy of Golden Wildfire because Claude burns down the round table and elevates himself above them.

What Claude does in Hopes is one of those things that sounds appealing when you have real problems and it seems like those in power are doing nothing but talk. But weakening or destroying institutions that inherently work to check the power of one person more often than not, leads to bad things happening eventually.

The Claude von Riegan we know and love is more or less a good person. Make him a dictator and he’s more likely to be a benevolent dictator. But even as a benevolent dictator are we really saying that Claude will never abuse his powers? Especially when “abuse of power” does depend on your point of view.

If a law favours you, you’ll think it is good. But if the same law disenfranchises someone else, especially someone lower down the totem pole to you, is the law really fair?

From an Azure Moon perspective, as I said in my Fodlan under Dimitri post, it is significant that the Alliance lords re-joined the Kingdom willingly. They will NOT have a conqueror-conquered relationship with Dimitri. They voted to join. So I think that a round table of lords to check the power of the king might happen sooner rather than later.

Indeed, both Dimitri and the former Alliance lords might think it is a good idea to prevent future schisms. As for Imperial Lords, if there is a round table of lords that act as a check on the king, I would imagine former Imperial lords would insist on equal representation.

Anyway, this is really all I wanted to say. If you are still reading, thank you! I hope my thoughts didn’t bore you ^.^