#but btwn all the things that he involved in

[louandhazaf]

🦔

[gomacave]

im watching the yuffie dlc and. ad. why does nobody talk about her. shes iliterally so. grips my fist. SHES SUCH A TRAGIC CHARACTER.

[herejusttosufferalong]

What if L & N are Eros & Psyche battling it out irl? What if they're aware of their feelings but N would't give in with A lurking in the background? Maybe L downplayed A and with the way things escalated with L & N (physically or not), N didn't expect A to be at the London premiere. Maybe N was taken off guard and basically said f*ck you to L and left the after party early. (L looked pissed in front of that BTON sign). So maybe L couldn't get N to talk to him and let the paps stunt happen. That got N's attention, didn't it? Cause then N posted the SITC TT and the boob cake and Jake Dunn in her T-shirt...

We also had L post the BTON scene alluding to not letting A ruin their night, and then his appearance on Fallon was like a love letter to N... All the quotes he read were jokes btwn them, & ofc slipped up that he could be her Ken. But maybe N is still pissed. Yes, she's been "supportive" in terms of Polin press but maybe she's like dude, you made your bed now lie in it. We'll see how much you miss your poof... see ya in 3 months.

I'd like to think their communication is not that bad since they definitely could talk about how to have fake sex ad nauseum. But as Luke said in the KissFm interview, when feelings are involved...

#loveisabitch #getittogetheryoutwo

Ngl I kinda like most of this theory 🤭

[angstics]

3.3k words summarizing queliot if you've never seen the magicians. or if youve seen it and you want to indulge in my insane criticisms. lord touch his mind

okay so the magicians was a tv show about a bunch of post grads learning magic in magic university then discovering that the fantasy world from a kids book series was actually real and the Beast of that world was out to get them. WHO GIVES A FUCK. the crazy people were focused on the relationship btwn main character quentin coldwater (depressed, heart on his sleeve, surprise sex maniac who is new to magic and loves those books) and gay best friend eliot waugh (substance addicted (big surprise!!), gay trauma, named after evelyn waugh oh you know…) they form a friendship and it’s weirdly touchy and close. eliot keeps trying to seduce quentin but it’s never serious. i dont even think quentin notices. anyone remember the “lets not talk” scene? he was about to fuck that sad man. anyway this tension was actually fulfilled by the end of the 1st season with a drunk threesome including the two and their best friend margo. they at least kiss and cuddle and MAYBE sucked dick if the ghost of his girlfriend who haunts him later is to be believed (which i do #cockinhismouthsunday).

at this time articles that were like “THIS SIFI SERIES IS PROUDLY BISEXUAL” were coming out which. lol. lmfao! quentin never had any sort of queer identity. not even a hint of it. the homophobia of the show started with the regurgitation of the “sad drunk lonely sex-crazed” gay man trope with eliot, then the “everyone is fluid but no one actually has same sex attraction” trope, THEN by sidelining and killing off almost every gay or trans character, THEN THE QUENTIN THING. and the quentin thing turned people insane. let’s see why.

so after the threesome, eliot and quentin continue having a good friendship. there is some tension that isnt present with margo which sure is a choice… but it is resolved by a heartfelt crowning ceremony nd hug. oh theyre kings of the magic land now btw. eliot and q are pretty much separate from this point on xcept for certain episodes/moments. it is strange they dont have any storylines together. but love finds a way. at some point a version of eliot sacrifies himself for quentin. if u look at the scene it is on instinct it is crazy. then they reunite at the end of s2 but it’s all business really. the show was really involved w its nonsense plot.

anyway season 3. hahaha. so like i said theyre separate most of the show past s1. this is true in this season xcept for episodes 305 and 313 (with some notable moments in between). the plot of this season is that they have to go on quests to collect keys. the creature that gives eliot this plot calls quentin his “brother of the heart”. ok! when they see each other for the first time in a while in 304, they hug in a very sweet way :) look at this photo from bts during that scene :) i have it framed

after a series of other quests, 305 turns out to be the Eliot and Quentin quest! finally a story with the two! the quest is for the “time key”, which is fabled to be given to whoever solves the mosaic puzzle in fillory (magic world). the puzzle? they have to arrange 100s of tiles in a way that depicts “the beauty of all life”. quentin is very excited about it. eliot is happy to hear him infodump. they eventually get pushed into fillory to solve the mosaic. turns out they were also sent DECADES in the past. there might have been a way out but they were dead-set on solving the mosaic and getting their key. so they get to work. they live in a cottage attached to the mosaic and they spend hours, days, months on it. just the two of them and the mosaic. this episode is called “a life in a day” which is so perfect you wonder why the writing couldnt be that good within the show.

at the 1 year anniversary, quentin kisses eliot. and eliot kisses him back. and you wonder woah what does this mean?! well keep wondering girl because this tv show does not care to explore any of that. it chugs on and eliot and q fight about “living their lives there” and quentin gets a Wife and has a child with her and then she DIES (leaving her as a narrative incubator rather than an actual character, which is very in line with the sexism of the show). and they grow up and decades pass and the child grows old enough to leave and it seems eliot co-parented him but (again) the tv show doesnt care to show you that. and this whole time theyre working on the mosaic. years and years. eventually they grow old. it’s just the two of them. until eliot dies. quentin goes to bury him in the mosaic plot and he finds a special little tile. he places it in the mosaic. he gets the key. the puzzle is solved. “the beauty of all life”. but quentin is alone. his life companion is gone. and that’s the last we see of him.

we go back in time til before they enter fillory. their friend stops them and she has the key through time shenanigans and they never live that timeline. UNTIL!!!!! they do. they remember it all. what does decades (50 yrs btw) of living happily together mean for them?!? FUCK ALL APPARENTLY!!!! because the next episode (306 if yr keep track) they mention it ONCE AND NEVER AGAIN. and there is so much beneath the surface with the looks and the line that mentions it (“go be life partners with someone else” eliot says jokingly in a manner that shouldve been the catalyst to quentin’s magic-induced suicide spiral later that episode).

ok quentin does mention it once more to his dying dad. but nothing about his Male Life Partner Of Fifty Years. Nothing. they dont even talk about it with their best friends, leading one to believe they just kept it a secret . which. okay.

okay. so theyre apart til the last episode of the season. and quentin decides to sacrifice himself by locking himself in a cage with a monster for all of eternity. he says the quest prepared him for it which is yikesss. eliot refuses. but quentin insists. they travel to the prison (he gets back together with his gf during this trip btw they had been apart that season after some shit. one of their worst writing decisions i hate this stupid ass cockroach relationship). quentin almost exchanges himself. then eliot shoots the monster. dooming them all.

so the monster doesnt die. instead he possesses eliot. and that becomes the story for season 4. at first quentin and co think eliot is dead. and it’s devastating lol. an interesting thing is that the monster was so. touchy with quentin. unbearably so. it’s such a perverse reflection of eliot’s touch. which is sorta pointed out by quentin in this quote (paraphrase) “i know it’s not eliot. but he has his face and his eyes…”

anyhow 405. hahahahahaha. so this episode it’s revealed eliot is alive but trapped in his own head. and to get out for a moment and tell his friends he’s alive, he needs to confront his most terrible most shameful memory. the whole episode is him trying to figure out what it is. meanwhile, quentin and co are setting up a plan to kill the monster. and quentin breaks up with his gf (lol). in a deleted scene that WAS shown in promo they argue about the monster. and quentin says “im team eliot”. lol

anyhow, eliot’s hit a dead end. he cant figure the worst thing that’s happened in his life. then his memory of quentin (theyve been hangin out) says he’ll “sacrifice” himself if he had to. eliot smiles and says “i know youre just a memory… but youre a very generous one.” and quentin says— (im reciting this from memory btw all of this has been from 4 years of NON STOP thinking about it) quentin says “well you sacrifice for the people you love” and he gives eliot a VERY pointed look. and then it dawns on eliot. and the guilt is instantly palpable.

hahahahha. hahaha. hahahahahaha. okay so eliot goes to the memory he knows is the worst thing he’s ever done. his most traumatic memory, after a lifetime of violent homophobia and bad choices. the person possessed before him described this memory as being “the day he left home”.

the memory? the day they remembered their past lives. did it happen? fifty years. it happened.

theyre sat under a wedding arch (that was the b plot of the episode lol). it’s beautiful. eliot watches the memory play out, standing in front of the seated figures. the guilt. the guilt.

outside, the tension is building. the plan to kill the monster is in motion. quentin has to coax him to a certain spot. he has to look at him as he kills his best friend.

eliot doesnt know this but he gets anxious watching it play out. there is a certainty that this is it. the first time viewer has no idea whats going on. we never saw the direct aftermath of them remembering. we always assumed there wasnt anything.

well a year after 305 aired, a yr after thinking THAT WAS IT, they recontextualize Everything.

it is worth saying here that in the promo interviews leading up to season 4, quentin’s and eliot’s actors were sussing it UP. quentin’s at some point talks on q’s queerness, saying it was the one aspect of his life he didnt feel anxious about.

well

what happens is that quentin asks eliot for a relationship. remember how it was quentin who first kissed eliot? it happens again. heart on his fucking sleeve. i can recite this scene pretty well so im going to fucking do it:

did it happen? fifty years. it happened. it was sort of beautiful. it really was. i know this is gonna sound dumb but … us. i mean we work. we know it cause we lived it. who gets that proof of concept? (eliot smiles uneasily) we just got injected with fifty years of memories so i get that youre not thinking clearly. no im just saying… what if we gave it a shot, would that be so crazy? (eliot looks down, worried and thoughtful. quentin smiles RADIANTLY it is BLINDING) why the fuck not?

editors opinion: quentin is such a beautiful person. to be so truthful about something so scary is unthinkable. especially in context of him being so hopelessly and quietly in love his childhood best friend, and his whirlwind romance with previously mentioned gf, and all the tragedy he endured with these two. but this is someone who loves with his whole heart. what was he supposed to do? contain it?

then eliot hardens.

i know you and you arent… whats the matter? dont be naive it matters. (pause) q i love you but… that isnt me and that definitely isnt you. not when we have a choice. (quentin looks away. he wipes his eye) oh. okay. sorry.

and silence. the real eliot, the eliot who isnt the memory, looks on. tired and angry, he speaks to himself:

what the hell is wrong with you? what the hell are you doing? someone Good and True… Loves you. yeah it was a little crazy but you knew. you knew this truly mattered. and you just SNUFFED IT OUT.

then he looks to the memory of quentin. soft as the clouds:

q. im sorry. i was afraid. and when im afraid i run away.

then he kisses him. and he hits you with the thesis of the episode:

if i ever get out of here q… know that when im braver it cause i learned it from you.

well

thats his most traumatic memory. he is granted passage to consciousness. what is the first thing he sees? quentin. the real quentin.

q? (smiles) q (laughs) it’s me. it’s eliot. ok come on no games. it’s eliot. i said no games. (eliot looks around, worried as all hell) fifty years (he walks towards q) who gets proof of concept like that? what? peaches and plums motherfucker (this is the symbol to their mosaic life) im alive in here. (eyes as wide as saucers, heart in his throat) eliot…

and he ruins their plans of killing the monster. “eliot’s alive.”

then the episodes keep rolling. “eliot eliot eliot. why do you care so much about him?” “because i do.” and “wow i love that plan. except the part where it doesnt save eliot.” quentin gets back with his gf for reasons only the devil knows. but fine ok whatever quentin and eliot will HAVE to talk post-saving. even if the writers ignore it once more they have some kind of relationship. and they do save eliot in the finale! you know who they dont save? lmfao

quentin dies. in a manner that many including myself found weird and unsatisfactory and suicidal. and he never gets to know how eliot feels. never. he’s just gone. their story means nothing 💯

editors note: this ending broke me. i was using the show as a depression crutch, so a fate so hopeless ruined me. cant blame the show for my mistake but being so technically bad certainly didnt help.

well when the show came back for its next (and final lol) season, they did attempt closure for eliot and quentin. for some reason this was all contained in 3 episodes, most of it in the third (503) but what the fuck ever. it has its moments.

the episode is basically about eliot and alice (q’s gf i dont think ive mentioned her name. sorry alice) going on a mini quest up a treacherous mountain for grievers to return a piece of quentin’s soul back to the underworld. their fights are soooo funny. toxic lover vs almost-lover.

alice at some point says “well he was MY boyfriend this is MY pilgrimage and you just TAGGED ALONG” and (blood obviously boiling) eliot goes “right, because he meant nothing to me”. and this highlights something so sneakily homophobic about this whole affair. quentin and eliot’s relationship never mattered to the narrative as much as all the other straight relationships, especially quentin and alice’s. like i said, they would separate for entire seasons. you will be happy to know that not 1 episode goes by without quentin and alice conflicting and making up conflicting and etc. i dont understand how quentin and eliot’s relationship wasnt important enough. they were best friends, they kissed multiple times and had sex AT LEAST once if the mosaic subtext isnt considered. and the mosaic… it isnt just that they lived together for 50 yrs and raised a child and were happy, something they couldnt quite grasp in their old lives… they achieved the beauty of all life. that is a monumental achievement that shouldve changed not only their lives, but their stories.

the thing about the confession is that it wasnt planted in s3. talking about 405, the writers said they came up with it while working on that episode. it was essentially a retcon. though its inclusion explains why they didnt talk about it literally, it doesnt excuse the narrative outright ignoring it. it DEFINITELY doesnt account for why it ignored the rest of the SAME SEASON it was ESTABLISHED IN. if this was quentin and alice, they would be talking about it nonstop. and guess the fuck what when they get back together it is *non stop*.

SO. 503. they are on their pilgrimage. tensions build. eliot hallucinates quentin’s voice (it’s a soundbite from the mosaic when eliot dies which is depressing). they meet another traveller who is grieving his long dead boyfriend.

the traveller asks who theyre grieving and alice goes My Boyfriend and eliot looks away and says he knew him as a friend and it’s so sad it makes me want to die. why did they invent new exciting ways for gay people to be ashamed of who they love. i hate this show.

anyway the traveller talks about his boyfriend and how he was a magician who died young and how his dreams were haunted by him. and eliot is listening so intensely you want to jump hale appleman for being so good at this acting thing. alice goes to sleep and leaves the two alone. then they really start talkin:

(the traveller asks) have you ever had love? (eliot smiles small, hesitant) love…? yeah love. (pause) the friend we’re putting to rest. (traveller is delightfully shock) wasnt just a friend.

truly truly truly cant describe to you how much it physically pains me that it took 2 seasons and for one of them to die and a conversation with a stranger to get to this point. why wasnt this always part of the narrative. why does this only matter now after 2 yrs of fans badgering you about why this isnt part of the fucking show despite BEING PART OF THE FUCKING SHOW! it is dead obvious this was never the intent so even with something that should feel right feels wrong because the show never wanted it. it never wanted quentin to be in love with eliot. but it doesnt make sense if he isnt. i hate this show.

the convo continues 🙄:

does she know? oh god no. a torrid secret affair. (eliot looks away) no, nothing like that.

and i wish eliot was given a proper story. i wish i knew what was going on in his head through all of this. i wish i wish.

so it is revealed that quentin and eliot “had love” and that eliot is keeping it a secret (a revelation considering they werent intimate on screen past the 1 yr anniversary, they were only ever referred to as best friends by cast and crew, AND even what they were was obscured in the confession scene. and their feelings didnt matter past 405 fuck this world). this is huge. it should be huge. eliot’s first arc is about how he cant fall in love until he does and gets his heart broken. quentin’s stories are so wrapped up in alice that having another love interest should complicate that entirely. it doesnt.

the climax of the episode is when eliot expresses difficulty of letting go of quentin and alice says “he was your friend” and eliot replies (quick as if not meaning to) “he wasnt just my friend.” and wowww. how cathartic. the first time in the history of the show they talk about it. 5 seasons btw.

and eliot tells her about the mosaic and how “we loved each other for a really really long time.” and how he told him to fuck off and how he died for him and how he was never able to talk to him again. he just died.

and that part is supposed to be cathartic too. it feels cathartic for eliot the character at least. but to me the Viewer. i was sick of how they were trying to appeal to MY thoughts of what he should be feeling. as if trying to placate me. cuz if it was soo important it wouldnt just been solved after this episode. he DGAF about quentin after this. i dont get it. why cant they write a proper story.

well one line that stuck with me and i truly felt was this:

alice: he was pretty in love with you eliot: i wouldnt say that alice: .. i would

and then eliot looks at her the most devastated a man can look.

thats it. that’s quentin and eliot. a heartfelt and final fuck this show. the fic goes crazy esp the 2019 shit.

[dwreader]

Actual incidents in the book that are in dispute btwn Louis and Lestat since you fuckers can't seem to read:

-Lestat wanted Louis for his plantation vs. he is in fact already rich: not really relevant to the show since show Lestat is flaunting the fact that he's extremely wealthy from the start. Louis is not under any illusion that this guy is after his wealth, HE moves into Lestat's house in fact and accepts Lestat's money/gifts/etc. Lestat is a captial p PROVIDER. He said do NOT take that away from me and it's one thing he's 100% right about.

-A cold loveless relationship depicted in IWTV vs. a more loving though still troubled "marriage" according to TVL: again, more or less moot for the show since season 1 depicts Lestat's version of their relationship more so than Louis's. They are clearly in a romantic relationship, had some good times (that were maybe glossed over quickly by Louis but are still clearly depicted through Claudia's diaries) and yet even in TVL, Lestat agrees that Louis's account was an accurate representation of the atomsphere of their decades together and that he deserved all the punishment he got.

-Lestat torturing + killing people for fun according to Louis vs. Lestat's claim that he only killed people who were "bad" and deserved it: kind of already played out on the show when Louis suggests the idea in 1x03, but ultimately it doesn't significantly alter our perception of Lestat cause does anyone actually care that prostitutes stole money from their clients and think that's a valid reason to torture and kill them? Hope not! It's just a good insight into Lestat's mind and how he justifies killing.

-The events after Lestat's murder and Paris: these parts we have to take from Lestat's POV simply because Louis is unaware of things happening when he's not present. Obviously will be a major part of Season 2.

-The scene at the end of IWTV happening or not: the most direct contradiction between the two accounts but this has not happened yet on the show so it has no bearing on anything in season 1.

As you can see, most of these contradictions involve Louis's omissions in IWTV rather than "made up" events. Save for the final scene in NOLA that doesn't actually mean anything to season 1, absolutely nothing about Louis's depiction of events in IWTV is really disputed by Lestat. Louis's turning, Claudia's turning, the "atomsphere" under which they lived leading up to Lestat's murder and Lestat's murder itself are all indisputable. Lestat is revealing more of his motivations and giving us further vampire context/knowledge that Louis didn't have (because Lestat kept it from him btw and he forgives Louis his errors because he knew it was out of enforced ignorance), but that only slightly changes our perception of his actions. It does not throw them into the trash.

It's also very clear that Season 1 is already an amalgamation of the two versions. If they were taking IWTV literally, the show wouldn't even be a romance and it clearly is. It uses Claudia's diaries (a device revealed only much later in the books) to fill in some scenes that Louis may not have been present for like the kidanpping on the train but the two perspectives make the story kind of bulletproof? The reliability or lack thereof of Louis as a narrator is made possible by Claudia's diary being there as a secondary source and when he's at his most unreliable, it's the diary that provides the contradictions. WE see something's off when the diary's pages are excised. BUT you really don't have any basis in the books for a major lifechanging event like episode 5 to be retconned, let alone an event with two people as sources and involved a prolonged recovery period that's also described in painstaking detail by said two people. Like this woman was a lazy writer most of the time but even SHE wouldn't do that cause its like a basic writing tenant not to feed your reader horseshit??

[destinyc1020]

As harsh as it sounds, tom just wasnt into Nadia enough to feel lik he wanted to continue the relationship. She def was jealous of Z, she constantly unfollowed everything related to her, bt her bf (at the time), was soon going to b filming a hit movie with his ex gf who is beautiful, successful famous and whose billboards she prob saw all over London lmao the jealousy was warranted. Prob didnt help that her bf was mayb in contact with said gf or Nadia knew in someway that he still had feelings for her. Either way she was right cuz a friend (or a friend of a friend?) said that Tom left Nadia for Z n im pretty sure she was telling ppl that 😭 she seems to b happy with her bf so good for her!

Same with Olivia, girl really got a lot of heat bt hope shes good. Tom still wasnt over Z n she knew bt theu were having a good time. How awkward to "date" (or b fwb with) one of yr moms friends daughter n yall nt even last for a yr lmao hope nikki n olivia mom still friends lol

Yea.... I mean, sometimes you just have to let things go and recognize when a man just isn't that into you.

I don't think we can pay that much attention to what friends of friends say. I think it's best to just allow things to be kept btwn the two people who were in the relationship tbh. Only Nadia and Tom REALLY know what happened. We can only speculate.

RE: Olivia...... Tom was definitely rebounding when he was with Olivia (and I would say even with Nadia tbh). I keep telling you all that men (even women) deal with breakups very differently. They usually have flings or get with other women real QUICKLY in order to get over their pain/feelings of heartache. I know it doesn't make sense to US as women, but a lot of times, that's how men process their pain. 🤷🏾‍♀️

Who's to say also that Olivia didn't know it was just a fling or some good sex and a fun time??🤷🏾‍♀️ Not ALL women are looking for something serious all the time.

I just know for ME personally, if I knew a guy had JUST broken up with his gf of X amount of YEARS, there's no way I would be thinking he would be ready for a serious relationship a few months after a breakup. 👀 No way! And the longer he was in the relationship with the prior gf, the LONGER I would assume it would take him to get over it. I would just see it as a fling or a FWB situation and keep it moving. I wouldn't get my heart involved. Easier said than done of course. But that's how I personally would operate. 😄

Also....I think Olivia's mom and Nikki are just fine?? LOL 😄 Isn't this Olivia's mom right here?

By a certain age, most parents know that their kids are adults and can make their own decisions. 🤷🏾‍♀️

[basilibino]

Season 8 was like 6 years ago(I feel old) and I know ppl have differing opinions on the Mr Echo thing (but it was intended, made it to storyboard and blocked animation and then dropped, soooo) but. I can see his recruitment p easily tbh. Bc the whole reason Dr J was in that lighthouse was because he was resurrected, forced there, and ordered to build Skulkin vehicles by Samukai. But Samukai in the flashback we see has already been deposed as leader of the Skulkin/Underworld. Which means the orders to do so most likely came from Garmadon.

And since Mr. E is one of the head honchos, he's likely an early arrival to the team, so I don't think Harumi has a whole lot figured out at this point, she's just got her Trauma and some Bad Influence Friends and an obsession with Lord Garmadon. So. Like. Plausible deniability road trip that she's just visiting important markers of Ninjago's recent past, all of which involve Lord Garmadon in some meaningful way; its sightseeing, its cathartic, and it gives her time to develop her dream Motorcycle Gang/Resurrection Cult. She's not looking for anyone at the Lighthouse, but she is looking for vehicle blueprints so she can be the Koolest leader on the block. But oops she looks in the basement and there's an Echo.

And she's flipping out bc??? A Ninja???? In the Lighthouse basement??? I mean it makes sense that it would be this one but???

Except this rusty old robot has no idea what she's talking about with this Ninja stuff, he's just waiting for his dad to come back.

And Harumi pauses.

Because how long has he been waiting? He's not sure, he had no proper way to measure time in the basement, and he doesn't have the best view of his clockwork heartpiece. But it was after his father saw a strange ship docking; Echo was worried it was the People who had locked up his father in the first place, but instead his dad sounded happy when he saw whoever was out there. It could have been a front, though, as clearly it was never safe to let Echo back out. Then Dr J popped down briefly, while everyone above was resting, to tell Echo he was desperately needed elsewhere, that it wasn't safe to bring Echo, but that he'd be back in no time.

And the pieces are fitting together for Harumi. And she's like. Your dad's dead, bro.

And he's like. What? Did he die doing what was needed of him?

And she's like. Oh, no. He died a few years later.

And he's like. Why didn't he come back for me????

And she's like. Probably because they kept him away.

And he's like. Who's they?

And she's like. The Ninja I was talking about earlier.

And it surely can't be hard in universe to find pictures of Zane and Dr J post s2-pre s3, so she pulls one up and shows Echo who is freaking out bc why is that one kind of like him and Harumi explains that that was the droid his father created first, that he became a Ninja, and that hes probably the one who took their father away and kept echo waiting for years.

But Echo has doubts, shocked as he is abt a new older brother, he wants to believe the good in the situation so he's unsure. But Harumi mentions that the Ninja's failures to uphold more than their self preservation/interests has led to uncountable losses and devastation in Ninjago time and time again, before delving into her own story. And she seems so kind, and so hurt, and I do think there's a genuine connection btwn these two that forms from this shared emotional torment that they decide came from the Ninja, and now Echo is more receptive.

And then Harumi gets to start her Garmadon pitch because wait! If Echo was made here, then that could only have happened because of Lord Garmadon. And she reiterates that he's the reason she and her city could have even survived The Great Devourer. And maybe Echo's family-by-creation left, maybe they were untrustworthy and lacking, but that's OK bc if you look at it all a certain way, Garmadon is more of a father to Echo than Dr J was. And Echo is a vulnerable, overwhelmed mess who just found out his dad fucked off for years without him and also died, and also he has a brother??? Who their dad clearly seems to have favored??? Did they even know about Echo??? Did they delight in their life free of him???

Basically. Kinda Spinel-core but getting abandoned and left completely alone does that to you. Especially when the first person to find you after being abandoned is a deeply hurt and misguided teen who is probably kinda desperate for someone, anyone else to see the Ninja the way she sees them.

[shadowgast-recs-weekly]

Hidden Gems: Less than 150 Kudos

This week, we have one of our recurring rec lists - fics that you might have overlooked. Enjoy 13 fics that involve highly specific AU's, kink, Ludinus being evil, and of course, trips to Aeor. Check them out underneath the cut and of course, remember to comment and kudos if you like them!

Ages Past, Ages Hence by AthenaVine (12589, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Mostly canon-compliant fic series. The slow & careful courtship of Caleb & Essek during their trips to Aeor.

Reccer says: Omniscient perspective & visceral descriptions of the wizards' feelings

I used to hear a simple song by Amiactuallydoingthis (1378, General) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Meet cute in a university library

Reccer says: I liked it!

inked in skin; etched in bone by QuenaSparquea (56047, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Saving the world for a second time had a way of putting things in perspective. An exploration of magic and relationships in 31 pieces

Reccer says: This collection of interconnected stories sheds light on a slightly AU version of the Mighty Nein, in particular the Shadowhand as he navigates his past while planning for his future.

you must first invent the universe by renquise (3466, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

a snippet of a sci-fi take on the pre-aeor mission

Reccer says: Suuuuper fascinating take on the group in a sci-fi world. The interactions btwn Essek and Caleb are so interesting and you call practically feel all the world building even in the short amount of time.

Frozen Ink by Beauteousmajesty (1663, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek’s chronic pain gets worse once winter has arrived in Rexxentrum. Luckily, Caleb is good at fire.

Reccer says: Domestic and sweet ❤️

Golden hour by Technojuicebox (1914, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek needs help after an experiment of intimate nature has gone wrong.

Reccer says: I love the sexual tension between them

Suspicions (The Empire Spy) by Im_sorry_dont_judge_me (8249, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: Dubcon/Consensual Non Consent

Essek learns of one of Caleb's fantasies and agrees to play it out with him. Then Caleb insists on returning the favor.

Reccer says: I really like that some of the kink negotiation scenes are included - communication is sexy.

farewell star by narspicious (8297, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: Choose Not to Warn, Major Character Death

When Caleb Widogast dies in Aeor, Essek vows that not even the gods will stop him from bringing back the man he loves.

Reccer says: I loved the atmosphere and the premise a lot!

so volatile an equation by bloodredribbon (8459, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: Mutual dubcon, manipulation

After Caleb witnesses Essek's conversation with Da'leth, Essek kidnaps him before he can tell the Nein what he saw.

Reccer says: It's so messy, a lovely dark fic of what could have happened had Essek seen Caleb

of things yet to come by ghostsquidswrites (10467, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Ludinus imprisons Caleb in a sleeping spell to try and get Essek to do his bidding. Essek tries to use magic to figure out a way out of it.

Reccer says: I love it when Essek interacts with the rest of the nein - and here, also other NPCs - and I'm a big fan of the wizards nerding out about spells.

The Icarus to Your Certainty by ithilielthechosenone (14091, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

In Aeor, just the two of them, there are many things to finally resolve. Not least of all the question of what they could be to one another.

Reccer says: This fic has so many of the things I love about Shadowgast - Essek hanging out with Reani, pining, travels to Aeor, considerations of time travel shenanigans, guilt and learning to love themselves through loving others - it's a fantastic read and deserves to be a classic.

I want you to hold me (don't let me go) by Multifandom_damnation (2316, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

After the final battle with Trent Ikithon, Caleb goes home to a worried and waiting Essek, who puts him back together as best he can

Reccer says: The soft coda to Echoes of the Solstice that they deserve

some branch of stars we see by SongOfWizardry (1721, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: WIP

A shadowgast teaching AU where Caleb is training Essek to be a secondary school teacher.

Reccer says: It's a highly specific AU in terms of author's experience, and I love how it also fills in the relationships that Caleb has with the rest of the Nein.

Aeor is for Lovers is an 18+ Shadowgast Discord server. The above fanfic recommendations were pulled from our community for this weekly event. All fics, unless otherwise specified, will primarily feature Shadowgast.

Check out the previous Hidden Gem Recs Lists here [1] [2] [3] [4]

Have any questions about what this is? Check out the FAQ! Next week, we'll be featuring spanking!

[lesbianmaxevans]

meant to make a post months ago LOL but some heartbreak high jumbled thoughts (after watching thru a second time to refresh my memory LOL)

quinni is probably the best autistic rep I've ever seen. when she decided to stop masking her autism >>>>>> her speech during the debate >>>>>>>>>

ca$h is probably the best ace rep I've ever seen. ca$h and darren's relationship is literally everything I've ever wanted, I feel like ace characters are never allowed to date someone unless that person is also ace/celibate, so it means soooooooooooo much to me to see a relationship btwn someone who is very into sex and someone who is very uninterested in sex. and to see darren be so committed to their relationship even tho it's difficult just warms my heart so much

I think the way harper's trauma is depicted in s1 is really raw and beautiful. this show gives everyone the space to be messy and her spiraling after her bodily autonomy was taken away is very realistic and imo good to see. that being said I need girlie to get some therapy and form a healthier relationship with sex asap.

I am once again uncomfortable with a show about minors having so much explicit sexual content. whyyyyyyyy is this allowed

darren, quinni, malakai, and missy have never done anything wrong ever in their lives :) also missy and malakai are bisexual icons, I love them both so much

writers go to jail for the missy/spider plot. he spent all of s1 being such a vindictive asshole to amerie bc she rejected him and then he was publicly shaming missy (albeit thankfully w/o naming her) for the same reason. he's incessantly misogynistic and racist. he also had the idea of the fraudulent accusation of mrs obah sleeping with a student bc he wanted the slt classes cancelled!!! and fueled the reactionary bullshit that voss was trying to start. like whyyyyyyyy are the writers trying so hard to redeem him I'm sick of this (if he actually sticks to his speech in 2.08, I'll be thankful tho. I still won't like him lol but at least he won't be making everyone else miserable anymore)

ppl hate dusty too much. like yeah he undeniably was in the wrong for his part in starting the rumor about mrs obah and amerie. but imo he's put in more effort to altering his behavior (as seen by him being a safe person for darren to go to) than ant or spider and both of them were involved too and I don't see ppl at their throats like they are for dusty.

I live for chaos and drama so the malakai-amerie-rowan triangle was soooooo fun (altho I wish there hadn't been the extra drama with the rowan being "bird psycho". just stick to the love triangle messiness. also do not get me started on rowan threatening malakai WHAT WAS THAT why did the writers do that 😑 anyway I want rowan back in s3 and making amends w the ppl who were collateral damage in his revenge quest against amerie)

also re the love triangle mess, it seems like the writers are intending for amerie/malakai endgame and I do like them but I feel like the show did gloss over amerie's repeated boundary violations (which honestly was also a problem with her dynamic w harper in s1 too, like girl you have to let people come to you instead of badgering them into talking to you and trying to force them to confess things). like everyone repeatedly told her to give malakai space as he was processing that he was bi and she just kept hovering and trying to force him to open up. like.... girlie please he just needed some time to figure out his feelings.

sometimes the show wants to treat the women as #girlbosses when they actually do things that are really fucked. like I don't hate harper, but the speech she gave to embarrass dusty at the basketball game was really gross and the narrative treats it as epic and her standing up for herself when she and dusty took advantage of malakai not being sober and the fact that he was in a bad headspace after just being attacked by that cop. also the writers act like dusty deserved this just bc harper thought he was acting weird after the threesome like...... is he not allowed some time to process his feelings about a new experience??? like..... how did the narrative treat this as a #girlpower moment what the hell

the demonization of mental illness is pretty uncomfortable. we only really see the symptoms of harper's dad (and presumably rowan) when they are actively being a danger to people. like mental health issues that cause ppl to see delusions doesn't equal that person being violent but the show kind of ties their anger/violence to their mental illnesses... which is another reason as to why I hope rowan sticks around for s3. let's see more of him being soft while still acknowledging these symptoms.

amerie going back to save rowan is one of my fave moments. like she has come such a long way from the girl who aired out everyone's personal business :')

[xiakeik]

U know especially for someone who hasn't consumed JJK in awhile, that's really accurate. I'd really love more details if u want but not only is that super accurate but man what a fucking fun character that would be. Idk even know who I'd want to see them interact with the most because I want to see them interact with everybody. The stuff like doing insane things to win arguments and caring so much about how they look is such a perfect way to combine their traits too

Little rushed comic I thought I could do of their interaction with Mr. Stanford Pines himself!

Further explaination under the cut :]

Some other fun things I thought of regarding Nopher that aren't specifically related to Ford/anyone:

Nopher (which I'll say is the fusion name), definitely will have a hard time getting used to the body first. If you think about it, it's just Sukuna & Itadori in Season 1 (which btw, IF my art block doesn't attack me, i MIGHT draw an interaction btwn them). Simply not pleasant LMAO. Ford doesn't really know what to do with it because Nopher isn't much of a threat for the moment. Another thing to note is that Nopher kinda just showed up to to Ford's doorstep (thanks Bill) and while Ford DOES immediately recognize Bill in Nopher, he does not recognize the physical body he inhabits. Ford doesn't know Nobara, and Nobara doesn't know Ford. Only connection they really have with each other is Bill. I feel like Ford would be VERY intrigued by how Nobara, who likely doesn't have much knowledge on Bill, is able to withstand brief periods of possession per say? I'd like to think that although Ford really doesn't want to do anything with Cipher At All, he can't really ignore the fact that he got a "random" person involved. Obviously Nopher's capable of pretty much the entire arsenal that Nobara & Bill have (except Bill's powers might be a teensy bit limited but they don't know that).

Don't ask me where they get the money from but they do enjoy clothes shopping/shopping in general for the trendy stuff. One of the very few things they "enjoy"/have in common.

Nobara within the mindspace once in awhile will get excited to see the things they have around Oregon, same with Bill when they meet the JJK gang in Tokyo.

Bill ABSOLUTELY gets really confused over the idea of being able to see Curses. The creatures released during Weirdmageddon couldn't leave the confinements of the town, so it's a shocker for Bill to find that there are actually other worldly beings residing in a place outside of Gravity Falls. Freely too! (If they aren't killed)

On the contrary though, Nobara will always see the weird stuff happening in Gravity Falls as a threat. She's been trained that way to never let her guard down and she's BRUTAL with it. I think during these times, Nopher's general "crazy" really starts to come out.

Regarding the past 2 bullet points, it's a just whole new struggle for Nopher: Nobara needs to continue protecting people from Curses that normal people can't even see, whereas Bill always wants to try and make allies with them. It's tough.

That's probably all I'm gonna come up with for now!! I do have a semi-large project I'd like to get started on & finish before the end of the week so story-building Nopher may not be prioritized for now. I do hope you enjoyed my ramble though, anon!

[sincerelyandyourstruly]

shame, devotion, and venxiao

it is not a sin to want.

yet somehow, there is such shame to it.

maybe it's just me, but "desire" is such a loaded word. i think that's why i find it so difficult to deal with. to want something so earnestly, from so deep within one's heart… how is that not simply THE most mortifying thing on the planet?

it's kind of funny. xiaoven— though most particularly xiao— must come to terms with their selfish desires that are not going to go away n be vulnerable w/each other abt their ugliest selves in order to be accepted n truly loved, at which point shame loses its incredible power over them, and they can be together forever in love for realsies.

because it's easy to imagine a xiao, who, out of love and devotion towards venti, his savior and the god of freedom, might feel like he can only express the sheer depth of his emotions by tugging down the stiff collar of his shirt to bare his own neck for execution.

(that is how one feels towards a god, is it not? this sort of vulnerability, a willingness to die for them, born from a desire to be good.)

and i use the imagery of undressing and invoke the sense of waiting for someone else's actions upon you intentionally here. it ties xiao's sense of intimacy up with power over his life, and as a being who struggles to separate his very sense of self from violence itself, i think it would make sense that death and intimacy are linked to him.

i think a big reason why he's so reluctant to give up his duty to someday die quelling demons for the peace and prosperity of liyue is because he's afraid that wanting something, anything might break the centuries of rigid discipline that's kept him alive after all this time. to love something, to want something, is to then die for it.

and like. i think it's pretty obvious that venti would not want to hold that power over xiao, if xiao tried to express his love by essentially giving over his entire life into venti's hands. it's so lacking in boundaries on xiao's end that even if that's what xiao himself wants, it would ultimately be the most horrifying (yet still earnest!!!) show of devotion to venti.

and so. it's probably fairly obvious from all this that this push-n-pull of desires is part of what makes xiao n venti's relationship so compelling to me personally. they're arguing abt things that are so deeply a part of them: xiao's self-destructive obedience vs. venti's bleeding heart and ideal of freedom. it's kind of... dare i say... yaoi.

obviously, in the context of fandom, there is a difference btwn xiaoven and venxiao. like, technically it's about top and bottom discourse, but outside of nsfw contexts, it's more about power dynamics, about who follows and who leads in a relationship.

i tend not to care too much, since i get weirded out if it feels too… overt? controlling? one-sided? n it starts feeling like the characters are just becoming bastardized "Any Two Guys."

but, like, as may be obvious by the common ship name being xiaoven, fandoms typically have a preference. it makes sense— xiao is v physically strong, n he has this very curt, no-nonsense, straightforward way of doing things, while venti is usually mistaken for a girl by people new to genshin. in concept, it could be fun to see xiao lead a more uncertain venti around n be the more decisive, aggressive pursuer of the relationship.

HOWEVER. relationships are based in feelings n are therefore much more human things. that is definitely not smth xiao is familiar with or experienced in at all. that is venti's area of expertise.

n xiao is a character i like to characterize by his devotion n his obedience. he's not the type to come up w/a procedure for acting in situations where he is totally unfamiliar w/what's happening bc his procedure will probably be aggressive "hit it 'till it dies." in situations involving others, he can't do that, so he's left pretty helpless in situations all about ~feelings~ and stuff.

now, venti is the more human one, in the sense that he has a much greater understanding of how we chase our whims on the breeze. he knows how to navigate these kinds of emotional, dare i say intimate, situations— which is why xiao would look to him for guidance in navigating these things. he wants to be told what to do bc he is a weapon, a violent tool w/no agency of his own (or at least as he likes to think).

xiao's repression is very internalized. he knows he is someday doomed, so why bother letting himself want anything. (why dare to hope when he doesn't believe himself worthy of venti's love in return?)

despite the horrifying levels of devotion i believe xiao to be capable of, i also firmly believe that he can later learn to rein in the self-destructive aspects of it w/o diminishing the value of those feelings. there's something oh-so lovely about self-love taught through loving others and others loving you, about watching something self-destructive and dangerous fall victim in love to something that can withstand its horrors and love it anyway, love it enough to make destroying itself no longer feel worth it.

after all, one of the most romantic answers one could give to the old, "i would die for you" absolutely has to be, "we are going to make it out of this together."

and in my opinion, that's pretty venxiao.

[windupaidoneus]

hi thistle ! i hope u feel better soon 🫂 i would love to hear everything ud like to say abt hildemet i love learning - what were their first impressions, and what was the moment where their feelings started to shift to become more romantic? (@dmclr)

claraa hi...!! tysm i hope i do too i try ! my best

oh oh that is a fun one... because there's hildegarde but there's also hildegarde's azem, lachesis. so plenty of first impressions to go around especially with how i go about the relationship btwn hildegarde & lachesis... umm. putting this under a read more because. as always. i yap. sparing people's dashes

back in ye olde amaurot lachesis' first impression of hades was. hearing about this "magical prodigy". himself, equally prideful & desperate to prove himself (they were both like. teens. around that time), decided that Well, i'm gonna show everyone what's what!

& so hades' first impression of lachesis was this complete stranger blowing him up alongside some individuals who were giving him trouble. lachesis then patched all of them up (to prove exactly how capable he was) (there are many insecurities involved in whatever he's got going on yea.) & they had their first actual conversation then. hades thought lachesis was pretty vainglorious meanwhile lachesis found him to be reaaally disappointing for someone known to be a genius of magic or whatever. but also he was easy to piss off & when you're starved for any kind of attention like lachesis... well. hades got himself a guy glued to him real quick that's for sure.

they did end up growing to get along fairly rapidly due to both their complainer natures... lachesis is a bit of a goss & hades is the unsundered world's original tsundere so they were bound to bond. lachesis pranked him a bunch too but that's obviously fine & okay. there were also times he was more vulnerable around hades (who did not necessarily reciprocate at first, but him allowing lachesis to be vulnerable at all rather than pushing him away & ignoring him was already a sign of them growing closer) which... yeah. hades proved to have a kind heart through all their bickering. he wouldnt be a good ear for just anybody but lachesis was one of his exceptions. he was weird but he was also his friend so it was ok. & that kind heart of his has absolutely captivated lachesis body & soul 👍 IT DID TAKE SOME YEARS but also they have ancient lifespans what is ten years to acknowledge & express one's feelings in a lifetime... (hythlodaeus tried so hard. to help. god he tried. it sorta worked on hades' end but w lachesis it was very much a moment of "oh! so i'm in love with him!" "yes...! that is what i have been getting at for the past seven years but i'm glad you came to that conclusion on your own. if a bit late" "haha than- what do you mean seven years") notably though even if they acknowledged their own feelings they didn't say anything. they just. got closer. & closer. got more intimate even. never brought it up after it happened but it also kept happening. staying over at each other's place & cuddling & nearly kissing but not quite. even started sharing a living space for practicality eventually. shared a bed more often than not despite both having a bed of their own. yeah.

the catalyst for them ☝️ to actually confess to anything though was uh. to be quite honest? lachesis doing really really bad. (#justlikemeforreal) it was to the point he could not speak & was just real frantic & freaked out visibly panicking & sobbing & there just wasn't much hades could Actually do to get through to him because um i do not think they had known grounding methods back in amaurot it looks like their understanding of emotions & mental illness is extremely limited at best so try as he might... uh. well the only thing he could think of was soul bonding. & so they did 🎉 & got to pretty much know the other inside out. most importantly the fact they were both willing to soul bond with each other (with it being incredibly vulnerable for lachesis considering the state he was in at the time) showed how much they were willing to share with each other. & that was when they got together pretty much. sharing in each other's minds also allowed for lachesis to regain some much needed calmness, & they managed to have an Actual Conversation afterwards. this also means hades was made aware of lachesis' plurality, something that wasn't quite explainable for either of them really, but well. it explained Some Things. & it meant a lot to lachesis that experiencing for himself just how messy of a person lachesis considered himself to be did not deter hades from being by his side. yeagh. good lird i haven't even touched on hildegarde specifically yet i am so cooked OKAY!!

as for. well. hildegarde specifically. emet was. ahhh. well. he's the architect of the empire he was raised in. the one that ingrained very very unhealthy mindsets in him (not that hilde was particularly self-aware at the time, certainly not enough to blame solus). meeting with the empire's founder was chilling, but admittedly he did have some bigger concerns at the time, like being very worried about the similarities between the sin eaters' attacks & his own... his gut reaction wasn't hatred. there was a lot of morbid curiosity there, without even speaking of that weird feeling of... something he couldn't place. a sort of familiarity? but very muted. he brushed it off as emet being solus so of course he'd feel familiar to a degree considering hilde grew up in garlemald. but. no real hatred. even if realistically anyone in their right mind would've defaulted to that. hildegarde was always #freaky

emet did not quite fancy hildegarde initially. which. ! yeppp that's the guy who divorced him badly's soul colour alright! & god he fucking looks just like him too! but he's considerably weaker & not an ancient! part of him had always resented any lachesis shards he'd come across for "taking away" someone he cared about, but at the same time... especially in hildegarde's case. looks exactly like lachesis if lachesis had scales & horns. it really fucked him up. i guess you could say the first impression was every emotion he could possibly feel all at once. grief, sorrow, the joy of seeing his face again, the rage of seeing his soul colour so diluted & weak compared to how bright it used to be, shock too at the realisation of who would be his greatest foe yet ; & an insurmountable amount of guilt mixed with disgust, what with hildegarde being so much more overtly miserable than lachesis had ever been. so easy to break comparatively. & knowing part of it is, directly or indirectly, his fault weighed on him regardless of how much he wanted to not care. hilde was just a huge reminder of everything he'd lost & zodiark's tempering twisted it into something much more negative than it would've been otherwise.

needless to say They Did Not Have A Smooth Start. emet dying at his own hand is one of the things hildegarde regrets most to this day, even if emet lives once more. he felt pulled toward him the whole time they 'worked' together, & while he remained wary he genuinely wanted to understand him & god, he was desperate for there to be an ending to it all that did not involve anyone dying. womp womp. you're in ffxiv boy. get used to it. the romantic feelings likely started forming properly during the whole 'building a talos to reach mt gulg' section, which... sure made the betrayal bite! but he's fine ofc. (hildegarde's negative emotions after the dying gasp were so potent they forced emet to drag himself from the aetherial sea & infiltrate his dreams so he would not kill himself in his sleep. oops! he wasn't gonna let hildegarde fumble his "backup plan in case he loses against the wol" though. especially not as his soul regained the erased memories from elpis. which... also softened him some toward hildegarde. though he was already in his romantic feelings as well, seeing more & more of lachesis in hildegarde but also coming to appreciate hildegarde for who he is, he would've, well ok no he DID literally die rather than acknowledge them & change course. he COULD have changed course. but it simply did not feel like he even had that option after coming this far. & in a way dying also meant putting an end to everything he'd done. bah. guilt is a silly emotion. just live & be a better person, idiot)

[ardentpoop]

genuinely interested bc i love critical thoughts on Dean and John, why do u think John is better than him?

I agree Sam is the best, but as of right now, I believe John is worse, gimme ur thoughts <3

I think most people have such a narrow idea of abuse that john registers as More Abusive than dean bc of the show’s (offscreen, retroactive) imagery of him devolving into drunken rages etc. which btw - as if dean doesn’t have plenty of onscreen drunken rages. 😅 overall tho most of the harm john inflicted on his sons was done via his unpredictable absences - and in sam’s case by cutting him off when he refused to live the life john thought he should live. (“you walk out that door don’t you ever come back” from john when sam leaves to go to stanford and from dean when they clash after sam’s forced detox.)

could very well be that if john had lived past s1 he would’ve made things worse - but he also could’ve made things a lot better tbh, by rerouting some of the tension btwn his sons. bc dean goes off the fucking rails after john dies. the reason I say s1 dean is the only version of dean I wholeheartedly sympathize with is that the red flags pop up in s2 immediately after john’s death and he only gets worse and worse from there.

like who do you think did more damage to sam - john with whom sam would argue constantly bc he knew he was wrong abt what was “best” for sam, who died before the worst events of sam’s life could transpire? or dean who develops an insanely long track record of lying to sam “for his own good” and making decisions for him without his consent (which sometimes involves literally punching his lights out to incapacitate him) and questioning his judgement at every major junction and calling him a “freak” and meaning it and showing him that everyone else in their life agrees that dean’s right to do all of it. john was sam’s unreliable father but dean is sam’s literal life partner and he makes their already nightmarish existence worse by refusing to extend a modicum of the trust compassion and understanding to sam that sam unconditionally extends to dean.

I’m sorry but dean’s literally a monster lol no other character in this show makes my stomach turn more frequently than he does. and like I’ve said - there is immense narrative value to that and this show and these characters wouldn’t be the same if the dynamic wasn’t this badly unbalanced… but ppl are so allergic to confronting it. it doesn’t mean you can’t like dean as a character! believe it or not there are things abt him that I find very compelling. it’s just that I want to scream until I’m blue in the face when the fandom or the narrative trots out its romanticized version of him.

[eyedove]

alright whats up fuckers get timelined.

you want your deep taagnus fankid lore, this might be the only spot ya get it for a while. also included: a little on lup's first kid, a LOT on taako having a bad time in general, some relationship details btwn taako and magnus past and present, casey character development to follow it up, and then a little bit on the twins. the, like, little twins, i mean. the ones that taako and magnus have.

warnings for taako’s general, like, everything: identity crisis, his issues socializing, loneliness, depression, gender dysphoria (weirdly enough, not pregnancy related), his experience with chronic pain, and later being diagnosed with a connective tissue disorder, which in itself is not a trigger warning but moreso his dealing with it is not particularly healthy and could be sort of self-harm-y in a way. and for magnus: his RSD is mentioned, his self-worth issues are alluded to, mentions of past self harm, he gets very emotional about family planning in regards to past relationships, his death is eventually mentioned but isn’t part of the timeline nor is it gone in depth on.

in general they’re also just… taako and magnus. they’re kind of shitty guys and kind of immature and kind of fucked up. they’re good to their kids, they’re just still, y’know. taako and magnus.

i can not stress enough, pregnancy and issues relating to this. difficulties conceiving and postpartum depression are IN. HERE. everything turns out and everyone involved is perfectly fine, it just takes some time to get there and it’s a rough road, but they ultimately end up doing it twice and they’re both pretty firmly in the camp of it being worth it.

anything else that needs to be mentioned please let me know holy shit and i’ll exercise my best judgment, cus i know some of it might be wild to read, but i want to get triggers down for the most part. stuff that’s not triggering, like… oops, sorry, but. it’s taagnus mpreg what do you WANT FROM ME. if i listed everything that people might not like it would just be another 6k words.

basics:

lup’s first kid, missy, is about 5 years older than casey, who was carried by taako, and is about 3½ years older than elodie, who’s a few minutes older than rian, both of which were carried by magnus.

tl;dr coming soon. and by tl;dr i mean a shorter version that’s been picked through and had all of the bullshit unnecessary garbage taken out. :)

timeline:

- after story & song magnus and taako do not talk for like a year. it’s rough. they correspond a little, magnus sends him funny good things he finds like fuckin. silly chainmail messages and pictures of stuff he thinks taako might like, but he’s trying his best not to overstep any boundaries. taako has not actually established these boundaries. magnus has just sort of assumed them. unfortunately, taako is not a guy who goes out of his way to go to magnus’ place of residence and yell at him.

- but he doesn’t keep it up forever. he does go fucking find magnus. and he does go yell at him. and magnus does kind of have a fit about it. but it’s fine. it’s taako, and he also knows that getting down here was probably. a hell of a lot. and he does appreciate it.

- they immediately click though. because of course they do. and a year and change is a long time for them to go without each other while also actively knowing that they’ve gone without each other. it’s weird. taako one minute is living in lup’s empty ass house because she’s at work and kravitz is at work and he hates everyone who has any time to spend with him, and then the next, he and magnus are picking out like. the color of the accent wall in the livingroom. what kind of flooring should be in the hallways. (magnus wants hardwood, taako refuses to go with anything except shag. carpeting.)

- it’s sort of nice! taako stays a homebody but he’s not completely disconnected. weirdly enough, he sees more of lup. and kravitz. and barry and merle and davenport and everyone. mostly because he doesn’t avoid outings as much. and because he starts going to parties. and goes fishing with davenport. and gets all of his and magnus’ weed from merle that he felt too fucking sick to sit home alone and smoke himself. magnus still has like, a business to run. and taako kind of does, too, sort of, even though he’s been really fucking that up recently and taking a huge backseat on accident.

- anyway, they settle. taako’s doing okay. magnus is doing okay. they had already decided years and years and years ago they weren’t gonna get married and EXTRA aren’t gonna now. magnus doesn’t want to get married again. taako hates it as a concept. it’s complicated. but they’re together. it’s semi-open. taako occasionally sleeps with other people. rarely. listen, he barely goes out, let alone fucks around, and magnus knows it.

- lup has missy like 2 yrs after taako moves out. which does mean that she got pregnant only like a year after he left (elven gestation w/ their slow ass metabolisms), which he’s a little peeved about, but whatever, he gets it. he’s happy for her. he’s not as absolutely gutted as he thought he’d be if it ever happened. is he numb? he can't tell.

- turns out he's… not? maybe? yes, taako being dissociated and numb usually results in being a little more blase about stuff than hed normally be, but he feels. in it. he has an attachment that he's used to having, because it's lup, and it feels almost natural again. almost? there is no way he's picking this feeling apart. they will remain complicated forever because a child is definitely not something that he has to confront (all lies he knows he knows better.)

- weird concept: so how about confront it?

- taako is weirded out by this Thing. lup’s proud of it, though, and magnus is immediately and irreparably damaged by holding this baby, taako can see it in his stupid face, the way he just fucking. grins. and tears up and holds this thing so gently. lup is looking at taako like do not let this guy squish my baby, i’ll kill you, and taako’s just thinking the whole time, yeah, i get it, but like. fucking look at him.

- anyway rightfully she doesn’t let magnus hold the thing for more than like ten minutes before she wants it back but it’s fine - they all relax, taako worries about something else for a change, gets his heart ripped out of his body still beating by this thing crying, everything’s good.

- and now he’s obsessed. partly just with missy, lup’s baby, because she’s hilarious and she’s cute, and she literally just keeps getting FUCKING cuter, but partly with the idea of. baby. like. he could have one of those. he’s got everything for it. like, a house, and a boyfriend, and… financial stability. emotional stability? yeah, man! like, he’s super getting there, isn’t he?!

- he and magnus talk one night. taakos literally sat on his chest over the top of him and starts asking him abt this fucking coffee table lup bought when she first moved into her house, and magnus is like oh yeah, i like that thing, it’s really cool, i kinda wanna make one just like it, but it feels like it’d be copying, at this point. and taako’s like holy shit EXACTLY. exactly correct. but what if we did anyway. just, like, in our own. way. y’know? it’d be different if we did it. we could handle it. we have space for it. if we both worked on it maybe we could like. take care of it. sides, it’d be nice to just. have more shit that has some of you. in it. that will last a long time. so i don’t have to like, go out and replace it later, and i… know that it’s from you, and everything, y’know.

- anyway they keep having this conversation. like, every day, taako brings this up. talks about hey, listen, i know that this is uncharacteristic. you gotta take me seriously here, though. i’m so serious. and magnus is like… serious about… buying a coffee table? and taako’s like NO. i mean maybe, if the conversation must go in that. direction. later, but we’re fucking. capable, are we not?? of doing it ourselves? or we should at least find out?

- eventually magnus asks him, hey, are we… talking about… the kind of coffee table. that you and me, have, uh, tried to make. before? and taako goes LOL, tried?! no. we’ve never had the time or resources to get it like, anywhere near a real project. pal, have we maybe accidentally started on it, and then had that shit totally made useless like every other bodily state ever over and over for ninety nine years? i genuinely dunno man, if we have, that’s between our respective guts, the coffee table, and god only. and magnus just goes ohh. so we are definitely talking about the same thing. okay. oh wow.

- they decide they want one! theyll fucking. build a damn. coffee table. okay.

- and so they start! and they work on it! and they fucking! try! they do eventually get to the point where they can say aloud that they’re trying for a baby. it takes an embarrassingly long time. they are not known for their healthy communication. but taako forces it out into the light eventually. he's okay with being silly about it on a basic level but listen, someone has to rein magnus in a little bit on that. a little. (magnus actually hadn't expected taako to go for it, calling what they're doing having kids, so it's a huge surprise and an extremely positive one, because as much as he's stalwart in the idea of honoring the concept, he also kinda gets it.)

- they don't tell people at first. this is entirely because they KNOW people will be weird about it. but the moment he needs someone to complain to he tells lup and then it quickly gets around elsewhere - which. fairly, most people are kind of skeptical. it’s taako. taako? child? lup, though, kinda knows. she still has early adulthood memories of conversations complaining about the world and guys devolving into if i ever have kids... and how early on taako did show interest. how it kind of became a thing he stopped talking about over the decades. she believes him. and her believing him makes it easier for everyone else to kind of fall into place about it.

- and taako has a few freakouts. a couple total meltdowns. but they got it. they get it, after almost two years. they get it down, and both of them flip their absolute FUCKING lids but taako way moreso than magnus was expecting in any way shape or form. yeah, it was taakos idea. yeah, its taako whos carrying, so hes probably way excited about it. he just didnt expect such an explosive reaction out of him. given that he's, y'know. taako.

- literally every problem taakos ever had becomes an issue. his bullshit tolerance is now: none. his energy level is now: none. his heat tolerance is now: none. his blood pressure is now: none. his ability to cook and feed himself is now: uhh, very little. which that second thing is not super abnormal, but the first one kinda sucks more than usual. this also peaks right in the middle of summer. hes convinced hes dying. (hes not. they absolutely make sure hes not.)

- he DOES like having a good excuse to make everyone else do everything for him. not a huge fan of the genuine doting, but having someone on call for a bucket any time any where is a power he didnt know he wanted. he doesnt use it genuinely very often, but magnus is GREAT at coming when called, and thats funny.

- they pointedly do not know the sex. it is partly performative. it is partly because taako is in the THICK of a gender crisis (had been before he got pregnant even, it hasn't gotten particularly worse, but it's still there) and if someone in his life found out and started prescribing shit even on accident or coincidentally based on the thing's genitalia he'd fucking lose his shit, so they just don't know, they're not gonna know, it's not a big deal, leave him alone.

- taakos naturally a toe walker. not abnormal for elves from the two sunned plane. their feet are just built for it. he manages to maintain this for a little while. he's always fluctuated in weight, he's fine - but his balance does indeed get so bad, even with his tail, that he has to start walking on his whole foot so he doesn't lean forward.

- this makes him like four inches shorter than usual. this makes him like five inches shorter than magnus. this makes him SHORTER THAN LUP. and he fucking. despises it. he's still taller than magnus BARELY when he has his ears straight up but this is all he has, and those ears rarely stand up for any long amount of time without extreme effort. they’re HEAVY.

- it does make magnus hugs nice though. magnus won't bearhug him + break his back anymore for the time being, which he misses, but he gets to stuff his face into magnus' chest. which he likes. hes starting to think MAYBE. maybe after he has this baby he MIGHT occasionally get down on his heels just so he can do this. SOMETIMES. but only around select people. there are only a handful of chests hes cool with being smothered in. magnus definitely tops this list.

- it fucking HURTS his HEELS. fuck his ankles or whatever, his heels!!!! he's not used to putting any weight on them. theyre bruised and blistery and he hates it. magnus will now be carrying him forever. (he says this but ends up being the most hermited motherfucker of all time, worse than taako's normal, which is not good, but whatever. people like to come over to HIS HOME and BOTHER HIM, so he doesnt need to go to functions he can't drink or smoke at anyway).

- he is, however, feeling really fucking good about how fucking AWESOME he is, currently. like, one, everyone had to admit that he’s taking things super super well, and two, he’s being SO open right now. he’s being so chill. he’s being communicative, he’s being honest. he’s not being NICE because that’s just not on the table for taako, but he’s kind of enjoying having a good excuse to be a little more snuggly. a little more needy. sometimes. when he’s not so pissed off he could scream.

- magnus is a fucking. wreck. hes good! hes doing good! but hes crying ALL the TIME. and its PISSING taako off slowly more and more. he knows its just because hes worried or overwhelmed or whatever. who cares. its annoying. he is nice though. maybe the nicest hes ever been to taako. there are a significant number of people who are being nice to him, actually, which is hilarious, and also extremely frustrating. LUP. even lup wont fuck with him in the same way. he has to keep pressing her buttons harder and harder to get her to react. HOWEVER: one person is still ready to pick on him.

- lup's 5 y/o daughter. is RELENTLESS. and honest to god one of the most stable and delightful things throughout the whole pregnancy. this kid has only the vaguest idea of what's going down, is extremely nice, but also compromises NO asks. if she wants him to make her breakfast she WILL cry about it. if she wants to play with his hair, she'll figure out how to do it, even if shes gotta ambush him. great tenacity on this girl.

- they have casey, their first kid, spring-ish? early spring. they have her at home. it sounds like a great idea at the time, and it turns out perfectly fine, but there is the ego barrier of describing to people the story of your firstborn child being PLANNED on being delivered by a lich and the grim reaper along with the boyfriend and then ending up getting stagefright. this is good, you might think, this means grubby corpsehands aren't on your newly born child! and you would be correct, instead it's just magnus, who is crying MORE than the baby and taako combined and it's FUCKING annoying, and lup's not even there to make it funnier. it's fine. it's like, bonding. and shit.

- shes small. smaller than taako would have thought and also would have hoped, and shes bald, and her ears are fucked up somehow, they dont have anything, like, in them to move them around or whatever it seems like, but maybe she'll grow into that. maybe that's fine. not a whole lot of info out there currently on babies who are half alien elf half alien human. so yknow. as long as she's eating and breathing and warm and clean they're pretty happy.

- taako can not let this thing go. magnus occasionally gets to hold her or feed her, but for her first nine/ten days, taako has her almost exclusively and wont put her down. he started sleeping later into his pregnancy because it required less effort than meditating (altho it takes more time), but hes back to it now, so he can keep this baby, who he has still not named btw!, in his arms and remain alert enough to sleep with her.

- two weeks. three weeks. she's FINALLY getting a little bigger. MAYBE taako can manage to have people over to see her in person instead of just showing photos. maybe. the amount of people that technically know about this kid's existence even is a ridiculously low number. the amount of people in the public that knew he was having a kid is most, since he made a statement about it, but the kid herself was never, like. announced. he just doesn't. want to share. at all.

- gets rough. gets really rough. having lup and missy over nearly kills him. he cant even let his TWIN SISTER hold his baby. what the fuck is wrong with him? what is wrong with their relationship? why does he feel like it somehow makes him a better parent when it does not? why has he lost all control of what emotional stability he had? he'd been worried he wouldn't be attached enough to her, that he'd fuckin, abandon her or whatever, and it's so nice that that fear was unwarranted that he doesn't want to confront that he's overcorrecting.

- missy gets to hold casey before lup does. and taako feels bad about it, kinda. BUT: she didn't technically hold the baby on her own, taako just held her while missy put her arms under her as well, but still. then lup. this was a few visits in. casey is still not technically named yet, but taako knows already. kinda.

- she gets her name by two months. it's not elven, like he and lup had, but it's got the same basic rules, which is a compromise he and magnus come up with. once she gets old enough, if she wants something else, she fuckin' names herself. if she wants something else for like. gender purposes, they'll deal with that when that comes up. for now she's casey. burnsides? maybe.

- she stays FUCKING BALD. taako can not get over it. he has hair. magnus is COVERED in it. why's she bald? why's she SO BALD?

- magnus is audhd and taako is autistic. they know that she's gonna probably not necessarily follow the average infant timeline. this turns out to be extremely true. she's very quiet. she makes noises, but even as she gets into multiple years of exposure, she doesn't speak common or elvish, except repeating certain phrases she's heard often (some of her favorites are calling magnus mean names and 'i don't want to', because the former makes her parents laugh and the latter makes uncomfortable situations resolve a lot of the times it's used).

- she also doesn't walk. ok, she kinda walks, she gets up on her feet and uses walls and objects to walk alongside them, or walks slowly with a leg to hold onto. she's very particular and delicate about her foot placement, but still ends up with her ankles out. magnus thinks she might be rolling them? but she seems okay? they get that checked out, though. definitely. make sure she's not in pain or anything. she ends up with some braces for her ankles and heel, but she's still more than a little pigeon toed.

- casey is a shy little thing. very observant. she likes watching people do things. literally anything. she will sit and watch taako cook, she likes to watch the aquarium, she likes to watch people write and draw and cast spells, she likes making other people play with her toys so she can watch. she sleeps with taako and magnus more often than not, either being held by taako while he meditates or lying between them on the mattress once she gets a little older.

- missy ADORES her. missy is a little upset that she doesn't like dressing up and having her hair played with, but she loves casey's dark red hair, thinks shes super cute, loves her floppy ears, just adores her. this is, to her, her baby sister, and taako and lup do nothing to dissuade that. basically are sisters, right? who cares. they live right next to each other, and see each other almost every day, since taako does a lot of watching them during the day now, which… admittedly, he's still working on, but he's got like 8 years of experience by now, three of those with his own baby, so he's. like, getting it. he's understanding it.

- this is around the time taako starts hiring out losers to watch the children (or child, sometimes just casey). ie he makes angus do it when possible, or alum he's still pals with from some of the first years of the school's establishing, or other family friends who are around. merle's off limits. as is she who shall not be MENTIONED in his household.

- with a tiny bit of time alone magnus and taako find out that … they want another kid. taako brings it up. another baby. oops. 

- again, taako brings it up, but magnus is fully on board. except… hold on not really: shit was ridiculously rough on taako specifically, and he’s really, really not excited to have taako go thru it again. which is fair. definitely in the top 100 shitty wild things that have happened to taako, if only for the relative novelty of it and how much it sticks in his memory (haw-haw), but like. he wouldn’t say it if he wasn’t willing to do it one more time. like, just once. he’s got it in the bag now, he knows what’s up. plus, he would not at all mind having like. a year off. of just being sick and hanging out with casey and missy. magnus is skeptical. their decision is easier this time, though, even with everything considered.

- they talk about it briefly but they’re pretty into the idea of magnus carrying, maybe. if they can get it to work. they had some fuckin issues last time, so, like. what if they start trying (stressful but cool), see if it sticks (lower amount of stress, more casual) and if it does that’s cool, and if it doesn’t, oops, must be something that’s not gonna happen? magnus is an older guy at this point, which was factored in but ultimately didn’t keep them from giving it a shot. once again they start trying without actually telling. anybody. except each other. mostly because it’s not set in stone.

- funnily enough? performing in this way specifically gives taako weird dysphoria. there’s also a little scene in which magnus, who’s been out as nonbinary for like, 15 years at this point, talks about how he’s totally cool with carrying a child, doesn’t bother him, he’s nonbinary, NOT that it’d be weird if a man did it, because you did it taako and that was fine, and that also makes taako squirm a little. he’s working on it. he’s spent so fucking long getting that like, femme in a masculine way thing down, why’s it bothering him now?? ugh.

- luckily, doesn’t take a whole lot of trying. unluckily, taako is a little annoyed that magnus gets pregnant so easily. whatever. he still gets his baby out of it. (yeah, casey is his baby, this baby is their baby, since he can’t claim it all himself, but it’s still definitely partly his, duh. casey is just his though.)

- angus starts doing babysitting stuff for casey. taako ALSO ends up getting his GODDAMN… joints checked out. fine. whatever. for casey, because she’s having issues with her joints too, obviously, and he can talk about how he feels slightly more than his mostly nonverbal toddler. he’s forced himself to be verbal over the fucking. centuries. so he gets it. he can handle maybe informing whatever genetic thing she’s fucking got, cus he’s kind of always known that lup doesn’t have nearly the same difficulty he does with chronic pain. so this is on him. this is on him now.

- taako gets himself a nonspecific hypermobility disorder diagnosis. so, like, sweet, i fuckin guess, he’s gone like 300 years without it. also, they don’t even have an actual name for it. thanks. feels awesome. after years and years of forcing it down, he’s forced to actually pay attention to the pain and it Fucking Sucks. not a project he thought he’d be starting on while magnus was pregnant, but whatever. it’s fine. life is FINE.

- magnus is actually faring really well. which is also jealousy-inducing in taako. anyway, magnus is sort of miserable about how low energy he is, suddenly, though, but that’s about the most of it, since his brain doesn’t slow down to match the pace of his body. not in the traditional sense, anyway. taako does not understand what he means by this because to him magnus is still bouncing off the walls. he is, however, a great source of humor at the time (as he fucking ALWAYS is, taako always finds him ridiculously stupidly too fucking funny for him to even be REAL, ugh).

- double appointment day. taako sends casey off with angus, and they’re gonna do… whatever they do. he’s given angus some free rein on what he does with the baby. he kinda trusts angus’ instinct. a little more than he did when casey was an infant, anyway. this is a decision he will eventually regret, because while he is getting the shit annoyed out of him by being quizzed on his pain and fitted for digitigrade AFOs he doesn’t want to use (the other braces recommended arent as bad since his like, fingers aren’t so different from most people’s, it’s just just feet and legs that need extra special shit) and then getting slammed with the major whammy of the fact that up until now magnus has been RIGHT: they’ve been missing a TWIN at past appts, and twins are now for sure confirmed. plus, angus is doing unspeakable things, ie he has been introducing casey to lucretia even though taako has said this should not be done at all. today, lucretia makes the mistake of seeing if taako has been teaching her elven sign language.

- magnus is beyond stoked, taako is torn between being excited and being extremely, outrageously jealous because if one of them was going to have twins, it should have been him, goddammit. but whatever. they tell the relevant parties: ie again it stays mostly under wraps except to really close family.

- casey continues seeing lucretia. it’s not a SECRET, it’s just not being said out loud to taako, exactly, is angus’ reasoning here. they both know that it’s going to get out eventually - and it happens sooner rather than later, for sure. what ends up breaking it wide open is one night taako is watching casey and she makes a motion at him that he’s absolutely certain at first is a sign, but it’s just mixed in with a bunch of other hand waving and other movements she’s prone to doing. so it can’t be. plus, he hasn’t been teaching her elven sign. nobody has, have they? So after she goes to bed, taako stands in front of magnus and makes the same series of movements - nonsense and all, and gets confirmation from magnus that it looks a lot like sign language, but magnus denies teaching it to her.

- lup also denies teaching it to her. lup and taako haven’t used it in tens of years, and when they aren’t using it, there isn’t a reason for the other birds to use it, given that it was mostly used for taako to communicate. plus, very few people on faerun use it, given that it’s a language that doesn’t even originate on the goddamn plane. she’s not learning it from angus, probably. probably? FUCK.

- taako confronts angus about it and he immediately folds and tells taako everything on lucretia’s behalf, because he knows it’s going to get rough if they have to be in the same room together. taako is. devastated. and angry. but angus explains to him that he’s always there, he makes a super good middle man, casey LOVES lucretia, they get along really well, she hasn’t been telling casey anything controversial. casey isn’t even old enough to like, get lucretia’s life story. she’s not getting lucretia propaganda, taako. but she has been um, maybe, using elven sign language, because they thought maybe you’d been trying that, too, because she hasn’t been verbal. Taako confirms he has NOT been, he hasn’t used it since cycle 99 started, because he had it fucking TAKEN from him, is the thing.

- but magnus also starts using it again. starts speaking in ESL to casey. taako gets mad about it, but he can’t deny that it’s much more comfortable for him most of the time, and that he can use his limited energy being more expressive bodily when he doesn’t have to curate his voice specifically like he does when talking aloud. magnus is into it! and he makes sure to tell taako this. taako starts using ESL more. a little. to see if casey will pick it up.

- casey does pick it up. casey picks it up much easier than common or elvish. she has some coordination issues in her hands like taako does, exacerbated by her being like four, but she can communicate a little better and it’s. weird. it’s weird. taako is weirded out by it. but everyone else in the house just keeps - even lup gets in on it, so…

- he gets to talk to casey more. it’s so sweet. she’s an asshole and he loves it. she is a lot like taako in so many ways. it is a weird thing to witness. she’s not exceedingly social. she’s kind of . aloof. which is something he knows he’s been accused of, but he didn’t really get it until he saw literally his fuckin. weird self reflected back at him. he realizes pretty quick that she’s definitely a person. she’s fairly independent and at this stage ENJOYS sleeping in her own bed. she likes the routine of brushing her teeth before bed. she hates socks (so does taako), she loves bugs, but she’s scared of dogs. she likes magnus’ woodwork, but doesn’t like powertools, and has next to no interest in magic, but she does like watching taako cook - she also has strong opinions about food, which taako is a little frustrated about at first, but soon finds is fun to work around. he likes flexing his cooking creativity for the first time in years.

- taako fucking. eventually uses his braces, but only because he wants casey to also use them. she has such a hard time walking and he absolutely hates the idea of her being in any amount of pain, much less pain comparable to what he went through as a kid before he made himself deal with it quietly. neither taako nor casey are big on the sensory input these things provide, but they get through it together. they are just kind of on the same wavelength when it comes to sensory overload - so even if taako doesn’t realize it, given that he’s had hundreds of years to perfect masking even to himself, once casey’s had about enough of it, taako can pretty reliably tell that it’s probably time for him to give himself a break, too, if he can manage it. she’s helping him out a lot, even if she doesn’t exactly know it.

- that winter is when elodie and rian are born, in that order. not at home this time, which magnus is a little indignant about because he’s the tough guy here, but ultimately there’s not a whole lot of fight about it. this is partly because magnus burnsides is a bird, and gets whatever he wants, and if he wants a parade of like 20 goddamn people present, nobody, not even a medical professional, has the power to stop him. this time, names were picked out beforehand, mostly because magnus was DEAD SET on not waiting until they were multiple months old. they get these names assigned to them in the same way casey did - as child names, if they want to change them, or permanent if they don’t, or whatever the hell they want to do. magnus takes immediately to calling them duckie and goose, respectively, because he knows that everyone will back him up if taako tries to tell him he can’t call his newly born children what he wants to call them as nicknames. (they do fight about it. everybody is, indeed, on magnus’ side, if only because they’re tired of the naming scheme taako is perpetuating, here.)

- he has also been calling casey bunny for a few years at this point because of her floppy ears (taako wouldn’t let him get away with ‘dumbo’ any longer), so it fits the theme. (he later gets a duckling, a gosling, and a bunny tattooed on him. they can change their names all they want, but their childhood nicknames are his forever now!)

- magnus, uh, DOES have a little stint of oh god what have i done. turns out that weirdly enough, having taako baby him a little bit makes him feel better. having taako be kind and surprisingly understanding about his feelings is weird and puts him on edge at first, but really, taako was like this when he was pregnant, too, where he’s a little more open and a little more emotionally available, so it’s not super surprising in a way that makes it impossible to believe that taako’s actually willing to give him space to grieve and think and worry and wonder.

- elodie and rian are also digitigrade, but their ears are more solid. not quite as mobile as taako’s, but they have some muscle in them instead of casey’s little floppy thing she has going on. they’re cute and all, but the biggest thing taako can’t get over is the fact that they are both born with hair. istus just keeps fucking kicking him while he’s down. magnus doesn’t even worship her, what the fuck.

- they’re both VERY LOUD. casey wasn’t a crier, the twins are. they’re loud, they’re rowdy, they’re babies. they’re, like, real babies, and not little weird creatures like casey. casey is a bug, not a baby, elodie and rian are infants. taako has already set a precedent of being a nighttime caretaker, given that magnus needs 8 hrs of sleep/night and he needs 4 hrs of meditation. so this continues, for the most part.

- yes, they have two infants. they also have a little girl who is now getting finally also fitted for orthotics which is cool. she’s also learning ESL. magnus, taako, lucretia, and lup all know it. basically everyone in her life knows sign language. magnus is a little rusty, but he’s taking like. ‘lessons’ from taako. this is also being taught in moderation to the twins, but the twins have their own shit going on between each other. taako gets to watch these things develop twin language WITHOUT HIM. it’s fine.

- lucretia becomes a slightly more… common… occurrence. he sees her at parties and gatherings now - they start being invited to the same things. they’re not involved with each other closely, but they’re adjacent. they talk SOMETIMES. if there’s a buffer between them. mostly at these gatherings, and only when taako’s sober. the moment he’s imbibed anything magnus physically gets between them. it becomes missy and casey’s jobs to watch the twins and magnus’ to watch taako to make sure he doesn’t say or do anything too fucked up.

- elodie is a huge casey fan. loves casey to death, but they have the sibling dynamic going on where casey is so focused on being fully enamored with an looking up to missy that she sort of ignores elodie, and elodie is so focused on casey that she ignores missy, who just wants everyone to be friends together so bad.

- the twins are definitely a step up in complicated parenting. casey was a good first step. somehow? got what is the beginner-friendliest baby. some fucking how. these guys, though. elodie is a very curious kid, a very energetic kid, a very intense kid. playful, extroverted. chatty even when she doesn’t have like. language down yet. rian less so. rian’s more like casey in this regard. less chatty. needs a lot of quiet time.

- magnus used to have a stim where he would ball up his fist and slam it into his chest or shoulder, which definitely, definitely was not good for him, given that he eventually got very strong and was giving himself some pretty gnarly bruises and lacerations with it. he also used to (still does, but slightly less) deal with really bad RSD. it kind of fucks him up watching rian go through the same things. taako is just kind of like “yeah, dude, the dark mirror, we’ve all been peering into it” and magnus is like wow. huh. this is wild. i’m sorry, little guy.

- rian ends up sharing a room with casey once he’s old enough (not permanently, but it’s an option for him). he does better in a quiet environment and elodie is not super conducive to this, but casey is, with her also preferring no loud or repetitive sounds. she also relies more heavily on ESL than the other kids, which rian uses with her quite often while he feels more pressured into speaking verbally to others.

- by this time magnus has made casey what he calls her rabbit hutch - basically, as a toddler, she always ended up like, under her bed, or in her closet, or what have you to sleep. taako’s solution to this was ‘oh baby come sleep in my bed then’, but she didn’t want this, so magnus makes her a little doghouse style thing. A canopied bed, but with solid walls and a weighted base, and a tighter space inside. it doesn’t last her into her teens, but she does use it a lot as a little kid. it’s like a permanent blanket fort. taako’s embarrassed that his daughter lives in a fucking dog house his boyfriend made, but she loves it - and eventually starts letting rian in there, too.

- elodie also likes going in there but 3 kids can’t fit at once, and also she gets bored really fast so most of the time it’s casey and rian time only. and they just sit silently in there.

- listen i have a ton of twin lore in my brain but it’s very difficult to put down in a concise way. i’ll get it out. some day. til then have basics. elodie is a big girl, she’s a tough little girl, she likes being able to help out her mama. (even taako is not allowed to call magnus this. elodie and rian, however, are. for taako is it papa strictly. papa bear will also be tolerated. encouraged.) she loves AXES. she wants one so bad. she’s like six and it’s all she wants for every gift-giving event ever is a REAL AXE. taako and elodie absolutely have a Real Sword type conversation. elodie thinks it’s hilarious, but also kind of frustrating because no, dad, she really does actually want a real axe.

- elodie ALSO isn’t really a dog person. they’re okay! she likes them! she’s just not like, dog obsessed. despite magnus’ best efforts, she does not develop canine special interest, which he’s a little sad about, but it’s okay, because he does eventually get it with rian, thankfully. SOMEONE fucking likes dogs in this goddamn household.

- elodie does however LOVE their cats. she’s neutral on the fish and shrimp (did i mention they have a huge saltwater tank. they do. taako raises shramps). she wants a goat. she’s not the pony kid, that’s rian.

- rian is fucking obsessed with animals in general. he loves casey’s stuffed animals. he loves garyl. he loves dogs, especially the big rough guys, mostly because they can handle some roughhousing. he and magnus wrestle, which magnus loves, and they do a lot of work with the dogs, which is GREAT, because by the time rian is 8 or 9 magnus really, really just wants to get back to working regularly, doing dog training and stuff, and he loves having angus and rian around to help.

- OKAY ALL I REALLY KNOW BEYOND THIS IS THAT casey gets really into rollerskating. she likes drawing, but doesn’t stick with it. she likes roleplaying games. taako and lucretia are keyword kinda reintroduced to each other’s lives after a LOT of strife and a lot of fuckups. casey lives with taako for quite a while. idk about the twins yet, but i know that casey is not really ready to go do her own thing for quite a while, and even after she does move out, she’s always got her dad on speed dial, and out of everyone in the universe once magnus is gone, she is one of the only people he will ALWAYS pick up the phone for. every single time, doesn’t matter what he’s doing.

ta da there’s more, obviously, but like. this is where i’m at. currently. with my fucking. six million words (realistically more like 40-50k, it’s hard to compile when it’s spread out across many text docs and google docs and shit.)

[newar]

notes on episode 2 of netflix three body problem spoilers for the books as well

• da shi is perfect. no notes

• MORE BUG MOTIF… i really like that they added more. hopefully it doesn’t get too on the nose

• don’t like how they made the sophons manipulate the camera footage… i don’t doubt that they had the ability to do that in the books, my issue is that it’s not SUBTLE… the trisolarans didn’t want people to think something supernatural or alien was going on, or that there’s some saboteur working against humanity. they wanted them to think that their understanding of physics was incorrect... they really missed the mark with this

• the VR game scenes are pretty good! and the Sophon cameo… <3

• having da shi’s wife be dead was a good choice i think. considering he was kind of not really an involved father in the books iirc. a good talk on the fragility of the human race

• also this random woman they added in to move the plot along is so unecessary. like idk why it couldn’t have been wenjie doing all this

• oh sorry i was wrong. will downing is supposed to be tianming!! that actually works out better. i think they’re doing the staircase project this season as well

• oh they made wade the one who says “there’s someone behind everything”…. i feel like it worked better in the books coming from da shi… it’s his practical mindset against the academics and “intellectuals”

• still annoyed they didn’t include wenjie’s sister, HOWEVER the confrontation btwn wenjie and her father’s killer was good, it shows how wenjie views humanity now, how she humans as unable to come to a “moral awakening” on their own since the girl didn’t repent for what she did. i believe this happened in the books as well, just not with the girl that dealt the final blow

• also. small detail. but the button wenjie pressed should have been red like in the books. like the way they talk about the “red sun” and the cultural revolution etc in the books makes the colour seem meaningful to me. beyond just being a red button

• OVERALL: things are getting interesting! not too invested in the characters aside from wenjie and da shi just yet, but i don’t actively dislike them

[intertexts]

miss g thoughts? miss g thoughts. OKAY. YEAH. i haven't actually thought about the prime force a whole lot yet bc I wanted to learn more about the triumvirate . which. considering the arc I'm on now! well!! so this is gonna be just on the spot thrown together ideas and I'll reform them later.

Basically miss g/hexpert I am thinking like. what if miss militia had the demeanor of an elementary school teacher and the sheer Presence of alexandria. I imagine she's SUPER popular with the public, she's the Face of the prime force (because. Come on. your other options are harlem shade and origami and NEITHER of them should be trusted to talk to the media on their own) . so like. on the surface she's!! friendly!! and personable!! and kids love her!! and she still has her "teaching moments" thing. and she genuinely is kind and wants to help and do the right thing but... this is worm . she's the triumvirate equivalent leader. she's seen some shit she's done some shit. her powers are actually functionally pretty similar to miss militia except instead of weapons it's Tools so... she can be BRUTAL when she needs to be. and she will be. because she understands what would happen if she wasn't. I imagine because she's the face of the prime force and she is like.... family friendly as much as that means anything in worm.. there's a bigger effort from the prt and media to kind of. cover up when she does some fucked up shit. to keep that image. and there's this silent agreement between she and Harlem that because he's openly very much more... dark and edgy. I think he takes the fall for her whenever something like that comes out. "the prime force killed x villain in cold blood" and Harlem openly says "yeah that was me. it needed to be done" so that miss g can still function as the face. harlem is rlly popular with. edgy teens. I think this probably causes some tension with Jason, not because he feels bad about lying to the public but because he doesn't want to get blamed for things he didn't do. the three of them are friends and everything but. you listened to folding paper you know how Jason is.

ANYWAY ANYWAY. I think that's most of it for now. I imagine it's a bit of a culture shock (probably mostly for dakota) to grow up seeing miss g smiling on TV only to join the wards and see things for how they really are when she. brutally dispatches an echidna style clone with ruthless efficiency using a fucking. wire garrote or something.

YEAAAAA AWESOME. also. hahaha. lmao. well. i guess you know more about the triumvirate now!

LOVE THIS FOR HER. BTW. she summons tools is fucking TERRIFYING, btw. tool is such a loosely defined word?? reminds me a little bit of eidolon too, ngl... like, a version of his power where she doesn't get *powers specifically*, but she gets. whatever else she needs in any situation. that goes SO HARD. there are. my mind is spiraling in so many ways thinking about how well that power fits to a multitude of scenarios. is she still hexpert?? because. there's not really any magic aesthetics involved?? or is she just expert......... that doesnt sound as cool. idk. maybe it does? you could do some fun branding with that. always call the expert. etc. anyway this is really good i love the facade of it all... she genuinely is good and kind and wants to do right!! it's just. impossible to do that and keep your hands clean sometimes. the dynamic btwn the prime force here is so compelling also. give them a complicated at times strained but still genuine friendship!