#but i doubt the star god has any empathy

[fuzzy-set]

Spoilers for the "betrayal" ending

Ok so I did the unspeakable, and everyone died except Pasqal. But how did he survive? If my ending slides did not bug out, the Star God seems to kill everyone, but the slide here implies that it let Pasqal go? And who put him in prison? I have so many questions lol.

[zettatoad]

rating every kirby villain-turned-ally by how evil they are after becoming an ally

dedede: gotta start with the classic. if he were an actual king i might have to judge him for the sins of his ancestors but since he's consistently called a "self-proclaimed king" he's fine. he probably just found an abandoned castle and went "woah... my castle now" and then the waddle dees went "wait we have a king? that's so awesome i'm gonna follow this guy forever." anyways he's a rival and a selfish hedonist but not actually evil. arguably not ever evil but that's a philosophical debate i'm not going to get into. while not the first to help, and still sometimes a troublemaker, he's a dependable companion when it counts

meta knight: look he was attacking dreamland in revenge of meta knight for, reasons??? because he thought they were too lazy??? kind of a lame reason meta knight. the point is he counts. meta knight spends most of his time as an honorable fight seeker, like if vegeta was never evil and his goku was a baby, but he'll step up to the plate when it's time to protect the planet or whatever. he is certified Not Evil. a reliable ally whenever he shows up

dyna blade: that's right, dyna blade counts too. as we all know dyna blade was just trying to feed her kids in super star. beyond that, i believe birds are like ghosts and just sort of do things arbitrarily. rating: Not Ever Evil

marx: okay this freaking guy. i don't think marx has changed literally at all after being beaten by kirby. like in star allies he's still got his powers. the only lesson he learned is to not pull any shenanigans while kirby's around. he is probably waiting for a villain to actually defeat kirby so he can swoop in and steal all their power, and every time kirby beats some horrible god he goes "wow~ you're such a great hero, kirby~!" while being more mad than anyone has ever been

shadow kirby: hold on i'm checking the wikirby page because i needed a refresher on his lore and was reminded that he was never actually a villain in the first place. he was always helping out. my bad

dark meta knight: okay i gotta show everyone this image before i begin my analysis

look at him. he is full fist gripping that crayon. he is holding it like a child would. he's drawing his cool badass epic sword. he's having fun. he seems like he's a threatening villain ("what if meta knight were evil... that would be so sick and twisted") but really he does not know a single thing. it's gap moe

this may be controversial but my rating is: he was never actually evil in the first place. like, he was serving dark mind, and might have had some influence in turning sectonia evil and huge (maybe??? possibly???), but he is not evil. i think he's more like that one image where he doesn't have empathy and goes into a dissociative state and commits atrocities. this of course does not imply that he is good. but the potential is there

daroach: on one hand, daroach was kind of never actually evil, since all he did was steal a slice of cake and get mind controlled. on the other hand, he IS the leader of a gang of thieves, and stealing is sort of evil. like marx, he has clearly learned not to get on kirby's bad side and will help out on occasion. but if kirby needs to grab a treasure i doubt daroach would hesitate to take it first. all in all: not a good guy exactly but in the grand scheme of kirby villains, he's pretty small-scale. not much to worry about. he can't even destroy a planet

bandana waddle dee: thought i was done talking about characters who briefly opposed kirby during super star? think again. this guy's pretty much just loyal to dedede with all that entails but he seems to have a better relationship with kirby than his king does. a nice guy who likes to help out. we all love him

magolor: i've 100% completed the magolor epilogue and minimal spoilers here but that basically confirms that he's still a little bastard. like he seems to have gone "wait, losing all your friends because you betrayed them sucks," and if you want to get speculative he could have been influenced by the master crown a bit since before KRtD's opening and that might have upped his evil rating for that game. outside of that he learned nothing. he just decided that selling gem apples and running theme parks would be more fun. he loves making an attraction where close friends throw explosives at each other. his continued pseudovillainy is of course obvious, given that he has performed the most dastardly deed of all kirby characters: Selling Real-World Microtransactions. perhaps it would be better if he got defeated once and for all but unfortunately evil wizards give kirbies lots of enrichment. unless he teams up with marx and ends up in some sort of betray-off, we're stuck with him. to be clear i think he's awesome except the microtransactions

taranza: on one hand, even in triple deluxe he wasn't exactly evil, he just wanted to help out his huge, evil friend. on the other hand, kirby did kind of kill his friend. like there were some circumstances there but it'd be understandable if there was some resentment

claycia: does it count if she was only a villain because she was mind controlled and is only an ally during the final boss fight and ending of her game? i'm going to say yes because i've already included bandana waddle dee. obviously if you were being mind controlled you probably were never evil in the first place. but we don't know much about claycia's inner life. it could go either way

hold on i was on claycia's wikirby page and i noticed that drawcia shows up alongside her in some illustrations: i've played it pretty fast and loose with my criteria but i'm going to say this doesn't count as being a villain-turned-ally. documenting my process

^one of the images in question. sectonia is also there and not only has she also never been on kirby's side in a video game, i'm pretty sure she died. so this is debatably canon at best

back to your regularly scheduled programming, it's susie: susie is like. still a capitalist. i had to review her star allies pause screens and apparently she wants to bring back her dad's evil company and keep doing colonialism? like come on susie don't be this dumb. don't make kirby take you to the guillotine

addendum: kirby-polis pointed out in the tags that the original japanese star allies pause screens do not reference mechanizing planets which opens the much more sensible possibility that she went "i want to make this company be how it was before my dad got thralled by a big evil computer." but said original pause screen text also quotes her saying "i will exterminate the uncivilized." which is... questionable at best. updated verdict: susie will be spared for now but she maybe still has some learning to do

the three mage-sisters and hyness: i guess technically hyness hasn't helped kirby out yet but he's part of the package. we do not get a great deal of insight on what the lower-end believers of their religion are like so i'm optimistic about the possibility that the whole "reviving an ancient god of destruction" incident will result in religious reforms, where the sisters take on leadership positions while hyness is reduced to having more of a figurehead role where he can't revive any more ancient gods of destruction. but they might not do that and instead continue being a weird evil cult. hard to say

the beast pack: the beast pack was only being evil because their leader was mind controlled, and presumably they would feel a great debt to kirby for saving both him and their planet. but they're also a rowdy bunch. i wouldn't be surprised if they went and caused a ruckus

elfilin: hey, wait a minute! you're not a villain! you're just a little guy! you don't belong in this list! get out of here, you scamp!

[deathandrainbows1]

The Snail

A Fanfic starring my friend Bella (@percyjackson-post) and The Snail (you know the one)

"Snail... It doesn't have to be like this. I know it's all you've ever known and all you can do but..."

She reached out to the malignant snail slowly inching towards her. Menacingly slow. If there's even a shred of empathy in those beady black eyes atop those antenna, she can't see it. She slowly withdraws her hand in resignation, head down.

"It doesn't have to be like this! Just... Just talk to me... Please?" For the first time in her long, long life she raised her voice at the snail not in anger, or desperate pleading for her life but... Something else. A shred of empathy. Something to show that it was more than just the killing machine it was made to me.

And for the first time, the snail paused, looked up at her to meet her eyes. They've both lived long lives and God only knows what Bella has done to keep the cursed mustelid away from herself, the kind of horrors its endured, yet still it kept finding her. Sometimes maybe years, decades, or even centuries later, but it always Found her. The relationship they had was built off nothing but pure hatred, the fear of a god reduced to mere prey on one side and the mindless pursuit of an entity designed for one sole duty on the other. Yet after all this time, maybe, just maybe there was hope. Some hope to for once just... Communicate.

Carefully, keeping her eyes on the snail, Bella pushed a keyboard towards it, wary of any sudden movements that it couldn't possibly make, but who knew what this thing was capable of. Rarely did she let it stay in her presence long enough to check.

After a long pause, the snail started moving again, and Bella's breath caught in her throat. Was it gonna be just another disappointment? Was it even possible to reason with this thing? Doubt began to creep in as Bella *almost* edged away, but she realised that for once the snail wasn't moving towards her. Slowly but surely, it crawled to the keyboard, leaving its slimy trail across the table as it did.

"Fine." Was all it said. Maybe it was all it could manage with it's muscle, slimy body.

Bella felt dumbstruck. It really couldn't have been so simple could it? After all these centuries, all they had to do was just... Talk? She still couldn't shake off the feeling that this was just another ploy of the murderous mustelid to end her life, and probably its own by extension but... She'd made the plea in trust. She couldn't throw that away now, so instead, she nodded.

"Maybe... We can make a deal? Set some terms and conditions? You can live with me and... I dunno. We'll decide together when we want to end this." She asked, tentative, but for once, hopeful. It was odd, it wasn't an emotion she'd felt in a long time. The last time was when she'd launched the snail into space, but that had disintegrated eventually when she once again saw the creature stalking towards from a distance down the street. The fear of the snail had been a constant since then, as constant as her need to breathe, Or think, because as long as she could form conscious thought, the nagging paranoia that the snail might just be around the corner was always there. That feeling of knowing that no matter what she did, it was only a matter of time before it was there again, approaching her, silent as the reaper and just as persistent.

Now, that there was a chance, a real chance to escape that fear? She could almost cry. And she almost did when the snail slid across the keyboard to type.

"OK"

It was as if the burden of several centuries had finally lifted off her shoulders- and in some ways, it was.

Tears coalescing at the edges of her eyes, she nodded again with a smile at the snail who just looked on at her, the once seemingly unending malice it radiated now just replaced with a sense of quiet exhaustion. The years had taken their toll on it too, immortal or not, it was still cursed with intelligence. Even if it was just for one, accursed purpose. Sometimes it wished whichever malevolent deity had given it form hadn't made it immune to the reprieve insanity too, or made it so sentient that it knew that the reprieve was there. Just not for it. Never for it. The thought of rest after these centuries of torment... The snail shuddered.

Together, the unlikely pair began discussing their deal to once and for all, settle this rivalry and finally set aside the hostility to choose their fate- by their own choice this time.

[ponyonn]

pressure oc info dump!! this oc’s entire existence is for self ship/ oc x canon content so if that’s not ur style then u gotta escape while u still can

(for the sake of convenience while reading, Yonnie is solely referred to with she/her pronouns throughout this post.)

tl;dr - she’s the daughter of an Urbanshade employee who’s trying to unlock the secret ending of Pressure, which you get by making out with a computer really hard (and sebastian maybe).

Yonnie’s dad (Malcolm Polaris) raised her with the sole purpose of having her become a scientist like him in order to work with him at Urbanshade. unfortunately, he ended up committing a bigger sin than any of the ones he had committed during his 10+ years working for Urbanshade: he conceived a theater kid 🤯

Malcolm persists in his goal despite Yonnie’s lack of interest in science. he personally homeschools her throughout her entire life, purposefully keeps her isolated from other people her age, and takes her on as an intern/assistant at the Hadal Blacksite when she’s 23 (so in like. 2022). she isnt allowed near the more hostile monsters, but she still expresses frequent disapproval to her dad about the things she does see (or hears about secondhand). although Yonnie sticks by her complaints, she simultaneously feels like a disappointment for not being interested and doubting her dad.

she’s still working at the Hadal Blacksite by the time Sebastian breaches containment. Yonnie and her dad are able to evacuate, but this event is pretty much the last straw for Yonnie. she’s essentially like “hey. maybe this whole situation is kind of deserved? like maybe this is just one of many consequences that Urbanshade needs to start facing in order to atone for the more. uh. morally grim things we’ve done. and we have a LOT to atone for.”

and Malcolm is like “god you have just been one big waste of time huh. just a consistently ungrateful, consistently disappointing mess. you think we have something to atone for? you wanna make peace with the monsters? then get in a sub, go back down there, and do it yourself — because god knows nobody else is going with you.”

and then Yonnie, fueled by the desire to feel like shes doing something good for someone for once in her life (mixed with regret for problems that she technically didn’t even cause), actually does go back down. nobody is tracking her. everyone fully expects her to die, including her dad. the expendable protocol engages as normal.

Yonnie wanders around for a bit before encountering Painter. he’s the only sentient, non-hostile, responsive entity that she’s come across so far, so she offers him an escape. she says she could bring him back up to the surface and let him go free. Painter tells her about the promise he made with Sebastian and says that if he leaves with her, Sebastian has to be allowed to come too. Yonnie is like “they will gun Sebastian down the millisecond he breaks the water’s surface so. probably not. but i just want yall to be free, so i guess i can help you with your plan!”

she meets up with Sebastian, who doesn’t kill her on sight despite the fact that she’s an Urbanshade employee because they’ve actually met before! plot twist 🤯 they spoke briefly after she had become an employee, and Yonnie’s sense of basic fucking human decency and empathy really left a mark on Sebastian (although he’s still kind of cautious around her) 🥹🫶🏽 truly riveting. Sebastian agrees to let Yonnie help him out. since Yonnie isnt a prisoner, she isnt required to follow a navi-path and therefore wont be penalized (e.g. executed) for going off course, so she has access to areas that expendables dont. with this advantage, Yonnie is able to gather up more data for Sebastian than an expendable would. she also collects supplies for him to sell in his shop. time goes on, everybody bonds, yap yap yap.

Yonnie and Painter’s ship tag is #❥browse her history !!

Yonnie and Sebastian’s ship tag is #❥stars as bait !!

one of these. is probably gonna have far more content than the other. at least until i get used to drawing Sebastian.

[racingliners]

20 Questions for Fic Writers - Was totally, definitely tagged by @monacotrophywife

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

23, some of them are long abandoned wips but I very much struggle with deleting things.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

533,586. I just have a lot to say.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

F1 and Star Trek

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

the og rpf version of Life In The Fast Lane, The Rules of Strategy, Sister, This Must Be a Mistake (a prompt which I brushed up and posted on ao3 for prosperity) and I'll Be Okay, Someday (a very self-indulgent Charles leaves Ferrari fic with some sebchal if you really squint)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I always try to respond to comments as best I can, mainly just to show appreciation for getting a comment in the first place (I don't get comments on my works that much so I get stupidly delighted with every one) and also because I just absolutely love chatting about my works and my thought processes or events that happened in a fic/chapter.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

As someone who has autistic over-empathy and is very conflict averse I really struggle to write angst so if I ever do some it's always resolved asap.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

This is hard bc for the reasons listed above I love happy endings. My initial thought was Night Life which is more of a hopeful ending than happy. I also loved writing the end scene for I Don't Feel So Good (another prompt request I initially posted here)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I am not a religious woman but I thank God every day that I don't because I'm pretty sure it would make me stop writing

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

The thought of writing smut has always terrified me bc that shit is hard (pun semi-intended). I also have not had any irl smutty experiences so I wouldn't really know what I'd be writing about. So I'll always do the whole "fade to black with heavying implications that they got laid" shtick. Smut writers of the world are braver than any US Marine and they all have my respect 🫡

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Yes! I wouldn't describe my two crossover fics as crazy, but I absolutely adore them both (and hilariously they're my two top kudosed Trek fics!)

There's Sister which is my take on Kelvin Timeline Michael Burnham and Spock, and One Admiral and His Beagle which is a canon filler here's how Kirk met Porthos fic.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Thankfully, not to my knowledge

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No but I would be so honoured if anyone wanted any of my works translated!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope, an opportunity has never arose but I'd be so down for it.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Trip and T'Pol from Star Trek Enterprise, teenage Seanagh imprinted on them like a baby chick when I watched ENT for the first time and I still got feral for them to this day.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

No word of a lie I'm terrified that I won't finish my re-write of Life In The Fast Lane bc I started it in late-2022 and I'm still on the 2023 season but I am stubborn and determined to see it through to the end so I can start the Change In Colour re-write

16. What are your writing strengths?

Definitely world building, I think it's because I'm so detailed orientated that my brain instantly goes to the little things and honestly I find it so much fun even if it takes forever.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Dialogue, specifically making sure each character has their own voice. The "he would not fucking say that" post lives in a corner of my brain at all times and fills me with The Dread every time I write a dialog heavy scene and I hate it 😭

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

For me personally I'll only do short sentences because autism brain demands that I must be accurate and I can only speak and understand a tiny bit of French

19. First fandom you wrote for?

F1 actually! I posted the first version of LITFL way back in 2014.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

It's a tie between Sister, The Rules of Strategy and the second version of LITFL, I'm having such a ball writing the latter two even though each chapter takes way longer than I'd like, they're very much my babies and I love them equally.

tagging my writing besties @hungriestheidi, @kaossbells and anyone who would like to do it because I love hearing about how other writers do/view things.

[deadpuppetboi]

Oh, I’ve got PLENTY!!! So, in no particular order, these are the things that are stuck in my brain and won't get out for the life of me.

Doctor Who

More specifically The Toymaker. Ever since watching the 60th anniversary starring The Toymaker as the main villain AFTER watching a TikTok edit of him (shocking, I know). And down I went in a rabbit hole of not only The Toymaker but the series itself. Like The Toymaker has a sister??? The Toymaker was a puppet once??? HE WAS PLAYED BY MICHAEL GOUGH??? THE MAN WHO PLAYED ALFRED IN THE BATMAN MOVIES??? I’m in love! I mean, he’s a horrifying God-like character with no real sense of compassion and/or empathy that can turn me into a doll wearing a God-awful dress. But his whole concept is interesting so he gets a pass.

Outlast Series

There is so much to say about the Outlast series, as it has had a profound impact on me not just from a horror perspective, but also from a storytelling perspective. Sure, complain about the continuities, the excessive gore, and the fact Red Barrels won't give us any clarification for an Outlast 3 but that's beside the point. I love this series. I love the settings. I love the characters. I love how it shows the depressing reality of a company such as Murkoff using very obviously mentally ill men and women to conduct their sick and depraved experiments. It's just so interesting and I want MORE and I’m waiting for every update on Outlast Trials so that I can fixate on it and figure out what's going to happen next. I NEED to know more and I NEED to know what's going to happen next!

Puppet!Garrett

There’s so much to look into regarding the concept of a four-year-old child dying a brutal death at the hands of a cruel man who then indirectly transferred his soul onto a Puppet. A doll, a marionette, a form not fit for a child, much less a four-year-old who’s probably lost and confused about why he didn't go to Heaven as his Grandma did way back when. Why was he stuck? Why was he in this. . .’thing?’ Who knows how long he's been stuck like that, painstakingly learning how to walk and talk in a body not of his own. Too many times trying to escape only to be dragged back in by employees complaining about how much higher their hours had become. But then the children came along. They were just like him. Lost and confused, their innocent lives were taken away too quickly and stuck in a limbo of doubt and constant confusion. He helped them. He helped him when no one else helped him. He gave them all gifts, gifts of life, a power he didn't even know he had but used in the heat of a moment to save them, to help them. He carried them in his arms and protected them from harm even when it seemed impossible, Garrett did it. He told them stories, played endless games, and comforted them all by listening to their cries of missing their past lives. And he wouldn't regret a single thing. Those were his kids, his best friends, and he’d do everything in his power to make sure they’d all get their Happiest Day.

Brainrot check list

list of the things that are currently rotting my brain :3

tag ur mutuals to see what’s rotting their brains >:3

@ranboothesillyartist @raccoon-in-a-dumpster @sotogalmo @maecraft @spideygal @spydrrr @beansbaskst @seagull-dustin @i-like-cats-and-stars49 @ascendeddd @astertheabbs @pansexualcake9 @deadpuppetboi @kaycode1999 @sk3llyr4yr4t

securitywaiter

fucking Mike x Ness crack ship form the FNAF movie that has wiggled its way into my head

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

Puppet!Garrett

The angst and pain of this has forced itself into my head and it now lives rent free

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

shellshocked

Another crack ship that has found its way into my mind. Using its fluff and angst to stay (the ship being Mikey x Miles 🤭) (I may be cringe but I am free)

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

void!Penny

this TAWOG au is just so.. FUCKIng……HrdFfJbBjnJnhH I can’t (Void!penny my beloved)

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

Zombie!Ghost

I love all the angst fanfics that sprouted from this not a fan of all the smut but. . . you win some you lose some

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

: )

t h e b r a i n r o t s h a l c o n s u m e

m e

[terreisa]

I would like to take a moment to talk about Andor.

First, let me preface this by saying that while I’m a fan of Star Wars I’m definitely not an uber fan. I haven’t watched any of the animated shows, I haven’t read the books or the comics. I’ve pretty much just kept it to the Skywalker Saga films (plus Solo and Rogue One) and the live-action Disney+ series that have been released. Second, there are much better analyses and deep dives on the themes of the show out there and this is definitely not that. This is just me putting my thoughts out into the ether because my usual cadre of nerds either aren’t watching it or are several episodes behind which is annoying when it’s all I want to talk about.

Okay, here we go:

I think Andor is the best piece of Star Wars media that’s been released in recent years.

Don’t get me wrong, I love The Mandalorian. Go through my archives and there’s no doubt about that.  It’s a great story that’s full of drama and humor and deep emotion but it hinges on a pretty big conceit. Without Grogu there is no show or at least not one that has pulled in as many viewers as it has. There’s also the fact that it still tentatively ties itself to the Skywalker Saga, which is a thing for someone else to unpack. Same with Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi, they had a built in hook to grab those viewers, though with varying degrees of success.

Andor doesn’t have that. It’s main character is a man that clearly operated in a morally grey area whose fate had already been shown to audiences six years ago. I was excited to watch the show mostly because Rogue One is my favorite Star Wars movie and I loved how Diego Luna played Cassian. That we were getting his backstory was interesting but as with the other shows I was going to watch it regardless because it was expanding the universe, which always interests me.

But dear god, what we got and are getting is so much more. The themes of morality and the cost of rebellion along commentaries on the state and actions of humanity and the tightening fist of fascism woven into the plot elevate the show to a whole different level. Not to mention that it expands the universe on so many different facets it almost boggles the mind how rich and complex this one show is making the galaxy that’s far far away.

Saying that, let me share why I decided to write this:

I work at a grocery store and the other day I was ringing up a woman's groceries and my Star Wars super fan co-worker was bagging for me. She had a Mandalorian bag and we asked if she enjoyed the show, which she did, and if she was watching Andor, which she was. She then proceeded to say that Book of Boba Fett was her favorite of the shows because it was fun and funny and Andor was boring and had no story. My co-worker and I were flabbergasted, and he'd only watched the first four eps of Andor at that point. When I told my sister the story later she said that maybe the woman only liked positive stories, ones that made her feel good and didn't dig too much into deeper themes.

That, I realized, was exactly what sets Andor apart and raises it above the other series and films that I'd seen. There are no dazzling, elegant lightsaber fights, the fights are chaotic and exact a heavy toll. There's no jokey levity from droids or side characters. The show is unflinchingly bleak and any victory, small or large, is tempered by the harsh reality of swift retaliation from the Empire. An entity that has always been known to be evil but through the lack of empathy, expanding overreach and harsher punishments, and the continual implied violence against innocents showcased in the series shows the depths of their atrocities in a way that can't be ignored or shoved aside. Even the barest thread of hope is hard to come by but it's there even in the smallest act of rebellion.

The biggest thing that sets Andor apart is that we know exactly how it ends. This story doesn't have a traditional happy ending. Cassian's fate is sealed, we are merely watching as he walks the path towards his inevitable death. And somehow it doesn't detract from the series at all, it makes his struggles much more compelling and tragic.

All this and I haven't even touched on the brilliance of Luthen and Mon Mothma's own underground moves against the Empire.

This show goes beyond every expectation I had for it and elevated it into a completely different stratosphere for the Star Wars universe. After I finish each new episode I'm practically vibrating with amazement at how each one is better than the last.

Andor is a feat of storytelling that I will shout about from rooftops whether people are listening or not for a long time coming.

[opinated-user]

A weird side-effect of murder being her go-to solution to all problems is that it made her videos boring to me even when I was a fan. Whatever the problem is, whatever the villain did, whatever the scale of the issue at hand is, she always recommends killing people. That's dull as tar. As I've grown out of LO's 12-16 year old core demographic and gotten into other media, I've figure out why: Lily never has murder have any negative repercussions. In a good story, the murder can have far-reaching fallout (see also: most Star Wars tie-in and Expanded Universe materials as well as all of Star Trek Deep Space Nine), would be too likely to be caught and if we do it we're going to have to put in a lot of work not to get caught (most good crime dramas), is necessary but God it's going to haunt me (again, Star Trek Deep Space Nine) or my favorite variation, it was an accident and arguably necessary but my guilt will haunt me for the next forty years (a fanfic I've been reading).

LO isn't smart enough or creative enough to write any of that, and I have serious doubts she can feel guilt, regret or empathy enough to understand why anyone would have any issue murdering, so she can't write a scene where people have thoughts about what they did. She can't write introspection or complex thoughts, can't write most forms of interpersonal relationships beyond 'person my OC fucks', 'person who gives my OC things', and 'person my OC kills'. She doesn't know how to write people interacting, write them displaying emotions or write them thinking in a way that feels real. I thought maybe this was just my being bitter that yet another YouTuber turned out to be a TERF and a sexual predator, but then I read The Sith Resurgence with the intention of seeing if actually she was a good writer and her claim of being a ghostwriter for hire was legit. I thought I'd just misremembered her writing being bad.

If anything, I misremembered it as not being as shitty as it actually is. Take this example from TSR:

When she returned, the two continued to talk as they ate. Topics ranged from the First Order to ways to upgrade the Fury to be a more reliable, modern ship. As they spoke, Aliana found herself quite liking Rey. It was rare she got to converse with someone on such a personal level, where it almost seemed like they were friends. Usually it was potential employers and security she mostly spoke to. Maz Kanata maybe, but that old pirate seemed more like an elder than anything else.

This is dull as shit. It doesn't give us anything in the way of insight into who these people are or how they interact or what kind of dynamic they have. You could replace their names with any other Star Wars characters because there's so little individual personality there. A good writer would have it go like this:

When she returned, the two continued to talk as they ate, hesitantly at first, then with growing ease. Rey had a wealth of knowledge on ships and upgrades that Aliana was surprised to find in someone so young, and her eyes lit up as she spoke about it. That same light dimmed considerably when the First Order came up. Her smile faded to become a flat, unexpressive flat line of pursed lips instead, shoulders tensing, and Aliana was struck by a desire to change the subject. She wanted Rey to feel at ease around her. She felt like they'd been moving towards talking like friends, something she got about as little of as Jakku got rain. She would never admit it, not even to herself, but she needed that. Maybe Rey needed it, too. Maybe that was why the conversation bounced back and continued despite the gaff, Aliana hastily changing the topic to First Order ships and then onto tech in general again. Seeing Rey relax and smile again filled Aliana with a sense of satisfaction she couldn't quite explain. She wanted to see Rey smile.

And then there's this unemotional garbage later:

Han sighed and shrugged. “Yeah. We got a Sith on our side now. I know, I never thought I’d live to see the day. But do you know what that means? It means I know that you aren’t lost yet. You can still turn away from this Ben. You can come home. This isn't a death sentence for you.”

HE'S TALKING TO HIS SON WHO JOINED A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION. Use an adjective, a modifier, a descriptor of body language, give us something! This is a pivotal moment and he's written with all the seriousness of someone discussing his Fantasy Football team. A better writer would do something like this:

Han sighed and shrugged. He was aiming for his usual casual, devil-may-care attitude, but something about it was off. The hair he insisted was silver looked white in the stark lighting, every wrinkle standing out and the deep shadows doing nothing to hide the bags under his eyes. He straightened up to look at his son but couldn't quite manage it fully. For all that he was a legend in stories, here and now he was just a man, just a father, and when he placed a hand on Kylo's shoulder Aliana half-expected him to pull the other man into a hug. Han's eyes stayed off the dark Sith garb and glinting metal of the lightsaber. Instead he looked only at Kylo's face, at those dark eyes that mirrored Leia's.

"Yeah. We've got a Sith on our side now - never thought I'd see the day, but I used to think the Force itself was just an old fairytale. Impossible things keep happening. You know," he chuckled, an old, tired sound, "your mother and I getting together, that was the most impossible thing. She's a better woman than I deserve. And you," he squeezed Kylo's shoulder, smiling tiredly, "you're a better kid than I deserve. But it's not over. You can come home. I can do better. We can be like we used to be, before the Force and Snoke and training drove this wedge inbetween us." He stepped closer, shoulders slumping as he admitted in a voice just above a whisper, "We've missed you so much, Ben, your mother and I. Please come home."

This is why Lily shouldn't make murder her solution to everything. Do I care if the Han of the first excerpt dies? Does he? He's not acting like it, he's not acting like Han, and he's not acting like a dad who's trying to talk his son out of a terrorist organization. He sounds bored in the original, emotionally uninvested, and as a result there's no intensity to a scene where a man is trying to rescue his son from what is functionally a fascist cult-esque terrorist group.

And when Han dies, it takes up three sentences' worth of space. Three. Sentences.

I've written longer joke fanfic snippets in texts to friends. I've seen longer rewrites of that moment on Reddit. It should be a haunting moment for Aliana, witnessing someone murder their parent who loves them dearly, should be a moment where Han gently reaches out and touches Ben's face as in canon and conveys without words that he's not angry, that he'll never hate him, and we should see the confusion in Ben's face afterwards because he can't process his own actions or the unconditional acceptance they were met with.

Lily is not a good enough writer to write fanfic that is not slice of life. She doesn't understand how people work enough to think 'how would a man feel about trying to rescue his son from a terrorist organization? how would the man in the organization feel about the attempted rescue? how would someone feel watching this tragic death in real time?' and that's really damning because I am literally a full decade younger than Lily but I know enough to ask these things. I'm 20 and I understand that 'then A did this. then B died, one sentence of emotions I assure you he was feeling, one sentence of another person's reaction, the end' is shit writing. She writes like a child. I'm in my university's Creative Writing Club and no one there writes on this basic of a level. These are things so basic everyone in my Intro to Fiction Writing class already knew before being told.

A good writer can make the lack of empathy in a murderer engaging (The Secret History by Donna Tartt does this very well with Henry Winters, who is so self-absorbed and devoid of empathy that he navigates the aftermath of the murder uncomfortably well, making his friends deeply uneasy) but Lily doesn't do that. Kylo? "She couldn’t feel unease or conflict from Kylo Ren. But hatred. Deception. Bloodlust." to quote from this grammar-free trainwreck. Thank you for telling the reader that rather than showing us, I guess? Why bother writing those emotions when you could list them - but setting aside that laziness, I'm not made uncomfortable by this murder in the slightest. It's cruel, sure, but we don't have any physical descriptors giving us a mental image of Kylo, so it feels more like stage directions or what'd be in a script rather than a fic. The Secret History opens on Henry Winters casually looking at the body of his best friend who he's murdered and, satisfied that it looks like an accident, turning, putting his hands in his pockets and walking away, humming some old song he'd had stuck in his head. That conveys a lack of empathy, a callousness that's unsettling, and implies a hatred or dislike, drawing the reader in, because we want to know what the hell the deceased did that his death doesn't strike Richard, our POV character, as a thing he can't live with. You instantly want to know more about this very fucked up friend group and how shit escalated to this point.

I don't want to know more about Lily Orchard's rendition of Kylo Ren, because I already know there isn't anything more. There isn't anything more to her Han, her Kylo, her Aliana - they are all exactly one thing and have no hidden depths to them. They're so straightforward that they lack the capacity to surprise or intrigue the audience in any way. Because she refuses to change a single beat from canon and is instead glued to it, there's also no capacity for events to surprise you. This isn't like the game Elsinore where Shakespeare's Hamlet is the basis but the game gives you options to explore what-ifs to the effect of, 'what if these two characters who never spoke in canon interacted?' or 'what if this character who wasn't here was?' or even just 'what if a character refused to get into a fight they got into in canon?' because all of that is too complicated for Lily to puzzle out. "And then me, I mean Aliana, was there in the movie and she got mad when Han died and fought the bad guy" is as complicated as she can get, which is just not interesting. My 6 and 8 year old nieces have played that out with sticks in the woods pretending to be Kylo and their own OC. She is doing less than the bare minimum, she's doing the same thing actual children are... at the age of 30.

Could she be a ghost writer? For kids' books, maybe. Flat characters who have a handful of tropes that they embody with no further depth to them can fly there, if you're writing for the 8 and under crowd. But honestly, I think she should stick to that and never aim any higher. She just doesn't have the capacity to write people, feelings, thoughts, interactions, relationships, original ideas, stakes, or conflicts that most people do.

And honestly even putting her on the level of kids' writers feeling like a disservice to kids' writers. R.L. Stine at least had more diversity in his works, and Animorphs runs circles around LO's work any day of the week. (Bruce Coville's work also has more canonically queer characters and had NB rep in the 90's (while LO can't manage it in 2022) despite being widely-circulated kids' lit.)

I'm so tempted to make posts roasting Lily's shitty writing. But TL;DR this isn't just bad, this is some of the dullest murder in history and I applaud her for making murder boring.

i never believed on the ghost writing gig and i can't imagine LO actually writing anything for children without adding some of her signature creepy elements into it. but regardless i agree with you. one of the worst aspects of LO's literature is how boring it is. things happens, characters are doing things, conflict is happening and yet somehow it all feels so flat and uninteresting, as if nothing is actually happening.

[lucky-clover-gazette]

Top 5 novels(or series)? 👀

i miss being a bookseller and talking about books irl so this ask makes me super happy! also this is going to be long and i apologize in advance

beauty queens by libba bray

my favorite book of all time. i read it WAY too young, like in 2011 at age 12, and it massively influenced my awareness of the world, personal philosophy, sense of humor, and creative identity. beauty queens is an ahead-of-its-time ya satire novel about teenage girls getting stuck on a deserted island and going feral (positive connotation).

it features a well-balanced main cast of about a dozen diverse young women, including the first trans character i ever encountered (because i read the book pretty young, it's actually how i found people can be trans at all). while this character's execution does include a few now-questionable tropes, she's written in incredibly good faith and i am so grateful for her being in this book. beauty queens also introduced me to perspectives from women of color, disabled women, and women from religious communities that i hadn't really gotten the chance to encounter in my bubble of a hometown. while the author is admittedly a cis white straight woman, she pours so much empathy and love and nuance into each individual beauty queen, and especially for 2011 i think she did a really good job.

in addition to All That Deep Meaningful Stuff, the book is like a james bond parody with a villain clearly meant to be sarah palin set in a hyper-capitalist satirization of america, characterized by super weird and out-of-the-box "commercial breaks." i describe it in my review as "weird, campy, tropey, and over-the-top," and warn that, "if you take everything very seriously, you will have trouble with this book."

my general creative philosophy is that art is at its best and most meaningful when you have no doubt anyone else could have made it. libba bray knows exactly what she wants to write, and she fucking does that, even if some people won't understand or enjoy it. the world is a better place because this book exists, which is true of everything on this list--but this deeply weird novel, seemingly lost to time, is my all-time favorite for a reason.

sharp objects by gillian flynn

gillian flynn is my favorite AUTHOR of all time. she wrote gone girl, sharp objects, and another lesser-known novel called dark places. sharp objects is a hard one to gush about without spoilers and/or triggers, but oh my god it is a masterpiece. its final line is my favorite final line in any media, ever. i am a huge lover of the domestic thriller genre, and while gone girl is more domestic thriller than sharp objects, i think this one is the better BOOK. huge trigger warning for self-harm if the title and cover aren't enough of a hint, but hoooo boy this book is the best kind of brutal

the illuminae files trilogy by jay kristoff & amie kaufman

these sci-fi ya thrillers are told entirely through transcripts, message logs, and other "found evidence" in a dossier meant to expose an evil corporation. the characters are clever and interesting, the conflict is layered, and there's some awesome space-horror a la alien movie. there's a love story and philosophical musings and wise-cracking idiot teenagers who i adore. there's a deranged ai and beautiful page layouts and the quote, "you have me. until the last star in the galaxy dies, you have me." these are great books for people who can't stand large chunks of prose, appreciators of comics and mixed-media storytelling, and the AUDIOBOOKS are like full-on radioplays with voice actors and sfx. all three novel hold their own while still feeling cohesive when read sequentially. so unique and so freaking cool

no exit by taylor adams

idiot college art student gets snowed in at a rest stop, realizes that someone is in the middle of trafficking a child and has to a) figure out who it is and b) stop them. this thriller is gory and fast-paced and darkly comedic and does the whole cat-and-mouse hero and villain thing that always lives in my head rent-free. it's gleefully violent and reminds me of films like kill bill and american psycho. i can't and won't spoil more but this book is so fun to read, especially if you enjoy media that doesn't take itself too seriously. the movie adaptation sucks and i'll be mad about it forever, especially because taylor adams comes from a screenwriting background and i doubt they let him touch the script. there's a thematically-relevant garfield clock and nail gun used several times as a murder weapon. in my storygraph review of this book, i summed up my love for it pretty well: "Sometimes a book just speaks to you. Probably not great that this one does it for me, but at least I had so much fun."

the stepford wives by ira levin

people discuss the stepford wives as a Cultural Concept, but i wish more people actually read the novella. it's really freaking good as a work of horror and satire. it's short, too. i've been dreaming up a stage adaptation for years.

other honorable mentions: the hunger games trilogy you know who wrote it, solutions and other problems by allie brosh, anya's ghost by vera brosgol, all of mary oliver's poetry, never saw me coming by vera kurian, in a dark dark wood by ruth ware, dead to her by sarah pinborough, annie on my mind by nancy garden

[a-flickering-soul]

EverymanHYBRID And Deer In Media: In Five Parts (click for individual comparisons)

Deer are both a symbol of fragile purity and the untamable wild–here, we examine deer in the context of man, where deer come to represent the urge within us to abandon the conscious ego for the subconscious id. The deer is a symbol, too, of rebirth, of transformation, of shedding and regrowing its weapons each year. To kill, to be reborn, to choose to be monstrous through our proximity to humanity. Is there not something pure in surrendering to animal instinct? If deer are the twin themes of innocence and wildness, then we in turn are the juxtaposition of humanity and monstrousness–our actions made monstrous by the attempt to temper them with humanity.

(transcript, analysis, and sources below cut)

1: The Secret History & EverymanHYBRID--Bodies

The Secret History, on the killing of a man in a hallucinatory bacchanal:

"'Henry,' I said at last. 'Good God.' "He raised an eyebrow. 'Really, it was more upsetting than you can realize,' he said. 'Once I hit a deer with my car. It was a beautiful creature and to see it struggling, blood everywhere, legs broken ... And this was even more distressing but at least I thought it was over. I never dreamed we'd hear anything else about it.'"

EverymanHYBRID, "Ryan and the SEVENTRIALSOFHABIT":

A shot of a deer's dead body at the side of the road at night, looking crumpled and not quite right. The captions read: "Jeff: It's a fucking deer, dude. (Evan: See it?) Yeah. Something cut its belly open. (Evan: It cut its belly open the wrong way.)"

Parallels drawn:

Consider this one an amuse-bouche. Henry draws comparisons between a man he killed to a deer he accidentally hit with a car, mildly naming the incident ‘distressing’. There is a lack of human empathy, of guilt over killing a fellow man. In comparison, Jeff, Evan, and Vinnie at this point in the EMH plotline have not yet become hunter or hunted–they have not yet been warped by their roles in this iteration and can acknowledge the upsetting nature of the events that befall them. Henry has tasted that amoral nature and is less human for it, more visibly willing to shed that veneer of attempting to care about other people. Jeff, Evan, and Vinnie have not yet reached that point.

2: “Whoso List to Hunt”, EverymanHYBRID, and The Secret History--The Chase

"Whoso List to Hunt", on hunting a fabled white hind:

"I am of them that farthest cometh behind./ Yet may I by no means my wearied mind/ Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore/ Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,/ Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind./ Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,/ As well as I may spend his time in vain. And graven with diamonds in letters plain/ There is written, her fair neck round about:/ Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,/ and wild to hold, though I seem tame."

EverymanHYBRID, "Slushpops and Surprises”

A shot of white text on a black page, "[Enter the tragic hero and his unattainable companion.]"

The Secret History, on hallucinations experienced during the bacchanal (bold for emphasis):

“‘Camilla said that during part of it, she’d believed she was a deer; and that was odd, too, because the rest of us remember chasing a deer through the woods, for miles it seemed. Actually it was miles. I know that for a fact. Apparently we ran and ran and ran, because when we came to ourselves we had no idea where we were.’”

EverymanHYBRID, “December & early January”:

A shot of Vinnie, hand covering his face in shock, as he sits and listens to Jessa’s last voicemail before she went missing. Jeff can be seen in the background, listening in silence. The captions read “[Jessa’s voice, recorded]: Steph, that thing you were talking about, I saw it...he’s real, he’s right here. What the hell does he want? I think he’s following me.”

Parallels drawn:

The deer symbolizes wild nature, something that man cannot obtain, touch, or capture without abandoning something of his own humanity. Similarly, deer represent the unattainable prey. Noli me tangere, says Caesar’s unattainable deer– touch me not, no matter how hard you may attempt to catch me. Jessa of EMH is deemed the unattainable companion and Jeff’s driving force to discover the truth behind the situation they’ve been placed in–it is Jessa, dangled in front of him after she goes missing, that leads Jeff down the path that inevitably leads to his own death after uncovering too much. The deer is to be chased, to be hunted, and never captured. Camilla from The Secret History believed herself to be a deer during the same hallucinatory bacchanal that cost a man his life, and led her brother and friends on a chase spanning miles. Jessa was hunted by an unknowable force, then used as bait to draw her partner down the path to his own death. Unattainability, the shape of something fleeing in front of you, elicits a powerful reaction to follow, to hunt, to chase. Jessa fell victim to that reaction. Camilla, and the white hind, did not.

3: The Myth of Diana and Actaeon, EverymanHYBRID, and The Secret History--Madness

The Diana and Actaeon Fountain at the Caserta Royal Palace:

The detail of the fountain shown depicts the pivotal scene in the myth of Actaeon and Artemis, where Actaeon, mid-transformation into a stag, is killed for the slight of viewing the goddess Artemis nude.The sculpture shows the transformation in no mercy, plain in its depiction of Actaeon’s pain and terror, and the simple ferocity of the hounds that surround him.

EverymanHYBRID, “May & June”:

A shot of Jeff, blood spattered across him, speaking with a shocked and angry tone. The captions read, “Jeff: Why were we doing that? That was...that’s not what we were looking for. We knew damned well that wasn’t what we were trying to kill. (Vince: Close enough.) It was a deer! It was a fucking deer! I tried to pull you off, you tried to punch me in the fucking face!”

The Secret History, on the Greeks’ view of beauty and terror (bold for emphasis):

“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful to souls like the Greeks or to our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves? Euripedes speaks of the Maenads: head thrown back, throat to the stars, ‘more like deer than human being’.”

Parallels drawn:

Most depictions of Actaeon, sculpture or painting, usually show him with antlers or a deer lower body, leaving his head and face a recognizable human shape. However, the sculptor here decided to subvert expectations and leave his body human, giving Actaeon the animal head of a stag. The loss of control and the descent from human to animal is not glorified or made palatable by the mere addition of a crown of antlers--there is only the one constant, fear, that follows him all the way down. Madness may be defined as a loss of control, and there may be something beautiful and terrifying in feeling your sanity slip through your own fingers. Jeff, Evan, and Vinnie are overtaken by brief, inexplicable madness and tear apart a deer as they come dangerously close to uncovering exactly who and what is hunting them. They skate close to seeing soemthing they shouldn't see. It is only Jeff who looks up, shocked by the blood on his hands, and voices his fear. Vinnie, apathetic, lets it go. But Evan, houndlike and irrational, defends his kill.

4: EverymanHYBRID & Hannibal--Warnings and Temptation

EverymanHYBRID, “May & June”:

A shot of Evan, spattered heavily with blood, standing with shoulders caved in protectively. His left hand is raised to his mouth, with his hair covering his eyes, and he is licking the blood off of his fingers.

“Shot Through The Hart, and Hannibal’s To Blame” (bold for emphasis):

“In my post about ravens, I talked about how it’s not always easy to tell what the Ravenstag really means. Is it evidence of the Hannibalesque elements of Will’s soul? Or a warning of those parts growing within him? Does the Ravenstag urge Will forward on his journey, or warn him of what’s to come?”

Hannibal, Season 1, Episode 1 “Aperitif”:

A shot of the Ravenstag, staring directly into the camera with one hoof up, as if to approach. There are black feathers interwoven with its pelt and its eyes have an uncanny shine.

Parallels drawn:

On a naturalistic note, deer are skittish creatures. They have thin legs and a sleek body, made for running. A small head and big eyes, placed wide-set to see coming predators. Keen ears. They are ready at any moment to sense danger, warn others, and flee. When a deer does not move, it is either safe or sizing up its options, either accepting where it is or preparing to run. Deer, staring directly at the viewer, come as a sympathetic warning to flee or, in its dark eyes and firm stance, a temptation. Me tangere, they say. Come closer. We are one and the same. In Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal, the commanding presence of the Ravenstag serves as both a warning and a beckoning temptation to turn his feet down the darker path. It is otherworldly, black-furred and feathered, and yet a warning of events rooted in the real world--does Will understand what danger he is in upon meeting Hannibal and take the warning, or will he ignore it, sensing that same darkness in himself, that same potential for corruption? In EverymanHYBRID, it is that same killing of a deer that hints at that same potential for darkness growing inside Evan. He licks at his fingers, animalistic, fully ignoring his own Ravenstag warning signs for the delight of the hunt. Is he Evan anymore? Or is something else growing inside him?

5: EverymanHYBRID & Hannibal--Predator and Prey, or the Final Act

EverymanHybrid, “:D”:

A shot of HABIT, looking up a set of stairs with one foot on the bottom step. In one hand down by his side, he is holding a knife. His posture is tilted forward, poised, ready to spring into action, like that of a hunter.

“Shot Through The Hart, and Hannibal’s To Blame” (bold for emphasis):

“The idea of deer as symbols of rebirth also stands out to me. Hannibal is a series obsessed with becoming and transformation. People start one way, and are reborn as something completely other by the end of the show. There’s even a character sewn up into a deceased pregnant horse in the hopes that when she’s released, she will be literally reborn as something different. It’s thus a neat fit, this significance of deer with the themes of the show.”

EverymanHYBRID, “:D”:

A shot of Jeff, looking up and to the side with an expression of caution and fear. His eyes are unnerved, squinting as, from offscreen, HABIT’s hand plays idly with his hat.

Parallels drawn:

The first and final incarnation of the deer is, of course, prey. Beyond and before any symbolism of innocence and wildness and warnings, deer are prey animals, to be hunted and devoured. And yet, in keeping with the concept of contrasting symbolism, deer are not helpless. Yearly, they shed and regrow their antlers in a transformation of horn and blood. At the climax of EverymanHYBRID, the final reveal, the final transformation, comes to fruition. HABIT, formerly Evan, takes its place as the Hunter, the archetypal predator, with Jeff shown most prominently as the Prey. Jeff’s luck has run its course, with him in the chair as the sacrificial prey-victim to fall to HABIT’s knife. HABIT, reborn, reiterated, made incarnate through Evan’s unwilling transformation, is poised to start the hunt. This is the big reveal, the crux of the transformation, Actaeon caught mid-transfiguration and the bloody sloughing-off of velvet humanity to reveal perfect and gleaming antlers. This is what it comes down to, time and time again. The hunter and the hunted. The wilderness embraced and the wilderness captured, and the monstrosity in that act.

Works Cited

Callimachus. Actaeon and Artemis. C. 220 BC

Fuller, Bryan. “Apetirif.” Hannibal, season 1, episode 1, NBC, 4 Apr. 2013.

Koval, J., Caffarello, V., &; Jennings, E. (Directors). (2011, July 12). May & June [Video file].

Koval, J., Caffarello, V., &; Jennings, E. (Directors). (2012, October 9). :D [Video file].

Tartt, Donna. The Secret History. Penguin, 2006.

Uhminuh. “Shot Through the Hart, and Hannibal's to Blame.” Read the Rude, Wordpress, 19 July 2020.

Wyatt, Thomas. “Whoso List to Hunt, I Know where is an Hind.” c. 1530.

Honorary mention to this fanart by @/rrhaes that started this whole spiral

[romulanfucker]

can we hear your picard opinions please we need to esplode star trek tumblr from the inside out

>:3

well imo picard is the most boring and narratively least interesting captain in all of star trek and i really do not give two shits about him.

i found him to be the most archetypal (even more than kirk, though much of that has to do with the fact that the rest of the tos cast is equally archetypal, while many of the tng characters still Are archetypes but have more chances to depart those roles and bring a little bit of depth u know?) and I also hated the archetype that he Was

like, part of the charm of tos is that in the end everything turns out fine and the day is always saved, and i appreciate that tng didn't want to take the darker turn that say, ds9 or disco did. but they also Did want to up the stakes, make it more tense, more daring and less sitcom-y, but in their attempt to balance those two things it ended up giving picard a narrative god complex that bores the hell out of me.

like it just happens sooooooo much that the enterprise is in dire straights and it seems completely hopeless and option A and option B have both failed and picard will whip option C out of his ass because he's the most brilliant person in the world and he never has to face the consequences of a lose/lose decision and he never suffers lasting consequences or is haunted by his failures.

and like ... Yeah most of the cast doesn't change all that much when they get traumatized and i'm not necessarily trying to critique the fact that picard doesn't have a lot of character growth but its like ..... he doesn't even make any enemies. like nobody hates him. he Always manages to get in the good graces of both sides of every conflict and its bland and boring and the attempt to make the show more high stakes doesn't even work because i Know picard's gonna fix everything and its just a matter of waiting for him to flex his huge brain meat so i can roll my eyes.

and the thing that pisses me off the Most is how everyone on the crew like worships the ground picard walks on for it. Everyone is like JEAN LUC PICARD IS THE BEST MAN IVE EVER MET IN MY LIFE AND ID GIVE HIM MY FIRSTBORN IF HED TAKE IT. like we get ittttttt all the writers are stroking their own egos thinking theyre picard types when theyre all barclays. (as a side note - this is one of the reasons I enjoyed pulaski's character so much. she was one of the few people to tell picard to his face 'youre not special tough guy. go get surgery before i make you').

like sisko and janeway and archer are constantly hounded by tough decisions theyve made that come back to bite them in the ass. kirk has a level of humility and doubt and guilt within episodes even if the structure of tos doens't let it carry over much. Even freeman - in a show that is meant to be More lighthearted than tng was trying to be - has her struggles connecting with her crew and being taken seriously in the grander starfleet scheme. (i havent watched disco so i cant speak to that all that much.) they're all Human People that excel as captains bc of their empathy and their willingness to make hard choices to protect their crew, while picard is elevated to a status above everyone else because he somehow is SO good at captaining that he finds a way to skirt around all the hard decisions every time and dazzle us.

tldr; picard was a failure of the writers to make a more tense show while still ultimately maintaining the sitcom structure that resulted in him being a walking deus ex machina that pisses me the fuck off

[baffling-bisexual-quack]

Trouble in Paradise

HI, anyone who might see this! I wrote another oneshot (thorbruce). Hope you all enjoy!

Summary: Thor + Bruce are in relationships (Jane, Nat), but they aren’t completely happy.

Warnings: Cheating

Word count: 1668

“Banner!” Thor called out, catching the small scientist just before he went back into the lab, or as Tony called it, the Lair From Which Bruce Shall Not Return. Thor hadn’t seen Bruce in weeks. It wasn’t a matter of choice; there had been lots of missions in the past while, and Thor and Bruce were both now busy with their significant others. Bruce and Nat were officially together, and Thor and Jane were an obvious thing. Plus, Bruce had been on the edge of a ‘scientific breakthrough’, which were code words for ‘Bruce is having feelings he doesn’t like and is trying to hide’. Or it really was a scientific breakthrough and a robber had come in and stolen all of their ice cream.

“Hey, Thor.” Bruce mumbled before slipping back in to the lab and started to shut the door. He would’ve succeeded if Thor hadn’t shoved himself into the crack between the door and the wall, trying to have a decent conversation with the man.

“Owww.” Thor groaned as Bruce tried to shut the door, not realizing the norse god was in the way. Thor was wearing his armour, as usual, so some of the pain was taken away.

“Oh, jeez, sorry Thor. By any chance, did you want to talk?” Bruce said, a small smile on his lips.

“Yes, I did want to talk! How did you know?” Thor asked.

“Just a hunch. Come on in.” Bruce said, turning away to go towards the lab table. He went right back to his research, forgetting about his visitor.

“So, Banner! What are you working on?” Thor asked, going to the table and resting his hands on Bruce’s papers, making a couple of them slide out of the pile and onto the floor.

“I’m, uh, working on some stuff with radiation, you know, thermal, uh, diffusional restitutions- THOR!” Bruce said, getting slightly angry at Thor. The giant had knocked over some tubes with his hands, making bruce jog over to make sure nothing spilled on the floor.

“Many apologies, Banner, I-“

“Maybe just go stand in the middle of the room.” Bruce said, a little agitated.

“Alright then. I am sorry I meddled with your papers and tubes.” Thor said apologetically.

“No, it’s not your fault, I’m a scatterbrain right now and I’m kind of stressed, so the littlest things are pissing me off.” Bruce said, double checking his papers were in order. He then made his way back to the beakers to fix that problem.

“Ah. You should come out for a change! I believe Tony has a team bonding game going on.” Thor suggested.

“Um, not really in the mood.”

“I understand.”

There was an awkward silence after this remark, neither Thor nor Bruce thinking of a subject that wouldn’t offend anybody. Bruce finally broke it.

“So, how’s Jane? Haven’t seen her around in awhile.”

“Oh, Jane is good.” Thor said, sighing a little and looking towards the ceiling.

“Oh? Trouble in paradise?” Bruce asked cheekily.

“Tony used that exact expression! What does it mean? What paradise? I am not in paradise. What troubles? Did I do something wrong that affected a paradise?”

“Tony used it? Agh, he must be rubbing off on me.” Bruce chuckled. “To answer your questions, trouble in paradise is basically a shorter way of saying ‘oh, everything’s not perfect? I had no idea!’ Like, sarcastically.”

“Oh, so you’re saying my relationship with Jane is doubted by everybody, and they are using their midgardian terms to get around saying it to my face.” Thor answered.

“Uhm…” Bruce stuttered, looking around like he was trying to find a way out of this situation. “Guess you’ve got me there.”

“Well, they’re not completely wrong…” Thor said, a little quieter. Bruce gave him a look of empathy and confusion. “I just feel Jane is getting less enthusiastic to see me, and more like she thinks it is a chore I have to complete.” Thor finished, looking at the ground now.

“Oh, god, I’m sorry.” Bruce said sympathetically.

“It’s not important. How is Natasha?” Thor asked, avoiding the subject.

“Oh, um. Yeah. She’s… good. As good as an assassin can be, I guess.” Bruce said, turning back to his work.

“No, don’t do that.” Thor said, gesturing to Bruce.

“What?” Bruce asked, looking over his shoulder.

“Turn back towards your work. It means you are avoiding the subject.” Thor objected.

“Ok then.” Bruce said, facing towards Thor. “But this doesn’t mean I’m going to talk.

This remark was followed by a few minutes of awkward silence. Bruce knew in his head that Thor was just waiting for him to burst. Finally, he did.

“I just don’t know if I like Nat.” Bruce sighed.

“Wait, you do not like her? Not even as a friend?” Thor asked, looking quizzically at Bruce.

“No, I just don’t know if I want to, you know, go out with her.” Bruce said, looking at the ground. “Dammit it’s hard to avoid the subject when you’re facing the person!”

“Wait, what is wrong with Nat?”

“It’s not Nat, I just might… like someone else.” Bruce whispered, starting to turn back to his work.

“Who?” Thor asked. Bruce mumbled out an incoherent answer and looked away, not making eye contact with Thor.

“Pardon?” Thor said.

“No… one. That I could ever tell, at least.” Bruce responded, looking at Thor’s armour a little more than what would be considered friend-like.

“Are you sure?” Thor asked, walking back up to Bruce until he was so close Bruce could touch him if he extended his arm almost fully. Thor had his held tilted just a little, so he looked so innocent, so cute.

“Not… really.” Bruce breathed, biting his lip as he looked at Thor’s hair. Thor raised one eyebrow a little. “I mean, what if he... doesn’t like me back?”

“If you’re talking about who I think you might be, I do not think you have any problems.” Thor said, stepping a little closer.

“Thor…” Bruce started.

“Yes, Banner?” Thor asked calmly. He had moved so close to him that Bruce could feel Thor’s breath on his face as he looked up.

“I- you’re really- please-“

“Shall I put you out of your misery?” Thor joked, smiling a little.

“Yes, please, Thor.” Bruce responded. That was all it took for Thor to move the rest of the way so he was right up against Bruce. He took Bruce’s face in his hands and bent down, bringing Bruce up just enough for their mouths to meet. It took less than a second for Bruce to start kissing Thor back, hands making their way up to wrap around Thor’s neck as Thor’s hands slid down to hold Bruce’s sides. Thor pulled Bruce impossibly close to his body. The kiss only deepened when Thor felt Bruce’s tongue swipe against his lips. He let it in without a fight, eager for whatever Bruce had to offer. They stayed like this for a minute or two, until they had to pull away. Bruce was staring at Thor like a deer in the headlights, arms still around his neck.

“T-Thor, I don’t think… I mean I really want…” Bruce exhaled. “What about Jane and Nat?”

“I don’t know, Bruce.” Thor said, putting his forehead against Bruce’s. Bruce closed his eyes, enjoying one last moment before they had to face reality. “What do you want to do?”

“How do you mean?” Bruce asked, opening his eyes to look into Thor’s. Those big, blue eyes, as bright as the sky on a cloudless day.

“I mean, do we tell Jane and Nat? Do we pretend it never happened? Do we stay together and not tell Jane and Nat? Do we break up with them?” Thor began. Bruce wanted so bad just to go on with life, pretend he hadn’t finally gotten the man he always wanted, keep settling for Nat. But there was this literal god in front of him who had kissed him. It made Bruce want to reach for the stars, in a way.

“I think for now, we just…” Bruce started, moving his hands up to play with Thor’s hair. “Just… stay like this. For the immediate future, at least.”

Thor grinned a little, eyes gleaming with hope. “So can I kiss you again?” He asked, bending down so their noses touched gently.

“God yes.” Within half a second they were back at it, tongues sliding through their mouths, handing moving around, trying to claim the other body as their own. After a little bit of this bliss, Thor pulled back, picking Bruce up and setting him on the table. Bruce was surprised, but he rather enjoyed this turn of events. It was so much more than the empty kisses Nat gave him. Those felt robotic, unwanted. These felt passionate and full.  He cupped Thor’s head again, hands running though his hair, begging for more. Thor responded by going downwards to suck on Bruce’s neck. Bruce moaned a little, spurring Thor on. Eventually, Bruce pulled Thor’s head back up, demanding attention from his lips. He brought Thor into another kiss, wishing the moment would never end. Eventually, he needed a breath, so he pulled away, settling for capturing Thor’s bottom lip in his teeth. Thor gave him a cheeky smile and returned to his work on Bruce’s neck.

“Are you enjoying this as much as I am?” Bruce asked, making Thor look up at him.

“You underestimate yourself, Bruce. If Nat hasn’t gotten that habit out of you, then I guess I will just have to.” Thor said, smiling devilishly. He leaned back into Bruce, kissing him soundly, not aware about the presence in the doorway.

Clint’s eyebrows went up in shock as Bruce curled his legs around Thor’s waist. “Ohhh boy.” He whispered, because he probably couldn’t say anything above a whisper right now. His eyes were as wide as dinner plates, and his arms rested frozen at his side. “I’d like to seem them explain this.”

[star-trekkin-across-theuniverse]

Worthy (pt6)

A/N: once again - just keep poking me until I start tagging you if you want tagged. @rampant-salamander​, @bolontiku​

...

I looked from Tony to Thor and back to Tony.

“I don’t understand your question,” I responded, and threw back the drink. To hell with being moderate. I was pretty sure I was about to lose my dream job on my second day, I may as well go out with a bang.

“Ella, there has to be something special about you to allow you to lift that hammer,” Tony spoke slowly. That was probably a bad thing. I suspected slow speech meant a really active brain. I was now a mystery that needed to be solved.

“There is nothing special about me at all,” I argued.

“You can lift Mjolnir. That is special.” Thor was like a sage who spoke in riddles.

“But being able to lift Mjolnir isn’t what makes me special enough to lift it. That’s a redundancy.” I, like Tony, was slipping into scientific method in order to try to sort things out.

“Do you have Aesir blood, Ella?” Thor asked.

“My family is from Washington. By way of Wisconsin,” I replied. Tony snorted and Thor shot him a dirty look.

“Before this Wisconsin?” He pressed. The way he said Wisconsin made it sound unfamiliar and strange.

“Norway and England.”

“Norway. That is where the Northmen resided.” Thor looked thoughtful. “In the time of the Vikings, the Aesir traveled on Midgard much more frequently than they do now.”

“Are you suggesting that some ancestor of mine got knocked up by a god?” I could feel my eyebrow rising. Tony smothered a smirk behind his hand. My tone was lost on Thor.

“We are not gods, Ella,” Thor corrected. “And I am unfamiliar with knocked up. What I suggest is that your ancestor was impregnated by an Aesir.”

“But in order to lift your hammer, wouldn’t it have to be you that got this mystery ancestor pregnant? I’d have to be your descendent?” I could feel the blood draining from my face. It would be just my luck that the hottest guy I’d ever seen would be related to me. Thor’s smile was mischievous.

“Not necessarily. I would have discovered offspring of mine on Midgard by now, and I know left none. But I think it reasonable to consider you may have Aesir blood in your veins,” he explained. “Which makes you very special indeed.”

“Can everyone in Asgard lift your hammer?” I asked. Thor shook his head.

“None but I.”

“Then I don’t buy it. I keep telling people, I’m nothing special.” I was getting frustrated with the scrutiny. I never thought I would be desperate for a cute guy to stop paying attention to me, but in that moment, I would have given anything to be able to just go hide in obscurity in the lab, building my washing machine.

“But that’s where you’re wrong, Ella,” Tony interrupted. I’d nearly forgotten he was there, Thor had such powerful bearing. I didn’t think it was possible to lose track of Tony Stark, but I guess in the presence of not-actually-gods… “You are something special. That’s why Pepper and I lept on your application like we did. How did you make it through university with such a bad self image?”

“I don’t have a bad self image. I know I’m a fucking amazing engineer. I just fail to see a correlation between my ability to understand math and build things and my purported mystical ability to lift a magic hammer,” I snapped. I turned back to Thor. “You’re sure no one else can lift it?” Thor glanced at Tony, almost as though he was looking for approval. Tony gave a slight nod.

“I believe that Captain Rogers would be able to lift it, should he have the opportunity. But that remains untested,” Thor admitted. I sighed.

“Of course. He’s a legit hero. Full of righteousness and honour and nobility.” My tone was more sarcastic than I’d intended.

“Yes, intangible and arbitrary measures of worthiness. Who is to say you don’t meet the parameters in some way?” Thor shot back. I looked into my empty glass, wishing it were still full.

“Did you not see me level that d-bag in the elevator?”

“Tis nothing I would not have done myself, and yet I am still worthy,” Thor shrugged. Pepper had walked in at some point during the conversation, and Tony turned to her expectantly. She sighed and blinked slowly.

“We’ve had a discussion about appropriate professional behaviour. He is aware that if there are any further incidents he will lose his internship.” Pepper reached out for the glass of wine Tony was offering her.

“It’s a bit of a PR nightmare if we lose a second intern in as many days, Pep,” Tony commented.

“It’s a worse nightmare if, right as we’re rolling out a gender equality program and girl’s STEM mentorship program, the media gets ahold of information about how we’re allowing someone guilty of sexual harassment to remain in a prestigious and competitive internship,” she retorted. He pursed his lips and paused. After a moment he nodded in agreement.

“What do I know? You’re the boss.” His acquiescence was met with laughter from Pepper.

“What do you know, Tony? How many times did you attend the SHIELD seminar again?” She choked on her wine. “Trust me. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s a smart guy, and I’d like to think he’ll be respectful from now on.” Tony responded with some other comment and I slumped back into my seat, watching the show. If you didn’t know they were stupidly in love with one another, you might assume they were on the verge of war. But I think Tony liked to goad Pepper, and she rose to the bait. Not because she was gullible though. At least, I didn’t think it was because she was easily duped. I think she rose to the bait because it was how they clicked together. I looked away from them and over to Thor, who was sitting back on the couch, completely relaxed. The hammer was propped up beside him, handle leaning against the bolster. It was uncanny how powerful he looked, even in jeans and a t-shirt. I relaxed a little and just enjoyed looking at him, taking in the contours of his biceps, and the definition of the veins in his hands. There was a lot of him to look at, and it was all very pleasing to the eye. At least, everything I’d seen thus far.

I didn’t realize how overt I was being until he smirked. He turned to look at me, and nodded.

“Is it not considered poor manners on Midgard to stare at others?” There was a teasing tone to his voice, but I blinked and looked away, feeling my cheeks colour.

There was really no way for me to deny that I was staring at him. The only blank wall in the entire place was right behind him. I couldn’t even beg being distracted by some of the weird art that seemed to be all over the building. 

“I, uh, well,” I stammered. “I was looking at the hammer?” It sounded like bullshit, even to me. I heard a stifled laugh from Tony and shot him a filthy look. I pushed myself to my feet and glanced at Pepper. “If you don’t need me, Pepper, I’m going to try to catch up with Angela. I have some things I need to pick up for my suite.”

“You can order anything you need from distribution,” Tony offered.

“Except, apparently, towels bigger than a postage stamp,” I retorted. My ears were burning and I was having a really hard time not looking over to see if Thor was following the conversation. He probably was as there was no one else for him to pay attention to.

“You are aware there’s varying sizes of towel?” Tony’s tone was sarcastic. I rolled my eyes.

“Not that this is really a conversation I feel I want to have with my boss, but I grabbed the biggest one. It still barely covered me.” I was ready to pray for a hole to open in the floor and swallow me.

“Well, you’re not exactly supposed to be lounging around in your tow –“

“I wasn’t!” I interrupted. “I was just getting out of the shower when Thor showed up and I didn’t have time to be getting fully dressed before I answered the door, and then the towel slipped and oh my god I cannot believe I’m telling you all this.” I took a deep breath and looked back to Pepper. “Can I go? Please?”

“Let me walk you to the elevator,” she offered and led the way. As we walked away, I heard Tony clear his throat.

“You’ve seen her naked already, you sly dog?”

“That is enough, Stark. How you have lived so many years on this realm and not noticed how modest some of your women are, I have no idea. But you embarrassed her. Like many Midgardians, she lacks comfort with the physical form.” Thor’s words were a chastisement, and I somehow felt even more embarrassed about him having seen me naked. Because now, not only was I naked in front of the freaking Norse god of thunder, but also he took more notice of what a prude I am than that I was naked. I leaned against the wall and banged my head against it.

“That’s not how you call the elevator,” Pepper teased. “I know we all collectively keep telling you to relax, but, yeah. Relax. If Tony is already giving you a hard time, he’s assimilating you into his world as a permanent fixture. This will be something you laugh about in future years.” Her eyes were warm with empathy and it was so reassuring.

“You seriously need to do something about the towel situation, Pepper.” I stepped onto the elevator and pushed the button for my floor. Once the doors shut, I texted Angela to see how far she’d got without me. I didn’t have to wait long. I was swiping my passcard to get into my room when she stepped off the elevator.

“So, towels? Maybe a beer?” She followed me into my apartment.

“Yes. To both.”

XXX

For whatever reason, I expected getting beer with Angela would be more Sex-in-the-City than it was. She pulled me into a quiet bar after we’d found appropriate towels, and we ordered wings from the kitchen and beer.

“So I did some research today while you were meeting with Markus,” she volunteered over a heap of wing bones. I made a noise that was easily interpretable as curiosity and she continued. “I might have hacked some of Tony’s files about that hammer. Thor wasn’t kidding around when he said you shouldn’t be able to lift it. It was apparently forged in the heart of a dying star, of some crazy space-metal. And the Odin enchanted it so only Thor could lift it. Which is clearly a broken enchantment because apparently you can lift it too.”

“It says right on it that if you’re worthy, you can lift it,” I corrected her with my mouth full.

“Obviously it doesn’t take table manners into consideration!” She laughed. I hung my head in mock-shame, but made sure my mouth was clear before I spoke again.

“I don’t know how it determines worthiness. Honestly, isn’t that a little creepy? Is the hammer sentient? Does it consider the merits of each individual that touches it in that split second between grabbing it and trying to lift it? Or does Odin have some sort of approval system for worthiness, and he gets interrupted from whatever it is he’s doing to approve people in that same fraction of an instant?” I pondered.

“Way to ruin magic with science,” she groaned.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. That’s Clarke’s Third Law. The other two are pretty good too,” I shrugged.

“Oh, that was a kill shot! Come on, let me have some sort of fantasy about the mystical powers of the damn hammer, Ella!” Angela threw her hands up in frustration. I smiled and nodded.

“Of course. The hammer is mystical and powerful and absolutely should not be questioned,” I acceded. Angela swatted at me and flagged the waitress over for another round. I felt myself relaxing and forgetting about the overwhelming stress of the past couple of days as we decompressed over a second beer. When Angela dropped me back at the tower, I realized she may very well live on-site as well, but I was tired and had a bit of a beer buzz and forgot to ask before stumbling through my door and crashing on the sofa.

[captaincravatthecapricious]

Reluctant hurt/comfort?  Why yes!

Both Tim and Jon have a bad time after the Buried.  

cw fever, illness, vomit mention, suicidal ideation, grief. Also as a note, the night I wrote this was a hard one, and the day after was worse and this might reflect that.  I don't think this is one I can go back through and comb for more cws, so hopefully that is warning enough.  Stay safe, and enjoy something that was very cathartic to write.

The day after the Buried, it doesn’t even occur to Tim that he should be hungry.  He hasn’t needed to eat in so long that he simply forgets.  Just downs glass after glass of water in the break room after a shower that lasts far longer than the meager supply of hot water.  He can’t be fucked that Daisy and Jon still need to wash the muck off.  At least Daisy has somewhere to go, Basira is hovering around, ready to ferry her out of this hell archive.  

Of course, it’s his own fault that he doesn’t have a flat.  

He supposes he owes Jon.  Or something.  

He doesn’t care.  

He’s still angry.  And tired and filthy and depressed.  The only thing the buried did was keep him from dying.  Hell of a suicide watch to be on.  

Sometimes when he closed his eyes down there, he could believe it was Jon or Martin lying on him.  Keeping his fingers from itching to do harm…  Well, almost, anyhow.  

After that, he sleeps.  And sleeps.  

And, well, after that.  He feels like shit.  

Complete shit. 

When he was a teen with soup for brains, Danny got sick.  A bad flu, but he couldn’t keep anything down for three days.  Three days of foisting broths and lucozade on his brother with little success.  Should have been taken to hospital, by all rights, but their mother didn’t really believe in the whole modern medicine thing, and well.  Dad was away, so Tim couldn’t even get Danny to an adult who could help, even if he didn’t give a damn.  It had been awful.  

He really thought his little brother was dying.  Cracked and dry lips, fever so high that he wasn’t coherent.  Three days he sat vigil.  Praying to a god he barely believed in.  

A fever that scooped out his brother until he was praying for a breathing corpse.  Giving oblations of thin liquid.  

On the third day, his eyes opened and he stroked Tim’s hand, as Tim shook with exhaustion by his bedside.  He had to be propped up to sip at his broth, but it was far better than trickling it down his unconscious baby brother’s throat.  

Pure helplessness.  Both in empathy for his brother, who was probably having a worse time than Tim, and because he was next to useless.  

Three days and Tim can’t keep down food.  Gave up trying.  Just shivers on the cot, gazing nearly sightlessly at the ceiling, muscles too wasted to move.  He doesn’t know if anyone notices that he’s gone.  He hasn’t heard any word from Martin.  Basira and Daisy fucked off days ago, as far as Tim can reckon.  Then again, he doesn’t have so much as a working phone.  He doesn’t even know if it’s been three days or thirty.  

His skin feels hot and tight.  Like the Buried is taking a new approach to suffocating him.  A dreadful thirst clawing at him, but he doesn’t have the strength to stand and get water anymore.  Barely could limp his way there before the lack of food and probable fever stole what little he had left.  

Is this just some divine punishment for prodding too hard at the forces of evil in the universe?  

He’d finally come to terms with the abstract and incidental nature of these things, but he can’t help the hazy imagining that he deserves this.  

Failed to keep his brother safe, for all his bedside bargaining and promises made to the wind on long walks after his brother disappeared.  All the broken promises betwixt his savior and himself.  Bitter words corroding promises that could have been harder than diamond.  

It was his fault.  Couldn’t hold up his end, and he deserves this dreadful heat and the foul desert of his mouth.  His body generating his own funeral pyre.  

He wishes he could bring himself to care.  But all he’s known since Jon betrayed him has been anger and dissent disinterest.  

There is an ache at his very core.  

He lies there, on the cot.  Tangled in the sheets.  Bone dry.  Dry as parched soil.  For he has no moisture to spare for sweat.  His own body out of anything that could bring his temperature down.  

Finding Tim isn’t easy.  Jon’s body betrays him after the Buried.  Months of uneasy sleep, and days of pressure on all the wrong parts of him leave him poorly put together and his joints slipping apart at the slightest provocation.  He spends days on the floor of his office, in too much pain to move, too dizzy to stand, and running a fever from the pain in his squashed and shitty joints.  

His own fault, but a small price to pay for Tim and Daisy.  

He would have stayed there if it meant getting them back.  

One less monster.  

Of course the Eye doesn’t let him die.  Aren’t humans supposed to die if they don’t drink water for three days?  

He spends most of his time passing out when he tries to stand.  

And he can’t bring himself to care.  He’s so tired.  Too tired.  

He didn’t expect anyone to come after him.  Certainly not Tim.  Not after everything.  

Well maybe he hoped.  

(He did).  

(Damn his… well it isn’t optimism.  Damn his longing for someone to give a shit if he vanishes for days.  He should know by now that no one is coming.  No one ever does.)  

Groggy and foggy and battered.  

He’s tired.  He needs a proper mattress for just one night, but he can’t even get off the floor.  Just lays in the remnants of mud, waiting to whither like the corpse he is, one just hasn’t stopped breathing yet (again).  

But something draws him upright, more or less.  Clinging to the walls, bracing his stilted journey on aching limbs.  

It’s probably the Eye.  Probably the Eye, or maybe Jon’s piercing curiosity, control slackened by fever, peering though a hairline fracture in the door of his mind.  

He all but crawls to the cot, securing a half empty water bottle from somewhere he probably should be worried about, but he arrives to find Tim burning away before him as his own vision swims dangerously.  

A face in front of his.  Features obscure and unreadable.  He can read the worry in those eyes.  Even in the half light.  

Tim couldn’t hear Jon in the Buried.  His hearing aids long since ran out of life.  All for the best, for the singing of the coffin in the rain will haunt his dreams (not only in a spooky way) for the rest of his life.  

Only knew it was Jon by Jon guiding his (Tim’s)  hand with too thin and gentle and burned fingers to his (Jon’s) mouth.  So Tim could read his lips by feel.  An imprecise thing, but better than nothing.  

Filthy fingers against dry and dusty lips.  Almost like a kiss.  Perhaps more intimate.  

The face hovers closer.  Thin and careful fingers soothing his brow.  

Pressing water to his lips.  Mouthing words that are lost to Tim.  And even if they reached him, he knows he wouldn’t understand them.  

Is this Danny before him?  Would he know his own brother?  After all these years?  After the Stranger chewed him up and regurgitated …whatever.  Is he lost as much as Sasha had been?  Like she’d been?  

And what good would knowing that do?  He would rather keep the memories he has, doesn’t want to know the creeping uncertainties that plague him when he closes his eyes.  

He supposes that the advantage of the Buried is that it keeps the mind off things that aren’t the slow process of returning stone to stone in a way that obliterates everything in between.  Everything but fear.  

Not Danny, but Jon, Tim discovers.  Pulled awake by uneasy stomach, and panicked breath, to find Jon fluttering out of consciousness by his side.  

He wants to be put out that they are flush with each other, but …but they were closer still in the choking darkness with air thick with the soil that Tim swears he can feel coating his internal organs.  

He’s drifting off again when he hears Jon gasp awake, looking nearly as unwell as Tim feels.  

The small figure curled at his back is not his brother.  But he feels as warm and as fragile as Danny did when he sat his vigil.  Counting the seconds between breaths.  His heart stuttering when they lagged and caught in his raw throat in the muted hours between sunset and sunrise.  The hours that Tim feared if he stopped willing the next breath to happen, they wouldn’t.  

But Jon is hardly human.  His pulse is jittery and uneven.  Each breath just a little more strained than they should be.  Likely matching Tim’s own.  

Some distant part of him… the distant part that can feel Jon’s pulse when the rest of him is floating away, untethered to a body too light and empty without topsoil and rich loam to brace him into and against the earth… worries that his own furnace of a temperature is too high and will roast Jon.  

Another equally distant part of him is annoyed that Jon dares to share this pyre of internal heat with him.  …If this is how he goes out, he wishes he saw the stars when he still had any strength.  

Tim wakes again to cool water against his tongue.  

Jon is mumbling to himself fervently.  And Tim can recognize that look.  That fear.  That determination.  The will of someone breathing for someone else.  Holding their life-force steady in the mind.  Knowing to let it faulter is a death sentence.  With wild certainty that is bounded in something beyond reason, for when you are willing another person to breathe, you are often beyond the reach of science.  

And Tim wonders who Jon could possibly be breathing for, because there is no universe in the extensive multiverse that Jon would ever will the life into someone who has spewed such hateful things and led another fragile being he swore to protect to his death.  

And yet…

Tim exhales deeply.  Sliding into what looks to be a restful sleep for the first time in uncounted months.  Watching the rise and fall of his chest look more natural and less like an afterthought, what little strength Jon had found, abandons him.  And he curls himself around Tim.  A small and fragile and dusty shield.  And is asleep in an instant.  Knowing without a doubt that Tim will sleep comfortably through the night, and if anything changes, Jon will know.  Both in body and from beyond the waterlogged door in his mind.  

[elejahfanfic]

Fanfiction

And so it is Christmas

Part 5

Elijah Mikaelson x reader

ft. Klaroline, Kennett

AU story_human_no vampires

a/n:There  will be great mad Mikaelson chaos and lots of love… i.e. Elijah falling for Y/N…cookie baking, etc.

well, actually_absolute christmas fluff… ho-ho-ho

_also this just blew into such a long ch again_ thanks for reading. xoxo

🎅

In the Mikaelson Mansion

Esther looked at the happy bunch mucking around in the kitchen. She loved the holiday season. It always brought a strange kind of warmth to the house.

"Everyone is very high spirited" the butler said,"this idea to have them participate in making the buiscuits was marvellous"

"Wasn't it just" Esther said, now looking at Klaus and Caroline cutely talking to one another, him complimenting the blonde on her artistic streak.

"I find it quite unusual that Elijah left Caroline behind and went out with Kol"  Esther remarked.

"There have been developments" the butler said.

"What do you mean?"  Esther now looked at the man with puzzled eyes.

"Master Elijah and Ms Forbes are no longer together. Prior to Miss Rebekah's trip to New York, they put an end to their relationship. Not that it was any serious relationship as such."

Esther raised an inquisitive eye-brow at the butler, and told him to follow her to the drawing room to speak more privately.

The butler has always been the source of gossip and knew all that was going on, as Rebekah could not keep anything to herself. He now told the Mistress of the house all about Elijah falling for Dr Y/L/N/

Now, Esther, having found out the latest going ons said, "Well, that explains Elijah's great interest in the Fundraiser. But isn't Dr Y/L/N seeing Klaus?"

"No. I found out from Master Kol that Dr Y/L/N and Master Klaus - just hooked up once- these are his exact words."

"I understood that there was more. He frequently is seen going to the Y/L/N Lake house." Esther said.

"Ahm, I have that information, too."  the butler said.

"We have to find out what exactly is going on. I do not wish any of my sons to get hurt. It is not the first time they get entagled with a woman. Remember how things went with Rayna Cruz."

"Yes, I do."  Jefferson recalled the stress that went off the brother's back in New Orleans, when they both had a crash on the beautiful blonde.

"She left them both heartbroken,"  Esther said, "and that fight - over her. I didn't want this to happen again."

"It will not. They are way more mature now, and Master Klaus is now much calmer."

"Yes. But still - a woman can stir up things- no matter what age a man is"

"Dr Y/L/N doesn't appear to be a woman that would string two men along."  the butler said.

"No. I think I will still have a word with her."

"Is this wise, Ma'am?"

Esther sighed. "Not really, but I cannot have a repetition of what we had years ago. And it being the reason Elijah moved to New York. It broke my heart having him so far away."

"But they have made up and they have been so very supportive of each other. Master Klaus met Aurora and - all was forgotten."

"Yes,"  Esther said and now took a deep breath looking at the faithful butler, "I have heard that Rayna had a child."

Jefferson looked at the woman a tad bit stunned. It seemed he didn't know all.

"What are you suggesting, Ma'am?

"That maybe - there somewhere Elijah might have a son."  Esther now said.

"Oh! Are you sure?"

"No. By the time I got this probable news - Rayna left New Orleans to - god knows where"

"But - if the child was Master Elijah's, I am sure she would come to you and said something. Ask for money. She was daring enough"

“True.” Esther said. “I wish he finds someone he can start a family with and be happy.”

“Maybe Christmas will work its magic this year.” Jefferson said.

“Well, let’s hope so.” Esther curled up a little smile.

🎅🎄

Elsewhere- the Y/L/N House

"Because of you"  Elijah said looking at Y/N in a very sincere manner.

"Me?" Y/N looked back at the man wide-eyed.

She was not expecting this answer. Or maybe she did.

"Yes. And I know that we hardly know each other- and I - this is now going to come out wrong - but ever since that evening volunteering in the shelter - I can't stop thinking about you"  Elijah said, twisting the truth a bit, as in fact, he could not stop thinking about her since he saw her at the boutique.

"Oh" Y/N let out followed by a gulp. For some strange reasin she froze, though she wanted to say that she also had him on her mind eversince she saw him at the boutique.

As there was no other response coming from Y/N, Elijah, slipping ‘Right’ and got up, "Ahm- I better go"

Y/N now got up as well, and for an unexplained reason said, "Ok"

Like a lost soul, Elijah looked for his coat jacket. Having found it in the living room, he took it and  put it on, thanking Y/N in the process for the pie.

Y/N nodded a little saying, "You're welcome"

Elijah nodded back, everything inside of him very jumbled up he turned and walked to the door.

"Wait" Y/N suddenly said.

🎅

Meanwhile, at the Mystic Falls Ice Rink

"Hey"  Klaus greeted Kol, who had just arrived at the Ice rink with Bonnie, "Elijah is not answering his phone."

"He is still busy making pies" Kol replied, "where are the others?"

"Bex and Stefan have this dinner thing with his uncle, and Hope went with Caroline to get some ice-skates cuz she doesn't have any - here" Klaus explained now looking at Bonnie, "isn't it time you introduced your girfriend"

"Yeah" Kol said somewhat confused, "this my other older brother - Klaus - the nuisance"

Bonnie now extended her hand to Klaus saying,"Hello. It's weird that we never met and you are at the School board and Hope is attending my chemistry class this year."

"I meant to come to see you regarding Hope. She is telling me that you chose her for the State Chemistry Olympiad? She is Middle School- is she that good? "

"Yes. She is very talented. Quite an over-achiever." Bonnie said.

"I don't know where she gets it from"  Kol now said with a teasing smirk.

Klaus would now hrow something clever back at his brother, but Hope and Caroline now joinrd them. More greetings and more introduction followed. Soon they all got inside the rink.

Kol showed off his ice-skating skills to Bonnie, who was pretty impressed. Bonnie was not skating since college and felt pretty rusty.

"How come you are so good at this?"  Bonnie wondered.

"Well I lived here for five years now. I also played for Mystic High Hockey team. We moved here five years ago."

"Wow." Bonnie said, "I must say I amazed."

"I also had a band." Kol said.

"What else don't I know?"  Bonnie asked.

"I was bad in chemistry." Kol said cutely.

"Ah, nevermind. I still like you." Bonnie now kissed her man.

Not far from them, Caroline skated up to Klaus, who actually just stood at rink's fence, totally lost in Caroline exhibiting her figure skating skills.

As she now came up to him, he was all stars in his eyes at her-

"Tell me why are you a lawyer?"

"Ah, because - my dad thought it would have been a more solid career"

"You are serious?"

"I was the US. Collegiate Figure skating champion."  Caroline said.

"Really?"

"Yes. But, this is where I started. This is where my mom brought me to skate when I was five years old - and"  Caroline now inhaled deeply, her eyes watering.

"Hey, what's wrong?"  Klaus now said concerned.

"Nothing. Just great memories. I didn't think I would be back here or skate here ever again."

"You lived here? When?"

"Till my mom died. And then I went to live with my dad in New York."  Caroline replied, "Thanks for - this was a great idea. And - sorry if me coming down made things awkward- now that Elijah and I - broke up."

"Our family does awkward well. So you are all right."  Klaus said.

"I don't know. Even though Elijah and I said we would be friends - I feel like I am intruding."

"I am for one am glad you are intruding - I mean- ahm- you are not intruding at all. You saved me from getting  the  whole cookie baking and  you did such great job helping Hope, and Rebekah for that matter. You should yake credit for all the baking that was done today. I can only imagine what it would be like if you didn't step in."

"I guess, your cook would have to do it all."

"Yes, and we would never stop hearing mother tell us that we could have done better."  Klaus said.

"I doubt that. She is lovely." Caroline said.

"Yes, mother is the best."

"I miss my mom so much." Caroline now said.

"I am sorry." Klaus now said with great empathy in his voice.

The song that now came on made Caroline take Klaus suddenly by the hands and said, "You are skating now"

"What? No, no, no. I am not like Kol."

"It is not that hard. I got you. You will be fine." Caroline reassured Klaus, who, strangely let himself go.

✨

At Y/L/N House

"Wait!"  Y/N said again and shot over to Elijah, and wihtout hesitation drew his lips to hers, like catching a dream that was about to disappear. She made their lips, mouth, tongue flow in the beautiful rhythm of what their heartbeats played, like tiny bells echoing like the shooting stars up in the skies. Easing out of it, heads leaning on one another now, both trying to gain some breath back, they stood silent for a moment, her thumbs lightly streaming up and down the side of the neck, while his hands got lost in the tangle of her her, dropping on her shoulders. If he spoke, he thought, this sweet enchantment would be broken. And yet, the first word shimmered out, "Y/N”

"Elijah" Y/N smiled a little, her cheeks feeling flush, "I don't know - what's happening - I mean- I know - but I never thought that - it all came out of nowhere"

"It has - and I - I just couldn't keep it to myself anymore. I tried not to feel - because I was with someone else- and you"

"Because I was with your brother" Y/N took a deep breath, "this never happened to me - I am not someone who goes from one guy to the next - let alone brothers- and has crazy drunken one night stand"

"Please - I didn't mean to upset you"

"You didn't upset me - I am - just such a hot mess - if you know what I mean"  Y/N said raising her look at him, "I also coudn't stop thinking about you"

Elijah lips curled a happy smile up now, the corner of his eyes  catching the mistletoe hanging right over them. Y/N looked up as well. They were standing right under the lush evergreen beaming down at them.

With their eyes now dropping on one another again, Elijah gently pulled her to him into a sweet, deep, long kiss.

_to be continued🎄🎅🤶

[aboveallarescuer]

How Dany assesses the counsel she receives and makes her own choices - The way from the Red Waste to Vaes Tolorro

This will be a series of posts meant to show that Dany is open to receiving advice and criticism, but that she doesn’t act solely based on what other people tell her to do. On the opposite, GRRM makes great effort to write a Dany who most often merges different viewpoints and/or finds her own solutions to the problems she’s facing. I won’t include every single decision she ever made (e.g. her decisions at court are often made without counsel and her execution of the ritual to hatch the dragon eggs was already exhaustively and deftly analyzed by other people), but there will be plenty of instances in this series that will prove my point nonetheless. The metas will always have four items: in which chapters the events mentioned take place; what advice she receives and from whom; what were her actions; the verdict (whether she followed other people’s advice, ignored/rejected them or did both at the same time).

Chapter (s):

ACOK Daenerys I

The advice Dany receives:

Jorah and Rakharo advise Dany to avoid any route that any other khal took.

Jorah says that, while it's uncertain that they will survive by moving forward through the Red Waste, it's certain that they will die if they try to go back.

Jhiqui and Irri advise Dany to not enter the city because of the evil ghosts that inhabit it.

 Dany's actions:

As I said in my meta about the relationship between Dany and the prophecies, Dany thinks it's best to follow the comet both because it's her only viable alternative and because there would only be despair left if she didn't believe that it meant something. As she lays out, all the other paths would compromise her small group:

She dare not turn north onto the vast ocean of grass they called the Dothraki sea. The first khalasar they met would swallow up her ragged band, slaying the warriors and slaving the rest. The lands of the Lamb Men south of the river were likewise closed to them. They were too few to defend themselves even against that unwarlike folk, and the Lhazareen had small reason to love them. (ACOK Daenerys I)

By the way, it's noteworthy that Dany was able to assess her situation and think of all these implications on her own. And I do believe she did it on her own, considering that the author explicitly recognizes when the ideas come from other people:

She might have struck downriver for the ports at Meereen and Yunkai and Astapor, but Rakharo warned her that Pono’s khalasar had ridden that way, driving thousands of captives before them to sell in the flesh marts that festered like open sores on the shores of Slaver’s Bay.

“Why should I fear Pono?” Dany objected. “He was Drogo’s ko, and always spoke me gently.” 

“Ko Pono spoke you gently,” Ser Jorah Mormont said. “Khal Pono will kill you.[”] (ACOK Daenerys I)

And this leads us to an interesting exchange between Dany and Jorah. As I said before, there are lots of instances to infer that she says things she does not necessarily believe in to obtain his respect, and this is one of them. First, he says that she and her hundred warriors won't stand a chance against Pono's ten thousand warriors. In her mind, Dany is quite conscious of her vulnerabilities, for she knows she doesn't even have a hundred warriors:

No, Dany thought. I have four. The rest are women, old sick men and boys whose hair has never been braided.

But instead of revealing these insecurities, Dany declares:

“I have the dragons,” she pointed out.

Which then leads Jorah to reply that they won't help her that much, since they are still hatchlings; in fact, they may be liabilities at this point since everyone will want to possess them. Dany fiercely says that they are hers and no one will take them from her while she lives. She is putting on a facade here, and admirably so. As the last Targaryen, khaleesi and now Mother of Dragons (as they started to call her), she is their leader and the one who must organize them to work towards a single purpose. To be in that position means being firm and reliable when no one else could be:

“We follow the comet,” Dany told her khalasar. Once it was said, no word was raised against it. They had been Drogo’s people, but they were hers now. The Unburnt, they called her, and Mother of Dragons. Her word was their law.

~

They are not strong, she told herself, so I must be their strength. I must show no fear, no weakness, no doubt. However frightened my heart, when they look upon my face they must see only Drogo’s queen. She felt older than her fourteen years. If ever she had truly been a girl, that time was done. 

~

Dany kissed him lightly on the cheek. It heartened her to see him smile. I must be strong for him as well, she thought grimly. A knight he may be, but I am the blood of the dragon. 

Like I said before, while Viserys used the expression "the blood of the dragon" to be ostentatious and coerce others into doing whatever he wanted, Dany reclaims it to restrain her emotions so she can be the kind of leader who "belongs to her people, not herself". The use of that phrase is also reminiscent of her duty not being only towards the living, but also the dead, whom she doesn't fail to mention:

Her father had been slain before she was born, and her splendid brother Rhaegar as well. Her mother had died bringing her into the world while the storm screamed outside. Gentle Ser Willem Darry, who must have loved her after a fashion, had been taken by a wasting sickness when she was very young. Her brother Viserys, Khal Drogo who was her sun-and-stars, even her unborn son, the gods had claimed them all. They will not have my dragons, Dany vowed. They will not. (ACOK Daenerys II)

Dany is being very protective of her dragons for two reasons:

She loves them as she would love her human children and considers them family.

They are also the means for her to successfully claim her father's throne. Only then she will honor all of these people that the gods claimed. That is also why she won't admit defeat in Qarth when all hope seems lost - she has the dragons and a shot at doing justice for her ancestors and carrying out their legacy, so she will not look back and be lost.

Because Dany's leadership style is rooted in empathy and accountability, she never takes advantage of her position:

Dany hungered and thirsted with the rest of them. The milk in her breasts dried up, her nipples cracked and bled, and the flesh fell away from her day by day until she was lean and hard as a stick[.]

Another leader might have taken most of the food or water for themselves, but that's not what Dany chooses to do. She "must know the sufferings of her people", after all, even more so when she is unable to help them the way she wished she could. The trauma of seeing so many of her people perish will later inform her attempts to bring peace (untenable as it was) as quickly as possible to Meereen in ASOS and ADWD.

Wine gave out first, and soon thereafter the clotted mare’s milk the horselords loved better than mead. Then their stores of flatbread and dried meat were exhausted as well. Their hunters found no game, and only the flesh of their dead horses filled their bellies. Death followed death. Weak children, wrinkled old women, the sick and the stupid and the heedless, the cruel land claimed them all. Doreah grew gaunt and hollow-eyed, and her soft golden hair turned brittle as straw.

~

[H]er khalasar withered and died. Around them the land turned ever more desolate. Even devilgrass grew scant; horses dropped in their tracks, leaving so few that some of her people must trudge along on foot.

~

Dany looked at the horizon with despair. They had lost a third of their number, and still the waste stretched before them, bleak and red and endless.

Even here, Dany does the best she can to alleviate their pain. She respects and follows their customs:

Three days into the march, the first man died. A toothless oldster with cloudy blue eyes, he fell exhausted from his saddle and could not rise again. An hour later he was done. [...] Dany bid them kill the weakest of their dying horses, so the dead man might go mounted into the night lands.

~

Two nights later, it was an infant girl who perished. Her mother’s anguished wailing lasted all day, but there was nothing to be done. The child had been too young to ride, poor thing. Not for her the endless black grasses of the night lands; she must be born again. 

She also feels a lot of gratitude for Doreah and strives to make her death a little less agonizing:

Doreah took a fever and grew worse with every league they crossed. Her lips and hands broke with blood blisters, her hair came out in clumps, and one evenfall she lacked the strength to mount her horse. Jhogo said they must leave her or bind her to her saddle, but Dany remembered a night on the Dothraki sea, when the Lysene girl had taught her secrets so that Drogo might love her more. She gave Doreah water from her own skin, cooled her brow with a damp cloth, and held her hand until she died, shivering. Only then would she permit the khalasar to press on. 

Later in ADWD, during a feast where people start bringing up the names of the combatants in the upcoming duels at Daznak's Pit, Dany feels complicit in their imminent deaths. She remembers Doreah as an example of someone who died under her protection. More than that: in Dany's mind, Doreah is proof that "[n]o queen has clean hands" because that's how guilty Dany feels about what happened:

Much of the talk about the table was of the matches to be fought upon the morrow. Barsena Blackhair was going to face a boar, his tusks against her dagger. Khrazz was fighting, as was the Spotted Cat. And in the day's final pairing, Goghor the Giant would go against Belaquo Bonebreaker. One would be dead before the sun went down. No queen has clean hands, Dany told herself. She thought of Doreah, of Quaro, of Eroeh … of a little girl she had never met, whose name had been Hazzea. (ADWD Daenerys VIII)

I want to cry.

Also, even if in vain, Dany's proactive (though failed) efforts to find resources in the Red Waste should not be overlooked, for it's still admirable that she took them without anyone even suggesting:

Dany sent outriders ranging ahead of the column, but they found neither wells nor springs, only bitter pools, shallow and stagnant, shrinking in the hot sun.

And neither should Dany's discovery of how to feed the dragons. While Viserys gave her the knowledge, she was the one who retained it in her memory, guessed that it might work and applied it:

Such little things, she thought as she fed them by hand, or rather, tried to feed them, for the dragons would not eat. They would hiss and spit at each bloody morsel of horsemeat, steam rising from their nostrils, yet they would not take the food ... until Dany recalled something Viserys had told her when they were children. 

Only dragons and men eat cooked meat, he had said.

When she had her handmaids char the horsemeat black, the dragons ripped at it eagerly, their heads striking like snakes. 

Eventually, Dany and her khalasar arrive at the abandoned city that would later be named Vaes Tolorro. She is the one who takes precautions at first:

They made camp before the remnants of a gutted palace, on a windswept plaza where devilgrass grew between the paving stones. Dany sent out men to search the ruins. Some went reluctantly, yet they went ...

But then, after finding out that the place has figs, fruit trees, vines and water, she decides to enter it, stay, rest and be practical rather than leave it because of superstitions:

... and one scarred old man returned a brief time later, hopping and grinning, his hands overflowing with figs. Other searchers returned with tales of other fruit trees, hidden behind closed doors in secret gardens. Aggo showed her a courtyard overgrown with twisting vines and tiny green grapes, and Jhogo discovered a well where the water was pure and cold. Yet they found bones too, the skulls of the unburied dead, bleached and broken. “Ghosts,” Irri muttered. “Terrible ghosts. We must not stay here, Khaleesi, this is their place.”

“I fear no ghosts. Dragons are more powerful than ghosts.” And figs are more important.

She takes note of the resources available to her ("food and water here to sustain them, and enough grass for the horses to regain their strength") and gets her people to work on the different tasks she finds for them:

Dany gave him charge of a dozen of her strongest men, and set them to pulling up the plaza to get to the earth beneath. If devilgrass could grow between the paving stones, other grasses would grow when the stones were gone. They had wells enough, no lack of water. Given seed, they could make the plaza bloom.

~

Dany thanked him and told him to see to the repair of the gates. If enemies had crossed the waste to destroy these cities in ancient days, they might well come again. “If so, we must be ready,” she declared.

In these two cases, we have explicit cases of Dany concocting ideas to improve Vaes Tolorro's facility, namely by improving its lawn and fortifying it. Not only that, but we also find out that, under Dany's leadership, her whole khalasar is now taking action and making the place better in the ways they can help:

Women harvested fruit from the gardens of the dead. Men groomed their mounts and mended saddles, stirrups, and shoes. Children wandered the twisty alleys and found old bronze coins and bits of purple glass and stone flagons with handles carved like snakes. One woman was stung by a red scorpion, but hers was the only death. The horses began to put on some flesh. Dany tended Ser Jorah’s wound herself, and it began to heal.

This is all great setup for when Dany becomes Queen of Meereen and handles large-scale projects to improve the city's economy and infrastructure.

However, even though Dany thinks it "pleasant" to stay in Vaes Tolorro, she's aware that she must eventually leave, and she doesn't want to do so without being fairly sure of where she's going. With that in mind, she makes the clever decision to send her bloodriders in different directions so that, hopefully, one might find a path that's not as arduous as the one they had to face:

The next morn, she summoned her bloodriders. “Blood of my blood,” she told the three of them, “I have need of you. Each of you is to choose three horses, the hardiest and healthiest that remain to us. Load as much water and food as your mounts can bear, and ride forth for me. Aggo shall strike southwest, Rakharo due south. Jhogo, you are to follow shierak qiya on southeast.”

“What shall we seek, Khaleesi?” asked Jhogo.

“Whatever there is,” Dany answered. “Seek for other cities, living and dead. Seek for caravans and people. Seek for rivers and lakes and the great salt sea. Find how far this waste extends before us, and what lies on the other side. When I leave this place, I do not mean to strike out blind again. I will know where I am bound, and how best to get there.”

And this decision pays off when Jhogo returns with the three strangers who will guide Dany to Qarth.

Aside from the beginning when Dany ponders which direction to take, neither Ser Jorah nor her bloodriders are ever mentioned as part of Dany's decisionmaking. Instead, GRRM takes pain to make Dany's reasoning and actions her own, while also showcasing her selfless nature. ACOK Daenerys I is a chapter that highlights the authorial intent to portray Daenerys Targaryen as an intelligent, capable and principled leader.

 Verdict:

From the Red Waste to Vaes Tolorro, Jorah and Rakharo advise Dany about where not to go (though it must be said that she had already made most of the assessment on her own). Besides that, every single action that Dany takes is of her own volition and without the influence of anyone's help. She:

Exhibits emotional intelligence by acting as a leader who drives her group.

Tries to find resources in the Red Waste. 

Attempts to ease the khalasar's pain by taking part in their customs and giving Doreah a less painful death.

Decides to remain in Vaes Tolorro despite superstitions.

Takes note of the resources that she has in her disposal.

Gives her people several different tasks to improve the city; thanks to her guidance, some possibly started to do different activities on their own.

Sends her bloodriders in different directions to find one that isn't as taxing as the previous one.