#but i have absolutely extrapolated a whole entire personality and relationship from that

[iridiss]

it’s that time again folks. minecraft block people character analysis time. This time I wanna take an in-depth look at Garmau, Laurmau, and Garrance’s character dynamics, and I MEAN in-depth. I am breaking the canon source material down within an inch of its life. I am going to go until I either discover the character limit for a tumblr post, or reach the end of all Aphverse content, or reach the image limit of a single tumblr post. Whichever stops me first. Which is to say, this is a very long post, so if you want to read a Great Gatsby’s worth of information and analysis and gushing about Garrance, Garmau, and Laurmau, this is the place for you!

To get the party started, something I find to be immediately of notice is that the first thing Garroth ever says to Aphmau is a complaint about how he believes no one will ever listen to the guard (to him) anymore, not after Lord Malik’s “horrible” rulership.

This already paints a picture of a corrupt (or at the very least inept) leader that Garroth followed the word of. And by following Malik’s word, the people’s distrust or disdain for their previous Lord now extends to Garroth by proxy. There’s a sort of running theme with Garroth that I presumed, and it’s that Garroth feels a disconnect from the townspeople. They don’t trust him, he fears their disapproval, he’s a little bit of an outcast, regarded with some level of disdain. In Diaries: Rebirth, it’s instead stated that the guard are being suspected for the murder of Lord Malik and his family, because they don’t have the bodies to prove it wasn’t them, which is a WHOLE DIFFERENT LEVEL of “not trusting the guard”!! But Donna reiterates this idea in Rebirth, stating how the villagers have lost faith in Garroth.

This brings to mind the idea that Aphmau was likely one of the first few that really did listen to Garroth. If he already felt like an outsider in his own town, then it makes sense he would be drawn to a…literal outsider who’s new in town. There could easily be an aspect to Garroth and Aphmau’s relationship that extrapolates upon Aphmau’s attentive and persistent friendliness and kindness making Garroth feel heard and seen in a way he doesn’t often get.

His first overall impression with Aphmau is on the note of feeling surprised and grateful for all the work she’s done for the town. He thanks her, and offers minor aid/makes requests/encourages her to continue. He appears to only grow more and more flattered by her generosity as she continues, and one notable moment between the two of them I found to be utterly adorable was when Aphmau built him the first guard tower in episode 48:

It’s likely that this is how Garroth first started falling in love with her, through her acts of selfless generosity. The lines that stick out to me here are: “This is too much, you didn’t have to do this for me,” and “No one has ever done anything this nice for me.” Giving the impression that Garroth not only hasn’t received very much kindness in his life, but also feels insecure about being showered in presents from Aphmau, further pointing to this idea that he feels like he doesn’t deserve it. She keeps giving him what effectively feels like the world to him by repairing his withering village, and he doesn’t feel like he personally deserves any of the gifts she gives him, he’s taken aback and flustered by it and it absolutely means something significant to him that she’s helping his case as much as she is.

Plus, the state of the village likely contributes a lot to Garroth being frowned upon by the other villagers, so she, entirely unintentionally, ends up doing a lot to save his skin and make his life better in her casual, day-to-day improvements on the town. Even more so when Garroth becomes her personal guard and right-hand-man. If his name was soiled by working for Lord Malik, I can only imagine his reputation would be healed by working for Lord Aphmau. Which is to say, she makes his life better overall, without even realizing it.

After that, Garroth gets mortally wounded, and Aphmau travels all the way to Bright Port and faces the Alpha of the Southern Werewolf Tribe (and goes to hell!) to save his life. And soon after his recovery, Aphmau finds Levin, and brings him to Garroth.

He automatically volunteers to help Aphmau raise him the second he hears she’s going to raise this child herself, not even sparing a second to ask if he could but just. Without any hesitation or argument, he immediately steps up as Levin’s new foster dad. This blows me away, personally! Not very many people on this earth would just, without any hesitation or question, automatically volunteer themselves as some random kid’s new father figure just so that they didn’t have to watch their friend suffer through the trial of being a single mom. He recognizes that Aphmau is going to struggle to be a single mom, so he immediately takes away as much of that burden as he can by signing himself up as a co-parent. Now it’s Garroth’s turn to help Aphmau <3

To me, the intimacy of this commitment cannot be understated, even though the canon source material doesn’t recognize it as an intimate thing at all, or even as that big of a deal! They are now co-parents!! Well before they’re ever lovers, most likely well before Aphmau even develops any sort of attraction to or deep, personal bond with Garroth, they have become co-parents. They are now a family, because Garroth refuses to let her go through this alone. That shit!! Should mean!! A lot!!! To her!!! I think!!!!!! And should at the very least be the first, most pivotal moment between the two of them solidifying their bond as companions before anything else!!

I’m also beginning to notice a pattern between these two, a sense of “You’re not gonna be alone anymore. I’m here.” That now goes both ways. Previously, Aphmau had unintentionally been making Garroth feel less alone, and now, Garroth is making sure Aphmau doesn’t go through it alone.

Another adorable addition!!!

“In fact, he welcomed it like a proud father, he did!” I’m going to cry. Garroth helped organize a baby shower celebrating Levin’s arrival!! He was so happy to accept Levin as his new son, he threw a party about it!! “Look at my son!! I’m so proud of him already!!! I love him!! Look at him!! Everyone from Bright Port to Scaleswind will celebrate my new son!!!” Papa Garroth is so cute sometimes, he makes me so happy <3

From this point on, I would consider them companions. Garroth might have developed a small crush on her by this point, and there’s a chance that Aphmau has as well, but there’s also the chance that her feelings for him are still entirely platonic and such a thing has never even occurred to her before. They’re not really close at all, but they’re parenting together now. They’re a family before anything else.

I could be wrong about this but I think this is also around the time when Aphmau starts to receive a lot of pressure from people on the outside to Pick A Man And Get Married. A sizable chunk of the garmau/laurmau/etc. shipping content seems to consist of this, sadly. Where everyone else but Aphmau continues to press her over and over again about when she’s gonna shack up with Garroth or which man she should choose, and if I were in her shoes, I’d get pissed with anyone who asked me this. It’d get real old after the second time ‘round of someone else, completely unrelated to my love life, trying to pressure me to hook up with someone when I didn’t want to or didn’t feel ready to. Fortunately, Aphmau has a LOT more patience than me when it comes to dealing with this shit.

Dale asks Aphmau if she plans on hooking up with Garroth. Aphmau says no, she has too much on her plate right now to think about romance. There’s probably something to be said about how her rejection reason is “I’m too busy right now to worry about that” and not “no, ew, WTF, im not attracted to him, why would i ever hook up with Garroth.” Which, in the subtext, would imply that she very well could have some sort of attraction for Garroth or desire to get with him romantically, but since she’s the Lord of a village and dealing with all kinds of shit, she has decided to sweep all of that shit under the rug and just. Not worry about it, and ignore it for as long as she can before it starts to become a problem. Aphmau likes to do this a lot. If there is any romantic attraction in her brain, throughout most of the series she does a very, very good job at refusing to look at it. (which is very reasonable considering how fucked up everything around her is!! girl’s got a lot on her mind!! she doesn’t have time to start worrying about emotional shit, not when lives are at stake and she has a whole ass village to run and wars to fight !!!)

When the townspeople ask her if she wants to hook up with Garroth, her reaction is not “wait, what? why would I hook up with Garroth lmao. no, I’m not interested in him,” her response is “I don’t want to think about that right now.” And that is a noteworthily different thing than saying “ew no.” There is a world of difference between those two replies. And that is fascinating to me.

This is still a strong contrast to Mystreet Aphmau however, especially in comparison to how Mystreet starts with an Aphmau who crushes HARD and LOUD and is an open book with her feelings, it is NOT hard to tell when that freshman has a crush. MCD Aphmau is, from what I can personally tell, such a master of repressing her own emotions that she can easily be mistaken for having zero attraction for anyone at all throughout the entirety of season 1. For her, you kinda have to dig for “tells” that she’s attracted to Garroth or Laurance, up until the beginning of s2. While Garroth and Laurance wear their hearts on their sleeve, Aphmau buries it deep where she doesn’t have to look at it, doesn’t have to worry about it, doesn’t have to make any rash, life-changing decisions, doesn’t have to face the vulnerability of it, and can instead put her energy towards much more important shit, like saving lives and recovering towns and stopping wars.

This is how I interpret her reactions and responses, at least. She seems much more romantically reserved than Mystreet Aphmau ever is, if im being honest

…then of course there’s this classic moment lmao

Garroth prepares Aphmau a chest of supplies she’ll need for her journey to meet Levin’s mother, and inside is a wedding ring. Aphmau is confused to find a wedding ring in the chest, and says “uhhhh…I don’t need that” and sets it aside. Meanwhile, Garroth stands less than a foot away.

My man, you have got to be less subtle than that.

Not that I think she would have accepted the offer if it were bolder, I believe she would still reject him all the same at this point in time, but this also shows how Garroth prefers to handle matters of confessing his feelings for someone. He doesn’t get on one knee and beg for her to marry him in front of everyone in Phoenix Drop, or make any sort of grand love confession—no, he doesn’t even specify that he was the one who prepared the chest!! He tries to be incredibly subtle about his feelings for her, trying backwards silent ways to maybe, quietly, suggest that he likes her. He’s shy about it!! He struggles to make grand gestures of proclaimed affection!! He’s quiet with his feelings and doesn’t talk about them!!

Later on, this will contrast Laurance, who handles his feelings in the POLAR OPPOSITE way, loudly and proudly and utterly obnoxiously even to a highly detrimental point, and it’s interesting to see the differences in Aphmau’s beginning opinions of Garroth vs her first impression of Laurance. She’s civil and friendly and giving towards Garroth, they don’t talk about their intimate feelings (because they’re both chronically bad at it lmao) but they become a family and she trusts him with that, she trusts him with her child and with her life, and goes the limit to save his own life and make sure he’s okay. And meanwhile, her first impression of Laurance is much closer to hating his guts lmao. It’s interesting to think about how Laurance’s bold demeanor clashes with Aphmau’s more reserved demeanor at first, before that boldness ends up becoming something she needs, something that fills a void in her life that she depends on and trusts to always be upfront and honest with her (we’ll get more into that later). And meanwhile, Aphmau and Garroth both matching with kinda-similar demeanors leads to them becoming friends much faster than Laurmau does, buuut it also means it takes them 100+ episodes to actually confront how they feel about each other lmao.

I also want to point out: At this point, Garroth is not just asking Aphmau to maybe consider dating him. He’s going straight to marriage. Which means Garroth—the man infamously known from running away from a previous engagement, might I add—is willing to become her goddamn husband right goddamn now.

This could probably be attributed again to the fact that they’re co-parents together. Something about assuming it’d be “easier to raise a child together and be levin’s mom and dad for realsies” if they were married. But Aphmau’s also just about to travel to meet Matilda, so Garroth knows that there’s a full possibility that Levin may not be their kid to raise anymore when she gets back. If they got married now, before she left, then they may not be parents anymore, but they could still be a couple/a family together. Maybe this was even some sort of last-ditch effort to salvage that and make sure their new arrangement stays, so he doesn’t have to let go of this wonderful thing with Levin’s absence. My man’s got fatherhood and family and marriage on the mind—and meanwhile, Aphmau doesn’t even want to start THINKING about the possibility of romance. When it comes to handling a possible intimate relationship, they’re both really bad at talking about their feelings, but in terms of what they’re willing to face—these two are on opposite ends of the book. He’s willing to become her goddamn husband, but Aphmau doesn’t even wanna think about romance—no matter what she may truly feel.

It is at this point when Laurance enters the scene.

Lmao, MCD!Aphmau has a WILDLY different reaction to Laurance’s advances than Rebirth!Aphmau. Rebirth!Aphmau blushes bright red and feels flustered and confused by his flirting, and meanwhile MCD!Aphmau says he is “creeping her out” and tells him to get the fuck away from her and says “uhhh no thanks!!” To all of his advances. She is NOT a fan of his pick-up lines and finds his advances unnerving, unwelcome, and often frustrating. I like to imagine this is to contrast gentlemanly Garroth, who would never EVER treat a lady so inappropriately. But Aphmau is frustrated with Laurance’s advances for a long while throughout S1, and it’s only as she starts to get to know Laurance intimately as a person and as a friend first that her reaction to his flirting gradually changes from irritation to laughter, teasing him back and playing along with their banter. He ends up flirting with her mostly just to make her laugh, because he knows she’ll crack up smiling whenever he does, and he likes to see her smile. Buuut that’s only when they become closer friends first, right now they’re practically strangers, and Aphmau hates his inappropriate behavior.

(disclaimer to all the fellas in the audience: please don’t ever actually do this in real life. if a girl very clearly says no to all of your advances, back the fuck off and stop. im taking a gentle hand with this because Laurance is a little more complicated of a character whom I adore very much and I want to analyze him and his relationship with Aphmau with an open-minded, gracious hand in order to give their later relationship and true bond in canon a fair and accurate, loving chance. but in real life? its much simpler. this would be considered sexual harassment. please don’t ever do this lmao)

The first ever Garroth/Laurance/Aphmau interaction is when Aphmau gets arrested. I love the contrast here between how Laurance and Garroth talk about each other. “He seems like a nice guy!” VS “How inappropriate. I’ll make sure to have a few words with him…” Garroth’s first impression of Laurance is disdain for his behavior (and for flirting with his crush), and Laurance’s first impression of Garroth is “I like this guy! He’s nice :)” lmao. The feeling is not mutual, Laurance.

Then we have the face reveal scene. Here, Garroth’s deepest shame is put on display. Very intimately, Aphmau is the only one he trusts enough to see him like this, to let her in and see his worst sins.

He feels like he’s failed the village, and has likely failed his people in general, for a myriad of reasons. 1. He feels responsible for Zenix’s betrayal and corruption, because Zenix was his apprentice, he feels like his upbringing is his responsibility, and if Zenix turns bad, it’s therefore his fault for not teaching him to know better. For not noticing that Zenix was even corrupt or a Shadow Knight in the first place. Garroth feels like the attack on the town is his fault, because of this. 2. He left his kingdom behind in their time of need, because he couldn’t face marrying a woman he didn’t love, so he’s already pretty predisposed to feel guilty and ashamed of himself and convinced that he’s a failure. This is why revealing his face to Aphmau brings back the worst of his shame when paired with Zenix’s betrayal. To him, showing her his princely appearance and his true identity (the thing he tries his damndest to keep hidden from other villagers, his skeleton in the closet) is the equivalent of showing her a raw and infected wound. He is deeply insecure, but Aphmau doesn’t see him as a failure. She doesn’t see him for his faults at all and sympathizes with him, insisting that he doesn’t deserve to hurt like this. He disagrees.

Maybe he’s too far deep in his own shame for pretty words to drag him out, maybe he knows that Aphmau doesn’t understand that he’s a Prince yet. She doesn’t understand the full extent of his crimes, so she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. It’s a nice sentiment, but he’s certain that once she learns the full truth about him, she’ll turn her back on him and see that the cruel voice inside his head is right.

Little does he know how truly forgiving Aphmau is, especially with him. She worries for him.

I wonder if there’s an angle to be played that Garroth’s personal shame and self-loathing might effect his ability to open up and be confident and bold on his own—and how that would effect his view of Laurance, as well. Because here’s the thing, Garroth doesn’t know it yet, but Laurance is just as full of guilt and shame as he is. Laurance blames himself for the death of his father figure, Lord, and previous mentor, in the same way Garroth blames himself for Zenix’s attack. Laurance feels like he’s failed as a guard, and it’s easy to think that he would carry that feeling with him going forward. But Laurance handles his shame differently. He handles it by hiding behind a mask.

This clip is fascinating to me because it’s the first time Laurance truly, fully, deeply opens up to Aphmau on a vulnerable level. And in doing so, he lets her peek behind the mask for just a moment, to reveal that this flirtatious Casanova exterior he has is nothing but that—an exterior. An act. It’s something he’s making up to hide the fact that in truth, he’s awkward and doesn’t know what to do or how else to respond to all the one-sided advances he’s getting. He doesn’t flirt with the girls of Meteli because he actually likes them, he does it because… he doesn’t know what else to do. He goes along with the game as a sort of front, and without it, he actually really struggled to talk to girls and connect with others. He never actually forms a more intimate bond with any of these girls, and later on he even reveals that he’d never even kissed a girl before Aphmau. This man is a single virgin who hasn’t even kissed anyone before, he doesn’t actually sleep around or date anyone, the player act is all for show.

And I believe Laurance uses this front to cover up other emotions or parts of himself as well, more than just his true awkward nature and disinterest in any of these women. Laurance strikes me as the kind of guy who uses humor to cope with the pain, or to hide how insecure/scared/depressed/upset he actually feels. Maybe if all of Meteli thinks of him as the confident, sexy, Casanova flirt who picks up chicks all the time, they won’t see him for the failure he truly is: the guard who couldn’t even save his father’s life.

Garroth hides behind a literal mask. Laurance hides behind a figurative one.

But Laurance is so good at pretending to be confident and bold and brave that it’s likely Garroth feels jealous of him. In episode 15 of S2, Garroth says: “…Or maybe, I’m just having flashforwards to things I should have done. I feel like I should have taken the time to know you more as a person, rather than just protecting you as my Lord. In a way, I’m a little jealous of Laurance. He was able to befriend you, and make you laugh. . . . I wish I had the chance to create fond memories like that with you. I wasn’t sure how to approach you, so I just acted as your Guard.” Which is true! Before Laurance showed up, 98% of Garroth and Aphmau’s interactions were purely formal.

It’s funny, despite Aphmau not actually wanting any of Laurance’s romantic advances, Garroth wishes he could be more like Laurance. I can guarantee you if Garroth tried to flirt with Aphmau as obnoxiously as Laurance did, he would still get rejected. Because Aphmau doesn’t really work that way, you need to become her friend first, form an actual bond, before she’d even allow herself to start thinking about romancing you. She’s not one for smooth, confident, hot guys who pick up chicks, she’s got a goddamn job to do (even if Garroth flirted with her, it wouldn’t change the workload she has to focus on instead)

By episode 39, Garroth‘s opinion of Laurance seems to be improving. From nothing but irritated disdain, to “he’s a good man, he’s in my good graces and I’m on friendly terms with him now, but I still don’t like how inappropriately he treats you.” Laurance’s friendliness is beginning to be reciprocated! :D There’s also a blooming impression that Laurance and Garroth are beginning to speak with each other off-screen, especially with Laurance talking about them sharing a previous confrontation over Aphmau off-screen (and Laurance flippantly disregarding Garroth’s request to stop harassing her lol)

And then… Laurance gets trapped in the Nether. He sacrifices himself to save Aphmau (and castor)‘s life, but sadly gets left behind to face Shad all by himself. It��s an incredibly noble thing for him to do, and frankly, it’s a way we can look at Laurance’s actions, and not his words, to see more clearly what kind of person he truly is at heart, and it’s someone selfless and caring and honorable enough to give his life to save an old friend that consistently pisses him off, and a woman he barely even really knew. It’s an act that solidifies an impression on Aphmau, and from this point onwards, she doesn’t seem to treat him like an annoyance anymore, but as a friend that she worries for and wants to take care of.

Garroth’s reaction is more…complicated, however. When Aphmau first arrives on PD shores to tell him the news, Garroth’s reflexive reaction is this:

Garroth doesn’t hate Laurance for “stealing his thunder” and saving Aphmau’s life, it actually hugely improves his opinion of the man. He’s deeply grateful for him and his sacrifice, and values his honor and knighthood quite a lot. He’s determined to save him and bring him back (even though he may pose a “threat” as a “romantic rival”).

…Up until Ungrth comes back with the news of Laurance’s transformation into a Shadow Knight. Now here’s where shit gets dicey. As a Shadow Knight, it would be in Laurence’s nature to kill Aphmau, and he forever will be drawn to killing her. This makes him incredibly dangerous, and a massive risk to Aphmau’s life from this point forward. Understandably, this makes Garroth feel a bit… nervous. Apparently so nervous that he decides to pull this:

This feels a bit cold, to me. It makes sense logically speaking, but like. I’m pretty sure the continuity of the series forgot this rule for a reason lmao, because forcing Laurance to kill himself the second he leaves the Nether would be one HELL of a derailment of the main plot. There’s a potential timeline out there where the narrative didn’t forget about this rule and Garroth could’ve tried to hold him to this, and he tries to pressure him into it, and Laurance gets caught in a binding dilemma as a guard, but also as a person!! That’d be dark as shit!! And very fucked up!! Especially considering the horrific trauma he’s been through and the mental state he’s in once he’s freed!! There’s a world out there where Garroth makes his mental health sooooooo sosososo much worse than it was and Aphmau has to step in and tell him to knock it the fuck off. Would it be in character for him to do that? I dunno! That’s why I’m here! Did Garroth abandon his own rules on purpose? Was it intentional that Garroth never ended up holding Laurance to the rule he created? Is there a world where Garroth gets it in his craw that he needs to protect Aphmau above all else, even at the cost of Laurance’s life, and he hand-writes and integrates a new and damning rule into Knighthood itself to eliminate him as a threat—but then he actually reunites with Laurance, and he sees him for the traumatized, earnest, tender, broken man that he is, and silently decides to never bring it up again? To potentially betray his own honor as a guard by forgetting the very rule he created, because he can’t bring himself to face the cruel reality of actually forcing Laurance to do it now that he’s seeing him face-to-face? Did Laurance’s return soften his heart?

…or was that just a continuity error in an amateurly crafted minecraft roleplay series made in a youtuber’s bedroom lmao.

…Probably just the latter. Either way, I can’t help but just…take note of the vehement 180 he did? When it’s just Laurance by himself, he’s desperate to save him, but when he’s dealing with a Shadow Knight who’s very likely to kill Aphmau, it’s Aphmau’s life over all. She is his Lord after all…but also, the love of his life. Of course he would pick saving her life over making sure Laurance gets out of the Nether alive. He barely even knew the man by this point. He had only just barely started to feel positively about him on a basic level, so of course he would choose to kill Laurance and single-handedly sabotage any chance of bringing him back in one piece, if it meant he could save Aphmau’s life instead.

…now, of course, the narrative kinda forgets this rule and it doesn’t really come up ever again, especially after Laurance’s return, but I still want to point this out as a view into a sort of…darker side of Garroth. For a man with supposedly such a big heart, he does seem to be able to drastically shut it off at a moments notice, if he’s been horrendously slighted in some way or another. Even if it comes at the expense of others lives. It’s cold as fuck of a choice, but it’s also very understandable that he wouldn’t want to welcome a sort of…murderous monster into his home and put the life of his Lord at such huge risk, possibly even his family and Phoenix Drop itself could have been endangered as well. Thats the mother of his child he’s protecting here, and all he knows is that Laurance is pretty guaranteed to try to kill her the second he comes back. They just barely tangoed with the damages of Zenix’s own attack on the village, he does not want to contend with that a second time.

I can’t help but imagine how Garroth and Aphmau might’ve argued and fought over what to do about Laurance.

Aphmau desperately wants to save Laurance and bring him back, despite the risk upon her own health and safety. Garroth, however, stops her, and holds her back. He’s terrified of Laurance hurting her now. Even if he is their friend, he’s not willing to sacrifice her to bring him back. They still care for each other, despite this conflict of interests. Aphmau’s care for Laurance pulls her to him, despite the danger, Garroth’s care for her holds her back, and Aphmau’s care for Garroth brings her to listen to him and continue to do nothing.

I don’t feel like Garroth is doing this to “keep Aphmau all to himself.” I think his love for her is most certainly influencing him to be more protective than usual, but I think the theory that he’s actively sabotaging Laurance’s return out of ���jealous rivalry” was proven wrong by his reflex response at the start. Like, if Laurance had gotten stuck in the Wyvern dimension instead, Garroth would 1000% single-handedly fish him out and bring him back to stay at their side. Before Ungrth confirmed that he was being transformed into a bloodthirsty monster, he was desperate to rescue him. But now, he had to choose between Laurance’s life, or Aphmau’s, in bringing him back. He’s closer with Aphmau, he loves her dearly, he’s raising a child with her, a son who needs his mother, Phoenix Drop had just been attacked by another Shadow Knight already, an attack he feels horribly responsible for. So if he feels guilty for leading Phoenix Drop into ruin under Zenix, then he absolutely is going to try his damndest to prevent that from happening again. He will do everything in his power to amend his sins by keeping the village, and his Lord, perfectly safe.

And I think he’s probably even sad that Laurance is gone! “Laurance was a good man and a worthy guard, it’s a shame the order lost him. Ulrich and Luna of Meteli told me so many notable deeds Laurance has done for his people…” He wasn’t intimately close with the man at this point, but there’s a clear solemn respect that he holds for him now that he’s gone. He wishes that it hadn’t come to this, he wishes that Laurance was okay and that this never had to happen. He believes he’s honoring Laurance’s wishes by choosing to keep Aphmau safe, saying if it were him in Laurance’s shoes, he would have wanted him to do the same. This tells me he fully believes that if Garroth had gotten trapped in the Nether instead, and Laurance was left on the other side, he would fully expect Laurance to treat him the same way, to leave him abandoned in the Nether, to suffer the torture and trauma and pain alone.

…I don’t fully think Laurance would do the same, however. I feel like he would have been at least a handful more open to the idea of rescuing Garroth, especially since Laurance felt much more positively about Garroth as a friend than Garroth felt about Laurance.

Garroth and Aphmau make up when Zane arrives. He starts trying to force Garroth to reveal his identity as the Prince of O’khasis. Aphmau doesn’t know that he’s a Prince, however, she only knows that he feels uncomfortable with showing his face for reasons he refuses to talk about. When the High Priest of O’khasis himself demands she order him to take off his helmet, she defends Garroth’s boundaries and refuses.

And even when her hands are tied and he forces her to order him to do it anyway, she finds a loophole to make sure his boundaries stay protected.

This means A LOT to Garroth. Considering how vehemently Zane, his brother, is currently trying to break his boundaries (and the fact that he was forced into a marriage he didn't consent to), its likely that Garroth's family frequently refuse to give a shit about his boundaries or his consent or his opinion about what he does and does not do with his personhood, life, body, and appearance. So to have Aphmau, someone in charge who very much has the power to force him to do what he doesn't want to do, then turn around and respect him as a human being and care for his consent on a level no one's ever done for him before? It means a fuckin lot!!

they truly are the “he asked for no pickles!” couple of all time…… aphmau protecting Garroth as he protects her…… protective aphmau…… aphmau defending Garroth when he’s the one in need of a knight……

This means so much to him, that he decides to...go out in public for some reason?? Anyway?? Despite all that fuss?? And shows up at the reception to ask Aphmau to dance with him. Any strain over Laurance is mended, as they enjoy their night together and share a special moment.

They're starting to really drop their formal, professional behavior from earlier. They really are beginning to draw close to each other now, allowing themselves to joke around more often. Aphmau starts teasing him more, and he lightens up a lot. Aphmau’s own reactions have started to shift from neutral, professional, unbothered, breezing through the scenes without much of a reaction at all on the video cam, to now smiling and laughing along. She grows fond at the sight of him. A playful heart that’s often so buried under the professionalism of their jobs and the stress of their lives bleeds out in the brief moments where they can take a break from it all, in the moments of casual comfort they bring each other.

(also Garroth nearly asking if they could get married…… he tries a second time……)

I do want to note that Aphmau 100% supports Garroth’s decision to leave his throne behind. She doesn’t want Garroth to go back and fulfill his duties, she wants him to stay right here with her and leave the rest of the world behind. She needs him here with her, with their son, with the town that relies on him, as her guard, as her dear companion. This contrasts Laurance���s own opinion, who believes going back and returning to his old throne and marrying Nicole is not only the more honorable thing to do, but would likely get them out of this mess if he did.

He finds Garroth’s refusal to take the throne cowardly, and seems to resent him for it, at least on some minor level. If Garroth just tended to his responsibilities and stopped running away, he could single-handedly take over the threat of O’khasis as a whole and make the world a better place, and they wouldn’t need to suffer through any more violence and war and loss at the hands of Zane Ro’meave or the King. But it means more than that to Garroth. He’s terrified of taking any position of leadership. Partially because he’s just naturally better at being a follower than a leader, but mainly because he refuses to become his father. In episode 68 of S1, he admits that he used to look up to his father a lot, he wanted to grow up to be exactly like him. But then he turned cruel and corrupt with time, and Garroth’s feelings changed. If his father is abusive, it’s likely that he had some sort of realization of the truth about how horrible his father truly was. I do feel like it is NOT a coincidence that Garroth looks almost exactly like Garte and is named after him. It’s pretty much like if he named him, “Garte Jr.” It would make sense if Garroth’s chosen destiny was meant to revolve around continuing Garte’s legacy, taking his place when he’s gone, becoming the perfect King as his father wanted him to become, act and behave. Which is to say, a cruel and corrupt one. It’s easy to think that Garroth, as kind and soft and shy and good as he is, didn’t want anything to do with fulfilling that legacy. He had been running away from his father long before the marriage arrangement. When he was in his youth, he says he joined the Guard Academy specifically so he could get away from his father, saying “one day [he] had enough.” He runs away from the throne not because he’s a coward who doesn’t feel like being responsible—he’s incredibly responsible, when it comes to being a Head Guard—he runs away because he’s running away from his father.

It’s likely he’s running away from abuse. Or at least some sort of toxic, unhealthy, or potentially even abusive family dynamic, given how many examples we see of the Ro’meave being dysfunctional and cruel and uncaring, with Zane’s behavior, with Garte’s behavior, with Zianna feeling the need to cheat and confide in another man due to how bad her husband got, with Garroth running away from his family as far as he can get and literally going under cover just to avoid them. These are not the signs of a happy, functional family unit. These are the signs of trauma.

What doesn’t occur to Laurance is the extent of what he’s asking Garroth to do, by returning to his family and their legacy. To step up and become King. Laurance, the stubborn man who grew up with caring Hayden as a father, with a perfect loving sister, and however Joh was like as a dad, he only sees the potential Garroth has to become the wonderful, good Lord that fixes everything and undoes all the damage and brings peace to the world. He doesn’t see the darker truth that it means to Garroth, the scars that motivate him to hide himself so vehemently, all the time.

I wonder if Garroth would be more confident in himself if he grew up in a healthier family unit. Maybe that’s why Mystreet!Garroth behaves so differently (and was able to confess his love to Aphmau MUCH sooner). He carries this strong sense of guilt, of shame, of feeling like he’s always inadequate and always a failure who doesn’t deserve love or nice things and doesn’t quite know how to love yet. Insecurity that strong usually comes from somewhere, and I believe it came from Garroth’s upbringing/childhood/family/mainly his father. Especially since that level of shame and guilt isn’t anywhere NEAR as present in Mystreet!Garroth. There’s a point to be made about how he always hides his feelings, buries himself deep, and always assumes that it’s his fault when something goes wrong. Especially if part of his guilt stems from…not taking the throne. From refusing to become what his father, his family, wanted him to be, all because he couldn’t take it.

I feel like all of this does occur to Aphmau. And that’s one of the main reasons why she’s so empathetic with him, why she immediately takes his side and refuses to turn him over to Zane and insists that he stay here, with her, and run far away from that arranged marriage and his father. She’s protecting him. Here, he’s safe. Here, she can continue to love him and keep him close. She recognizes his family for the corrupt and fucked up unit that it is and refuses to let him subject himself to that suffering any more. She knows he doesn’t want to go back, doesn’t want to marry Nicole, and she stands by his boundaries and defends them, even with an entire army, even with her life and the lives of her people, if it means keeping him out of Zane’s grasp.

…But also… if he stays with her, and never accepts his arraigned marriage… it means he’s still up for grabs. He stays single… he stays with Aphmau. So if she wants to date him, if she wants to marry him sometime in the future, then she can. I do believe there is a romantic aspect to her refusal to accept the arraigned marriage. It doesn’t feel to me like she’s rejecting it purely only on principle, there’s surely some sort of intent behind making sure Garroth stays single lmao. (especially since this is the aphverse we’re talking about……)

No matter what he does or what horrendous faults he commits, she still clings on tight to him. She refuses to let him go.

Speaking of Laurance, guess who returns from the Nether!!! And Garroth has a turnaround!

I don’t know what happened to “Laurance needs to kill himself the second he touches overworld soil” but I’m happy to see it has immediately vanished from Garroth’s mind. He cares for Laurance, though “I’ll be watching just in case he turns” shows he still has that sense of caution when handling SK!Laurance. He wants to take care of him and make sure he’s okay, and he pities what he’s been through. Saving Aphmau’s life did a lot to improve his trust + opinion of the man.

Laurance hugely confides in Aphmau once he’s returned. But before I get to that, I want to unpack this confession.

Laurance refuses to pressure Aphmau into a relationship. Neither of them are ready for one, and he’s certainly not at a place mentally or physically where he could handle being someone’s boyfriend. He tells her this not to get anything out of it, but because he knows he lives on a timer, and he doesn’t know when it’s gonna run out. He doesn’t know if or when he’s going to hurt her and lose control, so he wants her to know that he loves her. As some sort of parting words before the storm begins, but also likely as reassurance for like…”hey, if I turn and try to kill you later, just know that’s not actually me and I don’t want to hurt you!” He’s also pretty chill about her rejecting him.

That rejection.

See, this is where my job gets hard. As the POV YouTuber roleplaying in a minecraft server, it’s harder to see into Aphmau’s head than it is to see into the NPCs. She’s sort of a…vessel, at times, and other characters often try to decide what Aphmau thinks or feels. There’s a lot of people in the cast claiming that Aphmau has romantic feelings for Laurance and Garroth, but that’s their opinion, and if you remove all the outside pressure and actually look at what subtle, minute actions and reactions Aphmau has, it is very different from what everyone else keeps presuming about her. It’s fascinating how everyone else in the cast just kind of…assumes Aphmau’s feelings for her and tells her how she feels, all the time, while Aphmau herself is a lot more reserved and subtle and harder to read. Laurance states a factual detail here though, she supposedly clenched her grip on his hand when he confessed.

…in real life, this kind of physical reflex would mean jack shit. My hands would be fuckin’ tensing up too if someone I wasn’t attracted to suddenly dropped a love confession on my ass. My hands would tense up if the love of my life confessed to me. My hands would tense up if they said they didn’t care about me. My hands would tense up if the love of my life said there’s a goddamn ice cream truck around the corner and we should go get that sweet sweet creamy sugar substance right tf now. I don’t care. This means nothing. If we’re gonna talk noticing physical details that imply someone is experiencing attraction, Garroth would surely mention something about Aphmau blushing bright red, or Aphmau’s own dialogue options would specify that she starts to blush, as they end up often doing later on. This is bullshit.

So I’m inclined to believe that Laurance is full of shit. But as a writer, I also know what it’s like to use characters dropping facts like this as some sort of way to directly communicate to the audience that they’re dropping an important truth bomb and that another character is lying. So I don’t know for sure. Personally, if we’re going off of Aphmau’s reactions and development up to this point, I’m inclined to believe that she’s telling the truth when she says she’s not interested in him romantically (as per usual) and Laurance is just being the same little shit he always is. But MCD!Aphmau also seems to be the type to lie about her feelings and push them away if she was pushed against some sort of wall and pressured to choose in the moment. So take it as you will, I guess.

Nonetheless, she appreciates the honesty. This hasn’t ruined whatever fondness she feels for Laurance. But additionally, she appreciates the honesty, coming from Casanova Laurance. The man who puts up a mask and fakes being a flirt. If she knows that all the previous times Laurance flirted with her was him blowing smoke and pretending to be something he’s not, then she knows that this confession was as real and true as they come. This is Laurance finally dropping that mask completely and being nothing but his full, vulnerable, genuine self for her, and there’s this potent fondness shared between the two of them for it. That raw intimacy, he shows her what he’s really like underneath, and she says, “I appreciate the honesty.” She appreciates the true Laurance. She cares, deeply, for the real Laurance, and is happy to meet him. “Please do this again,” she communicates to him, “I don’t want my rejection to dissuade you from thinking I still care about you, because I do. You mean so much to me already, and I want to see more of the real you. I appreciate you, I’m happy you’re back. Stay by my side.”

They’re so soft I’m gonna die. I’m gonna SCREAM—

Aphmau immediately turns around and starts teasing Garroth. Lmao look at this loser you guys.

…do you think this means she knows he has feelings for her. do you think this means she has feelings for him. Either way, I love to see her fluster Garroth by being bold and ballsy with her taunting. When she’s comfortable with someone, MCD!Aphmau really can be a flirt at times. ((btw this definitely absolutely counts as a flirt. like this is the kind of shit I would pull on my own crush. girlie you are not fooling anyone))

These two are fucking hilarious. Aphmau like “…what if we ‘pretended’ we were dating……… what if you called me your girlfriend and gave me kisses and called me honeybear in public ……… what if we hooked up but it was all for the joke hahahaha…… purely only for business!!! because all that matters to me is making sure my job of saving the town and my people and my loved ones is fulfilled!!! and that includes saving your life rn hahaha!!! do you think it would save your life if you kissed me” girl. girl come on. at this point you are actively looking for an excuse to allow yourself this. I just love so much that she’s the one who suggested it and came up with the idea in the first place (why were u thinking of pretending to be his girlfriend honey… that’s suspish…), and Garroth immediately turns very visibly flustered and refuses, insisting he could never force her to do such a thing for his sake. Of course Garroth Ro’meave would never ever ever ever come up with the idea of forcing someone else into a romantic relationship they didn’t want to be in, that’s so on brand for you. Of course it would never occur to you to envision a hypothetical scenario where you possibly had an excuse to be romancey with your crush. Loser. Nerd. Doofus. Dork. Dweeb. I want to squeeze his tiny body in my hands and make him squeak repeatedly

The idea that Aphmau searches for an excuse to allow herself a love life the moment it becomes relevant to her “job” because she feels like work is all she’s allowed to focus on… girl……… you have got to allow yourself to live a little I stg

Behold, the beginning of Laurance and Aphmau’s playful back-and-forth teasing banter!!! One of the best and funniest parts of their dynamic. Once Aphmau forms a genuine bond with Laurance giving his life for her and revealing his true self to her from that point onwards (because he’s too fuckin traumatized and depressed to keep up the mask as much as he did before, and Aphmau means way too much to him now to not be sincere and vulnerable with her), she switches how she responds to his flirting and his dialogue, and starts teasing him back. They become much more light-hearted, and in the same way Laurance loves to make Aphmau laugh, it’s heartwarming to see her return the same sentiment for him, making him crack a smile while he’s at his worst. She brightens his day, every way she can. She’s so proud of him. She’s seen how he’s changing, and she’s so, so proud. She sees him smile again, and it makes her so happy to see. She’s so proud of him every moment he smiles and laughs and looks towards something better. She takes his hand!! She holds his hand and happily offers to guide him through!! She convinces him to get back on his feet and go to a party!! AUUGHHH !!!!!! He means so much to her now. Maybe she’s trying to do everything she can to repay the favor of the immeasurable gift he gave her, maybe she’s incredibly grateful for his sacrifice and wants him, the real Laurance, to know that he’s safe here, with her, and he always will be. She was desperate to get him back, and now that she has him, she’s going to do everything in her power to make sure he feels appreciated and happy and safe and cared for. She’s not just tolerating a weird stranger anymore—thats her new best friend.

They’re so goddamn adorable. They turned into something so wholesome. I love them you guys.

Also, remember that I said I would go until I hit either the character limit or the image limit? I’ve hit the image limit now. We’re making this analysis journey a multi-parter. I’ll link the next part here at the bottom of the post (and likely at the top as well) once it’s uploaded! I could and I can and I will gush about these losers all day and night long. See you in part two!

[tookishcombeferre]

Part 2: A War In Enchancia? Is There Just Cause?

Yes. I say this only because, in my estimation, Cedric was kind of right when calling Roland out on "The Day of the Sorcerers." I will extrapolate on this. Roland wasn’t a good king. He was impulsive. He did and does dangerous things. He puts people at risk for not so great reasons. For one, Roland takes absolutely no reasonable accountability for using the Wishing Well to, basically, kill his wife. Granted, I'm sure he did not know that would be the end cause of his wish. I'm sure he was heartbroken over it. Yet, it remains that his impulsivity is dangerous. We also see this in the Wassalia episode, in which, he risks not only his own life over a few extra gifts for his children, but he also puts Baileywick in danger. Baileywick is the steward of their country. He would be the person to advise either Amber or James in Roland's absence should one of the two of them rise to a Regency position in the event of Roland's death. He puts both of them in a situation where they would be incapacitated, and it is one of the greatest acts of political stupidity I've ever witnessed. While Roland may be an outwardly beloved king because, outwardly, he's a loveable doofus. His life style would also indicate that taxes are high as a kite in that Kingdom. Maybe they're a prosperous country (they seem to be), but how much so? Like, sure, you have decent public education. However, you also have your kids turning drinking water into chocolate milk while you galavant off into the forest with your wife to doodle. He doesn't check the blueprints for the infrastructure of his Kingdom before building roads to ensure that he isn't killing off sentient beings.

There were whole hosts of things that Roland I and Roland II should have been looking into in order to avoid harming their sentient magical neighbors. Roland sees leadership as a popularity contest. We see this when he allows space for Miss Nettle, as Sasha the Sorceress, to take over a feast after having just met her because he prizes a good show over knowing a person’s true nature. (Granted that Cedric is claiming to be evil at that point, but Roland still had a longer running relationship with him than Sasha the Sorceress. He was also not planning to do anything actively evil in that episode.) Besides that, Cedric is the one who fixes Roland’s mistake in that case despite the humiliation. On the subject of Cedric, Roland II also permits the continued psychological abuse of one of his staff members by other kingdoms that began under his father. Beginning in the reign of Roland I, when "the Incident" occured, the psychological abuse of a minor was rampantly permitted and encouraged throughout the nobility. While no one was in the room when the two potions were mixed, a through investigation into the actual "scene of the crime" as it were was, apparently, never done. Instead, Enchancia chose to gaslight a 7-9 year old boy into thinking the entire accident was his fault until he was somewhere between 39-41 years old. Atonement for the years of psychological abuse is never shown in the series and the only moment we see of the character in question seeking restitution is seen as a supreme act of villainy as opposed to a legitimate call out of the treatment faced by a screwed up system of bigotry and oppression. What I'm saying is there would be actual reasons psycho-social reasons for Cedric to have overthrown Roland and for it to be completely justified. If we think about what other Disney movies/ shows have said of similar characters and situations, we could fall back on Esmeralda's line about Quasimodo "You saw what those people did out there? To let them torture that poor boy? I thought if just one person could stand up to them ..." (Or something to that effect. I'm paraphrasing.) I fail to see what makes that different, at least, on a CAUSE level. (We'll get into the other parts later. Let me cook.) Additionally, based on what we see from the servants in the show, they are overworked. They only have one assigned day off, all of them together, and they're required to spend it on a picnic with Roland and with each other. Now, granted, I don't know if they can take more time off or not. BUT! We see what happens when Baileywick tries to take time off. The kids keep trying to eat into it. Now, you may claim that Baileywick is just Baileywick and he has free will and the autonomy to say "no." The kids also learn a lesson from this. HOWEVER!! Kids learn from what they see the adults doing, AND their behavior is a precedent set by Roland/ castle norms. Roland does have a tendency to abandon his people and problems when they arise. Finale on the boat? Need I say more? Amber makes a better Queen in the finale and she's what ... twelve? Thirteen? So, based on Enchancian culture from the beginning of Roland the First's rule through the rule of Roland II there would be justification for several different characters to hold an uprising over Roland based on a lack of respect for their dignity as human beings and to their autonomy and their rights as humans.

Part 1|| Part 2|| Part 3 &4 || Part 5 & 6 || Part 7 & 8

[yes-these-obsessions-are-healthy]

the problem with writing OCs in certain fandoms is that if the OC needs to be competent and do something, i.e. be the chosen one or the leader of an organization, I get overwhelmed by the mere thought of being responsible and proactive and literally get so tired I need a nap. Not to mention I'm not clever and have no patience for politics and strategy that doesn't boil down to "Argue/threaten people to be nice and do the right thing or else". Yeah I'm that person who would write a terrible OC that just sits there and does nothing while people do the work for them. At least I'm self-aware hhhhhhhh

It's why hyper-competent OCs are kind of hit or miss for me. Too competent and I get annoyed. Too incompetent and I get annoyed. Hyper-competent, confident, capable OCs have never been characters I've gravitated toward or enjoyed for 'wish fulfillment'. Characters that are a hair's breadth from a serious and genuine mental breakdown (not in the ha ha ha way people would joke about it in the tags, but actually holy shit someone put out this fire, someone help them, someone genuinely actually help them please) and make mistakes and try their best to scramble to keep all the plates spinning are much more comforting. Their anxiety becomes my anxiety, and paradoxically it becomes enjoyable because it's a simulation of those negative feelings. An OC with tons of accomplishments just makes me feel like my real life sucks, lol, I just end up comparing myself to some fake deeds and adventures and end up going 'I wish I could be like that. But I'm not."

anyway this is just rambling, but somewhat also sort of kind of about my Lavellan and the difficulty in writing fanfiction for Dragon Age because there is little room for absolute losers because if your OC is an absolute and actual-actual unlucky incompetent loser, then the plot can't progress. The Warden, the Champion, the Inquisitor *can't* be a loser. Everyone would be dead if they were, so it is difficult trying to toe the line between 'realistic stress and character flaws impeding this character's story" and "Okay realistically and by the logic of the game's universe, the law, the nature of things, and everyone around the OC, this character would have a Game Over screen by now."

Also not to mention that my brain is indeed built for knowledge of lore, but it's not built for constructing anything from that lore, at least if it's fictional. If it's real history I can make all the connections and extrapolations like nobody's business, but I guess because a video game, a book, a tv show, a movie, etc. has so much that is simply not known, it's too big of a fog of war for me to know where to start. No one wants a shitty superficial word vomit of half-baked ideas when there are people who just have more creativity to come up with entire family trees for their Inquisitors or Wardens and can fold in Game of Thrones' level of intrigue into made-up Fereldan - Orlesian politics and nobles. I don't have that dog in me, sad to say.

I know. Just write. Just write what you like to write about. But the thing I want to write about--the thing that would make me feel accomplished-- is the stuff I'm not good at writing and don't understand how to write because it's as foreign and unintuitive to me as Ancient Greek, and no matter how much I read I can't come up with anything. Just a blank. I blame the autism for this blind spot when it comes to my inability to spontaneously conjure up and plot out fake human motivations. I can't even write characters being rude or ignorant--not like I used to--because the thought of even including people like these in my stories is like adding your least favorite ingredient into your favorite stew. Yes it gives it a better flavor profile but you're still chopping up that onion and being miserable the whole time.

Again, rambling. Just rambling. I had six years--count 'em, six--to develop and write down a half-decent walkthrough of my Solavellan relationship and I didn't because I'm not quick when it comes to understanding my own OCs' motivations My OCs are basically the transfer student you get second week of school and it's only by May you realize "Oh we actually have something in common". My OCs are pretty much as much a mystery to me as they are to a reader. I have to spend just as much time trying to figure out who they are and what makes them tick as anyone on the street. I have to parse through things, and try to find a voice and find the tune and string it together with canon characters and events, and it's always extremely slow goings. .. sigh.

[moiraineswife]

To Care - A Stormlight Fic

*clears throat* SPOILERS. RHYTHM OF WAR SPOILERS. HERE. THERE. EVERYWHERE IN THIS POST. BANISH IT FROM YOUR SIGHT. 

Okay. 

Fic time:

Title: To Care

Summary:  Set towards the end of Rhythm of War.  Wit’s POV. This is a fic of three parts, really. The first part involves Wit's internal monologue on how fabulous Jasnah is. The second part involves Wit and Ivory's dialogue of how fabulous Jasnah is. The third part involves Wit impressing on Jasnah how fabulous she is. AKA: Jasnah falls asleep for five minutes, Wit gets incredibly soft, Ivory becomes slightly protective, and we all agree Jasnah is the best thing since sliced bread.

Teaser: It surprised him how truly and deeply fond he felt of her, looking down at her now. 

It had been quite a few centuries now since he’d allowed himself to enter into such a dalliance. Although this was dallying into a far stronger alliance between the two of them than that. 

That may be cause for concern, but looking at her now, it was hard to feel concern for anything. 

She was truly wondrous. All people were their own flavour of unique experience, but they were not always a good one. Jasnah Kholin had excelled in this area, as in so many others, and was nothing short of exquisite.

Link: ao3

Commission Link: Have me write other cosmere characters

Jasnah looked younger when she slept. Such was a cliche, and though he knew it was inevitable, as after so much of human history no idea could truly be original any more, he did try to avoid the more frequently used ones. 

This was just an idle thought, however, not required to do any real work in thrilling or entertaining. Just for him. In this small, quiet moment, in a war camp in Emul, it was precisely what he needed to hear. How convenient that his thoughts were always there to think the things he needed to. 

Gently, he brushed the hair away from her face, admiring the softened lines of it. She was truly a beautiful woman. The Shard that had crafted her ancestors way back when ought to feel proud of themselves. She was a true masterwork. 

It surprised him how truly and deeply fond he felt of her, looking down at her now. 

Head pillowed on an enormously thick book she had been studying, which felt appropriate. Her fingers flexed slightly, their tips brushing over the lines of text, as if she could still feel them, even in dreams. The spiky lines like heartbeat readouts elsewhere in the Cosmere. The life of its author still extended in these dry pages and thin lines. 

It had been quite a few centuries now since he’d allowed himself to enter into such a dalliance. Although this was dallying into a far stronger alliance between the two of them than that. That may be cause for concern, but looking at her now, it was hard to feel concern for anything. 

She was truly wondrous. All people were their own flavour of unique experience, but they were not always a good one. Jasnah Kholin had excelled in this area, as in so many others, and was nothing short of exquisite.

He had a deep love for humanity. It would not have been possible to continue doing as he did had he not. The weight of it all would have torn him down millenia ago had he not always had the good hearts of people like Jasnah Kholin to help buoy him up and support him. 

And she did have a good heart. Far too few people saw that in her. They saw only the carefully sculpted mask she had crafted for herself over time. They heard her words, and read her analysis and essays, but they did not see what drove them, what drove her. 

Jasnah Kholin was a good woman, and she deserved far better than him. 

It was selfish, this thing he had embarked upon with her. It was always selfish, whenever he took partners. There was always somewhere else he needed to be, something else that would have to be more important to him. 

Jasnah seemed to understand that, so far. She had asked, naturally, and he had deflected her. That had irritated her, but in a way that only made her eager for more. Secrets were to Jasnah Kholin as flesh and blood were to others. They made her, gave her substance, something to sink the teeth into. 

Lately, she had merely requesting that he inform her in advance if he was about to disappear on one of his little trips, so she might set aside time to write out her own insults for the meetings she had the next day. 

Truly delightful.

She was captivating, fiercely intelligent, with a wit near as sharp as his own, barely in need of him at all at court. Or in general, really. 

She had taken eagerly to the information he had provided on other planets, Realmatic Theory, and other staples of the Cosmere that most took some time to adjust to. 

Within a few days, she’d been theorising with him, helping him compose letters to the other Shards, and asking deep, insightful questions that had frankly amazed him. Which was difficult to do at his point. 

Spectacular. 

She’d talked of accompanying him, if he would permit it. Increasingly he was thinking that he would. He had rarely done so in the past. It complicated the already complicated process of worldhopping. But for her...For her he might just make the exception. 

Not now, of course, she’d said firmly, with Roshar in such peril. But afterwards. If this world was saved, and she managed to survive that process. Once Alethkar had a more democratic system of rule in place that meant she was no longer needed, she wanted to go with him. 

He had opened up a whole new galaxy of other worlds, cultures, magics, and peoples to her. Instead of being overwhelmed, she had just seen it as another area for her to study and explore and learn about. 

The thrill in her eyes when he talked of different worlds, the sheer joy he could see just behind the veil of composure shielding her violet eyes...A man could become addicted to that

His fingers rested gently on her head, watching her in her peace. She deserved these moments of respite. Would that the Cosmere be willing to grant her them more often. 

No nightmares for now it seemed. She tried to hide them from him when they happened, not yet trusting him to seek comfort and reassurance from. Ivory did that for her. 

He had not let on that her efforts to keep him in the dark had been anything other than successful. It would only serve to upset her further, and he had no wish to do that. She had enough pressure on her as it was. 

This woman had been burned, burned nearly away to nothing, by those she had loved and trusted in the past. It would take her time to fully trust him. If she ever could. He would be neither surprised, nor offended, if she was no longer capable of fully trusting him. Or, indeed, anyone. 

Save Ivory, of course. 

As if summoned by this thought, Ivory changed his form, growing to a visible size, standing on the back of Jasah’s chair, watching him with impenetrable eyes, arms folded. 

“I mean her no harm, my friend,” Wit said lightly. 

That was true. He did not mean her harm. He never meant anyone harm. But there were times when it was necessary. Terrible, but necessary.

The Cosmere could be a cruel, harsh place, and no-one knew that better than him. 

No-one knew better, either, that being prevented from physically hurting someone, had not limited his capacity for causing pain. Even to those he loved. Especially to them. 

Wounds to the body would, if given the proper time and motivation, heal themselves. Wounds to the heart, and the soul, though? Well, no force in the Cosmere he knew of had yet found a way to repair that damage.

Jasnah herself was proof of that. She hid her scars well, but he knew they lingered. 

“I know that this is,” Ivory said simply, in that odd clipped way of the inkspren, “But she has asked that I watch over her when she sleeps. And I do this for her. Always.” 

“You do it very well,” Wit said, with a small bow. 

He doubted any understood the depth of the bond Jasnah shared with Ivory. He didn’t think even she realised precisely what it meant to her. And wouldn’t unless it were taken away. He hoped, which he was not often in the business of doing these days, she never found out.  

“She fears not what is,” Ivory said brusquely, with an air that implied he felt he had to explain Jasnah, which was oddly endearing, "But what might.” 

Wit nodded, fingers carding gently through Jasnah’s soft black hair again, “She is wise,” he said, quietly, “And cautious.” 

“She is afraid,” Ivory returned bluntly. 

As far as whimsical conversation partners went, even Design was better than an inkspren. 

He considered that. A hasty assessment, perhaps. Her own personal design seemed to revolve around vexing him in every way imaginable. At least Ivory made an effort. And wasn’t a monster.  

“Does she fear me?” Wit asked, curious. 

Ivory studied him for a long moment, expression inscrutable. Even for a spren.

“No,” he said, finally, “Though only recently is this not,” he added, and Wit nodded. 

“She’s decided to trust me, then?” he asked quietly, thinking how much harder this answer might make it to pull the pin on the grenade Roshar may yet have to be to protect the rest of the Cosmere. 

“No,” Ivory said, “Not this. She has decided to allow you close enough so that she may determine if you are fully worthy of trust.”  

Wit nodded again, considering that, “She is a very wise woman,” he said, and Ivory nodded firmly in agreement. 

Neither added that her wisdom had come at a terrible price.

Wit cocked his head, struck by a thought, and said, “And you, Ivory? Do you trust me? You are bonded to her, your opinion on this matters almost as much to me as her own.” 

Again Ivory studied him with that inscrutable obsidian face of his. In an uncharacteristic move, he allowed his shape to grow to his full size, standing eye to eye with Wit. It was a strangely disconcerting, even threatening gesture. He so rarely even revealed himself to any but Jasnah. 

“Your intentions for her, they are,” Ivory said, staring directly into his eyes. 

Inkspren often emphasised the last word of a phrase, the certain intonation of which gave all kinds of meaning. Unfortunately humans were not good at recognising these things. Usually. 

“They are,” Wit agreed. 

“You seek your own bond with her,” Ivory said, crossing his arms, “A human bond. This is not like the Radiant bond. It is less. But still close. Close enough to burn, to hurt, to rip.”

Wit nodded, and the spren stared at him again. 

“She is, to me,” he said quietly, and his voice became strangely much more human, much more emotional than Wit had ever heard from one of his kind before. 

“Importance. She has much importance to me,” he went on, apparently realising he needed to clarify that last sentiment. 

He frowned in his odd way, all sharp lines and harsh gestures.

“It was not supposed to be so,” he said. 

His eyes drifted back down to Jasnah, expression softening. As much as it could, on an inkspren. 

“The warnings were, from my kind, and many others. Humans were dangerous. Not to be trusted. She would destroy me, it was known. I tried to keep a distance. To not care. To be as spren. No passion. No feeling. These are things of men. If she were to kill me, I would make it hurt less, by not caring.” 

“How did that work out for you, Ivory?” Wit asked, the corners of his lips quirking up in a half-smile. 

“It did not,” Ivory replied flatly, “She is special,” he said, voice quiet again as he rested his fingers gently on her head, a gesture that was almost affectionate. “Special to me. Special to Roshar. Special.” He looked up at Wit and said, with intensity, “She should be special to you, also.” 

“She is,” Wit said, with unreserved sincerity. 

Ivory nodded sharply, “This is right,” he said. “She is lonely, I know this,” he continued, words more careful now, “Perhaps I should not tell you. But this is something you know already.” 

The words were not a question. Inkspren did not do questions, on the whole. They made statements and if they were incorrect, they expected you to simply adjust your reality to make them correct, rather than point out their potential flaw. 

“She wants for someone who can understand her. A companion. A bond. A human bond,” he said. “I am important to her. This is. But I am spren. I cannot do for her as you can. This is well. This is good.” 

He met Wit’s eyes again, and there was an almost imperceptible shift in his posture, in his bearing. It became protective, almost offensive, with how he positioned himself between Jasnah and Wit. 

“I also cannot hurt her as you can,” he said softly, “And you can. She is like spren, but she is not. I understand now,” he looked up at Wit again, and there was warning in his voice this time as he repeated once more, “She is important. She is.” 

Well. Wit had been threatened, warned, chased, yelled at, punched, stabbed, and even shot at by those who sought to impress upon him what they thought of his potential to harm their loved ones which he had taken into his bed and, less frequently, his heart. 

This was the first time he’d been warned off by a splinter of the divine powers of creation. It was a rather persuasive argument, all things considered. Definitely top five, in his estimation, and in this case his estimation was the only estimation, so top five it was. 

“It happens,” Wit said quietly, stepping over to the easy chair he’d been lounging on and picking up the soft blanket strewn across it, “That I agree with you wholeheartedly, Ivory.” 

The spren had shrunk back to his diminutive form again, so when he turned, he was apparently addressing empty air. That was fine. He’d given many a performance to the empty air before, and it had always been a most satisfactory audience. Very low rates of heckling.

“She is very important,” he said, gently draping the blanket around her. 

He sighed, watching Jasnah as she shifted slightly in her sleep, face creasing for a moment, before she settled again. 

“And I was not supposed to care, either,” he murmured, more to himself than Ivory. “Emotions are not very good at doing as they’re supposed to, however, and they never have been. You’d have thought, after all this time, I’d be able to make them do as I please, but no. They have a will entirely their own. Particularly when it concerns Jasnah Kholin.” 

He shook his head, and, though he could no longer see it, imagined Ivory’s stiff nod of affirmation at that.

“I never intended it. Who could have imagined, even I? When I met her stumbling out of her perpendicularity somewhere so far from civilisation or thought the cartographers hadn’t even bothered to name it, I never thought that something like this was in our future." He glanced up at Ivory and smiled slightly, “Especially when she pointed you as a shardblade at my throat.”

Feeling. True feeling. It had been some time since he'd allowed himself to become emotionally tangled with another. And never on a system as on the brink as Roshar. But. Well. Jasnah was Jasnah. They should really make that an official Alethi idiom.

"Much like your good self I found that I did. And I do. What a damnable woman,” he added, fondly, tucking the edges of the blanket around her. 

Jasnah stirred as he did so, then flinched and sat up too suddenly, the blanket falling away. He took a step back, to avoid crowding her, and raised his hands, 

“Fear not!” he cried, in dramatic tones, “‘Tis only I! Your trusty companion Wit!” 

She sighed, rubbing her temples, which was a common response to him.

These people had no sense of theatre on this planet. He’d have to found the appropriate guild. If Roshar survived long enough, that was, it’d be his top priority. The brave new world would need theatre if it were to survive with any level of decency. 

“How long was I asleep?” she asked, looking around blearily for the clock Navani had sent her. 

Wonderful woman, truly, not least because she had produced Jasnah. And fabulous though her latest fabrials were, giving Jasnah a clock so she could more accurately stress about precisely how many minutes per day she wasted doing things like ‘eating’ and ‘breathing’ had perhaps not been the wisest thing she’d ever done. 

Wit had now purposefully lost or broken three of the damn things, but she just wouldn’t take the hint and kept sending them more. 

“Not long enough,” he returned, stepping deftly to the side and shoving the clock fabrial off the desk and onto the floor, covering the thump it made with a cough. 

Ivory frowned slightly at him, at a visible size again on Jasnah’s desk. Wit shrugged and widened his eyes innocently. Ivory said nothing. 

Always knew I liked that spren, he thought, with a smirk. 

Jasnah glowered at him. She did have an excellent glower. He’d have to try and encourage her to sit for a portrait of it at some point. Scholars in the future could learn so much by studying it. 

“Wit,” she said, as though he was stupid. 

Maybe he was. Provoking Jasnah Kholin was probably one of the top five ways to get yourself killed on Roshar. She ranked just behind chasmfiends. Her lack of mandibles really did a number on her statistics in that one. 

It truly took a very special kind of person to know his vast wealth and knowledge of the Cosmere and still be able to speak to him with that kind of tone. It was excellent. 

He grinned at her. 

She just sighed, very heavily this time, and the weight of exhaustion seemed to crumple her as she said, tiredly, “What time is it?” 

“Irrelevant,” he said simply, gathering up the blanket she had dropped, so rudely, to the floor in her haste to ensure he wasn’t a dangerous assassin come to murder her while she napped. 

“Time is very relevant, Wit,” she said, frowning.

“Relative?” he said, lightly, “Why yes, I believe it is. In theory, at least. Relevant? Far less than you might think.” 

“I think that it’s very relevant, Wit,” she said, not even pausing to appreciate his rather fantastic word play. 

This situation was more dire than he’d first feared. 

“I have meetings. If I don’t turn up on time I don’t think the other monarchs will accept ‘the time wasn’t relevant to me’ as an appropriate reason.” 

“Peace, Jasnah,” he said gently, “It’s still late, you were barely asleep an hour.”

She relaxed visibly, then straightened in her seat and reached at once for her pen and notes. 

Without looking at him again she said, “Good. Can you fetch me the scout reports of enemy troop movements? I need to consult them to properly formulate a strategy to present later today.” 

“Jasnah,” he murmured, gently, laying a hand on her shoulder, “You need to sleep.” 

“I believe I just did,” she replied flatly. 

“For less than an hour.” 

“Which was more than I should have allowed myself. I’m growing sloppy, indeed,” she said smoothly. 

Damnable woman. It should not be permissible by law anywhere in the Cosmere to argue so well with him moments after waking up. 

“Jasnah,” he said again, more firmly this time, stepping deliberately between her and the desk so she was forced to give him her full attention instead of continuing to make notes. 

She glowered at him in a way that told him quite clearly she was strongly considering soulcasting him to smoke just to get him out of her way. 

Well. Let her try. He could be just as damnable and frustrating as she could. More so, since he’d made a habit of it for quite a bit longer than she had. 

“Who am I, Jasnah?” he asked, lightly. 

“You’re Wit,” she replied, with a cold glare that told him she was not in the mood for his games. 

“Quite correct!” he replied, in a perky tone he knew would vex her delightfully, “I am your Wit. I exist to provide wit to the throne of Alethkar. And that means that when you are being decidedly witless, it is my sworn duty to step in and help you.” 

“I don’t need help, Wit,” she said, firmly. 

Somewhere, wherever she happened to be frolicking at the moment, Design hummed in pleasure at that blatant lie.

“You haven’t slept in four days,” he told her, sternly, “The bags under your eyes are becoming quite pronounced, and that’s really hurting my attraction to you, don’t you know.” 

“I have Stormlight, Wit,” she said, irritably, “I don’t need to sleep.” 

“As a point of fact, my dear,” he replied calmly, steadily resisting her attempts to move him out of her way, “That’s blatantly untrue. And I know that you know this, as I heard you tell Sigzil yourself the other day when he was taking too many shifts on guard. 

"Stormlight enhances your body. It allows you to push it beyond the normal limits and sustain that for a time. Eventually, however, no matter how much Stormlight you pour into yourself, you will snap from the pressure, and it will make a rather large mess that you won’t be able to fix by pouring more Investiture into it.” 

She sighed, looking older than her years, and yet younger all at once. Lost. Almost helpless. And so, so exhausted.

He crouched down in front of her, putting himself at eye-level, and reached out to gently cup her cheek in his hand. 

“You need to rest,” he told her quietly, stroking her cheek with his thumb, “You deserve to rest. You have done enough for now.” 

She seemed to melt a little into his touch even as she deflated, all of her arrogant posturing lost to the storms that he knew raged inside her. 

“I can’t, Wit,” she murmured, voice cracking slightly from fatigue and fear. 

He smiled sadly and arched up to kiss her forehead, “You can,” he said, gently, “You shall. I will take care of anything you ask of me tonight in your stead. Whatever you wish to do with this time, I shall do it for you, while you sleep.” 

He raised a finger, as a faint twinkle dared to flicker in her eyes, and he forestalled her protest. 

“And if you refuse to sleep, I shall in turn refuse to do anything productive whatsoever. I will simply stand in this corner and recite Scadrian hymns until you are driven past the point of patience and forced to murder me. Which will be a real pest to deal with and mean a lot of extra paperwork. So by not sleeping you will, in fact, accomplish less than you would otherwise.” 

She sighed heavily again and said, “You aren’t going to let this drop, are you?” 

“Not even for a moment,” he replied, brightly. 

She closed her eyes, then glanced down at her shoulder. A moment later, Ivory’s voice spoke, projected loudly enough for Wit to hear as well. 

“I am in agreement with your Wit,” he said simply. 

He always called him ‘your Wit’ which was oddly endearing. 

“Humans need to sleep. This is, Jasnah. You know that this is.” 

She groaned, rubbing her eyes, “I can’t argue with both of you, I-” 

“Wondrous!” Wit exclaimed, interrupting her. 

He sprang up then gently nudged her to rise and began undoing the buttons on her havah. She frowned at him, batting away his attentive fingers. 

“I’m tired, Wit,” she said, irritably, “Not incompetent. I don’t need you to undress me.” 

“Humour me, dearest one,” he said lightly, “Permit me this one duty so that I may retain illusions of my contributions to this partnership we have embarked upon together.” 

“Your contributions amount to far more than your ability to undo buttons, Wit,” she said flatly, “If that was the only thing you’d been able to offer me I would never have put up with you for so long.” 

That was strangely sweet. In a very Jasnah sort of way. Which was, of course, the best kind. 

He smiled, and continued what he was doing, saying quietly, “I’m trying to teach you a very important lifeskill that you seem, as a byproduct of your own chronic over competence at everything you’ve ever attempted, to have completely missed out on.” 

“Which is what?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at him. 

“How to relax for one storming minute, you impossible woman,” he said fondly, earning himself another truly magnificent glare. 

In return, he kissed the tip of her nose. That only caused her to roll her eyes at him, but she did so with a slight smile, so he considered this a victory on his end. 

She stood still, obviously grudgingly, with no expectation that this would work, but she allowed him to minister to her. 

He did so, gently easing her from her havah, taking the time to massage her cramped, knotted muscles as he did so, relieving the tension from them, peppering light, affectionate kisses over her as he did so. 

She had a great many areas of skill and knowledge, but it was clear she had no idea how to allow other people to take care of her. 

She was a swift learner in this, as in most things, however, and within five minutes, she was pliant, and comfortable beneath his touch, her eyes closed, her expression more at peace once again. 

He knew better than to suggest she bathe before sleeping. She had a strictly scheduled bath time in the mornings, and deviated from it only after battle or other, similar exertions. Or if he warned her of it in advance and gained her permission to be spontaneously romantic later that evening. 

So he merely fetched her night gown from the closet and eased her into it, followed at once by her robe, which she wore each night. He knew it had hidden gems sewn into the hems to provide Stormlight for her in an emergency. Prudent, but a sad insight into what life had forced her to do in order to survive it. 

He guided her to the bed and sat her down, then began to undo her braids, gently and expertly removing the pins and twists. As well he should be able to, given that he had put them up for her that morning. 

Her shoulders slumped again, but this time in relaxation, rather than exhaustion, and he counted that as a small win. They needed those in these trying times. 

“Thank you, Wit,” she murmured, sleepily, as he moved on to brushing out her long black hair. With fifty precise strokes, as it had been a long, tiring day for her. 

He pressed a soft, tender kiss to the back of her neck and said nothing. Now as not the time for grandstanding and loud affirmations of his own brilliance. Those would wait until the morning, when she was rested enough to appreciate them. 

Finally, he set aside his brush, peeled back the covers, and guided her to lie down. Then he settled in behind her, putting his arms around her and drawing her close. 

She looked at him over her shoulder, frowning slightly, “I thought you said you intended to do the work I wanted to get done tonight, so that I could rest while still being prepared?” 

“I did say that,” he agreed, “And I shall fulfil my promise to you. Once you’re firmly asleep. Until then, I still fear a relapse of your earlier stubborn behaviour, and must therefore snuggle you into submission.” 

She rolled her eyes, but settled back down and didn’t protest further. 

She liked cuddling with him. He’d determined that much. Though she wouldn’t allow them both to fall asleep this way. Once they started getting ready to drift off, on the rare occasion she did drift off, she would nudge him away. Apparently he moved in his sleep and this was irksome. 

Her little quirks were all rather endearing to him. They made her her, for without them she would not be Jasnah, and he would not be nearly as fond of her. 

“Make sure that you do fetch those scout reports,” she said, her voice already becoming thick with tiredness. “And draft a response for Queen Fen regarding the state of the war in Emul as it stands now. And-” she broke off, stifling a yawn, “And be sure to take some notes on the current strategy we’ve been using, I feel there is a way to improve it. And-” 

She continued to mumble until sleep finally claimed her and dragged her away from her constant work and worries. He held her for a time afterwards, enjoying her warmth, the peaceful sound of her rhythmic breathing, the softening of her features as she fully relaxed. 

Then he gently extracted himself from the embrace and set about doing what she had requested of him. 

As he did so, he noticed Ivory settle into place on the headboard above where Jasnah slept, keeping watch over her. She had not asked him to do that. She did not have to. She knew that he would, and that was evidently enough for her. 

He doubted she would have slept at all the past six years without the spren to watch over her.

Wit nodded to Ivory, and the spren nodded back, an understanding passing between them. Together, whatever else was happening, they would teach this woman how to let herself be cared for again. 

***

[utilitycaster]

this is fully hitting the wasp's nest so if you don't post it, i get it but like...i wish more of fandom was open to interacting with the material as presented than forcing into their preferred narratives. I like imodna as a concept. I've been interested in it since c3e1 and I'm intrigued to see where it may or may not go. But I would absolutely rather read your takes after an episode than the imodna fans because you're not trying to force every character action so its fit a specific narrative

Hey anon!

I really appreciate this! I hope you don’t mind me using it as a jumping off point to talk about a lot of general fandom response thoughts that have been percolating for a while, but I do want to answer you specifically which is that I’m incredibly grateful you told me. I do this too! I like to follow people who have different favorite characters or ships but who are engaging thoughtfully with canon. I genuinely have a much, much better understanding of Veth, whom I always liked but often struggled to get, because over time I've followed a number of people for whom she was one of their favorites and who write good meta about her.

With that said, people can engage how they want! It’s entirely valid to interpret things through shipping goggles/only watch because you want two characters to kiss (and you can want them to kiss for no reason other than "it would be gay”), or to like or dislike characters based on surface details. It’s just that like…to me, meta based on canon, or talking about the narrative and themes is saying “this is what I see, and I’m explaining it to you in the hopes that you can understand what I see, even if you don’t see it the same way” and shipping goggle interpretations are, ultimately, preaching to the choir. Like, honestly, I was never terribly into it, but I gave Imodna a shot! It hasn’t delivered on anything that specifically interests me and I’m more invested in other relationships for them right now. I'm also still open to things happening in canon in the future that would change my mind. But I'm not personally interested in forcing them to be together at all costs. Honestly, even for things I really, really ship, I never feel that way, because in the end I'm more interested in watching a story.

This could be a whole treatise - honestly the starting point for a lot of these thoughts is that masters’ thesis on toxic fandom behaviors w/r/t shipping that went around - but I’ll keep it relatively short here and if anyone wants me to elaborate on anything here, they can ask.

Basically, as I said above, there are lots of different ways to engage with the text, and the vast majority are valid, but looking at the canon and writing about conclusions drawn from it, or even writing fic that is deeply based in canon and makes smart extrapolations from it, are a way to make your own feelings about the text accessible to others. Saying “I think Blorbo 1 and Blorbo 2 should kiss with tongue” is not. It’s just as genuine and valid to say! I take it in good faith that the speaker truly wants Blorbos 1 and 2 to kiss with tongue! But If I don’t already agree, it’s not going to convince me because it’s not an argument. And, to be honest, if that’s a really common fandom feeling, and I don’t particularly care for Blorbo 1 and Blorbo 2’s dynamic, I might write about the limitations I see in it from canon (on my own blog, to be clear, not as a reblog or anything obnoxious like that). And, if I do that, I don’t mind if someone looks at what I wrote, and says “anyway, I think Blorbo 1 and Blorbo 2 should kiss with tongue”, and continues along their way, and ignores or blocks me and finds like-minded people! I only mind if they start directly engaging with me with the intent of convincing me, without putting in the effort to provide arguments tailored specifically to me. And even then…does it matter if I don’t want Blorbo 1 and Blorbo 2 to kiss with tongue? I don’t have any more control over this happening or not happening in canon than you do.

I think there are two big reasons why discourse can get so fraught and vicious. The first is that  I think a lot of people who aren’t writing in terms of narrative, canon, and argument have very personal feelings about characters, which is good and valid! But they then see a dislike of that character as a dislike of them, which isn’t actually true, both because what makes a good character or interesting ship is not the same as what makes a good real-world person or healthy relationship (insert Anna Karenina line here); and because one person’s dislike of a character can be for different reasons than why someone else relates to the character (eg: the reasons I didn’t vibe with Molly were because he was often flaky and manipulative. If you relate to Molly but it’s because you’re genderfluid and do circus acrobatics and tarot readings, then our feelings are not in contradiction; we’re just responding to different things about him). I also think some people see a preference for one character over another, even if the person expressing the preference likes both characters, as an attack on their favorite. That, to be honest, is just really stupid and they should work through that.

The second, and this is where this does get more judgmental, is that I think that sometimes, people who are responding to surface things or relatability attempt to make arguments that inappropriately co-opt the language of social justice (not that it’s inappropriate to use social justice language when apt in fandom, but like…keep it systemic and about patterns), or which are inconsistent. To use an example, during Campaign 2, I remember receiving two different anons, one in which someone basically said “funny how Essek is granted the grace that Astrid never is; fandoms hate women”; and one in which someone said “funny how Astrid is granted the grace that Essek never is; fandoms hate characters of color”, and the real answer is that Astrid and Essek are very similar but do have key differences and if the criticisms of Astrid or Essek are rooted in misogyny or racism, respectively, then that’s worth pointing out, but I think it’s really unhealthy and unkind to assume people don’t like something because they’re bigoted (and indeed, this demonstrates a no-win situation with two characters each of whom is a member of an oppressed group, so that no matter whom people prefer you can always make this accusation, which means it’s meaningless without evidence.) And, if someone says in your inbox “well I don’t like Essek because he’s a wizard who is interested in power”, then it is valid to say “ok, well, then why are you arguing that I should like Astrid, a wizard who is interested in power?” because you’re pointing out the flaws in their argument. (sidebar: I, personally, like both Essek and Astrid. This is purely for illustrative purposes.)

Anyway I think the conclusion to be made is like, everyone may like what they like, but if it’s important to you that other people like what you like, you need to put in the work, and also, it’s worth examining why this is important to you...but it's that kind of thinking that makes people insist on certain narratives rather than just watching the show, because they are trying to prove themselves right rather than providing predictions and opinions, sitting back, and seeing if they come to pass.

[qqueenofhades]

honestly, reading comics canon & the end of said comics canon while at the same time reading really well-thought-out takes like AITWW which takes what is, indeed, a beautiful queer bit of unpredictability flung into an otherwise faithful adaptation of comics canon and turns it into a whole story of its own-- is really making me personally excited for all the ways fanfic writers can use that as a Spanner in the Works/disruptor for Morpheus's canon ending. being Also An Old that potential gets me far more than anything canon may or may not do with hob, personally.

(which is to say thanks, AITWW has made my own creative brain do several backflips of excited Possibilities. so many possible stories.)

I mean... yeah. Obviously there are a lot of queer characters/themes in the Sandman to start with, but I think everyone imprinted on Dreamling like a baby duckling because a) it fulfills the obvious Grumpy/Sunshine trope that fandom loves, and b) it offers the thing that everyone loved about Our Flag Means Death, where the queer characters got to talk to each other, share interests, develop over time, and actually offer a real emotional basis to ship them as lovers. Of course, OFMD did that in ten episodes as opposed to just the back half of Sandman 1.06, but it's the same thing. And also, I would note that despite all the other queer representations/characters in the show, there isn't really anyone else to actively ship in a canon-supported LGBTQ context? We see Johanna's lover Rachel die in the same episode that we meet her, the Corinthian's entire life motto is be gay and do crimes but you don't exactly ship a serial-killing nightmare with any of the minor characters who he menaces and/or eats, Hal is great but still a bit-part player who gets paired off with Carl in the background, and Alex and Paul are already out of the picture by the end of the first episode. (Besides, Alex, keeping the dude you desperately want to fuck locked up in the basement for decades even after your terrible dad is dead is, uh, Bad.)

Fandom can, of course, imagine and headcanon interactions between various queer characters, but as far as an active, possible, ongoing relationship goes, where we are shown them developing feelings for each other and the narrative makes a point of underscoring them in a romantic context, Hob and Dream are kind of IT. Many shows just throw a queer couple in there as token representation and don't really take the time to actually show why they're compatible as a pairing, but there's so much possibility with Hob and Dream both that is already depicted in-show and can easily be extrapolated from the source material, the actors' and writers' interviews, the themes that are present in their narrative, and so forth. They're one of the most deeply romantic interactions in the whole show, despite never explicitly verbalizing their feelings or having any physical moments. You genuinely believe that these two immortal beings are truly affected by each other, they have incredibly complex feelings about each other, it absolutely means something special for them to reunite, and that no matter what happens, they will never entirely let go of each other. Which I think is a credit to the acting, writing, and how quickly we got that in the course of 20-30 minutes in one episode.

So yes: Dreamling IS a deeply queer and deeply romantic disruption of the source material (in a good way), and offers possibilities that have already been foreclosed or minimalized in other storylines, including in comics canon itself. They're one of the relatively few moments of sheer queer happiness, they were left open-ended and in a good place, Dream is obviously the main character of the whole series so developing a queer relationship for him is more than just what's going on in the background, and I really hope they continue to lean into this when writing/planning future seasons. Obviously, I love them and want to see more of them, but I feel Some Kinda Way about queer immortals, who can persist in all ages and eras of history, and not be consigned to just die, whether from narrative carelessness or Bury Your Gays or whatever else. There's something incredibly powerful about queer characters who literally can't be killed (also why I imprinted on Old Guard so much), and who are shown experiencing and overcoming adversity in so many different ways, and at the end of it, still choosing to keep living. I just have many feelings about that.

[mmikmmik2]

The memories in Amelia's tape are warm, vibrant, and full of life. She and Alrick loved to do "fun bonding activities". They tried new things and explored new hobbies, they played with high-tech toys, they rode duck boats or bikes. They ate sweets and wore nice clothes and decorated their home with rugs and houseplants and little trinkets.

Amelia's life as conductor is austere and solely functional. This miserable, pathetic, barren workshop was her home for three decades, and as far as we know her only interesting or challenging or novel activities were building new cars or going on outings to support the steward, ripping up people's entire worlds to steal materials for her new cars.

Putting on a colorful shirt or adding a houseplant next to her bed or taking a walk in a nice restful nature-themed car wouldn't cure her depression or end her grief for her husband. Obviously! The idea is ridiculous.

But having absolutely nothing that makes her life comfortable or fun or pleasurable, and having no goals or engaging activities other than staying alive and hurting other people in pursuit of Alrick 2, for thirty-three straight years, would make it nigh-impossible for her to stop being depressed and grieving.

When we see her in season three, Amelia is still living spartan. Other than possible emotional implications of going back to the jumpsuit and still hanging on to Alrick's voice changer (which may have practical uses, though I'm inclined to think not, given that we see her give the steward somewhat complex orders nonverbally), her loadout and behavior are completely practical and goal-oriented.

I lose it every time I think about those stupid eggs in book three. I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking it, maybe she scrounged up some giant snake eggs in that one car and was actually having fresh food. But the way she talked about "how many eggs" like she meant regular chicken eggs, and her making them for two breakfasts in a row, makes me think that it really is that a huge portion of her provisions are just comical quantities of powdered eggs. I mean, I know options are limited when you're packing for a long-term expedition like that and you can only carry so much weight, but it's so sad. She doesn't even like them, she says she's bad at cooking them!

Amelia was, and still is, choosing to live in terrible deprivation. I do think Amelia is very unhappy with herself and doesn't think of herself as truly redeemable, but I don't see this as deliberate self harm. "Don't you get it? I don't want a life without Alrick!" She can't move beyond her grief and misery, so she doesn't try to enjoy anything or create a new life rather than trying to rebuild her old one, so she can't move beyond her grief and misery. It's a vicious cycle she's actively perpetuating.

Extrapolating from this argument, I think even if Amelia is still dragging her heels and putting in the bare minimum after book three, she'll start to feel better and move on from Alrick whether she likes it or not. The things she's doing are making her talk to other people, and work on actual relationships like with Hazel and One-One even if she doesn't think of herself as having personal relationships with them, and focus on the present or even the future instead of the past, and think about problems that have actual solutions and don't inherently require her to be selfish and violent to make progress. Amelia no longer has the option to restrict her whole life to wallowing in grief. Big changes won't happen without her putting in hard work, but change is inevitable at this point.

[duplicitcus]

8/9/17/20/21 :3{

What’s the worst thing about the canon you are writing?

The absolute goddamn lack of any further lore. Like, we get the Covenant of Primus, which is literally just Alpha Trion and Optimus' baby fanfiction put together. We really don't get any detailed insights to other aspects of other cultures, and only a lot of surface details. Even with the comics and G1, there was more extrapolation there than there is in Primeverse. IDW did a magnificent job, and I would have LOVED to see them tackle that particular verse as well in the comics.

I felt like if they had- we would have gotten an amazing view into things, even if we hadn't agreed with all of it. But, no- we got a dumbass director that wanted to kill off the main cast so he could shoehorn in Beast Wars, because that's what he wanted instead of the other.

=_= So irritated at that.

Have you tweaked the character from canon? If so, what did you tweak?

Uh. Yeah. Considerably.

Soundwave is no longer in the Shadowzone, and I'm ignoring RID2015 entirely. That series, while having some good points- is... not even in my canon. (About my only plus was that it had Jazz in a semi-competent manner- but Hasbro's fucked that up twice so.) Soundwave is also back to his gladiator size, and has at least two of his symbiotes back- as opposed to Laserbeak.

Also, they have personalities again.

Are there any ships you can’t stand, why?

I have several - but I'll post the main ones here. Optimus/Starscream - The tendency to turn Starscream into a mewling idiot who needs protecting, and Optimus as the strong hero that wescues his widdle waifu from the Big Bad Abusive™ Megatron. Like, I get that's a thing- but it's a trope that's been overdone so bad that it's just... Ew. Like, if we're going to go with this angle- then let Starscream save himself. Show how bad ass he is, let him goddamn shine.

I just... having been in an abusive relationship a couple of times myself, it just rankles under my skin. And if that's your thing, go for it- but it's not for me. Just... nah, brah. Miss me with that.

Rodimus/Thunderclash- This just... I can't find the appeal in it. Just from how the characters interacted in the comics, and the way that the plotlines run? I just... I can't wrap my head around it, and usually- the plot is at the expense of really making other characters OOC for the sake of the Relationship™.

Getaway/anyone- Bruh, he's a fantastic character, and a well-done villain- but I just can't see him in a relationship.

If you could sum up your character with one sentence, what would it be?

Single father of five runs whole goddamn household of army on two cups of coffee and spite.

Which song do you feel describes your character the most and why?

You're Gonna Go Far Kid - The Offspring

:) The lyrics speak for themselves.

Just, being able to manipulate people to do what he wants by staying in the shadows.

Slowly out of line, and drifting closer in your sight So play it out, I'm wide awake, it's a scene about me There's something in your way and now someone is gonna pay And if you can't get what you want, well, it's all because of me

[chemicalpink]

Hey, I hope you are doing good this was a thing that was wondering me so there are lot of bts future spouse /soulmate/twinflame videos being made on youtube and honestly everyone is being psychic like it has become a shitshow and what was previously just for curiosity fun and entertainment are becoming extremely emotionally invested in the topic especially for maknae line soulmate it would be interesting if the can do a tarot reading or your spiritual experience why is the future spouse saga turning ugly and does universe what us to know something through it !? Because it's becoming pretty crazy right now

Okay so I believe that yes, the spiritual part has a lot to do behind this occurrence, but I also think its roots lay on psicosocial matters and honestly I could go on for days about this but I’ll try to restrict it to a few points that you’ve mentioned

Why all of a sudden everyone seems to be tarot readers/astrologers/psychic?

The capitalism behind celebrities and how does that play a part in what is going on?

Are these people accurate at all?

How does energy shifting play a part in this?

Is the soulmate journey even something a third person would be able to note?

But first a Disclaimer: this opinion/rant is based on my experience with spirituality, I am obviously a mere mortal, so I do not hold the absolute truth. Spirituality is a constant learning process and it is open to discussion and interpretation of each person. I am also now a proud sociologist graduate that specialises in a lot of the stuff that has to do with what anon is asking, I’m a social behaviouralist applied to the entertainment industry as well but I’ll also provide my resources in the end.

A/N: Some of you might not yet be ready to read all of this, if I see ANY of you trying to start beef with me, even after the disclaimer, I'm gonna block you. If you want to talk more about it or want to discuss it further, DO SO OFF ANON. ISTG you’ve been warned, I’ve been working on this for the longest time, it even has resources to back all of it up! I’m so glad anon asked, I’m done being diplomatic on this topic (I know people that usually ask stuff are so respectful and i love you guys for it, this note is for those people that regularly jump on my asks to stir things up)

You guys are in for a whole academic article if you decide to read this

SO FUN AND EXCITINGGGG Let us start with behavioural economics as our base to understand the whole phenomenon, it's such a broad and kinda complex concept (especially since I’m trying to extrapolate it to this particular scenario) so let me do my best. It has a lot to do with trend following, although at least to me, it's unclear how exactly this content came to be (soulmate readings, channeling messages, etc) I am guessing it had something to do with an intersectionality between the general spirituality boom that we’ve met with during the pandemic and some person that just as any other marketable opportunity, saw a bridge between fandom life and this spiritual life (both prominent trends in the last two years or so) and honestly, it worked perfectly, whatever their initial intentions were, they threw out a new “product” and it kind of sold itself, two different trends coming together… turned into a behavioural game theory where if you played the part that allows your content to be consumed, you’ll get rewarded for it. In more simple words, tarot meets fandoms (alternatively, tarot meets BTS) is great as it is! but the fan behaviour (which we’ll talk about in a bit) positions the most private parts of the celebrities’ lives to be much more interesting than things that we are already able to see (personal experience, love readings do so much better than idk career readings and it all comes down to behavioural trends of perceiving ‘love’ as something very intimate)

Now, this is where we’ll begin to talk about capitalism as a whole, even in non-monetary systems like social media, where it takes more of a rewarding system via likes, views, reblogs, etc. The whole principle of us living in such a system is being aspirational, we see others profiting off of something, we might want to reach out and do the same so we can profit ourselves, which honestly, I think is what happened with the whole BTS soulmate readings boom, they get a lot of attention, and as a basic market law, as demand goes up and a few people that initially did these readings are no longer capable to satisfy the need of the people wanting to know all the tea, there are market opportunities for other people to do the same thing and increase the offer, although since this whole theory is behavioural, it is very context-dependant, which ends up not following the principle of the consumers being rational about how much and what content they consume, they just sort of consume all of it, regardless of whether the content creator is qualified to offer such content or not, which ultimately only adds onto a never ending cycle of more people claiming they are tarot readers/astrologers/psychics and fear nothing because this is the internet, you don't really have to enter any qualifications to be able to create content, whether someone is reliable in internet terms is basically all about how many likes they’ve got (which is why I always tell you guys to please consume content responsible).

When it comes to accuracy- I guess that’s the hardest part of all, we can’t just have pointers that would automatically tells us if someone’s craft is valid or not, since everyone’s craft is different all craft is valid to a certain extent (you can easily find scammers of course but that’s another story) what we can have are personal standards and deciding what content to consume or whose content to consume, but that’s entirely a personal decision and since so many people are invested in it- it seems really hard that these “market tendencies” might change any time soon. On that same note of accuracy, I really feel the need to talk about a major occurrence I’ve come across in this whole soulmate scene, minors. Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a minor and approaching spirituality (I was very much a minor when I started) but there’s a huge difference between just playing around and deciding to create content for the whole world to have access to. Of course I’m aware not all tarot readers in the BTS fandom are minors, and ARMY is very diverse and even if they were only minors it would be wrong to invalidate them, but we can’t ignore the statistics of it when touching this particular topic, according to 2020 data, 50,31% of ARMY are below 18 years old, and 42,59% are between 18-29 but why is this important? because the exact historical and economic moment we are living in mainly impacts these two age groups, thus making all 92,90% of ARMY a potential target to consuming or falling in a behavioural game theory of creating this content without them necessarily being qualified for it. But hey, why do you keep talking about the importance of being qualified? Glad you asked, creating spiritual content all comes down to one amazing term: accountability.

And this will explore two main phases of it, one applicable for that 50,31% that could potentially be drawn to create spiritual content and other for the 42,59% that could potentially be dragged to creating that content without much spiritual knowledge. For the first one, it has a lot to do with cognitive aspects, young people tend to do stuff without much further thought about how their actions impact other people, which, as they should, they are kids, they shouldn’t have to worry too much about emotional responsibility as us adults do, furthermore, they are in life stages where they can’t really comprehend many abstract concepts that we later learn in life, and spirituality is one of those concepts, so they tend to just have fun with it with no regards on how their content might impact other minors (this is where the whole feeding a false scenario that is potentially delusional in exchange of more views, likes comes into play) on a more spiritual level, they also aren’t able to comprehend the boundaries of the celebrities they’re reading for, us readers have to always be careful about the information we give out since it is not ours to give. As for the second group, some of this is still applicable since theorists consider a full cognitive maturity until 23 years of age, but since it is very intersectional itself, i would found it more to a spiritual responsibility, since they are young adults, and if they haven’t been spiritually guided as kids, they’re most probably eager to learn and just awakening yet to some of them the drive to this spirituality is content creation instead of inner work, so they get their hands on a tarot deck, might kind of read a few things, call it a day and start reading for BTS (note: not all of them, I’m aware)

As for the maknae line being the most sought out people with this content, I guess it kinda makes sense now that I’ve said all of the information above, maknae line is closest to the age group of 92,90% of ARMY, so they instantly become more marketable to this content creation and the whole Game Theory that we are seeing. With all that being said, and just adding a note coming from my own spiritual experience, soulmates in any form are a difficult topic for a third person to prode, which is why I, personally, tend to not touch that topic, love is one hell of a concept, especially since we all have different conceptions of love and interpersonal relationships. I do know for a fact that there’s only so far we can go in terms of fated connections, like with astrology, but even then, we would have to know their birth times exactly (so we can check for any indicator or a soulmate connection), and/or compare BTS with the rest of the world’s population in order to accurately tell if someone has a soulmate synastry/overlay/composite with them. Also, soulmate journeys are intimate and we are all just fans, what right do we even have to look for things that do not and will never belong to us?

This is why I’m always telling you guys to PLEASE consume content responsibly! Really! Us content consumers also have our part to play that can help us get more accurate, more drama-free content

REFERENCES (what? you thought I was joking? they’re in alphabetical order)

ARMYCENSUS 2020

Loewenstein, G., O’Donoghue, T., & Rabin, M. (2003). Projection bias in predicting future utility. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(4), 1209-1248.

March, J. G. (1978). Bounded rationality, ambiguity, and the engineering of choice. The Bell Journal of Economics, 9(2), 587-608.

Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion and motivation Psychological Review, 98, 224-253.

Mazar, N., Amir, O., & Ariely, D. (2008). The dishonesty of honest people: A theory of self-concept maintenance. Journal of Marketing Research, 45(6), 633-644.

Murphy, S. T., & Zajonc, R. B. (1993). Affect, cognition, and awareness: Affective priming with optimal and suboptimal stimulus exposures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 723-729.

Samson, A., & Voyer, B. (2014). Emergency purchasing situations: Implications for consumer decision-making. Journal of Economic Psychology, 44, 21-33.

Schwartz, B. (2004). The paradox of choice: Why more is less. New York: Ecco.

Shah, A. K., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2008). Heuristics made easy: an effort-reduction framework. Psychological Bulletin, 134(2), 207-222.

Thaler, R. H. (2015). Misbehaving: The making of behavioral economics. Allen Lane.

Thaler, R. H. (2008). Mental accounting and consumer choice. Marketing Science, 27, 15-25.

Wood, W., & Neal, D. T. (2009). The habitual consumer. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 19, 579-592.

[ineffable-endearments]

Okay. Now I'm going to submit some theories about how I think Crowley and Aziraphale specifically are going to go in the future of Good Omens.

Again, this post is not really...specific theorizing about plot events. It's big-picture stuff.

With that said, this post will get a bit heavy at times, in the sense that it will contain opinions that not everyone will like. It drifted into rambling about queerbaiting and all that stuff. I'm not going to spam anyone's dashboard with drama over it, but it's very possible someone else might try. It's also not really a negative post, depending on what you want to hear, I suppose. But if you're only in the mood to read fluff today, you'll probably want to pass it up.

Oh! Also it's very long, and sexuality is discussed in a vague way that doesn't involve any story elements or body parts.

For starters, I don't think Good Omens 2 - or even 3, if that comes about - is going to have anything explicitly sexual or romantic between the two of them, where "explicit" is things like the characters giving outright definitions of their relationship or outright discussing exactly what goes on between them, either on or off-screen. I also don't think there's going to be kissing or "hooking up" (come on...that person on Twitter shouldn't have even asked). Those actions are too blatant for what Neil has already said about the series. While they technically leave some room for interpretation, they probably don't leave enough.

I DO think it's quite possible other characters will continue to define the relationship FOR them and Crowley and Aziraphale will continue to not deny it.

As far as the queerbaiting debate, "is Good Omens queerbaiting"...it's gonna depend how you define it. I always learned that queerbaiting was basically where the creators intentionally make it look like a character is gay or otherwise queer but then swap that character development out for a cis identity and hetero relationship at the end. The point is that the "bait" leads to queer audiences being actively hurt. That's the behavior that seems awful to me, and I don't see Neil and company doing that.

However, I think it's far and away the most likely option that it will be left up to interpretation whether Crowley and Aziraphale are, you know, a buddy duo or a romantic couple or some sort of ineffable queerness all their own off-screen. So if your definition of queerbaiting is "the characters seem gay to us, but homophobes can tell themselves they're not," then yes, I think that debate will follow us to our graves if we let it.

I am a cisgender, possibly straight (?? demi/bi? I might never find out) woman. There is absolutely no way I could ever tell anybody, ESPECIALLY not gay guys and nonbinary people - the people Crowley and Aziraphale tend to resemble the most - how to feel about their treatment in the story. All I can offer is that I'm one flawed individual and there are things I have the emotional capacity to handle and things I don't. Crowley and Aziraphale as both a canon construct and a fandom pairing mean an absurd amount to me, and I can't hang around in spaces where people are constantly talking about how my own interpretations of them are not enough, or how the story is written with ill intentions. I don't want to stop anybody from venting about it, but I am going to be removing myself from those situations.

I like to imagine 1990 NeilandTerry, or TerryandNeil, as a sort of two-headed God who came up with Crowley and Aziraphale, set them loose on Creation, and now are watching them get up to way more ridiculous stuff in the brains of their fans than they'd ever imagined in the first place. I like to imagine them watching, amused and bemused, as their creations fall in love in thousands of universes, and saying, "Well, we didn't specifically Plan for this, but we did promise free will."

This is psychoanalytical toward a public figure and is therefore a bit dangerous, so please take it with an entire mountain of salt, but I sometimes think perhaps Neil sees some of his and Terry's friendship in Crowley and Aziraphale, and suspect that he wants to reserve the possibility that they could be platonic because he and Terry were platonic, while at the same time leaving room for the fans to have their own interpretations, too. Because if there's one thing that comes up really frequently with Neil, it's his belief in imagination and how much stories matter to people. He can have his little corner of the universe where A and C reflect himself and Terry, and we can have...literally anything we want, as long as we're willing to extrapolate just a little bit from canon. It's not even that much extrapolation! It's just "Yes, they love each other, so what exactly does love mean to you?" and if love means kissing, well then, if we can think it, we can have it.

Given that Neil has written LGBT+ characters before, I think he has non-bigoted reasons for wanting Aziraphale and Crowley to remain undefined, and given even the small chance that those reasons may involve the grieving process for a dead friend, I believe it is unkind to argue with him about it or hold his reputation hostage over it.

With that said, do I want canon kissing/hooking up/all that stuff we put in fics? Listen, I can't deny that I do! Personally, I'd be over the moon. I'd probably be so happy I'd have to go to the hospital to get sorted out. Even the thought of it makes me giddy and light-headed, because that physicality is a part of my own experience of love.

However, there are a lot of people who would feel left behind if that happened. Ace and aro people in the fandom whose love for their friends and partners is just as strong as mine, but who are sex-repulsed or just don't want to see kissing on-screen. The loss of Crowley and Aziraphale as a pairing who are extremely easy to interpret as queerplatonic would be hurtful to them, and I do not want to see them hurt like that. I don't think Neil does, either.

So, once again, the "best for everyone" option becomes a really strong canon relationship based in both narrative function and profound affection, which has genuinely thoughtful queer undertones and leaves open the logical possibility for romantic or sexual encounters but does not insist that they must happen. People, especially fans who are super invested, tend to have an easier time imagining scenarios that take place off-screen (e.g. kissing, sex) than they have erasing scenarios that they've already seen in canon (e.g., if someone wished they could continue viewing it as an ace relationship but they were shown "hooking up"). Also, while relationships are super emotional and extremely subjective, I'd argue that in a long-term adult partnership, the non-sexual connection is more important than the sexual one. As a fan, I'd prefer to extrapolate "they love each other so maybe they'd have sex" rather than "they're sexually attracted to each other so maybe they'll intertwine their whole existences together."

It probably isn't necessary to add, but I will anyway: I'm aware that Good Omens is sort of sacrificing social leverage - the ability to whack homophobes over the head with canon if they try to deny the show's queerness - and is thus not really contributing to making specifically gay relationships more widely seen and accepted. However, I don't think all stories have to invest heavily in every social issue they touch on for them to still be meaningful. I also do think Good Omens is an excellent example of a relationship that is extremely profound without being heteronormative.

I don't think the next season is going to be a rom-com. It will likely not even be a "love story," where the definition of "love story" is "a story that follows the development of a relationship and employs certain plot beats to make its point." Remember that conflicts and breakups are key to love stories, so if it IS a love story, then we're going to have to watch the relationship get challenged in ways some of us might have thought were already resolved in season 1! And while that could be thrilling and ultimately very good, it would also be likely to undercut some of the careful headcanoning and analysis we've already done. Any sequel is going to do that to some degree, but a second love story would probably do it a lot, with interpretations that people are even more protective of.

I'm sort of thinking the next season is likely to be a fantasy-heavy mystery, only because those are the two concepts Neil's introduction led with - an angel with amnesia who presents Crowley and Aziraphale with a mystery. Crowley and Aziraphale's connection to each other can still absolutely be a major theme! It can still be the thread stitching the plot together! It just probably, in my opinion, won't escalate and escalate and escalate like it did in season 1. And it will probably be woven in there among a lot of other plot threads that are, in many moments, louder. Still, I'd love to be left with the impression of these two existences, the light and the dark, subtly becoming more intimate, subtly growing more comfortable in this shared place they've chosen in the universe, gradually starting to behave like they know they aren't alone in the world anymore, all while other things happen to and around them.

Nonsexual physical intimacy - a really great hug, or leaning together on the sofa, or a forehead touch, or something like those, something that could happen in a lot of different kinds of relationships but is undoubtedly based in deep trust and affection and a desire to be close...that's the dream, for me. Oh, how lovely it would be.

Of course, I could be just absolutely, embarrassingly wrong about all this. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

[genshin-djinn]

Genshin Impact Chapter 1 Act 3: A Reaction.

Chapter 1 Act 3 is what took my experience with this game from “good game” to “masterpiece”.

THIS POST CONTAINS MANY, MANY SPOILERS FOR GENSHIN IMPACT CHAPTER 1: ACT 3

Genshin Impact has some problems— actually, it has a shit ton of problems. But during the fight against hordes of Fatui, with the Adepti channeling their abilities through my gang, flying through them as Oz, decimating them with Diluc— I just thought, this is the best time I’ve had in a mobile game in my life.

This game might not be perfect now— it’s only a quarter of the way done if we’re counting Karenri’ah. But it will be a fucking masterpiece once it’s all out. If this is the level of quality we’re getting for our archon quests, this game is going to be an amazing time on story alone.

KEQING

I love Keqing with all my heart. If she were alive today she would be a socialist here to topple the ruling 1%. When ningguang asked Aether who they trusted more, her or Keqing, I hit the Keqing button as fast as possible.

I think one of my favorite things about Keqing is that she’s so completely honest, which is unusual for a Liyue politician. If she doesn’t like something, she’ll speak out against it. If she thinks something else should be happening, she’ll make it happen. She can probably be deceitful at times, but in general she’s straightforwards in that she wants a government for the people and by the people.

I can’t wait for her story quest!

NINGGUANG

pretty.... voice pretty....

Ningguang is cool. Her JP voice is very pretty, like she could do ASMR videos online or smth. One thing I decidedly did not like about Ningguang is how her personality just ???? flips? In the middle of the quest, for no reason other than “because plot”.

It’s established that Ningguang cares about two things more than anything— the Jade palace and Mora. Why, then, would she destroy the Jade palace for the sake of Liyue? I get that she’s a good person at heart at all, but I want to see more of her indecision, her brain saying “mora” and her heart saying “Liyue”. The way she just flips on a dime isn’t really strange but it does contradict with her preexisting characterization.

Childe’s Boss Fight!

The section of this quest from Childe’s fight to the Adepti + Qixing battle is just nonstop adrenaline.

Childe is IMO a lot more fun than Dvalin (sorry Dvalin). I’m at WL5 and have a tendency to play fast and loose with important mechanics like.... dodging, for example.... and Childe’s Mask Electro form ended up destroying my team. I killed him with Guoba because everyone else besides Xiangling was dead. I

Another thing I really enjoy about Childe’s boss fight is that in the irrationalities of Childe as a character, it actually makes sense. Genshin is decent at making weekly bosses logical excursions— Andrius wants you to get stronger, Dvalin’s weekly fight is ~~all a dream~~; but tbh sometimes the weekly bosses don’t make sense. Andrius wants to train us, not murder us! How does dvalin, a dream slash memory that doesn’t exist, manage to knock someone out?

Childe as a weekly boss actually makes perfect sense. He’s an adrenaline junkie addicted to the thrill of fighting people— to put this in modern AU terms, he’s the guy who’s first in line to ride the rollercoaster that failed all of its health and safety checks. Childe wants to befriend the Traveler entirely because they’re stronger than him, so that he can fight them over and over again until he’s the strongest. Of course, this will never happen, because the Traveler is the MC and therefore is stronger than all others. However, in this way Childe being a repeatable boss makes 100% perfect sense— he actually wants to fight the Traveler again and again and again.

The one question I have about Childe is how in the living feck are the Fatui letting him join the Traveler and fight for them *against the Fatui*??? I think this might be touched on in Childe’s Story quest, which I’ll do in a bit, but like????? They let him keep his delusion and just walk over to Aether like “aight fam I’m on your team now”? How?

Jade Chamber/ Guizhong Ballista vs Sea Monster Fight!!

Basically, all my charged adrenaline from nearly dying to Childe just came to a head in this one huge fantastic fight.

And Xiao :)

I absolutely loved seeing the Adepti and the Qixing work together. This fight was probably my favorite fight in the whole game— the music was amazing (soundtrack where), the graphics were so nice, the adepti were so feckin cool, using everyone’s abilities was n I ce. My adrenaline was reaching its highest point at this fight and it was just perfect. It was just so fecking fun after days of WL5 pain, having to pop like five ultimates to kill one hillichurl, to be able to just demolish swathes of enemies with Fischl and Diluc, run around like a madman thanks to Xiao, have infinite health idr who did that for me but bless them, just absolutely destroy.

Ever since I hit WL5 I haven’t been able to really just go insane during a fight and stop caring about HP/ when to use skills/ dodging and this have me that opportunity.

Zhongli’s Deal

*punches Zhongli across the room with the power of being the player character* I love this man so much.

Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli. I AM VERY ANGRY AT HOW THE PLOT RESOLVED HIS STORYLINE. But it also makes a lot of sense. And I think, for once, Zhongli should be allowed to be selfish.

Because choosing to leave Liyue was a bit selfish. He’s leaving the country that adores him, loves him, gives him shit for free; to its own devices and then to a completely unknown fate once the new Geo Archon becomes god and takes over. But he made a frankly fantastic plan and can now leave the country, for now, in peace.

I was absolutely delighted to see Zhongli in Morax form. Making deals with La Signora, being a complete and utter puppet master who set this entire situation up and played Childe like a kazoo; but just like his dear friend Venti, I think Zhongli is happier when he’s just Zhongli, the eccentric mortal. He seems so much happier and so much more relaxed when he’s forgetting about mora and eating dinner with Aether and Paimon. Rex Lapis might have just put Liyue through the wringer, but he can now put down his 3000- year long reign and just be the happy, eccentric Zhongli.

Zhongli’s little bit of insecurity over being a “bourgeois parasite” makes perfect sense now— he doesn’t want to be seen as Morax, a superfluous god who’s using his name to get whatever he wants from the humans he watches over.

But also the part of my brain that feeds off lore nEEDS to KNOW what Zhongli got from Tsaritsa. What could be worth a gnosis? His own happiness isn’t enough— Tsaritsa is likely going to use his gnosis to try and destroy Liyue. What could be worth that?

My main thought would be either “someone’s protection” or “another gnosis”, but I don’t think the latter is possible. The former could be possible but doesn’t really make sense either— a) whose protection is worth putting an entire country, much less the world, in danger and b) the Fatui are out to kill everyone who isn’t Fatui, so they won’t agree to spare a major player in the war to come like that. Brain go brrr.

I’m very hyped for Zhongli’s story quest, which I think is coming with his banner on Dec 1, when Childe’s banner ends. I really hope that Zhongli visits Mondstadt and chills with Venti for a while, but anything with this guy would be fine lol.

LORE

We got a lot of lore this update and I am delighted by it.

Firstly, we get a tiny hint of how Visions are bestowed— “if a person shows true strength of will at a desperate and fateful moment in their life, the gods will look upon them with favor.” Vague but more than we had before.

Next we got some neat lore about Inazuma— firstly, that it’s led by a god named Baal and secondly that it steals everyone’s visions. I’m very hyped to visit because guess what fam aether doesn’t have a vision.

Final Thoughts

In case you can’t tell from my insane ramblings, I loved Chapter 1 Act 3 and I absolutely cannot wait to play through Childe’s story quest and Chapter 2 and beyond.

The Prologue in Mondstadt set the stage for Genshin. We started out in a fantasy environment with a fantasy tale of an immortal bard and a dragon. Mondstadt was an excellent introduction to the world of Genshin.

And now? We’re starting to build on that. Chapter 1 brings us another story of another god and their relationship with the country they watch over. Liyue is much less of a traditional fantasy setting and takes the darkness we saw in Mondstadt— a friendship ruined by manipulation and suffering— and build on it. Now we don’t just see the Fatui more often but we also see more of the Treasure Hoarders and the way both groups kidnap and experiment on humans.

Mond started to introduce us to the Fatui, but Liyue is where they really start bringing continuous plot relevance. Inversely, we saw much more of the Abyss Order in Mondstadt than we did in Liyue. I’m extremely disappointed we didn’t see any more of the Princess this chapter, but it makes sense given that Chapter 1 was really more about the Fatui than the Abyss Order.

All I’m trying to say is the Liyue arc was an excellent continuation to the stage Mondstadt’s arc set. Now, we’re on to the world of the Eternal Shogun, Baal! I’m really excited to meet new characters and experience new stories of Inazuma, but I hope we’ll continue to see Mondstadt and Liyue in the future. Mondstadt is likely going to be the most “boring” of the countries we experience, cuz it’s just so classically fantasy- themed, but it will always be the first country we explored in this world.

After Inazuma (if I had to take a shot in the dark, inazuma’s arc will take from December 23 to maybe March or April) we’ll go to Sumeru, which I am really extremely hyped for because it sounds extremely different from Mond and Liyue and we’ll meet Cyno and possibly even Collei! (just me extrapolating lol). I can’t wait to see where Genshin Impact goes story- wise, because its first major update has brought so much to the table.

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[justice4sasuke]

Sorry to be sending you more opinions but there was something you said a little while ago that I just couldn’t get out of my head so here we go; you said, “you don’t have to forgive your abuser, but you can if you want.” And I agree with that sentiment 100%. I’ve been in the position of needing to decide which option to go with in the past, or should I say I haven’t actually decided yet because there can be SO much nuance involved in making that call. Sometimes it’s very simple, sometimes it’s anything but. And there’s no moral right or wrong answer, it’s about picking which option is healthier for you personally. Neither option makes you weak or strong, righteous or in the wrong (1/3)

Now that being said, I am painfully conscious of the fact that the narrative of, “forgiving your abuser makes you a good/kind/better person or whatever,” is pushed the absolute hardest in children’s and YA media, more than any other circle of media. It’s incredible how much and how often this is the only option presented to kids. I see this in shounen manga especially. And there’s a really famous example of an American children’s cartoon that does this which I could name but I won’t. I recognize that shounen does this a lot because WSJ has a sort of on the down low comic’s code thing going on (2/3)

And if Sasuke were real, I’d have no problem with him making the decision to forgive Itachi. And I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t make sense character or story wise for him to do so. Hell, if I were in his position I might even make the same choice (then again I might not. I can only compare my experiences to his, but I can’t know them). Anyways I get it. But I also know, deep deep down in my traumatized bones, that a major reason why Kishimoto makes this decision FOR Sasuke as a character, is because it’s part of his crusade against the concept of “~hAtReD~” as it presents itself in victims. The only person who gives Sasuke permission to be hurt and angry EVER is Itachi (if I’m remembering the climax of this arc correctly), and I think that’s super important. And it makes perfect sense that Sasuke’s decision in response is to actually forgive him. But I also KNOW that he’s not allowed to choose otherwise. This is a big hand of the author moment imo (2/3) (p.s. you can wait however long you want to respond to this I don’t mind and I don’t want to overwhelm you especially when this could be more relevant later)

I’m always a proponent of recognizing WHY authors make the decisions they do, but I’m not sure it matters much when it comes to Sasuke’s decision to forgive Itachi. 

First I’ll say I find it very hard to parse what Kishimoto actually thinks or feels about anything. This could be because I do not know or speak Japanese or because I don’t seek out content that involves Kishimoto talking about his work. But then again I don’t go looking for author interviews a lot, but I’ve still managed to absorb some information that makes me feel like I know a bit more about the authors. Oda the author of One Piece does multiple Question Corners in each volume of the manga when it comes out that really gives you a feel for who he is as an artist and person and what he thinks. Araki the author of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure has ever-changing interests and those interests bleed through in his work (a moment where that occurred to me that I found particularly amusing was at the end of one of the part 4 volumes Araki says he got a cat encyclopedia and that or the next volume then has a lot of drawings of cats and explanations about their behavior so you’re like well Araki I can tell). Or even a series I don’t even like because it’s miserable like Attack on Titan I’ve absorbed enough through cultural osmosis to know the author has said enough war crime apologist shit that the fascist wet dream that he portrays is intentional. 

But Kishimoto...I don’t know what he thinks if I’m honest. Does he really resent people with natural talent for things? Does he think everything bad is just hatred and we need to forgive to get over it? Does he think the state is more important than any person or group of people? You could make these assertions based on his writing maybe but Kishimoto’s writing is so flimsy and so many things change throughout the course of Naruto’s story I would just as soon believe every statement he makes about worldview is an accident. In fact Naruto’s blandness and unrelenting stereotypical shounen characteristic of never giving up could lead me to believe there is no heart in his writing whatsoever. Or hell, the end! Where all the main kid characters end up together as much as possible when you follow a two boys one girl rule and are bound by heteronormativity. None of the pairings had an ounce of heart behind them and some of them were fucking /jokes/ (Shikmaru and Temari maybe had a drop of heart to it based on things that happened in part 1 only). I don’t feel I can say Kishimoto’s opinions come through on anything he writes if he’s going to be so careless with what he does. (Yes, I know there is an argument for him being wrung dry by the manga making machine at the end, but that goes along with my point: does Kishimoto intend anything he writes).

All of that up there is leading into a point, but let me get part two out first. I don’t know if I fully agree with your take because forgiving Itachi isn’t what makes Sasuke “good” in the eyes of the narrative. Sasuke forgiving Itachi is important in terms of how we talk about their relationship but in the eyes of the narrative it is a foregone conclusion. There is some anger and resentment still after Sasuke learns the truth about Itachi, but there’s also still a ton of love and hero-worship there. By the time Itachi says “you should choose your own path” and “no matter what you do from now on I’ll always love you”, Sasuke’s forgiveness has already been granted and after that Sasuke’s journey is more about trying to reconcile his world view. And after Sasuke resurrects the hokages and gets the love story of the ages learns about the founding of Konoha, in true Kishimoto fashion, it seems like Sasuke is going to be a “good” guy now only to have him doing things that seem “evil” during the war and then after Kaguya is defeated he lays out his revolution plan which the manga views as “evil”. Kishimoto puts so little emphasis on forgiveness and explicitly keeps Sasuke in the “wrong” until the end of the manga so I don’t think anyone is expected or intended to see forgiveness as the way to be better. I think we kind of reverse engineer the forgiveness topic by bringing up the point of Sasuke possibly not forgiving Itachi when that’s not even a question in the manga. 

This brings us back to Kishimoto’s thoughts and intentions because is the fact that forgiveness or not is not even considered an author conscious decision, that forgiveness is the right choice? Or was forgiveness just the obvious choice because how Sasuke’s character was built out? I don’t think any of us can say because like I said above I think Kishimoto’s actual feelings and goals with his work are hard to pin down. 

Also I know this whole blog is about extrapolating and looking outside the framing, but one of the manga’s biggest faults it how is railroads you into what you’re “supposed” to feel and you only don’t feel that way if you give what you’re reading a second thought. And we’re not being railroaded into “Sasuke forgives Itachi so he’s better now”. We’re railroaded into “Sasuke needs to learn more about ninja world” which railroads into “Sasuke is going to help in the war but uh oh is he still bad guy??”. Like once again forgiveness isn’t even a topic of thought in this manga.

I guess I spent over an hour thinking and writing this to say I think the notion that Sasuke is being made to forgive Itachi is so out of the realm of intention or what the point of Itachi and Sasuke’s relationship is I’m going to Death of the Author it and say I think Sasuke chooses to forgive Itachi and that’s his choice. Thinking about whether Sasuke HAD to forgive Itachi because the author wanted it that way is missing the point. But that’s not to say we can’t discuss the implications of choosing forgiveness towards abusers in media, just that I think that is entirely outside the realm of the author’s thinking (with my above caveat that I have no idea what Kishimoto feels about anything). And I think these conversations aren’t really coming out because of the manga, but because of how we are thinking about the manga which is already outside Kishimoto’s intention. I mean I think Sasuke is right so obviously I’m outside Kishimoto’s intention based on his framing. 

Side note in regards to rules at WSJ I hear about shit people aren’t allowed to do there and no doubt there are rules but I’m very 🤔 about what are they really because Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure got very violent even in its shounen jump days and this isn’t about /abuse/ exactly but One Piece did have a character that couldn’t forgive their oppressors and wasn’t demonized for it and was treated with understanding. So I’m wondering what exactly these rules are supposed to be.

[hiccanna-tidbits]

5, 6, 7 & 8 for OTP asks with Hiccanna!!

HELL YEAH BRO

Soulmate AU: Who is eager to meet their soulmate? Who absolutely does not want to meet their soulmate?

Anna, hopeless romantic and “true love” fanatic that she is, is incredibly down to meet her soulmate. One of her biggest fears is being inherently unlovable and that no one will ever love her for who she is (parents dying and sister shunning you has to leave some abandonment issues babyyyy), so she takes a lot of comfort in the idea of a soulmate--at least one person is basically certain to love her, right?

Hiccup, meanwhile, is apathetic at best and annoyed by the idea of a higher power dictating who his girlfriend is at worst. Unlike Anna, he doesn’t really fear no one will ever really love him for who he is--rather, he just accepts it as fact. Growing up with no friends and an emotionally-distant father, Hiccup came to believe that he was never going to feel the kind of deep, boundless love he’d seen between other people--and he made his peace with it. Being a more introverted scientist and inventor-type, Hiccup tends to spend a lot of time alone anyways and believes (maybe not fully accurately) that he prefers it that way. Besides, the logician in him thinks the whole “magic cosmic soulmate” thing is probably bullshit, and he just can’t figure out how something like soulmates could ever be backed or supported by modern science. Ultimately, Hiccup figures he’s going to date who he’s going to date (if he can even find any girls who are interested, that is), and he really couldn’t care less what the stars have to say about it.

When Hiccup and Anna do finally meet, and eventually start dating (knowing how shy and awkward they’d both be about confessing, it would take months to years after them meeting to actually get together, even in a goddamn soulmate AU), it isn’t revealed that they’re soulmates right away. Maybe it’s revealed by their hearts glowing a certain color when they first realize they’re in love with the other person? Idk. 

When Anna finds out they’re soulmates, she’s absolutely stoked. Like the girl probably runs around their home for a solid 15 minutes planning a soulmate reveal party or something. Hiccup, meanwhile, is just kind of like “Oh! Neat!” and then immediately goes back to whatever he was doing XD

Anna is a bit hurt that Hiccup is so, ah...unconcerned about them being literally destined to be together. She’s mainly worried that it means that he doesn’t like...cherish their connection enough and whatnot. After he picks up on the fact that she’s kind of upset about his definitive lack of a strong reaction to the whole thing, he explains to her that he didn’t really care because he’d 100% date Anna whether or not she was his soulmate. Saying their souls were deeply connected was basically just putting a formal title on what he already knew.

And Anna has to take a minute, because honestly? Hiccup confidently saying he’d be with her in any reality, even one where he risks angering cosmic forces to do so, is actually much more romantic than them being supposedly “fated for each other” since the beginning.

Single parent AU: Which one is the single parent? (Alt. if they’re both single parents: Which one is open to starting a new relationship from the start? Which one is never planning on finding love again… Until they meet the other and are instantly smitten?)

I think I’ll have Zephyr and Nuffink be the single parent kids because I Just Think They’re Neat! That, and I honestly can’t bear to make lovechildren for Anna with anyone but Hiccup XD (those of you who know me will know making Krist/anna lovechildren in any context is RIGHT OUT).

So in this AU things didn’t work out with Astrid and Hiccup is pretty heartbroken over it :( I imagine she ultimately left him because she wasn’t really feeling the spark anymore, and they have joint custody of the kids. Meanwhile, Hiccup and Anna were neighbors growing up, and were pretty close friends as kids until Anna moved away and they lost touch. She eventually comes back to their hometown as an adult, and she and Hiccup reconnect. They’re also both like “ah shit, my old buddy got HOT” XD

I actually think Anna and Zephyr would really hit it off, mainly because Anna sees a lot of what she loves the most about Hiccup in Zephyr. Zephyr has Hiccup’s anxiety, cynicism, inventive streak, overall social awkwardness--and because Anna knows Hiccup so well and knows how to best accommodate all of his quirks and oddities, it’s not hard for her to extrapolate how best to befriend a younger version of him XD Zephyr, meanwhile, has had trouble befriending kids her age due to her bluntness and general “nerdiness,” so she’s always happy to find someone who accepts her unconditionally and takes a genuine interest in her wacky inventions--even if it’s her dad’s new girlfriend, who by all accounts should be a weird person for her to get close to XD Zephyr also devours science books like they’re going out of style, and is very pleased that Anna is more than happy to listen to her ramble on and on about random science trivia. Zeph still loves her biological mom, for sure, but she starts thinking of Anna as a second mom. She brags to all the kids at school that she has two moms, which leaves them very confused and wondering if Astrid ended up marrying another woman after she divorced Hiccup (which, to be fair, wouldn’t be entirely out of character).

Nuffink, meanwhile, is a little more unsure about the whole situation, if mainly because I headcanon him as a bit of a mama’s boy. He doesn’t dislike Anna so much as he’s just...wary of her, and doesn’t know how to feel about his dad falling in love with someone who isn’t his mom. He also can’t help but feel out-of-place when he, Zephyr, Hiccup, and Anna go out on “family outings” because he kind of looks like he doesn’t belong. With her reddish-brown hair, her blue eyes, her aundance of freckles, and her fondness for wearing twin braids, Zephyr could definitely pass as Anna’s daughter (I’ve even seen Anna used as an older version of Zephyr in video edits, which is hilariously ironic). Although Nuffink has his dad’s eyes, he very much has his biological mom’s hair and doesn’t look like he’s related to Anna at all.

I think what helps them finally bond is that they both have a love of combat! Nuffink definitely does some kind of martial arts or fencing training if he can access it, and Anna is more than happy to teach him some swordplay and spar with him if he wants! Because Sword Anna is best Anna, fight me. Nuffink is also open-minded enough that hey, if his cool big sister likes someone that much, she can’t be that bad. Hiccup is just...continually super impressed with how much Anna knows about fighting--and it makes him fall all the more in love with her, because he loves that in a woman XD Once Nuffink warms up to Anna, he’s constantly trying to impress her ith how tough he is--mostly shown by him ramming his head into walls. Poor Anna worries about Nuffink a lot XD

I imagine there’s a little bit of tension between Anna and Astrid in this AU. Not really because Astrid resents Hiccup moving on--she’s actually pretty happy for Hiccup that he found someone better suited for him than her--but more because she worries Anna is trying to replace her as the kids’ “true mom” XD Anna, meanwhile, can’t help but resent Astrid a little for breaking Hiccup’s heart and doesn’t get why they kids can’t just have two moms! The more people who love them, the better, right???

I don’t imagine Anna and Hiccup having any biological kids in this AU, because I think two stepkids would be plenty for Anna! Of course, since Zephyr and Nuffink are Hiccup’s, she loves them with all her being and tries to be the best stepmom she can be. But I think having more than two kids would stress Anna’s ADHD ass the fuck out, and she doesn’t strike me as the sort of person who would feel a need to have biological kids with Hiccup if she already had Nuffink and Zephyr to parent. Our girl is perfectly happy adopting!

Doctor AU: Which one is the longsuffering doctor? Which one is the patient?

Hiccup is the long-suffering doctor, although not entirely by choice. Often he wonders if being a doctor is actually what he wanted, but his dad was like “WELL SON! YOU’RE SMART, SO YOU GOTTA BE A DOCTOR SO YOU MAKE BIG BUCKS!” (I’m headcanoning in this AU Stoick is a professional athlete of some kind, and has made BANK since he was young. He can’t really conceive of his son NOT pursuing a well-paid profession). Hiccup doesn’t really want to disappoint his rather intimidating dad, so he goes along with it.

It’s not that he dislikes it, when all is said and done. He does care about people and wants to help them, although he hides it underneath about 10 layers of snark. Still, it’s stressful and thankless work, and often he worries about whether he took the right path. Too late to pursue something else now, he supposes.

Then he meets Anna, rushed to the ICU with a collection of third-degree electrical burns. She tried to plug all of her Christmas light strings into the same power strip, and uh...it did not go well. Hiccup is there monitoring her vitals when she wakes up, and she just kind of wearily sighs and admits to him that living on her own wasn’t nearly as fun or exciting as she thought it would be. As it turned out, Anna had insisted she could be trusted with putting up her apartment’s holiday decorations, and she very much should not have been.

Anna ends up having to stay a couple weeks. She needs a small skin graft (yeah, she fucked herself up THAT bad), and then needs a bit of time for the surgery wounds to heal. Hiccup is assigned to do checkups on her regularly, and starts to look forward to it. Her perky disposition (despite being stuck in the hospital with burn wounds) is contagious, and she never fails to make him laugh after a long, draining shift. As stressful as his job is, Anna becomes his one respite.

He has to admit, it’s nice to have at least one thing to look forward to.

Hiccup is a little sad to see Anna go. Of course, bumbling, socially awkward foot-in-mouth fool that he is, he doesn’t have the courage to ask for her number so they can keep in touch. That would, uh...probably be unprofessional or something. Besides, it would probably crush his heart and soul if she was weirded out by his soft spot for her so like...maybe best not to even open himself up to the possibility.

Then, not two weeks later, Anna shows up at the hospital again--this time having broken three bones in a hiking accident. Apparently she got too excited about a particularly nice view, and toppled right off the top of a very steep bluff. He, once again, takes on her care, and is delighted (albeit guiltily) to have her back. He, once again, has something to make work not suck as much!

Oddly enough, this turns out to be the first of many hiking accidents. Anna comes in next month claiming to have nearly burned her arm off in a rogue campfire, and then again the next month claiming to have been mauled by a bear (although Hiccup is pretty sure those bleeding gashes were just left by a very big dog, and Anna is too embarrassed to admit it). Odder still, Hiccup distinctly remembers talking to Anna during her first hospital stay about how much he loved hiking and the outdoors, and now all of her new string of injuries just happen to be hiking-related. He can’t help but be baffled about how her insurance even covers all of this, but apparently having a family lineage distantly related to Norwegian royalty has its perks.

On roughly her 7th hospital stay, Hiccup finally gathers up the courage to ask Anna for her number, if only because he figures it would be nice for them to see each other without Anna having to nearly get herself killed first every time XD

Bodyguard AU: Who is the bodyguard? Who are they protecting? Which one is secretly pining for the other?

OMIGOD SO

I HAD AN IDEA FOR THIS

What if Anna was sent to bodyguard Hiccup in an AU where Arendelle is a lot more militaristic???

Basically what I'm thinking is that this is in an alternate timeline, Hiccup didn't injure Toothless's tail when he shot him down. The beginning of HTTYD plays out the same, but Toothless can still fly and just yeets off after Hiccup frees him, supposedly never to be seen again. However, this still leads Hiccup to believe he may not be dragon-fighting material after all. The poor boy still yearns to find a way to prove his worth to Berk, though.

As Hiccup gets older, his strength doesn't really improve, and it becomes clear to Stoick that he's always going to be pretty scrawny. Because of this, he's hesitant to put Hiccup in dragon training for the sake of his son's own safety--and hey, Hiccup seems to have lost interest in dragon-fighting anyhow, so it's not like Hiccup will fight him on it. Nonetheless, the dragon raids are getting worse, and Stoick worries about Hiccup being able to protect himself at all. Knowing most of the older villagers are busy with dragon-fighting and other jobs, and honestly doubting any of the village's teenagers would protect Hiccup if push came to shove, Stoick sends out an appeal of sorts to neighboring villages and kingdoms requesting a bodyguard for his skinny disaster of a son.

Back in Arendelle, shut-in princess Anna is surprised yet intrigued when a messenger from the Viking village of Berk shows up at Elsa's coronation. In a timeline where Hans and Anna don’t have their chance encounter, Hans sets his wooing sights on the newly-crowned Queen Elsa (and fails), and no push ends up being strong enough to make Elsa lose control of her powers at the ceremony. Anna, however, still feels hurt by her sister’s seemingly reasonless rebuke earlier in the evening and finds herself aching to explore the world outside her castle and be close with someone--anyone--again.

When the Viking messenger requests a bodyguard for the Chief of Berk’s son, Anna is quick to volunteer. The messenger scoffs at first, but to his surprise, the soft-looking princess isn’t entirely unqualified. She filled many of her long, empty childhood hours training with the Arendelle guard, and her swordplay is admirable. To prove her worth, Anna faces off with one of the Berkian warriors in a duel--and holds her own shockingly well. While Queen Elsa is hesitant to let her sister run off to a faraway nation, Anna vehemently insists that Arendelle doesn’t need two monarchs, and this will be great for diplomatic relations in the long run. Of course, she also longs to explore and get away from the place she’s been trapped her entire life, but Elsa doesn’t need to know that part.

When Anna arrives in Arendelle, Hiccup has absolutely no idea what to make of his new bodyguard. On the one hand, a girl who’s good with a sword is hot, and he’s long since given up on Astrid anyways. On the other hand, Hiccup is definitely irked that his dad sees him as so weak and incapable that he’s the only Viking in the village who needs a full-on bodyguard, and he hates feeling like he’s being babied and coddled (not that this is Anna’s fault). Still, his bodyguard is essentially the only person who’s ever seemed to actually want to be friends with him in...well, his whole life, and honestly? He’ll take it.

Anna, meanwhile, still aching for love and connections of really any kind, is nigh-instantly smitten. His brains, his creativity, his constant snide jokes, his snark-coated good heart, his weird, messy hairdo--all of it has an 18-year-old Anna completely over the moon. Hiccup, feeling hopeless in the world of romance after being rejected by Astrid, is honestly just relieved to finally have a friend--to the point that it doesn’t even occur to him that Anna’s a girlfriend option.

Not long after she arrives in Berk, Anna is put into dragon training to prepare for raids. She does a bit of training of her own with Hiccup, teaching him some swordplay to try and boost his confidence. It’s not hard to tell that he has mixed feelings about having to have a protector, and Anna hopes that by teaching him some basic fighting skills he can at least feel a little better if he’s ever in a situation where she isn’t there to defend him.

As she gets deeper into her dragon training, Anna asks Hiccup why he never gave dragon training a go. Granted, him being as physically small as he is would be a disadvantage, but he could still learn to hold his own decently well using speed and stealth. It would help him be able to protect himself, if nothing else. Hiccup seems very reluctant to talk about the whole subject, but he says Anna needs to trust that he knows he can’t kill dragons. He tends to give the shortest answers possible to her questions, and nigh-instantly changes the subject. When Anna presses too much, he gets snippy.

As they get closer, Hiccup finally opens up to Anna about the time he shot down a Night Fury and couldn’t bring himself to make the final kill. He admits to cutting the creature free, and how the dragon nearly killed him--only to spare Hiccup just as Hiccup had spared him. “I saw more than just a ruthless killer when I looked into that dragon’s eye,” Hiccup tells her. “I saw myself. I think there’s so much more to them than anyone knows, but...you’re the only person I feel like would actually give me the benefit of the doubt on that.”

During the next raid, Anna pays closer attention to the dragons than before. She watches how they interact with the villagers, and notice that they never seem to go out of their way to go after people. They only fight Vikings when Vikings initiate, and the dragons’ main concern always seems to be taking sheep and fish. Left to their own devices, they don’t seem to want to hurt anyone.

Unfortunately, Anna standing off to the side and trying to watch what all the dragons are doing leaves her distracted--and vulnerable. She’s not prepared for a camouflaged changewing to melt out of the wall behind her, whipping around and backing her into a corner. Anna grabs for her sword but can hardly move, frozen in terror as the massive dragon stares her down.

She holds up an arm, bracing herself for a wall of fire, but none comes. There’s a swish of wings and a gust of wind blows her back. When she looks up, the dragon is gone.

It would’ve been beyond easy for the dragon to kill her. The creature clearly saw her--could have taken advantage in her moment of frozen stupor and burned her to a crisp. And yet...the dragon spared her. Just like the Night Fury had spared Hiccup.

Anna realizes Hiccup might be onto something.

Together, Hiccup and Anna decide they’re going to get to the bottom of what dragons are really like--and why they’re stealing the village’s food. While claiming to go out for “battle practice,” Hiccup and Anna track down dragons and study them in secret--observing them, writing about them, seeing how they behave and how they interact with one another. They’re surprised by what they see: left to their own devices, dragons are good-natured and compassionate, and they take care of their own. Strangely, they never seem to feed the stolen food to their young. Hiccup predicts they’re not actually keeping it for themselves, and taking it somewhere nigh unreachable for humans. For what actual purpose is anyone’s guess.

Anna starts using the info she gathers observing dragons with Hiccup in dragon-training. She finds ways to sooth them and calm them down in the ring by using things they seem to enjoy in the wild. Scented grass, bits of fish, soft touches, slow, gentle movements. The village marvels at her newfound skills, and can’t help but wonder where she developed such a knack for controlling dragons despite spending basically all her time around “Stoick’s little runt.” She couldn’t be training with him, of all people...could she? Astrid, for one, is definitely none too pleased about her spot at the top of the class being threatened.

Meanwhile, Anna and Hiccup can’t help but grow fond of the dragons they watch. They start becoming more bold, and leaving snacks of trout and mutton for the scaled creatures. Anna is delighted when the food ends up attracting none other than what she’s pretty sure is the same changewing who spared her, as well as a curious snaptrapper. She’s never gotten to see a snaptrapper up close before, and is completely undeterred by the triple-jawed four heads. Rather, she is far more preoccupied with coming up with the perfect name for each head.

“Omigod, he’s so PRETTY! And he smells like CHOCOLATE!”

“...you know they probably emit that scent to lure in prey so they can slice it in three, right?”

“CHOCOLATE, HICCUP!!!”

With each new meal, the local dragons grow more and more comfortable with Hiccup and Anna. After a while, the changewing and the snaptrapper even let Anna touch their noses. Anna falls in love with watching the changewing seem to melt around the forest as she camouflages, and rolling in the mud with the snaptrapper after a summer storm. Hiccup starts catching what seems to be glimpses of the Night Fury he freed, and it appears that the curious creature has come back to investigate him.

The Night Fury appears more and more, drawn in by Hiccup’s trout feast. Hiccup notices the dragon’s wing is injured, likely shot by someone from the village. Although he’s not completely helpless, he’s having trouble. Hiccup sets to work on his most daring project yet--making a “brace” of sorts that can mend the ripped wing.

When Hiccup and Anna attempt to distract the Night Fury long enough to climb up and put the wing brace on, something unexpected happens. The dragon shoots up to the sky, both unwitting passengers clinging onto his tail for dear life.

Once they get their bearings and clamber up to his back, the Night Fury (who Hiccup has nicknamed “Toothless” for his retractable teeth) takes them on a flight through the clouds. Unable to help herself, Anna laces her arms around Hiccup’s waist--if only so she can supposedly “hold on better.”

Hiccup, of course, still doesn’t get it.

The flight takes a sinister turn when Toothless takes them to the dragon nest, and Hiccup finally gets his answer about where all of the villages food has been going--to their queen. Unsure what to do or how to free their new friends from the Red Death, Hiccup and Anna promise each other one thing or sure--none of the rest of Berk can know about the dragon nest. If they attack it, it spells disaster for both dragons and Vikings--not to mention the question of how they got there is sure to dig up their secret dragon-related activities as of late.

With each dragon raid, Anna finds herself more and more reluctant to fight dragons--especially now that she knows what’s actually going on. She only does the bare minimum to protect the food and the village, never going out of her way to attack a dragon or landing a killing blow (although by this point, she’d definitely be skilled enough to). During one particularly intense raid, Anna is finding it harder and harder to fend dragons off without doing lethal damage. While driving out a particularly tenacious monstrous nightmare, Anna happens upon the same changewing she’s befriended in the forest, limping to safety.

It would be incredibly easy to finish the dragon off, but Anna refuses. The dragon knows she’s beat, and so Anna lets her leave without so much as a swing of the princess’s sword.

Unfortunately, Astrid sees.

After the raid, Astrid storms up to Anna and chews her out in front of the whole village, yelling about how weak she was to not go for a dragon kill when she had the chance. It turns out Astrid’s also been noticing Anna going intentionally easy on the dragons, and how much the Arendelle princess seems to hold back when fighting him. Astrid knows it’s not physical incompetence, or a lack of skill--she’s seen Anna subdue plenty of dragons in training.

No, it seems to be the princess’s heart that’s weak. Her kingdom must be nothing but a bunch of bleeding-hearted morons, and she’ll never be tough enough to really belong in Berk.

As he watches Astrid yell and the Berkians all turn to sneer at the scene, Hiccup feels a sudden rush of protectiveness for his friend. Tears are starting to form in the corners of her eyes, and something gives in him seeing her subjected to the very ostracization that left him completely alone for so many years.

He walks up beside Anna, and suddenly he’s shouting like he’s never quite had the courage to before.

“You’re wrong, Astrid! You’re all wrong!”

Before long, he’s spilling everything--how dragons are intelligent and caring creatures, how they’re only stealing food to feed a ruthless queen, how he’s sure humans have killed far more dragons than vice versa. The village stares, horrified. When Stoick storms forward, Hiccup and Anna know it’s nothing good.

Stoick is disgusted. The very bodyguard he had brought all the way out to Berk to give his son strength did nothing but fill Hiccup’s head with softness and dangerous lies. He banishes Anna, warning her never to set foot in Berk or speak to his son again.

Hiccup will not have it. He says if Anna’s leaving, he’s coming with her. He’s made his choice, and he’s standing by the only person who ever really treated him with unconditional love and kindness.

“Fine,” Stoick says simply. “We’ll be rid of two traitors, then.”

Cast out from Berk, Hiccup and Anna find themselves with a new mission: Find the nest before the rest of Berk does, and take out the Red Death once and for all.

With the help of Toothless, the Changewing (who Anna has nicknamed “Flicker”), and the Snaptrapper (whose heads Anna have very creatively named Leafy, Greeny, Spiky, and Badbreath. It’s beyond Hiccup how she tells all of them apart, but she’s very adamant about which is which.), they find the dragon hive again, and attempt the impossible--attacking the queen. It seems hopeless at first, but once more and more malcontented dragons see what they’re doing, they join in and rebel.

It’s a tough fight, but the two humans and the revolting dragons come out on top. Not before the Red Death has one last hurrah, though--letting out a final, massive blast of fire that knocks Hiccup askew and sends him tumbling down into the flames. Toothless, Flicker, Anna, and the Snaptrapper dive after, and are quickly engulfed in red and orange.

Meanwhile, the Berkians have sent out ships following Hiccup, Anna, and their dragons, guessing the nest is where they were headed. By the time they get there, the fight is over--and Stoick and Gobber just manage to catch a glimpse of Hiccup plummeting into the flames.

Anna screams Hiccup’s name until the smoke burns her throat so much she can’t anymore. She remembers swooping underneath him and just managing to grab hold of his limp body before everything goes dark.

When she comes to later, it’s still dark--but she feels something soft and warm in her arms, and feels scales pressed against her back. Her arm is searing with pain, but she barely notices it as her eyes adjust to the darkness. Hiccup is curled up against her--groaning, but alive.

Not sure she’ll ever get another chance, she puts a hand on his cheek and finally tells him the truth. “I love you.”

He opens his eyes and looks, gaze shocked until a slow realization washes over him. He smiles. “I love you, too.”

They both pass out, still wrapped up in each other.

When the flames clear, Stoick sees what looks like a pile of dragons, all pressed together with their wings folded in. Slowly, they lift their wings to reveal two humans--charred in places, but alive.

Wracked with guilt, Stoick realizes he was wrong. Hiccup’s new bodyguard helped his son become stronger and braver than the chief of Berk ever imagined.

It turns out taking down the queen saved the dragons and the humans, and thanks to Hiccup, Anna, and their dragon friends, Berk will never have to worry about dragon raids again.

It turns out Hiccup’s leg and Anna’s arm didn’t quite make it out of the fire. Luckily, Gobber has always been handy at prosthetics--and Hiccup manages to make a fairly dextrous and functional metal hand for Anna. Anna is utterly delighted with how cool it looks.

After the whole Red Death incident, it’s decided that Hiccup is probably competent enough that he doesn’t need his own bodyguard anymore. Nonetheless, Anna is welcome to stay in Berk as long as she likes. And with new dragon friends and an incredibly cute new boyfriend, she’s not going anywhere anytime soon!

***

This is in reference to this post! I’ve already done these questions for Moanida. Theoretically still willing to do any questions I haven’t yet for Hiccanna and Moanida, although these were exhausting to write out so I might not give as long of answers XD

[wintergreenmedley]

Re: Jort Stuart, Anime, and "Character Assassination"

So obviously there's a lot of todo in the Hamefura fandom regarding distinctions between anime!geordo and respective iterations of his character in other mediums, and while I do think that difference does exist, I'm also not inclined to feel it's nearly as vast a disparity as some make it out to be?

Keeping in mind that I started with the anime and got into the LN from there, so my whole pov may be skewed in the eyes of some, but the majority of those differences aren't incredibly substantial so much as they could be easily chalked up to mere differences in perspective and subsequent framing. (big exception being material that is anime exclusive, the only real notable thing here being the scene in the magic book which I will not comment on other than to say it feels pretty easily derived from geord's overall characterization).

Take the first kiss scene at Katarina's party. There's a sinister vibe in his words that isn't *quite* present in the respective versions of the scene, one that comes from the literal framing and the delivery of the line "Someday I will have *all* of you." But versions of that line are, of course, present in the "official" translation of the manga AND LN. Along with:

• The confersation starting with his absolute refusal to break his engagement.

• His knocking over Katarina (to demonstrate his power over hers).

• Making that disparity verbal ("You really are defenseless, etc.)

• Stealing a kiss without her awareness or knowledge.

Whether his comment in the 3rd point reads as protective or potentially threatening is gonna change depending on the person, but the important point I think is that the real difference here between what we see in the anime and written here (and remember this is the very first scene with Geordo as we will know him for the remainder of the series, it more or less serves as an introduction to his and Katarina's dynamic for the rest of the first "Fortune Lover" arc) is only a matter of how these already questionable moments are framed.

And I think there's something else to be said to just about what Katarina's relationship is to him conpared to the others. Katarina is notably kind and naive to a fault; She keeps him around because she does regard him as a friend, despite the immediate danger she sees in him. It's interesting that this danger is exclusive to Geordo and Keith, as they are the characters to whom her doom flags are attached to start with, but notably only Geordo has the capacity to murder her with deliberation in any of the bad ends. He poses (in Katarina's mind) an immediate threat to her safety, and ironically the bond that ultimately keeps her within Geordo's vicinity is the very thing that she fears will inevitably cause him to act in such a way.

The controversial kiss from Chapter 11 of the anime is probably the one instance where the LN is unambiguously more generous, as it's not information we're given in the middle of Katarina's coma, but after the entire arc has resolved. We are told about it in a little "epilogue" chapter from Geordo's point of view. Unless we are to assume he is an unreliable narrator--entirely possible but in this case i have doubts--his feelings on the matter can presumably be taken at face value and are thus: He only considered it technically a kiss in hindsight. His intentions were noble, either that she'd wake up or at the very least recieve the water. He never told anyone else about for either selfish or unselfish reasons depending on what you make of his thought process. Does it make sense that a kiss was the only way to get her to take water? Not really. That's a much bigger question about how the author shapes reality and whether or not that qualifies as endorsement, But thats the rub I guess, :-/

The picture painted by the anime is more steadfast that other mediums have besn in its characterization of Geordo as intimidating/possessive to a potentially threatening degree. But I think the insinuation that it's a complete 180 shift from his manga and LN counterparts is... a bit of an exaggeration. Beyond the added scenes, it feels like everything we see in the anime is more or less fairly extrapolated from the sources, and the main difference is that in visualizing those scenes, it closed a gap of ambiguity from which the more favorable readings of his character had been formed.

[waynedunlaptheorgandonor]

ok, if i don’t write this im gonna lose my mind -cue dmx ‘party up’-

here is a ridiculously detailed analysis of why i am bordering on near certainty of caryl endgame, and how everything that’s been set up from the start of s9 (yes, even c@rzekiel and d@nnie) has been leading up to this

spoilers and long-winded analysis under the cut

let’s take this step-by-step, okay? starting with:

The Titles:

i have said this about a million times now, but the very first indication of caryl came from the new opening credits, where mmb’s name was very strategically placed above the graphic of daryl’s crossbow, what’s meant to symbolize henry’s pike, and a bunch of cherokee roses. it was foreshadowing, not only of henry’s death, but also how her relationship with daryl was going to unfold, and, bear with me here, the downfall of c@rzekiel. speaking of which, let’s go there

C@rzekiel:

i have also rambled about this, too, but the way that kang designed this relationship between zeke and carol was so brilliant, because it was never supposed to be real, but you weren’t able to fully see how until the whole story was laid out before us. (which goes with my belief that kang tells stories over long, connected archs, and not just “you know what would be fun to toss in here rn for some drama?” 

carol

1. denied zeke’s proposal

2. never once told him she loved him

3. explicitly told those saviors she could have done without her ring (a line that had absolutely no need to be in there)

4. continuously rejected the title of queen

5. regularly visited daryl in the woods

6. said herself that all it was, was a fairytale. something i’ll delve into more when i talk about carol’s ptsd

but let me touch on how daryl plays into this. we know she regularly went out into the woods to be with daryl, and she did it because he was her tether back to reality. she was living a fantasy life, and knew deep down that it wasn’t real, but had to do it, for henry’s sake, and for the sake of her mental health, because at the time of the relationship, she had not remotely begun to deal with any of her grief

the first scene we get with her and zeke is directly after daryl saves zeke’s life, which is telling. and the first time we hear her talk about her feelings about zeke’s proposal she turned down it’s with daryl, and let us not forget that the script notes stated that daryl was experiencing jealousy about it. he never asked her not to, though, because he thought she was happy, and that was more important to him than her being with him. he was willing to give her up if it meant she was happy, like what kind of angst trope suffering is that?? -chefs kiss-

and we can’t forget that zeke canonically views daryl as a threat to his marriage (i mean, rightfully so). he literally tells daryl to back off his wife so that he can fix their marriage, because he knows carol is starting to go back to him

next!

flowers:

flowers have been being used as symbolism between these two across the past two seasons a bunch. flowers are in mmb’s title card. the first scene of carol/daryl in the time jump shows them seeing flowers. daryl brings carol a flower on the dinner tray. one of the upcoming episodes is “look at the flowers”. obviously the cherokee rose scene is iconic between them, and flowers to carol represent this weird dichotomy. on the one hand, they represent daryl comforting her and giving her hope, and on the other hand, they represent her downfall mentally from the grove. interesting that one of the threads throughout this current season is carol grappling between trying to stay grounded with daryl, and her losing herself to her grief

speaking of grief!

Carol’s PTSD:

people have bitched that kang is just telling carol’s same storyline all over again, to which i’m like, tf show are you watching?? here’s what kang has done. gimple dealt with carol by literally just locking her away in a house to mull over how terrible she is a person, while never once actually dealing with her grief, and then handed that over to kang as a boiling slop of diarrhea, and somehow kang managed to take that, perform alchemy, and turn it into delicious loving carol juice.

she had henry killed off to parallel sophia, yes, that’s true, but the /reason/ she did that is because she’s righting the wrongs that were done to carol by essentially rewriting her storyline the way it should have gone. carol has lost So Much. more than most, i think, and kang is like, “that would fuck someone up pretty fucking bad, i think, so let’s see her actually have to grapple with that.” kang stays true to the carol gimple created, in that her instinct is to run away (think boat), but she’s using daryl as a means of forcing her to confront her demons. the two of them, at any given time, are running away from their struggles, but daryl is finally at a place of stability, and so he’s taking carol by the hand and saying, “no. i’m not letting you do this again. you have to stay,” and carol does, because she loves him, but consequently she’s having to actually feel it (something she explicitly stated she “can’t let herself do”), and is now experiencing the consequences of it, and poor daryl is stuck trying to handle it. his entire plotline this season has revolved around trying to help carol heal her wounds so that they can finally be together the way they should have been ten years ago.

they should be together, and daryl shouldn’t be with anyone else? glad you asked, because that brings us to:

D@nnie:

i actually think that kang never meant to make daryl/connie a ship, bc nothing in season 9 really indicated anything more than a mutual respect, and part of me truly believes that she saw the reaction to the two of them, and was like, “you know what? i can work with this.”

carol is pushing daryl towards connie because she wants to take alpha down and knows she might go down with her and she needs to know daryl won’t be alone. that’s it. period. end of sentence.

but okay, let’s extrapolate. she asks him if he’s interested in connie, and daryl very, very bluntly says no. you can’t tell me that his answer was meant to be evasive. he delivered that line like straight up “no.” no room for debate about his feelings. if they wanted to leave room for doubt they would have had norman redo his delivery, because it is too obvious. he is shutting it down completely. and carol is like, “why not?” and /that’s/ when daryl gets evasive. very “don’t worry about it, why are you worrying about it, i’m not in love with you, shut up.” 

fucking kills me, guys.

now the current spoilers about carol telling daryl to get angry at her for (supposedly/probably) killing connie furthers this belief that she wants daryl to pull away from her. because he’s her tether, she loves him, and as long as he still wants her around she can’t leave. she wants him to hate her, and daryl refuses. he’s pissed as all get out about what she did, sure, but he doesn’t hate her. also, the idea that daryl going back to try and save connie and magna means he’s in love with connie is absolutely baffling. have you met daryl? his instinct is to save people at all costs. he wouldn’t leave his friends stuck in a fucking cave, are you serious? just because connie is a woman doesn’t mean daryl wants to fuck her. he’s allowed to care about his friends.

but anyway, the point here is that every “d@nnie” spoiler has been music to my ears, bc not once has it been actually shippy. that first episode with the asl book and them together? it was supposed to juxtapose zeke and carol, and how carol and daryl immediately forgot about connie and zeke in order to be with each other. every other thing with connie has either been very cute and platonic, or has been carol trying to push her on daryl. -chefs kiss- my dudes, you’re worrying about nothing

Misc bc I’m Late for Work:

here are just a handful of other indicators that caryl is on the horizon

-the dream where she dreams she’s MARRIED TO DARYL, and the scenes where she wakes up in bed and looks over and he’s not there. why set that up if the end result isn’t going to be them together in bed?

-the bracelet/the acorns and what they symbolize 

-the use of “we” (”we don’t sleep” “it was like that for us before all of this” “since when have we never been enough?” etc)

-their parallels to alpha/beta (see my other long-winded text post on that one)

-ten years worth of history between them!!! that kang understands and references (carol’s claustrophobic, look at the flowers, etc)

so anyway, i don’t have time to tie this up with a nice bow bc i really have to get to work, but this is all to say that i am very very confident about the caryl endgame. i think it’s being drawn out bc kang needs to right the wrongs done by gimple first, but that caryl is where she’s eventually headed. every spoiler has been 100% caryl positive to me. i am zen af, and i think you should be too.

i’ll add to this if i think of anything i missed, but here you go. caryl is endgame and they gon fuck

the end,

-diz   

[secretariatess]

So for those who want to and haven’t yet played FFXV, this will contain spoilers.  But I have to . . . . go on, for the lack of a better term . . . . about this.

So I finally completed chapter 10 of the game (somehow I drew up enough emotional resolve to finish it) and the relationship dynamics of the characters are something that I absolutely love, but in during chapter 10, I absolutely hated it.

I hated seeing Gladio getting all up in Noct’s face about not being able to move on from the events surrounding getting Leviathan’s blessing, and just staying mad at him.  I even hated how he threw Ignis’s injury at him.  The entire chapter, I was seething at Gladio for not having enough compassion for Noctis.  And was glad when Ignis finally shut him down at the end of the chapter.

But for Noct and Gladio’s relationship and characters, it absolutely made sense in retrospect.

I have no doubt that the two of them were really good friends at the start of the game.  But the background information given in the Brotherhood episodes show that out of the three of Noct’s close friends, Gladio and Noct were the ones who got off on the wrong foot at the beginning.  And it’s because their personalities didn’t naturally mesh.

Noctis does not communicate well, and on top of that, he tends to bottle up his emotions.  So he comes off as aloof and apathetic, even kind of flippant about his upcoming role as king.  Some of this could probably be explained by the fact that Noctis was traumatized rather young. Gladio, on the other hand, was raised in a house with a history of protecting the royal line.  A strong sense of duty was instilled in him from the very start, even the understanding that he may very well have to give up his life for the king (or prince, as it started out) despite his personal feelings of the royalty in question.  This sense of duty was coupled with a strong and aggressive personality.  Which all in all, works well for a bodyguard.  But it didn’t sit well for him to see the future king acting rather reluctant about any kind of training required to be king and showing little care about the people around him.  (Didn’t help that Noctis’ contrast was Regis, who was a well respected king.)

That dislike of Noctis wasn’t resolved until Gladio saw Noctis willingly take blame and punishment for sake of Iris, Gladio’s little sister, just so she wouldn’t get in trouble.  It was then that Gladio realized that Noctis wasn’t everything he thought him to be, and that Noct wasn’t just a spoiled, lazy brat of a prince.  (Though in fairness, and Noctis does get his fair share of teasing, he does have a lazy streak.)  Thinking back on it, after that incident Gladio has a different approach to Noctis’s training.  Gladio’s personality didn’t change, but his view of Noctis certainly did.

That being said, it did not mean Gladio had a perfect understanding of Noctis and everything that went on in his head.  Nor did it mean that he and Noct shared the same perspective.

For Gladio, he could see that it was, yes, upsetting that Luna died, but Noctis now had the duty of wearing a powerful ring and continuing on in order to make sure Luna’s death wasn’t in vain.  In Gladio’s eyes, the best way to mourn Luna was to tackle kingship head on.  After all, that’s what he would have done.

But Noctis wasn’t Gladio.  And he certainly didn’t process emotion like Gladio.  Story-wise, he likely hadn’t gotten over his dad’s death (a fact that the marshal Cor recognized), the obliteration of his home still felt fresh, and he turned around to lose Luna, and woke up to find Ignis had been severely injured during Noct’s battle with Leviathan- something he blames himself for.  To top that all off, he inherited his father’s ring of power; a ring that he had seen sap away Regis’s life.  And he was expected to wear said ring.  Emotionally, he had imploded.  His entire life people had been preparing him to be king.  But very few people, if any, actually prepared him for the emotional damage that would come with watching the people around him sacrifice themselves for his sake.

A fact that Gladio couldn’t understand and Noctis couldn’t explain.

As a result, Noctis’s drive and motivation to continue skidded to halt as he grappled with loss and fear.  And Gladio saw that as disrespectful and cowardly.

The only person of that friend group who actually understood what was going on with Noctis was Ignis.  Ignis had been one of those people who constantly pushed Noctis to be prepared to inherit the throne while Regis was still alive.  But he was the only one to see Noctis have an actual breakdown from the stress and grief.  And in that breakdown, Ignis found out that Noctis wasn’t trying to shy away from his duty of becoming king, but was having a hard time dealing with the fact that inheriting the throne meant having his father die.  He and Noctis developed a relationship where Ignis recognized when to back off and when to give nudges.

Because of that, it made sense that Ignis was the one to end the fight between Gladio and Noctis.  I mean, even if Prompto knew the full weight of what Noctis was feeling, he did not command enough respect from Gladio to get him to chill out.  He tried at the start and was literally pushed away.  I think Ignis may have let the fight carry on as long as it did because he was trying to cope with the fact that he wasn’t regaining his eyesight, and because he was probably hoping that the two would reconcile on their own.  Or that if his eyesight returned, the tension would ease.  It was only after he accepted the fact that his eyesight wouldn’t return that he shut down the fight.

Honestly, the whole thing felt rather natural.  (I may or may not have been muttering under my breath every time Gladio said something to Noct in that episode.)  And I found it particularly interesting how the tension between Noct and Gladio affected the whole group.  There wasn’t any chipper banter during battles or while walking around.  The photo quest Noctis was given wasn’t deferred to Prompto like those quests usually were.

And the writer in me is just giddy with the relationship dynamics between these characters.  Like I said, I hated it in the moment.  But I love how I can look at it go, “Yeah, that felt very true to their characters.” 

So I don’t know if this was a rant, breakdown, analysis, or if I was just describing what was very easily extrapolated, but I just wanted to go on about it for a while.