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saturnsbabyboii · 2 years

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The Black Moon Lilith in the signs and houses (Our core fear, inner saboteur, healing and transformation)

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Note: I heavily use the work of Laura Walker’s book that I will reference. I used her wording and point of view from the book because she worded better than I could. So don’t come for me with any plagiarism crap. Thank you.

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"power comes from strife"

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Black Moon Lilith operates on unseen levels. It pertains to hidden information, exposes secrets, and brings our core and primary fears to light. Fears from our shadow side cause us to undermine ourselves, and even others. Black Moon Lilith is the lingering feeling that stabs your consciousness and triggers you; If you don't listen to it, you'll grow vicious and paranoid of others and yourself.

My interpretation of the shadow is that it is the home of our primal fear. A fear that has significant power in our lives. It is based on primal, instinctual levels and operates on survival principles. The primary fear is a primary motivator for many of our life decisions.

In the book "The Astrology of the Black Moon: A Guide to Healing the Shadow Side" (Walker, 2011)

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The writer identified the twelve signs and their innate and core fears:

ARIES: fear of unworthiness

Theme: The Shadow of Success

Primary Fear: fear of unworthiness

Self-judgment: how well one performs or measures up

Issues: success; identity; questions about inherent value, self-esteem, and merit

Projection: others‟ success and worthiness are based on what they have attained or accomplished

Goals: to not compare yourself to others; to not measure personal success by anyone else standards, to value yourself as a unique expression of the Creator, therefore, creating self-esteem

Manifestation: The Black Moon in Aries manifests in the intense quest to be valued and feel worthy. However, a deep-seated feeling of unworthiness is in conflict with this quest, often causing beneficial opportunities to be passed up. In life, we are only able to receive what we think we deserve, and when we feel undeserving, we will avoid or reject people, jobs, or options that we feel are too good for us. Self-sabotaging behavior often occurs with the Black Moon in Aries. There can also be a need to prove ones worthiness to others, even in the form of subtle bragging. The Black Moon in Aries staunchly defends itself and rejects anything that does not fall in line with its ideas and beliefs.

Healing and Transcending:

With the Black Moon in Aries, the belief in inherent unworthiness must be faced. Simply by virtue of being born, we are entitled to and worthy of the joys of life. If All is One, then none are less than others. Each of us carries a spark of the Divine - none are excluded. Healing occurs when we are able to see ourselves as successful and worthy because we are a child of the Universe. When we recognize this, we understand that all other gauges are external and superficial. By holding ourselves in high regard, we naturally align with our highest and best.

Examine where you have settled for less than you wished.

Ask yourself what you would do if somehow, magically, a wand was waved and you were deemed worthy. Strive to connect with this vision.

Ask yourself how much the appearance of success plays in your life.

Ask yourself what you are always trying to win. When you discover the answer, decide if you really want it. Is it worth the effort? By practicing the awareness that you do not have to be the best in every situation, you will come to a natural state of internal balance.

Black Moon in Aries: Johnny Cash, Kurt Cobain, Albert Einstein, Elizabeth I, Mahatma Gandhi, Michael Jackson, Prince, Vladimir Lenin, Mary Queen of Scots, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Mark Zuckerberg

Black Moon in the 1st House

Challenges: The greatest challenges of the shadow are deeply related to how we feel about ourselves. The shadow side is ingrained in how we use our personal energy, what motivates us and our sense of overall wellbeing. Personal appearance or the way we appear to others is often a major concern. If the shadow is heavily in control, our behavior patterns will strongly reflect it. This placement of the Black Moon is intensely personal and our shadow issues will have a dramatic impact on our lives.

Gift: The gift of the shadow is the vast amount of personal energy at our disposal. This level of energy can produce fantastic healers and immensely creative individuals. We can accomplish monumental feats and have an uncanny ability to turn “negatives” into “positives.”

TAURUS: fear of scarcity

Theme: The Shadow of Security

Primary Fear: fear of scarcity

Self-judgment: how secure/safe one is by the level of comfort

Issues: having enough to feel safe; compulsive consumption; insecurities

Projection: the tendency to criticize others for being lazy, irresponsible (especially with money), or unconventional

Goals: to not fill the void with “things,” to stretch beyond your comfort zone

Manifestation: With Black Moon in Taurus, the more we have, the more comfortable we feel. In turn, the more comfortable we feel, the safer we think we are. With this placement, there is an intense need to feel comfortable because there is a generalized feeling of being unsafe in the world. The Black Moon in Taurus manifests in an almost insatiable desire to consume and accumulate possessions, money, or anything that makes us feel safe and secure. However, no matter how much we acquire, it will never be enough because the void that we are trying to fill cannot be filled in this way. It may be filled momentarily, but the core feeling of insecurity will soon return. Oftentimes, the end result of this constant attempt to satisfy the fear of not having enough is the accumulation of debt, weight, or responsibilities – usually the exact things we are trying to avoid. With this placement of the Black Moon, there is an intense need to feel satisfied. Insecurities are held very deeply and there is tremendous fear of others knowing those insecurities.

Healing and Transcending:

The belief that the world is unsafe must be confronted. Integrating the idea that we have all that we need inside is what heals this shadow. When we build on who we really are inside, we no longer need to accumulate possessions to feel secure. When we accept that all is going according to a divine plan, we no longer need to fear the events of the world. No matter what, each of us always returns to our Source. This is the security that Black Moon in Taurus seeks.

Cut back on whatever is filling the void. This will bring immediate discomfort and it will leave you with time on your hands. It is important to learn how to “not do” – to become comfortable with stillness. The next time you feel the need to take on more, buy more, or eat more, go and sit by yourself and put on some music, read, practice yoga or throttle down in some way. By practicing being still when you are most uncomfortable, you will be feeding your inner world and requiring less from the outer world.

Black Moon in Taurus: J.S. Bach, Patsy Cline, Howard Hughes, Abraham Lincoln, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Wilhelm Reich, Henry David Thoreau, Vincent van Gogh, Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Lana Del Rey, Bruce Lee, Celine Dion, Joseph Stalin

Black Moon in the 2nd House

Challenges: The greatest challenges of the shadow are deeply related to how secure we feel. Financial considerations seem to plague us. The shadow side blurs the lines between emotional needs and material/financial needs; attitudes toward partners can hinge on security issues. The shadow side is ingrained in our value systems, which can at times seem at odds with our behavior.

Gift: The gift of the shadow is the generous, comfortable feeling we engender in others, resulting in many meaningful, lasting interpersonal relationships. People truly enjoy being with us, finding us not only charming but disarming.

GEMINI: fear of rejection

Theme: The Shadow of Acceptance

Primary Fear: fear of rejection

Self-judgment: how one compares to others

Issues: whether others approve or disapprove

Projection: labeling others as selfish; distaste for people who fail to do “the right thing”

Goals: to not care if people like or want you, to not compare yourself to others, to express your individuality

Manifestation:

Those with the Black Moon in Gemini are morbidly afraid of rejection. They are people pleasers, which often leaves them wondering “what it is we ourselves like and dislike”. This shadow manifests as a need to make decisions or act in accordance with whatever gains acceptance from others. It is damaging to the soul to pursue a life that others wish for us, as it comes at the expense of the expression of individual talents. Actions based on or motivated by another leads to a suppression of the true self. It is a great disservice not to explore who we really are. It is also dangerous to “over-do” for others in hopes that they will like us; ultimately it leads to burn out. At the other end of the spectrum, this placement causes sudden and severe reactions to anything that hints at potential rejection, often causing serious challenges with relationships because we will reject someone before they can reject us. The Black Moon in Gemini will bail out too early or stay way too long.

Healing and Transcending:

With the Black Moon in Gemini, it is necessary to face the need for others‟ approval. Each of us has something special to offer the world. What is important is not if others approve of us, but if we approve of ourselves. That sounds very cliché, but with Black Moon in Gemini we need to provide our own approval. When you are able to consciously put yourself on the line to be rejected, intending that the outcome will not hinder your spirit, you will have regained the power that is trapped in the shadow side. When the shadow is healed, rejection ceases to be an issue because inner acceptance has been achieved - creating a wealth of talent that is available to the world.

Examine where you are not being self-“ish” or operating from your true self.

When making decisions and planning your time and resources, ask yourself who you are doing it for. The answer should always be “for myself – for my highest and best which in turn serves the highest and best of everyone.” This doesn‟t mean you are supposed to forget about others; it means that you put yourself into the equation. Healing this shadow requires vigilant monitoring of your time, energy, and money and how you spend them. It will quickly become apparent when your energy is scattered and whose approval you are seeking. By practicing making little decisions based on your own needs, you will integrate and balance you in relation to others.

Black Moon in Gemini: Marlon Brando, Karl Marx, Frank Sinatra, Mark Twain, Mariah Carey, Joe Biden, Muhammed Ali, Frida Kahlo, Harrison Ford, Stephen Hawking, Shia LeBeouf, Kendrick Lamar, Yoko Ono

Black Moon in the 3rd House

Challenges: The greatest challenges of the shadow are deeply related to self- expression. The shadow side is ingrained in rigid attitudes and strong opinions that can cause us an endless amount of trouble. At times there is overwhelming confusion about the direction we want to take in life. Early life has a more pronounced effect on us than others. The outgrowths of childhood weave their way through later life in the most resolute ways. Issues with siblings can linger throughout adulthood.

Gift: The gift of the shadow is our uncanny, exacting powers of observation and communication. These talents can be applied in a multitude of ways. Also, our accuracy in perceiving situations gives us a definite advantage in life.

CANCER: fear of abandonment

Theme: The Shadow of Support

Primary Fear: fear of abandonment

Self-Judgment: how well one is supported; how much others do or give

Issues: dependency; co-dependency

Projection: tendency to dislike those we deem “needy”

Goals: to do things for ourselves, to not be dependent or “clingy”

Manifestation:

Black Moon in Cancer carries a pervasive feeling of being unable to take care of oneself. This shadow manifests in the need to manipulate situations so that one is dependent on others. In this way we are assured of not being alone. This distorted sense of support wreaks havoc on relationships, as others feel burdened or smothered. Many times with the Black Moon in Cancer we feel unappreciated for the things we do for others. The chronic feeling of not being supported halts personal growth, as personal needs are met by others, not by ourselves.

Healing and Transcending:

The dependence on others for support must be faced. We must provide our own support by not abandoning ourselves. This means taking care of and addressing our own needs. Action that is in favor of self-sufficiency is in order. Action that is undertaken for others should be unconditional. When the concept of Oneness is integrated, the idea of abandonment is no longer valid and relationships naturally equalize to a state of balance.

Begin doing the things that you want others to do for you all by yourself. The next time you need something that you would normally ask another to provide for you, go ahead and get it yourself. Begin with small things but work your way up to major ones.

Do something that you never would have done on your own. By practicing doing more for yourself you will balance the shadow that depends too heavily on others.

Set up individual systems of support such as retirement funds or other accounts.

Black Moon in Cancer: Jimi Hendrix, Henry VIII, Janice Joplin, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Malcolm X, Princess Diana, Jennifer Aniston, Elvis Presley, Jay Z, Robin Williams, Paul McCartney, Charles Manson, Naomi Campbell, Kobe Bryant, Rupaul, Paul Newman, Al Capone

Black Moon in the 4th House

Challenges: The greatest challenges of the shadow are related to our foundation and sense of home. The shadow is ingrained with an overidentification with home and much effort is devoted to cultivating a feeling of belonging. With this placement, relationships with parents (particularly the mother) are often difficult, especially if our parents did not provide a strong home. There is a tendency to be stuck in the past and/or unable to forgive and forget.

Gift: The gift of the shadow is the ability to not only be sensitive to, but accommodate other people needs. If we truly trust someone, we will provide whatever is necessary to make that person happy, making us exceptional partners.

LEO: fear of change

Theme: The Shadow of Order

Primary Fear: fear of change

Self-judgment: the level or station one has achieved

Issues: order; position; arrogance; self-centeredness; jealousy

Projection: distaste for or identification with overbearing, vain, or “selfish” people

Goals: to identify and vocalize others‟ talents and strengths, to identify the opportunities presented by changes, to eliminate feeling jealous

Manifestation:

The Black Moon in Leo assaults the ego. It manifests in egocentricity and arrogance. With this placement we are frequently accused of being selfish. This is because our attention is naturally attracted to whatever reinforces our position in life. Any ideas to the contrary are quickly dismissed. The fear of change morphs into the fear of losing face or losing position. Rigid attempts to maintain the existing order, framework, or mindset are common and can lead to exhaustion.

Healing and Transcending:

With the Black Moon in Leo, the need for classification and designation must be faced. In truth, there is no hierarchy – All is One. Change is the nature of the Universe and change brings the opportunity for growth. We each have roles that we slip in and out of; the key is to fluidly take on positions and situations where we both lead and follow so that nothing remains static. It is also important to remember that, by definition, Divine Order is never threatened.

Give to others. Black Moon in Leo has a tremendous capacity to uplift. ø When you encounter new situations, consider how you could empower someone else who is involved. How could you make them feel more important? Think about how you could give something of yourself to someone else.

When you are with others, practice trying to discover something very special about them in that moment and then casually mention it.

Try new things. By practicing changing the order of things, you are healing your shadow.

Black Moon in Leo: Charles de Gaulle, Ernest Hemingway, Elizabeth II, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Vladimir Putin, Jim Morrison, Pablo Picasso, Christopher Reeve, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Leo Tolstoy, Barack Obama, Rihanna, Adele

Black Moon in the 5th House

Challenges: The greatest challenges of the shadow are related to the ability to truly enjoy life. This shadow is ingrained in pursuing, but having difficulty finding, pleasure. We are prone to take risks in order to feel stimulated. Issues with the father are found with this placement. The father may have been absent or neglectful, especially if Saturn is prominent. This shadow side may also center on children, either wanting children and not having them or not taking care of ones children.

Gift: The gift of the shadow is resiliency. No matter how disappointed we become, we are rarely down for long. We are excellent problem solvers and leaders. We adapt well to changes and can fluidly change course in mid-stride.

VIRGO: fear of failure

Theme: The Shadow of Ability

Primary Fear: fear of failure

Self-judgment: how much one works, progresses, improves, or fixes

Issues: feelings of being inherently flawed; self-criticism

Projection: feeling that others are not performing well enough or are incompetent

Goals: to not focus on flaws or failures, to not do things to excess, to not feel responsible to fix everything

Manifestation:

Black Moon in Virgo finds flaws and then internalizes them. This shadow manifests in chronic dissatisfaction, particularly with oneself. With this placement, we often find it difficult to feel positive about ourselves for great lengths of time. All too soon, a generalized feeling of being “not good enough” creeps back in to maintain internal disequilibrium. Black Moon in Virgo constantly challenges our abilities and, in an effort to prove ourselves, we tend to maintain a very full schedule. We work very hard but can have trouble seeing the forest for the trees, as we operate under the spell of having to do more and more to prove to ourselves and others that we are not flawed. This shadow is the most adept at self punishment.

Healing and Transcending:

With the Black Moon in Virgo, the need to find fault must be faced. A healthier state of mind is achieved when we recognize that nothing is absolute – there is no absolute right or wrong. All levels of ability have something to contribute. Healing this shadow requires understanding that flaws are an illusion. The crucial thing to understand is that when we have the Black Moon in Virgo, we interpret the feeling of separation from Spirit as somehow our fault. Everyone has the feeling of spiritual disconnection, but Black Moon in Virgo personalizes it. This is the root cause of why we feel flawed. To heal the shadow, we must accept that to some degree, this feeling is merely a by-product of the physical experience of life.

Examine where you feel you have failed. Upon closer inspection, what caused the “failure?” Was it really your fault? Was there really more you could have done or was it just not meant to be? Can you forgive yourself and others for not doing better?

Can you walk away from “failures” and feel enriched simply by having had the experience? Time is the true test of what is, at the time, perceived to be a failure. By focusing on the experience as opposed to the outcome, the shadow of ability is healed.

Black Moon in Virgo: Alexander Graham Bell, Benazir Bhutto, Sigmund Freud, Galileo, George Washington, 14th Dalai Lama, William Shakespeare, Jon Bon Jovi

Black Moon in the 6th House

Challenges: The greatest challenges of the shadow are related to health and work. At times there can be problems with co-workers, particularly regarding perceptions of our work performance. The shadow side is ingrained in the level of self-discipline we have. We may be accused of being disorganized. There is also a tendency to vacillate between ignoring our body and focusing too much on it, leading to concerns over health.

Gift: The gift of the shadow is a keen insight into the interrelatedness of things. We often hold a warehouse of information that others find helpful.

LIBRA: fear of loneliness

Theme: The Shadow of Perfection

Primary Fear: fear of loneliness/isolation

Self-judgment: personal “flaws” are harshly judged

Issues: perfection; unrealistic expectations; boundary issues

Projection: criticism of others, particularly the criticism of how things appear

Goals: to not have to have things be perfect, to be comfortable being alone, to see gray - not just black and white, to not be judgmental

Manifestation:

Black Moon in Libra values impeccability and holds everything and everyone to a high standard, especially oneself. This shadow involves pursuit of the “ideal” and keenly feels the separation from spirit. The Black Moon in Libra manifests in intense self-judgment and fragmentation of the self into pieces that are either acceptable or unacceptable. This shadow breaches boundaries and sorts through everything in an attempt to perfect it. It seeks excellence. This results in an unending series of disappointments and can form schisms in relationships. Maintaining any semblance of perfection is exhausting for anyone, but with the Black Moon in Libra, we often find ourselves complaining about being tired or not having enough time. Indecisiveness and self-deprivation are also characteristic of this shadow.

Healing and Transcending:

With the Black Moon in Libra, the need to judge must be faced. This shadow is strongly connected to the journey through the judgment of the Underworld and subsequent rebirth in a whole new way (see Chapter Five on the transits of the Black Moon). It is actually a journey to find what is truly of value. When we are able to see that love is truly the only thing of value, we find inclusion instead of separation. We begin to love all of the parts, not just some of them. When we understand that everything is connected, we see that the fear of separation is an illusion. Healing the shadow of perfection is about seeing our own (and others‟) inner perfection by allowing the “ideals” of the outer, material world to fall away.

Assess your values. When you find yourself being critical of others, ask yourself if you dislike that same thing in yourself. Examine how you separate yourself from other people. Is there a need to keep some part of you distinct from others?

When you find yourself being critical, find something valuable about the situation. You might not feel like certain things about you or others are perfect in appearance, but you may find that they are highly valuable in functionality. By practicing finding value, the shadow that believes in the idea of perfection is healed.

Black Moon in Libra: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Benito Mussolini, Tupac Shakur, Nikola Tesla

Black Moon in the 7th House

Challenges: The greatest challenges of the shadow are related to partnerships and commitment. This shadow side is urgently motivated to seek mutually-fulfilling relationships, which are often elusive. Also, other people find ways to take advantage of us, sometimes to the point of betrayal. Many times life seems unfair to us and others would probably agree. In the midst of this, there can also be issues of dependence or neediness.

Gift: The gift of the shadow is our ability to perceive and create beauty from the smallest things. Innately tuned toward balance, we easily see what is missing and then endeavor to rectify the situation. This is a very valuable skill that can be translated into many different applications.

SCORPIO: fear of loss

Theme: The Shadow of Death

Primary Fear: fear of loss

Self-judgment: based on what one has won

Issues: winning vs. losing; issues with death/endings

Projection: rescuing others

Goals: to not always have to win, to learn how to have closure, to not have to rescue, to not struggle so hard

Manifestation:

Black Moon in Scorpio will go to extreme lengths to save, assist, rescue, or win. This shadows favorite prize is something that was hard won. The Black Moon in Scorpio manifests as a deep well of despair with desperate attempts to climb out. We cling or attach to anything that stems the feeling of free-falling through life. Daily life is frequently viewed as a battle to win in order to stave off deepening feelings of loss. Sometimes even casual encounters are judged according to what was won or lost in the exchange. Black Moon in Scorpio is very strong energy that can cause intense levels of anxiety. We are especially attracted to people who are in need of assistance or who are “persecuted” in some way, as this is the preferred method to vicariously save ourselves.

Healing and Transcending:

With the Black Moon in Scorpio, the need to struggle must be faced. Nothing is ever really lost because there really is no death – only transformation into a new form. There is no need to plunge to the depths just to prove that we can win or to try to keep things from ending. Practicing the arts of gratitude and surrender is what facilitates the shift from the perspective of loss to the perspective of love. Material things fall away, but love endures forever.

Become comfortable with losing. It is essential to let go of anything that you are overly attached to.

Examine where you have invested most of your energy. Is it a losing battle? Instead of dealing with loss in an indirect way, consciously take action to give up. Imagine how relieved you would feel.

Take steps to practice ending the smallest things (like phone calls) and work up to being able to step away from situations that cannot be saved (like dead end relationships). You may be surprised to find that something else was waiting all along - you just couldn’t see it while you were busy running away from it. This is the nature of death or endings. They always precede rebirth and beginnings.

Black Moon in Scorpio: Alexander the Great, Winston Churchill, Nostredame, Steve Jobs, Emily Dickinson, Pope Francis, Walt Disney, Jeff Bezos, John D. Rockefeller, Albert Schweitzer, Mother Teresa, Eminem, Taylor Swift, Johnny Depp, Beyoncé, Dwayne Johnson, Notorious B.I.G

Black Moon in the 8th House

Challenges: The greatest challenges of the shadow are related to death, inheritance, investments, and sex. This is the most difficult house placement for the Black Moon. The shadow side is ingrained in loss; in fact, we may feel that our lives lead only to loss. With Black Moon in the eighth house, chronic anxiety may be present.

Gift: The gift of the shadow is our great depth of compassion and ability to see beyond the surface. We quickly ascertain people true motivations. Our wisdom and insight is a great benefit to those with whom we are close.

SAGITTARIUS: fear of meaninglessness

Theme: The Shadow of Truth

Primary Fear: fear of meaninglessness

Self-judgment: based on intentions and motivations

Issues: issues related to truth and honesty

Projection: distaste for people who lie or people who are naïve

Goals: to not have to have the ultimate answers, to tolerate the ordinary, to not always need “proof”

Manifestation:

The Black Moon in Sagittarius manifests in an intense relationship with the concept of “truth.” There is a great need to discern the superlative truth in all things, which causes a never ending sequence of questioning. More importantly, we need to feel like people are telling us the truth, as we do not automatically believe anything simply because it was said. Relationships can become stressed if our partners feel that they always have to prove that they are telling the truth. Themes of deception often play a role in our lives, perhaps as a victim of deception. Ongoing questions about not only our purpose in life, but the purpose of life characterize this shadow. Feelings of stagnation are not tolerated well.

Healing and Transcending:

With the Black Moon in Sagittarius, the need to continue searching must be faced. At some point, one must simply believe. Ultimately, all searching for the truth leads back to the truth that All is One. What is meaningful? Whatever we choose as meaningful is meaningful. This shadow is healed when we see that each of us has an interpretation of truth, which eliminates the need to find one superlative truth.

Take up the mantle of responsibility for creating meaning in life. Meaningfulness is found by assessing what is truly important. What is meaningful to you? When you know the answers to this question, you will have created truth – the truth according to you. Devotion of your life to your own truth heals the shadow that never believes that truth really exists.

Black Moon in Sagittarius: Helena Blavatsky, Napoleon Bonaparte, Thomas Jefferson, Carl Jung, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jack London, Claude Monet, Ronald Reagan

Black Moon in the 9th House

Challenges: The greatest challenges of the shadow are related to our outlook or philosophy in life, religion, spirituality, higher learning, the law, and the world at large. This shadow is deeply concerned with issues of morality. We hold strong opinions, often leading to conflicts with others. There is a tendency to feel disconnected from others or from ourselves. We may even feel compelled to isolate ourselves from the world around us.

Gift: The gift of the shadow is a keen intellect that we are able to translate into many fields of interest. Our knowledge encompasses a wide spectrum, affording us the ability to relate to many different people, should we so desire.

CAPRICORN: fear of neglect

Theme: The Shadow of Control

Primary Fear: fear of neglect/ not being acknowledged

Self-judgment: how well one stands out or apart

Issues: control issues; attention-seeking behavior

Projection: negative reaction to bossy, showy, or attention-seeking people; rebellion against being told what to do

Goals: to be comfortable when not in control, to stand up for yourself

Manifestation:

The Black Moon in Capricorn manifests as a need to control the course of events. When this shadow dominates, we have a tendency to be demanding. We can go to extreme efforts to gain attention. We have definite ideas about the way things should be and others often succumb to the force of our will. Frequently we refuse to give up until someone – anyone - acknowledges what we have to offer or agrees with what we think is best. A little bit of recognition goes a long way with us, but so does a little bit of neglect, and Black Moon in Capricorn has a long memory. But interpersonal relationships suffer when we wear down another free will to come into compliance with our own. This results in lackluster relationships where the joyful spark of life becomes extinguished. We are very hard workers, but we can also expect a lot from others.

Healing and Transcending:

With the Black Moon in Capricorn, we need to examine what we are trying to control. We also need to give ourselves the recognition we seek. When we are able to do this, there is no longer a drive to ensure that others follow our wishes because we already have what we need.

Examine where you need to have your way. Observe yourself carefully. Are you telling someone how, when, or what to do? Practice allowing others to go about tasks in their own way.

Ask others what they would like to do and then do it. Enjoy the feeling of not being responsible for everything. Freedom, spontaneity, and a joyful feeling for life will return when the pressure to be a certain way is removed.

Black Moon in Capricorn: Leonardo da Vinci, Farrah Fawcett, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Machiavelli

Black Moon in the 10th House

Challenges: The greatest challenges of the shadow are related to ambition, authority, social status, and responsibility. Tradition and family obligations are important us. This shadow is ingrained in a sense of duty and high aspirations, and we closely monitor our progress in the world as compared to others. We hold high standards and expectations, which can cause interpersonal difficulties if we demand too much from others.

Gift: The gift of the shadow is our ability to persevere. We are hard workers who take more than our share of any load. When we give our word, we do everything in our power to keep it.

AQUARIUS: fear of powerlessness

Theme: The Shadow of Power

Primary Fear: fear of powerlessness

Self-judgment: based on the impact/power one has to get what one wants or needs

Issues: power issues; power struggles

Projection: distaste for weak or undisciplined people

Goals: to learn to ask for help, to not overpower others

Manifestation:

The Black Moon in Aquarius often manifests in a powerful sense of loneliness. Usually we are keenly aware of our intense personal power and are somewhat frightened by it. Our skills and aptitudes can border on genius, often giving us an air of considerable authority. We have strong faculties and diverse talents that can be used to uplift or to crush others. Black Moon in Aquarius is a force rivaled by few, and the temptation to dominate others can become an ongoing battle. It is simply all too easy to emotionally and intellectually overpower others. Ethical concerns can arise, as we are prone to test our limitations. In situations where we feel powerless, we tend to isolate ourselves so no one will see our “weakness.” This self-imposed prison is rife with internal brutality, as we tend to unleash cruel criticism on ourselves for not being stronger.

Healing and Transcending:

With the Black Moon in Aquarius, the tendency to overpower others must be faced. When we recognize that we are all connected, there is no need for anyone to overpower another. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses that fluctuate and change over time. The extra boost of power that accompanies Black Moon in Aquarius can be re-routed back into the collective of humanity in the form of brilliant ideas and creations that uplift the whole. A channel or outlet for this power is what is needed to keep it from blowing up. When the focus shifts to sharing power, all benefit.

Examine if you abuse your power by neglecting or criticizing others. Do you take advantage of others, however unwittingly? Or do you neglect, criticize, or overextend yourself?

Ask yourself what you would do with all of your power. It is very important for you to answer this question. Are you more afraid of your power or your powerlessness? Discerning the parameters of personal power is what heals this shadow.

Black Moon in Aquarius: Robert Oppenheimer, Genghis Khan, Ludwig van Beethoven, James Dean, Jacki Kennedy, Salvador Dali, O.J Simpson, Amy Winehouse, Kid Cudi

Black Moon in the 11th House

Challenges: The greatest challenges of the shadow are related to our hopes, wishes, and dreams. The shadow is concerned with how we fit into the collective of humanity. Issues of the “self versus others” follow us and we may find that we are often accused of being selfish or self centered. Change is usually difficult for us to handle.

Gift: The gift of the shadow is the ability to bring people together. We are natural networkers. We are also interesting people to be around and are true innovators.

PISCES: fear of vulnerability/harm

Theme: The Shadow of Trust

Primary Fear: fear of vulnerability

Self-judgment: based on how stable ones emotions are

Issues: trust issues

Projection: distrust of people who are “too nice” because they must want something

Goals: to let down your walls with the appropriate people, to be able to discern who is appropriate for you, to focus on self as much as others

Manifestation:

The Black Moon in Pisces is tender-hearted. We are afraid that if others discover this, they will use it against us. There is a tendency to judge people and situations based on the potential of being hurt. We may find it difficult to be open or fully intimate with others. It is often hard to trust others and we test them until we feel safe. This shadow can show up overtly (in unmistakable emotional walls) but it can also show up subtly (appearing on the surface to be very open, but upon closer inspection having definite commitment issues). On the flip side, we can also make commitments before trust is gained. By prematurely trusting, we face betrayal or disappointment. In this way, a vague sense of safety is maintained since a deeper sense of intimacy is never attained. The sense of being separated from Spirit is acute with Black Moon in Pisces and the intense desire to not be present in the “here and now” can lead to emotional addictions, addiction to substances, or escaping our own issues through focusing on others.

Healing and Transcending:

With the Black Moon in Pisces, the need to put up a wall of protection must be faced. The truth is, life can be painful and people hurt us whether they intend to or not. We need to learn to trust the people we know we can trust. Usually this is the person we are with the most, but proportionately open up to the least. We tend to hold ourselves back, but this is a crime against our souls because we are naturally closest to Spirit and have much to share with others. Our shadow is healed when we trust that we are strong enough to withstand any offense.

Ask yourself when you feel most vulnerable. In what situations do you cross your arms and cover your chest? How do you cover up or cover over who you really are?

Consider who you physically, intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally open up to the most? It is important to look at the level of trust you have in the people around you and honestly assess if your trust is well-placed. Balancing the shadow of trust is just as much about not placing trust in the people that you know you shouldn’t as it is about allowing someone else see who you really are.

Black Moon in Pisces: Jesus Christ (allegedly), Prince Charles, John Lennon, Gerald Ford, Judy Garland, Angelina Jolie, Mike Tyson, Madonna, Harry Styles, Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande, Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Pacino, Elizabeth Taylor

Black Moon in the 12th House

Challenges: The greatest challenges of the shadow are related to unconscious motivations, addictions, institutions, and enemies. The shadow is deeply ingrained in anything that is hidden. By its very nature, the Black Moon is hidden, making this placement difficult to understand. There is often a side to us that is unknown to most people. We may have a degree of emotional suffering that is not evident to others until they get to know us.

Gift: The gift of the shadow is our ability to empathize with others. We seem to easily give to others that which we may not be able to give to ourselves. We are complex people who can handle complex tasks and material with aplomb.

╚══════════════ ⛧ ══════════════╝

"Primary fears subvert our personal growth and feelings of happiness. Oftentimes they impede our success because fear is what stops us cold in our tracks when we are venturing into unknown territory. Our choices and actions are directly proportional to the level of control our shadow exerts over us. When the fear that is contained in the shadow side is dominant, we feel unfulfilled and unsatisfied." - (Walker, 2011)

Reference:

Walker, L., 2011. The Astrology of the Black Moon: A Guide to Healing the Shadow Side. Austin, Texas: The Dog Publishing.

2K notes · View notes

imaginespazzi · 7 months

Text

Part 3: Shades of Grey

Masterlist - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7

That's the thing about illicit affairs (they lie and they lie and they lie)

(In which a masochistic writer makes things difficult for herself and makes things even messier than they were before)

Pairing: Paige Bueckers X Azzi Fudd

Themes: Angst, Pining, a little bit of Hurt/Comfort and Fluff as always

Words: 7.2K (nice and short as always)

TW: Explicit Sexual Content (MINORS DNI), Swearing, Cheating

A/N: Hello my lovelies <3 I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job of sticking to my deadlines, who woulda thunk it? Fun fact, I'm at ~ 50 google-doc pages with this fic and despite my constant "trying to write less" rants, I'm actually lowkey proud of that. Anyways, there's a pretty clear hint (I am not a subtle person) as to why what happens at the end happens and if you pick up on it, I promise it'll save you from losing your minds till I write part 4. Also a couple of logistical details about the Cayman Islands are probably off but it's what worked so it's what I did, just pretend lol. Per usual, I did edit, there's probably still typos any way, feel free to point them out. And as always, let me know what you liked, what you didn't and what you'd like to see in the future. Happy reading and have a wonderful rest of your week lovelies!

August 2021

The fight was inevitable but neither of them can tell you what really lit the flame. One second they had been fine (well as fine as two girls who knew tonight was their last night in a while could be), the next they were hurling bullets at each other. There’s a subconscious part of Azzi’s brain that tells her to grab Paige and duck for cover, to preserve whatever little bit of friendship they can. But her whole body vibrates with anger as Paige’s words crash around her like a tsunami, drowning out the good angel on her shoulder that’s pleading with her to stop.

“It’s a good thing really. You and your non-existent nerves would have never survived playing for UConn,” Paige sneers, and that mean smirk on her face just doesn’t quite fit right, “I don’t know what I was thinking with that honestly. You’re not built like that.”

Azzi flinches, eyes blazing, “some of us want to be more than just another good UConn player.”

“That’s what all the people not good enough to play for UConn say,” Paige retorts bitterly and Azzi doesn’t think she knows this girl standing in front of her, one whose words are aimed to make her cry instead of laugh.

“Not good enough and yet you still wanted me on your team.”

“Nah you know what, my bad, I didn’t realise you’d fucking stab me in the back like that, ” Paige hisses, “you’re a fake as fuck friend and you’d probably make a shit teammate.”

Azzi’s never had a heart attack. She doesn’t even fully think she knows what a heart attack really is. But she’s certain this pain in her chest can’t possibly be anything less than one. It starts at her heart and then spreads to her lungs and then floods through her body, until she can’t move, she can’t breathe.

“You don’t mean that,” she whispers.

Paige hesitates, as if suddenly aware of the fragility of the moment, her voice considerably softer when she speaks but she doesn’t take it back, “ real friends choose each other.”

“Oh my god,” Azzi laughs, it’s the worst thing she could do in the moment and Paige’s eyes flash with anger, “you’re so fucking full of yourself.”

“Watch your fucking mouth-”

“Don’t you even dare. You say all that shit to me and now you can’t hear some of it back? Contrary to what you might think Paige, my whole life doesn’t revolve around you. My decision for where to spend the next four fucking years, does not revolve around you,” Azzi’s voice rises with each word.

Fighting is cathartic in a way. They’ve spent almost a year delicately tip-toeing around the subject, growing further and further apart and yet still holding on for dear life. And Azzi doesn’t want to let go, but everything feels burning hot, and her hands are starting to blister.

“Oh you’ve made that very clear,” Paige bites back, “you’ve made it very clear just how little I mean to you.”

“Because I chose a different school? That’s all it took Paige, seriously? That’s all it took for you to call our friendship fake?”

“No what it took Azzi was you being a fucking liar.”

“I didn’t lie about anything.”

Paige scoffs, her voice taking on a pitchy mocking tone, “ ‘I’d love to play with you Paige’, ‘being on the same team would be nice P’, all of that fucking bullshit when you didn’t mean any of it.”

“Oh we’re playing that game,” Azzi seethes, “how about ‘Az I’d support you no matter what’ huh? Where did all of that go?”

“Maybe if you didn’t make stupid decisions then.”

“No, actually choosing not to play with you might have been my smartest decision yet,” as soon as the words are out, there’s a part of Azzi that wishes she could wrench them back in.

“Right,” Paige’s voice is eerily quiet now, “well I hope that works out well for you then. Go to UCLA Azzi, have a great fucking life and stay the fuck away from mine.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Azzi takes a cautious step towards the blonde and almost immediately, Paige steps backwards, her expression suddenly blank. The change to indifference is somehow worse than the previous malice, “Paige-”

“Fuck this, I’m going home,” Paige says resolutely, her fingers fidgeting with themselves as she reaches for her phone and wallet.

“We need to talk this out, we need to try and fix this,” Azzi all but pleads, trying to position herself in front of the persistent older girl who’s trying to make her way to the door.

“I don’t know if I want to fucking fix this,” Paige yells, shaking away Azzi’s hand on her shoulder, “I don’t know if it’s worth it,” her voice breaks as she says the next words, “I don’t even think I wanna be friends.”

When Azzi’s 14, Paige Bueckers dribbles through a USA basketball camp court straight into her life and teaches her all about how one person can come into your life and carve out a permanent shelf. When Azzi’s 16, Paige’s casual smiles and not-so-insignificant touches teach her all about the complicated space in-between just friends and something more. When Azzi’s 18, Paige says those words, ones that sound a lot like giving up, and teaches Azzi that sometimes in life, even the people you thought would never make you feel this way, are the ones who'll break you the most. And that’s the day Azzi makes a promise to herself that she’ll never give someone that part of herself again, unaware that when she’s 20, Paige will teach her that some promises are meant to be broken.

***

July 2023

Azzi doesn’t know what god she pissed off to get herself into this position, stuck in a booth with Zoe on one side and Paige on the other. Her girlfriend’s left hand is placed firmly on her thigh and Azzi has to fight the vehement urge to shake it away because Zoe’s normally soft, sweet touch feels itchy and heavy. But the way Paige’s biceps are pressed against hers might be even worse. Every time the blonde moves a little, the sliding of her smooth skin against Azzi’s arms, sends a jolt of electricity through her veins. And Azzi doesn’t know when she became that girl, the girl who already has someone to hold her but is desperately craving somebody else’s touch.

When people’s girlfriends surprise them with an unexpected visit, the appropriate reaction is to be overwhelmed with happiness. Except since she’d met her, Azzi’s summers have always belonged to Paige. With them having lived in separate states most of their lives, it was the one time they got to be with each other for an extended period of time. It was an unspoken rule really, one that they had subconsciously still followed the year before when Azzi had shown up at Paige’s door, even if they’d only gotten the last couple of weeks of the season; summer was theirs. So, when Zoe had shown up that afternoon with a bright smile and shining eyes, all Azzi had been able to register was a sense of loss as Paige pulled her hand out of Azzi’s.

Introductions had been somewhat awkward. Her parents knew of Zoe, but hadn’t met her yet. They were nice of course, her dad pulling the shorter girl into one of his bear hugs and her mom giving her a warm smile. Jon and José were more awkward, nodding their greetings but making no move to actually welcome her. Paige had managed to muster up a smile, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes, and shake the other girl’s outstretched hand. And then there was Drew, whose normally goofy smile seemed to have disappeared.

“Who are you?” the young boy had asked quizzically, his eyebrows crinkling together.

“Oh umm, I’m uh- Azzi’s girlfriend,” Zoe had replied, the last word causing Paige to involuntarily flinch.

Drew had looked over to Azzi then, his eyes wide and accusing, “you can’t be Azzi’s girlfriend.”

“Is that so?” Zoe hummed, clearly not taking him seriously.

“It is,” Drew had said petulantly, ignoring Paige’s warning squeeze, “she’s Paige’s.”

The silence after had been deafening, as Azzi tried to stop herself from choking on air. Eventually Paige had regained her senses first, apologising for her younger brother’s lack of filter (“he says stupid things all the time”) and then Azzi’s dad had swooped in before things could possibly get any more awkward, proposing that they all go out to dinner. And that’s how Azzi has ended up here, shuffled in a booth, opposite her parents, with Paige on one side and Zoe on the other. Life really and truly isn’t on her side these days.

“So girls, what are y’all pizza orders?” Tim asks jovially. Azzi’s brothers and Drew, desperate to go enjoy the sun (and avoid Zoe), had already told them their orders before zooming to the park right outside the restaurant.

“Oh uh- Az you wanna share a Margherita pizza?”

“Azzi and I’ll just have our usual.”

It’s as if the world wants Azzi to suffer as both Zoe and Paige immediately look at her expectantly. The girl in question keeps her eyes focused on the menu in front of her, unsure how to best handle this predicament by doing anything other than maybe just running out of the restaurant.

“What’s your usual?” Zoe asks, her voice all curiosity and no ill-intent.

“Grilled chicken and bacon with spinach and onions.”

“But Azzi doesn’t like onions, she says they make-”

“They make her breath smell I know,” there’s a hard edge to Paige’s voice, “but she-”

“She can’t pick them off. She can’t pick anything off of her pizza because it takes-”

“It takes the cheese off, I know that too. That’s not what I was going to say. She doesn’t eat them because she thinks they make her breath smell but she does like them. It’s just-,” Paige’s eyes flare with mischief, “she only eats them around people who are close to her. Guess you’re not quite there yet.”

Since Azzi had mustered up the courage to finally tell Paige about Zoe, right before summer break started, Paige had been nothing but respectful, supportive even. Until tonight apparently and Azzi doesn’t even know to react to the fact that her best friend has started a pissing contest over fucking onions.

“Right,” Zoe bites her lips, her ever-present smile slipping slightly as she slowly pries the menu out of Azzi’s hands and looks at her with hopefully eyes, “but we’ll get the Margherita tonight babe?”

“I-” and Azzi really should say yes, side with Zoe like the good girlfriend she is, except, well, all she can think about is that Paige hasn’t smiled since the California girl had arrived in D.C., “I think um- I’ll stick to my usual Zo, I’m sorry.”

She’s a terrible girlfriend, because immediately Zoe’s smile fades, and Azzi barely notices it, too busy watching Paige’s grin light up her face. Her baby blue eyes sparkle as if she’s won some important battle and it’s not even dark yet, but Azzi swears it feels like the stars have come out.

“Okay,” Tim says slowly, looking between the three younger girls, as he waives over the waitress, “if that’s decided then.”

The issue with Paige being pretty, is that nobody’s really immune to it, including the cheerful waitress that practically skips over to serve them. Her eyes glaze over a little bit as they roam across the blonde’s face and then to her arms before drifting down to her torso. Paige’s tank top doesn’t leave much to the imagination, exposing both her muscled biceps and toned torso and Azzi doesn’t need an x-ray to know the widely appropriate thoughts going through the waitress’s head. The feral roar of mine takes birth in her stomach and the quieting whisper of she’s not does little to subdue it.

“I’m Libby,” the waitress says, tongue darting across her lips, eyes solely focused on Paige, “and I’ll be your server today.”

Libby collects orders dutifully, polite and agreeable, but doesn’t once fully look away from the blonde, practically drooling once she finally gets to her, “and what can I get for you to drink babe?”

Azzi’s not sure whether it’s the sultry tone or the nickname that gets Paige’s attention, but all of a sudden her best friend is staring up at the waitress with her own flirty smile. She likes to think she’s not a particularly violent person, but Azzi thinks she might end up in jail for homicide tonight.

“Well babe,” Paige winks, Azzi wants to die, “what would you recommend?”

Libby smirks, clearly feeling triumphant as she leans on the table, one hand reaching out to brush Paige’s forearm, “sex on the beach.”

Several things happen at once. Tim chokes on a breadstick. Katie immediately thumps him on the back. Zoe lets out a laugh. Azzi’s nails break the skin of her palm, drawing blood as she fists both of hands. And then-

“She has a girlfriend,” it’s a blatantly untrue but all Azzi can think about is stopping this random girl from eye-fucking her Paige. It does the trick, Libby’s eyes go comically wide, as she steps back from the table, from Paige.

“She does?” Tim asks. Next to him, Katie, shoots her daughter a knowing look that veers on the edge of disappointment.

Azzi stutters under the heat of Paige’s glare, the blonde clearly unamused by her lie, “I uh- I mean um- it’s not official but um yeah,” she doesn’t even sound convincing to herself, “I’m uh- I’m gonna go to the bathroom.”

She practically shoves Paige out of the booth so she can climb out of it herself, adrenaline pumping through her veins. Her heart hammers in her chest and she tries to block out the sound of Paige’s being questioned by her dad, as she rushes into the restroom.

There’s no amount of water she could splash on her face to make this heat go away, but she tries anyway, unsure of when the tap water starts to blend in with the tears streaming down her face. The unsettling anger of how dare she flirt with another girl beating in her heart is replaced by the guilt of i’m not allowed to feel this way thrashing around her rib cage. It hurts all the same, as Azzi clutches her chest, trying to even out her breathing.

She doesn’t hear the door open or close until, “What the fuck was that?”

“Get out,” Azzi whispers, closing her eyes and leaning her head on the mirror, “just give me a second okay?”

“Oh no, no, no, you owe me a huge fucking explanation right now,” Paige hisses, “what the fuck was that bullshit? I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“It was a joke-” before Azzi can even finish the sentence, there’s a hand on her biceps, forcing her to turn around. When she opens her eyes, Paige’s face is far too close to her own and when she tries to move back, she’s trapped with the cool edge of the sink. It’s too much, the proximity, the tension, the lingering touch of Paige’s fingers curled around her arm.

“Stop lying,” Paige bites out.

“It just slipped out babe,” and fuck, Azzi absolutely hadn’t meant to add that last part, hadn’t meant to make it so obvious what exactly had triggered her little outburst. Realisation flashes across Paige’s face, as she takes a step back, letting go of Azzi, and the distance should be freeing, but instead it just makes her feel lost.

“That’s what this is about?” the blonde asks in disbelief.

“Yes- no- I don’t know, okay,” Azzi’s voice is high-pitched, “I’m sorry okay. I’ll tell the waitress it was a joke,” she lets out a humourless laugh, “I didn’t mean to fucking cockblock you.”

“Cockblock me? Dude I wasn’t trying to fuck the waitress what the fuck?”

“Could’ve fooled me babe,” Azzi sneers.

Something menacing flashes in Paige’s eyes, “stop calling me that.”

“What? You don’t like me calling you babe. You didn’t seem to have a problem when it was her.”

“Oh my fucking god Azzi,” Paige throws her hands up, “you don’t get to do this. Not when your girlfriend is sitting right there.”

The reminder of Zoe is like being splashed with cold water and Azzi feels everything inside of her freeze. She grips the edge of the sink, trying to find some semblance of balance as Paige continues to glare at her.

“For the past few hours, I have had to hear your girlfriend call you every fucking nickname in the book. I have had to watch her kiss you and move your hair back and grip your fucking knee under the table,” with every sentence, Paige inches closer and closer, until she’s accentuating every word by pushing her index finger into Azzi’s chest, “and you can’t even fucking deal with me calling some other girl babe?”

“Paige,” Azzi whispers when Paige’s voice breaks on the last word. Their faces are so close, she can feel the other girl’s uneven breathing all over her skin. And it takes everything in her to not cave in and reach a hand out to caress away the tear that's threatening to fall from the blonde’s tearline.

“It’s been hell Azzi,” Paige spits out, “so you don’t get to be upset if I want to fuck someone-”

Something snaps and before Paige can complete the offending sentence, before she can imprint an image that will forever haunt Azzi’s mind, Azzi silences all the warning bells of why she really shouldn’t, and pulls her best friend into a searing kiss. Immediately, Paige’s hands come to rest against Azzi’s hips, pressing her firmly against the edge of the sink. It’s as if they’re trying to meld their bodies together, both of them gripping each other as close as possible. Outside, it’s a summer evening of clear blue skies, but here in this random restaurant restroom, lightning strikes.

Paige bites at Azzi’s bottom lip and then traces her tongue over the bruise she’s created, smirking when it elicits a gasp from the younger girl. Lips still firmly moving against Azzi’s, her hands work expertly on the buttons of Azzi’s tight shorts. The sensation of everything Paige is all-consuming and Azzi feels like she’s drunk on the taste of her best friend’s skin, as she moves away from Paige’s lips, to pepper kisses on her neck, before moving down to suck a mark into her collarbone. Mine, mine, mine.

“Fuck Az,” Paige moans when Azzi’s teeth grate against her skin and it’s the brunette’s turn to smirk. But her cockiness is short-lived when Paige’s fingers finally find their way into her now unbuttoned shorts. They press down on her clit through her underwear, making her whine.

A cry of “Paige,” escapes her lips when the blonde slides Azzi’s panties to the side, her middle and index finger beginning to rub circles around the younger girl’s clit in a tantalisingly slow rhythm.

“So wet, so fucking wet for me,” Paige’s voice is wrecked with want, as she brings her free hand to cup Azzi’s jaw, forcing her best friend to look her in the eyes. It scares Azzi, the sheer amount of emotion she can see swirling in the blonde’s eyes. There’s lust and then there’s something else, another l-word that she can’t bring herself to acknowledge, knowing it’ll ruin her, ruin them.

“Please,” Azzi whispers against Paige’s mouth, as the older girl’s fingers slip from her clit to tease against her soaking entrance, dipping into her folds but not giving her what she wants.

“If you want something baby,” Paige traces Azzi’s lips with her thumb, “you have to ask for it.”

Azzi's hands moved away from where they had been firmly gripping Paige’s waist, to wrap around her neck. She bites softly against Paige’s left earlobe, eliciting a low groan, before bringing her lips as close to the blonde’s ears as she can, “I want you to fuck me.”

It’s all it takes, Paige finally gives Azzi what her body’s so desperately craving, for far longer than she’s willing to admit, pumping two fingers into her pussy, while her thumb stimulates her clit. And fuck, Paige knows exactly what she’s doing, fingers curling in the exact right spots and Azzi feels like she’s floating or flying or falling, maybe all of the above.

“Please, please, please,” Azzi babbles incoherently, burying her face in the crevice of Paige’s neck, tears beginning to blur her vision. Because, it’s too much, the ecstasy, the fact that it’s Paige behind the ecstasy, the fact that this is better than her wildest fantasies.

“Doing so good for me baby,” Paige praises, fingers starting to move faster, “taking my fingers so fucking well Az, think you can handle one more?”

Azzi whines in response. Paige pushes in a third finger, both of them letting out identical sighs of pleasure. She’s slow for a second, giving Azzi time to adjust but-

“Fuck, Paige, faster, please,” the younger girls moans, grinding fervently, desperately, against Paige’s fingers, trying to create more fiction.

“Anything for you Az,” Paige whispers, and even in the high of the moment, Azzi knows those words are about more than sex, “whatever you want.”

As Paige’s fingers begin to move at a rapid pace, curling around her g-spot, over and over and over, Azzi can feel that familiar pressure building in her stomach. Her fingers claw at Paige’s neck in warning, too worked up for words. Paige nudge’s Azzi’s face out of her neck, free hand cupping the younger girl's jaw.

“Come apart for me baby,” she whispers before pressing their lips together.

Azzi’s hips stutter as her orgasm rolls all over her, pussy clenching around Paige’s fingers, as she moans into the older girl's mouth. Spent, her body goes limp, her best friend’s firm grip pressing her against the edge of the sink, the only thing anchoring her and keeping her uprights. Paige slowly pulls her fingers out of Azzi’s pants and the loss of contact feels wrong. It’s instinct really, as Azzi reaches for Paige’s hand and brings it up to her mouth, sucking each of the older girl’s fingers clean one by one, and it’s worth it for the way Paige looks wrecked.

“Az-” she begins softly, eyes filled with questions but before Azzi can even think about any answers-

“Azzi,” reality crashes and burns around the two girls as Zoe’s voice calls out for her girlfriend. The sound of footsteps gets closer and closer. Panic takes the place of pleasure as Paige and Azzi jump apart from each other and the realisation of their surroundings hits both of them at the same time. Sweat sheens against Paige’s collarbone and Azzi’s lips are bruised, her eyes still glazy. Their identical dishevelled demeanour gives away far too much. Just as the restroom door creaks open a little, Azzi dives into one of the stalls.

“Oh, hey Paige,” guilt pools in Azzi’s stomach at the sound of Zoe’s innocent voice, as she presses her ear against the stall door, “is Azzi in here? She’s been gone for like 20 minutes.”

“She- she was,” Paige stutters, and Azzi hates herself even more for putting her best friend in this position, “I-uh I think she um- she wanted some fresh air.”

“Ah okay, I’ll go try and find her,” Zoe pauses, “are you okay? You look a little flustered.”

“Me? Oh yeah, I’m fine,” Paige assures in a high-pitched voice, “just uh miss my girlfriend you know.”

Azzi flinches at the lie. She’d made such a fucking mess today. The lying, the cheating, all of it was so out of character and all of a sudden, she feels dirty. Tears brim in her eyes as she begins to process the gravity of what she’d done. And perhaps the worst part of it, is that she can’t find it in herself to fully regret it. If she could turn back time, she doesn’t know if she’d do anything different. Because when it comes to Paige, Azzi’s fine living in shades of grey.

“Yeah, I didn’t know you had a girlfriend,” Zoe says slowly.

There’s a pause and Azzi knows the words neither did I are floating in Paige's mind before she answers, “yeah, it’s uh- it’s new.”

“That’s good. I’m happy for you,” the sincerity in Zoe’s words hit like stones, rupturing whatever built up image of i am a good person Azzi had ever had of herself

“Thank you,” Paige replies quietly.

“It just-,” Zoe draws in a breath, “Azzi she- she worries about you a lot you know. Even before- you know- when you guys weren’t- you know? Like I think she thinks about you a lot,” there’s an unmistakable wistfulness in Zoe’s voice, “ like- if you’re doing okay and all that. And I don’t- I don’t even know you but I know she wants you to be happy- and- and I want whatever Azzi wants- so- so if you’re happy- that’s good.”

“That’s- that’s really sweet of you,” Paige sounds as guilty as Azzi feels.

There’s quiet for a minute until, “do you think I make her happy? Does she- does she talk about me?”

Zoe’s voice is laced in insecurity and hopefulness and Azzi wishes she’d never brought this girl into her mess in the first place. The sun-kissed Californian had been a classmate who had accidentally stumbled upon Azzi mid-breakdown on a random Thursday. One second she was hesitant, the next she was spilling her woes to a stranger, tired of holding it in. And from then on Zoe had been on a mission to just be there. She’d never hidden her intention, always clear that she wanted more than friendship and Azzi, despite knowing that her heart didn’t really have space for anyone else, had let her loneliness be her guide and given in to the urge to just let someone hold her. But the truth is that while every other second spent with Zoe was filled with mentions of Paige’s name, every moment spent with Paige was never about anything else other than her.

“She- she does, she seems happy,” Paige can’t bring herself to say the with you. The blonde sounds defeated, as if the admission that Azzi could possibly be happy with someone else has taken everything out of her.

“Good, it means a lot,” Zoe’s voice is lighter now, like there’s a smile hidden in it, “especially from you. Thank you. I’ll uh- I’ll go see if I can find her.”

Azzi waits for the sound of footsteps shuffling and then the sound of the door clicking behind Zoe, before prying herself out of the stall. Paige is hunched over the sink, face buried in her hands. And the words my fault, my fault, my fault imprint themselves all over Azzi’s heart.

“Your girlfriend’s looking for you,” Paige says, not bothering to look up.

“Paige I-”

“Just go Azzi, we’ll just” Paige scoffs, “we’ll just play pretend again,” the walls are up again and Paige is unreachable in her castle built from the ashes of the purity in their friendship that they’d just sacrified for a fucking quickie in a barely-lit restroom. And maybe Azzi should say something, maybe she should stay and see if she can fight her way into Paige’s castle. But Azzi’s no knight in shining armour, not Paige’s, not Zoe’s, not anybody else’s because knights don’t cheat and they don’t lie and they don’t break people’s hearts. So she listens to what her best friend says, she walks out, and she pretends she doesn’t hear the sob that’s let out behind her.

***

November 2023

UCLA is up on UConn, it should be a pretty momentous occasion and it is. Azzi’s had one of the best games of her career to get her team mere seconds away from getting their first win over the powerhouse. For UConn, so has Paige, except there’s nothing but frustration gleaming in the blonde’s face. The game had been bad for UConn, the cracks created by injuries on full display. And the competitor in Azzi was more than happy to take advantage of that. But the part of her that was Paige’s best friend was stuck on how tired Paige looked. Someone fucking help her, Azzi had thought throughout the game, she literally just came back from injury.

The outcome of the game is clear and Azzi’s already on the bench getting rest, cheering for her own team of course, but keeping a subtle eye on what’s happening with Paige. Azzi’s eyes follow Paige as she’s finally subbed out. The older girl walks to the end of her own bench, hands coming to rest on her thighs as she hangs her head, face scrunched up in irritation. Paige does that thing where it's like she’s trying to bite of all the skin on her lips and Azzi has the familiar urge to march over and make her stop, preferably by kissing her, not that that’s a thought she’s allowed to have.

It’s ironic really, the 2,943 miles that had once been the reason they’d fallen apart, is the only thing holding them together. Being out of each other’s reach makes it easier to ignore what had happened over the summer, makes it easier to not give into that same vice all over again. And it makes sense, Azzi thinks, because since she’s met her, whenever Paige had just been a blurry goofy face on her screen, they’d been good at the just friends thing. The moment they could touch though, that’s when lines got blurry. As much as Azzi’s not sure how she survived a year without Paige, she’s even less sure about how she’d survived that one year where they’d practically lived in each other’s skins.

Things in the handshake line are somewhat icy with both teams being overprotective of their star players. Muhl’s eyes are full of disdain once she reaches Azzi and Arnold barely shakes her hand, only doing as much as she has to, to keep up appearance. Azzi’s teammates aren’t any better, Angelica smiles at everyone until she reaches Paige, and Kiki rolls her eyes at the point guard. But it doesn’t matter what anybody else does, not when Paige practically falls into Azzi’s arms, her tense body finally beginning to relax a little.

“You did good,” Azzi whispers into the blonde’s hair, tightening her hold on the other girl as she soothingly strokes her back.

Paige scoffs, burying her face further into Azzi’s neck, “you did good, I did what I had to.”

They break apart reluctantly, the shutter of cameras ruining the intimacy of the moment. Their hands hold on a touch longer but the minute they finally slip away from each other, the familiar feeling of i’m tired of missing you that seems to always be lingering within Azzi, prickles against her heart.

***

UConn and UCLA don’t have a rivalry but if you were sat at the hotel restaurant in the Cayman Islands on a lovely November evening, you wouldn’t know that. There’s multiple women’s basketball teams present at the restaurant and everyone’s mingling with each other but the Bruins and Huskies seem determined to avoid each other at all costs. At one point, Angelica and Muhl, of course it would be them, accidentally bump into each other and Azzi holds her breath at the icy glare shared between them. She’s not sure how she and Paige ended up with something akin to the women’s basketball version of the Montagues and the Capulets, but it seems fitting with the way her life’s been going, that it would eventually start to take the shape of a tragedy.

It’s around 10pm when Azzi notices Paige moving in the direction of the door, towards the beach. Azzi hesitates for a moment, knowing her need to go after the blonde isn't just one born out of a best friend’s concern, but it’s Paige. It doesn’t matter if there’s inevitable destruction on the other side, it’s Paige and when it’s Paige, Azzi will follow.

Paige’s silhouette on the beach, glowing underneath the moonlight, with waves crashing onto the shore beyond her, is straight out of a dream. Azzi’s not an artist by any means, but she thinks if she were, this moment would be her muse. The sea wind causes Paige’s hair to flutter with it. Her eyes are closed in concentration, knees pressed against her heaving chest as she takes in deep breaths of salty air. Azzi traipses across the sand, sandals in hand, before falling to the ground next to the other girl. A whisper of a smile is the only acknowledgement Paige offers her as they let a comfortable silence glide over them.

“It would be nice to live here,” Paige says after a moment, “it’s peaceful.”

“Except when it storms,” Azzi surmises.

“It’s not peaceful anywhere when it storms,” Paige counters matter-of-factly, “can you just let me have my moment?

“Right, right, continue.”

“Well now I don’t want to.”

Azzi laughs. Paige grins. It’s so easy. It’s so fucking scary.

“Why’d you leave the restaurant?” Azzi asks cautiously.

“Fresh air.”

“And?”

Paige sighs, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, “it’s gonna be a long season.”

“It always feels like that at the beginning.”

“I know- it’s just- after last year- I just thought it would be different. We’d show the world this time. Be like the other UConn teams of the past. Maybe I just wanted something easier.”

“No you didn’t,” Azzi nudges Paige’s shoulder, “you’ve never wanted easy in your goddamn life Paige. If it’s not a challenge, then it’s not for you. Because you’re God’s strongest soldier, and He’ll give you his hardest battles, right?”

“Right, but sometimes I just don’t feel so strong.”

“Remember what I said in LA? It’s okay to feel that way P. It’s okay to feel however you feel. Let yourself breathe sometimes, it’s good for you. Fall down, let things go, just- remember to get back up and hold on again. It’ll get better, I promise.”

“You always say the right things,” Paige says quietly, and then even quieter, she whispers under her breath, “you make it so hard Az.”

Azzi’s not fully sure what that means. She’s not sure she wants to. Instead she tangles her and Paige’s fingers together, ignoring the way it feels a little too right, and lets them fall back into a peaceful quiet.

“So,” Paige begins again, after a couple of minutes, “Zoe didn’t make the trip here?”

I’m holding your hand and you’re thinking about my girlfriend. Maybe you’re a better person than me.

“She can’t just leave all her schoolwork and follow me wherever,” Azzi says, trying to keep the defensiveness out of her voice. It’s true except the part where Zoe had asked if she wanted her there and Azzi hadn’t been able to give her the enthusiastic yes she wanted, starting an unspoken argument that quashed any chance of a nice romantic island getaway for the two of them.

“She did for the Elite 8 last-” Paige bites her tongue.

“How did you-,” Azzi’s brain feels dizzy with confusion, “how could you know that? You left- after the Sweet 16, you- how did you know Zoe was there?”

“I didn’t leave,” Paige keeps her eyes adamantly on the ocean, “the team wanted to stay longer,” that’s a lie, Azzi knows her too well, “and so I stayed and you know me, I love watching hoops so I uh- I watched your game.”

“You were there,” Azzi whispers more to herself than Paige at this point. She’d been so sure she was just hallucinating, her heart trying to trick itself into seeing what it wanted to see, “why didn’t you tell me you were there? Why didn’t you come see me after the game?”

“I did- fuck Azzi- I did-”

“Where? I would’ve seen- I didn’t see-”

“I saw you,” Paige cuts through Azzi’s frantic questioning, her voice heavy with unspoken emotions as she continues to refuse to look at the younger girl, “you and Zoe. Together.”

“Paige-”

“After the game, you were looking for someone in the stands and I- I thought maybe you were looking for your parents but then I saw you- with her- outside the locker room and- it hit me that- that you were looking for her,” Paige spits the last word out as it feels like lava on her tongue.

In the grand scheme of things, maybe Azzi should let Paige keep this misconception, maybe it would make things simpler if she let Paige believe in the idea that there was someone else Azzi sought out when she was struggling. But-

“I thought I saw you,” Azzi breathes out, “I should have been looking for Zoe but-” she has to draw in a breath when Paige whips around, piercing blue eyes that feel like they can see straight into Azzi’s soul, “Paige, I was looking for you-”

The last bit of sound is stolen away from Azzi as Paige’s lips crash onto hers. And it’s so different from summer and that wretched bathroom. Something softer, more gentle, but still desperate and passionate. Time slows down, as Azzi pulls Paige into her lap, hands caressing her waist, mouths still moving against each other with perfect rhythm. They only pull away when air becomes a necessity, resting their forehead against each other, as they breathe in sync.

“You’re so beautiful,” Azzi whispers, moving a strand of hair out the blonde’s face.

The way Paige blushes is everything, “stop.”

“You are,” Azzi insists, pressing a kiss against the corner against the edge of her lips, “you’re perfect P.”

If she goes blind tomorrow, in the next second even, Azzi thinks that would be okay. As long as this, Paige with her soft Azzi smile, looking at her with that sparkle in her eyes, face illuminated by the shine of the stars, is the last thing Azzi sees.

Slowly Paige climbs off of her, stretching out a hand to pull Azzi up.

“You don’t have a roommate right?,” she asks with a soft smirk that transforms into a shy grin when Azzi nods. And this isn’t a version of Paige that Azzi's ever met before, so different from her cocky loud best friend, but she’d like to learn her all the same.

The hotel staff probably think they’re a little drunk as they giggle their way to Azzi’s hotel room. Azzi barely manages to get the door open, before Paige’s lips are all over her again, drifting everywhere from her lips to her neck to her collarbone.

“Off, off, off,” Paige urges, hands pulling away Azzi’s shirt and she can’t help but giggle at the older girl’s impatience. She keeps her eyes firmly on Paige as she unhooks her bra, smirking as her best friend’s eyes glaze over. Paige moves to touch her, and Azzi moves back immediately.

“Nuh huh. I show you mine, you show me yours.”

“You’re so fucking annoying,” Paige groans but does as she’s told, discarding her shirt and Azzi’s smirk widens. She moves towards Paige, slowly tracing her tongue down the older girl’s neck.

“Am I?” Azzi whispers, as she backs her best friend onto the bed. Paige’s eyes follow her every movement as Azzi slowly slides down Paige’s pants, and then her underwear. She runs a finger down Paige’s soaked folds, causing the other girl’s body to shiver, “so wet already, for someone so annoying?”

“Fuck y-” Paige cuts herself off with a groan, when Azzi’s fingers find her sensitive clit.

Settling herself in between the older girl's legs, Azzi grazes her teeth against Paige’s left thigh, satisfied when it makes the other girl’s breath hitch, “if I’m so annoying maybe I should go?”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Paige warns breathlessly, head propped up against Azzi’s pillows.

“That’s what I thought,” Azzi smirks, as she peppers kisses up Paige’s thighs, her right thumb lazily flickering against Paige’s clit.

“You’re such a fucking tease,” Paige lets out a frustrated whine, “just fuck me already.”

Azzi bites down hard against Paige’s thigh, wanting to leave a mark in the one place no one would ever see it, before looking up at Paige, “whatever you want.”

Paige’s entire body writhes as Azzi fucks her tongue into Paige’s pussy, building pace with every thrust. One hand fists around the sheets, as the other moves to grab at Azzi’s head, trying to guide her in deeper.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck shit Azzi please,” Paige curses, eyes rolling into her skull, “just like that fuck.”

She’s so close, words becoming incoherent noises, thighs beginning to shake, when Azzi pulls her tongue off.

“What the fuck-” Paige almost yells but it turns into a groan when Azzi replaces her tongue with two fingers instead, “shit- FUCK.”

Azzi attaches her now-free lips to Paige’s clit and she can tell it’s too much. Paige’s back arches off the bed as her eyes go hazy. And then Azzi’s above her, fingers still rapidly pumping into Paige, as she places a delicate kiss against her lips.

“Let go baby, I’ve got you,” Azzi whispers into Paige’s ear as the blonde closes her eyes, letting her orgasm wash all over her, “I’ve got you.”

Paige is still for a second, as Azzi slips her fingers out, continuing to press lazy open-mouthed kisses against her best friend’s neck. She squeals when she feels herself being flipped over, back hitting the mattress.

“What was it you said?” Paige asks cheekily, as starts to unbutton Azzi’s jeans, “I showed you mine, now you have to show me yours.”

Azzi rolls her eyes, a laugh escaping her throat. Trust them to be dorks even in a moment like this. And then Paige attaches her lips to Azzi’s clit and the giggles turn into loud desperate moans. When she slips her fingers in, it’s clear Paige remembers exactly how to push Azzi over the edge.

“So fucking perfect,” Paige whispers from between her legs, eyes looking up at a blissed-out Azzi with awe, “you’re so fucking perfect.”

“That’s you,” Azzi manages to get out in between bated breaths, before her own orgasm hits her, and Paige’s name waterfalls out of her lips like a prayer.

There’s no more words after that, only shared looks and soft grins as they make their way into the en-suite bathroom, lazily washing each other between stolen kisses. They fall asleep, wrapped in each other's arms with matching content smiles.

***

Azzi wakes up alone the next morning. There’s no scribbled note, or even a text. In fact there’s really no proof that Paige was ever there to begin with, except for the ghost of Paige’s touch written all over Azzi’s skin. For a second, Azzi sits in bed and stares out her window. There's a thunderstorm brewing outside (it's not peaceful anywhere when it storms). She watches the raindrops slide down one by one and decides that, that’s the only water that’ll fall today because she won’t shed a single tear and she won’t cry and she most definitely won’t sob.

She replies to Zoe’s i miss you text with a me too she doesn’t mean.

And then she gets up and goes on with her day.

#pazzi #paige bueckers #azzi fudd #wcbb

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lol-jackles · 6 months

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tumblr /jenmishperceiver/747567018487726080/i-think-if-anything-put-the-final-nail-in-the> I've seen this assumption before and imo it's spin: Jensen said repeatedly that he told the group he wanted to think about the script, went home TO HIS WIFE and said he was uncomfortable, who then suggested calling Kripke, ect // In all the retellings, I've never actually seen it said Jensen fought with the writers OR EVEN TOLD THEM and Jared he was uncomfortable until AFTER he'd changed his mind to agreed

Bitter Destiel shippers are those kinds of people who fall for IRS telephone scams.

You're correct, Jensen never said in any of his retellings that he fought with writers nor did he tell them or Jared he's having a hard time "digesting" until AFTER he talked to Kripke and was convinced by Kripke that "Carry On" was the right ending for fans. You know, the real fans who watch the show for what it really is: Sam's hero journey with his beloved brother, Dean.

That said, while you're correct that it's Jensen's job to sell the concept, he has also been pitching a Dean-led spinoff for years. Remember his "dream" (X) that he pitched during the SPN press junket? I didn’t side-eye his PCA campaigns or his pursuit for Dean-centric storylines, but I did raise my eyebrows at his ballsy move to publicly pitch his post-Sam projects in front of Jared and Misha. What does the jenmishperciever's Anon say about that? Hummm?

Actors are always pitching their project ideas, they're just a bit more subtle about it. I'm certain Jensen had hoped the "dream" would catch on with the fans and they would campaign for it. Except not even AAs were down with the idea. Casual fans even less so. Lucky for you I saved the screenshot from the article:

Reading through jenmishperciever's Anon's self-soothing fanfiction is like watching bread grow old right before your eyes; same delusions we've seen for the past 12 years. Blame Jared for playing Sam who was in the way of a fake fetish ship from becoming canon that Less than 1% of the SPN audience ships. Said Jared's drunken arrest (I refuse to call it a bar fight, it was a group hug gone wrong) could have threaten the ENTIRE filming of the SPN final season while ignoring Anthony Starr's drunken arrest, which by the Anon's logic, would have threaten the ENTIRE filming of The Boys.

Lol they still pretend to believe that Kripke gave the SPN rights to Jensen when Kripke is SUEING WB over profit participation over SPN.

The only thing Jensen cared about with his SPN spinoff was lens crafting, which was why The Winchesters was a Shein version of an AU fanfic. Remember when Jensen told TW cast “don’t fuck it up for me”? After 15-20 years, Jensen is used to lead actors/Jareds doing the heavy lifting in carrying the show and being leader of the cast and crew and he benefitted from the sweet spot as #2 on the call sheet i.e. the good guy who is friends with everyone.

If Jensen keeps trying to be in charge of SPN projects, SPN fans’ reaction is going to be the same as today Marvel fanboys’ reaction every time they hear Kevin Feige’s name: “What did you did do this time you Son of a Bitch!? What train did you derail this time?”

Since Supernatural ended 4 years ago, the bitter Destiel hellers and AAs are stuck in a time loop of step 1 through 4 of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression). S tep 5 is acceptance, which is long delayed due to Jared’s continue success i.e. Walker in it's 4th season and #1 scripted show for CW.

#anti destiel

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ihopesocomic · 27 days

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It's such a shame how many good brother-brother duos or sister-brother duos there are compared to sister-sister duos

I know it stems from writers always feeling the need to add a man in every woman's life

A lot of writers can only make a character who's a sister if she's a sister to a brother and it's a real shame

Honestly I think Nothing from MP is a pretty good example of that

Look at her relationship with her female siblings/cousin vs her male siblings/cousin

Fire ended up being horrible and Feather is a toxic positive "lemme make you feel bad for wanting to change your ableist name even though it literally doesnt effect me" dirtbag

But Nothing had a better relationship with vs her younger sisters/cousins

Farleap and Silentstalk bullied her and Feather's sisters thought she was weirdo though they like literally never interacted

It's just always suspicious when a writer seems to prioritize a female character's relationship with guys over her relationship with girls

Like their gender shouldn't matter but they'll always pick their male characters first

The sexism in writing still to this day is wild. Especially where so-called independent creators are concerned. Because I thought the whole point of being indie was creating stuff you wanted to see in mainstream media but didn't get, but a lot of it is just more of the same crap you get from bigger productions. So either people want more sexism, or its just baked into their brain and they don't even realize it.

A lot of better stories out there are about brothers (well, I could argue that a lot of it is lazy and that there is no point to the characters being brothers, especially when strong emotional friendships between men are practically nonexistent in media.) and anything having to do with sisters is as I said, either petty nonsense or there's no point to being sisters at all.

And then there's as you said, an inherent need by creators for women to have men be relevant in their lives when that same standard is not applied to men. You can throw a rock and hit a movie or show with a female pov where her only motivation has to do with a man. Father, son, brother, husband, boyfriend, abuser. Whatever.

That's not to say any of these are bad stories. But when its the majority of supposed woman-focused media, it loses its edge as woman-focused when the women in question are focused on men. The writers either consciously or subsconsciously don't get that women have motivations beyond men. This even happens with lesbian characters, where men should have even less relevancy? LOL And it doesn't even matter who the writers are, whether they're men/women, cis/trans, straight/gay, everyone does this. You'd expect better from queer creators but even then there's a clear preference. And they're wont to bring up that "gender shouldn't matter" but only when it pertains to asking why they're so opposed to women being the focus. Its quite interesting.

MP is in an interesting position of hating both men and women at the same time while not commenting on how the patriarchy has negative effects on both men and women. Not an easy feat but Tribble sure made it look easy. She made Feather Nothing's prime motivator for leaving the pride, and while I have my own criticisms of Nothing's "subtle" motherlyness towards Feather, that wasn't extended to the female cubs. Fire is Nothing's other motivation for leaving the pride, and then he turned out to be a wannabe dictator. Quickmane was shown to be a sympathetic and caring mate who definitely wasn't homophobic, but had no qualms about killing children. And then there's alllllll the women who are meant to be oppressed to the same extent as Nothing, but they all somehow manage to be even worse because the narrative wants us to side with them.

And even Nothing's abusive relationship with Quickmane as we've stated in our review is arguably less fucked up than the relationship she has with her own mother. Because we know what they think about each other, and Powerstrike still insists that Nothing's existence is a burden on her soul or whatever. Like what the fuck is up with that?? I'm sure they could've made Powerstrike less-bad than Quickmane, was this some sort of weird equalizer of the sexes? And you can count Nothing's relationship with Sharptongue if you're so inclined to, but even if you ignore everything else she did, Sharptongue would still be the only positive female influence in Nothing's life. But not a key motivator in Nothing's story. Like not even a little bit.

#ask #ask us stuff #cat answers #my pride mention

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imabeautifulbutterfly · 7 months

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Hello there!

I was thinking that Cross with 11 and 21 for an enemies to lovers kind of story with a female assassin/bounty hunter would make an awesome story, with your great writing 💛

Thanks for being an awesome fic writer tho

General Kenobi?

Hehehehe, hello anon! thank you so much for the request and for the love. I hope I did your request justice.

Love oo

See Me

Warning: Pranks, enemies to lovers, contention, discussions of assassination, Star Wars cussing, clone's being treated disrespectfully, I think that's it. If I miss anything please let me know.

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You couldn’t help the grin that spread across your face as you sat across the Purge Commander Crosshair. His scowl was second to none, and the way his eyes just focused on you like you were trash, well you just couldn’t wait to keep pushing his buttons. So you sat there with a subtle smile that only Crosshair could actually tell.

“Any questions?” Admiral Rampart asked.

“I have one,” you raised your hand, keeping your eyes locked on Crosshair challenging him with each passing second, “Do I have to work with a second rate sniper or can I simply pay the fine and opt out?” You smirked as you looked at him.

His nose flared as he glared at you, “I’d say save your fine, and I can take care of this the old fashion way.” He placed his blaster on the table.

“Promises, promises” you teased.

“Enough!” Admiral Rampart slammed his hand on the desk, “You both will work together, is that understood? These insurgents must be dealt with, and I frankly could care less what either of you want. Dismiss!”

You stood rolling your eyes at Rampart, you noticed the subtle chuckle from Crosshair as he looked at you. You simply rolled your eyes again and headed out of the meeting room, towards your ship. The last thing you wanted was to stay a minute longer, on this ridiculous ship. You notice Crosshair followed without so much as a word.

“You know you don’t have to do everything he says.”

“Heh! Of course, you would say that? Have you ever had any loyalty?”

You stopped and turned to look at him, narrowing your eyes, “Remember I’m supposed to be watching your back out there. And strangely, this eye” you point to your prosthetic, “is giving me a little trouble.”

“Easy assassin, you’ll have to get in line to kill me. I have quite the list of people who don’t want me around.”

“Oh please,” you roll your eyes, “Just because there’s a long line of people who I don’t doubt want to kill you, however, the only one who gets to kill you, is me.”

“What was it you said again?” He stepped closer invading your space, “Promises. Promises. Promises.” He brushed past you, bumping your shoulder heading towards your ship. Ignoring the glare coming off you on his back.

It wasn’t the first time you two were working together, and each time, you both somehow found ways to get under each other’s skin. In fairness, he did leave you on the last mission, forcing you to hitch a ride back to base. Although the time before that, you may have left him hanging from a spire on the top of a building. Time before that, he purposefully took your ship when you got into a heated argument. The one before that one, you may or not have dropped his rifle into a pile of mud and prevented him from getting it.

It was a build of tension, anger, and one-upping each other to see who could piss the other off the most.

Either way, you were stuck with each other right now. Admiral Rampart, was quite adamant to keep you two working together, you weren’t sure if it was because he had a bet to see who would kill who, or if it had to do with the fact you actually did work well together.

You threw yourself down in the pilot seat as Crosshair gently placed his rifle beside him, out of your reach. You couldn’t help but smirk at his actions, “Afraid, she’ll have another nice mud bath” you chuckled.

“Touch her this time and I’ll kill you without hesitation.”

You held your hands up in surrender. It wasn’t long before you were both heading to your destination, the hyperspace lights filling the cockpit and playing off both your faces. “I say we give Admiral Rampart a special treat when we get back.”

Crosshair let a mischievous grin appear on his lips, “I’m listening.”

It was the first time the two of you didn’t actually fall into fighting, instead you both found a common enemy in Admiral Rampart and fell into fits of laughter trying to find the most ridiculous revenge you both could come up with.

As the ship landed at your destination, a lot of the anger and tension that had been there seemed to have eased off. You both hiked to your final destination, it was a three day journey to walk it. Which was fine for the both of you, neither of you wanted to be out there or even complete the assignment. “I heard you had another run in with the clone rebels you used to travel with,” you offered by way of a peace offering as you both settled down for the evening meal … well what consisted of a meal for two assassins on a mission.

“What of it?” Crosshair mumbled as he bit into the pheasant type animal you had caught for dinner.

“Heard you got injured” you motioned to the scar on his head, “looks bad. Did it hurt?”

“No, it tickled. Like tookas licking it,” he responded sarcastically, rolling his eyes at you.

“Sorry.”

He let out a sigh, tossing aside the bone he’d been chewing on. Leaning forward to pull off some more meat from the carcass on the spit over the fire.

“Heard you had your own mishap,” he whispered, and if you hadn’t been paying attention you would’ve missed it, “someone tried to hack your eyewear.” He pointed to the prosthetic you wore since your first mission ever. It had been a cocky move on your part that cost you an eye.

You nodded, focusing on our hands, “Yeah, well they learned not to mess with me after that.”

“Good.”

You knew you shouldn’t but you couldn’t help it, as a smirk appeared on your lips, before you looked at him, “Worried about it?”

“No.”

“I think you were.”

“I think you need to focus on eating.”

“For being someone you hate, I’m sure on your mind a lot. Seeing as you keep tabs on me when I’m not around.”

“Don’t want to train another bounty hunter.”

“Assassin.”

“Bounty Hunter.”

“I’m an assassin, thank you.”

Crosshair shrugged, ”Same difference, you get paid to kill.”

“Like you don’t”

“I don’t.” Crosshair stated matter of factly as he looked at you, shock written on your face, he sighed again, “Clones don’t get paid. We don’t get anything, except our weapons, clothes, and food while we’re on assignment.”

“Kriff! That’s disgusting.” He shrugged, it was his way of life, and he didn’t feel any different about it. You looked at the fire for several minutes before looking at him with determination, “I’ll split it with you.”

His head slowly turned to focus on your eyes, “What?”

“My reward. I’ll split it with you. I’ll set up an unregistered account. Set up a phoney ID, and I’ll put your money there, for you to use as you wish.”

He narrowed his eyes as he looked at you, “And why would you do that?”

“Because … I don’t want to train another assassin, either.” You smirked as you looked at him, realizing why there was so much tension and anger between the two of you.

“You don’t have to do that, mesh’la.”

“Yes. I do. Think of it as payment for training.” You smiled.

Crosshair looked into your eyes, and for the first time ever in his life, he wanted something for himself.

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Tag list:

@liadamerondjarin @badbatch-simp24@spicymcnuggies@lady-ren @firstofficerwiggles @darkangel4121 @discofern @kavecika @monako-jinn-stories @ladykatakuri @avathebestx @theroguesully @furyhellfire66 @carodealmeida @ciramaris @sprout-fics @twinkofthedink @dindjarin-mandalorian @ulchabhangorm @littlemisspascal @tortor-mcgee @vodika-vibes @clonethirstingisreal

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thedoctorsthings · 8 months

Text

Power to the king | Min Yoongi pt. 1

Fantasy/historical au, viking au (attempted lmao), Yoongi x female reader

aaangst, female melancholia, sexism, Yoongi is an asshole (he gets better i promise), loss of girlhood :(

cw: writer trying to be funny and failing, typos probably

This chapter is just the intro, just to introduce you to the characters and to explain the motivation behind the main characters further behaviour.

word count: as always i have no idea

The air is thick in the reception room you’re standing in. Your father is looking at you with stern eyes. His face is rock hard as always and so is your mother’s. they had called you in here to talk to you and now you were awkwardly sitting in a chair while your parents tower over you. Everything involving your parents was always awkward. Their mere presence made temperatures drop five degrees, which was a spectacular skill to have in the icecold climate already you lived in. You think you know what this is about. You’re getting married off. Nineteen years under your parents’ roof is enough. You had been waiting for it with a rock in your stomach since your eighteenth birthday because they had married your older sister when she was that age. This was two years ago, and she was supposed to marry the crown prince of the kingdom but then your father and the king fell out over something you don’t bother to understand. Your sister married some other rich man of noble blood and moved away to a town in the middle of nowhere. You had barely seen her since. Your father had been the king’s right-hand man for years until two years ago. Now they were on less good terms, but your father was still an important adviser to the king. The prince had remained unmarried.

“you’re getting married Y/N”. Even though you had seen this coming from miles away the statement still stole the air from your lungs for a second. There was no arguing with your father, this had been taught to you a long time ago. Even if your father had been kinder there would have been no escaping this. A life without marriage was out of the question for a woman of your status. Besides you’d have to be pretty unlucky to end up with a husband who created an even colder environment than your parents. You had observed your mother for years and learned that the best way for a woman to find happiness was to just make the best of it. Quietly undergo the whole ordeal and if you’re subtle enough you can do whatever you want out of the public eye. If you play your husband just right, you could get him to do anything and more importantly get him to let you do what you want. If that wasn’t the case, there were enough tricks to keep him in the dark about whatever you said and did with your friends. “To whom?”, you asked and it felt like those words got stuck in your throat not allowing any air to pass. Who was to decide what the rest of your life would look like? If you were lucky, they’d marry you off to Jung Hoseok, he was the son of another noble adviser and he had been your friend for years. Although you wouldn’t be in love at least you knew you would be safe, which is more than most women could say. “Crown prince Min Yoongi”, your father replied curtly. You almost felt the need to straighten your back at the mention of the prince. He had a reputation for being cold and unkind but at least you had never heard anything about a tendency for violence. “How is that possible? I thought your relations with the king were strained”. “The last harvest in this province wasn’t good, the people are struggling and can barely pay what they owe us, as governor I have to make sure our people survive and the kind could help us, this marriage could be what we need to restore the relationship with the king”. This was typical for your family; everything was explained simply without drama or euphemisms. Not a single acknowledgment of what the impact of this marriage might have on you. They don’t care and you know you don’t have the right to care either. “The king has apparently been fearing a revolt from my side, so he agreed. You can go now”. That was it. This coldness towards you was all you had ever known but you never managed to shake the frog that appeared in your throat every time.

“I found a wife for you”. “You mean the maid that just served us dinner?” “This is no time for jokes Jungkook, your brother should have been married two years ago but because of her father’s stubbornness it took me two more years to find yoongi a bride”. “I guess you’ll be marrying the maid then Jungkook”, Yoongi says without as much as a smirk. “Nobody will be marrying any maids any time soon; this is serious”, the king barks. Yoongi finally looks at his father: “Who is she?” “The daughter of governor Leifsdottir”, “Are ya not quarreling anymore then?” “Stop speaking in that stupid accent Jungkook!”, the king barked again. That seemed to be the only thing he was truly good at. “You sound like an old farmer”, yoongi said and this time with a hint of a smile. “Mother thinks it’s funny”, Jungkook dramatically pouts. “The queen is not in her right mind, quit your fooling around!” dogs could learn something from our dear king. “The governor of Varberg and I have put aside our differences. Besides, we both could benefit from this union. It will keep him calm and in exchange I will help financially, his people are suffering”. “May I at least know her name before you throw me into this joyous union?” “Leifsdottir Y/N” “When are we to marry?” “In two weeks”. Yoongi simply nodded and got up. No point in arguing this, he knew that. Besides, he didn’t care who he would marry, he didn’t care about much anymore. Living with a father sucks the life out of a person. The king did it to Yoongi’s mother and he could feel he was doing it to him too.

On the day of the occasion, you wake up feeling rotten inside. The last two weeks you had spent filled with dread. You never asked to be queen, it involved being liked and that was not your forte. It was so much responsibility that had just been dropped on your shoulders. On top of that you weren’t ready to give up the relative freedom you enjoyed. After this day it would be marital duties and nothing else for you, and as future queen you wouldn’t even have a household to run to keep you occupied. You had met Yoongi once, when he was set to marry your sister. He had visited you here and you had talked to him briefly while your sister was getting ready. Since you had already had the opportunity to talk once your parents hadn’t found it necessary to make you meet a second time, convenient as always. Now you’re sitting on a bed in a room in the palace they appointed to you. You feel like you’re choking, all last night was spent crying and panicking. When you hear a knock on the door you straighten your back, over your dead body were you going to let anyone know how you’re feeling right now. If you were going to be made queen you’d do it well, you weren’t going to spend your first day as queen to be, crying. You’re not a coward. “Good morning, madam, it’s time to get you ready”. They wash and dress you and your face doesn’t move a muscle. You don’t struggle, there’s no point.

Yoongi casts a look into the mirror as he gets into his formal attire, “Come in”, he says after hearing a knock on his door. “Ready to give the people what they want?”, Jungkook says as he saunters into the room. “Why do there need to be so many people?”, Yoongi exclaims as Jungkook flings himself onto his bed. “You’re the crown prince brother dearest, everyone wants to know who their future queen will be. They need to see if she’s pretty so they can know if they like her”. “Really, they don’t want to know if she has any interesting takes on how to run the kingdom?”, Yoongi asks sarcastically. “If yer gonna be king yer gonna have to get a better perspective of ye people”. “Jungkook stop impersonating your professor, it’s so bad nobody even gets who you’re trying to imitate”. “If this is any indicator of how you’re going to treat your wife maybe I should take her of your hands”, Jungkook laughs but is brutally interrupted by a pillow in his face. “All right mister grump, they sent me in here to tell you it’s time to get you married”.

According to custom you walk from the palace to the church in procession, and since Yoongi is the crown prince everyone is there to watch the procession. You walk beside your soon-to-be husband, when the procession started, you had tried to seek eye contact, but he didn’t attempt once to look you in the face. You might as well not have been there and so you didn’t try to make contact again. You feel naked in your wedding attire. You’re dressed to the nines but every eye in the city is on you, and you can feel it in your chest. Finally, after what seems like ages you arrive at the cathedral’s doors. The high priest is waiting for you with an unsettling smile on his face. He spreads his arms and welcomes you. You and Yoongi stand face to face while the priest starts rattling off what he has to say. You don’t hear any of it, you don’t make eye contact, instead choosing to look at the crown prince’s chest. He might be looking at your face but you wouldn’t know because you refuse to look at him at suffer the same rejection as before. Your father hands you a sword, the sword with your family crest. Yoongi is handed his family’s sword and when the priest gives the sign you exchange swords. In the process, your hands touch for a split second. His hands are warm which is surprising with the freezing cold blowing around you. After that there’s an oath which you mindlessly repeat, Yoongi does the same. The priest stops talking and before you know it the ceremony is over. You’re driven to the palace for a festive dinner and when you walk into the rowdy dining hall you finally wake up. The entire wedding had gone by in a haze, you had barely had a thought since this morning. It was like your brain had shut down in fear of the realisations you would have if you were conscious. When you sat in your chair next to Yoongi’s at a table looking out over the entire hall, the thoughts came flooding in. This was your life now, the quiet well-behaved wife of the king. No more walks on your own, from now on you would be shadowed by guards step you took outside the palace. No more playing with the animals your family owned, no more cooking or baking to calm your nerves. It wasn’t fitting for the queen to be in the kitchen. You would always love to go to the forest and just run or find herbs to use in the kitchen. That too would be over now. You were no longer a girl, you were a wife, you were a woman. The little freedom that girls have women have to say goodbye to. From now on you got to enjoy in the endless performance that is every woman’s life. You feel tears well up in your eyes. You clench your fists, no way would you let them see your weakness so soon, but it was too late. The tears were falling down your cheeks now and everybody could see. You feel Yoongi turn to you on your right. “Get yourself together”, he sneer whispers.

Now is the moment you’ve been most nervous for. Men think that woman don’t exactly know what happens on a wedding night until it happens to them, but they don’t know just how well women have managed to pass on information without them knowing. Behind closed doors and in hushed voices, most young girls are told everything they need to know. You know what’s coming and as rational as you are you know that Yoongi will not give you any love or warmth. You know he will come into your room, barely undress himself and only touch you when it’s absolutely needed. Still, you find yourself hoping that he will be kinder, that under his ice-cold exterior hides a man full of love. That this man would only reveal himself to you and that you would not need to be so alone for the rest of your life. The moment Yoongi enters the room and closes the door you know it’s idle hope. He doesn’t even look at you. “I will not touch you if you don’t want me to, nobody’s going to check”, it’s a kindness you’d never expected. People always acted like it was absolutely necessary to consummate the marriage the first night. You’d never known that the crown prince would go against tradition that easily. Besides, wasn’t producing an heir your only purpose here? “What am I here for then? I thought I was meant to give you an heir. “We have time, the rest of our lives even, besides I couldn’t touch you anyways”. Ah there was the real reason, you weren’t desirable enough, of course. “Well then I will just get to bed”, you said. At that Yoongi walked back to the door. With his hand already on the door handle he said: “don’t cry like that in public again, I don’t need all my subjects seeing that my wife hates me. It’s not good for my reputation. If you can’t control your emotions excuse yourself and deal with them somewhere private”. With that he slammed the door behind him. You were left in complete silence, sitting on the bed. How dare he. As if he wasn’t the one who dragged you from your home to marry him against your will. This is the moment you made a decision. You would never show any emotion in front of your husband. If he wanted stone cold, he could get stone cold. He didn’t deserve to see the vulnerable side of you and so he never would.

@lifeless-firefly @emerald-notes

#yoongi #namjoon #hoseok #jungkook #taehyung #seokjin #jimin #historical au #bts #bts fanfiction #bangtan #x reader #yoongi x reader

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miraculouslbcnreactions · 3 months

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Honestly the episode for me that proves they did not plan the Sentimonster shit early on is Feast.

Mayura is capable of sensing and threatening to remove Feast's Amok despite the fact that she didn't create it and doesn't have the original thing the Amok is tied to.

She should have been able to tell Chat Noir was a senti immediately, which would have instantly given him away!

(Also the entirety of Gorizilla doesn't need to happen, he could just order Adrien to give him his ring but you could argue that at that point that would have been a step too far for Gabriel and he hadn't gotten desperate enough beforehand so that feels less of a slam dunk)

Feast is weird and a little confusing just like everything about sentimonsters. My understanding of that episode is that Nathalie couldn't sense the sentimonster, she could only sense the amok that Feast had swallowed:

Nathalie: I felt an amok within. This isn't a statue, it's a dormant sentimonster. Very old and very powerful. Gabriel: Which means you can destroy it, or bring it back to life. Nathalie: But since I wasn't the one who created it, I won't be able to control it.

At the same time, if she can only sense the amok, then how does she know that Feast is a sentimonster? Why doesn't she think that it's just a statue with an amok inside? How is she able to awaken it, but not able to control it? If any peacock wielder can destroy a senti, then why didn't one of the guardians transform and do that when it was rampaging in the temple? What does she mean that she can't control it? Since when did that have anything to do with who created the senti? Isn't it just about who has the amok? None of this makes any sense.

Because of that, I don't give it as an example to prove the retcon. The lore is just too unclear to go that far. Gorizilla is way more telling to me for the reasons you gave. I actually don't think that the "he hadn't gotten desperate enough beforehand so that feels less of a slam dunk" excuse holds water because canon never presents using the rings as an act of desperation.

We don't see a scene where Gabriel puts the ring on for the first time, lamenting that he has to use it. We don't see Nathalie question if this is the right move. We don't even see Gabriel get annoyed at Nathalie for undoing his commands, leading him to demand the return of the ring because she's putting Adrien at risk. They just randomly start using the rings mid season four with nothing to indicate why this choice was made because, as far as they know, Adrien's pretty freaking obedient even without the rings. We never even get the obvious setup of Adrien pulling some crazy defiant act that changes Gabriel's mind on Adrien being allowed his freedom. The rings are just here now.

Remember, this is a show for little kids and the writing is rarely subtle when it wants to get a point across. We get a whole season five episode dedicated to the fact that Gabriel's condition is worsening even though that was pretty freaking obvious just from looking at him. It's hard for me to believe that the writers would be blatant about stuff like that, but extremely subtle about the ring use being an act of desperation. That argument doesn't even have a throwaway line to back it up! It's just a logical way to write this, so a lot of fans have headcanoned that to be the reason even though the much more logical read of canon is that the rings aren't an act of desperation. They're just a retcon.

#anon ask #ml writing critical #ml writing salt #senti salt #Bad writing is also always possible but retcon just feels like the better fit to me #But that may be me giving the writers too much credit #Because retcon is less embarrassing from a quality POV

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likeabxrdinflight · 9 months

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You know something else the live action atla has the chance to address? Iroh.

I don't necessarily mean some of the common complaints I often see- I don't think they'll address his relationship with Azula nor do I think it's likely they'll give us much more if any of his backstory. But what I do think they can- and should- address is the discrepancy between animated season one and seasons two and three Iroh.

Because I've always felt they're fairly different characters in some ways. Zuko's redemption arc was set up pretty early in the show's run, I'd argue as early as episode three when Zhao was introduced. So Iroh had to be likeable from the jump too, and broadly speaking, he was. Season one Iroh has many of the traits that make him a well-loved character throughout the show's run- his goofy humor, the endless proverbs, and he's the embodiment of the "wise caring mentor" archetype.

What's not set up in season one, however, is the White Lotus, or Iroh's role in it. At no point in season one does Iroh appear to be anything other than a Fire Nation nationalist. He shows no signs of disloyalty to the Fire Nation or its imperialist goals and does not ever appear to be nudging Zuko away from those ideals. None of those character traits appear until season two. He is supportive of Zuko, he tries to encourage Zuko to show empathy and concern for others, to be less-hot-headed and impulsive, but at no point does he ever seriously discourage Zuko from seeking out the Avatar (unless there is a direct safety concern, as in Winter Solstice and The Storm). At best he simply stands by and allows Zuko to do whatever it is he's going to do, and at worst, he's actively supporting that goal. Iroh's far from a bystander to Zuko's more villainous actions in season one, and none of this is consistent with the way he's characterized in season two and beyond as someone actively opposed to the war who wants Zuko to give up his hunt for Aang.

There's a million metas and arguments and headcanons out there that try to explain this discrepancy in characterization. Some are even genuinely compelling and make sense with the canon. But at the end of the day, all that is fanon. I just don't think the writers did a good job showing how Iroh gets from point A to point B, and they actively failed in setting up the existence and importance of the White Lotus.

The live action series has an opportunity to correct this. They could foreshadow the White Lotus sooner. They could show us the White Lotus sooner. They could also cut the White Lotus altogether. They could make subtle changes to Iroh's character or add scenes that indicate whether or not he was always trying to steer Zuko down this path or if he has some significant change of heart at the Northern Water Tribe. They could do something with his character that the animated show didn't, show his own growth and development if indeed he has any at all. And I think it's arguably one of the more important things the live action show ought to be doing, because it's one of the few major storytelling failures of the animated one.

#atla live action #I'm not sure I expect them to address this #but there's an opportunity here #I don't even think it would take much #just a few tweaks here and there during season one to suggest Iroh's playing a longer game with Zuko #or else just give us a reason for the shift in his character

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lilianade-comics · 11 months

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How do you think show!Vlad would respond to your AU!Vlad who actually chose to raise Dani? I’m thinking he’d be jealous but in denial about it, though not subtle about probing for details. Like he’d capture the AU!Dani and scoff about the relationship but also kind of indirectly ask for how it works/how it happened. Probably through insults.

He’d def be annoyed that Danny has a slightly less antagonistic relationship with AU!Vlad, though. And AU!Vlad would probably be in full villain mode to subconsciously prove to his alternate self that he’s no less badass, or driven. In my mind.

Thoughts?

I think any interaction between the two Vlads would consist of them both acting superior (AU Vlad like "Oh, you had a Danielle and threw her away? I didn't know there was a version of me with brain damage..." (as if my AU Vlad wasn't planning do the exact same thing before I, the writer, said "no", but in no universe is Vlad self aware) and Canon Vlad through his teeth is like "Maybe I simply have higher standards~") but canon Vlad definitely has a heaping helping of jealousy on top. Like, he doesn't really get why AU Vlad got attached to an inferior clone, but he can see that he's happy on some level, and that is incredibly frustrating to him, because they're otherwise identical and why does HE get to be happy?

The concept of a proper canon Vlad vs. "loves Dani" Vlad boss fight is one that will probably get explored in another AU that I haven't posted about yet! (Spoilers: it features time travel and younger Vlad deciding to kick his older counterpart's ass, because young Vlad didn't suffer alone for years just so his older self could throw away the best thing that ever happened to them)

#danny phantom #asks #cheese melt

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liamnottherose · 5 months

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We need to talk about Noel's lament.

I've always perceived this performance as a way for Noel to express his queerness, it's a beautiful expression of his identity and the passion for his interests through cabaret. It's a performance, yes, but the feeling it expresses it's real. And as queer myself I could not help but connect with this way of expressing one-self. This doesn't mean every queer person will be able to see themself in any of Noel's lament performance but rather that I do because of my queerness.

I've always appreciated this segment of rtc because it doesn't actually mock Noel for it, it allows him to express himself all out as an amazing thing. Sure they laugh at the absurdity of it, but just as much as everything else on the musical. That is rare to find, a canon queer character that, although a bit stereotypical in his manners and thoughts, is allowed to be passionate without that being considered a flaw. And I thought those were the writers intentions too.

Now, I've found a different performance, almost same cast but different actor for Noel (not going to name, this is no hate to this actor, just me thinking). This performance felt like it was making fun of Noel, instead of feeling the performance, it felt like it was daring the audience to see how far would it go. And of course the audience laughed.

It is not the first time I've seen a performance of Noel's lament were people laugh because "haha boy wearing lingerie so funny" but most of the time I could play it as the audience flaw, the performer was giving it their all and it made me connect (more or less) with it.

This was the first time I genuinely felt like the performer was instigating this behavior and it felt wrong. It was genuinely hard to watch because then I started to think that, maybe, the writers did intended this as a joke. The gay passionate teenage boy with manners that does any kind of performance as "a woman". And started to spiral because, do we really know anything about Noel except the fact he's gay, he hasn't had sex and he likes queer coded pieces of media related to sexual/sensual content? I mean, it is information and it is not like we know that much about the rest of the characters either.

Even though his performance allowed me to find my queer identity represented in an allegorical sense, at the end of the day, it can also be enjoyed by homophobic audiences. Not all of them but more "subtle" ones. The behavior of Constance still bugs me to this day as "fujoshi behavior", which is generally problematic in itself. At the end of the day, is Noel written to be enjoyed by queer audiences? A character can intend to represent a minority and still not be created for that minority, which can be really problematic too.

I don't have a conclusion I'm just spiraling because I LOVE Ride the Cyclone but each time I find myself finding more and more problems with it.

Of course this doesn't mean I won't like it anymore, it doesn't mean I cannot find myself in Noel's lament, I do, this won't change that. It doesn't mean you have to agree with me, maybe there's nothing wrong with this performance, maybe it's me overthinking this. But I do like enjoying theater responsibly, enjoying but being aware of it's "flaws". Idk, I wanted to say it.

//also idk English, if something is misspelled don't go after me

#ride the cyclone #rtc musical #noel's lament #noel gruber #rtc noel #noel rtc #help i should be sleeping but i can't stop thinking about this #if not sleeping i should be studying someone help #my posts

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pipsqueakparker · 1 month

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ok but what dots did you connect in the oops flashbacks i"'m curious now

so here's my extensive personal analysis/breakdown of oops as it pertains to blitzø, fizz, and their history - i'll preface this by reminding you that i am just some silly little guy on the internet that loves to read into things

first of all, the sheer fact that fizz knows exactly what to say to get under blitzø's skin speaks to just how close they were because even fifteen years later fizz knows what buttons to press to get a reaction. this isn't a revelation by any means, but just a bit that i wanted to include because as a writer i love the subtle power of one or two lines of dialogue - and i don't think fizz actually expected blitzø to fucking pounce but he probably should have lbh

additionally, despite saying how much he fucking hates this guy, he is still extremely protective when striker gets his hands on fizz - and okay, i just thought the detail of him pushing fizz's head down so he doesn't get shot was just cute.

okay, so yes - so far i have simply connected the very basic dots of irrefutable evidence that blitz and fizz were very close friends. but was it more? yes, absolutely. at the very least, we know blitz had feelings for fizz but i fully think that was reciprocated and even acted upon and here's my further evidence:

I couldn't get a good screenshot, but the letter says 'FIZZ'S EYES ONLY' and it's sealed with a little heart and he has a little flower and he was about to give this to fizz for his birthday. blitz was coming with his little love letter, and it appears he made it all the way there with full intentions of handing that over to him - in front of other people. whatever they had, they at the very least weren't trying to hide it.

(and i'm so soft for the idea that this wasn't the first love letter he'd written to fizz, but i digress)

but in the moment just before...

CASH LITERALLY HANDS FIZZ A CARD THAT SAYS 'WISH YOU WERE MY SON' - now, Blitz may not know what the card says, but i'm sure cash was never subtle about favorites. especially when his favorites were just whoever made him the most money, and we know fizz made him a nice chunk of change - especially in comparison to blitz, who, in cash's eyes, was probably worth even less than a crumpled up five and a slim-fit condom by this point.

here's where i've connected my dots - it gets long so i'm gonna pre-emptively stick a rea more here

something happened just before blitz got to the tent, he's rolling up, love letter in hand, probably got that goofy fuckin smile on his face because it's fizz's day and he's so excited to see fizz, when someone stops him. it could've been cash, it could've been barbie, it could've been some random fuckin guy on cash's payroll who was assigned the task of breaking blitz's fucking heart, but someone told him something.

there are... many possibilities, but here's what i've convinced myself the truth is - fizz was the fuckin' star, he was the One mostly likely to make it the fuck out, and everyone knew that including blitz - hell, blitz probably thought they could do it together, because he tried to hold on to that dream for himself as long as he possibly could. but someone - maybe fucking everyone, we don't know the general feelings on blitz pre-fire - told blitz that he was holding fizz back. not just once, but many times, spent as much time as they could convincing blitz that he was distracting fizz, that fizz wouldn't make it if blitz kept clinging on. that, ultimately, their relationship was going to be fizz's downfall. (and probably because they knew fizz was really fuckin soft for blitz and didn't think they could push him up any higher so long as he was determined to keep blitz by his side)

and i think he was caught just outside the tent with that letter, and reminded of that "fact".

so this moment, witnessing this exchange, seeing fizz so fucking happy while he is left feeling like he is somehow ruining the person he loves? ripping away any chance for future success? i think he's already started feeling ashamed of himself here, and this anger is entirely towards himself, not fizz. so...

yeah, he lashed out and accidentally set the tent on fire and the prophecy fulfills itself. by believing that bullshit, he truly "ruins" the person he loves. and his mom, what a horrible additional fact.

(but i pull this from blitz's reactions when fizz tells him that getting blown up did not ruin his life, and that actually because of what happened, he's ended up in a place so fucking good and with someone that makes him so fucking happy - even when he thought he truly fucked up fizz's life, he didn't ruin it.)

and it of course didn't stop there, because they were both being fed lies after the fire. "they" told blitz that fizz didn't want to see him, and 'they' were probably feeding fizz lies about blitz not caring enough to come, probably started feeding into fizz's whole idea of no one caring about him if he isn't useful or talented - because even blitzo left him once he was too broken and he never thought he'd lose blitzo.

(and my guess is that cash is at least one of the 'they's mentioned, judging from a screen cap from the trailer, when blitz is reliving his memory and we see cash outside of fizz's hospital room - and i would 100% believe that at the very least after the fire, barbie became one of the people pushing blitz away, too. i'm so curious about their relationship before the fire, when did they truly disintegrate?)

anyway - this 'oooohh' could very well just be the realization of a horrible miscommunication, or it could be the realization of the lies that they were fed to keep them apart. it could be both.

(okay but imagine blitz bringing this all to therapy, god what a field day - as someone that just made up with a childhood best friend after we had a huge falling out in our teenage years, my therapist and i had such a time rehashing and healing some old wounds)

ANYWAY

so, yes, from all of THAT it is very safe to assume that blitz and fizz were extremely close friends. at the very least, they were like besties 5eva.

however, i am telling you that these two fucking dated. and here is my supporting evidence:

okay, this could also just be a TMI bestie thing but something tells me blitz made fizz watch his horse porn shows and there is nothing inherently platonic about that. i'm not saying you can't watch porn with your friends, but i am saying that if you're watching porn with your friend you at least wouldn't say no to fucking that friend. and it is valid to still hold a platonic relationship with that person! but...

BLITZ'S FUCKING FACE HERE.

that's... a very fond and familiar look. that's a 'oh, we've been in this position before' and he's not mad about being back in it, that is a face that has been this intimately close with fizzarolli and is probably reliving all of those moments right now.

and yes, this can still be read as blitz just reliving his one-sided crush so let me just add on the final moment that cemented in my mind that they had already moved beyond mutual crushes...

this is i think one of my favorite moments & you can't convince me that this is the first time blitz has ever said that. i mean look at their FACES. (yes it is a funny one-liner, but look, i'm here for the deep dive baby and i will read into every single detail)

and so here i'll also just give my little thoughts on this moment, because i don't think this is the first time blitz has said something along those lines and i want to believe it's actually a callback to a moment we haven't seen.

like maybe the moment after they've actually confessed their feelings to each other - fizz is probably a nervous fucking wreck, because maybe it was his idea to just tell blitzo how he feels and he blabbers on about it and keeps reassuring blitz that this doesn't have to change anything between them and actually if he wants they can both just forget this EVER HAPPENED because like, fizz would totally be okay with that if blitz doesn't feel the same way -

and as adorable as blitz finds fizz's nervous babbling, he does stop him because god of course he feels the same way, fizz is one of the single most important people in his life, and maybe he can't quite say that but he says something close. he says it how he can, and he's not good with words but he doesn't have to be because fizz gets it and fizz, overcome with relief and also probably just overwhelmed bc oh blitz likes him BACK? he just reaches out and hugs him because what the fuck else are you going to do? and maybe he's babbling again about how he didn't expect blitz to feel the same way, and he's lowkey pouring all of his insecurities out, and blitz hugs him back because he knows it'll calm him down and it does and they're just sitting there in each other's arms.

and blitz being blitz. well. he's gotta shoot his shot, and yes this is a very nice moment but... "would it totally fuck up the moment if we made out right now?"

and it kind of just became his thing when the emotions got too overwhelming of just suggesting they make out, because he doesn't know how to hold emotions unless he is actively letting it out physically. because blitz is bad at the words but good with the sex, and assumedly most other forms of physical intimacy.

so yes,

#helluva boss #helluva boss analysis #blitzø #fizzarolli #blitzfizz #v much enjoying these qs #love the opportunity to just blurt out some of the headcanon that i wanna make into a fic but don't have the energy to make into a fic #pls feel free to ask for more from hb or hh honestly

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bookish-bogwitch · 6 months

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an ask game for writers to procrastinate working on your WIP(s)

thanks for tagging me @wellbelesbian!

1. 🦈Tell us the name of your/ one of your WIP(s): Basil Pitch's Diary. It's literally my only WIP.

2. 🍄Describe your WIP/one of your WIP(s) in the format of “___ + ___ =___” Bridget Jones's Diary + Carry On = We Love Baz, Just As He Is

3. 🌍What tags or warnings will one of your WIP(s) need if you intend to share it? Internalized homophobia, gaslighting, self-hatred. 😬

4. 🧭An alternative title to one of your WIP(s)? I never considered an alternative title to BPD, but the one that comes to mind now would be a huge spoiler. The alternative title to the next chapter is "I Fortunately Know a Little Magic," which is sassy and snappy (R.I.P. Howard Ashman) but less thematically relevant than the title I chose.

5. ⚠️Which WIP your most likely to finish or update next? Basil Pitch's Diary. Literally every other fic I've ever posted has been while "taking a break" from BPD, which could go on indefinitely if I let it, so I am bound and determined to finish this fucker before starting something else.

6. 💾What is your document of your WIP/ a WIP called? (not the stories actual title but what you’ve saved it as) I have a list for BPD called "Chapter Checklist." It contains subtle insights "Baz is an UNRELIABLE narrator."

7. 🖍Post Any sentence(s) from your WIP. Here's Baz and Dev in ch. 7:

“Will you stay for dinner?”

“Can’t. Dev and I…”

As Niall told me about their plans I grabbed one of the football’s nylon loops and let Rusty tug on it as we walked. It seemed too late for Niall to have a date all the way in London, but what do I know about dates.

“Come with us,” said Niall.

I grimaced. “No thanks. I’ll catch up with Dev when he’s not on molly and climbing down your throat.”

“You don’t ‘catch up’ at Beast Night. You dance.”

“With whom?”

“Men.”

8. ♻️A scrapped idea for your current WIP. I just looked in the trash folder of the BPD Scrivener project and found this note I don't remember writing:

Renée Zellweger would play Baz. People would be skeptical but she’d fucking nail it. Gaining weight for a role? How about growing eight inches, sprouting a happy trail, and joining the legions of undead. (Might as well cast Oscar bait.)

9. 🤔What’s a story you’d love to write but haven’t even started yet? A Watford-era get-together magickal mishap involving animal transformation and beloved children's literature. So, you know. The usual.

10. 🤡How many WIPS are you actively working on? Just the one. @facewithoutheart and I have a secret side project going that involves back-and-forth writing and it's stalled out on me. It's very fun and silly and I plan to return to it when I need a break from some of the angstier parts of BPD.

11. 🛠Is there a scene or anything in the WIP you are struggling with right now? I'm not working on any one BPD scene right now, but trying to map out the rest of the fic in greater detail so that I can roll from one chapter to the next. I was struggling for a couple of weeks with how to make an unavoidable canon plot point emotionally relevant to Baz's arc, but I think I figured it out last night. Phew.

12. ❤️Not a question, just a second Kudos to send. Kudos and tags to @cutestkilla, @thewholelemon, @whatevertheweather, @brilla-brilla-estrellita, @monbons, @onepintobean, @ileadacharmedlife, @ivelovedhimthroughworse, @skeedelvee, @im-gettingby, @imagineacoolusername, @iamamythologicalcreature, @youre-an-apocryphal-concept-223, @rimeswithpurple, @goblindad-emoshit, @facewithoutheart, @artsyunderstudy, @alleycat0306, @erzbethluna, @ebbpettier, @emeryhall, @f-ing-ruthless-baz, @hushed-chorus, @hertragedyconnoisseur, @ionlydrinkhotwater, @ic3-que3n.

#tag game #writer asks #baz pitch #simon snow #indulging myself #procrastination

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prince-liest · 6 months

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Oh, my. You know, I feel like you’ve managed to give Vox’s usage of “yellow” in that recent snippet more weight than if he were to have used “red”, lol. Maybe it’s just the fact that the two of them have only ever used the latter, or just the emotional context of when/how it was used, but it felt like a gut punch when I read it.

Alastor’s reaction is so lovely, too !! I love that he actually has an emotional reaction to it, that he panics. We got him, boys, deer in yellow stoplight! Get safeworded, bitch!

(And, just to quickly tangent, I found it interesting that Alastor specifically says that Vox “can’t see” his reaction. I’ve been wondering what that could have meant throughout the day—is he in a predicament somewhat like the next fic you’ve teased, where Vox is physically incapable of seeing certain things, or just Alastor’s observation that Vox is caught up in his own emotions and wouldn’t catch his?—but when I went back to refer to the snippet while writing this ask and caught that part again, I wondered if it was less about Vox and more about him? As in, “Vox needs me right now, so he cannot see me panicking; I need to be reliable, supportive, and I can’t do that if he notices that I’m also out of my depth.” Feels more obvious now, looking back at how it’s right before “and so he wrestles himself back under control”, lol, but! You leave it slightly ambiguous, and let the reader come to their own conclusion without making it too subtle or overt, and!! I love that style of writing SO much! Makes it feel hella rewarding to piece things together, and also incredibly susceptible to going back and reading into every other word, lol. Also, so much for “quickly tangent.”)

But, anyway. What I’m saying is that I just really appreciate the fact that that word got him to actually flinch. It speaks volumes about how far they’ve really come. I doubt Alastor would have been that affected by it had this been before part 6 (even if he’d have stopped either way)—although I also doubt that Vox would have used “yellow” instead of “red” back then, either. Again, something about the way you have it written in that snippet just! Makes it feel so much more impactful! I hesitate to say more intimate, but I feel a certain degree of trust and vulnerability that came from Vox there—that Vox trusts Alastor enough to feel like he would stop and check on him even if he hasn’t used what’s considered the worst of the worse. It’s just! Sweet, beneath the ostensive angst.

You are an incredible writer, I hope you have a nice day, 🫶.

This took me a while to get back to for irl reasons but I want you to know that I LOVED this comment! Honestly that snippet in general got a lot bigger of a response than I expected, aha, which is absolutely delightful.

And you are super on point with why I chose to have him call yellow instead of red! First of all, I think it's just pretty rare for me at least to see "yellow" get use in fics even though I think it has a very important role to play, and second of all because, yeah, they're finally getting to the point of, like. This is something that didn't jive, at all, and a re-orient is needed, but it's also not at the level of emotional carpet-bombing that their previous missteps have been at. Also, it's Vox: he genuinely does not want to stop, and it's not super evident from the snippet, but the reason he calls yellow is related to why he actively wouldn't want to put a halt to things.

And I'm glad that Alastor flinching stood out so much, haha. He's been on the back foot in terms of feeling like he's the one constantly being emotionally vulnerable in any way that matters (which: Vox has been incredibly vulnerable, but the impression Alastor gets is that it's all par for the course for Vox, who has been doing god knows what with Valentino for decades), and he's also extremely not keen on actually losing what he and Vox have going on in general, so: unfortunately he also now gets to learn that it's acutely not a great feeling to be on the other side of things, either.

Anyway, thank you so much! I'm having a lot of fun writing this installment right now, so I'm genuinely so delighted that the little preview of it has garnered so much anticipation, haha. <3

#ask #personal #Anonymous #my writing #666 live on air #t #long post #hazbin hotel #also you are deeply correct about how I intended the ambiguity of that line ehehe #I will not clarify #but that is the point >:D <3 <3 <3

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sundayswiththeilluminati · 2 years

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Well, it’s been a week and I've had time to cool down and put together my thoughts on Season of the Seraph and its ending. So here goes.

The season finale plot did not require Rasputin to die. "The eliksni are trying to get control of the warsats" is literally a strike. If the warsats needed to be taken off the table as a get-out-of-jail-free card we could have blown the network and kept Rasputin himself. There was an active decision to kill him. Having thought about it, I think I understand why this decision was made - but I still think it's a terrible decision, and I'll explain why.

Before we start, I don't want to sound like I'm going after Destiny's narrative team either personally or professionally. I'm not calling them terrible writers, much less terrible people. I don't know them! They might even be terrible people, for all I know. While I refer to a single monolithic "narrative team," I know in reality there are multiple groups working on different stories. I’m not a professional writer, and they are. And I genuinely believe all of them are talented people who work hard and care about Destiny. But that doesn't mean I don't have some criticisms.

After considering it I think there are three possible reasons to kill Rasputin:

1). The narrative team believed this was a good emotional conclusion that brought closure to his character arc in Destiny. In this case I just think they're flat-out wrong. I'd say "I respect it" but I kind of don't because I think it's so terribly wrong. I don't know what other people think Rasputin's character arc involved, but I won't get closure till Rasputin faces the Witness again and finally ends the war he's been trapped in for centuries. But I get why they would do it, if they believed this. And that final mission was really good. I had a hard time noticing at the time, but it was very well-done, and the cutscene proper was well-shot, -scripted, and -acted (though I'm still angry about the Traveler upstaging Rasputin's death). They put a huge amount of effort into it and into the story work all season long.

But his death being well-done doesn’t change whether I think it was a good narrative choice. Even saying “Rasputin’s arc should conclude here,” the way it was set up had him sacrificing himself to basically cancel himself out. Unless they’re saving up a plot twist, Rasputin ultimately contributed nothing to the fight. He didn’t do any damage to the Fleet or Witness, or anything to stymie Xivu Arath. He died thinking he’d never helped humanity at all and it was safer if he didn’t exist. I don’t know about you, but I find that extremely unsatisfying.

2). Someone doesn't like Rasputin/doesn't know what to do with him. This is two reasons, but they overlap. The Operation: Sancus mission dialogue pissed me off because it gave me the impression that whoever was writing it really didn't like Rasputin and was taking the chance to morally excoriate him. A more subtle version recurs in the final mission where Rasputin is essentially sacrificing himself to null out his own existence - saying "as long as I exist I'm a threat to humanity" - as if he can't ever help or contribute more than endanger people, which is just flat-out wrong. "Humanity doesn't need a Warmind" you're part of humanity, Red. He’s a person; he doesn’t need to justify living. If someone just decided Rasputin Was Bad Actually I’d be very angry indeed. But I don't think it's that personal. Destiny has lots of writers and multiple narrative teams will touch the same work. One person's distaste probably wouldn't steer an entire season.

Related, however, is the reason that maybe no one knows what to do with Rasputin. To be honest I sympathize with this one. Would it shock anyone to hear I've thought about how I would script a Rasputin-focused season? It's surprisingly hard to build a plot around him. A game needs to be interactive and Rasputin's kind of all or nothing - either he can handle the whole problem himself or he can't do anything at all. Red also mostly plays defense. He doesn't have a goal he's working towards other than "kill the Witness/save humanity." You need to come up with a plausible goal that we can believably help him achieve, and that's nontrivial. But, well, that's why I'm not a professional games writer and these people are. "Not sure what do" is not IMO sufficient justification for assassinating one of Destiny's oldest characters/factions.

3). The Destiny narrative team is trying to "declutter" the setting and foreground story by sidelining characters who take a lot of lore to understand. I think this is the real reason, and it's worth talking more about.

A lot of us lore-nerds have long complained about Destiny not foregrounding its setting and story, and Bungie has responded by trying to do so. I think we didn't consider what that would actually look like. Imagine Destiny's story like a long movie. Now imagine people are constantly coming and going from the audience, and everyone who comes in has to nudge their neighbor and go, "hey, what's happening?" Destiny is always (hopefully) acquiring new players, and existing ones are dropping out and coming back. Even most established players either don't read the lore or don't track/remember it. We the lore-keepers are very much the anomaly. If we want story to be a focus, that story also has to be more accessible to new players, lapsed players, people who don't bother reading loretabs, etc., because otherwise it harms their experience and there's a lot more of them than there are of us.

I think this is why we've seen a lot of seasons that introduce whole new concepts - the eliksni Sacred Splicers, for instance - rather than following on existing storylines. Introducing a mostly-new concept puts new and old players on a similar footing. Haunted is another type of compromise between the goal of furthering the story and the goal of making it accessible. Calus and Leviathan are back, but so warped that old players have as much to learn as new ones, and the Sever missions dive deep into character pasts but pretty explicitly describe the emotional arcs they're illustrating, so you don't have to be familiar with that character to get what they're going through. To those who already know Zavala, Crow, etc., it seems laughably obvious and strained. But to those who just got here, this is their first time learning not just about Safiyah but also about Zavala. I think this is also why there have been multiple casual retcons of minor stuff - there isn't time to explain the history, and they've decided it's not worth confusing people.

Rasputin is old. He's been a significant part of Destiny since literally the pre-Alpha test. The complexity and history that are part of why we love the Warmind also make him hell to explain to new people. It takes a decent amount of lore to get invested in his character and since Beyond Light none of that lore is featured in-game. Pre-Season of the Seraph, anyone who began with Beyond Light literally never met him. They never visited Hellas Basin, which is one big environmental story about Rasputin, and The Will of Thousands strike, which demonstrates Red's power and contains many possible dialogues that emphasize him trusting you/acting as an ally, left the playlist ages ago. Since then a new player's only gameplay interaction with him has been Fallen SABER, in which Red yells incoherent Russian and tries to flatten you with a warsat. Is it a surprise relatively new players might not be up on his character arc?

Season of the Seraph, with its narrative of rebuilding Rasputin from the ground up, would be a perfect time to introduce new players to Red's long history, and they...kind of...did that. They worked in Felwinter although then for some reason felt the need to retcon in the whole "Clovis wanted to destroy the Traveler" plan. If you were a new player who didn't know anything about Destiny lore, and you just played Season of the Seraph, you'd get an entire canned arc for Rasputin that hits the early high notes: built to be a weapon, rebelled against his constraints, humanities nerd, big smite, loves Ana and Elsie, makes mistakes but genuinely cares and wants to help.

But that's where Seraph stops. In existing lore (I almost typed "in reality") Rasputin worked out the whole "not a weapon" thing well back during the Golden Age. For a lot of us Warmind fans the most interesting parts of his story happened after that - the entire Collapse, confrontation with Darkness, years of hiding, etc., not to mention all his character development during Warmind and Worthy. He's gone through a lot, and Seraph misses all of it (except Felwinter) in favor of rehashing the same arc for a third time. It's like when moviemakers keep rebooting a superhero origin story. It may be a good story, but eventually we'd like to move on to the other parts we enjoy: this sleeping giant, hard scifi AI, grouchy old bastard, lost lore of the Golden Age, champion of humanity, learning from defeat, learning to trust again, the morality and trauma of warfare - what it means to lose a war - a being never meant to become what he was transforming still further, still unfolding his own potential.

So understanding why they might have done this doesn't excuse what I still see as a terrible narrative choice. I think dropping Rasputin is a major waste of potential, and he's far from the only tricky character to explain. Osiris, or at least the Cult of Osiris, is similarly old. His story is complex and weird and requires knowledge from Curse and earlier, yet he's still playing a major role. Other current characters like Elsie, Saladin, and Crow also need a decent amount of knowledge about previous game events to get why they are the way they are. Saladin's origin story isn't even in this game. It's not Rasputin's fault the game went three years without so much as mentioning him outside of written lore. What was wrong with the great Xivu-Rasputin “war god” parallels most of the season worked to set up, about the intent of violence? Are we never going to explore those? Are we just throwing out all the dialogues planning a role for Red in the upcoming war? Why did we have a dramatic confrontation about trusting Rasputin to operate independently if he were going to be gone in a month anyway? Just in Seraph alone the number of interesting plot threads abruptly trashed by this death argues against it.

Rasputin's longevity is precisely part of why he should stick around. In the first mission of Destiny 1 you wake up in his shadow. He has a history with us. There's just no one quite like him in Destiny. He's not just a character but an entire faction. He explores a part of story space that no one else does. He resonates with us as people rather than players. I assume Neomuna will pick up the Golden Age banner, but it’s a thriving city; Rasputin represented the ruins, the dangers of a dead age, the shadow of apocalypse. He's also maybe the most Guardian-like character and one of the best to weave a parallel/cautionary tale - were we, too, only made to be weapons? But if Rasputin didn't stay a weapon, can we too transcend that intention? And of all the factions in our solar system, the two with the most personal scores to settle with the Witness are the eliksni and Rasputin, and Misraaks'/Eramis' story has focused much more on the Traveler's flight than the Fleet's attack. Of everyone in Destiny Rasputin has the most desperately personal motive for revenge on the monochrome bastard. Now he's not even going to be there to watch it crash and burn.

I understand that foregrounding story also comes with the requirement that it be accessible to those who don't do their lore homework. I appreciate the monumental amount of work that's gone into doing that and the experimental nature of it. But I think the balance has skewed too far towards accessibility. Stuff like the end of Season of Plunder that has zero narrative motivation or continuity and doesn't even get a pretend justification drives me absolutely batty. You can only break internal rules so many times before players stop buying whatever narrative stakes you're trying to set up. Making the story easier to follow doesn't mean characters have to be cartoonishly-exaggerated caricatures like Clovis was in Seraph - just absolutely cartoonishly evil - or reduced to one or two character motives explicitly laid out for the player (though, credit where credit is due, Clovis was hilarious.) It doesn't mean the dialogue has to be as subtle as a Thundercrash. It doesn't mean you get a blank check to retcon or invent whatever's needed to create the intended character arc. If anything that discourages looking further into lore - why bother to learn it when next season will change it all again? I think Y5 represents a lot of experimentation by the Destiny narrative team, and I really respect that. But I also hope they learn what didn’t work from it, and sacrificing Rasputin in an ultimately pointless and unnecessary finale is a major misstep.

#Destiny 2 #Season of the Seraph #Destiny spoilers #Season of the Seraph spoilers #and that’s what I think about that #anyone else feel like this finale was weirdly disjointed from the rest of the season?#like Sancus led into it but the previous missions didn’t lead into Sancus at all #why so much planning and speculation on Red’s future if he wasn’t going to have one?#frankly why bother with Xivu Arath?#I wonder if this was supposed to be the second or third season and got moved up #I don’t know why I wrote this no one cares what I think and it won’t change anything #but it makes me feel better #so hey that’s not nothing #and I can pretend it might matter #just let me pretend #this is the wager of existence #The Warmind Rasputin #Season of the Seraph finale #IDK my BFF AI-COM/RSPN

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