#even as really like That evil marriage was the one actually more ''successful'' re: yeah just Take & Keep your spouse & have the trappings

[unproduciblesmackdown]

also putting 1 and 1 together. as well as words like. as you can use a punch card for "i love my friends" being said around the xmas show b/c also it's a line actedly spontaneously expressed in the mister chestnut christmas medley, punch card for "heart words," there at the start of bloodsong / introduction to the musician & banana & the former's hardassedness & vinegar wit vs banana is not like that, banana saying the musician & his music is saying Dance, Banana, not with your mouth words, but with your heart words....& the musician is like terse mouthwordedness, ft. the audience's ability to infer that perhaps the musician is not really heartwording these things or really that invested in funny little guy dancing tambourine accompaniment. But In True Form....

holding that up to the other [1] in which the musician like Would Be has all the protagonist hardass lead hero power he needs to devote himself to his Mission & kill anyone w/music along the way but it's like step one. i Need banana. cannot do it without having banana here & that has nothing to do with Strategic power levels like he's gonna tell banana no it's fine if you just like are a held hostage no epic successful moves contributor who can't help me during a Situation, don't even worry about it....needs to have his special little guy there, in true form, you wouldn't have to change anything abt the verses of the friendship song to have it be a love(tm) song but it's not b/c it's necessarily that / Not the friendship song really, would never say if the way a relationship is described is like "enough" in whatever metric of intensity intimacy whatever it must Not be [anything] & must Indeed be [anything], lord knows i'm not here to interpret anything as romance as a category based on something inherent, not a context of normative relationality larping. which is also what is happening in bsol, unless you're the romantic leads, in which case i'm like well that's none of my concern except in how it is a plot device....

cue what is also what i was going to get around to in that paragraph anyway like it is beautiful to have the musician be like "well my wife is taken hostage for Evil Marriage larping? obviously gotta go save her" & then have "but first. again i may have already committed my whole being to this & have my lethal music powers but. i Need banana before i can do anything more" & Then have that become a matter of taking on a parallel like well great news banana was also taken hostage for evil marriage larping. (see: exquisite twist & turning contrast is that in this case the "well i want to have the Set & Performance of Marriage, so. pointing a gun at this guy for these three years" hostage taker is openly contemptuous toward banana & all & so perhaps you expect the bastard(tm) to be the exact same way with His [kidnapped hostage okay so now you're my wife then; points a knife at this woman for three years] situation, but first of all the [the conflict w/the antagonist foil brings out [conflict with/in oneself]] element like we need a bit more depth lol so we get that but like, while obviously they're not Actually Close we already are shown that lo cocodrilo Knows this & is actually bothered by it, rather than just like well as long as you have to be staying here on set going through motions then we're good to go. not only the failure of the crocodile approach but failure at Being the crocodile, if he did not actually care about having someone's actual affection (& cue that even after a comedically disastrous exchange, lo cocodrilo's like Default Marriage Larping is the "good evening, darling :)" exit lmao like. is not just fine with genuine contempt beyond the larping) how many brackets am i in what tangent am i on....i think i accidentally concluded it in Sidebar Parenthetical mode there, classic. the contrast that banana's wife is openly contemptuous / hostile, lo cocodrilo has the hostility more comically mixed up in Oh Just Another Average Dinner along with also actually being the party concerned with the desire / pursuit of Genuine Affection / not really being like well this must be fine or as good as it gets then when my wife (who also by contrast is the held hostage party here) tells me to kill myself or what have you)

anyway so that when the musician first before anything else Needs banana & this means saving him from being held hostage in "well, this must be fine? & ideal even, due to the normativity contexts?" (see: again, in an inverse situation, it's lo cocodrilo gunning for the Normative Ideals. while also santa violetta kind of is too but the marriage she already had where she wasn't held hostage for it) evil marriage with someone who hates him & we also see that [the conventions of the spaghetti western is an Expressive device] particularly persistently pushed back for i wear polo shirts now :(....

but what i was getting around to, throwback to that part where i was saying we had the room to think that banana as funny little guy sidekick was, according to conventions, more superfluous to the serious big protagonist than not, surely all the more so when that hero's mission gets activated, all the more seriously. surely that banana is liking to think that the musician is encouraging him to dance with his heart words, not his mouth words, & the musician is mostly like yeah sure whatever but i'm not even gonna use the mouth words to say even that. but here we are getting this scene where it's Step One I Need Banana i'll die or i'll kill to get to him & then i'll use my heart & mouth words alike to indeed encourage him like i know you need to Dance & Sing & Tambourine & be my special little guy who i also need btw. funny little guy banana being right & not being superfluous at all, & i don't know how i'd sing if to me you didn't cling

[honeyflashbang]

My theory on Sampo's true identity...

(Minor Spoilers for 2.4) (also, I’m no expert in… anything, really, but these are just my ramblings).

So, this has probably been mentioned before, but I have a teeny-tiny theory about Sampo’s true identity, and it relates to Finnish mythology.

So, “Sampo” in and of itself doesn’t have a set meaning, but it has its roots in Finnish mythology, particularly the “Kalevala” which is a 19th-century compilation of epic poetry. In it, a blacksmith god by the name of Seppo Ilmari(nen) forges the mythical device known as “The Sampo”. It’s never quite explained what The Sampo really is; some versions depict it as a mill, others as a cornucopia from which bountiful creations flow from, and some even have it as being a world tree/world pillar, so what The Sampo really is, isn’t entirely known. But, what is known, is that it brought riches and good fortune to its holder (again, the same as the cornucopia from Greek mythology).

But why am I mentioning all of this? Why bring up the Kalevala? It could be that Hoyo just chose the name “Sampo” for some flavour—befitting of a character who magics up relics from seemingly thin air and is trying to create riches—and yeah, it’s a possibility…

Until I saw these two screenshots from the 2.4 story:

You know what this means, right? 

Kalevala is a real planet in Hoyo’s Star Rail universe, and I find it awfully coincidental that they would use this name for a planet and not have it related to a certain blue haired conman, especially since The Sampo is such a pivotal element in the plot of the Kalevala—there is no way this is a coincidence (I refuse to believe it).

This leads me to believe that Kalevala is Sampo’s real home world, and is where he originates from.

Now, this is all well and good, knowing where “The Sampo” hails from, but I want to focus on its creator—Seppo Ilmari(nen)—and his parallels to a certain blue haired conman. For one, Ilmari(nen)’s name is quite interesting as the ‘Ilma’ part is Finnish for ‘air’ or ‘weather’, and as we know, Sampo’s element is that of ‘wind’ (And also the fact that Ilmari(nen) is credited as “Godlike smith-hero and creator of the sky”. I could go into a whole spiel about Ilmari(nen) and Qlipoth swinging their giant hammers in tandem together for all eternity (Go Sampard! Geppie is Qlipoth's true heir, you can't convince me otherwise!), but that’s for another conspiracy theory lol).

So, ‘Ilma’ means ‘air’, and Sampo wields ‘wind’.

Cool.

If the parallels ended there, I’d just say I was being crazy… but there’s more.

Sampo’s 4th (and arguably best) eidolon is called “The Deeper the Love, the Stronger the Hate”. Two out of his six eidolons refer to 'love', whilst the other 4 are to do with wealth and riches. The wealth and richest aspect leans towards The Sampo of mythology, whilst the ‘love’ aspect, well…

According to the story, Seppo Ilmari(nen) is the unluckiest bastard alive when it comes to love. Like, seriously. His whole storyline is that he can’t find a woman. For one, Seppo Ilmari(nen) is double crossed by his so called buddy, Väinämöinen, into creating The Sampo for the evil witch Louhi of Pohjola in exchange for her daughter’s hand in marriage (which, Ilmari didn’t even want in the beginning), but when the poor guy actually sees the daughter and falls in love with her (and subsequently creates the Sampo—after failing miserably a number of times, mind you—he creates a crossbow, a boat, a cow(wtf?) and a plough, all which are somehow either evil or flawed), she ups and just leaves him hanging! (in the original runes, however, he is successful in gaining a wife, as his ‘unlucky in love’ spiel was later added by Lönnrot in compiling the Kalevala).

As with any mythology and re-telling of it, there’s so many different versions of the same event. In “The Maiden of the North”, a 1898 opera written by Oskar Merikanto, both Ilmarinen and Väinämöinen compete for the chance to marry Louhi’s daughter, who is then mentioned as being “Ilmari(nen)’s first wife” and who later dies to Kullervo’s curse (apparently she was a bit of a bitch to Kullervo by taunting and tormenting the poor boy—who was a child slave mind you!). Distraught, Ilmari(nen) forges himself a wife of gold and silver, but he finds her to be too cold and callous—he forges her out of love but only finds hate—so he tries to gift her to Väinämöinen (who doesn’t want her either, lol), and suggests he cast her back into the furnace and to “forge from her a thousand trinkets”.

Here’s the accompanying poem:

Never, youths, however wretched,

Nor in future, upgrown heroes,

Whether you have large possessions,

Or are poor in your possessions,

In the course of all your lifetime,

While the golden moon is shining,

May you woo a golden woman,

Or distress yourselves for silver,

For the gleam of gold is freezing,

Only frost is breathed by silver.

It is apparently your standard Aesop’s fable of “money can’t buy happiness”, which is something else I see in our dear old Sampo Koski. During our time in Belobog, we see how different he acts with the Underworld and Overworlders. To the poor, he actually seems approachable (albeit a bit of a nuisance), going so far as to help the Underworlders (an example being the questline “Survival Wisdom” in which he and Peak set up a business together renting out his tools to help the miners make a decent wage to support their families). In contrast, we actively see Sampo being very hostile towards the Overworlders, scamming them and putting the nobles in their place or setting them up to be caught by the Silvermane Guards (an example being during the museum questline where you discover his identity as “Mr Cold Feet”. Sampo clearly states to who he thinks is his mark that ‘we are not friends’ in a very hostile manner, something which we’ve not seen from Sampo before as he is usually quite amicable). 

For all Sampo’s showboating and flashing his money around, he helps where it counts. He wants to make money, sure, but not at the detriment of the people who need it the most, only to those with excess.

Anyway, back to him being unlucky in love…

In another rune entitled “Kosinta”, Ilmari(nen) goes on a journey to compete for Hiisi’s daughter, and wins by completing various feats, one of them being “ploughing a field full of snakes”:

And as we know, Sampo is very heavy on the snake motifs (the head of the snake on his shoulders, the spine wrapped around him, the daggers are its fangs…etc.)

So that’s another interesting link between Seppo Ilmari(nen) and Sampo Koski.

So, why have I gone on this long winded tangent about Seppo Ilmari(nen) when I’m supposed to be talking about Sampo Koski?

Well, that’s because I think Sampo Koski’s real name is (or a variant of) Ilmarinen.

In the Hoyo universe, I believe Ilmarinen came from the planet Kalevala and ‘created’ the persona of Sampo Koski, much like how in the Kalevala, Seppo Ilmari(nen) forged The Sampo.

As I’ve listed above, there’s so many links between the two:

“Air” as a name and “Wind” as an element.

Seppo Ilmari(nen) ploughed a field of snakes to win Hiisi’s daughter’s hand in marriage, whilst Sampo Koski relies heavily on snake motifs for his attire.

Sampo’s two eidolon names that relate to love (which are completely different from the other 4 eidolon names), whilst Seppo Ilmari(nen) is known to be unlucky in love.

I’m pretty damn sure Sampo creates his own bombs and tinkers with the old relics to bring them back to life, whereas Seppo Ilmari(nen) is a smith who created the dome of the sky! They’re both artificers!

And now the revelation that a planet by the name of “Kalevala” exists is no mere coincidence.

So, either Sampo is Ilmari(nen) - or! - Sampo is a puppet (like Herta) created by someone called Ilmari(nen). 

(I would love if his 5* version is him with this name).

Right, I’m finished rambling. Gonna go huff some copium...

[jq37]

thoughts on this week's ep?

**spoilers for broadway brawl**

***Before we start, I remembered as I was typing this one of the important notes I lost from last week’s recap: Interesting that Christmas seemingly went off without a hitch. I expected Santa to come back into play somehow (like, someone would check on him to make sure Christmas was still on or he’d call them in to help or something) but he hasn’t, at least not yet.***

My guys, my guys, my guys. Was that something or was that something?

I think I am on record as saying that combat is my least favorite part of ttrpgs generally speaking because I’m here for the RP but when a combat episode shines it really freaking shines (see eg: that first combat ep of Bloodkeep where everyone went full Galaxy Brain except for Matt who couldn’t hit a single thing) and this is such a good example. This is easily a top five ep of the season for me, maybe top three so let’s get into it and break down why it was so awesome.

We start right where we left off with Titania and members of her court having come into the theater to beat the tar out of Misty mid-show.

Quick note: At the end of last ep, it was set up so that Misty was thrust on stage right after hearing the mirror was on stage which would place this fight right at the top of Act 2 but at the start of this ep, Brennan seems to indicate that it’s taking place during what would be the closing number. Which would make more sense but imagine you go see a play, the first act is super dope, and then the second act is an insane, minute long fight that’s pretty unconnected to the plot and then a buff, naked, beautiful man tells you the show is over and you should leave. Wild. Anyway.

Pixies with tommy guns in inherently funny.

So one of the things that makes this fight really great is the way it directly ties into the story in a way besides “These bad guys are in our way.” Misty is using this show as a part of her reincarnation spell so if the show is messed up, it fails and she’s on her last life. Brennan has a cool mechanic of making her roll death saves every round at a difficulty lower than her modifier (which is s/t crazy like 11) but that gets harder with damage done to her and performance checks failed by other players who decide to jump on stage. It’s a great way to make the battle feel like it has more personal stakes and it’s my fave original Brennan mechanic since the Family in Flames Sophie’s Choice situation.

(I love that the death save counter is changed for theater comedy/tragedy masks for this. Nice touch.)

Em, Esther, and Wally are also at the fight which is clutch.

Also, Sondheim is specifically here which is an insane detail to add just because.

WILD that no one knows what’s going on with the ritual initially because, as Lou almost does, getting all the civilians out is the smart move and it would COMPLETELY ruin Misty’s plans instantly.

Lou having Kingston take the stairs bc’s he’s 50+ years old and has no time for that nonsense has equal but opposite energy to him doing extra rolls for Fabian to do unnecessary parkour before a simple attack because Fabian’s Like That.

Murph fireblasts the hell out of Titania’s foot soldiers right off the bat from outside of counterspell range which is very cool.

“Give me a performance check for the cockroach.”

“You’re upstaging me bitch?”

Another great thing about this fight is that because of it’s theatrical nature, everyone’s RPing it more than a usual battle ep (or more intensely maybe is what I mean).

Titania hypnotizes Don Confetti and his goons into fighting for her.

“She doesn’t know she’s in a play but she does sing most of her dialogue which is helpful for you.” Titania is just Like That.

Pete drops an erupting earth and drops a sick 37 damage on those same minions Kug got.

I didn’t notice before but yeah, Ally does roll die like a f-ing beyblade champion.

Emily hearing Murph’s low key, offhand comments and cracking up is great.

“Get Sondheim!” (Emily and then Ally: WHAT?!)

Actual living dude Stephen Sondheim being involved in this fight is just so ridiculous and fun and crazy.

We go around to Misty’s turn and she has to beat a 28 (upped from 10) and she fails which feels worse than a normal failed death save somehow.

Lou, in a very good RP move, tells Pete to tell Misty to end the show so she can tell them not to so the group has a valid reason to not evacuate which is a thing they (or at least him and Ricky) would obviously want to do.

Sophie, the madwoman, jumps out of the balcony, grabs a costume, then runs on stage. Emily’s glee at being told that her grabbing the costume will give her advantage is great. She’s always trying to figure out how to make the most of her moves. She is the living embodiment of the concept of method to madness (which is from Hamlet since we’re talking Shakespeare today). 

Ox is constantly dying (Brennan!) but also it’s like, why was he even there before the fight started? I’ve never seen a non-service dog in a theater.

Ricky: Is this part of it?

Oh, forgot to mention that everything that happens on stage is kinda shielded by the Umbral Arcana so everyone watching thinks it’s part of the show, which is a cool plot detail.

Ricky gets fULLY NAKED (Emily, with perfect comic timing: Now do I roll with disadvantage?) and leaps into the fray. He casts Protection from Evil and Good on her which (1) He does by Magic Mike body-rolling on her while he’s naked and considering how much shorter she is that her raises some interesting questions about positioning and (2) is the most clutch use of this spell I’ve seen in a while. It’s a spell I always wanna take as a Paladin because it makes sense character-wise, but I’ve never been able to actually use it because we’re never fighting fiends, fae, or celestial.

Brennan’s dime change change reversal of the critic’s comments on Ricky’s body rolls when Zac re-rolls his 11 makes me glad I never had to face him in a debate team setting.

Ally: What’s Esther’s deal ;)/Brennan: *Esther’s Weapon Stats*

“Your only secret you’ve ever had in your life is that you have a crush on her.”

Wally has a beautiful singing voice and a working knowledge of Midsummer's which is wild.

Lou’s periodic, “My man”’s when Ally/Pete does something cool. He’s very dialed into being Kingston.

Ricky’s aura keeps everyone near him from being charmed and Misty saves everyone else w/ a nat 20 counterspell. Few things in D&D are more satisfying than a well executed counterspell.

Titania trying to get Pete to be her consort or something when he just over the super posh Priya is very funny.

“I mean between me and Sondheim, get Sondheim!”

“DO WE HAVE HOMEWORK TONIGHT?” (“We did have homework.”)

Anyway, Misty has one success now!

Misty tries to use puppet to get Titania to drop her crown and it doesn’t work. Brennan says the crown is Crown of Stars which I looked up and it’s actually a spell, not a physical crown, but I’m assuming he used the mechanical effects of the spell on a physical item.

Brennan doing all these musical/singing bits when he absolutely doesn’t have to. I love it.

I love Ricky and Sophie being the two martial fighting heavy hitters of the group. Like, the two fighters, having the spellcasters’ backs.

I hope the one kung fu fan in the back of the theater never sees another Broadway show again because he’s gonna be so disappointed. 

“I’m just so inspired by that beautiful penis.”

Murph, out of character, verbally acknowledging how insane what they’re doing is. I love when someone pauses in a game of D&D to just recite what’s currently happening out of context so everyone can appreciate how crazy it is. D&D. Gotta love it..

Emily and Siobhan have a quick conversation in the background about whether Sondheim did Les Mis or not (not, that’s Claude-Michel Schönberg) while Brennan and Murph are Ring nonsense.

I also was mildly suspicious of Alyssa so I’m glad Kingston checked her out.

The entire roast of Brennan when he’s selecting D6s is an instantly iconic D20 moment. I can’t do it justice. You kinda just have to see it.

“Someone call Wizards of the Coast!”

Em, Wally, and Alyssa go out when Titania puts out a huge spell that blinds Kug.

“Yummy, yummy, tastes like ass.”

On Misty’s next turn, she rolls a fail which makes it 2 failures to 1 success. Brennan mentions that a nat 1 counts as 2 failures and a nat 20 counts as 2 successes. I’m sure that won’t be relevant later because you can’t foreshadow things when dice rolls are completely random.

Misty fails on puppet again again and Titania goes full Wicked Witch of the West on her and starts Jonesing for those shoessss.

Emily’s Emily(tm) move of the session is doing a flying leap at Titania, hitting her with a stunning strike and having Brennan retract the Box off Doom he was pulling out because she can’t save when she’s stunned. She just plummets out of the sky.

Don Confetti respecting the sacrament of marriage as he goes full Opera ghost and tries to garrote Sophie.

Ricky (still naked) grabs the crown from Titania, tosses it to Misty, and, with some improv and a good charisma roll, makes the show suddenly make sense to the very confused but entertained audience.

I’m so glad that Murph decided to turn into a bear and that they made the Winter’s tale ref. I should have had faith in Brennan and Siobhan, the theater nerds. Exit pursued by a bear y’all.

Lou and Emily bonding over being proud of their die for rolling well when they lend it out for a big roll.

Really wish Pete had wild magic surged in this fight. Just to add that extra bit of chaos. 

With a very good turn (no damage taken, no performances failed) Misty only has to avoid snake eyes to get through this turn. She leapfrogs over that low bar and rolls a nat 20, instantly fulfilling her win condition. At this point, the play is superfluous and Titania is still down.

“Brennan lost and now he knows reddit is gonna eat his ass.”

OK, remember how I said earlier that Misty seems like the kind of character you nudge a little temptation at just to spice things up? Yeah, her killing Titania and getting the crown of the Seelie Fae makes me a liiiitle apprehensive, but we’ll see how that turns out.

“I killed my queen! This is America we don’t have royalty here.”

“Bear, I don’t know who you are, but take me on your back, let me ride on stage.” —creator of West Side Story, Stephen Sondheim

Misty charms the critic at the show to make sure they get a good review which is such a fae thing to do.

Kingston’s clearly not loving attacking Don and Co. post “real fight” what with his whole Do No Harm thing (well, that’s Dr’s but same principle applies I assume) is a good character detail. For that matter, so is Ricky just taking Titania’s crown and not beheading her which he super could have done while she was down but it would have been very incongruous with everything else about him.

Brian “This isn’t Loony Tunes” Murphy throws Sondheim as a projectile weapon at a pixie who snaps the pixie’s neck and then does a monologue at the audience.

I love it when someone rolls low on an insight check and Brennan gives them useless info and then they repeat it in their character’s voice.

4 mins from the end of the ep, Siobhan realizes there are two Perrys in this story for the first time and has a bigger reaction to that than almost everything else in this ep except her nat 20.

Ricky looks for costume faun legs to cover his fully out dick instead of costume pants or even his own pants.

Misty starts glowing with reincarnation energy and she runs into her dressing room for privacy. Also, she still super hasn’t told anyone what’s going on. (ALSO, assuming she’s gonna make the world think she died, it’s gonna be wild for the company of the show to have their leading lady put on the performance of her life and then die on opening night).

“Who am I to refuse a crown when it’s placed so deftly upon my head?”

You know that behind the scenes thing where Brennan is like, “Yeah, I knew Siobhan was gonna steal that book,”? I got some of those vibes during the crown scene.

The implications of what Misty did are gonna be left until next ep but Brennan says something about her creating her own court and it looks like she’s recruiting followers in the promo. IDK how I feel about that (these stories tend to have great power--especially tied to powerful magical items--as a corrupting force) but I am very excited to see how it goes down! See you then!

[winterisfinallyhere]

How season 7 should have gone...

...if they wanted a believable Dany/Jon love story.

____

Even the most dedicated of JonxDany fan must admit that there love story lacks finesse at best and at worst is not a love story at all. As a storyteller and watcher of way too much television, I decided to put together this little re-write of season 7 with an actual Dany x Jon romance. Mostly to demonstrate how easy it could have been done with this was the actual aim of the writers/ producers.

Let’s jump right in.

We’ll assume everything starts off the same. So we have 7x03 with Jon arriving and being stripped of his weapons. Because Dany is careful and so even though this is an impolite way to act towards someone you’ve invited as a guest, we’ll keep it

1# First meeting.

 If I was writing it the first meeting would take place pretty much anywhere but a cold and mostly empty throne room. Maybe over a shared meal, where Dany could talk like equals (which they as Queen / King are at this point). Even her small council / the war room would have made it feel better. But let’s keep the setting the same because Dany of the Many titles likes set-up like this. 

So yeah. It goes pretty similarly only this time, during their first meet, Dany tells him of the Red Woman’s visit and is a tiny bit more open-minded about the prospect of the White Walkers and the speech about how Dany managed it all because she had faith in herself gets taken out.

Jon x Dany would meet and talk and rather than having Tyrion tell her to give Jon the Dragon Glass, she would come to this decision on her own and while perhaps still a little doubtful (not sure why the girl who has three dragons isn’t willing to believe in magic, but I digress). Perhaps here, she’d ask him to bend the knee again (because she sure likes doing that) Jon would point out he’s been named king and can be unnamed(very true). The only way for her to win the north is for her to show the north she’ll fight for them. That if she truly believes herself the true ruler of all of Westeros seven kingdoms, isn’t it her duty to protect all of them? She’d come away from this talk a little unsure.

Next episode we have Jon finding the cave paintings as they mine for dragon glass. Dany agrees that this is something and rather than asking to bend the knee, she suggests he show her the army of the dead. He’d asks, “How? The Wall is hundreds of miles away.” She’d smile and say something like “Do you forget so easily? I have three dragons. I can go anywhere.” But as they exit the cave, Dany learns her forces have been defeated and that the Lanisters army is on the move with food and gold. This is where she gets annoyed with Tyrion and asks Jon’s advice. This time the advice would maybe be more like, “Send your army to handle this, but let us fly north and I’ll show you the true enemy.” She’d agree, because who wouldn’t want to spend hours cuddling with Jon Snow on the back of a dragon?

So this is where things would change majorly. Dany would not take part of the field of fire, but if the desired/ needed outcome here is to have both Sam’s brother and father dead (so he can be lord at some point maybe?) then having the Dothraki kill them would be just as effective. The coolness of a dragon battle would, of course, be lost and so would one of the defining Dark!Dany (bend the knee or die is pretty dark, an executing prisoners of war is a war crime) moments but if DxJ is going to have a happy ending this would just be a good thing.

So, now we have Dany X Jon, off on an adventure together. Possibly Dany just misses her reunion with Jorah, because that would just be for the best. Or it could be included and we’d have some much clearer parallels on how both Jon and Jorah has the hots for Dany but Dany only has eyes for Jon. 

Anyways, JXD are off to see the WW’s army. So many chances for bonding and bantering and maybe some talk of succession. Maybe how they both can’t see much further than the wars. Maybe they’d still stop off at the wall and meet up with the Brotherhood + hound. Maybe not.

Back south the gang left behind could still be attempting to negotiate some sort of peace treaty with the most amazing royal bitch of them all (Cersei) which would be a chance for the Jamie / Tyrion reunion as well as Gendry’s reintroduction. Maybe this meeting could be set up to discuss possible terms for the return of the remaining Sand Snakes / Theon’s sister (which show!!Dany seems to just have forgotten were her allies since it’s no longer convient for her).

In the north, perhaps Dany’s dragons aren’t faring quite as well as she’d hoped. This could serve as a sort of reason to why they suddenly are super easy to kill. Let’s say they do a fly over and Dany sees the Night’s King’s army and is actually horrified by it and the implications.

This is the second big change. Because in order for Dany X Jon to work out, they need to get on the same page about who the real enemy are. Canon!Dany refuses to do this even after seeing the White Walkers and having lost one of her dragons to them.

Let’s say now Dany or Jon together come up with the crazy idea of getting a wight back south. Maybe to get Cersei’s army to help them. Maybe to just show everyone that the danger is real. Not just Cersei (my sweet darling Queen of evil) but the whole realm (because let’s face it, at this point no one really believes in dead men walking). Jon agrees, a little reluctant because he knows that Cersei is not to be trusted. But he tells Dany she can’t come on this mission and instead the Brotherhood without Banners tags along. Before leaving, Jon and Dany would share a romantic kiss and she’d tell him he had to come back to her safe.

Wight hunt goes the same as the show and they end up with one they can bring along. Gendry runs back to Eastwatch but instead of having to send a raven across a whole bloody country, all he has to do is tell Dany and she’s off to save her new boy toy friend. When she shows up, she gets to play the hero, one of the dragons still dies, and instead of being a heroic fool Jon actually takes her hand and get on the dragon. The “awwaaws” in the audience is deafening.

Still wanting to return home, Jon asks Dany to come with him to Winterfell, because even though he’s falling for her he still wants to see Arya and Bran who he hasn’t seen in ages (and maybe first now learn have returned to WF). Maybe at this point, we could have some Jon X Rhaegal bonding? Maybe jokingly suggest Jon could almost fly home himself. She would tell him she can’t leave with the dragons for fear of being attacked by Cersei’s fleat but that she’ll let him return home if that is what he wishes. He chooses to stay with her to go to KL to try to gather more support and awareness.

Yet another quite OoC move, as I believe Cannon!Jon would have gone home. But alas, he’s in love with Dany or at least getting there (because he’s a guy and all guy must fall in love with Dany) and wants to stay with her.

We all know how the rest goes. We’d have the silly dragon pit meet, Cersei would find some other excuse to not accept the treaty other than Jon having bent the knee to Dany. We’d still get the shady exchange between Cersei and Tyrion, which we still don’t know what he promised her to get her to agree.

We can still have everyone reuniting at once (because that was such a great idea) and have Dany x Jon talk about the dying of the dragons and her not being able to have babies. Only she’s as determined as him to fight the NK even if Cersei tells them she won’t help. The stakes are lower, but the still need Cersei’s men to fight for them.

Having gotten their peace treaty, Jon and Dany decide to sail to Winterfell together.

We can have something similar to boat!sex the original with Bran letting us all know just how doomed this love story is in the voice over (only let’s assume they’d have skipped that if JonxDany were endgame. because it made so freaking creepy)!

Thada!

We’ve almost everything happening the same way they did, except for a small few changes in the character’s choices and settings. This way we get Dany actually believing in Jon, Dany X Jon spending private time together, an emotional first kiss, a rescue of lover and we totally eliminate the whole “I am your prisoner” aspect (if she offers to let him leave) and we still end up with creepy boat sex. Jamie can still betray Cersei, Sansa and Arya can still cut LF’s throat and Theon hopefully would have gone to rescue his sister without a Jon Snow pep talk.

So yeah. That’s my take on how Jonerys should have been done if they were actually being portrayed as a romance. But clearly, they weren’t, because there were so many chances to actually add it and make it more believable.

Dany sharing about her brothers should have led to a bonding conversation. The cave scene looks pretty romantic but Dany ruins it by asking him to bend the knee again. Rather than share why he got the scars, Dany figures it out by peeking at him as he sleeps and then deduces from what Davos said about taking a knife in the heart. Jon fails to tell her he saw his Ucel Benjen out there and that he saved him. No first kiss before the sex scene. No emotional commitment/ admission beforehand. No marriage proposal. The list goes on and on.

Point is,DXD  and their whole team didn't just completely forget how to write romance. Which means Jonersy is not the endgame romance we’ve all been waiting for. Jon might very well be attracted to her and in the commentary and in interviews they can tell us DanyXJon are in love as much as they like. But their story, what actually happened on the show was not portrayed as a romance and without changing much else in season 7 probably quite easily could have, begging all viewers to ask, why?

[carmineclock]

Felt Relationship Time

Backing up here from the discord development session

He's as as spiteful as he is patient (and lazy). And can be as charming as he can be lewd. It mostly depends on his mood. He definitely has seen all of you naked before (past trails make that very easy). Full on voyeur and tries taking more or less sneaky photos of nude or uncomfy situations, and will let you know just for kicks to make you uncomfortable. That part may have actually mellowed a little over the years, but he may still try to provoke you or creep you out when the situation allows for it. That said, if he feels personally slighted (LOOKING AT YOU ITCHY, and also Die maybe, and Fin still a tiny bit. And oh, hi Droog.), he will not let you live it down until he feels he got proper retribution. He MAY forgive, but he'll never forget. And he will get his payback.

Besides that, he has a very quiet lifestyle. Loves to read books, build ships, loves to listen to music, dance and sing, has a slight compulsion with the number three. His job speciality is breakins, espionage and extortion. Assassination at times. He's not one to get kicks out of murder or violence (unless it's Droog), it's just a necessary evil and part of the job to him. Yay for being dead inside!

He actually despises Scratch, LE and the Felt as an institution. But he has deep loyalty for his fellow Felts (even if some of them regularly get his goat) and would do almost everything for them, short of dying for them (exception are Nepeta and Fin). They're his only home and family and he'll fight tooth and nail to protect them.

He has a healthy dose of respect for Snowman (actually, it would be healthy to have a little more), and while he lowkey dislikes any authority, he also realizes she's just as much an experiment and stuck in servitude, even if in different ways, so he also has some sympathies for her.

Percy (06/💀)Today at 9:33 PM

Die: Can I have any teeth and or nails you lose along the way

rooty (03/Dave)Today at 9:33 PM

Trace: Yeah sure

01 - They were surely closer back when Trace was more of a rowdy teenager himself. While Trace may still find him entertaining at times, they grew apart a bunch, and various conflicts between him, Die, Fin and Itchy certainly didn't help.   While he recognizes that Itchy has a few issues ™ , he'll not even try to get into it. Whatever Die may manage to do or not, Trace couldn't even do half as much and he got his hands full with his own two messes.

02 - Gotta need a lot more development on this front, but Trace enjoys both Doze's laid-back and no care attitude as well as his foul mouth. Also, soft tummy and tattoos. Hell yeah.

03 - He's lowkey highkey very narcistic. Because I forgot to mention that above: Additionally to being a voyeur, he also has exhibitionist uh.. tendencies. You've probably seen him naked around the hallways on his way from his room to the bath or back. He don't care. Also enjoys getting frisky in public, showing off in some nice lingerie, and definitely did it his own past trail before.

Homosexual Shark (05/CD)Today at 9:39 PM

ppl: fuck urself trace >:O trace: 8) 3 steps ahead of u

04 - So much headaches. He likes Clover. Really enjoys and respects him. Just as much as he shakes his head about him and is regularly disappointed. He's slowly trying to figure out how Clover ticks, with mixed successes. Certainly doesn't like Clover being so open and flirty with the Crew, but whatcha gonna do. Also shares a bunch of interests with him, and Clover is just generally easy to talk to. Most of the time. 

pixel~! (04/Dualscar)Today at 9:48 PM

> slowly trying to figure out how clover ticks good fucking luck youre probably one of the only people who can do it

05 - The love of his life, and likewise his biggest headache. These two have been at it since they were teens, first butting heads, later butting butts, though they only actually confessed their feelings for each other like what? Three, four years ago? (I.e. Trace punched Fin in a wave of m!a-induced overboiling emotions and then told him he loves him.) They had a very gay marriage a year-ish ago after the timeline broke apart and back together a few times.  Also, they've always had a very outwards flirty/open-ish (but also very jealousy-laden) relationship before becoming official, but only after Fin cheating with Itchy under the influence of drugs and Fin and Nepeta crushing on each other, they started working out something more open with rules I think. (If only Fin wasn't such a hot-and-cold type).

06 - It's complicated ™ . Die is so very much fun to provoke. He doesn't really enjoy the needle pain, but it's so satisfying to know it worked. But also he respects Die a lot, for being one of the more reasonable members of the Felt (most of the times), and there's good conversations to be had. But also he hurt Fin and that's definitely still on his mind, but Trace doesn't feel like poking that hornet's nest again anytime soon. But also it's so tempting to spook him and creep him out. P.S. Re: 06 - Die is also a very attractive man. Can't resist checking out that butt.

Percy (06/💀)Today at 9:56 PM

Die: I-- hm. -Presses knuckles to mouth :///T-

07 - ... 

08 - As mentioned above, he respects her, and he definitely adores her more as a boss than Scratch ever could be. He also has some sympathies for her (after all she was the Queen of Derse, now serving some human raisin and his mob), though he's fairly certain she doesn't need that. She is terrifying, yes, but rarely unfairly so. He's glad that Fin turned down the insolence that gets him hurt. He generally tries to stay on her good side, as long as she's willing to tolerate his excentricities

09 - He does great work, both in medicine and tailoring. He keeps them all safe, and taught Trace some of the basic necessities. Probably got a few lingerie requests from Trace. But you'll have to order Trace down personally if you ever want to fix up his coat or suits. He deeply respects Stitch. For now. If he ever heard about the romancing Droog, he would feel deeply personally insulted and betrayed, for all that has happened between him, Nepeta and Droog before. If he heard that Stitch gave away information to Stitch, all trust would be broken. You're a god damn old desperate fool and Droog is playing you like a fiddle. You're endangering all of us. Except probably Scratch who will be perfectly safe and fine. Good job.

10 - where u

11 - it could be so beautiful

12 - yeah okay

13 - Sweet summer child. Biscuits deserves to be anywhere else but in the Felt. He doesn't have a lot of common ground with Biscuits, but he admires how well Biscuits does for all he does and feels and fears. Keep it up, soft cookie boy. He's not as perplexed by the oven and some others may be. It's just a weird tool. The timeline has literally exploded before. Much surprise. So shocking.

14 - potentiallly too trigger happy, can probably stay away

15 - Fin stop trying to bang the big guy

00 - That motherfucker. What a tool. He hates Scratch. But he also learned to have a good amount of respect for Scratch and his methods. That won't stop Trace from testing the boundaries again and again. He has actually lost most of his fear for any punishment (most fear that remains is what Scratch could do to the other), but he still tries to be careful to not risk any. He'll follow Scratch's orders just fine. He may not always like it, but he does his job well, damn it. Partially because he hopes it helps dodging any other less favorable assignments.

Damara - What did she just say. No reallly, didn't understand it.

Handy - Oh sweet ram queen. Frankly, Trace respects and adores her, but he doesn't commonly associate her with more than chores and cooking. He knows she can be dangerous somehow, but he hasn't seen much of that yet. He also usually doesn't get to talk much with her. But he knows she can see and speak with ghosts (and she helped him contact and make peace with his dead lil brother).

LE - He can stay wherever he's at.

Caliborn - Same hat. He's loud, rude, and just looks exhausting.

Nepeta - Sweet sweet sweetpeta. His beloved moirail. Met her when he accidentially almost drowned her in a river, and bought her sushi to make up for it. It took him a while to really figure out the details of what a moirallegiance is like, but he's got it as good as a human could now. He loves her a lot, even if she can give him as much of a headache as Fin sometimes. (She also helps with dealing with them though.)  He really didn't want her to join the Felt, for all the danger, pain, Droogs and Scratches. But he's also glad she did and is around so much now. He'd love to say he'll do anything to protect her, but he knows she can kick anyone's ass at least 3 times better than he ever could. They especially share their passions for 3s, watching people, and seafood.

[tododorkies]

Dabi Theory Series: Feelings Towards Shōto- Saving or Destroying?

Feelings Towards Shōto Part 2: Saving or Destroying?

If you guys read Chapter 159, you’ll have seen that Dabi! Is! Back! And honestly him being back makes me wonder if we could get the Todoroki Dabi arc we’ve been dreaming of soon (honestly probably not but..) Anyway! Another week, another too long probably boring theory post.

What if instead of hating Shōto, which was the main point of my theory here, he pitied him, thinks he’s been brainwashed, and wants to save him? On another note, what if he thinks he is too far gone and wants to destroy him? These ideas totally go against what I said before, but I honestly see these ones as being a little more plausible? I’m not really sure. Let me know what you think!

Note: This is just theory. You don’t have to agree or disagree. I really don’t mind! Just please don’t be mean.. I spent a lot of time writing this out and just wanted a place to share my ideas. I don’t even believe all of it, it’s just thoughts I had.

Another Note: Since I’ve gained some new followers since I first started this theory series, I think it’s about time I re-refrence the theory master post for anyone who is just starting to read the Dabi garbage I spew out here. If anyone is interested, here it is!

Stain’s Anti-Hero Ideals

Honestly, this applies to all of the theories I’ve written about so far, as we know Dabi does have Stain’s Anti-Hero ideologies, but it fits in really well with this thought in particular, so I decided to write it out here.

Endeavor is praised as the #2, now #1, Hero. A hero is supposed to be someone that protects people, that helps people, that you can lean on and trust. Endeavor is none of these things. He is a power hungry man who sacrificed his family for his own form of success. He is an abuser who worked his son to the core on top of physical, mental, and verbal abuse, and beat his wife into insanity. In Dabi’s eyes. Endeavor is the opposite of what a hero should be, yet he is praised. To Dabi, Endeavor is probably the definition of a villain… Yet he’s #1 Hero. The system is backwards, and Dabi wants to change that.

Side note: We don’t know exactly how evil Dabi really is. He’s killed people, yeah. And he’s working with the League of Villains.. But up until recently, Dabi was only a petty criminal- he was breaking the law. He was committing crimes. He was immoral and wrong.. But to our knowledge, he didn’t do anything completely terrible before deciding to follow Stain. I think this provides some insight into his character.

Like the man who’s ideals he follows, the line between good and evil is a little vague. Was Stain, a hero murderer, really the same level of evil as a killer with no reason other than to kill? Was there some righteousness to his motives? Looking at this from a more Dabi point of view- would killing Endeavor really be wrong? Is Endeavor really justice? Asking these questions can help evaluate Dabi and where he lies on the villain scale. Hopefully, we’ll see more of him and learn where he falls.

Opposition

Unlike what I suggested before, perhaps Dabi never wanted to be a hero. Perhaps he was never jealous of Shōto and the training and attention he received at all. Even if he did when he was younger (as it would make sense for a young boy growing up in this world), the current Dabi could completely look down on heroes in general, or at least those like Endeavor. Dabi’s entire focus right now is probably on wanting to destroy the current hero system. On stopping the cycle of quirk marriages, on preventing more victims like his younger brother and his mother, and on eliminating “heroes” that care more about glory than actually helping people. To restore heroes to true heroes and stop idolizing monsters like Endeavor.

Shōto is Trapped in this World

Once removing himself (or being removed… I’ll probably write about this later) from the Todoroki family, Dabi was free to follow his own beliefs. Shōto, on the other hand, was not.

Shōto was and still is being brought up by the society that Dabi hates. Rather than hating Shōto, he could see him as a victim of the damned hero society that he is rebelling against. He could pity him, and think his situation is unfortunate, especially if he was aware of the horrors his younger brother was forced to live through. When he looks at Shōto condescendingly during the summer camp arc (How sad, Todoroki Shōto), it may be because he thinks he’s a foolish child who has been brainwashed to believe in Endeavor’s world. He may have hoped that with age, Shōto would develop ideas like his own, and is disappointed that the brother he met was “good”. I doubt he understands Shōto or his motives. He doesn’t know how much Shōto has grown, what’s he’s learned. He may not know the absolute hatred Shōto has for his father, and how he wants nothing more than to be the hero he’s not. 

He may think Shōto is a product fulfilling his father’s wishes- he started using his left side recently, and this was televised. Dabi would have seen it, and depending on how much audio was broadcasted (AKA how much of what Izuku said to him the world was allowed to hear), he probably doesn’t know the full story behind it. It’s most likely that all he saw was his brother using his old man’s power, as Shōto used to call it, and this would probably lead him to believe Shōto currently aligns with his father.

Future of This?

What could this mean for the future? In response, he may attempt to “save him” from this world- help him see his current views and the world that he sees. A world without Endeavors. I’m talking about a relationship similar to what Zeke seems to have towards Eren, or at least appeared to have at the end of Return to Shiganshina, if you know what I mean (Chapter 99 asdfghjkl)

There could be a moment, perhaps during battle, where Dabi tries sway Shōto to join him. To take him away from the awful world that he’s currently living in. To take revenge on their father together as brothers. He could try to convince him that all of their problems are because of Endeavor (as if he doesn’t think that already…) and by working together against him and his world, they could save their mother. Dabi could do this out of the goodness of his heart and love for his sibling and mother, or only in order to gain Shōto strengths on his side, or maybe a combination of both. Like mentioned before, we don’t know enough about Dabi to know exactly how evil he really is. I’m not sure how big of an ordeal this would be, but I can honestly picture Dabi trying this. I don’t think Shōto would take the bait, of course, but man, this would really pull at Shōto’s heartstrings and could be a tempting- the saving his mother part of it especially. I think in the end, Shōto would reject Dabi’s offer with a statement like “I want to be a true hero” or something else along those lines. Even so, it would still be a very emotional move to make on the part of Horikoshi.

Too Far Gone?

Following these same concepts, I also think it is likely that Dabi will run these in a totally different direction. Rather than saving him, or trying to sway him, he may think that he needs to be destroyed. Shōto is apart of the society he despises. He’s been consumed by his father’s desires, and is going to grant him them. He even started using his flames- he’s playing directly into Endeavor’s hands, or so Dabi may think. To prevent Shōto from completing his father’s goals, he may want to destroy him. Stop him from giving Endeavor what he wants. Shōto could be a huge future target for Dabi. It would be Dabi’s form of revenge against his father, as well as a step towards ending the society the Todoroki children grew up in; kill his father’s perfect creation. Kill everything he worked for. Stop him from ever obtaining his dream. Endeavor too could be a huge target for Dabi. Killing Endeavor would stop him from hurting anyone ever again and serve as warning message to others who may be like him. 

Conclusion

These two branches off the same base idea are really really different, but I think either of them could be possible- I can see both playing out relatively smoothly. Both would be highly emotional, and allow for lots of development. 

Anyway! I hope you enjoyed these theories! This one got so long, so I’m really glad I ended up separating it from the Hate one. 

I have way too many ideas to honestly give my concrete opinion on what ones I think are the most likely. That’s why I’m interested to hear what you guys think. So please feel free to shoot me a message or ask or something and let me know your thoughts. 

I have a lot more left I want to write about, but I’m having a hard time tackling how to go about formatting them… A lot of them (sort of like this one) are based on a general idea but have a lot of branches growing off of them. More branches than this one, somehow. Because of this, I can’t preview which one is next yet. I do know I’m going to make a mini thought thing soon though, but it’s not really a theory (or at least it’s not one yet, who knows how long it’ll get once I actually write it…) 

Thanks for reading!

[roslinadama-sinequanon]

Christmas in Connecticut-Chapter 9

I started posting this fic last Christmas but after 8 chapters I got involved in a big BSG Adama/Roslin fic that I was writing and kind of put it on the back burner. I got back into it just as we were moving into season 6 but wanted to finish it so I didn’t leave people hanging like the last time. I figured I’d work on tweaking it and start posting as a lead up to what I naively thought would be a heart warming first family Christmas for the Flynn’s.  You know, the one where the newlyweds had just returned home from their honeymoon in Ireland and were planning to have Emily, Ricky, Rusty, Nicole, her husband and two kids over to their new home for Christmas dinner--all while trying to solve a murder. After all, Christmas used to be a happy affair on MC. With the shockingly depressing turn season 6 took I found it hard to be inspired and after the unmentionable event that occurred on December 19th,  a day that shall live in infamy, I feel like was curled up in a fetal position unable to even look at fan fiction or you tube videos let alone work on tweaking my own fic. My heart was truly broken.

I have finally pushed myself far enough into denial to be able to dip my toes back into the world of Shandy--but only a Shandy world where Sharon exists, for a Shandy world without Sharon is not a world worth living in.

You will notice I do not mention Andy having a son. I was going to re-tweak that and add him in once we met him at the wedding. Yep, was definitely naïve. But since we never got introduced to him and he was so insignificant Duff didn’t even bother giving him a name. He doesn’t exist--like Andy’s 2nd wife.

So, I hope there are still people out there who still want to read Shandy and for those who do, here is Chapter 9 of Christmas in Connecticut. Chapters 1-8 are already available if you haven’t read them, and if you did, just a little heads up that I did do some minor tweaking on them.You can find all 9 chapters here with more to come.

http://archiveofourown.org/works/13293105 

And

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12789981/1/Christmas-in-Connecticut

Oh, there's no place like home for the holidays, For no matter how far away you roam When you long for the sunshine of a friendly gaze, For the holidays - you can't beat home, sweet home

++++

“So, munchkin?”

In bed, curled up in Andy’s arms, her fingertips playing with his chest hair, Sharon could feel his smile against her forehead and nuzzled into his shoulder. “Somehow I knew you wouldn‘t let that one go. Why is it that no matter how old you get when you come home you still feel like a kid?”

“I don’t know, but it’s true.”

“I mean I’m in charge of my life in LA. I put murderers behind bars, but every time I walk through those doors I’m that skinny little girl looking in the mirror every morning to see if my breasts finally started to grow.”

Andy gave a soft chuckle, his hand sliding up over her ribs to cup over a warm full mound. “And thankfully they did.”

She smiled and rested her hand over his, grounding her in the present even as her mind began to wander nostalgically as it often did when she came home to Connecticut. “My life was so influenced by growing up in this house.” She mused. “Did I ever tell you that my grandfather was part of the American contingent in the Nuremberg Trials?”

“He was? No, you didn’t. So, like, putting Nazi’s on trial runs in the family.”

“Apparently so. How sad is it that I’m still fighting a battle against the same kind of people that my grandfather tried to put away 70 years ago.”

“Ah, sweetheart, there’s always going to be evil in the world, no matter how hard we try to clean it up. The world is full of dirt bags.” He pressed a kiss to her temple.

“Hmmm…I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, should I?”

“I think the day we can’t be surprised anymore is the day we need to walk away. I’ve been working homicides for 23 years and there are still times the dirt bags can surprise me. My father was barely 18 years old when he landed in Normandy. He fought all the way to Germany. He liberated a concentration camp with Patton. And he hardly ever talked about it. I wish I could have met your grandfather. I bet he had some interesting stories.”

“He did. So did my parents. Before he was a judge, my dad was a civil rights attorney and my mother was always involved in social justice issues so you can imagine what our dinner conversations were like. I grew up thinking I’d go to law school and get out there and change the world, make it better.”

“Was your father very disappointed when you chose to join the LAPD instead of going to law school like you’d planned?”

“Well, it wasn’t so much a choice as a necessity.” A negative hum rumbled in Andy’s chest, vibrating against her cheek. He knew her history with Jack--how he’d reneged on his promise to put her through law school after she’d done her bit and gotten him through. “I did come to love what I do and it ended up being a great fit for me, but I think my not going to law school disappointed my mother more than my father.”

“Really? I didn’t get that kind of impression from your mom.” Colleen O’Dwyer had been so open and welcoming; Judge O’ Dwyer on the other hand had been a little more circumspect.

“My mother dropped out of college to marry my father so it was very important to her that Chris and I get our degrees and follow our dreams.”

“You think she gave up her dreams to marry your dad?”

“Maybe, some of them. But that‘s the way it was back then. Most women in college in the 50‘s were there more to get an MRS than they were to get a BA or BS.  Not that I think she regrets marrying my dad. They have a great marriage, the kind I’d dreamed about having, but I think she regrets not getting that degree. It’s crazy really. She is a very successful woman. She helped my father tremendously when he was just starting out and she raised three children. She’s an amazing mother and she’s always been very engaged in the community. When I was a child, she was always raising money for some cause or another. But for her it wasn‘t just about writing and collecting checks, she got down in the trenches.”

“What kinds of things was she involved in?”

Sharon lifted her head to gauge his level of interest. “Do you really want to know or are you just asking to be polite?”

He snorted. “I’m not that polite, Shar. I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t interested. Everything about you interests me.”

Sharon swallowed past the quick lump that formed in her throat. How had she been so lucky to find a guy like Andy? “It was mostly through our church. People think everyone in Greenwich is rich, but there are poor people here too and there are far less services and resources available to them than for those in big cities with high poverty rates. My mother became a Vincentian, delivering food and clothing to the needy, feeding the homeless, visiting the elderly in nursing homes and the sick in hospitals. She also worked in the thrift store at St. Marys. She used to make Chrissie and I help out sorting clothes at the store on Saturday mornings.”

“Oh yeah. How’d you feel about that?” He had a lot of experience being roped into doing things you didn’t want to do. As a kid, he’d been frequently asked to help out at his grandparents small Italian restaurant when he would much rather have been playing stickball with his friends.

“At first Chrissie and I did a lot of complaining about having to get up early on a Saturday. It was the only day we didn’t have to get up early for school or for catechism and mass. My mother wasn’t too pleased with our attitude and took us over to our closets pointing out all the nice clothes we had and reminding us how lucky we were. She made sure we knew that there were girls our age who never got Manhattan shopping trips to Bloomies and Saks and Macy’s and if they didn’t have the thrift store they would never be able to have new clothes, well, at least clothes that were new to them.”

“Yeah, well, I know how that feels. I grew up in hand me downs, but we didn’t have to go to the church’s thrift store.  I had an older brother and dozens of cousins whose clothes got handed down to me when they outgrew them, but I never had much choice in what I wore.”

Sympathy radiated in Sharon’s eyes as she gave him a tender smile.  It was no wonder Andy had become the well-dressed peacock of Major Crimes. His wardrobe of colorful, attractive, good quality clothing was apparently in compensation for a childhood lacking in choice. “You’ve certainly made up for that now,” she said.

He grinned. “I guess I have. So, how did it go with you and your sister helping at the store?”

“Actually, we ended up enjoying it. My mother had convinced a local department store to donate some mannequins so we could make it look like a regular boutique, you know, to try to alleviate some of the stigma of shopping in a thrift store. I found that I loved putting outfits together on the mannequins. My mother said I had very good sense of color and style.”

“She wasn’t wrong about that.” His fashionista fiancée had a walk in closet filled with designer labels; Armani power suits, St.John and Michael Kors dresses, Von Furstenburg eveningwear and Burberry trench coats. Her sweaters were cashmere, her tank tops and lingerie, silk. Her shoe rack was filled with expensive killer heels and stilettos, Manolo, Laboutin, Ferragmo--even her casual wear, jeans and t-shirts and boots were Rag and Bone and Ralph Lauren. Sharon didn’t overbuy and she wasn’t obsessed with labels, for her it all came down to good quality, comfort and fit and she was very clever at using the nice pieces she had to create different outfits.

“My mother is so loved in our church and our community. She’s done so much good and helped so many people but to this day, I think she regrets not having her degree and not having options when it came to a career. So, I know everyone thinks that when I decided to put off Yale law to marry Jack and help him get through UCLA that my father was the most upset. He wasn’t. He wasn’t happy, mainly because he wasn’t a big fan of Jack’s but it was my mother who was crushed. I think she saw some parallels between us.  I was 20 when I met Jack, the same age she was when she married my dad.”

“But you didn’t drop out of college to marry him. You graduated…with honors.”

Andy’s easy pride in her never failed to amaze her. “Yes, but she knew my dream didn’t end there. She knew I wanted law school and when I said I was going to marry Jack and follow him to California to put him through school first she was afraid I was giving up my dreams on a man she felt was not worthy. Those were her exact words. ‘Sharon I hate to see you giving up on your dreams for a man who is just not worthy. I don’t want to see you have regrets.’ I was so hurt and so angry with her for saying that. I wanted so badly to prove her wrong. But she was right about Jack. Even if I hadn’t gotten pregnant, I doubt he ever really intended on coming back east and putting me through Yale. He turned out to be such a huge disappointment.”

“So, do you regret marrying him?”

“I have regrets, of course. I don’t think you can get to be our age without having regrets.  I regret that Jack didn’t turn out to be the man that I thought he would be, that I needed him to be. I regret that my children grew up without a father. But I don’t regret marrying him, no. In spite of whatever pain and disappointment he brought to my life, I wouldn’t have Emily and Ricky if I hadn’t married him. I wouldn’t have moved to LA, I wouldn’t have joined the LAPD, I wouldn’t have had Rusty come into my life and I never would have met and fallen in love with you.  So, God bless the broken road, right? “

Andy slid his thumb under her chin and gently lifted her face so he could lean down and touch his lips to hers.  “God bless the broken road,” he agreed.

Besides,” she laid her head back on his shoulder, enjoying the feel of his fingers stroking through her hair. “Going through what I did with Jack made me who I am today. As you can see from all of this.” Her gesture encompassed the house. “I grew up pretty sheltered from the hardships of the world. Because of Jack, I had to grow up very fast and learn to be independent and self- reliant. I had to take full control and responsibility for my finances, my children and my career.  It made me stronger and resilient. I‘m proud of that.”

“You should be.” Part of his attraction to Sharon had been her complete confidence. Sexy and confident were a pretty intoxicating combination in his book. “But you have more than that to proud of.”

“Hmmm…”

“You said you wanted to be a lawyer to change the world, but you do change the world, Sharon, every day. You take the dirtbags off the streets, you protect the people of LA from threats they don’t even know exist and you give the family of the victim’s closure. You make the world, at least our little corner of it, a better place. And---”He raised her hand, kissing the back of it. “You sure as hell make my world a better place, every single day.”

+++++

After showering and shaving, Andy padded quietly back down the hall to the bedroom he and Sharon were sharing, careful not wake the other inhabitants on the second floor. Stepping through the door, he paused. Sharon was standing by the window, her hand outstretched to allow the early morning sunlight to catch in her diamond. The smile that curved on his face at seeing her admiring her engagement ring faded when he saw a tear slowly trail down her cheek. That tear nearly knocked the wind out of him.

“Sharon?”

Sharon turned to see Andy standing hesitantly in the doorway. He was still in his plush green bathrobe, his hair wet and spiky from his shower, his brow furrowed with concern. Quickly she swiped the tear from her cheek and gave him a wobbly smile.

Andy set his toothbrush down on the bureau and moved to her. “Why are you crying?”

“I’m not crying.”

“I saw you.”

“That was just a tear.”

Andy rolled his eyes. “A tear is crying Sharon. So, what’s making you sad? If you don’t like the ring we can change it for something you might like better, or…”Sharon cut him off by placing her fingers over his lips.

“Andrew Flynn. I love this ring. Why do you think I took it out to admire it? I can’t wait to show everyone and to be able to wear it every day.”

“So, you aren’t having second thoughts?”

“Of course not. I want to marry you, Andy.”

There it was again, that look of sadness clouding the usual bright sparkle in her eyes.

“What is it then? Why do you look so sad?”

“I was just thinking about our wedding.”

“And that made you sad?” She was confusing the hell out of him. Did she want to marry him or didn’t she?

“A little. Like you said when you proposed, we love each other, we trust each other, we’re committed to each other and we don’t need a piece of paper to prove that. We’re already emotionally and physically joined, the only thing missing is the spiritual element. When I think about marrying you I see the two of us at the altar at St. Joseph of Nazareth with Father Stan blessing us, joining us as one.”

“I see that too, and I’m happy to marry you wherever you want. I just want you to be my wife and I want to be your husband.”

“Andy, it’s not going to be that easy. We’re both divorced Catholics. We can’t marry in the church and if we get married outside of the church, we’ll be denied the sacraments. I know that may not be important to you but---”

“But it is to you. I know that, Sharon. There has to be some way to make this work.”

“Annulments, but that isn’t going to be so easy either.”

“You don’t think Jack will give you an annulment? After all the shit he’s put you through, you think he’d deny you your happiness?”

“Have you met Jack? “ Her lips twisted wryly and she turned to stare out the window at the glimpse of Long Island Sound in the distance. Her relationship with Jack was so complicated and she’d made it even more so by staying married to him for so many years, even if they were legally separated. At the time, it had seemed like the best decision, the only decision.

Financially she couldn’t afford to divorce Jack. It had taken years to build back her savings after he’d stolen it and to un-entangle herself from his debt. If she divorced him, he would be entitled to half of her savings and half of everything they owned. At the time that included their house. Her children’s home. There was nothing more important to her than protecting her children. Jack had never been interested in raising their kids, but she couldn’t take the chance that he might fight for joint custody just to spite her. She wouldn’t put it past him. When Jack was threatened, he could be as nasty as he was charming, and she couldn’t risk that, not with the instability in his life and his drinking. By staying married to him, he could visit Emily and Ricky in the safety of her home, under her careful supervision.

But there was more to it than that. There was a dirty little secret that many women would understand. Staying married to Jack didn’t only protect her children. It protected her as well--especially before she‘d begun weeding out all the bad seeds in the department. As a woman, an attractive woman, in a male dominated profession, there were far too many times that promotions came with propositions and that the bruised egos of the male colleagues who asked her out resulted in creating animosity and enemies. Being able to say she was a married woman gave her an out—and she’d had to use it, more times than she liked to remember.

But of all the reasons she’d stayed in a marriage that had been dead for years, the toughest to admit to was her pride. She didn’t fail at very many things, was in fact uncomfortable with failure, so it had taken many years for her to admit that her marriage had failed. That SHE had failed. She was a roll your sleeves up and fix it kind of woman and the acceptance that she couldn’t fix Jack had been hard won.

Still, for all her good intentions, her unwillingness to take that final step that would sever her completely from Jack had come with consequences. Because they weren’t officially divorced, Jack still considered her his wife and as such, he returned to her periodically. She was his enabler, his lifeboat, his safety net. She was the person he turned to each time he hit rock bottom. And as irritated as she often was with his invasion into her life, she was always there for him, ready to lend him money, help him find a rehab or an apartment or even to let him stay with her, platonically, until he could get back on his feet. She’d long since fallen out of love with Jack, but she still cared about what happened to him and there was no doubt that he could be charming, especially when he was down on his luck and trying to wheedle his way back into her good graces. He had a way of making her feel sorry for him and he was the father of her children. While she was no longer interested in a relationship with him, she did want him to have some kind of relationship with their kids, a sentiment that he used to his advantage. He took her for granted, thought she’d always be there to help him and he hadn’t liked losing that when she divorced him and changed her locks. Jack needed her in ways she hadn’t needed him since he’d walked out the door along with their savings and left her with two young children, debts and a mortgage.

“He didn’t fight you on the divorce, maybe he’ll surprise you.”

“Oh, he would have fought me. He threatened to take half my savings and half my pension in the settlement. “

“You never told me that.” Andy shook his head with disgust.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“ Because it was my battle to fight and you wouldn’t have let it go. There is already enough tension between you and Jack, the last thing I needed at that point was you going after him.”

Andy sighed. She was right. It was no secret that Sharon’s ex-husband knew how to push his buttons and could set him off in a heartbeat. “He is such a fucking prick, Sharon.”

“You aren’t telling me anything I don’t know. The only reason he didn’t fight me on the divorce was because I threatened to take him to court for all the back child support he never paid me if he did.” In the end, he’d signed the divorce papers without contesting, money having won out yet again, over whatever feelings he had for her. And she didn’t doubt that, despite the absences, the sometimes verbal and emotional abuse and the cheating, he did have feelings for her. Over the long years of their separation he‘d continued to feel married to her in ways that she didn‘t with him. He always came home to her thinking he could slip right back into his role as her husband, seemingly surprised and hurt when she didn‘t allow him into her bed. In fact, in his own rather pathetic way she knew he still loved her. She could see it in the jealousy, anger and bitterness he displayed over her relationship with Andy. Jack didn’t like to lose. He hadn’t liked hearing that she was dating Andy and he really hadn’t like hearing that she had fallen in love with him and that they were moving in together. And if he hadn’t liked hearing any of that, he sure as hell wasn’t going to like hearing that they were getting married or do anything to help them in that endeavor. He‘d be more likely to dig in his heels and fight her every step of the way.

“You’ve seen him Andy. Jack isn’t going to let this happen without a fight.”

“Well then, he’ll get one. We’ll do what we have to do Sharon.”

Sharon slid the ring off her finger, put it back in the box and slipped it into her underwear drawer. “We don’t have to think about this today. It’s Christmas and we’re going to tell our family that we’re getting married. It’s a happy time. Let’s just be happy, we can revisit the logistics of our wedding when we get back to LA.”

TBC