#he...didn't get as much of the 'trauma' though he certainly had his fair share

[modern-inheritance]

Fäolin: A ramble post about the fallen member of the elf squad and why he wouldn't have remained one

While writing Reunion and realizing how much Arya and Glen care for each other as friends, I realized that I have done very little writing with Fäolin. Since then I established that he was the more lighthearted one of the group, confirmed he was their sniper, reestablished that he and Arya grew up together as kids and were friends long before Arya even left for the Varden, and confirmed that he and Arya were in love. 

That last bit, though. That last bit is what’s throwing everything up right now. See, Paolini said during some interviews that Arya and Faolin were indeed romantically involved, but in a way it was more for convenience (???) and they never were ‘romantic soulmate/true name’ material for each other. He has said several times that Arya wouldn’t have stayed with Fäolin as romantic partners had he lived.

And honestly? Thinking about him in MIC and how his character has (loosely) developed in my mind, I agree.

And I don’t think that, had he survived along with or instead of Glenwing, he would have returned to the Varden with Arya for the Battle of the Burning Plains and to officially become one of Eragon and Saphira’s bodyguards. Something would have changed. And I don’t think Arya could really accept it.

Here’s where I’m coming from. Fäolin agrees with Arya and Glen that the elves need to be doing more for the fight against Galbatorix. He believes in it, would fight for it, and did, but there’s something different. We’re gonna go like…way more in depth than I’ve gone before and again, this is a ramble, so don’t expect much to make sense. 

Let’s go back to The Medic, Glen’s first official appearance in MIC storylines. Glen was born in Ilirea and lived there for about 15 years before the 5 year war of the Fall of the Riders began. His mother and father both died in the final conflict at Ilirea while Glen was spirited off to Du Weldenvarden, possibly fighting alongside Evandar himself. He was old enough to see the world he knew falling apart around him and know why it was falling apart. He wanted to fight to get it back and knew he could make a difference. So he left.

Arya, meanwhile, was around probably 6-8 at the time the war ended. She grew up with war on the horizon and infiltrating everything. It was all she knew. Her father would explain everything to her he could, why he was leaving so often, why her mother was frequently sad or angry, explained Galbatorix to her. Rhunön swore up and down about the Wyrdfell and the injustices being committed, the insanity of it all. She grew up with this knotted feeling of anger and frustration at what was lost and what was being thrown away and fury that she was left without her father and, in a way, without her mother because of the war. She hated hearing how people were being hurt and dying when the elves could be out there making a difference. And damn it she knew she could make some difference. So she left.

Fäolin is different. He wasn’t as close to the conflict but still was affected by it. He wasn’t the son of a king or great warriors and healers, just regular elves who were drawn into the war. His father remained behind to watch him while his mother joined the fight out of a sense of duty. She fell during the conflict, and his father, unable to cope with the loss of the entire world he had known, his mate of centuries, and unable to look at his son who was so much a reminder of his loss, left Fäolin in the care of their village and disappeared into Du Weldenvarden’s depths. Fäolin was more shielded from the war than the others, and while he too grew up with an itch to change the world outside the forest, and to fight Galbatorix and his Forsworn, he didn’t feel the urgency that Arya and Glen did. He didn’t feel he had a reason to actually leave Du Weldenvarden. He had a whole family, his village, providing him with the attachment that the other two had difficulty feeling due to their circumstances. And he didn’t feel like he needed to leave until about 30 years before the first book, and only then because he felt that his friendship and feelings for Arya were what drove him. 

Arya and Fäolin were very, very close friends. Different from the way Arya and Glen were close (Arya frequently explained it as ‘Once you trust someone enough to hold your literal guts in while there’s bullets and blades and fire around you, and they’re not moving until they can move you despite all that, you get closer than any of that romantic crap could get you.’), they were childhood best friends. Fäolin was a bright spot that Arya felt the war would never touch, and while she wanted him by her side she absolutely did NOT want him joining the Varden. But he did, and he was still bright and the sun and he never lost that quirky little smile. He was, in a way, everything she was fighting for, the people back in Du Weldenvarden, the free races, Alagaësia, the innocent people who didn’t really choose this fight. 

I think they both loved each other. I think they loved each other romantically and I think, in a way, they loved each other because they needed each other. I can’t put it into words properly but that’s the vibe I have. It doesn’t change the fact that they were in love. 

When Arya was captured, Glen was distraught. After healing and adapting to his prosthetic he tried to leave Ellesméra and Du Weldenvarden to do two things: Find out if Arya was alive (and if so, get her back), and rejoin the Varden. Arya or no, he would have left anyway. The only reason he hadn’t by the time everyone got back was because Gilderien wouldn’t let him on the Queen’s orders.

Fäolin, though. He would have stayed. Maybe he would have had a reason, maybe he didn’t want to question if Arya was dead or alive and the implications of her living through the ambush and not being found, maybe he just couldn’t take any more of life in the warzone, maybe he had soured on the rebels when it was realized that someone in the Varden had to have leaked their location for the ambush. He would have given up on her being alive and possibly given up on defeating Galbatorix altogether. 

And despite his reasons or his lack of them, no matter how he would have or not have tried to explain it to Arya when she returned with Eragon and Saphira and Brom in tow, I don’t think she could have accepted them. I think she would have seen that he had changed, and she had changed. The changes from her time in the Varden had been gradual and more in line with who she was as a person, but the changes after her imprisonment, more hidden though they may be, are sharp and sudden and I don’t think Fäolin would have been able to cope with them either. They would have remained friends, still laughed and joked around, but there would be a noticeable distance. And they would just…drift apart. 

I don’t think Arya would have even asked him to come with her again. She would have just said goodbye. 

So. 

Yeah. 

I can’t think of anything else but that’s what it’s at right now. 

[jedinightsister]

hey can i ask: do river and sid get together in the slow horses books later? i miss them so much!

Okay, I finally listened to "Standing by the Wall", so I can provide my spoiler-filled answers below. ~

The short answer is yes, they do. And if you want to get Sid River content, you may well just pick up book 7, "Slough House". Granted, you'll end up missing out a lot of nuance and Mick Herron loves killing off his characters so it might get jarring to see unfamiliar faces if you just immediately jump to that book, but I think it can work just fine if you want canon Sid River content. There is a lot in that book.

Then if you want a sort of cherry on top, you can read "Standing by the Wall" as well. It's just a short story, so easy read, and Sid isn't exactly in the book, but we get a perspective from River's inner dialogue about them being together.

The long answer is...well, let me give a bit of my perspective toward them as a ship in the show and in the books.

-

I saw season one first, got obsessed, which is why I ended up binge reading through the book series. Season 1 is probably the season that was most closely adapted as the book (Slow Horses). Seasons 2-3 had bigger changes, but managed to still capture the feelings that I got from the books.

A huge part of what made Season 1 enjoyable is the interaction between Jack's River and Olivia's Sid. I always love in dynamics when the woman is a bit sassy straightforward and the guy just kinda accepts his loser status lol 😆 so yeah, their banter was very delightful.

That said, I don't think I necessarily ship them?? I mean, I certainly don't mind it. I totally see the potential. But I'd say a huge part of the ship's appeal is Jack and Olivia. They truly took on those characters and transformed them, gave them such chemistry. I really don't think I felt such chemistry when I read book 1. Herron definitely implied certain attractions there, but it fell flat for me.

Set aside the rather lack of chemistry in book 1 though, we get way more in book 7. Now, whether Herron's writing of romantic implications has improved, or I was heavily influenced by the charisma of the actors' portrayal, I'm not entirely sure. Most likely it is a combination of both. I have a vague but effective imagination, and I absolutely enjoyed reading their scenes with Jack and Olivia in mind. In fact, I wish the show will be renewed until this book at the very least, just so we can get that onscreen.

And then there's the short story, dealing with the aftermath of book 7. Bit spoilery territory here, but I assume you don't mind lol but fair warning to those who do and decided to read this anyway. 🤷‍♀️

In book 7, it was River's turn to have his near death experience. And the short story basically has a recovering River and thinking about how much Sid's presence in his life has helped him profoundly. There's even a very notable word choice of him thinking of 'coming home to Sid.'

She is his comfort person, and he is hers. I highly recommend book 7 just to see the depth of that comfort and trust, especially the one Sid had for River.

So chemistry aside, their bond feels heavily founded on shared trauma. I kind of wish they didn't get together yet and tried to sort themselves out first, but at the same time, I kinda like that they support each other. I'm just scared it will turn unhealthy for the both of them, and that is very likely given how Mick treats his characters hahaha 🥲. It's going to backfire on them some way or another.

-

In conclusion to this nonsense rambling, while I don't ship them fully, I see their potential and enjoy their interactions a lot. The show has done massive heavy lifting for me by putting the actors in my imagination while I read through the book scenarios of their interactions. I very much look forward to the next Slough House books so we can get a much better picture of them (or who knows, maybe Mick will time skip and they're not together anymore oof 💀). I also badly hope they will manage to get elements of Sid River in the show. They've already made changes that work better in show format, and getting Olivia back would only do the show much better. Whether that's feasible or not tho, I got no idea lol, but we can hope and dream. 😌

I hope my short and long responses were well worth the wait 😆🙈 thanks anon, keep slow horsing yeehaw! 🤠🐌🐎

[eregyrn-falls]

Unable to resist looking further into this story, I wanted to share some more updates with everyone (including a suggestion of the possible culprit).

First, I need everyone to know that Old Bridge, NJ is located in the northern half of the state, near New York City, and the wonderfully-named Cheesequake State Park is located within the town's borders. (As is Cheesequake Creek, which empties into Raritan Bay. For anyone who has travelled the Garden State Parkway often (as I have), you will likely recognize Cheesequake as the former name of a big rest-stop, which has recently been renamed the Jon Bon Jovi Service Area. No, I am not joking; the GSP apparently renamed all the rest stops for famous New Jerseyans sometime in the last couple of years.)

(It's fascinating to me that the name came to be spelled Cheesequake, because there is no way that anyone can look at that and not pronounce it "cheese + quake", and yet, it is derived from a Lenni Lenape word: either "Cheseh-oh-ke", meaning "upland" or from the word "chickhake", meaning "land that has been cleared" (according to Wikipedia). Neither of those would be pronounced "cheese-quake", so who knows what the original English people who decided to spell it that way were thinking.)

AND YET. Despite all that, the 500 lbs of pasta WERE NOT dumped in Cheesequake State Park! No, they were dumped at the far southwestern end of town, near the Iresick Brook (which the article above generously describes as "the river basin"; I'm not sure that is a good descriptor here).

At any rate, another article from May 5th, a day after the one above, reports that the mystery may be solved:

A Ring security camera caught a man in the neighborhood cleaning out uncooked pasta from his mother’s house after she died, said Nina Jochnowitz, the resident of the Middlesex County township who first posted photos of the pasta mess on social media last week.

The man, who neighbors said is a military veteran, came across the hoard of dry pasta and likely dumped it in the woods because of the sheer quantity, she said.

“There was so much of it, he was probably a bit overwhelmed,” said Jochnowitz, who had previously run for town council in Old Bridge’s sixth ward.

Jochnowitz said she’s been in contact with his family. But, she declined to name the man.

“I don’t want him to relive the trauma,” she said, referring to his military career and the death of his mother. “I certainly don’t think that it’s fair that the media gets this story out of somebody else’s woes.”

And frankly, that is all well and good, but...

Very obviously, these are not mounts of dry pasta. It looks very much like mounds of *cooked* pasta. The article does go on to say that it's been suggested that heavy rains in the area are what soaked the dry pasta and made it pliable.

I guess? Apparently this is 15 wheelbarrow loads of pasta. That is a LOT of trips. (The articles do not say how far into the woods it is.)

I totally understand being overwhelmed in a case like that. I'd think that cleaning out the house would involve a dumpster or trips to the dump or even just setting bags out for trash pickup, and if I were confronted with that much dried pasta, I think I would have gone with the trash bags idea first, as involving less work. (Or trying to donate it?) But who knows. I half wonder if the guy vaguely thought that birds or animals might eat it? (I doubt any would, and it wouldn't be good for them; but I can see someone thinking that.)

We may never know, though, as I agree with the person quoted above that if this guy is responsible, folks shouldn't be bothering him further.

But I think this person is being kind of nitpicky about "the media getting this story out of somebody else's woes". The media could hardly have KNOWN that when the story broke and circulated. If she didn't want him to be bothered by people asking about it, you'd think she could have kept the explanation quieter, and just let people continue to regard it as a mystery. (Not town officials, of course; and I guess, who knows, it may have gotten out anyway.)

CBS News: Hundreds of pounds of cooked pasta mysteriously dumped in New Jersey woods

[dodo-begone]

See's Dodo and anons reaction to last ask.

Me: externally blushing like crazy. Internally AAAAAAAHHAHAHAHAHA *squealing noise s*

Well you know what they say the show must go on.

Wilbur was the first of the royals to really notice, after all most of his time with you was spent inside in the library since he had convinced his father to allow him to teach you instead of hiring teachers, but you never had less than two layers of clothing on even when indoors you had a large shirt and coat on. Even if it was winter now you were first brought to the castle in summer but you attire remained the same a shirt two sizes too big and a coat also large on you it was a small wonder you didn't suffer form heat stroke, maybe it was a case of those being the only clothes you owned well that wouldn't do it would be a poor showing if visiting diplomats thought they treated their (new sibling) guests with such little care and honesty buying you a new wardrobe didn't even make a dent in his personal finances. Still it was strange that both you and Tommy insisted on your new clothes being a size or two too big and also made of lighter cloth not the wool that was so common for winter attire but at the very least your and Tommy's insistence meant that he got to choose the colours of the outfits in return. Of course the main colours were white and a navy blue you were a member of the Royal (family) Court now it was only right you wore their colours, still the insistence on lighter materials for your clothes did worry him a little the winters were harsh he didn't want his (sibling) little brothers friend getting sick maybe he should bring this up with the others maybe they would know why you never took off that coat.

Techno hadn't noticed the whole coat issue until his twin pointed it out but now that Wilbur had he couldn't stop noticing it. Even when you spared with him you didn't take off the coat heck you never wore armour saying that armour only slowed you down, you had even balked, gone pale when he offered you enchanted iron armour turning down the gift and walking swiftly away. At first he and chat had felt rather rejected (sibling rejection arc, pog, e, e, Technosad) after all you had even if reluctantly accepted Wilbur gift of a new wardrobe but you were rejecting his gift, he had wanted to give you armour so he could teach you his style of fighting but you didn't want that apparently. Though now he thought about it your and theseus's apparent insistence on lighter fabrics and the rejection of the iron armour might not be as coinsidental as he might have thought, after all he had seen you shivering a few times when you thought he wasn't looking but you had refused the much warmer wool for cloth so it wasn't just you being stubborn did, did you have some sort of skin problem or other ailment that caused you pain or irritation if you wore heavy clothes or armour. Oh of course you would go pale at the idea of wearing iron armour if that was the case plus it would explain the constantly wearing a coat since you probably didn't want them to know out of misguided fear of their reaction after all he had seen how superstitious some peasants could be about such conditions from his time training new soldiers. Theseus would know you did have such a condition after all you were practically joined at the hip, but it was getting very late, tomorrow he would find Theseus and ask if he knew the reason why now he needed to find his father.

Tommy most certainly did know the reason why you never wore armour and always had a coat on. He was currently sat on your bed, both of your backs to the door, preening the reasons why you letting out quiet chirps as he helped straighten and re-aligh your feathers, after all your wings didn't exactly appreciate being covered by your coat the whole day he couldn't even imagine how much worse your wings would have been if Wilbur hadn't listened and just gotten a heavy wool coat. He remembered when your wings first came through a few years ago when your friendship was still new, you had been complaining about a rash that had suddenly appeared on your back a few days prior only to fall to the ground in pain mid sentence, he was honestly grateful that his family didn't keep track of their potion supply considering how many regen potion you needed when your wings came out leaving rather large exit wounds on your back, if he wasn't able to get those potions he didn't even want to think about what could have happened to you. Now you were here though and he couldn't let anyone know about your wings if even a servant or stable boy saw it would trickle back to his brother and his dad if Philza found out he would never let you leave, you would become as trapped as him maybe even more so due to his dad's instincts. Unfortunately since both of your backs were to the door neither of you spotted the winged watcher peering through the cracked open door.

Philza was on his way to his newest (child) guests chambers after his eldest two had come to him with worrying news about their newest ( family member) permanent. Wilbur told tales of light clothing even in winter while Techno quiet shared his own worries of them being ill and hiding it from them but to him those weren't the signs of illness no they were signs that you were like... no he should get excited it was probably an illness after all his investigations had shown that it wasn't just bandits that ravaged his nation but hybrid hunters a particularly disgusting breed of bandit that targeted hybrids to sell as pets or in the case of winged hybrids to harvest their wings as decorations. That infuriated him after all he had founded this nation to be a safe haven for hybrids but due to his own negligence they were hunted down, if you were like... him it would be a small miracle that you hadn't been taken by those hunters. Reaching the room in question open a crack he went to knock when he heard a soft chirping pausing he looked through the crack to see his youngest preening his (baby bird) guest's wings, rushing back to his own chambers he could just hear chat cawing ( baby bird, dadza, dadza, protect, keep, baby bird) he couldn't keep the massive grin off of his face as it all came together. Of course you didn't wear heavy clothing you had been hiding your wings it would mangle your feathers if you wore heavier clothing over them, the iron armour was rejected because you couldn't wear it full stop even with your wings out your bones wouldn't be able to take the weight since they were partly hollow, oh he had a little bird to teach flying and how to properly preen. His emotional high crashed though as he realised that you ran your farm alone, were you alone when your wings came through, its was the worst pain on could feel wings slowly ripping their way out of your back plus you could easily bleed out or get an infection if the open wounds weren't taken care of properly, oh you poor dear no wonder you were so attached to Tommy he was the only flock member you had. No longer though he would look after you he knew his sons had grown to care for you as much as they had Tommy, his more bird like instincts rejoiced at the thought of a fledgling joining his little flock.

Ender-anon

This is quite a bit longer than I thought it would be also first time writing hybrid reader.

sorry i took so long to answer this!! This just rlly intimidated me and anxiety went brrrr- but anyways lemmie get into this ask!!!

YOU FUCKING DESERVE THE RECOGNITION MAN UR STUFF IS SO FUCKING POG

god i rlly love royalty aus, did i ever mention that??? i just lOVE- ANYWAYS

So Wilbur's curiosity about your clothing choice only lead him to believing that what you wore was all you could afford in your previous life. He wasn't exactly wrong. And even with the new clothes you got when you moved into the castle, you refused to wear them. It was rather peculiar. Wouldn't you want to get out of those nasty and worn rags you called clothes? But you were new to the castle. He went with the presumption that the shock from the change was frightening. You must've kept your previous clothes as a safety blanket of sorts. Though after a few nasty looks sent your way over your apparel and your very obvious discomfort about it, he decided to take the executive decision to give you clothes that fit your taste and the taste of the court. Your choice to have oversized clothing confused him, but Tommy's insistence just made him presume you were self conscious of your body. To be fair, he wasn't half wrong but he was.

At the rejection of his gift, his and chat's disappointment were more than evident. Was his twin better or something? Like you accepted his gift, although reluctantly. But you still accepted it. And yet you didn't accept him. Looking back on your fear of the armor, he thought more into it. Yes the skin issues was definitely something to consider, but maybe trauma? No, trauma of armor would be strange, right? Maybe you had a family member who wore armor yet died in front of you despite their armor being worn to protect them. Or some other fear. Yea, the skin issue would be much more reasonable, actually. He'll just bring it up with father, let him know of the possible issues with their new family member.

One of the activities you two did on the daily was straighten out your feathers at the end of the day or when they were bothering you. Though the latter only happened when you two were in private. Nobody could know your secret, after all. It was for your protection and to preserve your freedom. At first, when your wings were coming in, he was absolutely terrified for you. What the fuck was going on? This isn't normal! Oh god oh fuck what is he suppose to do?! With an oversupply of potions thanks to the paranoia of attacks on the family and accidents during training, it was beyond easy to take what he needed for you. If anyone was questioned about it, he could easily say that some trainees took some.

OMG ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE ME FUCKING CRY WITH THIS PHILZA PART?! BEACUSE I WILL CRY THIS IS SO MF CUTE- I JUST CAN'T I LOVE SO MUCH- I CAN'T ADD ANYTHING TO THAT PERFECT- I COULDN'T RLLY ADD ANYTHING TO WHAT YOU SENT ME AND I APOLOGIZE. I JUST LOVE AAAALLL OF THIS

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Hi!

I've been reading your posts about Rosalie because I love her, and I was wondering if or how you would see her healing from her past/becoming more content with her vampirism.

She doesn't seem happy with the Cullens, as you have written about, but I they provide structure and "humanity" for her. However if she didn't have Emmett as a mate/admirer, she may be able to grow and not rely on her looks in regards to her feelings of safety and control.

I would love to know what you think! I admire all your work :)

So, some thoughts on Rosalie and on Rosalie's happiness vs. staying with the Cullens.

And ooof, I think it’s a long road to recovery. Not impossible but... hard, and certainly by Twilight, Rosalie isn’t anywhere close to being there yet. It’s a bit like curing Marcus of depression, it could happen, but there’s reasons we don’t see it in canon.

Where is Rosalie in Canon and What’s Up With the Cullens?

Rosalie’s relationship to the family is complicated but I do think she’s far better off with them than she would be on her own or with another coven.

Rosalie adores her family and does view them as primarily that, a family. She’s specifically close with Carlisle, but even those like Alice she’s fond of though knows Alice isn’t all that fond of her. She has her spats with Edward but ultimately loves him and likely doesn’t realize quite how low his opinion of her really is.

However, Edward disparages her constantly, bringing up things like her rape as insults and humiliating her in front of the entire family for something she’s genuinely struggling with. Emmett notably never stands up for Rosalie, at least, not beyond “Yeah, she’s a bitch, but she’s my bitch.” And even decades later still struggles notably with the trauma of her rape, her murder, and her inhumanity.

However, as you note, the Cullens provide her human life and human structure. This is the closest Rosalie can get to truly being human, the furthest from being a demon, and she lives this life in a seemingly meaningful way for the betterment of mankind. She’s able to pursue opportunities she never could as a human and marries a man, who does love her for all his faults, that she never would have otherwise.

Rosalie, in other words, is functioning.

She could be better and accept herself, what happened to her, and truly move forward. She could also be much worse.

And that’s the trouble, she’s hit this comfortable plateau, to get beyond this she has to want to change and change must be thrust upon her.

And I don’t think Rosalie wants to change.

Rosalie and the Past

Part of Rosalie’s issue is she both clings to and romanticizes the past as well as humanity itself.

What happened to her was awful and I think part of the way she’s coped with it is imagining what might have been. It’s not even that, really, but this pleasant fantasy of the life she could have lived.

Rosalie could have been human. She could have been a human mother, had a child, she could have married a human Emmett and lived a simple, good, life.

When Rosalie talks to Bella about what she’s going to lose, what Rosalie feels so strongly about, she never truly acknowledges that this wasn’t a life Rosalie Hale was going to have.

Rosalie’s parents were social climbers, Rosalie knew that they were using her beauty and her charm to marry her into money. Royce was utterly irresistible to them, though they didn’t know what he truly was. Even had it not been Royce, I imagine Rosalie may very well have ended up with someone similar.

And if she did not, she would almost certainly have been regulated to the role of a rich man’s wife. Her children go to boarding school, she barely sees them, she has tea with ladies but is unable to interact with business or a man’s world.

That idyllic country dream with Emmett: that was never her life.

And that’s what human life is. It’s hard, it’s not fair, and so often we do not get what we want based on arbitrary circumstances we’re born into. Rosalie has painted that away.

I think to heal, Rosalie would have to admit that humanity is not what she thinks it is. It’s not this golden idea. It’s nothing bad either. It just is, it’s a different state of being that, in and of itself, could not guarantee her happiness.

Happiness is for Rosalie to grab, not for humanity to thrust upon her.

Rosalie and Her Loss of Fertility and Identity

Being infertile left a large, traumatizing, mark on Rosalie. Women (still are but especially then) were defined by their ability to bear children. To be barren or to not have children was a mark against you: you have in some manner failed as a woman.

In losing her ability to have children all of this is stripped from Rosalie. She will never be a mother, will forever be something like a girl, and she loses much of her sense of personhood in that.

And this... This might even be harder than coming to terms with her rape. This is painful. Rosalie will have to confront the deepest, most gruesome, hurts within her and take a good long look at them.

She’ll have to let go of both her fantasies, the society she came from and what it expected of her, and the hypothetical child she will never have.

Many people do not get over this and... To be honest, I don’t know how Rosalie would either. It’s not something I see her wanting to face about herself.

Perhaps, in helping to raise Renesmee, this will lessen. Except Renesmee is not her child, looks very much like a mixture of Bella and Edward. And Renesmee is also... Renesmee, she’s a very alien inhuman child who is bound to only become stranger with aid.

Perhaps, in realizing Renesmee is not what she pictured, Rosalie will be able to confront this and let her longing for a child go. She could just as easily cling to it with all of her might.

Rosalie Doesn’t Want to Change

Perhaps the most damning is that Rosalie is comfortable as of canon. She could be better, she could be worse, but she doesn’t seem to want to change. Would she want to be human? Yes. But she can’t, and she’s settled for what she has.

Bella Swan was the biggest catalyst her family has seen in a long time.

Bella forced Rosalie to confront the worst aspects of herself: all those open wounds related to her death, her vampirism, and what she lost.

Bella throws everything Rosalie ever wanted out the window without a care in the world (and somehow gets the child anyway). Bella pursues a man who is anything but human to live this empty shell of a life.

Bella is the thing that should have had Rosalie taking a deep, long, look at herself and realizing what she needs to to get better and move on.

The catalyst was there, the pieces were set, and yet Rosalie doesn’t.

Rosalie doesn’t heal because she does not wish to. Because it’s hard, it’s painful, it’s extremely unpleasant. So she interacts with this woman who is so unlike her, who doesn’t share any values with her at all, but she does not reflect upon herself.

The prime opportunity slips her by.

Okay But How Would She Heal?

I think Bella, in many ways, was her best chance. Bella was the ultimate foil for Rosalie, representing everything Rosalie would not do while still being very human. More, (at least at this point), Rosalie sees Edward and Bella find happiness in each other with inhumanity. Bella doesn’t sacrifice her humanity for this, she gladly trades it away.

And that could have been enough for Rosalie to realize that, perhaps, she is not damned. Perhaps, she too, can find peace and happiness with who and what she is.

Well, that ship sailed.

Her next options are much harder.

The Cullens fall apart or Renesmee leaves on a journey of self discovery.

In the first case, Rosalie’s crutch of humanity is gone, the family is gone. This will be devestating for all involved but especially her. She’ll have to reevaluate her entire life, who she is, and what she wants to do. She could heal from this. She could also become very codependent on Emmett. It could go either way.

As for Renesmee leaving, if this is before the family split, that will be a huge blow to Rosalie. It’s Renesmee as Bella 2.0, rejecting everything Rosalie believes in, the Cullen family and way of life, because it’s not enough for her. Rosalie will have to reflect on her relationship with Renesmee, with the family at large, and with vampirism in search for answers. This will be painful but could be a healing process for her.

But I don’t think the road to Rosalie’s recovery will be a pleasant one. If it was pleasant, she’d be further along than we see her in canon.

[hiimbloblos]

Something in common

~700 words || past trauma(?) || a bit of punching in the face || swearing

Kind of a continuation to this fic by @autistic-evil-xisuma :] Please read that fic first or this one won't make sense :p

(Moony sorry for retagging you I'm just updating the links :³)

All my works are here 💜✨

– Funny how you're the one telling me to shut up.

EX's grin slowly melted off as Doc groaned and turned away from him, throwing the trident away. Still restrained, he pulled on the ropes. Too stiff to tear apart. "Dammit".

He looked back to Doc and was met with a harsh slap of reality. Or, Doc's fist, to be more precise. EX clumsily fell from the chair, his suit making loud clanking noises.

– What the fuck?!! WHY?!! – he exclaimed, cautiously crawling away from the crazy man.

– For being an asshole, – Doc cracked his knuckles and exhaled. That certainly made him feel better. Not for long, though; he frowned and looked away at his trident.

Doc rubbed his nose bridge and sighed, trying to calm down. "Who does this punk think he is? Pushing my buttons, making me… remember things. What am I doing, falling for his tricks." He cursed his short temper and picked up the trident.

– I do. – EX quietly answered his own question, to Doc's surprise. – I hate it. I hate my entire existence. I never asked to be like this. Getting experimented on and all those… terrible things. I didn't enjoy them at all. And I know you didn't enjoy whatever you had going on, too.

Doc turned around, looking up and down at the tied man on the floor. Legs closed close to the chest, hands behind his back, head tilted down. He looked miserable, to be honest. Just like Doc, when he was--

He sat down next to his 'prisoner'. Looked at the written text on the communicator. Rephrased a few words. Sent the message to Xisuma.

– I didn't, yeah. I was just a creeper. Somebody decided to make me sentient using… this. – he gestured to his left half of the body. – Tested me for all sorts of things, tried to break me.

– Why didn't you blow up? – EX finally raised his head.

Doc chuckled.

– I don't know. I just couldn't. I tried several times. Didn't happen, I was still there, alive. As if my blowing up abilities were suppressed.

– That sucks. – EX mindlessly tugged on his restraints again.

– Yeah. – creeper hybrid raised his prosthetic arm and moved the fingers a bit. They responded with a slight creaking noise. – I wouldn't want to blow up now, when everything is better than before. Back then, yeah, I would've loved to. – He sighed and leaned behind EX. – Give me your arms… – he began untying the rope.

– Not afraid of me running away or hitting you back? – EX grinned, as if he didn't just flinch from the other's movements.

– Shut it or I'll tie you back. – Doc chuckled and moved back to his position. – …You said that Xisuma is the same as us. What did you mean by that?

– Don't think about it too much. – EX rubbed his sore wrists and bent forward to untie his legs. – Spat out whatever first came to mind. – to be honest, he didn't have any actual information about Xisuma's origins. He simply assumed that X had gotten the same treatment, because they were clones. If it's not true, well… let's say EX won't be happy with it.

– You don't want to return, do you? – Doc was looking at the other's movements.

– Would you?

– ...Fair.

– That's what I thought.

– Xisuma is coming to get you, by the way. He can deal with you better than me. I told him that he shouldn't send you back.

– What if he will do it regardless?

– You're still here, so… If he wanted to, he would've already, don't you think?

– I suppose… – EX stuttered and went quiet.

They stayed quiet until Xisuma came in, startling his evil clone. Doc and X shared a look and nodded. EX didn't know what that gesture meant, but he wasn't against it as long as he wasn't going back… to the place where he came from. And he had a feeling that Doc wouldn't let anyone send him back.

[septicstories]

Big Life in a Small Town (Part 1)

A/N: This is based on the song "Santa Fe (Prologue)" from the Newsies musical! It's not based on the plot of the musical. The song will be altered a tad, but not too much! In the next part though, I'll have to do some edits. But for now, you've got this... mess? I dunno, I'm writing this before it's done. This is post-X-men Apocalypse, so Peter is in his late 20's.

Genre: Bittersweet fluff

Warnings: alcohol, drinking, mentions of broken limbs, daddy issues, no beta reader, minimal editing

Word count: 1.3k (1,385 words)

The X-mansion was quiet, the cool midnight air only changing currents occasionally when a silver blur sprinted around.

Pietro had his younger brother in his arms, running around. Peter injured his leg a while ago, stuck on crutches. ANd it was killing the young speedster.

And Pietro noticed.

So he scooped his younger brother up out of his room, running him around the mansion's vast yard until he smiled. That's when he brought him up to one of the rooftop balconies of the mansion.

The two siblings weren't the only ones in their family who lived in the mansion. Pietro's twin, Wanda, was fast asleep, her room near the balcony.

Pietro, as immature as he may seem, was wise beyond his years. He'd seen more things than he ever would have wanted to for a 35-year-old man. Hell, anyone would be unsettled when you find your mother died of sickness, and your father was out of the picture when your younger brother was born a few years after.

Pietro and Peter sat on the balcony, a case of beer between the two, a sudden scoff came from the older speedster.

"What's up, you alright?" Peter asked, looking at his brother.

Pietro's eyes were glued to the ground below them, a sour expression on his face.

"Those streets down there," Pietro began, a dry laugh leaving his lips. "They sucked the life right out of our old man. Well, they aren't doing that to me."

Peter pursed his lips, watching as his older brother took a swig of his beer.

Pietro has always hated staying in one place for too long. The mansion hadn't really ever been his favorite place. Staying at their aunt's house in D.C. was something he looked forward to every summer. But, even then, he could only stay there for a few days before needing to go somewhere else. Not just from his need to move, but the U.S. government still wasn't absolutely fond of mutants.

"But everyone wants to come to New York," Peter let out a small chuckle. To an outsider, it'd sound like he was in disbelief, but he understood how Pietro felt.

Staying in one place was hard. But Peter also managed to make himself a family here at the mansion as he grew up. He met the ever-sweet Jean Grey when he was 20 years old. The poor girl had some trauma that no one but Chuck knew about. He got to meet Hank, and Raven, and all of the other younger kids. He thought of them all as his younger siblings.

He couldn't leave.

"You keep your small life in the big city. Give me a big life in a small town."

Pietro's words snapped Peter out of his thoughts, looking to his older brother. Pietro's eyes had lifted from the ground, looking up to the sky.

"They say folks are dying to get here."

"What about you, Piet?"

"Me? I'm dying to get away... to a little town out west that's spankin' new," Pietro said with a grin. "And while I've never been there, I can see it clear as day! If you want, I bet you, you could see it, too.

Peter has always had a particular question on his mind, that he always knew the answer to.

Then why haven't you gone? What's stopping you?

But, as always, Peter kept his mouth shut. He didn't want Wanda and Pietro to leave, as dumb as it may be. They were the only family he had left. Well, that he knew of and that knew of him.

Erik was another person he'd address when he had the courage.

But not...

Not now.

"Close your eyes."

Peter looked at his brother again, who was staring back at him. Honestly, he was waiting for his brother to snap in his face and use what became his favorite phrase after a few movie nights: "Hello, McFly?"

"Come with me, where it's clean and green and pretty, and they went and made a city out of clay."

Clay? A city out of clay? That sounds... odd. Peter hasn't stayed too long in other parts of the world, opting to stick to the Northeast area of the U.S. Occasionally, he'll go further South or a little bit further West. But never past Kansas.

"Why, the minute that you get there, folks will walk right up and say, 'Welcome home, son. Welcome home to Santa Fe!'"

Being called son was something the Maximoff boys wanted more than they would ever elude to. Their father? Out of the picture for the most part, up until they realized he was a terrorist. And he didn't even know about Peter.

Of course, the townsfolk of Santa Fe may not call you "son" as soon as you land on the premise. But, two bastard sons can dream, can't they?

"Planting crops. Splitting rails. Swapping tales around the fire," Pietro's grin grew as he spoke. He really thought about this a lot, didn't he? "Except for Sunday when you lie around all day."

Peter didn't know how much Pietro truly thought about leaving. Pietro's mind was full of places to go and see, places where he could take his family and live without having to deal with attacks from the U.S. government.

Santa Fe was where they'd go next in the U.S., but Sokovia was certainly the next best option. The U.S. government wouldn't come looking for them in Sokovia.

Right?

"Soon your friends are more like family, and they're begging you to stay! Isn't that neat?" Pietro asked as Peter took a large sip from his beer. "Living sweet in Santa Fe."

Pietro trailed off, almost in a dream-like state, making Peter flinch. He really fucking wanted out, huh?

"Hey, no one worries about a bad leg in Santa Fe. You just hop on a palomino, you'll ride in style!" Pietro joked, knocking his shoulder into his brother's.

"Feature me, ridin' in style," Peter giggled, taking a swig of his beer again.

"Hey, I bet a few months of clean air, you could toss that crutch for good!"

"Santa Fe," Peter and Pietro mumbled in unison, one happy and the other more tired. "You can bet, we won't let those bastards beat us. We won't beg anyone to treat us fair and square. There's a life that's worth the living, and I'm gonna do my share."

"Work the land, chase the sun." Pietro ran his hands through his hair, standing up.

"Swim the whole Rio Grande just for fun!" Pietro and Peter shouted together. The two had massive grins spreading across their faces, just happy to see the other smiling.

"Watch me stand!" Peter stood up quickly, only to feel a sharp pain jolt through his bad leg. His hands flew to the balcony railing, gripping it tightly as he let out a choked noise of pain.

"Watch me run..."

Pietro frowned when he saw his brother's grimace, watching Peter set himself down into a sitting position. The poor kid was gritting his teeth and sucking in harsh breaths as he set himself down.

"Hey, hey..." Pietro began softly, sitting down beside his brother before slapping a hand on his shoulder. "Don't you know that we're a family?"

Peter's eyes met Pietro's, painting over his grimace with a weak grin. "Yeah, b--"

"Would I let you down?" Pietro asked.

Peter let out a weak laugh as his brother continued.

"No way. Just hold on, kid, until that train makes Santa Fe."

The younger speedster let out a yawn, leaning his head on his brother's shoulder.

"Let's get you to bed, okay?" Pietro said, only getting a nod from Peter.

Pietro scooped his younger brother up in his arms, speeding through the mansion into Peter's room before setting him down.

"Good night, Peter."

"Good night, Pietro."

Pietro sped out of Peter's room, only to be stopped when he passed Wanda's room. His sleepy twin gave him a look, one that he didn't see often, and it concerned him.

"Pietro, we're being called to Sokovia," Wanda whispered sleepily.

"What? Why? All three of us?"

"No. Peter needs to stay here. He's got a broken leg, Pietro. Just you and I."

Pietro took in a quick breath before nodding.

"When do we leave?"

"... you didn't see that coming..."

A/N: Haha, cliffhangers are fun, ain't they? Okay, but, here's what you have for now! The other one is already in my drafts, and I've got plans for that! So, I'll get all that shit out, and we'll be good! I've got so much shit in my drafts, holy shit. Okay, uh... I don't have much to say, so thank you for reading! I don't necessarily have a tag list for this sort of stuff, so if you want to be on a tag list, let me know! And please let me know if you find a typo or something that doesn't make sense. Like I said, there's minimal editing.

[engagedtobefree]

I talked to Scott on the phone again last night, and now I'm worried. We talked for about 50 minutes and it was normal like our other phone conversations, except for a few things.

Scott told me I seemed kind of shy on Saturday, that I wasn't as talkative as I used to be. I can see what he meant; I had trouble making eye contact and I was really nervous. So I tell Scott I was just nervous and he said, "Oh, aight." I also wasn't flirty like I used to be, but only because I don't want to feed into any possible bad intentions. It's not how it was before when I felt more confidence about Scott's feelings toward me (though that certainly waxed and waned) and I was protected by being at work. Flirting now at my place could potentially lead somewhere.

Then I yawned, and I guess it sounded a little different cuz Scott asked me why I moaned. I tell him it was a yawn and then he said what sounded like, "idk, Dana." "What?" Then, to my surprise he responds with an, "Oh, Dana", making the "oh" sound moany. I instantly feel turned on. I almost respond with "are you the one moaning now?" but I stop myself and don't say anything back to him. I want to hear Scott's moans and sex noises, but I don't want to feed into this if all he is looking for is sex.

A few minutes later he mentions me in my "tight ass jeans and boots." I respond best I can, saying I do miss dressing up, and he says if he can make it over tomorrow (today, now) that maybe I could dress up for him. I tell him I can. Truthfully, most of my old jeans are too tight now since I gained weight and I haven't been able to lose anything yet. I have a pair I can probably wear though.

All of this makes me worried though. What if Scott really is just looking to have sex with me? What if that's all he wants? I can't tell because I notice things that could point to that or could point to him wanting something more. What if he doesn't only want sex and he just...can't help himself saying these things?

I'm terrified, not of Scott but of getting hurt. And if Scott were to hurt me in such a big way while I am pretty emotionally vulnerable and raw, idk how I'd handle it. I am still working on healing from past trauma with men and if another man were to hurt me right now, especially one I have my heart so invested in and am choosing to trust, idk what it would do to me.

I'm worried that I've waited all this time and hoped for a miracle just for Scott to come back only looking for one thing. This isn't what I waited for. I don't want to be called hot. Yeah, it's nice, but only sometimes; it just feels hollow hearing it over and over. I want Scott to also think I'm pretty. I want to date Scott. I've always wanted to date Scott. And while I want him in my bed, that's not how I want to start out. I know we already have an established relationship with each other, but I'd still like something more first.

Idk if I should bring it up to Scott if I see him tonight. Do I just come out and ask him what he wants and what his intentions are? I want to know, but at the same time I'm terrified of what the truth might be. What if he makes a move? That's going to be so hard for me because on one hand I'm going to really want it, and on the other hand it's not going to be how I want it. And if he makes a move, do I stop him and tell him I can't and tell him I don't want to get hurt, that I know we both are looking for different things? I can't just assume Scott only wants sex, but I need to protect myself. I'm also just at the tail end of my period, so I could always use that as an excuse, though he most likely won't care and I'd rather be honest than find an excuse.

I want to see Scott and I want him to come over, but now I'm also fearful of it. I will be away next weekend, so if I can't see him tonight I'm going to keep worrying about this for several more weeks. And that's just assuming I do get some sort of answer tonight. But how can I hide my nervousness? Normally, I can fake things fairly well when I want to, so unless someone really knows me and my energy, I could get away with faking being okay. I don't think that's gonna work with Scott though. He knows me and he can tell when something is off. It doesn't hurt to try, but I'm not confident at all that he won't be able to see right through it.

But then there's the other side of things.

I keep thinking about Scott saying, "Yeah, me too." when I said I want to consciously choose someone who I truly want to be with. Does Scott really want a relationship? How long has it been since he consciously made a decision to be with someone he wants? How long has it been since he followed his heart and went after what he wanted instead of what he thought was the right thing to do? Am I what he wants? When he stops to listen to his heart, does it tell him to make his way back to me? I have many questions about his response to me.

I also have doubts about my doubts. If Scott only wanted one thing then why would he talk on the phone with me every weekend and for long periods of time? Why compliment me in other ways and show his interest in what I have to say? Why open up to me about things when naturally he's very guarded? Why say that he missed me? Granted, that could all be a ploy to reel me in, but I don't think Scott is that deceptive, especially because he knows I'm into him so he wouldn't have to make all of these efforts. Also, why apologize for being a dick and hurting me, only to turn around and act that way and do it again? I mean, I have had men do that same thing to me on two different occasions, but I can't judge Scott by what other men have done. That wouldn't be fair. And Scott also asked me if I'm currently seeing someone or have a boyfriend. Why ask that if he just wants sex? Why should he care whether I cheat or not if I was with someone if he just wanted sex from me?

I also wonder why Scott was so surprised when he found out I haven't dated because of my feelings for him. Does he not think someone could have such strong feelings for him or that he's not worth waiting for? Does he really think I dated during the time we've known each other? Or maybe thought I did after he left?

I feel so lonely with all of these thoughts. I had my therapy session on Tuesday and I went over a few things, but since my conversation with Scott last night, more has come up. Who else can I go to? I wouldn't go to any close or casual friends with this, and if I told my best friends, I know they wouldn't be very happy that I even let Scott through my door. Even if I did ask for someone's advice, they can't tell me what the right thing to do would be. I am completely alone with this.

I hope this isn't a losing game. I want to be treated right, as it's been such a very, very long time since I have been, and even then, it didn't last forever. I don't think it's too much to ask for.

Also, the sun right now is inconjunt/quincunx my natal Saturn -__- like why did this have to happen right now, on the weekend?

Also, I follow YouTube and Instagram tarot accounts and they're always super accurate for me, but I figured I'll post one just this time on here since it's so related to this. I watched this video after I wrote all of the above stuff. I usually only choose one deck with the YouTube readings, but occasionally two decks will have equal energy, which occurred this time.

Group #2 - go with the flow and blend in to catch people in off-guard moments to see who they truly are. Observe them and listen more (as a Libra, I can very much get quiet and simply observe, which I have been doing with Scott). You are too tired to be in the spotlight and need time for privacy with your love life, not telling friends or family about it. You don't want to put yourself out there and invest in someone to realize this person was with you for the wrong reasons. You are not over-sharing at this time. You value yourself and don't want to get hurt, so you're guarding your heart. You're still open, but just getting to know someone. You know how far to go and when to protect yourself. You don't want to make the same mistakes like you did in the past. You want clarity and guidance. Someone may behave in a stupid manner and may try to play you, thinking they're smarter. However there is an opportunity with a dark male, whatever that means for you. This is more about energy than physical appearance, and could just be someone with a lot of masculine energy. You are highly desirable so this man wants to be closer to you. This person wants longevity with you, not a whirlwind affair. You need to let your wall down a little bit to let them know you're into them as they may question it and get insecure. Only do this when you're sure of who they are and their intentions. They are adventurous and spontaneous, and they may try to show off how cool they are. They may get clumsy and nervous though. You might have commitment-phobia and might want to run or self-sabotage. Avoid this. Someone will be offering genuine love and interest, so do not worry. Surround yourself with love and spend quality time with others in your life where you can let your guard down.

Group #3 - an earth sign (Scott is a Capricorn) is here as a romantic connection. It's only a matter of time before you connect and sparks fly and you know you're for one another (I'd like to stay sober now to really feel out his energy and the energy of our connection). They are very promising. Do not pre-judge this person and give them a fair chance. Don't jump to conclusions. Allow them the chance to prove they're trustworthy and worthy of being a part of your life in a romantic sense. Stick to making progress with other areas of your life. Someone you know is not dependable and sincere, so don't trust in confiding with someone else about this situation. They might be jealous (I can see this being my mom, as she gets very jealous whenever I am with other people). You may feel like something is lacking in your life, maybe caused by someone else. Someone may leave your life as this new person enters. You will be happy this person leaves. Be aware of any future problems, there will be signs from the universe. Zesty energy, emotion, and passion is coming. Your guides are trying to protect you from yourself. Don't let your anger take over or you'll be sorry. Try not to be triggered by others. You're being called to take yourself on a date and spend money on yourself. Remember to practice self-love. You can only feel fulfilled in your love life if you feel fulfilled in yourself first. Others may set their own expectations for your love life. Don't seek others approval. Remind yourself we are not separate from each other. We are all energy. Don't be judgmental just as you don't want to be judged. Your love life will be full of generosity and spending time together. Your dreams can become your reality, but you need to make the effort. (I feel like maybe I need to focus on my healing more often than I am). Put yourself out there. (ugh. Scary). Someone is feeling like it's time to let go of holding on too deeply and may not think you'll ever end up together. Could be someone you friend-zoned and they will finally give up on you and see you moving on. (I've friend-zoned quite a few people, so it's possible).

So yeah, I guess July has a lot of potential, and both readings were scary-accurate for how I'm currently feeling and perceiving things. So either Scott is out to deceive me or he has really good intentions. Guess I'll find out soon.

[old-long-john]

looks like you are someone in the black sails fandom who agrees that every character is pretty damn flawed (except for, like, madi, and we didn't see enough of thomas hamilton to see his flaws but i am certain he had them) but I have to say some of fandom and their determination to make silver THE VILLAIN of the show just reminds me, over and over, of the quotation "civilization needs its monsters". like you can write john off as an evil white "het" man, even though he is clearly bi, but

in my opinion people like john silver are only made because society makes them. i think silver was probably wounded young, and then just wounded over and over for a period of years that almost certainly felt like forever, as prolonged trauma does, and it is so frustrating to me that fandom doesn’t want to embrace how complicated and tormenting and heartbreaking and infuriating that john silver is. but then i look at state of world and my country (usa) and need for scapegoat in all things, well. 

Thank you for this ask. This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately and it’s been frustrating me too, so it was nice to be given a reason to actually say something about it. I hope you don’t mind me answering it publicly (let me know if you do and I’ll delete it). I’ve spent about four days trying to work out an answer to this that I’m happy with though, because it feels like some of my thoughts might be skating on thin ice and asking for trouble if they’re not carefully expressed, and that’s not at all what I want. I’ll stick this under a read more so I don’t clog people’s dashes.

Honestly, at this point I’ve pretty much stopped interacting with any ‘discourse’. I’m so tired of it. I’m reconciled to the fact that everyone in the fandom is mostly set on their opinions by now, and that’s totally fine, when people stay polite about it. Everyone brings their own shit into the viewing of a show (and I mean that in the nicest way). It’s not just unavoidable, it’s incredibly apt and a powerful thing when it comes to understanding stories like this, which attempt to show us such a broad range of human experiences and conditions and complexities. With a show like Black Sails especially, that doesn’t allow you to be a passive viewer, that demands engagement to be able to understand it, it’s no wonder people feel so strongly about so many aspects of it, and often find themselves feeling helplessly understanding of or very personally wounded by certain characters’ choices. And being part of a fandom which is filled with a beautifully diverse group of people, with opinions informed by their beautifully diverse life experiences and personal baggage, can be such an amazing way to broaden one’s own horizons and see things from different points of view.

That being said, the other side of it is exactly what you described: being exposed to mind blowing bullheadedness. At this point I pretty much just share the same irritation as you. I understand the reasons why some people can’t forgive the things Silver did, and I understand why some people just plain don’t like him (hell, I hated him too when I first watched S1). That’s for them to decide, if it even is truly a decision and not one of those things that exists somewhere beyond choice. I know I couldn’t choose to hate him now or to not understand to a really quite painful extent the fears and emotions that motivated him to do what he did. Quite honestly, I’ve only watched that 4x10 forest scene twice and the second time I was so angry with him too, but I still understand, and it hurts all the more for it. As with so many of the most powerful moments in this story, they’re at their most moving when you can see all the ways in which both parties are right, and choosing a side is almost impossible.

Like you said though, what’s really beginning to grate on my nerves is this idea that Silver is the villain of the piece; irredeemable, two-dimensional, bland, or simply the ‘abusive cishet white man’ (a tag I’ve seen too, and one that made me roll my eyes so fucking hard I almost sprained something. Tumblr’s a truly magical land of over-simplistic juvenile twattery sometimes). It’s utter bullshit, and it feels like my annoyance has taken a step up out of the complexities of canon and into the difficulties of tumblr and fandoms. Sometimes I really think some people could benefit from stepping away from the bubble of tumblr and going outside once in awhile. (Do you hear that? It’s the sound of my fragile glass house shattering around me.)

Black Sails is not perfect. I am fully aware of that. But the one thing the writers managed incredibly consistently (mostly) was creating complicated, flawed, and human characters. There are only a handful of characters who approach being two-dimensional, villainous, or flawless, and they tend to be the ones who had the least screen time to be developed, or served more as plot devices than characters. John Silver was certainly not one of those. People are free to despise him, people can be horrified or outraged or disgusted by his choices, people can even just not personally find him that interesting, but reducing him to just The Villain? That’s choosing to be ignorant and refusing to engage with the text, simply because it doesn’t suit their own narrative. Good people can do appalling things, and bad people can do good things, and most people (and so most characters in this story) are neither of those two extremes, but horribly messy shades of grey, just trying to do the best they can for themselves and their loved ones with what resources they have. Some people are better, some are worse, but most traverse that middle ground, rarely remaining static or uncomplicated in their ‘goodness’ or ‘badness’, and Silver is most certainly among us complicated good-bad people. Refusing to acknowledge the depth of those nuances pisses me off because it feels like such a disservice to the hard work of everyone involved in creating this show and the astonishing things they accomplished with these characters and their relationships. Beautiful art deserves fair and thoughtful analysis. Anything less than that feels like a waste of everyone’s time. Why bother consuming a story like this and investing so much time and energy in discussing it if you’re not going to engage with it in an honest way? It’s possible to hate a character but still appreciate their complexity.

What you said is so true. It’s abundantly clear (from very early on, if you actually take the time to look for it) that Silver is a very damaged person, good at reading people but dead set on avoiding becoming attached to them (and the things that suggests are not pleasant), and someone who had nothing in the world but the clothes on his back and his wits. He was never going to be an idealist, because the world had made him a realist. Even if people think his choices in the end were abhorrent, surely they must see why he made them? To be in a position to end a war, which he saw as only an unwinnable nightmare, to save the people he loved from death (and every other innocent bystander whose lives would have been weighed against the cause, without their consent, and sacrificed in its pursuit). How is that difficult to understand? Even if it seems unutterably selfish or short-sighted, it’s the easiest thing in the world to empathise with on a human level. And his love for both Flint and Madi just isn’t up for debate. It’s right there in every scene, and confirmed in every interview with the writers. Even if he loved them poorly, he still loved them. That’s a very human thing too. Perhaps people would’ve felt differently about him if they’d definitively told us what those ‘unending horrors’ he’d suffered in his past were, but they didn’t and so we have to read between the lines. It just doesn’t take that much effort to see those lines flashing like neon signs throughout his arc, if you aren’t actively trying to ignore them for the sake of stuffing him into that box labelled ‘Long John Silver – Moustache Twirling Villain’.

It was also a pretty damn significant element of his story line that his becoming disabled slammed a whole lot of doors in his face, gave people a reason to judge him as less than other men, and left him desperately clinging on to the one vaguely happy life and future he had left within his reach. Are people conveniently ignoring that aspect of his character arc because it doesn’t fit in with that tumblr attitude of ‘boo, fuck white cis men. They’re all disgusting and none of them can know true suffering or injustice in this society that favours them’? Of course those privileges exist, and of course white male characters so often get free passes for things they really shouldn’t, and those are things that desperately need addressing and I wouldn’t try to minimise, but I don’t see how going balls to the wall in the opposite direction and refusing to see nuance makes any more sense. Especially when it comes to a story set during that historical time period and a character who we all saw have one privilege (being able-bodied) violently ripped away from him. Anybody who can dismiss as irrelevant the impact of his disability and the profound suffering and limitations that came with it is being wilfully blind. (I’ve written absurdly excessive meta about the significance of that.)

There are infinite different ways to suffer and end up irreparably damaged, and just because he doesn’t know some types doesn’t mean he hasn’t experienced others and hasn’t been truly and deeply scarred by them. It’s not a goddamn competition. This isn’t a world where only the most widespread and systemic suffering ‘counts’. Half of the point of this story was showing us the myriad fucked up and inventive ways in which the structure of ‘civilised’ society shat (and still shits) on anybody who wasn’t sat comfortably at the top. Or simply the ways in which ‘civilised’ society didn’t give a fuck about anyone else shitting on the little people either. Of course he hasn’t suffered the specific and enormous cruelties that say the people Madi was fighting for suffered, but I sure as fuck wouldn’t want to live whatever hellish past it was that he couldn’t even speak of either, and which sits within the context of this whole narrative of fucked up pasts as the single one too awful to be named. I also definitely wouldn’t want to live the present that saw him mutilated and handed a lifetime of suffering that no ideological war could in any way redress. And I’m really not trying to weigh his suffering against other people’s, or trying to build it into any kind of justification or excuse, because that way lies ignorant fuckery and it isn’t my point. The only point I’m trying to make is that some people’s determined lack of acknowledgement of the ways in which he was a beautifully complicated, damaged, suffering, good-bad person too is aggravating to me as someone who is in awe of the intricately complex things the writers and actors accomplished throughout this story. More than anything I just don’t see how anyone can have watched his whole character arc and honestly come to the conclusion that he’s bland and two-dimensional, or that his relationship with Flint was insincere or insignificant (to either of them), or that his ultimate choices can be explained simply by labelling him Evil™. He isn’t even as simple as that in bloody Treasure Island.

It doesn’t even seem to be about whether or not people see Silver’s actions as defensible at this point. It does seem to have devolved into a division between people who have very different opinions on that, but ultimately see why he did those things, and people who refuse to engage with the more sympathetic aspects of his character at all, for whatever reasons. Maybe because it makes the whole thing more difficult and uncomfortable when you have to accept that The Villain was an ultimately shifting and amorphous thing that was someone or something different for every character, and that in some ways Silver was as much a victim as anyone else in that story, and it was partly the result of the ways in which he was victimised (before and after we met him) that bound him to a course where he ended up horribly hurting the people he was trying to help. Nothing is ever black and white, in real life or on this show, and trying to reduce it to that is being either intellectually lazy, disingenuous or obtuse, and missing so much of the beautiful subtlety of the writing.

This answer got way out of hand…but yeah. John Silver isn’t a hero or a villain, because he is not a two-dimensional character, and he sure as fuck isn’t bland or boring. Few people on this show are. We’re all of us in love with a bunch of thieves and murderers and master manipulators. But that’s the point. They’re all just people, beautifully multifaceted and forced to extremes at the very edge of the world and clinging on to life by the skin of their teeth. They’re complex and fucked up and every single one of them running away from something or running towards something else. With barely thirty seconds of thought I could find sympathetic things to say about almost every single character in this show, even if those things wouldn’t be enough to tip the balance of judgement in their favour or make me like them. I’m completely aware that Silver is far less in need of defending than some unfairly maligned characters on this show, but I think perhaps to a certain few it’s the complexity of the writing and therefore the necessity of complex interpretations that needs defending. Nobody is obliged to forgive Silver or to like him, but if they’re happy to forgive and like other characters who have done equally fucked up things or worse ones then that’s a double standard they really ought to take the time to consider. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose, but a story like this deserves better.