#i don't even think the fact that mike was his employee at one point would bother him

[katierosefun]

okay well in my interpretation of suits, harvey never confesses his feelings to mike ever because a) look at that man. he's emotionally stunted in so many ways, and b) his hatred of affairs and cheating. something something he won't ever tell mike anything so long as mike's dating/married to rachel. he'll explode. suffer in silence forever

[hello-there-world]

anyway, have more...idk, niche?? obscure?? idk, these Rewrite headcanons are just random things that range from projection to things i think would be cool for them:

alright...ripping the band-aid off: Toxic Old Man Yaoi (it gets one-sided on William's end after...Y'know) is canon to the Rewrite. alright moving on-

(listen. i wasn't expecting to get into it. I Really Wasn't. and then it grew on me. and then i saw That One Line from the novels where someone stumbled on William's journals and read the parts about Henry and i just kinda went ??? oh so that's an actual line?? holy shit?? because i had seen someone post the line before but i didn't know if it was like. an actual line from the books. oh my lord.)

William wasn't exactly subtle, but unfortunately for him, Henry had the Autism Obliviousness (same here, bestie).

Claire, William's (now dead) wife, was actually aro, and viewed her and William's relationship as some sort of Lavender Marriage, because to her, she gets to raise the kids she wanted, and William gets to be gay for his business partner-

Anna also didn't mind too much, mostly because (unbeknownst to her at the time) she was a lesbian and already didn't really feel that way about Henry to begin with. she was more upset about the fact that Henry was so damn Oblivious.

Henry always struggled with his balance (i'm projecting), but before he got his cane, he'd lean on things for support or hold onto someone. Will would also help him get around by holding his arms or even hands. did i mention Will was not subtle.

William and Henry did Not have good childhoods. it's part of the reason why they're Like That with their own families (Henry being a good dad but a pushover, and William not being physically or verbally abusive, but being emotionally abusive instead because he's That paranoid about screwing up, and then ends up screwing up in another way).

William's obsession with rabbits and hares isn't purely a Special Interest thing (although that is a huge part of it), it's...also kinda partially something that came from some Childhood Trauma stuff, as well as kinda being a therian thing.

speaking of! 4/6 members of the Afton Household have some therian/otherkin shit going on. William is ockin (i don't think this one needs much explanation. like. i think the guy pretty much kins his own oc) and is a hare/rabbit therian. Michael is a dog/fox therian. Elizabeth is also a rabbit/hare therian. Cassidy is plushkin (look. do i even need to explain this one), and it's part of the reason he uses a lot of toy/broken toy metaphors for himself after he dies.

for William, being O'Hare was kind of this...escapism thing. he can be his true, genuine self and he isn't viewed as annoying for it. if anything, people find him lovable. he can be a playful silly hare and he's looked up to for it. but...after he becomes Springtrap, after years of being locked in a back room, stuck in building filled with spirits who either hate or fear him...at some point, William stops pretending he isn't a sadistic monster. it's hard to deny it. and so he doesn't. Springtrap is effectively William fully embracing being O'Hare....but becoming twisted at the same time, if that makes sense.

it's like...imagine you see this rotting green-yellow bunny that CLEARLY has a rotting corpse inside, but it's acting eerily cheerful and treating (checks notes) Chasing You Down With The Intent To Maim And/Or Murder You as a fun game you're both enjoying. yeah, by this point, William kinda Lost It (and by "kinda" i mean He 100% Did)

this is how several Fazbear employees died or Almost died by the way. Fazbear Entertainment owes them so much for therapy, both physical AND mental-

Michael struggles to figure out if he's dealing with Actual paranormal shit or if it's just hallucinations and stuff that he's having out of guilt and grief (USUALLY, it is the former)

Mike once dislocated one of his knees on the school playground back in elementary school (me projecting), and William practically spoiled him rotten during that time. Michael hated it, hated asking his father for help, hated being treated any different. but...with Charlie and his friends, it's like he was perfectly fine asking for help, welcoming of any assistance. oh well! i'm sure there's no deeper meaning to any of that- (something something "Fearing Dependency Yet Also Craving It")

Michael hates the fact he looks so similar to his father.

Jeremy's favorite song is "Mickey" by Toni Basil. take a wild guess why.

William and Cassidy are both technically nonbinary. William never figured it out because he never knew that there Were options besides Man and Woman. probably would've loved it/its pronouns. and neopronouns. Cassidy never figured it out for Obvious Reasons. look, both of them would've loved xenogenders and neopronouns. i honestly believe they would've loved those.

fun fact! Cassidy actually has a lot of similarities to William (of which i am All Too Happy to list. just say the word). uh...don't tell Cass that, though. it'd probably piss him off.

both Charlie and Mike inherited their dads' sexualities, technically (Henry and Charlie are Pan, Will and Mike are Bi).

Everyone's queer and a mess in so many different ways! William, just because you aren't hitting your children doesn't mean that you're a good dad. Stop. Read a parenting book. Actually, don't. I can't imagine 1970s-80s parenting books are that good for all that shit.

[seraphtrevs]

Did Gus actually order the hit on Tomas?

This is a question that I feel is basically impossible to answer definitively (I mean, unless there's an interview somewhere I missed). Either option is consistent with his character and makes sense with the plot, so it's really up to how you feel about it.

But if you twisted my arm....I think he did it, and here's why.

On the one hand, there's the idea that Gus is a more moral person than the other cartel bosses - something that Gus certainly believes about himself. Yes, he's brutal towards other people in the game, but he wouldn't harm an innocent child. That's the sort of thing the Salamancas would do, and he is not like them.

And there's plenty of evidence that Gus has a heart. He's a good boss to his restaurant employees. Yes, it's part of his disguise as a compassionate capitalist who is active in his local community, but I don't think that's entirely fair to Gus to say it's his only motive. I do think he wants the people who work for him to be treated fairly.

Then there's the people in Mexico he provides for, which is purely altruistic. He doesn't even want their admiration. He tells Mike that it's not to assuage his guilt, and I tend to believe him. "I am what I am," he says. He accepts his monstrous nature but is unwilling to spread indiscriminate violence the way that the truly evil Salamancas do. He emphatically tells Mike that he is NOT like them. This is something he truly believes - that while he may be a monster, he's still morally superior to the other cartel bosses.

But is that actually true? And does he really think he's a monster?

I always go back to the story of the coati. Gus was a starving child at the time so I don't judge him too harshly for it, but the fact that he remembers this story as a triumph over a foe really says a lot about his view of the world. An animal is not a moral agent who should be held responsible for stealing, but as an adult, Gus still thinks that the coati needed to pay for its crimes. It's easy to feel morally superior if you define anyone who is against you as evil and therefore deserving of retaliation, even a hungry animal.

I think it's also worth being skeptical about Gus's "I am what I am" sentiment, too. Gus accepts that he deals drug and commits violence, but I don't get a sense from him that he's excessively self-loathing, which is how he would feel if he truly believed he was a monster. Again, his opponents are the evil ones, but he has a soul, and his quest for revenge is righteous, unlike their motives, which are only based in greed - nevermind all of the money Gus rakes in and the fact that it was his original motive for going into the drug business in the first place. He's a really hard worker who looks after his employees (except when they get spotted at a murder scene and he's forced to cut their throats), unlike the Salamancas, who are just violent takers! He's better than them!

But of course, he isn't better, which was the entire point of the Nacho plot. He defined Nacho, without knowing him, as nothing more than an evil Salamanca goon. Abusing Nacho was not only justifiable, but also righteous in a way. But in fact, his treatment of Nacho was in no way justified. Neither was his execution of Werner. Gus, like every single other character in the brbabcs verse, is a hypocrite.

So back to Tomas - Gus really, really, REALLY hates loose ends. And although Tomas was a child, he was a child who agreed to shoot someone, so he's not really an innocent child. At least, that's how I can see Gus justifying it to himself. I also think that it's unlikely the dealers would act without Gus's approval, seeing as they were on thin ice with him. It's hard for me to believe that they would interrupt Gus's command of "no more kids" as "so kill the one you already have" unless Gus made that explicit.

But again, this one is completely up to interpretation. On the other hand, killing a child is not exactly discreet, so it's definitely possible that the dealers acted of their own volition.

[nineliabilityrisk]

❝ I'm sure it's nothing you can't handle! ❞ ( for mike, from quinn / @ladyseidr )

" i'm sure it's nothing you can't handle ! "

[[ oh this is gonna be Such a dynamic im already so excited for this. also i dont Care if timelines dont line up or whatever i just found the concept of them being Regular Fucking Coworkers at the fnaf 1 location too funny to pass up. ]]

-- [ asked by @ladyseidr ] --

"You know the fact that you even have to say that makes me less likely to believe you, right?"

Really, in all fairness, Michael had absolutely no right to be as thoroughly ticked off as he was at the moment. Quinn had done nothing wrong — he was just annoyed about the fact that someone else was trying to coach him in his job here, at his own father's company. Every little bit of assistance or instruction felt condescending. It wasn't, of course, Quinn was just trying to help, to get him situated properly during his first few shifts, but, God, he knew all of this already. Could probably take one of these bots apart and put them back together in his sleep at this point — at least, he'd like to think so. Okay, maybe he wasn't that familiar with the intricacies of his position, but, Hell, he'd quite literally grown up alongside these things. With how obsessed his father was with these creations of his, they'd seemed as much a part of their family as he and his siblings had, at times. There was no other explanation for it — why else would his father prioritize them so far above him if that wasn't the case?

Elbows propped up on his desk, he covered his face with his hands for a moment before sliding them down to support his chin. Letting out a shaky breath. Needed to control his temper — this minor irritation was both entirely inconsequential and entirely not Quinn's fault, not to mention unproductive. He needed to get himself under control. Snapping at his instructor wasn't going to help anyone.

He could probably blame his lack of patience on his current state of sleep deprivation — which, obviously, was more common than not, nowadays, unwilling as he was to put himself through his constant nightmares just for a few useless hours of rest — his mind felt raw, overworked ... it was no wonder he was having trouble keeping it together with the throbbing ache that had made itself at home behind his eyes.

"Look — they're just robots." Freaky robots, yes, robots that he'd never wanted to set foot near ever again after what had happened when he was younger, but they were just robots nonetheless. "I don't care about them– about what goes on out there. That's not part of my job — I'm just supposed to be here in my office. Keeping an eye on things. So why, exactly, do I need to know how they work? They're all the way out there. Where I don't have to worry about them." A pause, uneasy silence — eventually he had to turn to see the employee standing behind his chair. "Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked, voice very much level and calm and not at all worried. Certainly not. "They are going to stay all the way out there, right?" The question would sound paranoid in just about any other situation, but, of course, this was the only one where his fears might actually be founded — unbeknownst to him, of course.

He was in way over his head, and yet he was exactly where he was supposed to be. It wasn't like he'd expected this job to be smooth sailing, what with his history with the company, but he'd known he was uniquely suited for the role. Applied, took the offer out of a sense of duty, of necessity — not because he wanted to be there or anything. No, he wanted to be as far away from this place as possible, but he was used to what he wanted being entirely disregarded at this point, so why would he even bother giving his own opinion any weight?

"Please tell me they're gonna be staying out there. The bots aren't the part you thought I could 'handle,' right? Please tell me you meant something else." Oh, Michael. You never should've taken the job.

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

If Will Byers was a student at the school you work at as a school counselor, what advice would you give him?

That would depend on what I know. I mean, I know a lot about him since he's a fictional character, but that wouldn't be the case if he were a real student of mine. Will is incredibly good at hiding his feelings, so I might not have a good sense of what is going on with him.

I suppose I would start by talking to him about the bullying. We often know something about bullying that goes on in our schools, even if we often don't know enough, usually because bullies avoid getting caught, to do anything about it. Word would eventually get to me that Will gets bullied for being perceived as gay. I would also be aware of the fact that his father left the family, which would also have me wondering about any potential abuse.

The first step is always to attempt to build a rapport. You never just go in and start poking and prodding. That would cause any kid, let alone one like Will, to close up and just hide even more. I'd start listening for any loose threads I could gently pull at, seeing what may or may not unravel. The idea to get a sense as to what is on his mind. What are his strengths, weaknesses, protective factors, risk factors, etc? What needs to be built up, what needs to be coped with?

There's no easy answers when it comes to working with a student. If Will started to talk about the bullying, I'd ask how he felt about it and what part of it bothered him most. Is it that they turned things that should be positives (art, being kind, etc.) into negatives? Is it that people might think it's true? Is it because he's afraid it's true? That last one I'd never bring up unless he did first. The point is to help him get to the root of the issue. The only outcome I'd be trying to direct him to is a healthy self-identity, but I can't tell him what that identity is supposed to be. And, hey, if stuff about Mike comes up, I'd be a judgment-free ear to listen and help him unpack it all.

As for the stuff with his dad, I'd want to help him process all of that, but, again, only if he brings it up. Is he afraid of proving his father right? Does he still value his father's approval of him? Does he hold himself at all responsible for him leaving? The point here would be to help him identify any cognitive distortions where he places any undue blame on himself, and help him reframe things in a more positive, helpful manner. He's a good kid whose mother and brother love him, whose friends value him. Sometimes it takes an outside perspective to help shift things back into place.

As for the supernatural stuff, well, I'm not sure I'd be much help there. Since he's an artist, I'd probably assume he's being metaphorical if he even dared to broach the topic. Of course, then I'd almost certainly be pulled into the situation. I'm not sure I'd like my chances, but, being a school employee, I know that there's, sadly, always a possibility that I have to come in between my students and danger.

[northbndtrain]

Hey I'm a late Reven8e watcher and I love your Jack and real Amanda posts. Especially the season by season tracker of their development. I think the slow progression of their relationship and the trust they build over the course is something you don't see a lot on TV nowadays. You mind if I ask what do you think about the couple Amanda and Aidan? At the top of my head they don't seem like a bad couple but he always felt forced into the series to me. And it seemed their bond was never as deep

Hi! Thank you for the compliment, and I am so glad you enjoy the posts! I’m doing a re-watch right now and would like to eventually finally get the S3 and S4 “moments” lists done, too.

You’re absolutely right that the slow burn isn’t often done on TV anymore…hard to believe that up until the end of S4 Jack and Emily hadn’t done anything more than kiss a couple of times.

As frustrating as that sometimes was to watch in real time (and it was so, so frustrating, especially in Season 2, when they had very little interaction), in retrospect I can appreciate the fact that the writers took their time and made their case instead of rushing through the entire romance in the first season and then moving both on to new partners.

Plus, in the end, it worked out – I watched several shows around that time period that didn’t end with my favorite couple getting together, so to have Revenge really follow through with the promise they set up in the pilot four years earlier…that was a real gift.

Ah…Aiden…let me see…obviously, I’m not a fan, but that’s not just because I love Jack and Jack/Amanda. There were other problems with his character that I couldn’t get past.

(This is getting long, so under the cut it goes…)

1. AIDEN’S INTRODUCTION: You mention in your post that he felt forced into the series; that’s how it felt watching in real time, too. All during S1, there was never any mention of Aiden or even a reference made to Emily having had a serious love interest in the past, which makes sense because as far as we’re aware he was never part of creator Mike Kelley’s original vision for the show, but rather an addition that came after the show was renewed.

In a way, Aiden’s introduction was a symptom of the larger problem with S2 – that is, the writers/producers, high on the success of S1, decided over the hiatus to take their original concept, which was so beautiful in its simplicity (woman assumes a false identity to take down the people who betrayed her father), and twist it up into a bunch of unnecessary knots with the introduction of the Initiative, so that suddenly the villains weren’t just the Graysons and their employees, but also previously-unseen members of a larger global conspiracy involving all these other pointless baddies like Trask and Helen Crowley (how pointless? I had to look up both of their names because I couldn’t even remember them, even though they were all over Season 2).

The whole thing felt like sloppy miscalculation, and Aiden was right in the middle, as his tragic backstory involving his sister was tied into the whole Initiative conspiracy.

But what was also annoying was the way his relationship displaced Emily’s relationships with the other men in her life. The big story in S1 was the Jack/Emily/Daniel triangle, with Emily/Nolan’s friendship playing a prominent role as he was the only real partner she had in her revenge plots.

Enter Aiden, who took over Daniel’s place as Emily’s current lover, Jack’s place as her long-lost love interest from the past, and Nolan’s place as her partner-in-crime. It was just too much.

2. AIDEN’S LACK OF DEPTH/CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: However, even though S2 became, in large part, The Aiden Show, he somehow remained underdeveloped as a character with no real life outside of what was going on in Emily’s life.

And I guess one could make the argument that, well, “it’s Emily’s show; of course she would have more development.” Except EVERY other contract character on the show, including all of the other men in Emily’s life – Jack, Daniel, and Nolan – had more of a life outside of her than Aiden did:

Jack: relationships with multiple on-screen family members, two love interests besides Emily (Fauxmanda and Margaux), a job running the Stowaway, a job as a cop, friendships with Nolan and Charlotte

Daniel: relationships with multiple on-screen family members, three love interests besides Emily (Ashley, Sara, and Margaux), a job at Grayson, a job at Margaux’s magazine

Nolan: multiple on-screen love interests, a career as a successful tech wizard, a hacking hobby, friendships with Jack, Declan, and Louise

As a result of their various storylines and relationships, the Jack, Daniel, and Nolan we saw in their final episodes are not the same exact men we met in the pilot – they’ve grown, been damaged, healed, and discovered things about themselves.

But all Aiden ever had was a little backstory (solely to explain how he came to meet Emily at Takeda’s), and a fling with Niko (in S3) that was so brief and pointless that I can’t even remember if it was just a flirtation or if they actually slept together. And I think in one episode we met his mom, maybe?

But that’s it. Everything else about the character was Emily-related – he was involved with the Graysons and Grayson Global because Emily was, he hated Jack because he was jealous of Jack/Emily, he hated Daniel because Daniel mistreated Emily, the only reason he interacted with Nolan was because Nolan was Emily’s BFF…. So, for someone like me who didn’t care for Aiden/Emily, there was even less reason to like his character since he almost didn’t exist outside of her anyway.

3. AIDEN’S CHARACTER FLAWS (OR, “AIDEN SUCKS”): But, you know, even all that above wouldn’t be enough to get me to hate Aiden. Find him annoying, sure. Roll my eyes at him, yes. Fast-forward his scenes, of course. Forget major details about his storyline, all the time.

In the end, it was his behavior and his treatment of the characters I did love that bothered me most of all. He lied to Emily whenever he felt it was in her best interest, and when he lectured or berated her it grated – Jack and Nolan lectured her, too, but the show often had them on a moral high ground that Aiden, as a violent student of revenge himself, could never claim. He also often made bad decisions only to shift the blame onto someone else.

But I found really difficult to get past was his treatment of Jack and Emily in S3 after he found out that Emily had told Jack her real identity. Everything that followed – Aiden lying to Conrad that Jack was the one who tried to kill him (Conrad), which put the lives of both Jack and baby Carl in danger; Aiden breaking into Jack’s home and manipulatively painting himself as the savior who only took the job as Corad’s hitman to give Jack time to leave town and stay away from Emily forever; Aiden having the unmitigated gall to get mad at Emily afterward; and then Aiden threatening Jack again a few episodes later – just had me thinking, “Yeah, Aiden’s the worst. THE WORST.”

And all because he couldn’t stand that Emily told Jack the truth that was her truth to tell to anyone she wanted to tell.

I mean, in a way, as a Jack/Emily fan, I appreciated it on a story level as evidence that Aiden was desperately insecure and jealous when it came to Jack and Emily’s relationship.

But it also just cemented my belief that there was never going to be anything root-worthy or sympathetic about him no matter how much the show tried to hold him up as one of the “good guys.”

4. EMILY/AIDEN’S SHALLOW RELATIONSHIP: You pointed out in your post that Emily and Aiden’s bond never seemed as deep. I agree with you completely. For years, one of the big criticisms of Jack/Emily was from those who said that Jack was in love with a little girl who no longer existed (a myth I debunked here), and those same fans often said in the same breath that Aiden loved the whole/real woman.

Then Barry Sloane (Aiden) came along and did a “Pop on the Pop” interview in S3 where, when asked if he wanted Aiden and Emily to end up together, he said, 

I love working with Emily. I love the chemistry we have onscreen. I love those two characters together. I think Aiden understands her and he’s in love with one part of the woman she is. He doesn’t know Amanda Clarke. He fell in love with Emily Thorne. If she was to show up as that other part of herself, I don’t know if he’d love that other half of Emily.

(Unfortunately, I can’t link to the interview because the link I saved now directs to Amazon for some reason, so everyone reading this is going to have to take me at my word that I wouldn’t make up a quote about a show that was cancelled two years ago.)

I remember being kind of stunned by that quote when I read it, but only because it was so blunt – the sentiment didn’t surprise me because his words were backed up by what we’d seen on screen: there can be no depth to a relationship if one of the people involved only loves one part of the other person and has no interest in the rest, and Aiden clearly had no interest in Amanda Clarke (perhaps thinking, his mind warped by Takeda’s training, that Amanda didn’t exist anymore, or that she was never “real” the way Emily was “real”).

Ultimately, the most layered of Emily’s romances wasn’t her relationship with Aiden, because it wasn’t enough that they simply had a shared background in and driving need for revenge.

It was her relationship with Jack that was the most layered, and that was, interestingly enough, in large part because they spent so much of the series apart, so much of the series denying themselves the opportunity to be together. That time and that push and pull allowed them the space to see and accept ALL of each other. That slow-burn struggle made their eventual union feel earned, real, in a way that Emily/Aiden never did.

Thank you for the ask, and I am sorry it took so long to finish it!