#i mean obviously i've been thinking this for a while given i wrote it into fic

[pynkhues]

Okay, out of yoga and just because I was percolating on it as I was incorrectly using meditation at the end of the class, haha, but I do think the show is also saying something very specific when it has Louis unable to create art instantly turn around and seek to own, then profit off it without any respect for the artist who made it.

[byers-bowlcut]

The Cyrano Trope & Byler

The byler painting lie is such a clear example of a literary trope where a character receives some form of courtship that makes them feel "in love", however the character does not know the true identity of WHO they got it from. 

This trope has a full fledged name called "Playing Cyrano". It comes from a famous french play from 1897 about a character named Cyrano, who felt that the love of his life, Roxane, would never love him back because he was not good looking enough. Still, he tries to find the courage to convey his love to Roxane through a love letter (think~ painting) and this is what happens: 

(link to full article)

Will is the one "playing Cyrano" here for El, as a means to make Mike happy, help Mike and El's relationship, and also to secretly convey his own feelings for Mike in the process. 

This trope very obviously ends with Roxane (Mike) falling for Cyrano (Will) upon learning the true identity behind the letters (painting/van speech). 

And it's also precisely why Mike makes the expressions he makes at Will in the van; why his eyes shine with awe, why he takes breathless gulps as Will speaks, the whole nine yards. 

I've spent a long time wondering why Finn Wolfhard acted the way he did in the van scene (the expressions he makes are VERY distinct and emotive, he was given clear acting directions for it), and this is the most concrete reason why: The writers/directors here were trying to show us how Mike is perceiving Will's gift and words, and what it's making Mike feel. The van scene is not ONLY about Will, but about Mike's feelings too!!!

Mike's expressions in the van scene clearly tell the audience that he feels like he's falling in love all over again. It's giving him hope for his relationship with El. It's making him forget about his insecurities with her, and making him feel needed and loved. 

And the obvious catch here is that it's all Will doing that. Not El. And that's the missing piece to how they're going to segue into byler in season 5. 

--------- 

Beyond Stranger Things, obviously the idea of 'Playing Cyrano' has been adapted for literally over a hundred of years, into hundreds of stories, cementing it as a trope in romance plotlines. Here are just a few other examples:

Ben and Beverly from It

Ben gives Beverly a poem, but she thinks it's from Bill and ends up with Bill in the first movie. In the second movie she learns who the poem is really from and rightfully ends up with Ben.

Olivia and Sebastian from She's the Man

Olivia quickly falls for Sebastian while reading a sheet of song lyrics he wrote. But she thinks the lyrics are written by his twin who is disguised as Sebastian at the time. She spends most of the movie chasing after his twin, but eventually finds out the truth and ends up with Sebastian. 

Ellie and Aster from The Half Of It

Ellie agrees to help a jock named Paul write letters to his crush Aster. Ellie is in love with Aster and communicates it through the letters under Paul's name. This helps Paul and Aster's relationship a lot and they begin to date. Eventually Aster finds out the real person behind the letters, which leads to Ellie and Aster ending up together.

I especially love how the Cyrano trope is used in this story, because it shows how easily the trope can be molded to fit the queer perspective: in the original, Cyrano believes his love will never be reciprocated because he's not attractive enough. While in the Half of It, Ellie believes her love will never be reciprocated because of her gender.

Otis and Maeve from Sex Education 

Otis plays Cyrano for Jackson who is hooking up with Maeve at the time. Otis is in love with Maeve and knows everything about her, and essentially meshes with her perfectly. But he's too insecure to confess to her. Meanwhile, Jackson doesn't mesh with Maeve super well, and gets Otis to play Cyrano (eg. Otis telling Jackson Maeve's favourite books) . Maeve and Jackson end things when she finds out the truth about Otis's involvement, and her/Otis are the main couple of this series. 

---------

Overall the moral behind Cyrano's story is about how love at first sight is foolish and that appearances are not the basis of true love. 

Reading about this trope struck me with the thought that maybe this is why the writers forcibly shoved El and Mike into the love at first sight trope— even when it doesn't totally fit Mike's behaviour or words in S1E2 (after he sees El the first time, he does not behave like someone "in love" at all and plans to send her away). 

In most cases of the Cyrano trope, the love that exists between the "wrong" pairing is mainly based off of physical appearance and cyrano's masked courtship. There is little else holding them together. So by writing Mike declare that it was "love at first sight", it makes me question the whole basis of his love for El and how superficial it might be. I mean sorry Mike, how did you know you loved her the moment you saw her? You didn't even know anything about her. Meanwhile there's an undeniable depth to byler's bond— their friendship deepened and evolved over the course of many years, and it's anything but superficial.

(Side note: this trope sometimes involves Cyrano actively aiding the other love interest -Christian/El- but sometimes does not. In byler's case it does not. Will does not directly plan with El to woo Mike, and instead uses her name to an unknowing Mike to help their relationship. This trope can be executed a million different ways, but the main point is: the one in Roxane's role doesn't know who is causing their feelings of love)

[sophieinwonderland]

Alright, Let's Go Debunk A Sysmed in Denial!

There are three types? Ooh! Is this going to be about my Headmate Foundations model?

Oh... Nope. I guess that would have required braincells.

I'm just going to assume that "factive disorder" is a Medically Unrecognized Disorder that involves forming a lot of introjects of real people. 🤷‍♀️

Wait! No! Please tell me all about this disorder I've never heard of!

Open the can of worms! 🙏

I believe they meant "factitious disorder" but it's not a typo when it happens twice. It's having no idea what you're talking about.

Like????

There are no examples given here.

Is your research in the room with us?

Anyway, this is false.

The most popular endogenic community is the tulpamancy community, and it's been the subject of extensive research.

For anyone who doesn't know, tulpamancy is a primarily psychological practice that involves creating headmates. It has been acknowledged as a real psychological phenomenon by multiple doctors, including Dr. Samuel Veissiere, a psychiatry professor at McGill University, who wrote the following paper on tulpamancy.

There is also an ongoing study conducted by Dr. Michael Lifshitz that has shown neurological changes during partial possession in tulpamancy.

The existence of tulpamancy, a practice of creating headmates, has been acknowledged by multiple doctors.

Absolutely no doctors have ever claimed that it's fake.

Way to undercut your whole argument with that last line!

Anyway, in one study of tulpamancers, 78% reported positive impacts on their mental health, and 91% reported positive impacts on their overall lives.

So tulpamancy is obviously beneficial according to these statistics.

And when the OP is even admitting they'd be worse off as a singlet (and a majority of people with DID have expressed that they'd miss their alters if they were gone), I just don't think this argument has any merit at all.

Wanting to be a system is perfectly valid.

What the Hell do you consider "actual" endogenic systems???

You mean like, people who were born as systems?

So... not that either???

What then???

That's... trauma...

I mean, bullying isn't necessarily going to be traumatic for everyone but you're describing bullying that's severe enough to cause PTSD symptoms.

If the only endogenic systems you support are the ones whose systems were caused by trauma, then you aren't pro-endo.

Are you SURE your aren't a troll blog??????

Because somehow, calling yourself "pro-endo" while the only "endogenic" systems you believe in are ones you don't think their trauma is valid enough to count as real trauma is the worst possible position in all of syscourse!

Ugh! Do you even know enough of plural history to realize that the endogenic community branched out of the natural multiples? People who believed their multiplicity was entirely natural???

If this isn't a troll blog, I feel kind of bad for you. Because at least most other anti-endos are smart enough to realize they're anti-endos.

[wetcatspellcaster]

2024 fic wrapped

I was tagged by @cursedhaglette to do this tag-game, but I found the focus on stats made me a little uncomfortable! (also, no one needs to know how many words I wrote while having multiple breakdowns last year, truly).

But, I didn't want to ignore Mia's tag! so instead, I'm going to take @cinnamontails-ff wrapped tag-game, just bc I sympathise with the logic and I like this set of questions a lot more!

Thank you Cin for coming up with questions that don't focus so much on productivity. And thank you again, Mia, for including me in the original game :) hopefully this is an acceptable substitute!

What's been your biggest learning point this past year?

I guess, what it feels like to be a 'popular' author - and the answer is, 'both good and bad, in fact, extremely mixed'. Obviously, many parts of it are wonderful: more people interacted with my work in the height of the BG3 fandom than I've ever had before, I felt like my writing mattered and I enjoyed every conversation I had about it. I also felt under a lot more scrutiny, very hyperaware of how I acted in 'public' (ie. on this blog), and aware of the people I'd disappoint with the directions I took my stories and what I chose to include. I also had to watch the baffling half-life of modern fandom! BG3's 6 month peak and 1yr trough was wild to me, as someone who joined dragon age 8yrs after the game was released. But I've decided I actually really like the middle-road of interaction, with much less noise and dedicated, recurring readers who I recognise and who make me smile and laugh every single time they comment or tag my work. I'll probably never experience whatever the fuck Pieces was ever again, and I'm honestly... ok with that, currently? Not to sound awful, but I'm not sure I liked it lmao.

In terms of my writing, my biggest learning point was "you're good at this, actually". Chanting this to myself in the mirror while I white-knuckle the sink.

How has your writing developed this past year?

I'm genuinely not certain. Pieces was certainly my most ambitious story yet, but a lot of the outlining of that took place in 2023 so it feels like the development happened then... though I suppose landing the dismount was something I worked very hard to do. I guess the main development this year was that a lot of what I wrote was extremely, extremely angsty. I wrote Pieces, I wrote This Is Not A Love Story. and I gave Rosalie to Orin :))))) this doesn't necessarily surprise me, given the way my writing often reflects things I'm dealing with in my life, and I've been trying to both recover from - and desparately stave off a relapse into - depression. I think that I can see why I keep making characters into the worst versions of themselves (this goes for Astarion, Rosalie - bc Pieces Rosalie is NOT in a good place, Gale and my Durge) and then watching them claw their way back to happiness in the hope of proving to myself that that's possible.

But jfc, it all got a little heavy. I've decided that 2025 is the Year of the Rom Com™.

Good writing habits?

Committing myself exclusively to what I want to read and sticking to my guns - which means I actually finish the thing, rather than getting into my own head about it.

Stretching my comfort zone a little (writing something vaguely smutty, writing something very different in style, switching genres for a bit) without losing my own voice.

Not falling into any jealousy/existential crises about my own writing, which I guess is much easier when you're experiencing a bout of 'success', but I've managed to keep it up even after the success began tailing off :)

I wrote a lot of words last year. I'm not putting the stat down but god. It was a lot.

Bad writing habits?

Overwriting everything. Everything. All the time. Party Favours was so short!!! I used to write novellas!!! Why are my chapters so fucking long now?????

Having multiple fic wips when I promised myself I'd wind down fanfic and start writing original work again :')

I wrote a lot of words last year. I think I did this bc I was extremely unhappy, and productivity is how I define myself. when I feel bad, I write and post bc it makes me feel good. And I felt very bad this year. So anyway, I think my wordcount is both a good thing and also a wee cry for help :'))))

Favorite thing you wrote?

Chapter Twenty-Three of Pieces (Mephistopheles consultation and my Ascended!Astarion meta-reveal)

Chapter Four of Cooler Than Me (putting the blorbos in a formal-wear situation)

I also liked my sex scene in Pieces :') it was tame but it was written for me specifically x

Favorite reads?

for fic!

long summer days can lead to lazy vices by @pouroverpaloma

eyes like fire by demonsbanebard

only once by @bearhugsandshrugs

and of course stitched into your sleeve by the bestie (@violacae)!!! my first ever gift fic!!!

for literature!

The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door by HG Parry

Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan

Deeplight by Frances Hardinge

Biggest win?

god. I'm endlessly grateful for my gift fic and for my fanart, but... it's got to be bookbindings. I used to daydream, about somebody ever wanting to have my fic bound, but I thought it was impossible and would never happen! I now know of 3 copies of my work that exist in the world :D and the ones I've seen were fucking gorgeous, like oh my fucking god.

I am also very proud I finished Pieces! It was my most ambitious project, and writing the ending presented even more challenges than I expected - as I discovered how much you write yourself into a corner when you resoul Astarion. I still haven't managed to read the completed work in full yet, but I'm proud it exists :)

Goals for the new year?

finish outstanding wips, and then see where my writing takes me next. I want to write original work, but I also don't want to make it a resolution. As long as I continue to enjoy writing, that's what matters most to me!

Your favorite words of the year, aka the words you check each chapter for, making sure you didn't repeat them 788 times?

I think I use '[x character] froze' a lot, but rather than focusing on my repetitions I want to focus on some of my favourite turns of phrase that I managed to pull from the ether! :)

'before her brief courtship with death threatened to become a commitment' - from the risk and the reward

'We can all still be butchered. We cut away the parts of ourselves to make us fit' - from this is a love story.

"He played an androgynous, morally-grey vampire, of indeterminate gender! In a nice coat! Anyone who had two working eyes and a relevant Kinsey Score read the porn, back in the day!” - from cooler than me

What are you excited for in the new year?

act 3 astarion characterisation for honest lie! the first big romance moment in cooler than me! and then just romcoms! 2025 is the year of the romcom! I want to write exclusively happy things!!!!

tagging: @cursedhaglette (as it's a different set of questions lmao), @imscissorbladez, @violacae, @eraserspiral, @scaryanneee, @sitting-in-the-sink, @pricemarshfield, @pouroverpaloma and anyone else who wants to give this a whirl. anyone is welcome, and if you tag me in it I'll share x

[veliseraptor]

Top 5 favorite moments in your favorite villain's stories!

the counterpoint to this ask because there was a slightly distinct flavor to these two options! okay okay let's go, limiting this to one per character for challenge mode and this is obviously an incomplete villain selection, just the ones I thought of first

1. I could've put down the final confrontation between Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen again for this because it is legitimately one of the scenes of all time, just, globally, but I think for some variety I'm going to go for the scene right afterwards, specifically the CQL rendition with Xue Yang setting everything up and making dinner and sitting there with a lovestruck expression waiting for Xiao Xingchen to wake up and...everything to be fine again, I guess? Oh buddy. And then the inevitable meltdown when that isn't what happens. It is so painful in the best possible way. CQL gets this one for a few reasons but bonus mention to the way the novel scene specifies that Xue Yang also remakes A-Qing's bed and the fact that he doesn't tend to his own stab wound until after he's got Xiao Xingchen all set up for resurrection.

2. The entire goddamn pool scene (Kinnporsche). I mean, scenes that have me lying on the floor making pathetic noises for 500, cycling around in my brain, thinking about on the regular. There's so much happening there and as one of the several !!!! vegaspete moments for me this is a scene that regularly punches me in the face. Also delivered choice painful whump on about five different levels but didn't actually kill off my fave (for once). Incredible.

3. I feel like this is rich of me given I was just complaining about Brandon Sanderson but I have to flag the bit with Moridin in The Gathering Storm where Rand intrudes on his brooding time and he is so clearly Tired and Done with everything. @neuxue wrote an incredible write-up on that whole scene that pretty perfectly explicates why it means so much to me, so I went and dug it up so I could link to it for someone who can talk about this better. My (possibly inordinate) affection for Ishamael/Moridin is well fed.

4. look, I'm still embarrassed about this but he did sort of rewrite my brain so I'm going to include it regardless of my vague sense of shame: Loki's death(ish) scene in The Dark World made me feel so hard and continues to be very emotional for me even knowing that it was, ultimately, a fakeout. It still doesn't read to me as a scene where the character who is(n't actually) dying knows that they're. not actually dying. The way the whole sequence plays out is great, but in particular "I didn't do it for him" is one of those lines that like. I felt that. Still feel that, little bit. Loki died (ish) three times and this one is my favorite. The Dark World is objectively not a very good movie but! it is near to my heart.

5. Had to think about this one for a while because there are so many options and I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch, but I think I'm going to hand this to the moments immediately after Jun Wu has been beaten at the end of TGCF, because as I've gone on record saying before, it never ceases to drive me completely insane and while he is a villain I don't talk about as much as some others he is one who gives me a whole lot of feelings.

Bonus mention to Maeglin's death in The Silmarillion though because I'm a big fan of narrative circularity and characters who doom themselves while also possibly being inevitably cursed as well. Also thought about (most recently) giving this one to a bunch of possible Rasten moments in North Star Guide Me Home but I feel like at that point he only barely qualifies as a villain so.

[steddieas-shegoes]

116. “you wrote me a song?” any rating! 💕💕💕

I really thought you'd go with something so obviously smutty just based off of you breaking my brain so often, but this is such a soft prompt. I made it sweet and also a little smutty (barely) 💖

Rated M | tags: modern au, rockstar eddie, making out, light frottage, fade to black sex

🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶

Eddie being holed up in his music room for hours is normal.

That's what Steve's telling himself, at least.

But ever since the boys had been back from their tour, Eddie had been...weird.

It wasn't necessarily bad, at least not at first, but the last few days had seen Eddie being unusually quiet and withdrawn, his mind clearly elsewhere while they ate breakfast together before he disappeared for most of the day. He would appear again by dinner, usually tired, and always a bit snappy, like he didn't want to be around anyone.

Steve recognized it, but didn't quite place it until today.

He was working on a song.

Eddie was like this the last time a song wouldn't translate from his head to the instruments or the paper.

It didn't make it easier to deal with feeling so alone in their home, especially not when he'd spent a lot of the last four months alone while he was on tour.

"That's it," he said to himself as he stood up from the couch.

He walked to Eddie's music room and knocked on the door, three knocks, pause, two knocks, just like always.

Their version of 'I'm checking on you, I'm worried, let me in.'

Eddie opened the door, dark circles under his eyes.

"Break time," Steve said, grabbing Eddie's hand and pulling him from the room, ignoring the sputtering protests.

"Stevie, no. I gotta-"

"No you don't. You can come with me for a bit."

"No. You don't understand, I-"

"No, you don't understand." Steve stopped and turned to look at him, hands on his hips. "I've been mostly alone for months and I thought having you back would mean I have you back. But you've been closing yourself into that room for days now and I miss you. I miss you."

Eddie's face falls, Steve's hands fall, and they both fall into each other.

Eddie's arms are wrapping around his waist as Steve lets out a sob.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart, I didn't mean to make you miss me," Eddie whispered into his ear, kissing his temple, his jaw, his cheek. "I'm right here, love. I'm sorry."

Steve nodded, accepting the apologies, the kisses, the love he was being given. He wasn't ashamed about needing it, not anymore. Eddie made sure he never felt like he couldn't ask for the attention he wanted.

"What's got you so stressed in there?" Steve finally asked, voice muffled against Eddie's shoulder.

"C'mon, I should probably just show you," Eddie pulled away, tugging Steve back towards the music room.

Once inside, Steve was led to the couch and given a peck on the lips.

Eddie sat down at his keyboard and cracked his knuckles.

"I've been working on something since we were on tour, but I thought the reason I couldn't get further was because of my environment. But I've been home for days and it's not getting better. Every time I think I'm onto something, I lose it or it doesn't come out right or it doesn't fit with the rest," Eddie explained, gesturing wildly.

Steve watched with wide eyes. He always loved watching Eddie's passion flow through his limbs the same way it flowed through his words. It was one of the things that made him fall in love with him.

"Show me what you've got so far, then," Steve gestured for him to start playing.

Eddie wasn't one to hold back, but he hesitated now.

It only lasted a moment though, his fingers starting to flow over the keyboard and his voice starting to sing.

It was beautiful, and nothing like what Steve had expected, nothing like what Corroded Coffin normally performed.

The words were romantic, hidden behind a yearning, something Steve hadn't heard Eddie write since before they were together.

And then he sang a line that would've knocked Steve to his knees if he'd been standing.

"It's with a curse I leave you, it's with a curse I love you I can't find my way back to you tonight"

Steve immediately flashed back to one night in the middle of the tour, when Eddie had called him right after a show, something he only did when the show didn't go as well as he hoped.

He'd complained about the storms delaying their start time nearly an hour, and how Gareth was offbeat for half of a song, and how the fans didn't seem as into it as usual. And when he went to hang up, he said "I wish I could find my way back to you tonight."

Steve had been almost asleep by that point, but the sung line sparked the memory.

Steve stood and walked over to Eddie, cupping his face in his hands and swiping his thumbs across his cheeks.

"You found your way back to me now, though, baby. You always do," he said.

Eddie pulled his hands from the keyboard and pulled Steve down into his lap.

"I needed you then. I started writing this that night. Sorry it's not finished yet."

"You...you wrote this for me?" Steve asked, realizing now that there was a reason why he used that line.

Steve wasn't stupid, but sometimes he was a little slow.

"Yeah, sweetheart. I know you miss me when I'm gone, but you have no idea how much I miss you."

Steve knew, or thought he knew, that Eddie missed him. They talked every night before shows, and texted on Steve's lunch breaks and when he got off of work. But it always felt like Eddie got to stay busy enough not to think about missing him as much.

But this tour had been the first time Steve couldn't take much time off of work, only being able to attend a handful of shows throughout.

Normally, he spent more than half the tour with him.

Steve kissed him, hard.

Eddie grunted, surprised at the sudden intensity of Steve's lips on his, but didn't pull away. His hands gripped Steve's hips, leaving bruises as a reminder that Steve wouldn't actually need.

Eddie would be home with him for months now, enjoying the holidays together, visiting their friends and family as time allowed. He wouldn't have to leave for another tour until their next album was released the following year.

They had time.

But Steve's lips acted as if they only had tonight, his stomach already fluttering with need and anticipation of having those needs fulfilled.

Because Eddie would. Eddie always would.

He may not always be there, he may have to miss him, but he always got what he needed in the end.

The kissing turned messy, lips wet and spit on the corners of their mouths, desperate to keep sharing and tasting each other.

"Want you," Steve panted, bucking his hips forward so that his hard length finally got friction against Eddie's. "Please."

"Here?" Eddie asked, breathless.

"Anywhere, everywhere, doesn't matter."

"Oh my god. That's perfect!" Eddie pulled away, turning to the notepad on the sheet music stand.

Steve smacked his arm.

"I swear, Munson, if you don't focus on my extremely hard dick soon-"

"You're anywhere, everywhere But not here, not tonight"

Steve melted.

"That's good, Eds. It's really good."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Steve kissed his forehead, smiling into it as he felt Eddie's shoulders relax. "Now, will you please fuck me on this bench?"

Eddie laughed and bit his shoulder.

"If you insist."

[mermaidsirennikita]

frustrating levels of discourse continue happening on twt ugh https://x.com/lara_e_brown/status/1839303817256645101

Lol yeah, I've honestly just given up on reading takes like that because once you've seen one, you've seen 'em all.

It's an extremely shallow reading, using things like "pale", which you can in fact be while having a darker complexion, with both examples relating less to a physical appearance and more to his aspect in the moment (his face is "white" because he's scared; he's "pale and effeminate" because he's in a wan and weakened state). And I say "both" because you tend to come up with faaaar fewer examples of the text relating Heathcliff as pale than... not.

I also find it funny that this user uses Heathcliff marrying Isabella as an example of why he MUST be white, when Heathcliff and Isabella literally run away together because nobody wants them to be together, PARTICULARLY her brother, and this rips the Linton family asunder. Almost as if.......... it was............... breaking a taboo......................

Like, yeah! 18th century Yorkshire wouldn't have accepted that marriage. And if there's one thing we know about Heathcliff—if it's not accepted, he's not gonna do it.

One of the entire points of his character is that he lives against law and taboo and societal norms (while at the same time being deeply aware of the fact that his existence doesn't gel with them). In that thread, that user references the Byronic hero, with the name drawing from Lord Byron and his own literary fascinations. Byron was obsessed with taboo, lived to break them (most famously the taboo of sleeping with people of the same sex, and probably the taboo of incest as well... COME TO MY TED TALK TO DISCUSS HOW THAT COULD RELATE TO HEATHCLIFF, ALSO). One of the reasons why more recent scholarship (and I don't even mean super recent) surrounding Wuthering Heights has come to terms with the interpretation of Heathcliff as a man of color is that he does embody the taboo even more.

And obviously... some taboos (the incest one) exist for a reason. But the book also seems interested in questioning how much we really gain by treating someone (someone like Heathcliff) as other and wrong simply for existing. Again, we go into the cycle of abuse.

I also find it rather belittling of people to refer to general 18th and 19th century values when discussing how people "would have" seen Heathcliff, or interpreted the text. Because, for one thing—yeah! A lot of contemporary readers did not in fact Get It. Perhaps in part because they did have the biases that people like that user seem to believe would have prevented the author from exploring Heathcliff as a man of color.

... But if Emily Bronte thought exactly as the detractors of her novel (who condemned it as wicked and aberrant) did, she never would have written the book, I think. Who's to say, though? It's difficult for EITHER side to make leaps about what Emily knew or thought, because she is someone who didn't live very long, has been portrayed as an eccentric (and perhaps even maligned by Elizabeth Gaskell's portrayal of her) and definitely had something of an offbeat upbringing. We just don't have much directly from HER. So it's a bit rich to me to make assumptions about the kind of limited worldview she may have had on topics like race, when we really do not have a lot of definitive information about her worldview, but DO know that the book she wrote, which some theorize to be about a man of color, REALLY upset some conventional readers.

Like... why would you contextualize that book within a purely conventional reading when the entire reason why Wuthering Heights matters is that it defies convention?

I do shy away from using the word "canonical" to describe Heathcliff's race, because while I know what people mean when they say it (and I'm sure I've said it at some point) it's just a word choice that people like that user will latch on to. Like I've said before, there is no way to prove with 100% certainty Heathcliff's race either way. Which isn't to say that you have to do so to state that he's a man of color. It's just the kind of pedantic strategy people will use in threads like these.

And I'll notice, too, that she omits Nelly's line wherein she speculates that Heathcliff's mother could be Chinese or Indian. I mean, what's her take on that specificity combined with the lascar speculation? No mention of Liverpool relating to people... not... from America or Spain...?

I do worry sometimes that people see someone's major concentration (say, if someone has a BA in English or something, which for the record I don't) and go "Damn, that's end-all, be-all" A) it's not, there's more to research than getting a degree B) you could also use literal wikipedia footnotes to kickstart your own deeper dive into this, there are tons of people who've made careers discussing books like WH debating the issue C) having a degree of any level never kicks your bias.

To go back to my own degree... I knew old art historians who saw nothing gay at all in Michelangelo's work. You can know a lot about a lot, and it doesn't mean you have an open mind.

I think anyone can read WH, do some research about the era and Emily, and drawn their own conclusions. And you are just going to have to make your conclusions based on your own assessment. There is no smoking gun here, and there never will be because the smoking gun would be a living Emily Bronte willingly telling you what she meant.

And I didn't read Heathcliff as a person of color from the jump, for the record. I was thirteen when I read that book for the first time; I'm white; I picked that book in the context of it being a Great English Classic, and as far as I knew, those were all about white people. Because... that's what you were taught about WH at the time, at least where I was.

But when I was first introduced to that interpretation some time later, it was a literal "OH!" moment. Because like... yeah. There isn't a smoking gun for Dorian Gray's sexuality (and yes, we know a lot more about Oscar Wilde than we do about Emily Bronte; but the absence of knowledge of Emily's interests and attitudes doesn't mean we can assume she DIDN'T have an interest in writing Heathcliff as a person of color) but The Picture of Dorian Gray makes way more sense when you interpret his queerness for what it is. Wuthering Heights makes way more sense when you interpret Heathcliff's race for what it is.

[flightfoot]

Marinette Completed Angst Fic Reclist

I know some people really like this genre, so I figured I'd make a list for it! These will obviously all be completed, and none of them will be bashing fics, and PLEASE don't rec any fics on this post that are bashing fics, I don't want to see them.

Some of these will have my own commentary about the fic attached to it, for if I've put them on a previous reclist where I had that commentary written out. But a lot of the older fics won't.

For a fic to count for this, the angst Marinette goes through can't just be her being upset about what someone else is going through, though the angst of the fic doesn't only need to be hers, so long as she has her own angst which is a decently prominent part of the fic.

---

one does not love breathing by @wackus-bonkus-maximus

All of Paris watched as Hawkmoth murdered Chat Noir, taking the Black Cat Miraculous for himself. Ladybug swears revenge, but her enemy—and every miraculous in his possession—disappear without a trace.

Six years later, a new team of villains launches an attack for the last remaining Miraculous: Volpina, armed with new powers; Queen Bee, with questionable loyalty; Argos, the new holder of the Peacock Miraculous; and Cat Walker, who Ladybug hates the most.

Takes place after S4 - Strike Back.

This is a simply phenomenal fic. You get to explore a lot of different perspectives, like Felix, Kagami, Marinette, and Adrien’s, just to name a few, and see their different thought processes and plans and priorities, and how it can cause their plans to collide with each other, even when they all ultimately are aiming for a good outcome for everyone. The characters are pretty complex and can mess up at times, even when they’re doing things (or not doing things, looking at you Luka) with the best of intentions. It was a joy to read and a real nail-biter the whole time, I actually wrote a fic for it halfway through just to resolve some of the tension for myself, One Does Not Love Shadows.

It also features the version of Luka I’ve connected best with to date, as he feels like Luka, but also is a lot more fleshed out, and can make some major errors while simply trying to avoid missteps. It’s helped me get a better handle on a character who I’ve generally had a lot of problems with really understanding.

It is an M-rated fic, though I think Wackus is being overly cautious on that front. There’s no sexual content and I wouldn’t put the violence or gore above a T-rating, so I wouldn’t let the rating scare you off.

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you don’t even know me at all (but I was made for loving you) by @ladyofthenoodle

They didn’t remember each other. The hospital told them there’d been an accident—brain damage—but Alya had told them the truth, later. Who’d they’d been to each other. What they’d given up, and why. But even with their memories of each other gone, Adrien and Marinette are still inextricably tied together—by law, by their social circles, and by their hearts. And in the apartment they share, there’s only one bed.

Yep, it’s the “there was only one bed” trope XD! I especially love how it was used here, how Adrien and Marinette are strangers now but they had a whole life together, and they pine for each other even without remembering, and how Marinette just can’t believe how in love with her Adrien is even though he doesn’t remember her. I loved the emotional turmoil the two of them went through together in the fic, and the resolution, it’s great!

---

fine line by @bbutterflies

“Catwalker?” Loveybug asks. “Hmm?” “Do you remember… what happened before us?” “What do you mean?” “Before we were heroes. Was there someone else?” Catwalker goes quiet for a moment. “I don’t know,” he finally says.

This is a surprisingly angsty take on the Loveybug AU. Here, since the Loveybug and Cat Walker transformations are so unnatural, they’re having negative side effects on Marinette and Adrien, causing them to be constantly exhausted and even to get amnesia the longer they continue using them.

---

do you think I have forgotten about you? by @roseinaugust

Based on the song ‘About You’ by The 1975. Memory Loss. Told in alternating time lines, one leading up to and one dealing with the aftermath of Marinette relinquishing the Miracle Box and the guardianship. Marinette struggles with her life after losing her memory, though there is a persistent voice that calls to her that always seems just out of reach in her memory.

Beautiful memory loss fic here, with seeing Ladybug’s and Chat Noir’s relationship before she gave up the Miracle box, juxtaposed with the present day, when Adrien is only a stranger to her. I could really feel how Marinette was struggling with navigating these new circumstances, with her friends seeming to expect her to remember, to be who she was to them, to Adrien especially, before, and her just… not knowing whether she can do that. It’s got a happy ending though, for those who are concerned about that.

---

Our Tales Are Endless (That’s Why I Tell Them) by @joonapeach

Marinette lives a simple life - one surrounded by pretty dresses, fresh macaroons, and the calming view of Paris. It’s a life she thinks she has always fit in. And yet sometimes, when a certain boy comes by her shop with a flower and a new adventurous story, she can’t help but wonder if there’s something else she’s missing.

This was a truly gorgeous story. It’s the classic “Marinette gives up the Miracle Box and loses her memories” storyline, exploring her life two years later. Even though she’s had time to heal and recover, she still feels like she’s missing something, something big. At least Adrien’s stopping by regularly to tell her stories about Ladybug and Chat Noir, even if she doesn’t understand why they resonate with her so well.

---

I (Wish I) Knew You by @buggachat

University has been hard on Marinette. Making new friends and maintaining her grades is a lot easier said than done when she has to disappear at odd times to fight akumas. She's struggling, and with Alya away with family and Adrien painfully out of reach, she's never felt lonelier.

If only she could talk to someone who really understood her struggles... but it's not like Chat Noir would know anything about loneliness. Right?

Nice aged-up Ladynoir fic here! Marinette’s struggling with losing friends and lovers because of her flakiness due to her superhero activities, until at last she breaks down. Thankfully, Chat Noir’s there at least - and it soon turns out he’s got problems of his own that he’s been hiding.

There’s some fluff and angst, it’s mostly just the two of them navigating life, dealing with their feelings and talking things out.

---

If I Let Myself Love You by @uptoolateart

It’s hard to be a normal girl with a normal life when your mother has terminal cancer. And when fashion model Adrien Agreste moves back to Paris and wants to be Marinette’s friend – or maybe even more – her life is turned upside down again.

How can she risk opening her heart to love when her whole world is falling apart? Especially when Adrien is hiding a dark secret of his own….

- COMPLETE FIC – updates on Sundays

*** No kwamis AU - 100% Adrinette. About half of it is fluffy and half heavy. Please read tags for trigger warnings. ***

This fic can be rough, definitely pay attention to the tags. There’s no villains in this story, it mostly centers around themes of dealing with illness - both being sick and having a loved one who’s terminally ill - and death, grieving someone who’s lost, and how difficult that can be. It can get pretty gut-wrenching at times, especially as you slowly discover more layers of what’s really going on, what both Adrien and Marinette are hiding, both from others and from themselves in order to help cope with their circumstances. But they still move forwards together, regardless.

---

Between the Heavens and the Embers by @readersmoon

Everyone in Paris remembers the fateful night of January 16, when the city was attacked by the most powerful and destructive akuma ever created. The assault, which lasted for hours, resulted in the death of 439 people.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng was among the casualties.

Years later, Adrien hasn't been able to move on, haunted by the memories of her broken body. So, when the opportunity to leave Paris for a while presents itself, he doesn't hesitate. But this trip might end up giving him more than he ever dreamt of.

This is a fantastic fic, though a serious and a dark one - make sure to mind the tags, and it’s M-rated for a reason. Vee - or rather, Marinette - is going through a horror story here. Imagine finding out that your life is a lie, that everyone you thought you could trust was manipulating you, that you were just being continually gaslit for years. 

As for Adrien, Alya, and Nino... well, none of them took Marinette’s “death” all that well, especially Adrien. Finding out that she’s been alive all this time, in these horrible circumstances, and they had no clue... it’s hard on them as well.

I love how this fic goes into how much trauma everyone has even after the immediate danger’s dealt with, you don’t just walk off this kind of experience, especially with how many years this lasted.

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in case you don’t know me tomorrow by @thelibraryloser:

“We live in a crazy world where pieces of our lives can be erased like they never even happened. I just wanted to memorize this moment so… so I could keep it, if that makes sense.”

Adrien’s heart gave a little flutter. She wanted to keep this moment, meeting him. She wanted to keep… him.

“I understand exactly what you mean.“

In a world that has created a way to selectively delete memories, no moment is truly safe. So how do you hold on to something when the memory of it is gone? And how do you keep fighting for someone when you’re the only one who remembers?

This is a SEVERELY underrated fic. It’s got some shades of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” in the world, though the plot is very different - the memory erasure ain’t willing. 

Basically, the first few chapters are establishing Adrien’s and Marinette’s romance, and then the rest of the fic is dealing with Gabriel being an absolute DICK and using any means at his disposal to break them apart. It’s fantastic and I highly recommend reading it!

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hella enchanted by @xiueryn:

Years ago, Marinette’s father died and she was left with her awful stepmother. With magic forcing her to obey every command, she lived as a servant and gave up hope. When a man appears, searching for the very fairy that blessed her, Marinette decides to give life one more try. AU.

(a different ella enchanted au.)

Even though it’s a one-shot this one is pretty long, clocking in at over 30k words. Absolutely worth a shot, though. The first third is basically Marinette dealing with being pushed around because of her “blessing”, and the other two-thirds is just some adorable fluff of her and Adrien touring the country together. 

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Echoes of You by kittinoir

In the day time, she's Marinette - a normal girl, with a normal life. A normal girl, with a normal life. A normal girl, with... Not Season 4 Compliant; please, no spoilers

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balancing act by fictionalinfinity

“Besides, being Ladybug always came first. It came before school, friends, and sometimes even family. Now it had to come before her health. Marinette had a duty to Paris. She wouldn’t let them down.” Or, being both Ladybug and the Guardian starts to take its toll on Marinette. - the epilepsy au literally no one asked for

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Some Days by @merrygreenie

Some days are worse, and others are a little better, little by little and day by day. Marinette Dupain-Chen is learning how to live her new normal after living in confinement and being tortured by Hawkmoth. She is thankful to have her friends and family to support her. And a very special Chat who loves her very much. *This story contains scenes of violence and torture this is a whump fic*

This fic has some great angst, but be warned, it's not kidding about the violence and torture. Honestly, it should probably be rated M instead of Teen, given that while the fic mostly takes place after Marinette escapes and while she's recovering, we do get a detailed flashback to her torture.

[verymuchwowperson]

Late delivery by request! I've got a question for you:

Where did your Sidestep get your name? Do they know what it means? Do they feel any particular way about their name?

Looking forward to your answer!

-Cigarettes

hello!! thank you for indulging my request dhsjdj, my little treat for myself :]

Caine:

they yoinked it from somebodys mind while trying to come up with names for themeself. who the person was referring to or why, they dont know nor care about. he hasnt taken a secondary look into what it meant. theyve always considered their real spoken name to be spot anyway, after his regene name. caine grew on him once people started tying more significance to it, but spot will always be more him. thats the name he first gave ortega (before realizing thats not a normal name and panicking), and thats the name ortega still calls them. he misses seeing his signed regene name though, thats his actual name (to himself at least).

Cyrus:

im ngl, i originally wrote out a completely different answer for him and was going to go with that before coming up with this one and realizing its way more true to him. so! cyrus got help with his name from anathema. i might draw this out as a comic one day, but basically, cyrus admitted to anathema he didnt like his name. anathema already had suspicions he was trans by this point, but cyrus officially came out to him when he picked up on anathemas suspicions and realized it was a good cover story for not having a name. they spent a while going back and forth on names, and eventually picked one he liked. cyrus knows the meaning behind it, anathema actually nicknamed him sunny because of it. he had a keychain of a crocheted sun on his person too when he was acting as a civilian (hes probably been caught with it as a hero multiple times when the emergency was too urgent to change). pre-heartbreak, having a name people cared enough to call on made him feel at home. post, though, it feels like a scab people wont leave alone.

Cecilia:

fun fact about this, ortega actually saw her face Before finding out her name. she already had a name in mind (i mean, obviously she was going to tell them eventually, thats a given), but since there was No way ortega was going to leave her alone about it after that, she figured she might as well take the chance to fuck with him. she had him guessing names for about a week before relenting. theres no Real meaning behind it as far as she or i know, its just a common enough name that she likes the sound of. as for what she feels about her name, she likes it a lot. its something uniquely hers that she got to pick out, and she still got to keep it after heartbreak. she likes it a lot better than her regene name, thats for sure.

Cynthia:

im gonna be so real rn, looking at this question and thinking about How cynthia would pick her name, made me realize she wouldnt pick cynthia for herself in the slightest. im. probably going to have to rerun her with a new name once i figure out something she Would name herself, but were sticking with cynthia for now adhsjsjd. cynthia wanted significance to it; it was her first chance at a new life, and she wanted something that felt would describe her. something that would break her off from the life at the farm. she researched meanings for it and picked one she was satisfied with. i looked it up, the name cynthia has strong associations with the moon. honestly very fitting for her, but shed think the name was too,,, pretty. she doesnt feel like something that nice would represent her. im not sure what shed gravitate towards, proobably something meaning new? or something pertaining to the human anatomy, well see. either way, as it stands now, her name is another piece of an identity she doesnt know anymore.

[swordfright]

in latest chapter of stagger, dream calls tommy's knuckle bone a relic. (ex)catholic!dream real? (this is to say, would you expand more on what the suggestion of a reliquary—if intentional—means about him lol)

ok fascinating question. i wouldn't say i headcanon any of the characters as Literally Catholic (though i do love when ppl draw c!tommy with a huge dangly crucifix, it's hilarious) but i also don't think it's a stretch to say the dsmp is a very religious storyworld in a lot of ways. we're meant to understand that a number of characters are either gods, believed to be gods, god-adjacent, are acting on behalf of a god, or have been granted divine powers in some sense. i actually looked this up just now and found this list on the wiki, and while i don't personally 100% agree with some of these characters being Literal Gods, i do think the fact that the audience and characters are even discussing whether a given character "counts as a god" indicates that religion is.....kinda fundamentally baked into the world of the story??

as for c!dream specifically, I've always seen him as...maybe not necessarily a religious character, but at the very least a character who has religion happen to him. we don't really get much of an indication of what his beliefs are at the beginning of the story, and we certainly don't get any insight into what beliefs he might've been raised with growing up (dsmp is a very "present" story and i'm sooo grateful for that), but regardless, by the final arcs of the story he has been made the subject of divine intervention. he has a book that belongs to, or was created by a god. a god wears his face. etc. (if you wanna get real nitpicky about it, i don't think we can say "his sister is a god" because i don't think anyone actually says that in canon, including drista herself, but personally i always loved that bit of fanlore so it's canon To Me lmfao.) honestly, i think the best evidence that dream is religious even in the earlier arcs of the story is the fact that dream co-founds church prime — especially this stream from november 2020 where he invites tubbo to pray with him inside the church before they go to war against each other. dream kills tubbo immediately after the two of them step outside the holy land, but he clearly respects the church as a sanctuary and upholds it as such (when cc!tubbo uploaded the VOD he cut the first hour, including this interaction, but the entire thing was recorded and archived so you can still watch it.)

to answer your Actual Question — when i wrote that line i was thinking about how many relics historically were purported body parts of saints. so the word "relic" came to mind when i was figuring out how to describe a scene where someone basically steals a body part and hides it away for a divine purpose, i.e. a resurrection ritual. i didn't really put any more thought into it than that, but i do think it's fun to imagine the religious parts of c!dream's inner life, especially during his incarceration. "god appears to you in your time of greatest torment wearing your face" goes hard obviously, and it also genuinely sounds like it could be part of a lot of historical martyrdom tales.

so like. there's a lot there! i know a lot of folks find the religious headcanons annoying, which i understand, but you can't deny...there's A Lot There lmfao

[nikethestatue]

I finished ACOSF a few months ago and seeing this fandom has been so confusing to say the very least. Nesta is my favorite character and I loved the Valkyries but .... I just don't see this Gwynriel ship happening. I think they'd be cute together and I wouldn't be opposed to it obviously - but I just don't see it happening given where we left off in ACOSF. I also am confused about the personality difference in Gwyn & Elain and Azriel.

Gwyn didn't even kill anyone in the BR and was knocked out and carried to the top - so why are people acting like she is some great warrior and will destroy legions of armies and lead the Illyrians into war!? She saw a mini Pegasus at a sleepover and through it was cute and now all of a sudden people think she's going to ride one in the skies while she paints Prythian with the blood of her enemies? What enemies even?? She's not tied to any of the IC's plot?

Elain didn't really stand out to me in ACOSF, which makes sense because it was NESTA's story. I didn't really have an opinion on her and Azriel or her and Lucien. I get that Lucien makes her uncomfortable but SJM writes her pairings that way it seems so I could see them ending up together tbh. But then I read the BC and - wtf ?? I am firmly team Elriel now because what do you mean Azriel's out here dreaming about how elain TASTES . I see you freaky azriel 👀 goddamn I Definitely was not expecting that from him but now that I have seen it I can't go back. There's no way SJM wrote that and plans on making Elain then end up with Lucien. Like I thought it would be fine but after that BC - there's no going back.

Either way - it's weird that people have such a strong opinion on Azriel and Elain because I think combined, they've said maybe like 200 words total? I like the idea of them but we dont know much about them? Why are people forming such harsh steadfast opinions on what either of them want or need or desire when we don't know much of anything? They're both kind of mysterious.

Idk I feel like I just missed a book with how strongly everyone is arguing about these guys.

Elain - had some badass moments but barely mentioned on the page in ACOSF

Azriel - even more mysterious than Elain but the dry humor makes up for it.

Lucien - he's not been in the past 2 books?

Gwyn - is great but not the Aelin type of warrior people online are making her out to be

Where is all this coming from I am very confused??

Honestly, most of this is coming from TikTok, Headcanons and fan art on Insta.

You have NO IDEA how many asks i've received over the years with people saying the same thing 'i saw so many Gwynriel arts on Insta and I thought that there will be some amazing romance in ACOSF. THEN, I read the book. And I kept waiting for something to happen and nothing ever did."

I think the key word for a lot of GAs is 'then'--they first saw the art, watched the tiktoks, got themselves all jacked up on theories and headcanons, and then, THEN they read the book. So now, the problem is that they have a hard time separating reality/canon from all that stuff that brought them to the fandom in the first place.

They are digging their heels and arguing that it WILL HAPPEN!!! absolutely will. Gwyn will become a great warrior and will ride a Pegasus into battles. Azriel will fall madly in love with her. They'll have kinky sex and she'll 'heal' him.

ALL of it comes from fan art. Literally, look at 99% of Gwynriel fan art and it's all 'fake'--imagined scenes that never happened.

I think many of them either left the fandom or can't accept that they've been duped and are incorrect in their assumptions.

It will be interesting to see what the fallout will be once the book is released.

[bloodycyrano]

Gifts I think the DAO companions would appreciate, outside of giftable in game items! (Pt1, I think this will be a long post if not sectioned)

Sten-

Incense and expensive tea, possibly imported. He talks about how he hates the smell of Ferelden, and misses home; Tea and incense being the most notable scents that stick out to him.

Cookies, or a good recipe for cookies. Everyone in the Fandom has had the dialog where Sten reveals that he enjoys cookies, and that in his homeland, there is no such thing. I think he would greatly enjoy a recipe to be able to bring such a thing back with him- Even if he may not be able to make them himself at home. My memory is fuzzy on qunari custom, but I don't think he'd be particularly allowed to bake.

A wardog of his own- I don't think he'd be permitted to keep it, upon return to the qun. But he has immense respect for Barkspawn, and I think if he were here in 2024, he'd be a great dog dad. I think he'd probably give it to his closest companion upon his return, but he would keep a detailed sketch of it with him always. He'd probably give it a specific title in his native tongue.

This is sort of a separate headcannon, but I think in a modern AU, he'd really like pumpkin spice lattes.- It's always the ones you would never expect.

Shayle-

Obviously, we know they like crystals. They like being pretty, and *sparkling*. So it's not too farfetched to assume they would appreciate gold ore or other shining metals fitted to some of their stone bits- Sort of like.. Magically grafted on with heat? Morrigan could weld them, or I'm sure Sandal could potentially do it.

I think, while they couldn't really read themselves, I think if you brought them books and such, they would enjoy hearing you read it to them. Especially if you manage to find some old records of their own lineage after the orzammar quest line.

I think they would also enjoy being given I big, stone bowl to keep shiny trinkets in- Like a crow, almost. Crystals, cute pebbles, coins, keys, etc. Pretty things for them to look at.

Leliana-

She would love it if you wrote her a poem, regardless of what it was about. I think she'd just be so happy you thought of her and wrote something lovely- I honestly think she'd love it even more if it wasn't the best quality. After all, that would mean you were inspired by her to write something of which you had no prior experience and still tried your best. She'd think it was cute.

I think she'd like it if you gave her one of your own personal favorite books or fables, with little notes on your commentary and theories. She'd love that, honestly.

A ceramic nug. No explanation needed, she loves Nugs. I've got animals I love, too. And if someone gave me a ceramic or plush critter of my choice, I'd be over the moon.

A little on the weird side, I think she'd like a type of porcelain harlequin doll. I can't think of the specific type, but they don't make them the same way anymore.. they're usually from overseas in Germany or Russia or France, you know? The ones that are really glossy and have beautiful line work in the paint? I feel like you found one in the denerim marketplace, imported from Orlais, and it would remind her of another experience she had there or even just of her time as a bard. After all, they weren't *all* unpleasant memories.

Alistair-

A golem doll. Like a little poppet. I don't think it's rare dialogue, but the other day is the first time I noticed it since I first played the game rented from a family video over a decade ago, so.. Yeah. Point is, Alistair mentions in front of "Wonders of Thedas", that Arl Eamon (I think) once bought him a little golem doll as a child, and how he adored it and wondered if there would be one like it at the wonders of thedas.

A griffon figurine. He's a Grey Warden, I think he'd like it. The wardens have always been his real home, and it's truly where he belongs. I think a memento of that is something he'd hold dear.

A book of poems about honoring fallen soldiers. I feel like it may bring him to tears, and perhaps make him confront some extra grief after ostagar, but perhaps it could also bring a sort of comfort. Maybe he isn't the most religious, maybe he has a bit of trauma from the chantry.. But I think he still prays, if only for the ones he's lost.

Again, I think he'd like a war dog. I'll never let him take Barkspawn, but he'd love a pupper of his own. If you gave it to him as a puppy to raise and train all his own, he'd probably be overjoyed.- Off topic, but I headcannon that all companions to the wardens have an extended lifespan, and live and die with their humanoid counterparts if they don't die in battle, kind of like the animal companions do with the avatars in ATLA. Far fetched, and backed by absolutely no real lore as far as I know, but I like to think it's true.

[merakiui]

I wrote this whole thing out already tbh but I accidentally reloaded my tab 😭 so I have to type it out again 💔. I'm sorry if the first one somehow sent already and you get this twice

But nono that is Absolutely an NBC dress!! I see the vision!! I am personally not as big of a Rollo fan but I DO think he is a fascinating little bug. I'm putting him in a little jar under a big ol' magnifying glass and observing him for forever. I like that Masquerade offered us a look at other mage schools and how they work, what villains they're based on, etc. I really appreciate him for that. I did actually really enjoy what we got to learn about him too. Fun stuff! Love Masquerade.

AAAA fashion and eel blessings! I'm so honored :D!! Tbh Floyd has always been much much kinder in gacha than his brother ever has been,, so even tho I loved Jade first maybe I should give that other eel his proper chance. Since he seems to love my keys so much lol

I totally forgive on the forgetting to answer tho it's okay 😭!! These asks get very long. It's bound to happen! Obey Me had that update though a few months ago and it's been a godsend so far!! I played for forever but my cards weren't ever strong enough to reach the later story :( so I'm really glad Nightbringer offers the full thing for free so I can binge read!!

Since I brought up other games though,, I've been wanting to ask actually if you've ever looked into Diabolik Lovers? If you haven't and ever want to... I do want to warn you that the anime is NOT very good unfortunately </3. It's one of those animes that's just kind of a really shitty ad for whatever it's original media form was. It skips out a lot of important lore/character info, and doesn't really showcase each character properly since it tried very hard to focus on just 1 brother and failed. So the ganes/translations are 100% the way to go.

I bring it up tho bc it's my fave character's birthday today :D!! Ohh,, Reiji Sakamaki the strange little specimen you are <3 <3 my lovely wife that drugs people. I adore him. I think tbh you could like him too based on the stuff you usually talk and write about here. But obviously I could be very wrong! No way to actually know.

- :3

AAAA the horror of reloading the tab... I've done that too many times. T_T I know the pain well. </3

YES!!! Glomas gave us so much!!! It's one of my favorite twst events. Being able to see what other magic schools are like and how they function (NBC having a student council in contrast to NRC's Housewarden system). I really hope there will be more events like it! I'd love an event where the RSA students are given more spotlight or an RSA-centric event!!! It would be so exciting!!!!

:O giving Floyb a proper chance...... may he come home so quickly!!! May he jump into your arms enthusiastically!! It's Jade's loss for being so stubborn in coming home. >:( no hugs for that eel.

That feature is so helpful and nifty omg!!!! I want to finish the main story and learn more from where I stopped a while back. ;;;; after becoming a Jade enjoyer, my eyes have opened to Barbatos hehe.

DIABOLIK LOVERS OMG...... now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time. I did indeed watch the anime many years ago, but I actually haven't delved too deeply into the translations of the game. I might have to because,,,, vampire....... cool,,,, pretty,,, deranged.... orz the sheer grip those brothers had on me...

Please forgive my late reply!!!! >_< your wife's birthday has since passed, but that doesn't mean we can't still celebrate Reiji Sakamaki, the wife ever!!!!!! <3 I think my taste in fictional men has refined with my age because the polite (as a front) types (Reiji, Kyoya, Jade, Sebastian, etc etc) were never my preference, but now I am LOOKING. 👁 👁 I think I need Mr. Reiji carnally.

[rockinlibrarian]

I know this is probably a weird thing to hear from a stranger who you know from weird fish horror fanfic, but: I'm sorry for your loss. It sounds like you and your dad had a really nice relationship. If you'd like to share a story about him here, I'd love to hear it.

Awwww, it's true! I love to share him! I don't think I can top the "eulogy" I wrote at the time (not actually given as a speech, but serving the same function), that focuses on the two aspects of him that most profoundly affect who *I* am (and are things two years and some months later that are still most likely to trigger spontaneous Missing him), Music and his Kindness:

Here on Tumblr I feel like I can always predict the reblogs my brother @dannypageoflight will reblog from me, because it's always the ones that embody the values he --our dad, not Dan-- instilled in us-- about being Kind (not just Nice, but Kind) and Loving and Welcoming. He genuinely was just one of those Good people, the kind you know immediately.

And I feel like-- we're all super nerdy, my family-- my dad maybe the most! And yet I let my own social anxiety and neurodiverse quirks stand between me and being as actively Good as he was, and I wish it wasn't so, I wish I was braver and less self-centered and had generally more energy and could just PUT MYSELF OUT THERE, being for example (like he was) the Band Parent whom all the kids would adopt as their own surrogate parent-- one of the most touching responses I got to the above essay was from an old classmate of mine who said that for kids like her who had bad or absent father figures, my dad really DID become a stand-in Dad for them!

Okay, to add some specific stories that don't just rehash what I've said before, let's focus on the "Nerdy" bit:

When he was a kid, he lived near the base of a TV tower, and birds would always smack into it. So he'd take it upon himself to gather bird corpses from below the tower and deliver them to the natural history museum to study. (In the meantime he would keep them preserved by sticking them in the freezer, which never stopped freaking his sisters out). Once, decades later obviously, we went to the museum and he managed to use this story to wrangle us a tour of some employees-only back rooms that actually HAD some of his bird specimens in storage!

He was obsessively into geneaology. He wrote a whole book about his great great (?unknown number of greats) grandfather's Civil War brigade. Said ancestor had lived in the town where I've ended up for the past 20-some years, coincidentally, and I used to work at the library where he'd once donated a copy of said book for the historical collection. I never found the book while I was working there, which is some sucky archival work by somebody because I don't know WHY anyone would WEED it. :P

Anyway, that was on his mom's side of the family, which had been in America since -- a lot of them from colonial days, at least. His DAD was a first generation immigrants' son, so when he--my dad-- got the chance to go to Slovakia and try to track down his ancestors on THAT side, he ended up meeting and eventually befriending his second-cousin, who didn't speak any English-- and my dad didn't know any Slovak at the time, though he worked on it!-- they worked things out between my dad's Slovak contact and the cousin's son and daughter-in-law who were fluent enough in English, that they all kept up correspondence and then they invited my parents and brother and aunt-- maybe my sister? I don't know, it was after I was out of the house and had my own job and couldn't go along, but I don't know about her-- to visit properly after, too.

In lieu of traditional "dad jokes," he had random old goofy quotes he'd recite, like "Just because your nose looks like a banana doesn't mean you're one of the bunch!" in a goofy voice. He knew every weird gimmick and novelty song and would also spontaneously sing from them. Okay I guess this may be one way I really do take after him, if you ask my kids.

Speaking of rare songs, this is one thing I didn't QUITE go into in the linked essay, but when he was a teenager he worked as a page at the local radio station (which I think was connected to the above mentioned TV station? Or it may have been for the TV station's homebrewed American-Bandstand-type show?) and got paid in 45s. The records. He basically got a second copy of every record the deejay got for the show. So he had this INSANE collection of the wildest most obscure-- and the top hits too!-- pop music from the late 1960s. I once went through those boxes just listing titles that made me laugh. And I had a few I actually listened to and eventually forced my college friends to listen to, too. ;) (One of my best college friends had a dad who had ALSO had ties to the music scene and therefore a really interesting vinyl collection, and her roommate--my bff-- @heartlandsoul had a stereo with a turntable, so we would bring in the best (or weirdest) obscure stuff from our dads' respective collections to share)

Okay, that's all I've got at the moment.

Thank you!

[marjansmarwani]

Favorite Fandom Memories

thanks to @strandnreyes, @welcometololaland, and @reyesstrand for the tag!

Obviously I am feeling super normal about the show ending in just a few days. I may not be as present on here these days but this show and this community still mean a lot to me and it definitely feels like the end of an era. Thanks to @thisbuildinghasfeelings for the idea and a way to even start to express it all.

The theorizing: I'm going to miss this part so much. The long, nonsensical rambling theories I wrote out were fun enough on their own, but to have people both validating them and adding on to them? Times I will never forget. It all felt unhinged in the best way. Engagement watch in season 3? Ice storm theories during the S2/S3 break? Breakup theories during the ice storm arc? Wildly guessing and extrapolating from the few images we were given and going through clips frame by frame? Absolutely nothing will ever compare to that thrill.

The characters: I could go on for ages about how much I love all of these characters, literally every one of them (yes, even Owen. He's a mess but I love to pick apart that mess). I don't think I have ever encountered any piece of media where I truly do love and appreciate every single one of the cast of characters as much as I do this one. Could some of them have used more development and focus? Absolutely. Do I still love them anyways? Obviously. Also, on a personal note: Marjan Marwani means so much to me.

Writing: the thing I love the most about this show is how it somehow managed to unlock the creative part of my brain again and got me writing after years of not being able to. I wrote 131 fics for this fandom. For a while I was publishing at least 1 fic a week. I wrote AUs that I never thought I would be able to and explored themes and characterizations that I developed and built on. Not to mention so OCs (Mya, my beloved). I wrote long form works that I poured my entire soul into (the teacher au has so much of me in it) and works that I spent months planning and writing and rewriting. Unfortunately my writing brain checked out again before the end but maybe someday I will finish some of the things I have started. There are at least 80 wips at various levels of completeness sitting on my google drive. Maybe someday they will make their way off the drive and into the world. My writing grew and improved as I went and by the end I wrote 705,332 words for this fandom. I would not change a single sentence of any of it.

The community: we may not have always agreed and there may have been some drama, but overall this was the most pleasant and engaging fandom experience I have ever had. And I am a fandom old. Even if we only interacted in passing know that I appreciated you and what you brought to the community.

Friends <3: I have met so many wonderful people through this fandom and though we may not talk as much as we once did know that I still love you and that I will always be a message away. My life has changed a ridiculous amount throughout the course of this show and fandom (4 moves, 3 jobs, 1 cat, and a shit ton of medical stuff just to scratch the surface) but there were always people there to talk to about all of it or none of it, depending on the day. There are even people that I have had the pleasure of meeting in person and bringing our friendship outside of the digital sphere. I also had the absolute amazing fortune to meet one of the best friends I have ever had through this fandom and for that I will forever be grateful.

In typical fashion, I have once again rambled. But I have a lot of feelings and the only way I know to express them is writing (which may explain the over 700k of fic I've churned out). No pressure tagging a few people but regardless of if you do it or not thanks for coming on this ride with me.

@justaswampdemon @moviegeek03 @pragmatic-optimist @morganaspendragonss @doublel27 @terramous @bellakitse @sunshineacd @kiras-sunshine @detectivecarlosreyes @lire-casander @futures-tense @dancer-me @maxbegone @iboatedhere @avacoleman @futures-tense

[panlight]

What do you think were Esme’s and Carlisle’s thoughts on Bree? The moment they saw her and the moment she died (again)

The thing about Bree is that she originally just existed to give Bella a "wow is that what I'm going to be like as a newborn?" moment. The chapter with Bree is literally titled, "Mirror," it's very on the nose. (And, lol, no Bella, don't worry about it.)

So for the purposes of the story, what Carlisle and Esme think about it . . . doesn't super matter. I mean it matters to us, those who care about the secondary characters, it matters to fic writers. But in terms of Bella's story it's like whatever. SM wrote Bree originally as this walk-on, throw-away character . . . but I think the Bree Tanner book demonstrates that Bree did get to SM a little, too. SM's characters quickly put her out of their minds because they had to get to the Forever/Breaking Dawn stuff that had nothing to do with Bree, but SM couldn't get Bree out of her own head and wrote the novella.

If the story actually gave Esme and Carlisle room to have a real reaction to this, a real opinion, I think they'd be devastated. Obviously they didn't know Bree very long, but all of their 'children' were essentially strangers at one point or another. Bree's story could have been more like Alice's or Jasper's, adopted into the coven. I believe them that they were prepared to "take responsibility" for Bree and teach her. I think they saw a kid who was a victim of Victoria's, a victim of circumstance, a kid who was scared and didn't want to fight.

But I think they also knew that to push the Volturi any more would risk their established family. It was a fine line to try and advocate for Bree while not antagonizing the Volturi. Bella's still human which isn't great, and they had just fought side-by-side with "werewolves," which would also put them on thin ice if the Volturi knew. Edward saw Aro's thoughts about Alice and Edward in the Volturi; all they need is an excuse to destroy the rest of the coven (arguably Bella still being human is as good of an excuse as any, but Renesmee needs to happen so . . .). I've seen fic propose that Jasper also influenced them with his gift, keeping them from fighting harder for Bree. Could be! I don't know if that's necessary, I think as loving as Esme is, she wouldn't put the safety of this random girl over the safety of their family. They did what they could and probably feel horrible and guilty that it didn't work out. They probably have discussions about whether they should have said more, tried more, risked more. And then they try and comfort each other with the idea that this poor girl's life was over the minute Victoria bit her; if she didn't die in the fight, the Volturi would have killed her anyway given the laws against newborn armies.

This could all be going on behind the scenes, I guess, but it's not the impression I get with the head-first dive into wedding planning. But yeah I think they were sincere in their offer and they grieve what-might-have been, but they were between a rock and a hard place with the Volturi there looking for any excuse to kill them.