#i think i could be compelled to write about impulse's terrible horrible no good very bad summer

[boatboysrowout]

please tell us more about the mall au, specifically etho and his pipe bomb, i need an entire thing of him running from the cops (i am your number one fan ignore that i only just found out about you that doesnt matter)

hey guys. wanna hear about white castle pipe bomb c plot?

this may come as a surprise to some, but etho is a natural at customer service. he’s always been a pretty chill guy- it takes a lot to faze him, probably a consequence of his proclivity towards explosives in his early years. that calm exterior translates well to working the front desk of a local electronics repair store (not that he had needed a summer job, really, but doc and beef both went home for the summer, and someone kept leaving him visa-friendly job applications in every nook and cranny of his dorm- he found one in his cereal a few weeks before finals, and even that one had nothing on the one he found folded up in his toothpaste).

that being said, being good at customer service doesn’t mean that he’s completely immune to the agonies of said customer service. being good at customer service just means that after the eighteenth laptop he has to factory reset while a teenaged boy swears up and down he had not in fact clicked on a link for sexy singles in his area, etho’s able to wait until the boy leaves before attempting to gouge out his other eye.

he’s searching for a screwdriver when his phone buzzes with a text, and after a longing look at his toolbox etho flips his sign to closed and heads over to the white castle. he makes a quick stop at the arcade tango mans to set a new high score on the pinball machine, effectively guaranteeing tango will be glued to the pinball machine until he regains the top leaderboard spot, and then continues on his way to the white castle, spirits high. 

etho’s good mood abruptly vanishes after stepping into the white castle, as bdubs has apparently deemed etho’s delay in arrival unforgivable and is now withholding the free fries etho had been promised.

etho slumps himself over the front counter, not unlike a wet cat, and starts causing a scene, whining about his awful day full of idiot teens and potential self mutilation that can only be staved off with free food. bdubs staunchly ignores him and cleo threatens to pour hot oil on his head.

eventually actual paying customers come in and etho’s continued presence becomes a problem, so bdubs heaves a sigh and offers the fries to etho as long as he pays full price for them, to which etho, an extreme couponer, reacts appropriately.

etho’s eye narrows as he peels himself off of the front counter, demanding the fries free of charge. bdubs refuses. cleo smacks bdubs on the back of the head and tells him to just give etho the fries so he'll go away.

etho gives bdubs one last chance to give him the fries for free, and by the time bdubs physically removes him from the premises etho is already plotting his revenge and heading straight back to the art store to collect a favor.

(you see, somewhere between the fifth and eighth laptop etho had to factory reset, tango texted him that he managed to jailbreak the pinball machine to accept a quarter for unlimited plays, and etho abandoned his job immediately to take advantage of the incredible deal.  

that was his intention, anyway. but what happened is this: etho had never really shaken off the hold explosives have over him. after he’d been put on a five different government watchlists by the time he was seventeen he’d taken a step back and started focusing more on computing and getting into college and other projects that were less likely to necessitate seizure by the canadian government. he’s clean. he left that life behind him.

however. 

when the sound of an explosion comes from the cute little art shop as etho walks past, there’s not a second of hesitation before he swung the front doors open and entered the shop.

it hadn’t taken him long to locate the source of the explosion, following a trail of smoke down a half hidden flight of stairs to a door with a hastily scrawled sign on it reading 'SUPER TALL AND HANDSOME EMPLOYEES ONLY.’

etho opened the door, walking into what has to be the world’s most pathetic meth lab. in the corner there was a stack of cardboard boxes labeled NOT DRUGS/DEFINITELY LEGAL SUBSTANCES. beakers filled with unidentifiable substances were bubbling over onto the table. a laptop near etho’s foot displayed results for a google search of ‘how to tell if a cut needs stitches and also how long can you set yourself on fire without going to hospital.’

“THIS ISN’T WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE.” a man who etho vaguely recognized from grian's beginning of summer introductions had shouted, throwing his body over the contents of the table in a desperate attempt to hide the beakers from view. a few shattered under his weight and etho heard him stifle a whimper. “everything here is perfectly normal and also legal.”

breaking bad played quietly from a tv somewhere in the background.

etho raised an eyebrow.)

in the end, they manage to work out a deal: etho would not call the cops or tell anyone about joel's secret little operation and in return, joel owed etho a favor.

and now etho will cash that favor in.

(“so let me get this straight. you’re pissed your friend wouldn’t give you chips for free and your first instinct is to go to a meth lab and steal my meth supplies to get back at him.”

“failed meth lab. and yup.”

“there’s something wrong with you.”

“at least i know how to make meth.”

“wait, you what.”)

they start small. prank calls, anonymous yelp reviews calling the really loud cashier short, launching fireworks through the drive-thru window. it doesn’t take long for them to get bored with that though, which leads to bdubs walking into the white castle one morning to discover a horse standing in the middle of the lobby. 

the horse seems very at peace with the situation, wandering over to chew on bdub’s hair as he sputters and cleo ignores the situation entirely. bdubs is left with the task of removing the horse from the store, except the horse seems to be taller than the doorway and not particularly interested in leaving, so eventually bdubs is forced to give up. There’s just a horse in their lobby now. 

it doesn’t take bdubs very long to become attached to the horse, much to the detriment of cleo. she’s running the white castle single handedly by the end of the second day, serving customers and manning the kitchen while bdubs whispers sweet nothings to the horse in the makeshift horse stall he made in the women’s restroom. 

it’s pointless to try and reason with bdubs, so cleo makes her way over to the art store basement where joel and etho have set up their base of operations. ignoring the now functioning meth lab, she demands the horse be removed from the premises in exchange for a reasonable one free small fry per week. 

reasonable to cleo, and least. both jeol and etho scoff at her offer and demand at least one large fry per day each, to which cleo laughs in their faces. she doesn’t bother making a counter offer, simply turning on her heel and walking out of the basement. she pauses for a moment at the front of the shop to make sure she hadn’t been followed before grabbing her lighter from her pocket, casually flicking it on and taking a step towards the tissue paper.

by the time joel and etho notice something is amiss the fire department has arrived, and they’re barely able to hide the evidence of their operation before firefighters are breaking down the door, carrying them out through the art shop, entirely engulfed in flames. 

(“so in retrospect, ripping all the smoke detectors out of the ceiling probably wasn’t a great idea on your part.”

“how was i to know i was gonna get into a war with an arsonist, all i wanted to do was mind my own business and make meth!”

“fail at making meth.”

“shut up.”)

now relocated behind the counter at etho’s repair shop, joel and etho prepare their final attack.

the plan is simple: using supplies salvaged from the meth lab, etho will construct a smoke bomb and throw it through the white castle drive through window while joel takes advantage of the distraction and steals all the fries the white castle possesses.

making the smoke bomb is a piece of cake, and when joel isn't looking etho sneaks a few of his own more... volatile substances into his backpack. just in case.

joel enters the white castle and cleo immediately clocks him due to joel being the most suspicious person alive always, but she cannot be arsed to investigate. it’s been a long fucking week. joel knows what will happen if he messes with her.

bdubs, however, feels an impending sense of doom through his Etho Senses and rushes over to the drive-thru window and whips it open, immediately screaming at the sight of etho across the road winding up his arm with a smoke bomb in his hand.

and that’s when things really start to go wrong.

because here’s the thing: etho’s been missing an eye for most of his life. he knows his depth perception is shit. but he’s so caught up in the adrenaline of the moment, and bdubs screaming isn’t exactly helping him focus, and listen the baseball scene in canada isn’t exactly thriving-

all of this is to say that etho activates the smoke bomb, winds up, and promptly chucks it five feet to the left of the drive through window. it bounces off the side of the building and rolls to a stop against the tire of the car that had been pulling up to order.

several things happen in very quick succession:

1. the smoke bomb begins pouring out smoke, completely obscuring etho from view and flooding into the white castle

2. bdubs attempts to continue screaming but immediately regrets it as copious amounts of smoke invade his lungs

3. the car which had previously been pulling up to the drive through attempts to exit the scene as quickly as possible, but due to the aforementioned copious amounts of smoke misjudges where the road turns and makes a hard left directly into the wall of the white castle

the very same wall where bdubs had leashed his horse mere minutes before, and the very same wall joel had been creeping along.

the horse and joel are immediately flattened, and upon seeing this bdubs’ impassioned screaming reaches pitches previously unknown to man, and all hell breaks loose.

cleo starts cackling and arms herself with a makeshift flamethrower thrown together with hairspray and a personalized lighter. bdubs attempts to leap out of the drive-thu window but his foot gets stuck and he falls out of the building, crumpling to the ground in a still screaming heap before scrambling back up through the drive-thru window and into the fray. joel manages to claw his way out of the rubble, finds himself face to face with cleo and her flamethrower, and has half a second to regret the his and hers shrek mugs that trapped him in this stupid country before he’s running for his life. 

etho himself ends up sitting peacefully on the bench outside the white castle entrance, his mask helpfully filtering out most of the smoke. it’s lucky he grabbed some extra materials from joel’s lab really, he knew bdubs wouldn’t hand over the fries without a fight. 

he’s in the middle of assembling a device that’ll definitely get him put on the american government’s watchlist and ignoring the screams coming from inside when two men rush past him into the white castle, shouting something about justice and burgers. etho waits for a second, and almost immediately they come rushing back out. he waves at their retreating figures, one of whom he’s pretty sure is the theater kid that tried to put on a one man show of macbeth during welcome week.

etho wraps the fuse around his pipe bomb and stands up, brushing the debris off of his pants and strolling into the fray.

he finds bdubs almost immediately, the man standing on the counter and clearly audible even over the fire alarms and incessant swearing from joel and cleo, who now both have improvised flamethrowers and are duking it out in the kids play area. despite the smoke bduds and etho lock eyes instantly, bdubs paling a few shades when he sees what etho has in his hand.

bdubs jumps off the counter and attempts to run to etho, but is cut off by an entirely engulfed in flames joel. it seems that bdubs did not learn a single lesson about the flammability of his hair product from his run in with grian at the beginning of the summer, because his hair bursts into flames after the slightest brush from joel, and this time cleo isn’t standing nearby with a fire extinguisher.

it should be noted that most of the white castle is entirely engulfed in flames at this point. etho’s at the center of it all, cradling his pipe bomb like a baby and searching furiously for his promised free french fries. 

he’s stopped by cleo who meets his eyes, smiles wide, and lights the pipe bomb fuse. 

-

etho and cleo stare at the wreckage of the white castle. look at each other. look back at the rubble.

the sirens in the distance are distinctly closer now, and both etho and cleo abruptly realize how much evidence is contained on their person. 

“joel’s probably fine.” cleo says. “i saw him run into the walk in freezer after i burnt away the last of his clothes and hair.”

etho nods. “bdubs is too short to get crushed by rubble.”

cleo hums agreement. they stand side by side for a moment longer before cleo turns to etho.

“well, i won’t tell if you won’t.”

with that she turns on her heel and walks away. etho sticks around for a few more minutes, watching the flames die down and the last of the white castle crumble. he digs around in his pocket for a moment and pulls out a blackened handful of fries, yanking his mask down to shove them in his mouth as emergency services skid into the parking lot. 

sticking around turns out to be a mistake, etho quickly realizes, as his white hair reflects the light from the police cars and catches the attention of every officer there. he takes off at a sprint, pulling his mask back up and booking it straight into moving traffic, dodging cars and leaving the yells of the police officers and the rubble behind him.

and that’s the last anyone sees of etho that summer.

(og link here!)

[faksyan]

12/16/19 :3

ooohh boyy that got really long. lots of mgs rambles under the cut. thanks for the ask!!! very slight nsfw mention in the second one, nothing major.

12) the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

I'll be honest I'm actually still familiar with some of the games only on surface-level (fake fan I know), and I don't think I have anyone like that from those I know well.

Well, Paz, but I talked about her a bit in the last ask already. She is full of rage and loneliness and gets just a glimpse of real affection and friendship and I find a lot of these themes very compelling. And I guess all the women in general, because fandom spaces usually gravitate towards men, and with mgs it's even less surprising. I really, really like Eva in Snake Eater, but that's mostly due to my own interpretation rather than the writing. I feel like her understanding of love must be really interesting as someone who was taught to pretend/actually feel on some level love on command, and I also think it's interesting that she was the one The Boss opened to. I really wish so many mgs women's traits weren't so tightly linked with romance, man. Quiet is also so cool, but she too suffers from being reduced to just that.

I really like The Boss, she's such a interesting contradiction - cold and strict, but also full of love for the while world and ready to give everything she has to make it just that much better. I would love to see in more detail things about her and Sorrow, an actual game with her as a protagonist would be awesome. Strangelove's tapes in pw are absolutely fascinating as well, the one where she's talking to Joy's ai almost made me cry, and she generally has some pretty interesting take on some things. I really liked the part where she talks about how ai would be an amalgamation of people's consciousness rather than of individual's in the future, because that put into words part of why I hate ai-generated images and text that people call art.

16) you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

Well, I can get people liking anything on account of different tastes, so this is more about popular takes I don't really get because of how different my reading of canon is, I guess? Like the idea of bbkaz being abusive to a point where Kaz was having a horrible terrible time every day at every corner. I've seen it in some fics, and kind of get where people go with it, but I think Kaz "almost blew himself up with a grenade so he wouldn't be taken prisoner" Miller would rather die than be treated like shit. He would blow up their shared tent if it ever came to it ya feel me. He is too proud and too impulsive and too much of everything. They respected and listened to each other and I'd say a lot of their issues were kind of more subtle? in a way. What they had definitely wasn't healthy in many aspects, but it was in ways where they both could ignore/didn't feel were that bad at the moment, that type of thing.

I read through almost the entirety of ocelhira tag on ao3, and i could write a whole list of stuff about them that I personally see differently as that part of the fandom. I'm very picky when it comes to them, in no way those are bad, and I've /seen/ them being executed in a way I enjoyed, I just don't really get them. The main things I don't really see are, as follows:

That they hate each other (next to zero basis of that before the ending of v, and even this can be argued about.)

They would punch each other on the first meeting or shortly after (never seen either of them as people who would resort to violence in a more business-like setting. because that's how I see them approach what they have. Ocelot mainly uses violence in specific scenarios like interrogations and is good at controlling his emotions. Kaz is impulsive but he is a businessman to the bone. Maybe he'd punch Ocelot at some point but definitely not early on. I feel like the main instigator of random CQC is Snake after all, and without him they would figure things out differently.)

They would fuck on the first meeting or shortly after (Ocelot is weird about intimacy and doesn't trust anyone and is a spy who's probably never had friends or lovers, in any meaningful sence of the words. Also he's on aroace spectrum to me. I don't think Kaz would have sex with a person he genuinely despises even if he found them appealing, out of sheer stubbornness. If he hates a person he hates them, same reason why I don't think bbkaz would work in any way past v. Even if Kaz tried to hook up with Ocelot in the beginning, he would probably kill him for a mere insinuation. Give me the intricate details of getting to know a person and figuring shit out, they had nine whole years.)

There's probably more, but this is getting like. super long sorry my bad. And sorry so much of it is about ships, the platonic tags are barren as a desert I gotta write and draw some myself✌️

19) you're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like...

Vocelot a bit maybe (not necessarily romantic or sexual) because the whole concept of them having a close relationship could go a very fucked-up route (like a bit more than the average mgs level). Not really ashamed, that's why I like it, it has a sort of a Hannigram feel to it. Even in case where they genuinely care about each other, there are still some weird power dynamics and mind games and codependency. I just generally find ideas of brainwashing really unsettling.

Also I really like Huey as a character. am I allowed to say that. am I getting fed to the bears. I can and will elaborate at some point, I just really like characters who are unredeemable impossible hypocrites (hey, that's part of why I'm a Kaz Miller fan) and Huey is just. vastly misunderstood when it comes to what caused him to spiral, none of which helps his case but it's INTERESTING. Instead he's just being reduced to a punching bag without taking a look at what exactly led up to it all. Grantedly, I don't think Kojima thought about it that deeply at all, but it came out as a vivid critique of how society and especially military treats men who are disabled/not "masculine" enough/can't stand up for themselves. to me. and I like that.

[publiccollectors]

From the discussion “Towards A Self Sustaining Publishing Model” hosted by Printed Matter.

Some things I have learned in over 30 years of publishing since my teenage days as a zine maker, administrating my project Public Collectors, and from working in the group Temporary Services and our publishing imprint Half Letter Press.

I have just ten minutes to speak. If only one or two things that I share are useful, that’s plenty! It took me decades to understand some of this stuff.

Use every exhibition invitation with a budget to print something. Use the whole budget to print something. Make something in a large enough print run so that you have something to give away and surplus that you can sell. Your publication can be a folded sheet of paper, a booklet, a newspaper, a poster, a book, or anything in between.

Be able to print at least something at home. Buy a cheap laser printer or inkjet printer, find a used copy machine, buy a RISO or some other duplicator, carve something into a potato or a piece of foam and print it. Being able to do at least some of the printing and production at home—even if it’s on a tiny scale—will compel you to print things that you might have convinced yourself not to send out or bring to a professional printer. Hopefully the ability to print impulsively and compulsively will result in good work. Figure out how to keep making things on every scale. Look for cheap used printing equipment on Craigslist. Team up with friends and buy equipment together that you can share. Start a printing collective in your basement.

Ideally your publication should cost 1/5th or 1/6th of the retail price to make. If you sell a $10.00 publication through a store, you are probably only going to make $6.00 or less after the store takes its cut. So ideally your $10.00 book costs $2.00 or less to make. Don’t aim to just break even. Aim to make a profit so you can keep making more publications and pay for your life. Publishing will probably never be your sole income but don’t lose money on purpose. Make things that are priced fairly and look like they justify what they cost to buy. The fact that you didn’t find a more affordable way to print something is not an excuse to sell something that feels cheap and shitty for a ridiculous sum of money. Good cheap printing is easier to find than ever before. Do your homework.

Figure out the cheapest and least wasteful ways to do everything. Ask other publishers where they get their work printed. Look for local printers so you can avoid shipping fees. Ask local printers if you can pay in cash for a discount. Ask printers if there is a cheaper way to do what you want to do by adjusting the size of your paper or the paper stock or some other small shift in form. If you print things yourself, buy the paper that is on sale. Design a publication around the paper that you found for cheap. Discount warehouses sometimes have good paper. Even dollar stores sometimes have good paper. I’ve even bought paper at flea markets. Costco sells an 800 sheet ream of 24 lb paper for $6.99. I use it all the time. It rules. I also recommend getting your jugs of organic olive oil there, but you can’t print with that.

Free printing is good printing. If you have access to free printing, use it. Free printing is like free food at art openings and conference receptions. It is one of those pleasures in life that never gets old. Come up with an idea that is based around the aesthetics of whatever free printing you have access to and make the publication that way. Eat the cheese and bread. Drink the wine. Make the copies at work.

Buy bulk shipping mailers on eBay. Find bubble wrap and other packing materials in the trash. Look out for neighbors who just bought new furniture—it’s usually wrapped in miles of packing material you can use for shipping books. Boycott terrible right wing fuckers like ULINE. Seriously, they give money to everyone horrible. Trump? Check. Ted Cruz? Check. Scott Walker? Check. ROY FUCKING MOORE? CHECK FUCKING CHECK! Tear up their catalogs and use them as packing material to protect your books. Make publications that have a consistent size so you can purchase cardboard mailers in bulk and get a discount on them. Buy packing tape in bulk. Buy everything in bulk. You can store your extra reams of paper under your bed or on top of your kitchen cabinets if necessary. Be like a wacko survivalist prepper, but for office supplies. Go to estate sales and look for the home office in the house. Buy the dead person’s extra tape and staples and rulers and scissors. I’ve been using some random dead person’s staples for years because I bought their staple hoard. Staples aren’t like meat and milk. They don’t expire.

I’m against competition. Try to avoid competing with other artists for resources. If you don’t truly need the money, don’t ask for it. Artists should have a section on their CV where they list grants they could have easily gotten but didn’t apply for because they are privileged enough that they don’t need the money as much as someone else. I almost never apply for anything but the one thing I do apply for and get every year is a part-time faculty development grant from Columbia College Chicago where I teach. It pays adjuncts up to $2,500 a year to fund their projects and seems to be completely non-competitive. My union negotiated to get us more money. I have used that grant to make over a dozen publications. The value of the publications I make and sell with each grant is about three or four times the value of the grant itself. Some years I make more from the grant than I do from the limited number of classes I teach. But I don’t depend on this grant to be a publisher and I’d still be able to make things without it.

Make things in different price ranges so everyone can afford your work, but also so that you can sustain your practice. Make a publication that costs $2.00, that costs $6.00, that costs $20.00, and make something special for the fancy ass institutional libraries that have a lot of money to spare and can buy something that costs $300.00. Likewise, make things in all different size print runs. Is there something you can print 1,000 of that you can keep selling and giving away for years, to enjoy that quantity discount that comes with offset printing a large number of publications?

Collaborate with people and pay them with publications (if they are cool with that) that they can sell on their own. Sometimes this ends up being better pay and more useful than an honorarium, and it helps justify a larger print run. But see what they need—don’t assume. Barter with other publishers and sell each other’s work and let each other keep the money. This helps with distribution. Sometimes it’s easier to sell their work than it is to sell your own. Help others expand the audience for their publications.

Fund your publishing practice by asking your friends who teach to invite you to talk to their college classes about your work. Use those guest speaker fees to print something. I sometimes tell people on social media: If three or four people will invite me to speak to their class, it could fund the entire next issue of X booklet series that you like so much. This has often worked. Also, sometimes their students end up ordering publications. Sometimes lectures about publications generate more income than the publications themselves.

Have an emailing list and write newsletters to announce new publications. Stay in touch with people who like what you do. Expect to spend a ton of time corresponding with people. Have some cheap things and cool ephemera on hand that you can send people for free when they mail order your publications. Reward people who support you directly with something nice that they didn’t expect. People like handwritten notes. It’s okay if they are very short but sign the packing slip and at least write “Thank you!”

Above all, know that publishing is a life journey and not a get rich quick scheme, or even a make very much money scheme. Enjoy the experience of meeting and working with others, trade your publications with other publishers and build up an amazing library of small press, hard to find artist books. Get vaccinated and travel and sleep on each other’s couches. Be generous with your time, knowledge, resources, and work. Tell Jeff Bezos to fuck off by never selling anything you make through Amazon. Find the bookstores that you love and work with them forever. It’s nicer to have deeper relationships with fewer bookstores than surface level interactions with dozens of shops run by people you don’t know.

Think about your publishing family. Bookstore people are your family. People that organize book fairs and zine fests are your publishing family. Other publishers are your family. People who follow your work for years on end are your family. Printers and binderies are your family. The postal workers that know you by name and that you know by name are your family. The person who doesn’t care if you make the free copies at work is your family. Over thirty years later, I’m still in contact with people I exchanged zines with through the mail when I was a teenager. In some cases I still haven’t met them in person. It’s fine! They are my family. Your students are your family—particularly once they graduate or drop out, as long as they continue making books and zines. Your family is your family, particularly if they value and support your publishing practice. And for this reason, this talk is dedicated to my late father Bruce Fischer, who let me use the company copier and postage meter when I was in high school, and to my mom who sat on the floor with me and helped me hand collate and staple my zines.

That’s what I’ve got for now. Stay in touch and with luck, and enough vaccines and masks and hand sanitizer, maybe I’ll see you at a book fair. – Marc Fischer • Thank you to Be Oakley of GenderFail for the invitation to present, to the other presenters Vivian Sming, Yuri Ogita, and Devin Troy Strother, and to the wonderful people at Printed Matter for hosting this! You should be able to find the video archived on Printed Matter’s YouTube Channel.  Presented on April 2, 2021

[roc-thoughtblog]

I am now feeling the great and mighty call, wailing from the abyss of my dysfunctional mind, to abandon this experiment in favour of the charming alternative: absolute jack-nothing. It's a pressure, a really common pressure, that one where you absolutely can't seem to start doing anything, no matter how much you want, should, need to or like doing it. I hate it.

I absolutely reject this call. And I think, for once in my life I'm actually empowered to do so. I have medication that helps me focus. I'm emotionally stable enough to have a consistent degree of confidence. I have a purpose and a goal. I have every intention to completely power through this horrible siren of immobility.

Hell, this was half the reason I started this whole reading/writing blog to begin with, to see if I can keep it up for once.

If personal change can come by spending one hour every day reading or writing, as consistently as possible, I have to do it. I don't know an easier road.

Especially reading, it holds such a unique place for me. I love it enough to constantly want to do it, but my concentration span for novels is so poor that I am basically never at risk of losing control. Watching shows, playing games, spending any time on the sprawling mess of hyperlinks and algorithms that is the internet, I'm so vulnerable to hyperfocusing and losing days and weeks of my life to the unforgiving maw of the un-time.

I just lost the last two or three days like this already, because I accidentally sucked myself back into FE3H. I don't even play the game very fast, or possibly much at all, I just spend hours going into days messing around in the menus. Silly, right? Life shouldn't have to be this way, though, and I am going to Learn Control.

Standard self-management techniques I have ever tried do not work for me. Scheduling and time-management, alarms and reminders, they don't function if I don't have a basic mechanism that cooperates with them. This blog is baby steps, and I will keep fucking walking like the baby I am until I have that basic mechanism that I might then extend to every other part of my life.

I would like to be able to start and then finish personal projects. That would be amazing. And, wow, could you imagine how much better I might be at studying if I could do it?

I restarted a sketching blog too, which I haven't managed to maintain in the past week. But no beating myself up over it, because baby steps involve taking everything you can get first before worrying about more. I'll incorporate it into my proto-schedule as soon as I'm capable of doing so. If I spent one hour every day drawing, who knows how much I could have drawn or how much I would improve.

And streaming! I started streaming on Monday mornings to try to enjoy a game without getting sucked in. And it's working! I played DDLC for three hours the first monday, and then I consciously put it down and waited a whole patient week to play it another three hours the next monday! I didn't get fucking consumed by it! Only one real-life friend is actually watching my terrible quality 480p stream, but who cares! The extra layer of accountability of publicly playing the game has kept my impulses in check and my general brain upright and sane, and the general busywork of setting up a stream and finding convenient, private times to do so has been just enough resistance to stop me launching straight back into things prematurely like I do with a normal schedule I abjectly fail to follow.

I just cannot describe how pleased I am to be able to enjoy something I like doing with some measure of control. Generally I end up caught in that awful cycle where I simply can't do anything I love or want to do because I know that as soon as I do... goodbye life. Being able to play a game guilt free? On a SCHEDULE? That I MAINTAINED? Revolutionary. It even helped me get up in the morning. I’ll be sad when circumstances change to make streaming impractical for me again.

Where was I even going with this, I'm rambling. Rambling is a part of this blog too. I think too much and can't write nothing, which is an absolutely amazing trait to have when you need to write an essay. I want this blog to train myself to just, make my thoughts exist somewhere, on a page, that I can use. Anything. Proofreading is optional, because even basic perfectionism is the death of production. There's a reason why despite the bulk of this blog turning into literature readthroughs, that I started it with a review of Sephiroth DLC for Super Smash Brothers. It was the only thing I could think to write at the time. And I'll take it. I will definitely take anything I can start writing on. Beggars can't be choosers, etc. If I can write more naturally like I am right now, rambling into a .txt, if I can turn that back around into stories or studies... that would be grand.

Anyway, how do I end this. Call back to the beginning and conclude. Okay.

Long story short, I refuse to stop even though all natural feeling compels me to lose interest, because I think I can fight the urge now. AH MOSQUITO. Screw it I'm leaving that in here. It would be so nice to be able to control when I do and do not do things, and I hope I can use this blog to improve my life.

Oh yeah last thing. I want to try and get this proto-schedule such that I will read during the weekdays, but on weekends I'll try to branch out and write about something else. I'll default to reading if I can't manage to get any writing started.

Bit of a long and nebulous to-do list, but I would still like to write a review for Idoru, finish the comparisons on narrative voice with S&S. Also, I took a bunch of notes on No Maps for These Territories I'd like to process along with Idoru. And I did play two sessions of DDLC, with lots of notes! I'd like to write something about that too. And there's so many more small things that strike me every day that could be a good thing to write about. Thoughtblog and all that.

'Kay, it's 3AM now, somehow, so I'mma try to fix my sleep cycle. 'Night.

[pinnithin-writes]

Good Jokes

Chapter 10

Tommy wandered Black Mesa for what felt like days.

It couldn’t have been days; his hands were still sticky with rust and he hadn’t gone far from where -

Where that happened.

He didn’t feel like he even had permission to mourn. Tommy barely knew Gordon - had known him for maybe 72 hours max - but he had grown so important so rapidly that his absence punched a hole straight through Tommy’s torso. He couldn’t shake the sense of loss, how bitterly unfair it all was.

To have someone be such an almost. An almost friend. An almost lover. Never having gotten close enough to be allowed to miss him.

This was not to mention the overwhelming sense of guilt that had crawled inside his lungs. If he had been quicker, if his judgment were sharper, he could have prevented this. If he had been strong enough to break free of whatever bound him. If he had paid greater mind to his father’s warning.

Tommy drifted, heavy with regret as he glided through the halls like a spectre. Shackled down by should-haves. What did he do now? What was there left to do, when the world was fucked and the only person who gave a shit about it was dead?

The room he wound up in was cavernous, ringed with a toxic neon glow. Appropriate mood lighting, he thought wryly to himself as he stood in the shadow of a massive cistern. It was strange, standing there, saturated by radioactive waste, almost-grieving an almost-lover. Would have been nice if not for the cockroaches.

Would have been nice if Benrey wasn’t there, too.

Tommy felt his presence as soon as he appeared, unpeeling from thin air and hanging his elbows over the edge of the cistern. Looking all the world like a kid at a pool party. Tommy watched him materialize and felt something dark settle in the pit of his stomach.

“Hey,” Benrey drawled nonchalantly.

Tommy didn’t have the patience for pleasantries. He was going to set this guy on fire. As he raised his hand toward him, the entity blurted the only thing that could have possibly saved him.

“Dude, he’s alive.” His voice was pained, as if he were already feeling the blood boiling in his own veins. “Chill.”

He released his hold on the atoms that made up the entity’s body as hope lodged a painful lump in his throat. Benrey sagged with relief while Tommy took a thoughtful step back, eyeing him warily. His hand was still lifted in a threat.

“Where is he?” he demanded coldly.

Benrey threw his careless exterior back on once he was sure he wasn’t about to be immolated on the spot. He gave a narrow shrug. “I don’t fuckin’ know. On the move somewhere. Last I checked he wasn’t in the garbage anymore.”

The garbage. They had tossed him in the garbage. Tommy wanted to kill this guy all over again. He clamped down on that impulse, instead uttering a single, perfunctory syllable.

“Why?”

“Probably because he didn’t wanna be in the garbage anymore.”

“Why,” Tommy tried again, barely containing his anger, “did you do that to him?”

Benrey began picking at his cuticles lazily, rolling his eyes so he wouldn’t have to meet Tommy’s gaze. “I dunno. He was getting boring.”

“I don’t believe you.”

When Benrey showed him his teeth, it was more of a snarl than a smile. “Your problem, bro.”

Tommy was about to grill the entity, in both the physical and metaphorical sense, when a scuffling sound echoed from a pipe on the opposite wall. He turned, tempted to dismiss it as another alien, but a heavy thud followed, and a very human groan came shortly after. Benrey’s mouth turned into a knife as he leered at Tommy.

“Huh. Maybe he’s not so boring after all.”

Tommy turned back to face him, his stare hard and dangerous. “I’m going to kill you and then I’m going to kill you again.”

“Hurts, man,” Benrey said, but he was delighted. “Just like old times.” He dangled his arms over the edge of the cistern, grinning cheekily. “I missed this.”

The noise from the pipe was growing louder. The person inside - and he had a pretty fucking good guess who - was clearly in a lot of pain. Tommy’s heart squeezed just hearing it.

“Get out,” he told Benrey.

The entity smiled his shark’s teeth smile. “Make me.”

Tommy did. Clapped his hands together and slammed Benrey into the same pocket dimension he’d trapped that shithead soldier in only a day ago. His patience was nonexistent, his self control barely hanging on. Go have a time out in the void.  It was a kinder punishment than the entity deserved.

He stood there, watching the space where Benrey had disappeared from, for several long seconds. Then he turned and strode across the room to watch the dead come back to life.

The relief that surged through Tommy upon seeing Gordon Freeman crawl out of that drain was so sudden and powerful it knocked the breath out of him. He was alive. He was alive. God, he was alive. Tommy could only stare, gaze catching mournfully when he noticed he was short a hand.

“Hey!” Gordon shouted hoarsely. He sounded terrible, like he had been dragged for three miles from the back of a moving van. Looked as much, too - he was covered in a horrible smear of his own blood and whatever sludge had been at the bottom of the trash compactor. A crack spiderwebbed across his glasses. Tommy felt awful, seeing him like that.

Gordon was still calling his name like it was the only word he knew. “He - Tom - Tommy! Tommy, up here! It’s me! Tommy.”

Tommy smiled sadly up at him. “Hello, Mr. Freeman.”

“Are you - are you here to fuckin’ kill me?” he demanded, and the fear in his words broke Tommy’s heart. “Did they tell you to finish me off? Please, please tell me-”

“No,” he interrupted him before Gordon’s voice could get any more distraught. “They tricked me.”

“What? Oh... god.” Gordon slid unceremoniously out of the pipe and onto the floor. Tommy took a step forward retroactively, but paused when he caught the nervous look Gordon threw at him. He didn’t know if he could trust Tommy. Hell, he didn’t know if he could trust anybody .

Keeping his distance took a great deal of effort, but Tommy managed.

Gordon groaned. “Oh, my fucking arm.” He staggered to his feet, clutching the stump where his hand used to be. He returned his gaze to Tommy’s face, studying him warily. “Hey buddy,” he ventured. “What are they-what did they do to you?”

What did they do to me? Tommy wanted to ask. What did they do to you, you half-dead, waterlogged, survivor of a man? He bit the inside of his cheek and looked away, joking to calm his nerves.

“Um, they gave me a Beyblade.”

Gordon paused, ignoring the jest as he puzzled over Tommy’s situation. “In exchange for - for going with them? Why are you - th - did they leave you behind?”

“Yeah,” Tommy answered. He turned his eyes back to Gordon, utterly loathing himself. “I ran away.”

Gordon, however, relaxed visibly at this. “Oh my god,” he sighed, and then he didn’t approach so much as he pitched forward, unsteady on his feet as he was from blood loss. Tommy caught him, pulling him in close. The armor of his suit dug into his chest but he hardly cared, arms clasped tightly around Gordon as if he would slip through his fingers if he let go.

The other man sagged against him, barely able to stand. “Thank you, man,” he breathed. “Honestly.”

Tommy supported him, tucking his chin into the crook of his shoulder. He smelled like sweat and weeks of garbage and the awful tang of alien guts. Ironic that the first time he got to hold him like this was in a pit of toxic waste. Tommy would find it funny if Gordon wasn’t rapidly losing blood.

He smirked into his neck, drawing out the bit despite everything. “They took the Beyblade back though, Mr. Freeman.”

Gordon exhaled through his nose in a weak, silent laugh. “Oh,” he said. “Would you go back if they gave you another Beyblade?”

Tommy took a step back, steadying Gordon with both hands on his shoulders, checking him for further injury. Other than the gaping fucking hole where his hand used to be, he was purpled with welts from the beating he took. There was no telling what kind of head trauma he had - the man could barely stand upright on his own. But he was alive, alive, alive, and that was better than Tommy had allowed himself to hope for.

He was going to shred Benrey for this. Him and Bubby both. If they wanted to play god, he’d step up to the plate and take a swing. Hot, angry tears suddenly sprang to his eyes, and he pulled back, blinking them rapidly away.

“I know, that’s hard to think about,” Gordon broke in gently. “That’s a good - that’s a good deal.”

He was still playing off his stupid Beyblade joke. Tommy gave him a watery smile and swiped at his eyes with the heels of his hands, wondering what had compelled the universe to gift him with this wonderful man twice over. He glanced back at Gordon’s ruined arm, making another lame attempt at levity.

“Oh my god,” he said sarcastically. “You don’t have a hand.”

Gordon chuckled mirthlessly as he examined his own wound. “I know. I know.” He sucked in a painful breath. “Oh, god.”

“How are you going to… write?”

“That’s the least of my concerns,” he answered, suddenly serious. “I’d like to live. And get out of here.” He cast a curious look around the room. “Where the hell are we? Are we back in the nuclear reactor?”

Tommy was still fixated on the hand thing. Maybe he could pull some strings with time and space. Call in a few favors. It would be tricky, but he felt somewhat responsible for the wound’s existence at all. The least he could do was find a way to reverse it.

“We can get you a new hand, but not in this room,” he said thoughtfully.

That caught Gordon’s attention. “A prosthetic?”

“This room has too many creatures in it,” Tommy went on, wrinkling his nose in particular at the cockroaches. “It doesn’t look sanitary.”

“Do you have any medical experience?”

“No,” Tommy answered honestly. His complicated relationship with mortality made first aid knowledge a low priority. He briefly thought back to what he’d read online. Was this a tourniquet situation? Was he bleeding enough to need one of those?

Gordon cast around for even a miniscule sense of relief. “D’you have any pills?” he asked. “You have like maybe an ibuprofen or an Advil?” He tried to laugh, but it came out more like a thin sob. “It hurts, man. It hurts a lot.”

Guilt closed around Tommy’s throat. All this power at his fingertips and he couldn’t ease Gordon’s pain even a little.

“I only have soda,” he admitted, too drained to make it humorous. “We should get going.”

Moving to support the man’s unsteady weight, Tommy reached for his elbow. If he could get him through the facility quickly enough, he’d make it. Gordon Freeman wouldn't die here. Tommy wouldn’t let him.

“Yeah, probably not gonna be in herewait wait wait, don’t go anywhere.” Gordon yanked away from Tommy, wincing as he did so, and fixed him with a critical look. “I need - we need to talk a little bit more.”

Tommy tried to meet his eyes, but he couldn’t pull his gaze away from the bleeding end of his arm as it slowly dripped scarlet onto the floor. The longer they stood here talking the less time he had to live. He waited wordlessly.

“So - enough - okay, I’m gonna trust - I’m gonna trust that you... are go - I trust-” Gordon shook his head, starting over. “Can I trust you, Tommy?”

He lifted his gaze and gave Gordon a heavy stare. “Yes.” It was not even a question. He had chosen Gordon. He wasn’t about to lose him again.

“Are we good together?”

God, Tommy hoped so.

---

He guided Gordon through the obstacle course from hell, answering his constant slew of questions as best as he could without breaking his brain. Tommy wanted to shush him - the more he spoke the quicker he would bleed out - but he suspected that the constant talking grounded him somewhat, so he spoke to him gently in reply.

Gordon’s thoughts had turned the tap on and his mouth was a faucet of words. He was steadily losing hope; it leaked out of him like the blood from his stump, his sanity going with it.

Tommy needed to keep him alert and engaged. He murmured into his ear as he carried him through Black Mesa, reassurances and stories and the shittiest jokes he could think of. I’m here. I’m here. You’re safe. You’re safe. Stay with me.

“Look,” he told him as they leapt unsteadily over a pathway of stones. “That rock you’re standing on looks like Tibet.”

It was a delayed response, but he saw Gordon’s shoulders shake as he snickered. “Showing off your geography skills even in the worst of times, huh?”

Good. They were still good. Tommy turned, continuing to lead.

They kept moving.

Emerging on the other side of a network of pipes, they were met with a room clustered with vats of waste, each one slowly pressed by a hydraulic plate. Tommy, struck once again by the utter ridiculousness that made up this backwards facility, snorted with derision. Beside him, however, Gordon staggered, looking crestfallen.

“It’s okay, Mr. Freeman,” Tommy muttered as he studied the presses. “I think you’ll be fine - this room is OSHA approved.”

Gordon managed to scrape together a response. “To code? To code, like you said?”

Tommy turned his attention to the man beside him. He was weary and haggard, too exhausted to smile, but humor glittered behind the lenses of his glasses as he stared back at him. The fondness flowering in Tommy’s ribs threatened to suffocate him.

He was going to get Gordon out of this nightmare and then he was going to date the hell out of him. Maybe even marry him. Become a second father to his stock photo son. Apocalypse be damned.

They kept moving.

Their path led them through darkened hallways and more vats of sludge. Where was all this shit coming from? Gordon had slipped into the substance a few times already, and was rapidly growing delirious, his words stringing out incoherently. Tommy was just beginning to wonder what it would take to physically remove the toxins from his veins without removing all of his blood in the process when Gordon caught him with another question.

“Did you hear anything else?” he asked, referring to the event that rendered him handless.

Tommy crouched thoughtfully in the dark as he gripped his rifle. “Screams after that,” he said. Even remembering the sound sent a chill through him. “But… I think that I - I also screamed.”

He could just barely see Gordon’s face in the glow of the flashlight beam reflecting off the tunnel walls. A worried little crease had formed between his eyebrows, and Tommy resisted the urge to reach out and smooth it over with his thumb. Gordon didn’t need to waste his energy on concern over him. They had a bigger, more blood-related problem right now.

Gordon didn’t ask him anything after that, so Tommy didn’t answer.

They kept moving.

Tommy would be happy if he never had to swim again. The pressing sheet metal walls and the smell of raw sewage had kind of ruined the experience for him. He hauled Gordon through the water, coercing a current to propel them along.

Gordon chuckled softly as he allowed himself to be carried. “You ever tried to swim with one arm?” he asked.

Tommy rolled his eyes and rewarded him with a smirk.

“It ain’t easy.”

He appreciated the levity, and the fact that Gordon could tell how uncomfortable Tommy was - enough, at least, to crack a joke on his behalf. It was beginning to get to him: the scent of blood and shit and the slimy water sloughing around him and the dead weight of Gordon on his arm and the harsh industrial lighting searing his eyes and -- Tommy wanted to hit pause and catch his breath, it was all so much. But he had to get Gordon out of here first. He had to make sure he was safe.

Tommy pressed on, pulling the man under a submerged barricade and breaking through on the other side. Stopping to rest was not an option. He had anticipated that this would be a hard journey and had steeled himself accordingly.

He did not, however, anticipate the clones.

Chapter 9 <-----> Chapter 11

[hannah-deserved-better]

Psychoanalysis Of Castiel and Hannah

Hannah and Castiel are my favorite characters, I’ve been writing about them for a very long time, and a lot of the time, my stories are a way for me to understand them better. These two characters are the characters I relate to the most for a lot of reasons. Mainly because I think that if they weren’t angels, they would both be on the autism spectrum, so I relate to them on a personal level because I am autistic too.

Hannah is a character that not a lot of people like in the show. She’s unpopular with a lot of fans, and they seem quick to condemn her for her flaws, but to me, she is one of the most misunderstood characters. She did have character flaws and strengths; she was one of the more developed supporting characters on the show. And she complimented Castiel’s personality in many ways.

At the most basic level, Hannah is an angel’s angel. She is bound by heaven’s laws, and she has a strong sense of duty, responsibility, and regulations. For her, everything has its place, and it’s hard for her to understand when people stray from that. She values harmony and order and structure. So the concept of free will was hard for her to wrap her mind around, at least at first. 

But at the same time, Hannah is unusual in that, unlike other angels, she seems to have emotions. She is very empathetic. And she doesn’t always understand feelings, how they work inside of her. Often times, she struggles with intense emotions, which causes her to be impulsive and to lash out when she feels she, or someone she cares about, is being slighted or taunted. 

Hannah was quick to react with anger to Tessa taunting her, to Metatron teasing her, she did provoke Adina into an altercation, and I feel it’s because she doesn’t always handle these sort of emotions well, she acts out what she feels. 

Hannah admired Castiel from the beginning. While other angels blamed him for the fall, Hannah seemed drawn to him as soon as she encountered him, and it didn’t matter to her the reputation he has in heaven. And I think this is an essential strength for Hannah. That even though she values order and rules, she is also somewhat open-minded. She strives to understand things, and Castiel, a rebel, represents everything she’s been taught was wrong. Yet she trusts him anyway.

When she learns about Castiel’s stolen grace, she walked out on him, and a lot of fans seem to get on her case for that, but think of it from her point of view. Stealing another angel’s grace is a pretty abhorrent thing; such a violent act isn’t something Hannah is too familiar with. It goes against everything she’s been taught. And Castiel was someone she admired, she chose to follow despite the chaos he seems to represent, and then to discover what he did, she probably felt betrayed, and she struggled with these feelings of hurt.

But here’s the thing. Hannah has this inherent need to understand. In many ways, she shares that intellectual curiosity with Castiel. If she didn’t, she never would have gone down to that jail cell to talk with Castiel and Gadreel. She wouldn’t have been there if she didn’t want to understand. And as soon as she did understand, she was right back at Castiel’s side.

See, Hannah needs proof. She is an angel who values order, and if someone is to deviate from that order, she needs to understand why she needs proof of why this deviation is necessary. She is an independent thinker in that regard, which again sets her apart from other angels. She is more than just a mindless drone, and I think Castiel sensed that in her, that she has the potential to be more than that.

Also, I don’t think people understand and recall that Hannah endured some trauma. She is a soldier of heaven. And unlike Castiel, she has never been to Earth before the fall. The fall must have been absolutely traumatizing for her. So suddenly fall from heaven, to be on this strange world with all of these strange humans, struggling to find her way in it all. And then, she is tortured by Gadreel.

There is some debate over what happened in that warehouse, but the facts are that Gadreel killed all the angels Hannah was with, and he beat her. When Castiel found her, she was beaten, shaking; she couldn’t even open her eye. She seems to have put up a struggle, but whatever happened, she was in bad condition, and she was left in a room full of dead angels. Angels she probably had to watch be brutally murdered. And at the same time, Metatron had ordered Gadreel to leave one angel alive, and he chose Hannah. Did he pick her at random, was she just the one who fought the hardest, or maybe even he saw something in her. Something valuable.

When Hannah started working on Earth with Castiel, it was clear how quickly she began to evolve. She went from being an angel’s angel who found things like stolen angel grace to be abhorrent, to actually wanting to make deals with Metatron to save Castiel of his fate, a fate that most angels would think he deserved. Including himself, and we will get to Castiel’s issues later.

It’s pretty clear at first that Hannah doesn’t really trust humans. She doesn’t trust Sam or Dean, and she doesn’t think there’s much that can be learned from humanity. But Castiel shows her otherwise, and her fascination with humanity begins to grow. She realizes that there is something more about these creatures. 

And as Hannah spends more time on Earth, her emotions and passions begin to grow. She doesn’t understand, and her feelings are a source of some internal conflict for her. Because as she sees Castiel deteriorate, as she grows to care for him, her emotions tend to get the best of her, compelling her to go against her own moral compass to save him. What she once thought was abhorrent, like making deals with Metatron, or even suggesting that Castiel steal more grace, suddenly become more acceptable to her in her desperation as she watches Castiel get weaker and weaker. And she struggles with this conflict. 

Eventually, though she tries, her emotions turn to compassion for her own vessel. She gives up her vessel, leaving Castiel, and giving up the one thing she wanted. 

Hannah was flawed; she struggled. But she was so brave, compassionate, etc. She was more than just some potential love interest for Cas. She was her own person. She was a leader, and even Metatron once commented that under Hannah’s leadership, heaven had never been so stable. 

Hannah left her mark on Castiel. She inspired him to take an interest in his own vessel, and in Claire Novak. And although in the later seasons he and Hannah were at odds, he valued her. And I think he loved her; he was visibly affected by her death in season 11. Castiel believed in Hannah. Even when he was dying of his stolen grace, he believed she could take his place. 

And now for Castiel. Castiel is a genuine angel, and he seems to be very rare as far as angels go. He cares deeply for humanity, but he also cares about heaven.

In many ways, Castiel and Hannah are very much alike, especially in the beginning. Castiel was an angel’s angel, he believed in obedience, but through his time with the Winchesters, he became the poster child for free will. He took a stand for freedom. Maybe he had it in him all along.

But his stand for freedom has cost him dearly. I think it’s important to understand that for Castiel, he is stuck in between two worlds. His friendship with Sam and Dean has kept him on Earth, but to think that he has turned his back on heaven is wrong. He still cares about angels. But his internal conflict is the fact that it’s hard for him to care for both angels and humans.

Maybe Castiel always was a rebel at heart. As Naomi calls him a ‘spanner in the works,’ he’s never truly done precisely what he’s told. 

Castiel is very genuine, and he has always tried to do good. But he’s made mistakes. I think guilt is Castiel’s constant companion. He puts others before himself, not just because he’s brave, but also because he doesn’t seem to value himself and his own worth. 

Castiel has some trauma that has never really been resolved. From standing against Raphael to the fall, guilt has been his constant companion. All he wanted to do was help heaven and help humanity; he couldn’t do both. He tried to teach the angels free will, and it cost him a massive civil war. He went too far, and it all went so wrong, with the leviathans and such.

And that was probably the beginning of Castiel’s feelings of self-loathing. He truly believes he doesn’t deserve salvation because of the things he did to other angels, and the things he did to the Winchesters. The guilt he feels is so enormous that he no longer seems to value his own life. He will fight for others, but not for himself. 

As if the civil war with Raphael wasn’t terrible enough, Castiel was tricked into Metatron’s trap on the pretense that he would be helping angels. And that’s the thing about Castiel’s personality. He wants so desperately to help others that he tends to be easily led astray by other’s false promises. With the civil war, he thought he was helping angels by teaching them free will, by trying to give him the freedom he had found with the Winchesters. Here, he thought he was helping angels in attempting to bring them peace- Metatron’s peace, only to be duped again, which ended up causing even more angel deaths.

It’s just ironic that Castiel’s need to help angels is what has led to heaven’s present situation. He has been single-handedly responsible for the angels almost being extinct right now. From making deals with Crowley to making deals with Metatron, it’s all been about helping heaven, and it’s all gone so horribly wrong for him.

And now, Castiel is hated by his own kind, and I think that is a pain he has endured through the years, contributing to his depression. I think it hurts him very deeply because he still longs to be an angel. He wants to find acceptance. 

I think that in Castiel’s current mindset, and especially after the fall, he has been depressed- even somewhat suicidal- for a very long time. And I think that is the basis for why he felt uncomfortable with Hannah’s interest in him. Throughout the first few episodes of season 10, Hannah literally begged Castiel to take care of himself. And he shot her down each and every time. 

I think Castiel brushed Hannah’s attempts to care for him away because he was uncomfortable with the notion that anyone valued him. Castiel loves the Winchesters, they are his family, but he knows full well that when it comes right down to it, they would pick each other over him no matter what. 

And here is this other person, another angel no less, who is literally willing to risk the world by letting Metatron free to save him. This just does not compute with him. That someone would be that desperate for him to stay alive, he’s not used to it. 

The Winchesters have both made some pretty potentially world-ending decisions to save each other, but here Hannah is, wanting to do this for Castiel, and at this point, Castiel doesn’t care about his own life. 

And I think Hannah’s death probably reinforced it to Castiel that he was of no value to anyone. Even though she literally died fighting at his side. Castiel is so damaged emotionally and mentally, that when we fast forward to the last couple seasons, his deal with the empty just reinforces that. 

Castiel loves Jack. Jack is the one thing that made him happy; after a long line of devastating losses, he finally has his one happy thing, which is why it was a no brainer that he would make a deal with the empty to save Jack. But it goes deeper than that. It’s not just that Castiel loves Jack and would put him before himself, it’s also that he values himself so little, and has felt that way for so long, that sacrificing himself for others is almost second nature to him. He is almost eager for a chance to die for someone else. 

Castiel is such a kind, genuine person, and he deserves someone who would show him the devotion that he would bestow on them. After everything he’s gone through, after everything he’s endured, he still has this insatiable need to help others, whether it be angels or humans. The Winchesters taught him everything about free will, sacrifice, and standing for what’s right, and it’s cost him so much, but it’s made him stronger, it’s made him a better angel. But I think he really needs a chance to be redeemed. He needs to have one thing in his life succeed.

Castiel and Hannah are so perfect for each other. Through Hannah, Castiel could have learned to value himself. And though Castiel, Hannah could learn to discover her own humanity and embrace the passions that she has within her. They would have been an epic power couple together. They compliment one another so well. They are equals. Neither one overpowers the other. They are both independent thinkers; they are both so strong and brave. 

This is why I value these two characters and why I write about them. A lot of this psychoanalysis forms the basis in all my stories. I like to pick about both characters from their relationship with one another to their relationship with humans, other angels, demons, etc. 

When I write about Hanstiel Squared, and there are four angels instead of just two, I am still learning how to work out the kinks in those relationships, but I think when it comes to Hannah and Hana (male Hannah, face claim Lee Majdoub), Hannah takes the role of the provider. She is the leader. She is level headed, and her relationship with Castiel is about a long-enduring love that grows stronger as time goes on. 

Meanwhile, Hana shares many of Hannah’s personality traits, but he is more spontaneous. He embraces emotions a little easier than she does. He’s playful and patient. He’s the entertainer of the bunch. He’s the listener; he’s extremely patient. 

Hannah is the steadfast, devoted, compassionate lover while Hana is the patient, spontaneous, fun-loving lover. 

When it comes to the two Castiels, there’s Castiel, and there’s Castielle (female Castielle, face claim Jessa Danielson), Castielle still carries the same need to help others that Castiel does. She suffers from the same guilt that he does, but it comes out as a shy, more withdrawn version of Castiel. She tends to doubt herself, is unsure of herself, afraid of making a mistake. And she has more of a desire to be loved and to seek love. 

Castielle sees beauty. She is artistic, creative, and she likes to make people happy by making the world around them beautiful. She loves to nurture, which is something she and Castiel definitely share. 

Castiel is the protector; he puts himself at risk to keep those that he loves save. Hannah is the provider, honed with a logical, reasonable outlook, Hana is the listener, and Castielle is the creator and the nurturer. 

So that is my analysis. Whether its just Hanstiel or its Hanstiel squared, this is the basic framework for my stories. I love to dig into Cas and Hannah’s psyches, figure out what makes them tick. And as an angsty, dark fic writer, I do enjoy playing their flaws against them. I put them through hell often. 

[asterisquebloomed]

Follow Forever

I seen a few of these before, and I thought what with the year ending, perhaps this was a good idea to do in commemoration of these past two years. I know I haven’t been the most active of RP partners. I’m really slow and my motivation is fickle, but I love RPing, I love writing, and I’ll never give it up, it brings me so much joy writing with everyone. So in honor of all that has happened, and as wish for more to come, here are some words of gratitude to some of my partners, friends, and mutuals.

@breakingreality

Avo, where do I even start with you? Oh I know, that you’re fucking amazing? Is that a good place to start? It better be, because here we go.

You are my best friend out of all the people I’ve met here in these last two years. I love talking to you, gushing about our characters, scheming and plotting future threads, teasing you with unanswered questions and unsolved mysteries, teasing you in general really, and just talking about whatever may cross my mind at the time. You’re easy to talk to, easy to get along with, and super friendly. I’m so happy to have met you and made friends with you, you have no idea. I’ll fucking fight anyone who dares talk shit about you. You’re understanding, smart, clever as fuck, and are one of the most enjoyable people to talk to. You’re a great writer, a great creator, and an even greater friend. I look forward to talking to you and I thoroughly enjoy your company. I don’t think you’ve ever once pissed me off, which is amazing because I have the shortest fucking temper ever. I wholeheartedly appreciate you and everything we’ve done thus far. If you ever need someone to talk to, to vent to, to confide in, whatever, I’m here for you. So if you ever feel lonely, or unwanted, or like you’re being ignored, come talk to me, cause I’ll never ignore you.

On that note, let’s turn our attention towards the RP side of things shall we? You’re an amazing writer, a wonderful RP partner, and your character are great. Like I love Eli, she’s fucking fantastic. Her sassy attitude, her impulsive nature, her quirky habits (Please don’t eat frozen steak Eli) and just all the intricacies and nuances, every single thing about her is great. A girl forced to grow up too fast, a child forced to face her mortality before she even got a chance to live. So when faced with two options, to die sad and alone without ever having had a chance to truly enjoy all that life has to offer, or to live by forsaking her humanity, the choice was obvious. She gave herself to the darkness, embraced being a monster, all for that chance. A chance to experience, to enjoy, to live.  I’m sure most of us would make the same choice if we were faced with such a dismal situation.

Eli is amazingly written, you bring her to life in a way most could only hope to achieve. Her reactions are organic and visceral. She’s such an emotional girl, as much as she tries to hide it behind that stoic facade of hers. Her emotions are so raw and powerful that they sway the reader to feel along with her. To feel her fury as she fights against those who have done terrible things to her or those she loves, to feel her happiness however short lived it tends to be, and to feel her sorrow, the deep, bitter sorrow that seems to constantly plague her very existence. She can never seem to escape it. The abuse, the torment, the manipulation, all the suffering she goes through, that leads her to the edge, and when presented with it, she jumps. She leaps into circumstances she never fully understood, dives into a dark and twisted world, one full of horrific tragedy. Before she knows it and before she’s even aware, she’s lost her humanity. She’s become a monster, not only in name, but in nature as well. She’s become the demon those nuns claimed her to be, and she murders her tormentors for the things they have done to her. She gets taken in by a morally questionable individual and is put to work as an assassin, forced to kill people who are the same as she once was, humans who became monsters and lost control. She’s forced to essentially kill herself, over and over again. She’s been isolated her entire life. Made to mistrust others, to be distant, to be cold, to be uncaring.

And then she meets a girl, a special girl who accepts her for what she is. A girl who, while initially afraid of the truth that was revealed to her, overcomes that fear, because what you are doesn’t matter, it’s who you are that is important. She accepts her, refuses to let her go, and swears to never abandon her. For probably the first time in Eli’s whole life, she has a friend. Someone who truly cares about her and enjoys her presence. It’s no wonder she fell in love is it?

But like all things in this poor girl’s life, it’s fated to end in tragedy.

Listen, I love Eli, she’s a great character, she’s compelling, nuanced, and with so much depth, of both emotion and personality. She’s conflicted, she struggles, she has ups and downs, she feels and wants, she’s both silly and serious. She’s like a real person. She’s not just one thing, but many things, all blended together to create a single individual, just like we are.

You’ve done an absolutely fantastic job writing this girl. You should take pride in what you’ve done, because you’ve created an amazing character here.

I adore her relationship with Ivalinne and Reiko. They’re such stark contrasts to each other, such different dynamics, and the conflict between the three is great.

Which brings me to threads, I’ve loved every single one, and I have SO many ideas for more. I’ve got so many plans and schemes and plots in my head that I have yet to spring on you since I don’t want to overwhelm you, and I hope we’ll get to explore each and every one of them. I can’t wait!

You are probably the biggest fan of everything I do. You support me in my endeavors and are always cheering me on, and I thank you for that, I really appreciate your support, how much you enjoy my stories and characters, it makes me so incredibly happy. You’re probably the biggest fan of Ivalinne’s story, and by far the most vocal. I hope you’ll continue to partake in my stories as I tell them, I’d love to have you along for the ride.

Have I heaped enough praise on you yet? I could probably go on for hours about how amazing you are, so in the interest of not making this post even longer than it already is, I’ll stop here.

Avo, you’re great is all aspects, and I hope we continue to write together for as long as is possible. I look forward to the coming year and all the wonderful threads we’ll surely write together in 2020.

@intrinsicmirage

Aster, you’re such an amazing writer. Your narration is beautiful, I love the way it flows and how poetic it is. It’s a pleasure to read the things you write and a joy to see you on the dash.

You are a creative force, your ideas and concepts are awe-inspiring. The lore you’ve crafted is so interesting and well thought out, from the Coils to the Shroud, to the various species you’ve made all from scratch. You have an amazing mind and I love seeing what you come up with. Your characters are compelling, interesting, and in some cases downright terrifying. S9 is a fearsome being, an ancient god risen from the dead yearning for the power they once had and more, intent to make the universe bend to their will and take all they can get.

Syn is great. A woman struggling with her past and trying to find meaning, going from a materialistic, greedy mercenary whose focus rested solely on the wealth and possessions she could gain, to her confronting her past and taking on the trials of the Coils. She’s so haunted by her pasts traumas that in the past she couldn’t bear to speak of them, and to confront them head on took a lot of courage. She comes out triumphant and sees the world in a new light, making her realize just how pointless her treasure trove of amassed wealth is, and that there’s something much more important than money and material things. She takes her future into her own hands, reshapes herself and takes control of her own identity, giving herself a new name, one that she chose for herself, one that wasn’t given to her by someone else. It was hers and hers alone. Now known as Malam’schir, she sets her sights far higher than she once did as Syn, seeking to tear down a corrupted system of power where the strong reign supreme. All that she willingly puts herself through and endures for that goal, it’s admirable. She’s done a lot of horrible things throughout her life. She’s never been what one would consider selfless, in fact, she’s been the opposite, and for someone like that to, in the end, work towards helping the weak who are trapped under the heel of corrupt monarchies and corporations who hold an iron grip on the planets and systems in the galaxy, that is some amazing character development.

I think it really is amazing when a writer can make you feel for a character that isn’t morally sound and who is either grey, or downright evil. It takes a lot of skill to get the audience to invest in and sympathize with a character who isn’t an obvious hero. To have the reader root for someone who has killed countless people without a second thought, who lies and steals and does whatever it takes to achieve their goals, that in my opinion is a true sign of a skilled writer.

And you’ve done exactly that. I find myself wanting Malam’schir to succeed, cheering her on even when full well knowing that during the Lifeforce Coil she’s systematically torturing and murdering people to gain a better understanding of how that energy works before assimilating the lifeforce of those she’s killed into her own to bolster herself for the journey ahead. How detrimental this act becomes to her, as all the memories and personalities of all those she’s absorbed blend together. The gambles she takes as she descends into the Nine Hells and the risk all of this poses to her, not just physically, but on a fundamental level. The question of ‘is she still herself’ when all of those personalities merge and intermingle. What is truly her and what is inherited from all the souls she’s consumed. It’s fascinating and I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.

You’ve done an excellent job with your characters. They really feel like actual people, not mere concepts, but individuals with a will all their own. You bring them to life in such a spectacular way and it’s an honor to be able to write with you.

As a creator, I look up to you. You inspire me to go further and deeper, to explore beyond the world I created and reach out into the universe in which it exists. To explore my concepts on a cosmic scale rather than on a planetary one, and I thank you for that.

You’re a great friend, easy to talk to, fun to bounce ideas off of, and just an overall welcoming person. I’m glad to have met you and it makes me so happy that we’re friends. We’ve been mutuals since almost the beginning, sometime in March of 2018 or so, over the course of so many URL changes that I had to give you your own tag just to keep track of them all, and it’s been wonderful having you along for the ride. Thank you for your support through these years and for your continued interest in what I do.

I absolutely adore our ship and have so many ideas for what is to come for Reiko and Syn/Mala. Despite them both being terrible people, their relationship is so pure and beautiful. A love without expectations, one that doesn’t judge or hold the other to some sort of standard or code of conduct. A love with no burdens, but just simply being there with one another, enjoying the moment and each other’s presence. It’s so wonderful and I love every instance of it. Such rich emotion and such a profound love, even though both believe themselves unfit for love and unworthy of being loved. For such dangerous beings which such questionable morality, they are so sweet together. The fact that these two, who are ultimately very selfish individuals, would do anything to protect the other—even if it cost them their very lives—is so beautiful, it touches my heart.

I look forward to what is to come in the new year and hope to continue writing with such a wonderful writer for as long as I can, and I hope you too, feel the same way.

@sisterofthedevil​ / @cruentusscarlet​ / And more

Flan, you’re the reason I’m here in the first place. You were the first person I reached out to when I decided to come back here and enter the RP community. It was due to you that I got to join that first discord server, the first one I was ever in. It’s my home and I treasure it so much, so much so that even if that server is slowly declining, I’ll never leave it, because it’s the first place I got to call my home on discord. All of the friends I’ve made, all of them are thanks to that first step. If it wasn’t for you I might not have been able to make my place here. I’m so grateful for that. Even if we don’t talk much, I still consider you a good friend. And that’s not to mention how great of an RP partner you are.

Reiko and Flandre’s thread is one of my favorite threads I’ve had to date. I’ve loved every moment of it, it’s been such an intense roller coaster of emotions, and it’s probably the only thread where all of Reiko has been on full display. I hope going forward into 2020 that we can continue to write together.

You’re a great writer with such a unique style. Each one of your muses is fleshed out with intricate details and is a different spin on things, What with Flan having accidentally killed her sister and become the new mistress of the manor. Remilia embracing the role of being a terrifying monster and doing horrible things without batting an eyelash. Parsee being trapped not only emotionally and mentally, but spiritually and physically as well, unable to leave the bridge and be free. Satori, despite the horrors she’s witnessed, does not just follow suit to her species. You’ve given attention to every little detail, from the placement of her veins to the way she would have to put clothes on to accommodate them to the lasting effects of being able to read minds and bring other’s traumas to the surface. Alice is such a unique take on her as Shinki’s daughter, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything similar in regards to Alice’s origins and it’s amazing.

Each one of your muses shows how much thought you put into the characters you play and how dedicated you are to them. All of their trauma is very much real, and you portray it so well. There is never an easy fix to such problems, and you’ve done their struggles justice and shown just how hard it is to live with things like loss and abuse. Never does it feel like their trauma is overlooked or minimized, and their struggles with their demons and all the torment they’ve endured is very real, and how each one of them deals with their trauma in a different way shows such deep understanding of how different people react to things differently and everyone has their own way of coping.

I hope going into the next year that we’ll continue to RP together, there’s so much more I want to see and explore with your muses. You’re a great person, and I wish you all the best for the coming year.

@catacombofsouls​

Lina, we’ve only become mutuals rather recently compared to most on this list, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed talking with you over these past months. It’s great to have someone to scream about The Case Study of Vanitas and Pandora Hearts with. You’re friendly and easy to talk to, and you’re always up for whatever ideas I come up with, or happen to mention. Really, you’re a very kind person and I enjoy your company. I hope going forward we’ll continue to be friends and RP partners for the foreseeable future.

I know with my recent lack of motivation that our threads haven’t gotten very far. With any luck, I’ll be able to regain my motivation and write more frequently. You have so many muses I want to interact with, particularly your OCs. Light is a very interesting character and I want to interact with her at some point in the future. I have quite a few ideas, but I don’t want to overwhelm you or myself for that matter, so once I get our threads going again and I’m not in draft hell, I’ll come to you with some even more fucking up ideas!

Thank you for reading Ivalinne’s story! I’m glad you enjoyed it, and I hope you’ll stick around for the stories to come! I’m glad you like my characters and I hope you’ll continue to enjoy what I create going forward.

@mayohigan-orange​​ / @witchwaltzing​

Cobalt, I know you don’t think you’re a good writer and all, but you really are. You’re not only fun to RP with, but fun to talk to as well.

Reiko and Chen’s interactions have been a wild ride, and a highly amusing one at that. Chen has such a feisty personality and she’s not afraid to speak her mind, or to even cuss someone out, regardless of who they are. Though that seems to get her in trouble more often than not. Between her picking fights with all the wrong people, and her devotion to those she cares about, Chen is joy to have around. Even with Ivalinne, who she hardly knows, she’s promised to keep her safe and she won’t betray her word. She’s an admirable little kitten who tries her best. She’s still very childish and her lack of worldly experience shows with just how easily Reiko has been able to get things to go her way, which still astounds me since that’s entirely unplotted and we just go with the flow with our threads.

At first glance, your Chen appears to be just the cute cat often seen in fanon, but once you get to know her, you see that there’s more to her than just that. You’ve developed her character and given her depth. Her eagerness to prove herself, to live up to her Master’s name and legacy, how desperate she is to do so despite the risks. How protective she is of those close to her, and even those she’s only recently met. She’s a good girl with a strong heart and even stronger convictions, and how passionate she is shows in not only her words, but her actions as well.

You don’t give yourself enough credit. You’re a great writer, and a fun RP partner who pushes themselves to do more. I seem to recall you not being too confident in fight threads, but here you are, writing one with me and doing it spectacularly. You’re dependable and reliable, probably one of the most reliable RP partners I’ve had the pleasure of writing with. You’ve never once dropped one of our threads, even though we have so many, and that’s something I greatly respect.

You’re a good friend. You’re easy to get along with, and you’re so casual and friendly, joking around and just overall are an enjoyable presence to have around. It makes me happy that you were so enthusiastic about Ivalinne’s story, to the point of wanting to change the ending. To have someone be so invested in something I wrote is amazing. I’ve done my job as a writer if I’ve made the reader feel for my characters and root for them, and I’m so glad you enjoyed it so much. Thank you for your support and your continued patronage, I hope you’ll continue to read my stories and continue to RP with me moving forwards into the coming year. Don’t doubt yourself, you’re a good writer, and I’m sure you’ll only get better as you go.

@soulwitch / @volatilepaths

Kako, you’re really just amazing on all fronts. You’re a great supportive friend, a calm voice of reason, and a wonderful and dedicated writer. You put so much of yourself into everything you do. You’re always there to help anyone who needs it, always willing to give advice and be there for those who are having a tough time, it’s really awe-inspiring just how much you give to not only the community as a whole, but to everyone you interact with. I know I’m frustrating to deal with at times, but you never give up on me, and I really appreciate that. So many others would have just been done with me, they wouldn’t have tried to work things out and make sure an understanding was reached. I’m really grateful for that. The problems I’ve come to you with, and you’ve helped me work through, I’m grateful for that, truly. You’re so friendly and accommodating, always wanting to make sure your partner is happy and comfortable, and that they’re enjoying how each and every thread goes. The way you put others needs ahead of your own is really admirable. You’re a great person, and you deserve all the best, really.

You writing is great, and your characters are amazing. You’re not afraid to delve into some really dark topics and that, in my opinion, takes a lot of courage. Jeanne is absolutely terrifying, through and through. She’s a great villain and a force to be reckoned with. A woman so utterly broken by all she’s been through that she’s become such a monster, one who cares not what evils she commits. She lies, she manipulates, she does whatever it takes to get what she wants, to satiate her desires. She’s a masterpiece of a villain, and I really need to find some way to get to see more of her. Reiko utterly despises her, and wants absolutely nothing to do with the woman, to stay as far away as she can and to keep Jeanne from encroaching upon her. They’ll never be able to get along thanks to Jeanne hitting upon the things she most abhors, so I’ll have to come up with something else, because I do want to interact with Jeanne. I want to see more of her, try to understand her better, she’s a character with a lot of depth, and I want to see more than just the surface.

Which brings me to the Redbellion event. Everything about that was amazing, Kako. From the story, to the interactivity, to the sheer size and the amount of time and thought put into everything. It was great and I’m glad to have been a part of it, even if it was only a small one due to my own anxieties. You were so helpful and accommodating, making sure I who was late to join, was able to get in on the action and feel like I made a difference in the event. I’m proud to have contributed, happy with what I got to do. It was fun reading through the various stories that came from it. I got invested in quite a few things and found my emotions swinging to the tune of your words. The androids that struggled to survive as they were divided between their mother and their nature as synthetic beings, Core who became a terrifying abomination, and Harune, who sacrificed all she held dear just to save this dying galaxy. It was a beautiful story and you did an amazing job bringing to life not just a single world, but an entire galaxy. It’s amazing what you did. You put so much time and effort into the whole thing. The sheer depth of your dedication and devotion is admirable. I could never hope to do something like that, let alone carry it all the way to the end. Your determination is amazing, and you have my deepest respect for your efforts.

You’re someone I look up to, someone I’m glad to know and happy to have the honor to write with. I know I haven’t been the best of RP partners, what with my sporadic activity and my flighty muses and motivation. I’m sorry for that, and I hope that I can do better in the coming year. You’re a great writer, an amazing person, and a wonderful friend, and you deserve all the best in the coming year.

@unhingedsea / @sophisticatedsuccubus / @justthatdamnrich / And more

Ellen, I know we haven’t spoken much recently, but I hope we’re still as close as we were a couple months ago. I miss having you check in on me and message me. I really enjoy your presence and love talking with you. Hearing about your ideas, how you’re branching out into fandomless OCs of your own setting, it makes me excited to see what you create. I hope you’ll bring them to tumblr so that we can interact and I can see more of them.

Your characters are a diverse mix of drastically different personalities. From Wada, who is batshit insane by any measure, to the shy and socially awkward 2pi, to the rage filled Klowni, you have such a varied mixture of characters. I’ve enjoyed the threads that we had, even though they were rather short-lived. I hope we’ll get to RP more in the coming year, I really want to see where things will go, especially with that thread between Reiko and Jo’on.

I know you’ve been struggling lately, feeling like what you’re doing has lost it’s appeal, and that you’ve lost touch with those who you once interacted with frequently, but I don’t think that’s the case. Everyone has been really busy lately for some reason, many people that were once frequent on the dash are active less these days, and it’s sad to see, but I don’t think it’s that they have lost interest in what you do. I for one haven’t, and I never will. You’re a joy to see on the dash and I hope you’ll come back and RP here more. I definitely want you around, and I’m sure others do too. So please, believe in yourself, I’m sure you can do it.

You’re such a great person. So friendly and welcoming, always cheering everyone on. You told me you swore to be that positive light for others, no matter what it takes, and that’s something amazing. Something I would never be able to do. I hope you won’t burn yourself out, because giving so much is a hard thing to do, especially in an unkind world. I hope you don’t give up, that you keep going and striving to be who you want to be. If you ever need someone to talk to, I’m always here for you.

Thank you so much for being such a fan of Ivalinne’s story. When you told me that reading my writing, reading my story, motivated you into writing, I was honored. That my writing could have such a profound effect on someone, it’s unreal. I’m happy you enjoyed it and I hope you’ll continue to read as I write Eliyah’s story and more.

@fxtelism

Dennis, you’re a good friend and I’m grateful to have someone I can confide in about the things I can’t tell anyone else. You’re nice, friendly, and easy to talk to and get along with. I really appreciate your company.

Thanks to tumblr eating the notifications of our threads at every turn, we haven’t made much progress RP wise, but hopefully that will change in the coming year. I want to see more of your characters and get to know them, get more interactions, and develop our muses further. Leon is really sweet and it’s adorable how much of a flustered mess he is, it’s great. Soft boys are good! Manifestation is very interesting, an opposite to the kind and friendly person who he was created from. I’m curious to see where things could go with both of them. If just tumblr would stop eating notifications.

Now then, Ivalinne’s story. Thank you so much for reading. You have no idea how much it means to me. When you were reading and mentioned that one thing, I was so excited to see you get to the end. Having someone realize and notice things really is great. Probably the best feeling I’ve ever felt. I hope you enjoyed her journey and will continue to read the stories I’ll tell in the future, because I’ve got plenty more to tell!

@echointheforest

Marii, you’re a great friend, and thank you for all your support. You’re so welcoming and easy to talk to about literally anything. I never feel awkward talking to you about things, even though I sometimes worry I bother you too much.

ReiMarii is love, ReiMarii is life. I adore our ship. It’s the first ship I’ve ever had, and it’s been amazing. Thank you so much for introducing me to shipping, I’m so grateful for it. Shipping is so much fun, so full of feels, and I love it. I hope shipping with Reiko hasn’t been too angsty for you, it seems that no matter what, everything comes up bittersweet, and I hope that doesn’t upset you. I love how Reiko and Marii are together, it’s adorable. Everyone else only sees the surface, the bitchy exterior that woman presents to the world. and they  write her off as that being all there is to her. But there’s so much more to her than what’s on the surface, and exploring all that lies beneath it with you has been one of the greatest pleasures of this past year. Every interaction has been wonderful, I love every minute of it and I hope we’ll continue to interact more in the coming year.

I know you worry a lot about whether you’re a good RP partner, and while I’ve already said my piece on it to you, I’ll say it again. You’re a great RP partner. You’re in no way a shitty RP partner. You’re a joy to write with and I love interacting with you. Life has been hectic for you recently, but I hope it will calm down, so you don’t have to be so stressed and exhausted all the time. You’re a great person and you deserve the best. I hope we’ll continue to be friends and continue to interact through next year as well.

You’re the first person, and so far the only, to see Reiko’s core. You’ve seen a side of her no one else has experienced. Marii’s touched her heart, reached through the ice and rust and connected with her on a level not even she thought was possible anymore. If things continue the way they’ve been going, she might even end up telling Marii about her past, so I hope we’ll get to explore more and more of their relationship, sink the claws of love deeper into her heart. Maybe Marii can make her realize that being who she is isn’t as bad a thing as she thinks it is, maybe she could help her to accept that she’s not damaged or broken beyond repair. That she’s worth the love the youkai has given her. I want to see it, someone be able to reach her, to tell her it’s fine.

So I hope we’ll continue to write in the coming year, that we’ll continue to develop this tender, beautiful relationship between dark and light, because I’m excited to see where it goes. How deep it will get and how close they’ll become. The future is bright, and hopefully Marii can teach Reiko that as well.

@johnny-writes

Johnny, I know your retirement date is quickly approaching, and I’m sorry I haven’t fulfilled what I promised. I said I’d put priority on our threads, but I failed to deliver, and I apologize for that. I wish we could have had more threads, that I had met you sooner so we could have done more. It saddens me that soon, we won’t get to write together anymore. I’m going to miss you as an RP partner. I hope we can continue to be friends though, even if you’ll be leaving the RP community.

I know Mara and Tojava weren’t exactly planned characters for you. They were created from a meme and it all started from there. I like both of them, the concepts and tropes they’re meant to explore. I was looking forward to you writing their story, and though you got derailed during NaNoWriMo, I hope you’ll continue to work towards the completion of their tale.

The thread between Reiko and Mara was a very interesting one. I’m sorry my bitch of a muse made Mara cry, she didn’t deserve that at all and I still feel bad about it, but I enjoyed the thread nonetheless. Feels are fun, no matter what form they come in. The thread between Ivalinne and Kazuma was fun too, it’s a shame it won’t get to continue to the ending I had planned. It would have been a chance to show Ivalinne is more clever than most probably assume due to how most of her threads have gone. It’s a shame it will never come to pass.

Speaking of Ivalinne, thank you for reading her story! I appreciate your interest. When you told me you got hooked after the first two parts, I was overjoyed. I’m glad you liked it, and I hope you’ll continue to read Eliyah’s story as I write it.

You’re a good friend, a logical voice of reason, and I’m grateful for that. I know I’m not always the most reasonable person out there, but it really helps when there’s someone that can talk some sense into me. Thank you for your support this past year. I’ll miss having you around on the dash, sending asks in to my characters and I’ll miss seeing your characters around. But just because they aren’t around doesn’t mean that they don’t exist anymore. I look forward to seeing the story you tell with them, and I wish you all the luck with your plans for the future.

@geisthonoredferry

Koma, we’ve only met recently, but honestly you’re great. You’re so supportive of everyone, what with your little handwritten notes to people and all the positivity you spread, you’re a great influence on this community. This place needs lights like you, people that care about others and support them no matter what. You’re a blessing and I’m happy to call you my friend.

I hope in the coming year that we’ll be able to get some more interactions going. My motivation to write has been very low recently, and I’ve been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of drafts I have, but I’m not gonna give up! I’m going to reply to everything and keep moving forward.

Thank you for reading Ivalinne’s story, I’m glad you liked it and I hope that you’ll continue to read the things I put out and enjoy them all the same.

I really appreciate how much you care, how you check in on me to see how I’m doing, how you send positive little messages in the server and how you’re always doing your best to spread that cheer. You’re great, really. As both a writer and a friend. Though you should really stop lying to people and saying I’m cute. You’re the cute one here, not me.

@weaverstale / @draconianmyths

Kirbs, you’re great, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You’re so caring and compassionate, always concerned for everyone else and supporting them with positivity. Thank you for your support. I do appreciate it, really, even if I believe myself unworthy, it does make my day better. Don’t ever stop being that way.

We’ve both been low on writing motivation lately, and that really sucks. I want to RP more with you. Orochi is very interesting, and my dumb thot of a muse can’t resist an attractive man. Or an attractive women, as Konoe proves. She really just can’t resist attractive people in general really. I hope going into the next year that we’ll be able to have more threads and interactions.

You’re a good friend and you’re easy to talk to. I know at times our...interests in conversation topics just don’t always match, I apologize for that. I am but a shy nervous bean, naive and innocent about such topics. Regardless, I do enjoy talking to you, and I hope we’ll continue to be friends in the future.

@magicaldreaming​

Xana, I know we’ve only become mutuals recently, but I’ve really enjoyed speaking with you. I love hearing about your OCs, it’s fascinating. You’re easy to talk to and really chill, and I appreciate that. I hope we’ll continue to talk and be friends in the coming year.

As for RPs, you’re an amazing writer with some amazing muses. Krolia was one of the first I seen, through your threads with another blog I follow. Krolia immediately caught my eye, she’s very strange in a curious and interesting way. She’s an ancient being with a love for modern technology, idol music, and junk food, and it’s adorable.I really want to have a thread with her someday, once I manage to get my draft situation under control. I hope to see more of her, she’s really interesting.

But probably my favorite muse of yours currently is Celia. I read along with her threads in Redbellion, and honestly, they were my favorite. I love her journey throughout the event, going from an emotionless killing machine intent to cleanse all biological life from the universe, to realizing the true beauty of life, and realizing she had set in motion the destruction of an entire galaxy full of it. How she fought so desperately as the end of all was looming over her, how much she regretted what she had done, and how badly she wished to right the wrongs she committed. How she gave her all to save people. to protect them from the menace she had unleashed, and how she gave her life, her light, in order to save everyone. The woman that once sought to exterminate all life sacrificed her own to save what remained, and that is beautiful. I teared up when she started to fade into slumber and go dormant. You did an amazing job building up her character and her development was spectacular. I look forward to see where she goes from here, now that her outlook on the world has so drastically changed. With any luck, I’ll regain my motivation and be able to see that hope through with our thread!

All in all, you’re a great writer, never doubt your talent. It really shows a writer’s skill when they make you feel for and root for an evil character. That’s so much harder to accomplish than simply having the reader side with the hero. Any writer that can do that has my respect, just as you do.

@fragmentedsilhouette

Sage, I know you’re not really on tumblr much anymore, but I’m going to list you here anyways. You’re a good friend, calm, easy to talk to, and your company is enjoyable. I should really talk to you more.

I miss seeing Amaeris on the dash, she really was a great character. Well thought out and of questionable moral standing (Wait a second most of the characters I’ve spoken of here have been that way...Do I have a thing for that type?!) A shadow of her former self, literally. A deceased ruler of an ancient empire aiming to regain her former glory and rebuild her kingdom anew, so that she may reclaim what she had in life. You put a lot of thought into her and I wanted to see where she would go, if she’d ever be able to take back what was taken from her.

I hope one day we can write together again. The brief instances when we did were enjoyable. Maybe sometime next year? Who knows, but one can hope!

@moonternity

Lilli, we may have never gotten to RP on tumblr, and we might not have RPed all that much in general, but I think you deserve to be mentioned here as well.

When we first met two years ago, you hated my guts and told me straight out. I admired that honesty, since honesty is something I value. You gained my respect by being so honest about your feelings. I wanted to be friends with such an honest person, someone who wouldn’t lie to me and who’d tell me flat out if I fucked up. So I wanted to win you over, and as you know, I did, and that made me so happy.

I’m glad to be your friend. Happy that you want me around. It means a lot to me, truly. I enjoy your company, the fun we’ve had with the campaign, and even just talking to you. Thank you for being my friend, for giving me my first D&D experience, and for just being you.

---

And thank you to all my followers, both on the RP Side Blog where I actually do all of my writing and to all the followers here, whether you’ve just followed the wrong blog or not! Thank you for your support! I hope I can continue to write more and more in the years to come!

Happy New Year to you all!

[primrose-path-of-dalliance]

Lotor’s end (?) in s6

i gave in to my terrible impulses and wrote a three-part essay about lotor. it's literally >9k and i ignored all of my other projects for this for over a week. rip.

in these three posts, i talk a lot about lotor from a sympathetic pov. so if that's something that makes your fandom experience uncomfortable, go ahead and ignore this post because it's not for you. stay healthy, and i can only promise you that i hold lotor accountable for every shitty thing he's done (especially when it comes to withholding info from allura because seriously, what bullshit). on the other hand, if you are a person who hates lotor as a piece of evil garbage because ???? fandom and purity culture thought it would be a great idea to hate him without looking very hard at the work the writers put in to make him more complex than the actual pure evil bastard zarkon himself that we already have... i challenge you to read on. do it. i dare you. (at the very least so you might hate him with a better understanding of why.)

so tl;dr: this is the "in this essay i will" meme followed through, if i started talking about how lotor's not a pure evil bastard and is instead the perfect example of a protagonist gone sour through 10,000 years of poor coping choices, oppression, and a lot of actual resentment, as well as a neat talk at the end where i break down lotor's breakdown.

toc 1: i shake out some salt and talk about the altean colony | 2: i question why people keep insisting lotor was "evil all along" | 3: i talk about my favorite parts of lotor’s breakdown

i take a lot of my knowledge and inspiration from @radioactivesupersonic, who writes some awesome meta. (seriously, thank you clockie. you are amazing.) so while i might specifically cite posts of his throughout these three posts, expect his ideas to be everywhere lol. please check him out if you have the time, he's much better at this meta thing than me. (for safety purposes, i'm gonna disclaim: i did not consult with him on anything. so while i synthesize with a lot of his stuff, my thoughts are not necessarily his and i take full responsibility for that shit.)

anyway, i don't make meta posts a lot nor have any good idea of what a good structure for one would be. so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

"even after season 6, you still like lotor?"

fuck yeah my pal.

"but why? he's clearly terrible and evil! he killed thousands of alteans and said he was going to conquer the universe, destroy voltron forever, etc.!"

i mean, yeah. but i'm gonna soapbox for a second.

number one: nothing precludes me or anyone else from loving the shit out of an evil character. we're not personally invested in the story in the sense that we have real stakes involved. they're fictional characters, and we are the audience. nothing they've done has any bearing on our reality (barring general patterns that can be established by media as a whole) and therefore it's not our moral responsibility to throw down terrible judgment on a person who isn't real, even if they've done horrible shit.

i'm not saying one can't acknowledge or dislike a character who's a bad person. lotor himself has done terrible things, and if you could not give less of a fuck about him, that's highkey your prerogative and i champion your freedom to have your personal preferences.

but we're not the characters who live in that world. we're spectators to a fictional story, and one thing that means is that we have no obligation to anyone to personally hate a villain, no matter what they've done because put simply, nothing they've done is real. no one has ever been harmed by a singular fictional villain.

the purpose of the villain and their actions is not to be hated by the audience, but to help tell a story. hopefully, they're also helping to paint a picture of the variety of people, perspective, and experience in a respectful manner.

there's a strong trend in fandom now toward purity culture, where we're expected to hate anything that isn't perfect, and that's such a goddamn lie. nothing is perfect. nothing ever will be. we can't reasonably expect that level of performance from content creators.

and what does "perfect" even mean? social justice is an extremely nuanced topic, colored by individual perspective on what's right or good. there's never going to be an ideal piece of media that hits every spot perfectly because there are an infinite number of spots, and what they are changes in importance with every person.

so when it comes to storytelling, we need to focus more on what's practically possible. what's practically admirable. for me, ideally, that's "what have they accomplished? is this story illustrating the richness of human (or alien) experience? and how?"

this includes villains.

number two: i don't believe lotor is a villain in the sense that he's Evil or even necessarily irredeemable. from a personal perspective, i'll direct you to this post (link), which basically sums up my view on forgiving people who've done bad things. but from the third-party perspective as well, lotor isn't someone to find reprehensible or evil—at least, not to the level a lot of other people seem to be compelled to. let's break this down into more questions.

"lotor has killed people for his own personal gain! abused countless alteans, who already experienced a genocide!"

(allura is right there with you guys.)

yes, he did. i don't deny his crimes a single bit. the personal gain point may be arguable, but it still doesn't really make it better.

firstly: this is also addressed to those people who are stalwartly defending lotor's goodness by saying that romelle must have been lying. i haven't read any of the posts myself and only heard some of the points secondhand, and that is because the theory sounds like a load of bollocks (link).

this isn't something out of character for lotor, as much as i might want to believe so. it's really, really not, and i fully acknowledge that. we already know that lotor will do anything to survive if he finds himself caught between a rock and a hard place. that was what happened to narti.

lotor does have good morals. he has an absolute shit ton of them that, honestly, i don't know how to explain in detail without making this post twice as long as it's already going to be. he cares about individual life. he campaigns for conservation. he values people's cultures and would much rather work alongside them than dominate them. he's not cruel or sadistic like many of his peers in the galra empire, and he favors those who are discriminated against. and no, i don't believe any of these were an act. i can point to word of god for the most supportive proof—that "part of Lotor, a portion of Lotor, maybe all of Lotor, is coming from a very genuine place" (link).

(if you want deeper explanations about why these conclusions are accurate, please check out my #voltron meta tag and @radioactivesupersonic. especially him.)

but as it's been established, lotor is willing to break his morals if he feels he's faced with an ultimatum: survive, or die. victory or death.

"but that's a galra chant! he said it during the trials at oriande, and he was unworthy because of it. doesn't that prove he's really selfish at heart and will destroy anything if it means he gets what he wants?"

no. and also another no.

those two links go to really good arguments against that line of thinking. but let me sum it up: lotor has lived 10,000 years with an abusive father in an empire that considers his half-galra status lesser and despises his altean blood especially, and spent much of that in disgraced exile.

"victory or death," to him, doesn't mean that it would be better to die than to accept a loss, as when it's used by his galra peers; it means that he has to win, or else he is left to the mercies of his foes. and none of his foes have ever been merciful. he can never trust that one will ever be.

survival is lotor's most important victory in an empire that has been either apathetic to his existence or outright antagonistic. it represents his entire struggle of living—that he has to stay alive in order to win, and to a lesser extent, that staying alive in his universe is winning.

of course, lotor has larger motivations than merely surviving that he will protect just as ruthlessly. from a general perspective, one can hardly blame him for that. surviving isn't exactly living and being happy, especially in a universe that oppresses people like him, and he wants an escape from the corner he always seems to find himself boxed in. to a slightly lesser extent, he wants to create an escape for the countless societies oppressed under the empire as well. that's where his desire for infinite quintessence comes from.

"so you're telling me that he felt trapped in a corner and forced to break his supposed morals to use countless numbers of his own people as a fuel source. how the hell does that make sense? what trapped him? didn't he have other options? and how does this justify what he did?"

i'm not claiming that lotor was justified in any way. that is a fair grievance for people to have, and frankly, what he did was horrible and ugly and made victims of an already fragile colony, including romelle and her family. understanding the 'why' of what someone did is, shockingly, not the same as justifying them. (and i don't believe people look for the 'why' enough, when understanding the 'why' is an important step toward preventing the 'what'.)

maybe lotor had other options. there's not a lot of exposition that happens in this show, in-story or in interviews or otherwise. there isn't enough information about the canonical process of quintessence collection, or about quintessence in general, to say for certain if lotor could have done something less egregious in his treatment of the altean colony.

either way, he had to harvest quintessence. the likely possibility as to why? the galra empire was limiting his resources, both because he was an exile and because he knew they (particularly haggar) might be watching, and he couldn't let them piece together his plans to usurp power. he needed quintessence in which he controlled every part of the creation process, and he needed to hide as much of how he was using it as possible. the easiest way to do that was for him to get his own source.

contrary to that assertion, i don't believe lotor first created the altean colony with the intention to use them as a quintessence farm. i believe he genuinely cared about preserving what was left of altea, similar to how he cares about preserving culture in general. this would be consistent with his previous characterization as well as lm and jds's assurances that he was coming from a genuine place. most importantly, even according to romelle's story, the second colony is never depicted as an idea lotor conceived from the start. it came much later, after the first colony was well-established.

it's likely that lotor originally had other sources of quintessence, since throk mentioned his possession of multiple colonies in s3e1, or that he hadn't yet come up with his plans in their entirety. maybe haggar or zarkon caught wind of certain plots and thwarted them, destroying his sources in the process. (we certainly get the impression in s3 and s4 that lotor coming up with rebellious plots isn't a new thing to either of them.) maybe his ambitions and travels gradually revealed themselves to need more quintessence than he'd expected. purchasing quintessence from any suppliers would have required an income, a relatively time-consuming and unreliable endeavor that might not have gotten him much in exchange. any quintessence supplies he might have acquired using his identity, if he could acquire any, would almost certainly have been monitored—how much he took, where he received them—to the point where use of them would be incredibly risky. he might have also morally disliked using empire-produced quintessence, since they would've been harvested using empire methods (i.e. "caring about colonies whomst?"). at least with his methods, he would know he wasn't destroying them without regard. either way, whatever previous sources of quintessence he had became too limited an amount for his operations. he needed more.

i get a strong impression that people don't understand what he could be using quintessence for. but we see it everywhere in the empire, in voltron, and in the castle of lions—it's the primary energy source of vld's world that powers machines, fuels ships, assists in experimentation, heals injuries, even prolongs life. nothing else compares. lotor wouldn't have needed it personally for the latter purpose, but one can't exactly travel the universe on an empty tank. without quintessence, he would've essentially been dead in the water. additionally, considering that the quintessence shows up in places not explicitly related to lotor, the fact that we see galra soldiers accompanying lotor on the altean colony when we know he was in exile, and the amount of resources he must have been supplying to the colony in secret, it's also possible he was using it to bribe people into doing things for him and staying silent. it probably would've been effective; it's described as an especially powerful form of quintessence, and he was the only source.

anyway, lotor needed quintessence he could control entirely without having to fear discovery and subsequent destruction. the altean colony was his only colony that he could be reasonably certain the empire would never find. and in true lotor fashion, the first defense he asserted was that he saved what was left of altea from the empire, despite the horrendous crimes he was committing, and could now stop his quintessence farming with his access to the quintessence field. technically, we don't even know whether all of the alteans taken to the second colony are dead (link). the man romelle saw there was still in the tank, as many others must have been.

lotor might have been planning to eventually heal them by using the quintessence field. of course, even if that's true, lotor still took away years of their lives, lied to them and their families, and drained them to near-death. the experience must have been traumatizing. and who knows how well they would be able to recover, if at all. it's little comfort.

(editing, i feel compelled to plug this analysis by @radioactivesupersonic of lotor's arc and relationship with allura as a vampire story because it's interesting as hell, pounds out what i've just said further, and is something i read prior to writing this up so i may have unconsciously stolen from it. (i can only promise that i completely forgot about it until i went looking for all my links rip.))

nevertheless, lotor's first priority for the altean colony was always to preserve them—even if he eventually, essentially started treating them as a renewable resource with his farming's effects on the survival of his people and culture as environmental impacts. make of that what you will.

"if lotor is such a decent person who loves altea and wants to end the galra empire, why didn't he team up with voltron from the beginning? he was around before season 3! why didn't he show up earlier?"

that, my friend, is a good question i've puzzled over too. i have an answer.

number one: lotor has been in the habit of effectively working on his lonesome for about the past 10,000 years and canonically displays a wealth of paranoia and trust issues. teamwork isn't usually the first idea that comes to mind to someone like lotor.

number two: we get a very dramatic hint toward this in the climax of s6 (can't wait until we reach that part!), as well as during his invasion of puig in s3, but i believe lotor didn't have much confidence in voltron's capabilities during the period of s1 and s2 or for some time afterwards. he's a very cautious and careful player, learned from millennia of working against the interests and conventions of an extremely powerful empire.

and if we all remember correctly, voltron lost 10,000 years ago. granted, alfor sent the lions away rather than risk zarkon gaining control of the black lion, but it was still him and the other paladins against zarkon. victory should've been within reach, and yet they lost. so 10,000 years later, voltron appears to have returned, and none of those fears have been assuaged. who are these random newcomers to pilot the lions, and how could they possibly succeed where the original paladins didn't, when they don't even have the might of armies behind them? zarkon could still retake control of the black lion. additionally, lotor's own feelings towards voltron (and symbolically, king alfor) as a savior are extremely complicated. (you cannot believe how excited i am to talk about that. just wait.) he's not going to risk everything he's worked for on a wild card he's incredibly unsure will manage to make a dent. it would even make zarkon stronger if they lost, and therefore his father, one of the people he most wants to avoid the attention of, would be coming after them in a frenzy.

even after the s2 finale where voltron critically injured zarkon, he finds them insufficient. they create the coalition, yet he can essentially retake puig in the span of an hour with a team of five attackers.

clearly, they still weren’t well-equipped enough to stand against the galra empire. it would be in lotor's best interests to avoid voltron like the plague unless he was certain they wouldn't be crushed. so he did just that.

i suspect that before the voltron coalition grew into its own, lotor was planning to independently start a coup of some kind. it would've been pretty easy with unlimited quintessence. but after he was declared an enemy of the empire to be killed on sight, when voltron had gained significant strength and organized rebellion against the empire alongside liberated planets became a genuine and effective possibility, he joins them—right after their surprise attack liberates a full third of the empire and shocks the galra off his trail. the coalition was finally a basket he felt secure putting some of his eggs into.

(part 2)

[bartsugsy]

I know it's a slightly contentious point but given all this talk about Robert needing redemption - do you think Aaron has redeemed himself now? I know that the narrative doesn't really suggest he needs to, but he's got a pretty violent temper and has no difficulty throwing wrenches and beating the crap out of Robert because he's angry. I'd quite like them to acknowledge that and apologise, but it's unlikely as the show doesn't really recognise male on male violence as problematic.

hello this is an essay i’m sure we’re all shocked

ok like...

i need to disect this ask a little because i think the fundamental point it’s missing is how aaron’s violent tendencies has been used in the context of rob and aaron’s relationship vs how robert’s horrible decision making tendencies have been

so like... aaron throwing that wrench at robert’s head was the most horrifying thing i’ve seen all year and genuinely terrible but it was also used specifically to show just how much their relationship has disintegrated. like. that was the thing that made aaron get out - understanding that his mh had gotten to a place where he ended up violently attacking his husband and that their relationship had gotten so toxicly bad that it was going to end up literally killing one or both of them

it was the big sign that they were over, tbh

his violence towards isn’t used as a consistent problem in their relationship and if it was that would be a very serious problem. but, the whole point of that moment was that their relationship had become untenable and that the only thing they could do was break up

what i’m saying is i don’t think they necessarily need to redeem aaron for that moment, certainly not in the same way as they’re redeeming rob, because this isn’t a part of their relationship. it was a sign that their relationship had become something very different. it was a story tool to show how low aaron’s mh had sunk and what this relationship was doing to him - and the big pre-emptive reason why since then he’s tried (and failed) to stay away from robert as much as possible, why he absolutely refuses to go back there, why he literally said to liv that he’d spoken with his therapist and understood that that relationship was what he wanted, but absolutely not what he needed

the conversation aaron and rob have after aaron attacks rob says a similar sentiment - that aaron doesn’t deserve to feel the way he feels and that rob doesn’t deserve to deal with aaron having violent outbursts, which is what had just happened. 

after everything - buying drugs, the self harming again, the coldness towards robert, it took almost literally killing robert, an actual act of classic aaron dingle-violence directed towards someone he would never fucking direct it towards under any other circumstances, for aaron to call it a day. 

basically - this ask sort of implies (unintentionally?) that aaron would genuinely physically abuse robert in any other situation other than this very very specific and fraught one and that he wouldn’t immediately break up with robert and distance himself from the entire relationship afterwards, which i don’t believe is true. and if it is true then that’s a whole other fuckin Issue.

like. he’s not consistently throwing wrenches at robert, or beating him up on a regular basis. that’s not what this is and you... sort of make it sound like it is.... and there’s a big difference

but it’s not who aaron is and that’s not what their relationship is.

again - it was horrifying, but it’s not a running theme in their relationship (it’s also ur standard highly overdramatic soap storytelling)

(and i shouldn’t need to mention this but tumblr constantly makes me feel like i have to - obviously we’re working under soap morality here and not real world morality. irl aaron would have left robert the second he fuckin admitted to pushing a girl to her death. like. jesus. but it’s a soap.)

anywayyyy, contrast this with why robert is getting a whole ultimate redemption storyline - for every life he’s ruined, every bad decision he’s made. i think... on multiple occasions, aaron’s mh has deteriorated to the point where he’s, on multiple occassions, done impulsively terrible things in reaction to robert and has himself called out that that can’t continue, literally went to prison because of one of those times - and on a less extreme level, they’ve had the rockiest relationship in the world. like. there’s a reason why i started writing the break up guide - because they break up or almost break up a lot. a lot. 

narratively that has almost always been attributed to robert’s actions and even when it’s been more directly out of something aaron has done, typically you can still trace that back to aaron working off the assumption that rob will do something terrible, because of his past decisions. rob is who he is - he has cheated on everyone, he has threatened people, attacked people, tried to kill people, done dodgy shit - he’s... well, you know, he plays the role of a typical long term soap villain.

narratively speaking

- and again, i feel like definitely need to be clear that i’m talking about what they’re trying to do and have done narratively, as part of the story, not what i myself think about these characters or whatever - this isn’t about me thinking that robert is the worst person in the entire fucking world and aaron is a blameless angel who has never done a thing wrong and i’m certainly not implying that robert and aaron’s relationship is inherently terrible and damaging to aaron

what i’m saying is that robert makes decisions without thought to the consequences and that makes him a fun character to put in different situations and also a compelling romanctic hero when we see that the one person who he does try to consider, who he does genuinely care about, who he does not want to hurt, is the person he’s in love with. 

yes, the unintended consequences of robert’s decisions pushed aaron into a place where his mental health had entirely deteriorated and ultimately destroyed their entire relationship. this wasn’t ever ever what robert had intended and as a result of understanding how his decisions had caused aaron pain - the one thing he never wanted to do - he’s basically propelled himself towards a fucking breakdown.

he didn’t have a breakdown after literally killing someone. hurting aaron, though? remember how, during the reveal, robert says that aaron couldn’t hate him any more than he hates himself? this is literally all just.. a result of this.

but it’s led to robert making even more bad decisions. there’s never been a point where robert has sat down and honestly taken a look at why things have turned out this way

- just as aaron needed to almost fuckin full on murder robert to get the wake up call and also strength to completely break up with robert (and we know that usually they’re horrible at staying away from one another, so narratively speaking it did have to be that damn dramatic to make aaron’s attitude since believable), rob needs something that will be a wake up call to him to get him to change enough 

because if he doesn’t change? he’s dooming himself to be god damn miserable for the rest of his life and worse than that, he’s going to destroy a lot of people in the process

he needs to hit rock bottom and he needs to be able to take a look at how his decisions affect other people, aaron and everyone else around him. the incident alone, aaron falling apart, the break up - that wasn’t enough for robert to understand, because all robert is really able to understand or face at the moment is that he’s in a shit load of pain and doesn’t want to think about it

so instead he’s acting out (like a child) and avoiding everything completely and instead dedicating himself to his og goal of taking home farm (conveniently narratively tying in his 2015 actions to his current decisions)

basically, robert needs to redeem himself for everything and change because:

the show has made it clear that actually aaron and robert won’t work while robert is still acting as recklessly as he does with other people’s feelings and well-being - no more kissing random exes in the name of revenge or getting more money, no more acting out and knocking up said ex, no more scheming for money - he’s come a long way, the reveal shows that much, but it’s not enough that he’s gotten better at saying sorry to aaron, they need to move him a little more away from “soap villain” and towards “romantic hero” in order to accomplish what they want and get the robron relationship to where they want it to be

(and sure they could have written that robert was magically wonderful after being shot but that would be so much less compelling and so much worse storytelling)

plus robert has done enough bad since he came back that he’s the perfect candidate for this type of big, overarching storyline - and they wanted to get rid of the whites, which had to involve robert heavily, it had to, it would have been insane and a complete cop out for it not to

i’m not suggesting they need to nueter robert completely and make him a good and pure little nugget of humanity, but i think it makes sense that they want to really push robert to the brink and bring him back completely as a way that they can realistically (so to speak) have him spend a good period not fucking up too much (we assume, who knows lmao) and also a good way for aaron and robert to get back together in a way where their past issues don’t come up to destroy them all over again

they both need to go into this with a different understanding of one another and better communication skills in general but... like... one massive problem at a time lmao

and this isn’t something they need to do for aaron - aaron who consistently owns up to his mistakes and tries to be better and has spent his break up trying to channel his pain and heartbreak into healthy ways of coping

robert still needs his wake up call

plus, it’s a compelling redemption story (and hopefully continues that way) which, unlike who shot robert, is actually about him