#is because i've sort of had an idea that fits for every season break

[coraniaid]

I think there's something fascinating about the evolution of Darla as a character in the Buffyverse.

It's very common in the Buffy fandom to talk about the show almost as if it were fully planned out from the beginning or somehow emerged fully-formed one day in its entirety.  To analyze Season 1 episodes as if the writers had already decided on the Heart/Mind/Spirit symbolism of the core Scooby Gang; to act as though a Season 5 retcon means that Spike was really in love with Buffy as early as Season 3's Lovers Walk; to suggest the constant changes in how the show deals with soul lore or vampires as a metaphor must mean that Giles and the Council were 'really' lying or ignorant in the first few seasons; to wonder what the Watchers Council introduced in Season 3 were doing in the show's first two seasons; to insist you can't really understand Season 1 until you've finished Season 7.

And, look, I totally get the temptation to do that sort of thing.  It's unavoidable if you want to talk about the universe of the show as a real thing in its own right, or try to write fanfiction that takes every season seriously.  It can be a useful and interesting way of thinking about the show.  I've done it myself and will no doubt keep doing it.

But at the same time, it's very misleading if you want to think about the show as a constructed work of collaborative art: as a piece of fiction in constant conversation with itself, shaped and reshaped again and again over years by a team of different people.  Which, to be clear, is what it actually is.

The real show is almost a piece of improv or some sort of conjuring act, with the writers and actors constantly juggling with new ideas and twists without any time to worry about how exactly everything fits together. With some episodes reportedly being written in only a handful of days and lore being continually changed and ignored as fits the current demands of the plot.  Questions like "how does soul lore really work?" or "after Prophecy Girl who is the real Slayer anyway?" ultimately can't be answered, because there simply is no single truth to uncover.  It depends entirely on the current episode.

And I think the ever-changing character of Darla provides the best illustration of that reality.

In the original unaired pilot, Julie Benz plays an unnamed vampire who is nonetheless pretty easy to identify with the Darla we'll see in the show proper.  She has no links to Angel or Luke or the Master, because none of these characters even exist yet.  Just like in Welcome to the Hellmouth, she lures an unsuspecting victim into the high school after dark before vamping out and killing him, but by the end of the episode she is dead: gruesomely dispatched (or as gruesomely as the pilot's limited special effects budget allowed) after Willow douses her with holy water.

The two parter Welcome to the Hellmouth / The Harvest expands on her role slightly.  She has a name now, for one thing. She works for the Master, too, but she doesn't at all seem to be his favorite (she's very much subordinate to Luke in both these episodes), and there's no suggestion that she has any special connection to Angel.  (Unsurprisingly, as the show's writers hadn't even decided to make Angel a vampire at this point.)  And her ultimate fate at the end of this two-parter is unclear: just as in the pilot, Willow soaks her with holy water, and then she's ... gone?  Nobody mentions her again, she's not in scenes with the Master in later episodes which logically she should be. I'm pretty sure that, just like in the pilot, we're meant to assume she's dead.

But then Darla gets her first big break.  Angel is, it turns out, a vampire, and he needs some backstory to match.  Julie Benz obviously made a decent enough impression in the first couple of episodes, and nothing she did or said quite ruled her out as Angel's sire, and we never quite see her die. So suddenly she's back,  now the Master's favorite vampire, attacking Buffy's mother in her own home and sowing the seeds of mistrust between Buffy and Angel and ... oh, she's dead again.  Bummer.

Except then in Season 2 Angel's role expands again -- he's not just Buffy's intermittently seen vampire boyfriend anymore, he's the focus of the whole season and he's going to appear in all but one episode.  Of course, he's going to need more backstory (and we're all going to be treated to David Boreanaz's best Irish accent) so ... once again Darla rises from the ashes, albeit this time only in flashbacks.  And the Darla we see in Becoming's flashbacks is once again an evolution of the character we last saw in Season 1's  Angel.  More confident, more complex.  A character that it is honestly difficult to reconcile with the take on the character we saw last season, especially the one we swa in the show's first two episodes.

Anyway, Angel gets sent to hell in Season 2, but not before managing to (somehow) act his way into his own spin-off series.  And yes, that means more flashbacks, and more Darla, and more retcons about the precise nature of her relationship with the Master, but ultimately it means the writers decide to bring Darla back from the dead at the end of the spin-off's first season (for, depending on exactly you count it, arguably the fourth time, though only the first in-universe).  And this iteration of Darla -- both the human Darla we see in the beginning of Angel's second season, and the vampire she becomes again later that season -- is arguably the closest thing there is to a definitive take on the character.  This is the Darla people mean when they talk about her on the show.  Not the mid-level vampire of Welcome to the Hellmouth or the essentially single episode villain of Season 1's Angel, but the real deal.  Darla at her most complicated and rich and alive, a Darla whose history is hopelessly entangled with that of her on-again, off-again lover Angel, a character who provides the driving force for the spin-off show's greatest season.  A character who is, I think, one of the most  interesting to ever appear on that show.

Then the last few episodes of Season 2 completely drop Darla and all trace of the arc she introduced. When she reappears next season (in just a handful of episodes) it's so that her character can be written out of the show via mystical and impossible-by-the show's-previous-rules pregnancy in order for men to feel sad about it (but not for very long), and afterwards everything generally goes to shit.

But then, that tells you quite a lot about the Buffyverse and its creators as well.

[dandelionsandderivatives]

Oooh, tell me about Mer Lin and/or The Magician’s Guinea Pig! (your choice)

Someone else asked for The Magician's Guinea Pig, so you get to hear about both!

Mer Lin is the working title for a Tam Lin/Merlin (BBC) crossover. Merlin was a huge guilty pleasure for me and my siblings back when it had just been released, and it's a very weird show because it combines some genuinely cool ideas with some genuinely baffling creative choices (my poor Morgana and her arc). As far as I can tell, the vast majority of fic authors also feel a great love for the characters and a great frustration for the writing, and so there are a ton of very interesting AUs and fix-its and such.

Anyway, about two years ago I was listening to every interpretation of Tam Lin I could get my hands on, and somehow I came up with the idea of doing Tam Lin but in the Merlin universe – and the pun, of course, made the whole project worthwhile. (Sometimes I'm not sure if it's kind of me to subject my readers to my sense of humor, but it's not like they're compelled to keep reading if they don't like it.)

This is, like a lot of Merlin fics, set in an alternate universe where Everything Turned Out Okay, and Merlin and Morgana ended up together. Except everything's not okay; Arthur is on the throne, but everything is slightly off in Camelot. Gwen sews on the same project every day but never seems to finish it; Arthur's knights joust and play chess and never do anything else. And only Morgana seems to remember that they used to have a court sorceror, and that she was married to him. So yes, this is essentially Tam Lin + a sort of time loop (which, now I think about it, is very similar to the one from the first season of Once Upon a Time). The backstory was supposed to be a slow reveal wherein we find out that Camelot has been at war with a magical army for some time. Merlin managed to avert at least some of the danger, but as a consequence he's now magically enslaved to the queen of said army, and he's also lost his memory. Given that he's possibly the most powerful sorceror ever, this is bad news for the world at large. Morgana's the protagonist and is trying to rescue Merlin so that they can break the time loop – which will, of course, happen through faithfulness, as in Tam Lin proper.

I like many things about this idea – for one, I think that fantasy novels based on Tam Lin are almost always great. But I'm actually not sure how well it interacts with the source material. The fun of fanfic, imo, comes from making the source material work with different storylines, characters, themes, etc., and I'm not sure that the canon material adds much to this plotline. It might be better with original characters, but then it might feel uncomfortably similar to Fire and Hemlock.

I do still think the idea has its interesting points – I think the situation is the sort of thing that would have made a good episode of the show, and it fits pretty well into the formula, which goes something like this:

Magical crisis envelopes Camelot

Our protagonists (usually Merlin) have to scramble to figure out how to stop magical crisis

Arthur is oblivious

The crisis is averted by throwing more magic at it

End with Merlin, somehow, having to do some unpleasant menial labour

You'll notice I've innovated by cutting out Step 5 and having Morgana do the investigating in Step 2.

All joking aside, though, I think the real heart of this fic would be the tension and romance between Merlin and Morgana, and the idea that, as in canon, they're the only two together against the world that doesn't acknowledge or understand them. (I think this is maybe where the idea came from originally.) I think one of the issues I'm having with writing it is that a good amount of their tension in canon comes from the fact that their arcs are inverses of each other, and in this AU they would obviously have a different relationship. I'm pretty good at writing yearning, but I don't know if I can write it convincingly enough to make this story feel worthwhile. Maybe it would help if I flipped the roles? But then I think that part of the fun of this is having Merlin, who's generally rescuing everyone else in canon, be the rescue-ee. (It's a fairly popular plot in fanfics, so I'm not the only one who likes it.)

Anyway, this is one story idea that has a very cool vibe in my head, but I'm not sure it's enough to build a story on. I do like the fact that I haven't seen quite this plot in Merlin fic before, and I think it would be possible to set up some cool echoes of canon (in that Morgana would essentially be doing the same thing Merlin did in the earlier seasons). But I think it needs more justification to be set in this universe.

I still think the name "Mer Lin" is hilarious, though.

[ordinaryschmuck]

Quick Thoughts on the first two episodes of the Percy Jackson TV Show

Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the original book series, changed my life.

I know that I've said that with The Owl House, which rains true for the present day. But Percy Jackson is a book series that pretty much formed my love and style for story telling. Back when my fifth grade teacher read this to my class, she not only introduced me to a great book series but to a type of fiction that I didn't know I needed. Stories that managed to find that perfect balance of epic adventures, heart-tugging drama, and hilarious comedy. For years, I've been seeking out books that scratch the same itch Percy Jackson did, but never really found anything beyond Rick Riordan's other work. On top of that, the series formed my style of story telling. Did you pick up my level of snark in my fan fiction? The way I manage to form dialogue? You want to know what book series inspired all of that? Percy Jackson did, and I owe everything to it.

So when Disney+ announced that there was going to be a TV show, one that followed the books and had Riordan himself being closely involved with it, I was excited...but a little cautiously optimistic. It was great news that the series would follow the books, but as a Disney+ original? With other Disney+ original content ranging from mediocre to bad aside from a few exceptions? Yeah, I...didn't have faith in this, and the faith became weakened when I heard the show was going to be in live-action. Call me an animation shill, but I always felt like animation was the perfect medium for Percy Jackson, what with the insanity that the series goes through and the ideas that need to be conveyed in ways live-action couldn't. Just imagine something like The Owl House or even Avatar: The Last Airbender's style for Percy Jackson. It would have been GREAT.

Still, I didn't want to be all doom and gloom. I wanted to give this show a chance, even if it didn't follow the story EXACTLY or fit with the animated show I kept in my head for years. I would be open minded and see if it was still a good show regardless, and if these first two episodes are anything to go by, it might be...sort of.

In terms of the characters, everyone is on point. I buy that a lot of these actors are the characters they're portraying, and everyone nails the right amount of energy. Especially Walker Scobell, who IS Percy Jackson. There's SOME awkwardness because, you know...child actor. But when it comes to the sass, angst, and occasional stupidity of the character, the boy does great at the job and will hopefully improve as the years/seasons go by.

As for the action, it's pretty well-choreographed and epic. The Minotaur fight especially looked cool and surprisingly NOT hindered too badly by relying on CGI. It looks good enough where I can believe it, even if it's very obviously a CGI bull.

And then the comedy. THANK THE GODS for the comedy staying in tact. It was a big part of what drew me in with the books because while it can break my heart with drama or leave it pumping with action, it can be pretty funny a lot of the time. Just look at the chapter titles. They're full of sass and jokes, and it's important to keep that energy when adapting it. The show does a great job doing so while adding a few jokes of its own that feels like it would have fit in well with the books. I don't THINK Mr. D tried to make Percy think he was his father so Percy would get Mr. D some cheap booze was in the books...but dammit, it would fit PERFECTLY.

So, overall, I'd say this show definitely nails the energy of the books, being intense and comedic with the actors doing a great job at portraying the characters. However, while the show understands the energy, it kind of crumbles when it comes to telling the story.

Firstly, there ARE some changes. It's to be expected, because if I wanted every single bit from the book exactly as they were...I would have just read the frickin' book. I don't need all the exact details and I'm fine with writers taking liberties for the sake of making an adaptation standing out on its own. And no, I'm not tearing my hair out over the characters being a different race or Percy being blonde. As long as the actors still feel like the characters, which they do, there's nothing to worry about. But there are some narrative changes that I can't help but question. And, yeah, this is going to be SLIGHTLY spoilery, so be warned that if you haven't checked out the show yet, this is your last chance to skip ahead to the bottom.

Now, there are changes that I like. I like that they introduced Mythomagic early. It's a little detail, but it's a nice one to add and could maybe give Percy something to bond with Nico a bit when we finally get there. I also don't mind Sally giving Gabe that East Coast sass, making her more willing to stand up to his crappy behavior. It takes the punch out of the tragedy of her being stuck with him, but it's great to see Sally stand up for herself and it still works in showing that it's a situation she doesn't want to be in. But then there are...questionable changes. Like Chiron giving Percy Riptide when he broke his pencil. Like...No. The dumbass kid would have uncapped it immediately. NO.

Also, was that Grover's girlfriend? I mean, it's kind of cute on paper to introduce Grover's girlfriend this early, but the actress is VERY MUCH older than our baby-boy playing the goat kid, and it is uncomfortable seeing them give each other heart eyes with this VERY NOTICEABLE age difference.

And then there are changes that are made due to cutting time. Like cutting out the scene of Percy and Luke training with swords and choosing instead to have campers say "Luke's the best sword fighter in camp." You gotta SHOW instead of TELL for a TV show, Riordan. And then there's the fact that the Hellhound didn't show up, proving that the camp isn't safe for Percy and makes him believe that it's Hades who stole the bolt instead of...jumping to a conclusion. I don't need EXACT recreations of the book, but these are necessary beats for the story and even the future of the series. But we cut them out because this is a six-episode season and we need to skip as much as we can.

This brings me to why it's not a good thing that this show is a Disney+ original: Disney+ doesn't make TV shows, it makes MOVIES. Long, extended movies that are split into six or eight parts because they put too much money into an already short budget for anything lengthy. Sure, you get great stuff out of that like Loki and...I don't know, Andor? I only watch the Marvel stuff on that platform. But the problem is very much present with the Percy Jackson TV show. If this was a movie, I'd be more forgiving if we skip a lot of stuff so we can tell the story a lot faster. But because it's a TV show, something that SHOULD have all the time in the world to tell a story, it feels rough that it has to skip a lot for that six-episode limit. Because of it, we're breezing by so much that it feels like the story's on fast-forward yet also slow enough to have scenes like Grover being with his girlfriend--Seriously, am I the only one uncomfortable with that?

I WANT to say that Percy Jackson the TV series is GOOD, as it does understand the energy of the books. But the story and the pacing is questionable at times and it REALLY holds the series back. At least for now. Who knows, maybe things will get better as the season progresses or even if the show progresses. This IS only the first two episodes, after all. It can always get better...but it can also always get worse, but I'll wait until I've seen the whole show at least.

[cboffshore]

OKAY. finally got a minute to sit down.

so here’s our drumroll question. what is the reasoning behind the recent OSSAS fic title? what’s the lore behind it 🎤

OOH. OKAY. This is a FUN one, and extremely weird and detailed. Under the cut we go!

One thing I've always wanted this last installment to be is a tradition breaker. OSSAS in general has a lot of repetition, whether that be in structure or symbolism (someday I need to go in and find all of those elements and make a list, tbh); I don't want to completely abandon that, of course, but I do like the idea of making the ending of the season even more unsettling by shaking things up a bit. I have no plans to sever those character threads I've been spinning, but I do want to bat them around a little bit and see what happens. For instance, the two most recent installments begin with Nya waking up and end with her nearing sleep somehow (ADA(DP) is a bit of an exception but still roughly fits); you may have noticed that Witness begins with her being put to sleep. That sort of thing.

One tiny meta thing that influenced that decision: There's an old exchange somewhere on Ninjago Twitter, I believe between Tommy Andreasen and some fan (it could have also been the Hageman Brothers; I'll need to dig that up to check, but it's DEFINITELY one of them), regarding the legality of the entire wedding. Or something along those lines. Look, it's a weird situation, so OF COURSE the question asked was a weird one. The answer was something a lot simpler: that there wasn't really a good answer to that question, because the wedding itself wasn't traditional enough for it to really matter. Still a weird answer, I think. Kind of a cop-out, but it exists - and if it exists, I shrug and see what I can do.

So: nothing about this situation fits tradition. Got it. There go my series traditions, too, or at least just enough of them to ramp up the drama.

Which brings us to the title tradition I've had running! With the exception of Small Cuts, every installment of OSSAS so far has taken their name from the first verse of Panic! at the Disco's "Kaleidoscope Eyes." Small Cuts' name comes from a second cousin of a song, "Small Cuts" by The Brobecks, a band fronted by Dallon Weekes.... who eventually joined and then left Panic. Weird musical family tree, but hey - it's a link!

The song that Witness gets her name from is not "Kaleidoscope Eyes." This is for three reasons:

I had already milked all the good KE lines for titles. KE is not even remotely a thematic fit for OSSAS when taken as a whole, and after the first verse, things take a turn that I couldn't really come back from.

That whole tradition-ditching thing I mentioned.

I was having a bit of A Moment with a different song off the OSSAS playlist.

That different song is "Visitation of the Ghost", once again by The Brobecks (and in fact off the same album as "Small Cuts"). "Visitation" has been on my mind a LOT lately, as Weekes is currently touring with his current band, I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME. A curious thing about IDKHOW is that Weekes has carried over a handful of Brobecks songs, and most of them have become concert traditions for the new band. (That's a whole other obsession, tbh. I LOVE that shit.) "Visitation" is one of them. The most recent tradition that I'm hoping to experience this fall when I (weather permitting) see him perform live involves him walking through the crowd and recruiting them to sing the gospel style backing vocals. And also sometimes he yells at them when they stop. Anyway, controlling small-crowd leader ego tripping aside (hmm, sounds like someone we know....), it's an INSANE SONG, and it's been lurking on the series playlist for a while.

Where was I? Oh, right. It was really a matter of being in the right place at the right time: I've been thinking about that song lately, and I needed a title, and it was already in the club. So: breaking tradition enough to make things interesting, but not too much. (Yes, the fact that "Visitation" is now a tradition of its own is not lost on me. It took on a new energy, but it's the same base body, truly.) The specific chunk I chose will have more relevance when the story properly kicks off in a few months.... but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Thank you for the ask!!! And also the general enthusiasm!!!!

[dinosaurcharcuterie]

A month ago, at one-ish in the morning, when all the best decisions are made, I was messing around in Tinkercad to recreate archeological finds of bag handle frames from iron age Scandinavian areas, when it struck me that a) I can just use the svg import setting to get these in there and b) I wasn't interested in using leather or wool, so why was I suddenly hell bent on using a historical shape? I could make my own as long as the general concept of "two big holes, attachment holes, some weight to the entire thing" was there. So... I made some rain clouds. In glow in the dark filament, because that's what was in the house.

Long post under break

Did I have anything remotely suitable for making a bag? Of course not. My knitting yarn is budget acrylic used for white elephant gifts and toddler whims, and my fabric stash is light cottons and stretch materials for dresses. But I vaguely remembered a V&A tutorial on boro that went at it from a "mend with what you have if you don't have sashiko thread and needles" perspective. I had a lot of scraps in the cabbage patch. I had, in a moment of madness, bought some truly awful polyester embroidery thread a few years before that was just sitting there. So, after patching together a flimsy backing, sorting on enough scraps to get to denim weight and yolo-ing together a lining to keep the thread heavy backing from snatching on every thing I owned, all that was left to do was a bit of embroidery. With chronic joint pain. Just as the seasons were changing.

It took a month, 64m of thread in 8 colors, and I chose to be stabbed repeatedly with straight pins over basting because stitching through this with sharp embroidery needles is painful in every sense of the word, and my memory wasn't good enough to patch this as I went, which is what you're supposed to do, apparently.

Things I learned from this stage: don't be like me and forget that boro shrinks your fabric, making your lining about 6cm too big after you've put in 4 inner pockets. Also don't put on the bottom as a part of your fabric piece. This was not fun to construct from this shape. Don't get your embroidery thread from Action, because boy, did this not want to split or sew without tangling. It frayed and pilled while being sewn at one arm's length at a time. Just splurge on sashiko thread, or at least DMC cotton if you follow me in this madness. Seven years of cross stitch under my belt, plus another five of helping assemble beginner kits for a secondary school, and I've never struggled this hard with just a bunch of running stitches. Thank mercy they're not supposed to be even.

Did I know that, if a lot of sources recommend you use certain materials, that might be habit, that might be parroting others--but it's usually because that is the least frustrating way to go about it? Intellectually, yes. Will this be the last time I choose to smother the little voice in my head reminding me of that? Not while the higher quality materials are less easily available.

Bad decisions made, I fumbled through. The only way to get it vaguely symmetrical was to first sew the vertical seam, them the other long side of the bottom, then the short sides. My overlocker didn't even blink when I shoved every fraying, uneven edge through it to keep this from entirely falling apart during use. It feels as solid as heavy canvas, but far softer. My sewing machine, which throws of a fit if anything is too thick or too tight a weave, didn't mind going through this, or over the knots keeping everything in place on the back. "Good enough works" in action, baby.

There was no easing the lining in prettily, so there's a lot of creases. And since all the embroidery is low quality polyester, I can't iron any part of this. Maybe that's for the better. I've got no idea what shape this would be if I went by the actual seam lines.

The only thing left to do was attach my cute little clouds... For which I found no tutorial. Or historical find pictures with enough fabric still attached. Plenty of archeological pictures of one line of big holes, but most people use either the holes meant for straps and sprang or the chunky holes for lots of loops. I'm sure they're learning from other people's mistakes, but those mistakes are severely undocumented with the state Google is in these days. Oh well. The historically accurate thing to do is work with what you have (more crappy embroidery thread) and use what techniques seem sensible based on what you've seen (Frixion pen to transfer the holes off the frame onto the lining and long, looping stitches).

And that's how, in a mere five weeks of work, you make a whimsical bag inspired by rain clouds over a stormy landscape.

Just gotta nip into town to get some flat hoodie thread for a strap.

Note to anyone reading this: it's now 8 hours after I've finished construction on this and I've realized that the sewing hole shape makes more sense if sewn/brute force appliqué'ed directly onto the bag instead of as loops over it.

Will my way work too? Guess I'll find out.

[coldtomyflash]

Did you say before that you have several wip or ideas for stories that you've got bits and pieces written of outside of your works in progress? I'm so curious about some of those worlds from the little you said of them before.

Yeah I have this old post, but it’s probably worth updating now since stuff has changed since then. So I’ll rehash here what’s changed and what’s stayed the same, and if you want to ask me about any of them or any other fic ideas I may have, feel free to poke me.

Hmmm... to update from what I said on that prior post:

The Savitar fic I considered writing actually really didn’t work for me (felt like grinding gears) but then tumbled fast into becoming “These Violent Delights” once I mashed together the idea for that with some of the plot points I was going to use for a snartivar fic. The gun kink and case-based killer plot? 100% stuff I transplanted from a fic that would’ve been de-powered snartivar instead. You can still see some of the savi influence if you squint.

The “heist cutie AU” I was working on got posted as “He’s my latest accessory” on AO3

The two fuck-or-die fics I mentioned in that post (one, the other) are still ones I’m slowly plugging away at honestly and likely to post whenever I actually finish, but instead of focusing on them, I started writing my actual “magic made them do it” pet project, “Needs Must” which is a current WIP. Still, these two are definitely closer to being done than before.

The other introspecting pieces I mentioned haven’t been published or worked on but they’re sort of “as the mood strikes”. They tend to be inspired as episode codas and so get written if I have the time/energy shortly after an episode, or not.

The Prison AU i mentioned in that post actually got written and posted by two other authors as “Wonderland” and it’s great (I still need to finish reading, it wasn’t complete last time I had a chance to read some of it).

The  Earth-6 Barry and Len fall into Earth 1 fic I mentioned in that previous post hasn’t moved since then. I think at this point I would re-write the majority of it (despite it being close to 20k words) to do more to make it an actually interesting character study instead of an excuse for a 4-way doppleganger coldflash smut scene, which was literally how the idea started. 

I also haven’t done any work on the other round robins or “len has a son” fic but honestly still love those ideas, and would conceivably still work on the the fic where len has a meta kid he doesn’t know about, one day. And apparently I had a “len breaks into no-powers normal CSI barry allen’s apartment” as an AU idea at some point, and I think a lot of the ideas and tension from that got swallowed into TVD as well, though with a different outcome probably.

[hypermania]

Wait do you really think their doing jiara? I thought it was so ambiguous but I won't be surprised if they do

i do, unfortunately, and i agree that it was very ambiguous up until the last episode (maybe the last two—i've only watched it once so everything is kind of blurred together), and somehow, that makes it so much more disappointing haha.

see the thing is that i had zero expectations of jjpope actually happening. like, i figured that it would continue to be a fanon ship and as long as they didn't fuck up their friendship/dynamic, i was (am) fine with that. i don't need my ship to be canon, but one of the quickest ways to mess with that friendship would be to put jj and kie together (and that doesn't even touch on how it messes with the established dynamic between jj and kie, which i loved and is also going to be ruined, sadface) so i was equal parts dreading it and equal parts bracing myself for it.

but then... it didn't happen? and not only did it not happen, they split kie and pope up in a way that felt so authentic. i know a lot of people are upset because they feel like it was pointless to even pair them together in the first place if they were just going to break them up but it wasn't! it wasn't pointless! kie did have a story line this season and it wasn't about romance. it was about her place in the world and her trying to figure out how to be true to herself without hurting the people she cares about (in this case both pope and her parents). it's not about a boy, whichever boy that may be. it's about kie and who she wants to be and what she wants from her life and her future.

but, about her and pope: watching kie struggle with her feelings for pope felt exactly like that. it didn't once feel like she was struggling with the fact that she maybe had feelings for somebody else, regardless of who that might be. it was literally just whether or not she had feelings for pope. it came across like she desperately wanted to feel that way about him because it's pope! he's one of her best friends and he's a great guy and she loves him and how great would it be if she felt that way about him? but she doesn't and no matter how hard she tries and no matter how much she doesn't want to hurt him, she can't force herself to feel something she doesn't.

and like i said—no part of me really thought jjpope would ever be canon, but lesbian!kie has never felt quite as out of reach (and i've been lead to believe that the actress has hinted at that being her preference for the character on more than one occasion?). so, when kie started to not just be sort of lukewarm on her feelings for pope but actually have like mini meltdowns every time he touched her??? like the mere idea of their romantic relationship changed the very nature of any physical interaction between the two of them, even something as innocent as a comforting hand on the shoulder, which she's never had a problem with before? man, i felt so much hope!! like. that's not 'uh oh i think i'm in love with our other best friend' behavior. that's 'fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck there's something wrong with me' behavior. that's 'i'm gay' or even 'i'm asexual' behavior.

and holy crap how amazing would that story be???? how much more would it add to her struggle with her identity: her struggle to fit in at the kook academy where everyone is so uniformly and rigidly The Right Way, her fallout with sarah because they got too close, her parents' fears that she spends too much time with the boys and that she's getting too close to them, her wanting to get closer to the boys to prove something to herself maybe?, her pushing back so hard against the status quo of everything. i mean really just all of her rebellion and pushback would be so much more layered with the addition of her struggling with her sexuality. and watching her relationship with pope fall apart, it felt like that was a possibility! i mean, the conversation after they had sex???

kie: have you thought about it?

pope: uh, thought about what?

kie:

pope: oh! i mean... i mean, yeah, of course. i've thought about you like every day for a year, so yeah, i've definitely thought about it.

kie: i mean, it was perfect, right? like, the moonlight and the beach and the bonfire...

pope: yeah, it was a great night.

kie: like, there's nothing that could've made that more perfect.

pope: right? and the whole night leading up to that was just so much fun, you know?

kie: yeah.

pope: the beach. the stars..

kie: the setting was..

pope: it was nice.

kie: yeah. mhmm. so it should've been like... wow. but instead it was like, kind of... kind of weird, right?

gee i wonder what could've been wrong! like. that's just.. i don't know. this just doesn't have the vibes of 'maybe if i sleep with him i'll start to have feelings for him instead of the other guy.' this has the vibes of 'if i couldn't even enjoy it with him—the perfect guy...'

which is what made it so much more infuriating when all of a sudden toward the end she started to have heart eyes for jj????? why! where! when!

but i still foolishly held out hope because jj's behavior toward kiara didn't change, like at all. and i don't care what the ji/ara shippers say, homeboy was not interested in her in s1. like, obviously i do think he was interested in pope but i will readily admit that it was a happy accident and in no way intentional, but that doesn't negate the fact that he wasn't interested in kie, either. he made like one comment about her being hot, but he actively encouraged john b to go after her and was fine with the idea of them kissing.

you know what he wasn't fine about? kie giving pope a kiss good night, which is just.. i... it's... what... it's so innocent!! and it came on the heals of him first asking kie about what pope's like in bed and then making a sort of wistful comment about how amazing pope is when it seemed like kie was struggling with her feelings for him. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT!

and again, did i actually think they were going to make jjpope canon? or hell, even make jj in unrequited love with pope? no, i did not. but watching that in conjunction with what was happening with kie, i did start to get the feeling that they were paying enough attention to the fandom to play it ambiguously down the middle where you could read it as jj being jealous of someone, dealer's choice on who. and, sure, in my opinion, everything that happened in s1 makes one conclusion far more sensical than the other, but i'm fine with the ambiguity! the ambiguity is fun, actually! i could happily live in the ambiguity forever! just don't ever give jj a love interest and always make him a little too invested in his friends' love lives. i'm sold! i love it!

but then kie started being a little more obvious. and then cleo showed back up and well, why not immediately glue her to pope's side? and then let's have jj almost die and kie lose it and when he finally wakes up, we'll have them look at each other like it means something (despite not spending any time actually establishing that it means anything at all). and then when the season's closing out and john b and sarah are making up and pairing off, let's have pope be the one to welcome cleo to the pogue life (despite the fact that she has a history with sarah, her girl!) and well now that we've paired pope off with someone else and he won't be the odd man out, that leaves room for...

sigh.

they got my hopes up so it hurt that much more when they went and did the inevitable. if they had just forced the heterosexuality down my throat from the beginning, that last episode wouldn't have felt like a slap in the face.

[maplecornia]

chapter 9

𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡 𝔠𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔱: 2.61K

𝔤𝔢𝔫𝔯𝔢: romance | slice of life | fluff | angst | bts x female!reader | ot7

𝔰𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞𝔯𝔶: You watched them from the sidelines ever since you were a young teenage girl. Now you’re grown up, they’ve returned after 2 long years and everything has changed. What happens when you pull back the mask and find the darkness within? What happens when you see that they’re broken?

𝔞/𝔫: this chapter makes me laugh, especially the scene with Jojo and Namjoon.

𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰: cliffhangers | angst | fluff | slight mentions of self hatred | depression | mental health illness | self harm | occurs in the year 2024 | set in a timeline where BTS went to the military together | slight language

tags:@kookaine |@fangirl125reader |@kookiebbyxx |@taradevonne

You’ve been waiting for an hour.

Tilting your head back, you sigh, extremely bored.

You've tried everything you could think of to bypass the time. Reading, writing, watching YouTube, then switching over to Netflix, even attempting to doze in the slightly uncomfortable waiting room chair.

None of them have worked.

Currently, you're doodling in your sketchbook, but no concrete idea comes to mind for the sketch. Leaving you with tiny flowers, faces, and body parts on the page as though it were a practice sheet.

Peering over the sketchbook, you scan the room for any sign of life, but as the day has dragged on, so has the crowd.

You don't see any sign of Kim Namjoon anywhere, and the receptionist hasn't called you over ever since you turned in the forms she gave you. Uninterested, your eyes glazing over, you pull out your phone, peering at the time.

12:30 pm.

Heaving a sigh, you tilt your head back, the music playing through your GalaxyBuds. Yet it does no good to lift your spirits.

You suppose it's only fair, you made him wait, now it's his turn.

Setting your phone down once more, you purse your lips, as your gaze falls on a flower swaying in the wind outside.

It's the only flower you can see amongst the bush. It stands almost forlornly in the midst of multiple of its fellow brethren withered around it. Still, it stands strong, unwilling to fall victim to the harsh weather outside.

A thought crossing your mind, you turn to your sketchbook, quickly turning the page and beginning a vigorous sketch before you lose your idea.

Unbeknownst to you, as you progress halfway through the sketch, Kim Namjoon bursts into the lobby, looking out of breath and flustered.

He wears a bright white T-shirt, one with a small black Nike emblem across his left pectoral muscle. It hangs sort of loose around his neck, his collarbone visible as cooling sweat causes him to glisten like a bright star.

It's not as noticeable, considering that he wears a thick black sweatshirt zipped down around his shoulders. It's simple, with thin white stripes running down the sleeves and white soft underlining to it.

The black sweats he wears seem to fit with the outfit, the same white stripes running down each pant leg. Each piece of clothing has a Nike emblem on it and pairs well with the white Nike AirForces he wears on his feet.

They’re simple but rich clothes and bring to mind the same clothes Jungkook was wearing before.

The cooling sweat on his skin and the way his hair falls a bit messily underneath his cap could lead to the presumption that they were doing a major dance practice before all of this.

No matter the case, he didn't expect the meeting to take this long, and he feels terrible for making you wait, despite everything. As he looks for any sign of you, he doesn't find any.

Worried that you have already left, he knocks on the front desk, gathering the attention of the receptionist that helped you earlier. Kim Jojo raises her head, and as she catches sight of RM, her eyes widen just the slightest bit, but not enough for him to notice.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Namjoon, what can I--”

“Yes, yes hello.” Namjoon interrupts her, too panicked to care about formalities.

He wants to catch you before you get tired of waiting and leave. First impressions are everything to him, and if he has a bad one…Shaking the worry away, he leans forward over the counter separating the receptionist from him and she flinches away at the sudden closeness.

RM either doesn't notice or doesn't care, but either way, he meets her with an intent stare, every word uttered from his lips urgent and careful.

“Has anyone by the name of Lin Yen come in?” The receptionist opens her mouth to respond but before she can say anything, he holds up a finger.

A thought having crossed his mind, he reaches into his back pocket, bringing out his phone. He tries to bring up the picture of you while Jojo stands there, half in shock, half in annoyance. As soon as he finds it, he lets out a little victory shout, one that startles her.

Grinning, he presents it to her, and she peers at a strange picture of you. After she looks at it, Jojo pulls back, her brows crinkling in confusion.

“She looks like this. If she came in, could you please tell me? I've been waiting since 8:00 this morning to meet her.” Jojo sighs, trying to gain her composure before responding.

“Mr. Namjoon--” she begins, but Namjoon interrupts once more.

“She’s my new assistant, you see, and I need to begin her training today. She needs to know the ropes before our busy season comes back around.” He explains, pulling the phone back and trying to pocket it once more.

Instead, he ends up knocking over a container filled with an assortment of pens and pencils. Surprised, he fumbles to pick it up but ends up spilling it all over the floor. Cursing under his breath, he reaches down to pick up some pencils that have fallen.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, Jojo picks up the container, righting it on the counter with a loud thud. Startled, RM glances up at her eyes wide, and she smiles sweetly.

“Please, just leave it.” She says between her teeth. He shrugs, almost reluctantly standing. She sighs in relief, carefully putting the pens and pencils back in their place.

“Now...Mr. Namjoon, please listen--” once more, she cannot finish, Namjoon unable to shut up to save his life.

“I’m sorry, but if you need any more information on her I could--”

“Kim Namjoon!” This time it's Jojo's turn to interrupt him, her patience finally wearing thin.

RM instantly falls silent, a bit surprised at the outburst.

Jojo takes a steadying breath before continuing.

“Now, the person you are talking about has already come in. I told her you were in a meeting and had her wait in the waiting room for you to return.” At the information, RM turns to the waiting room where he catches sight of you for the first time in real life.

He notices you vigorously sketching out your idea. Smiling, he can't help but smile at the familiarities he finds in you. You look exactly like the picture Jaejin sent, despite how weird it was.

“I had expected to receive a notice of your return, so I could send her to you, but now that you're here….” Namjoon turns away from you and flashes his contagious smile at Jojo who is once more taken aback.

“Thank you,” Namjoon says with gratitude, reaching across the desk and holding her hand as he bows before turning away.

Jojo, watching him go, turns beet red before collapsing behind the desk in exhaustion. Another fellow receptionist cries out with alarm before tending to her in concern.

You, once more, having no awareness of the events happening around you, continue to sketch. Having finished the rough sketch you begin to define every line, detail, and curve. As you work, you bite the inside of your cheek, sometimes licking your lips in your trance of concentration.

When you're lost in your mind of imagination and creativity, nothing from the outside world can distract you.

And yes, that also includes a very tall, very real version of Kim Namjoon striding towards you.

You don't look up as he comes within a few feet in front of you. You don't even notice as he bends to your eye level, trying to catch your attention. It doesn't break your concentration, even as you reach for an eraser, lightly humming to the music playing in your ears. He smiles, almost laughing at your concentration before he covers his mouth, trying to be quiet so that you don't notice he’s there.

Trying to tease you, he carefully (as much as he’s able) sits down next to you. He was planning on pulling out one of your GalaxyBuds and surprising you, but as he catches a glimpse of your work, he’s stopped cold.

It's breathtaking.

You have created an awestruck image of a woman, on her knees. She wails out in agony as she sits amongst a pile of ash, flecks of it falling around her as though there's a fire burning nearby.

However, that’s not what catches Namjoon’s eye.

Amongst the ash, if anyone looks closely, they'll be able to see that there are small, scattered remains of bones hidden.

She sits amongst them, wailing, the look on her face one of pure anguish and sorrow as the ash from the fading bones stains her skin and her dress.

As though she has lost everyone she’s held, dear.

RM can't seem to look away, entranced by the grotesque beauty of the image and the talent of the artist.

He admires the way you set it up, the way you created the girl imperfectly, but still real. Because after all, who in real life is perfect? As he watches your pencil move expertly across the page, he can't help but think that with each stroke, the creation grows more and more lifelike.

As though she were truly crying out in the pain her heart brings. As though she were alive and breathing.

Almost against his wishes, his hand reaches out to touch the paper, if only to make sure that the actual sketch is truly a mere fabrication of pencil and paper.

As his fingers graze the parchment, that is when you snap out of your concentration.

Eyes widening, you jolt up straight, immediately turning to look at your side.

As soon as your eyes meet Namjoon’s, his hand flinches off the paper. He lets out a soft gasp as he flinches away, surprised by your sudden attention.

Just like with Jungkook, you're frozen in place.

Unable to move.

Unable to function.

Unable to speak.

And just like Jungkook, Namjoon is the same way.

But for a different reason.

He was caught in the act, and he doesn't know what to do.

Your eyes hold him in a sort of bind.

For a moment he forgets what he was doing there, he forgets what his purpose is, for a moment he even forgets why you are there.

For a split second, it's just you and him in a pocket in space.

Your eyes holding his, his eyes holding yours.

Kim Namjoon.

The leader of BTS. The first member of the group you have grown to love. Talented, handsome, a practical genius, he is just as mature and intimidating as you expected him to be.

Despite how close the two of you are sitting, he still seems larger than life, and for a moment, you wonder if he’s even real.

He doesn't seem like it after all.

His skin seems too real, too perfect. His hair is too soft, too smooth. His eyes are too warm and too brown.

Almost exactly like the milky chocolate brown you’ve seen so often in so many photos, except for one thing.

As you stare into them, you can see life so clearly alight in them. How they reveal so many emotions at the same time. There are so many that it's almost impossible to read them at all. Serene and peaceful, they are poets' eyes.

So emotional, yet so mysterious and secretive at the same time.

Dreamboat eyes.

“Kim Namjoon?” you whisper, almost unsure if it's him or not.

As you do, his face makes that mixed expression between confusion and amusement as he chuckles softly, looking away and breaking the connection. Holding his hand up to his mouth, he nods, clearing his throat, but not saying anything for a moment.

“Yes, that's who I am, and you must be...Lin Yen?” your heart jumps at the fact that he knows your name.

Speechless, all you can do is nod mutely as he utters another adorable chuckle, one that always seems to remind you of Goofy.

“Jaejin didn't tell me you were an artist.” As soon as he says that, you notice that your sketchbook is still open, and showcasing your imperfect, unready sketch.

Panicking, you fumble to get it closed. Blushing, you hug it tightly to your chest, as though it could erase the fact that he just got a sneak peek into your very soul.

“What's wrong? It was good!” RM asks, worried.

Biting your bottom lip in trepidation, you shake your head, hiding your face.

“Don't lie….” you mumble.

You know it wasn't close to being done, and it wasn't nearly as perfect as it could have been. You're quite disappointed in it at the moment. You feel as though it was too rushed due to the many ideas pouring out from your brain at the exact moment.

As you take an ashamed peek at Namjoon, you find him staring at you, a slight smile playing on his lips.

“What's wrong, are you okay?” he asks, tilting his head as though you were a shy child. You smirk, playing along and nodding very slowly before he continues.

“I see. You should know, however, that you are very talented.” At the compliment, you snort in disbelief, shoving the sketchbook and pencils back safely in your satchel.

“Please.” You sigh. “I know I'm no Picasso, and certainly not talented.”

Finished with packing your art supplies, you are reminded of the reason you are here. A blush of shame appearing on your cheeks, you turn to Namjoon, a bit guiltily.

“And I’m also not known as the bird to rise before the worm.” RM seems a bit confused before you stand and bow to him in apology.

“I am so sorry for being late today. You see I….”

Remembering the receptionist's words from before, you decide to keep the reason to yourself.

“....I have nothing to say for myself. I'm sincerely sorry.”

“Please, there’s no need for that,” Namjoon responds, standing himself and tapping you on the shoulder.

At the touch, you stand straight, only to find an extremely tall man standing before you, looking more intimidating than before. Heart beating fast you gulp, stepping back a bit.

Luckily, he doesn't notice your act of distance and just smiles at you before continuing.

“After all, I was late as well, so let's call it even, huh?”

You smirk and nod, thankful that he’s not too angry about it, but it doesn't completely erase your guilt.

“But now that you mention it….” Namjoon starts and intrigued, you glance up to see him back up a bit as well.

Confused, you raise an eyebrow before he holds out his hand to you.

“My name is Kim Namjoon, I’ll be your boss during your time here. First and foremost, welcome to BigHit entertainment, I hope you enjoy your time working here with us.” He introduces himself, warmly.

Catching on, you take his hand, shaking it gently, and trying to ignore the fact that yours is much more like a child's compared to his.

“Hello, Mr. Namjoon! It's a pleasure to finally meet you, my name is Lin Yen and I look forward to working with you!” you respond, returning his grin with one of your own.

After you're finished introducing yourself, he releases your hand and steps back, taking your satchel in his hands and handing it to you.

“Well, Ms. Lin, are you ready to begin?” He asks, and you accept the offer, hiking the satchel on your shoulder before looking up at him in expectation.

“Where do we start?”

𝔫𝔬𝔱𝔢: first day at work is finally starting, yall excited? eheheehehe get ready for some namjooon and yen moments to come

chapter 10 here

check the Infinite Stars masterlist for more chapters

check my BTS masterlist for other BTS content

check out my masterlist for other kpop fanfics

[palimpsessed]

So @captain-aralias​ did one of these and invited other writers to do the same. And I wasn't really going to because it feels a bit late now and also I've done quite a few other year in review posts for 2020. But then I got to thinking that it would be really nice to have one of these for each year to look back on and compare, which convinced me. So, here we go!

If you’re a writer, I’d also encourage you to steal this. Tag me on your post so I can see your thoughts! 🥰

List of Complete Fics for 2020 1. At the Top of a Tower, With You- General, 900 words 2. Use Your Words- Teen, 16k 3. A Man of Letters, or Five Times Baz Retreats and the One Time He Doesn’t- Teen, 54k 4. To the Manor Borne- Teen, 43k

Total: 4 fics, 113k words

Every one of these fics was written for an event, which, realistically, is the only reason they got finished. I have so many ideas I'm working on all at once, and I came into fandom with a focus on making art, so to actually find the motivation to sit down and write/finish/post a fic was entirely deadline based. And it's a technique I'm sure I will also employ in 2021.

Best/Worst Title?

Well, I've mentioned a few times before that I usually have a title before I have much in the way of a fic concept. I don't really dislike any of the my titles, because they all did exactly what I needed them to do, which was help me focus on what I wanted to accomplish in the fic. Comparatively speaking, though, I can answer this.

Best: Use Your Words - succinct, idiomatic, a book quote/motif that also has the potential to be a spell, does what it says on the tin, is probably what all of us are constantly yelling at Baz and Simon to do throughout the books and the fic itself

(Honorable mention to A Man of Letters because that title forms a perfect heart shape when viewed on mobile on AO3. ❤️)

Worst: At the Top of a Tower, With You - this is also a quote and it fits the fic perfectly, but it is a bit of a mouthful and it has a comma in the middle of it, which, while I love commas, feels a bit off-putting in terms of a title - also, it's always kind of bothered me that it's a Baz WS quote used for a CO-era Lucy POV

Best/worst summary?

Again, I don't really dislike any of my summaries.

Best:

To the Manor Borne: The gang decides to spend Christmas together at Pitch Manor. Romance, hijinks, and holiday cheer ensue.

Anything that lets me use the word hijinks is always good! - it's short and sweet - it does a fair job of setting up the premise for the fic and giving highlights, without giving anything away

Worst: A Man of Letters

I'm not going to include this one because it's so long, I had to cut down the version I posted on tumblr to fit in the AO3 field, which is really why I rank it below my others - it effectively sets up the world of Simon and Baz in Regency England prior to where the story starts, but it is prohibitively long - and it's set up, not summary, so it also loses points for not doing what it purports to do - I could have said exactly what this fic was in one sentence: "Simon and Baz meet at several Regency-appropriate venues over the course of a London season and reflect on their acquaintance in letters", but instead I did the full book jacket version because it was more interesting to me.

Best/Worst First Line?

Oh, this is interesting. I can honestly say that I have no idea where this will go. Going to pull up my docs and find out! Okay, since I only have four fics to consider, and I'm feeling split, I'm going to do two for each. I feel good about my words, but I will say that half of my first lines actually provide information, and the other half are incomplete thoughts. Those were stylistic decisions I made, but when taken alone, it does somewhat limit the effectivness of a sentence when it can't stand without the rest of the paragraph. Perhaps that decision will lure readers in for more?

Best:

In the end, we wind up at Pitch Manor. (To the Manor Borne)

I know that you won't be surprised when I tell you that I do not like writing letters. (A Man of Letters)

Kind of interesting that these both contain key words from the titles 🤔

Worst:

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to do this. (Use Your Words)

I love how the title seems to be answering Baz's question when the two are put together like this 😂

Strange that it should end here, where it all started. (At the Top of a Tower, With You)

The title also seems to complete the first line in this one, too. I'm learning about my writing as this goes on, so that's cool!

Best/Worst Last Line?

Hmm. Okay, again, no idea. Also, a little leery of including last lines for anyone who hasn't read the fics they're from yet. (Tho I guess it's unlikely those people would be reading this😆) But let's see what we've got.

Use Your Words and A Man of Letters have very similar final lines, and both are somewhat spoilery.

Best: The ending of A Man of Letters felt risky to me, in the way that it is formatted and changes tone from the rest of the story. It was something that happened as I wrote it and I loved it. I had no idea if readers would like it, if they would feel like it worked as an ending, but I felt strongly enough about it to let the entire fic hinge on that and I think it really paid off. So, without giving you the actual last line, which is only one word, I'm going to say that one is my best ending.

Worst:

To the Manor Borne: "Carry on, Simon."

It's not bad, it's just not mine.

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, fewer than you thought, or about what you predicted?

I did not set out to write any fics in 2020. I was supposed to be taking a break from writing. I've been an aspiring novelist for half my life now, and have been going through major ups and downs with my writing. I decided I needed to re-evaluate and figure out if writing was something that was even going to be able to make me happy anymore. The answer is: YES! Just…not original fiction. At the moment. I'm happiest when I can write for the sake of writing and not have to DO something with that writing. Which is why discovering fan fiction was AMAZING!!!! 🥰🥰🥰

To actually answer the question, yes, I wrote more than I thought I would. I also wrote exactly as much as I thought I would, simply because these were all things I signed up for (with the exception of my Countdown fic, but I committed to it as if it were something that required a sign up).

I have a lot more ideas for 2021, but I don't know how many of them will come to fruition. I'm not putting pressure on myself to have to do anything beyond what I sign up for again, because it did work out so well for me starting off.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?

I mean, the pairing and the fandom were in no way a surprise. 😆 They're my only ones, so those were both a given. The genre is also not surprising.

What's your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest?

A Man of Letters, without any hesitation. I adore it so much. It's the kind of fic I know I will unabashedly sit down to read over and over, even if I'm the one who wrote it. I had one reader to please and it was ME. By far, my most self-indulgent fic.

Okay, NOW your most popular story?

That depends on the metric.

To the Manor Borne leads in Comments (107), Kudos (153), and Hits (1992), and Use Your Words leads in Bookmarks (26).

But since To the Manor Borne is top in 3 out of 4 metrics, I'll say that one.

Story most upderappreciated by the universe?

I mean, the least popular by a wide margin is At the Top of a Tower, With You, but I don't know if I'd call it underappreciated. It's short, it's angsty, it's got a very unusual style, it's Lucy POV, it's the first fic I wrote and posted. I didn't really go into it with high performance expectations. I'm proud of it, I just didn't expect it to be popular. It would be nice if more people read it, but I'm not broken up over it.

Story that could have been better?

I'm not even going to touch this one. Everything can always be improved upon, but if I go down that route, nothing will ever be done. This is one of the things I have come to appreciate about traditional art versus digital. With traditional, there is only so much you can do before something is permanent and you have to live with it. It's an exercise in letting go and acceptance. Digital is flashier and more flexible, but I could (and have) spend months on a single piece and never feel satisfied, never stop tweaking. I think that's also the reason I started to hate my novels.

Sexiest story?

Based purely on overall vibes, I find the understated tension of the Regency the most appealing, so I'm going to say A Man of Letters. I didn't actually stray into sex territory in any of my fics (though Simon and Baz have had sex by the time To the Manor Borne starts, and refer to it, and probably do it "offscreen"), but A Man of Letters is the one that feels sexiest to me. Lots of thirsting!Baz and feral!Simon and sensual hand touching (how risqué!) - and YEARNING. That, to me, is the sexiest vibe of all. So. Much. Yearning.

Saddest story?

At the Top of a Tower, With You - for this one, I tagged "angst without plot" and I stand by that. It's Lucy losing her connection to Simon at the end of CO and trying to find a way to reconcile herself to leaving him alone again. I gave it as much of a hopeful bent as I could, with the refrain of Baz's spoken "love" to cling to, but it's very sad.

Most fun?

To the Manor Borne - All of my fics have their fair share of angst, but this one also has some good, silly, holiday fluff thrown in. Since I wrote it for the Countdown, each chapter was based on a different prompt, which led to this one going in all sorts of directions no single fic probably ever should. Plus, it has the most Shepard, and Shepard always makes things more fun.

Story with the single sweetest moment?

Oh my god. I don't know. No, never mind. I do. It's To the Manor Borne, but it's split between the two gift giving scenes, the Constellations and Secret Santa/Gift Giving prompts. These were private moments between Simon and Baz, sharing themselves with each other, being vulnerable, and communicating. It's the gifts they give each other, yes, but it's more so the reasons they chose those gifts, and how they show part of themselves and share their love for each other, through those gifts, that had me in tears writing those two scenes. I'm super proud of them.

Hardest story to write?

Use Your Words - it was written for an exchange and that made it really hard to write it knowing there was this pressure of making my gift-ee happy with the fic. I'm proud of it, and they really liked it, but the anxiety was too much for me.

Easiest/most fun story to write?

A Man of Letters - if there is a fic better suited to me as a writer, I haven't met it. I started writing after reading Pride and Prejudice in high school, so I started out writing Regency and I spent years and years and years of my life obsessed. When I transferred into college, an administrator I had never met before heard my name during orientation and said, "Oh, you're the Austen scholar." (It is a small, private college, and I was a transfer, so the pool of students was even smaller. But still. Many years later, I'm clearly not over it.) I also did my senior thesis on an epistolary novel (Frances Burney’s Evelina), and my English Lit emphasis was for that time period. So, I felt like I had been preparing for this fic my entire adult life. 😂

Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

I don't think so. I tend to let my writing be dictated by the characters, so I'm always following their lead. Sometimes they'll do or say something that surprises me and takes me down a route I didn't necessarily foresee, but I don't think there was ever a point where one of them did something that made me rethink who they are as a character.

Most overdue story?

I will say A Man of Letters, since that one felt like a culmination of my seventeen-year-old self's wildest writing dreams. But I should probably say the Scooby Doo AU I still haven't managed to finish, because that one has been a WIP since I joined the fandom. Oops. (I'm hoping when I look over this in a year, I can feel smug that it's finally done.)

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Writing at all was a risk for me! And writing fan fic for the very first time! Writing an entire fic told only through letters. And then ending it in a completely different style from the rest of the fic. Doing a multi-chaptered fic for the Countdown, using a different prompt for each chapter, and publishing a chapter every single day for thirty days (with the exception of two days that had art). Signing up for fandom events in the first place!

What I learned from taking risks in my writing is the same thing I learned when I took risks in my art this year. I have a much better appreciation for what I've done when I push myself, I feel better about the end product, and I like it longer. I think it's really good for me to challenge myself creatively.

This year's theme and the story that demonstrates it most?

Oh boy. Um. Therapy! Both Use Your Words and To the Manor Borne had their big HEA moments built around sending Simon and Baz to therapy. I don't think that's likely to change for future fics, either. I feel like therapy as the theme for 2020 seems very fitting. (Also, I think I keep sending the boys to therapy because I'm trying to get myself there…)

What are your fic writing goals for next year?

Just to write what I want to write, have fun, not put any pressure on myself, and to take risks in my writing and my art because it will help me to grow.

[nancypullen]

Birds on the Brain

We built this house in 1999 and filled it with very 1999-ish fixtures. As the years have passed we've updated things here and there, but one thing hung around like a time capsule. The light fixture that shone on every breakfast, lunch, and dinner eaten at our table for the last twenty-two years was fine. Nothing special, nothing awful. I still see them in plenty of houses, but I was kind of over ours - it was getting harder to find the right lightbulbs for it, and I hated dusting it. At Christmas I used a gift card to purchase a new fixture and the mister installed it in minutes. I'm crazy about the fresh look, but what the heck do you do with the old fixture? It seemed wasteful to trash it, but I doubt anyone goes to Goodwill looking for a twenty-two year old light fixture - especially one that was not all that posh when it was new. I cruised Pinterest for ideas and hit the jackpot. A bird feeder! Of course, you all know by now that I don't invest in projects if I can help it, I use what I've got. So when I decided to turn my trash into treasure I knew that I had a delightful day ahead. I removed the fake candle things in the center of each saucer and then Mickey was able to remove the casings or whatever they're called so that I was left with a bare bones chandelier.

I cleaned it up and got out my weapon of choice.

Paint and primer in one can and color called Gum Drop? I'm in! I paid $3.98 for the paint and about $3.00 for a tube of Liquid Nails adhesive, so the entire project cost me a whopping seven bucks. The examples on Pinterest were far prettier, the women showcasing their crafts had used antique teacups and custard cups to hold bird seed- and that seemed ridiculous to me. Would they even stand up to the weather? What happens when one cup breaks and you're left with a jagged half cup attached to your feeder? Nope, I was not about to invest that sort of time and trauma in a bird feeder for the back yard. Know what I found that fit perfectly into my bases? Tuna cans!

We eat a lot of tuna so it didn't take any time at all to gather six cans. They received a couple of coats of Gum Drop paint as well.

I let everything dry and then gave the bottom edge of each can a few globs of Liquid Nails and settled them in.

I hung the feeder on a shepherd's hook beside a Crape Myrtle tree that will be covered in pink blooms soon. I'll hang a basket of flowers, or maybe a hummingbird feeder, on the other hook.

I'll probably hang some sparkly things here and there just because I'm Fancy Nancy. I mean, diamonds and tuna cans are a thing, right? Anywho, I put a little scoop of seed into each can and came inside to make a couple of cards. I wasn't at my desk more than a few minutes before the first visitor arrived.

A dapper cardinal stopped in for a snack! All day there's been a steady stream of cardinals, jays, and chickadees. I think they like it! It'll be prettier once that tree is in bloom and when I hang some flowers - but the birdies don't seem to mind a bit. I hope the squirrels don't discover it any time soon. So that's what I was doing on this gorgeous spring day, making a bird buffet out of tuna cans. I soaked up some vitamin D and made use of something old. Two of my favorite past times. I'm making some big salads for dinner tonight and I'll throw some grilled chicken on top. Mickey grills five or six chicken breasts every Sunday and they're wonderful to have in the frig for a quick meal. That's another sure sign of the season - grilling! It's starting to really feel and look like early summer now. After that little cold snap Mother Nature is trying to make it up to us. You know that scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy opens the door and everything goes from black and white to color? That's what this past week was like, just with fewer munchkins and witches.

And I suppose with a maniac cat rather than trusty Toto, but you get my drift. I don't think Phoebe would let me haul her around in a basket. I hope that wherever you are that you're getting a bit of sunshine and a bit of time for yourself. It's time to renew, refresh, and recharge. Even a small chunk of time to spread a blanket on the grass and get lost in a book will fill up your tank. If you're not a reader then you can do some cloud gazing and listen to tunes that speak to your heart. After the year we've had, I heartily recommend taking a deep breath and letting your shoulders down. Sit in some calmness for a while. I've been doing quite a bit of that lately and it's truly good for the soul. From me to you, Stinky LaRue - stay safe, stay well, stay balanced. XOXO- Nancy

[weraceasone]

Hi Elle

Im quite new to F1, but I've been watching a lot (since im on year end break), and ive come to adore the whole grid, all 19 of them. Ive noticed Max loves to run his mouth, not sure why he thinks thats a good idea in a sport full of politicking, but it frustrates me to no end. Because I adore him at times, and I hate him at times and I can't help but feel like he's just killing his own career through ruining his relationship with other teams. He wont be in red bull forever, and with the way he runs his mouth, i doubt any team is very excited to give him a seat if his talent comes with a side of his attitude. Its so frustrating because i know he's a good driver, i always want him to do well but this mentality of his that he can just get away with things is so annoying. I hope his actions of today won't come back to bite him in the ass because i think he's champion material. I also feel reluctant to support red bull at times but I adore Checo, and i wont wish a bad car or season upon anyone, because the team of engineers and mechanics that works hard doesn't deserve it, don't deserve to have people wish them terrible results when they work so hard, just because their leaders are some assholes. I just wanted to vent my frustration because anywhere else, especially f1twt is so brutal for some noob like me haha. I hope you're having a wonderful day, Elle!

[i also wonder if you dislike max? a lot of people do, i cant blame them, but i just wanted to know :)))))]

hey Anon!

(first of all, I wanted to say that you saying F1twt is a bit brutal for new fans made me a bit sad. I just want to say that you shouldn’t ever feel bad about not knowing something, and you also shouldn’t be made to feel bad for not knowing something. what an unkind response from people to drag down another person for not knowing every single thing. always feel free to ask me anything🧡)

do I like Max? hmmm, not really. but I don’t hate him either. when you’re young and you look at the villain in a movie, there’s always this sort of moment in the movie when you realize ‘oh, they have a good side too’. I think something that I’ve realized this past year, is that as much as I wish for them to be, most people aren’t completely, from head to toe, bad. when it comes to a person, there’s no such thing as black and white. I think that’s kind of how I view Max. he can be funny. I like him with Lando and Daniel and I think the comments he sometimes makes are funny. I like how he talks about his mother and sister and I thought it was really sweet how he was reminding his team to drink during races. yet, I don’t like Max. I don’t like the way he talks about people in a negative way, I don’t like how he doesn’t kneel, and I don’t like how he never apologizes when he did something wrong. I can’t bring myself to hate him, though. I was raised in a hard way, it was nothing compared to the way Max was raised, but I was never taught to be kind; I was taught that kindness was synonymous with weakness. I had to learn how to be kind all by myself. I know how hard it is to go from a clenched fist to an open palm, and I know that you have to take your own responsibility in life and look beyond the way you were raised. I know how hard it is to see your own red flags when you were raised by bulls (I swear, no pun intended). the difference between Max and I is that I never started working in an environment that told me, from day one, I needed to be harsh, emotionless and cruel in order to survive. I was never told I couldn’t show emotion, I was never told that if words weren’t enough, my fists would also do. do I think Max should have learned from his past actions; do I think he should have learned from the way he was raised and be the exact opposite? yes, I do. am I angry with Max for not doing that? no, not necessarily. there’s this desire from people to look at another person and want them to be perfect, even to the point where we even start to believe they are perfect. we look at these drivers and so desperately project all of our ideals onto them, and when they say or do something that doesn’t fit into the image we’ve created in our heads, it feels as if our world is breaking down piece by piece. and you know… it’s not feasible. it’s such a fragile idea to believe another person is perfect. these people aren’t our perception of them, just like our friends aren’t, just like our parents aren’t. we just have an idea in our heads based on the parts they chose to show us. it’s not a real thing. they are just as much human as we are, and they have the right to disappoint us. and just like they have a right to disappoint me, I also have a right to be disappointed in them. but at the end of the day, I have a perception of him in my head that probably doesn’t completely match with reality and that awareness shouldn’t get lost somewhere in between. 

(this got super, super long. I’m sorry about that, Anon. I hope you’re having a good day! 🧡)

[jzeeeeeeeee]

Game of Thrones 8.06 Series Finale Recap and Review

THE NIGHT IS DARK AND FULL OF SPOILERS

This should be kind of obvious but I'll be discussing the final episode of Game of Thrones here so if you're not caught up don't read this unless you want to be spoiled!

CITY OF ASHES

Tyrion walks us into the episode, literally, walking through the ashes of King's Landing, closely followed by Jon and Davos. Ash is everywhere, still raining down, floating in the air like snow. I can only imagine the smell, if the scent from piles of burning dead outside Winterfell was bad this must be a thousand times worse considering they've always said how bad the city smelled to begin with... The horror on Tyrion's face is evident and surely echoes our own, as he walks by dead children and a near-naked burnt man stumbling out of the ruined city looking truly shellshocked. Tyrion tells Jon he wants to go on alone and heads for the destroyed Red Keep. Jon and co. run into Grey Worm and the Unsullied sentencing some Lannister soldiers to death in Dani's name and under her orders. Jon tries to tell Grey Worm that the war is over and the enemy soldiers are prisoners now, pleading for their lives. But the overwhelming loss must have had a hollowing effect on Grey Worm, emptying him of every last fuck he had to give. It almost comes to blood between Grey Worm/the Unsullied and Jon/random Northmen but Davos intercedes, quickly urging Jon to go speak with Dani directly. As Jon walks away, Grey Worm goes back to slitting throats of Lannister men like it's nothing, as if to show Jon how truly empty his fuck-tank was.

Back to Tyrion, walking around the remains of the Red Keep. He follows the steps down just like he told Jaime and sees the gigantic mountain of rubble covering the exit he had described. He starts digging through the rubble and finds jaime's gold hand. Digging further he uncovers both his siblings, dead on each other's arms. The music is haunting, a slow violin rendition of Rains of Castamere. This scene was picture perfect in it's tragedy, the bricks washing all color out of the scene save for the Lannisters. I might not have liked the way Cersei's end came or Jaime's middle finger to his redemption arc but seeing Tyrion kneeling there crying over them definitely gave me the feels.

PLAZA OF PRIDE

Arya walks past dead bodies and ruins out into the square in front of the Red Keep where the mysterious remaining half of the Dothraki are riding around on their horses, cheering and raising their arakhs in the air. We switch to follow Jon who's walking past the Dothraki and Unsullied towards massive, imposing steps of what is apparently left of the Red Keep. It makes me think of the Mayan Temple of the Sun, draped with a truly ginormous Targaryen banner. Jon looks at Grey Worm when he gets to the top of the stairs like "this is not handicap accessible". Just kidding, Jon looks at Grey Worm like he's gone as bonkers as his Queen. Dani and Drogon come flying in overhead and land somewhere behind the ruined Keep. Drogon's wings behind Dani stretch out and fold as she comes walking into the foreground. The sight is truly amazing and I've watched that part alone a hundred times. This is a powerful leader with men fiercely loyal to her returning victorious, no longer that little girl in Essos constantly on the run from assassins. There's a nice juxtaposition of the Unsullied lined up with precision thumping their spears in perfect unison, while the Dothraki are in a frenzy behind their orderly rows, practically doing wheelies on their horses as Dani delivers her victory speech.

Ok let's just stop and appreciate this character for a minute. Let's just imagine going through what she went through, it truly must feel like destiny, step by step bringer her closer to madness, all that power she has. She has a huge dragon that is closely bonded to her, she's the Unburnt not just a Khaleesi, not just a Queen. She's conquered before, and liberated before. When a character is too OP you just know they can't last... Remember the speech she gave when she named the entire khalasar her bloodriders? These men watched her walk out of fire, TWICE, unharmed. Who wouldn't kneel? They must think her a goddess! Grey Worm is devoted utterly because he was freed by Dani and he controls the Unsullied. The naming as Master of War, a great boon to him I'm sure, leader of ALL her forces now. He's still covered in the blood of dead Lannister soldiers as he steps forward to accept the nomination.

Danaerys speaks passionately, fervently as any champion of fire would. I could practically see flames dancing in her eyes as she talks of liberating the people of King's Landing. The show told me she's going crazy so I guess she must be. Jon's eyes when she starts talking about liberating the entire world... But it seems Tyrion agrees with me and in a fit of pique and anguish he casts off his Hand of the Queen pin to the ground. Dani commands the guards to take Tyrion and he locks eyes with Jon as he's walked off, with this "Your girl done gone nuts bro" face.

Arya catches up with Jon on the steps, urging him to see that Dani is a killer and he's in danger from her since she knows his true heritage. I like how he's surprised to see her, asking for its the audience what she's doing there in the first place. He doesn't even question the fact she came to kill Cersei and walks off to go find Tyrion's cell.

BROKEN THINGS

Jon and Tyrion discuss what happened and Jon can't deny what Dani did was wrong but he's trying to justify it by naming all the things she lost along the way to madness. Tyrion reiterates what Arya was saying, that Jon's life is at risk because of his claim to the throne. Jon actually rolls his eyes before sitting down to take it all in. It seems like Tyron admits he had feelings for Dani here, saying he loved her though not as successfully as Jon did. He walks Jon by the hand to the idea that she's the biggest threat to the people, especially his sisters. He lays a choice at Jon's feet, knowing that only Jon has the chance to bring this to an end.

Jon leaves to go find Dani in the Keep. Drogon is stretched outside like the largest cat ever, briefly getting up to see who's disturbing his rest but let's Jon go by without even a puff of smoke. Dani's walking through the ruined throne room, stretching out her hand to the Iron Throne she's sought after for all these years, touching the arm briefly. The ruins of the throne room and the snow-like ash in the air are the payoff from the vision she had in Qaarth's House of the Undying. She's contemplative, making a meta comment about the throne being made of a thousand blades from Aegon's fallen enemies. This is a sort of dig because the throne GRRM had described and imagined was more like the one she does here. Jon comes in to rain on her parade, angry about the Unsullied executing Lannister soldiers along with the thousands of dead and burned children outside. He seems to be giving her one last chance, begging with her to see reason. As she says her final words about building a new world and breaking the wheel I'm heartbroken because I know what's coming next without anyone telling me. "Be with me. Build the new world with me. This is our reason, since you were a little boy with a bastard's name and I was a little girl that couldn't count to 20. We do it together. We break the wheel together." He kisses her passionately this time, "You are my Queen, now and always", not breaking away like he did at Winterfell and Dragonstone, and I know the instant the knife goes in her heart he's sobbing and so am I. It's like she had plot armor her entire life... until today.

THE IRON THRONE

Jon lays Dani's body down on the ground and suddenly Drogon's there, sensing something wrong with his mother. He nudges her with his head but she's gone, and the sadness that pours out of him is an echo of my own seeing her tragic story at an end. This girl had been on this path since her birth, freeing slaves, serving justice to those who deserved it and I'm supposed to believe right at the end she decides to kill all the innocent people she came to save. Ok fine I'll go along with it for now since we're on mega fast forward this season and maybe I just missed all the subtle steps on the way to Dani's madness. Back to Drogon... He's so full of anguish he let's out a few huge bursts of fire, melting the Iron Throne down to slag. The scene was awesome in the true meaning of the word but I'm a little confused why Drogon would understand the meaning of such an act. And why didn't Jon move out of the way more? He has a weird thing with facing dragons I guess, maybe he planned on yelling at Drogon like he did to his brother. The scene ends after Drogon snatches up Dani's body in one claw and flies away, never to be seen again.

Tyrion awakes, finding his buddy Grey Worm at the door. He's led out to the Dragonpit where the Lords and Ladies of Westeros (🤷) are waiting. I have no idea what kind of time has passed but guessing from Tyrion's hair it's been a few weeks since Dani's death. Sansa demands to know where Jon is but Grey Worm insists they are in control of the city and it's prisoners. Sansa doubles down letting him know King's Landing is surrounded by Northmen. Yara makes some threat about Jon getting killed by the Unsullied but Arya comes right back at her saying she'll slit her throat lol. I think it's right around here everything becomes a bit hokey to me. After some back and forth with Grey Worm about the fate of Jon Snow, Tyrion suggests they choose a king or queen (who will ultimately be in charge of that fate). That Tully dude, Lord of the Riverlands gets up to make a speech (maybe to make a play as king?) but Sansa shoots him down by asking him to just sit, be a good boy, and drink his bottled water. Sam suggests a type of democracy system where everyone gets a say and they all just laugh at him. Just like everyone imagined, Tyrion reveals Jon is the heir to the Throne and they all live happily ever after. Wait no, actually he walks around and talks about how stories hold the world together and Bran should be King. What in the ever-loving fuck? Who has a better story than a man who came back from the dead only to find he was not a bastard at all but the heir to the Iron Throne????!!! Ok I get that he killed Dani so that's a stain on his honor but he did it to save the whole damn world. He didn't want to rule but neither did Bran! Tyrion proposes kingship to Bran in a way that sounds like a marriage proposal from the realm. Then Bran shows more emotion than he has in the past 2 seasons, he smiled a little and says "Why do you think I came all this way?" Huh? Well I had thought it was to help defeat the Night King and the White Walkers but fine I'll go along with that too I guess... I thought for a hot second he'd say "I am Groot". Sansa declares independence for the North after we get a round of "ayes" from all the other Westerosi Lords and Ladies in favor of Bran the Broken as king. I face palm but on my 3rd or 4th rewatch I see that Tyrion's cleverness did shine through one last time. He knew that giving Jon to the Unsullied would mean more war, knew Jon didn't want the throne anyway, knew that the puzzle needed solving and I suppose he did it. Jon would go to the Wall and serve a life sentence in the Night's Watch as a compromise, apparently to keep everyone from getting what they want. We see Tyrion meet briefly with Jon to explain this and he's as baffled as I am there's even a Night's Watch left. What are they watching? Season one?

A DREAM OF SPRING

Another time jump of unknown proportions and Jon is getting on a boat, headed for the Wall. He sees Grey Worm on another ship about to set sail for Naath where I can only assume he'll die from butterfly poison trying to protect Missandei's people. As Jon rounds a corner he sees Bran, Arya and Sansa are there to see him off. Hugs all around, Sansa apologizes to Jon and I can't help but think it's forced, Arya will sail West of Westeros. When Jon kneels in front of Bran saying, "Your Grace" I'm still wondering what his Targ ancestry had to do with anything and why Bran thought it was so important for him to know. The last of the Starks are going to go on their separate paths again, but hey they won the Game.

We next get a cute scene of Brienne writing Jaime's deeds in the White Book, meaning she's the Lord Commander now. This part is uber meme-able, particularly when she makes faces trying to think of good deeds to write. After a few creative truths she closes the book without writing anything about how he saved the people of King's Landing from being burned alive with wildfire. This scene also shows us Bran the Broken has taken a raven for his sigil, it's now prominent on Brienne's Kingsguard armor.

We go next back to Tyrion, the Keep mended enough to have a small council meeting in the old spot he's meticulously rearranging the chairs. Sam, now Grandmaester, brings in a book called a Song of Ice and Fire, very Hobbit of him, setting it in front of Tyrion. The rest of the small council files in, Bronn as Lord of Highgarden and Master of Coin, Davos as Master of Ships, and Brienne the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Bran is wheeled in just for a minute so we can hear they're missing a few officers and see Sir Podrick is in charge of pushing his chair around now, making an ambiguous comment about finding Drogon just before leaving the running of the kingdom to the council (please give me a sequel of just that!). The scene ends with Tyrion starting his famous jackass/brothel joke but we never get the punchline.

NORTH OF THE WALL

Jon arrives at the Wall, which has been repaired with wooden gates. Then the most well-done cutting of scenes together happens as we bounce between Arya getting ready for her journey west, Jon's arrival and subsequent leaving of the Wall, and Sansa's coronation as Queen of the North. We see Jon moving through the wildlings and finally, FINALLY, he pets Ghost. Arya's on a ship with a huge Stark wolf on the sails. Sansa is at Winterfell newly crowned. It all ends kind of how it started, with Jon on his horse walking north into the woods, wildlings on foot following him into the future. The scene evokes a sense of adventure unknown and reminds me of the first scenes from the pilot where we first saw the wights and Walkers in action but instead of death it's life moving through these woods now.

UPS AND DOWNS

So my main reason for breaking this all down was because I've been asked over and over what I thought of this episode. Many of you know I'm passionate about this show and even now that's it's over I'm sure I'll rewatch it many, many times again, season by season. In fact, this will probably be the first blog entry I have in "Watching Thrones Backwards; maybe it makes more sense this way?"

That being said I feel like this ending was really perfect for what they set out to do. A show based on a book series is always difficult, and Thrones lost access to the written word once the show moved past the books. I've read every single book and felt that more character development could've been done here in Seasons 7 and 8, both of which would've been better with more episodes. It felt rushed without those extra moments this story deserved but instead we got what we got. And what we got in the last episode was amazing for this series, beautifully produced, imagery leaps and bounds ahead of anything else on television, well-acted, even if not always well-written.

The biggest criticism I have was that the dive into Dani's madness was too abrupt, and such a huge deviation from her character. But her last words will haunt me for all of time. "We will break the wheel together." And they did. Jon's act was a sacrifice for both of them and gave rise to the new system of electing leaders.

Time was also my enemy in this episode, I know that it opens pretty soon after the last one because there's still fires burning but as we go through it I felt less and less certain where we were on the timeline. At the Dragonpit scene Robin Aryn was much taller, does that mean years have gone by or mere weeks? Years of Unsullied occupancy in King's Landing doesn't make sense to me but ok whatever. And at the end stuff was kind of fixed like in the Red Keep and at the wall so that must've been years certainly! But Sansa was just getting crowned so did they really wait all that time to do it? I guess I'll need to wait for GRRM to help me clear that up, hopefully in my lifetime.

My other problem was that everything was getting tied up with pretty little bows, basically going down the list and checking off all the weird bets people were making online. I could've easily told you Arya would head west of Westeros, Sam would name that book a Song of Ice and Fire, and that Tyrion would never finish his joke on screen. I say "was" though because I'd rather have all these things tied up neatly than a lot of wtf moments. We had enough of those watching this series, and this being the last episode it truly was "bittersweet" so seeing storylines get sewn shut was much nicer after I had time to really think about it all. I'm over a dozen times through this episode now and it's held up amazingly well to rewatch.

Even with all the negative criticism I absolutely loved this episode. Each scene in this final episode looked incredible, Jaime and Cersei dead in each other's arms, the dragon wings behind Dani at the Keep, Drogon melting the Throne, even Jon walking off into the woods at the end. Cinematically it was successful, thematically maybe a little less so. But it made sense in a way the Dexter or Lost finales never will. Dany succeeded in the end with breaking the wheel - Shakespearean tragedy at its finest, Tyrion is for all intents and purposes ruling as Hand, Arya stopped killing everyone, Sansa's a queen in her own right, Bran is probably warging into Drogon somewhere off screen flying about and Jon pet Ghost. Team Stark FTW I give it a solid 9 out of 10!

*Picture credits to HBO Game of Thrones*

[halekingsourwolf]

awwww Rachel now I need a pining FIC taking place in 3b/s4 in Derek's POV about the mess that was St**ia and then reasoning why Stiles actually stayed in that relationship,a nd then more people focussing on Stiles little jab "I give people the benefit of the doubt, I've given a lot of benefit to a lot of people" then Scott saying "Like Derek," and then Stiles just gave him a look and continued on in the start of S5...Like I want that explored SO SO much more because that screams a lover scorned!

There is honestly so much material for a classic pining and misunderstandings fic stretched across season four. The two just slightly missing each other over and over, grabbing hold of other people because they think they can’t have the ones they really want, because they’re not even completely sure what they do want, and they can’t let themselves think about what they’re feeling, what they’re sure they’ll never really have.

Stiles falls into a relationship while he’s still piecing himself back together, broken up by guilt and grief about the Nogitsune, and here’s this person who needs him, who he feels like he can legitimately help because the things she needs help on are pretty straightforward (like how to eat with a fork and remembering to put on clothes in public, simple things). It’s a task he can focus on, and he feels good about seeing her improve, every small victory hitting him deep.

And, yeah, hearing that he’s important and she likes him is an ego boost, when his ego, confidence, self-worth, is close to completely shattered.

…And maybe also the person he tried to reach out to, the person he thought might be able to help him with this whole guilt and grief thing, never returned his calls or texts, didn’t even bother to check in on Stiles after everything went down and… Stiles is not going to let that bother him, not going to let that break him apart because he has this new girl –– a girlfriend –– who actually wants to be around him so much she sneaks into his bedroom in the middle of the night… while he’s sleeping… and crawls into bed with him. (But that’s good, right? They’re both lonely, both need comfort and it’s not like he should object to some hot girl crawling into bed with him, right? What normal guy would object to that?)

And then of course Stiles realizes why Derek hadn’t been answering his texts, after Scott tries to text him and actually follows through by checking his loft, unlike Stiles who had just taken it as a rejection… and after that it becomes an obsession for him. Find out where Derek went. Bring Derek back. Bring Derek back alive and safe and––

And that’s just because that’s what they do, alright? They save each other’s asses, that’s their thing. And because maybe he feels guilty about not having gone to check on Derek, himself (and he has enough guilt already for a lifetime). That’s the only reason. That’s why he can’t relax or sleep or focus on his awesome new (strange, sometimes disturbing) girlfriend. But that’s fine. Once he gets Derek home, everything will be fine.

…Except then they get Derek home and it’s not fine, because Derek’s not Derek. He’s younger and more open and his jokes don’t have the same harsh edge to them and Stiles has to keep doubletaking for reasons he can’t quite make sense of, wanting to spend time with him and get to know him and… it’s just because it’s so weird, that’s why. Like, not one bit of the insane supernatural shit they’ve been through for the past year had even begun to prepare him for living out some kind of crazy kid!fic in real life with his surly sort-of-ally. And this kid’s Derek and it’s also not Derek, and it’s like seeing all these fresh new angles of him that Stiles has only gotten glimpses of before, or never expected (like holy shit, Derek’s fluent in Spanish?) and that’s why he still can’t focus on his amazing, out of his league hot (awkward and honestly sort of uncomfortable) girlfriend.

But she needs him, and he’s the only one she trusts, and she is his girlfriend, and that’s awesome, right? And once Derek’s back to being Derek again, Stiles has no real reason to keep focusing on him. It’s not like they’re close. Not like they’re friends. And if Stiles’ thoughts go back to Derek from time to time, if he ends up pinning Derek’s picture to a board in a fit of frustration with a red string on it, unsolved, it’s just because of all the weirdness about his capture and Kate’s plans for him.

Derek, meanwhile, had barely held himself together after his capture by Kate, clinging to vague and hazy (and sometimes shockingly tangible) images of Stiles all the way to Mexico. And he’d known that he cared about Stiles before that, known it since South America, honestly. It’s the reason he came back to Beacon Hills despite Cora, his last real family, having to stay away. After all the pain, the betrayals and the losses… there should have been nothing for him back in Beacon Hills.

Except there was.

KEEP READING

There was his anchor. Somehow, impossibly, over that long summer of searching for his betas, as old, familiar pulse of anger had faded away, his anchor had been replaced by that infuriating, brilliant, beautiful boy… and he hadn’t even realized it until one look into tear-filled, amber eyes had broken the Darach’s spell over him.

And now that same anchor was holding Derek together, keeping him from breaking apart completely while Kate dragged his bloodied, wolfsbane-weakened body into some ancient church……

And then Derek came back to himself two months and seven years later, to a world where Stiles smelled like a stranger.

Except it wasn’t a stranger. It took a little while for Derek to make the connection because no one bothered to tell him, but he could almost smell it on her. He could see it in the shape of her eyes, that calculating edge she got sometimes. He saw his uncle in her.

(And I think this goes to explain why Stiles never told Derek who she was… or at least, not right away, not that we saw –– because while I don’t think Stiles consciously knew and accepted his feelings for Derek, I think he’d been in love with him for a long time, and there’s a pretty common taboo about dating family members of people you’d dated before and I think that, subconsciously, Stiles just wouldn’t want to think about that connection. Wouldn’t want to risk closing that door. And it explains why Derek never really jumped on his new cousin the way we’d all expect him to, considering how he feels about family. Because as happy as he’d be to realize he had another family member, that realization would have come right along with the realization that Stiles, his anchor, the man he loved, was dating his cousin. And he wouldn’t ever do anything to ruin that, Stiles’ happiness or his cousin’s, but being around her and feeling all that, feeling that twist of jealousy and longing twisted up with the excitement of having new family? It would be complicated, and it would hurt, and he would have probably just felt better in a way to keep his distance from that.)

So then we have Derek: fresh from being abused and manipulated again by the first person in his life to have ever abused and manipulated him, discovering the person who’d held him together when he’d been captured is now holding onto someone else, finding out that he and his friends are suddenly listed as bounty for stray mercenaries to try their hands at killing… and on top of that, realizing his power, his wolf, the last thing in the world he knows he can always count on, is slowly being stripped away from him.

And then there’s Braeden. 

A mercenary –– an ally, but a potential threat in the current situation. A human who’s still strong enough to stand up against supernaturals. And a person who’s clearly attracted to him. So Derek, wanting to scrub the sensation of Kate from his skin, to pull his thoughts from jealousy and bitterness he has no real right to be feeling (Stiles was never his, Stiles was never going to be his), and realizing that giving Braeden a reason to keep him alive might save him from the threats the dead pool are pulling down on his head, goes to bed with her. And it’s not like it’s bad. Derek knows he’s attractive and knows how to use that, and Braeden’s attractive, and if he’s not going to have a happily ever after at least he’s not lying in bed alone at night, thinking about the fact that Stiles probably isn’t alone either.

And Braeden trains him, helps him be a little less useless while his powers fade. He could have gone to the Sheriff for gun training, he supposes, but that feels too close to reaching out to Stiles and he can’t bring himself to look in that direction too often. And he could go to Chris Argent but even if he more or less trusts the man now, the idea of reaching out to an Argent and revealing weaknesses still twists too sick inside him.

So there’s Braeden. It’s a good arrangement. It makes sense.

And of course Stiles sees them together and it guts him, because… because…

Well, because Derek’s romantic choices have never worked out well for any of them, that’s why. That’s why it feels like a punch to the gut when he realizes she’s staying with Derek, realizes what that means. It’s just self-preservation instincts kicking in, making him feel sick and wounded and just… irrationally angry. Except it’s not irrational. It’s completely rational.

…And then he gets back to Mexico, sees Derek bleeding out int he sand, and realizes exactly how irrational it all is.

Because he fucking loves Derek Hale. He’s fucking in love with Derek Hale. And every rationalization he’s ever given for thinking about him when he shouldn’t, for wanting to keep other people away from him, it all burns away and burns down to that one, simple fact.

He loves him. And he’s dying.

And he goes down into the church drowning in this new knowledge, every pulse of his heart pounding out the realization of everything he should have known before and everything he’ll never have. But then Derek doesn’t die, and Stiles feels like he can breathe again for a few precious seconds until he realizes Derek’s leaving.

Leaving town, for good this time. Leaving, with this new power and this new confidence and this new peace Stiles has never seen in him before… 

And this is where I wonder if Stiles did say something. If he maybe kissed him, quick and impulsive and asked him to stay… and Derek left anyway. Because he knows that even if he wants Stiles, loves Stiles, he needs to think about himself too and he can’t stay in Beacon Hills just for him anymore. And maybe that would play into Stiles’ bitterness in season five, because even if he understands Derek’s reasons, even if he knows it’s what’s best for him and is glad he’s somewhere he can maybe be happy, it still hurts.

Or maybe Stiles just thinks about doing that, flash there and gone, but doesn’t do anything. Maybe he just stays quiet, holds it inside the way Derek’s been holding his feelings inside for months now, and just lets Derek leave.

[missallycat]

Rory’s commitment issues and Logan’s proposal

I’ve been wondering around when we fans over analyze the proposal back in the end of season 7. Some of us wish she had said yes, some of us know she had to say no. So I thought I’d give it a shot and write it long to give my opinion on why Rory is still (even in the revival) a commitmentphobe and really wasn’t ready then to marry him. 

Warning: this is going to be long! ;)

I think the proposal shouldn’t have happened because the Logan Huntzberger we know and love from all the previous seasons of the show wouldn’t have proposed without discussing marriage first the two of them, he wouldn’t have proposed in front of a bunch of strange ladies from the DAR on the graduation party thrown by the grandparents, he would have made a grand gesture yes but just for them. maybe using the help of the guys of the LDB but nothing as public as it was. I think it was rushed as a way to break them up and make the focus (forcibly IMO) lay only on the girls. I think that the Logan we know and love would have asked her to go with him yes, but he’d have probably proposed later down the road because he wanted to show her the world, he wanted her to have the world and share it all with her. No matter what, he loved her more than anyone, simple as that.

I’m going to try to break down the main arguments around the proposal and the refusal of it so if you wish, keep on, it’s about to get interesting!

He said he’d go wherever she went how dare he turn the tables on her when he said he’d join her! How dare he take the job in California!

Actually they agreed they would factor each other in but in reality, as Paris pointed out, Rory wasn't willing or really ready to factor him in (”carry that thought out, would you go with him?”). Yes he said (very clearly) for this one you make your decision based on what you want. That was when she was debating between the projo or waiting for the Reston fellowship. He said clearly “if you go to New York maybe I'll go live in New York if you go to Providence maybe I'll go live in Providence”. She got neither, she was up in the air she had NO job and no nothing, no idea what to do next except apply for whatever job that would take her. She initially considered interviewing for San Francisco papers, when they were shopping for her suit with Lorelai, Rory said so, and this was before her interview with the ProJo, having the possibility of applying to the fellowship and having already scheduled the interview with the Providence Journal she was still looking so she wanted whatever paper would have her. Thing is, after she turned down the ProJo and the fellowship didn’t come through, she had nothing, she was up in the air and he got this fantastic offer. If things had been the other way around he WOULD have gone with her, but she didn't have anything! And is not like he wanted her to come and twiddle her thumbs daily until he got home from work. He wanted her with him so they could find a life together so they could work and live together in the same place. Was it so outrageous that him having a good thing and her having nothing yet, he wanted her to go and try out luck for work there in the same city, with him? Why was it only ok if Logan was the one to do that and not Rory?

He had her life already mapped and planned out for her, without even consulting her! The house, the avocado tree, the papers, he wouldn’t even consult her

He was throwing ideas up in the air, he wanted to tell her when his job was a sure thing after all her false starts he probably didn’t want her to be sad about him not getting something as she had, All those “plans” were just ideas, yes enthusiastic, impulsive ideas that perhaps he could have discussed with her first but they weren’t plans set in stone, the house wasn’t rented, the living arrangements hadn’t been decided he was throwing ideas and she had considered before wanting the fellowship in the Times, she had considered going to interviews in San Francisco, something they must have discussed, why is it such horrible thing to suggest potential jobs when she didn’t have any? She could have agreed to go to him and if the Obama thing happened he would have supported her going, who’s to say he wouldn’t? He introduced her to Hugo, he praised constantly her work, he encouraged her to write for Hugo, considering those why would he be against her getting a writing job? The Logan we knew of previous episodes even in that same season would have gone to her, would have done anything to make it work during the campaign.

He didn’t love her enough that’s why he gave her the ultimatum. Ultimatums aren’t love

I've seen these episodes more times than I can count. He loved her enough to follow her if she found her passion but she wasn't willing to follow him? I think that's what hurt him the most and drove the ultimatum, because she could have gone anywhere, she had the freedom and the possibilities yet she was so selfish because she wanted everything her own way. I love Rory, I identify with her a lot and I love that she seems more human with her flaws but fact is she is very selfish. Everyone piles this on Logan, like he's the one who should have followed her, but follow her to what? To Stars Hollow? To wait and pass on a wonderful opportunity for him just to see until she got something if she got anything and then follow her? Or be long distance with someone who wasn't willing to really even take one little step to really be committed with him? That's what prompted the ultimatum, the fact that she could have gone to him (she didn't yet have the Obama campaign) and be with him but she wasn't willing. When someone really isn't willing to commit, to take a step with you, then why continue the relationship that will probably end in resentment? She had every right to not want to marry him, and he had every right to not want to go back to a limbo to just be in a relationship that apparently had no future(she turned down marrying him she didn’t even say lets do this but lets have a long engagement, and that showed she wasn’t really thinking in a future in the practice that wasn't on her terms, she wasn't willing to commit to him as in building a life unless it was in the exact way she wanted, she wouldn't even propose an alternative because she felt, once again, lost, so she couldn't think further ahead, she said so herself, she loved him. But when Rory gets confused she loses focus and can't think things straight, and instead of reaching out to him like they usually did, she didn't say anything as an alternative. The ultimatum even though she didn't voice it, she gave it too, she had to have things her way or no way. They both loved each other, they just weren't really ready to take the long full on commitment to the practice. Yes it was kind of out of character for both but living together when you are both in the same place is easy, arranging your life to fit it with someone else's, Rory had never learned to do that. She in fact had learned to do things the other way around. Her mom was always her way or the highway, she was in many ways, her mother's daughter

She had recently withnessed her own parents marriage imploding, of course she wouldn’t think herself ready for marriage

Is not about Lorelai’s marriage, she wasn’t really in agreement with her parents even starting a relationship but she was never too vocal about it because she knew her mom was hurting because of Luke and thought she had to decide for her own happiness. Is not about Lorelai divorcing Chris because Rory was never that much “in” into her parents getting married, that’s how easily she got on Lorelai’s side. It was about Lorelai but not about Lorelai’s recent break ups. It was more about how they have always been a bit codependent with each other, they’ve always been together even when they were apart they had to know of the other, they needed to have that connection, they really don’t know how to be far from each other and still keep their relationship, Rory isn’t ready to leave Lorelai or stars hollow completely to build a life elsewhere because she can remain in her own coccoon she can remain in her own childhood where she’s the best, can do no wrong and will get whatever she wants to get. She could never handle failure too well, as she could never handle being apart from Lorelai too well... they needed each other close in order to remain “close” that’s what neither of them really learned, how to be apart and still have each other, I say this as someone who loves deeply this show and specially these two girls but Lorelai matured because of Rory, she was her guidance system because she needed to bring her up and bring her up correctly and she couldn’t have interference from anyone (that’s why Chris’ part in Rory’s bringing up ended being null) She needed Rory to be her own person, as a sort of talisman, but because she loved her child deeply she needed to feel like everything was about that child, and she also used Rory as a shield sometimes (I can’t go changing everything on Rory (even when Rory was 16 and not 6). It was Lorelai’s choice to keep Rory as her reason to be grown up but still in some aspects remain a child. Rory too needed Lorelai because she didn’t know how to be an adult on her own, how to survive without Lorelai’s constant pushing and prodding and constant even intervention. Rory saw herself already as a staffer in the NY Times, when she didn’t get the fellowship her world just caved and what would she do if not go back to her safety net? That’s stars hollow, that’s Lorelai. Rory never really grew up away from her own “neverland”, she didn’t have to and she didn’t want to.

He should have agreed to long distance or a long engagement if he really loved her he would have!

I think they needed to break up, they needed time apart, not because they didn't love each other but because that wasn't enough on her side at the time. A long engagement wouldn't have sufficed either because he didn't say let's get married today, he would have agreed to anything, a long engagement, her traveling for work, if she had been willing to make that commitment to go live and be with him. She wasn't. In the end it all comes down to the fact that they were in different points in life at that moment and love wasn't enough. They needed to break up in order to find each other again. I think they wouldn’t have lasted apart, they would have crossed paths intentionally sooner rather than later and gotten back to each other (even with the ending of the revival being what it is)

She had to think of her own career!

She rejected him. But her reason wasn’t really her career. She had no job at this point. It wasn't her career that was stopping her. It was something else. They already spent time long distance and it was hard on them both. I think him wanting her to go with him to California was the right decision for them right then at the time, considering she had nothing planned and he had a great opportunity. She couldn't even make the request of just stay together and take some time to figure things out together before being engaged but IN California. She needed to figure out what was stopping her. They needed time apart. That is what this should have been and if the show would have come back for a season 8, I think that is what would have happened. There would have been clarity and they would have found their way back together. (Despite the fact ASP wanted Rory pregnant and alone in the ending, I think perhaps we would have gotten a clearer message that they could find their way back to each other even if they were broken up in the end as planned I think we would have seen more of their love for each other as enough proof that they would come back to each other)

Rory should have said YES! She had nothing going on and the writers messed them up

Actually writers really got Rory's issues.

Going back since season 1, Rory was always afraid of deeply getting involved with someone. Lorelai said it best:

 "I'm talking about my own personal lack of commitment skills. I mean, look, I love that you have my eyes, and my coffee addiction, and my taste in music and movies, but when it comes to love and relationships. I don't necessarily want you to be like me."  

Fact is, Rory really wasn't ready to be that far away from Lorelai. She needed to communicate in that aspect with Logan. She needed to understand it herself but she always denied her own flaws because she thought she had to be perfect all the time and couldn’t accept it or bounce back easily when she came crashing with the reality that she wasn’t perfect and she wasn’t always going to get what she wanted how she wanted in the moment she wanted it. Rory is kind of emotionally dependent on Lorelai, and making Lorelai happy is how she spent her whole life. Except for when she ran and hid at her grandparents' in early season 6 when she had to sacrifice Lorelai as she made that choice. (Which I honestly think it was positive for them both, even when the circumstances weren’t the best, they needed to grow up being away from each other a bit they just couldn’t accept it)

Lorelai is this character that, love her as I do, has to have it always her way or nothing. She afterwards makes attempts to compromise, to understand, to agree, but it has to be tiring to the people in Lorelai's life (Luke waiting and leaving it all to Lorelai when he really did want to marry her, Rory just going on with whatever Lorelai wanted). And it's made Rory, emotionally, a mess.

Bottom line, to me is, Rory was right in rejecting the proposal (yes, to me she was right, as much as I love Logan) because she wasn’t ready but she was also all or nothing, she provoked Logan’s all or nothing, because for Rory, like Lorelai it had to be her way or no way, if she had told Logan a different alternative showing she was willing to commit, I think Logan would have agreed to not get engaged yet. They loved each other and they still did during the revival but they can’t really spell it out because they’re hoping the other will say their piece, but is not lack of love what separates these two. For me the revival proved that even while being in forced relationships trying to be apart from each other they just can’t, they love each other deeply but they can’t say it because he knows she is afraid of commiting to him and wants it to come from her and she knows she hurt him and is so lost she can’t yet go to him as much as she wants to.

[awed-frog]

hey! i wanted to let you know that i think your cas/stages of grief meta was absolutely amazing. cas's story never really made sense to me, it always seemed so inconsistent, like they had no idea where they were going with it, and your meta is the first i've read that made me see some central theme in it after all. so kudos for that :) just out of curiosity, you have any idea where they're going with crowley? bc his story is another one that always felt the opposite of straightforward to me.

Whats your hope for Crowleys arc on this season?

Hi! Thank you so much for all that! I am the most awful person, because not only I’m like, two months late in answering this but I’m also going to bundle it up with an anon ask. Sorry, @andallthewildthingsroared!

(I did write the overly long thing I promised you, though, so there’s that.)

I understand where you’re coming from - Crowley’s arc is sort of zigzaggy, but if you take away what was clearly bad characterization (such as that one-off threat to Sam complete with red eyes which never went anywhere), I sort of feel like we can know who Crowley is, and what he wants.

Background

So, just as a summary - we know he was a bastard, and that he had a stable enough relationship with his mother that he remembers her (not fondly), and that she up and left soon enough that it felt like she was abandoning him (eight is a bit soon to fend for yourself, even in the seventeenth century). We know he had a son, and since Gavin’s mother is never mentioned, I want to say unremarkable entity who died in childbirth? Because if this had been his great love, and if she’d survived long enough to be remembered by Gavin, I hope to God that would have been brought up in the narrative (come on). So, either Crowley didn’t give a damn about her, and got saddled with the kid for some reason, or he cared a lot and she died pretty early on and that’s possibly the reason he started being so awful to everybody (hello, John Winchester’s parallels). We also know he was a tailor, which, in those times, and for an orphan, implies either that Rowena used magic to help him out (unlikely for a number of reasons) or that he was actually a very smart, very talented kid who had to work his ass off during his apprenticeship, as was usual for the times. In this case, we’ve got someone whose life was out of his control from a very young age, and who knows what it’s like to be at a master’s whim. 

Demon deal

Now, what doesn’t fit with this picture is the idea a kid like that would sell his soul for a longer dick, as Crowley boasted to have done (also, as amusing as it is, this would be a moot point by now, since Crowley’s in a different body). What I consider more likely is that Crowley’s current vessel - the literary agent in his late forties possibly all work and all play as that job often entails - tried to make a similar deal (and that would be a reason for Crowley to stick with the body afterwards; after all, we know he’s vain and likes to sleep around, so, vessel for vessel, why not go for a bigger dong?); as for Crowley himself, I really can’t guess what happened. Gavin remembers him as a useless drunkard, and he certainly had no riches to pass on - so much so, Gavin was forced to emigrate to the Colonies. What did Crowley gain, exactly, in exchange for his soul? An intriguing possibility is that, like Dean, he took the deal to save someone else - perhaps Gavin himself from some childhood fever - and became a drunk asshole out of blind panic the closer he got to the deadline. I like this explanation, because there was always this weird pull between Crowley and Dean, and this would go a long way towards explaining it; but, really, this is one of those things it’s useless to speculate about - either the show will tell us, or it won’t.

(Another possibility I like, but which would have come up by now, is that Rowena sold her kid’s soul to pay for her own magic - a plot bunny I explored here.)

Whatever his reasons, Crowley’s time in hell took this primal lack of control over his own life and made it a thousand times worse. We still don’t know, exactly, how demons are created, how long it takes, and who decides which eyes you’ll get, and which job you’ll do. This is, like, one of the 2000 things the show could get into instead of inventing new lore (I’m not complaining, though - S11 was magnificent, and S12 has been very good so far). What we do know is that the entire process is excruciatingly painful; that it distorts, or takes away, your human soul. If we think about other soulless creatures we’ve encountered, what Crowley is makes a lot of sense. It’s not about being evil, exactly; it’s more about a lack of caring and empathy. There are moments where Crowley actually reminds me of soulless!Sam - like when he pushed Dean into Cain’s arms just because it was convenient on the short term. 

Crowley the crossroads demon

Becoming a demon is also the worst kind of punishment, we should assume, because it completely takes away your free will.

(This is not exactly true, since we’ve seen a lot of demons doing stuff on the side and betraying their masters left, right and centre - but I want to think those demons breaking ranks parallel the mess that’s going on in Heaven - that these are creatures that, under normal circumstances, ie, pre-Winchesters and pre-Apocalypse, functioned as mindless servants under a king. Like angels, demons can, theoretically, think for themselves, but I feel like they’re not designed to? Although, where the angels craved order - and orders - Crowley was hoping to get support by promising other demons ‘a say, a virgin and all the entrails they can eat’ - which means demons are perhaps not as happy as angels to give up their agency. And, well, it would make sense: they do not belong to a different species, after all. They used to be human.)

And so we’ve got the transformation from human!Crowley, indentured to some abusive master as a boy, to demon!Crowley, who’s got no choice but to follow his torturers around. Except, well, Crowley’s smart (too smart for his own good, probably) and ballsy and free will is something he cares about, very fucking much (and this is another tie to Dean). From what we know, it looks like Crowley schemed and schmoozed his way into acquiring enough weapons, knowledge, powers and secrets that he was almost part of the inner circle which was preparing for Lucifer’s return. And here is where his story gets interesting, because, to get Roman about it, “We rob the world, but he will rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, Lucifer will be rapacious; if he be poor, Lucifer will lust for dominion; he will make a desert and call it peace.”

Crowley and the Winchesters

I don’t remember if it’s ever explained why Crowley chose to bet on the Winchesters, of all people, to go against Lucifer. I think we’re meant to not question this - to assume that they’re our main characters and fierce hunters and yadda yadda, but it’s still interesting that Crowley would know them - and well, at that. I like to think they’d been on his radar from the very beginning (or, at least, that Sam was) because of Azazel’s demented scheme, and it’s certainly possible Crowley knew everything about their dealings with Hell, including Sam’s death, Dean’s self-sacrifice, and how and why he was saved. He’s been shown, after all, to be one of the most knowledgeable characters on the board, and if he’s been keeping track of the Winchesters for years and years, that would go a long way in explaining his fond exasperation for their antics. 

Now, Crowley is, of course, fascinating and interesting in himself, but what is also worth noting is that his character, like Cas’ (and perhaps even more than Cas’), is relevant in light of his relation to Dean - and Dean’s sexuality.

The first thing here is - unlike Cas, who, inevitably, had a very strong relationship with Dean from the start which made perfect narrative sense, Crowley could always go either way. It can even be argued that logically, it would have made more sense to pair him off with Sam. First of all, there’s the symmetry (Dean and his angel, Sam and his demon); then there’s the fact Crowley’s got more in common with Sam than he does with Dean - the books, the art, the interest in weird languages and weirder mythology, a general ‘the end justifies the means’ attitude - I know we now have years of backstory to influence how we view those characters, but if we take them in isolation - sure, Dean and Crowley would have fun on a night out (and we’ve seen what they do together: play pool, get drunk, sleep it off with a various number of partners of unspecified gender), but Sam and Crowley - now, that had the potential of a real friendship of the minds (as I said, forget about their history and put aside Crowley’s shady morals for a second - can’t you see how much fun they would have had to explore the Bunker’s library together? how they could have planned thefts, Leverage-style, to recover some painting stolen by an oil magnate - how they would have fought at the end, because, of course, Sam wanted to donate it to a museum and Crowley, well, was planning on keeping it, because he0d bloody well earned it?). Sam becoming friends with a demon after the whole Ruby ordeal would have been a huge bout of character growth, in line with his ‘forgive and don’t judge people by their birth’ personality. And as for Crowley, it would have made sense for him to bond with Sam rather than Dean - if only for the obvious reason: Sam could still be (potentially) his future boss. The boy with the demon blood; the only vessel that can hold Lucifer. Honestly, since Crowley never wanted to be king in the first place, it would have made perfect sense for him to seduce Sam (platonically) and then guide him to the throne - there, problem solved. He would have been chief advisor of The One Who Was Foretold, right there at Sam’s right hand to keep an eye on his every decision, and he would have known, because he would have taken the time to get to know Sam, that Sam (even as a demon king) would be a fair ruler - and, more importantly, a ruler loyal to his old friends.

It was, really, the perfect scheme - and yet the idea never came up at all. In fact, Sam and Crowley lost another momentous occasion to get closer to each other - even after Sam fed Crowley his own blood, the relationship between them remained distant at best, and hostile at worst. That always struck me as really, really weird. Sam saw Crowley at his most vulnerable, and despite being Mr Forgiveness, he continues to hate Crowley with a vengeance and the whole thing never comes up at all. Uh.

I mostly think the main reason for this is very simple: Sam ‘I desperately need my own plotline’ Winchester is straight. Very straight. Pairing him with a man would have been weird. Mirroring the relationship Dean has with Cas - weirder. The thing worked until Ruby was around, but with Crowley they would have missed a lot of juicy subtext. And so, once again and despite all odds, Dean got yet another character to add to his court, and Sam was left with nothing more than Lucifer’s mild interest in him (or, as Sam himself put it in entaglednow’s side-splitting series, “Great, you get the epic love story and I get the creepy sadomasochistic non-con.”).

(This is another reason, by the way, why their refusal to be clearer on the whole ‘Dean is bi’ issue is hurting the show: it is partly, or mostly, because they’re desperate to keep that subtext going that Dean gets all the characters - people like Charlie, or Benny, or even Jody offering him to talk in her most suave mom voice - all of these things make sense in the narrative because they’re feeding the underlying subtext. And since this is, objectively, a Big Story and the core of who Dean is, and Sam’s only stake in it would be a tragic ‘I know I said I’d die for him, but I’ll now reject my gay brother out of moral virtue’ nonsense which clearly doesn’t apply to the character, he’s left with literally nothing to do. Really - most of the story seems to gravitate around these two open secrets - Dean’s sexuality, and Dean’s love for Cas; and since, as I said, Sam’s got nothing to do with either, and no reason to be mad about either, he’s left with no narrative role. Only yesterday @tinkdw was saying how the entire myth arc of S11 doesn’t make any sense without Destiel, and she’s perfectly right; most things, for a lot of time, have been about Dean’s heart.

And I want to add that I’m not okay, or happy, with any of this. First, I think it’s dishonest to include so much subtext that it basically props up your whole narrative while denying anything’s going on; and second, Sam’s a fantastic character and there’s a lot he could do - it defies logic and reason that they’re not using him better. Like, I still can’t believe the entire God reveal was only about Dean, that we still haven’t heard how Sam feels about Lucifer being around, that he’s barely had one conversation with his mother, and that he basically has zero relationships with other characters. Come on - there’s so many awesome things you could do with someone like Sam, why aren’t they doing them? On a show that’s supposedly all about the two of them, and only the two of them?)

Crowley’s arc

By having Crowley’s represent Dean’s eros to Cas’ agape (and I want to say this is a learned reference, but I’m really just thinking about YOI right now), the main mirror for Crowley, and therefore his character arc, was firmly established. Crowley would parallel Cas - and viceversa. The journey, for both of them, is to get closer to humanity (and ‘humanity’), and what’s been fascinating is that, of course, they start off in two very different places.

As I said in the beginning, Crowley’s all about control. He’s very Scarlett O’Hara about things, and he’s got good reason to be. In this, he’s heavily paralleled with Cas, but where Cas focuses his newfound (?) free will on everything but himself - hence the Jesus-like characterization - Crowley’s most consistent character trait is his selfishness. All of his schemes, and most of his ambitions, are ultimately directed at saving himself and avoid pain and death, which, to be honest, would be sensible from anyone’s point of view but is particularly understandable if we consider we’re dealing with a soulless creature who’s got no capacity to love and has endured decades, if not centures, of torture. What is most significant about Crowley, therefore, is the same thing that makes Cas stands out: how Crowley is learning about himself, and how to become who he truly is, through his love for Dean. This is something that we discuss every other day, so I won’t get into it (see for instance the ‘drowley’ tag on my blog, or read here, here or here), but it’s clearly become a major part of his character arc. 

(His decision to sacrifice that spear to save Cas, for instance, was a huge step in this direction - selfishness to selflessness - so huge I still can’t believe I watched it with my own two eyes. It will probably be mirrored, quite soon, by Cas making a step of his own - in his case, towards selfishness, ie, the Winchesters’ happiness, and therefore his own, and away from yet another idiotic heavenly battle plan.) 

As for what will come of it - the problem with this kind of Are you truly my enemy? characters - or, well, the trouble with everything - is that there is a limited number pf ways their story can end. And, again, the problem with Crowley and where his story is going is the same problem we have with everything else - Dean, Sam, Destiel and so on: it all depends on which kind of story this is, and what they’re trying to say with it. So, let’s have a look at it.

A) Crowley could remain his slightly evil self and die because of it - this would place Supernatural in a kind of ‘moralistic’ narrative: the good guys triumph, and the bad guys pay the price.

B) Or, he could try to do the right thing and get killed in the process: that’s the definition of tragedy, which somehow works even better when a character was despicable to start with - think Last of the Mohicans, or Severus Snape. In this case, his death would likely be the first (or the last) of many other significant characters.

C) Another possibility is that Crowley could become human, and that would be both interesting and heartbreaking to watch, because we know Crowley is very ambitious, but, as I said, my headcanon is that he became wary and power-hungry because of what was done to him in Hell. After all, Dean did get a kind of special treatment, but what he went through was also the standard procedure to destroy someone’s soul - so drunken tailor Fergus was probably on the rack for decades, until the last shred of humanity left inside him burned and withered, and it’s likely that at some point he had his O'Hara moment and that’s why he always puts himself first: because he’s bloody scared shitless to be vulnerable again. In this sense, a human Crowley would be resentful and terrified - and therefore, a beautiful character to watch.

(Not that there would be anyone left to watch, since if they go there, I think they’ll do it at the last possible moment.)

D) Or, Crowley could remain a demon but shift his priorities so completely as to work with the Winchesters full-time, sort of like Cas did. Now, this would be quite something because Cas and Crowley are often paralleled, but at the same time it would put Crowley in a difficult position: I am sure Sam and Dean would fully accept him as a member of TFW only if Crowley repented and behaved like an unpstanding citizen from then on, and how is all that compatible with being the king of Hell? Plus, what would happen to the other demons? Was Crowley making more demons when he had complete control of Hell? We know he turned Hell more bureaucratic and 'punishment fits the crime’ and whatever, but his demons were still eating human flesh, and I’m not sure they can even survive without? So, well, however noble Crowley’s intentions, that would be an uneasy alliance. If Crowley remains his lovable and snarky demon self, I see more of an Eric Northman ending for him: sure, he gets his throne and all sort of pretty distractions, but he loses his Sookie forever.

E) And finally: Crowley could be killed in a freak ‘accident’, maybe by an ally of the Winchesters who didn’t know he was sort of a friend (Mary is a prime candidate), or by Cas or Sam because of the greater good, or maybe even by Dean himself - but not by choice - and that would be a sort of fridging because it would shift the meaning of his death to the damage it’d do to his killer.

Which hypothesis is more likely? 

Well: first of all, we need to bear in mind a few RL factors. They’ll probably want to keep Mark around because he’s awesome, the fans generally like him so that’s another plus, and I firmly believe they still don’t know how they want Supernatural to end (or even what the next season’s theme is going to be) so a character like Crowley is a godsend, because when weird shit needs to happen or you suddenly need drama or whatever, you can always count on someone like that to make it happen (and that’s another reason why I don’t think Crowley will become human any time soon: it would severely limit the weird shit they can pull off) - which means, it’s likely they’ll keep him around for a while. And also: his death would bring nothing, narratively, to the table. For instance, John’s death and Bobby’s death sort of made sense, because the boys had some growing up to do, and killing someone like Cain or defeating Lucifer was important because it told us our boys are on the Good side even when it’s difficult, but now we know all this. 

To me - if we’re looking at the very end, there are only two ways this makes sense: either Crowley is killed off, or sacrifices himself, in some heartwrenching scenario so that his death will mean Cas or Dean or even Sam lives, or he becomes human - my headcanon is that he’ll still know how to do magic, because I’m a sucker for magician!Crowley - and walks away from the boys entirely. If Supernatural ends in tragedy, then it’s the first option all the way; but if its end is more like, there are no more monsters and you’re now free to open a car repair shop, then it only makes sense that both Cas and Crowley become human. Cas will be the sort of human who still stares up at the sky from time to time and will lie to Dean when Dean asks and say it’s okay (hopefully, Dean won’t believe a word of it and kiss him extra hard that night), and Crowley - Crowley likes to be the centre of attention, so I’m thinking politics. Or maybe he’ll hoodwink his way to the very top of a renowned auction house and meet some wealthy widow at his local golf club, and that will be it - a sort of happy ending, and the occasional drunk call to Dean to reminisce about that happy, happy summer they once had.

[punkscowardschampions]

Jimmy & Janis

Planning a romantic weekend away

Jimmy: Gracie came at me earlier. There was mistletoe up and I near fully hit the floor 😎 Jimmy: Hold fire though. She only wanted to tell me to convince you of summat. Pretty sure you already know what it is Janis: Erm...Father Christmas is really real? That her weave isn't from dead Brazilian hookers? Janis: Enlighten me or I'll tell her she's got a holiday free pass on you 😈 Jimmy: Double date. Need I say more 😡 Janis: FUCK. I DIDN'T THINK IT'D ACTUALLY HAPPEN. Janis: How far does she expect the season of goodwill to extend, like? Already got some poor cunt being a charitable home for her arse so she don't freeze Janis: Single tear. Janis: Question is, can we make it worth it enough for us to endure that shite? Hmm Jimmy: I almost got my arse to church so it wouldn't. Shoulda sucked off that priest when he asked. Too late? Jimmy: You better get me a top notch pressie, baby 😏 Janis: You know you ain't on the nice list 😉 Janis: So, Santa might be dissing but you'll be getting something extra special from me Janis: As for God, and his holly jolly perverted following, I reckon we're both shit out of 🍀 there, no matter how good our head game is, such is life Janis: Grah, I hear she does shoutouts now...want that 'influencer' clout, baby? Not double entendre my end but might be for GracieGuru 🙊😂 Jimmy: what the fuck we going to do then? No way I'm hanging with her and her latest 'boo boy' Jimmy: Even if I was getting paid, which is likely since she just loves common grounds Janis: Preaching to the choir, dickhead, ain't my idea of a good time either, or hers let's be fucking real. She just wants to dry-hump a slab of boy in front of you on the off chance that really gets you going for her Janis: You wouldn't call her brainy, bless Janis: Idk, don't worry about it, Jim. Just avoid her/the flat whites like the plague and I'll have to literally run away like I'm an angsty 12 year old so we can't be located, even with friend finder or whatever they stalk each other with Janis: Oooh! Just call me brains, we should pretend to have a romantic weekend away planned, that'll send her over the edge, that is her everything goals Janis: Like I said, I can hide from a hoe Jimmy: I knew there was a reason I kept you about Jimmy: Let's do it though. Easier to take than fake the 'gram Jimmy: Any ideas? 🤔 Jimmy: Most of my boltholes are far from yours and not very enviable for that crowd #it'sgrimupnorth Janis: Yeah, why do you tbh? Janis: Now its clear my sister has got no respect for anyone on her hunt for dick/self-esteem Janis: She's hoping its a twofer like Janis: I don't know if I can stand you for that long, darling Janis: But I SUPPOSE your the lesser of two evils here 😉 Jimmy: It's love 💕 Jimmy: Come on, it'll be a laff. I'll get the beers in Jimmy: You can try harder to beat me at darts and pool Janis: As far as the adoring fans/salty haterz are concerned Janis: and that's all that matters Janis: bitch i don't have to try! 😤 you put me off last time with ur mooning 😍 Janis: we don't need to convince the old fellas in the boozer Jimmy: Fuck off I was getting practice in! Jimmy: If you're ready to fake a break up say the word but until then, it takes a lot of work to give you the puppy dog eyes. I'm not Twix Janis: Sure you was 😂 Janis: N'awwh but you do it so well! Janis: Audition for the School play whilst ur at it, soft lad Jimmy: I do enough fake snogging without signing myself up for that bollocks Jimmy: You coming away with me then or not? Jimmy: You know your sister'll be in again nagging before shift's end Janis: Well, when you put it like that Janis: 😒 Janis: I ain't got nothing better to do, and I certainly ain't third wheeling her fake date Janis: My grandparents got a place down skerries Janis: we can crash there Jimmy: How many rooms they got? My dad's working so I'll have to bring the ramble with Jimmy: #goals I know Janis: Fucking hell, my pissing sister! She owes you more than she's spending on coffee for the hassle she's causing Janis: If you really can't, don't worry, I'll sort her. She'll be unbearable when she finds out it was all for a laugh but it was at her expense so how much of a mug can she actually make me feel? 😑 Janis: That said, there's 3 rooms, its only a caravan don't get excited but the kids would probably be buzzin', it is pretty nice down there Janis: I'll even let you have the double bed to yourself Janis: ol Janis: l Jimmy: It'll stop them nagging me about going somewhere other than the park that'll do me Jimmy: Cass talks big but she isn't even really so doable Jimmy: Don't be getting any ideas though 😍😉 my brother hasn't slept well since we moved. I'll be sharing that double like it or not Jimmy: What a way to spend my first proper time off since I started #blessed Janis: Yeah, fish and chips on the beach even tho its fucking baltic, chasing Twix will keep 'em warm, you'll earn major big brother points as well as bae ones Janis: What a mighty fine man Janis: Same here, Cass. Shh about it though Janis: Like you said, it'll be a laugh, we can make it one Janis: You'd really rather be making pinkity drinkidies or whatever the fuck they are? Jimmy: Nope. But your 1st romantic break usually is. Any talent there is in all grans playing bingo? Jimmy: Be nice to get something off the 'gram 💋 Janis: I ain't been since I was about 9 Janis: I wasn't after bitches then and I ain't now Janis: I wish you luck, 2 kids hanging on your arm and a woman back home, like Janis: Does it for some. Jimmy: I'd do some talking first to get things clear I'm not tall Tammy 😂 Jimmy: Bet you were a right cute kid, weren't you? Aww Janis: Again, have fun explaining that one, mate. I'd struggle with the concept and I'm in on it. Janis: Adorable. What happened? Jimmy: Shut up you know what you look like, mate Janis: A butch lezza? Janis: So I've been told 👍 Jimmy: That's not what they are saying anymore. Check my comments sometime. The lads are gagging for you now Janis: Goody gumdrops. Janis: I'll leave my knickers at the door, like Jimmy: You could like. I've been waiting for you to drop me as your fake bf since this whole thing started Janis: I'm not interested in any of them. Janis: Would your world be set alight by Aaron O'Reilly from form? Janis: If you wanna cop off with some of your fans don't let me stop you Jimmy: You aren't. They're not my type anymore than Aaron's yours. I'm just saying you take a crackin pic and I should know since I'm the one takin 'em. So you don't need to spout that crap. They're just jealous of how much of a butch lezza you aren't Janis: Alright. Well, you're not half bad at taking snaps, and not in the bullshit way every hoe thinks they know their angles and magic lighting these days, you're actually decent. Janis: It don't feel like crap when Janis: blah, meant to delete that, ignore it Jimmy: 🤐 Jimmy: Wanna help me with my art project while we're away then? Kill all the birds (hopefully not with my flash) Jimmy: I'll owe you again Janis: I won't even joke on you for being a swot 🤓🤞 Janis: What've you got planned? Jimmy: I haven't had any time to think yet beyond film being the medium but Jimmy: #workinprogress Jimmy: with a muse like you m'dear how could I go wrong 💕 Janis: 😜 Janis: just so you know, i ain't bringing any homework but put my name or yours, yeah? 😘 not even in art but might count for something Janis: clue me in tho, brainiac, what do the kiddos like? i'll get 'em something Jimmy: Rookie mistake mate, art's an easy A Jimmy: They'll take anything covered in sugar. Can't say I'll love you for it when they crash mid journey though Janis: Only 'cos you're good at it. With my genes I should be but I can barely draw a stickman. Janis: I'll stick with double sports, sports science and science 👌 Janis: I'll keep sweets in stock for bribery, goes without sayin'! Different pocket to Twix' fish treats, though Janis: I'll have a look down town Jimmy: 😂 did you see that article doin the rounds about the mum who bought her kid a cat's advent calendar Janis: 😂 Yes! Shame catnip don't work like on us like it does cats, that kid would be pingin' Janis: Might get meself some, like Jimmy: What gets dogs off their heads? I'll keep Twix well clear Jimmy: She's high enough on your 😍 Janis: I don't know, actually...telling them they're good bois? Janis: Works for you boo 😘 Jimmy: I prefer being called a very bad boy 😎 Janis: You clown 😂 Janis: Good to know, suppose. Dirty weekend away though it ain't Jimmy: what our fans don't know won't break their jealous hearts Jimmy: you coming in for your freebies today or shall I do a delivery your way once Grace is home? 😉 Janis: Kick it really cliche and be my sexy delivery boy Janis: Try and bring something with sausage in so I can come at you with the quality porn writing Jimmy: Live your fantasies as well as your sister's if you want, my name tag says Jonathon today Janis: Ooh, spicing it up with some roleplay like we're middle-aged okay Janis: How boring are you that you've picked a name so similar to your own...this is why we've hit a dry patch, Jimothy! Jimmy: What would you seriously pick? Janis: For you? Janis: Who's a fittie... Janis: Anthony Joshua could get it Janis: You don't want to be in the play but reckon you can stretch to that? Jimmy: Next time I lose my name tag I'll insist on that. For the bae 💕 Jimmy: About as close as I'll get I think Janis: Who do you want? Janis: I wanna know your type Janis: Bar Tall Tammy Jimmy: Your sister obviously Janis: Fuck off, not even funny Janis: If that were true, you know where she lives bitch, I ain't stopping ya, she's practically shoe-horning you in 🤢 Jimmy: I meant the fit older one 😉 Janis: Ohhh Janis: Still, do one 🖕 I'm not pretending to be my sister you freak Jimmy: That's one pretense too far. Got it 😂 Janis: Yeah, in this hypothetical you've really shit the bed, pal. Jimmy: I only half read that because #customers and thought you called me shit in bed mate Janis: well... 😏 Jimmy: I fake rocked your world Janis Cavante! 😂 Janis: you know we faked it so i didn't have to fake it 💅 Jimmy: Aaron O'Reilly's walking through the door want me to slip him your number and end this? 😝 Janis: I will murder you. Janis: also he might think your trying to set up a threeway for YOUR benefit, so if you wanna take over the gay rumours that bad, go for it 💋🍆 Jimmy: I've seen you with a pool cue I think I'm safe Jimmy: Give a shit. At least I actually am butch Janis: Psh, you're all show no grow Janis: We're arm wrestling, then you'll see Jimmy: 💪 I'll beat you at that too then, shall I? 🏆 Janis: Bring it on. I won't make you cry too hard, save face in front of the kiddos. Janis: 'Let' them kick your arse too 😜 Jimmy: Try it, baby girl 😝 Jimmy: Cass probs could no lie. Scrappy af that one Janis: Good girl 👍 Janis: Gotta keep you in check Jimmy: Doubt you'll be calling her that when she's shadowed you all weekend Jimmy: She loves you. Who knows why? Janis: I keep telling you I'm a delight Janis: Has this...how long has it been? Month, 2? Of SHEER BLISS taught you nothing Janis: Ruuuuude. Jimmy: Nope. I'm with Team Bobby. You're a gross meanie Jimmy: As all girls are 😂 Janis: Well I'm winning Bobby 'round this weekend by hook or by crook Janis: then you can please yourself, billy no mates Janis: Team Janis 💪 Jimmy: Every bro knows you can't be friends with your girl Jimmy: DUH Janis: Oh yeah, all straight couples HATE each other and that's #goals Janis: If I can't be chatting shit on you, how will I get to talk about you constantly to my gals? Janis: Singing your praises? I THINK NOT Jimmy: Speaking of, Gracie and co are back on the premise that Tall Tammy left her....something. I wasn't listening. Should I break the news we won't be here for date night or do you want to do the honors Janis: Dignity? That's long gone, honey. Janis: Ooh, lemme do it, you're coming round with the sausage anyway Janis: We can do it together baby Jimmy: awhhh Jimmy: I've hidden the mistletoe but she can see the top of the highest counters!! I'm on borrowed time what do I do? Janis: Headbutt her in the teeth Janis: 'Accidentally' Janis: Can't help being a normal-sized human Jimmy: #customerservice Jimmy: then recommend her our chewy cookies 😂 Janis: You can see why I'm not trying to be your work wifey too, yeah? 😂 Janis: If you can convince any of those girls to break their diet, I'll be impressed Janis: Don't count if they go vom in the bogs after tho Jimmy: Gracie might be on her way already. One of her posse asked what you were getting me for Christmas and I didn't hold back Janis: Oh no, am I about to get slut-shamed? 😲 Janis: Or, heaven forfend, tips Janis: I will die Jimmy: Damn I didn't think of that. Sorry Janis: Its cool Janis: She's all mouth anyway, not in a beneficial to the cause way Janis: Be interesting hearing what she thinks you want, keep ya posted lol Jimmy: 🙌 Can't wait Janis: that's what you're meant to say about my present! Jimmy: I did, swear 🤞 Janis: what do you actually want Jimmy: Don't worry about it Janis: Oh, is it? If I'm not fucking your brains out you're not interested Janis: Fine then, save my reddies. 👍 Jimmy: That's what I was thinking. Stage a break up before �� for max drama and min spends Janis: Cool. If you wanna. Janis: Just don't tell everyone you chucked me 'cos I wouldn't give it up. Already a frigit. Janis: What's the story then? Jimmy: Obviously not. We've been hooking up for ages got to keep it #goals Jimmy: I don't know haven't thought that far ahead it just makes sense to get out before gifting Janis: Yeah. Fair. Janis: Think on and let me know Jimmy: You too. We can brainstorm at the weekend. Nothing but time then Jimmy: Can't break up right after the break though Janis: Would look sus, yeah. Janis: Maybe I'll whup you one too many times, your fragile male ego can't hack it, eh? Jimmy: Grace'd be smug 😩 Jimmy: Can't even fake that, babe Jimmy: Nobody'd believe the story Janis: She's gonna be regardless Janis: I got the shitty end of the stick here like but ain't nowt we can do about it now Janis: 🙄 Jimmy: No we're goals we just burned too bright that's all 😂 Jimmy: You've got way more time served with me than she does any of her boos she doesn't win Janis: Mhmm. Calm down, Icarus. Sure you'll be comparing some other bint on a balcony to the sun in no time. 😘 Janis: Suppose so. Least hers are real, if not short-lived, and, well, shit. Janis: She won't know the difference anyway Jimmy: There's nobody like you 💕 Jimmy: Exactly I'm not going to tell her we weren't real Janis: Bullshit 💕 Janis: True enough, I'll take it. Jimmy: Shit gotta go the boss is back Jimmy: Love you 💕 Janis: Love you too, Jonathon 💕