#it has been brought to my awareness that i can in fact compromise

[hazmatmaid]

hey so what if...

[felassan]

David Gaider on Zevran, under a cut for length:

"I was going to skip over Zevran, honestly, as I felt like I didn't have a lot to tell in the way of stories about him... but I know he still has some (ardent) fans. Plus, on reflection, I thought maybe I DO have a few things to say. 😅 Sooo we'll see how this goes. Zevran came along much later in the DAO process, as we were trying to round out the cast of party members. Alistair and Morrigan were well underway (as "main" characters, they were concepted very early) and I'd just started to consider who our Rogue followers might be when... things changed, a bit. See, BioWare had released a game not long beforehand called Jade Empire. It had included some same-sex options in its romances - not obscured like the way Juhani's "romance" had been hinted at in KotOR, but explicit. To this day, I have no idea who on the Jade Empire team was behind it, or why. More to the point, the same-sex options had received a lot of attention and praise - almost universal praise, in fact. In 2005, everyone was just pleasantly surprised. And I don't recall if I went to James and asked about it or if he came to me to suggest DAO should include it. The latter, I think."

"You might ask "Aren't you gay, Dave? Weren't you already pushing for this?" And the answer to that is, emphatically, "no, not at all". It might seem odd looking through the lens of 2024, but there was no talk of 'representation' or 'diversity'. Not at any level where we were aware of it, anyhow. Today, fans argue about how MUCH representation to include and whether it's done well enough... the idea that, less than twenty years ago, it being included *at all* was very much in doubt feels so far away. But, back then, I'd always assumed my private life and my work in games would never meet. So I think it was James who brought it up, because I remember being startled. Pleasantly so, of course. Now I had to look at our two rogues and figure out how this would apply. I sketched out the female of the two (who was taken on by Sheryl Chee) and then looked at the male - he who became Zevran. I'd been reading about the CIA and one thing that stuck with me was how they'd (allegedly) recruit gay men as assassins because they rarely had familial ties. Zevran wasn't going to be gay (bisexuality wasn't a question of representation, but a cost-benefit compromise) but that was the inspiration."

"Then there was the question of how "flamboyantly" I was writing this character, whether that might be too stereotypical? I don't remember how it arose, but I had too many "flamboyant" friends to do anything other than double down. This character was gonna be Zorro the goddamn Gay Blade, that's what. So that's how Zevran happened. Fun, a bit nihilistic, maybe a bit too overtly flirty for today's audience but very confidently *sexual*. Everything I'm not, so I'll admit it was an interesting exploration to dig down and find that voice somewhere inside. He was the anti-Alistair, and I needed that. Casting him was difficult. Caroline always tried to go for authentic accents, when we could, but for some reason this was getting us nowhere. I think back, and I suspect it's because I hadn't yet learned the lesson to not use terms in casting descriptions I thought were universal... but were not. What do I mean by that? Well, there was one write-up that said "drow elf". Now, I know what a drow elf is. It wasn't even important to the description, but the director saw the word "elf", and you know what we got back? A Keebler elf. Like a leprachaun, high and sweet and cutsie. Can you imagine?"

"In this case, I think it was the use of the word "assassin". Combine that with the sorts of roles many Hispanic actors in LA probably are asked to play, and all the auditions we were getting were 150% dark, mean, and gritty. 🫠 So we widened the casting call a bit, and this led us to Jon Curry. I knew Jon wasn't Hispanic, but what I wasn't prepared for when I flew down to meet the DAO actors was that he's this extremely tall, extremely Nordic looking dude who just happened to do the most amazing Antonio Banderas impression. Watching THAT man channel Zevran was... more than a bit surreal. 😅 And he had fun with it. As soon as we gave him the go ahead to play the fun and flirtiness to the hilt, that's exactly what he did. Over the few days where we found Zevran's voice, it totally supplied me with something I could hold in my head when I went back to Edmonton and finished writing him. Zevran was funny enough that the fans liked him. The only part of the reception I thought odd was the occasional comment by a male player who felt "tricked" into having sex with Zevran. "You mean... that part where he invites you to his tent for a sensual massage?" "Yes! I was expecting a massage!" "He literally says the massage is sensual." "Well he wasn't clear enough!" This is where I first came to the conclusion that a certain number of our players just don't know how to people. And that maybe an adjustment to the way we approached the messaging (or massaging lol) of romance was in order. If I could go back, would I change anything? Maybe I'd remind the systems team Zevran should really be able to pick a lock. And maybe not allow him to die. We had no idea we'd need to import these choices into the future - we kinda thought DAO was "one and done". Not so much, as it turned out. 😁"

[source thread]

David Gaider: "there's something to be said about how Zevran flirted and even had sex with you because he thought that's all he had to offer... not just you, but anyone. And when he realized you wanted something deeper, suddenly he was on unsteady ground and it truly unsettled him. It was fun to explore." [source]

User: "So David - besides loving the fact that the third image you picked is a gay sex scene - what happened in DA2(DAE - come on) with Zevrans design?" David Gaider: "Check the ALT text. It wasn’t a custom sculpt, so that’s as close as they could get it. Which… was not close." [source]

User: "Just to make sure I fully understand: the director (was it the voice director?) saw the word "elf" and thought you were looking for someone high, sweet, and cutesie?" David Gaider: "Yeah, this was from back before we managed VO in-house. The voice director in this case just didn’t have an association with “elf” like some familiar with fantasy would." [source]

[brokenhardies]

DESCENDANTS PLOT BUNNIES

so i was inspired by @daughter-of-melpomene to make some official summaries of my descendants plot bunnies/story concepts! its mainly linked to the brat series, but also has a pair of stories that have been living in my head for a while

Keziah, daughter of Emperor Kuzco and Empress Melina, Carlos ship, Isabel Merced FC. The protagonist of the brat series, member of the Auradon High Drama Club and a loudmouth gossip with a flair for the dramatics. Due to being next in line for the throne - and not wanting a similar situation to what happened to Kuzco to happen - Melina begged Adam to bring Keziah into Auradon, in spite of her lineage not being recognised there. Keziah sees the VKs arrival into Auradon as a great way to get more members into the fledgling drama club, and winds up picking Carlos completely by coincidence mostly due to him being the one to bump into her first. Later, due to her minor knowledge on potions thanks to Yzma, she recognises that the VKs have basically drugged Ben, but chooses to keep it a secret to keep Carlos safe (not realising that she has a major crush on him and he has a similar one on her)

Kendra, daughter of Kenai and Nita, Anna Lambe FC. A member of the Auradon High Drama Club and Keziah's best friend - mostly due to both feeling like outcasts to the culture of Auradon due to coming from outside of the area. Kendra was accepted into Auradon as a compromise from King Beast, after Kenai and Nita discovered that Kenai's brother Denahi was going to be sent to the Isle of the Lost as punishment for trying to kill Kenai - basically Kendra was brought to Auradon in order to keep Denahi from being classified as a villain. Kendra is - by technicality - a 'bear-shifter', being able to transform at will if she needs be thanks to the influence of the Great Spirits on her family line, but has enhanced speed and strength in her humanoid form and can communicate with animals, a trait that works quite well with her job working at the rescue shelter that Duke comes from. Kendra's also an activist, constantly running into problems that she wants to fix, and is one of the main voices trying to get other VKs off of the Isle of the Lost due to her own experience nearly losing her uncle

Neveah Maldonia, daughter of Tiana and Naveen, Kiana Maderia FC. Brought to Auradon on a 'princess' scholarship from New Orleans, Kiana is a member of the Auradon High Drama Club and is close friends with Keziah and Kendra. She's often the voice of reason between Keziah's overdramatic nature and Kendra's stubbornness, however, she can be a bit of a workaholic, much like her mom. She's well aware that she was mostly brought in due to her dad's role as prince of Maldonia - which she isn't due to him basically giving up the throne to his 6 year old younger brother to live in New Orleans with Tiana - so she makes up for it by working her ass off, doing multiple extracurriculars, and even being cool with Keziah bringing in a VK to the Drama Club as she treats it like a 'rehabilitation program' that will be good on her resume. She's also really good at baking, and tends to bring in treats for the club - which was how Keziah pretty much bribed Carlos to stick around

Hadley Hearts, daughter of the Queen of Hearts, Mal ship, Madison Davenport FC. Older sister of Red and eldest daughter of the Queen of Hearts, Hadley was brought to the Isle as punishment by her mother for not wanting to become Queen of Wonderland. Much like her sister, Hadley is rebellious and free-spirited, wanting to get a chance away from her mother to become stronger and more independent, minus her mother's smothering nature. While on the Isle, Hadley befriended Uma and Mal, actually dating Mal for a few years until they had a nasty break up that also involved Harry Hook. When Mal returns to the Isle in order to save Ben from Uma's crew, Hadley's feelings for Mal start to come bubbling back to the surface, in spite of the fact that she and Ben are 'on a break'. They get back together, with Ben instead getting with Uma between Descendants 2 and 3

Ruby Hood, daughter of Robin Hood, Evie ship, Luca Hollestelle FC. Originally from the Sherwood Forest, Ruby and her parents were forcibly moved from their fey home to Auradon when she was a child after Belle and Beast were married. In spite of feeling displaced from her original home, Ruby befriended Ben and the pair became quite close, with Ruby acting as Ben's bodyguard and confidant in the lead-up to his coronation. She's very mature and kind-hearted, with a love for animals and mischief, often throwing little, harmless pranks in order to pass the time, and frequently getting away with them due to Ben vouching for her. Unfortunately, this hits a slight snag when she meets Evie, and because her way of showing love is relentless pranking, she tries to get Chad 'out of the picture' by humiliating him, which many blame on Evie due to her being a VK. They eventually start dating, mostly due to Evie publicly calling out Chad for using her for her intelligence instead of actually being in love with her, and them getting together at the coronation

Taglist

@darth-caillic​ @sterling-writes​ @divatoxx​ @reirvival​ @arrthurpendragon​ @foxesandmagic @eddysocs @superspookyjanelle (want to be added or removed? send an ask or a dm!)

[idyllanth]

Proviso, the MVP of every Trading Post around, actually fills an interesting niche in Arknights worldbuilding.

She has a unique position in the context of the overall Kazimierz narrative, a playable character that's neither a knight nor knight-adjacent but rather purely in the business side of things as a lawyer. Her introduction to the story gives another perspective to life in capitalist Kazimierz, particularly the dynamics of its industries.

In my reading, Proviso has always been an idealistic sort of person, but the capitalist ethos of Kazimierz and the way it treats justice had effectively shackled her from acting on her ideals. She's not really a "bad guy" if only rendered morally gray, because the system of justice and capitalism in Kazimierz puts much value to winning regardless of ethical cost. Her character struggle has been her being complicit to this system while trying to do right for the wrongs that she enables, ultimately being someone who works as a lawyer to make a living and, after which, to make amends.

This idealism is particularly represented in her OpRec, in the parts of the narrative regarding her thesis, which was recommended revisions in-universe:

But when the topic of "justice" is brought up, as well as when seeking any kind of deontological ethical foothold in Kazimierz's current legal system, we must consider the ever-encroaching, foundational influence that capitalism has on the values of the general public... —Excerpts from Deszcz's graduation thesis, "The Conflict, Reconciliation, and Imagined Future of Kazimierz's Present Legislature with Regards to Trade Capital"

Throughout her OpRec, her Vignette story, and character files, Proviso is frequently shown trying to do right for the people(s) that she essentially wrongs as the opposing counsel. Regardless, she willingly participates in the charade of due process because, of course, it's her job. Perhaps one can say that a particular effect of the Kazamierzan capitalist ethos is an emphasis on the value of winning and profit; and to make a living, Proviso is forced to comply to this system. This, of course, leaves her ultimately jaded in her life and in her beliefs.

The courtroom is a place of victory and defeat. Both sides submit their evidence, and their disputes are arbitrated within the confines of the law. I never expected to find any justice in that process, but when the law can be freely trampled on by capitalism, being a lawyer gets real boring, don't you think? —Proviso, Talk after Promotion 2

It can be said the Proviso herself is a victim of the capitalist structure of Kazimierz, as she effectively feels forced to compromise on her ideals. As she represents and pursues victory for perhaps less-than-noble entities, what she can only do is find her own ways to make up for it after the fact as seen in her files and stories, where she donates her earnings (Archive File 2) and she gives a tip to the opposition through means that could get her disbarred (Vignette). Nevertheless, she is not blind to her own nature and how what she enables is ultimately not a noble, "proper" justice. Here are two separate conversations in her vignette that show this self-awareness:

Młynar: I don't need to hear yet another story of a lawyer seeking to right the world's wrongs. Deszcz: Righting the world's wrongs? I certainly wouldn't say that... This is just my job.

and

Deszcz: And here I was thinking a well-intentioned lawyer representing these poor villagers would look down on a firm that specializes in corporate clients. Hamm: No, I've never thought like that... A lawyer's job is to fight for their clients, no matter who they are. There's nothing I can say to that. Deszcz: Even if it's to help large corporations squeeze out innocent and helpless civilians? There's no justice in that, is there?

Her joining Rhodes Island was a significant development to her character—it reflects a change within her from being resigned and complicit to the status quo, to instead desiring to be part of something bigger that has more tangible power to affect systemic change, being in a better position to act on the justice she holds. Her character doesn't actually develop much beyond this due to her latest appearance in the chronology being her vignette, which should be prior to her joining RI, and that's fine. Her still being a meticulous, rules-lawyering victory-at-all-costs woman stays true to her character within the context of the narrative—she was a lawyer within the ruthless, capitalist Kazimierzian justice system, and her position as a lawyer within the concept of due process meant her duty was to represent the legal rights of a person or entity, regardless guilt and morality. This time, though, she is working for a company that, in her eyes, is trying to do good and would be a better platform for her to act on her ideals.

Another interesting tidbit: stars were a particularly consistent symbol used in stories and writeups related to Proviso's character. To enumerate:

In her character files, she mentions giving up her old job in Longrein because "she saw the stars"

In her Vignette story (which is literally named Only the Stars), she wonders where the stars of Libra are. This is likely the actual point in time for the previous bullet.

In her OpRec, she says, "No one can see the stars above until all the neon lights are turned off."

There's a strong argument to say that the stars are representative to the sense of justice and ideals that she had lost. This symbolism also works with her line in her OpRec, as the very neon lights of the Kazimierz skyline had polluted the skies and leave no stars to be seen, which is a clear metaphor for how the capitalist nature of Kazimierz had devoured the justice she had once stood for. It is only after the events of the Kazmierz Major (throughout Maria Nearl and Near Light) that she finally saw the stars again, gaining an interest in RI and inspired to live her life anew.

[dr-futbol-blog]

The Hive, Pt. 13

On the hive, we find Sheppard standing by the door or the cell still with his back to the room and the young woman sharing it with him. It does not seem as though the two of them have been engaged in conversation since the last we saw them, and it appears to be the fact that he has exhausted every other option, he has gone through every possible thought and is scraping the bottom of the barrel that makes Sheppard now ask her a question. He does not turn his body toward her, however, and does not even seem to look at her a he speaks.

Sheppard: Do you have anything sharp? Knife, hairpin, anything that would puncture the skin on these walls. Neera: No. Sheppard: It's just that everyone in my last cell had one, so...

Engaging people with questions is a sign of attraction. But the questions should pertain to the object of attraction because the attracted is interested in learning about the object of his attraction. Sheppard asks if she has anything he could use to break them out, and this is not a question about her. He is not asking because he wants to know if she has anything sharp, he is asking if she has anything sharp. There is a clear difference here. Sheppard has not nor is he going to ask her any questions about her, designed to find out something about her, of getting to know her, of showing interest in her.

Back when he had first regained consciousness, Sheppard had not even asked her name, he had not asked who she was, and Ford had volunteered the information to him. Sheppard, that is, simply does not seem to be interested in her or getting to know her, his main concern is getting out of the cell. And note that he starts with knife and then mentions hairpin, showing us again how to Sheppard men and women are essentially the same. As a matter of fact, since we saw Ronon take one of the knives out of his hair, it seems as though in his last cell someone had been using a knife as a hairpin. Also note that as he confesses to having been thinking about everyone in his last cell having had knives, he is also telling us that he had been thinking about McKay. Like he had told them, the last time he had been in one of these things McKay had cut into the wall. He remembered that. He had been remembering it.

Neera: Your people were taken by the wraith too? Sheppard: A few. Neera: My whole world was destroyed, and my people taken and brought here. I watched as my own mother and younger brother were fed upon.

Because Sheppard finally engaged her, Neera take the opportunity and steps forward, gets closer to him. Where he may not have been interested in asking her personal questions, she is curious about him, her entire MO is getting information out of him. She tries an age-old tactic: finding common ground. If she can find something that they have in common, it will be easier to get him to be sympathetic toward her. In an attempt at relating to him she asks him a personal question that is also probing for strategic information, and Sheppard seems to get that. Or at the very least, meeting an attractive woman is not enough for him to start revealing tactical intelligence. As an officer, he would be aware of how honeypots are used to compromise targets. As a recently promoted officer that is not straight, he would be even more keenly aware of the use of compromat and blackmail by hostiles and adversaries to jeopardize officers. What ever he thought about her at this time, he was never going to let slip information that might compromise Atlantis or Earth. Her sob story, designed to make him feel sorry for her, was not going to change that.

Sheppard: Sorry to hear that. Neera: We had no means to fight the wraith. We are a simple, peaceful people. Sheppard: We're peaceful too, but the good news is, we have the means to put up a hell of a fight.

Although this human woman was working for the wraith, seemingly voluntarily, it does not mean that what she tells Sheppard here could not also be the truth. It is possible that her world had been destroyed, that she watched her loved ones die, and that she still made the decision to work for the wraith in exchange of her own survival. On the other hand, she may have sold out her world to save herself, we have no way of knowing. And it does not matter because regardless of her past, she is using the story to elicit sympathy from Sheppard. And although Sheppard does not tell her that he is sorry it happened to her, he does at least tell her that he is sorry to hear it.

He is sorry to hear it because regardless of what may or may not have happened to this woman, there were countless of worlds that had suffered the same fate after he had caused the wraith to wake up before their time. He had spent a night in a jumper with Teyla in Letters from Pegasus (S01E17), watching a planet get culled while being helpless to do anything to stop it, and that had just been one world. He blamed himself for all of it, for what had happened to this woman and to her mother and to her brother and to her world. It was all on him, and he was sorry to hear it, and he could not be thinking about all of that right now. He had to focus on getting out because his whole world was waiting for him on Ford's planet.

The best thing that he has to offer her is revenge, and so he does. He couches it in delivering peace, which is the mission statement of the US Military broadly, and which might make what he intends to communicate more palatable to a woman that should be frightened and traumatized--she might be all of that even if she had chosen to work for the wraith voluntarily--but that is the essence of what he is saying. Because he wanted peace he had come prepared for war, as the old adage goes. And both the US and the Earth in general were real good when it came to fighting wars. The First World had been engaged in some kind of a war non-stop ever since the Ancients had left the first time, and recently they had even started waging wars with other galaxies. And if Sheppard was aware of what the woman was by this time, this was a message that he wanted the wraith queen to hear.

Neera: You have fought the wraith before? Sheppard: Lots of times. Won some battles; lost some. War's not over by a long shot, but we're managing to hold our own. Neera: And the clowns? Sheppard: “The clowns”? Oh, yeah, the clowns. We fight them too. Entire armies, spilling out of Volkswagons. We do our best to fight them off, but they keep sending them in...

What is interesting is that the way Sheppard describes "his people" is how one might also describe the Genii. While the wraith had come to cull the Genii homeworld not long ago, they did have the means of putting up a fight and given what they had just seen with the Genii having spies and safe houses all over the galaxy, they were not anywhere near giving up. In fact, with their C4 they were likely trying to do to their nukes what McKay had managed to do to them in a few hours, and they probably did have their own plans of blowing up hives using A-bombs.

Sheppard is well-aware that as far as the wraith were concerned, Atlantis had been destroyed and he and his merry band were pretending to be among a few scrappy survivors now marooned in this galaxy. They had just had to blow up a whole Ancient warship and kill several living, breathing Ancients with it to keep the wraith from learning that Atlantis was still very much standing and that they had survived an attack from three whole hives, and he was not about to reveal this to some random woman he had only just met. So making it sound like he could be a Genii might work just as well. And if letting the wraith think that they were Genii got the Genii in some hot water, then while he did not like to see any humans fall victim to the wraith, he was not precisely going to shed tears for them either.

And then the clowns, again. Clowns coming out of Volkswagens. First of all, the fact that Sheppard seems not to have any idea what she is even on about here at first just confirms the fact that earlier he was not really talking to her, he was amusing himself. She was inconsequential, he thought very little about it and hence it takes him moment to understand why this alien woman is talking about clowns. And just as soon as he remembers, he makes the decision to keep screwing with her. She has no idea what clowns are, so who is it going to hurt? And the comedy of the scene comes from the fact that he is describing something that is funny and innocent as something that is horrifying with a straight face to someone that has no means of knowing that he is fibbing, so this really has very little to do with how Sheppard personally views clowns, whether he has an actual phobia or not.

It is a well-known gag to have a bunch of clowns come out of a small car, frequently a part of circus acts and carnivals. Given that Sheppard said that he loves Ferris wheels when he first met Teyla in Rising (S01E01), it is possible that Sheppard has some memories of attending a carnival as a child or as a teenager, where he could have made some good memories with Ferris wheels (a cliché place for a first kiss, for example) but might have had some unpleasant experiences turned into memories with clowns, especially when he was younger. It is easy to get lost from one's parents at carnivals, and such an experience at a formative age may even have contributed to Sheppard's fear of abandonment, of people walking away from him. Such experiences can affect people even if they have no active memories of them, if they have been too young to remember.

But he mentionss Volkwagens especially, which may have some significance beyond the VW Beetle being a notoriously small car. Clowns in a Volkswagen is mentioned more than once in the show Gilmore Girls. It was a show with a notoriously female audience, with story lines dealing with relationships and emotions. In other words, not something that one might expect Sheppard to have watched. It was still on the air when the episode first came out and it was very popular. And in the show, the phrase "clowns in a Volkswagen" is always connected to space. Relevant to Sheppard and McKay is the exchange the main character Lorelai, afraid of commitment and getting her heart broken, has with a man that loves her:

Lorelai: I just need space. Max: Well I don’t! In fact I want as little space as possible. A hundred clowns crammed into a Volkswagen. That’s the kind of non-space I’m talking about.

We never got to see what Sheppard and McKay did while they were on Earth but in the flashbacks we get of Weir and her lover Simon in The Intruder (S02E02), which seem to mirror something that happened between Sheppard and McKay that we never got to see, Simon tells Weir that he needs a little more time. It was obvious that something in Sheppard and McKay's relationship had changed during the months they spent on Earth, and McKay needing time, by which he meant space, seems to have the been the thing that was making Sheppard's heart hurt when they returned. And if he had spent a little of his time while he was on Earth and feeling sorry for himself watching Girlmore Girls, it might explain where he fished up this particular turn of phrase. "Entire armies of them, spilling out of tiny cars" is general, spilling out of Volkwagens is much more particular, as far as references go. Because a hundred clowns crammed into a Volkswagen is also the kind of non-space that Sheppard wants between himself and McKay. And McKay is constantly on his mind, especially now that he is alone.

We would also be amiss not to mention that Volkwagens have a known association with anal sex. There is an infamous scene in Kevin Smith's Mallrats, which would have been know by every young adult watching the show during its original run, where "back of the Volkswagen" was an euphemism for anal sex ("sex in a 'difficult' place," i.e., the back door), repeated several times in the movie, turned into a running gag. It is infinitely more likely for Sheppard to have been thinking about the Gilmore Girls than this but it is a reference.

There is of course the off chance that he is ironically referring to himself as someone that the wraith queen must think of as being open to suggestion as though he were a girl on the rebound. Regardless, like he did before, Sheppard is saying this to amuse himself with no regard to the fact that the reference is not only not going to mean anything to her but is something that seems to freak her out. If Sheppard did think that she was a genuine victim of the wraith, there is really no need for him to further traumatize her. He is pulling her leg, and it can only be excused if he has already figured out what she is by this time. But as mentioned, it is never made explicitly clear when he figures it out.

Back on Atlantis, McKay, Zelenka and Lorne have joined Caldwell on the Daedalus and they are doing another walk-and-talk, Caldwell having places to go and everyone else trying to keep up after him. McKay is trying to fill him in on the details, still sounding perfectly neutral (although he does kind of sound like he has the sniffles, like he has been crying or screaming himself hoarse recently).

McKay: According to Ford's intel, the planet has a space gate. If we could get there quickly in a puddlejumper, we wouldn't be able to do much more than just warn people of the impending culling. Caldwell: Do we have enough time? McKay: Yes. Zelenka: We think. McKay: We should. Zelenka: We hope.

McKay and Zelenka are doing their double act again, and this resembles their exchange in Weir's office in Trinity (S02E06). What is interesting, however, is that while they use the "we" pronoun here, they are actually using it to show that they are not in perfect accord. They say "we" but they are actually using it to express disagreement, both of them giving Caldwell their own spin on it. They are contradicting each other. Where Sheppard and McKay use the "we" form, they are always in perfect understanding with each other and it is the natural result of them having an accord.

And the fact that they have this exchange here just calls attention to the way Sheppard used "we" in the previous scene. By "we" he was referring to the Lanteans, although he was never going to tell her that, but more specifically again meant himself and McKay. Sheppard has no doubt that McKay would help him fight the clowns off, and indeed we do see them face off a clown together in Doppelganger (S04E04). Also, note how Zelenka is much less certain than McKay, much less willing to make predictions. For McKay, failing is not an option. Not making it in time is not an option. He is not going to waste time thinking about scenarios where they fail because they cannot fail.

McKay: It'll be close, yes, but using the Daedalus we might be able to get a radio lock on Sheppard and the team inside the hive ship. If they're still alive, we can beam them out. Caldwell: Alright. Let's get this bird off the ground. Lorne: Coming with us? Zelenka: Uh, no, no.

Two things are relevant here. For one, McKay's plan is the very same that had saved Sheppard the previous time he had been forced to fly a jumper into a hive. McKay puts his hope on them being able to pull the same miracle now. He does not want to think of the alternative.

Second, Lorne asks Zelenka if he is coming with but no one, not one of them, would even think to ask McKay if he was coming with. No, it was the rest of them that were coming with McKay on this journey. He was going and he was willing to take them along for the ride but this was his job, this was his rescue. Rescuing Sheppard was the most important thing to him and not one of them would have questioned whether he had a right to get in on the mission. It was his team that was missing, and the the Daedalus was basically the taxicab that was going to bring him to them. But they are contrasted here, not only because they are both scientists but because Zelenka had been out in the field with Lorne looking for Sheppard. He had been in on this. But where Zelenka may appreciate Sheppard, it is not a matter of life and death to him. McKay, on the other hand, wished they were on the way already.

Continued in Pt. 14

[davidmariottecomics]

The 6 Figure Theory

Hello! 

In today's blog, I'm getting *spicy*! In that I have a hot take that is of course related to the current state of the entertainment industry, but isn't as directly about comics or writing or editing or what you might usually expect. Anyway, let's get to it! 

The 6 Figure Theory The 6 Figure Theory states that once an individual is earning $100,000, to maintain that level of pay, they must sacrifice some level of morality. It only applies to individuals making over $100K annually--not families where multiple incomes may combine to be over $100K. And the level of morality sacrificed is hard to quantify, both because morality is deeply personal and often hard to quantify for an individual and because the extremes one is willing to go to are likely tied to the level of money being brought in. 

So, for example, let's say you're a big shot Hollywood executive who has been paid $500 MILLION over the course of about 5 years. Let's say you're making "384 times the average pay of a Hollywood writer." Chances are you are out of touch with reality and willing to make a bunch of business decisions that make you look like an incompetent asshole. Maybe you'll cancel competed and even released work as a way of getting tax write-offs. Maybe you'll attempt to sell your film music catalog. Maybe you'll repeatedly not come to the table in any sort of reasonable way in such a way that multiple unions go on strike. Maybe you'll spend your time at a retreat for some of the wealthiest people in the world turning down Venmo requests from the people whose projects you've canceled to save a dime. Maybe you'll be described as the most hated man in Hollywood.

Now, that's just one extreme example. He's so incredibly highly paid--if he was willing to just not take a salary for 5 years, he could single-handedly pay out the proposal amount from the WGA. And, let me check my notes, he would still be incredibly, unjustly wealthy and live his extravagant life. That's the sort of money that allows true ignorance. 

I don't know anyone making David Zaslav money, personally. And I'm pretty glad to not. But even at the lower side of that 6 figure theory, there are people who are being paid to make decisions that may compromise their morals--from freezing pay rates to letting people go to instituting AI. Or, maybe you're making that and can remain morally upright in your work, but like... become an anti-vaxxer or something. 

It's easy to look at the wealthy and famous and see issues. Humans are inherently fallible and scrutiny goes harder with more public visibility. But I have to wonder, truly, to what extent higher wages correspond with lower ethics. And I think that's a question a lot of folks are asking on the picket line now too. Make sure you send them your support, whether through the Entertainment Community Fund or direct action with SAG-AFTRA��or the WGA. I have not specifically seen picketing actions at SDCC, but obviously, be aware and supportive if they happen. And I saw things like the Venture Bros creators pulling out of the show (though I'm unclear on if the new movie will still be debuting regardless). You don't have to cancel your streaming platforms--in fact, largely the request has been the opposite because the concern is fewer people on a streamer will be used as data justification that the work of actors and writers doesn't make enough difference to maintain an audience and therefore their labor is less valuable. And, finally, there are other unions going on strike, like UPS, and they deserve your support too. 

Passing $5 Back-and-forth Infinitely Forever

It stinks that this has to come back to those of us who are making less to support each other. But whether it's because there's increased morality for folks making lower wages (and, I'd describe the shrinking middle class as that) or, maybe, it's less a matter of morality than community and solidarity (though... I'd contest those are inextricably linked), it does come to us standing together. And sometimes, it means doing what little we can, supporting each other back-and-forth with the same $5. 

With that rant out of the way, see ya at SDCC next week! 

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Craig of the Creek (Cartoon), Honkai Star Rail (Video game) Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links (Video game), My Adventures with Superman (Cartoon), the beach, Girly Drinks by Mallory O'Meara (Book), The Broken Room by Peter Clines (Book), Crime Scene Kitchen (TV show), all the folks I've seen being supportive of the joint WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike--including the many folks changing their SDCC plans, getting closer to finalized on SDCC plans myself! Oh, and I forgot to mention it a couple weeks ago, but Poison Ivy: Thorns by Kody Keplinger & Sara Kipin slaps. 

New Releases this week (7/12/2023): I didn't have any new releases this week, but it was a pretty big week for IDW as a whole!  Eddie Campbell's The Second Fake Death of Eddie Campbell & The Fate of the Artist, Van Jensen & Jesse Lonergan's Arca, the first issues of Stephen Mooney and David Messina's The Rocketeer: In the Den of Thieves, G. Willow Wilson, Chris Wildgoose, and Msassky's The Hunger and the Dusk, and the second issue of Andrew Wheeler and Ilias Kyriazis's Cat Fight, the My Little Pony 40th Anniversary Special, plus more TMNT and Trek than you can shake a stick at! 

New Releases next week (7/19/2023): Also an off week, but there's somehow even more TMNT to check out, plus the start of our big Star Trek event: Day of Blood! 

Final Order Cut-Off next week (7/17/2023 - AKA Preorder Deadline) Godzilla: Monsters & Protectors - All Hail the King! TPB (Editor)

Announcements:

I'll be at San Diego Comic-Con! I'll see you at Sonic the Hedgehog: Speeding to the 900th Adventure on Sunday at 10, room 25ABC! If we've planned something, I'll see ya there too! And if not, y'know, at least let me know you'll be around and hopefully we run into each other! 

I'm now on Patreon! A big part of it is a new way of accessing this very blog! But I'm also going to be updating it with some other cool stuff soon--from exclusive blogs to old scripts and pitch materials that I can share to funky one-off videos/podcasts (?) to group funded new comics pages! And there'll even be updates during SDCC (thanks, pre-scheduling)! 

Do you not want to read this pitch for my Patreon? Good news: If you subscribe to it, this is cut out from the blog! Ooo aah!

Lastly, because of SDCC, expect no or a very short blog next week. And Becca's Twitch stream won't be back until the 25th, I believe. But in the meantime, Becca's own Patreon has been very active, including some stuff they recently drew on stream! And their webshop is current (though orders won't ship til after SDCC). It's Non-Binary Awareness week and San Diego Pride, so now's a good time to support them! 

Pic of the Week:

I was in Old Town earlier this week and saw this very fun display of "Sonic" hats. Love that they come in every color. 

[saintvainglorious]

Fics I Enjoyed in September & October

Includes 10 fics from the following fandoms: Black Sails, Captive Prince, DC Comics, Harry Potter, Star Wars

Compromising by samvelg Star Wars | Gen | 13k | Not Rated

Five times Admiral Piett misunderstands the nature of Luke and Vader's relationship, and the one time he doesn't.

Paternal Relations by willowcrowned/@willowcrowned Star Wars | Gen | 1k | Teen & Up

“No,” Vader says, “I am your father.” Every bit of the pain, the terror, and the rage that have been flooding Luke’s senses is completely drowned out by utter confusion. What, he thinks, the fuck. Then, a sinking feeling completely overtakes him. The Force is telling him the truth of Vader’s words— he can feel them resonating, falling along invisible threads and weaving their way through his being— but there’s something not quite right about them. Vader is his father, at least technically, but there’s something he’s missing, something that he— Oh shit, Luke thinks, Vader is my dad’s ex-husband.

What Lurks in the Dark by DragonflyBreak Star Wars | Gen | 155k | Teen & Up | Part 1 of Along a Different Path

A simple mission to check out an abandoned weapons factory turns into a dangerous fight for survival. Trust is broken, loyalties will be tested, and dark secrets are brought to light. Because sooner or later, the truth always comes out.

Lovefool by Kittendiamore Captive Prince | Damen/Laurent | 5k | General Audiences

It starts, embarrassingly enough, with an ad from Craigslist: "I’m a 21 y.o art student (male), writing a thesis on the relationship between performance and the awareness of the audience. You don’t care about that. I’m an actor offering to give you the most dramatic night of your life. I’ll be your date to any event/function/family gathering, and convince your friends/family members that I’m either: the biggest mistake of your life or the best thing that ever happened to you. Up to you. I’m very good at what I do."

all this and heaven too by spinawren/@wrenaspun Captive Prince | Damen/Laurent | 15k | Mature | Part 1 of selkieverse

Laurent felt his mouth twist. “You want me to stay, but not enough to do anything about it.” Damen’s expression softened. “I wouldn’t make you stay,” he said, “for the world.” He said, “Laurent, it would be such a sacrifice.”

we shall be free; we shall find peace by mediant/@blorb-el DC Comics | Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne | 36k (WIP) | Mature

Clark has accepted what it means to be Lex's prisoner - the pain of the Green, the experiments, the hands on it. The long years buried in its containment cell, let out only to act as Lex's weapon, as Lex's tool. It had fought back at first, but years have ground it down and away to almost nothing. Then Lex hands it a baby. And Clark realizes that while it may have hurt humans, and lied about what it is, and it may deserve to be locked away - Kon deserves to be free.

thieves by Ajaxthegreat Black Sails | James Flint/Charles Vane | 4k (WIP) | Explicit

“I’m not averse,” Vane says, and Flint marvels at it: his ability to be so entirely straightforward, his total lack of shame or subtext.

Theories of Magic and Mind by M_Leigh/@morgan-leigh Harry Potter | Sirius Black/Remus Lupin | 28k | Teen & Up

“Pensieves are subjective, just like memories are,” Remus continued. “So I can’t just—pull out memories of Hogwarts and play them like films for you to show you exactly what happened. A lot of it is sort of fuzzy and fragmented and it’s not a reliable record of events. But I thought it might be helpful.” Sirius considered the fact that circumspect, reserved Remus Lupin was offering to crack open his mind and let Sirius inside. “All right then.” Memory magic, across three eras.

Light in August by orestesfasting Harry Potter | Sirius Black/Remus Lupin | 21k | Explicit

Summer, 1977. With the full moon approaching, Sirius heads up to the Lupins' countryside cottage to make himself useful. Or to make a complete and utter arse out of himself, because really, that's all he can seem to do around Remus these days.

Born Under Punches by orestesfasting Harry Potter | Sirius Black/Remus Lupin | 13k | Mature

The truth is that he’s kept this love on the back burner of his heart for so many years that he’s grown accustomed to the smell and can sometimes almost ignore it completely. He likes to think he’s made peace with the fact that he’ll never know what it tastes like.

Frog and Toad Aren't Friends Anymore by swordfishtrombones Harry Potter | Sirius Black/Remus Lupin | 10k | Mature

“Is this really all because I wouldn’t live with you?” Remus is still feeling a little fuzzy, but he’s beginning to get chilly and fed up, and he wants to be on common ground. “Some people just aren’t good flatmates. I wasn’t trying to say I liked Adrian and Mary better than you, or whatever you’re thinking.” Sirius runs a hand through his hair and squints at the streetlight, twisting his mouth like Remus is truly hopeless. “It hurt,” says Sirius, “my feelings.”

[brujacopal]

it’s now been one month of post-system-awareness! the people i’ve told, my friend and immediate family are all telling me i need to go easy on myself that i just learned about My Others and i’m barely learning how to properly negotiate and compromise. so i shouldn’t be so hard on myself when i make mistakes and act like an asshole, override my other selves’ needs and desires, get overwhelmed and lash out at them, etc. but it’s very difficult, i constantly feel like i’m letting my other selves down.

some stuff that has happened and some things i have learned:

we have co-consciousness for the most part, i don’t experience major blackouts like when i was younger which is good. but i am wondering if there’s maybe more amnesiac barriers than i’m aware of. (i also learned the term greyout, and learned what it means to have emotional amnesia) our communication is all internal but i started a specific journal for us to write and address each other in.

I am aware of 3 distinct alters other than myself, I asked if anyone wanted names and over time 2 have chosen names. These two spend the most time in the “front room” with me talking and we often keep each other company throughout the day. 1 of us is adamant about not wanting a name, doesn’t hang out with us in the front room and we have a massive amount of work to do with her to hopefully heal her relationship with us as she went through some denial and a lot of grieving about this diagnosis. We haven’t done a good job of taking care of her throughout the years.

I bridged the divide with our child alter and our relationship has gotten exponentially better which I never thought could happen in such a short amount of time, considering the fact I tried to kill her on the winter solstice without knowing we were a system or what she was. In my perspective I thought she was a part of myself that I had to leave behind because it felt like she was constantly sabotaging me, when really she just wanted to be heard and acknowledged.

And something that made me feel a bit sad is that I learned there will have to be constant compromise for the rest of my life. There was a time when our child alter wanted to watch cartoons after getting upset and triggered over something, but I wanted to be on my phone. And I couldn’t do both even though I tried lol she was like “um can you pay attention please i can’t even see what’s going on.” I was hit with the realization that even though I house multiple consciousnesses, we still have only one body, two pairs of extremities, two eyes - one brain. I wished she could sit outside of me and that I could spend time with her that way. This feels so daunting.

I’m absolutely astonished at how much progress I’ve made in just a month and this was absolutely the missing piece we needed in our mental health treatment. We can finally all begin healing without me having the unshakeable sense that I am physically leaving a part of myself behind. I’m no longer lost in a constant battle with myself now that I understand that I was battling myselves. Things over the last month have not necessarily been easy, but they finally make sense. I’m finally able to embrace every part of me and I no longer have the terrible all-encompassing sense of anxiety that my mental health will worsen in ways I cannot understand and that are out of my control. This has brought me peace that I have never known before.

[thanos-rules]

From the Original «Ten Rules For Dating My Daughter» Meme...

(or at least the closest version of it available in the present time-line...)

Rule # 1 : If you pull in my driveway and honk, you’d better be delivering a package because you’re sure as hell not picking anything up.

Rule # 2 : You do not touch my daughter in front of me. You may glance at her so long as you do not peer at anything below her neck. If you cannot keep your eyes or hands off my daughter’s body, I will remove them.

Rule # 3 : I am aware that it is considered fashionable for boys of your age to wear their trousers so loosely that they appear to be falling off their hips and showing your underwear. Please don’t take this as an insult, but you and all of your friends are complete idiots. Still, I want to be fair and open minded about this issue, so I propose this compromise: You may come to the door with your underwear showing and your pants ten sizes too big, and I will not object.

However, in order to insure that your clothes do not, in fact, come off during the course of your date with my daughter, I will use my Craftsman Electric Nail Gun and STAPLE it to your underwear and fasten your trousers securely around your waist.

Rule # 4 : I am sure you’ve been told that in today’s world, sex without using a “barrier method” of some kind can kill you. When it comes to sex with my daughter, I am the barrier and I will indeed kill you.

Rule # 5 : In order for us to get to know one another, we should talk about sports, politics, and other issues of the day. Please do not do this. The only information I require from you is an indication of when you expect to have my daughter safely back at my house, and the only word is need from you on this subject is “early.”

Rule # 6 : I have no doubt you are a popular fellow with many opportunities to date other girls. This is fine with me as long as it is fine with my daughter. Otherwise, once you have gone out with my little girl, you will continue to date no one but her until she is finished with you. If you make her cry, I will make you cry.

Rule # 7 : As you stand in the front hallway waiting for my daughter to appear and more than an hour goes by, do not sigh and fidget. If you want to be on time for a movie, you should not be dating. My daughter is putting on her makeup, a process that can take longer than painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead of just standing there, why don’t you do something useful -- like changing the oil in my car.

Rule # 8 : The following places are not appropriate for a date with my daughter: Places where there are beds, sofas, or anything softer than a wooden stool. Places where there are no parents, policemen, or nuns within eyesight. Places where there is darkness. Places where there is dancing, holding hands, or happiness. Places where the ambient temperature is warm enough to induce my daughter to wear shorts, tank tops, midriff T-shirts, or anything other than overalls, a sweater, and a goose-down filled parka zipped up to her throat. Movies with a strong romantic or sexual theme are to be avoided. Movies that feature chainsaws are okay. Hockey games are okay. Old folks’ homes are even better.

Rule # 9 : Do not lie to me. I may appear to be a pot-bellied, balding, middle-aged, dim-witted, has-been, but on issues relating to my daughter I am the all-knowing, merciless god of your universe. If I ask you where you are going and with whom, you have exactly one chance to tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I have a shotgun, a shovel, and five acres behind the house. Don’t fuck with me.

Rule #10 : Be afraid. Be very afraid. It takes very little for me to mistake the sound of your car in the driveway for a chopper coming in over a rice paddy on the outskirts of Hanoi. As soon as you pull into the driveway after your date, you should exit your car with both hands in plain sight, speak the perimeter password, and announce in a clear voice that you have brought my daughter home safely and on time. Then return to your car – there is no need to come inside. The camouflaged face in the window is mine.

(One of the girls that read this from back in the day said that her dad was really like this and that she found it to be rather incredibly embarrassing)

Does anyone else have anything else to add?

[lykagurl]

Lyka’s pov

It has been accepted that digital technology is already part of our lifestyle. Development of technology and it's application has taken a big part in the field of communication, navigation and particularly in education. The existence of these technologies had brought both positive and negative impact on the lives of everyone using it. Most young learners believe that digital world is just the same as the real world wherein we can do what we desire to do. With this belief, posting different things on the internet became a habit of most young studs without looking for what will be the consequences it brings to them. We can't deny the fact that living in digital era makes our life easier compared to the past especially in the field of communication, research, health and education. Its better advancement created a comfortable life and to progress to our society. But, behind all those progress and advancements, there is still a dark side of using digital technologies which ruin some people's lives. Social media became a platform where bullying, stalking and crimes has taken place. As a 21st century educator, it is my biggest responsibility to equip my students with the knowledge and proper etiquette in living this digital era without compromising their safety and privacy. Through the help of Common Sense media, EducationWorld, and Share my Lesson, I will teach my students to be digitally literate and responsible citizens of our society. Common sense media serves as an evaluator of the legitimacy of materials and information that I am using in the class . This will also help me to determine what are the proper materials to be use. EducationWorld on the side, is a website where I can find different lesson plans and guides that I can use as topic where I can inculcate digital literacy to my everyday lessons and help my students to become aware and responsible digital citizen who knows how to filter all their posts in all social media platforms. Through Share my Lesson website , I can gain new information by collaborating with my fellow educators and share our insights on the different topics which also helps us to become updated on the new trends of education and how to improve our daily instructions. All in all, it is very important for educators to be fully aware on the digital behaviour as a citizen living in digital era. Being a responsible digital citizen is what we should inculcate in our daily lessons to make our students digitally literate and responsible in their lives digitally and in real world setting. By browsing to the three aforementioned websites, it is very helpful since we can gain different information from each sites and each information is useful to us not just as a digital citizens but as a responsible person in our society.

[huhnicoles]

I’m turning 24 in a week! 🥳 I have a secret though. 😆 I’ve been calling myself 24 ever since the year started. Minsan nga nakakalimutan ko nang 23 pa lang pala ako. 😅 I’m thinking about it being more like a mindset than a couple of numbers, do yunno what I mean? xD

So how do I feel about turning 24? Do I have to feel something? I think so. Do I have to make a big deal out of it and put it on writing? YUP! 😂 It’s not every year that I turn 24 in mind, spirit, and actual age. Lol.

I actually like it, turning 24. I feel like I’ve been presented to a whole new sense of responsibility and accountability. Weird feeling, but it’s here within. I feel like this is another start. In many ways, it sure is another start. Haha. But aside from them all, I do hope that it’s a new beginning of someone that I am. I can already feel that I’m leaving someone that I used to behind. I’m not gonna forget her, I’m just leaving her here, there, somewhere that she should be left in. I won’t forget her, though. I’ll always be thankful to the versions of me, even when I’m not always proud of how I acted and reacted sometimes.

I’m glad to be growing. And I’m most certainly happy to grow more. If growth entails pain and failure and more self-blaming, I wouldn’t mind. Self-awareness will always be my priority. I know I should be careful and be more wise when it comes to knowing myself, and I can only hope and pray for me to be ready. Sometimes, it could lead to self-sabotage, and I don’t want that.

I know. I’m aware that I only have a year left before I reach the point of complete development in some parts of my brain. I’m about to be an adult with a fully developed frontal lobe. 😂 Kaya mas uunahin ko talaga ang pagkilala sa sarili ko and all my traumas, my demons, my pet peeves, and more before I explore out there. And, oh!!! I’m also working on myself sa lover girl concept. HAHAHAHAHAHA. And aspect? Jeez, this is funny. I have to quit thinking ill of having to share my freedom with someone else. Huhu. I’ll get there. 😂 At least I started while I was 23, right? I’m trying to have an open mind about relationships and whatnots. Phew!

Thanks to the books that I’m reading, I’m finally getting comfortable about the idea of having a boyfriend. 😣 Getting pa lang, ha. I’m not there yet. Wew! 😮‍💨 KASI IT WILL ALWAYS BE WEIRD—o, ‘di ba!!! Naka-always pa rin. Ugh. Right now, thinking about it, it’s weird na may maghahatid sa akin, I’m not used to that. I’ve almost always brought myself home, never minding the darkness and the fact that I am alone. Huhu. I have sooooo much to think about, to consider, and to compromise with. I hope that I’ll be ready when the time comes for love to come knocking on my door. Naku, shuta, baka sunduin pa ako. 😬 Chariz.

I also want to think of my future, financially. And academically. And more. Yes, I have so much to prepare for pa. Especially before getting into a relationship. I WILL NOT enter a relationship without being stable in many ways more than one. Jusko.

I also wanna start a collection! OMG!!! Small joys that I won’t allow to be vices. Ooooh, this must be the adult urge to collect something? Lol, no. I just happened to fall in love with a specific masterpiece that I want to know it more, dive deeper into its universe, and learn more about it. I’m liking it a lot, I kinda regret getting to know it just recently. Hmpt. But this may be its perfect time to exist in my life, so, yeah. At least dumating. Yiiiie. <333

And lastly, I want to write moooore. I want to be moooore consistent and be mooore intentional.

Here’s to hoping for the realisation of these things! 🥳

[clumsyclifford]

belllaaaa, hit me with hate or want in your wip please 💜 (brought to you by me listening to Charlotte Sands and just stealing words from her)

heeey amanda i'm going to compromise for this game and search my two 5sos fic docs and then my one major non-5sos fic doc (it's a teen wolf fic) because. i want to. one of the 5sos fics is not TECHNICALLY a wip, it's technically done, but it probably needs one big edit, so i'm counting it. same goes for the tw fic. anyway let's go

hate from 5sos doc A (searching for this only made me aware of Just How Much i use the word whatever)

“That’s not being a team player,” says Calum. “But I don’t hate you even though you’ve been nothing but a little shit since you walked in, so I can at least believe you’re capable of being charming when you try.”

from 5sos doc B (not sure if will ever finish this fic! but i'm excited about its potential)

Michael turns on his heel and scurries over to the sink. He sticks a finger in the stream; it's comfortably lukewarm, despite the fact that only one faucet handle has been twisted. The one for cold water, Michael is sure. Pretty sure. "The hell?" And then his brain puts two and two together and is astounded to achieve four. "Guess it's just finicky sometimes," he says. "Or it hates me."

astoundingly, hate does not appear at all in the tw fic doc! personally i'm shocked

want in 5sos doc A, which appears 158 times lmao so i just picked a fun instance

“Please? I’ve never been in a golf cart. Plus I want to see what your job is like.” Luke looks so eager that Calum can’t come up with any decent reason to crush his spirit. “I mean, sure. If you want to.”

from 5sos doc B

Michael wants to tell Luke the truth. For the first time, he feels redeemable. And if this were anyone else, maybe Michael would cave.

and from the teen wolf doc (out of 40 results)

“I understand you don’t want me to tell Lydia about this conversation,” Malia says, and Stiles’s whole body slumps in relief. “What I don’t understand is why.”

send me a word and i'll search for it in my WIP!

[echoestm]

Rules

🔪 This blog is NOT for the faint-hearted.

🔪 You MUST be 25+ to interact with me in any, way, shape or form. I’m an old guy in his thirties and while I don’t have anything at all against the underage set or young adults just over the line– I just feel more comfortable interacting with people closer to my own age. Please respect this.

🔪 If you want to follow me you MUST control your own online experience. I understand having squicks, triggers, and just general things that make you uncomfortable. If you make me aware of your discomforts, I will do my best to tag them as uncomfortable thing here cw. What I won’t do is cease to write about it, talk about it, reblog pictures of it, etc. Naturally, anything that makes you uncomfortable won’t be featured in any writing we do together. Just please, have and make use of xkit or tumblr savior. Basically, I don’t believe/agree that depiction equals endorsement. IC is not OOC. And fiction is not reality

🔪 I can and will talk the hind leg off of a horse if given the chance. I was once called The Church of Communication by a friend. A writing/rp’ing partnership will always work best with me if you’re someone who is communicative and has little to no qualms with expressing yourself. I value that shit almost above all. I take the word no like a champ! In fact, I like being told no because it immediately lets me know that you’re not just being polite when you do say yes. If I pitch an idea, a plot, or a verse and you’re not into it? PLEASE say so. I won’t be offended in the least and you’ll get so many brownie points from me, trust me, I’ll love you for it.

🔪 I love reminders! If you feel like I’ve forgotten or misplaced a thread, or maybe not been notified, don’t hesitate to give me a poke about it. I’m always down to go find what I’ve lost, and if there’s some other reason I haven’t gotten to it yet, I promise to let you know about it. For me, reminders are never an annoyance.

🔪 I read tags and I tend to follow their instructions. For example, if you make or reblog an ooc post about something you feel strongly about and you tag it ‘Unfollow me and block me now if you don’t agree/reblog/etc’ then… I’m probably going to unfollow you, as requested. Ideally, I’m all for agreeing to disagree when it comes to pretty much any subject. However you feel about something, I’ll respect that even if we don’t see eye-to-eye on it. Much like tagging squicks/triggers, if we don’t feel the same about something, then that something isn’t going to be brought up or argued or discussed continually between us. I’ll respect that you feel how you feel about whatever it may be, and act accordingly. However, my pet peeve are those posts with those kinds of demanding tags, unless they’re being used in a playful sense.

🔪 At the moment, I don’t have any banned fc’s and I technically don’t have any banned fandoms/media. There are shows/books/movies that I’m not into, but I don’t just ban them as a whole. Rp’ing is all about chucking muses into the unexpected and seeing what they do, so I’m almost always pretty open to whatever as long as we can customize, compromise, and find something that works for us both. Fuck SPN tho. I liked the first five seasons and then ragequit. I’m still open to playing around in that world though.

🔪 I don’t do exclusivity. I don’t judge the people that do, live and let live after all, but it’s just not for me. I like being able to play with multiple versions of the same muses because each writer brings a different take on them to the table and I’m greedy. I’m also an arrogant asshole, confident in my version of muses, so please, play with all the multiples that you like with no concern for me about it.

🔪 I used to say that I didn’t do mains, muses made a liar out of me. Some shit just clicks sometimes and getting guilted about it makes me sulk and fuck off of my blog.

🔪 I prioritize partners that don’t rp via the queue system. Again, no judgement– do what you need to in order to stay sane and happy, I’m just an excitable impatient person.

🔪 I will give pretty much anything/anyone a shot. Friendly to OC’s, crossovers, au’s, fandoms I know nothing about, etc. I don’t mind doing research into media I’m not familiar with, but depending on how much I have on my plate, I might be a little slow about it.

🔪 Last but not least, the big one that’ll run people off the most: THIS BLOG IS A GRIMDARK BLOG. Wiki explains it here, if you’re not familiar with the term. It means that this is a trigger-heavy blog. It is a dark blog. It’s contents will feature themes, thoughts, actions and speech that are real-world deplorable.

🔪 Finally, I have preferences when it comes to writing/plotting. Angst is my jam. I’m also a sucker for gritty realism weaved into these stories that ask us to suspend so much disbelief. Fine, Thor’s walking the earth, vampires are real, the impossible and probable are all very likely– but rent still needs to be paid, minimum wage sucks, NYC apartments are tiny and get easily cramped, etc. Fluff and coffeeshop au’s do nothing for me and I’m not any good at writing them. I’m not anti-happiness, but I do like to throw roadblocks in it’s way. I like stories that are painful, I like things that are hard, and threads/verses that fit those preferences are always going to be my favorite.

🔪 This is pretty much it? My rules page used to be like four lines about needing to be of age, tumblr etiquette, and communication– I actually kind of hate having really long rules pages, but I also want people to know what they’re getting into and be making well-informed decisions. I don’t want to ever unpleasantly surprise anyone with either IC or OOC content.

[rileythelonelyalien]

Dottore x GN! reader: Medical ordeals

A/N: Hello! it's been a hot minute since my last post apologies for that, I've been quite held up with all my courses but I have some time off now so hopefully I'll be writing up all the idea I have saved up but for now I do hope you enjoy this fan fiction . This one is in fact based around an experience I've actually been through .

cw: description of a bad medical experience , mentions of blood.

You and Dottore had only become an item a short while ago , although feelings had blossomed much further back it had only become an official thing as of late. 

Dottore being a man of science and arguably medicine (albeit the medicine and ‘cures’ he provides are not orthodox to what a morally sound doctor would prescribe) over the time that he has known you he has done his best to collect medical records of yours so that he was aware what either ails you or what you would be prone too. However, try as he might he could never manage to find or secure your dental records and so he had to turn to his last option, asking you himself. Of course, he had asked you to bring anything concerning the matter to him under the premises that he needed more data for a statistic table that he was drawing up , although this was not the case.

You enter his lab the lights just as blindingly bright as always as you walk further into the sterile environment making sure to not touch anything as you wouldn't want to compromise your boyfriends work because of something so trivial. Tightly clutching you proceeded further into the laboratory. As you make your way to the back which is where your lover is most likely is, you notice a few of his clones working some of them were already acquainted with you and in your presence sent you a small wave before continuing their assigned tasks. However, some of the others who were still in the process of warming up to you snarled at you some even hissing , quote the amusing sight yet still very threatening. Doing your best to pay this unusual behaviour no mind , you quicken your pace once his desk come into view with his back facing you. Cautious to not startle the man you walk around the desk so that he is able to see your figure and alert him that you have arrived. Gently setting down the papers you give him a gentle smile. He brings his head up from the paper filled with many equations and diagrams scrawled on with seeming quick haste , he brings his face to look at yours. Somehow he claims he can see perfectly even with his mask on that looks like it covers his eyes , you struggle to comprehend just how he has managed to do this but knowing his genius this was entirely probable. Beneath his mask you watch his features soften and a sharp toothed smile take over the previous frown that was etched onto his face. Yet before you could point anything out or begin to say anything he quickly picks up the papers you had brought him flicking though them reading them at an incredible pace , although this may have been an adaptation in order for him to reduce time wasted on reading so that he can progress even faster with his projects none the less it was still immensely impressive. 

You decide to sit down on one of the few chairs by his desk and wait patiently until he finishes. A loud slamming of papers sounds thought the lab , Dottore has quickly set down the papers you had brought to him , the abruptness of the sudden sound making you jump slightly. You tilt your head slightly as you gently ask your lover ‘ Is everything okay ?’ you watch his features change from annoyance to a much softer expression at the mere sound of your voice. After a few moments of silence, he offers you a reply ‘ There seems to be some missing parts to your documents , do you happen to know what happened ?’ at the mention of this your expression changes ,your mouth in resemblances of an ‘o’ as you realise what he was talking about ‘Ah, that….’ you hesitate. Dottore leans in closer so that his face is closer to your own and places his hand on top of yours as if to provide some comfort and as a way of reassurance that what ever you say to him will be safe. With this gesture from him you feel much more comfortable in explaining everything to him. 

You take a small breath before conveying what happened in that one undocumented appointment:

You were young and were taken to the dentists in order to get a check up however this ended up with the need of tooth extraction… Unfortunately for you this was not going to be a straight forward as they promised it would be. You were sat in that chair a clear liquid being put onto your gums they were meant to stop any pain form affecting you , yet it wasn't taking effect. Despite knowing this they did not look to find a solution to this and proceeded with the extraction. Metal tools clamping down on your tooth steadying themselves in order to rip it out. Within moments the tooth is pulled out with immense force you could hear your own screams echo through the halls as your mouth began to pool with blood. The throbbing pain echoed thought your mouth and face with tears spilling over and running down your cheeks. This was a moment in your youth you would never forget. The emotionless faces that inflicted such pain on you the lights shining into your face and eyes , the throbbing pain. Everything was etched into your mind. Yet despite this entire ordeal the clinic that you had went to wanted to keep their pristine record of always satisfied patients and so they wiped this appointment and the results clean from any records that would exist. Of course, they are not able to erase someone's memory.

As you finish relating this story to him you noticed how his hand now gripped yours , tight but not tight enough to cause you any harm his face now contorted into a scowl. This was not what he was expecting to hear not in the slightest , although he has witnessed much worse when he conducts his experiments but when it came to you it was … different. You were worthy of being treated like the most precious jewels , so gracefully without bringing you any harm and yet some had the audacity to do such a sloppy job and dare to cover their tracks? Not on his watch. ‘Dottore? I hope this hasn't upset you dear’ You try to bring Dottore back from his thoughts yet as soon as you utter out those few words Dottore quickly proceeds to grab both of your hands with his own. ‘What a bunch of preposterous fools , treating you so poorly have no shame to act in such a way in the name of medicine?!?’ The hypocrisy from him was intense yet you were oblivious to his medical ‘ordeals’ and such his statement seemed comforting. He brings a gloved hand up to touch your cheek staring into your eyes through his mask ‘ My love in my hands you will only be treated with the upmost of care I can assure you with that!’ he vows to you. Being so infatuated with him all you can do it lean into his touch and hum in approval ‘I know my doctor will take good care of me’ you state before kissing his palm. 

[justrandomfanfictionskh]

Mary Todd pt 11

ao3 Beginning Previous

“You’re going to be fine,” Jason said as they pulled ever closer to Wayne Manor.

Marinette took a deep breath as she fiddled with the hem of her blouse. “It’s just…Batman hates me.”

“No, he doesn’t!” Jason scoffed.

“Yes! He does!” Marinette groaned, “He hates that I got promoted so young. I know he doesn’t think I’m capable. And the first time we met I…”

“Oh God Pixie!” Jason exclaimed, “What did you do?”

Marinette looked to the roof of Jason’s SUV as if it’s tan coloring could give her some form of peace in what had to be the most nerve racking experience of her life. “I might have called him a color-blind hypocritical bastard who didn’t know a good decision from a nervous break, and to get out of Paris before I used his stupid cape to hang him from the top of the Eiffel Tower until he apologized.”

“Apologized for what?”

“For calling me an inexperienced child with no right or authority act on my own. Even though I had been doing just fine before they decided to but in. Thankfully Diana was there to smooth things over and make sure we came to a compromise.”

Jason threw back his head and laughed loud and clear. In fact he was laughing so hard, Marinette was a little worried they would drift off the road. But still, it was good to hear her brother laugh so loud and so genuine, especially after the heavy conversation of the night before. It brought a smile to her face, and eased some of the tension in her shoulders, and even drug a few giggles of her own to the surface.

“Pixie!” Jason finally declared, “I think your going to be just fine. B is a hard ass, and he’s been called far worse than that. Believe me! I’m the one who did it. If he was hostile to you before, then it was just because his emotional stupidity, paranoia, and childish arrogance was getting in the way. He doesn’t like not knowing things, and you were actively keeping things from him all while inadvertently, and unknowingly if I might add, gaining more power and influence with the JL in a week, than he could in a month!”

“Batman is the most respected and influential member of the League!” Marinette argued, “Just because I rose through the ranks quickly, doesn’t mean I’m a threat to his leadership. Besides the only reason I’m a senior member is because of Diana.”

Jason shook his head in confusion, “How can you be so confident and self-deprecating at the same time!”

Marinette snorted and watched the suburbs give way to the forests and walls of hidden mansions. “I know who I am,” she said definitively, “But I also know what I am not. I know I’m a bad-ass superhero who has saved the world more times than I can count. But I also know I’m a terrible conversationalist. An absolute clutz, and socially awkward to the point of crippling anxiety. Anxiety that I have had to continuously stomp on rather than deal with for fear of ending all of existence! Which makes me probably more emotionally stunted than the entire Batclan combined. Meaning the only thing keeping me together is a thin veil of calm, confidence, and sarcasm. It’s called self-awareness, Jay-Jay, you should try it some time.”

She glanced as her brother’s face from the corner of her eye. She smirked at the look of pure stupefied bewilderment on his face, as he tried to process everything she just said and come to terms with it. She wasn’t afraid of him taking it the wrong way. It was all the truth. Thanks to the Amazons she had reached a point to where she was satisfied with herself. She still had a long way to go, but she could face her demons without collapsing in a wheezing puddle of self-doubt and gloom anymore. Now she just laughed at them while powerwalking in the opposite direction. So still not exactly health, but, you know, progress.

Finally, Jason shook his head and said, “Pix, you’re going to be fine. And as for B, forget him! I do. Besides, I know for a fact that he respects you.”

“Really?” Marinette said raising an eyebrow in skepticism. “How?”

“Because he’s scared of you,” Jason said with the most self-satisfied shit eating grin possible.

Marinette barked a laugh and rolled her eyes, “The big bad Batman? Defender of the literal city of chaos, de-facto leader of the Justice League, Earth’s greatest heroes, is afraid of an eighteen year old girl from Paris! Yeah, sure Jay-Jay!”

“I’m serious!” Jason exclaimed, “Look, just listen. B is a paranoid bastard, yes?”

“I suppose.”

“He knows everyone’s secret identity. He has contingencies for his contingencies. And he makes sure to know everybody’s weaknesses, so that even if he can’t overpower them, he can still defeat them. And no one, no one, gets a seat at the big table without his say so. But then you come along. A young, unknown hero, half his age, with no training or experience wielding the very forces of nature!”

“I guess I can see where that could be concerning.”

“But!” Jason continued, “Despite your age and lack of training you proceed to win. And you keep winning against villains and threats that would have put half the League out of commission, including Superman. You never ask for help, in fact you passionately deny help, but you just keep winning. It’s insane that you were even able to beat your first akuma much less the thousands that came after it!”

“I wasn’t that hopeless!”

Jason gave her a disbelieving look before continuing, “And then you stand up to him. You stand up to the big bad Bat, which pretty much everyone in the League has trouble doing. But you still do it, and in the end he is the one who has to back down. B never backs down. Trust me! After you’re first meeting, it was so tense in the cave, I don’t think even Demon Spawn's katana could have cut through it.”

“It’s not like I had a choice!” Marinette cried, “He was being an ass, and if he had come into Paris, he would have killed everybody! I wouldn’t have been able to beat an akumatized Batman and that is a fact!”

“Well that doesn’t matter anymore,” Jason said softly at the reminder of everything his sister had been through. But then he perked up as he continued, “But the icing on the cake is this. He didn’t know you. He didn’t know your identity. He didn’t know your weaknesses. He knows everything, but about you, your powers, your flaws, your life, he knew nothing! And according to you, he would never find anything because of magic! He hates magic.”

“Which is why he hates me!” Marinette exclaimed thumping her arm rest.

Jason shook his head, “Which is why he fears you. He has no knowledge and, therefore, no power over you. But you keep gaining power. I mean if you can stop a weather witch from ending the world with a comet and a volcano with nothing but a rubber band when you were fourteen and without training, then imagine what you’ll be capable of when you’re…thirty and in complete control of yourself and your powers! You’re a threat. And your quick placement in League's leadership only cements that, especially because, once again, he knows nothing about you.”

Marinette opened her mouth to protest, but then shut it. She gave the situation actual thought, and soon a big smile almost identical to her brother’s stretched across her face, “Oh my kwami! Batman’s afraid of me!”

The siblings dissolved into laughter at the thought. Marinette couldn’t believe it. It was gratifying, and a little terrifying to know she had unconsciously gained such a man’s fear as the Batman’s. it was insane to think about the terror of Gotham being anything close to fearful of her. But she couldn’t deny it. All of his actions. All of his aggression, annoyance, and hostility towards her, were not the marks of hatred but of fear. It was hilarious, because even with all her powers and responsibilities, she was still just Marinette. Calm and anxious. Clusty and composed. Professional and manic. She was a mass of contradictions that made even her head spin sometimes. No one had ever been actively afraid of her. They had been threatened by her, but not afraid! And yet…

Marinette shook her head as her laughter finally subsided, “Well, whether he’s afraid of me or not, it doesn’t change the fact that he doesn’t like me. Which means the rest of the family won’t either.”

Jason scoffed as he turned down a new street, “First of all, that’s ridiculous. The rest of the family doesn’t care two cents about Bruce’s opinions unless it’s about a case. And you’re not a case. Besides, their already inclined to like you! I mean, Dick was practically bouncing off the walls this morning. Steph has been practically buzzing with excitement. Cass and Alfred have been fixing your favorite foods all day.”

“How do they know what my favorite foods are?” Marinette interrupted.

“Tim cyber-stalked you to learn what your favorite foods are,” Jason said without breaking stride, “Babs helped…well all of them. Duke has been playing Ultimate Mega Strike V all day in an attempt to ‘provide you with worthy challenge.’ What exactly does he mean by that?”

Marinette blushed into the window, “I might be the world champion at UMSV as well as the national and international champion of other five other similar fighting games. Wait, I thought you stalked me. How did you not know about that?”

Jason shook his head in pure astonishment, “I saw a bunch of certificates on your social media with a bunch of complicated acronyms. I assumed they were good, and I was proud. But I did not ‘stalk’ you. I just checked in as often as I could when I wasn’t on missions.”

“Mmhm,” Marinette said skeptically, “And how often was that like ten times a day.”

“No!” Jason insisted, “Three.”

Marinette threw back her head and laughed. “Ok, and what about Damian?”

Jason rolled his eyes, “Don’t worry about Demon Spawn, his opinion isn’t worth the spit he throws at you. He’s worse than B. Super self-conscious, and paranoid. Plus it doesn’t help that his first instinct is to stab anyone he considers a threat. But he’s getting better! Last week, he only tried to kill me twice, which is a vast improvement.”

“I…don’t know if I should be concerned or amused.”

“Be both! Both is good,” Jason said with an easy smile, which was becoming easier and easier the longer he was in Marinette’s presence.

Marinette smiled, as they pulled into the ridiculously long driveway of Wayne Manor. She had never expected things to go this smoothly. She still felt a tension of fear at the base of her skull. It was a fear that she had had for as long as she could remember, and while she had gotten very good at ignoring it. It had never gone away.

“What if they leave me?” the voice born of that tension seemed to say, “What if they decide I’m not worth it? What if they take me away? What if I’m not good enough? What if I’m a burden? What if I fail them?”

According to the parenting books her mom had, these thought were normal for adopted children. Knowing that she wasn’t alone in her fears had helped, but that didn’t make the tension go away. The tension of knowing, that she was one police siren away from being taken from everything she had ever loved…again. Hawkmoth had only made the tension worse and the voice louder. But now that time was over. Now the battle had been won, and she was here in the car with her brother about to meet the rest of his family.

After they had cried and held each other, they had talked of everything and nothing. And the longer they talked and the more they had shared, the easier it had become for Jay. She could see it. The tension in his shoulders was relaxing. The fire in his eyes was calming. The hesitance he had shown in connecting with her was ebbing away with every minute they were together. But her tension was still there. She was growing more and more comfortable with him. Smiling and laughing with him was easier too. And at times, it felt as if a great weight had lifted off her chest since having him beside her. Since knowing he was ok. But there was still that voice. There was still that fear, that one day she would leave him in a room alone, and not be able to come back. Not even to say goodbye.

Whatever the future held, whatever the universe had in store for them, Marinette never wanted to go through that pain again. And at that moment the biggest threat to her and her brother’s future as a family, was Bruce Wayne and his gaggle of vigilantes.

With practiced calm and carelessness, Marinette chuckled and said, “Ok but what about Bruce. I mean fear isn’t exactly the best path towards a trusting relationship.”

Jason heaved a great sigh as his voice took on a more serious tone. “Look,” he said, “As much as I hate to admit it. Bruce isn’t the worst guardian. I…there was a time I considered him my dad. But I doubt he ever considered me his son. I know he doesn’t anymore. I’m a disappointment to him. But he still wants me in the family. Alfred calls and drags me to family dinners. Bruce respects my territory. Dick practically kidnaps me for family movie nights, and other such nonsense. The point is, it doesn’t matter what labels we have for each other. We’re family. We care. Personally, I care more about my brothers than B. But I know he does to, so it all balances out. Just don’t tell them I said that. I have a rep to maintain after all.

“But here’s the thing. You are a hundred times better than me in every way. And you’re family. That is something B understands. He wouldn’t have feared you if he didn’t respect you. And now he knows you. Now you’re connected to him. Now you’re family. Which…again as much as I hate to admit it…means more to him than any trust he could get from knowing your weaknesses and making contingency plans. So don’t worry about B. If he, or Damian, does anything to hurt or disrespect you, I will personally punch them both in the face with my gun…And everyone else will probably join in. except Dick. He’ll just punch Bruce, he would never punch Demon Spawn outside of the sparring ring.”

Marinette smiled and said, “How can someone so confident be so self-deprecating?”

“What?” Jason exclaimed.

“I mean listen to yourself! I’m not even going to pretend to understand your relationship with Bruce, but one thing is painfully clear to me. If family means as much to him as you say, then there’s no way in hell he doesn’t love and care for you just as much as the others.”

“I’m the disappointment!” Jason insisted as if she just hadn’t heard him. “I break his rules! I don’t do what he says.”

“So do I,” Marinette cried, “But you insist that he’ll still want me as part of the family and care about me anyways. So, which is it Jay-Jay? Is his love fickle or steadfast?”

Jason frowned for the first time since their tearful embrace the night before. “I don’t know!” he finally said, “What I do know is that you’ll be fine. And if you’re not. Then you and I will be on the next flight to Paris, and we won’t look back until they come crawling on their knees to apologize.”

Marinette chuckled, “Oh really? What happened to, ‘Stay away from me! I’m too dangerous! I have too many enemies!?’ And now you want to jet off to Paris, just because your family might be rude! Wow, were my macarons that good?”

Jason shook his an amused smile and a resigned sigh, “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

“My brother being an idiot? No.”

Jason tried to fight his smile, but he couldn’t. Not until the roof of the Manor came into sight, and a still nervousness filled the SUV as the brother and sister prepared themselves. As they got closer, Jason saw Dick, Alfred, and Bruce waiting for them on the front steps. He saw Marinette stiffen ever so slightly, but her general posture of calm made it nearly impossible to see. Still, he felt the same tension in himself.

Taglist @laurcad123 @craftgremlin @toodaloo-kangaroo @blackroserelina @maanae @kitsun369 @idkamt @aksartisticlife @its-maemain @iglowinggemma28 @officiallydarkgeek @meira-3919 @crazylittlemunchkin  @read-fantasy-to-escape-reality @raven-ette

She was right after all. He loved his family. He loved every member of them even as he hated them. He cared and wanted them to care. He didn’t know how to say that, and neither did they, so they were caught in this limbo of aggression and affection. They trusted each other with their very souls, but not with their food or favorite shirt. And he wanted them to trust Marinette. He wanted them to love her, and care for her even more than they loved and cared for him. Was that too much to ask?

Next

[purpleheartskies]

See, here's my problem with this whole notion of Robby having to compromise and be accepted into Johnny's new "family" in which Robby will never be Johnny's priority and will never be shown the worth that he should have always had to Johnny.

This is about trauma representation in the media.

irl There are a lot of families with a noticable to extreme imbalance in how siblings are treated by their parents. If one child is given noticeably more love and attention than another or if one child is abused while one is not, this creates a lot of trauma in the child who is not treated properly.

Right now, Robby is this child in this scenario. It is literally said in the story that Johnny chooses Miguel over Robby "again", so Johnny has been doing it consistently. And we as the audience know this to be true.

And you know what? They aren't even a "family" yet, and Johnny is already treating Robby this way. He has already been favoring one child over another to an extreme and causing the unfavored child trauma. And the fact that the child Johnny is favoring over Robby isn't even another blood child of Johnny's gives Robby the impression that Johnny had to go look elsewhere for the child he's always wanted because Robby wasn't good enough for Johnny, and this adds on to Robby's trauma.

From the start, Johnny has been abandoning Robby since birth. So, Johnny's consistent absence in Robby's life has caused him immense trauma already. "All those years you weren't there, I blamed myself."

On top of this, Johnny knowingly abandoned Robby with a drug/alcohol addict who was neglectful of Robby and brought a slew of men into their home, creating an unsafe environment. Johnny also knew that Robby was homeless after juvie, but Johnny still did nothing for him, instead Johnny focused on his new "family". So, not only did Johnny abandon Robby, Johnny has also done nothing to make sure that Robby is being taken care of properly, is safe, and has what he needs to survive. Robby is aware of the situation that he is in (meaning that he is being neglected) and of Johnny's role in his neglect. That is, Johnny doesn't just abandon Robby, but Johnny also participates in neglecting Robby. And, this has added more trauma for Robby.

Add to this, all the emotional neglect Robby experiences, which also causes a lot of trauma, because both his parents put their own feelings above Robby's and don't really care about how he feels.

So, so far, Robby has trauma from Johnny (1) abandoning him, (2) neglecting him, and (3) emotionally neglecting him.

Now, add to this, the new trauma that Johnny has been causing Robby since s1 by choosing a random kid over him.

Also, let's not blind ourselves to the reality of what has happened between Robby and Miguel. Miguel created the rivalry between them and Miguel attacked Robby with no provocation more than once. Johnny witnessed what Miguel did to Robby in the s1 avt. In fact, Robby's belief about that is that Johnny told Miguel to fight dirty against Robby. The implications of Robby's accusation tell us how much Robby believes that Johnny doesn't want him, or even hates him, indicating to us the extent of Robby's traumas. For the school fight, as Robby's father, it was Johnny's responsibility to find out what happened and to help Robby. Johnny didn't. He didn't do anything for Robby. Then, months later after doing nothing for Robby, Robby told Johnny a fact about the fight, that Miguel had attacked him while he had been stopping the fight, and Johnny completely brushed it off. So, what Robby knows is that Miguel can be violent towards Robby, and Johnny will not care. Miguel is very aware that he has this power of Johnny favoring him over Robby, and Miguel has felt superior about it (until prom night). So, there is an imbalance of power that Johnny has created between the boys, and even when it comes to Miguel attacking Robby unprovoked, Johnny chooses Miguel over Robby.

Also, note the disappointment and blame Johnny shows to Robby in the few interactions they have, which has probably added to Robby blaming himself. Couple this with the opposite happy and loving interactions Robby has witnessed Johnny have with Miguel. Robby had to be worn down psychologically and emotionally by his traumas, almost like going to Johnny in surrender or defeat in acceptance of how Johnny treats him, in order for him to earn a hug from Johnny.

This imbalance in how Johnny treats these boys is unlikely to change because of Robby, not Johnny, making the move (yet again) to work to reconcile their relationship. Johnny should have always treated Robby as a priority in his life. Johnny chose not to. Johnny then gave all the time, love, and attention that he should have been giving Robby to this random kid, while continuing to not give any to Robby. Johnny chose to do this to Robby. So, what has happened within Johnny that now he is going to suddenly treat Robby differently? Because the change in treatment towards Robby has to come from within Johnny. It doesn't matter what efforts Robby makes because Johnny is the one who never makes genuine, concrete, consistent efforts with Robby. Robby has always been there for Johnny to have a relationship with, and Johnny has never been truly willing to try. It can't be moments here and there. It has to be a consistent change in treatment, and one change has to be that Johnny chooses Robby over Miguel consistently, as any parent should choose their own child over some random kid. And, despite their conversation at the end of s4, we know Johnny is already going to be (1) betraying Robby's trust, (2) not caring about his well-being, and (3) choosing Miguel over him by risking his well-being by dragging him to Mexico to find Miguel next season. Johnny's actions right off the bat are indicating to us that his treatment of Robby in general and in comparison to Miguel will continue to be extremely subpar.

Narratively, it's too late to create an organic story where Robby is given the time and attention he needs from Johnny while Johnny also builds a relationship with the Diazs. Instead, the story has been that Johnny has been building his relationship with the Diazs at the expense of building a relationship with Robby (which Johnny completely gave up on in s4) and at the expense of Robby's well-being (psychological, emotional, physical, etc). So, how can this blended "family" be a healthy one when it is rooted in so much trauma inflicted on one of the children in the "family"?

Yet, with all this continued mistreatment of Robby and all this trauma that Johnny is causing Robby, fans believe

(1) Johnny is deserving of blessings and rewards in life in the form of a "happily ever after" blended family in which Robby remains an unfavored, mistreated child by Johnny, and

(2) that all of Robby's traumas from Johnny abandoning him, neglecting him, emotionally neglecting him, and choosing a random kid over him constantly, even when that random kid attacks him, should be minimized and made into inconsequential feelings so that Johnny can be given this reward.

Is this really the type of trauma representation people want in the media? People want the writers to minimize the seriousness of childhood trauma and make a joke out of it while simultaneously sending the message that the parent who causes the child all of this trauma deserves to be rewarded while the child's traumas are not properly acknowledged or addressed. Seriously?

Johnny needs to acknowledge and make up for all the trauma he has caused Robby. Johnny needs to make Robby the priority in his life until Robby has gotten his life and future on track and has starting healing from the traumas Johnny primarily has caused him. Johnny owes Robby this. Johnny has to specifically redeem himself to Robby for the unforgivable wrongs that Johnny has done towards Robby for this to be a true redemption story for Johnny.

You can't hurt someone immensely and expect rewards in life, even if they forgive you. You need to make the effort to prove that you are deserving of that forgiveness and not just give the person you hurt more trauma by continuing to treat them like shit while you build a happier life for yourself.

Robby's entire arc is about his traumas, especially from Johnny, and how he's been trying to cope with his traumas. I just don't get it. Why would fans want the writers to minimize and make a joke out of childhood trauma and trauma recovery?