#it's such a tragedy because they're so good

[whumpfish]

To me, whump is beautiful because it pushes the audience past pity and into understanding. We don't let the audience off that easily. The starting point is understanding, because that's the only way true sympathy and compassion can be evoked.

As a disabled person, and particularly a psychotic, I find pity evoking narratives everywhere--and I DESPISE them, because the pity is fake, it's momentary, it's forgotten the moment the audience leaves the theater. Those people who went to A Beautiful Mind and got all inspired for 2 hours would be terrified if they were told the person sitting behind them was a real psychotic. I left that movie absolutely furious. The goal was not to rip the lid off living with psychosis and make people understand and have compassion, it was to let them sigh at the tragedy of oh if only this brilliant man didn't have that darn mental illness, what more could he have given the world? ...and to feel good about themselves for having pity.

Whump doesn't do soft-focus. Whump doesn't do onlookers' perspectives. It's about the whumpee and their struggle, not the people around them and how they're affected by looking at the whumpee. This is why I kick so hard against the abled "caretaker" POV, why I kick so hard against Caretaker as a permanent and necessary role.

[Also it is and has always been a genre. People treating it as a trope is how it became diluted for a while.]

thinking of whump less as a trope and more as a genre frees you to do a lot more with it

[kirkwallguy]

I agree so much with you that Solas is an active detriment to the Dragon age setting. I am replaying Origins, and my incredibly hot take is that Solas recycles a significant amount of Keeper Zathrian's character, in order to create a more "epic" scale narrative that imo is also much weaker and messier than the original Zathrian to the overall scope of the world and to player engagement.

They're both bald magic elves who have been alive for absurd lengths of time, and who are convinced of their own righteousness even when their actions cause or will cause great and unending harm to those around them. At least with Zathrian his "optimal" narrative path (whatever that may be to the player) isn't gated off behind playing a straight woman, my Tabris can butch out with Leliana all I want and still access all modes of narrative engagement with Zathrian, and the Dalish within the Zathrian quest are granted legitimacy and dignity in their beliefs.

I am not a fan of the reveal that the Dalish gods were functionally just powerful mages, it's so obviously a plot beat written by a certain type of atheist who don't see how anyone could have faith in a greater force, or have curiosity about that mode of moving through the world, which is made even sillier when the setting has dragons and ghosts and stuff. Its so similar to the type of story that takes greek/norse/egyptian gods and re-imagines them as regular guys, functionally wizards, in an urban fantasy setting, wanting the power and drama but shedding the belief systems that go along with the gods, and what those systems do and mean to people. There's so much awe and wonder and hope in the codex entries in the Origins Dalish camp - are these gods gone for good, can they ever return and can the Dalish ever go home either with or without their gods' presence? What do the gods mean to a people who have suffered so much and safeguard those pieces of divinity that remain in stories and song and crafts? What might these echoes of distant gods mean to the city elves, so far removed from what once was but still cherishing the traditions they do have? But no, the Dalish were fools for their tattoos and their beliefs, and all the history and remembrances Zathrian kept and passed on to his people was false. What an idiot. Who even remembers that guy?

Anyways, you don't have to post my anonymous tirade, I just am a huge fan of one (1) bald elf so deep in guilt and tragedy and the weight of history that he is either blind to the harm he may cause, or so secure in his pride and belief in his own righteousness that he chooses to close his eyes to that harm. And that elf is not Solas.

i always giggle when i get to zathrian because he's so obviously prototype solas.

and despite his situation, zathrian's goals feel mostly grounded, we see him amongst the clan and understand his dynamics with the people around him. it's kind of impossible to fully grasp solas' whole deal because it's so hypothetical, all these things happened offscreen to characters with incomprehensible power who may have just been spirits at the time anyway. who give a shit...

and i agree with the religion thing but i'd say i always read dai and dav's handling of religion more as being liberal christianism than overzealous atheism. i wrote this post about dai, and i think dav only made it more true:

there's so little exploration of religious practices in dalish culture, dai at least does a little bit with those few sidequests, but dalish clans in dav are something just distantly spoken about and never fully explained. and this is in a game ABOUT the dalish gods. how is bellara saying (over and over again) "our gods are back!!! D:" supposed to hit when we don't know what significance the gods actually have? 😑 they had something really interesting in origins and da2, but it just feels like any other contextless fantasy pantheon now

[royal-confessions]

“Harry and Meghan, swooping in as "volunteers." Tons of people are just patiently lining up to sign up for that. Aren't they just average citizens in the US? So why the special treatment? What exactly do they offer? A handful of "hugs" (to officials and staff only) and the riveting job of "handing out food."” - Submitted by Anonymous

“Meghan and Harry's little LA pap walk is laughable, like they actually care about anyone other than themselves.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“I truly believe that Harry and Meghan were really shocked, like rest Americans, and want to help Californians affected by the wildfires to recover and rebuilt their lifes. It was so good they volunteer and bring donations. BUT the pictures of them walking between ashes, climbing on ruins and survey the area was so so wrong and annoying.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“Meghan and Harry went to a cemetery took a photographer with them did a photoshoot at people's graves and released the pictures to the public so yes they absolutely are the kind of people to use other people's suffering as a photo op” - Submitted by Anonymous

“Disgusted by Meghan showing up to the fires in LA with her brand new Dodgers hat and team of body guards in full glam and jewelry just for a freaking photo op. Contrast that with Jennifer Garner, actually asked by charities like World Central Kitchen, who showed up with her hair up in a ponytail because she knew she’d actually be working and helping. Spare your fake performist tears Meghan. Disgusting.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“It's almost ridiculous that Harry and Meghan think they need to issue an official statement about the Palisades fire. They're just regular folks, not royals or officials, yet they act like it’s a big deal! And then a two-hour drive to "offer hugs"? Bringing with them bodyguards? It’s quite the show, using a tragedy for some publicity. Reminds me of when Meghan brought a film crew to Uvalde.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“Meghan Markle treating first the shooting in Uvalde and now the LA fires as photo ops is next level incomprehensible narcissistic attention-seeking truly there are no words to describe the mindset of someone who sees s tragedy and thinks only about boosting their own profile” - Submitted by Anonymous

[good-to-drive]

I watched To Wong Foo last night instead of confronting reality, and in the spirit of not confronting reality, I just feel like drag would have changed John’s life if he did it right. He’s the only Beatle who would really nail it, too. 

George and Ringo would probably enjoy it on a shallower level, but they wouldn’t really get it. They’d embrace the old-school showmanship and find elements of humor and irony, and be very comfortable laughing at themselves and everyone else, but at the end of the day this just isn’t who they are. They’d be playing their personas as if they were characters, not as a true extension of themselves. It would be a sincere enough effort, but it would fall short.

And Paul, bless him, probably wouldn’t even try, but if you could get him to do it (especially if everyone else was doing it) I think it would be emptily beautiful. He’s a natural born performer in every way, and of course the musical aspects would be impeccable, but, on the other hand, drag requires elements of self-parody and mixes irony and self-depreciation with almost embarrassing earnestness, none of which is something he could ever throw himself into sincerely. He’d be so focused on making sure people know he’s good at this (but also that he's not taking it seriously), that the jokes he makes about himself are funny (but also that they're not based on true flaws), that the jokes he makes about other people are true and funny… he really wouldn’t have any fun at all. He’d be incredibly polished, but it wouldn’t touch you. Deep down you’d know this doesn’t mean anything, because he simply won’t allow it to mean anything. 

But, in a fantasy world, I think a drag persona could have been a wonderful presence in John’s life. A rejection of all shame, embracing self-awareness and self-parody without self-hate, making a spectacle of yourself because you love yourself and love the things about you that you were once taught were unlovable, all through the lens of a deep respect for womanhood and female power. John is both urbane and filthy, so her name would be Pandora Box. She would be like Patrick Swayze's character in To Wong Foo, rejecting the shame and isolation and fear of childhood by stepping forward as an unconditionally loving, unabashed and unashamed, strong and beautiful woman. There’s an element of tragedy to becoming the person you needed as a child, knowing that child is still alone across oceans of time that can’t be crossed, but it can be healing to who you are now, too. And given how witty and emotionally intelligent John was, her reads would just be devastating. 

[avelera]

I've been thinking about this meta and laughing actually because I want to reiterate, the foundations of Jayce's Season 1 plotline was clearly a typical morality play where he has an angel and a devil on his shoulder and he's tugged between politics and science.

To briefly sum up the meta above, what subverted this very reductive plotline was making Mel not evil (actually, not evil at all, just her own person with her own goals which are indeed mostly altruistic) and to make the motivations for Jayce 90% of the time to be helping Viktor and their work.

I think originally, the plot was supposed to be "Viktor and Science are Good" "Mel and Politics are Bad" "Jayce is Seduced by Bad Politics and Sexy Mel Away from the True Value of Brotherly Friendship and Science" with him only coming back too late to his Good Science Bro and realized his Evil Politics and Girlfriend Mistakes after Viktor has tragically decided to go full Machine Herald after Jayce's abandonment.

Now in this simplistic version, this failed morality play on Jayce's part is a Tragedy because he realizes his mistake and returns to his bro after it is Too Late and now he must use the lessons he learned to Save His Bro from Evil (that Jayce caused with his initial abandonment).

Then a bunch of other better storytelling drafts happened and we got the plot of Arcane as we saw it BUT

BUT

The thing that is absolutely cracking me up about this proposed timeline of storytelling decisions and where it got us (which I firmly believe to be true) is that it led to the absolute gayest take on Jayce & Viktor ever like, seriously, by fleshing out this story the way they did, it went from "Save the bro you tragically abandoned" to "Save the man you did EVERYTHING for because only YOU can rescue your soulmate across all timelines, all possibilities, and you must give more than you did before, you must give everything of yourself to this cause and you do so gladly, in the most romantic gesture of all time." Like...

Ok, I'm gonna say something potentially unpopular here but I don't really blame Christian Linke for seeing Jayce/Viktor as brotherly, because that's what like 99% of straight male showrunners see when they write the gayest relationship of all time and given what we know of what Jayce & Viktor looked like in the earliest drafts, it probably was more brotherly in the earliest versions that he had the most influence on before he handed it over to better writers and artists.

(I speculate the reason for male showrunners not getting how romantic the "friendship" stories they're writing are is because for many cis straight male creators, "brotherhood" as defined by "not blood relatives but more than a best friend" with another man is the closest relationship you can have, while romance is just a relationship with the best sex you'll ever have, maybe, or just the woman you're "supposed" to settle down with, whereas for women and queer writers, they tend to write the love interest as being your most important person, not a blood relative but more than a best friend, and this is where the wire gets crossed because these cis male writers don't realize they've written a catnip romance for everyone who isn't them ANYWAY I DIGRESS).

SO, this re-write of Jayce's reductive morality-play plot where Science Bro Good and Politics Girlfriend Bad to make Mel and Viktor more nuanced and complicated and not really dragging Jayce into two directions because he's doing everything for Viktor 1) makes all his motivations realign to be just about Viktor which is insanely romantic. But 2!!!

2) In the original morality play plot with Science Bro Good, Jayce returning to Viktor in S2 but it's Too Late is just tragic but it could still just be a story of betraying a friend and your own principles.

But in the revised arc, where Jayce did everything in S1 for Viktor, including overthrowing the government, but in S2 realizing that he wasn't helping Viktor in the way Viktor wanted, that he should have instead stayed in the lab to help Viktor instead of trying to save him elsewhere, and then re-writing Jayce's entire life purpose in S2 to be about saving Viktor's soul and oh, also the world I guess, goes from being "Reductive Jayce making Amends for Leaving his Science Bro for Evil Politics Girlfriend" and instead makes it, "Man who gave everything for his best friend but it wasn't enough to save him then course corrects and figures out how to give his best friend what he REALLY needs, but only does so tragically too late, and must then go on a Tragic Quest, tear himself down to shreds and build himself back up again to become a vessel of but one singular goal, which is the salvation of his Science Bro's SOUL, rescuing him from a fate of loneliness worse than death, because in all timelines, in all possibilities, only HE can rescue his Science Bro from himself oh, and also the world, I guess." And it just becomes the most insanely romantic story of all time.

And I can see how in the foundations of the old story, this would be a much more "friend-coded" story for Jayce and Viktor but because of all the nuanced writing levels that were added later, it just got 10x and then 100x more romantic until it's the most undeniably, mind-breakingly romantic story ever of literally saving one another's lives and souls over and over again across the multiverse because only you can save each other, you are doomed without one another, and yeah, if originally you just wanted to show Jayce being torn between his evil politics girlfriend and his good science bro buddy and then spending act 2 redeeming himself for his act 1 temptations then yeah, I can see how as CL or other show runners you might not have realized what you were cooking until after it came out of the oven!

I feel like so much of the silly Mel vs. Viktor discourse when it comes to Jayce would be resolved if people realized that the plot was originally conceived as a basic morality play arc with Mel as the devil on one shoulder and Viktor as the angel on the other for Jayce.

The bones of Jayce's plot in Season 1 is of a good-guy scientist who is tempted by the allure of politics and fame, with a beautiful femme fatale politician seducing him towards power on the one side and his humble 'brotherly' relationship with his scientific partner representing Jayce's 'true self' that he is drawn away from by her machinations. It's a very, very old school, reductive, male-centric plot that literally boils down to "bros before hos".

It even makes sense for S2, with Jayce overcoming his corruption arc in S1 and returning to his "bro" only for his prior sins to tragically launch Viktor's own corruption arc as the Machine Herald only after Jayce has learned his lesson.

And then the Arcane writers and Fortiche subverted this plot. Here's how:

They made all three characters multi-faceted adults with their own agency and motivations. None of them are puppets for the others or, if they are, the time one character spends controlling the choices of another becomes part of that controlling character's sins that must be atoned for (namely, Jayce resurrecting Viktor against his will, Mel manipulating Jayce against his will, Viktor trying to control everyone against their will).

For example, they made Mel complex and interesting and a good person in her own right. Yes, she still has elements of the beauty, danger, and allure of a femme fatale but by making her her own person with her own plot and motives, none of which are malicious (at most, they are self-serving until she changes her views on Hextech and how best to bring peace to Piltover).

Jayce is still torn between Mel and Viktor but he also fully has his own agency, as many are quick to point out. He is often dragged around by the manipulations of others too (Mel yes, but also Marcus, Vi, and Ambessa influence Jayce into bad decisions). Part of his arc is learning how to be true to himself and his own goals after his time spent in the Anomaly future. But, even there, you can still see the bones of the original morality play arc, where the "Good Ending" for Jayce is to go back to his lab partner "bro" and bring both of them back to being true to themselves.

Viktor isn't just helplessly standing by while Jayce ignores him. In fact, Viktor often deliberately cuts Jayce out of his experiments. He doesn't tell Jayce about the Shimmer, or the self-experimentation, or even about Sky's death until after Jayce resurrects him with the Hexcore. Viktor has agency, he has his own goals, and while he frequently chastises Jayce for abandoning their shared dream in what I believe is another hint of the bones of the original morality play plot, he also has his own flaws and his own journey to go on independent of Jayce.

Much of the silly bickering I see between Mel and Viktor fans comes down to who "deserves" Jayce, who is "erased" by not ending up with Jayce, whether or not Mel is manipulative, or if Viktor thinks about Jayce at all when he's busy pursuing his own goals, and I think all of those are absurd arguments.

Mel is manipulative, it is part of the bones of the morality play plot that has her as the antagonist, but they made her so much more than that, that I think it's an active disservice to the character they made to reduce her story down to whether or not she ends up with Jayce. I get why people get hung up on it, because I do believe it's the core of the first draft of her plot, but the richness of her character comes from moving beyond that. Indeed, in S2, the least important part of her character is her relationship to Jayce. She has her own stuff going on.

Whether or not Jayce is a victim of manipulation or whether or not he pursued power for its own sake is also showing an understanding of the basic, core plot they built the richness on top of. Jayce was seduced by Mel's manipulation and he did grasp after power, but they enriched his character by making his goals more noble and more tragic. He's always trying to fight for Viktor, for Hextech, for their shared dream, and for making Piltover a safer, better place, but how he goes about it often makes matters worse until he learns, grows, gains wisdom, and makes terrible mistakes he arguably can never make up for fully.

Jayce also isn't fully a victim of Mel's manipulation, just as she is not fully a mastermind able to control his every move. He breaks away at a certain point and makes his own (poor) decisions in ways that frighten her and make her regret her actions, until he grows enough to recognize the wisdom in her advice (though he later grows again and recognizes the original manipulation, which leads to him breaking up with her in 2.08 because Mel's sins are still there and they are the reason she and Jayce don't have hope for a future together once he realizes he can't trust her because actions have consequences in Arcane).

As for Viktor, he doesn't like Mel. In that, I think we again see the original morality play roots, with him as the angel on the shoulder disliking the devil who is seducing Jayce. But they enriched his character by having him respect Jayce's choices even as he may have privately disapproved of them, and to have his own arc to worry about with his failing health, and his other flaws like intellectual tunnel vision/naiveté, and his tendency to self-isolate in the face of his terminal illness. He has his own stuff going on.

They also subverted the morality play arc to a certain extent by having Viktor stop being the angel in S2. Indeed, the framework more or less falls away entirely and it become Jayce trying to save Viktor from himself, and from Jayce's own mistakes of not destroying the Hexcore, while Mel is busy with her own story of politics, war, and magic.

Anyway, I hope some of this makes sense. But I think if people just recognized that yes, there are elements of Mel as a bad guy in the fabric of the story, of a story where Jayce is in a balancing act between his demons and his angels, but that good writers came in and layered real people over these simplistic plots, made it so Mel's story isn't just about Jayce, Jayce's story isn't just about getting corrupted by a femme fatale, and Viktor's story isn't just about being abandoned by Jayce, and thus elevated the trope beyond its tired-out, simplistic roots, there'd be a lot less wank.

[greenerteacups]

Jkr as a writer anon, sorry for the follow up!

I so agree with you! One of the things that I found kind of… not smooth in this transition, is that she wanted the characters to behave in a certain way which would serve the plot and would be very “we knew all along that Harry is a messiah and was supposed to die” while never giving them space for reaction.

Snape is shocked at the revelation that Harry was “brought up like a pig for slaughter”, and he does… nothing. Characters have no time to react to that, too, they have no time to get angry and upset. Hermione and Ron are not even allowed to contemplate that their best friend, a very precious and loved friend, was brought up so that he could sacrifice himself, and that in aligning themselves with him they also became in the eyes of Dumbledore fair targets. An orphan, a sixth Weasley boy and a muggleborn walk into a bar, and no one cares.

I always felt like Sirius was not supposed to die this early. There are empty spaces where his character should have been in later books (regulus mystery feels like something very glaring, no one reacts to that, there is no emotional pay off - that’s what I mean).

And at the end she just slaps Harry calling his kid after Snape and Dumbledore, to shut the plot hole completely. Idk. Feels very… authoritarian to me

So it's really interesting you say that!! Because — and you may know this, so sorry if I'm rehashing — Sirius was only one of several names on the shortlist for the Big Death at the end of Book 5. Miscellaneously it's been said in fandom spaces that Arthur was the "original sacrifice" for OOTP, but to be honest, I can't find any primary sources for that, and I think it's one of these fandom urban legends that people have been shopping around without sources for so long they're accepted. The best I can do is this Leaky Cauldron interview from 2007, where the interviewer asks her "what would have changed if you killed Arthur in Book 5?" Which is not the same thing as her saying that she was going to! But then again, since it's an excerpt, it might have been in response to a remark she made earlier about him being the original. Here's the quote:

I think they would have been very different and it’s part of the reason why I chose my mind (sic) … By turning Ron into half of Harry, in other words by turning Ron into someone who had suffered the loss of a parent, I was going to remove the Weasleys as a refuge for Harry and I was going to necessarily remove a lot of Ron’s humor. That’s part of the reason why I didn’t kill Arthru (sic). I wanted to keep Ron in tact …

Take that as you will. I (a sicko freak) personally love the idea of turning Ron into "half of Harry," conceptually — not necessarily by killing Arthur or Molly but like, the idea of Ron/Harry as foils to each other that are so deeply entwined with each other's lives that they become shadows of each other thematically and plot-wise. Ron yearns to be like Harry and Harry yearns to be like Ron, right? So they both get what they want, and Ron suffers a tragedy, and Harry realizes the terror of having a family to protect. And they trauma-bond over it as they increasingly become the only people who understand each other. Etc. They're destiny, they're chosen soulmates, they're fated to find each other, that's not always a good thing, etc. You know what I'm like.

Incidentally, this is the same interview where we get the infamous "full circle" quote explaining why she killed Lupin and Tonks:

The only other reason I didn’t kill Arthur was that I wanted to come full circle. We started with an orphan, someone who lost their parents because of the war. ANd so I wanted to show it again … Even though you don’t see Teddy, I wanted to express in the epilogue, that he gets an even better godfather than Harry had, because Sirius had ihs (sic) faults, I think we must admit. He was a risky guy to have a s a godfather. Because Teddy gets someone who really has been there, and Harry becomes a really great father figure for Teddy as well as his own children.

So both times, it seems like Arthur's death is contemplated, but he's spared because of what the Weasleys mean to Harry, and the effect it would have on Ron. Which. I've already talked about my thoughts on the Epilogue and Teddy Lupin, so I won't go off about it here. Worth noting, however, that Sirius dies because Book 5 (and this I agree with) wants an "anchoring death," or something to shift the books another step into the dark tone of a war. Book 4 ends with the death of a child; Book 5 ends with death of a parent, an adult. Book 5 is also substantially about disillusionment with the adults around you, and learning to navigate a world of complex, flawed grown-ups who all have substantially more power than you do. So there's a reading where Sirius — someone who's never really "grown up" — dying drives home the lesson of putting childish things aside and seeing people for what they are, etc. Thematically, I'm not mad at it. I am mad at the fact that plot-wise, it bricks up our easiest window into the world of the Blacks, so any first-hand account we could get of Regulus or Narcissa or Bellatrix's upbringing vanishes with him. Tonks and Andromeda theoretically could fill that void, but we never meet Andromeda, and Tonks dies after spending the whole of Book 7 off-page, so we never get that chance to learn what their lives were like. But hey! Can't do everything, I guess.

[5ummit]

HTP Fic Recs: Hidden Gems

Have you, like me, devoured everything in the Hydra Trash Party AO3 tag and are desperate for more? Well you may be in luck.

In honor of CATWS's 10th anniversary I’ve decided, yet again, to make a new rec list so that these gems don't get buried in my overwhelmingly extensive original rec list. This list features HTP and HTP-adjacent fics that are NOT tagged as HTP (either because the author didn't know the label existed or didn't believe it applied to their fic), making them particularly hard to find, and I think, deserving of more attention.

Many of these fics don’t have much, if any, explicit noncon, but noncon is often implied or referenced and they’re all rife with other types of dehumanization and abuse so the usual HTP warnings still apply. Read tags carefully etc.

The Making of the Winter Soldier [series] by CluckU & Mumble_Bee Relationship: Hydra Agents/WS, Zola/WS Words: 13,700

There are a small, precious collection of things he knows for certain each time he wakes in his chair: He is a weapon. A soldier. An asset. He is being molded into the Fist of Hydra. He must prove himself. Failure is not an option.

Muscle Memory by sparklingbinjuice Relationship: Rumlow & Bucky Words: 4500

It had taken five minutes of fumbling but he had eventually picked the lock. The soldier wouldn’t be back for hours. Coordinates provided by the remaining, somewhat rudimentary, tracking device installed in the titanium arm indicated that he wandered the streets on weekends – watching people, visiting libraries and museums, feeding the birds. It was all so horribly human.

Reconquer, regain, recover by werebird Relationship: Hydra Agents/WS (past) Words: 2300

Hydra had known his body better than he himself ever could. They had taken it, reshaped it, reprogrammed it. They had birthed the Winter Soldier although they had never given him life.

Taming Winter by Runlights Relationship: Rumlow & WS, Steve & Bucky Words: 91,000 Notes: terrifying bloodthirsty WS

Regardless of the intravenous set pumping warming fluids into those veins, regardless of the fact that a moment ago, the guy looked on the verge of death, the Winter Soldier was out of the chair and in front of him with two steps that happened so quickly he didn’t even have time to do more than inhale. He froze as he felt the press of his own combat knife against his throat, the bite of the blade causing blood to well and slip down his throat. This was the point where he suspected people felt fear, especially staring into those unfocused cold eyes. He only felt a twisted fascination.

The Soldier’s Kittens by exclamation Relationship: Sam & Bucky, Steve & Bucky Words: 11,300 Notes: animal abuse/death

"Sam's a really good guy," Steve said. "I think you'd like him if you spent more time with him." Bucky said nothing. He would not show any interest in Sam, just as he had not shown any interest when Steve had taken him to the animal shelter to try and get him to interact with the dogs there. He knew this trap and he wouldn't fall into it twice.

Flinching by Exorin Relationship: Steve/Bucky Words: 570

It might finally break what's left of him if Steve knew the way he's had to dig his nails into his palms hard enough to draw blood just to shape his breath into the sound of a moan.

I'm comin' up only to hold you under by anonymous Relationship: Hydra Agents/Bucky, Steve/Bucky (past) Words: 2100

They drag him out of his cell by his hair and toss him into a room full of identical guards. He lands hard on his knees, the force of the impact stuttering up his weak, tired body, and he glares up and them with all the hatred he can gather. He feels off-balance, like he does whenever he tries to carry himself now—the stump of his missing arm has a phantom weight he can't get used to, won't get used to.

Context is Everything by thedevilchicken Relationship: Hannibal/Bucky Words: 2600

"I don't understand," Bucky replied. "Recontextualize?" "Your memories of HYDRA seem…distant," Hannibal said. "The way you speak about them is as if they happened to someone else. In order to process your trauma, you must understand that they happened to you."

Never Letting the Blood Dry by BarrenPines Relationship: Rumlow & WS, Steve & Bucky Words: 2500 Notes: whipping

After the mission, there were pats on the back, expressions of congratulations and thanks, and a dozen other little niceties that made his skin crawl. He’d gotten lucky, that’s all. And he’d also defied orders, departed from his assigned task. Praise wasn’t what he deserved.

[horreurscopes]

watching death note and house of the dragon simultaneously earlier this year did something permanent to my galaxy brain

[macbethisms]

underrated thing about wang baoxiang is how utterly pathetic he is. intentionally provokes his brother every time they interact because having esen be mad at him for something he did on purpose is easier than being vulnerable and then is like how could esen think i hate him :(( goes around rolling his eyes at all these Idiots who don't consider the Needs of the Common Folk and then gets grossed out whenever a servant dares to speak to him. constantly thinking about Hot Men Exercising and how much they all want to fuck each other probably. hasn't emotionally matured past the age of fifteen (he is twenty-three). thinks of himself as a Character instead of a person so much that he gets surprised whenever the things he did for their narrative significance have actual real consequences. while being quite literally haunted by a specter of his own guilt is like hm what could this mean. well time to not sleep for another 36 hours. kills people and then throws up about it and then goes off to kill more people because surely this is the one that will fix everything right. wants to be punished for what he's done because it's the closest he can get to admitting he feels remorse. looks for his brother everywhere but only ever finds himself.

which of course culminates with him stalking miserably through the hallways looking for someone to be mad at because there needs to be someone else responsible for making his life suck but there isn't anymore because no one has power over him anymore. and he can't go back but tries to convince himself that he doesn't want to because he also needs to see himself as being In Control of Everything That's Ever Happened to Him. he wanted it all along and he likes it here actually. and he won fratricide chicken and got himself tortured and tried to show mercy and did every evil dishonorable thing and now he just has to live with it all forever. loser!!!!

[pensivespacepirate]

it feels like the whole purpose of venom 3 is to kill off venom what the fuck

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

Role swap AU in which Sasha ends up in Wartwood, Marcy in Toad Tower and Anne in Newtopia, but Sasha is still a manipulative little shit and Marcy a total sweetheart despite Sasha being with the "good guys" and Marcy with the "bad guys".

It's not like she enjoys tormenting Marcy for sport. It's not like using all her insecurities against her and destroying her confidence brings her joy, but she and her toad friends are threatening her Wartwood and her frog family and oh boy, she should have kept her head down among her books where it belongs because Sasha is not going to let this offense slide.

[dammit-tazmuir]

I just genuinely do not remotely understand where you're getting this notion that "there's nothing sympathetic about Ianthe" or that "we're not supposed to care about her." Like where is your textual evidence? Because I have literally not seen one single person in this fandom yet who doesn't adore her, and I have a very hard time believing that's by accident.

I've seen people shit on Corona, and even rip her apart to emphasize Ianthe's tragedy without acknowledging how mutually toxic they are. I've seen people fail to acknowledge the nuance and sympathetic circumstances around all of John's stuff. I've seen almost nothing but making Silas the butt of jokes, and only very rarely any appreciation. I've seen people have problems with Palamedes of all people. I've seen criticism for Paul's existence.

I have at not one point yet encountered a person who doesn't adore Ianthe and want good things for her. I have never seen a single person be like "fuck that toxic bitch, I hope she gets what's coming to her" the way they do characters like John. Like maybe I've just been lucky so far, but I'm sorry, it REALLY, REALLY does sound like you personally sympathize with her LESS than most people do and are projecting that onto other people? Or taking "she's awful" extremely literally. Have you never seen or written a character that makes you go "oh they're the absolute worst, I adore them"? Is that just a new concept? I want to understand here.

I typed up a whole big thing about personal theories for Ianthe's mentality but decided it was probably too much and saved it elsewhere, so let me know if you want that I guess, but no worries if not.

For that matter though, what specifically proves that "Harrow is a terrible person"? Because a lot of fans find her deeply relatable, and there are both fans and other characters who don't see her sour grumpy attitude as particularly offputting and some actively find it endearing. "She made Gideon's life shitty for 16 years" can only do so much heavy lifting when we know for a fact Crux and other adults were worse offenders, Gideon was also constantly shitty to Harrow, Harrow was literally younger than Gideon, and Harrow was dealing with severe and untreated mental illness that Gideon personally exacerbated. (We KNOW Gideon is inclined to pull pranks on Harrow and rearrange things when she's out of the room and do other things that were very likely to cause Harrow to need to go to Crux for reality checks, that Gideon is a significant contributor to her fearing she's simply insane, and that she was actively afraid to let Gideon specifically know bad her brain was even though that could have helped a lot of them a lot.) And also when that stopped nearly immediately the second they were away from the adults perpetuating it. I don't know man but I feel like staying in a pattern one was raised in when it's never been challenged says a lot less about a person than how they behave and adapt once it's gone.

Is it because the baby nun who was 500% paranoia by volume between her hallucinations and her recent trauma she can't properly remember and having been raised to be extremely secretive at all times Or Else wasn't ecstatic about being romantic or bffs with someone who she knows killed and ate one of the only other friends she had in cold blood while also dealing with constant attempts on her life? Because even with all that she was honestly still pretty soft with Ianthe. Denying being friends in words doesn't change that she was relying on Ianthe and trusting her even more than she did their God and being fairly intimate with her. Actions should speak louder than words.

Like genuinely, why do you think "we're not supposed to" like or care about or sympathize with Ianthe, or that Harrow is objectively terrible start to finish? I don't see it.

A big reason I ignore all the meta from Tamsyn Muir about The Locked Tomb is that her values system about some of her characters seems deeply at odds with their characterization in-book.

Muir clearly loathes Ianthe, and yet HTN shows an Ianthe who is deeply insecure, scared, and desperately lonely. Yeah, she killed her Cav and a few other people. This is quite bad. I do not think Ianthe is a good person. But I don't find her irredeemable like Muir says.

Hitting on Harrow isn't ideal, but also Harrow is her only friend and flirtation is one of the few ways Ianthe knows to show her companionship. Throughout HTN, Ianthe seems to be trying to make friends, to be helpful, and is rebuffed at every turn by Harrow.

In contrast, while Harrow is less evil than many of the other characters, she is clearly a profoundly horrible person. She is mean and cruel to those around her, she has made Gideon's life absolutely miserable for 16ish years, she rebuffs basically every single offer of help and friendship anyone but Gideon ever shows her in either of the two series (and quite meanly; basically anything anyone ever gets from her is some verbose equivalent of "go fuck yourself".)

But we spend all this time in her head, so we know it's because she's scared and insecure and doesn't know how to handle it. So very much of her behavior is forgiven by Muir and by the audience because of this. A sizeable portion of the fanbase seems to be mad at John for trying to tell her to get more sleep, or to try doing something relaxing (make soup), or even to ask other people for help. Yes, you cannot will your way out of depression, but "try to get more sleep" and "do soothing things" are basically foremost of any serious advice for how to deal with it.

John doesn't know why she's been not getting enough sleep. But he's also a deeply fucked-up person. And yet he's trying with Harrow. Badly, clumsily, but trying. He doesn't really know why she's been on such edge and miserable. But Harrow never tells him. She has John and Ianthe (and probably Mercymorn and Augustine, although they're even more fucked up) she could have tried asking for help, and refuses.

But, Harrow is the protagonist, and we see inside her head, and she's not willing to actually murder Gideon, and she thinks murdering 200 children was bad, actually. So we're expected to sympathize with her.

Don't get me wrong, I sympathize with her. I want her to be better. I like fucked-up protagonists who aren't great people.

But do not, for one second, suggest that Harrow is not one of the worst human beings in this series (behind John, Cytharea, Mercymorn, Augustine, and Ianthe, in roughly that order). She brings an untold amount of her misery upon herself by being deliberately, not prickly, but just so. fucking. awful.

[sapphireswimming]

I just!! Am Screaming!!!! Sean said they were just going to keep sending him back into the field one more time just one more job you gotta do until he was dead but he never said no! he could have left Candela Obscura at any point, after any job, but he chose to stay there! even after he'd reached the end of his rope! and everyone else continued to stay with him! for him!! Marion told Sean he was only there because of him. Auntie Bee admitted she was only there to stay near him. if he ever said he wanted out they would have not only let him but left with him! and if Sean and Marion were both out, Jean would have been to! Nathaniel would have followed as soon as he paid his debt to Allison! they didn't want him to keep going until he broke! they were trying to be there with him for him by him beside him because that was literally all they could do for him! they all could have been happier outside of Candela Obscura but Sean was there so they weren't going to leave! they loved him!! the love was there!! the love was there the whole time and it mattered of course it mattered but it didn't do anything!!!! it didn't do anything except keep them all together until it was too late! and I! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[bayofwolves]

i was on the most random nostalgia kick and rewatched the prince of egypt yesterday and let me just say... that movie is truly one of the greatest animated films of all time.

[gurorori]

haha oh no im definitely not at all disturbed by the prevalence of leftists on all platforms who are loudly 'anti-genocide' when it comes to the palestinian cause (and a couple others at best :3c) yet the only time ukraine [ʊkrɐˈjinɐ] leaves their mouths is in critique, in stark comparison to the former or in complaint about their (american) government sending aid.

at first what i saw often was pointing out the differences in western media framing [ukraine vs palestine], and that's fair (until the words and the agenda of western journalists are used to paint, as a whole, ukrainians who have been actively going through genocide as some kind of white supremacists hogging the blanket of global attention when they kinda just want to live and have the rights to their own land, culture, names and families)

but no one is even caring to do that anymore, today bitches just invent metaphorical scenarios and people to get mad at and to throw an entire ethnos away because wahhhh i decided that you care for X but not for Y!!!.... all while doing the exact thing they are condemning. the exact absolute same and they don't even hide it but do lack the self-awareness to realise

[viillette]

it's so crazy how few historical fiction novels are like sharon kay penman's. the way that they're built out of the skeleton of the historical record seems so obvious, but there's so few people who are actually willing to commit to it in the way that she did. it seems like so often that's just a starting point which gets reformed to fit a coherent narrative, but she makes no real attempt to do that. there's themes and foils and patterns, but first and foremost it is a reconstruction. you can't really know what someone who lived that long ago was like, only what they did, and you can feel how she takes these isolated, dramatic events and builds a whole life around them. the books are nothing more than an answer to the question 'what might someone have been like, what could the history between these people have been, to possibly explain something like this?' the ability to string together a handful of facts and events from medieval chronicles to create people that feel so real, and psychology and relationships that develop so naturally that these distant, seemingly impenetrable choices suddenly feel so immediate and clear is just beyond belief. you know this probably wasn't actually how things happened, but it doesn't matter because it was something like this. the particulars are less important the crushing awareness that at one point all of this made sense. there was a time when all of this was right now. the world is unrecognizable and exactly the same. that's something which sounds very simple but is incredibly difficult to accomplish.

you come to know these people so well, their loves and hatreds and ambitions and failures, and those things are rarely resolved in the end. you know them from the time that they're children, you watch each one of them die, and none of it means anything in particular except that they were a human being. things which seem like they must be building to some tragic fallout end in anticlimax. things which seem utterly inconsequential in the moment manifest again decades later in cataclysmic disaster. and then you see it all play out again from the beginning with their children, and their children's children. all these uncanny echoes, this endlessly unfolding palimpsest of lives, each laid over the triumphs and mistakes of those who came before. i've never read anything so epic with so much mastery over the micro and macro levels of history. it's the minute, seemingly inconsequential everyday details, which build into a lifetime, which builds into generation of lives, which builds into the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires. it's the merciless endlessly turning wheel of fortune that replays the same songs in different keys again and again for all time. a person is both an individual with free will, and the prisoner of their blood and circumstances. somehow everything has infinite weight, is tied to everything that has come before and will come after, is the culmination of someone's entire existence—their pains and joys and fears and hopes—and yet is simultaneously completely meaningless, just one more victim of fate in an endless procession of lives and choices. the whole impotent tragedy of humanity is laid out in front of you and it's so repulsive and beautiful. it's deep love and unfathomable, senseless horror briefly and miraculously reverberating in a vacuum, an absurd aberration fading into silence.

if it's not obvious these books have made me cry like 10 different times