#just with…zero justification in the actual story lmao

[thatgirlonstage]

Yeah yeah “show don’t tell” get mis-explained and misinterpreted as writing advice a lot and yeah sometimes you SHOULD be telling the reader things however I am unwilling to discard this particular phrase given the number of stories I have encountered that make me want to slap the author across the face with it

[coldresolve]

I’m sorry if this comes off as ignorant, that is not my intention.

What is torture apologia? I haven’t been able to find a specific definition and it’s confusing for me. What does it look like in regard to the whump community? On top of that, what are some ways to avoid this in writing?

If you don’t want to type out a response to this, how can this be researched? You make some good points in your post about it, and I want to make sure my own writing isn’t based on stereotypes and misinformation about the subject. I am very, very new to the “whump” community, so I don’t fully understand the ways that torture apologia might be displayed in some of the popular writings.

Thank you for your time, and I apologize if this comes off as ignorant or confrontational.

hey no worries, youre not gonna offend me by asking a clarifying question. what pisses me off are the people who flat out dismiss everything i have to say without actually engaging with it. youre nowhere close to that lmao i promise

uh. i use the sexual assault r-word a bit here, because i just came up with a good rule of thumb that requires drawing similarities between torture and r-word, so. trigger warning if you dont wanna read that

there is no real definition of torture apologia out there, but i treat it in the same way i would rape apologism. and i actually think theres real worth in keeping with that similarity, because rape is considered a form of torture. so like. yeah

id go as far as to say you can switch out "torture" with "rape" in your story to see if the logic holds up, if you might be saying something you don't want to say. for example, "my hero tortures the bad guy, and this is framed as a form of vigilante justice", swapped with rape, uh, might not exactly be the sorta message you would want to send lol. your hero can torture the bad guy ofc, im not saying they can't, but you better be ready to grapple with the full fucking depth of morality of a situation like that

off the top of my head, things i'd steer clear of:

anything that implies that torture is useful for any purpose. torture just traumatizes people, that's about it, and it's dangerous to spread ideas about whatever imagined utility, because your average person has zero grasp on basic ethics - this is what turns your "useful" torture into "sometimes justified". a third of people globally believe torture can be justified "in some cases". like i can't stress how real this issue is

torture works as an interrogation method or as a way to obtain false/forced confessions (useful)

torture can be used to make someone obedient (useful)

torture can be used to change people's beliefs (useful)

torture can be used to brainwash people/control them (useful)

stockholm syndrome through torture is included in ^ (useful and also just. ehh)

any variant of the ticking time bomb scenario (useful + justification)

torture being portrayed as "scientific"; torturers being "experts" in the "skill" or "art" of torture (implies utility)

when the bad guy does it, it's torture; when the good guy does it, it's vigilante justice (justification)

there's a handful of ideas people use a lot in fiction that i wouldn't necessarily categorize as apologia, but which do still send a message you maybe should think twice about sending. torture victims/survivors being "broken", they'll never be able to live full, happy lives, etc. and there's also this idea that torture only negatively affects the person who is being tortured. i especially think showing the effects torture has on perpetrators is worthwhile, but that might just me having a weird fascination with perpetrator trauma. torture also tends to fuck up the organizations that use it, so

[inukag]

Forgive me if I'm wrong on this, but didn't Sesshoumaru seal InuYasha and Kagome away for protection? I know it was written in a very convoluted and stupid way but wasn't that the justification? In any case, it is awful that Moroha was kept away from her parents but the three of them seem to be cooping with that possibly very traumatic situation very well, so I guess we don't need to be too sad about that. The emotional logic is very weak in this show.

I don't think that Rumiko had much to do with anything besides the designs of the girls. When you sign away the rights to your characters and story, the executives can do whatever they damn well please with it. I mean, look at all the Marvel properties and some of the awful crap that's come out of Phrase 4.

Sesshomaru didn’t seal them to protect them, no. It was even more convoluted than that! He sealed them to protect Rin. You see this woman called Zero connected her life to Rin so if she died, Rin would die too. Sesshomaru and Jaken, like the idiots that they are in this story, thought “Inuyasha and Kagome are a problem, they could kill Zero so we have to seal them away” when the intelligent thing to do would have been:  1- HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH THEM. Literally just tell them “hey don’t kill this women because if you do Rin will die” and that’s it, problem solved. Sesshomaru knows damn well that Inuyasha and Kagome are softies with chronic hero syndrome and they would never do anything do endanger an innocent person like Rin. Not to mention that INUYASHA AND KAGOME DON’T EVEN KNOW ABOUT ZERO’S EXISTENCE? They know about Kirinmaru and his supposed goal to kill all hanyo but they’ve never heard of Zero?? 2- Best way to prevent anyone from killing Zero by mistake: seal HER in the border to afterlife instead of Kagome and Inuyasha 🙃

This is not even addressing all the plot holes and OOC decisions like how only Kagome and Hosenki II saw Inuyasha put the new black pearl in his eye, yet Sesshomaru somehow knew it was there. Or how Kagome gave Moroha to Hachi (why not Shippo??) and stayed to fight Kirinmaru and Sesshomaru WITHOUT EVEN HAVING HER BOW AND ARROWS WITH HER. Inuyasha knows how difficult it is for a hanyo to grow up alone, canon!Inuyasha definitely would have wanted Kagome to stay behind with Moroha to make sure at least one of them is with her. Also sending their 3/4 human baby daughter to Koga and his wolves??? The same wolves who EAT HUMANS??? 

Yashahime truly has some of the worst writing I’ve ever seen in my entire life and I question the sanity of anyone who thinks it’s a worthy sequel to Inuyasha, lmao. Also like you said, all the characters were completely devoid of life and emotions. Inuyasha and Kagome defying time and space to be together, only to be robbed of their chance to raise their first baby? Don’t worry they’re not mad about it because Jaken set up a baby monitor so they got glimpses of Moroha’s childhood from him! 🤪 Also “I’m sure Sesshomaru had his reasons for doing that to us! Let’s not confront him about it!” (seriously Inuyasha and Kagome didn’t have a single interaction with Sesshomaru after all this happened!!!) 

I would be lying if I said I didn’t lose some respect for Rumiko Takahashi as a writer/creator after this. She obviously didn’t review everything that was in the scripts, but she still had an overview of the whole story and she definitely had the power to make them change some of the plot points but she apparently didn’t. It think it’s obvious at this point that she’s tired of the Inuyasha series.

I feel the exact same way. I never cared about Sesshomaru and thankfully Yashahime isn’t canon, but this whole debacle still made me dislike him. I can’t imagine what it was like for people who actually love him as a character. The only saving grace of this show is really the fact that Sunrise made Inuyasha a good father, it would have been so devastating if they had made him a distant, “doing the absolute bare minimum” father like they did with Sesshomaru 😬

[elfyourmother]

Honestly, yeah 100% agree with your last post. I like [redacted] but the amount of time the writers spent making sure he lived while other characters like Haurche/Ysayle were written to die pretty carelessly is hmmm lol so I get your frustration. Also him dying would have fit more in line with endwalkers main theme but it feels like he’s the writer’s fave so....

i know Ishikawa has stated that she dislikes killing characters off and has expressed (polite, muted) frustration in the past with other writers killing off her characters that if you read between the lines was almost certainly about Haurche at minimum, if not also Ysayle (I’m not sure if she wrote her too), and given her feelings I have a strong suspicion that if it had been up to her at the time it would not have went down that way. The stories we’ve seen post HW certainly bear that out. So I’m not especially surprised that GT survived ShB and I respect that decision, knowing where it comes from (I personally share her views, I say constantly I’m an Everyone Lives type of writer, even in my original work and not just fic).

but i always want to look at things from an objective story standpoint before anything and ultimately GT serves no purpose in Gisele’s that isn’t served better by other characters that don’t trigger the fuck out of me. The Exarch staying a statue in the Crystarium while Sacred Timeline!GT still sleeps in the Source Crystal Tower also solves the timeline issues that hurt my head no matter how many times people try to justify the timey wimey horseshit involved in having the Source Dude walking around in the present (the stable Elpis time loop just retroactively made it even worse to me).

When I do bring my feelings into it—feelings that matter just as much as internal logic, because this is, after all, my story—I just deeply resent being forced to saddle Gisele with this character that serves no actual purpose in her story anymore except to upset her and whose behavior legitimately triggered me. Especially when I consider how many far more compelling characters with so much more story potential were unceremoniously killed off, characters who I love dearly and who absolutely deserved to live on and go on heroic adventures with Gisele. Particularly female characters (I’m already bracing myself for Zero’s inevitably heroic sacrifice, and I’m not even super into her). It makes my blood boil even more given what was said about Venat in that one LL. What did he do to deserve that kind of plot armor? Literally what does he uniquely add to anything here? Unless they want to do something with the Corvosi plot hooks i don’t have an answer for that, or a justification for his continued presence in my WoL’s story when I feel so negatively about him.

All of this is ultimately supposed to be about fun, and the stark reality is that it just isn’t any fucking fun having to tiptoe on eggshells writing around a character who upsets me Because Canon Said He’s a Scion and He’s Popular. What on earth does any of that have to do with me lmao like I have never in my life cared about ~canon compliance~ or what other people are doing. “Canon compliance” became a joke the second I decided the WoL was the protagonist of a whole ass other video game if I’m honest

[erithel]

Allura is black and a survivor of genocide she is not racist to Keith lmao.

Ok this is a tricky subject for obvious reasons.

First and foremost, yes. Allura is a survivor of genocide. She has every right to be biased against the Galra. It is the same situation as how Sokka treats anyone from the Fire Nation in AtLA. Their hatred and bias is based off of proof and personal experience during war times. But both of them also changed their minds given new information and proof, and that is different from blatant racism.

Secondly, however, Allura is an Altean princess. And as far as we know in the canon VLD universe, she never experienced racism toward herself or her family based on the color of their skin. This is where she differs from people who have to deal with this in our world. So this is where her being black does not hold as much history and weight.

Thirdly, this is one of the main reasons I wish we had actually seen this scene play out in canon (Keith telling the team he was Galra), because we don't know how it actually went down.

We don't know if Allura was made aware of the fact Keith had no knowledge of his Galra heritage beforehand.

We don't know how much Keith told them beyond the barest facts.

I can only assume that he gave very little information (because he had basically zero information himself), and no one said anything to explain further, so Allura grew angry because she most likely thought he had been hiding this from her the entire time. That would be my best guess.

And no, that is not racism.

However, as a blanket statement – anyone can be racist. No one is above anyone or anything else.

Allura being black and being a survivor of genocide does not make her exempt from being racist. I do not believe she was exhibiting racism, but it does not mean she could not.

There is a fine line between racism and bias, but it is there – and a lot of it comes down to whether or not someone considers their own race to be above the other without actual proof or justification. Allura did not look down on Galra because she believed Alteans were superior; she looked down on Galra because of what they had done and what they were still doing to the universe as a whole.

This whole thing could have been fixed if there had been a scene in the show where we got to see how this was explained and how everyone reacted to the news. This is why so many people resort to Allura was racist toward Keith in this situation because it is the simplest explanation for them – because we weren't shown the whole story, and they have to fill in the blanks themselves.

This is why character interactions and development will always be more important to be rather than just pure plot and action.

[carry-on-my-wayward-butt]

He did? Umm.. what happened exactly?

(referring to this post)

my 11th grade chemistry teacher had an associates degree in liberal arts.

you know how in virtually every class you’ve ever had since middle school, your teachers made a big stink about the syllabus? she didn’t have one. this was her first teaching job, which she got because of her length experience as a substitute, not by her licensing qualifications. we were, at first, excited to have her, because she was a “fun sub” and we were 17 years old and stupid as all shit. we were the “normal chem” class in a system where the only other options were “honors chem” which was filled with children who actually know how to study (or cheat) and have an air of proper student activity, and “AP Chem”, which is clear enough if you’ve been an american student in the last 15 years.

she followed the mcgraw hill chemistry book in order of chapters, despite the fact that our state standardized tests did several of the chapters out of order. ever notice how you’ll suddenly be looking at chapter 11 when just last week you were on chapter 5, then the next week you’re on chapter 8? standardized testing is the reason. anyways by asking my friends in other classes who had chemistry teachers of relative competence, i was able to discern which chapters i should focus on, and while she was distracted with literally watching youtube videos all period, I was turning around in my seat and walking across the classroom helping my friends and enemies with the packets. (she was a two-packets-a-week kinda teacher.)

yes i said enemies too. the people i hated, i hated because they were sons of bitches i wouldnt piss on to put out a fire. i hated them so dearly i used to pray to god that they would bump into me so i could throw myself into the concrete and split my forehead open and get them expelled due to the blood-clause of our “zero-tolerance policy”. two of the kids in my class had, only the previous year, attempted to set my hair on fire.

i hated the teacher more. 

it gave me extreme pleasure to see her fume and clench her fists when a student would say “i need help” across the classroom and she would move to get up and they would say “oh not you miss, im waiting for vicky.” jesus christ the only time ive ever felt a comparable high was when i was at a halloween party in college where i was literally so zooted i couldn’t move.

it got worse over time, her getting more and more angry, my ego growing larger and larger. i was a huge bitch in high school, i really thought i was the smartest bitch in the room at any given moment. severe main character syndrome. imagine that kind of person actually being right for 45 minutes out of every day. can you even comprehend the kind of frustration that would create? in a room full of little sociopaths who dont give a shit about anything but getting this joke of a class over with so they can graduate? your first real teaching job and they look right past you, the teacher, to this annoying little shit whose grades are completely abysmal? how are they managing to learn anything from a child who can barely speak in front of more than 10 people? who turns cherry red in the face of literally every authority figure in the building except you? who can’t concentrate and stay still in one spot for more than five minutes? all of your other classes behave! they listen! they sit down and shut up and do the packets! so what fucking gives!!!

so you say “fine, since you all HATE ME so much i just won’t teach then!!!” on literally week fucking ten of teaching. and instead of prostrating themselves before you, begging you to like... point at transparencies and read directly from powerpoints i guess.

and they all collectively say “okay” and let the chipmunk child flutter between desks and help them memorize formulas and mnemonic devices and shit. surely her grades will suffer if she’s constantly dealing with other people and you’ll have justification that her horseshit is “distracting” and “a detriment to her studies”. she got bored gave up on that after two days after nothing changed.

then we did the midterm.

except at the end of the exam packet was something we never learned because again, she was going through the book chronologically. because i actually enjoyed the chem book (so much that i stole it when the year was up lmao), i knew the material.

it was about lewis dots/structures. i couldn’t tell you a damn thing about it today but in december 2010 i absolutely knew that shit. i didnt have too much of a problem with it in the exam, but the students who had gotten to that point were complaining and at first she pulled that “you should have been studying independently uwu” shit but the class was about to get loud during exam period so she shushed us and said that when we get to that point, just stop, and she’ll mark it correct during grading, no harm no foul just keep it quiet. one of the more confrontational students called horseshit and said theres no way we’re trusting that and there’s definitely no way anyone will keep an entire classroom cheating at the instruction of the teacher quiet.

i offered to teach it.

she scoffed, rolled eyes, said “sure fine but you can’t get your exam back” and i said “okay.” so when everyone was to the point in the exam, we piled them all on her desk and i used the whiteboard to briefly and quietly explain lewis dots, used the book examples and problems, and helped the other kids understand. there were a couple exam questions that were lifted straight from the book problems so i skipped those. while teaching i realized i had gotten a couple wrong which sucked :( it was an incredibly stupid experience overall, and no teacher worth the paper their certification is printed on would have allowed that to happen. and fucking yet.

anyways everyone but me got their exams back and finished it and many of us passed, only a few of them did particularly well.

discussing the chem exam with friends who also took the chem exam, many students found their anecdote about the lewis dots to be confounding, for you see, the exam we took was not, in fact, the midterm, but the god damned final.

she had us taking the fucking final because she didnt read the fucking folders which read “midterm” and “final exam” on them

she was reprimanded severely and we all had to take the exam on different days, in different classrooms, sitting very far apart. after that she hated me even more. like girl it was your fault lmao i am literally a teenager grow up lol. anyways you can imagine how much more fucking insufferable i became, knowing how miserable she was.

it all came to a head in february when some students were giggling quietly following a minor fuck up on her part regarding bellwork. they were making fun of her like “are you sure thats not tomorrows bellwork lol” and a friend next to me did the “hey i need help wait no miss not you sorry” thing and when i answered him, she solidly snapped. blah blah YOURE SOOOO DISTRACTING blah blah YOU THINK YOURE SOOOO SMART DONT YOU blah blah blah and she was like demanding i leave the room and shouting at the top of her lungs at me “ YOU POISON THE MINDS OF EVERY OTHER STUDENT HERE. YOU’RE POISONOUS VICTORIA, YOU’RE A VIRUS IN THIS CLASSROOM.”

i will never forget that line as long as i live. it was like crack to me. i moved to open the door to leave and the vp opened it first. he escorted me to the office and asked me what happened, then told me to keep my head down in class from now on, and that if i wanted to help my friends i should give them my number and help them out on our own time. i was like “bro thats really stupid” and he was like “thats all we can do right now but i promise we’re working on it”

i lasted the rest of the year giving smug smiles as we did packet after fucking packet for the rest of the year. they were all take-home work. i wasnt comfy giving my number to my enemies. the class camaraderie ended.

the final was altered. my class took a different final than the rest of the normal chem classes.

i started 12th grade and got a solid case of senioritis. i told that story to anyone who would listen. while it was happening, i obviously told my favorite teacher everything as it happened. when i mentioned it senior year he was like “oh yeah i forgot about her,

she was fired over the summer.”

[wherestarsarestillasleep]

1a 2e and 5i for the ze ask thingy!! ^•^

TALKS ABOUT ZERO ESCAPE

1a. Favorite Character?

its (one of) the kurashikis by MILES past anyone else no question but i honestly cannot claim either of them over the other and stick to that it really just depends on my mood. Akane is a better character like quote unquote "objectively" writing wise which like it would be astounding if she managed not to be when she's the core character of the entire series and there's precisely one (1) scene where (adult) aoi isnt lying to your face lmao. BUT aoi just hits like fucking Everything that makes me insane about a character on both shallow surface traits and deep core characterisation levels. akane also functions better as an independent character not part of that pair like trying to look at them individually alone, if that's relevant to choosing one over the other, while aoi isn't much of a character at all if you tried to remove him from akane existing, there's just the santa persona left, like i WOULD still like him because hehe edgy twink :3c but it would be shallow. they're both two of my favorite characters ever ever.. frequently bought together do not seperate

2e. Least favorite scene?

oh damn dont think ive ever thought about that one. okay the first thing coming to mind is the scene in vlr with the lever with clover and luna outside the book room that fucking sucks but i want to give a more real substantial scene that that. there's nothing big that comes to mind that i actively hate i just ignore most of the points in ztd i dont like lol. i have more dislike for the ABSCENCE than prescence of things like how akane never once mentions aoi ever in ztd when carlos spends the whole game talking to her about his sister what the fuck. real answer probably the way they/sigma chose to deliver diana's backstory in the ending where they're stranded

5i. An unpopular opinion?

I don't buy the nebulous "fate dictated it had to be this way" story Akane keeps claiming after 999. I don't think it's ever questioned ingame iirc it's always treated as more of a fact Akane happens to be the one to relay, than a personal narrative or belief of Akane's. And Uchikoshi himself tells it like this in interviews also. So maybe it's more of me rejecting a canon thing than a difference in opinion to say this but the more I think about it I don't believe her word. In 999 there really was only one way to save her, but when she keeps stressing it about the AB Project etc I think she's kidding herself. She had a choice as much as she believes she doesn't. Even in 999 where there was truly one possible series of events that would lead to her retroactive survival, the only interpretation that makes sense to me is that she saw it happen that way because it's how she would have chosen to do it. Like, I've seen a lot of people write her as upset about having to kill the Nonary Board but her hand being forced - no. She wanted them dead. If you allow the "some external universal force beyond Akane determined how everything would need to be done" it sucks away soooo much subtext about her and even actual direct text because you can say well she just needed to SAY that exact sentence, she didn't need to believe it. All the interesting layers of thoughts you can have about her methods and motivations can fall away if it truly wasn't in any way hers. I think what she tells herself and everyone around her about the necessity of especially the AB Project is a justification she's making for herself and mostly does believe but if you dig to her core her motives are a lot more selfish and less noble necessary greater good than she presents them. and i find that a lot more interesting a read personally

[whileyoursleeping]

19, 22, 26, 29, 30, 37 for the asks

oooh okay here we go

19 - Share a snippet from a wip without giving any context for it.

Eddie circles the coffee table. Buck watches, bemused, as he rubs his face.

“You can’t get a motorbike,” Eddie says, finally, distress bleeding into his voice. “Do you know how bad motorbike accidents are? How many people have to be scraped off the road and out of truck fenders and returned to their families in little piles of roadkill?”

“Jesus, Eddie,” Buck says.

“They do! You can’t get a motorbike. What am I supposed to tell Chris if you die on a motorbike? Yeah, Bucky can totally survive a bombing, an embolism, a tsunami, a burning building, getting shot and probably a fucking random meteor strike, but he got taken out by a glorified pushbike? Is that what I’m supposed to tell him?”

“Please never call me Bucky again.”

“You’re not getting a motorbike,” Eddie huffs. “I’m putting my foot down.”

22 - What is it about watching the same two idiots falling in love over and over again?

people are so creative with it! and also i feel like - nothing concrete has happened (if it ever will) so the possibilities are ENDLESS in terms of what you can come up with just in canon. i’ve read some amazing AUs and obviously everyone’s opinion of what love looks like is a little different, so it’s like little windows into people’s psyches.

26 - What would you describe as OOC?

oooooft this is a hard one. to me, OOC is basically “out of the left field” in terms of characterisation. if you’ve got a normally VERY stoic character (eddie, say) who is suddenly in tears with zero explanation given (retroactively or otherwise) you start to think, hang on, this character is recognisable in name only. or a character like buck who’s suddenly super mean. if you’re going to have OOC reactions to stuff, there needs to be some sort of justification as to why they’re behaving the way they are.

29 - What's the hardest thing about writing?

probably what i just mentioned above. it comes down to “show don’t tell” but when you’re writing a third-person story with the perspective from one character’s POV, there’s a certain amount that you have to put into it to make it realistic, to make readers go “okay, i can see why this character took this path”. obviously in tethers we don’t KNOW what buck is thinking (well, you guys don’t lol) so there’s a certain amount that i have to really show so that people can more or less infer why he’s acting the way he is.

and if you’re going to take a character like eddie who is normally tightly controlled and put him into a spiral of feeling completely out of control, that needs to be made obvious too - but to the reader, not necessarily to him, if that makes sense. the READER needs to identify he’s losing it while he’s in the story going “i’m fine” because otherwise the resulting meltdown doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

then you risk the build up being “boring” because you have to set the scene for it and not just have it happen otherwise - you get OOC.

30 - Describe a fic that almost happened, but then it didn't.

i only publish 20 percent of what i actually write. but there’s tons - i wrote a coronavirus fic (a lot of which got cannibalised into Carnations and Love Language) and i’ve also written about 5 versions of chapter 34 of tethers, and yet another “post lawsuit everyone says it’s fine but buck doesn’t feel fine” fic.

37 - Do you research before writing or while you write? Is it fun or boring for you?

i do and i LOVE IT. medical inaccuracies annoy the SHIT out of me (if it takes me half an hour of research by myself in my bedroom, the highly-paid writers’ team can definitely figure it out) so i do a lot of that. i also have the benefit of working in EMS and i work closely with paramedics so there’s stuff i’ve gleaned off them as well. the main thing is knowing the difference between American EMS procedures and australian ones (our firefighters aren’t also paramedics and vice versa).

also i’m like buck and i’m constantly infodumping on people about what i’ve learned lmao

[bigskydreaming]

Not to be super dramatic or anything, lolol, but just one, just one multi-chapter “bringing Jason back into the family/derailing the worst of the UTRH events” fic that mentions Dick killing the Joker because he mocked Jason’s death.

Just one for the love of Batcanon please can we have just one, lololol.

Like, I’ve read one-shots where they discuss it, and some of them are great, but in all my searching I have never found a single full ensemble family fic specifically about reuniting Jason with the family, that so much as acknowledges that Dick grieved for Jason enough that he beat the Joker to death with his bare hands for making light of Jason’s death.

Jason may have focused on Bruce not killing the Joker, but ultimately he just wanted to feel that someone cared that the Joker took Jason away from his family.

And Last Laugh is literally the single most relevant piece of Batcanon in terms of that single most definite want Jason has!

It absolutely kills me that its been minimized and ignored as much as it has. And for the life of me, I can’t come up with any explanation for that other than people just not wanting Dick and Jason to have the kind of rapport that could organically develop from Jason having that single relevant piece of evidence that proves his older brother does in fact love him very much, and always did.

Gaaaaaah. And the thing is, its not even that I begrudge people liking Jason and Tim’s dynamic and wanting them to be close. But when so freaking many of the ‘bring Jay back to the family’ fics focus on the kid Jason resented so much for replacing him he beat him half to death, being the one who most easily and naturally forms the strongest connection to Jason...while ignoring any and all instances of canon that acknowledge the actual canon history of Dick and Jason that would bring up the question of why Dick doesn’t seem to care now....it just feels weird. And I’ve looked at the narrative situation enough times that I feel pretty confident its not solely my character bias making me think that, y’know?

Its like......idk, maybe its the fact that Tim has plenty of reasonable justifications for being the one whose initially wary of Jason’s return and takes a little while to warm up to him post UTRH and feel confident Jason no longer wants to hurt him....so it in no way reflects badly on Tim at all, for him not to be the one taking point on trying to bring Jason back to the family.

Similarly, having Dick be the one to take point in no way minimizes the potential for Jason and Tim to then go on to form a strong bond of their own as well. Nor would any such bond between them be lessened by an equally strong one existing between Jason and Dick....anymore than they’d be incapable of forming strong bonds if Jason had never died and Jason and Dick’s bond just pre-existed on the basis of knowing each other longer than Tim.

By contrast, pointedly keeping Dick ‘out of the way’ of Jason and Tim being the ones to develop a strong initial bond due to Tim taking point on bringing him back to the family fics....DOES minimize the potential for Dick and Jason to ever go on to have equally strong ties after that point, because based on that specific narration, there will always then be the question of why didn’t Dick take point in that, or the fact that Dick does have less justifications than Tim to be wary of Jason and more reasons than Tim to try and bring Jason back into the fold.

So inevitably, sidelining Dick to any extent during that kind of storyline does bring into question the legitimacy or strength of any bond Jason and Dick form after Jason’s return to the family, and casts doubt on the validity and strength of any ties they felt before Jason’s death as well.

And the thing is, it would be one thing if the canon was just an equally clean slate where all characters were concerned.

IF Dick really was as aloof and/or a jerk to Jason in canon pre-ADITF as fanon makes him out to be. IF there were extended storylines about Tim being the sole one with hopes of Jason returning to the family, rather than just the one storyline about helping him escape Blackgate, which Jason immediately turned around and killed more people, the one thing Tim had asked he not do, in exchange.

IF there weren’t stories with Dick begging Jason to let him help. IF the Arkham thing really DID follow the fanon narrative where Dick callously tossed Jason into a cell next to the Joker, instead of the canon context where Dick specifically said he put Jason in Arkham to keep him out of general population for his SAFETY, Joker was nowhere near Arkham at the time, and Jason specifically stated his biggest complaint with his time in Arkham was he was bored.

IF Brothers in Blood didn’t end with Jason acknowledging that he had always considered Dick family. IF Last Laugh didn’t exist as pointed proof that the one and only time Dick has broken the Batfam’s cardinal rule himself, it was Jason’s murderer, after bringing up Jason’s death to him.

But when any and all of those things have to be completely disregarded in order to craft a narrative that posits Tim being the only one willing to reach out to Jason, and posits that Dick doesn’t have any strong feelings about Jason other than guilt for not being a good enough brother or whatever....

Like, I really don’t think its just character bias that makes me say the dynamics that result from that are always going to feel a bit stilted and awkward....because not only do they disregard pivotal canon events....they disregard the actual characterizations that led to those characters acting the way they did in those canon events.

*Shrugs* It just makes those stories feel disjointed and yeah, a little petty, because its like trying to force specific dynamics through a mold that’s based on the actual shape of the characters....and thus with stuff inevitably getting trimmed off around the edges and left behind. Because those specific dynamics/characterizations don’t actually FIT the narrative they’re trying to be pushed through.

Again, like I said, it’d be one thing if canon events like Dick killing the Joker just never ever happened and it was a fairly even playing field in terms of what characters make the most sense to play certain roles in certain specific narratives.

But when your narrative revolves around Jason initially still being estranged from his family because he remains convinced nobody cared enough to avenge him....but said narrative makes zero mention whatsoever about the very much did happen story where Dick....cared enough to avenge him....

And this pattern persists in dozens of stories about this particular premise, with practically no exception I can think of....

Like, there’s something off there, lmao, and I really don’t think its just my own character biases making me feel that way.

[murasaki-murasame]

The new years roulette in GBF is finally over, so here’s my final update on how that went for me.

I’m just gonna put this under a cut since it’s gonna get kinda long, lol

If I remember right about where I ended my last progress update, the next set of characters I got from the roulette on the zodiac banner were the Tsuchinoko summon, Fire Zeta, Agielba, and Grand Rackam. I’m really happy to get Rackam since he would have been like second or third place on my spark priority list for that gala roster, but at this point it’ll be hard to justify slotting him into my flame team, lol. Getting him like a day after Fire Zeta kinda hurt because of that, but oh well. I think I also got an Alexiel summon at some point around here.

Then the banner switched over to the random character weapon rate-up banner where everyone gets 200 free rolls plus Super Mukku, and oh god this was an emotional rollercoaster. Like everyone else probably did, I thought when they announced it that this would have Feather, Fiorito, and Mireille on rate-up, which was actually really tempting for me, since I feel kinda attached to Feather [his SR version was basically my main light dps for ages, and I felt bad about eventually replacing him], and when his SSR version came out I really wanted him but I only had enough for a few desperation pulls and I didn’t get him, so having another chance to get him was extremely tempting to me [even if it’s a bit awkward since I got Albert a while ago and he probably synergizes better with my current light team than Feather would].

Then we found out that nobody’s actually on rate-up on this banner and they just have the latest six non-limited SSRs from before the zodiac banner on the sparkable list, which meant that the only way I’d realistically get Feather would be by doing a discounted or entirely free spark between the 200 rolls, Super Mukku, and the crystals/tickets I had left over in my stash.

Then the banner comes around and I do my free 200 rolls, and then Super Mukku only gave me an extra 30 summons, so I needed an extra 70 regular summons to complete the spark, but I only had a little under 60 at that point.

I grinded some stuff for a while to get up to 60 summons worth of crystals and tickets, and then I spent a few hours agonizing over the choice between spending hours grinding out multiple whole side stories and a good chunk of the main story chapters I haven’t done yet, versus just buying the current surprise ticket to get the tenfold ticket from it along with the guaranteed character. And as you can maybe guess at this point, I ended up caving and getting the surprise ticket, lol.

Which I feel a little bad about, but I’ve been considering getting the anniversary ticket in a few months anyway, so I wanted to set things up to buy stuff in GBF anyway. I was also planning to spend some money on new years packs in Dragalia Lost, but literally none of them are available in my region, so I’m basically just reallocating money that I was already going to spend on gachas anyway, so it’s not a huge deal. And since it was the last ten summons I needed to finish my spark, I basically got two characters for the price of one with my surprise ticket.

So anyway here’s my list of what I got from the 200 summons and Super Mukku:

-Ayer

-Sutera

-Ghandaghoza

-Levin Sisters

-Shura

-Rosamia [I actually got her twice, lmao]

-Lancelot

-Korwa

-Dante and Freiheit

-Ladiva

-Setekh and Hector summons

-some gold moons I don’t remember

-some random new R/SRs

Then I got Fire Siegfried from my surprise ticket, Fiorito from my 70 regular summons to finish the spark, and then finally Feather himself, once and for all, with my sparks.

It kinda hurts that I didn’t actually get much from using my regular summons after the free rolls ended, but honestly I’m still happy to finally have SSR Feather for my light team. He might not be the best in the long run, but my light roster isn’t that great to begin with.

Anyway at least outside of my light roster, I feel like I’m in full on first-world-problems mode where now I have all these characters I like and not enough justification for actually investing in most of them and using them. I’m mostly feeling this really hard with my earth team right about now. I think before this whole roulette period it felt like one of my weaker rosters, but before this session I already got Yggy, Earth Sara, C-Magisa, G-Sandalphon, and Earth Eustace, and I unlocked Melleau’s 5-star uncap. So on top of all of them, I now also have Ayer, Dante, Ladiva, and Fiorito, lol. And at the moment some of my top spark targets are Mahira and Cain, and if I get the annitix it’d probably go to either C-Narmaya or Halloween VasZeta. I feel like without realizing it I’m becoming an earth main, lol.

I legit don’t even know what direction to take my earth team in, and I might have to just set up multiple ones so I can actually use all the characters I like.

At least in terms of the earth units, I’m particularly happy I got Ayer and Eustace, since they were in the category of characters who I wanted, but not enough to use a surprise ticket on. I’m not even a fan of enmity set-ups [which is why I sparked Orchid instead of Summer Zooey recently], but I kinda want to try out using Ayer, maybe along with Fiorito, especially since I have Yukata Jessica who feels specifically designed to make Ayer easier to use.

Dante’s also the sort of character who I’m glad to get for meta reasons since he seems to be really good. I dunno how I feel about him as a character yet, but he fights with his cat in battle so that automatically makes me like him, lol. I’ve also always loved Ladiva ever since I found out about her character so it’s also nice to get her.

I’m actually really happy to get Lancelot, since I’ve been wanting another water sword [or katana] unit to pair with S-Sandalphon and S-Lucio on my water team. I already have Izmir, who I could just use instead, but I like Lancelot, so now that I have him I want to use him. I know I’d be better off eventually going for the meta water staff team [I already have Lily and Pholia, and Summer Cagliostro is sitting there taunting me every month when the beginner draw ticket comes back around], but I like my water sword boi team more, lol.

I almost feel bad about getting Korwa at this point since I keep hearing that she used to be really good and has been slowly powercrept out of relevancy, and even though she’d fit onto my wind staff team I have going on, I just think the ones I’m using for it now are better than her. But that’s because I have the super meta set-up of Andira, Grimnir, and Yurius, so she was fighting a losing battle there. I do really like her design, though, and the whole concept of how her kit works.

Levin Sisters might actually be good for my light team, but I dunno if I want to use them over the likes of Feather, Sandalphon, Lucio, or Albert.

All in all I think this whole roulette period was extremely good for me. I didn’t get Catura, and I missed most of the SSR Christmas units too, but other than that I think my roster of characters is in a way better place now than what it was before.

Now I just have to try and figure out how to actually justify using most of them, and how to get the materials to upgrade them in the first place, lol.

Also, in other account progress news, the whole ongoing magnafest event has managed to get me up to around rank 110, and I recently unlocked Doctor as my first EX2 class, so now my short-term goal is to work my way toward Lumberjack. After that I might get Warlock and Chaos Ruler, but I do want Monk as well, and I want to get some EX1 classes like Mystic, but I’m still not sure how much I can progress through the co-op stages without giving in and actually doing them in co-op.

I still really want to eventually unlock Nekomancer since I think it’s really cute, but the fact that it seems like such a high-maintenance class that relies so much on it’s class champion weapon is kinda off-putting. I still want to get it for wind, though, since the male Nekomancer design has a green colour scheme, and I’m pretty much committed to the wind staff meta. Thankfully Warlock is also a staff class with a green colour scheme, which is like 90% of the reason why I want to unlock it relatively soon, lol.

Now that I’m down to basically zero summons, let’s just hope that if I can commit to saving now, I can have enough by the anniversary to do a discounted roulette there, if they do another roulette event there.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #112

“i’m like a jesus crisis.”

Have you ever kissed someone who was drunk?  He wasn't wasted or anything, but I'm pretty sure he was drunk with how ungodly talkative he was, and was way more expressive of emotions than he naturally was. Do you like going to weddings?  I do again now.  Although I haven't been to one since recovery, I'm sure I'd handle it fine and actually be happy this time.  I need to get more comfortable in that setting since I'd actually really like a big part of my hopeful photography career to be weddings.  Such a big celebration of love is something I adore.  I already just like taking pictures of couples. Who was the last person you know who became pregnant?  BECAME pregnant, uh, I think a person I'm actually doing pictures for in January. Beach, city, or mountains?  M O U N T A I N S.  DAMMIT they're so beautiful. You get a call at 2:00 a.m. - your first thought is:  My instinctive answer to this question is, "is something wrong with Sara?"  I live with my mom and sister, so it wouldn't be them, and it's not like Ashley calls me if there's trouble, she'd call Mom.  Dad would call Ashley.  She's pretty much the only thing that would come to mind if someone called me at 2:00 A.M. Future names of your children:  I'm not having kids, but I'd absolutely name my daughter Alessandra and my son probably Luther, Vincent, or Victor. How much does your mother know about your sex life (or lack thereof)?  She's aware I'm a virgin but have "done things." Are any of your siblings married? What are their spouses’ names?  Nick and very recently Joshua.  I don't know if one's married or anything whatsoever, two are in relationships, idk about my brother. Do you think age matters in relationships?  In romantic relationships, yes. What brand of face wash do you use?  Biore. What’s the last letter of your last name?  S Did your parents give you an allowance as a kid?  No, we couldn't afford to do that. Would you ever consider moving to another country for your career?  No, and that's the reason I'm not pursuing being a meerkat biologist. Do you have any lingerie? Lol no, no one wants to see me in that. What was the shortest amount of time you knew someone before dating them?  A few weeks.  Maybe a little less than a month. What is your favorite app on your phone?  Fuckin' thanks Sara, DragonVale.  I love Pinterest more when I actually go on it, but I don't use it a lot. Which of your pets were you closest to in your lifetime?  The dog I have now, Teddy. Who are you most proud of?  Myself.  I don't mean that in an arrogant way, but seriously.  I don't over-exaggerate what I've been through, but I don't make it sound lesser than what it was, either.  I know I should be proud. When you’re eating pizza do you add anything like crushed peppers, parmesan cheese or hot sauce to it?  No.  Jason got me into adding hot sauce to jalapeno pizza (we wanted death, I know), but I don't do it now.  Loved it, but I think it being slightly less hot was more enjoyable. When was the last time that you plucked your eyebrows?  I've never plucked them; I used to get them waxed, but no longer do.  Don't see the point- they're just going to grow back, and quickly, and I'm not wasting money on that maintenance.  It's not like normal eyebrows are hideous anyway. Do you ever argue or debate with people about your beliefs? I will avoid this at all costs.  I hate it. When’s the last time you had Sunny D? Holy moly, I couldn't tell you.  But it used to sometimes give me heartburn, so I could only fucking imagine drinking it now if I hadn't taken my heartburn medication. Would you turn a family member in if you see them commit murder?  Duh. Would you risk your life to save a total stranger? A total stranger, honestly, no.  I don't know anything about that person.  Could be a piece of shit. Have you ever embarrassed someone intentionally in public? I don't remember ever doing so, and I never could now.  As someone with AvPD, I know how fucking awful embarrassment can be.  Plus it's just rude to try to make someone uncomfortable like that. Are you more likely to believe a man or woman? I'm perfectly aware this is wrong, but a woman.  I'm afraid of and don't trust men. Are you satisfied with the picture on your ID card?  Hell no.  Thank God I look like a totally different person now. What fruit did you last eat?  Hmmm, maybe strawberries? What font do you use most? I prefer Garamond for basic things. Are you allergic to anything? Pollen, big time, and silver. Where is your dad from? Ohio.  ... Or maybe he was born in Michigan but grew up in Ohio.  Idk. Aside from your own, whose house did you last set foot into?  Ashley's co-worker's. What was the first thing you learned how to cook? Scrambled eggs.  And it's still the only thing I know how to cook lmao. What are some wild animals commonly found where you live?  Squirrels and birds are the only things you commonly see.  But you'll see a deer sometimes, too, and more rarely a rabbit.  I think I've seen a fox once in my entire life.  Oh yeah, you'll see possums and raccoons sometimes at night. Does it take a lot to make you cry?  Noooope.  Well, yes to physical pain. What’s the longest hospital stay you’ve had? For what?  Uhhh I think I was there for two weeks.  Mental stuff. Do you know any same-sex married couples?  Hm... I actually don't think I personally do. Have you ever had a best friend who was of the opposite sex?  There was a point where we dated, Jason was like my only real life friend lol, so he was.  Now I call my girlfriend my best friend, but if you don't include s/os, then my current one would be a guy. Skim, 1%, 2% or whole milk?  Eh, probably 2%. Was the last person you kissed physically attractive? Personally, I wasn't physically attracted to him.  But he's definitely not an ugly guy or anything. Do you prefer to say “haha” or “lol?”  I'd say I use them just about the same amount... maybe "lol" more? How many stories does your house have?  One. Were you dreams very vivid as a child? Yes. Do you eat meat?  If you do, what is your justification for it? Yes.  One, the human diet is meant to contain meat.  It's much easier for our bodies to receive the nutrients it needs with meat.  Two, it's part of population control.  Yes, I know, you could argue the exact same for humans, but it's not like a sane person's gonna start eating humans.  Three, it's just the food chain.  Humans are on top of it.  The process of killing an animal for food seems horrible and cruel, I know, and I doubt I personally could do it unless it was a survival situation, but I don't see it as morally wrong. Do you think that time travel is a possibility?  I don't think it's possible, really.  And if it ever happened, you can bet we'd fuck shit up. Do you enjoy night or day better?  I've actually gotten to where I enjoy day.  I strangely have a much higher chance of experiencing anxiety at night, which has kinda turned me away from it.  Plus I have more energy and am generally in a better mood over all in the early day. Have you ever been to a protest? No.  But the more and more passionate I get about gay rights, I'd absolutely partake in a *peaceful* protest regarding that subject now if one was nearby. Worst decision you ever made?  Let a heavily flawed person essentially become God to me. Do you like to hang out with friends one-on-one or in groups? Eh, depends on the mood of those who would be involved, including myself. Bambi or Nemo?  Nemo.  I've actually never seen Bambi, but I love Nemo.  Lil cutie. Do you have any of your exes as friends on Facebook?  Don and Aaron, yeah.  Well wait, Juan too, but I barely even consider him an ex. Has your partner ever accused you of cheating, when you actually didn’t? No. If your hair is long, would you ever think about having it cut short? Or, if it’s short, would you like to grow it long?  I have a short portion on the left and then the rest is shoulder-length.  After seeing myself with a bit of short hair, I'm thinking of getting a purely short haircut eventually.  Built my confidence up when Mom said she thought I'd probably look nice with a short hairstyle after seeing my new haircut.  It'd be something different. What area of science interests you the most?  Genetics. Have you ever been in an inflatable bouncy house? Yeah. Do you think there will be a WWIII?  Yes, eventually.  I don't think humanity's going anywhere too soon, and there's too many militant people. What are things you’re exceptionally good at? Uh.  Going into full-blown panic mode over stupid shit??  That's my specialty. Do you have any good book ideas?  I think a ton of the stories within my friend group's RP would make amazing novels, but I highly doubt any of us will ever actually make books about it. In all honesty, can a person be too nice?  Mixed feelings.  I just don't think some people deserve being nice to, but a part of me says you should treat everyone with kindness regardless, all the while not letting people get away with shit. Is mental abuse really as bad as physical abuse?  Fuck yes it can be.  Some people will take one worse than the other, but both are fucking awful.  Both can ruin someone's life. Zelda Twilight Princess or Ocarina of Time? I have zero interest in Zelda. Do you own a rosary? I'm sure I have one somewhere.  I was raised Roman Catholic, and essentially every Catholic has one. What's the hardest game you've ever played?  Fucking Dark Souls.  I gave it a good effort, but did nooot get that far.  The difficulty honestly drained all the fun out of it.  The hardest game I've ever beaten, uhhh... omg.  Maybe it was just my age/when I played it, but "The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night" was so.  Fucking.  Hard.  It literally took me a year or so playing it on-and-off to beat it.  Fantastic game, but my god it was hard.  "Parasite Eve" was also pretty damn hard (mostly thanks to the last boss, jc), but I definitely beat it faster. Would you ever try Fear Factor for one million dollars? Why or why not?  No, wouldn't see the point in wasting the time.  I KNOW I would never get past the second day where you eat some crazy shit.  Nope.  Couldn't do most things they do due to me being a germaphobe, either. If you have a camera, when do you use flash? I never do because I hate the lighting personally, plus the red eyes are just no.  I'd need to learn more about properly using it. What do you call your grandparents? Grammy and Grandpa. What color do you usually paint your nails? I don't paint my nails. Do you look better with red lipstick or black lipstick?  I personally think black.  It fits me better. How many times have you actually been in love?  Once.  I'm not to that point in my current relationship, but I most certainly love her.  There's a difference. How many pills do you take a day?  Five. Have you ever been around someone who was high?  Yeah. Do you want a church wedding?  Definitely not, that's way too traditional for my taste. Have you ever met any celebrities? Lol you don't meet celebrities among my interests in NC.  One day. Have you ever tried archery?  No, but I was interested in it once. Favorite foreign food? Hm.  I'm not sure. Were your ancestors royalty? I only know of Queen Victoria. Does your house have air conditioning throughout, or do you have one that sits in your window? Throughout. Would you ever move to Canada? Sure.  I mean it wouldn't be my first pick for sure, but there's beautiful landscapes, and it at least seems to have way less drama than here. What about Kansas?  Tornado Alley?  Fuck that shit. When you go swimming, do you put your hair up or down?  I keep it down. What do you think is the coolest piercing on someone else?  Ohhh.  This really depends on the person.  Coolest... probably collarbone dermals.  If mine were actually prominent and dermals didn't make me nervous, I'd probably have them.  They're beautiful, but seem super painful.  And risky. Are you attracted to girls?  I've pretty quickly realized I'm more attracted to them than men both physically and emotionally. Growing up what were your favorite cartoon characters?  I loved both Pikachu and Ash. Do you know anyone in a wheelchair?  I don't believe so. If heaven or hell didn’t exist and wasn’t a reward would you still make an effort in being a good person? Duh. Do you want your kids to go to church, synagogue, temple, mosque? Why?  If I had kids, I wouldn't force them to go.  I don't even go. Do you think starting a gofundme is begging or helpful?  It can be either depending on the reason and person's honest intentions. Could you put your dreams on hold to support your bf/gf pursuing theirs? On hold?  Yes. How long should sex last?  It depends on the couple and how they're feeling.  But once one person wants to stop, you stop. Five year plan? Go!  Move out and have a stable job.  Those are the main two things.  Other things will fall into place. Can you be content if you are physically uncomfortable?  I couldn't be. Do you have pictures of your friends, and family in your bedroom? No. How old were you when you went on your first date?  That was like 7th grade, don't know age.  Me, Aaron, and I think two other friends went to a roller rink.  It was enough of a date for middle schoolers lol. Have you ever had surgery, if so for what?  Tubes put in ears when I was 2, pilonidal cyst surgery July this year. Have you ever seen a shark, and if so, were you scared? Never in the wild, just in aquariums.  They never scared me.  Such majestic creatures.  Now if I saw one in the ocean, yeah, I'd be scared. Have you ever gone fishing, or is that totally yucky? Fishing with Dad may just hold my all-time favorite childhood memories.  One of my most cherished memories is this time Dad, Nicole, and I woke up really early to go out on the boat at the nearby river to fish 'til around noon, when activity slows down.  So peaceful and beautiful out there, I'd love to fish there again with him.  I remember it so clearly that I can recall I packed those tiny 3 Musketeers chocolates and Nicole brought Snickers, lol.  Didn't have breakfast since we left so early.  Man... so many good memories related to fishing. Do you enjoy museums, or think they are totally boring? I.  LOVE.  Museums. Do you think illegally downloading things is wrong?  My conscience says yes.  You're stealing.  Yet I still download music.  Oops. Have you and your friend ever liked the same guy/girl?  Not that I know of. Do you tell your best friend everything?  I tell Sara just about every little thing. Ever taken any lessons for anything? Guitar lessons, yeah. Do you call it pop, soda, or fizzy drink?  Soda. Do you like french fries, cheese and gravy mixed together? Uh, that sounds horrid, even without the fact I hate gravy. Do you live in a house, apartment, or what? House. How hot does the temperature get in the summer where you live?  Mid-high 90s, low 100s.  Sometimes high 80s. When was the last time you had a headache? What about stomachache?  Headache, a couple days ago or so.  I get them a lot.  Stomachache, not since I got sick two or so months back. Where is your second home?  Uh.  I guess my dad's? Honestly, could you live without your computer?  Honestly, after being exposed to one for so long, I couldn't live happily, no.  Not unless I just adjusted to not having one after a very, very long time, but I don't even know if that would happen. What is more annoying, people who take forever to reply to texts or when they only say ‘K’? I stg do not reply to me with just "k." Is family the most important thing in your life? If not, what is? My definition of family is different than the traditional.  Just like friends, for me, you pick "real" family.  Say I'm related to an absolute asshole; by actual definition, they'd be family, but to me, nope.  I can put other people above "actual" family, so to answer the question, not necessarily. After taking a shower, do you change in the bathroom or the bedroom?  Bathroom. Are you completely over your last relationship?  There was nothing to get over.  I never got to where I loved him and doubt I ever could.  It was just awkward. Last 3 movies you watched?  "Monster House," "Corpse Bride," and uhhh... pretty sure "Coraline." Do you get stage fright?  Well, when I used to dance, it wasn't that bad since I was with others.  Now, I'm not so sure how I'd be. When was the last time you read a whole book, to the last page exactly?  February. Did you ever actually have a rubber duck? Pretty sure yes. Do you love your computer? MY laptop, yes.  The one I currently have to use, ew. Is there an outdoor movie theater where you live?  No. Have you ever seen your mom or dad drunk?  Both.  Mom claimed she wasn't, but I think she was. Do your parents vote? Mom does, idk about Dad. What’s your favorite thing to eat during a movie? Popcorn. Do you like cherry Pepsi? I like cherry Coke. Would you rather live without your Facebook or Tumblr? Facebook. What Lisa Frank character is your favorite?  Ohhh, the angelic cat. If you inherited a large sum of money what is the first thing you’d buy?  A train ticket. What did you do with your baby teeth when they fell out?  Mom kept them. What is the last thing you took a photograph of?  My snake. <3 Do you have a bookshelf? If so, just one or how many?  It's technically a bookshelf I think, but we store our DVDs there. If you answered yes to the above, are your books ordered in a special way? The DVDs are in alphabetical order. If dinosaurs could be tamed, would you want one as a pet? If they were guaranteed to not attack their owners/be docile and I could care for it appropriately, sure, I'd keep a smaller raptor. What type of souvenir do you usually purchase when on vacation? It's not consistent. If you could choose only one thing from Walmart, what would it be?  Hot fries or Takis, depending on my mood. Would you rather get highlights or dye your whole head?  Dye everything.

[selenelavellan]

Can you write us Selene or Felesal's pov on finding out that Falon'din drowned Dirthamen, and what they do after that? Lmao, are they pretty much just gonna smother him in the crib every time he shows up from now on?

I actually had plans to explore this in a fill later, but I don’t know when I’ll have the time to do it in full, so I’m just gonna…ramble a little if that’s ok? I’ll still add it into an upcoming fill when I can. I’m half-exhausted and mildly uncensored here so…sorry.

Well, first, I assume Felasel is the one who sliced up Falon’din in this AU. 

 By the looks of it he put up a fight, before being overpowered. There are signs of damage from spellwork, and ice magic, though whether his opponent cast the spells or his own backfired onto him is less clear. 

I could be wrong, but that’s what I was working under the assumption of with the given information. Selene had Falon’din killed in the original reincarnation AU already. I mean she had Melarue actually kill him, but. Falon’din has been on their shit list for a long time because of what he did to Uthvir. 

That he straight up murdered Dirthamen (Because ‘drunk and fell off the boat’ REALLY. The first time I read it I had to go back because usually Falon’din is the older one and that sounds like the sort of thing that could kill him but I mean clearly other people also noticed that Falon’din definitely killed Dirthamen so that’s good i’m not over reading into things.) My biggest question here was why would Falon’din kill Dirthamen when he hasn’t killed him in the past, at least not so blatantly.

I’ve got three theories

1) Dirthamen was planning on leaving and going off to a better college without Falon’din, and Falon’din didn’t like the idea of his brother accomplishing things without him.

2) It was legitimately an accident, in that Falon’din was being his usual shitty abusive self, and accidentally sent Dirthamen flying off the boat when he just meant to, I don’t know, slap him really hard or send him into a mast because he was pissed off about something, or was drunk himself. I don’t know, Falon’din is an awful terrible piece of shit and killing his brother in a fit of rage just sounds in character for him.

3.) Selene had already found and confronted Dirthamen, and Dirthamen was planning on leaving to be with her an was telling Falon’din who then, y’know, flipped his shit and killed his brother rather than letting him be happy because, again, abusive piece of shit.

I mean we know from the kidnapping attempts that they knew where Dirthamen was (Not hard to find when his family is being big and ostentatious and their traditional douche-baggy selves). I don’t think Selene was one of the ones who tried to kidnap him, though? I don’t think she tried at all to stop anyone else from doing it, but I don’t think she went in herself. She’d have gotten attatched, and that leads to a lot of weird squicky mildly-incestuous places that I’m not touching with a ten foot pole, so I’m assuming the kidnappers were Felasel and Uthvir and/or Melarue, probably. I mean definitely Melarue is who Andruil saw, but. Anyways.

BACK TO THE ACTUAL QUESTION.

“are they pretty much just gonna smother him in the crib every time he shows up from now on?“

Ehh….It depends on who finds him first, really. Selene won’t. Selene feels bad about having Falon’din killed the first time. There’s been quite a few arguments over the years between Selene and Des about it. Keep in mind, Selene has never actually Met Falon’din in these AUs.

It’s all hearsay for her.

And a phone call that pissed her off before she ordered a hit on him, really.

So Selene grapples with that a lot, especially on days where she feels further apart from Des. 

“You did the right thing.”

“I killed a person I don’t even know.”

“To keep Dirthamen safe. It’s the best thing for him.”

“And how do you think Falon’din justifies his own actions?”

And she’s not wrong, in that sense. Falon’din justifies a lot of his behavior through a very warped sense of justifications and ‘logic’, like many many abusers do. He thinks he loves his brother, he thinks he’s helping him, Dirthamen is lucky to have him around, etc etc, and he’s not scared to tell Dirthamen these things, which leads to Dirthamen believing them, and it’s just a vicious awful toxic cycle.

Felasel will kill Falon’din when he finds him. Probably Andruil, too, though she might get some time to prove she isn’t entirely terrible, since Abom!Felasel isn’t Frat!Felasel, and so he doesn’t remember the fire. But for the most part, Pride helps Felasel feel justified in that sort of behavior. He has zero sense of attachment to his uncle, and a lot of protectiveness over his father, especially since he’s lost him a few times by now. His best bet is that maybe, maybe, someone will convince Felasel that if he can get Falon’din at a young enough age, they can raise him to be not-terrible. But mostly Felasel doesn’t care enough for someone who has caused that much pain to the people he loves to put in the effort. If someone convinced him, it would be through the angle of “what if it were you and Darevas?” and made Felasel see himself in Falon’din, maybe.

So…long story short (I’m so sorry this is so long and so largely nothing but character speculation) Selene wouldn’t kill Falon’din until she had concrete proof he deserved it in this lifetime, and Felasel would kill him without blinking an eye if he thought Falon’din would give Dirthamen or Uthvir so much as a dirty look.

...and I should probably tag @feynites because it’s all her writing and characters I’m rambling about.