#like people liked the series but not because of the writer and what they intended to do with the thing

[c-rankshaft]

This addition might be considered a little bit off topic, so feel free to tell me to make my own post if you wish OP(s)!

Elder Scrolls games seem to have some kind of disease about them that makes it so they just cannot grasp the scale of JUST HOW BAD things are. Morrowind (edited bc my dumb ass forgot about beautiful Daggerfall and I own up to my mistakes), in my opinion, came the closest, but that's another post for another time. I think one of the problems with Skyrim and the Alduin storyline is that there's not really any true incentive in the game to seek out this information. You can ABSOLUTELY play the game not knowing anything but the bare dry bones of what is going on. Then, with no incentive TO learn deeper outside of having the question in the box go from white to grey, the incentive is more found in NOT asking the questions- gets you back to the ""fun"" gameplay quicker.

This DOES allow for player character variation (say you want to make your LDB an idiot or something) alongside an easier route for people who have already played before, but it doesn't work for portraying a world that is supposedly ending, or one that is being overtaken by dragon cults. To get the gravity of that to truly WEIGH on the player, you have to make it so not knowing, like not seeking out the books or the extra dialogue, in some way disadvantages the player.

However, this doesn't really tackle the issue of the confusing and overly simplistic way they handled Alduin in the first place. As said above, there's a huge unanswered question taken from the main storyline of "What the hell was he even trying to do?" that comes from different characters implying different sentiments. Perhaps this was supposed to be an attempt at pitting many theories against each other A LA Battle of Red Mountain(?), but without any elaboration on anything and no true incentive to seek out more information, alongside the fact that some of the MOST interesting stuff on Alduin isn't even in the game at all, it all just falls flat. You don't get a coherent story OR the full weight of the situation from the game, at all.

I'm, personally, fully convinced that this is the result of suppressing creative writing/portrayal ideas in the interests of making the game marketable. You can feel as you play the game, that it was intended to hit a very very wide audience. It's designed to be easily picked up and played by literally anyone, and that's a HUGE part of where the massive success came from. It was simplistic enough story wise so that nobody ever would have a single issue understanding. Big reach = Big money, and big money is more important to a game studio than a good story. Combine that reach with the fact that they've re-released the game (arguably) 17 times on 10 different consoles, it makes it pretty clear that they're more focused on creating and adding aspects to the game (and other games currently being worked on in the series) that make it lucrative-- not necessarily new, inventive, creative, or gripping story-wise.

Basically, this post is so correct it kinda hurts a bit. There are ways to make all of this information work. They don't really bother because they'd have to put more budget into story, and what if not every single person on the planet is pleased with the story? Bad for business. Better make it as generic as possible so it sells better. Fire every writer who cares. Underpay and mistreat the rest so they can't care. Now put Skyrim on the Switch. Now put it on VR. Now add paid mods. Now encourage everyone to play your MMO. Now release paid DLC. Now add something to the Crown Store. Now release paid DLC. Now add something to the Crown Store. Now release paid DLC. Now add something to the Crown Store. Now release paid DLC. Now add something to the Crown Store.

alright i might be misremembering some things bc it's been a while since i played the skyrim mq but.... man i really wish we could've had a proper conversation with alduin near the end of the game like we do with dagoth ur. like he's the one villain who isn't some Bad Guy gone mad with power he's literally a GOD. he's literally just doing his job!!!!! of ending the world!

i don't like how he's depicted as just a generic power hungry bad guy like isn't being the world eater literally his Purpose....you even have conversations w arngeir and paarthurnax, iirc, about the ethics of killing the "world eater" and if it's okay to let the current kalpa keep going when it's supposed to end. i wish that was a moral dilemma explored more in the game. i would've loved a final conversation between the ldb and alduin where he talks to you and asks you if you know what you're doing, if you know what it means to keep this world going. discussing if it's really your choice to decide when the world ends or stays. about death, rebirth and creation. who are you to interfere with this natural cycle?

[docholligay]

Do you think authors sometimes don't realize how their, uh, interests creep into their writing? I'm talking about stuff like Robert Jordan's obvious femdom kink, or Anne Rice's preoccupation with inc*st and p*dophilia. Did their editors ever gently ask them if they've ever actually read what they've written?

Firstly, a reminder: This is not tiktok and we just say the words incest and pedophilia here.

Secondly, I don't know if I would call them 'interests' so much as fixations or even concerns. There are monstrous things that people think about, and I think writing is a place to engage with those monstrous things. It doesn't bother me that people engage with those things. I exist somewhere within the whump scale, and I would hope no one would think less of me just because sooner or later I like to rough a good character up a bit, you know? It's fun to torture characters, as a treat!

But, anyway, assuming this question isn't, "Do writers know they're gross when I think they are gross" which I'm going to take the kind road and assume it isn't, but is instead, "Do you think authors are aware of the things they constantly come back to?"

Sometimes. It can be jarring to read your own writing and realize that there are things you CLEARLY are preoccupied with. (mm, I like that word more than concerns). There are things you think about over and over, your run your mind over them and they keep working their way back in. I think this is true of most authors, when you read enough of them. Where you almost want to ask, "So...what's up with that?" or sometimes I read enough of someone's work that I have a PRETTY good idea what's up with that.

I've never read Robert Jordan and I don't intend to start (I think it would bore me this is not a moral stance) and I've really never read Rice's erotica. In erotica especially I think you have all the right in the world to get fucking weird about it! But so, when I was young I read the whole Vampire Chronicles series. I don't remember it perfectly, but there's plenty in it to reveal VERY plainly that Anne Rice has issues with God but deeply believes in God, and Anne Rice has a preoccupation with the idea of what should stay dead, and what it means to become. So, when i found out her daughter died at the age of six, before Rice wrote all of this, and she grew up very very Catholic' I said, 'yeah, that fucking checks out'.

Was Rice herself aware of how those things formed her writing? I think at a certain point probably yes. The character of Claudia is in every way too on the nose for her not to have SOME idea unless she was REAL REAL dense about her own inner workings. But, sometimes I know where something I write about comes from, that doesn't mean I'm interested in sharing it with the class. I would never ever fucking say, 'The reasons I seem to write so much of x as y is that z happened to me years ago' ahaha FUCK THAT NOISE. NYET. RIDE ON, COWBOY.

But I've known some people in fandom works who clearly have something going on and don't seem to realize it. Or they're very good at hiding it. Based on the people I'm talking about I would say it's more a lack of self-knowledge, and I don't even mean that unkindly. I have, in many ways, taken myself down to the studs and rebuilt it all, so I unfortunately am very aware of why I do and write the things I do most of the time. It's extremely annoying not to be able to blame something. I imagine it must be very freeing. But it ain't me, babe.

Anyway, a lot of words to say: Maybe! But that might not stop them from writing it, it might be a useful thing for them to engage with, and you can always just not read it.

Also, we don't censor words here.

[imaginespazzi]

Our Merry Eternity

And she swears that every Christmas season, it feels like they fall deeper and deeper in love with each other.

(In which a writer would like to argue that a day after Christmas, is a perfectly reasonable time to release a Christmas fic)

Pairing: Paige Bueckers X Azzi Fudd

Themes: Fluff, fluff, fluff with some hurt/comfort and angst if you squint

Words: 9.4K (if I could write things shorter maybe y'all would get things faster but alas)

TW: Implied sexual content/suggestive content, mentions of divorce, mentions of injuries, swearing

A/N: MERRY (one day after) CHRISTMAS MY LOVIES <3 It seems like everyone wanted domestic fluff and who am I to deny the people what they want (even if it is a little later than I intended it to be) and I didn't realize how much I missed eternity-verse till I wrote this. I'mma keep this short and sweet and go through the basics. Such as the fact that I did not edit. I eventually will but for now, feel free to let me know about any grammar/spelling/formatting issues. And even though I haven't had the time to go through my inbox in a hot second, I promise I will soon so as always, let me know what you liked, what you didn't and what you'd like to see in the future. Have a lovely rest of your holidays my angels <3

It’s beginning (to look a lot like Christmas) 

Paige isn’t the biggest fan of Christmas; she doesn’t dislike it by any means but she’s never understood the fascination everyone else seems to have with it. Perhaps it’s because when she was younger, Christmas had been her parents’ favorite holiday to try and one-up each other. They’d competed in everything, from how big the tree was to how evenly spread the icing on the cookies were. Eventually the excitement of getting a big expensive present from one parent that would only be rivaled by an even bigger, more expensive present from the other wore off and all that was left was this hollow feeling of being torn in two. Her parents have matured now -no longer in a constant battle for her approval now that they had other kids to focus on as well- but the magic of Christmas had long worn off and Paige hadn’t bothered trying to rediscover it. 

Until now. 

Because right now, watching -through a facetime call that’s been running for almost four hours now- Azzi run around Walmart, searching for decorations and presents with her exasperated family in tow, almost feels a little magical. The way the younger girl’s eyes twinkle when she finds the perfect gift, the way her dimples deepen when she triumphantly wins an argument against her mother for an ornament her tree needs, makes Paige think that it would be so easy to fall in love with Christmas, if she got to spend it with Azzi. 

And it’s like Azzi’s reading her mind because suddenly the younger girl’s face is filling all of Paige’s screen as she holds the phone close to her face, lips pouting in a way that has the blonde feelings decidedly unfriendly feelings toward a girl she’s barely known for six months, but feels like a best friend she’s known all her life. 

“I wish we could spend Christmas together,” Azzi says with a slight whine, “and then you could help me with all of this. They’re absolutely no help-” her last sentence is cut off by her family and Paige laughs as the Fudds break out into a series of indignant protests. 

“Oh so you just want me for manual labor or something huh?” Paige teases, leaning back against her bed and folding her arms across her chest, “and here I thought it’s cause you missed me.”

“I do miss you,” Azzi says matter-of-factly.

“Nah,” Paige shakes her head, “sounds like you just need another person to slave around for you.”

Azzi's mouth falls open at the accusation as the Fudds break into laughter behind her, the sound of it making something impossibly warm bloom in Paige’s chest. 

“I do not make people slave around for me.”

“Yeah you do. You’re the princess. You order us around and we do as we’re told.”

“Here, here-ow!” Jon’s noise of agreement is cut off by his sister elbowing him in the stomach, “do all that work and get rewarded by violence too.”

“I tell you I miss you and this is how you repay me?” Azzi asks, her voice tinged with drama. 

“Nah I still don’t believe you miss me,” it’s a lie; Paige is fully aware Azzi misses her -thinks that the younger girl has to feel at least a semblance of the emptiness she feels herself at the distance between them- but she likes making Azzi repeat it; likes the constant confirmation that Azzi misses her too. 

“Of course I miss you P, after all,” Azzi’s eyes glint with mischief, “we’re engaged aren’t we? A girl’s gotta miss her fiancé.”

The cavalier use of the tone of endearment makes Paige freeze. It’s a joke; a callback to the fact that Paige had practically threatened Azzi that she’d have to marry her if the younger girl won their little pop-a-shot competition last summer at the Minnesota State fair. Paige hadn’t been thinking, it had just slipped out but then Azzi had won the game and then there were rings being exchanged and somehow the whole thing had become one big running joke between the two of them. Except, the idea of forever with Azzi doesn’t feel much like a joke to Paige. It feels like a wish, a hope, a want, a need  something she’s not quite ready to admit to herself yet. 

“I miss you too Az,” Paige says softly as they grin at each other through the phone, “can’t wait to see my best friend soon.”

Thirteen days to be exact -they’d planned to spend the last half of winter break together- but it’s not like Paige is crossing the days off of her calendar or anything. 

“Fiancé,” Azzi corrects and Paige’s heart flutters despite her brain trying to remind her that this is just a bit they’re playing at. 

“Right, so fiancé,” the word tastes like sugar cookies and marshmallows on the tip of her tongue, “you get my present yet?”

“You know I have and before you ask,” Azzi gives her a knowing look when Paige excitedly opens her mouth, “no I won’t give you a hint about what it is.”

“But Azziiiiiii-”

“Absolutely not Paige,” Azzi says firmly, “presents are meant to be surprises.”

“Aren’t fiancés meant to tell each other everything?” Paige scrunches her nose. 

“Not this. Christmas presents are a sacred secret,” the younger girl replies gravely. 

“And who made you an expert on all things Christmas presents?”

“Santa did,” Azzi retorts haughtily. 

Paige snorts, “well Santa doesn’t ex-”

“PAIGE MADISON BUECKERS,” Azzi yells and the blonde can tell by the way she winces immediately that the younger girl’s little outburst had gotten her more than a couple of wary looks, “Paige Madison Bueckers,” she hisses again, her voice much quieter this time, “you take that back right now!”

“Az-”

“Take it back!”

“Bro you’re fifteen years old,” Paige argues. 

“Believing has no age,” Azzi hums airily, “now take it back.”

“Nope!”

“Take it back or I’ll end our engagement,” Azzi threatens and Paige blanches at ultimatum. 

“You wouldn’t,” she gasps. 

“Try me.”

Paige is sixteen and she’s only really just started to learn what love is, but she thinks, as she sits on her bed bickering on facetime over the most ridiculous of topics with a girl who makes her feel things she’s never felt before, that maybe love is just something as simple and crazy as pretending admitting Santa is real so she can prevent her fake engagement, that’s almost beginning to feel a little much like a real promise, from being called off.

2. With you (under the mistletoe)

The truth is that neither of them quite remember what started the fight or even really why it had continued after. All they know is that one minute everything had been fine and then the next minute, they were fuming at each other and their plane ride back to the DMV for Christmas had passed in uncharacteristic silence. They'd parted ways at the airport -glumly sauntering over to their waiting families while decidedly avoiding looking over in each other’s directions- with a dreadful mixture of regret, guilt and the feeling of missing each other. But despite the fact that they were both clearly miserable, Paige and Azzi were both too stubborn and too eager to prove which one of them could be more stubborn. This was their first true fight after they’d gotten together earlier this year, and they were both adamant that the other one would apologize first. 

But Azzi can feel the urge to cave in grow stronger and stronger by the minute as she feels Paige’s body against her own as the blonde reaches over the younger girl to grab something from the shelf. The contact is unnecessary and she knows Paige is doing it on purpose, trying to get a reaction and it takes every inch of self-control Azzi has to not shiver as the older girl presses herself against her back, acting like whatever she’s grabbing isn’t right at the front of the shelf. Azzi tries to focus on the cookies she’s icing, tries to keep her hands still as she traces the outline of a star in royal icing, tries to do anything but focus on the way Paige’s warm breath is tickling against the back of her neck. 

It’s two days till Christmas and the Fudd family and friends have gathered to do their annual cookie baking and decorating tradition. And Katie had been clear that no matter what issues Paige and Azzi were having, they wouldn’t interfere with the open invitation that Paige had always had -since she’d moved to the DMV but even before that really- to join them throughout the Christmas festivities. Azzi had pretended to be a little miffed by it but secretly she’d been hoping that her girlfriend -god she still got such a thrill out of being able to call her that- would show up. They’d only really been apart for a day, but since they’d met, Paige and Azzi hadn’t gone often without talking to each other -whether it was in person or through text or on the phone- and so 24 hours had felt a little bit like 24 years and Azzi had spent every second missing the girl who’d long since become a part of her soul. And even though Paige had grunted about only being here for Drew’s sake, Azzi knows -by the way the blonde’s eyes had drunk in the sight of her when she’d let her into the house, by the way her stiff shoulders had relaxed just by being near her again- that Paige had missed her just as much. 

But neither of them are quite ready to admit it yet, and so, as they bustle around the confined space of the Fudd’s kitchen, Paige continues to find ways to light Azzi’s skin on fire and Azzi continues to pretend it isn’t making her burn with want. 

“Noooooooo,” a drawled out whine from the kitchen table has Azzi and Paige jumping away from each other as they both turn to look at Drew. 

Azzi’s eyes widen and Paige bursts into laughter as they take in the scene in front of them. Clearly the little boy had overestimated his strength and the piping bag had burst and now Drew stands by the table, his lips slightly parted in shock, as the red icing -originally intended for the Santa hat cookies- drips down the front of his shirt. Jon and José are doubled down in their chairs, tears practically streaming down their faces as the sound of their laughter echoes through the walls. 

“Oh my god,” Paige manages to get out between her giggles, “what did you do Drewskie.”

“Nothing,” her little brother immediately defends himself, “it literally burst out of nowhere.”

“Sure it did little Hulk, sure it did,” José teases as he swipes his finger over Drew’s ruined shirt and then licks the icing off of it, the casualness of it causing Jon and Paige to burst into another round of laughter while Azzi tries as hard as she can to keep her own giggles contained but a smile slips through the cracks. 

“It’s not funny,” Drew stomps his feet petulantly, “I’m all sticky and icky and gross. Azzi,” he looks at the brunette with imploring eyes, “tell them to stop- OH MY GOD ARE YOU LAUGHING AT ME TOO.”

Azzi's eyes widen as she tries to protest, “no of course not. C’mon let’s get you a new-”

But before she can put her plan into action, clearly Drew has a different idea and before Azzi can stop it from happening, the little boy is grabbing another piping bag -this one with green icing- and aiming it straight at Jose. There’s a split second of silence as the green icing arcs through the air, almost in slow motion, before landing with a splat on Jose’s newly bought t-shirt. And then the room bursts into chaos as Drew immediately dives behind Azzi’s legs, Paige and Jon continue to lose their minds laughing and José lets out a loud scream. 

“WHAT THE FU-”

“José language,” both Paige and Azzi reprimand immediately and José glares at them but corrects himself anyways. 

“What the fudge dude,” José scowls at Drew, “this is a brand new shirt.”

For his part, the little boy shrugs, “I thought you liked eating icing off of shirts. I figured I’d make it easier and let you eat it off of your own shirt. 

If it’s possible this somehow makes Jon and Paige laugh harder and instead of focusing his wrath on Drew who’s still nestled behind Azzi’s legs, José turns on the two of them instead. 

“You guys think this is SO funny don’t you,” he says menacingly, grabbing for two more piping bags. 

“José no,” Paige is the first one to recover as she tries to turn away from the mess but it’s too late, and just as she’s trying to bolt out the door, she’s stopped by a glob of pink icing landing with a splat on the back of her plain white shirt. 

“Oh you’re so dead,” Paige whispers angrily as she turns around, grabbing another bag of icing and aiming it directly at José’s face. 

And then there’s no stopping anyone as Azzi watches as all the beautiful icing she’d painstakingly made and dyed into different colors begins to be thrown all over the kitchen, a rainbow painting itself all over the walls and floors. Drew darts out from behind her legs, joining into the mayhem as he starts to pelt Jon with all sorts of colors. 

Seeing them all distracted and knowing it’s only a matter of time before she gets sucked into all of it, Azzi slowly tiptoes backwards, wanting nothing to do with the mess, and she’s just about to turn around and run up the stairs when a low voice echoes behind her. 

“And where do you think you’re going,” because of course Paige had noticed her trying to escape; Paige always noticed when it came to Azzi. 

“Paige,” Azzi warns slowly, trying to move away from the other girl, her eyes fixated on the purple icing in the blonde’s hands, “please.”

Paige smirks as she takes another step towards Azzi, “this is a little unfair isn’t it?”

“Hey I didn’t start any of this,” Azzi puts her hands up in surrender, choosing to back away from the stairs and towards the living room instead, “go fight the people who did.”

Paige shakes her head as she takes another step, “I already got ‘em all. Amateurs,” she says cockily, “they think they can beat me in a food fight.”

Azzi rolls her eyes, “is there anything you’re not arrogant about?”

“Can’t help that I’m good at everything,” Paige shrugs and Azzi’s about to come up with a snarky retort when the blonde’s eyes soften, “except I guess- I guess I’m not too great at apologizing.”

Gone is the air of overconfidence that had surrounded the older girl just a second before and in her place is that soft, vulnerable Paige that Azzi is so desperately in love with and she can’t help but take a step towards the blonde. 

“We should both probably apologize huh,” she says quietly, “think we both said some petty shit we didn’t mean.” 

It’s true; they’d known each other so long and so deeply that they knew exactly how to push each other’s buttons, how to say the exact wrong thing to rile each other up when they were frustrated. The fight had been inevitable; an explosion of all the angst that existed between two athletes who were both fighting injuries and watching their team struggle without them. It had started with something little that Azzi can’t quite remember but then they were yelling about other things -Paige’s grievances about how Azzi had an irritating habit of hovering and Azzi’s issues with Paige’s tendency to close herself off- and it had ended with both of them near tears as they’d frustratedly stomped into their rooms. 

“I’m sorry,” Paige says it first, as she loops her arm around Azzi’s waist, bringing the younger girl as close to her as she can, “I love you. I miss you.”

Azzi smiles, her hands finding their rightful place around Paige’s neck, not caring that the other girl is still covered in sticky icing,  “don’t gotta miss me baby. I’m right here,” she says softly, resting her forehead against the blonde’s, “I’m sorry too. I love you so much.”

“Look up,” Paige says softly, as she strokes Azzi’s cheek and the younger girl does as she’s told, laughing when she notices the mistletoe hanging above them. 

“Kissing under the mistletoe? You’re so cliché Bueckers.”

“Clichés are clichés for a reason Az,” Paige hums faintly before she’s pulling Azzi into a searing kiss, holding her as tightly as she physically can. 

And yet Azzi still finds a way to tug her closer, trying to find a way to meld their bodies into one as she presses herself as close to Paige as possible. She’s just about to suggest they take this upstairs -because god has she missed being with Paige- when instead she feels the older girl pull away and before she can even react, she’s being hit in the face with a stream of bright purple icing. 

“PAIGE WHAT THE FUCK,”

“Sorry baby. Just couldn’t help myself,” Paige grins as she steps back into Azzi’s space, gently attaching her lips to Azzi’s cheeks as her tongue languidly licks away at the icing and this time the younger girl doesn’t even try to hide the way her body reacts to it, “I promise I’ll clean you up though.”

3. I’ll be home (for Christmas)

“I’m good I swear,” Azzi’s voice is raw and hoarse like it often gets when she’s been crying and despite the younger girl’s best efforts to put on a brave front, Paige can hear right through it. 

She cocks an eyebrow, shifting from her back onto her elbows and placing her phone -with the facetime call- against the headboard, “then why won’t you let me see your face?”

“It’s not me. Something’s up with my camera. I don’t know what,” and if it was anyone else, even someone else who also knew that Azzi had literally just gotten a new phone, maybe the attempted sincerity in the brunette’s voice would be enough to convince them that she was telling the truth. 

But Paige has every line of the Azzi Fudd façade memorized, knows exactly how to discern the little cadences in her girlfriend’s voice and read between the lines. She knows Azzi’s purposely refusing to show her face; knows that it’s probably because it would take Paige one glance at said beautiful, gorgeous, stunning face to know that there had been tears running down it just a little bit ago. 

The blonde sighs, choosing to let the lie go and instead focus on the precious few minutes she’s got to speak to her girlfriend in peace. This is the first time Paige and Azzi have truly been apart for an extended amount of time since the latter had gotten to UConn and somehow the past few weeks have felt worse than when they’d spent months and months apart. With Paige trying to lead an injury-riddled team and Azzi rehabbing another torn ACL, the opportunities to indulge in a proper facetimes call had been few and far between. And when they did finally find the team, it wasn’t just that they were physically tired; they were both emotionally drained too. It was hard recharging when their batteries -each other- were so far away and every call felt hollow; like something was missing. 

“I miss you,” Paige says finally, feet digging into her bed as she musters up a soft smile, wishing that she could see Azzi return it with one of her own instead of staring at a black screen with only her own face in the corner. 

“Tell me something I don’t know,” the younger girl says lightly and something uncomfortable churns in Paige’s stomach. 

“You uh- you haven’t said it back in a while,” she says slowly, trying to keep her voice casual. 

“Said what?”

Paige gulps, “that you miss me,” she gives Azzi a second to respond before her nerves have her speaking a mile per minute, “I mean not that you- not that you have to say it back or anything it’s just- you usually do- or like you always did and you just- you just haven’t said it back. And I mean I don’t say I miss you just so you’ll say it back or anything. I mean I do- you know- miss you and so that why I say it- because- because I miss you- I miss you so fucking much baby and I just- I just want you to know that but you haven’t- you haven’t said it back in a little bit and I just- Azzi,” her voice cracks as she tries not to let the tears slip through, “you do miss me don’t you?”

The other girl is quiet for so long that Paige thinks maybe she’s said too much; her mind rushes to the worst possibilities because what if Azzi really doesn’t miss her? What if her insecurities are right and the time apart has made Azzi realize that she wants something other than Paige?

“Of course I miss you Paige,” Azzi’s voice is thick with tears and all of Paige’s previous fears are replaced with worry instead, “god baby I miss you so fucking much. I miss you all the time and I’m sorry, fuck Paige, I’m sorry if I ever made you think I didn’t but baby- I-,” she’s heaving through her tears and Paige wishes she was with her; wishes she could wipe away her tears and hold her forever. 

“Azzi-”

“I haven’t been saying it back because- because-” Azzi pushes on, still struggling to speak but determined to say her piece, “I can’t okay? I can’t keep saying it Paige- I can’t keep telling you I miss you and hearing that you miss me when we can’t do anything about it. And I get it- okay- I get it. I get that you have to be with the team and I have to be here and do my rehab and we can’t- we can’t be together right but fuck- I hate it. I hate it so much.”

“Azzi,” Paige says again helplessly. 

She hates it too; hates that it’s so close to Christmas, so close to Azzi’s favorite holiday and her girlfriend is sobbing. 

“Shit. I’m being a terrible girlfriend aren’t I? You have a game in a couple of hours and here I am being a fucking selfish wet wipe instead of wishing you luck. Fucking hell,” Azzi curses and Paige can picture her frantically pulling herself together as she tries to change her tone. 

“You could never be a terrible girlfriend,” Paige reassures softly. 

Azzi ignores her, “besides, we’ll see each other soon right? You’re gonna fly home from Toronto to Connecticut tomorrow and then come home to me after right? Just a couple more days,” and it sounds like she’s saying it more to herself than Paige, “just a few more days- few more hours really. We can do this.”

“Yeah,” Paige agrees but she can’t help but feel like even that’s too long and there’s a plan starting to form in her mind; a good use of all that NIL money she’s been earning. 

“I love you P,” Azzi says softly, and despite the heaviness from before, Paige can hear the smile in her voice, “see you soon baby.”

“I love you too Az. I’ll be home soon,” Paige replies, a large grin settling onto her face as she gets ready to bring her idea to fruition; knowing that for now, their soons don’t quite mean the same thing. 

***

Azzi thinks her parents and brother must have the patience of a saint. She’s acutely aware that she’s been a miserable grinch to be around; either ignoring them or answering them with tight one-word sentences. Since she’d come down to Virginia for her rehab, she’s kept herself holed down in her room, only coming out when absolutely necessary. The worst part of it, is that it’s her favorite time of the year and Azzi’s barely participated in all the little Christmas traditions -half of which had really been created by her- that she’d normally be excited to indulge in. 

She sighs, burrowing herself further into her pillows to block out the chatter of her family upstairs. In a couple of minutes, she’s sure one of them will come rushing downstairs, pleading for her to come join them as they make Christmas themed pancakes. And she’ll refuse -just as she has with every other fun little activity- and all though whoever’s been tasked with getting her out of her cave will persist a little longer, eventually they’ll give up, that awful look, tinged in both disappointment and pity, on their face as they go back upstairs with a promise to bring her a plate in a little bit. It’s a terrible routine that’s been on rinse and repeat and Azzi thinks she’d really like to break herself out of it, but it feels like she’s drowning in it instead, and there’s not a lifeboat in sight to pull her out of her misery. 

Turning on her side, Azzi reaches for her phone, flipping to Paige’s contact and her heart aches from their last conversation last night. God she’d been so selfish, venting like that knowing her girlfriend had a game in a couple of hours; knowing how stressful each game -no matter how easy the opponent- was with an injury-riddled team. But Paige had sounded so miserable when asking if Azzi still missed her that in a way it had been infectious and suddenly Azzi found herself letting her own hurt waterfall out of her lips. 

She scrunches her nose, eyebrows crinkling in confusion when she realizes that the last text she’d sent Paige before going to sleep  -a simple you did really good today baby, i’m proud of you right after the game- had gone unanswered. Azzi frowns, looking down at her phone as if her staring harder at it might just conjure up a message from her girlfriend. She’d fallen asleep almost right after sending it and it was unlike Paige to not have answered her by the time she woke up. Azzi rattles her brain, trying to remember if the blonde had mentioned any other plans -beyond a dinner with Aaliyah’s parents that wouldn’t have kept her from her phone- but she can’t remember anything. Briefly glancing at the time and knowing that Paige’s flight to Connectcut wasn’t supposed to leave for at least another three hours, Azzi hastily texts her girlfriend again, crossing her fingers behind her back in anticipation of a quick reply. 

Good morning Paigey <3 

She gives it exactly three minutes, stomach churning when she doesn’t get a reply. 

I miss you baby. 

Another four minutes and still no reply and Azzi starts to feel her head getting heavy with that familiar weight of over thinking. What if she’d overstepped last night? What if it was too much? What if Paige had decided that she couldn’t deal with Azzi and her crap anymore?

She can hear someone starting to hurry down the steps, the quickness making her think it’s probably one of her brother’s who’s been tasked with getting her out of her room this time. But Azzi keeps her focus on her phone, ready to reject whatever offer is about to be made. The door creaks open and she doesn’t look up, typing another message instead. 

I love you Paige. 

“I love you too Azzi.”

Azzi freezes at the sound of the oh so familiar voice, her gaze moving from her phone to the doorway in slow-motion. She blinks in disbelief, mouth falling open as she stares at the figure in her doorway, taking in the sight of a disheveled blonde ponytail, the custom UConn sweats draped on a body that’s radiating exhaustion but more than anything her eyes fixates on that smile, the one that’s always been just for her. 

“Paige,” she breathes out slowly, almost as if she’s scared that saying it will make the girl in front of her disappear like a dream. 

“Hi baby,” Paige says softly, casually pointing to her phone, “I got your message.”

“You’re here,” Azzi chokes out and then, louder, “you’re here oh my god, you’re really here,” she repeats, rushing to get out of bed, desperate to wrap her arms around Paige, to hold her and be held in return. 

“Hey, hey, hey wait baby careful,” Paige chides, her focus immediately on Azzi’s knee, “stay where you are-”

“What? Why?” Azzi pouts and that elicits a little laugh from Paige as she walks over to the brunette. 

“Because,” the older girl says quietly, as she crawls onto the bed and pulls Azzi onto her lap so the younger girl is straddling Paige’s hips, “I’m here.”

Azzi looks at her in awe, hand tracing the curves of Paige’s face like she still can’t quite believe this is real, “yeah,” she whispers, “you’re here.”

And then she’s kissing every inch of Paige’s skin that she can, memorizing the way it feels soft and smooth under her lips, trying to make up for all the lost time of the past few weeks and perhaps even for when she knows they’ll inevitably have to be separated again. Paige’s grip on her waist is tight, fingers gripping her like they’re scared to let go as she shivers under Azzi’s featherlight touch. 

“I’m here,” Paige repeats again before she guides Azzi’s lips onto her own into a feverish kiss that has both of them letting out a long-kept sigh of relief. 

It starts off innocent enough, the two of them savoring the moment, savoring the feeling of finally being in each other’s arms. But then Paige’s tongue is licking into Azzi’s mouth and the younger girl is grinding her hips in the way she knows will drive the blonde a little insane as Paige’s own hands find themselves roaming underneath Azzi’s pajama shirt, rubbing circles dangerously close to the edge of her sleep shorts. 

“Missed you- missed you so fucking much,” Azzi babbles as Paige’s mouth moves away from her lips to trail a series of kisses down her jaw, to her neck before nipping at her collarbone. 

“Me too- me fucking too,” Paige mutters between kisses as she soothes her tongue over the mark she’d just tattooed into Azzi’s skin with her teeth, eyes glazing over when it elicits a barely-concealed moan from the brunette’s lips. 

“Missed this,” Azzi groans, continuing to roll her body against Paige’s, and she thinks she could fall off the edge just like this, untouched and fully clothed. 

“I know, baby. I know,” Paige pants as she continues her assault on the young girl’s skin, “gonna take care of you. I swear. Gonna make up for everything tonight-”

“No now,” Azzi whines, hands tangling in Paige’s hair and pulling in a way that has the older girl groaning into the crook of her neck, “I need you now. I’ll be quiet, I swear. Paige please.”

“Fuck baby don’t say that. You know I can’t say no to you.”

“Then don’t say no to me,” Azzi responds with a smirk, one hand trailing down to gently flick against Paige’s nipples causing the blonde to let out a conflicted noise somewhere between pure arousal and reluctant protest. 

“I can’t,” she says finally, resting her head against Azzi’s shoulder as she purposefully grips the younger girl’s waist to keep her still. 

Azzi pouts, “why not?”

When Paige finally looks up at her, there’s a sheepish look on her face, “I made a bet with your brothers.”

“What?” 

“They said they hadn’t been able to get you out of your room and I said I could do it in ten minutes and they said it would take me a lot longer,” Paige says, hands moving animatedly and Azzi can’t help the fond smile that flitters onto her face. 

“So let me get this straight,” she says slowly, “we haven’t seen each other in weeks, haven’t fucked,” she purposefully grinds her hips down onto the other girl, “in weeks and you wanna delay it longer because you wanna win a bet against my brothers?”

Paige has the decency to look at least a little ashamed as she nods before giving Azzi a goofy grin, “yes? I love you?”

Azzi rolls her eyes as she slips off of Paige’s lap, already missing the warmth of being on top of the other girl, “can’t believe you’d rather win a bet than fuck me.”

“Nah,” Paige smirks as she stands up, her hands immediately inching themselves around Azzi’s waist, “I’d rather win a bet, use that money to get us a hotel tonight and then fuck you.”

“You’ve really thought this through haven’t you?” Azzi shakes her head, trying to hide her excitement at the idea of being in a hotel room -being alone, just the two of them- with Paige tonight. 

“Ten steps ahead always baby,” Paige grins as she presses her lips against Azzi’s, ending it quicker than either of them would like, “now hurry up so I can win this bet.”

But Azzi doesn’t move, instead she pulls Paige back into her, resting their foreheads together as she breathes in the scent of her girlfriend. 

“I’m really glad you’re home P,” she whispers and Paige smiles, gently rubbing her back, “didn’t feel like Christmas season without you.”

4. You’re all I need (underneath the tree) 

Azzi’s just putting on the finishing touches to her outfit -dangly gold hoops that Paige had gotten her just because- when she feels a pair of arms wrap around her middle, a warm body being pressed against her chest. She smiles, letting herself melt into her wife’s -God she loves being able to say that- touch, leaning her head back against Paige’s shoulder. 

“You look so pretty in that dress,” the older woman whispers into her ear as she runs her hands up and down the velvety red material covering Azzi’s body, “but you sure we have to go to your parents’ right now? Cause I think you’d look even better out of it.”

Azzi giggles; they’ve been together for almost nine years -known each other for even longer-  and yet every time Paige gives her a compliment, she feels her insides swooning, cheeks going red like she’s still a teenager whose crush is flirting with her. And she thinks this feeling will never go away, that the halo-like glow Paige’s mere presence casts around her will never fade because this love -this all-consuming sense of you’re it for me between them- is going to last forever. She’s sure of it. 

“Do you ever think of anything but sex?” Azzi rolls her eyes as she turns around in Paige’s arms, fingers immediately reaching up to fix the collar of Paige’s matching red shirt. 

Paige grins, “nah cause I’m always thinking about you and so by default I’m always thinking about sex.”

“You’re insatiable,” Azzi shakes her head. 

“Can you blame me when my wife looks like that?” Paige makes a show of looking up and down Azzi’s body, letting out a low appreciative whistle at the way the dress hugs her figure, the neckline dipping just low enough to stay respectable yet sexy. 

“You look pretty good yourself Bueckers,” Azzi hums as she grazes her teeth lightly against Paige’s neck, making the older woman shudder. 

“Careful Az,” Paige warns, the sultry lilt in her voice saying the exact opposite, “I might start getting the wrong idea.”

Azzi shrugs cheekily, “and what idea would that be?”

Paige smirks, gently tugging at Azzi’s dress to expose a shoulder before she’s attaching her lips to the newly uncovered patch of skin, “that maybe you want us to be late. Or better yet, maybe you don’t want us to go at all.”

Keening under the softness of Paige’s touch, Azzi reluctantly pushes the older woman away, and that might be worse because now she can see her eyes and the lust swimming in them makes her want to give into temptation. But they’re already running late and she has no desire to give their brother’s any teasing material, so she settles on stealing another kiss from Paige’s lips. 

“Go warm up the car,” she mutters against the blonde’s lips, gently squeezing her waist before she detaches from Paige and starts to fix her dress, “I’mma just do a quick double check and then be out.”

“Yes your highness,” Paige teases with a slight roll of her eyes before she’s grabbing both her and Azzi’s packed overnight bags and heading towards the car.  

Azzi smiles as she watches her go. As much as they joked about not going at all, both of them loved spending Christmas with their families, especially considering how the Fudds, Bueckers and everything in between had melded into one big one. Despite the fact that living in the DMV now meant that they saw at least someone in their family once a week, the idea of having everyone under the same roof was still thrilling nonetheless. 

Life had a funny way of working out. The plan had been set in motion since Azzi had been drafted to DC and although Paige had been tempted to stay in Minnesota -after all being the hometown hero picked with the no.1 pick had served her and the. team well for her first four rookie years, considering she’d helped them return to their former championship glory- they had ultimately decided that with most of their family in the DMV area, it made more sense for Paige to ask for a trade to DC than it did for Azzi to move to Minnesota. It hadn’t been the smoothest transition -they’d had their fair share of fights while making the decision and then adjusting to it- but they’d figure it out. They always did. Because as good as Paige and Azzi were at fighting with each other, they were even better at fighting for each other. 

Quickly going through the to-do-list in her brain, Azzi nods to herself as she silently checks off everything. She does a quick glance of her room, making sure that they’re not leaving anything they’d need, before reaching to grab her phone, just to text her parents that they were on their own way. Instead her eyes catch on an email notification, her heart beating erratically when she reads the name of the sender. 

Fingers fidgeting with the heart necklace Paige had gotten her years ago, Azzi slowly clicks on the notification as anticipation burns throughout her whole body. She tries to steady her breathing as she scans through it, reading each line carefully and she almost drops her phone, large hot tears dripping down her cheeks as she reaches the end of it. Her chest feels heavy with an unknown feeling and she knows she needs to get to Paige, but her feet are rooted to their spot. 

“Baby,” she hears her wife call out, followed by the sound of Paige’s footsteps climbing up the stairs, “you ready yet? The car’s already- oh my god baby what’s wrong?”

Azzi looks up from her phone to find Paige standing in the doorway. Concern floods the older woman’s sharp features as she rushes over to her, hands running all over Azzi’s body as she tries to figure out what’s wrong. 

“Az? Baby? What’s going on? What happened,” Paige asks urgently, “baby please you’re scaring me. What’s wrong,” her eyes drop to the phone in Azzi’s hands as her voice gets desperate, “did someone say something? Do I need to go kill somebody? Fuck baby please don’t cry. Tell me what’s wrong? I swear I’ll fix it but you gotta tell me baby. Please.”

Wordlessly, Azzi hands over her phone. Paige’s expression is confused and apprehensive -maybe even a little preemptively angry- as she takes the device from her wife’s hand. Azzi watches as recognition dawn of the blonde’s face when she spots the familiar e-mail address; watches as her wife goes through the same emotions she had reading through the email. When Paige finally looks back at her, her own eyes are brimming with tears. 

“Baby,” she says breathlessly, “this- I- we-,” she chokes back a sob, her voice so quiet in comparison to the loud enigma that is Paige Bueckers-Fudd, “we’re gonna be Moms?”

Azzi nods, tears continuing to spill down her cheeks as she finally manages to open her mouth, “yeah- yeah we are. Paige, we’re gonna have a baby. No two,” she corrects herself, remembering the exact words of the e-mail, “we’re gonna have two babies. Twins.”

And it’s unclear who moves first -it doesn’t really matter- but then they’re in each other’s arms, trying to hold each other as tightly as physically possible as their tears and smiles begin to blend into one. It had been a couple of months since they’d started the adoption process and they’d gone through every stage, slightly scared that something would go wrong. But they’d passed every background and family and personality check rather easily and it was this last part, the wait to hear about a child -well children- that needed them that had been the hardest of it. And now here it was, the last brushstroke that would complete the picture they’d started painting when they were fifteen. Two babies that would complete them. 

“You’re gonna be such a good Mom,” Paige mutters against Azzi’s hair, “god Azzi, baby I can’t wait to see you with our babies -fuck- our babies. Fuck baby I don’t know what you got me but I’m afraid it’s gonna have to be second best Christmas present I’m getting this year. 

Azzi laughs breathlessly, her face still buried in Paige’s neck, “think it’s gonna be the best Christmas present ever,” she slowly lifts her head so she can brush away the tears from under her wife’s eyes, “I love you. I wouldn’t wanna do this with anyone but you.”

Paige presses her lips against Azzi’s forehead, “me too baby. I love you so fucking much. You, me and our babies. It’s all I’m ever gonna want, all I’m ever gonna need.”

5. All I want (for Christmas is you) 

There’s a lot going on in her house right now -the chatter of family and friends mingling with the sounds of Christmas Carols blaring from the speakers, the mixed aroma of a well-cooked meal and freshly baked desserts, the twinkly lights strung all around the house blinking in different colors- but Paige’s entire attention is across the room where both of her two children are hanging off of her wife like baubles on a Christmas tree. Miles is situated on her lap, his head buried in his favorite place, between Azzi’s neck and shoulder. Sienna, always slightly more independent, has one hand wrapped around her mother’s ankle while she sits on the floor, her focus squarely on a princess coloring book. It’s a sight that will never stop making Paige’s heart swell with pride and happiness, her wife with their kids. 

Slowly excusing herself from the conversation she’d been having with a relative, Paige makes her way over to her family -to her whole world- with a soft smile on her face. She sits down next to her wife, placing a kiss to her temple that makes Azzi smile, before pressing one to her son’s forehead over the younger woman’s shoulder, before finally picking her daughter off the floor onto her lap and giving Sienna a kiss on her cheek. 

“Hi family,” she whispers and she thinks that if she could choose to have one picture ingrained in her mind forever, it would be a picture of the three smiles she gets in return. Miles’s is sleepy yet so sincere, Sienna’s is toothy and wide and Azzi’s- we’ll Azzi’s is exactly like it’s been since they were fifteen. It’s her Paige smile, one that is bright and beautiful and magnificent and filled with the promise of i’ll love you forever. 

“Mama look,” Sienna coos, shoving her picture in front of Paige’s face, “I color a p-incess.”

“It’s beautiful Si-Si,” Paige says warmly, “I think it should probably go on the fridge once everybody’s gone home yeah?”

Azzi snorts, her voice dropping so only her wife can hear, “baby, I don’t think there’s any more space left on the fridge considering you’ve been putting up every single thing they’ve ever colored or made.”

“I’ll make space,” Paige says haughtily, “everything they make is fridge-worthy.”

Azzi shakes her head fondly but Paige knows that despite her words, she’ll be right there by her side tonight to help her make space on their rather cluttered fridge so that they could hang Sienna’s new masterpiece somewhere on it. 

“Mi’s close to falling asleep,” Azzi gestures to the little boy in her arms who’s clearly struggling to keep his eyes open, “I think we should probably let them open their Christmas Eve presents now.”

Despite Azzi trying to keep her tone to a whisper, Sienna’s ears perk up at the word “present” and she turns on Paige’s lap to face her Moms with large, hopeful eyes, “it’s pwesent time?”

“Yeah sweetheart. It's present time, but only one okay?” Paige taps Sienna’s nose gently, laughing when the little girl nods diligently and then squeals with excitement, rushing off of her mother’s lap so she can tell anyone within earshot that it’s time to open presents. 

“I was gonna tell you to get everybody but I think she’s got it. She’s got your vocal chords for sure,” Azzi nudges Paige’s shoulder teasingly before coaxing Miles’ head out her neck, “you ready to open a present Mi?”

Miles yawns and Paige can’t help but coo at how cute he looks as he stretches in his mother’s arms. It fascinates her, how despite being twins, Miles and Sienna sometimes feel like they’re years apart. And she knows they're only 3 years old, and she knows that they’ll both change over time but Paige thinks that the difference in their personalities makes them fit together even more beautifully. Sienna had a protective streak, always ready to shield her demure brother and Miles had a knack from calming Sienna down, always ready to comfort his boisterous sister. 

“MI,” Sienna yells as she tugs on her twin brother’s arm, having somehow already gathered their family into the living room, “wake up Mi. Time to open a Ch-istmas Eve pwesent.”

“I coming Si-Si,” Miles says softly as he finally waddles off of Azzi’s lap, tiredly rubbing his eyes as he follows his sister towards the barrage of Christmas presents underneath the tree. Their mothers scooch off of the couch to stand closer to the tree, Paige wrapping her arms around Azzi from behind as she hooks her chin over her wife’s shoulder. 

“Alright Si-Si,” Tim says, his eyes twinkling as he looks down at his granddaughter, “remember, you should always pick the biggest present to open on Christmas Eve!”

Sienna’s eyes widen as she takes in her grandfather’s words before her gaze drifts towards the presents, scouting for the biggest one of them all. Paige drinks in the joy on her daughter’s face when she finally spots a large box that might just be taller than she is. 

“That one!” Sienna says gleefully as she practically climbs over the rest of the gifts to get to her chosen one. 

“Careful sweetheart,” Azzi calls out, her voice laced with hints of worry as she watches her daughter try to pick up the present that’s clearly heavier than she is. 

“Uncle Drew,” Sienna croaks out, turning to Paige’s brother as she realizes just how big the present she’d chosen is, “help me pease!”

Drew laughs, wading through the sea of presents to get to his niece as he sedulously sits down to help her unwrap the gift. Paige tightens her grip around Azzi in anticipation as she watches for her daughter’s reaction. The twins are old enough this year to really understand their gifts and even though Paige is sure she knows them well enough -they’re her babies for fuck’s sake- to have gotten them present they’d love, she’s still a little scared they wouldn’t.

“Relax baby,” Azzi leans her head back to whisper into the blonde’s ear, having noticed the way Paige is fidgeting with the sleeve of the brunette’s sweater, “she’s gonna love it. She’s our daughter. We know her.”

Paige presses a delicate kiss against the back of her wife’s neck, “you always say the right thing.”

“Because I know you,” Azzi says softly, eyes crinkling in the corner as she smiles at Paige.

They’re broken out of their reverie by their daughter screaming in excitement as she finally uncovers her present -a barbie basketball court-, and just like Azzi had predicted she would, she says, “I love it, I love it, I love it. Thank you Mama, thank you Mommy!”

Paige and Azzi laugh, opening their arms in tandem for Sienna to rush into, “we’re glad you like it Si-Si.”

“I love it,” Sienna corrects as she gives each of them a sloppy kiss on the cheek. 

“My turn now?” a meek voice cuts in and everyone's eyes fall onto Miles, who cowers slightly at having everyone’s attention. 

“Yeah it is,” Paige grins at her son, tickling him lightly in the stomach before pushing him towards the presents, “pick whichever one you want to open Mi.”

Miles chews at his bottom lip, cautiously observing the huge pile of presents before turning to his Mothers’ with a way expression and Paige has to hide her grin, knowing exactly what he’s about to ask. 

“Too many,” Miles says, bouncing nervously on his tiny little feet, “you help me pick pease Mama.”

Paige laughs as she gathers the little boy in her arms but not before she’s whispering in Azzi’s ear, “think he might be more indecisive than you baby,” which earns her a slight elbow to the stomach before she nods at her son, “of course I’ll help you pick sweetheart.”

She pretends to make a big show of searching for the right present, observing her son’s facial expression before she sees his eyes light up a little when she grabs a medium-sized blue one. 

“Aha!” Paige yells triumphantly, causing all the adults in the room to snicker at her antiques, “think you should open this one Mi.”

Miles grins as he makes grabby hands towards the present in his mother’s hand. It takes him approximately four and a half seconds to rip off all the wrapping paper and his eyes marvel at the gift in his hands. 

“Teddy,” Miles says in awe as he clutches the cuddly stuffed toy to his chest. 

“Yeah it is baby,” Azzi nods as she kneels down next to the little boy, “here,” she points towards the blue heart on his chest, “how about you squeeze it?”

Miles does as he is told, squeezing the teddy-bear’s heart as tightly as he can and it starts to glow. Paige and Azzi’s voices ring out through the room, singing -slightly off-key- Miles’s favorite lullaby. The little boy’s eyes widen when he realizes the sound isn’t coming from his Mothers', both of whom have their mouths closed, but from the teddy-bear’s heart. 

“Now, whenever you’re scared at night in your big boy bed, you can just squeeze teddy and it’ll be like Mommy and Mama are already there with you,” Azzi says softly as she brushes her hands through her son’s hair, “you like it Mi?”

“I’m gonna call it MoMa,” Miles says in lieu of an answer as he beams up at Paige and Azzi, “like Mommy and Mama but MoMa.”

Paige laughs, her eyes suddenly starting to feel a little wet, as she wraps an arm around Azzi’s waist, watching her children fawn over the presents they’d just opened. There’s plenty more left and she’s excited to watch their reaction to opening the others but the first ones are always just a little more special. And whether it was giving Sienna a basketball court, or giving Miles a version of their voices, through these gifts they’d tried to give their children a part of themselves. 

“Hey,” Azzi snaps Paige out of her trance, her hand reaching down to intertwine with Paige’s as she begins to pull her away from their family, “come with me for a second.”

“Azzi Fudd,” Paige puts a dramatic hand to her chest, smirking as she follows her wife upstairs, “are you sneaking me into our bedroom to have a quickie? While our family and our children are right downstairs?”

Azzi  turns to her with a cheeky grin as they enter their bedroom, tracing a finger down Paige’s arm, “would you object if I was?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely not. Let’s do it,” Paige waggles her eyebrows, pulling Azzi into her chest but the younger woman immediately shrugs herself out of it as she goes into their closet instead, “oh okay then, leave me high and dry on fucking Christmas Eve.”

“Shut up,” Azzi chides, still rummaging through drawers before she finally emerges from the mahogany doors with a small silver box, walking back to Paige with a small smile on her face, “I figured you should get to open a present tonight too.”

“Well the present I was hoping to unwrap was you-” her joke is cut off by Azzi laughing. 

“Baby please, you are way too old to be saying that shit.”

“Hey,” Paige says with mock offense, “first of all, I’m not that old and second of all, you’re never too old to be flirting with your wife.”

“First of all, it’s okay that you’re old baby, I like them a little older,” Azzi smirks, “and second of all, you are if the flirting's that corny and third of all,” she gives Paige a pointed look when the other woman open her mouth to counter, “shut up and open your present.”

“Still so bossy aren’t you princess?” Paige shakes her head but she does as she told, delicately removing the lid from the box and gasping when she sees the necklace inside, “baby, it’s beautiful.”

The necklace is similar to the engagement ring she’d gotten for Azzi, not the one from the fair all those years ago, but the real one. It’s a simple enough chain with a heart shaped diamond-encrusted locket, except on either side of the heart, the chain is looped into two infinity symbols. 

“Open it,” Azzi says softly. 

“What?” Paige asks, still staring dazedly at the dainty jewelry in her hands. 

“The heart,” Azzi points to the locket, “it opens.”

Paige does as she’s told, delicately using her nails to pull apart the locket and a fresh set of tears brim in her eyes when she sees what’s inside. On one side of the heart is a picture of Miles and Sienna, the twins grinning at the camera and Paige remembers the exact moment she’d taken it. On the other side, is a picture of Paige and Azzi; specifically a picture of their kiss at their wedding. 

“Baby,” Paige says again, uncannily lost for words. 

“You’re really fucking hard to shop for you know that?” Azzi says slowly, her own eyes glistening with moisture  “like what do you even get someone who basically has everything because you know- like you always say- we’re your everything -all you could ever want is me, Miles and Sienna- and we’re already yours, just like you’re already ours. And so I figured I’d just give you a reminder of it, something you can always keep with you so you always know.” 

“It’s perfect,” Paige breathes out as she holds the locker out towards Azzi, “put it on me?”

Azzi grins as Paige turns around and the blonde watches through the mirror as the chain is placed carefully around her neck and her wife firmly clasps it together before placing a soft kiss to the back of her neck. 

“I love you,” Azzi whispers when Paige turns back around, “for eternity.”

“I love you,” Paige whispers back, pulling her wife flush against her chest, the locket with her world hanging between them, “to eternity and beyond.”

[edenaziraphale]

There's a lot to be said about the weaknesses and strengths of the writing in Dragon Age games, but for me there's nothing that trumps the way the writers' implicit biases shine through in their treatment of various characters. Anders and Solas showcase the very worst of this. Functionally Anders and Solas could (and I would go so far as to say should) operate as foils to one another. Anders is a victim of decades of abuse at the hands of both individuals and a system that demonized him from a very young age. We are given information about his childhood and time spent in the circle that makes it explicitly clear that Circles are an unjust and abusive system that traumatized him so much that he fled multiple times regardless of the fact that he knew the abuse would escalate each time he escaped. In the end, he chooses to chance death and lifelong struggle via conscription because it is his only shot at escaping his current reality. After that, in DA2, it's made clear that Kirkwall's circle is even worse. Karl is made tranquil, the templars are mad with power, and it's heavily implied that the tranquil are utilized as sex slaves and that some templars may even be selecting mages for tranquility based on their desire for them alone. In the light of all of that, Anders makes a very desperate and destructive choice. Regardless of how players feel about his actions, it's not really up for debate that the context surrounding them creates mitigating circumstances and a sympathetic backing. He was attempting to affect positive change for a group of people facing fates that the game makes clear are worse than death. Despite this, the game's writing treats him as an unsympathetic villain whose actions are not only reprehensible, but completely beyond the realm of human understanding. That dynamic at the end of DA2 carries into DAI. Solas, on the other hand, is on a quest to undo his own actions. His initial construction of the Veil and the problems that it caused can be viewed with (some) similarity to Anders circumstances in that Solas was attempting to right a wrong done by someone else, but the key difference is that, unlike Anders, who was a powerless victim attempting to free other powerless victims, Solas was on a revenge quest to avenge the death of his friend and had an incredible amount of power within the system that he existed as a part of.

His actions had horrific consequences that birthed what is essentially an entirely new existence for everyone in Thedas eons before the start of any of the games. He finds the outcome of his own actions intolerable, and seeks to reverse them. He harms friends and allies to do so, and makes it explicitly clear that he does not care who he harms or what the consequences are to Thedas or the people who live there in his quest to bring back the version of the world that he liked better. Functionally, Solas makes an excellent villain. He stands out from Anders (who operates in his narrative as a symbol of the rage and disenfranchisement of the powerless) as a representation of power and ego unchecked and the damage that they can cause.

Unfortunately, the writing of the game treats him as though he is the tragically complex victim of forces outside of his control when he is in fact the over-powered puppeteer. He is very much the master of his own destiny and he intends to be the master of everyone else's destiny as well by ripping apart the fabric of reality. No character in the series better demonstrates the writer's biases than Varric, who, as a narrator for DA2, essentially acts as the moral arbiter telling players how they should and should not feel about events, explaining what is and is not moral. His reactions to Anders stand out in sharp relief against what we see of his reaction to Solas in the Veilguard releases so far.

To be clear, I don't hate Solas as a character. I think as a villain, he works very well. His complete and total disregard for the wellbeing of others paired with his affect of wise and gentle mage are compelling to witness. His motivations are understandable from the selfish and self-centered core of us as people. He's a fantastic reminder of what happens when we decide that we know what's best with no input from others, when we pursue our desires above all else beneath the veneer of wisdom. He's fun, well rounded, and interesting. He is not, however, a tragic and morally justified sadboi victim of circumstance, and I resent that the writers treated him as though he was.

[alpaca-clouds]

Arcane & Disability - From the Perspective of a Sensitivity Reader

Alright. I promised this a month ago, but just did not get around, because university and work were all too stressful. But still, it is a topic that keeps to be on my mind, after the end of Arcane season 2. While season 2 was a mess in general, when it comes to pacing and characters and dialogues, to me – a disabled person – one of the biggest issues really is how the series treats disability. This was already a problem in season 1, but because of the bad pacing and the fact that a lot of characters clearly did not get as many scenes as it was intended at first, making this issue worse.

So, before someone asks, who am I to judge this: While my main job is in IT, I usually do at least one book or other project in sensitivity reading per month. I just rely on the IT job to know I have a constant income, if I do not manage to get a SR-job for once. But yes, it is part of my real-life job to critique writers on this kind of stuff.

So, let me talk about the disabilities in Arcane – and what is the issue there. I will go through different characters for this.

Spoilers for season 2, obviously.

Zaun and the Chem Lords

Let me start with something that mainly is in the background. We do see the Chem Lords once in season 1 and once in season 2 – though there for a prolonged scene. And a lot of them are disabled in some way and most of them are disfigured in some way. We also do see some of the “normal people” in Zaun, who are often disabled – using some sort of prothesis – and also often disfigured. And while, sure, the show portrays it as part of the tragedy that Zaun is so exploited that there are so many people who are very disabled, but at the same time the Chem Lords are not at all portrayed in a sympathetic light, and even those background characters of Zaun (like the woman, who lost her child to Jayce and Vi) are not exactly treated sympathetically.

Before anything else, we need to establish one important thing about disability in this show: Pretty much all disabilities in this movie are acquired disabilities. Which is fair. By far most people IRL who are disabled do acquire their disability during the course of their life. Through sickness, through accidents, and also through simply aging. However, there is some issue to the fact that we see very little in terms of variety to the disabilities.

Sure, you could argue, that technically Arcane has more disabilities, than pretty much any other western media project – and you would be right. But let’s face it here: The bar is on the ground – if not underground.

But the main issue is, that for the most part the Chem Lords and a lot of those minor disabled roles in the movie are not at all portrayed sympathetically. The Chem Lords are just minor cannon fodder background villains, while the background characters are also mainly villains. Sure, I have seen a lot of fans a bit more sympathy for their motivations. But in the show? Well, we mainly see how they attack main characters and almost kill them.

This could work, mind you – if we had a counter example of good disabled characters. But that is not quite the show that we got. For the most part.

Sevika

If season 2 had not been the mess that it was, Sevika probably would be the one counter example to all of this. While in season 1 she mainly is just “the goon” for Silco and we get very, very little in terms of motivation for her, season 2 (or rather what was probably originally multiple other seasons) clearly at some point had a character arc in mind for her. Even as it was, we did learn a bit more about her motivation and such.

While I had originally just taken Sevika mainly as someone who was working for Silco, because it was the most promising opportunity for her (given there are not a lot of chances in Zaun). Not because of some ideology.

But Season 2 proofed me wrong, there. We learn not much about Sevika here, but we learn that she actually was with Silco out of conviction that what Silco was ultimately doing was making Zaun better. She understood that Zaun needed a leader figure and she thought that Silco was possibly the best leader they could have had. Now that Silco is dead, she tries to prop up Jinx as the new leader, because she understands that this is needed.

Given the place that Sevika ends up in – as a councilor for Zaun – I am gonna assume there was some version of this (one with more seasons) where Sevika had gotten an arc, this would have been more of a focus. Her learning that instead of popping up someone else as a figurehead, she had to be the one to lead people. However, we clearly did not get that version of the story.

Still, I am possibly going to argue that the fact that she did not get this arc, is less connected to her being a clearly disabled character, and more to her being not a champion in the game so far. So generally speaking, I would still argue that despite it all, she is the one disabled character in this show, who I think is generally portrayed the most favorable.

Silco

I know, some people will now ask: “How the fuck is Silco disabled.” But for once, yes, he uses a cane at times, but also, he has a facial deformity, which is in fact counted under the disability umbrella. While technically speaking a facial deformity does not always stop people from being capable of working, the discrimination of people with facial deformities has to do a lot with the favoring of healthy bodies, and how this is connected to beauty norms.

And Silco… Well, how to put this best? From what is there in season 2, I am going to assume that there was a version of this, where there had been more time to tell the story, and we would have gotten a more sympathetic portrayal of Silco, where we went more into his motivation. Season 2 does hint at the fact that indeed, Zaun under Silco was a lot more stable than in any alternate scenario, and that Silco did in fact really try to make life better for the most possible people. But that is it: It very much hints at it, but never fully goes into it.

We know this is all bound to the lady who was the mother to Vi and Powder, but how we never get explained. And yeah, this is an issue. While I do not think that originally Silco really fell into the typical trope of “person has a facial deformity to signify their evil” (something that shows up in a lot of media – including Disney movies and a ton of James Bond movies), the fact that we never really go deep into his background and motivation, he somewhat falls into the trope here. And that really just because probably all the stuff that went into him as a character was just cut for time. And yeah, fuck. It is a big issue here. If the rest of the show was not as messy as it was, it would be less so – but given the state this show is in and the way the other disabled characters are portrayed… Oh boy, this is a problem.

Singed

I actually thought a lot about whether to put Singed in here. Because yes, he clearly is disabled and has deformities. But also, in the version of the show we got, he almost feel like a footnote of a character. However, I decided to at least go quickly into him, because again: You cannot put in most disabled characters as villains, and then make someone who is very, very responsible for a lot of the bad stuff that happens in this show and make him disabled as well. And yes, I get that Singed is disabled in the game, and that he is a somewhat bad character in the game as well. But that does not undo the harm this does within the narrative of the show. And you need to understand that. While yes, you can argue that his end goal (reviving his daughter) can be considered as somewhat sympathetic, it is not addressed enough to make him a complex and nuanced character. And again, he very much is responsible for many of the bad things that happen.

Jinx

Okay, let us talk about Jinx. She is the character, who I had the biggest problem in season 1 with – and season 2 did not really make it better. Because yes – until loosing her finger in season 2, generally her disability is her mental illness that clearly is chronic and unlikely to ever fully get away. And this is a big, big issue.

Because Jinx’s mental illness is from about the same line of mental illnesses that villains in the Batman comics have. Like sure, we can argue that there are some aspects in there of some sort of Borderline, PTSD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, and such. But for the most part her mental illness exists mainly to be edgy, and weird, and strange – much like Harley Quinn’s and the Joker’s disability. We know that those two characters were major influences on Jinx.

And look, I will admit, that Harley Quinn is a character I do generally enjoy. But that does not change that yeah, Harley like Jinx is a bad character in terms in representing actually mentally ill people. Because the focus of the character is to be weird, and cool, and somewhat entertaining. While yes, some of the symptoms that Jinx is showing are based on symptoms of real mental illnesses, as mentioned above, the way she is experiencing them is mainly there to be nice in a visual and entertaining kind of way. And that is… Well, it is an issue. Especially given that her mental illness mainly does also show in her violent tendencies.

Don’t get me wrong: I have known people with some of the diagnosis that one could probably read into what we see in her, and some of those people were in fact quite violent. At times only verbally, but in some cases they would also have a hair trigger before they would start and try to shove and punch people. So yes, this part is not technically speaking a thing that is unrealistic.

However, if someone was going to hand me a book, where the one character, who very clearly is written with a mental illness is depicted as a sort of maniac, who is part supervillain, and part manic pixie dream girl, that mainly exists and is the depicted the way she is to cater to a presumed straight male audience. That really is an issue.

Nothing that I can say about Jinx is exclusive to Jinx or Arcane in the grand scheme of things. A lot of these tropes are around for decades now. But that does not make them less harmful. On the contrary. They are actually worse because of it, as this kinda will play into the confirmation bias of people, who do not have to deal with mentally ill people very often. And I wish those tropes would die.

Sure, we can argue the fact that at the very least Jinx is portrayed in a somewhat more positive manner (just as Harley Quinn is these days), is at least a tiny step forward. But it is still not a good way of portraying this. Just not the worst way anymore.

And of course then there is the fact that for now she actually dies in the end of the show, just as pretty much most disabled characters in this show do. And that… is just not a good look.

Isha

Oh boy. Isha is something that came out of nowhere and really was one of the main reasons of me wanting to write this thing. Isha is mute. And here a little bit about muteness in real life: Most mute people are deaf-mute. So they are mute, because they were born without the ability to hear properly, and hence never learn how to pronounce properly, despite technically having a voice box. People who can hear and are mute – like Isha – probably are mute because of some mental illness. Some people go mute because of trauma, some neurodivergent people are non-verbal (so they don’t speak) or can be non-verbal under stress. (I fall under this, at times. I do have days on which I just cannot properly speak.)

With Isha we never learn why she does not speak. She just doesn’t. She shows up, attached herself to Jinx, and then is basically Jinx’s own Manic Pixie Dream Girl, just in the “little sister” way, rather than the “romantic” way. She mainly exists just to bring Jinx back into functioning enough that she can partake in the rest of the plot. And once she has archived that, well… She dies. Again, like almost all disabled characters in this show fucking do. She is merely a plot device.

And again, given some of the hints that are dropped, I do assume there was at some point more to her story. But we did not get that version of this story. The version we got? Well, she is the mute manic pixie dream girl, who gracefully offs herself once her plot function has been fulfilled. And this more than anything to me is so fucking egregious. If she was not disabled this was already bad enough, but given she is disabled? This is fucking horrible – especially again in the context of a show where most disabled characters die.

Basically what the show tells me – a disabled person – is that my main worth as a person is to die for ablebodied people. Thanks Arcane, needed to hear that. Great job. Hope y’all are proud for creating this show.

Viktor

Lastly there is Viktor. And mind you, there was a moment in this where I had some hope for his arc in terms of disability representation. Because while I will usually rage a lot about “healing disabilities” in fantasy and scifi media, his case was one where it was understandable. He was not trying to heal himself because he so desperately did not want to be disabled anymore, but because his never properly defined sickness, that was responsible for his disability, was degenerative, and he was going to die very early without a cure. And even with that in mind, once something bad happened because of it – when Sky died – he stopped it, because he realized it was too dangerous. While I had some minor notes of how this was handled in season 1, I thought it was fairly good.

And in the beginning of season 2 I actually kinda liked it too. It was not him who chose the healing, but Jayce. And once Viktor woke up from his coma after the magic healing, his first reaction was to be angry with Jayce about it. Partly because of the danger he understood, but partly also because Jayce violated Viktor’s bodily autonomy. I liked that. It was good.

However, it only went downhill from there. Because whatever anger Viktor had from that moment on, it was gone. Sure, you can argue with Viktor’s actions how much of it came from the core/the hextech/the arcane, and how much came from him. But never the less: He quickly is fine with being healed, and then becomes a sort of villain. And also goes ahead to heal other people of their illnesses and disabilities. Some of them consensually, which is somewhat fine though again for the aforementioned reasons of the eugenic implications of the “healing the disabled” trope has, but in some cases also non-consensually. And that is just… not good.

And then, in the bloody finale, he is kinda the final boss. He, the disabled person. Sure, Ambessa is the leader of the fascists, but Viktor is kinda the final boss.

Sure, I could say something about it being nice to have a clearly queer disabled character. But you know what? All of that pales against the fact that in the end of it all, Viktor has to be sacrificed for the happy end for the ablebodied people.

You know, in some other version of events I would have liked the fact that Jayce does acquire a disability in those last few episodes. While it is not quite clear whether this disability is gonna be chronic or not, it does not matter, because he, too, gets sacrificed. Guess he is no longer as valuable given that he is disabled now. Or at least that is the feeling that comes up.

Conclusion

Look, here is the thing: None of the characters in question are written in a way that is so egregious that if it was just this one example it would be a problem. And hey, some part of me is like: “Hey, at least there are multiple disabled characters,” given that this is still fairly rare in western media. (I am currently getting spoiled by Japanese shows. Ranking of Kings, Sign of Affection and so on are doing a much better job at portraying disability.) But given that most of these characters are villains or end up as villains on the long run, and most of them end up dead? Yeah, fuck Arcane. You do not get points for depicting disabilities in a way that clearly communicates that actually the lives of disabled people are less worthy than those of ablebodied people.

Look, whatever you have been told about Sensitivity Reading: Like editors in book publishing, Sensitivity Readers have little power. All we can do is say: “Hey, this is some really unfortunate implication here. Maybe you should change that.” But authors and publishers can absolutely ignore our feedback. Talking with other sensitivity readers there were a couple of examples where all the feedback was ignored.

I do not know whether Arcane had a Sensitivity Reader who gave feedback on the depiction of disabled people in this show. But I am going to assume if there was, they were very probably ignored. Because yeah, I am sorry. This is just overall not good.

Yes, this show has more disabled characters than most western shows. But again: If those characters are mainly villains, and mainly die by the end of the show… Yeah, sorry, Arcane, you do not get a gold star for including them. In fact, given how the characters are shown, frankly, I would probably have preferred it if the characters had not been disabled in the first place.

[planetallure]

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ fic recs

CW: these works contain explicit content intended for those 18+. make sure to read the rules of the writers before interacting.

@peterthepark : coming back to this blog made me realize when exactly i started back reading fanfic fr. the moment that was eddie mf munson, touched something in me. reign was one of my first intros that really stuck with me. it kinda blew my mind and scared me at the same time because i was like…how do i move on…what’s better than this??? brilliance. creative genius. like what more do you want from me? reign, i miss you. <3

i rec literally anything she’s written about eddie or tasm!peter parker.

@ohcaptains : i really don’t know what to tell you man. leah. is. HER. she simply does not miss. funny story: when i first started my old blog, it was ageless so i ended up getting blocked. so i pm’d her basically begging to come back home because i knew what i had lost. i’m not ashamed.

"dealers choice" - if you happened to miss the moment that was eddie munson or you miss his character or you were never really into him, this lil universe is for you. <3

"learning in public" - carmy x fem!reader. he needs it. he wants it. he has to have it. a man on his knees. enjoy.

"don't you dare fall in love" - heads up this one was discontinued and will not be continued (so don’t go harassing her about it) but the last part has an open ending so don’t let that stop you. college student/dealer!ellie x fem!reader. it’s beautiful and perfect. enjoy.

also ALL of her frank castle, abby anderson, tasm!peter parker fics. thank youuu

@inknopewetrust : this woman is a W R I T E R. the beautiful angsty things that come from her brain need to be cherished. thank you for your service.

“hoping i’ll find [a glimpse of us]” - when i tell you this shit was so fricking good!!!!!?! another piece of LITERATURE that i couldn’t believe i got to read for free on tumblr. i am such a sucker for a angsty slow burn and this still lives in me head rent free to this day. the tension had me giggling and laughing and biting my nail and crying. i need to spin back. i need to feel something!!

“secret” : now this one was a sexy forbidden romance. eddie’s our man who isn’t our man but is and oh m gee the angst in this one got me too, though it wasn’t as much. preppy!reader x eddie munson iykyk.

@etherealising : the absolute sweetest person i’ve met on here. every interaction i have with her just makes me smile. on TOP of that she’s a beautiful writer and storyteller. vee you have my heart.

“all i ever knew only you” - the best carmy x oc fic i’ve ever had the pleasure of reading on here. i’m so emotionally attached to this series, its characters and i think it has such re-readablity . the characterization is also so well done carmy x baby 4life. it’s currently discontinued but she is currently doing a rewrite and it’s going really well! in the meantime, please don’t let that stop you from reading the original while it’s still up. you won’t regret it.

“a buried and a burning flame” - vee single-handedly has me looking a richie different now. like…wait a minute :)) the bickering and banter is so fun. tension? check. spice?? check.

“flew like a moth to you” - a continuation of the one above. babyyyy!!! yes, yes, uh huh 🙂‍↕️ these two? LOVE EM. he’s officially in my heart.

@totheblood : star is so kind and super creative. she has created some of my favorite ellie williams smau’s on here.

"the hard way" - rockstar!ellie williams x ex-gf!reader smau. you guys are brought together again to solve the mystery that is the anonymous account blackmailing the two of you. mmm, nothing like the takedown of a shady mf to bring the girls together again :)

@cherriesxinthespring : another sweetheart with a beautiful mind. ik people get the characterization/true nature of ellie so wrong, but not rosie. she gets it.

“wasteland, baby!” - the wlw true enemies to lovers slow burn i’ve been dreaming of. tap in. right now.

@elliesbelle

“nobody compares to you” : a deliciously angsty slow burn second chance romance (ex!ellie x f!reader)

all the text convos for abby and ellie.

@newasskid : this blog makes me so nostalgic. THE first fic series that i read and rebloged when i started my first ff blog, came from this writer. i honestly feel it was my first time reading fanfic that wasn’t a silly little wattpad story or imagine and i was honestly gagged. i was like, “this…this is literature.” what can i say? i love good ass characterization! and this one was no exception.

“hard knock life” - like i said i was gagged with how good it was. i read the first two chapters back in 2022 and i still remember the feeling i felt reading them. this new blog i’m making is a fresh start for me and a chance for me to get back into old fandoms. will be revisiting this one soon.

@lovelettersfromluna

"one of your girls" - biker!ellie/roommate!ellie/camgirl!ellie x f!reader ALL rolled into to this ridiculously sexy little universe!! i love these two so much :’(

"compass" - vampire!ellie !!!! my new favorite thing. the way luna writes her feeding on reader ALONE is the most erotic and intimate thing. my god this was hot.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

sending all of this beautiful writers my love and respect y’all are amazing and so important. <3

[saintsenara]

Thoughts on Ron and Hermione as a ship?

thank you very much for the ask, @thesilverstarling!

i’ll state my position straight away: book ron and hermione are the best of the canon couples.

they will have a long and extremely happy marriage made rich by great and stalwart love, lust, fun, and faithfulness, rather than held together by duty and couples’ therapy like so many readers and authors (including jkr, who seems to have decided to spend the years since the conclusion of the series failing to understand anything about her own characters) tend to think.

i will state another position straight away: lest i seem like i’m just a fan with blinkers on, i think this even though hermione is, by far, my least favourite member of the trio. if she were real i would detest her, and i dislike how she is treated by the narrative as always justified in her negative characteristics. i like fanon hermione - perfect and preternaturally good - even less.

as a result, i think that it’s ridiculous that jkr has said that she thought ron needed to ‘become worthy’ of hermione. they belong together as equals - which is what they’re set up in the narrative as being from the off - and i hate seeing that undermined.

because ronald weasley? he’s an icon. and he doesn’t get anywhere near the respect he deserves in fandom.

there are multiple reasons for this - ron’s narrative purpose is to be the everyman sidekick, and so he is able to be less special than harry or hermione (the helper-figure); the amount of aristocracy wank in this fandom means that the weasleys’ ordinariness is less appealing to writers than making harry have twenty different lordships and call himself hadrian; the narrative interrogates ron’s flaws - especially his capacity for jealousy - much more intensively than it interrogates either hermione’s (cruel, inflexible, meddling) or harry’s (reckless, self-absorbed, judgemental) - but one i feel is particularly significant is that ron is such a british character that many of his traits are not understood as intended by non-british readers.

in particular - as is outlined in this excellent meta by @whinlatter - ron’s sense of humour isn’t indicative of immaturity or a lack of seriousness, but is, in fact, evidence that he’s the most emotionally aware of the trio.

ron is shown throughout the series to understand how both harry and hermione need to have their emotions approached - and i think there is no piece of writing which says this better than crocodile heart by @floreatcastellumposts:

That was what she liked most about Ron, she thought vaguely. He was very good at being suitably outraged on your behalf. For Harry, for her, for Neville. That sort of thing mattered, when you were hurt or embarrassed or wronged in some way. You needed to have someone else on your side, to be as emotional as you felt, maybe even more so, so that you might feel a bit more normal. It was very decent of him, and she was not sure he realised he did it.

ron’s inherent emotional awareness is an enormous source of comfort to other people. he does the work which isn’t flashy or special - he makes tea and tells jokes and is just there - but which is needed in healthy human relationships far more frequently than a willingness to fight to the death for the other person.

[as an aside, this normality - even though i think it is assumed rather than justified by the text - is also what ginny provides for harry. if you believe that hinny are a good couple but romione aren’t… i can’t help you.]

but let’s look at some specific reasons why ron and hermione belong together:

their communication styles mesh perfectly. ron is the only person hermione knows who feeds her love of being challenged and debated, and who is able to engage in this way of communicating without becoming irate when she refuses to back down. ron is good at picking his battles, but he’s also good at recognising that hermione’s tendency to argue isn’t intended to be confrontational a lot of the time - it’s just the way she works through feelings and problems. he’s far more easy-going about her tendency to nag, interrupt, try to provoke arguments, or speak condescendingly than he’s given credit for - and hermione evidently respects this, since when he does tell her not to push a situation (above all, when she’s trying to needle harry into talking about sirius), she listens to him.

that ron and hermione’s tendency to bicker is taken by fans to be a bad thing is because it’s something harry - from whose perspective the narrative is written - doesn’t understand. harry is extremely conflict-avoidant - he tends to take being pushed on views and opinions he has to be insulting; and he has a tendency to assume that he is right which is just as profound as hermione’s. he and ginny communicate not by debating, but by ginny having no time for his rigidity and refusing to indulge it - but ron and hermione bickering about everything is not a negative thing within their specific emotional dynamic.

[as another aside, this glaring chasm in communication styles is why harry and hermione would be a disaster as a couple.]

they each provide validation the other needs. it’s clear - reading between the lines - that hermione is a tremendously lonely person. the friendlessness of her initial few weeks at hogwarts seems to be a continuation of her experience as a child, and - outside of ron and harry - that friendlessness endures through her schooldays. i’m always struck, for example, by the fact that, when she falls out with ron in prisoner of azkaban, she has no-one else to spend time with, and that this is only avoided in half-blood prince because harry decides not to freeze her out. i don’t think her friendship with ginny is anywhere near as close as fanon seems to imply (ginny has no interest in being nagged either), nor do i think that she’s anywhere near as close to neville (not least because she is so condescending to him) as she’s often written to be.

and this loneliness seems to stretch beyond hogwarts. the absence of hermione’s parents’ from the narrative is - in a doylist sense - clearly just a device to maximise time with the trio all together, but the watsonian reading is that she doesn’t have a particularly good relationship with them. hermione’s obviously upper-middle-class background - the name! the skiing! the holidays in the south of france! - can be presumed, i think, to come with a series of expectations from her parents which she feels constantly that she’s not entirely meeting, particularly expectations attached to academic success.

[for example, the grangers - were she a muggle child - would undoubtedly have ambitions for her to attend an elite university and then go into a prestigious career. tertiary education of the type that they’re familiar with doesn’t seem to exist in the wizarding world - most careers seem to be taught by apprenticeship - and this, alongside all the other divides between the magical and muggle worlds which contribute to the distance between them, would be one very obvious area in which she felt the need to prove herself to them.]

ron, too, has quite a difficult relationship with his position in the family - voldemort’s locket is not wrong to point out that he seems to receive considerably less of his mother’s emotional attention than ginny or the rest of his brothers - and he too is constrained by expectations which he doesn’t know how to explain he has no interest in - above all, molly’s desire for her sons to achieve top grades and go into the ministry.

he also suffers while at hogwarts from being ‘harry potter’s best friend’, something which harry never appreciates. but hermione does. she recognises ron’s jealousy and never allows harry to minimise it (and she and ron are very much aligned on having no respect for harry’s saviour and martyr complexes). she appreciates ron’s strengths - above all his kindness and his sense of humour - and makes him feel as though he’s achieved things with them. and ron does the same for her; he is hugely observant when it comes to her, and he challenges and defends her.

the two of them clearly spend a lot of time together one-on-one while harry’s involved in his various shenanigans (including outside of school - hermione has often arrived at the burrow days or even weeks before harry, and they seem to write to each other frequently when apart). they do this within a relationship which is fundamentally equal. one issue with hinny is that, post-war, harry is going to have to get used to seeing ginny as a peer, rather than as someone he has to protect. but ron and hermione never have that issue - equality is baked into their relationship from the off.

because, to be quite frank, fandom overstates the role that jealousy plays in their relationship. it’s true that ron certainly doesn’t acquit himself brilliantly when it comes to hermione’s relationship with viktor krum (it’s because he’s bi and doesn’t know it yet), and a tendency to externalise his insecurity into trying to make others also feel insecure is one of his primary negative traits (hermione does this too, via her patented lofty voice when she’s trying to condescend to people). but this is often taken as the initial red flag for how the relationship would crash and burn, and ron’s toxic jealousy is often used in fan-fiction as the trigger for emotional and physical violence towards hermione which, frequently, seems to drive her into the arms of either draco malfoy or severus snape… who are, of course, the first people we think of when we hear the words ‘not prone to jealousy’...

but i think it’s important to point out several things in defence of ron’s jealousy over krum. firstly, hermione evidently regards his jealousy as ridiculous - she’s upset by it, yes, but her upset must be understood as being caused by the fact that she wanted him to ask her out. she doesn’t think he’s being possessive, she thinks he’s being stupid. secondly, hermione is equally as jealous over ron’s crush on fleur delacour and relationship with lavender brown. she behaves just as cruelly when it comes to lavender as ron does when it comes to krum - and the narrative only treats her actions as more sympathetic or justified both because harry dislikes lavender too, and because, by that point in the series, jkr has dispensed with any inclination to ever criticise her.

but, outside of this teenage pettiness, ron is never jealous of hermione over things which matter. he is never jealous of her intelligence or competence or ambition or success (indeed, he defends her constantly from attacks designed to undermine her in these areas). for someone who struggles with being overshadowed by harry, he is never upset at being overshadowed by her. he is clearly going to be happy to support her in any of the career ambitions she can be written as having post-war.

and, on this point, i think it’s worth interrogating why so many readers still seem to feel uncomfortable with the idea of ron and hermione having a dynamic where she is the more ‘powerful’ one. [it’s always a bit trite to say ‘but what if the genders were reversed?’, but actually that’s not irrelevant here]. if hermione ends up taking the ministry by storm and ron becomes a stay-at-home father or has a job which is just to pay the bills, what, precisely, is wrong with that? why, precisely, should hermione regard ron making that choice for himself as a negative thing? hermione so often seems to leave ron in fan-fiction because of a lack of ambition - something which seems to be particularly common in dramione - but, in canon, she is shown to not particularly care if ron and harry do the bare minimum when it comes to studying etc. she nags them to do their work so they don’t get in trouble. she doesn’t nag them to do it to the same standard that she would.

and, actually, i think that ron being less ambitious than hermione is something which is key to how well they work. because ron provides not only emotional support, but emotional clarity.

hermione is shown throughout canon to - just as harry does - have a tendency to become obsessive to the detriment of her own health. she is also often - as harry is - emotionally or intellectually inflexible, and finds it hard to move on when what she feels or believes is proven to be wrong. both she and harry are micro-thinkers, who lean towards knee-jerk assumptions and stubborn convictions (and, indeed, hermione has a remarkably hagrid-ish tendency towards blind loyalty).

ron is none of these things. ron is a big-picture thinker (it’s why he’s so good at chess). he’s a pragmatist. he’s the least righteous of the three. he understands that faith and loyalty are choices, and that sometimes these choices will lead to outcomes which are bad or hard. he is the one of the three most willing to own up to having made mistakes. he is the one least likely to act on gut instinct (and, therefore, the hardest to fool - i think it’s worth emphasising that he clocks that tom riddle is tricking harry immediately, the only one of the trio to do so). he understands that things are a marathon, not a sprint. he is the least obsessive.

and these traits contribute to aspects of his character which are underappreciated. ron worries about hermione making herself ill during exams, or when she is using the time-turner, and makes an effort to get her to set healthy boundaries and redirect her anxiety. ron stands on a broken leg in front of sirius or goes into the forest to fight aragog not out of righteousness, but out of choice. ron takes over the burden of preparing buckbeak’s defence when it is clear that hermione is approaching burnout. ron is completely right that harry hasn’t done any long-term planning for the horcrux hunt, and his anger does force harry to tighten up after he leaves the trio. ron has a clear head in the middle of battle. ron makes harry and hermione laugh. ron is unafraid of human emotion. ron arrests harry’s tendency to brood over the little things by looking at the bigger picture. ron will always come back.

ron is bringing his politician wife regular cups of tea and making sure she doesn’t work all night. he is helping his lawyer wife to feel less upset over losing one case by reminding her that she’s won ten others. he is noticing stress creeping in and whirling her off for a dirty weekend, or even just a takeaway on the sofa. he is teaching his daughter to be proud of her ambition and his son to treat women as equals and both of his children that all you can do when you fuck up is apologise and try to do better. he is making hermione smile on the worst days of her life. he is helping her strategise her long-term goals when she gets stuck on the short-term ones. he is telling her straight when she needs to get it together. he is seeing a misogynistic head of department call hermione a ‘silly little girl’ and choosing to tell him exactly what he thinks of that.

ron is the ultimate wife guy. hermione is a very, very lucky lady.

[wishful-thinking64]

Hazbin Hotel & Helluva Boss Rewrite Ideas #01

I truly believe that both shows have a lot of untapped potential that we'll unfortunately never get to see thanks to Viv refusing to take criticism and the fact that her writers are all yes men. However, that doesn't mean I can't give out rewrite ideas like they're candy to those who wish to tap into either show's said potential. With that being said, here are some rewrite ideas that you could use for Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss! ______ #01.) Have Mrs. Mayberry become one of the residents of the Hazbin Hotel. I promise you, this one writes itself. #02.) Have Glitz & Glam be Fizz's rival co-workers to parallel his time in the circus when he worked with the Buckzo twins who acted more like a family to him. #03.) Write some new workers for the Hazbin Hotel since they're still severely understaffed. You could make these new employees a Hellborn, a Sinner, an Overlord, or Goetia royalty if you wanted too. The possibilities for this one are endless! #04.) Let Heaven contrast with Hell based on how they operate. For example, in my rewrite for the Hellaverse, Heaven doesn't use currency at all. It quite literally doesn't exist up there. Instead, they use the Bartering System as they view it to be the most fair exchange of goods and services. #05.) Have there be a character who doesn't belong in Hell but got sent there anyway for whatever reason. I'd recommend using Valoris (my take on renaming Vaggie) if you don't mind keeping her as a fallen angel or using her original Sinner backstory however I feel like Amélie (I renamed Emily solely because her name is so common. It's not bad but you can tell that there was barely any thought put into it either.) could work just as well since she'd be a fallen Seraph. #06.) Make Lucifer and Stolas evil as they were originally intended to be before Viv scrapped the idea in favor of something worse. Stolitz is a toxic ship no matter how much damage control and retconning Helluva Boss tries to do and when initially asked about how Lucifer would act later in the series on an old livestream, Viv originally wanted to have his character be on par with that of Willy Wonka so do with that information what you will. #07.) Allow for Charlie's, "Anyone can be redeemed," mentality to constantly be challenged by those around her. Don't be afraid to have her be in the wrong because we all know that not everyone can be redeemed. Some people (Valentino) truly aren't deserving of it and others won't be accepting to change. You can lead a horse to water all you want but the horse has to decide to drink it. #08.) Create a proper foil ship for Fallen Star (I hate using the ship name Chaggie) cause if even Stolitz can have one in the form of Fizzmodeus then Fallen Star should have one too. Most people opt to use Emilute but I'm a damn GuitarSpear shipper so I opted for a crossover ship that has Emily and another character from Helluva Boss instead. Listen, if a rare pair and joke ship like CherriSnake can become canon over a ship like Sir Pentious x Rosie that actually makes sense when you consider they're from similar time periods, then a crossover ship being in my AU rewrite is the least of my problems.

For context, here's a screenshot for one of the HH mockup episodes before Viv and her team decided to scrap it. Like the majority of the HH mockup episodes. ______ Well, that's all I've got for now so happy writing and good luck!

[gnome-adjacent-vagabond]

Psst hey *pulls you closer* Canon middle-aged queer relationships and multiple canon queer/queer-coded characters. *lets you go* Go watch Venture Bros.

There are WAY more than these but I can't put em all up here because queer coding is up to interpretation. I say that everyone in Venture Bros is queer until proven straight but that's just me.

I wrote a whole-ass essay and then accidentally deleted it so the wording on this will probably be off, but it feels important so I'm gonna try be succinct.

Minor spoilers ahead! Skip paragraph three if you don't want those, then resume on paragraph four.

Full disclosure, this is a show that started in the early 2000s and has a LOT of issues in the first few seasons as well as a couple in the later seasons. There are transphobic and homophobic jokes, ableism, racism, and sexism. Sergeant Hatred is a walking trigger warning for about three seasons straight. It goes without saying but I'll say it anyway: DON'T watch this show if you have multiple triggers or are easily offended.

Having said that, these writers realized the problems with what they were writing and have worked to remedy those issues through commentary, retconning, and public acknowledgement of the early seasons' failings. Their opinions evolve and so does the show.

Shore Leave is a flamboyantly gay man who was initially intended to be a one-off joke about the G.I. Joe series and the Village People. Instead he has morphed into a three-dimensional character who presents comfortably as both masculine and feminine. He's in a loving relationship with another gay man, Al, who is flamboyant but tends to be a little less flashy. Steve Summers and Sasquatch have been a happy couple for years now--and all because the epitome of toxic masculinity, Brock Samson, helps them find a quiet cabin away from the government hunting them. Brock's mentor, Hunter Gathers, is a canonically detransitioned trans woman who struggles with her identity throughout the show (I'm still waiting for her to retransition despite the show's cancellation). Hank is perfectly at ease in a hyperfeminine strength suit, and Dean also goes through identity struggles that are never played for laughs and are heavily if not explicitly queer-coded. Vendata's queerness is understated and exists simply as a fact rather than being joked about. Sky Pilot is similar, though slightly more in Shore Leave's camp in terms of presentation. Sheila and the Monarch are self-proclaimed swingers and could be read to be in a poly relationship with Gary, their henchman. Debbie St. Simone has a rather homoerotic obsession with Sheila and is almost definitely bisexual.

The Venture Bros universe is full of queer rep, and the creators of the show write it in with intention. Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick talk about wanting it to be treated as fact rather than completely defining each of their characters--they talk about how few women are in the show and why (Johnny Quest and G.I. Joe, the inspirations for Venture Bros, are heavily malecentric and there's constant homoeroticism in them for that reason). They acknowledge the flaws and work to improve themselves and their writing. This has culminated in a surprisingly moving series about love, death, grief, trauma, and change that radiates queer subtext from any angle--especially Dean's journey.

Try the show at least up to season 4. The first three seasons are on Netflix and the rest are on Adult Swim. If you still don't like it, that's fine. Thank you for trying! Just know that it's out there and that it's an example of how human beings can change and become better people. Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick aren't perfect and neither is the Venture Bros, but for what it is it's a damn fun (shockingly so) show.

[futurequibblerjournalist]

Obvious hate for Rowling and HBO put entirely aside, what do you think about the casting choices?

You’re never gonna catch me talking about that bullshit show on my blog, but since it’s been asked I will clarify my opinion a final time for good measure.

There is no putting entirely aside hate for Rowling and HBO when her hate is so ingrained in everything she does. HBO has clearly shown where they stand simply by working with her and further sharing her IP in a way that makes her money. JK Rowling never puts aside her hate for me as a person, nor my community and thus I cannot do the same for her. If it was me and her in a dark alley I would be swinging at her and I don’t care if that makes me sound like a cunt. Fuck transphobes unconditionally.

That being said when it comes to the casting of this series I hope it becomes everyone’s worst nightmare. I hope no one looks like their book descriptions, I hope you get none of your fancasts, I hope everyone gets to see the actor they hate the most in there, I hope every actor that take part in this delivers their worst performance to date and I deeply, deeply wish associating with her will ruin their career from here on out. I hope with every part of my being that the entire franchise gets completely ruined for the dumbfucks who decide to give JKR and HBO their money because they deserve nothing but the worst. I hope every idiot who gets baited by the promise of wolfstar or drarry or whatever the fuck gay ship you want in there has the worst time of their life. I hope they actively ruin your favourite things about canon and I hope you can never see your favourite characters the same ever again. I hope you get shunned by the marauders fandom, a fandom that is supposedly built on its hatred for JK Rowling and its love for diversity, because you clearly chose the transphobe. I hope your favourite artist and your favourite writers block you and I hope you lose all the friends you’ve created through this fandom because that is exactly what you will deserve. Because by supporting, engaging with or hell, even just talking about this stupid ass series you prove that your support is conditional and that you are not a safe person.

I will be watching who is cast in this series for one reason only and it is so I can assure that I never engage in any of their shit ever again.

If you intend to watch this show, whether pirated or not, you are not welcome on my blog and I urge you to unfollow me right now. I have been blocking people who engage with this cash grab asswipe of a show and I will continue to do so, so there’s that. When I say fuck JKR in my bio I mean it wholeheartedly and a nicely wrapped carrot held in front of my face won’t change that. If it changes that for you know that I have lost all respect for you as a person.

And with that I hope I’ve made myself clear. This is not directed towards anon, I’m choosing to believe that you had the best intentions with your ask, but now that I’ve made myself clear,,, well, no more of that now < 3

[gloriousburden]

(No disrespect intended towards OP whatsoever ‼️)

If you read any of my posts about Loki, let it be this one. I feel this is the best and most coherent I’ve been able to explain why I dislike the series so much.

Found this from a post analyzing Loki’s costuming throughout the MCU and it’s just… really depressing to me. Got me thinking.

(OP is speaking in favor of the series btw)

He had all freedoms taken away from him. Even the most basic such as dressing himself. He couldn’t even express himself stylistically/through his clothing.

‘He is forced to wear the same clothing as his captor.’

They’re aware.

Love and connection can change others, but this is him changing himself in order to receive that “love” and “connection.” (You guys already know how I feel about his “relationships” in the series, but let’s just go with it for now.)

Loki has never been loved or accepted for who he is, and instead of the series uplifting/proudly presenting those traits of his that haven’t been loved by others, they have him abandon those traits instead. You can only be loved or accepted if you change every aspect of who you are. You can only be included if you strip yourself of who you are. That’s the message the series/his characterization in the series sends. It doesn’t send a message of acceptance, and friendship. He couldn’t even be accepted “despite” who he is. How is him changing who he is to feel a sense of belonging acceptance?

(And I don’t even mean traits such as his coldness or harshness. No, I mean everything from his own way of speaking, his intelligence, his ability to stick up for himself, his ambition, his mischievousness, just… all of it. He lost even the non “difficult” traits.)

He wasn’t worthy of being loved as is. He had to conform in every way. From the way he expresses himself, all the way to his mannerisms. Consciously, and subconsciously. He rejected pieces of himself, to become like those around him.

I understand why the writers did this as they are ignorant and the series was never meant to be about Loki or about uplifting him, but to have “fans” accept this… Loki, I’m sorry they couldn’t love you for who you were. I know he’s not real, but it makes me emotional that the characters around him didn’t accept him for who he was, nor do his “fans.”

Ignorant “fan” talk aside, the writers in the first place didn’t understand that one of the reasons we love Loki is because he wasn’t loved for who he is. No one who truly loved him, wanted him to change and conform to other’s ideals. I understand that Loki needed to be dumbed down and stripped of everything that made him himself in order for the series to work, but no one wanted this.

To make the god of mischief, someone who’s chaotic in nature, conform to order… ooh, it is so irritating.

And this is one of the reasons I dislike the motives behind the costuming in the series. It’s not because I hate Tom Hiddleston and don’t respect his choices, or because the costuming is ugly (it is, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about), it’s because I hate what these choices represent. I hate the fact that people feel that they need to change every aspect of who they are in order to be loved, when there is always someone who will love you for who you are. I hate that it’s encouraged, and seen as acceptance when it’s nothing of the sort.

‘The new costuming shows humility’, as if Loki was ever allowed to be anything but humbled in the first place. As if he were allowed to be above anyone in the first place. As if he was able to be celebrated in the first place. Those “bad” traits, were never accepted. They don’t realize that just because Loki was the villain of the Avengers, it doesn’t mean he walked out successfully.

He was humbled just like in every movie he’s been in. Whether that’s him being rejected by Odin, disrespected by The Warrior’s Three + Sif, humbled by Thor ‘Know your place, brother’, tortured by Thanos, defeated by The Avengers, left to rot in a cell in the dungeons of the Palace he grew up in and was raised as Royalty in, denied the ability to say goodbye to his own mother after her death, threatened by people who were once his friends… You know I can go on forever.

I don’t think there’s been a moment where Loki was allowed to feel better than anyone else without immediately being shut down, denied, humbled, dehumanized, or humiliated.

So for that all to happen to him about a thousand times more in a series that was meant to uplift him… it just sucks. ‘Healthy self-worth and self- love’ he was stripped of who he was and constantly belittled, and did not stick up for himself. He just accepted everything that was said about him, and he accepted the disrespect. I don’t see how that is him having healthy self worth. He was treated horribly by those around them and instead of attempting to stick up for himself like in the previous projects he’s been in, he just accepted it. As if he felt he deserved it. He has less self worth/self love than he’s ever had.

He never got uplifted or praised or accepted or anything besides gaining new physical abilities and a new title. He’s been given a position he’s never wanted, because Loki’s always sacrificing himself. He’s always sacrificing himself the better of other characters, and other MCU plot lines. It’s what the MCU does when they get bored, or need to start a new plot.

I don’t want to see Loki be humbled. He already has been in everything he’s been in. He’s already been humiliated and made the laughingstock. I want to see him uplifted. I want to see him proud of who he is. I want to see him accepted.

I want him to realize he can be happy, even if he doesn’t belong or fit in. He can be loved for who he is.

The series did nothing of the sort, and I don’t know how people can be so unaware of that. Or if they are aware of it, I don’t know how they can accept it.

It’s not even the bare minimum “I accept you despite your flaws” no, it’s “I sort of accept you now that you’ve sacrificed yourself for me and changed every aspect of who you are, but I still do not like you as a person and I still won’t give you even the most basic respect.”

I want better for him. Not more humbling that he accepts without any complaints.

Loki I’ll always love you for who you are

[ganondoodle]

since i have seen this argument pop up again and again and now its used to defend the minecraft movie

i really hate the argument that something, be it a movie or a game, can be as shitty as it wants when its primarily aimed at kids (or people THINK it is aimed mostly at kids) bc its 'just for kids'

like children are lesser an stupid? like they arent incredibly impressionable and deserve good movies? im not saying they should only watch critical acclaimed drama movies, but you can make a movie 'for kids' AND make it good, its been done before, sure there will always be shit movies, and thats fine, but dismissing any kind of criticism towards them bc "its just for kids" feels so unecessarily mean spirited towards children, like they are little people in wildly different stages of development!! they can think too!!

'kids' itself is such a wide range that i feel its not very useful as a category anyway, a 5 year old isnt the same as an 11 year old, both of them should get good things, and both can watch or play things they may not completely understand yet! i grew up with shrek, and while a big parody and haha fart humor movie, they (1+2) have an incredibly strong core, i didnt udnerstand them fully when i was little, so what? i still enjoyed them, i felt more connected to them than any disney movie (bc hey .. the monster is the main guy and no they dont all turn into conventionally pretty humans as the ultimate reward- i felt othered throughout my life too) and i still do, theres jokes and themes and meaning i understood fully only when i was rewatching them as an adult, i still enjoy them even at 27

and like, shouldnt it ESPECIALLY matter what children watch? (not in the puritan brain worm way) bc they are ... people in development?? do you think if they just sit down and watch shitty movies and play games that dont challenge them at all, be it thinking critically or emotionally, all day it wont have an affect on them??

(im sorry to bring up totk again, but that 'its for kids' argument has been used to defend it so much too, and its so incredibly annoying to me, ah yes, its puzzles are all skippable or easy as shit bc its main target are kids and children are stupid and shouldnt be challenged ever, the story is a simple fairytale type deal maybe to you, but contains alot of harmful stereotypes that have led to real world harm and its repeated unquestionably while offering nothing intersting to think or engage with, theres a reason alot of childrens media contains alot of stereotypes to propaganda even but its just for kids of course its not propaganda bc kids are stupid and cant understand that lol BECAUSE they are so impressionable, if a series 'for kids' only lets the girls be in frilly pink dresses and do 'girly' stuff do you not think that wil affect how they think about themselves??

if they keep seeing the light skinned blonde heroe stab the unquestioned evil arab stereotype bc he wants to take over your holy land bc hes just 'evil' and is never ever humanized in any way and only presented as a monster, while the good little maiden princess does everything she can to support her hero in shiny armor with big sad doe eyes and pretty little white dress- do you not think it will affect them? if it were an isolated incidence perhaps not much, but its a stereotype perpetuated to such a degree that you think its just 'how fairytales go'? yeah, you have been influenced by these portrayals, they are working as intented- and if they are used as such in media without the writer intending to influence you that way? thats even worse bc it means it has been so normalized to think that way people dont even realize it- while alot of real people in the world are ganondorf, they are demonized and dehumanized, others think of them as inherently evil.. but its just a "simple fairytale"

yes i know children can also question things on their own, but you shouldnt assume that comes naturally and then also in just the correct way, i questioned why i was just doing whatever the talking boat told me to do when i first played windwaker as a kid, but more bc i liked how ganondorf looked and hated being told things to do without a good reason being given (autism much?), 'evil' didnt do it for me, but that doesnt mean i knew he was an evil arab stereotype, i didnt like tetra turning white as zelda, bc i thought she looked cooler before and i didnt like 'girly' things myself, not bc i knew it was whitewashing

-not saying media should be free of anything 'problematic', the problem is how its presented and never questioned or engaged with critically and then that stupid argument being used to dismiss it like children are both unable to think and not influencable somehow-)

[prince-liest]

Saw a post recently that rhetorically asked why authors and show writers leaving character sexuality up to interpretation is disappointing when fifteen years ago getting a statement that things were up to interpretation (as opposed to "Definitely NOT gay, you freaks!") was a blessing, and I make a point of never discoursing on the bird app, but wanted to share some thoughts on the subject here - particularly because Alastor is kind of a hot topic on this subject and I think he actually makes for a great example for my thoughts on this.

Honestly, as someone who did live through the "if you think my characters are gay then you're stupid and should die" era, I think it left me with the perspective that even if there is canon sexuality, then no matter what it is, you're free to then do whatever you want in fandom. People might call you a dick for it if you go about it in certain ways, but you're free to do it.

That said... that's not really what wanting canon confirmation is about. It's about having canon representation, especially for identities that we often don't see representation of. For example: Alastor being aromantic is "up for interpretation," and that specifically feels bad when it's explicitly been framed that way as a cop out to appease shippers (per Viv), especially when in canon you can see he's intended to be aroace based off of how Rosie talks about him.

Yes, things are better now than they were 15 years ago... but standards are higher now, too!

And in particular I think that while in 2008 or so, "It's up to interpretation!" basically meant "Yeah, they might be gay but I can't say it," nowadays the meaning has shifted. I see a lot of people chiming into any mention of aroace Alastor with this attitude of "Um, actually, he's NOT aromantic because it wasn't confirmed by Viv (even though he wasn't confirmed to NOT be aro either)," rather than the spirit of "Oh, yeah, he might be aro, that's a valid interpretation!" It actually feels very similar to seeing people go "Well, X is OBVIOUSLY straight (the default) because he wasn't confirmed to like men!"

...in 2008, haha.

Anyway, fandom always feels to me like a 'do whatever you want' zone, but I think just based off of the sheer volume and depth of genuine and heartfelt reactions people have had to Alastor as a character and his portrayal as aroace... having canon representation and seeing yourself in media you enjoy matters a great deal to many people.

I had a really emotional moment when I read my preorder of House of Hades from the Percy Jackson series back in middle school and realized that Nico di Angelo was an actual gay character in an actual real, physical book that I was holding in my hands, not "just" a headcanon from my nebulously safe online fandom spaces, for the first time ever. Similarly, people have been headcanoning various characters as ace for a long, long time, but to me it's never had the same punch to it as it being official when it comes to those kinds of feelings re: representation.

So leaving that kind of thing "up to interpretation" specifically as an alternative to providing representation to a group of people who rarely sees it is disappointing, but it's not for shipping reasons.

[absolutebl]

Pit Babe - it's time for a Trash Watch!

I had to. Well, no I didn't, but COME ON. It's like Thailand is negging me. Let's burn rubber, shall we? Burn rubbers...?

The things I had been told going in about this show:

it's about car racing (this bores me)

it stars Pavel (my BL ult bias, he is my icon for a reason)

it started as an omegaverse y-novel but the A/B/O aspects would be stripped from the BL series

it's high heat

(There some chatter about whether point 3 was a mistranslation of something the author said, but don't bother me with trifles.)

Here's a definition of omegaverse:

Omegaverse, also known as A/B/O (alpha/beta/omega), is a subgenre of speculative erotic fiction, and originally a subgenre of erotic slash fan fiction. Its premise is that a dominance hierarchy exists in humans, which are divided into dominant "alphas", neutral "betas", and submissive "omegas".[1] This hierarchy determines how people interact with one another in romantic, erotic and sexual contexts.[2] (Wikipedia)

In my experience and opinion, omegaverse archetypes and tropes are often used to strip out female characters (and The Feminine) and as a tool to excuse extreme hyper-masculine behaviors without a critical feminist lens (leading to lazy characterization). Just as heat is an excuse to get nkd quickly, A/O/B is often an excuse for taboo and dubious consent actions and behaviors. Do I get why writers/readers enjoy it? Yes I do. Do I personally like it? Not particularly. (Although there are always exceptions.)

Putting all that aside, the above represents my foundational knowledge before Pit Babe started.

Oh and that the familiar BL faces appearing in this show were follows:

Pavel Naret (aka Pavel Phoom) from 2 Moons 2 & Coffee Melody - Pavel is a fluent English speaker, a bit of a drama monger, and a motorcycle rider/car-dude, this role suits him

Nut Supanut from Oxygen & Something in My Room - has an amazing voice, his somewhat wooden acting has improved steadily since Oxygen

Pon Thanapon - one of Star Hunter's stable first seen in the Gen Y series (where he stole the appeal of an intended pair), also v good in Make a Wish, I wish he'd get a lead role as he has a likable screen presence

Pop Pataraphol from La Cuisine - he's playing the Alpha rival and I'm not convinced he's suited to this role

Michael Kiettisak from Love Sick, Oxygen, Call it What You Want, Till the World Ends - playing the comic relief this time rather than his usual tortured stoic... huh

All the rest are either fresh faces or older experienced actors. Interesting mix. They must have some money behind this.

And now, get out your marshmallows! The dumpster is on fire! Let's start the roast.

Episode 1 - Platypus, Pickles, Pavel, & other Smoking Hot Problems

This first segment told with a 4 day retrospect, because I decided to do a trash watch only after @aliceisathome said I should.

My initial reaction:

the sheer audacity of Thailand being like "PitBabe is not omegaverse" and then serving "Alpha" to us on a platter in the first sex scene is

how dare

but also

what the actual fuck is going on? what world are we living in where a/b/o is LIVE ACTION ON OUR SCREENS?

we getting heat, knotting & mpreg next?

apparently this is my reality now

I'm not sure what weird quantum time stream I've jumped into but someone was all,

yes the whole world is hella screwed, but also...

Thailand has decided live action mm fanfic is gonna win it the culture wars

and I'm beginning to think they may be right

BL is now the platypus of the film industry

4 days later:

Considering how much chatter this caused there's a part of me that wondered if it was all intentional and a marketing ploy (to say it wasn't omegaverse when obviously it is). In which case... brilliant Machiavellian tactics, production.

But Thai studios are rarely this calculated in their promo. So I think it's all accidental. But it certainly caused a raucous few days on Tumblr.

On a completely different note, Babe's house looks like it started life as a particularly inventive Olive Garden. Or is that just me?

More random thoughts:

Pavel has had work done, why honey? You were the definition of perfect.

The smell thing is great, I love stuff to do with scent and necks. If omegaverse brings this to the table, fine. But...

Being all Alpha perfect butch manly man = I do not like Babe at all, I kinda want him to be brought down a peg. (Woo... pegging!) I never like narratives that glorify the captain of the football team (side eyes Cdrama CEO romances and Love O2O), Babe better have depth and damage (forget the pegging) of some kind or his behavior will get old FAST, faster than he drives (also, forget the pegging idea)

Nut is ideal in the Beta role. I mean, that's Way's character right? We all can see that. If it's not intentional, it's a miscast. I love how soft he is as as screen presence. He's great in this part.

None of the other characters are sticking out to me yet, but I'm prepared to love the side dishes in this, please make them swoon worthy!

I'm glad they didn't hold the Charlie = trickster reveal off, I like knowing he is a double agent up front.

Finally, with respect to an adequate trash watch, I'm in a pickle.

How am I going to drink for this show when there is so much else airing on Frigay? I can't keep track, if I'm drunk.

I need a strategy for this trash fire if the puns and snark are to spout forth! (HA Fourth!)

Controlled burn?

Anygay, see you all next week.

Episode 2 - Side Dish Addiction + Second Lead Syndrome are both infecting me at once

[FYI I gotta have my backup computer to watch this so that's why Imma sometimes be delayed getting the trash out to the curb.]

3 minutes! 3 minutes in and I needed to pause and wax snarkful. (Ouch, bet that hurts. Is waxing snark similar to a Brazilian but for BL? Is that why they all so hairless in The Sign?... I digress, where was I?)

Okay so the subber said Daddy but I don't think that word means what they think it means. Because Way said simply nong paa.

Usually they'll use the English word Daddy (pronounced Dah-deee) for, ya know, Actual Daddies (tm).

Wait wait:

Calling Daddy Actual

(My dumb sci-fi loving arse will see myself out the back before I start drawing Battlestar Galactica = Pit Babe connections. TOO FAR ABL. Too far.)

Look, I like the tension in this show. It's good to set up an unlikeable Alpha dog and then immediately turn him into an underdog, makes him a bit more likable. I still don't like Babe, but now at least I'm on his side.

Charlie = cute but v sus. Fortunately for him, Babe = cute but v thick.

Everyone calls Charlie Babe's dek. Yes sounds a bit like what you think but also means kid/child and SHOULD be translated as boy in this show. Why doesn't the subber get that? They a sub...ber after all. (I'll see myself out.)

Honestly, the script writers might know what they are doing with abo but our eng sub translator sadly does NOT. I'm so glad this is coming now in my BL watching life. When my ear and knowledge of Thai is so much better than it once was. Others much be SO CONFUSED.

Snicker. They just fucking with us, but it's fun to watch the mpeg speculation abound.

File this one under: Thailand's trouble with ESL plurals and also "you should have Pavel helping with these subs" sweethearts.

Production knows entirely what it's doing with this show and its omegaverse shizz (even if the subber doesn't) and I am very much enjoying the online carnage that results.

This dumpster fire continues off screen into the blogosphere and I continue to roast things over it.

Meanwhile, hi Pon! You so adorable! When you gonna lead out a BL for us?

Is Idol Factory stealing all of Star Hunter's talent? Are they the Red Racers of the BL world? These are the questions I ask myself as I watch this.

Is that AGE GAP I smell before me?

Is the 20 yr old college kid meant for the pit boss? Cause you all know I am a slut for age gaps.

Moment of a/b/o: Jeff's fear of touch/heightened personal space would be a plot marker for "baby doesn't want Alphas close cause he smells like an omega" but of course this show it not omegaverse. Not omegaverse at all.

nuh-uh

Linguistic corner!

Lung (sounds a bit like loo) is uncle(ish) it means basically a male relation older than phi. So Alan is the oldest in the crew.

Alan calls Jeff nu (which the subber translated as boy I would have gone with cutie or little one). Nu is a diminutive affectionate term that's technically gender neutral but is most often used by/on cute girls/women. Jeff did NOT like it. Then Alan sort of dodges through pronouns/particles settling on phi for I, ger for you, and ja for a particle. This is interesting because ger & ja kinda lower his age and status into a casual sphere. Not more intimate more equal to jeff... fascinating.

I love the new "Korean" red racer, he drinks my brand of soy milk. He is now my baby snake in the grass.

Get it? Snake.

He and Babe should end up together.

The fight wasn't bad, do both actors have kickbox training in their backgrounds?

Who am I kidding, I care only about Uncle Alan and Nu Jeff now. All others are irrelevant to me.

Also...

WHERE IS A BOY FOR WAY?!!! Or a Daddy. I do not care. (Methinks nether does he.)

I am now captain of the Way Appreciation Society. Let's all find a way... to get him some dick.

Also the BTS stingers are tons of fun. Looks like the set was a blast.

Finally, and I mean this kindly. Why isn't Noh Phouluang in this? He should have been cast as Winner. Bah. I'm biased.

But one should be with Noh.

Episode 3 - Side Dishes Delux

Gayest bridge n Thailand has made its obligatory appearance.

How much do I love uncle & nu? They are SO damn cute. Also nu flustered is the best kind of nu.

I could not care less about Babe and Charlie. Except I do love the smell thing.

Way will break my heart by getting his broken. He is right tho.

Tra la la. I feel like this is a bit like KP 2.0.

Charlie is a such a princess (and ace manipulator). Good thing Babe clearly likes being buttered up.

Babe's backstory was more interesting than I expected, I didn't think we would go so far into the paranormal side of a/b/o. I like it and I hope they lean into it quite a bit more. Make it part of the plot.

Unlike the kissing thing which seems to have been gotten over rather quickly.

I gotta say I'm enjoying the corporate sponsorship jockeying and tension more than I thought I would. I'm curious as to who Jef and Charlie are working for and what their motivation is. The plot itself is keeping me intrigued and that is rare for me with BL.

So no trash talk this ep, I was largely absorbed and entertained. I didn't event need booze. Shocking behavior on my part.

#giveWayaboy2023

Episode 4 - I (who never ship) am shipping the impossible

Here’s the thing. I just want this to be a better story than it is. Right now it’s kind of like a soap opera. I don’t hate lakorn, I really don't. To Sir With Love is a glorious chewing of the diamanté scenery (completed with death glitter). But...

If this is gonna be a soap opera it needs to lean into the messy side more than the tailored high concept side. Support characters and evil needs more screen time.

Instead, right now, I don’t know where I am with this show because it doesn't know where it wants to be. I’m kind of dangling in the middle of a dirty situation. It’s uncomfortable for me, and the show feels uncomfortable for the performers. 

Also... I have questions.

Yes, of course I want to know what Charlie & Jeff are up to. Why can Jeff see the future?

But more importantly I NEED to know why Babe has a flying saucer bed?

That kind of lighting makes nobody look good, especially not at that angle. It’s very traumatic and I’m not wild about the shag rug either. I have concerns about Babe's taste. I guess is what I am saying. 

On a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT note:

There’s absolutely no chemistry to justify this, but I have decided that I am going to personally advocate for, and ship, Way and the interloping not-really-Korean. They are both sort of own-moral-code types. I have tiny crush on Kim, and Nut is the prettiest, and Way is Best Boy so there it is, I would like them to hook up, please & thank you.

#giveWay2Kim2023

Arrow guy is cute, too. Will we get to see him bone?

Is he going to be another one of the adopted alpha super-kid pets?

What the hell, throw Arrow Boy a bone! All hot boys in BLs deserve bones.

Plot thickens.

Hah.

Thickens.

(I am an immature idiot.)

Episode 5 - wait wait way-t, can arrow boy have Way?

Look, BLabies, I didn’t get any screen caps this episode because frankly there wasn’t anything worth capturing.

I guess Charlie really does love Babe? Very dramatic if idiotic saving from the burning car. But Babe has gone to the broken Alpha place of extremely unlikeablability (frankly he was almost there at the start). If I were Charles B Spectacled I would be OUT by now. 

Is that?

NO.

Don't get the plastic bowl.

No white towel sponge bath. Please kill this trope.  

I mean, it's not as bad as singing, but that's because NOTHING is as bad as singing in a Thai BL.

AND the main boys are back together.

I don’t find their relationship or Babe’s lack of senses a particularly interesting aspect of the plot.

Unless, of course, Babe is pregnant and that's why he lost his Alpha sniffer.

BUT I do love the sides.

Jeff = the introvert precog who can’t/wont do people and Alan = the extrovert people person who WANTS but doesn’t understand him. 

Were Jeff and Charlie ALSO raised by Evil Daddy MacEvilPants? 

I liked the way Arrow CEO & Way looked at each other. Way, hon, give up on Babe (he sucks) and get thyself a billionaire bf with great aim and BDE.

On a completely different note, the best thing about this show is the blooper reel. That thing with the green smoothie going down his pants was hilarious!

In conclusion, this was a green smoothie down the pants episode. I was entertained, and it’s probably gonna be good for the plot in retrospect, but it was kind of squishy and unpleasant at the time.

Episode 6 - Are they actually listening to us now? Is Tumblr bugged?

This was a fun ep full of like actual racing and shizz.

Whatever.

Charlie is on the team now. All the teams, apparently.

Can we talk about Jeff and Alan?

The apology scene! Did you hear that Alan dropped to chan/ger? Eeeee!!! So cute. (He equalized their relationship in a soft way.)

Get it with that language play hottie. Next up: lengua play.

Please & thank you. 

Meanwhile, as all of the Internet knows, they went fully in for omegaverse - no bars.

I have to say, one of the greatest typos (or whatever) in existence is enigma instead of omega.

That's where I personally would rank in the omegaverse.

Hello, my gender is... enigma.

 Apparently it's a/b/o and sometimes e!  Also sometimes switch-ee 

Oh I'm very proud of myself with that one.

Funfunfun

Charlie. Babes. When a man asks to be thrown up against the wall. You throw him against that wall.

OMG is that arrow boy looking at Way in the bar?

3 seconds later.

Noooo.

Wait come back.

Noooooo.

That’s what I actually want to watch! 

OMG. Who said nu was the first step to teelak?

I flipping love Alan. 

Ah the boyfriend ep. Thank you, but I still don't trust Charlie.

Poor Way.

But nice crying jag, and I don’t say that often in Thai BL.

Now let him go, Way.

A boy with his arrows is waiting. 

(source)

Note for the future: tumblr has a bug that stops allowing edits after a certain time/number, thus my full trash often occur in 2 segments as a result. Click on the "abl trash watches bl" tag for the full thing if you're reading this and later episodes are missing.

[rookflower]

"everyone in mapleshade's vengeance (minus the kits and whatever other exceptions whatever person making this point opts to include) is a bad person" is a take that does indeed work to establish that yes, this is a story piloted by every party with any agency acting out of cruelty and hurting others, and is also an attempt at gesturing towards nuance (or at least, thinking outside of black and white morality. it is in itself a kinda inherently un-nuanced take) within the idea of good vs evil in the story. however where i believe the issue with the phrase lies is in the assertion that the reason why these characters are enacting violence on each other is because of some unique inherent nastiness they were born with or that were predisposed into their character writing rather than addressing that their flaws (while still horrible) are specifically systemically driven.

before she kills ravenwing, mapleshade commits no crime that is worth the persecution she faces, and her mistakes are in fear of facing what she inevitably does. she does not obfuscate information about her childrens' parentage or take them into that river out of malice or uncaring, she does it because she lives in a society that will exile her children in a storm once it finds out that they are illegitimate, and see that she leaves. the birchface thing likely exacerbated her punishment, sure, but she still had no safety net. if it could happen under that circumstance it could happen under any, and that is the tragedy of it. (the bridge-she-couldve-crossed thing is clearly not something the authors remembered or considered so is kind of textually irrelevant)

likewise, frecklewish does not display some unique inherent xenophobia to herself that we don't also see across the timeline from dotc to present, that even characters the writers intend as sympathetic like crowfeather and gray wing will display. this doesn't whatsoever absolve her of culpability, cruelty is cruelty regardless of the source, but it isn't her that is the source of her own hatred, it is the clan system, and her own grief that is amplifying it. "frecklewish wasn't sent to the dark forest for the river thing, it was because she yelled at the kids" is a funny take because yeah to us the readers her violent outburst is clearly her "wrong", but in-universe i really don't think starclan would care LMAO.

now, as with a lot of things in warrior cats that are deeper than the text on page i''m not sure the erins are necessarily consciously Trying to write the clan system as an inherently cruel, violent, and bigoted system- they might very well be throwing in antagonistic characters with the intent that their prejudices and toxic patriotism just form naturally and randomly like mutuations- but as i've said before i do find an interesting parallel between the series' necessity to maintain its status quo and flow of conflict for sake of marketability and series continuation, and the fact that the world in-universe has a code with xenophobia baked into its laws and consistently writes conflicts about the cruelty of the warrior code without ever being able to take steps to major to address and remedy the flaws that lead to this conflict lest it Paint The Clans As The Bad Guys or force them to step too far away from their tried and true formula, so the cycle continues. i think that's the tragedy of mapleshade's vengeance to me- it's a story that occurs because of some pointless interclan war about rocks or whatever else and everything that occurs to mapleshade is done to her by cogs and/or perpatrators of this machine that values compliance and order and clan isolationism. she's a minorly selfish and oblivious person, she isn't born evil. the people that hurt her aren't conniving supervillains, they're just people with the capacity for cruelty given the motivation and the chance. and that's worse, in a way, because they come out on the right side of history and like a dozen generations later squirrelflight and leafpool are going to get put on a trial to go to hell for the same crime that got her exiled, because the system is fucked and the system hasn't changed.

[nikethestatue]

Do you want to know a secret?

Writers forget what they wrote. All the time. Particularly those who write big books with lots of moving parts.

Take it from someone who's been writing since I was 9. I had a huge explosion of writing energy in my late teens going into my early 20s. I sometimes wrote for 12 hrs straight.

I remember almost nothing about what I was writing. Granted, it's been a long time now, but even more recent things, even the fics that I wrote in the past 3-4 years, I don't remember half of them. I'll get my AO3 notifications for kudos--and it would say 'a guest left kudos on The Braid', or 'a guest left kudos on After the Rain'. And I genuinely don't remember anything about the Braid, other than that Azriel braided Elain's hair in it. That's it.

Now, why am I saying this?

SJM doesn't remember. I can guarantee it. She doesn't. Between having 2 kids, multiple moves, shooting up in popularity, a show, Covid, and 2 huge CC books --all since 2021/ACOSF, I can absolutely guarantee that SJM has NO IDEA what she wrote in regards to Azriel raising his brow at Gwyn. She doesn't remember any of the interactions between him and Gwyn. She doesn't remember any smirks.

What she remembers are general ideas. Which are about....Nesta. She remembers Nesta, she remembers Azriel and Rhys. She knows what story she wanted to tell for 8 years now. And it's the lore and the adventures and it's...Elain. Yes, Elain. She knew back then that she was going to write Elain. She sold rights to an Elain book. And she knows, sorta, what the book will be about. Sure, it changed and grew and there's been organic movement based on what she wrote in CC and even ACOSF, but I again, can guarantee, that SJM hardly remembers, if at all, what she wrote in the Azriel bonus chapter. What she remembers is that Gwyn is supposed to be a Lightsinger.

She knows EXACTLY who the next MCs are, and it's Elain. No, she didn't magically switch to Gwyn. No she didn't magically decide to rewrite half of her series for Gwyn. No. Like all writers, she has a reason for Gwyn. And it will probably come into play. But believe me, if she was going the Gwynriel route, or the Elucien route, she would have been dropping big fat hints in the books about that.

Oh but she switched Tamlin and Rhysand. Are you kidding me? Rhysand was literally guiding the 2nd half of ACOTAR. Tamlin was gone.

Everything that she hinted at in ACOSF was about Elriel. The big fat hint was the smelly Elucien bond and then, in the bonus, the erotic interlude.

That's what she is going to write about. That's the OG plan. All the discourse about 'what if the Cauldron was wrong' in ACOSF, in the promos for HOFAS--that's what she is going to write about. Because that's the OG plan. THAT'S WHAT SHE REMEMBERS. Gwynriel has absolutely nothing to do with the Cauldron being wrong, and SJM never intended to center anything around Gwyn. It's crystal clear.

So people can highlight things and choose single lines from books that are 5-8 years old, but SJM...wont remember those. We can argue and argue and argue but it doesn't matter. The course has been set a long time ago and she has the story in her head. And Gwyn isn't captaining that ship.