#lots of subtext to unload there

[theresattrpgforthat]

Have you ever done a post about wizard school games? If not, any you'd like to recommend?

THEME: Wizard School

Hello there, I have two recommendation posts that you might be interested in: Magic School Mysteries and Magic School. However, I have a few more games that I can talk about in case you haven’t found the right game for you yet!

Dusk Academy, by Skullery Maids.

Dusk Academy is a spinoff of Blades in the Dark. It uses much of the same systems and mechanics, deviating slightly to fit the setting.

It is set in the hallowed halls of, well, Dusk Academy — a private school on an English island, far away from society. This school caters to girls fresh out of school, unsure of what to do in their futures. Dusk Academy helps these girls sort out their interests and passions, but it is special in its own way. The school is home to magic — and teaches it as part of its curriculum. This fact must remain secret from the rest of the world, but the school aims to provide a healthy environment for students to unleash their mystical potential.

If you are at home with Forged in the Dark games, Dusk Academy should be pretty easy to pick up, as it follows a number of hallmarks of the Forged family, including action ratings, playbooks with special abilities, clocks that represent consequences or projects, and Position and Effect. This game also adds something called Zap, which represents energy or strength that is needed to help your characters cast spells.

Characters in Dusk Academy organize themselves into clubs, so the stories you tell will likely revolve around the kinds of things you expect your club to do. Many of these clubs resonate quite closely with the crews of Blades in the Dark, so I don’t think your school experience is meant to be safe or easy; this school may be prestigious, but it looks like you’re destined to be troublemakers while you’re there.

Let’s Rob RJ McElhenny and Steal Her Golden Quill, by Glaive Guisarme Games.

You're a wizard, and don't let anyone tell you any different. Especially not RJ McElhenny. She's just about the richest author on the planet, all thanks to her series of banal, lowest-common-denominator stories about wizards. Stories that make it pretty clear just what sorts of people she believes deserve to be called "wizards." If you weren't born magical, if you needed to learn how to wield the arcane or if your power stems from a patron or charm… well then you're an almost-wizard, as far as RJ McElhenny and her fans are concerned. 

Let's Rob RJ McElhenny and Steal Her Golden Quill is about taking on a fantasy novelist because you're tired of the shitty takes she keeps unloading on Twitter. It is, notably, a game with no subtext whatsoever and legally you can't prove otherwise. 

Talking about magic schools can put me on edge sometimes because one of the most popular magic schools in media is tied to a lot of real-life bigotry, but that’s certainly not an issue I have with this game. Let’s Rob RJ McElhenny is short and sweet, using a deck of cards to generate obstacles as you move throughout the famous author’s mansion, and dice to help you overcome those obstacles using your elaborate heist-planning skills. This is not really a game about magic school per se, but it is a game about magic users using a lot of familiar references.

Children With Wands, by Joe Kiewra.

Children With Wands is a rules lite, all ages, Table Top Role Playing Game that mostly focuses on having fun adventures where the players solve open ended puzzles and problems. You play as children who have just come into their magic powers and as such don't quite have a grip on their spells yet. This leads to a lot of hijinks where the children often have to fix problems their spells have caused.

Children With Wands is a game currently in beta, so the document isn’t pretty but it’s entirely free. The system is d20-based, with simplified character creation that looks relatively kid-friendly. Much of the dice-rolling relates to the magic that your characters will be attempting to cast - roll too low and you might not get the effect you want, but roll too high and the magic goes out of control. Since your casting is about precision, you’ll use your modifiers to determine an acceptable range of numbers that would grant you success, rather than simply add to your dice roll.

As a document, right now the game is just rules on how to play, no fluff or world description. This means that if you decide to give it a go, you have quite a lot of freedom in determining what kinds of creatures there are and what kinds of problems might be affecting the land around you.

Welcome to Camp Merlin, by KingBim.

Welcome to Camp Merlin - it's time to learn some magic! Cast spells, befriend monsters, save ghosts, earn badges, prank some fairies and summon goblins, all whilst exploring a magical forest full of ancient enchantments and mystical creatures.

Welcome to Camp Merlin is a tabletop role-playing game about non-magical kids attending a summer camp in preparation for their first year at magic school.

While it’s not exactly a magic school, Camp Merlin is definitely adjacent to one, and it’s got a lot of the pieces you might be looking for : spells, monsters, and a regulated schedule for your (likely) child-aged characters. The tone is meant to be whimsical and light-hearted, and good for short sessions. If you want something lighthearted for your friends with a slightly different setting than your typical magical school, you might want to check out Welcome to Camp Merlin.

Arcane Academia, by Oracle Engine.

A GMless tabletop roleplaying game, in which you play a group of students at a magical academy: companions through the tumults and turmoil of a day in the life of wonder and whimsy. Bond over meals together, attend arcane lessons, socialize during your free time, and go on daring, mischievous escapades at night.

Arcane Academia seems like a great game for replicating school-age hijinx and escapades, and all of the trouble you can get in when you’re supposed to be doing your schoolwork. It might also be a good option for tables who don’t have a dedicated GM in the group. If you want to get a little bit of a taste of what the game is like before you buy it, you can also listen to the episode on Party of One where Jeff Stormer plays it with the designer of the game.

Arcana Academy, by Jordan Palmer.

Arcana Academy is a tabletop role-playing game where you get to play as students attending a magical school. Solve mysteries, get into trouble, learn magic, and forge lasting friendships or bitter rivalries.

If you've ever wished you could attend a magical school like Brakebills, this is the game for you. Players will get creative with spells, wander the halls after dark trying to solve mysteries, and explore a world unlike any they've yet encountered. Arcana Academy uses a light tag based system that lets you choose what's important to the story. Along with the spells you've mastered, your character's personality or talents are what drive the action forward. 

Arcana Academy provides a loose framework using the PbtA ruleset, with the expectation that you will want to build a magic school that fits your group’s tastes. Character creation is very descriptive, asking you to write down specific adjectives or phrases that match your character best, rather than choosing an option from a pick list. I think this game is probably better suited for players that already have a very good idea of what kind of school (and students) they want to play, what kind of magic you want to use, and what kind of tone you want to set the story for.

[jinkieswouldyoulookatthis]

Subtext - Part 2

This is a follow-up to my previous post about subtext.

Subtext vs. Text

So, if the potential meaning(s) of subtextual elements is not part of canon, Jinkies, how can you say that Sam and Dean are canonically soulmates when the show never came right out and said that they were?

Great question! The short answer is that there is a difference between subtext and text that shows rather than tells.

Writers are always being told to "show, don't tell." But what the fuck does that actually mean? It means that good storytelling isn't just exposition. Sure, you can explicitly tell your readers/viewers a thing, it happens all the time, but if you want to really draw your audience in and make them suspend disbelief for a time, immerse them in your story, you want to show them things because that makes them feel the things. So instead of saying, "Bob went to the store and bought eggs, milk, and flour," you would instead, perhaps, describe Bob coming back with shopping bags that he unloads, pulling out eggs, milk, and flour, and putting them away in his kitchen. The fact that Bob went to the store and bought these items, while unsaid, isn't subtext. As the writer, you just chose to show your reader the results of an action instead of talking them through the steps of that action.

Likewise, in the episode Dark Side of the Moon (5x16), the writers show us that Sam and Dean share a heaven by having them be able to find each other without breaking out of their individual heavens, a thing that they show and explain to us through Ash as needing to happen to jump from one person's heaven to another's. But Dean just follows the road through his heaven and it leads him to Sam... because they're in different parts of the same heaven. Taking Ash's metaphor of Heaven being like Disneyland a step further, both Sam and Dean were in the Winchesterland heaven portion of Heaven, just on different rides within that portion of the larger park. Then Ash says, while looking pointedly at the two of them, that special cases like soulmates share a heaven. So while the story did not say, "Sam and Dean are soulmates," it gave us the equation, explained all the variables, and just left us to fill in the answer on our own because they had faith in our ability to do the basic math. Turns out that faith wasn't 100% justified, but whatever, not everyone is good at math.

So in this case, Sam and Dean being soulmates is a part of canon even though they never came right out and said those specific words in that order. It is text that is shown not told.

Text, in a written work, is the actual words used, whether those words are describing actions, dialog, or setting a scene. While subtext is the space between and underneath the words where implied additional meanings can be found, if one chooses to go looking for them.

A great and fertile ground for subtextual readings can be found in discussions about Sam and Dean's sexualities. Because while the text only tells and shows us both brothers being heterosexual, there is a lot of subtext that speaks to a lot of people in support of one or both of them being queer in some fashion. Queer readings of either character are valid head canons with lots of support that can be pulled from the subtextual elements of the show. There is room within the story for a lot of subjective readings, even though all the canon tells/shows us is that they are heterosexual cis men.

Now I know a lot of you may screech to a halt here and start objecting that I am putting a subjectively heteronormative read on this. Yeah, I know. Unfortunately, the entire issue with the heteronormative bullshit that we all deal with in the really real world on a daily basis, is that it is the default presumed pov. This is changing (thankfully) but Supernatural was created before that shift really began in the collective consciousness, so the default presumed pov of the show is a heteronormative one. That is how the show was created, the filter through which it was written and acted and presented. And while reading it from a different pov is valid, it is not going to be in line with canon... it would be head canon.

Again, HEAD CANONS ARE VALID even though they aren't canon.

[starsarefire824]

Sorry to unload Byler into your askbox but I am going *insane* with the concept of Mike knowing and understanding that he likes Will, even before the Big Reveal(tm) and the only reason that he hasn't acted on it is bc he has internalised some wild homophobia/self hatred and like maybe he also has some vague idea that Will is possibly queer and yeah it's fine if it's his friend and he will defend him until death but god forbid Mike is queer

No worries anon! I don't mind at all. I am actually going to go on a very long rant about this so buckle up. (Sorry everyone)

I think Mike's feelings revolving around Will are extremely complicated. I am wary of the idea that Mike knows and understands his feelings for Will directly. I think that the repression is real for Mike unfortunately.

That being said, I think that people's opinion's of Mike's behavior in season 3 and 4 being the way it was is because he's straight is completely wrong. If anything, it just proves to me more that he's queer. (I am a bi mike truther, and I think that having any positive bi representation is always a wonderful and a much needed thing, but in truth, I am not too attached to any, specific idea for him. Gay, bi, pan, unlabeled. It doesn't matter to me. He is queer lol) I do love the idea of him being bi, because I think it explains some of his back and forth and confusing behavior that we've seen from the beginning. I also think it is a very real reason as to why he is so confused and repressed. As someone who didn't have "the revelation" until my twenties, but also have had some very complicated relationships that didn't make sense until after I had that realization, I honestly really feel for Mike. I get him.

That’s why I have to laugh when people say if people's opinions on Mike and Will are based on subtext then they are looking too much into it. What people like that don’t understand is literally most queer people’s lives, especially when they are young and coming of age IS ALL ENTIRELY SUBTEXT. And the time period this show takes place in only exasperates that.

Things are never said out loud, true feelings are veiled with other issues, people are jealous and they don’t know why, they can’t figure out why they want that one friend all to themselves, why does it hurt so much when they choose to be with someone else? The way Mike acted in these seasons was very deliberate imo. He’s pushing Will away on purpose in season 3. And why is it exactly, that Mike can never balance Will and El emotionally when they are expecting and asking things of him?

So to answer your question lol after this tangent just keeps getting longer, I’m not convinced Mike truly knows why he feels like he needs to do that in season 3, but it doesn’t change the fact that his behavior is and can be very normal for queer kids figuring out their shit.

In that season, it's entirely to do with repression and nothing to do with him not wanting to play d&d anymore. So yes, internalized homophobia and self-hatred and denial of feelings is strong in Mike's character. Much more so than Will. Will has his issues and definitely has a lot of pain and feels like a "mistake" sometimes. We can see that shown to us in the destruction of castle byers scene. But as far as self-awareness and accepting himself for who he is, Will has never had too much of a problem with that. Will has never tried to be someone he's not. He has never given into a relationship or a situation because "it's what you're supposed to do" or to hide himself in anyway. I feel like Will is pretty unapologetically himself, even with his insecurities. That's why, imo, he receives the brunt of the bullying out of all the boys, especially in the beginning of the show. He doesn't change his clothes or his hobbies or his quiet sweetness. His true self never falters. The only time I can think of a time where he does anything like that is when he dances with the girl in season 2. But who's the one that pushes him to do it? That had more to do with pleasing Mike than it did with trying to be untrue to himself. And we've seen obviously from the scene in the classroom in season four that Will has most certainly not continued to do that as he's matured.

As for Mike, I think that season 4 something shifts a little bit. I think that Mike had a bit of a revelation at the end of season three and I think that being separated from El and Will really made him realize some things. Is he ready to face what that actually means in his relationship with Will? No, not in my opinion. But the way he so quickly and honestly responds to the fight in Rink-O-Mania (one last push for Mike to push Will away) and Will's support regarding El's letter in Jonathan's bedroom to me really is showing how Mike's feeling. He wants/needs things to be good between them. He wants Will in his life. He wants things to go back the way they were in season 1 and 2. He finally gives Will the attention he has so desperately asked for for two seasons all while struggling with this "issue" of telling his girlfriend he loves her. I think that the uncertainty and push/pull he is feeling is actually painful to watch. Because Mike does love El. And as Finn Wolfhard said, "he just wants to be normal." Normal is telling your girlfriend you love her. Normal is being in a relationship with a girl. Normal is not choosing your best friend over your girlfriend. Normal is putting her first. And so he does go through with it, but I really deep down believe that that is not what he really wants. I really think that since the end of season 3 Mike has realized that he also wants to spend his life in the basement with his best friend. Has he figured out that that love is romantic and that his feelings are sexual? I don't think he's completely figured that out yet. But I do think we'll get some more scenes of Mike having ??? in season 5, even before the Big Reveal. And i think that internal homophobia, self-denial, and refusal to accept who he really is all played a part in Mike's struggle.

[speedygal]

Babylon 5

You know how in movies and tv shows where a officer tells 'It's been a honor to serve you' to another person before their presumable death? Well, watching Babylon 5 is a lot like that. It's an experience that you are humbled to be part of.

Remastered, old version, a second remastered version, wherever you may watch it, Tubi, Vudu, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Youtube, or boxed set.

It's an opportunity that you can repeat, that you have favorite passages to jump into with very little sign of age in contrast to books when the age shows after being reread so many times. But perhaps, age does show in the format that it is being watched in and in which edition.

It's a story that is so compelling that you are part of it watching the events happen. I can best compare it to the scene in the Truman show where the audience is cheering for him. You can tear your attention off every so often with parts of the story and tune back in knowing what happens next. You cheer on the characters. You celebrate when a milestone is reached due to the climb that reached that point.

The highs and lows that the characters go on, the heartache, the struggle, the challenge, the subtext that is blatantly text, the character evolution, the character growth, the evolution growth, all of these things make you pride watching these people become bigger things to life itself. It's a experience that you're honored to be part of after choosing to watch it.

The story is so compelling that when it gets to certain parts, you have to lower your electronic points, close your tabs if you're watching it on a tablet, whatever you're doing, and watch the story. The dialogue you hear in the background at these points make you want to pay attention to what is going on and following along. It demands to be seen, it insists, it's long lasting, memorable. I modified a image to make my point clear.

Babylon 5 and The Orville share something that make them both memorable. They've got a unique story to share, with someone who had it all planned out and did with the run time for each episode with the funds they had each week, the story is epic in nature. Why am I comparing it to the Orville?

When there is fighting, it's for a good reason like Babylon 5. Not just because the ship itself feels like home as the station does after a while.

In Babylon 5, the fighting doesn't happen every episode. It happens for something that matters so dearly that is worth throwing away lives, getting hurt, significant, there is no galaxy being threatened at the end of every season save for season 4 and see every alien civilization ALL band together against the threat(s).

Season 5, no galaxy being threatened, it's more of a epilogue to the show and to the story itself dealing with threads that were not finished due to uncertainty of there being a season 5.

You may get the Babylon 5 theme playing in the background during a fight scene or for it's playing in the background in non-action scenes that you can tell it's the theme due to the notes. You get to be part of a character's lives even after it's done in the form of movies seeing how they were before or after the show had begun. And you actively miss them afterwards. You remember them, fondly. Morally flawed characters who felt like people and got to be people in the narrative.

It's the story that matters.

It makes you care about everything even down to the civilizations that don't have jump gate access. The smugglers helping Babylon 5 on it's own. It makes you care about the civilians, the Centauri people, from the people in down below, to the random visitors, to the crew of Babylon 5 who deal with unloading, to the maintenance crew, to the pilots of the starfuries, to the random captains, it makes you care about the telepaths, the psi corps, and everything interesting in between.

Even though you can do nothing but watch, you feel like you're there by being there watching the characters get back up to their feet, dust themselves off, and fight back. It's admirable. It's heroic. It's the characters that we know through and through keeping up the good fight.

[shortnotsweet]

Ooh, have you possibly entertained the idea of Prince(ss)/Knight AU with Fiveya? I think either in the roles would be very cute and the whole situation thinking they both have unrequited loves on each other due to their own duties/honor really tugs on the heartstrings!!

A Witch, a Prince and a Princess

Even as a child, Vanya yearns downwards, down the spiralling view from the castle she would have long since abandoned had she any choice in the matter. It’s tall and grand, the grandest in the kingdom, but it’s become shriveled, an empty shell, like a ghost that has not lost its bones. Up in the turrets, the clouds are gritty and stifling, and the ground below and the land beyond are much more appealing, so much so that she dreams of riding a white horse past the borders of the kingdom and into the line where the sky sinks to meet the earth.

For a steed like that, she’d have to be a knight, or something of the sort. Higher nobility owns the best horses, ones that aren’t thin and sickly, or packing mules, but Vanya’s no princess, and she’s certainly no knight. She’s just a servant, one who was born just outside the borders of the kingdom, within the green outskirts of the King Reginald’s reign.

Even as a child, Vanya knows not to speak of her origin of birth - sorcerers haunt those woods, or so the whispers say. Demons lurk within the trees, and when night falls, it brings with it magic, and naked women dancing under the full moon, casting spells and disturbing all that is holy, sacred, and good. Besides, magic is outlawed in Reginald’s kingdom, and exists freely only outside its borders - after a ten-year long campaign to purge his lands of witchcraft, the filthy stuff, (and a decade of rolling heads, fresh from the executioner's block, of limp bodies swaying under mottled necks, feet drifting above the ground, of the night air saturated with broken shrieks as the flames of the pyre grew taller and hotter) Reginald had finally established prosperity and unquestioned political strength amongst the Five Kingdoms, cementing his place at negotiation tables.

No one dares speak of the Sixth Kingdom, lost to the world, its remains scattered throughout the rest of land.

Vanya is a mere twelve when she meets him first - she’s mimicking the knights dueling on the training grounds, wielding a stick that’s not too thick, not too short, and imagining rows and rows of opponents being felled. They’re not too far from the crops, effectively dwarfed by the field of tall dry grass and hidden from sight. She sees only the sky above her, gaping and huge, until she notices him crouched close to the ground, eyes bright with something she can’t place.

“Who goes there?” she shouts, whipping around, still in character, and he emerges good naturedly from the grasses. He’s a boy around her height with dark hair dark eyes, not unlike herself, but when he grins, dimpled and slightly lopsided, Vanya notices his teeth, white pearls against his gums.

He has good teeth, she thinks, numbly.

“Just watching,” he says, cocky and charming in a way that only twelve-year-old boys can be.

“Well - do you want to play?” she asks, because Pogo may be her uncle and not her real father, but he raised her right.

“What’s the game?”

“I’m a knight,” she says, “and you can be the damsel, if you want.”

The boy frowns. “I’m not a damsel. I’ll be the knight - I can rescue you, then. It’s less work,” he adds, as if to entice her. Vanya wrinkles her nose. “You’re the girl, anyway, don’t you know how it works?”

“That’s stupid,” she says truthfully, because she was playing first, he only just showed up, so of course she would know how to play. His face twists in clear annoyance.

“Do you know who I am?” The boy advances, petulant, and Vanya’s makeshift sword shoots out to rap him across his skinny chest, preventing him from coming any closer. Instinctively, his hand comes up to catch the tip, and he glares at her from the other end.

“You’re a stupid boy,” she snaps. “What do you know?”

He bares his white teeth at her. “I know you’re just a servant waving a stick around,” he snarls. “What would you know about being a knight?” When you’re just a serving girl, and always will be goes unsaid, but it’s the smug gleam in his eye that Vanya clenches her fists around, knuckles whitening in her anger.

“More than you!” Vanya shouts, vision blurred by hot tears that roll steadily down her cheeks. Her throat feels tight, uncomfortably so, and her head is light and ringing - it’s as if she’s fevered, not thinking straight.

“I’ve been training to be a knight my whole life!”

“Oh? And how long have you been training to be a prat?”

Outraged, the boy’s face begins to turn a curious shade of red as he sputters, “I’d watch my mouth, you dimwit, I’m the crown prince!”

Without thinking, Vanya gives a loud, unladylike scoff and leans forward to poke him hard in the chest. “My mistake. How long have you been training to be a royal prat, my lord?”

It slips out quick, too fast for her to anticipate, too angry for her to snatch back. The second the words escape her, Vanya stops dead, heart in her mouth and eyes wide on her face. She can see him better now: he’s well-groomed, with a clean face and dark hair, with fine clothes that can’t belong to a stableboy - stableboys don’t wear silk. With blood rushing in her ears and pounding in her head to the drumbeat of a death march, she instinctively backs away, feeling both incredibly small and suddenly enormous, like a target.

The crown prince moves toward her, reaching out a hand, a small gesture that’s hardly threatening, but Vanya reacts anyway, winding back her fist and sending it as hard as she can into his nose.

She doesn’t stay to inspect the damage. Instead, she runs.

He’s left staring after her, blood streaming down his face and onto the collar of his shirt. Five, twelve years old and set to inherit one of the greatest kingdoms in the land, falls in love for the first time of his life. He doesn’t know, not yet.

It’s been two weeks she’s spent sulking around the castle. Her Uncle Pogo is an advisor to the King and the castle’s appointed medic, and it’s a wonder she’s never seen the prince in person before - it is, Vanya reasons, a big castle, but she should have known better. No issues for her arrest and execution have reached her ears, or her Uncles, so perhaps the prince had forgotten about the event (or he was biding his time, waiting to strike).

It’s the latter, but she doesn’t know that, not yet.

The evening is setting into the sky, and her uncle has already retired to his chambers, leaving Vanya to her own devices.

Vanya ducks into the armory, looking both ways before dashing in and between the rows of gleaming metal shapes that she can barely make out in the dark but could attach a name to in a heartbeat. She reaches a tentative hand out to touch a spare breastplate hung on the wall, eyes wide, when someone clears their throat behind her.

Vanya turns, and dark eyes bore through the darkness. A white smirk flashes down at her, and she backs slowly toward the door.

“I’m sorry, your highness, I was just - looking.”

“Wait!” the prince calls out quickly, a hand outstretched. “Don’t go - I’m not - I’m not upset.” She hesitates, wary, and he steps closer. “What were you looking at? The armor?”

Vanya nods. “That’s - that’s good. Knowledge of weaponry.” The prince scratches the back of his head, eyes shifting around. “That's useful. For a knight.”

“Right,” she agrees, and he smiles, oddly gentle, as if he’s afraid she’ll shy away and bolt. “Was your nose alright?” she asks after a moment, inspecting what she can make of his face. It looks alright, with no bruising or deformations, and his grin only grows sharper.

“It was fine.”

“That’s good, your Highness.”

“Five.”

“What?”

“It’s Five,” he says. “Only the servants and visiting nobles call me your Highness, and it gets awfully formal after a while.” Vanya cocks her head.

“I am a servant.” After another significant pause, “your Highness.” She gives him a short courtesy, eyes on the ground, and hurries past him and out of the armory.

From then on, it seems that she can’t get rid of him. He doesn’t catch her in the courtroom, but everywhere else, from the stables to the kitchens, she thinks she catches him lingering in her peripheral, ducking out of sight before he becomes tangible. It’s his castle, so he can go wherever he wishes, but Vanya would really appreciate it if he’d only leave her alone and put her out of her misery - she hasn’t been sent to the stocks, but when his face lights up after running into her on the stairs, she hurries away anyway.

Five finally catches her climbing an apple tree near the woods, and she knows that he had to have ventured out on his own - he has no escort, not even a manservant with him, and from the way he was craning his head, it was clear that he was looking for something. Seeing as he’s the crown prince, Vanya thinks, it probably wasn’t apples.

“I can see up your skirts,” he calls up to her in that unabashed way of his, demonstrating a devastatingly poor choice of wording that he won’t grow out of for a long while. “You should be careful, you never know who could be walking by,” Five tells her helpfully.

“It’s a tall tree,” she says defensively, readjusting her footing. Five only regards her skeptically.

“Rapists can climb,” is his response, and she can only gape down at him, bemused and startled by his impropriety. What a weirdo, Vanya thinks.

He finds her again by the creek, and she ends up pushing him in. After he doesn’t resurface for a good minute, Vanya jumps in herself, horrified, wading through murky water and shouting his name.

It’s a mistake, and she finds herself wishing that she’d killed the crown prince after all, when he only grabs her wrist and pulls her further into the water, laughing all the while.

They return to the castle covered in mud, half-drowned and extremely pleased with themselves.

King Reginald was not pleased, and the rest of the servants weren’t either, due to the tracks of mud painting the corridors.

He’s started training with the actual knights, and the next day, Vanya pulls him into the grasses and demands that Five show her everything he learned.

Five gives her an empty scabbard, promises he’ll get a sword next time, and she hands him fresh bread swiped from the kitchens. She’s good at sneaking around unnoticed, particularly at night - recently, she’s noticed a change. Vanya has more energy at night, like the moon gleams brighter, like the sounds of the dry grass dancing under the sky get louder, like the wind turns sweet and speaks to her.

It feels like magic, sometimes, but she doesn’t mention this to Five. Magic is outlawed, anyway, and Five may be Five, but she’s still a servant, and magic is still punishable by death.

The next week passes, and her thirteenth birthday passes along with it.

He finds her on the surface of the lake, drifting along on her back. The pale veneer of her small clothes cling to her like a second skin, and she looks nearly drowned, with her eyes closed, a white body against the dark of the lake. She’s a lovely, half-dead creature, and he doesn’t want to pull his eyes away from her, but he does, if only for propriety’s sake.

“What are you doing, swimming alone at an hour like this?” he calls down instead, and her eyes snap open, startled. Vanya twists around, losing her careful buoyancy and slipping below the surface for just a second - when she comes back up, spluttering, he’s laughing at her.

“It’s one of the Seven Points of Agilities!” Vanya coughs out. “I thought you, of all people, would know about knighthood.” He sobers, for just a moment. Vanya’s dark hair is plastered to her face, and his mouth twitches.

“Women aren’t supposed to know how to swim,” he tells her carefully, rolling his sleeves up to his forearms, looking torn: should he wade in to help her out, or wait for her to clamber up herself? “It’s a sign of witchcraft.”

“Witchcraft!” Vanya exclaims, amazed, but Five only shakes his head.

“If you’re a witch, they’ll have you burned, you know.”

“I’m not a witch,” Vanya hisses. You prat, she nearly adds, but he is the crown prince, so instead she resigns herself to half-heartedly splashing lake water at him.

On Five’s fourteenth birthday, Queen Grace convinces his father to throw a grand celebration. The feast is full of things he loves to eat: game, beef, and pork sit in steaming piles down the tables, and slabs of venison are stacked next to sweet wine. The hall is singing, glowing warm against its stone walls, and Five looks utterly miserable seated at the high table. He catches her by the eye, pouring drinks for the knights, and beckons her over with a finger. Vanya looks both ways and makes her way towards him through the throng of people, hesitant, but just before she reaches him, a voice stops her in her tricks.

“More wine, girl,” one burly knight barks out at her, and she freezes, apologetic. Vanya averts her gaze and turns away. Five frowns.

“It - it felt wrong.” he confesses later.

“What does?” Were my clothes too drab, too plain, even for a serving girl? You’ve already seen me covered in mud, it shouldn’t matter to you, Vanya thinks.

Five’s brow wrinkles, and he speaks slowly, as if he’s working something and his mind is moving faster than his mouth. “Seeing you.” Her heart stutters, then plummets, but he plows on. “You’re all - docile, and quiet, and -” and you won’t look at me, not in the eyes, he doesn’t say, but he means it.

“That’s how I am, Five.” Vanya feels more exposed than she was that day at the lake, smallclothes dripping wet and clinging to her skin, and she cringes at the feeling, gluing her eyes to the floor. “You’re just a servant waving a stick around,” he’d said all those years ago, and even when she’d punched him in the nose and run away, she knew even then, deep down, that he was right. “That’s what I am,” Vanya finishes in a whisper. Except when I’m with you.

Five doesn’t look like a boy anymore, he looks like he’s going to become a man.

“Maybe someday a frog will kiss you, and you’ll turn into a handsome prince,” Vanya deadpans one afternoon. He’s escaped his guard, again, and they’re perched on boughs of the apple tree again, passing one red fruit back and forth between them.

“You think?” Five asks, chagrined. Vanya smiles and nudges his shoulder.

“Seeing as magic’s outlawed, that’ll probably never happen,” Vanya says carefully, and feels a rush of relief when he only tips his head back and laughs. He doesn’t look like a boy anymore, he looks like a prince, and the other servant girls giggle about his crown and the broadness of his shoulders and the way he’s shot up like a vine these past few summers, a head above Vanya herself, but her eyes linger on his jaw and his eyes and she marvels at how he’s changed so much and he’ll keep changing, but some things, she prays, will stay the same.

She doesn’t know what he sees when he looks at her, but a part of her hopes that will stay the same, too.

Vanya spends her fourteenth birthday alone and terrified, huddled against the wall of her bedroom.

From the forest, the druids watch.

Aelwen is rising.

On Five’s fifteenth birthday, he participates in his first tournament, armor and everything. He meets her eyes from across the grounds as servants secure his helmet, and even after the visor flips to obscure his face, she can still feel his gaze.

Vanya watches him from the stands and ignores the way her heart rises in her chest when one knight gets in a lucky hit, sending a mace crashing into Five’s chest. Five hits the ground and Vanya screams, and the crowd shouts with her, outraged, but he’s back on his feet in a second despite his smashed breastplate.

“I never got a favor,” he tells her later, after he’s subdued his opponent and rests in his tent, waiting for the next round and sweating like a dog in his armor. Vanya’s just a servant tasked with bringing the crown prince water, but he looks up to her anyway, reaching up for the pitcher.

Vanya hands it to him, watches as he drinks straight from the rim, water dripping over the sides of the pitcher, down his jaw, and into the neck of his armor.

“Just for luck, then,” Vanya murmurs, pressing her plain white handkerchief into the hand of his gauntlet.

He smiles.

“You’re getting betrothed?”

“Not yet. It’s...in the works. Her name is Dolores - oh, don’t give me that look. She’s well-read, respectful, and an incredible dancer. She also comes with a large plot of land and wealth, and Father - what?”

“What else do you know about her?”

“I just gave you a list, Vanya.”

“She’s an asset to the court. Beyond that, you make it sound like she’s a doll, like she comes with - with benefits, instead of character traits. Does she have a personality? Dreams? Hopes? Fears?”

“I - well, I don’t suppose I've ever asked,” he says, taken aback.

“She’s been staying here for three months.”

“I’m busy.” Five says with a shrug. Busy with you, he doesn’t say. Vanya plucks at the strings of his latest gift: a violin made of pale wood, a foreign gift he’d never himself had use for but kept because he could appreciate the music it made - he’d just never had time to learn it.

“Too busy to spend time with a potential queen?”

Prince Five doesn’t marry Princess Dolores. Dolores, having her own hopes, dreams, and fears, doesn’t mind all that much, and the next week passes easily.

“It’s the last of the agilities,” he murmurs against her ear. Vanya pulls back from his grasp to look at him, puzzled.

“What?” It’s well into the evening, and Five doesn’t usually stop making sense to Vanya until mid-morning, at least.

“Dancing.”

Oh Vanya, asks the moon, since when are you a romantic?

Since always, she replies.

Vanya’s gathering roots when she meets someone in the forest that isn’t Five.

“There a prophecy, you know. A lot of them, actually,” the boy tells her. His eyes are lined with kohl, and his hair is a mess, but his solemn face is both dignified and kind. The boy is skinny and covered in a black cloak made of gleaming feathers. His name is Klaus, and he speaks of the future. He speaks of death.

“Death?” she whispers.

“I see it. I know it.” Klaus taps his temple, and smiles at her. “You can, too.”

“I don’t understand,” Vanya pleads. It’s a lie, but the dread in her voice isn’t, and Klaus only kindly shakes his head at her.

“The moon is rising, and so is Aelwen, the White Witch prophesied to free the druids from their exile and lead the Six Kingdoms into its Golden Age.”

“I’m just an ordinary servant.” Vanya insists, but Klaus only takes her by the hand and gestures upwards toward the gleaming moon and back to her hand, which is white in the dark, ethereal against his own flesh. Her eyes widen; she’s seen opals and diamonds and all sorts of finery, but she’s glowing.

“Aelwen, you’re extraordinary,” Klaus says, and for one moment, Vanya believes him. It’s fleeting, but it’s enough.

“Five!” she calls, and it travels through the courtyard as if carried by the wind itself. From the distance, Five whips around and looks up, craning his neck to squint at her in the heat. I’m going to miss you, she says with her eyes, but she only smiles and waves.

He waves back.

Hope, Vanya knows, lives on the same road as Despair.

On Vanya’s fifteenth birthday, someone tries to kill the king, and Vanya hones in on the sound of the dagger whipping through the air to send it right back at the assassin, embedding it in their chest. King Reginald is alive, but his glass monocle cracks down the middle, a result of the blast of energy Vanya releases into the air, built purely from sound.

The monarchy is saved, and a witch is set to burn at dawn.

“You lied to me.”

Silence.

“How long, witch?”

“Not for long.” I promise.

“‘Not for long’?” The words are spat through the bars of her prison with a broken kind of fury, and she flinches. “What does that even mean? Why wouldn’t you - was any of that real? The entire time, were you - did you -”

“I saved his life!”

“You lied to me!”

“Of course I lied, you prat! You were my best friend, and you were perfectly content with me as a servant, but suddenly I’m not, and now - now you’re going to kill me.” She glares up defiantly at him in the darkness, face lit by the torches.

The flames burn smoothly, warping the line of her jaw and illuminating the gleam of her eyes, which are glinting - not supernaturally, he realizes, but with tears. He looks back at her through the bars of the cell from where he’s sunk against the floor again, looks at her free anger, sees her finally set ablaze, and wonders who’s truly imprisoned.

Five closes his eyes for a moment, imagines dawn breaking the sky, Vanya’s head rolling across the courtyard, eyes unblinking. He envisions her waterlogged corpse, waxy and painted with veins that creep up her face like vines, drowned by a barrel. He sees her engulfed on a pyre, her screams rising into the sky like the shriek of birds fleeing to the west.

The Prince will pursue her on horseback - she is an escaped prisoner, after all and a dangerous witch to boot. He’ll take some of his best men, from Sir Luther with his legendary strength, to Sir Diego, one of the most skilled knights in the land. He’ll search for weeks, because a witch hunt doesn’t end easily. She must’ve used witchcraft, the sorceress, because there was no open window for her to escape from, not unless someone handed her the keys to her cell door and ushered her through the hidden tunnels of the castle and away to freedom.

You told me once that I was just a servant girl, and I would always be just a servant girl, she thinks, and waits for some vindictive pleasure to surge up inside her (because he was wrong, and all she’s ever wanted to do was to prove him wrong, just once, and there’s no moment more opportune than this). It doesn’t come.

(It was a long time ago.)

Klaus takes her hand, firm but not unkind, and gently pulls her away, until they’re running, tearing through the long grasses and towards the woods, and they begin to recede into the darkness of the trees, and the castle becomes but a shape in the distance. Before the forest closes its arms and takes her, though, Vanya tugs from Klaus’s grasp and whips around for one last look - this glimpse, of the kingdom where she fought and nearly burned (and very nearly, very possibly fell in love), will have to last her.

She turns to take the plunge, a white shadow against the trees.

It will be a long three years.

King Reginald dies quietly, without a fuss, an incredible feat for a man so cruel. He’d be rolling in his grave, though, if he knew of the prophecies that were whispered throughout the kingdom, of the Druid uprising, led by their own prophesied princess, Aelwen, the White Witch. The ban against magic was lifted within the second year after King Reginald’s death, and ever since, signs of magic and its people have evaded the borders of the kingdom. She’s coming for the kingdom, whisperers the baker. She’s not here to attack, says the midwife. She comes to avenge, the blacksmith suggests. No, confides the wise man, she comes to unite.

They meet just outside the borders of the kingdom, within the green outskirts of the King Five’s reign. The tall dry grasses sing and dance around them, and he takes in her proud, dark eyes, small mouth, heavy, dark hair, and white cloak draped over her small shoulders. He drinks it up like a dying man.

“I request an audience,” the Sorceress says, “with the king of these lands.”

“I’ve been waiting for you,” the King says, and leads them to his horse.

“At night,” the King says slowly, “I dream. I dream about the future. Do you know what I see?”

“No.”

“The sun hasn’t set yet, you know. I could still have you burned.” Five suggests.

Vanya tilts her head, considering, then nods solemnly. “You could,” she concedes.

“But…?”

“But I am extremely powerful. I could kill your kingsguard and set your entire kingdom ablaze before you even had the chance to gather wood for the pyre,” Vanya confesses, and Five crosses his arms.

“Ah.”

“And, of course, burning me would nullify any impending treaty. My people are rather averse to witch burnings.”

“Are they, now?”

“We’re very progressive these days.”

“It’s a good thing, then, that I am too.”

“It’d also look rather bad on your part, having been crowned merely days ago, pledging to start a reign of peace and tolerance, to immediately start another decade-long war.”

“Indeed, it would. I am so fully committed to decades of peace, in fact, that I am appalled that you would even suggest such a thing.”

Vanya turns to the window, to the courtyard below. The sun washes the pavement yellow, illuminating the bustling crowd like an open field of dry grass. “Anything else?”

“I’ve also been told that I’m a huge prat,” Five says mildly, and leans down to press his mouth to hers.

She kisses him back soundly, as if in agreement.

end

Seven Points of Agilities” – riding, swimming and diving, shooting different types of weapons, climbing, participation in tournaments, wrestling and fencing, long jumping and dancing – the prerequisite skills for knighthood

I know nothing about medieval times. This was strongly inspired by Merlin and The Swan Princess, so historical accuracy? Who is she?

Aelwen, “fair browed” in Welsh

@maradeur thanks for the ask, and sorry for taking literally a month to respond. I have a few more prompts and I do intend to get to all of them, I just want to explore them properly, and I’d feel bad giving some prompts 2k words and background research and other ones like, half a paragraph, but I do read all of them and love everyone who asks so keep it up y’all

[cerastes]

I just remembered his monologue over Doctor and now feel pain. Him lamenting how a crucible if war was born and wishing that person instead was never forced again into strife again and lived on as teacher and also on what they were fighting for. ... i suspect he was unloading his sorrows on doctor since doctor was not yet warcrimes but like, he continued doing this apparently when doc was like, almost bereft of emotion that was not hunger for victory and goal achieved and that's impressive.

“i suspect he was unloading his sorrows on doctor since doctor was not yet warcrimes”

This is what I personally think, and the whole monologue Scout gives, I think, serves as pretty solid evidence that Scout is one of the longest lived veterans and most decorated elites Babel had. In other words, Scout probably befriended Doctor back when they were still an academic and held many an interesting conversation with them. It’s very likely that it wasn’t just Scout that confided in Doctor, but that Doc reciprocated as well.

And this leads to the perfect opportunity to address something I think we’ve been doing wrong: We’ve been considering Warcrimes!Doctor as two dimensional, I believe. We focus too much on them being a war machine.

Allow me to elaborate.

It is fact that they would eventually become a Beast Of Logic, so to speak, a creature that focuses only on winning battles, no matter the cost, but that’s very likely not all they were, even after the change Scout so sorrowfully describes.

Take Amiya, for example: She has the utmost intimacy and trust with Doctor, and makes many offhand references to past events that Doctor doesn’t remember but that she treasures. Doctor, even as a Beast Of Logic, did have some connection with others, likely select few people and only with those they knew before the switch with few exceptions: For example, W and Doctor never bonded, and we know W met Doctor after they already had changed, but the likes of Ace and Scout, veteran Elites, are very clearly enamored with Doctor. This likely was the case with Kal’tsit, Theresa, Closure (who is friendly with Doctor) and Amiya as well. Scout mentioning that W could confide with Doctor if she so wanted wasn’t an empty gesture: Despite knowing as much as he does about Doctor and what they had become, Scout still chose to see them as a friend and as someone apt to help others. Perhaps he saw in Doctor and W a chemistry that would allow them to be friends, had either ever taken the first step (neither did). Despite how cruel they had become, Doctor still apparently had their funny moments, such as their habit of eating weird things or eating things in weird ways, banter with Kal’tsit, bonding with Amiya, and whatever it is they had with Theresa, implied to be close enough that Doctor could apparently be in Theresa’s quarters and this would be seen as normal. As much of a bloodthirsty Beast Of Logic as they had become, terrifying enough for W to refer to them as “The Evil Spirit of Babel”, they still had a semblance of humanity outside the chessboard, with those they were close with.

And I think that’s what makes this even more painful, what makes Scout’s monologue even more painful, and what makes Kal’tsit’s interactions with Doctor in Chapter 7 even more painful.

It is easy to reject a monster.

Pariahs are pariahs because we don’t want them near us. No matter how effective and skilled and, dare I say, necessary someone is, the reality is, they won’t last if they have but burnt bridges around them. The reality of it all is, Doctor was probably still likable, if unsettling. It is not even subtext that Kal’tsit was having fun for a second with Doctor during some points of banter during Chapter 7, it is text, Actual Empath Amiya very much says “oh, wow, Doctor Kal’tsit, you are smiling right now!”, unintentionally shanking Kal’tsit in the heart with the agonic stake of nostalgia because, yeah, Kal’tsit and Doctor were probably very close in the past, and their seamless banter showed it. No matter however it is you wish to read their dynamic, either as that of colleagues, friends, or ex-lovers, it is rather painfully apparent that they used to be close, and Kal’tsit even has to take a stand and say: “No, I have to say this, I will not let this person close to me ever again, this is simply work”, even if she painfully misses this rapport, even if she aches at the thought of never having what they had again, because she knows, she knows something so terrible that it has irredeemably burned this bridge.

“Kal’tsit is being unreasonable. She’s a medical professional, she should understand the duress that comes with amnesia, the burden, and that Doctor can’t be blamed for it, she should understand she shouldn’t act that way towards someone amnesiac and blame them for things they did before they lost their memories,” you may say, and I can’t blame you for it, but hear me out:

Even if Doctor’s memories reawakened, even if Doctor was presented with the chance to reassess their choices, even if they repented, or looking at it the other way, even if Doctor truly forgot everything forever, you cannot change how Kal’tsit sees Doctor. She made clear she won’t let the hate buried deep inside of her bloom, but she has the right to keep it. She has the right to remain angry forever.

The thing with amnesiac narratives is that they focus a lot on the amnesiac, and so, we sympathize with our amnesiac protagonist and obviously defend them from people blaming them for things you could argue they never did, but we never really think about the victims of their past acts, and how they are entitled to all the anger they have, because whatever it is that happened that sowed it, it still happened, even if the guilty party doesn’t remember it. It isn’t as simple as tabula raza, the person currently standing in front of Kal’tsit might not have done the terrible thing she remembers, but they absolutely have the potential for that cruelty. And she has every right to hold onto her emotions, be they anger or wariness. Nothing you say can change that.

Nothing.

And so it becomes all the more painful to think that Scout probably had a drink with Doctor every Thursday, they’d talk about whatever, and all the time, Scout would see glimpses of this charismatic, kind educator he once knew, now replaced in part but never in their entirety by this Beast Of Logic. Consider that, and Scout’s monologue feels like something he’s telling himself more than something he’s telling to Guard before he goes off to his death.

Scout held a little eulogy for a remarkable friend he once knew before heading to his own funeral.

Because it’d be easy to reject and pile bile and blame on Doctor if they had become complete monsters.

But the painful and probably reality is, they likely didn’t.

Which only made it all the more painful to bear for those that knew the old educator.

[ohheyitsokay]

slowly

Pairing: Jack Daniels (Agent Whiskey) x  (f) ace!reader

Wordcount: 2.2k

Warnings: discussions of sex and related topics, maybe some angst? a lot more analogies than actual descriptions 

Summary: a drive in theatre, a budding relationship, and a whole lot of mutual support

Notes: okay obviously this is a wildly personal topic - I fully understand that asexuality looks different for everyone. For full disclosure, in this story, the reader knows they are somewhere on the asexuality spectrum, but is not aromantic. They are also are on a path of self discovery and are open to learning about themselves. This IS NOT saying asexuals who are like this are growing "better" than those who are not interested. Asexuals who do know what they do and dont want are perfect and do not need to change or compromise as part of their personal growth.

There will be an optional part 2 where they have more conversations about intimacy and explore together what works for them, but again, this is not everyone's story, or the "right" way, it's just... one story.

That being said, I genuinely hope yall enjoy!

>>

You stared at the bashful man in front of you openly, your hands stilling on the groceries you were halfway done unloading.

Even the slightest rustle of the cloth bags was painfully loud in the silence that stretched between you.

Jack had burst through your door, confident as always, but it was a thin layer over his anxious heart. With two long strides, he was pulling you into his arms, almost crushing you against his chest.

Arms winding around his middle, you held him just as tightly before you found your voice again.

“You’re back,” you said, simply amazed that he was a whole week early from the long mission. “When did you get back?”

You hadn’t realized he had picked you up until your feet were on solid ground again, and he was pulling away.

“Just a few hours ago, I had to make it back in time for opening night, right?” he grinned winningly.

You tried not to overthink, feeling a jolt of excitement that he remembered – tonight. The drive-in theatre in town was opening for the season and you had been more than excited. As one of your most consistent movie night friends, Jack had promised to take you, full of butterflies and subtext.

For as close as you’d gotten over the past few months, you weren’t sure what to make of his expression.

“If that’s okay? I should’ve double checked,” you hadn’t responded and it was apparently making him nervous.

“Yeah, Jack, that sounds great,” you reassured him, turning back to your groceries, equally nervous.

If you were being honest, you hadn’t expected him to remember because it had almost felt like an off-hand comment at the time, and you hadn’t wanted to get your hope up to much.

Something was welling in your stomach as you turned away from him fully, putting each item in its respective home in your kitchen. You liked him, of course you liked him. He was bold and kind and passionate, and more handsome than seemed reasonable for a single person. And… and when he was nearby, there was a feeling of safety, just out of reach, like water lapping at your feet at the beach.

It was more than tempting but, same as the ocean, there was also an uneasiness in the unknown. The same uneasiness was present in every relationship you’d ever had – because you had a secret.

Well, it was less of a secret and more… something you were figuring out that you hadn’t talked about much. Despite long late night talks and months of growing close and even slowly falling for each other, you hadn’t quite found the courage to talk to Jack about it yet. The more real the soft, sweet moments between you got, the more the unease filled your bones. You knew how he was with other women, and each time his hand lingered on your hip, your shoulder, your cheek, a quiet voice whispered that he deserved better.

Jack was staring at you, lost in your thoughts as you mechanically worked your way through the bags. His heart ached for you, and he wished more than anything that you trusted him with whatever you were holding back. But he was a determined man – he would do whatever he could to show you that no matter what, he wasn’t going anywhere.

 -

After awhile, Jack coaxed you back to your normal self, telling you as much of his mission as he could and helping you cook dinner. Moving around your kitchen was wonderfully peaceful, a little bubble of intimacy. Food was great for neutralizing anxious thoughts.

The feeling continued into his truck as you excitedly packed blankets and he fought the urge to kiss your adorable face when you found the snacks he’d picked up. Even before he left, in anticipation for tonight, he cleaned the front seat thoroughly, and made sure his radio was in good condition.

The movie went well too, but as much as he wanted to pull you into his arms, press you into his side, be the warmth against the cool night air, there was a hesitation that held him at bay.

Every time he’d reach for you, cautious and gentle, your skin would twitch, almost jumping away before you’d smile at him and lean into it. You seemed happy, but part of your mind was holding you back. As friends, you two were relatively physically affectionate, so he made a mental note to tread light and watch for more cues. Jack never wanted to impose himself on anyone but with you, even less.

So he waited. He had no doubt you’d talk to him when you were ready, and heavens knows that he had plenty of things he had kept buried. It was still nice, hearing you laugh next to him - just him – and seeing the light reflecting off the movie dance across your skin. Talking with you was always easy, even more so without friends or family around and it made Jack ache with eagerness.

As he pulled up to your home, he gently took your hand.

“Darlin, it was plum delightful to take you out tonight,” he said, cursing himself internally for how nervous he sounded. You looked his, eyes catching the streetlight like magic and your gentle squeeze gave him courage.

“I really would like to take you out again, on a proper date,” he couldn’t look away from your eyes, trying to read them through the murkiness. “I really like you,” Jack added, quieter, “but you don’t have to respond right now.”

You nodded, your eyes closing tight as though you were at war with yourself.

You think you like me, but I’m not the type of girl you want to date.

“You don’t have to… tell me, if you’re not ready, but,” he offered after a long moment, his free hand flexing on the steering wheel as he forced himself to examine the bushes on the side of the parking lot. “But I’m listening.”

You felt both hot and cold at the same time. All evening you could feel it coming, knew it was going to happen, knew it had to. He deserved this conversation, and honestly, if there was anyone who made you feel like you did, too, it was Jack.

Inhale, exhale. 

Inhale -

“Okay,” - exhale. 

Remembering that neither of you had work the next day helped. Slowly you let go of your hand and unbuckled your seatbelt, shifting to get comfortable again, the actions thick with significance. He returned it, unbuckling too, and killing the engine.

Jack was so respectful you could cry, his obvious anxiety under control enough not to jump to conclusions – to wait for you.

“I like you, too, Jack, but I don’t think we can ever date,” you forced the words out and his heart nearly shattered, confusion barely holding it together.

Eyebrows so drawn in they almost looked like a solid line, he waited, unable to stop a small shake of his head.

Why not? His entire being screamed. With each second that passed, more and more determination seeped into the cracks of his heart, sticking it together. If you liked him as he liked you, it seemed impossible there was anything between you that couldn’t be overcome.

You saw the question in his eyes and the explanation tumbled out.

“It’s just, I know you – I know the girls you go after and the type of relationships most men want. And,” you were sucking in air, the vulnerability raking through your lungs. “And I don’t know if I can ever give you that.”

He started to protest before his hand covered his mouth, irritated movements over his mustache, his jaw working. What he wanted was you. But he needed to let you keep talking. If he interrupted you now, he might never understand what you meant.

You watched his movements, desperation to give him the explanation he deserved growing in you.

“I’ve had people break up with me because I wont sleep with them,” you shoved the words into the space, the most honest you’d maybe ever been.

Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn’t that. Your voice was trembling and so quiet only your moving lips confirmed the words as you continued.

“For me, it’s not something I need, or am particularly comfortable with. You,” you swallowed hard, unable to look at the man beside you. “You deserve someone you can be with, however you want.”

You took another deep breath, feeling light and surprisingly at peace with your honesty. Even the impending rejection felt less scary, now that you had said it all out loud. The trembles settled as you concluded, “I’m still figuring myself out and I just cant guarantee I’ll ever give you what you deserve.”

Of all the conversations with all the others before this, this moment felt the most freeing. It was wild to have such an intimate conversation before you even kissed, but… the foundation of trust that Jack had given you had not been lost on you. You found yourself smiling, looking at him, finally.

His expression had loosened, processing and connecting the dots, his deep eyes unfocused before they slid closed.

Now it was your turn to wait, to be patient, and listen.

Part of him wanted to yell that he wasn’t like the others, that he didn’t care and even that he would wait and work until you were ready. But that wasn’t right, and he knew it.

Inside him, deep, deep down, there was a small light. A candle of flame underneath a glacier: a touch of hope slowly warming its way through layers and layers and centuries of expectations, fear, confusion, and chaos. It was going strong, it just need more time.

“Darlin,” he looked at you, finally, meeting your eyes and feeling for the first time that they were a clear window into your soul. “You are… everything, to me. So… so let’s just take some time to process this. Would that be okay, sweetheart?”

That was the first time anyone had ever responded that way. It was the scariest thing, but it was perfect. You were overwhelmed with the rawness and a glance at the radio told you it was 2 am. Not a time to be making life altering decisions, anyway. Nodding, you pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek. The movement was intimate and confident – something that shouldn’t have been possible, but it was.

Jack’s large hand grasped at your neck and jaw, pulling you into him, pressing his forehead on yours. The hairs of his mustache just ticked your lip, but he made no move, respecting one final boundary for the night.

With a squeeze, he let you go, watching with longing eyes as you hopped out of his truck and ran to your front door. The smile you gave him before you slipped inside was the seal, engraving tonight into his memories forever.

And he drove home, his thoughts louder than the wind and the crickets and his pounding heart.

-

Jack invited you over a few days later, a Sunday afternoon. It would be the first time you’d talked, and you were surprisingly calm. For some reason, you felt like you’d be closer to him no matter what happened.

He heard your car on the long gravel driveway and greeted you with an all-encompassing hug. You held each other, like lifelines, for long moments before he pulled you inside.

“My mama sent cookies,” he said, motioning for you to sit at the tall table he had as he set down the plate. You couldn’t help but smile, knowing their Sunday lunches and her beloved baking well. He remained standing across from you, aware of the awkwardness, but eager to get his words right.

“This is all new to me,” he said, wishing suddenly that he’d made tea so his throat wouldn’t feel so dry. “If you really don’t wanna be with me, that’s your choice,” he said, knowing it was right and hating the option, “but I really – you’re just so – I can’t let you go,” his thoughts were jumbling together on his tongue.

It was grounding, when your hands found his, reaching across the table as you sat forward on your stool.

“What if we just took it slow?” you said, and his heart stopped.

“Please,” he managed, and your own chest felt like it would burst. “Would it be alright, darlin?” Jack’s hands held yours, his expression eager.

“Could – could we figure out what works for us? Figure this all out together?” You were close to crying, you wanted that so bad.

“I can’t promise I’ll change or… or what direction I’ll grow,” you said, needing to say it again, needing to be sure.

“I can’t, either, darlin,” he said, and you realized he was right and you would support each other, no matter what.

“But all I need is you. Whatever and however much you’ll give me. That’s more than enough.”

He didn’t say for now.

And you believed him.

Since he was still standing, it made it easy for you to tug him around the table, and you leaned into his chest. It felt safe, safer than you had ever thought was possible for you.

“Okay,” you told the flannel he was wearing, “Let’s figure it out together.” And even though you couldn’t see him, you knew he was smiling, too.

<<

Taglist:

@fangirl-316 @0celestialbitch0 @scribbledghost

[viridiave]

NARUMITSU <ATTEMPTING TO READ THE SUBTEXT PLATONICALLY>

*Wrote all this some time last month so I might be off- really really off- also full disclosure I too am a Narumitsu shipper- this is just me giving myself a bad time doing the impossible and having fun XD

-I am going to fail sooner or later. Looking at you, Bridge to the Turnabout.

FIRST GAME >Turnabout Samurai -Yep. We're jumping right in with 'unnecessary feelings'. I'm going to be put on a stake for this. -This is going to become the main argument with any and all homoerotic subtext present in the first game- that it was unintentional. They didn't actively start making it gay until the second game, and even before then the producer for the games had to warn the development team not to try and insert these themes for fear of getting it wrong and lose the fanbase they'd accidentally caught the eye of. I can still create arguments for why this specific, hilariously meme-able line could be read romantically of course- but as far as the game development team at the time was concerned this interaction was never meant to be read as romantic. -Unease and uncertainty are... very valid feelings for Edgeworth to feel at this very moment and as much as I'd like to joke that he was feeling uncertain about his sexuality after seeing his childhood friend as an adult, this line was really just likely meant to lead up to the conclusion of Turnabout Goodbyes and Edgeworth's character arc for this game. His perfect win streak had just been shattered in a case prior. In this case, he was meant to persecute the lead actor of his favorite show- and in some ways his helping the defense can be taken as his biases getting the better of him. His sense of justice and his entire worldview is about to be overhauled, and I can see how he would regard this budding doubt in himself as an unnecessary (heh) distraction from what he believes is his true purpose in life.

>Turnabout Goodbyes -Edgeworth wanting to keep him away from DL-6 has its own section mostly because of how stubborn he becomes when it comes to Phoenix's insistence in particular. It's clear that this stubbornness is a front, I will concede with that- but there are merits to his initial reluctance in accepting Phoenix's defense. It's evident that Phoenix himself has grown over the course of the game so far, but in both of the times that he faced off against Edgeworth in court, his victories were... a tad bit contrived. For instance in Turnabout Sisters, Phoenix really only wins because Mia was being channeled and blackmailed White as he was about to leave the stand. Turnabout Samurai is a little better- but had him rely on quite a lot of coincidences (proven later to be substantiated) that surfaced during the trial. This is nothing to say of the deeper reason Edgeworth has over dissuading Phoenix from taking his case ("You in particular I cannot ask to do this.")- where I can make an argument for his pride and/or concern over Phoenix's career as an attorney. The stakes are relatively high here as well- if Phoenix fails, Edgeworth is incarcerated, Manfred von Karma goes free, DL-6 goes cold once again with no hope of getting re-opened, and everything that Phoenix has been working towards as an attorney would have been in vain. DL-6 is a case that has ruined many lives- it'd make sense if Edgeworth himself felt as though it would be a waste of time and effort to take this case because of how convinced he was of murdering his own father prior to Gourd Lake. He'd grown up for the past 15 years with a nightmare and a death sentence over his head- I wouldn't be surprised if he simply gave up and accepted that he was going to die at the hands of his prosecuting mentor. Even if he were acquitted for the murder of Robert Hammond, his perceived involvement in DL-6 would have thrown a wrench in his freedom- any lesser attorney would have given up on that. And this is unloaded BEFORE Phoenix tells him about the true reason as to why he became an attorney. -Phoenix's insistence to defend Edgeworth in this case can easily just be read as platonic- his complete, unfettered faith in Edgeworth's innocence is heavily influenced by that class trial, for better or for worse. While I'm perfectly happy to imagine that Phoenix's attachment to his idealized version of Edgeworth grew into something deeper sometime in the fifteen years that he hasn't seen him, I do believe that Phoenix in particular really is just that much of a sentimental person. This is to say nothing of his nature as a defense attorney- and what little time he's managed to spend with Mia has taught him that unbridled trust in his client is what gets him through the day, and he's putting it to practice here. Edgeworth was what he has been working towards the moment he decided he would practice law- as Phoenix at this point in time still believes that he could do no wrong despite seeing what Edgeworth is truly like in court. -Cutting into the meat of Phoenix and Edgeworth's shared past, I made a point earlier to say that Phoenix's perception of Edgeworth as a person is idealized. Every memory that Phoenix has had of Edgeworth prior to the events of the first game were from their childhood- and they had 4-8 months (plus one year if we're generous with the retconning some of the official art gave us) MAX to develop a friendship so strong that Phoenix makes major life decisions just to meet with this man. The fact that this time spent together was ENOUGH for Phoenix in the first place is... really hard to skirt around. To quote Dan from GameGrumps "this is something that you would only do for someone you're trying to marry" and if one of them was a woman I guarantee this ship would be canon already. But then again- since this is Phoenix Wright in particular somehow I can believe that he really is just that sentimental- and that isn't always a bad thing. He'd managed to save Edgeworth twice with this conviction after all. When Phoenix sees Edgeworth, he doesn't see a demon prosecutor, he sees his childhood friend who aimed to become a shining example of justice following in his father's footsteps. They address how shaky his foundations for becoming an attorney were in the Phoenix Wright Files once actually- going through a mini-existential crisis because he'd become an attorney with the main goal of saving Edgeworth from what he'd become, and now that he's accomplished that he's just kind of... lost. Edgeworth himself manages to pull him out of this, though. -man that hurts my case a lot actually but to be fair I was banking on failing -I just didn't expect it to happen so early even with the first game -in fact ESPECIALLY with the first game -though I cannot for the life of me wonder how I can come up with a heterosexual explanation for why the buildup towards Edgeworth telling Phoenix and Maya about his nightmares reads so much like a stunted love confession. I'm serious- just read any high school shojo manga ever. You'll find that it hits a lot of the same beats.

>Rise From The Ashes -It's in this case that we observe some of the consequences that the intial upheaval of Edgeworth's worldview in Turnabout Goodbyes causes him; distrust in the enforcement of the law. Not exactly the time for him to be dabbling in another, meme-able brand of unnecessary feelings. Several things like the Prosecutor's Office's relationship with the Police Department starts to waver with the murder of Bruce Goodman, and this becomes the final nail in the coffin for Edgeworth's worldviews and values as a prosecutor. His and Phoenix's teamwork in this trial becomes prevalent- the story behind the King of Prosecutors award represents this best despite it's currently incomplete state. The backstory behind this award paints an ideal of justice in the courtroom wherein the truth comes out as a result of the efforts of contradictory forces. A broken halberd that can cut through any shield (the prosecution) and a broken, unbreakable shield (the defense). Read as representation the text becomes something of a metaphor for the ideal justice that manifests itself in the best parts of Edgeworth and Phoenix respectively- the duality of their opposing professions rather than something that is limited to their relationship. -The same argument that I've used for Phoenix's unwavering belief in Edgeworth's innocence in Turnabout Goodbyes can be used for this case as well. -Though Edgeworth still goes M.I.A for a year after this case, it does grant his disappearance a bit more context as to why exactly it is that he left- and I'll be taking a tiny liberty with this and apply the interpretation that the Miles Edgeworth Files grants us, and that he left in order to better himself and grow as a person, a prosecutor, and as a friend to Phoenix Wright. It's... difficult for me to want to read this as anything but romantically-charged because the narrative beats are NOT lost on me (the dialogue makes this especially hard. send help.)- there's a possibility that Edgeworth at this point in time realizes the value in having a better, more functional dynamic with the one defense attorney who he considers a true equal in court. This dynamic will allow for less chances to encounter missteps and errors in any verdicts handed down in court, and if Edgeworth is to pursue his ideal of justice- Phoenix Wright is undoubtedly essential to this endeavor. The aftermath of Rise From The Ashes is indicative of this newfound goal of his- the symbolism behind the old King of Prosecutors award and the two halves of the evidence list certainly helps this case. -<"It seems all you do is worry about me." -Miles Edgeworth, Rise From The Ashes> For good fucking reason Edgeworth. You were accused of murder and have implicated yourself on the stand for DL-6 just a few months ago- and if the Investigations games are anything to go by, you're more of a danger magnet than PHOENIX is. I had to say it. The first Investigations game takes place over the course of 2-3 days and the sheer amount of shit that Edgeworth had to deal with in between that interval truly makes me wonder how Phoenix Wright ended up with the title of danger magnet. And THIS time- Edgeworth's car becomes a crime scene because his corrupt superiors needed a convenient way of transporting a corpse. There's VERY good reasons to worry about the livelihood of Miles Edgeworth. -Okay I... can't believe I forgot about the chessboard. Here's the kicker- the one we see from his office isn't even the only one he owns. I... legitimately cannot give you ANY purely heterosexual, platonic explanation for why Miles Edgeworth has THREE (THREE. I CANNOT OVERSTATE THIS. HE HAS T H R E E OF THESE FUCKING THINGS. GOOD GOD. HE CAN'T BE ANY MORE EXTRA.)(there exists a similar, portable set in the Investigations games- and he has a new set by the time of Dual Destinies) sets of custom-made chessboards with personalized, highly-specific red and blue designs made purely to depict his rivalry with Phoenix Wright. I fold. I give up. I forgot about the chessboards I wAS NOT EXPECTING TO FAIL THIS E A R LY- -You know what the real kicker is with Rise From the Ashes? The main argument that I have introduced back in Turnabout Samurai does not apply here. Rise From the Ashes was made as a DS-exclusive case and did not exist in the original GameBoy version of the Trilogy. Which means if there is homoerotic tension written in for this case (and there happens to be a lot. the chessboard is proof enough.), then we can safely assume that the writers at this point were well-aware. So yeah- maybe don't feel TOO bad about the unnecessary feelings line- because ever since then the writers have been playing off of that and it SHOWS. -Is there really a point to this I'm just- everything is stacked against me tryna interpret this platonically -Like I know I make a point to say that a romantic relationship isn't the end-all of all relationships because this franchise LOVES pushing the Found Family dynamic and I'm an absolute sucker for that -good god by the time Dual Destinies rolls around I'll probably just give up and happily say they're happily married -that's literally what they act like don't even pretend

[sepublic]

The Unspoken Story with Representation & Diversity

           Y’all ever have this feeling, where you see a character… And their experiences just immediately resonate with you, and you just feel and KNOW exactly what they’ve been through, without them necessarily having to say or present it aloud within the text? Like you can tell this character borrows exactly from this specific experience, and so while others unfamiliar with it may not get the idea, or need clarification… For the kind of audience that really gets and understands how it goes without saying, it’s an almost clever, implicit show-not-tell way of conveying to those who get it, exactly what’s going on? AKA subtext?

           An example would be this one time in Fullmetal Alchemist, where we have characters Jerso and Zampano, who’ve been experimented on and given the ability to transform into monstrous chimeras, and then back. Despite being able to function as both regular human AND chimera however, Jerso and Zampano differ from their teammates Darius and Heinkel in that they’re not big fans of their new bodies… They actively hate them and feel uncomfortable with them, and want to go back to being regular humans. And to me, I never got this at the time as I was a young and inexperienced kid- I made up in my head that maybe Jerso and Zampano’s alterations caused them chronic pains, or something like that. Otherwise, I had to wonder if it was just insufficient writing…?

           But then I met someone, a trans woman and a fellow Fullmetal Alchemist fan. And she explained how she immediately understood Jerso and Zampano’s experiences, and how it connected to her own dysphoria. There wasn’t anything wrong with the body she used to have, it just… wasn’t her, and that’s why she felt so much more liberated when she recognized her true identity! And when I heard this from her, it just… clicked. It suddenly made SO much sense, and I never again questioned Jerso and Zampano’s dilemma, never tried to justify it in my head by providing headcanons of downsides to their chimera forms. 

          I was reassured that this kind of experience and feelings were real and valid, that the story didn’t have to justify them to me because they already tangibly existed in real life- This WAS something that happens, in a sense. I didn’t have to worry about confirming it for myself when I knew that others got the idea, since just because I didn’t understand, that doesn’t mean it’s not there. I didn’t personally relate, but I knew it existed, and thus I could feel sympathy and believe in this by trusting the experiences of others... My experiences are not universal, and this of course has an effect on how I engage with media, ensuring my knowledge and analysis is always limited.

          I’ve heard real-life anecdotes about how dysphoria can make someone feel like a monster, and while this hasn’t been outright confirmed within Fullmetal Alchemist itself… There’s always the potential of subtext. Unintentional, or otherwise- Given the series’ recurring themes of finding a body you’re actually comfortable with, or coming to terms with it, as part of the whole disability experience with characters such as our titular protagonist.

          It’s a sort of implication to a specific experience, a metaphor for it, that allows those who get it to instantly fill in the gaps. To get into a philosophical tangent, it reminds me of how stories are really defined, a lot, not just by the author; But how an audience engages with them, how stories are defined in different ways by different people. Now, obviously there are examples where some parts of the text are outright indisputable and not up for debate, such as Star Wars being Anti-Fascist for example. But my point is, writing a story can involve a lot of thought as to the type of audience you’re writing for… Especially when it comes to representation.

          When it comes to representation, when someone is writing for a marginalized group, the writer doesn’t need to lay down much within the text; Because they KNOW that the people they write it for will get it. Others not of that group and not familiar with its struggles can still generally get by, but for those who really engage with the material, or share that same experience that is being alluded towards… There’s an added depth, a bonus facet to the story that only adds to and enriches the experience, even more than it already is.

           And, sometimes it can be a little frustrating, to trying to convey this to someone who doesn’t quite get it, and you start to wonder if maybe you’re just projecting a bit. Maybe this is all in your head, it’s not really there, or that wasn’t necessarily the author’s intention at least. You know there’s something that’s supported by how this characters shares this experience; It’s not stated within the text, but you can tell it’s there, because that’s such an integral part of the experience you’re used to, and the character is clearly a part of that as well. And when you apply this consideration, it just suddenly puts everything into a new light, adds that additional depth as I mentioned earlier…

          And you really can’t ignore it, because you feel it just adds so much enriching layers to the media, that maybe you’re doing it a disservice to not openly acknowledge and defend this take as if it were real. You feel you have to defend this interpretation of yours, because you feel that this character really, clearly is meant to connect to that experience that resonates with you and others; And it can be a little frustrating if others just don’t get it, even if you can’t necessarily blame them for not doing so. It’s because you know the text is talking about people like you, so it feels like you really are more of an expert on this matter, that you’ve got a lot to add that needs to be taken into consideration, if the author is setting up your group to have an inherent advantage in understanding what’s going on.

          When asked to explain yourself, you feel a little embarrassed because maybe you’re relying too much on your own experience and not the actual text… And it feels almost silly to cite yourself as the main, if not the only necessary, point of evidence. You start to question and doubt if what you and others have gone through, is worth considering. What you’re saying sounds stupid at face-value because it lacks context, and a lot of things without context sound flimsy… Aloud, from a ‘rational’ standpoint I suppose, it sounds foolish to rely on such personal emotions, because surely the author doesn’t know you specifically and wasn’t drawing from what you went through.

          Maybe you’re unloading a bunch of stuff that isn’t necessarily relevant to the subject, maybe you’re asking too much for people to connect your experiences to what’s in the text, and thus you’re really stretching things… And handing out waytoo much information as well. It can feel like you’re boiling down your reasoning to, “Because I said so,” and that doesn’t sound right nor fair to the person you’re conveying your take towards, insisting they take you at face-value without being given their owed explanation, because anyone should be questioning and critical of what they’re given.

          Perhaps you just need to ‘detach’ yourself from things, look at it objectively… But what is objective, what is the default perspective? I don’t think there actually is one. So when you have to approach the text as JUST the text, you remember that that text is being written by someone, and that someone has a lot of things in their head that influences them, but not everything can be explicitly written down. A lot of the inspirations and experiences that this creator draws from aren’t shared amongst everyone who engages with their story.

          And if you feel this creator is resonating with that specific experience of yours, you become a lot more confident that this is where they were drawing from, and thus this is being alluded towards between the lines; Because it just makes so much more sense this way! You might be wrong- But what if you’re right? You don’t want to discourage people from finding stuff that could be out there, anything is better than nothing, creation and discovery should be enabled, even on the off-chance that there’s nothing there, because at least not you know for sure there isn’t anything, and thus your curiosity has been sated to an extent.

          Even if the creator hadn’t intended it to be this way, the experiences of others can reassure them that there’s nothing more that needs to be said, because they alone can fill in the gaps… And it kind of ties into how a lot of media intentionally leaves stuff open for interpretation, or at least allows certain takes. It’s kind of like how a lot of fans resonated with Jenny from My Life as a Teenage Robot, as her struggles feel so topical to that of a trans person; And while the creator confessed to never intending this, they could recognize the similarities between what they’d written and what trans people go through, so maybe there IS a connection there to consider!

          TL;DR Diversity and Representation IS in fact important, and a vital part of not only engaging with media, but just with the experiences of others in general. It can reveal meaning that isn’t immediately obvious to others, and/or create it by recognizing the fundamental similarities within the text to real life experiences, and how that piece of media’s themes both contribute towards and are supported by what a person or group has witnessed. Your experiences DO matter, even if they’re a minority; Perhaps especially because of this, as it gives you a new and rare angle that is not often known, and this piece of media’s connection to that experience can be used as a medium to convey it to others who don’t resonate the same way.

          It is through media that people can learn about the experiences of others even if they’ve never went through such things personally… An experience so intimately conveyed that you may as well be there, you can imagine yourself there, and so you don’t exactly have to have gone through it in real life to now understand- Especially since making someone go through that experience in real life has both logistical and ethical concerns. It encourages empathy, where you may not necessarily know what this person is going through; But you’re willing to open your mind, consider, listen, and change and/or add to your current knowledge and understanding.

          It’s also important to remember that even people within the same group have different ways of engaging with that specific experience, and that these diverse takes are all valid and worth considering; So if a person from that same group as you differs, perhaps consider listening? Of course, if someone believes there’s depth and the other insists there isn’t, perhaps hearing out the former option provides more room for discussion and thought, that while not canon, can pay off and inspire in other ways regardless, and thus be meaningful and worthwhile in the end.

[one-piece-dumpster-fire]

Hi Michelle, hope you are okay? I'm here with the probably weirdest request of this batch with one of the most hated characters: can I get some Akainu fluff? I loved the HC you did for him a while ago and damn ... I just love the mutt. Stay safe and lots of good requests.

Of course my friend!!! I'll try my best to make it fluffy for the big lava dog, and hopefully it won’t turn out too ooc x’D

Akainu Fluff(?) headcanon

soft spots are like giant signs of weakness for the Admiral, and therefore he does his best to rid himself of any 'tender feelings' that might lurk beneath his rough exterior. It's inappropriate in his position, and he rarely has time to really 'feel' such things anyway. That being said, it doesn't always work though.

as Fleet Admiral, Akainu’s got a lot on his shoulders. There are so many things that demand his attention, but ironically, now that he's in such a high position of power, he also tends to take more time to reflect on his life and maybe even certain decisions he made in the past... some of them even regarding you

never would he admit it to you or even himself, but even Akainu craves certain forms of intimacy sometimes. It can range from small actions like feeling your fingers brush over his hand to sudden needs of holding you close or grabbing onto you to keep himself stable and assured. Whereas he would usually push you away and rarely allow any close contact beyond sexual urges, he's now more lenient and almost seeks it out at times

but something important to remember is that it's all about the subtext with him. Even if Akainu is more open to 'tenderness' on certain days, he's not gonna go completely soft or declare his love or whatever to you. However, if you pay close attention to his body language and words, you might be able to detect the ever-growing fondness he harbors for you

as lover, the Admiral is also quite prone to jealousy and can often seem somewhat possessive. Those feelings might never fully go away, but his views on you do change throughout the course of your relationship. At first you were almost nothing more than a prize or object to unload his emotional baggage/tension on, but now he starts to view you as genuine partner and... becomes slightly afraid of losing you and the stable feelings of comfort you give him 

it’s as if spending time with you slowly turns into a special kind of ‘retreat’ for him

the 'fluffiest' moments you'll ever share with this man though is when he's asleep or tired lol. Usually that’s when Akainu drops his guard for real and allows softer actions such as holding onto him, tenderly brushing through his hair, or even... 'cuddling'

it's very rare, but sometimes he might even indirectly demand your attention and task you with the job of making him feel better when he’s in a sour mood. That mostly happens after a long day, when he marches over to his large armchair, sits down, and waits for you to come over like usual to massage his shoulders and take some tension off of him. Important: it will take a long time and lots of effort to reach that point of intimacy with him though.

this is a bit random, but also picture this: Akainu... actually having a small thing for animals. Well, maybe not really a 'thing' but there are certain creatures he could tolerate. Mostly those that know how to obey, are easy to care for, and don't fall out of line or ‘disrespect’ him, of course. So if you were to... say, suggest getting yourself a trained puppy to care for and shower with affections whenever he isn't there, he might eventually and begrudgingly allow it

and yes, Akainu is the kind of guy who claims that he wants 'nothing to do with the little pest' at first, but whenever you're not around and he has nothing better to do, he’ll distract himself with the small animal. And soon enough you notice that the puppy not only learned a few more commands somehow, but has also grown quite attached to the gruff man... even if Akainu does his best to deny having anything to do with it

[steven-falls]

Steven Universe Future reviewed: Prickly Pair

‘Prickly Pair’ explores the negative feelings Steven has been having as of late and I’m a little worried those negative feelings are going to rub off on to this review.

‘Fool!’

Before I say anything else, I will clarify that Steven cactus is the MVP of the episode. In an otherwise angsty affair,  he provides the most enjoyable and comedic parts. Which is a bit messed up considering he’s being mistreated throughout the whole thing.

I will split this review into four parts; My overview of the episode as whole, my thoughts on the opening scene, a discussion of Steven’s view of the other Crystal Gems, and finally my thoughts on the episode’s conclusion.

Overview:

I think what’s difficult about watching ‘Prickly Pair’ is that it’s a pretty big downer the whole way through, with only a couple brief uplifting moments. Steven was a sad sack in the previous episode too, but that was balanced out by everyone else in the episode being pretty happy in their lives. You don’t get that levity in this Steven centric affair.

‘I gave up running the school, but now I don’t know what comes next.’

Ah that feeling of giving up your job because it isn’t right for you, but not having an idea of what you want to do next. So you start filling your time with hobbies to distract you, like gardening or writing reviews of children’s cartoons… ahem. 

Almost every plot beat has Steven be depressed or anxious about something new. We start with Steven questioning what he’s doing with his life, which progresses to him venting about his problems to his newly born son, Cactus Steven. This results in Steven mistreating the cactus when it starts parroting him in front of others, exposing all Steven’s insecurities to his loved ones. Finally, this cumulates in the two fighting. And, despite ultimately making amends with the cactus, it still decides to leave him. 

This does at least lead to Steven experiencing a growing moment. 

‘I’m sorry I mistreated you, you’re just learning from the only role model you’ve got!’

He learns the moral that impressionable children can internalise and replicate their parents unhealthy behaviours and attitudes.

Despite learning this, I’d argue that Steven is in a worse place emotionally at the end of the episode than he was at the beginning. Steven at least had his plants to distract himself from his depression, but after the cactus fiasco I can’t imagine he’d be able to go back to that. Now he has no hobby to consume himself with, and has to deal with his family knowing about all the negative feelings he was trying to keep hidden from them. 

This is probably something that will benefit  him in the long term; the gems are aware how much he needs their support now. But in the meantime he’s left feeling pretty low.

And that’s sort of how I feel about this episode. By itself I don’t really enjoy it that much because of how negative it is, even though in the long term I can acknowledge this was probably a necessary step in Steven’s journey.

That acts as my general overview of the episode, but now to get into more specifics.

Potty for Potted Plants:

‘This little smarty is named Connie.’

Awkwardly drawing attention to the fact that we haven’t seen Connie since the movie… a movie she was barely in.

The episode opens with an introduction to the plant colony Steven has been growing, each of the plants being named after one of his friends. Steven naming his plants after his friends is something that could be seen as cute, but it’s portrayed as an unhealthy coping mechanism from the get go; as Steven rambles about how the plants can’t leave him. A dark reading of this behaviour suggests that he wants his friends in a position where they physically can’t leave him, and also depend on Steven to care for them for their own survival.

While I can appreciate the subtext I still didn’t care for this scene in general. Particularly the part when Steven starts talking to the Lars plant.

‘You’re stuck in the ground aren’t you not going to zip into space and leave everyone behind’

 I personally find it annoying when a character just starts rambling like a crazy person for comedic purposes. Particularly if the content of what they are saying isn’t that funny: Steven’s pretty much just summarising his insecurities for the audience right here.

Steven’s plant obsession is supposed to be comedic in its creepiness, but I just don’t find this creepy behaviour comedic. 

It does serve its plot purpose, although having Steven literally name the plants after his friends feels so on the nose. Just have him ramble about how plants can’t leave and we’ll get it.

I’ll give them the onion joke though

I’m assuming Garnet’s ‘You should keep a close eye on your cactus.’ line is her using her future vision but…. What exactly is she seeing? Her later line of dialogue ‘that cactus really bounced back’ suggests that she was just warning him about over watering it, but that seems like such an inconsequential thing for Garnet to care about. Did she see the events that played out in the episode, where the cactus comes to life and started attacking them? I feel like if that’s so then she surely would have known about Steven’s mental state from the beginning. Also her warning Steven about the cactus is ironic as it is inadvertently what caused those events to happen in the first place.

I don’t know, I think she knew something was up with the cactus but I’m not sure what.

It does at least act as an example of her ‘high and mighty advice’ Steven complains about later in the episode. Speaking of...

Steven VS The Crystal Gems:

This episode contains Steven’s most sinister character moment yet; slagging off the crystal gems behind their backs. Let’s break down each of Steven’s ‘critiques’ of the crystal gems to assess their validity. 

‘I can’t let Pearl know how I feel because she’ll blame herself and spiral out of control, and I’ll have to pick up the pieces!’

This is by far the harshest of Steven’s outbursts, and a pretty low blow considering all the trauma Pearl went through. But on the other hand Steven had to resolve a lot of Pearl’s issues for her from a young age, so I can’t really blame him for feeling this way. In fact if this complaint had been made before the Pink Diamond reveal I would have been fully in Steven’s corner.

It is ironic because you could say that Pearl unloading her trauma onto Steven traumatised him. And now in turn  Steven is unloading all his issues on to Cactus Steven. Definitely a message in here about parental figures passing on their baggage to their children.

‘I don’t want any more  high and mighty advice from Garnet.’

 I found this one funny because it just reminded me of his impression of Garnet in season 1’s ‘Tiger Millionaire’

‘I’m not going to say anything, but I expect you to understand that was wrong.’

Ah, the more things change the more they stay the same.

‘And I’m so sick of Amethyst acting like she’s so mature now’ 

This is the rant that comes most out of left field, especially as Steven was the one who first labeled Amethyst as ‘mature’ back in ‘What’s your problem.’

His issues with Pearl and Garnet make more logical sense as those are reactions to problems he feels he needs to deal with himself. But Amethyst's maturity isn’t something that negatively impacts Steven. 

In fact, in the very next scene Amethyst's maturity is the thing that encourages her to reach out and ask if Steven needs any help. Steven’s distaste for Amethyst maturity comes across as plain pettiness towards her growing as a person. The two have somewhat switched roles from the episode ‘Steven vs. Amethyst’. 

‘Great and now you’re even more mature than me [...] Now I’m the worst Crystal Gem’

Here, Amethyst was bitter that Steven was starting to excel past her. Steven improving as a person made her feel worse about herself. Both of them have felt bitterness towards the other showing maturity and character growth . But of course, being resentful of someone else’s maturity only makes you seem more immature. 

The Final Fight

It takes Steven having a physical fight with the cactus to realise the only reason it is being so aggressive is because it’s copying him. Which is weird because Steven knew the cactus was learning by copying him from the beginning.

Like, come on man you already knew that, it should have been pretty self evident. 

But obviously Steven was so preoccupied by his annoyance the cactus that he completely forgot this.

The reactions to the cactus pricks make for some great visual gags. But I feel they overplay this joke, it’s done like 5 times in the final scene alone. 

Because the cactus only copies Steven, all of Stevens' anger directed  the cactus is really  just anger at himself. This metaphor is made even clearer by the cactus literally being a cactus version of Steven. So Steven’s realisation that he shouldn’t have been so hard on the cactus doubles as a realisation that Steven shouldn’t have been so hard on himself, (although I don’t think Steven made that connection)  So there’s a double moral here that one should be kind to them self as well as others.

[fortunatelylori]

Oh, the Jonsa of it all!

Jonsa is a puzzle. Anyone who has ever started shipping these two at any point in time since about 100.000 years ago when this show started, knows that. It’s all about digging for clues, starring at gifs for unhealthy amounts of time, comparing and dissecting until your brain turns to mush. Not that I’m complaining ... I love that shit. 

But, to be honest, I’ve been wrecking my brain to come up with a cohesive explanation for Jon and Sansa’s reactions to each other in this episode that does not include some sort of romantic subtext and I just can’t avoid adding one. 

That’s because Sansa looks desolate through most of this episode and Jon is taking everything Sansa does extremely personally, even though when you analyze the scenes, you can see that Sansa at no point goes against him. She’s snarky and cold towards D*ny. She challenges Tyrion both in the Great Hall scene and in their one on one scene. And yet it’s Jon that ends up feeling the most hurt by her actions.

Unless we introduce the explanation of the unspoken tension of romantic feelings, I just don’t see why he would be so affected by what she does in this episode as well as feel the need to mention her to third parties. 

For Sansa’s part, while I loved her snarky remarks , it does feel very odd to me that she wouldn’t hide her emotions better and pretend to be on board with D*ny’s presence in her home. Sansa has already danced this dance plenty of times: with Joffrey and Cersei, with Littlefinger and Lysa, as well as with the Knights of the Vale and the Boltons. 

She knows how to play the whole “conceal, don’t fell, don’t let it show” game and yet when faced with D*ny, who would fall for that kind of trick far more easily than Cersei or Littlefinger, she can’t do it. Unless I speculate that Sansa isn’t as in control of her emotions around D*ny because of her romantic feelings for Jon, I can’t really reconcile these reactions with the girl that at 13 managed to keep her feelings in check though out most of her stay in King’s Landing. 

The “Honey, I’m home!” scene: 

There’s a couple of things that make this scene interesting from a Jonsa perspective: 

The first one is that they actually cut the Jon/Sansa reunion differently from the footage we were shown in the teasers: 

(gifs by @stark)

From the scene in the episode and the shots from the teaser, it becomes obvious that they cut out the close-up of Jon’s face as he approaches Sansa. 

They have also cut the medium shot of Jon looking at Sansa when she greats D*ny: 

and replaced it with a shot of just D*ny reacting to Sansa’s frosty reception: 

The question is why? While there might be a host of different explanations having to do with how the scene was set up, blocking or trying to focus in on the emerging conflict between Sansa and D*ny, one thing these exclusions do is that they make Jon and Sansa’s reunion less romantic and far more ambiguous because we don’t get as much access to Jon’s reactions and state of mind.

We don’t see Jon starring at Sansa as he walks into her open arms like a love starved fool. We also don’t get to see that through out the whole of Sansa and D*ny’s interaction, all of Jon’s attention is directly on Sansa and not on the woman he’s spent the last however many weeks having earth shatteringly boring sex with. 

It’s also interesting that they chose not to replace these shots with, let’s say, less romantically charged looks from Jon but rather they just cut them out, which in turn just amps the ambiguity factor, as opposed to put to rest the possible romantic subtext. This plays into the whole of the episode where the choice of not focusing in on Jon’s non-verbal reactions keeps Jon’s POV hidden from the viewer. 

The other interesting thing about this scene is how Sophie Turner chooses to react to greeting Jon as opposed to greeting D*ny. This is how she looks at Jon:

We know from the beginning of the episode that Sansa is not happy. She’s actually downright sad: 

And you can see that same emotion being echoed here as she looks at Jon hugging Bran. However the moment Jon looks at her, she can’t help but smile a little. It’s a shy but warm smile and it makes me feel like perhaps she can’t really help it. It sort of just comes out because, as we know from season 7, despite her frustrations with him, Sansa missed Jon very much. 

It also can’t really be a polite or for show reaction because Sansa ain’t about that life in this episode as we can clearly see by the way she greets D*ny: 

So, in just a few seconds, Sansa has made two things abundantly clear: while she’s apprehensive, she’s genuinely happy to see Jon and she hates D*ny’s guts. 

Which in turn should raise questions. If Sansa’s animosity towards D*ny is strictly political, than surely the same type of animosity would be directed at Jon as well seeing as he’s the one that brought her to Sansa’s home in the first place. 

One thing that I was struck by watching this scene is just how awkward it is. In the Jonsa fandom we have speculated that it was going to be awkward because of the teaser shots of Jon looking at Sansa and them hugging for what felt like an eternity while D*ny looked on from afar. However, since they excluded that shot, the hug itself doesn’t feel that odd. 

However, Jon makes sure to turn this whole simple procedure uncomfortable for seemingly no reason. All he has to do is introduce his sister to the queen: 

Jon: Queen Daenerys of House Targareyen. My sister, Sansa Stark, the Lady of Winterfell. 

Seems simple enough ... why, then, the long pause after saying “Sansa Stark”? Why the bowing of the head and all the fidgeting? 

Since Jon’s POV is hidden, there is no conclusive answer to this. Instead, I propose a little mental exercise: 

Let’s say that you’re in love with someone ... Someone you’re not really supposed to be in love with. Let’s also say that, for whatever reason, you decide to start a relationship with someone else. At some point, these two people in your life are forced to meet and you have to introduce them: 

(gifs by @athimbleful)

How much would you be shitting your pants that your partner is going to figure out you’re in love with your sister/cousin/light of your life/air in your lungs/sole reason for your existence? 

The “Threesome” scene: 

Can I just get “love triangle” for 100, please?

(gifs by @arin-arryn)

Honestly, they’re not even being subtle anymore. This whole scene is blocked as a visual love triangle and this interaction, in particular, is interesting because the whole conversation regarding the dragons diets was sparked by Tyrion. The logical way of setting up this scene would have been for Sansa and D*ny’s shots to be combined with a shot of Tyrion. Instead, we get this medium shot where the focus just shifts between Sansa and D*ny, while Jon sits in the middle trying desperately not to kill himself. 

Another important aspect is Jon’s tense conversation with Lyanna Stark, which starts with Jon instinctively looking at Sansa for whatever reason: 

This has become a bit of a trend with Jon, with the first time he did it being at the end of season 6 when he was proclaimed King in the North. He does it again in this episode in the first scene they have together after Bran “reality check” Stark decides to unload the glorious news of the wall falling and the Night King having a dragon. 

In both of these two scenes, it would have made a lot more sense for Jon to look at D*ny in these tense moments. In the first one because D*ny has just found out that her beloved “child” is now a zombie and also because Jon and D*ny lived through the wight hunt together. 

In the Great Hall scene, romantically, it would make sense for him to look to the woman he loves, seeking emotional support. So I guess, scratch that. Jon is looking in the right direction after all. 

The fact that Sansa refuses to offer him that support and his conversation with Lyanna Mormont: 

Lyanna: Your Grace? But you’re not, are you? You left Winterfell a king and came back a … I’m not sure what you are now. A lord? Nothing at all?

Jon: It’s not important.

leaves Jon momentarily looking like this: 

I’m not a gif-er but there is a subtle change of expression from his “It’s not important” smile to this that has Jon’s eyes going cold really fast. It looks like he’s reeling and angry but he conceals it very quickly. If someone has a gif of this, I’d love to see it. 

This doesn’t get a pay-off here but actually becomes significant later on in the episode as we’ll see in the following two scenes: 

The Jon/Arya reunion or as, I like to call it, the “deadbeat dad” scene

Fun fact: in my Jonsa fic, I actually had Jon mention Sansa in his first private conversation with Arya. The reason why I made that choice was because I wanted to firstly highlight the difference between the way Jon approaches Arya and the way he approaches Sansa and secondly because it’s an easy way of telegraphing to the audience that despite Jon’s outward behavior, Sansa is very much in his thoughts. 

So maybe I’m being biased here but the fact that the writers chose to do the same thing tells me they’re approaching this from a very similar mindset. 

I’m not going to lie. I didn’t particularly like that Jon felt the need to try to gain an ally against Sansa in Arya. It felt as if I was watching a father trying to antagonize his kid against her mother, which is such a low thing to do. 

However, if you judge Jon’s lines within the context of the Great Hall scene, it does change the perception of where Jon is coming from, for me at least. 

Jon: Where were you before? I could have used your help with Sansa. 

Could he have though? I mean, was Sansa really Jon’s biggest problem in the Great Hall scene? Because from where I was standing it was Lyanna Mormont that decided to rip Jon a new one, not Sansa.  Sansa’s conflict was with D*ny, not Jon.

Arya: I’m defending my family. So is she. 

Jon: I’m her family too. 

Aaaaa .... so Jon came out of that meeting completely stepping over the fact that his vassal called him “nothing at all” and proceeded to sulk in front of a heart tree because Sansa gave him a non-supportive look and made no attempt to defend him. That, for whatever reason, was the biggest takeaway from that meeting for him.

A takeaway that plays straight into Jon’s biggest insecurity when it comes to Sansa: that despite everything they’ve been through, despite the cloak she made for him or telling him he’s a Stark to her, she doesn’t truly care for him or consider him part of the pack which leads us to: 

D*ny: Your sister doesn’t like me.

Jon: She doesn’t know you. If it makes you feel any better, she didn’t like me either when we were growing up.

I mentioned in my J0nereys meta that Jon sharing this with D*ny stung when I first heard it in the scene. Of course there’s multiple things going on in this conversation, not least of which that Jon seems to be trying desperately to make sure D*ny doesn’t turn her love of a good emolation on Sansa. 

However, when looking at Jon’s conversation with Arya, doesn’t this line feel like it’s coming from the same place of insecurity for Jon? What else can Jon base his fear that Sansa doesn’t consider him family but on their fraught relationship as children? She’s given him absolutely no reason to believe that since they’ve been reunited. So, rather than this being proof that Jon holds a grudge for baby Sansa, it feels more like he’s resurrected their childhood distant relationship in order to drive himself nuts with worry that she doesn’t care about him anymore. 

Can I get an awwww, everyone? 

There’s also another strange parallel between these two scenes that I want to briefly touch upon. 

In the Jon/Arya scene, Jon says this: 

Arya: She doesn’t like your queen, does she?

Jon: Sansa thinks she’s smarter than everyone. 

Why would Jon say that? We know from season 7 that Jon thinks Sansa is smart so it feels OOC for him to disparage her intellect. Also, if this was him being angry that Sansa was mean to his lady love, why didn’t he burst out into a rant about just how amazing D*ny is and how unfair Sansa’s treatment of her is? 

I think this Jon line is there for two reasons: the first is to signal Jon’s concern that Sansa antagonizing D*ny might result in either Sansa or someone Jon cares about getting hurt and secondly as foreshadowing for someone outplaying Sansa. I don’t want to read “kidnapping plot” into every scene but this line feels pretty ominous to me. 

As does the fact that the creators made a point of including a shot of Alys Karstark in the beginning of the Varys/Davos/Tyrion scene. There was no reason for that to be there unless to establish a future plot point and who else could that plot point be about but Sansa? 

The “what is this fight really about” scene: 

This scene is less than 2 minutes long and there’s so much going on here, that it’s difficult to know where to start. 

So I suppose we should start with the opening shot: 

I find it supremely interesting that for their one on one scene, the writers chose to open it with Sansa reading a scroll. When’s the last time Sansa read a scroll on screen? 

Oh, that’s right! The scene where this happened: 

Littlefinger: I’ve heard gossip that the dragon queen is quite beautiful. 

Sansa: What does that have to do with anything? 

Littlefinger: Jon is young and unmarried. Daenerys is young and unmarried. 

This conversation that Sansa and Littlefinger had in season 7, ends up informing the entire Jon and Sansa scene, even though the point that Littlefinger was trying to make is that because Jon and D*ny would be difficult to defeat together, Sansa should unseat Jon as King and take the crown for herself. 

The whole unseating of Jon by Sansa is never brought up in this conversation. 

Instead, Jon proceeds to unload his anger at Sansa’s lack of enthusiasm for his successful work trip: 

Jon: I brought two armies with me. Two dragons. 

Sansa: And a Tragareyen queen. 

Now, if they didn’t want me to read jealousy in Sansa turning around and flinging the word “queen” at Jon, they could have replaced it with something more neutral, such as: 

Sansa: And no crown. 

Or

Sansa: And a new Southern ruler. 

Or any other number of things. 

However Jon doesn’t understand the distinction so he keeps pushing his “there is only one war that matters” speech: 

Jon: Do you think we can beat the army of the dead without her? I fought them, Sansa. Twice. You want to worry about who holds what title. I’m telling you it doesn’t matter. Without her, we don’t stand a chance. 

Jon might think that the problem of the titles is what’s really bothering Sansa but, considering we’ve already established that this scene is framed around the potential romantic entanglement between Jon and D*ny, I think this face that Sansa makes: 

has more to do with Jon going on about how they’ll all be dead without D*ny and how she might interpret that as Jon being in love with her. Now, looking at Sansa’s face, the pain of that thought is pretty evident. 

Luckily, Jon stops himself before Sansa jumps out a window and instead hits her with: 

Jon: Do you have any faith in me at all? 

Coming back to that scroll, Jon seems to be unaware of the fact that the only thing he’s offered in the form of an explanation for him bending the knee prior to this conversation was: 

Cersei Lannister has pledged her forces to our cause, as has Daenerys Targaryen. And if we survive this war, I have pledged our forces to Daenerys at the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. We are both coming to organise the defence of the realm.

So his anger at Sansa’s bitterness seems rather misplaced. In normal circumstances, it would be perfectly normal for Sansa to tell him that. Instead we get this: 

It’s official, ladies and gentlemen! Jon Snow has a superpower! And that superpower is called: puppy dog eyes! In this episode, Sansa Stark has faced off against the Mother of Dragons, brushed aside Tyrion Lannister but has been thwarted by Jon’s warm, chocolately gaze and completely forgot why she was pissed off with him in the first place. 

However, Jon being Jon, decides to remind her with this gem: 

Jon: She’ll be a good queen. For all of us. She’s not her father. 

Aside from having a superpower, Jon also has his own version of kryptonite and that’s called: being an utter and complete moron.

As far as defenses of your heart’s desire go, that was one lame ass attempt. However, when you’re a woman in love, it sounds like the end of the world and looks something like this: 

How does Jon respond to this attack on the character of his “beloved”?

Makes sense ... I mean if someone compared the love of my life with a better looking version of Hitler, I’d be giggling too. Which prompts Sansa to finally say what’s on her mind. 

Considering how this episode played out, they could have had Sansa go back to the food question and ask Jon if being a good ruler does perhaps involve figuring out a way to feed your people. Or perhaps challenge him on what D*ny’s credentials are that have led him to believe she’ll be a good queen for all of them. Or perhaps get really personal and remind him that their brother, Robb, died for Northern Independence. 

Instead ...

So while Jon might believe that the loss of title is what’s bothering Sansa, what is keeping the girl up at night is whether or not her “brother” is in love with their new queen. 

From a non-romantic POV, why would she even ask this question? Ultimately, for her, it shouldn’t matter why Jon bent the knee. The result is the same: the North has now pledged to House Targareyen. So why does Sansa want the answer to this question? Why is it important to her? It’s only if you add a romantic motivation to it, that it begins to make sense. 

Also, it’s important to note how the scene ends. In the leaks that came out prior to the premiere, people were saying that Jon and Sansa are interrupted so Jon never gets to answer. 

However, that’s not what happens. No one interrupts this conversation. The creators made the choice to cut it before Jon answers, which means that it’s pretty safe to assume he did say something. We just weren’t privy to it. 

That being said, only two questions remain: 

1. Why do the creators want to play up the ambiguity of Jon’s feelings for D*ny, when we’re assured in all the interviews they’re the great love story of the series? 

and 

2. What does Sansa now know that we do not? 

That’s about it from me, guys. Thank you for reading. 

None of the gifs are mine. Thank you to the content creators!

[goldeneyedgirl]

Fic-Mas Day 2: In Another Life

Oh my gosh! Thank you so much for the lovely response :D I’ve got bad allergies tonight and I’m babysitting a puppy post-surgery, so no long message, just onwards with Day 2.

Day 2. In Another Life

(This was/is a part of an anthology fic called ‘The Only Girl in the World’, and was basically just a lot of different ways Jasper and Alice could have met, and how fate helped or hindered them. I also want to make it completely clear that Alice is a human child in this fic, and there are no romantic or sexual undertones, implications, or subtext.)

The new neighbours have finally arrived.

The Brandons live outside of town, and it has been forever since the Hawkins’ left. Not that anyone was surprised - there are enough ghost stories and rumours to keep that house empty forever.

There’s a line of pine trees that seperate the Brandon house from the old Hawkins’ place. Other than the orchard, the rest of the land belongs to the new neighbours now.

“Where are you going, Mary?” her mother is in the kitchen, consulting a cook-book. Caroline Brandon is the consummate housewife - consistent, resourceful, and bored out of her mind raising two daughters outside of a small town. Neither Caroline nor Michael Brandon have told the girls that they’ll be getting a brother very, very soon - even though nine-year-old Mary and seven-year-old Cynthia have already taken note of their mother’s bulging stomach.

“To see the neighbours!” the cry summons little Cynthia, and both girls start their charge towards the Hawkins’ place. They are almost mirror images of each other - sturdy Cynthia, and bird-boned Mary; Cynthia’s blonde curls fall effortlessly to her waist, and Mary’s stick-straight black hair hangs around her shoulders. Cynthia wears a pink-striped dress and matching shoes; Mary wears ancient fairy-wings over a rainbow leotard and a long skirt, her feet bare.

Through their mother’s flower garden, and around the vegetable patch; over the low stone fence and through the orchard to no man’s land. They climb up the old viewing platform - their father says that it used to belong to hunters, and they need to stay off the rotten old thing, but they have no other play structure, and the temptation is just too much.

“Are they there? Are there kids?” Cynthia asks, bouncing.

“They’re there. I think they’re all grown ups,” Mary squints through the plastic binoculars they have stashed up there, in an ancient lunchbox. “Come one!” They are both nimble little girls, and have climbed up and down the platform hundreds of times; each foot hits the bolts they use as steps with certainty and speed, and then they are off, through the long grass, to see the mysterious new neighbours.

Crossing over the border, it is like another world. Everyone knows the story of the Hawkins’ mansion: a man built it for his wife, and their children kept dying. They said the youngest child, Arabella Hawkins, was mad and roamed the house at night. All Mary knew was that Mrs Hawkins had been taken away in an ambulance, and that Mr Hawkins was found asleep in his car one morning, and the police had to be called.

But the house was exquisite, under years of neglect. The fountain and gardens, ready to be loved again. The Victorian mansion of at least three floors. Mary Alice couldn’t imagine how nice it was inside.

She could see the new people unloading the truck, and hurried across the gravel to see them closely.

“Hi,” she blurted out, standing barefoot on the gravel, at the adults suddenly staring at her. “I’m Mary, we live next door. She turned around to see Cynthia lingering shyly behind her. “That’s my sister Cynthia.”

They are staring at her, as if she is quite strange. There is a lady there, wearing a pretty sweater, who smiles so nicely at her.

“Hello Mary, hello Cynthia,” she says. “I’m Esme Hale. This is my family.”

Mrs Hale is sweet, and asks them a lot of questions as the rest of the family unpacks; Cynthia takes a shine to the lady, and jabbers away about the new baby, about Halloween and Thanksgiving, and that they want a puppy for Christmas.

Mrs Hale appears equally as enchanted by Cynthia - that’s not strange, most adults love her little blonde sister. She watches boxes and covered furniture been carried into the house, and the gravel bites harder into her cold, bare feet. It’s just an ordinary moment, ultimately forgettable. Except it isn’t. And she’s still too little to understand the intricacies of everything that has happened, has been seen and said and felt.

They leave soon after, with Mrs Hale promising them cookies next time they come over; Cynthia is delighted, but she has a terrible sweet tooth. With a wave and a smile, both girls dart back towards the tree line. Mary doesn’t know why she looks back, but she does, and see a man and woman staring at her from the garage, and frowns.

That night, she dreams of the blond man coming to their house - its nighttime, and Thanksgiving, because she’s wearing a stupid dress with fall leaves and turkeys on it. She knows the new baby is there, and everyone is in the dining room laughing and talking. He smiles down at her, and whispers something to her.

And she takes his hand. Then she’s in a car; her backpack is at her feet, and her plush rabbit is in her lap. She’s wearing her best winter coat, and she’s not at all afraid. She’s warm and sleepy. When they stop, he buys her waffles and hot chocolate, and he looks at her so sadly. She’s happy though. Well, until he takes her to a public bathroom and cuts her hair off. But it’s only hair, and she doesn’t blame him.

They find his family at another house; this house is wooden, like a ski lodge, and he seems surprised to see them there. They yell a lot, and she hides in a bedroom upstairs.

That’s when Mrs Hale comes to her side, and shows her the news. She sees her mother screaming and crying, she sees a lot of police. Her photograph on the news. Her ugly Thanksgiving dress fished out of a dumpster at the gas station.

The Hales talk about returning her, and how she’ll keep their secret. Mrs Hale puts her to bed, and kisses her cheek and promises her it will all be okay.

She doesn’t even stir when he lifts her from her bed and leaves with her again. She wakes up again, and they are in a truck, driving fast. He just keeps saying he’s sorry.

She doesn’t care. She likes him. He is so peaceful and safe to her eyes. And during their travels, he is kind. He buys her food and makes sure she is warm and clean. Few people give them a second look, but the few that do, she dismisses. “My name isn’t Mary. It’s Alice, and he’s my brother.” He buys her fake purple glasses, a sketchbook, and a new coat for Christmas. They sit on the front of the car, and she eats pizza out of a box and look out at the festive lights on Christmas Eve. He takes her to a church, and she says a prayer, and then they leave again.

He is taking her to Alaska, he tells her. She’ll be safe there. She doesn’t know what he’s protecting her from, but she trusts him. She doesn’t tell him she feels sick, that she’s hot and cold all the time, and it doesn’t matter. She shouldn’t be sick, she knows that. Some part of her knows this is how everything is going to be fixed; that someone has made a terrible mistake (not him), and this is how they try to put it right.

She dies in his arms on the side of the road on New Year’s Eve. Her mouth tastes like blood and everything is floating. It hurts to breathe. His red eyes stare down, desperately at hers, and she wants to reassure her that she understands everything. Not in a way that can be put into words, but she does. That she is nearly ten years old, but she feels much older and would never ever have told anyone. That this life is all wrong, and that’s why she has to go to heaven.

His family won’t be mad for long, they’ll welcome him back. They’ll never, ever ask him about what happened to her - even when they find out he has kept her stuffed rabbit.

She wants to tell him all of this, but she can’t, so she closes her eyes and snuggles closer to him, and fades away from the world.

When she wakes up the next morning, she knows her fate. She knows which clothes to pack into her backpack and to tie a ribbon from her bunny to her bag, so that when he climbs in her window, he won’t forget Bunny. She leaves her back right next to the window.

Binoculars. She needs her binoculars.

Her rubber boots pinch a little, and if her mother finds out that she’s running around in her pyjamas, she’ll catch it. But she treks across the snow to the old hunting structure, and climbs up.

It’s just happenstance, bad luck, and maybe a reprieve for a haunted man. The crack sounds like the branch from a tree going, and suddenly she can’t catch her balance and then there is falling and pain and stillness as the rotting wood finally gives out. The only metal pole that was holding the wood in place pierces her chest and makes her feel hot and cold at the same time. One of her boots has come off or torn or something. She’s all ice and wet from the snow. She can’t breathe or cry or scream or talk.

It will be hours before she is found, nestled in the wreckage, with a starburst of blood around her. There will be yelling and screaming, and emergency services everywhere, and her photograph will end up in the newspaper. There will be some speculation whether she died from her injuries, or froze to death. But it doesn’t matter - accidental death is accidental death, however you frame it. Her mother will never understand the clothing in the backpack, or the ribbon tied to her favourite toy. Her father will throw away her fairy wings and broken binoculars. And Jasper Hale will never kidnap the little girl that made him feel hope, and run away without a plan.

She lies in the snow, and she is frustrated and sad. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She wasn’t supposed to be a little girl when she met him; he wasn’t supposed to be so desperate.

She wasn’t supposed to die alone.

But she does anyway.

[elizabethrobertajones]

lmao what do you mean this entire season has been about dean's dick?

Lemme take you back to my first year of uni where I did a literature degree, and in my sort of analysis 101 class about how to do all the readings and subtext and who is even reading this text nonsense, one day we all came into a lecture theatre where the teacher wasn’t present yet but the projector was already showing the first slide of the powerpoint, which in 3 feet-high letters, simply read,

PSYCHOANALYSIS

… so yeah that’s the flavour of my academic background :P 

The 13x21 promo had that great bit from the wilting portal montage where TFW ready their weapons, and Dean cocks the gun in that suggestive jerk-off way, while Cas spins his blade for better grasp, and Sam does something un-suggestive like why do I even know you guys. Dean’s gun has been his dick a lot this season, either held loose between his legs while talking to Ketch - who had been coming onto him all episode in 13x18 - or cleaning it in 13x08 before Barthamus called for their ill-fated not-Crowley-replacement encounter. I already made that embarrassing post about Dean sliding Cas a drink in 13x19 and how he was holding his own… 

So, anyway the fact the season came down to junk waving between Lucifer, 

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/174172780257/justanotheridijiton-destielhallow-its-the

with his archangel blade, and Dean with his, doing the “Look at my junk” wing display, with those phallic windows behind him, really isn’t surprising. They measure power for archangels with a sexual edge with Lucifer and Anael, and all the stuff about Gabriel and his potency… Dean juiced up on the Big Dick Juice and essentially took a massive erection to fight Lucifer.

The Colt was also a representation of his manhood and he sort of met Lucifer via storming up to him and unloading the Colt directly into Lucifer’s face. This probably goes way deeper than I can handle right now, given I’m woozily lying in bed feeling very unwell at the moment, but the show has put a fair amount of phallic competitiveness in for Dean. And I mean with everyone. The entire Mark of Cain arc with the first blade was about Dean’s dick, and Cas won that one but only after he and Crowley went back and forth a lot on who owned Dean’s dick. Crowley even links Dean’s strength to his virility in 9x17.

Or like, season 7, a whole season of Dick jokes and Dean hellbent on getting Dick, which, of course, involves boning him and at the end “exploding Dick” sends your ass to purgatory. Where Dean gets another rugged ambiguously sexy dynamic friendo and a big ass knife. 

Anyways for season 13 for Dean it all comes down to this fight, where he needs to be stronger than Lucifer (to “beat the devil” as 13x21′s title suggestively told us >.>) and this is the conclusion of a story where Cas won Jack’s moral centre and loyalty in 12x19, Sam won his heart pretty early on but 13x23′s personal conclusion with them proves that, and Dean is the gruff John-mirrored alpha dad figure that Jack sort of emulates and whose affection is more hard earned in a rugged manly way; Lucifer as the bio father and Dean as this version of fatherhood are the ones in the macho showdown and the ones staking their virility against each other as their right to parent Jack, in the same way Lucifer and Sam had that struggle for Jack’s heart over 13x21-3. 

Early on in the season, I think after the 13x08 gun cleaning lols, I remember discussion of Dean’s potency/impotency especially when it came to the fights, and how many times he lost or let someone else take the kill vs his big successes. He’d just seen Lucifer impale Cas on his phallic blade and it destroys him and in some ways takes the fight out of him. He gets his mojo back eventually (for… some reason…), and I guess with the big fights through the season for Dean we were supposed to be building up to him being BAMF enough to take down Lucifer - not that the fight scene we got was worthy of the others, but that gnarly fight with Bernard stands out. Jessica even hung a lampshade that Dean was skilled enough to take him down, so we shouldn’t be doubting he could kill Lucifer with the extra juice. 

Also, Michael’s world is one riddled with massive phallic angel blades sticking out of the ground, around his HQ and main battleground. He has The Biggest Dick and now Dean has that too because he’s possessed by this guy with the 20ft high angel blades. 

So, yeah. Dean, as himself, it makes perfect in character sense he shows up at this door with the windows above it like 3 large dicks, and as himself. Dean. Chooses to spread his massive fucking wingspan he now has and show off how potent he is, vs Lucifer. Who is stealing others’ grace to be strong anyway, so the implication is that it isn’t even his own potency. Though, since it’s Jack, we’re staying surface level here :P 

And yeah this is not a unifying theme of the season or anything like super serious or critical to understanding or whatever, but 13x21 made it extremely clear that the phallic imagery is there and intended. I mean talking about being a vessel as an “angel condom” implies Michael is literally a walking dick with wings (aww the romans had them as lucky charms and they were much nicer :P) and now Dean is that dick. So. 

That point where I gave up in despair trying to take notes on 13x21 and just wrote “Penis” as my analysis for an entire minute of the show? That’s season 14 in its entirety, probably.

[softgrungeprophet]

the fine line of understanding that queer subtext can and does exist now and historically and that queer readings of texts are often actually very well-supported in many cases, and also understanding that just because this is true does not make a text "literally" gay and that misleading people into a media that has very little there when you insist that it's "so canon" is not actually helpful, when instead you could discuss more fruitfully the context, history, symbolism, imagery, purpose of subtext, metaphor, etc. and how xyz would be shifted from subtext to text if x were to happen, and so on and so forth. not so much, "this is gay," but rather "this is queerable and could be shown so, blatantly, with a slightly different camera angle."

don't get me wrong, a lot of queer theory stuff i find intensely condescending and/or pretentious and i am not really a fan of "queering the [blank]" as a phrase for that reason; i didn't like my queer theory class, but queer theory still permeates regardless of whether a single college class managed to approach it in a way that wasn't pretentiously bland in its so-called queerness.

that class was also a creative writing class, which i enjoyed more, but one of the first prompts was to write about... an injury or hurt or something. i don't remember the exact prompt. and this was within the first week of class, and when most everyone in the class wrote of physical injury, the teacher had the audacity to be surprised that almost no one had written of their psychological and emotional hurt and i was just thinking like...

ma'am i'm 21, and i don't know you, and i don't know these people. i'm not unloading my traumas onto a group of strangers lmao (several of us talked and laughed a little about that at our table, even, like. did she really expect us to, essentially, trauma dump? to people we don't know? lmao? it doesn't actually feel good to bare yourself raw all the time.)

she was also the teacher who thought it was incredibly unusual of me to describe sunlight as "golden" because sunlight is scientifically blue (according to her) and it really was like, have you never read a book? do you know about rayleigh scattering? do you know about color perception? do you know that not everything is literal? how are you teaching a creative writing class when you apparently don't understand things like descriptive prose or extremely common metaphors lmao... for that matter how are you teaching a queer theory class when you can't even conceive of the most common non-literal descriptions of one's environment?

the other teacher was the one who docked me two full credits lol

the nice thing about that class though, was that it was full of queers. very pleasant to be in a class full of other GNC, gay, trans, and other queer people.

anyway what was i talking about

oh yeah subtext and the way people will say something is literally actually kissing gay when it's actually subtext (and often simply unintentional homoeroticism)

(this unintentionality happened a lot with supernatural, i feel... i won't go into that though.)

currently just thinking a lot now about the often purposeful queer subtext in spider-man (and f4) comics, with characters like harry osborn, johnny storm, venom etc. sometimes it's very minimal. sometimes it is outright blatant. even demonizing. re the latter, more noticeable stuff like direct metaphors for spousal abuse in venom comics as well as moments like johnny being referred to as "light in the loafers," which has one meaning and one meaning alone. ntm the comments from Zodiac—about johnny and his "beards," about how johnny makes him sick.

but also the quieter stuff, like with harry and peter's relationship and the intricacies of their intimacy. how that ties to toxic masculinity and ending the cycle of abuse. how love and friendship, closeness and understanding, is the salvation. it is not necessarily gay but also not necessarily straight you know? and being written by JMD as most of it was, I'd be willing to buy that he did this on purpose, but i would assume that his main purpose, as it always has been, was to break down toxic ideas about male friendship and emphasize that this physical and emotional closeness and trust is healthy—breaking down patriarchal violence, more than it is doing anything gay or not-gay.

also thinking about flash and his ''dna sample'' and the ''bromantic silence'' and when i think about that stuff, i think... dan sl*tt, my enemy.

and i think "be brave, johnny storm"—not nearly so mean-spirited, not a no-homo joke, not a dig about the character being either a stalker or gay for dick, but nonetheless, still... dan sl*tt, my enemy. but who knows how that was going. it could have been editorial, or he could have chickened out, or both. his later writing of johnny and the way the character is forced into a heterosexual relationship based on external insistence that they are soulmates (despite the fact that the person making those decisions was shown to be a fraud as part of the plot twist) is deeply unsatisfying as well as lacking in much nuance or deconstruction of how that plays exactly and precisely into compulsory heterosexuality... (oops!)

and his lack of sympathy for stuff like manipulation and abuse while writing johnny is simply not funny the way he thinks it is. but when has dan ever been that funny, except for once or twice every five years?

and just thinking lately about the arguments for what is and is not queerbait—a lot of it simply isn't, it's true. a lot of it is simply subtext. it's not marketing. it just... is. (of course sometimes it is marketing but that, interestingly, tends to be more on a celebrity basis than a story basis) (and yet ironically we still have people questioning andrew g as if he has not said explicitly that he is attracted to men, as if he did not fight tooth and nail for what he believed in) (but omg maybe that singer is gay) (but to be clear i support gender nonconformity among all people, even celebs, and it annoys me the way my mom's response is to assume that if they're amab and not out as gay or trans then they must be untrustworthy when they dress femme. like, i do understand that there is a history of homophobic and transphobic gender nonconformity in punk and goth circles but i think to inherently distrust anyone with a dick who wears women's clothes isn't really... much better...)

anyway re queerbait in media, especially when it's w/ supporting characters, it's like... probably not bait, so much as it is the fact that those characters are simply not going to be explored in depth unless you're like, JMD i guess lmfao — not that you should just happily accept whatever crumbs you're given or celebrate essentially meaningless leftovers, but like, sometimes it's really just that the character isn't important. but that's it's own thing of course—the fact that it's always side characters. cause you can get away with it right??

when you have a creative team knowing they will never get this approved if they ask, even for a supporting character, and so they slide it under the radar with jokes and body language and subtle inferences (or not so subtle), and make wink-wink comments on social media that they can delete, or they are esad ribic (icon, role model) and make many a gorgeous cover and panel with blatant homoerotic tension and male nudity and sexual subtext and the publisher doesn't even notice. (or pretends not to)

even the aforementioned "be brave" scene... was that bait, or was it simply corporate meddling with a character who is considered in some ways a mascot...? is it symptomatic of that exact "always side characters problem" (especially when you consider the next major arc included the classic "supporting cast non-threatening (to straight men's sexualities) lesbian side couple") or was it possibly an unwillingness to commit? i won't try to figure it out cause I don't know but that won't stop me from wondering anyway.

i feel like sp*deyp00l is the closest to bait in the comic circles i've been in, as something i have actually read content of, and know the titles of the trades and issues (well some of them) and know how that plays directly into the "bromance" marketing and jokes.

i won't go into my other thoughts on the relationship, though.

idk idk just musing

there's no purpose to this post, it wasn't really prompted by much of anything, just stuff that's been on my mind lately.

[pearldefiance]

Hey kids! Sorry to rain on the parade, but I just have to share something that’s going on in the background and it’s going to sound negative, so ... cut.

A lot of creepy randos have been unloading their weird fetishes and how they’d like to apply them to Pearl on me and it’s starting to stretch me pretty thin? 

This blog barely has 400 followers, I’ve only posted one fanfic, it’s a little early for all this. I mean, it’s happening a lot. Like, just about every time I think someone just wants to talk Pearl with me.

Plus, it’s dawned on me that I was not really paying attention to the subtext of the last episode, and I feel kind of stupid.

So, I’m going to take a little break until the end of Heart of the Crystal Gems. I’m sure a lot of great stuff will come out between now and then, and I’ll pass it along you way when I get back~

Keep hope alive until then~