#more focused on protecting yhe littles

[just-some-sillies]

spent 4 hours drawing a gift for our gf and a little was so so excited to show her and she just kept criticising it and wouldn't let us leave the situation when the little was fucking crying

[see-you-later-darling]

And I’m back with a small pocketful of Fair Game fic set ups (maybe some Ironqrow too...)

Again, I’m not a mega fan or anything - I live RWBY, but I’ve only ever watched the main show. This means I’ve not seen any extras such as mini episodes, RWBY chibi, or any social media!

OKAY. Let’s get the show rolling cause I watched volume 7, and I have feelings™:

•Everyone’s talking about how good Clover is for a character like Qrow - and you’re right. That’s totally valid. He’s a recovering alcoholic with a truck load of trauma packed into a complex that he’s never going to be happy. HOWEVER people aren’t talking as much about how Qrow could be good for Clover!

•Because really, as demonstarted in the fated scene where Clover decides trying to arrest Qrow on a jet transport in front of a maniacal serial killer, Clover is BLINDLY loyal. And he could probably do with a big scoop of scepticism. Especially given that coming off Qrow’s arc in volume 6, Qrow had just learned a harsh lesson on blind loyalty himself thanks to Ozpin.

•SO SO SO a nice little story that went in line with most of the canon events would actually be a super nice little fix it. It’d be SUPER to see an au where Clover somehow survived after Tyrion’s attack since Qrow is clearly captured at the end of the season. It would leave things in a good place for character growth - not just for Clover, honestly, but Ironwood too.

•Maybe it happens because although Clover’s died, when the carrier shows up for transport, they try to revive him anyway and his luck brings him back. Maybe it’s because he’s not actually dead (we never saw Qrow check a pulse), but extremely close to it and the carrier shows up in time to save him. There are a lot of small things you could tweak to ‘bring him back’ if you don’t want to go the full time travel/staff of creation route.

•And it picks up from there. Qrow is captured and imprisioned in Atlas. I’m sure as much as some people might be tempted to make Ironwood completely unreasonable, personally, I feel like his relationship with Qrow is stable enough that he still treats him humanely and speaks with him, checks in on him, etc...

•(At the end of the day, he’s known and trusted Qrow a hell of a lot longer than Ruby and her team, or the other teenagers’ teams. He doesn’t KNOW them. He knows Qrow, and as we’ve seen, clearly cares about Qrow on a more personal level than the kids.)

•Clover is recovering and probably asks about Qrow (and Robyn too, because fight me, that’s yhe sort of person he is.), and Ironwood tells him they have him in custody in good condition... and Clover practically deflates in relief because as much as he felt he had to follow orders, it hadn’t sat right with him fighting with Qrow like that.

•Eventually, Clover recovers enough to move around freely and he starts visiting Qrow too.

•So now you have this scenario where Clover and Ironwood both go to see Qrow, and I’m sure Qrow is spending the time trying to convince one or both men to let him out.

•With Ironwood, he’s focusing on trying to break down the protective layers that the man is building up to keep his heart separated from everything else happening/the decisions he feels he has to make. He appeals to Ironwood’s humanity and for the first time in a long time, opens up BACK. Shows his own vulnerabilities.

•Because really, Ironwood is one of the few old friends that Qrow still has. And Qrow cares. So it’s terrifying to see a man as strong and well-trusted as Ironwood so poisoned with fear of Salem that he’s making inhumane and unforgivable decisions.

•And with Clover, it’s probably a small climb before Qrow can bring himself to speak with him prperly again - a mixture of still being angry that he’d chosen orders over the right thing, and having to remember how it had felt when he’d thought Clover was dead, the guilt and shame of teaming up with Tyrion.

•But when they do finally talk, it’s quiet and slow and usually about small, asinign things that seem unimportant but represent so mucb more. Small ways of needling each other to challenge and shake their belief systems.

And there you have it folks - a set up for a good fic that could be short, could be long, could be Ironqrow, could be Fair Game, could be an ot3, etc... all without changing canon events! Go apeshit.

[malazansapper]

autism month april

april 18: autism: feelings at first learning/realization vs. now

well, this is an interesting thinking: when did i first realize? is there a point in time: idk? so: some milestones and remembrances.

maybe will be trying to remember the times big events were happening that should have let ones know something was amiss

i guess i was sharing previous post about being pulled out of public school really early on. the same thing had happened to my older sister tho, so maybe my parents just yhought: par for the course. my older sister actually didnt speak until 3{?} and had more outward problems. nothing done other than mom like full time helped her get through public school. hahah my parents were just clueless, we are probably all autistic.

hrm: the remembeances of me as a child are two: i would only get fussy when i had earache/infection {i have history with this from baby, up to rupturing eardrum as a teen}. this is yhat same: not showing outward signs {of any kind} so: not a problem :/. dad was just oblivious, and mom was focused to older sister, who eventually got diagnosed with learning disability{i dont think until like high school tho, and who knows if it was through my parents or the school} , so yhere wasnt much left for me :/. the other remembrance is that i would ask to be put to bed. my thought is that i would just get battered by the sensory world and couldnt manage a regular day hahah. i still nap often and just like fall asleep. my next younger sister is famous for her ability to just randomly fall asleep in weird places: m y parents would lose her as a child hahah; we go to concert together and she just lay down with everyone stand around and sleep hahahah {i protect} ;and youngest sister got yhe expression of adhd that is like frantic massive energy: amazes me. both younger sisters later got diagnosed with bipolar disorder. so: all of that: supposedly i hit all my milestones on time: but: my older sister definitely didnt and my parents didnt do a thing for it, so who knows if they even remember/noticed.

{edit: i had forgot, my littlest sister had to have speech therapy in early school too. she grew up in a different time tho: early school in the mid 2000s?}

the first time autism was mentioned was in my early teens? i guess my father heard some report about it or something (mid late 90s in the south?), thought it sounded like me enough to mention it to me, and that was the end of it hahaha.

im tired of remembering hahha: fast forward. suppose the idea/exploration of autism has been forming in my mind for yhe past two years or so. had my first relationship around 30 or so, and that experience, the things that would get reflecred at me theough another person/family, and the break up, kind of major life evented me into more awareness and exploring identity issues.

it took my speech systems fully failing, leading to job loss to propel me into the vocational rehabilitation system where i got diagnosed. that was just some months ago. tbh, still coming to terms with it. upset with parents? upset with systems? for the children. we all could have used so much help. i was easy yo ignore, so was just praised for not being a hassle and continued falling theough the gaps. but my older sister was discriminated against harshly {even by family: dad dislikes her, she mostly only had mom trying to protect her from the world, and we all picked up on yhat expression}, so i dont know which is worse hahahha.

so ya: damned feelings about autism and neurodivergence/mental illnesses/health in general. thinking its just an unfolding of my entire life. i think i have a strong feeling of upset at my parents for having kids they were/are unable to handle, but also im knowing they were both abused as children in many many ways, so who knows whats to be done. trying to finally figure things out for myself, alone. how to have a housing, a support, small monies for needs: having so little. how to be a self. is a crying sadness.

two of my sisters found other families, and another independence with relationships: just me alone

needing stopping now: no more processing

[hostgalli19]

I absolutely love this for so many reason. I view Hannibal and Clarice relation as more friendship then romance but he’s the only person who can see the small tells that she destracted and not really focused when coming to talk to him sbout a new case (in this particular story he nrver escaped).

He can tell that she’s uncomfortable with Chilton touching her but she’s not a underprepared rookie who was thrown to the wolves she a brave smart women who had spain of steal and takes no ish from anyone.

Hannibal is the only person who respects her, he can tell when something’s not right and does his best to help without blowing her cover of being in complete control of everything.

She still has her job at the FBI but is a little wizer. They need her because she’s the only person Hannibal will talk to. He forced them to give Clarice her job bsck otherwise he would stop helping them solve murders and made sure people knew what they had done to the smart, brave women.

They know they’ll need Hannibal’s help in the future and see when they hesitate on bring her back that he doesn’t help the women they sent in, that looks like Clarice to get information from him about the Murder.

(Well he does help her, just not in the way they wanted. I’ll call her M for the moment)

The poor girl’s scared, she has no idea what’s going on or why the FBI pressured her into pretending to be someone. Hannibal doesn’t take it out on her, it wasn’t her fault. He comforts her and helps her just like he did Clarice. The girl who leaves is much stronger then when she walked in. They send her in another six times believing they are getting somewhere. M told them she was getting information.

She soon realises that she enjoys acting, its fun, Hannibal helps her perfect her acting skills and gives herca way to protect herself from the FBI, in return M helped Hannibal make his point to the FBI that if Clarice isn’t brought back then they will get no help from him

They eventually get the point and Clarice is brought back. M invited her out for lunch and fills her in on what’s been happening since she left and how she managed to get her job back.

They both laugh at yhe FBI’s expense. They won’t be getting rid of Clarice any time soon, not if they don’t want the world to know how they treat women. Hannibal Lector is still highly respected in his field even though he is no longer technically a doctor after having his licene removed. He still has a lot of influence.

Sorry for rambling on so long. I hoep this made sense. I hope I didn’t bore you.

imagine reading Silence and Hannibal, watching Clarice develop a bond with Hannibal, seeing all the sexism and loss Clarice endures, witnessing the systematic destruction of her dream career, then getting to the end and thinking, "but she would NEVER just run off with some rando serial killer (even though she risked her life to save his) and abandon (the smoking ruins of) her life!" /snark

We’ve had so many private discussions about this, but I still want to publish a long response of my thoughts on my blog.

Clarice Starling choosing to spend the rest of her life on the run with Hannibal is one of the biggest examples I’ve ever read in literature of a woman taking back her agency and using it to further herself. It’s unusual, it’s unexpected and so of course it’s frequently misunderstood and despised.

From what we learn of her background in Silence and Hannibal, Clarice has spent many, many years of her life trying to prove to herself and to others that she’s valuable — that she’s smart, brave, more than meets the eye. The last thing Clarice Starling is going to be is average, which Hannibal picks up on (even if he teases her for it in the beginning). There’s a fair amount of criticism leveraged against her as being rude at times or selfish. I politely disagree; if she’s rough, it’s because she’s on a mission, and it’s usually for someone else’s betterment instead of her own.

e.g. Her pursuit to save Catherine Martin begins with Clarice wanting to prove her stuff to Crawford, but it quickly shifts into an extreme need to save the girl, no matter if she loses out on a career at the FBI or not; aka, the goal she’s been busting her ass off to get since college. She’s willing to risk everything to save someone else.

We see this behavior again in Hannibal, when she learns of Verger’s plan and decides that she’s going to singlehandedly take the operation down to save someone that many people would let the pigs eat. Of course, I believe there were the buds of romantic feelings towards him already within her when that happened, which I’ll touch on in a moment, but the fact stands that she risked her own life to save someone else’s because what was going to happen to them was ethically wrong.

However, none of this drive matters when it comes to the glass ceiling she faces at the FBI. Clarice is a woman, and she’ll never be in the boy’s club. Oh she’ll get a promotion here or there, but if someone needs to get tossed under the bus, she’s going first. Imagine working your ass off to do so much good in the world just to hit a Paul Krendler and see that go down the tubes. Are you running back to the FBI again?

But even so, why would she like Lecter in the first place? As you mentioned, a lot of people think he brainwashes her into tossing her life away.

Over and over again, Hannibal Lecter (you know, the convicted serial killer and cannibal) is the ONLY PERSON in the series that treats her with the respect she’s owed (besides Brigham, who dies). Chilton tosses her literally into the lion’s den without any preparation because he’s angry a woman spurned his romantic advances. Krendler sabotages the remains of her career because she won’t sleep with him. Nobody at the FBI is willing to believe her testimony over those of the men conspiring against her.

Lecter doesn’t lie to Clarice. Sure, he plays his games in Silence, but does he lie? No. And in Hannibal, he leaves her gun for her. She has the keys to her Mustang. He makes it clear she’s free to go at any time, and, based on all of his behavior with her up to that point, I honestly believe he WOULD let her go without following. He respects her too much. He’s been like this the entire series to her, and that’s why I believe she had a romantic interest in him even before we get to the end of the third novel.

As for the brainwashing bit, two things:

First, Harris’ line about the crossbow is: “Or somewhere Starling may hear a crossbow string and come to some unwilled awakening, if indeed she even sleeps.”

I would agree that Harris is being rather ambiguous here. However, I point out “unwilled,” which suggests that Clarice wouldn’t want to go back to the old way of thinking even if that was the case. But that matters little to me because of the final bit. Is she even asleep? That leads me to my second point.

Do people REALLY think that Clarice Bad Ass Starling, the only one who can make Hannibal Lecter scared, the woman with enough balls to singlehandedly take down Mason Verger’s operation, the woman who sees in Lecter’s psyche something that Chilton tried to see for YEARS and failed to do, would be brainwashed into handing her life away? For money and dick? I think not.

At the end of Hannibal, what does she have to return to? A failed career at the FBI, a place that will never respect her? Sure, she could get another job and live a life being labeled as Frankenstein’s bride, given a run in the tabloids whenever there’s a slow news week. Even if she brought them Hannibal Lecter alive, that wouldn’t be enough. We saw that with her takedown of Jame Gumb and with how she did the best she could at the fish market. Her good deeds are used against her as leverage over and over. There was nothing she could return to. Instead, she chose to be with someone who respected her and understood her on a level no one else could — and vice versa.

So in summation, who doesn’t want to get dick 24/7 on some terrace in Buenos Aires, I mean really?