#my innate gender. that’s just how it is and the two things inform one another. heteronormativity is still so alive and now everyone can put

[clawsextended]

in my perfect world everyone makes so many lesbian muses the men then have to deal with the exact same behavior when every single post ever written isn’t about dick.

[stardustedknuckles]

My dad told me when I got back into Pokémon Go, one blue to another, that he wished he'd picked the yellow team. That if he could do it again, he would. All of the gyms in our town are blue and stay blue, the same people putting their Pokémon in before anyone else can get any coins, and of course you can't battle your own team.

Three days later, I bought the medal that allows you to swap teams and I sent him a screenshot of our two gyms lit up yellow. "this is my town now," I joked. "thanks for the reminder you can swap."

And he was aghast. He jokingly called me a traitor, said he had no idea I could or would've done that or he would've said he was staying blue. He couldn't give a good reason why, finally said his girlfriend and her kid were blue and they've been playing less than a year so he needs to stay with them for now.

(Which, if you're wondering, says exactly what it sounds like, but it's fine. I quit needing a dad not long after he stopped being one.)

But recently I've learned that the majority of my body's issues that have plagued me and hindered me for upwards of fifteen years, the issues that have been myriad but subtle enough to make me think for so long that I was making them up, can all be attributed to estrogen with a great deal of certainty. I am taking progesterone to mitigate those effects and it's working beautifully for the most part. It makes my good days better and my worst days... Shorter, at least. And I'm thinking about how even if I wasn't nonbinary, I've been handed a solution to a problem that involves me taking the very simple step away from something that stopped serving me a long time ago. I didn't mind being a girl when I was younger. I don't mind thinking of my younger self as such. She's part of me. I love her. But she was never defined by these hormones that are hurting us either.

And I'm thinking about the people who spend their days creating posts railing against shows they insist they love, who won't go find something else to watch that makes them happy because they don't know how to be anything but upset to demonstrate they care about something. I think of radfems and the way they pack together in herds not out of a love for womanhood but out of a defense of its very existence as an immutable force. It requires an awful lot of enforcing for something so innate. I think of how rampant low-grade inflammation is a known silent killer, of how many women could take testosterone for their estrogen problems and never ever will because the concept of womanhood, this thing they swear they love even as they define themselves by suffering from it, is easier than being happy and then I think of the trans people in my life who have defined femininity as joy itself. I never loved being a girl, but I can't get enough of the way the femininity that never fit me looks on them. They twirl the dresses I was forced into and smile the way I did with my first binder, and I remember that I love women in a way thinking I was one one never allowed.

I think of my dad telling me once that he kissed his best friend as a teenager just to see if he was good at it - to prepare for girls, you see - that all boys did that and it was normal and straight to do. I think of the way he looked at the yellow gyms on his phone for a long second before he shrugged me off the sidewalk, grinning, and turned them blue again.

I think today as I've thought for my whole nonbinary life about hormones, about trading one wrong gender for another that's wrong in a different direction, only this time I don't think too much longer than that. I text my dad a photo of the gyms all yellow again and say "be here when you're ready to join me," and then I pick the phone up and call my nearest informed consent clinic - the first step, away and towards.

[halsinsbiggernaturals]

Oops - SHOH fanfic

So, I am completely obsessed with @shepherds-of-haven and I read an ask a while ago about how in Lena's original story, Halek was the one who told Blade that his SO was pregnant. And I asked Lena what Trouble's reaction would be, and ended up deciding to write a short little drabble based around it! Except I added Mimir to be a little obvious, since I was afraid Trouble might not have gotten the implication otherwise...

Staring my OC Aerys--a battle mage who loves her idiot cowboy sniper--and set several years after the events of SHOH

It's a warm, lazy summer day, the heat sitting heavily in the air. Most Shepherds who don't have to be working have retired to enjoy some leisure time, and Trouble is no exception. He's elected to take a few minutes to himself under a tree in the yard--or more accurately, to himself and Halek, as he lounges next to the dozing man, charch in hand.

It's peaceful like this, smoke from the charch winding its way into the air, as lazy as the drowsing Hunter next to him. They often spend time together--if you can call it that--like this, neither speaking to the other. It works well for them, and is why Trouble is surprised that Halek is the one who breaks the languid silence.

"Do you know if it's a boy or girl, yet?"

Trouble looks over, confusion etched on his face.

"What?"

"The baby. Do you know if it's a boy or girl, yet?"

"What baby?"

Halek opens one eye, turns to inspect Trouble's baffled expression, then quickly shuts it again.

"Never mind."

"Halek, what b--"

"It's a boy."

This proclamation was brought by the last person Trouble would have expected to wander over to their chat--Mimir, the odd Diviner that Trouble could rarely understand. Still, Aerys seemed to get along well enough with her, which meant that Trouble tried his best, as well.

Tried being the operative word, at the moment.

"What boy? What are you two talking about?"

"Nothing." Halek replies quickly.

"Your boy." Mirmir replies, almost as quickly, earning a wrathful look from Halek, which she ignores with the same serenity that she made the proclamation. "Do you not know about that yet?"

At the look on the Norm sniper's face, she smiles.

"Oh, you didn't."

~~

Aerys, oblivious (for now) to any chaos happening outside of the lounge, is busy attempting to beat Chase at an arm wrestling match. It's a difficult task, not just because of the innate strength of the thief, but because Chase is always keen to employ underhanded tricks to ensure a win.

Next to them sits Blade, watching the two calmly, and waiting to challenge whoever wins. The Commander of the Shepherds observing the fight doesn't reduce any risk of dirty fighting, though--Blade would simply tell her that she should have caught it and mitigated the trick.

So Aerys is focused on the match, enough so that she doesn't even look up when Trouble barges into the lounge, breathing as heavily as if he'd run a marathon before showing up.

He's quick to catch her attention, however.

"YOU'RE PREGNANT?"

Now, Aerys generally believes herself to be an intelligent woman.

The look that she gives Trouble (slack jawed and eyes wide) is anything but.

"I'm wha--Ow!" Chase, much quicker to gather himself than Aerys, is quick to take advantage of her break in concentration, cheerfully slamming her fist into the table. The battlemage opens her mouth to protest, but by this time, Trouble has crossed the lounge and grabbed Aerys by the shoulders.

"Why didn't you tell me? Why in Hael did you tell Halek first?"

"I'm--I'm what--?" The pink-haired mage rises to her feet, desperately trying to piece together the ridiculous situation that has fallen at her feet. "Wait. Halek told you that I was pregnant?"

"Yeah! So--Why did you tell him first?"

"I--I haven't told Halek kak! Especially about--what do you mean, I'm pregnant?"

Trouble may not ever be accused of being a particularly bright man, but if he knew anything, he knew his wife. And after staring at her face, as bewildered as his own, it suddenly dawns on him.

"You didn't know?"

"It is said," Blade informs them, face stolid as he shoos the two of them a few feet away, that he may sit where she'd been, holding out his hand to Chase. "Hunters can tell these kinds of things. They can hear the heartbeats of those around them." He pauses meaningfully for a moment. "Even the smallest of hearts."

"Supposedly, they can also tell if you're lying or not." Chase supplies, a smug look on his face. "Terrifying, huh? Good thing Halek's too lazy for that." He hums for a moment. "Usually."

"Wait, so--" Aerys' hand goes to her forehead, desperately trying to keep up with the conversation. "--So Halek can hear if someone is pregnant, and he told you that I was..." Something clicks in her head, and Trouble flinches from the look in his wife’s eye. "And you thought I already knew? That I was hiding it from you? You think I'm gonna go around telling everyone else first?"

"Ow! Stop smacking me! I didn't--I thought you'd have known--"

"You think women just know these things!?"

"How was I supposed to know!?"

"And then you just busted in here and told me like this! I'm gonna kill you--"

"You can't kill me! Who'll be the baby's father?"

Aerys stops swatting at Trouble at this, and takes some time to contemplate the question, before pronouncing: "Blade."

"It would be my honor," Blade solemnly replies, face as serious as the grave, even as he pushes Chase's hand into the table.

"What? Hael no! No son of mine is gonna be named Dagger, or--Polearm, or something dumb--"

"--Dagger was the name of my--"

"--Your son!?--"

"--Cousin, actually--"

"--Oh yeah, Mimir said--"

"--MIMIR TOLD YOU THE GENDER--!?"

"Hey," Chase's voice rings out over the arguing couple (and Blade), silencing them as they turn to look at him. "Congratulations on the baby, you two." His face beams, even as he rubs his wrist, where Blade had just handily beat him. "I'm happy for you both."

"Thank you--" Aerys' reply is automatic, until her brain catches up with her ingrained manners, and she pauses, the entire conversation/argument finally catching up with her. If the look on Trouble's face was any indication, he was going through a similar revelation.

Chase and Blade calmly watch the couple as they start crying, hugging, and proclaiming their adoration for each other, a content smile on both the mens faces, before they turn to one another.

"That's sweet. Anyway, best out of three?"

"You're on."

[kob131]

True Name: Uther Pendragon Class: Saber Gender: Male Alignment: Lawful Good (believes he is Lawful Neutral) Parameter: Strength: B Endurance: A Agility: C Mana: E Luck: C NP: B+

History: Uther was born as the youngest of three brothers, himself, the Black Dragon Vortigern and the Paranoid Prince Ambrousis. After their father Constantine was died, the eldest son Ambrousis took the throne at the young age of 14. Due to an innate paranoia, the treachery of royal politics and persistent rumors of his father having been poisoned, Ambrousis sought to weed out all potential traitors and dangers to himself In his madness, he killed civilians for speaking unfavorably and nobles for dealing with other nations.

Unable to tolerate his eldest brother’s actions, Uther, alongside the middle child Vortigern, staged a rebellion against Ambrousis, uniting several lords and knights across Britan to wage war against his enthroned and madden kin. Through numerous bloody battles, he forced Ambrousis to met his demise by his own hand, with no small amount of grief and sadness. Soon after, the lords of the land agreed to name him King, something that would come to frustrate his last living brother.

Throughout his reign, he came into conflict with his neighbors/arch enemies the Saxxons. The two kingdoms went to war with each other many, many times, almost always with Uther just barely managing to edge a victory. During these many wars, he was always noted to be seen wandering near lakeside, gazing wistfully out upon the water. One night, on the last of his many walks to the lakes of the land, returned with two twin newborns in hand, girls who he would name Morgan and Morgause and claim as his children. No one is quite certain who the mother of these two was...

Later in life, as the strain of his life came to haunt him, he began to seek an heir to which take his throne upon his increasingly likely death. However, due to lacking a wife and having only daughters who could not be accepted by his kingdom, he looked to his old and trusted friend Merlin. Together, they hatched a plan for Uther to impregnate the lovely Lady Igraine with the king impersonating her lover through Merlin’s magic. Alas, though the child was blessed with the blood of a dragon, it was also yet another daughter, named Arturia. Distraught and despondent, Uther gave up his quest for a successor and left the child in Merlin’s care.

This turn of events alongside the death of his legitimate child Morgause left Uther in the worst of health. His body deteriorated day after day, for years on end until one day, seven years after those events, he died due to a combination of sickness and poison by his lifelong enemies....*

Personality: Quite unlike his successor, Uther is open and friendly man who ruled through trust and familiarity, while not being the best at administration. He warms the hearts of both his retainers and his people with his honesty and openness. Alas, this warmth also lends itself to a certain...fiery temperament in battle.

A man tried to uphold honor and dignity during his life, helping define the code of honor that many among the succeeding generation would uphold as their standard. That said, he could not always uphold it as the conception of his youngest child will tell you. 

Below his surface though, he holds a great many regrets. He laments his killing of his brother, his inability to stop the tyranny of his other sibling, his failure to properly raise the children under his care, his shame at the manipulation of Igraine born from a moment’s weakness and lust and his perceived abandonment of his youngest child. Because of this, he feels rather uncomfortable around most British servants, especially those from his era as it reminds him of his failures. Though, he still trusts and respects Merlin (even holding the distinction of being one of the few people able to catch the flower magus off guard).

He also regrets not having tried to defy the laws of inheritness during his time, as he sees this inaction having caused the many conflicts and pain of his successors.

Noble Phantasm:

Flame Sword of the Dragon King: Caliburn Classification: Anti-Personnel Rank: B+

Born from the legends that he himself wielded Caliburn before lodging it in it’s infamous stone as well as the misconception that he himself had dragon blood- Uther wields an altered version of Caliburn of similar quality to it’s true self. In battle, he can ignite the sword with dragonfire and enhance it’s power before releasing it in an inferno the swallows the opponent. The Noble Phantasm itself is not the sword but rather the technique and skill that Uther uses when swinging the ignited sword.

Relationships:

Merlin

Still views him as a trusted advisor and friend. Wishes he would not inform him of his daughters’ sex life. Holds the distinction of being one of the few people to catch Merlin off guard.

“Ah, Merlin. My old friend! You are truly a sight for these sore eyes... Would I like to hear about my child? ... I know you better than to answer yes.”

Arturia Pendragon

A father in name only, he believes. He feels nothing but shame and remorse upon seeing her, believing he does not deserve to be considered among her family. This despite Arturia’s admiration of his own rule.

“... Of course, she is here. The noble King of Knights who did what I could not... No Master, I do not wish to speak with her. I had that chance long ago...”

Arthur Pendragon

Is VERY confused why he has a look alike calling him ‘Father.’ While accepting of the man, Uther can’t help but feel bitter about how things seemed to have worked out for his other self.

“Master? Why is that lad giving me such a strange look? ... Arthur Pendragon? My son from another world? ... *sigh* Of course I find an heir I could truly pass on to NOW of all times...”

Lancelot

Is quite confused (then amused) that his daughter’s greatest knight is a Frenchman. Uther shares a kinship with him as a fellow knight ashamed of his past. Helps that Lancelot is the first Servant he meets upon arriving at Chaldea.

“Ah sir Lancelot! I was wondering if you and I could partake in a friendly spar sometime soon! Yes yes, I shall try to keep from getting too excited like last time.”

The Orkney Siblings (Gawain, Agravain, Gareth, Garehis)

Uther feels deeply conflicted with the siblings, knowing that they are the children of his one surviving child and yet his own failings as father caused them harm indirectly. He is, however, forced to put these feelings aside as the knights all deeply admire and adore him, having been raised on stories of his heroics. Especially the eldest Gawain.

(Gawain) “Oh, you are...yes, Gawain. Morgan’s eldest son. I shall take my leave. ... Wait, You want me to stay? You want to know about my battles? Haha, I-I don’t know what to say.”

(Gareth) “Oh, young Gareth. What a surprise, what brings you to me? ... A jousting battle? Young lady, do I appear to be of the Lancer Class in any manner? ... Now it’s a sparring match?!”

Vortigern

The mere sight of his elder brother deeply enrages Uther. The pain of his brother Ambrousis’ death dredged up at the sight of the sibling he believes he should have slain, there is no chance that Uther will ever cooperate with Vortigern.

“VORTIGERN! Damn you to hell, you inhuman tyrant!”

Morgan Le Fay Pendragon

To say the sight of his eldest daughter brings Uther pain would be nothing if not an understatement. Pressured by the constant wars and responsibilities as king, along with no partner to help him in raising a family, he could never truly invest himself into Morgan’s life as he wished to. Because of this, the death of her sister and even his own, Morgan walked a path of sacrifice and failure, transforming her into the brutal witch she is known as. All because, in Uther’s eyes, he could not comfort her.

“Morgan, oh Morgan. You have suffered so much, despite never wishing for the throne yourself. Seeking it out for Morgause and myself... Forgive your fool of a father, for he could not save you from this.”

Mordred

He did not recognize her as his kin at first but greatly enjoyed her company. Upon learning of her full heritage, Uther resolved himself to make up for his failures with her parents and help guide her to a better life.

“Ah, Mordred. Come, come. We have much to talk about. Yes yes, I know you feel as though my talks are long winded and boring. But I ask of you: will you allow this old man to indulge talking to his grandchild? Ha ha, no need to blush, I should be thanking you after all.”

*Sorry to any Arthurian myth fans but holy fuck, not only is Fate’s iteration of the Round Table Myth really hard to faithfully adapt the original myth- The myth ITSELF gets really patchy when not directly concerning Arthur. 

Like, the actual villain of early Uther’s life was VORTIGERN, who was NOT his brother. That doesn’t line up with Fate so I had to make the good guy Ambrousis a bad guy. And THEN it turns out that Uther fucked and married Igraine BEFORE Arthur which again doesn’t match up to Fate. So had to change the mother of Morgan and Morgause to someone else just for this to make sense.

[precuredaily]

Precure Day 201

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 Go Go! 03 - “Syrup the Delivery Boy’s Friend” Date watched: 10 July 2020 Original air date: 17 February 2008 Screenshots Transformation Gallery Project info and master list of posts

MEH!

Last time I said I was pretty sure this episode was packed with more exposition.

I was wrong.

The Plot

Coco is writing a letter to Milk to explain what they’re up to and ask about the status of the Palmier Kingdom. As he finishes, Syrup shows up, and Coco asks him to deliver the letter. Instead, the delivery boy dumps a bag full of letters onto Coco’s desk, explaining they’re from Milk. Nozomi says that since Milk took the time to write them all, Coco should properly respond to them. Individually. Nobody stops to say that maybe he should write one long letter that responds to all her points, because making jokes out of Coco’s misery is more fun. Meanwhile the girls all decide to go to the store for snacks. Because.

this is Rin’s “I give up” face

Meanwhile, Syrup decides to crash on top of the clock tower when his partner Mailpo shows up. Mailpo, for the record, is just an LCD screen with arms and legs, but they are the best mascot in this show. They spit out letters from their face-screen, which Syrup then delivers to their destination. In this instance Mailpo summons another letter from Milk. Syrup is frustrated and decides he’ll just take a nap and deliver it later, because there will probably be more anyway. Mailpo just wants to be a good little toy, so they set off to find the recipient themselves. Mailpo eventually stumbles upon Komachi and presents her with the letter before disappearing into thin air.

Over in Eternal, Anacondy drills Scorp about Precure. He admits that they weren’t especially strong, but they came at him from all directions. Bunbee chimes up that he’s familiar with this strategy, and Anacondy requests that he write up a thorough report.

Back at the plot, Komachi (now accompanied by Nozomi) looks for Mailpo, and they run into Syrup who is also looking for his friend. They coax him into letting them ride on him so they can search from the sky. While this is happening, Mailpo continues wandering aimlessly around the city, when they are accosted by a shadowy figure (Bunbee) who gives them a special letter to deliver. While trying to find their friends, Rin, Urara, and Karen along with Coco and Nuts spot another Palmin and give us a refresher on how to use the CureMo to catch it. It’s an apple. The girls all meet up and find Mailpo, who has a special delivery.... for Nozomi! It’s a letter. They think it’s from Milk until they open it.

you were expecting a letter from Milk but it was ME, BUNBEE!

Then the man himself appears on a nearby rooftop and explains to the girls that he works for Eternal now. He informs the audience how he survived his seemingly fatal fall from Nightmare HQ: he caught a ledge and then remembered he can fly. Then he transforms, as do the girls, and they clash. Bunbee is surprised by how much stronger the Precures are now, so he turns a mailbox into a Hoshiina. It knocks the girls around for a minute, and Bunbee takes the chance to seize Mailpo, believing they have the Rose Pact, but this just pisses off Mint, who chides him for taking advantage and diminishing the friendship between Mailpo and Syrup, so she unleashes her new attack: Precure Emerald Saucer. She summons a ring around her waist, raises it above her head as it fills in, and then hurls it at her opponent. It’s an interesting change from last season, where she was a shield user (though we know she could use them offensively). I imagine there were complaints that it wasn’t exciting enough. Anyway, her attack misses but causes Bunbee to drop Mailpo when he dodges, and then Dream uses Shooting Star to destroy the Hoshiina, and Bunbee flees.

A few days later back at Natts House, Coco and Nuts collapse after finishing writing the last of their response letters to Milk (to say nothing of how many more may have come in in the intervening time). Karen comments that they apparently haven’t slept in 3 days while they wrote them. (side note: please do not do this, it is not worth it) They ask Syrup to deliver them and he refuses because it’s too much work, but Mailpo jumps on the table and starts sucking them up, to everyone’s surprise. Syrup tries to stop Mailpo, screaming about how he refuses to deliver this many letters, and the ending plays.

The Analysis

I must once again point out that the art quality on display here is uh..... not great. To be fair, it’s not awful or anything, my screenshot gallery will make it seem worse than it really is because close-ups tend to be better but they don’t tell the story as well. If I got all close-ups I’d have to take more pictures and I’ve had a bit of a problem doing that. This is the first time in a while I’ve had fewer than 100 screenshots and I kind of want to keep this energy. ANYWAY.

I don’t hate this episode, I want to emphasize that early. But it doesn’t do much for me either. It just... exists. The main point is to establish Mailpo, who had previously appeared with little fanfare in the previous episode, so little that I didn’t bother mentioning them because I knew this episode showcased them more. Also I am referring to Mailpo with the singular “they” because they don’t display characteristics of any gender. Mailpo is Mailpo.

So, Mailpo, moreso than most fairies, seems to be meant as a toy first and foremost. As I said they’re just an LCD screen in a cute casing with penguin limbs. (surprisingly though, I wasn’t able to actually find a toy of it) Nevertheless, they have an innate charm to them. They’re kind of like a Pokémon, all they do is say their name... or the first syllable anyway: MEH! They’re very endearing, they waddle around and just do their best. They suck up and spit out mail like nobody’s business. You can’t not like Mailpo. 10/10 best fairy in this show. We stan a legend.

Speaking of toys, there’s a slightly higher than usual emphasis placed on them in this episode. I mentioned that we got a repeat on how to catch Palmins with the CureMo, but there’s also the curious case of some kind of interaction between the CureMo and Syrup. When the girls are getting ready to board him, Syrup has Komachi touch her CureMo to his wing, similar to scanning a pass at a train or bus terminal, and his wing turns into a set of stairs.

I have to assume this is some kind of feature on the toy, but it’s hard to find information on 12 year-old Japanese toys.

The most notable theme on display is responsibility. It’s not pounded over your head or anything, just shown in a few places. If Syrup had taken responsibility and delivered the letter, Mailpo wouldn’t have gotten lost. Coco and Nuts dodge their responsibility to write response letters to Milk, and at the end they’re exhausted from trying to catch up. Ironically the most responsible character present is Bunbee, who faithfully pulls off his duty to study the Precures and actually comes up with a decent plan to lure them out. I don’t know if it was meant to even be a theme of this episode at all, but that’s what I picked up on.

Some passing thoughts: Mint’s new attack is badass, I wish she’d gotten to use it to actually finish off the Hoshiina rather than just attacking Bunbee but oh well, she’ll get her chance to shine. The comedy on display is good, and there’s a fun callback to the previous season when Rin jokes about Karen’s grape juice and Karen responds by threatening not to buy Rin’s orange juice. I could watch a whole episode of the two of them just playfully annoying each other.

And once again I have to point out the logical shortcomings on display: when they receive a mountain of letters from Milk, they decide to respond to each one individually instead of doing the sensible thing of reading them all, assessing common themes and points, and responding with a single letter that covers all the bases. Japanese culture idolizes working yourself to exhaustion and taking very few breaks, it’s a serious cultural problem and it manifests in their art as well because it’s just so commonplace. I do have to once again say: please do not sacrifice sleep for your dreams or goals, or even your obligations. It’s bad for you.

The main objective of this episode is just to develop Mailpo and Syrup’s relationship, since they’re the new characters, and it works well enough. I already said it makes Mailpo very endearing and Syrup warms up a bit as well. He’s still stand-offish but not as much as in the previous episode. Mailpo brings out the best in him, and when Mailpo goes missing, Syrup feels guilty and wants to find his friend again. However, a second, more subtle goal of this episode is to remind the audience that Milk is still out there, in active communication with the team. It would be easy to write her off as being away in the Palmier Kingdom, but they make it a point to physically show her, if only for a minute, ensuring the audience remembers she exists and is relevant. For..... reasons.

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 0 Kettei!

[arcticdementor]

A reader writes:

I’m writing to you today because I have some information to share with you (and your readers) who may still be skeptical that this LGBTQIA+ gender-identity craze is coming for their kids.  Some recent interactions online have made me more aware than ever that the movement is spreading in wild and unpredictable ways, and also made me reflect on how, in my own life, even someone like me could have fallen victim to it.

I want to start off by saying that recently, (and ironically, in an attempt to try not to be sucked into the internet as purely a source for doom and gloom: you will see how this backfires on me) I decided to rejoin a fan community surrounding one of my favorite franchises on Twitter. I won’t go into too much detail about which community and the exact specifics, but just know that it’s a popular franchise that’s appropriate for older kids, teens and adults (nothing 18+, nothing for really little ones).  As a teen myself I was fairly active in a similar branch of this community on another social media platform (Facebook), and enjoyed it immensely before the platform eventually went more or less defunct as a hot-spot for fan content. Most of the content was fan-created work (like fan-art or fan-fiction) with a little interaction and lots of “DID YOU SEE THE LATEST” kinds of posts.

…

Anyway, to keep it to a minimum, that was then. If you’ve been on the internet any time in the last five years you know that spaces where people just talk about an interest and don’t mix it with politics and activism are becoming few and far between. Even though I knew this, and knew that I wasn’t going to have the same experience in a different place, something sparked an interest in me to go try to reconnect with my internet roots in a different setting.  So, I followed some hashtags, quickly found some new followers and settled back to enjoy at least marginally some discussions online that didn’t have to do with Covid and All The Ways We Are All Going To Die.

Then came the teenagers.

Much like when I was a kid, this franchise attracts a lot of younger people.  So it was hardly surprising to me to find that many of my new followers were in the 14-18 age range and that people like myself (mid-older 20s) were a sort of senior majority. That was fine- Twitter’s rules after all are 13+, so it’s not unreasonable to assume if you’re part of a popular group that you’ll interact on occasion with minors. That wasn’t the part I found strange. The part I found strange was that all of them, and I repeat, all of them were fans of two things- the franchise, and gender identities.

You can actually almost pinpoint the age range of the 18 and under crowd by how many of them have the following: 1. Pronouns in bio and in username.  2. Gender identity or lack thereof displayed in bio or username. 3. LGBTQ+ sexual orientation displayed in bio or username. etc. etc. etc. I’m not going to dive into it too much, because some might be saying “isn’t that just normal nowadays? Even politicians do that?” Well, you’re not wrong if that’s what you’re thinking. And that’s not the part that disturbs me.

What disturbed me was that, a few weeks after I joined the group, I started noticing an unsettling pattern among many of these teenage users (and many over-teen users, but I’m trying to make a point about the young ones specifically). For a few days, after an interesting bit of news or a trailer or some other thing that unites franchises, the posts in my feed would be primarily things like what I remembered from past experiences: posts about the franchises, theories, speculations, fanart, etc.  But, every time things would settle back down into a quiet, normal week, the feeds in my post became almost entirely about one thing: Gender and LGBTQ talking points.  I’m going to diverge for one second and say that many people in this group aren’t using a personal, front-facing account for their interactions in this fan-group. They’re mostly using alt-accounts with no real names and faces attached (myself included).  And yet, every time the discussion in the feeds died down to where there was just no new stuff about the franchise to talk about, all the conversation slowly but surely shifted back to sexual orientation and gender.  From fan-ships of perfect LGB couples to ‘hey I drew this person but as a trans-female!’ to even forgoing pretending to talk about their interests and just discussing their own gender and sex presentation with their other online friends, it became quickly very clear to me that A. I no longer really belonged here and B. Every single one of these kids was obsessed. Every. Single. One.

…

I’m going to digress and talk about myself for a minute to explain just why these examples, particularly that last one, burn a hole in my soul.  From the minute I was old enough to remember, I’ve never been one of those typically presenting females. When my sisters and I played dress-up as kids, they played princesses and I played a prince or a witch or whatever was more interesting. In addition to the dolls and barbies I had being one of three girls, I also had an assortment of boy-oriented toys, including action figures, a remote control car and this really cool nerf bow-and-arrow set that I still secretly wish had survived my playing with it because man, my kids are gonna miss out someday. My hair was short because I hated wearing it up and the solution was a bob, and when we spent time with relatives I could be found as far away from my female cousins as possible, hanging out with my male cousins and talking about Legos and Lord of The Rings. I spent 90% of my time reading books and ignoring reality, and didn’t put much effort into my appearance until probably age 13 or later.

And I wished I was a boy.

It wasn’t an all-consuming thought, but I thought it. I wished, many times, when my parents would fuss at me to please stop attempting to climb trees in your Sunday clothes and when my sisters never talked about anything but dolls and tea-parties around their friends that I could be one of the boys. I had always liked the boys and their world better, and I fit into better, and yet there was that little problem (that I was still a girl) that kept me from being accepted into the boy group.  The reality was, I was already probably very intelligent for my age (too-well read children can relate) and I took that big-headedness a little too far at times. I was also a very emotional person (still am) and just passionately felt that being a girl and being expected to do girl things was hideous and unfair.

The saving grace? My mom was the same. She’s never been a typical female either, and though as adults we have some clear differences (ironically, I have more stereotypical female interests/talents than her- like a hidden passion for interior decorating and a love of baking and so on) she was there for me, to be able to tell me that no- I didn’t really want to be a boy, I was just a girl who liked sword fights and grass-stains more than ballgowns and tea parties, and that was okay!!! She was proof that there were other girls like me, and that I would find more of them eventually (I did) and, even though we never said so in so many words, that stereotypes and how we fit into them has nothing to do with our innate female and male selves. And so, reassured that I could be female and still be however I wanted, I eventually grew out of those thoughts, and as I matured, found that there were ‘female things’ I connected with that my past self was too young to appreciate.

But, think about all this in a modern context. I’m a happy adult female now, and I was never truly gender-questioning. I just thought, for a while, that boys had more fun than I did, so I wanted to be one.  But that, in it of itself, is a thought that’s deep enough for modern gender activists to insist I be transitioned immediately and put on life-altering hormones, never given a chance to grow up or grow out of questioning, and affirmed in my presentation instantly! If I, like that young girl online, had been handed a ‘gender-affirming’ flag and an identity that ‘made sense’ out of why I was different from my peers, I might have jumped on it, especially without the presence of a wise older person to tell me I wasn’t anything different than what she’d been as a child. This is the problem, this is why this kind of thing is so dangerous and toxic and wrong.

[princesssarcastia]

a veronica mars leverage au, i guess, because what else should i be doing with my life?

*deep sigh*

So I was thinking about the mechanics of a veronica mars leverage au—as in, veronica mars characters in a leverage like set-up, because the leverage setup is the golden standard™ of like, the known universe.

you have veronica mars, mastermind; the rest of the crew being made up of wallace, mac, logan, and weevil.  and mac is obviously the hacker.

but I also think that, in this au, the roles won’t be so clear cut.  the problem is that in veronica mars, all of these characters (except mac, who is an archetype) display different skills from each of the five defined roles in the leverage universe: hitter, hacker, grifter, thief, mastermind. 

veronica is a mastermind, sure, but she also makes killer fake IDs and breaks into systems like hardison does and is a hell of a grifter.

weevil can throw down, and lift things like a thief, and even pull one over on someone in a grifter-like fashion. and as head of the PCHers he has some definitive mastermind tendencies; he knows how to plan a fight, and a con.

wallace is more of a solid dude than a member of the criminal element, but when veronica needs him, he’s played roles like a grifter and pulled off lifts like a thief.

logan has a talent for violence, but also can lie like he breathes and put on shows to convince the best of them.

really i guess they all just have a little grifter in them.

if I had to had to had to give them all definitive leverage archetypes, though, it would be veronica: mastermind, logan: hitter, Weevil: thief, wallace: grifter, and of course, mac: hacker.

veronica is the mastermind because she knows all of them best, knows what they can do; because she’s capable of putting all the moving pieces together into one perfect plan; but also because she’s a control freak with maaaajior trust issues.  there’s no way she could ever let anyone else be in charge.

logan is the hitter because he’s just got that underlying current of violence about him at all times, but also because my absolute favortie scenes of his are when he’s being protective of veronica.  not that end of season three bullshit, mind you, but like the scene in season one when he rescues her from the federal agent, or the scene in season two when he bluffs his way into and out of the irish mob’s territory with an unloaded gun to save veronica.  make him the hitter and we get breathtaking violence from him, sure.  but we also get to see logan at his best: giving a damn about the well-being of others. 

weevil is the thief because this guy is smooth.  he pulled the heist at the carnival brilliantly in s2; and he stole that pen from the Kane household in s1 successfully even though the police arrested him and catalogued everything on his person, including the pen. it’s a bit of a square peg in a round hole, but I feel like he;d have comfortable knowledge of security systems and guard rotations and police jurisdictions.

wallace is the grifter because i’ve noticed that a lot of the times he asks veronica for advice on how to do stuff, its grift-related.  “how do I seduce the fake head cheerleader?” for example.  and he pulls some short term grifts for her, like when he infiltrates the silicon mafia at SD State.  also he’s got the best innate knowledge of who people are and what they’re like.  yeah, veronica can pull people apart, but Wallace is just good with them in a way she isn’t.  and also he’s got the most emotional maturity out of any of these basket cases.

mac is the hacker because she’s god’s gift to computers, duh.

what I really want, though; what any good leverage AU is an excuse to do, is to make a found family out of these losers.  imagine if these five people all...trusted and loved each other, in addition to liking one another??  i’m drooling just thinking about it.

I also think that, ironically enough, being righteous criminals in constant close contact would work wonders for veronica and logan’s relationship, lbr.  if veronica is mastermind-ing their cons, she doesn’t have to wonder what logan—or any of her other friends, for that matter—are doing, and go a little crazy to find out.  it’s an outlet for her control-freak-trust-issues.

aaaand if logan is their hitter/muscle, it’s literally his job to protect everyone, including veronica.  violently, if necessary. 

plus, they can both work out their paranoia on things that aren’t each other—cause it’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you.

the best episodes always involved Veronica pulling her friends into cons with her; VM the show is already only a hop-skip-and-a-jump away from leverage, anyway!  solving mysteries, sure, but also getting revenge, retrieving items, getting even...providing leverage.

like, seriously.

Veronica and Wallace effortlessly pulling a grift out of their asses when they’re caught in a sticky situation, using that emotional drift comparability in their brOTP.

Mac, getting the respect and cash she deserves for finding information and recovering hard drives and also, giving her righteous side some room to move.

Logan and Weevil sniping at each other, maybe having not-so-faux fights as distractions or part of a con— but having each other’s backs.  playing partners in macho stoicism even though we all know they’re softies sometimes.

Wallace and Mac, standing to the side as exasperated captains of the maturity and stability team while Logan and Veronica share a dumpster fire.

Veronica and Weevil doing that thing, you know, where they’re kind of flirting and kind of pulling one over on their audience and pulling each other out of messes.

Wallace, prince among men, getting to play the handsome and charming credit to his gender he is.  imagine, if you will, him pulling honey-trap cons on marks like sophie deveraux did.  i am and it’s delightful.

the worst part about canon!VM is how much they all (veronica.  largely veronica) tore one another down; betrayed people; didn’t trust them; hurt them; expected the worst and got it in self-fulfilling bullshit.  imagine if all of that went away and then write it for me pleeeaaaseee

i’ve been brainstorming and like, there’s two paths you could go.  one is a complete graft to the leverage fusion, in which they never actually went to high school together but instead are professional criminals who all grew into their own on their own and came together.  in this path, we’d come in on our anti-heroes already in the thick of it—or at least, having deep histories together that allow them to trust one another right away.

the other is like, veronica falls to the “dark side” in high school and drags them all with her, handing out black hats as she goes. perhaps in a world where Aaron Echolls gets acquitted and Duncan Kane does not have an assassin at the ready to avenge his sister outside the law, where Veronica literally can’t sleep at the thought of him out there.  a world where Logan and Weevil have that same insomnia, and Mac and Wallace care about Veronica enough to help. 

and maybe it starts out as just a way to get new evidence so a judge can declare a retrial and get Aaron convicted; but ohhh, Aaron Echolls is not a man who can leave well enough alone.  He’s a rich, powerful, attention seeking mother fucker who likes to taunt logan and veronica about what he did to lily.  so even though it’s not Duncan paying for him to get assassinated, the end result is the same: Aaron dead as a doornail, like he deserves.

Maybe it’s a fake suicide, like Veronica planned out for her criminology course, the literal perfect crime.  Maybe he gets murdered and dumped on Lamb’s doorstep with an audio recording of him confessing—edited by Mac, of course, to make sure Veronica and Logan’s parts in the charade weren’t included.

also i’d like to think that, in this world where they wear black hats to better play white knights, Veronica and Logan have just...the best-worst reputation.  Yeah, they melt around each other, but ho-ly shit they’re still lethal—especially if you put one in danger.   Maybe Logan’s got a reputation as an attack dog, and maybe Veronica’s got a reputation as holding his leash, and maybe they’ve proven they’re willing to do anything to keep each other safe.  Maybe, they made a deal, a long time ago when they started out: Veronica gets to get into anything she wants, whatever crusade is currently pushing her buttons, as long as she brings Logan along to protect her. 

their story is epic, after all.

anyway! In Conclusion, tl;dr, someone please stop me from having veronica mars feelings, and if leverage could please stop being the best found family ever, that would probably help.

[rioterrl]

Chapter 1 - Labor Friends

                                      “What does a mirror look at?”                                                   -Frank Herbert

        I see him at work every day. That part is hard. Sometimes, it is exciting...the part about it being hard-and I don't mean that in a double entendre way. I don't know any male dinosaurs who are intimately involved with other male dinosaurs. I've seen it on television occasionally, but it often seems to be used as a source for comedy. I laugh along with the studio audience when the masculinity obsessed head of the household side eyes a male character with a lisp on his tongue and flamboyance about his behavior. "Peculiar" comes up in One Flew Over the Pterodactyl's Nest. Queer is another of these words, and certainly more common nowadays. It's considered...     strange...         odd...             suspicious...                 abnormal...                     or even...                     ...ridiculous behavior... to be a man who is attracted to...other men.

        The main point driving this concept seems to be the fact that women like men and therefor a man liking a man is basically a man behaving like a woman. It's funny stuff. I don't know why I laugh at it. I don't understand the humor on any level beyond shock. But once the shock wears off, it just seems like it's nobody's god damn business who consents to intimacy with who. And for that matter, who cares which scaly sack of bones and meat behaves as a woman and which scaly sack of bones and meat behaves as a man? It's not an attack on masculinity, I can tell you that much. My masculinity is an undeniable part of who I am, and my masculinity informs me that anyone who would bother another free citizen of Pangea about what they do with their free time as an adult who is harming no one is a small dinosaur. A coward. 

        I see him at work everyday. 

        I also see him after work more often than not, as he has been my best friend for more than half of my life. I used to look at him as long as I could without being noticed by him or anyone else. It felt as though it was important for my own inner monologue that I hold his face in frame while I wonder if he ever thinks about me in the way that I try not to think about him. It's genuinely hard to tell. 

        Roy is a Tyrannosaurus Rex. He's strong, confident, funny, kind, thoughtful, but...he's not very bright. I feel like if Roy has never had a thought about another man, it was simply because the idea had not entered in head through outside suggestion. I think most dinosaurs like member of the opposite sex almost exclusively because that's what they were taught. WE were all taught this simply because it's how to keep propagating all of the dinosaur species, or whatever it's called. We're at a point in our society now where it's becoming clear that we are not going extinct anytime soon. Plus, the majority of men I know commonly engage in sex with their wives that involves contraceptives and pulling out. This doesn't provide life to a baby any more than two men having sex does.        

        I decided that today will be the day that I attempt to get Roy into a conversation about sex between men just to see what his response is. He invited me over after work to help him set up his new TV set. He got one of those new big screen TVs that could probably literally fit a football game inside them. I'm talking live, field and all.

        Roy checked the TV remote to see if we installed everything correctly, and then upon confirmation that everything was as smooth as fossilized amber, we high fived and struck our cocky "we are men and we can do anything" poses. At leat, that's what I felt like we were doing. Maybe Roy doesn't think about things the way that I do. It's not that I don't naturally feel manly. I assure you, I am drawn to manly behaviors by an innate drive...and impulse. But the fact that I'm also drawn to the manly behaviors of others...I guess I'm not as disconnected from the shame projected by many members of our society as I would like to be. I tend to point out things like gendered behavior. I tend to notice when that behavior fits like a gloves, or when, as in my case, it's a bit more awkward and uncertain.

        I realized that Roy had been flipping channels for a couple of minutes now as I had seen the same channel pass multiple times...and these new boob tubes get about 18 channels. at least I wonder if he was lost in thought too. I was done with the beating around the bush, though. That's not the kind of man I am. "Roy, let me ask you something." I stated, calmly. "You give me no choice," joked Roy, halfway glancing at me for a moment while still flipping through the channels. I often have to choke back the words that I want to say to Roy, now that I've let the tension build so damn much. (please pin me to the ground)  "Uhh...have you ever met a gay dinosaur before?"

        "Yes, this morning in the mirror."

        "Wait, really?!" I blurted out, as my other senses caught up with the fact that Earl offered a small chuckle as he had made the comment. What was the joke? I looked around the room we were in, scanning all of Roy's manners with interest. The mirrors throughout his house seem to behave fairly normal, so he was definitely saying that he was the gay dinosaur he saw in the mirror this morning. Rowdy caterpillars turn into rowdy butterflies in my stomach, as Roy interjects.

        "Doesn't gay mean happy?" (to me, yes) "Oh, haha. I guess it does. Or used to. Interesting how words evolve, huh?"

        "I don't know, Earl. I don't really believe in evolution. Lest you forget about what we learned every summer at bible camp."

        As soon as the words, "bible camp" had left Roy's full lips, I was sucked back 30 years into a full on "this is a movie" flashback. I could see 10-year-old me sitting in a chair, and the chair was a part of a whole circle of chairs, all full of young dinosaurs, some of which I remember still and some of which are composite images constructed by my brain to fill in the gaps in my memory. I can also see Roy sitting next to me. Young Roy and young me were both giggling loudly, along with the other kids. Everyone looked as though they had just came to am abrupt stop and fell into their chairs a split second before I tuned into the memory. Some dorky looking high school aged dinosaur pressed a button on a boombox and a silly song came on, very loudly, and the kids jumped up and started sprinting in circles around the chairs. Ah yes, musical chairs back at bible camp. If I learned anything at bible camp, it was how to prioritize my seat over everyone else's. And also, this:

        The music stopped and I watched as 10-year-old Earl and Roy went for the same chair at the same time and completely knocked it over, falling onto each other. It wears Roy falling onto me even though I was certain the last time I had the memory that I was the one who fell onto him. I guess it's just hard to really remember fully, because at that point nothing else existed except for his eyes which were looking into mine, full of smiles. We kissed and withdrew from each other with immediacy as we remembered who we were and that the whole class would surely be staring at the two guys who just fell in what had to be a hilarious way, but as we looked around we noticed that everyone else had experienced similar falls, and were preoccupied with their own resulting fits of laughter and joy. The room dissolved and I was spit back out in Roy's living room as he was finishing up some kind of comment he wanted to make about intelligent design or whatever. He didn't seem to notice that I had mentally checked out for a minute to remember the first time we kissed.

        I'm sure Roy doesn't think about it.  

        Or at least not like I think about it.

        I think about it all of the time.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[misssunflowersandsangria]

The Arrangement

Chapter 10:  The End 

Hello my pretty deers!  Here we are at the last chapter.  Thank you for sticking through with me.   If you missed any chapters they’re linked below or click the link above and it will take you to AO3. I hope that you enjoy this short and sweet finale. 

Summary: Here we are at The End.

*

**

“Welcome Lord Shikamaru, we are glad that you were able to attend a Council meeting.”  Shikamaru nodded politely, taking his seat between Temari and Kankurou.  Now that he had officially married into the ruling family he was given a seat on the Council as was tradition.  It now made sense why her relationship had been scrutinized.  They wanted to ensure that whoever married into the family fit into the Council’s agenda.  The caveat was that he was only given the seat because he was a male.  Temari’s own mother held no governing position.  

Garra opened the meeting and Shikamaru faded in and out.  He wasn’t quite sure what his role was meant to be.  Ultimately, he was there to support Temari and her brothers with their direction for Suna.  It was interesting to be part of another Village’s ruling government, but he was waiting for one specific event.  

“I have a new piece of business I’d like to present.”  All eyes widened in surprise when Temari made the announcement.

She stood there proudly, her eyes fierce and determined.  The air in the room had shifted.  “I know that traditionally the council has had a say in the relationships for the ruling family, this is a practice unique only to females.  Specifically arranging marriages.  I would like to abolish this practice.  In addition, whoever marries into the ruling family will be given a seat on the Council regardless of gender.” The members of the Council stared at her like she had grown two heads.  Shikamaru and her brothers just looked on proudly.  

“Lord Shikamaru please reason with your wife, this is a necessary practice for Suna-”  Shikamaru’s hand slamming angrily against the table stopped the councilman’s tirade. 

“The Princess was addressing the Council, not me.  If you have something to say you will address her respectfully.”  He was really fucking tired of these people ignoring her for the sheer fact that she was a woman and had reduced her to being just his wife. 

“My apologies, Princess Temari-”

“No, this is not a discussion.  And your reasoning is flawed.  This practice is intended solely to maintain the status quo. To ensure that the only ones invited to this table are people just like you.  I regret to remind you all that outside of the ruling family, your position on the Council is not finite.  You are all relics of the old Kazekage.  When a new Kazekage is installed that person along with their advisers has the right to handpick the Council.  This is information that you all conveniently failed to share with Garra.  Who we will choose will be far more diverse and inclusive than who we have seated here.”  

She took a deep breath, her eyes still blazing.  “I am not asking for permission.  I am simply informing you that things will change and Suna will change with it.  The Sand and its people will only be better for it. The world is growing and evolving.  Your backward practices are chaining us to a troubled past, but no longer.”  The council began to complain and sputter their dissent but Temari was unmoved.  Shikamaru just stared at her awed and amazed.  They were unprepared for his Herricane.  

*

**

Following the meeting, Shikamaru and Temari made their way to watch the desert sunset needing some peace and quiet.  

Temari leaned into her husband feeling a heaviness lifted from her shoulder.  “How do you feel?”

“Empowered, worried but excited for the future.  God help anyone that thinks that they have any control over my child’s heart.”

“You can be really scary.”  He teased her kissing the top of her head.  

“Good, I’d hate for you to forget that.”

She took a deep breath her eyes taking in the buildings as the lights started to flicker on.  She knew that her actions would have some serious consequences but she was unafraid.  She was ready to face the future knowing who she had by her side.  

Temari’s expression was soft and contemplative as the sun began its descent.  “Sometimes I think about what my life could have become if I had never met you.  If you hadn’t been there if you weren’t willing to play along.  Right now, I’d be a shell of who I am, nothing but a pawn to the Council.  I don’t think that I could have lasted very long living like that.” 

The idea was frightening. That she could be reduced to nothing more than some man’s wife in an unwanted marriage. “It’s impossible to remember what life was like without you in it. Even now I can’t imagine it. There’s no me without you Tem.”  She smiled up at him kissing him softly.  It was hard to disagree with. 

“ Perhaps my brothers and I had very little choices, but no longer will that be the only path.  Our children will choose their direction in life. What they want to be, and who they want to love.”  Freedom would be the greatest gift she could give them. 

Shikamaru nodded, placing a protective hand on her stomach.  “I don’t think that this little one should be worried about the Council.  Its mama is a beast.”  She laughed in response placing her hands over his.  This change was something that she’d been wanting to present for a while.  Knowing that she was about to bring a child into the world only solidified her decision.   They’d sacrificed so much for a peaceful world. Now it was time to make it one that they could be proud of.

“That night when I asked you to get involved in this crazy mess, did you think that we’d end up here?”

“If I did, I don’t think that I would have agreed.”  He replied honestly. 

“Hey!”

He chuckled pulling her in closer.  “At the time, I was just helping a friend.  This innate need to keep you safe, to protect you from them.  I could never allow anything to shrink who you are, to reduce you to nothing more than a pretty figurehead.  I thought that as long as I accomplished that then I’d be happy.  I found out early on that it was more than that.  I wanted to keep that role for the rest of our lives.  To keep you safe, to watch over you, even if you didn’t need me to.  I wanted to be the person that you went to whenever the world became too much.”  A warm hand cradled her face, a soft smile crossing his lips.  

“To always be a knight that always protects its queen.”

At times he still questioned what he did to deserve her. She’d not only lead Suna to a brighter future she’d be there to support him as he guided the Nara clan. A weaker person might falter under the pressure and position but not her.  

She reached up to kiss him, her arms wrapping around him.  So much of her life had been defined by tragedies and events out of her control.  Shikamaru though, he was the one thing that she had chosen for herself, that she selfishly held onto.  That decision for her happiness changed her entire life. 

The stars were reflected in her eyes.  Hope, excitement, and joy shining through.  “I think that you’ve gotten it incorrect, my love. For it’s the Queen that protects her King.”

The End  

*

**

The Arrangement:  

Chapter 1:  The Set-Up

Chapter 2:  The Proposition

Chapter 3: The Participants

Chapter 4:  The Declaration

Chapter 5:  The Fear

Chapter 6:  The Performance

Chapter 7:  The Meaning 

Chapter 8:  The Challenge 

Chapter 9:  The Goodbye 

*

**

Temari is a Queen.  Temari would never let anyone manipulate or control her babies.  In my universe, ShikaTema have Shikadai and a daughter so hell no would that ever happen lol 

This is my longest baby.  Writing a multi-chapter was a new challenge but an enjoyable one.  I'll miss it.  Thank you for all your love and support.  Each read, like, reblog, comment, and positive thought is precious to me.  I truly appreciate it all.  Love you my sweet deers! 

*Till the next one!

[cooperfmarchive]

𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒐  𝒊𝒕'𝒔  𝒎𝒆  again  !  lenny  back  at  it  with  another  long  ass  intro  ,  are  we  surprised  ?  below  the  cut  ,  you  can  learn  all  about  my  emo  boy  cooper  !  just  like  with  val’s  ,  give  this  post  a  LIKE  and  i’ll  slide  into  ur  dms  to  plot  !

also  ,  just  an  fyi  :  i'll  probably  be  a  little  bit  on  and  off  for  the  next  day  or  so  ,  but  i'm  always  available  to  reach  via  dms  because  i'm  unhealthily  attached  to  my  phone  !

(  tw  :  mention  of  drugs  ,  addiction  )

𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠  here  and  do  i  have  the  tea  for  you  .  𝑪𝑶𝑶𝑷𝑬𝑹  is  back  on  campus  ,  which  is  surprising  considering  the  threatening  note  i  left  them  .  yes  ,  i  know  all  about  𝑯𝑰𝑺  𝑺𝑯𝑶𝑹𝑻  -  𝑳𝑰𝑽𝑬𝑫  𝑺𝑶𝑩𝑹𝑰𝑬𝑻𝒀  because  of  their  𝑮𝑳𝑼𝑻𝑻𝑶𝑵𝒀  .  imagine  the  tabloids  and  how  the  𝑨𝑽𝑬𝑹𝑵𝑨  family  would  feel  for  such  information  to  come  out  ,  not  to  mention  the  reputation  of  𝑺𝑰𝑮𝑴𝑨  because  of  their  actions  .  at  this  rate  ,  he  is  better  off  staying  put  in  𝑩𝑬𝑳  𝑨𝑰𝑹  ,  𝑪𝑨𝑳𝑰𝑭𝑶𝑹𝑵𝑰𝑨  and  living  off  that  1.2𝑩  family  net  worth  .  what’s  the  point  in  studying  𝑴𝑼𝑺𝑰𝑪 𝑷𝑹𝑶𝑫𝑼𝑪𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵  with  plans  to  𝑻𝑹𝑨𝑽𝑬𝑳  &  𝑷𝑬𝑹𝑭𝑶𝑹𝑴  𝑾𝑶𝑹𝑳𝑫𝑾𝑰𝑫𝑬  ,  is  it  worth  it  with  what  i  know  ?  anyways  ,  they  may  want  to  continue  to  be  𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑹𝑴𝑰𝑵𝑮  &  𝑫𝑬𝑿𝑻𝑬𝑹𝑶𝑼𝑺  because  the  𝑨𝑫𝑫𝑰𝑪𝑻𝑰𝑽𝑬  &  𝑹𝑬𝑻𝑰𝑪𝑬𝑵𝑻  attributes  make  me  want  to  spill  .  (  austin butler  ,  lenny  ,  mst  )  .

*  /  ———  𝑻𝑯𝑬  𝑩𝑨𝑺𝑰𝑪𝑺  :

full  name  :  cooper johnathon averna

nicknames  :  coop , cj

age  /  birthdate  :  twenty3 / june 15th , 1996

gender  :  cis male / he , him

sexuality  :  pansexual

hometown  :  bel air , california

major  :  music production

*  /  ———  𝑻𝑯𝑬  𝑩𝑨𝑪𝑲𝑮𝑹𝑶𝑼𝑵𝑫  :

ok so funny story !!! i started writing this out , and then i kept writing ... and writing ... and writing ... and then my “ intro ” turned into a whole ass “ biography ” for my boy cooper so !! you can find that Novel right here ( the end is still a work in progress tho ) . below will be my attempt at the spark notes version of it all , although i can almost guarantee it will still get out of hand because i , like our lord and saviour jenna marbles , cannot control my too much gene !!!!

so our boy cooper is the older brother to our fav twins , summer and wynter averna ! together , the three of them are the youngest generation of the averna family . powerful , renowned , and manipulative — the avernas are made up of a long line of successful politicians . currently , daddy johnathan averna is the governor of california , and this heavy legacy has weighed upon cooper’s shoulders for the majority of his life .

in short , cooper is best described as the black sheep of the averna family . while his other family members are power - hungry , manipulative , and thick - skinned , cooper could be described as weak - willed , personable , and charming . this was a major disappointment to his father , john , because he’d been hoping for a son that would follow in his footsteps and grow up to make incredible moves in politics , but cooper couldn’t have been further from what a politician should be , and this caused for a severe lack of affection and validation from his parents on cooper’s part .

at school , however , cooper filled these holes with the popularity he gained within the halls of his private school . everyone wanted to be his friend and the affection and compassion that he lacked at home was made up for by his large circle of friends . but unfortunately , things were not as picture - perfect as they seemed , and in his sophomore year of high school , cooper discovered that his girlfriend had been hooking up with his best friend and in an extreme domino effect , cooper learned that the “ friends ” he’d surrounded himself with were just as power - hungry and manipulative as his own family and were using him for the sole purpose of gaining popularity and getting a taste of the prestige cooper’s surname promised . 

but cooper here is far too soft and desperate for affection , and his fear of loneliness far outweighed his desire to have meaningful relationships so he couldn’t bare to actually cut those who’d been using him out of his life . so instead , cooper found himself diving deep into bel air’s party scene , the adrenaline and excitement of it distracting him from the fact that everyone around him didn’t really give two shits about him .

cooper’s partying kind of snowballed from there . long story short , his parents literally never noticed that cooper had even an inkling of a problem , which further distanced him from his family . and as soon as cooper was eighteen , he booked a one - way ticket to europe to do what he does best : run away from his issues and drown them out with alcohol and drugs . 

he really just wanted to escape the weight of his surname and putting as much distance between himself and the spotlight that followed him constantly seemed like his best bet . and for about a year , it really worked for him . he bounced around europe , discovered its beauty and culture , and partied day in and day out , all while forgetting the legacy he’d left behind and finding what he wanted to : music — but we’ll get to that later .

but just short of a year , cooper got caught up in a drunken brawl in amsterdam that left him with a concussion and broken hand . luckily , daddy came to the rescue after a phone call from cooper and john paid off everyone involved in order to keep the story under wraps , but under one condition : cooper return home to bel air and attend university to hopefully clean up his act and get a degree .

cooper started at hollingsworth as a business major , but that didn’t work out as easily as he’d been hoping and he was just barely scraping by at the end of his sophomore year . however , when he was home for the summer , cooper rediscovered his love for music upon finding the belongings of his that had been shoved away by his parents two years prior , and he made the switch to majoring in music production when he returned to hollingsworth for his junior year .

his parents still do not know about his change in major , for cooper knows they wouldn’t believe it’s a viable career path for him to take and he also has an innate fear of disappointing them . he’s got some severe daddy issues , having always desperately craved the validation of his father but always lacking it because his dad only believed in only one possible future for his son : carrying on the averna legacy in politics . cooper realizes that it’s ridiculous , and that he is more than free to do what he wants and brush off his parents’ judgements , but that is a lot easier said than done unfortunately .

to briefly touch on his music : cooper’s voiceclaim is sir sly — edgy , emo , electronic alternative music . he’s incredibly passionate about his music , often spending many late nights in hollingsworth’s recording studios . he taught himself to play guitar while in europe , but upon enrolling in hworth’s music program has learned how to play the drums , keyboard , and properly project his vocals . he’s also gained experience in mixing and producing music , of which he mostly does himself with his own music . currently , he has one released album ( you haunt me ) , but is working on his next one ( don’t you worry , honey ) already .

*  /  ———  𝑻𝑯𝑬  𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑹𝑨𝑪𝑻𝑬𝑹  :

label(s)  :  the muso , the maverick , the enigma , the black sheep

muso ( a person who is musically talented )

maverick ( an unorthodox or independent - minded person )

enigma ( a person or thing that is mysterious, puzzling, or difficult to understand )

black sheep ( regarded as a disgrace to a family )

notable traits  :  charming , reckless , dexterous , addictive , reticent , truculent , intelligent , compassionate , adventurous

aesthetics  :  a sharpened pencil scratching against paper , ringed fingers plucking guitar strings , a piercing gaze , pursed lips , cigarette smoke curling in evening air , soft t - shirts and black jeans , shiny silver and gold jewelry , masculine cologne 

in  a  nutshell  :  basically , cooper’s an enigma at first glance . he has a mysterious aura to him : his gaze is shielded , his voice quiet , and his posture reclusive . he often prefers to keep to himself in unfamiliar situations at first until he gets a feel for the atmosphere , and the way he’s usually hunkered over a journal definitely screams “ leave me alone . ” the walls he built around himself in high school remain strong , because he knows he’s far too soft - hearted for his own good . overly eager to protect everyone he meets and show others the love and compassion he desperately craves for himself , he’s a walking contradiction in the way that he puts distance between himself and others , fearful of letting them too close , lest it be revealed that they’re only using him for his elite legacy and his heart be broken once again , but his need for attention and companionship has made him incredibly skilled at making you feel like there’s little to no distance separating him from you , distracting you from realizing that you actually know very little about him with his infectious smile and exciting presence . everyone’s a friend of cooper’s , at least on the outside . but if you’re lucky enough to actually wiggle through a crack in his walls , you’ll find a heart far larger than expected , a passion for music that he’s eager to share with others , and a protectiveness for his loved ones that is reminiscent of the brother you always wanted .

*  /  ———  𝑻𝑯𝑬  𝑺𝑬𝑪𝑹𝑬𝑻  :

it’s no secret that cooper loves to party — he’s all over hworth’s party scene , often one of the first to call for a round of shots on a night out — but what is a secret is cooper’s addiction to drugs , specifically but not limited to cocaine . 

upon his return to bel air , one of the promises he’d made to his family was that he’d stop using and beat the addiction that had haunted him . the news of cooper’s addiction was the last thing his father wanted to get leaked to the public , fearful for his own reputation as a clean , respected public figure if his own son had fallen prey to drugs . and for a while , cooper was able to bury his addiction and avoid his kryptonite while at parties — but as school became more stressful he found it increasingly difficult to continue to do so , and one night someone offered a line to cooper after a particularly stressful exam and he gave in , and the flood gates opened .

when he was younger and first entering the party scene , cooper had almost openly flaunted his drug use , probably as a cry for help to his seemingly clueless parents , but since relapsing he’s learned how to keep it behind closed doors . only a fair few know of his drug use and cooper will go to any length to keep it that way .

*  /  ———  𝑻𝑯𝑬  𝑴𝑰𝑺𝑪𝑬𝑳𝑳𝑨𝑵𝑬𝑶𝑼𝑺  :

wanted plots .

pinterest .

spotify .

also !!! i feel like i need to address the topic of cooper’s hair , because many of the resources that i will be using of austin have him with blond with long and shaggy hair , but cooper’s hair is actually what austin’s is right now : dark and cut short . but to kinda explain the photos of blond!austin , cooper actually bleached his hair and grew it out whilst travelling in europe as another act of defiance towards his family and to distance himself from his past self . over the past summer , though , he cut it short and dyed it back to his natural brunet , purely an impulse decision TBH , but also probably a weird metaphor for how he initially went blond to distance himself from his legacy , but now that he’s pursuing a career that really distances him from it , he went back to brunet as his own fucked up way of still trying to appease his parents’ fucked up expectations .

[sabrinacaramico]

Queer Theory: A Space of Inclusion

In her revolutionary work “Epistemology of the closet”, Eve Sedgwick takes a deconstructionist approach to the study of queer theory, emerging most prominently in the 1980s and 1990’s, suggesting that gender and sexuality today are both constructed and enforced by culture and dominant ideologies. “Introduction: Axiomatic” is foundational to her work in queer theory as her examination of the historical construction of gender and the reductive binary fixations employed by cultures shows how free and genuine expression of gender can be hindered. Social binaries force homosexuality to navigate a culture in favour of heterosexuality, thus denying it of its own proper ‘category’; this, I argue, is problematic. Sedgwick uses a gay-affirmative motivation to challenge mainstream assumptions about gender and sexuality, aiming to break down the strong metaphorical divide between homo/heterosexuality (3). Queer theory, as discussed by Sedgwick, attempts to challenge the ways in which heterosexuality has been socially constructed as ‘normal’ and actively regarded as a comparative term for all else which is ‘devious’ or falls outside these confines; as subordinate and as part of, but not its own separate category of identification.

Throughout this course, I have come to understand the quintessential importance of language and its capacity to express and qualify not only knowledge, but also the representation and identities of social subjects. Thus, I argue that there is importance, especially in Sedgwick’s body of theory, in analyzing more critically the title of this work: “Epistemology of the Closet”,  and how it directs readers to understand the correlation between the history of knowledge concerning homosexuality and queer theory and the social construction of gender. The term “closet”, in my opinion, is used to connote an experience that places homosexual or queer identity in a space that limits its freedom, reducing it to a universal way for the world to classify and understand sexual identity. In the context of queer theory, imagery associated with the term “closet” delineates a confined, hidden experience; a dark and isolated space in which whomever is placed inside longs only to escape or ‘see the light’. Sedgwick explains that “modern western culture has placed sexuality in a more and more distinctively privileged relation to our most prized constructs of individual identity, truth, and knowledge…”(3), here, I would agree that the use of the term “closest” suggests a sort of hierarchization of power and gender in that fear and guilt is associated with homosexuality solely because it does not comply with mainstream heteronormativity. Sedgwick builds upon Foucault’s writings on sexuality and his theory that knowledge and meaning is bi-product of social discourses that fix gender into rigid binary categories. Sedgwick argues that political and social discourses and “…major nodes of thought and knowledge in the twentieth-century Western culture as a whole are structured…by a chronic crisis of homo/heterosexual definition.” (1). Although classifications such as male/female, gay/straight merge into dominant societal ideologies and discourses, gender identity should be fluid — queer theory then, aims to see gender as a continuum rather than a rigid categorization. Thus, “world-mapping” and “institutionalized taxonomic discourses” that assign individuals a homo or heterosexuality in addition to an assigned a male/female gender, is in fact problematic (Sedgwick 2).

Sedgwick explores seven axioms which support her queer theory and provide a starting point to a better understanding of the cultural construction of gender identity in mainstream society. In this section, I will expand upon two axioms I found particularly interesting in order to closely examine how personal identity is hindered when binaries are systematically institutionalized as common-sense principles and used reductively to group individuals. I will focus on axioms one and two and provide contemporary examples to elevate my analysis.

In addition to the ideas highlighted above, Sedgwick lists numerous ways in which individuals are different — not just biologically, but also in the ways they choose to identify and express themselves (23). She proposes that although identity markers — race, class, gender, nationality — may suggest that people partake in similar roles, they do not accurately represent, nor fully encompass uniqueness and individuality(24). For example, I am a student, but I am not only a student, nor do I consider myself the exact same type of student as all other students in my class. Similarly, Sedgwick lists that in terms of sexuality, genital acts mean different things to different people, also, just as some people may spend a lot of time having or thinking about having sex others may not (25). From this, it is apparent that deconstruction by means of difference is a good starting point at recognizing individual potential beyond the confines of universal binary assumptions. Earlier this year Mattel toys came out with a new set of gender neutral dolls with their tagline reading “Lets Toys Be Toys, So Kids Can Just Be Kids”. Mattel recognizes the importance of inclusion despite differences in gender expression and sexuality, and attempts to lessen the divide between traditional male/female roles, showing kids that it is okay to be or feel ‘different’, because there is a toy for that too!

Mattel Gender Neutral Dolls: 

https://time.com/5684822/mattel-gender-neutral-doll/

Moreover, Sedgwick looks at the differences between gender, sex and sexuality, defining them as separate terms that are not telling of one another. Sedgwick makes three definitional distinctions: gender refers to cultural meanings that influence personal identities and self perception — seen as variable and highly relational (27), sex refers to the innate, immanent and biologically based composition of chromosomes in correspondence with physical genitalia (28), sexuality refers to sexual attraction, practices and pleasures independent of biological sex and gender (29). This distinction, in my opinion, is of immense importance because the lack of clarity prompted by the overlapping of these terms is what strengthens societal construction of mainstream identities. A better understanding of these divisions will allow for a more informed society that veers from offensive terminology and assumptive language. The YouTube Channel “Queer Kids Stuff” is a platform that features LGBTQ+ educational videos for people of all ages. This is a great way to inform individuals of differences in terminologies, expressions, sexualities as well as intersectional oppressions, so that societies can work against restrictive binaries. Furthermore, Sedgwick notes that not only gender, but “a variety of forms of oppression intertwine systematically with each other…the person who is disabled through one set of oppressions may by the same positioning be enabled through others ” (32). She provides the example of a married woman noting how her use of a married name shows her subordination as a woman while also showing her privilege as presumptive heterosexual.

Queer Kids Stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCecsVoeJcsXbAra7Sl4mOPw/videos

Overall, I believe that effort should be taken in working towards minimizing stereotypes, grouped classifications and binary extremities of gender in society. In order to create a more gender fluid spectrum better care must be taken in choosing constructive terminology that address queerness and homosexuality in an inclusive and positive manner.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Epistomology Of the Closet. Berkley, California, University of California Press, 2008.

[e0nian]

CHARACTER MEME !

FULL NAME   Sariel ‘Albineus’ (she’s ditched her family name and has since taken on this moniker she’d been given during the Centries’ War)

GENDER, SEXUALITY   Female; Pansexual

ETHNICITY, SPECIES   Ambiguous; Concept

BIRTHPLACE, BIRTHDATE   Reflection of a human world (“Proto World”); December 8 (allegedly)

GUILTY PLEASURES   Sariel likes to present herself as this hardass with her relentless logic and grace, acting as though she doesn’t have the time or patience for frivolities, and that might be the case...  however, it’s a little known fact that she has a weakness for flowers, cute animals, and sweet (cheesy) gestures from those she cares about.  Don’t tell anyone.

PHOBIAS   If paradoxes don’t count, she doesn’t really have any phobias, tbh??  But as far as little fears go, she’s constantly afraid that Gabriel’s going to end up getting himself killed.  She’s seen death so many times-- enough to know that immortality doesn’t always excuse one from it. Gabriel has a proclivity for flirting with his own demise, overly confident under the veil of his immortality, but with Eirachael (the Concept of Time, who bears a strong dislike for both of them), now in the picture (Main Verse+), she worries he isn’t taking this possibility seriously enough.

WHAT THEY WOULD BE INFAMOUS FOR   She’s earned a reputation among the other Concepts for being the most meddlesome.  Even Adriel, who prefers to watch life from a distance and only occasionally interacts with its sentient beings, and Darius, who has the strongest desire of all the concepts to feel human again, haven’t earned the begrudging title as quick as she.

WHAT WOULD / HAVE THEY GOTTEN ARRESTED FOR    In her Proto world days, it was a miracle that she, Adriel, and Darius (the latter two by association) had never gotten arrested for possession of cannabis, shrooms, or some other kind of hallucinogen (though nowadays any reason she would have gotten arrested would have been a result of Gabriel’s influence, tbh).  

CHARACTER YOU SHIP THEM WITH   Sariel and Dimitrius are supposed to have a romantic relationship throughout most of the main verse, but I don’t usually get into it for easier roleplay purposes (plus their relationship is a little too reliant on / specific to their story, and that’s too much to explain!).  Otherwise, I really can’t see her having feelings for anyone else, canon or otherwise!  That’s why she’s one of the muses listed under the strictly non-ship category.

CHARACTER MOST LIKELY TO MURDER THEM   Though the last time they talked Darius promised he’d kill her should they meet again, I don’t think he’d actually pull it off (nor would he be able to).  Honestly, I think Eirachael has the biggest chance to be the one to finish her off for good.  They’re definitely capable of finding a way.

FAVORITE BOOK GENRE   She prefers to read informative books-- anything she can learn from.  However, when she actually cared enough to read for leisure & story, she enjoyed perplexing novels and psychological thrillers.

LEAST FAVORITE BOOK CLICHÉ   I think she’d despise the idea that one needs to change who they are in order to find love.  Like in those romance novels where the lead falls in love with someone dangerous (usually some kind of killer??) but claims they can’t love them because they’re bad so??  The person??  Just decides to change their entire sense of self to be with the one they love ? 

TALENTS OR POWERS  She’s always had a natural proclivity for the maths and sciences (though tbh, she’d probably be a lot better at them if she’d have actually put an effort into her schooling at a young age).  She can play the cello, but it wasn’t a skill that came naturally to her; she’d spent a lot of time developing it during her time as a Concept.

  ---- As far as innate powers go, being the presiding Concept over light, Sariel can manipulate and merge with it as she desires.  Because light is something that has existed over time & across space, she’s able to travel to any time and area that light does or can exist in reality (non-reality dimensions, such as inside one’s head directly, or places manifested as such are inaccessible to her, as the light there doesn’t actually exist).  This isn’t to say that she can’t illuminate a room that was completely devoid of light to begin with; if this happens, an opposing force (usually another concept, such as Void) must be what prevents her from doing so.  This will prevent her from travelling to that space.

   In manipulating light, naturally, Sariel can generate light waves (or radiation), as well.  By altering the frequency of photons, she can produce radio waves, micro waves, infrared waves, visible light (to create illusions or to blind), ultraviolet waves, x-ray waves, and gamma waves.  A Concept of Light will naturally emit low-level radiation waves that are mostly harmless to even the most sensitive forms of life.  However, should they become too reckless with their emotions, the radiation will amplify and become harmful, so a Concept of this nature must be vigilant at all times when interacting with more radiation-sensitive beings.      

WHY SOMEONE MIGHT LOVE THEM   Not to say Sariel isn’t a lovely person to look at, and the way she speaks and holds herself is captivating, but I’ve always imagined the only three types of people who would actually fall in love with her would need to possess at least one of three predominant character traits:  foolishness, wild eccentricity, or a strong sense of patience.  She’s not at all considerate past the point of being well-mannered to most people, and she finds it hard to empathize with others.  However, when she truly cares for a person, she becomes incredibly doting.  Though she’d be hard pressed to express her love in a verbal way, Sariel would find her lover to be the most endearing person in the world, and as she grows more comfortable around this person, she can be found more often expressing herself through her actions.  Someone generally submissive and willing to feel protected would be the ideal partner for her.

WHY SOMEONE MIGHT HATE THEM   She’s ??  Kind of a shrewd bitch tbh ??  Sariel possesses the unbelievably rare quality of not giving a single damn about what other people think about her; she’s nauseatingly honest, and she will more often than not find those she first meets to be unremarkable.  Because of this, she can come off as condescending, and when asked her opinion of others she will never hold back from telling the truth.  Though she rarely means any ill will by what she says, her words often get her into trouble.  

    She also has a proclivity for putting logic over emotion, reason over right, and this has caused her to lose many potential friendships (usually as a result of refusing to change / let them change their past or future out of a fear of paradoxical consequences, despite knowing of the tragedy one will face beforehand).

HOW THEY CHANGE   She’s changed quite a bit since her proto world years; she’s not as rash and she no longer seeks trouble, among other things...  I’ll probably post more about Proto World!Sariel in the future to avoid going on an even longer tangent here than I already have (๑ ˊ͈ ᐞ ˋ͈ )ƅ̋

WHY YOU LOVE THEM   [[ I adore the fact that she, to me, blurs the line between “good” and “bad” to show the two terms are entirely a matter of perspective.  I think that, in a way, she’s an outlet of sorts for the negative emotions I feel from others, and she goes to show that even the worst of deeds can be done by those with the purest intentions, and that the nicest person is capable of many wrong doings-- that is as well to say that even the most jaded and callous of persons is capable of showing mercy or kindness, yet these actions alone don’t make them a “good” or “bad” person [...] She’s become hardened from existing for so long and has many cold personality traits, but I love the fact that she is still tender and protective somewhere very deep in her heart, and that makes her emotionally vulnerable [...]  Even after so many years of existing, Sariel has not completely risen above her humility and [natural] fear, as much as she likes to think otherwise, and she’s still not entirely one with her existence. ]] -- I wrote this about her on my old blog like 2-3 years ago & it’s still relevant tbh

tagged by: @haemolyca (This was so much fun omg, thank you <333)

tagging:  @cfastralmvses @fxtelism @absolutuus @ensuist @ofhexxedclaws @mortulo @reticexce @killernurse @soaringheart @gcdlsskxng @phylxrchus && honestly this meme can be SO LONG so ??  Anyone who’s down to do it tbh !!  Just steal it from me! 

[eremji]

Thoughts on Infinity War, and Thanos' Motivation

Disclaimer: I'm not a Marvel expert. Some of my information on comic plots was collected from wikis and secondary articles, due to a lack of access to a primary source or the simple inaccuracy of my own memory. I also mostly enjoyed Infinity War, and any criticism herein should not be taken as decrying the whole.

Spoilers behind the cut. Please close your eyes and scroll super fast, block tags, duck and cover, etc. if you’re on mobile, because, seriously, spoilers.

An extremely simplified version of movie production:

From a production standpoint, Iron Man was a huge risk for the studios fronting the money for it. After critical and box office flops from 90s Batman films and other various superhero action flicks, studios typically found comic book movies to underperform in comparison to budgetary requirements for good visuals, making them unattractive. Marvel has taken a large step away from making comic book movies, to making comic book adaptations, because what works on the page doesn’t work in a moving picture.

Marvel Studios’ cinematic success has almost nothing to do with how compelling the source material is – because some of Marvel’s library is pretty much slush pile garbage. This was before your average artist or consumer realized you can get pretty literary while still having cool pictures on a page. They’re valuable because they propelled the comic industry to widespread success, but the source is best examined with a critical eye towards tone deaf and anachronistic viewpoints on race, sexuality, gender, and pretty much everything else. Marvel Studios has done a fairly consistent job of divorcing the cinematic canon from the original medium’s baggage, to which I attribute a large portion of the films’ success in comparison to very lukewarm iterations of DC or X-Men.

As media consumers, we’re accustomed to having a finished product to hold and analyze. When considering story, in terms of plotting and pacing, I personally believe it’s most helpful to compare the scope of the MCU production to be similar to that of a television show, rather than a traditional movie or movie series. It may be startling to know that even very successful television shows, like Breaking Bad or Stranger Things, often don’t even have all the episodes completely written out prior to beginning filming of a season.

Marvel Studios’ movies have been in production for ten years, with many, many different hands in the pot, and earlier scripts don’t always set up the best planting and payoff of character or plot elements later in the continuity. (For visual learners, Lindsay Ellis has a very layman-friendly example using clips from Mad Max: Fury Road.)

You can see where this might start to cause some consistency issues.

Crossover event comics and the necessary sacrifice of emotional development:

For anyone walking in to expecting Avengers: Infinity War to have a lot of character development, I’m very sorry for your loss.

There was never going to be a grand emotional reunion for Steve and Bucky, and there was never going to be whole hours dedicated to bonding and witty bickering and new friendships that weren’t absolutely vital to the plot. That we got things like the Steve-and-Bucky hug, the jealous Star-Lord vs. Thor moments, and Steve introducing himself politely to Groot were for the benefit of the audience more than advancing the plot, which is a huge victory in terms of crushing as much as possible into a theatrical cut.

A film production has a finite amount of screen time to allocate before a movie becomes bloated. When people joke about Infinity War being the most ambitious crossover event, I don’t think some of them realize how on the mark that is from a production standpoint. Hard decisions have to be made between what isn’t vital to advancing plot in a compelling way and what was retained to meet audience expectations. Infinity War often felt like it tried to recapture that Joss Whedon-ish sassy-but-kinda-flat comedy from the first Avengers, and that meant punchlines for jokes sometimes land at emotionally inappropriate times because characters just don’t have cinematic space for witty banter between shooting aliens and losing everyone they ever cared about.

There’s a difference in author-audience expectations of what’s important in these team-up movies, and also gaps between fans actively participating in fandom because they love the characters and casual moviegoers looking for a blockbuster. It all comes down to how much each party in the creative transaction is willing to settle for. Traditionally, Marvel has set up the character-driven plots and subplots in individual comics with occasional crossover cameos for a few issues when another character or baddie is relevant to the plot. The large crossover events, like Civil War, Contest of Champions, or Infinity are almost always plot-heavy and character-light.

This is so much easier in comic book format, where multiple series can be coordinated in regular, paced releases, and different comic issues may happen parallel or directly before/after the event crossovers. Movies take a significantly larger amount of time to produce, through pre-production, filming, post-production, marketing, and distribution.

A brief (I’m serious, they’ve been making comics since the 1939) explication of source material:

One of the largest disconnects for me, as a fan of both the comics and the movies, was the change in Thanos’ motivation, but not his mission. For those who aren't aware of the origins of his character, he essentially wants to murder people to impress a girl – Mistress Death, to be specific. He wants to kill half of all life in the universe so that he can be her equal and win her affection. 

Dorkly did a pretty solid breakdown of some of Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet story and the innate misogynistic slant of his character, including comic panels from the original source material, that paints comic!Thanos an internet Nice Guy™. (Feel free to skim the article; it's a bit slow to get to the point.) Perusing the comic panels, you can see Thanos is hella into negging and is spiteful when Mistress Death shows interest in another dude (spoilers: it’s Deadpool). He clearly believes love is possession, and if he can’t have what he wants, then, good golly, no one can.

He’s also really off the rails – dubbed the Mad Titan even before his objectification mega crush on a badass corpse with a wicked bod – and is personally responsible for destroying Titan. He’s not a villain that believes he’s the hero, and this shift away from his motivation being dangerous-and-horrible to dangerous-and-misguided casts the first shadow on the premise.

My (very personal) opinion on the execution:

MCU essentially played keep away with some of the more supernatural elements of the source material, at least until introducing Dr. Strange. In doing so they had to construct Thanos’ motivation for a comic-book-inspired task out of whole cloth. There is no Mistress Death. Secondary characters that were discrete entities are often pulling double duty*.

(*Or triple. See also: Bucky Barnes, who is wearing the backstory of Captain America's gay best friend Arnie Roth and now White Wolf. If you were previously unaware of this factoid, please enjoy the irony that Marvel’s biggest pro-American propaganda piece had an openly gay best friend circa early 80s but Civil War ham-fistedly had to work in that awkward-as-fuck smooch between Steve and Peggy Carter’s hot young romantic surrogate niece.)

So, okay, they have to reinvent Thanos, who we've only seen in a handful of post-credit scenes and vicariously learned, through Loki in the first Avengers movie and then Gamora in Guardians, is a conqueror and also really Bad News™.

I buy everything so far. And why not? Black Panther made me love Killmonger and his rage, and the parallels to contemporary issues made him fairly empathetic without highlighting that his perspective was necessarily the ‘correct’ one. Similarly, Spider-Man: Homecoming’s villain, Vulture, was believable in the sort of suffering everyman-turned-desperate way, highlighting the fallout of the Space Invaders vs. Avengers destruction without suggesting the audience should root for Vulture.

In general, I am on board for these movies going straight for the throat on the big baddies of the comic universe because movie production is lengthy, expensive, and time-consuming. Dear Marvel Studios, Give me Avengers vs. Dr. Doom. Love, Me.

A villain can be built up over the course of a single movie (or two). Armed with this optimism, and heartened by recent Marvel Studios successes in characterization, I walked into Infinity War expecting as much gratuitous violence, universe-cleansing genocide, and genuine fear of Thanos as I could possibly expect from something Disney-adjacent.

I knew people were going to die. Let me say – there was no way to spoil this for me. The Infinity Gauntlet comic series starts with half the universe dying. I expected there to be ‘casualties’ and even though the Russo bros said that this wasn’t two parts of the same movie, it’s certainly serial. At minimum, I was expecting Thanos bent on conquering the cosmos, worshiping at the altar of death in the abstract, if not groveling for an inevitable-cosmic-force-turned unattainable woman.

And yet. And yet.

We got the purple version of the Kool-Aid man with some seriously unaddressed parent-child issues (mirrored in Tony Stark’s loss of Peter Parker) and a wholly unimaginative motivation. I won’t go too far much into the movie’s alarming efforts at framing Thanos as a sympathetic character despite his genocidal and horribly abusive tendencies, because I am A) not an expert at identifying film technique and B) the push for Thanos to be an empathetic villain has been analyzed elsewhere.

Phenomenal, limitless cosmic power and all you want to do is break shit? For all the immaturity of it, Thanos’ comic book motivation was more believable.

To those arguing that the his motivations in the movie are predicated off of him being the Mad Titan and therefore not rooted in logic: The film did not explicitly plant the idea – except in the way that we know genocide is bad due to an innate sense of morality – that he was unhinged and power-mad, nor did they really give the audience any payoff.

Instead, we get, ‘I don’t really want to do this, but I must.’

There was a point where I started wondering why the hell he wasn’t just being steadily roasted by the Avengers for not receiving some sort of basic education in the evils of wealth disparity and resource distribution.

As an audience member, was I meant to believe this incredibly powerful entity at the center of a massive fleet, accompanied by a group of talented and sycophantic followers, couldn’t think of a better way to bring ‘balance’ to the universe?

Perhaps Thanos’ justification is simply the conceit of the way the universe operates, required to propel a plot forward. However, this is also poorly explained. There are many unanswered questions: Why is it a given that killing half the universe will create balance? What does balance look like? Is this state permanent or is it a routine, necessary evil in order to stop entropy? Is balance a socioeconomic state, or does it have some greater cosmological significance? We know that Titan fell after rejecting Thanos’ extreme solution, but would the population have actually endured and flourished if his plan had been carried out?

For a movie that did so well at handling a cast so phenomenally large as the one involved in its production, Infinity War really didn’t go in very hard on selling Thanos. I would have been perfectly happy if Marvel Studios had taken the risk to lean in hard on making the movie Thanos-centric, given Thanos even more screen time to develop his character, motives, and the rules of the universe – and then make Avengers 4 about, you know, the actual avenging.

Parting notes:

What are we left with?

Infinity War gifted us with some badass action clips, a fairly jarring death performance by Tom Holland, Cheerful Goatherd Bucky Barnes, and emotionally traumatizing bubbles. It never really sells the conundrum it sets up via Thanos. You'll never hear me insist a peice of art or entertainment is required to carry some sort of social commentary or moral message, but I feel like this could have been, tonally, a vastly different film had it considered the core of Thanos' motivations the same way it considered Vulture's or Killmonger's.

Also, where the hell is Adam Warlock (set up at the end of GotG: Vol. 2; revisit planting and payoff) to shit talk Thanos’ lack of villainous veracity when we need him?

[paperannxo]

Here, ladies and gentlemen, is the compilation of every Destiel fic written for SPN Kink Bingo so you don’t have to rummage through the archive!  One of the amazing things about this challenge was being able to dive into AUs I’ve never written before, write tropes I’d never tried my hand at, and taking chances on new ideas.  And voila!  We have ourselves an eclectic assortment of all things Destiel!  I hope you enjoy the ride xoxo To Teach a Lesson Cas and Dean are professors who’ve forged a close friendship. They teach in the same department, enjoy chatting over lesson plans during lunch, hell, Dean had even managed to pull Cas out of his comfort-zone to grab a drink. To be honest, there isn't much they don't do together. Except, Dean is a massive distraction, whether he knows it or not. The man is constantly chewing his pens, drinking his McDonald’s $1 coke while absently nibbling the straw, shoveling down his lunch and always letting the fork linger between his lips just too long. No matter how hard Cas tries not to, no matter how much he attempts to control himself, he can’t help but wonder what that mouth would feel like wrapped around his cock. This Wasn't in the Grimoire Castiel is a powerful, white magic warlock who gives the Winchesters information to stop a rogue coven in town. Dean’s a hunter with a chip on his shoulder who hates witches, all witches, and doesn’t like loose ends. While Castiel meets a confrontation with annoyance, Dean counters with a gun loaded with witch-killing bullets. The warlock’s very first brush with danger doesn’t arouse fear. It arouses...something else. 'No Trespassing' is Open to Interpretation The ‘End of the World’ is constantly looming on the horizon and Dean is sick and tired of it getting between him and his angel. The mated pair don’t even get a breather to be together because they’re always too busy saving the planet! Dean says fuck it, he’s done being without his alpha—he’s going to make time. I’m a Work in Progress (2/2) Link To Part One: Dean had taken some time off from the sub-lifestyle because of a bad experience (but everyone has those, right?) except now he’s ready to dip his toes in again. Castiel was...not what he’d expected. At all. The dom was a damn surprise, a fucking gift, and he doesn't want Dean for a sub, alone. Castiel wanted to help fix him. Oh, then there's Cas’ style in bed—that's a thing of beauty. Link To Part Two: Dean and Castiel have settled into the relationship of their dreams—adorable, loving boyfriends by day, then turning up the heat with dom and sub scenes at night. Whenever Dean’s been a good boy, Cas will let him go into the playroom and pick out whatever toy he wants. With an entire weekend to themselves, they’re finally allowed to get a little rough. A/N: Although this is one fic, both chapters can be read entirely by themselves. If the second chapter summary captures your interest more than the first, you can read it as a oneshot without any trouble or confusion.  Screw Medicine Head Dean and Charlie are attending a regional conference when it happens. Dean scents his true mate, only to discover that not only is his future alpha sick with a cold and unable to scent him but he’s the speaker they traveled across the country to see! While Dean is intoxicated by that scent and distracted the entire presentation, he doesn’t have a plan of attack. Luckily, someone else does. And Madness is a Beautiful Irony When Castiel’s grace was stolen, his life was in upheaval and he was fighting for survival. Yes, there was a tidbit of information that hardly seemed relevant at the time, but when Cas finally meets up with the Winchesters (after a Reaper attacked him with an angel blade, no less) this curious fact becomes pivotal. Angels don’t have secondary genders, and when Cas fell, he assumed he’d take Jimmy’s beta status. Except, now that he’s the only one in the vessel—now that it’s one-hundred percent Castiel—he has presented alpha. Faced with Dean and overwhelmed by his alpha senses, this new biology and seeing the hunter as an omega for what feels like the first time, Castiel is faced with a realization. Dean knows it right away, too. They’re true mates, there’s no denying it, and it could be a wondrous thing to come out of Cas’ mortality. The Best Thing Would To Have Never Been Born at All After seeing what Dean’s future self has done to the camp and to Cas, he knows his conscience won’t let him walk without a confrontation. Dean knows damn well what the play is tomorrow and, after a chat with Castiel (who doesn’t seem to care one way or another) Dean drags the fallen angel along for the negotiation. To show him, their 'fearless leader,' there are still people who love him and will do anything for him. Even if he can be a complete jackass. Dean knows Dean’s worst enemy is himself. Except...he just woke a sleeping dragon and he hadn’t anticipated a fight in the literal sense. In the wake of the shocking wickedness, Cas and Dean are left to pick up their own pieces, broken from a monster who can’t be saved. A/N: Warning for non-con in this fic.  The scene is easily skipped and does not involve Destiel, but Endverse Dean (the square filled was Deancest) and will be remedied with lots of fluffy, hurt/comfort Cas love. Canto XIV The King of Hell and Heaven have an agreement—to appease the King and keep him away from the Host, they’ll sacrifice one of their own. What begins as a once-a-century bargain, turns to half-a-century, then eventually whittles down to every ten years. Castiel masks it as the King being greedy, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s the angel’s desire, needing to see him, that makes Castiel construct the lie. Ignoring the angel and demon obstacle—if anyone knew how close they were, if they saw the beauty in this chaotic relationship? It’s the purest act of blasphemy there is. Adding my new DCBB as a bonus: It Is Not Light That We Need, But Fire The Winchesters are a notorious larceny crew, and a routine job goes south when two of their members get caught red-handed by a SWAT Team. They have a goddamn mole. Now's the time for a prison break. Dean is an omega posing as an alpha because strategically, it makes sense. His stupid optimism may have landed him the leading role in a full-out Romance Novel. He fell for his cellmate. In the friggin’ true-mates-way. What are those odds?! Except, Castiel isn’t just another inmate—he’s a Krushnic. Born into a family of killers with an innate bloodlust who charge top dollar for their expertise. Their family is breaking Castiel out. Both Dean and Cas make it clear to their families they come as a pair. It was accepted, but the Krushnics and Winchesters clashed, fighting for the swifter extraction. A sloppy jailbreak is dangerous, even with unexpected alliances. Cas has his own concerns, hoping Dean will still love him outside of the prison walls, and that their bond's true...because Castiel enjoys his occupation and he doesn't want to have to choose between who he is and his true mate. As the stakes rise, blame and mistrust run rampant through the group. Is there even a chance for a happy ending?

[theticklishpear]

@angelofawhitenight replied to Let’s Talk About: Relationships, Part Five: Sibling Scenarios: I love that there's writing advice on siblings somewhere! I've flipped through so many guides on writing character, and very few of them ever having any information about writing siblings. This is especially difficult for me because my characters are twin boys, and I can't even use my personal experience as a guide because I only have a sister, and female characters interact and express emotions differently than male characters do. Do you happen to have any advice on writing brothers or twins?

Thanks for the reply! I do not have anything gender-specific when writing any types of relationships at the moment, for one very specific, philosophical reason. I don’t believe there is a fundamental difference in how relationships form between individuals of various genders--whether different or the same genders--only in how each individual chooses to understand, embody, and express that relationship. And those things? Those are all character-specific. How they express emotions is not wrapped up in their gender but in their personality and cultural understanding of emotion (i.e., how they’ve been taught to deal with their emotions according to their culture’s ideas of appropriate composure and gender). Their personal experiences and family values and personal ideals, their body chemistry and how savvy they are with their emotions are what defines those reactions and interactions. I believe you can use your experience as a sibling to help inform these characters if you strip it down to the essence of the relationship, what things help you and your sister to get along or not get along, what things you notice about your sister and why you have the reactions about those things that you do. I can’t write your characters for you, so it’s up to you to decide how they interact with each other based on the personalities that have grown out of their lives. That’s simply a writing philosophy of mine that I take into account when writing the advice I give--I approach advice how I approach my own writing, and writing characters is not about writing their genders but about writing their personalities, and their gender performance is usually only in their pronouns and entirely secondary to their growth as a person within the story. What I can give you is advice on twins.

Twins see themselves in each other: I know, I know, that’s perhaps the most obvious statement anyone has ever made, but think it through for a moment. Twins don’t just grow up together, they literally grow up together. Because these two babies came into the world simultaneously, the parents often will do things with the twins at the same time. It’s easier to take both to the park rather than one at one time and the other at another time. Holding separate birthday parties is impractical in time and energy, so they’re held together. The twins go through schooling at the same time, and, hopefully, at the same rate. They grow up to become adults, more or less, constantly together. When they look at each other, they not only see themselves if they’re similar in appearance, but they also see their same experience. That can be a powerful bond that holds them together. In the Let’s Talk About: Relationships series I’ve brought up shared history time and time again, and for twins, their shared history is almost literally everything. There’re no years where one of them had their parents to themselves; there’s no difference in the way the parents rear the children that’s caused by the passing of years. There’s no ‘87-kid-vs-’91-kid time disparities going on.

This has a huge influence on all kinds of things, including how other people treat them. After all, they’re the same, right? Everything about their growing up has been the same! A common problem not just for identical twins is that people will often treat them the same even though they are distinctly different people who happen to share a lot in common with each other. And there’s the real crux of the issue. These two characters, while born together and raised together, are two different people. Their personalities spawn within each of them; it’s not generated in the womb and then split and given to each. They’re not the same, and they don’t have to be complete opposites, either. When things about each of them start to change (maybe puberty hits one slightly sooner; maybe one develops a physical or mental illness; maybe one decides to go elsewhere for college; maybe one breaks their foot and limps; maybe one gets held back in school), it can sometimes be rough on the twins because they were raised to take each other for granted--that the other would always be around, and that they’d both be doing certain things together. Identical twins suffer this, too, compounded by the fact that they look similar and an injury to one can feel like an injury to the other because they now see that difference all the time, every time they look at each other.

Twins are better able to understand each other: The psychic twins trope is exceptionally common, whether it’s literal telepathy, strong empathy, or other kinds of intuition about each other, but it’s common for a reason. The raising of these two individuals together, as essentially one unit, means that they’ve had their entire lives to learn and grow with each other. They can see and feel the changes in emotion in each other easier than any other relationship. That can change with time and distance. Just as friendships fade without communication, the innate understanding of another person dims the longer they’re away from each other. The reason for that is two-fold: Each person spends more time with other people, thus burying the very fresh memories of what the other feels like, and additionally fundamentally changing the way they each act. Humans are adaptive creatures at heart, and that carries over to our interactions with people. Have you ever noticed how your reaction to certain things changes after spending a long time hanging out with certain people? Those changes mean that how a character reacts internally and externally may no longer match the understanding a twin may remember from the last time they interacted with their twin. Sometimes this results in the old, “I don’t know you anymore. Who are you? What have you done with my sibling?” trope, but hey, tropes are around for reasons.

Twins are not a unit: Yes, they grew up literally hip-to-hip. Yes, they understand each other so well they might be psychic. Yes, they were born at the same time. No, they are not one person. They do not come together in a boxed set. They are people, each one individual from each other, and they need to be developed as such. They will like and enjoy certain things that the other doesn’t, or they may have different ways they enjoy the same things (like one enjoying a show because of the characters but the other couldn’t care less about the character and loves the show for its world instead). They will be good at some things and not good at others, and those may be the same or different. Sound similar? It should. It’s something I tried to get across in my other posts about siblings. You are writing characters first, who have this close relationship as one facet of who they are.

Good luck! -Pear

Some additional perspectives to check out: Your Character’s Personality from @thecharacterchick A Bit About Twins from @writeworld Writing Twins from @fictionwritingtips On Twins from @writer-rachelina​ Guest Post: Guide to Identical Twins by eponnia from @writing-questions-answered

[trbl-will-find-me]

Fic: Every Exit, An Entrance (1/?)

There are two (and only two) possibilities: either she led XCOM to victory and they are now engaged in a clean up operation of alien forces, or XCOM was overrun, clearing the way for an alien-controlled puppet government to seize control of the planet.

She’d really like to figure out which it is, but asking hardly seems the prudent option. (<3 to @companionwolf for lots of good fandom talk and getting me moving on this again.)

There are things she knows.

Her name.

Her age.

Her occupation.

There are other things she knows.

In March of 2015, hostile alien forces invaded the earth, making first contact in Germany.

As the Commander of the XCOM project, she led a global counteroffensive.

And that’s when things get fuzzy.

There are two (and only two) possibilities: either she led XCOM to victory and they are now engaged in a clean up operation of alien forces, or XCOM was overrun, clearing the way for an alien-controlled puppet government to seize control of the planet.

She’d really like to figure out which it is, but asking hardly seems the prudent option. --

There are other constants, too: broad, general things like steadfast adherence to the laws of physics as commonly observed, and smaller, more specific ones.

The events before the invasion are familiar, a story she recognizes innately as her own, and a plausible chain of memories link what was with what is. There are no holes, no lapses in logic that make the dream fall away.

There is always a Doctor Shen, though the age and the gender varies. One invents a SHIV, the other a GREMLIN; they are both ferociously dedicated.

Bradford –always Bradford or Central, never John– is always there.  Sometimes, there is a sweater; sometimes, there is a scar. They do not talk about June in Berlin.

The base is dark, the globe holographic, and his voice is still in her ear.

She looks for loose threads, one illogical strand to pull and pull and unravel the whole affair. She reasons that there has to be a slip, a glitch, some trick to tell the fun house reflection from the real thing,

She hasn’t found it yet, but she’ll keep looking, --

She stands in the midst of the carnage and chuckles quietly to herself. Bottles, glasses, clothing: when they partied, they partied. She should have known it would be a wild one when Molchetti had quite literally popped back into existence, landing in a heap on top of the hologlobe’s pedestal, cutting the air with an electric crackle.

“Hey, Strike One,” she called over the radio. “We found your missing package.”

She knows it’s not over, not yet. There will be clean up ops. There may still be the stray bogie, or a cell of aliens secreted somewhere far off. It may have just been the first wave, she thinks, and her stomach twists at the thought. There may be more coming.

Still, as she bends to pick up an empty bottle, she can’t deny that they earned this party. The Temple ship is gone, EXALT lies in ruins, and they are still alive.

There were days she doubted they would make it this far. Nova Scotia still weighs heavy on her, the sight of half the squad sliced to ribbons by chryssalids. Then there are the countless civilians they couldn’t save, abducted, tortured, and disposed of. And, of course, there are the shadows of the attack, of mutons pouring into the base, of their own people turned against them. Her ribs still ache from when she’d been thrown against a wall before a rare lucky shot stopped the creature in its tracks.

Yes, they’d earned a break.

Something stirs in the doorway, and she turns to see her second-in-command pick his way through. His sweater is missing, his tie is undone, and his shirt wrinkled but damn, if it isn’t a lovely sight.

The attack had taken a toll on him, too. Even setting aside the wrist only recently freed from a fiberglass cast, it’s hard to miss the hypervigilance, the longer shifts, the overreliance on caffeine and the rejection of a regular sleep schedule. He’d spent the night between the party and globe, ever vigilant.

“Commander.”

“Morning, Central.”

“Doctor Vahlen asked me to inform you that the sectoid heads are missing from the lab freezer.”

She should not be laughing at this. It is gross misconduct. With her luck, one is in her bed. Another is almost certainly in Central’s bed. They both know this.

And yet, laughter is all she can manage, sputtering out even as she tries to hold it back.

And then, she thinks she imagines it, but no, he’s laughing, too.

There they are, in the middle of chaos and mess, on what might be the first morning after the war, and they can still laugh.

She is ready to face whatever is next. --

She manages to sit until Bradford leaves, then half collapses against the pillows. Her head is buzzing and her stomach rolls. She knows she should get up, make the rounds, meet with the men and the staff.  There are aliens to murder, an earth to reclaim.

But she is not ready to face whatever is next.

This is wrong, some little voice says. This isn’t how it played out. You woke up wrong. Go back to sleep and it will all be better.

She sits again, then slowly, gingerly, stands. The world around her spins and the bile in her empty stomach rises.

She remembers a party, a raucous party. Yan had clambered up onto the pool table and begun reenacting some internet video involving a very elaborate strip routine. Pukkila had egged him into it, and was appreciatively shoving cash into the other man’s boxers. Hafler had almost fallen off of the couch in an attempt to document the affair. The SHIV had buzzed around, a help and a hazard, butlering drinks and knocking down unsuspecting drunks. She remembers prying a haphazardly taped on butter knife from its chassis off, shaking her head at her soldiers’ antics.

But that’s not right, either, she thinks. Yan had died in the first terror attack, blood foaming from his mouth as thin men venom destroyed his lungs. Pukkila had been sliced to pieces holding off chryssalids in Nova Scotia one muggy June night. A berserker had dragged Hafler’s body off, barely human after having been mashed to a pulp.

She squeezes her eyes shut, and draws in a deep breath. It was a dream. They are dead and you are here and there is a job to be done.

Tygan is courteous and efficacious, and quite clearly brilliant. She is, truth be told, not sure how they managed to lure him from the city. There is a polish, a refinement that the rest of the crew lacks. He briefs her on what they know, what they might do with that knowledge. He assures her that all ADVENT tech has been removed, and that, yes, some residual effects do occur, but should dissipate in six to eight weeks.

Shen is bright and fierce, deeply apologetic for the loss she still so clearly feels. Her little robotic companion bobs and weaves, cute in its own way. She fights the urge to ask if Lily’s taught ROV-R to play fetch or if scritches behind the capacitors are a recognized form of affection. She laughs quietly to herself as she scales ladder from floor to floor; the elder Shen would have had a fit at the tattoo.

Her stomach lurches as she steps onto the bridge. The hologlobe is there, and the banners, yes, but they’re not quite right. The globe flickers in an out, unable to produce a steady visual. The banners are torn and tattered.  Central is still buzzing at the center of the action, barely even surprised by the sirens that announce her presence, but she can read the ache of the wound in his carriage.

The eyes that stare back at her are young, so young, and do they really know what they’re getting into? What she’s leading them into? They are full of hope, full of expectation.

This is wrong this is wrong this is wrong, the voice in her head panics.

Her XO has the high points of his briefing ready. They’re hitting a stalled supply train nearby to make a grab for a power converter. There’s already a squad assembled and ready, waiting on her word.

She wants to take him aside and ask if it’s really wise. She’s been in a tank for twenty years and, hey, wasn’t it her decisions that had landed her there in the first place? Wasn’t it her failure that set them on this course? Does he really want to give her another chance?

Go back to bed. Go back to bed and you’ll wake up and this will just be some dream.

But, before she can open her mouth to give voice to any of it, Bradford reaches into his pocket and offers her an earpiece. She slips it on gingerly, still fighting the urge to protest. “Let’s see if I can still do this,” she offers, doing her best to offer up a grin.

“I don’t doubt it.” -- Someone is knocking.

“Commander?”

She groans in response, and gingerly lifts her aching head from her desk. Her desk in her office. Her desk in her office in the base. The base that is underground.  Her calendar, with its vintage fruit crate label art, cheerfully reminds her that it is a week shy of Thanksgiving in the year 2015. She shakes her head, trying to shake the fragments of a strange dream from her mind. “Come in.”

Raymond Shen regards her with a sort of fond exasperation as he stands in her doorway. He is alive and whole, a cup of what she presumes to be green tea in his hand.  For a moment, she is surprised, elated in her shock. Your daughter should see this, she thinks, She misses you.

“I thought you’d have taken advantage of the quiet to perhaps sleep in a bed,” he says, by way of greeting.

“That … had been my plan.”

Of course, he’s alive, she thinks. Why wouldn’t he be? The man came through the attack on HQ with barely a scratch.

He offers her a gentle nod, and a knowing look over his glasses. “Mr. Bradford is looking for you. There’s an incoming transmission from the Council. He started to worry when he couldn’t get you over the comms.”

She sighs. “Telling him to handle it will probably cause an incident, huh?”

“He seemed insistent on your presence.”

She sighs and rubs her face. “Thanks, Doctor. I’ll let Central know I’ll be right up.”

The man nods, heading out from her office towards the workshop down the hall.

She shakes her head, trying to clear the last vestiges of the dream from her mind.  It’s not real. Shen is alive. Vahlen is alive. Shen’s little girl is a child. The aliens have not overrun the earth. Snap out of it.

“Central, what’s up?” She asks, pressing the comm link in her ear.

“Where are you? We’ve got an incoming transmission from the Council.”

“I was sleeping.”

“Moreno said quarters were empty.”

“On my desk.”

“You have a bunk for that.”

“Yeah, that was Dr. Shen’s thought, too. You know why they want us?”

“If I had to guess, something’s wrong.”

“Don’t even think it.”

“Comms have been quiet since Avenger, ma’am.”

“Let’s just hope it stays that way. I’ll meet you upstairs.”

Her relationship with the Council has never been great. For all her experience as the child of diplomats, she has never quite mastered the art of holding her tongue and concealing her anger. In the wake of the Nova Scotia incident, she had nearly torn the Spokesman’s head off as he relayed to her the collective’s displeasure with the two UFOs she’d been unable to intercept. Even when there was praise to be had, it still hung heavy with condescension.

Bradford is waiting for her outside of the situation room door. “Really, your desk?” He asks in lieu of a greeting.

She shrugs “At least it wasn’t on a tracking console.”

He grimaces. “You heard about that?”

“Central,” she grins. “Everyone heard about that.”

“Lucky me.”

“Don’t worry: the day can still get worse.” 

The Spokesman stares down at them, face obscure as ever in the orange-blue light.

“Commander.”

“Mr. Spokesman.”

“The Council is requesting the remaining data from the XCOM project’s research efforts.”

She wrinkles her brow. “Results of autopsies and interrogations have been available as we got them, as have the specs on carapace and titan armors and the improvements we’ve made with satellite security and monitoring.”

“A casual review of your exploits in the field would suggest your advancements went far beyond what has been provided.”

“They’re interested in the weaponry,” Central volunteers.

“Absolutely not,” she says, her eyes darting from the screen, to Bradford, and back again. “Tell them no.”

“Commander, I would remind you that the XCOM project serves at the pleasure of the Council.”

“And I would remind the Council that the charter they themselves drafted gives me final authority over what is and isn’t released. Request denied.”

“Commander ---“

“Mr. Spokesman, I’ve addressed requests for interceptors, satellites, corpses, power supplies, medkits, nanovests --- virtually everything the Council’s asked for. I’ve even handed over arc throwers, against my better judgment. But I won’t hand over weapons. It’s an arms race waiting to happen, and you can tell the Council I said so.”

The Spokesman is silent. “Very well, Commander, but do not expect this to be taken lightly.”

The transmission cuts out and her shoulders sag, free of the tension she hadn’t realized she was carrying.

“Jesus,” Central offers.

“I won’t be responsible for plasma weapons being used against civilians. I won’t.”

“That may not be our biggest problem.” “You’re worried about an elerium bomb?” “I’m worried about Vahlen’s interrogation methodology.”

She shudders. She’d watched the process once, driven half by a sense of responsibility and half by a morbid curiosity. She didn’t make a habit of feeling sympathy for creatures that mowed down innocents, but the Sectoid Commander’s screams had been nothing short of agonizing; she can’t imagine inflicting the same on a human.

“Fuck,” she breathes. “You’re right.”

“POWs, political prisoners, dissidents: there are governments that wouldn’t hesitate to use that on their own people.”

“Including ours.”

Central nods.

“Damnit,” she rakes a hand through her hair. “Alright. Assuming they honor the existing terms of the charter, they have to fund us through the next six months. So, we’re safe til then.”

“And after?”

She swallows hard. “I don’t know.”