#no. the question of the child’s parentage was just because she likes to write parents and children having the same love interest

[daisyachain]

Reading Kumota Haruko’s other work really helps put SGRS into perspective as. What was truly her trying to say something with that story. And what was her just having fun

[lecsainz]

Can u do any kind of luke imagine with maybe a daughter of hades:p

˒ ⌕ DID YOU EAT, TODAY?

parings: luke castellan x hades!reader

an: this was my first piece that my sister liked? I'm sooo happy because she's picky, and I usually have to beg her to read anything I write. yes, I know it's pathetic, but I usually don't think my writing is good, and I don't think you guys will like it. I have a bit of a validation-seeking complex (mirroball girl here 😭

summary: where, after 18 years of surviving alone, you finally arrive at camp half-blood, discovering you're a child of hades. adimist it all, a hermes' boy might find himself perhaps falling for you.

( my last work || my last work for riodanverse || go to main masterlist )

The camp was bustling with activity, but for you, the chaos of your newfound identity as a demigod and a daughter of Hades was still settling in. The moment you were claimed upon entering the camp, it felt like your entire world had shifted. As the campers dispersed for their activities, you sought solace by the lake, needing a moment to process the overwhelming revelations.

Luke, having noticed your absence from the group, made his way to the lake with a small cupcake in hand. Blueberry, your favorite. He approached cautiously, recognizing the turmoil on your face. The daughter of Hades, a complex puzzle of emotions and powers.

"Hey there," Luke greeted, sitting down beside you. "Did you eat today?"

You looked up, your eyes still reflecting the confusion and vulnerability that came with the newfound knowledge of your divine parentage. The mere question, though simple, struck a chord within you, resonating with a sense of care that you hadn't expected.

"I... I didn't really feel like it." you admitted, your voice betraying the uncertainty.

Without another word, Luke handed you the cupcake, and the corners of his lips lifted into a reassuring smile. "Well, you should. It's blueberry – your favorite, right?"

Surprised, you glanced at the cupcake, realizing that somehow, amidst all the chaos, Luke had remembered your preference. A small, genuine smile formed on your face as you took the cupcake. "Thank you."

Taking the cupcake, you managed a small smile. The gesture was simple, yet it carried an unspoken understanding. You hesitated for a moment before taking a bite, savoring the sweetness that contrasted with the bitter reality you were grappling with.

Luke watched you quietly, and when you finally met his gaze, he reached over to wipe away a stray tear that had escaped your eye. It was a gentle touch, one that conveyed more comfort than words ever could.

"You know, being a demigod is tough, especially in the beginning," he began, his tone gentle. "But you're not alone in this. We're a family here, weird as it may be."

You chuckled, feeling a hint of warmth amidst the emotional storm. "Yeah, a family of demigods with divine parent issues."

Luke chuckled with you. "Exactly. And you've got powers from the Underworld, which is pretty cool if you ask me."

Your laughter echoed by the lake, and Luke couldn't help but feel a warmth spreading within him. He looked at you, your smile contagious, and a goofy grin formed on his face. In less than 48 hours, everything you did seemed to become his favorite thing.

"See? I knew blueberry cupcakes were the way to go," Luke teased, nudging you playfully.

As you enjoyed the cupcake, the night air became a canvas for the unspoken. Luke's gaze lingered on you, studying your features. The flicker of vulnerability in your eyes and the subtle playfulness of your smile sparked something in him. His mind wrestled with conflicting thoughts. The prophecy and his allegiance to Kronos felt like a weight on his shoulders, yet the simple act of being there for you seemed to defy the inevitable.

Luke couldn't help but think he was treading on dangerous ground. The more he got to know you, the more he realized that maybe, just maybe, there were things worth fighting for beyond the plans of gods and Titans.

Caught in his own internal struggle, he locked eyes with you. His expression shifted between uncertainty and an undeniable connection that was forming against all odds.

And then, as if a realization hit him, you blushed, looking away. The daughter of Hades, powerful and enchanting, now bashful under his gaze. A small smile played on Luke's lips, acknowledging the unexpected turn of emotions.

"Stop," you said, your voice a blend of amusement and a blush that colored your cheeks.

"I can't help it," Luke responded, a mischievous glint in his eyes. He made no effort to hide his amusement, which only intensified your embarrassment.

A playful slap on his arm was your immediate response. "Seriously, cut it out."

Luke chuckled, the sound resonating in the tranquil night. "Alright, alright. I'll behave... for now."

"Hey, Castellan! We're heading out. You coming?" The moment was interrupted by a group of Hermes cabin members calling for Luke. As he got up to join them, he glanced back at you. "You coming?"

He extended his hand towards you, a gesture so simple yet filled with unspoken invitation. With a slight hesitance, you placed your hand in his, and together you walked away, fingers intertwined.

The children of Hermes exchanged smirks, whispering amongst themselves as they watched Luke and you leave the lakeside. One of them winked at Luke, teasingly remarking, "Looks like someone's got a soft spot."

Luke shot back with a grin, "I don't know what you're talking about."

He glanced at you, a sly smile playing on your lips radiating a warmth that ignited a turmoil within him. In that moment, a realization struck Luke like a lightning bolt – perhaps you were the unforeseen obstacle in Kronos' grand plan. As he stared at you, the idea that his growing feelings for you could complicate the titan's scheme loomed over him, and for the first time, Luke Castellan felt the weight of a dilemma he hadn't anticipated.

[thefallenangelsgang]

BALDUR'S GATE 3 x MAMMA MIA! AU

CHARACTERS

[YOU HAVE PERMISSION TO USE MY IDEA FOR ANYTHING YOU WANT, I ONLY ASK YOU CREDIT ME]

(break to save your dash)

Now, not every character is going to fit cleanly into character slots (there are too many characters to fill the main cast) so some of our Baldur's Gate loves will be sharing character traits and plot devices amongst each other.

Let’s start with Donna: She will be played by Tav obviously. I mean there really is no other choice here. We need someone who has gotten romantically entangled with multiple if not all the companions. The one unfortunate snag is that Tav has to carry or otherwise create the child of dubious parentage without the other parent knowing. That does pigeonhole the characterization a bit unless you want to go the magic route with it (which opens a line of ethical questioning beyond not telling the Parent of your child about the existence of said child)

For the purposes of this thought experiment, I'm operating under Tav being AFAB and having a womb to carry the baby. I’m also operating under the idea that all the companions have the reproductive organs of the gender they present as in game. If anyone wants to actually do something with this they are free to do whatever the fuck they want and use whatever headcanons they want. 

Sophie is going to be played by Tav’s kid. This one doesn’t have a hard and fast gender rule (TIL Sophus is the masculine version of Sophie) but they have to want to know who their other sire is and be generally chaotic which is not hard when they’ve grown up with the Tadfools as their role models. It is important that they display mostly Tav’s traits with others that could be any one of their other parent’s. (think Amanda Siefried and Meryl Streep are both blonde and similarly built. Sophie draws like Sam and sings and plays like Harry and has Bill’s adventurous spunk)

For ease of writing Tav’s Kid will be referred to as Soph from here on out.

Speaking of Sires, the Dads:

Sam: I waffled a LOT on who to choose out of the Baldur’s Boys because I wanted to keep it to just the traditional three and to just companions. You can obviously shuffle around people (I'm sure the Rolan girlies (gender neutral) would love putting him in this AU) and expand the possible dad list (though I don’t know how to split the characteristics like the Donna’s Friends). I chose to go with Gale here. I think he fits the very no nonsense and very anxious vibes from Sam in the show/movie. Instead of a business person who “went home to get married” perhaps Gale got called upon by Mystra as her Chosen and left to focus on his Wizardry. He is definitely the kind to break Tav’s heart over duty and be so ashamed he doesn’t really speak to them for 20 years. 

Bill: This one was damn near a no brainer once I was considering it. It’s Halsin. Who better to be the Hippie, fun-loving, sex god and travel writer? He retains all his Baldur’s Gate characteristics. His experience with Tav is truly just a bit of fun before they both go their separate ways. Their relationship is HEAPS less frigid than Gale and Tav’s. 

Now this is where you can go two ways with this. You could give Halsin is canon good ending (Reithwin with the kids) BUT we miss Bill being scared shitless at the prospect of having a child which I always loved as a characterization (Skarsgard plays it like a champ in the film, he looks like he’s gonna have a heart attack lmao). I feel like Clan Dad Halsin after 20 years is way too open to the idea of having something permanent like a kid. Wandering Arch Druid Halsin might be a little more scared shitless at the idea. That one is a personal preference, I think I’d prefer Reithwin Halsin even though I miss the majesty of an internal conflict.

Harry: Now this one also was a no-brainer but needs to be explained with some tact. It’s Astarion. It is not because Astarion is the most effeminate of the group. For those that don’t know, Harry is canonically gay. The companions are all pan. I chose Astarion because there is an opportunity to do something else transformative with Astarion and Tav’s tryst. 

In Mamma Mia, Harry talks about how Donna is the last and only woman he’s loved and their time together helped him accept his sexuality. In the stage show he’s in a committed relationship (his partner's name is fully escaping me atm). It always stuck out to me that Donna changed Harry and that’s why he still loves her after all these years. Sam obviously regrets leaving to do what was expected of him because he didn’t love his first wife. Bill sees the life of adventure and companionship he could have had with Donna but acknowledges that that time is behind them and still loves her anyways. And Harry loves that Donna made him see himself clearly for the first time in his life and loves her for it. You can see why Astarion came to mind I hope. 

Astarion’s night with Tav was him figuring out what intimacy meant to him after finally closing the Cazador Chapter of his life. The encounter was brief but it changed him for the better and allowed him to start healing.

EDIT: I realized I didn’t cover Astarion’s Vampirism at all. For story purposes assume he has some kind of temporary solution to the sun issue because I need his ass to be present when this is set on a fantasy Greek island. The Dhampir issue is… something. I sludged through some further thought experiments. Tav and the kid being Tieflings hides the fang coloration issue. Explaining away that the characteristics haven’t presented yet because the kid is still quite young by nearly all standards (20 is just barely of age for humans, and though they are full grown biologically they are still children in Elven society) and also have been largely sheltered from danger their whole life also works.

But to be honest, despite what the second movie and its director want you to believe, I think Harry is the least likely father of the three. I am comfortable extending this to Astarion. 

Okay now we are into the Dynamos! Fuck yes! Rosie and Tanya are my favorites (it helps that they are PERFECTLY casted in the movie oh my god). I have split their characteristics across the girls. There are some of the companions that are obviously one or the other (Karlach is the most Rosie coded while Minthara SCREAMS Tanya) while others send mixed signals (Shadowheart is the most even, skewing towards Tanya slightly while Lae’zel has Tanya’s bitchy attitude and Rosie’s  “lone wolf” outlook) SO I’m going to make a chart

Like Astarion, for story purposes, assume Karlach’s heart issue has been solved.

Graphic design is my passion

ANYWAYS you may have noticed three of our friends are missing from this line up. Our intrepid Folk Hero Formally Known As The Blade of Frontiers, Wyll, Pack Mother, Jaheria, and her trusty ride or die Rashamen, Minsc (and don’t forget Boo!). 

I had some trouble with these nerds because initially I was playing with making Wyll the second half of Sam, he would have usurped the businessman and maybe the gone home to get married bit while Gale was the heartbreaker and took something from Bill’s characterization, but I was having trouble with losing character motivations. Plus Wyll is canonically not the type for flings. So I am having him be a good family friend invited to the wedding but not involved in the parentage. He essentially is a more involved part of the Greek Chorus. He could take Sam entirely if you are not the type for Gale but you will see why I did this when I get into the songs (yes I am that fucking insane about this.) 

Jaheira does have the countenance to be a Dynamo BUT there is this minor character that I think about way too often that I wanted her to take. She is only mentioned in the first movie and the stage show in one line and seen a little in the second movie (which is a fever dream and convolutes the “lore” but I love it anyways). It’s Bill’s Great Aunt Sophia that left Donna the money to start Villa Donna. OBVIOUSLY she isn’t directly going to be playing Halsin’s Great Aunt or be dead (though she will be ancient by then) but she’s going to fill the mentor role for Tav and help out with Soph. She is the only one who knows that Gale Halsin and Astarion are the possible fathers until the beginning of the shenanigans.

Minsc, like Wyll, doesn’t have a direct parallel. He is also a part of the more involved Greek Chorus. He is Soph’s crazy uncle. He got them into all kinds of trouble and still does to this day. He gives a less emotional and personal version of Sam’s “are you sure you want to do this, you are so young” speech that essentially is offering to run off and be warriors (His plan does not get them away from anyone, he’s unanimously elected that the entire tadfool group is coming with them). But he does it after Gale gives the original speech that severely upsets Soph so it serves as a cheer up speech (“Minsc is unsure if the Wizard should come along seeing as he has upset the little warrior so, but Boo says he is very useful and Minsc agrees. So he can come with, but he does not get to pet Boo’s furry little bottom!”). 

The rest of our Greek Chorus and people like Sky and Sophie’s Friends are filled out by various NPCs. Pepper is played by Mol. Ali and Lisa are open to OCs to be honest but the idea of Yenna and Arabella hearing the saucy details of a story they were partly involved in is really funny to me so they are listed in the song list as the backup singers. Sky is an OC because I wasn’t fully comfortable using any of the child NPCs. He’s referred to as Soph’s partner.

[glitchy-anime-fan]

I was scrolling through my Assassination Classroom tiktoks and was reminded of a comment that said that they thought Gakuho was Karmas dad because Karma and Gakushuu are similar, and ngl I can see it.

Now I kind of want an angsty - potentially hurt/comfort - fic where Karma and Gakushuu find out they’re half brothers through Gakuho (Gakuho is the bio dad to both but they have different moms) and now they have to navigate through the new information.

I want a fic where, at first, Karma and Gakushuu are in complete denial of this new revelation because there’s no way it’s true. They try to ignore it, sweep it under the rug, pretend everything is normal, but as time goes on they start to see the similarities between them. They can’t deny it for much longer and they’re both itching for answers to the questions consuming them.

Perhaps one day they confront Gakuho and even he’s in denial at first. There’s no way he could have another son right? Even when he’s confronted with the DNA test he’s still in denial. He can’t fathom having another son and not knowing about it. The strict/calculated aide of him doesn’t like the idea of this unknown variable, of Karma Akabane actually being related to him. But his old self, the kind hearted teacher that’s been locked away for so long can’t fathom the idea that he’s failed another one of his students.

I think Karma would struggle with this whole debacle the most given he’s been neglected by his parents for so long. I think he would struggle with the thought that he’s the reason they’re always gone. The idea that he’s not his “dad’s” biological child, essentially an affair baby, would probably cause him to think that’s why his parents travel all the time. He’s the reason they don’t want him around.

Gakushuu would most likely not know exactly how to feel about everything. He’s not sure if he should be angry or upset at the situation. Should he direct his anger at Karma despite him also being a victim of the situation, or his father despite him claiming to have no clue about his and Karmas relationship. Had his mother known anything?

I think they way Karma’s mom and Gakuho met could vary, but whatever the case this whole thing started from a lack of communication. Either Mrs. Akabane didn’t realise Gakuho was the father, not her husband, or she did know but being the free spirited person she is she didn’t want this to tie her to Gakuho in any way. Karma takes after his mother more so whatever the reason it was very likely that no one would question Karma’s parentage.

And in the end, whether Karma and Gakushuu become friends or whatever, I think in the least they start to understand each other just a little.

(Ps. If anyone wants to actually write a fic based off this idea feel free to! Just tag me so I can read it 😉)

[cathedralcomic]

How did Wolfgang get along with the bethels, rosens, and darrows? I'd imagine he'd be an outsider of some kind (he has no surname) but hung around the clowders enough to be friendly with the darrows, at least to sire a child with one of them. Which would make kind of a funny situation where the darrows would look at Rook and go 😶😶.

I wonder if Rook's parentage is an open secret of sorts because they take after their father the most and that clowders are aware that Darcy and Wolfgang had a kid. Or if the bethels/rosens didn't know that the killer darrow had a kid or even knew Wolfgang well enough where he basically dropped his kid on the rosens' hypothetical firestation entrance (as you do with kids you don't want lmao) without bringing suspicion to him. I say that without including the darrows because maybe they do know that Darcy had a kid but chose to keep it a secret in order to like. Not mystify a serial killer and make her seem more mysterious and """cool""" in that creepy true crime obsession way.

Forbidden romance, mayhaps, with the mysterious outsider falling in love with the curious yet off-putting hunting shack cat? OR even that Wolfgang was a part of the clowders but got rid of his surname after all was said and done to cut himself off from everything. But then there's the question of little Rook again and his parents because if Wolfgang was a bethel/rosen/darrow and left, they would wonder who the other parent was and might even start speculate that the infamous Darcy Darrow was the other parent since the timeline of events lines up perfectly. Interesting stuff to ponder, and I did not expect to write this much :o. Kudos for setting such a good plot/lore for readers to speculate. 👍👍

i can probably explain most of this but there are a couple crucial details missing because i don’t want to spoil anything, lol!

wolfgang was a “wanderer” - a cat with no clowder/colony. he appeared one day in town and never met the bethels or the rosens and actually most of the darrows! he and darcy had a very private relationship and only milk witnessed their first meeting. when he met darcy it was a “love at first sight” kind of deal and he tried to visit her as often as he could even if it infuriated her mother. eventually, darcy left with him after she killed shiver.

wolfgang is such a mysterious figure that his reputation in the clowders varies from cat to cat. he’s either darcy’s partner in crime, a sad victim manipulated by his partner, OR the cat who manipulated her. no one knows the truth. milk blames him for coercing darcy onto a darker path, even though she believed darcy was destined for bloodshed from the start.

as for what happened with rook, milk found and took them after darcy passed. she did not want to keep them so she left them at the rosens. wolfgang was nowhere to be found. milk says she smelled him nearby when darcy died, which means he likely witnessed her killing. maybe he was too overcome with horror and grief over his loss, to the point where he forgot about his tiny child, or maybe he figured his work was finished and left to corrupt another cat (as milk would say). who knows!

the clowders know about rook’s parents. darcy’s pregnancy was never a secret because milk just told everyone. i mean, darcy thought it was a secret. she thought she was doing great keeping a low profile. milk kept tabs on her daughter while she was still alive and killing, and therefore knew most of what was going on. darcy and wolfgang figured their inner world was hidden, but milk watched and waited.

[mercymaker]

1 - 3 + B for an oc of your choice! 😊

Uncommon Questions for OCs and their creators

I'll do the OC questions for Thoriel, just to switch things up a little bit!

1. What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?

Not very long! While Maleane is more of a thinker, who tries to devise a plan of action before getting her hands dirty, Thoriel is very much a doer who just springs into action and rolls with the punches. I think it helps that she's very charismatic, so most of the time things just work out in her favor. But even when there's no action to be diving into, Thoriel is not someone to sit idly. She sings, she dances, she plays her harp. Then sharpens her blades, tinkers with things, finds people to chat with. The girly finds it hard to sit on her hands and do nothing!

2. How easy is it for your character to laugh?

Laughter finds her lips easily! Thoriel loves to laugh and make others laugh as well. And she's quick and witty, so jokes spring up in her mind with relative ease. It's not easy to live a life that feels like a gift, something you owe someone, so she takes every opportunity to enjoy it and laughter is one of the most important aspects of life.

3. How do they put themselves to bed at night (reading, singing, thinking?)

When Thoriel was a wee lil child, Maleane would hum while putting her to bed. Later, when she got a bit older, her mother read stories to her, and then eventually, taught her how to read all by herself. So, growing up, Thoriel was quite fond of reading before bed. When she grew up and left to forge her own adventures, Thori's most likely to write before resting. She sings or plays harp, writes some words down on a piece of parchment, or the edges of a book she's reading. At times she gets lost in a thought and starts writing poetry.

B) What inspired you to create them?

Thoriel just sort of sprung in my mind almost fully fledged. I knew she'd have pink hair because I could totally see Mal's daughter just dunking her hair in a pot full of beetroot juice because she'd think it's so cool to have pink/purple hair! I knew she'd have heterochromia because I wanted to give her something from her grandma. And I think it looks neat and a bit funny considering her parentage and her mother's, uh... company. If you didn't know any better, you could take a look at her, then Maleane and Astarion, and think they're her parents lmao. As for Maleane, she was very much a "oh god, i am finally playing beegeethree, i need to make a character quick!!! panic! oh, i can just sorta make my mage from wow!" case and then I had to untangle all that and justify my choices and make a coherent character out of that (which was not easy!).

[cappymightwrite]

What draws you to incest ?

*sighs* Ok, here we go. I'm a real card carrying Jonsa now aren't I?

Anon, listen. I know this is an anti question that gets bandied about a lot, aimed at provoking, etc, when we all know no Jonsa is out here being all you know what, it really is the incest, and the incest alone, that draws me in. I mean, come on now. Grow up.

If I was "drawn" to incest I'd be a fan of Cersei x Jaime, Lucrezia x Cesare, hell Oedipus x Jocasta etc... but I haven't displayed any interest in them now, have I? So, huh, it can't be that.

Frankly, it's a derivitive question that is really missing the mark. I'm not "drawn" to it, though yeah, it is an unavoidable element of Jonsa. The real question you should be asking though, is what draws GRRM to it? Because he obviously is drawn to it, specifically what is termed the "incest motif" in academic and literary scholarship. That is a far more worthwhile avenue of thinking and questioning, compared with asking me. Luckily for you though anon, I sort of anticipated getting this kind of question so had something in my drafts on standby...

You really don't have to look far, or that deeply, to be hit over the head by the connection between GRRM's literary influences and the incest motif. I mean, let's start with the big cheese himself, Tolkein:

Tolkein + Quenta Silmarillion

We know for definite that GRRM has been influenced by Tolkein, and in The Silmarillion you notably have a case of unintentional incest in Quenta Silmarillion, where Túrin Turambar, under the power of a curse, unwittingly murders his friend, as well as marries and impregnates his sister, Nienor Níniel, who herself had lost her memory due to an enchantment.

Mr Tolkein, "what draws you to incest?"

Old Norse + Völsunga saga

Tolkein, as a professor of Anglo-Saxon, was hugely influenced by Old English and Old Norse literature. The story of the ring Andvaranaut, told in Völsunga saga, is strongly thought to have been a key influence behind The Lord of the Rings. Also featured within this legendary saga is the relationship between the twins Signy and Sigmund — at one point in the saga, Signy tricks her brother into sleeping with her, which produces a son, Sinfjotli, of pure Völsung blood, raised with the singular purpose of enacting vengence.

Anonymous Norse saga writer, "what draws you to incest?"

Medieval Literature as a whole

A lot is made of how "true" to the storied past ASOIAF is, how reflective it is of medieval society (and earlier), its power structures, its ideals and martial values etc. ASOIAF, however, is not attempting historical accuracy, and should not be read as such. Yet it is clearly drawing from a version of the past, as depicted in medieval romances and pre-Christian mythology for instance, as well as dusty tomes on warfare strategy. As noted by Elizabeth Archibald in her article Incest in Medieval Literature and Society (1989):

Of course the Middle Ages inherited and retold a number of incest stories from the classical world. Through Statius they knew Oedipus, through Ovid they knew the stories of Canace, Byblis, Myrrha and Phaedra. All these stories end more or less tragically: the main characters either die or suffer metamorphosis. Medieval readers also knew the classical tradition of incest as a polemical accusation,* for instance the charges against Caligula and Nero. – p. 2

The word "polemic" is connected to controversy, to debate and dispute, therefore these classical texts were exploring the incest motif in order to create discussion on a controversial topic. In a way, your question of "what draws you to incest?" has a whiff of polemical accusation to it, but as I stated, you're missing the bigger question.

Moving back to the Middle Ages, however, it is interesting that we do see a trend of more incest stories appearing within new narratives between the 11th and 13th centuries, according to Archibald:

The texts I am thinking of include the legend of Judas, which makes him commit patricide and then incest before betraying Christ; the legend of Gregorius, product of sibling incest who marries his own mother, but after years of rigorous penance finally becomes a much respected pope; the legend of St Albanus, product of father-daughter incest, who marries his mother, does penance with both his parents but kills them when they relapse into sin, and after further penance dies a holy man; the exemplary stories about women who sleep with their sons, and bear children (whom they sometimes kill), but refuse to confess until the Virgin intervenes to save them; the legends of the incestuous begetting of Roland by Charlemagne and of Mordred by Arthur; and finally the Incestuous Father romances about calumniated wives, which resemble Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale except that the heroine's adventures begin when she runs away from home to escape her father's unwelcome advances. – p. 2

I mean... that last bit sounds eerily quite close to what we have going on with Petyr Baelish and Sansa Stark. But I digress. What I'm trying to say is that from a medieval and classical standpoint... GRRM is not unique in his exploration of the incest motif, far from it.

Sophocles, Ovid, Hartmann von Aue, Thomas Malory, etc., "what draws you to incest?"

Faulkner + The Sound and the Fury, and more!

Moving on to more modern influences though, when talking about the writing ethos at the heart of his work, GRRM has famously quoted William Faulker:

His mantra has always been William Faulkner’s comment in his Nobel prize acceptance speech, that only the “human heart in conflict with itself… is worth writing about”. [source]

I’ve never read any Faulker, so I did just a quick search on “Faulkner and incest” and I pulled up this article on JSTOR, called Faulkner and the Politics of Incest (1998). Apparently, Faulkner explores the incest motif in at least five novels, therefore it was enough of a distinctive theme in his work to warrant academic analysis. In this journal article, Karl F. Zender notes that:

[...] incest for Faulkner always remains tragic [...] – p. 746

Ah, we can see a bit of running theme here, can't we? But obviously, GRRM (one would hope) doesn’t just appreciate Faulkner’s writing for his extensive exploration of incest. This quote possibly sums up the potential artistic crossover between the two:

Beyond each level of achieved empathy in Faulkner's fiction stands a further level of exclusion and marginalization. – pp. 759–60

To me, the above parallels somewhat GRRM’s own interest in outcasts, in personal struggle (which incest also fits into):

I am attracted to bastards, cripples and broken things as is reflected in the book. Outcasts, second-class citizens for whatever reason. There’s more drama in characters like that, more to struggle with. [source]

Interestingly, however, this essay on Faulkner also connects his interest in the incest motif with the romantic poets, such as Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron:

As Peter Thorslev says in an important study of romantic representations of incest, " [p]arent-child incest is universally condemned in Romantic literature...; sibling incest, on the other hand, is invariably made sympathetic, is sometimes exonerated, and, in Byron's and Shelley's works, is definitely idealized.” – p. 741

Faulkner, "what draws you to incest?" ... I mean, that article gives some good explanations, actually.

Lord Byron, Manfred + The Bride of Abydos

Which brings us onto GRRM interest in the Romantics:

I was always intensely Romantic, even when I was too young to understand what that meant. But Romanticism has its dark side, as any Romantic soon discovers... which is where the melancholy comes in, I suppose. I don't know if this is a matter of artistic influences so much as it is of temperament. But there's always been something in a twilight that moves me, and a sunset speaks to me in a way that no sunrise ever has. [source]

I'm already in the process of writing a long meta about the influence of Lord Byron in ASOIAF, specifically examining this quote by GRRM:

The character I’m probably most like in real life is Samwell Tarly. Good old Sam. And the character I’d want to be? Well who wouldn’t want to be Jon Snow — the brooding, Byronic, romantic hero whom all the girls love. Theon [Greyjoy] is the one I’d fear becoming. Theon wants to be Jon Snow, but he can’t do it. He keeps making the wrong decisions. He keeps giving into his own selfish, worst impulses. [source]

Lord Byron, "what draws you to—", oh, um, right. Nevermind.

I'm not going to repeat myself here, but it's worth noting that there is a clear through line between GRRM and the Romantic writers, besides perhaps melancholic "temperament"... and it's incest.

But look, is choosing to explore the incest motif...well, a choice? Yeah, and an uncomfortable one at that, but it’s obvious that that is what GRRM is doing. I think it’s frankly a bit naive of some people to argue that GRRM would never do Jonsa because it’s pseudo-incest and therefore morally repugnant, no ifs, no buts. I’m sorry, as icky as it may be to our modern eyes, GRRM has set the president for it in his writing with the Targaryens and the Lannister twins.

The difference with them is that they knowingly commit incest, basing it in their own sense of exceptionalism, and there are/will be bad consequences — this arguably parallels the medieval narratives in which incest always ends badly, unless some kind of real penance is involved. For Jon and Sansa, however, the Jonsa argument is that they will choose not to commit incest, despite a confused attraction, and then will be rewarded in the narrative through the parentage reveal, a la Byron’s The Bride of Abydos. The Targaryens and Lannisters, in several ways excluding the incest (geez the amount of times I’ve written incest in this post), are foils for the Starks, and in particular, Jon and Sansa. Exploring the incest motif has been on the cards since the very beginning — just look at that infamous "original" outline — regardless of whether we personally consider that an interesting writing choice, or a morally inexcusable one.

Word of advice, or rather, warning... don't think you can catch me out with these kinds of questions. I have access to a university database, so if I feel like procrastinating my real academic work, I can and will pull out highly researched articles to school you, lmao.

But you know, thanks for the ask anyway, I guess.

[tsarisfanfiction]

Daughter of Archery

Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating: Gen Genre: Family Characters: Kayla Knowles, Darren Knowles, Apollo

If there’s one thing Kayla knows, it’s archery.

Day seventeen of TOApril organised by @ferodactyl, “Perfection Is a Must”.  My first instinct was more Will, but I didn’t want to get too predictable, so instead I decided to explore another Apollo kid for a change (which has nothing to do with the fact I spent several hours at an archery range today while musing on the prompt).

There’s now a discord server for all my fics, including this one!  If you wanna chat with me or with other readers about stuff I write (or just be social in general), hop on over and say hi!

They joke that Kayla was born with a bow in her hand.

It’s the only joke about her birth Kayla permits – she knows it isn’t true, because she can remember the first time Da let her hold one, but she does find it funny and flattering.

(Other questions and statements about her birth result in the nosey prick visiting Will for an arrow extraction; no-one harasses the Athena kids about how they were born, what’s so fascinating about her birth?  Admittedly, Kayla doesn’t know the details – Da told her when she asked that her dad just turned up with her one day – but she has a belly button and all the correct anatomy so what does it matter?)

Kayla’s the daughter of the god of archery and a professional archery coach.  She was claimed the moment she stepped into camp but even if Apollo hadn’t, she knows no-one could have ever mistaken her parentage for anyone else.  She hasn’t missed a bullseye in years.  Her arrows go exactly where she wants them to, every time, as though they teleport into existence in the target instead of flying through the air to bury themselves in the boss.

(She wonders, sometimes, how Will feels, the son of a well-known singer and the god of music yet struggles to hold a note.)

It’s not that she hasn’t had to work for her skill.  There’s no maybe that she’s inherited Apollo’s domain of archery through and through, but that doesn’t mean she’s never missed.  Da is a patient coach; she knows he always knew the real identity of her dad, but he’s not an Olympic coach for no reason.  He’s sharp but fair, and never expected a child to hit gold on her first try no matter who her parents are.

(Kayla hit it on her second. She remembers Da bursting into tears, and the high-five he gave her.)

There’s more to archery than just drawing a bow and releasing the arrow.  In the mortal world it’s a technical sport, with everything calculated to the uttermost precision.  Arrows have different fletching types, different nocks, different lengths and spines, and she has to know all of it.  She has to know the different types of weights, the variety of risers and limbs and sights, bow strings and bow slings, bracers and finger tabs. Anchor points, stringwalking – it’s a minefield of information, but Kayla grew up living and breathing all of those things.

(Da always insisted that she pay attention to everything.  “One day, this’ll be your life,” he’d told her, and as a naïve child she’d thought he just meant that he expected her to be a professional, just like him.  Now, she knows he knew that archery would become the difference between life and death for her.)

Kayla knows all about bows, about compounds and recurves – Da didn’t let her hold the former until not long before she went to camp, calling it too heavy, but the recurve has always been hers and the green of her riser is a custom Da had commissioned just for her – about barebow, about longbows and AFB.  Those are the common ones, the ones still used in modern competitions, but Da went further, showing her older styles.

(“Your dad’s favourite is the longbow,” he’d tell her, “but I always loved it best when he showed me the historic ones you don’t see in competitions.”)

She can use all of them, now.  The recurve is her primary bow, because that’s the one she had first, the one that’s most comfortable to her, the one she can and will win the Olympics with, but she’s skilled with all of them, coaches on all of them, now, and loves it.

(Coaching at Camp is more like making sure no-one hurts themselves than actually teaching; most of her ‘students’ are her siblings, and they tend to have at least some instinctive skill.  Athena and Ares kids are quick studies and no-one else should be trusted near ranged weaponry.)

Trying and failing to encourage a mortal Apollo is awkward.  He’s full of praise for her skill, the same way he always has been, but he’s the most difficult student she’s ever had because he can’t even bring himself to try.  He’s like her but he isn’t, because Kayla’s always been good but she’s had to work for perfect.  Apollo was born perfect and doesn’t know how to work for things.  He knows the theory, knows all the intricacies and technicalities of archery from the ancient to the modern, but his body can’t keep up with his knowledge and it’s hurting him.

(Knowledge is powerful. Too powerful, sometimes.  Da always promised her that she’d meet her dad, that he was still alive and waiting for her once she was old enough, but he refused to tell her who he was.  “It’s not safe for you to know just yet,” he’d tell her.  “He’s a famous guy.”  Kayla had spent all her spare time – not that she had much of it when she was fetching and fletching arrows, watching and shooting down at the range with Da whenever she wasn’t at school – researching Olympic champions, trying to find one that looked enough like her to be her dad.  She’d never come close to the truth and now she knows, she’s glad she didn’t. Mortals have rules on using bows, and killing monsters isn’t allowed in the rulebook.)

She doesn’t know how to help him.  She knows archery inside and out, back to front and better than she knows her body, but she’s never been the best at helping people when there’s nothing wrong with their stance, their form, their bow.  For a child of Apollo, she’s a little short, a little abrasive – her dad’s temper isn’t as obvious in her as it was in Michael, but it’s there – and while she can help Will put a body back together, there’s not much she’s good at with the mind.

(This is Will’s domain, but Will’s not here and she’s not fast enough to stop Apollo’s oath.  If the problem was with archery, she could have fixed it, but it wasn’t, not really, and she can’t fix this.)

[peralta-guaranteed]

After that Jake-Mac-Rosa fic, you dropped this queen: 👑 Next time, a Jake-Mac-Holt piece?

Oh dang, THAT's where I left it. Thank you for that. 🤪

Grandpa Holt is always a pleasure to write, but let's try for some Dad Holt too...

"Is everything alright, Peralta?"

Jake has been sitting off to the side of the group for a while now, so Holt finds it necessary to inquire. He's not used to the eager detective being so closed off and quiet unless something is wrong, and nothing he can think of right now strikes him as 'wrong': they have been celebrating the end of a rather arduous case for Diaz and Boyle, and Peralta had been as helpful as he could be as a tertiary, which was not his preferred position at all. The first round at Shaw's had been paid by himself as Captain, obviously, and the next by Diaz, so Boyle has promised to shoulder the third, were it to happen. Ergo Peralta could not be thinking about his usual money problems, which have lessened anyway ever since Santiago took over his budgeting.

That means something else entirely must be 'wrong' in order for Jake to keep out of the conversation, only reply when he is mentioned by name, and drift off to a corner of the bar while the other congregate around the various game options of the room.

"I'm good, Captain, thanks." Jake answers with a smile and an obvious lie, so Holt doesn't even bother replying, just raises one of his eyebrows a quarter of an inch, which he knows usually gets him results with Peralta. The ensuing sigh shows that it is still working.

"It's just..." Jake shrugs and rubs the back of his neck, another tell of his discomfort. "This is my first night out alone since the baby."

"Indeed." Holt replies. "I remember your phone call to Amy to inform her you would be back late today."

"Yeah." His hand is still on his neck, the other one clutched around his half empty beer bottle. "She told me to have fun. But..uh... I still kinda feel like I shouldn't be here."

"Do you think having a child robs you of autonomity? I know I am not speaking from experience, here, but it does seem to me like you are allowed to enjoy time away from your family, especially if your spouse insists you do."

"Getting drunk at a bar while my kid might be crying at home doesn't feel like the responsible thing to do, is all."

"Ah, I see." Holt nods, and he does see - he actually sees a lot more than what Jake might be trying to imply in his statement. He remembers how he used to self-medicate with alcohol in the past, after ending his relationship with that defense attorney, or even before, while feeling heartbroken over Santiago. He also remembers anecdotes about his father's drinking, not from Peralta himself, obviously, but from the rest of the squad, whenever Jake would cancel on a promised night out after Roger Peralta's visits. As much as Holt hates idioms, one of his most despised is probably 'the apple doesn't fall far from the tree', and Jake seems to fear it as well.

"Here is my solution, then, if you are willing to listen." Jake looks up at Holt as he's standing in front of him, and his hand drops from his neck. "You make the beer you are currently drinking your last for the night, and spend some quality time with your colleagues instead, enjoying a few parlour games, and then you head home at an agreeable time and still see your child before he falls asleep."

Jake grins and takes a sip of his beer.

"Sounds like a plan, Cap." He nods, and Holt doesn't ignore the fact that Jake has been using this shortened nickname for him a lot lately, and how eerily similar it sounds to 'Dad' in his voice.

(An hour later, he receives a picture on his cellphone from Peralta: The man himself, asleep on his couch, with his infant son equally asleep on his chest. Santiago must have commandeered his phone, and Holt is glad for it.)

-*-

"Grampa!"

The sound of that little voice echoes through the hallway as loudly as the ensuing footsteps, and Holt feels something warm and solid wrap around his legs.

"Hello, McClane." He smiles down at the little boy currently clutching his knees, and he smiles back before raising his arms in an obvious demand to be lifted up. Holt obeys it immediately.

He notices Mac looks surprisingly tired for an otherwise very energetic two year old, and Amy, who's now following him to Holt's side, looks equally exhausted.

"Good afternoon, Captain. I'm so sorry, I should've messaged you that I have to bring Mac in for an hour, the babysitter cancelled and the day care couldn't keep him longer than-"

"It is quite alright, Santiago. McClane knows how to behave himself at the precinct, right?" He gives the little boy in his arms a look, and receives a strong and eager nod in reply, the curls on his head bouncing back and forth. If anyone were ever to question Peralta's parentage, that alone would classify them as an imbecile. "I can watch him for the time being, if you have paperwork you need to get in order before leaving for the day."

"God, Captain Holt, would you- that would be so- I was going to ask Rosa, because I know she's at her desk-"

Amy seems far more frazzled than usual, and Holt realises that her regular schedule must be in quite a disarray, considering she has been a single parent for about a week now. Mac must not have been making it easy for her, either, nor must the baby currently growing in her stomach, which has started to show about a month ago, at which point they finally informed the squad about it (when everyone had already figured it out just like last time).

"RoRo!" Mac yells, happily, almost leaning out of Holt's arms, but he quickly hugs him tighter.

"Your aunt Rosa is working, McClane, and we should not interrupt her. We can spend the time in my office, and you can draw if you would like."

"Roro working." He echoes like a little parrot. "Like Daddy."

"That's right." Holt has learned from the parenting homepages he's visited that you are to encourage a child trying to talk and string together a coherent topic, no matter how long it might take.

"Daddy's working away." Mac continues, and out of the corner of his eye Holt sees Amy's forehead wrinkle in worry.

"Yes, your father is in New Jersey for the week to work on a special case." It's not a dangerous case at all, rather a boring standard task that happened to involve some out-of-state suspects, but Jake had still been trying to hand off that trip to anyone who might be willing to help him out. Seeing his son with bags under his eyes and his wife with stresslines around her mouth and her hand on her belly, Holt understands why.

"He comes back." Mac says next, and it is a statement, but the look in his eyes makes it a question, and Holt is quick to answer. He's glad that he has a definite answer to that, instead of the empty promises and assurances he sometimes has to make as the head of a police department.

"Yes, your father will be back soon. In two days, in fact."

Mac holds up two grubby little fingers, and Holt nods with so much fervor it surprises himself.

"Very good, that is two. Only two days and two nights until your father is back home." The worry in Mac's eyes seems to dimish a little at that as he stares at his own fingers. "If we go to my office, we can check on the calendar exactly how long that is." He barely waits for another nod before taking the diaper bag out of Santiago's hands, who whispers a quiet, but relieved "Thank you" to him. He understands again that it means far more than to thank him for taking care of the child for an hour so.

(If he uses that hour to assure Mac several times that no matter what, his father will always find a way back to him with far more emotion in his voice than he'd usually use, well, no one needs to know. Peralta certainly seems happy about the picture he sends him of Mac with his captain's hat behind his desk.)

-*-

"Congratulations." Holt's hand on his shoulder is heavy, but not uncomfortably so, and it gives a quick squeeze before dropping.

They've done the whole customary introduction to the newborn baby, the apparently necessary picture round, and now Kevin is having an amicable chat with Amy in her hospital bed. They've waited two days for their official visit, to give the new parents a chance to get at least a few of their bearings. (Holt was there merely an hour after the birth, of course, with the rest of the squad, but that was a moment of joyful chaos and many voices.) Now the room is filled with an almost serene quiet, Amy's and Kevin's voices low and comfortable in the background as Holt watches the man he truly considers a son hold up his new granddaughter.

"Do you want to hold her again? I know you already did for the photos but-"

Holt only nods and takes the infant out of his hands with perfect ease. He's more used to a wriggling toddler now, but he still clearly remembers the days when Mac was equally quiet and frail in his arms. The little one in them now is asleep amidst all that is happening, her tiny mouth open just a fraction, and he feels her arm bump against his chest while she seems to be having a dream.

"She is as perfect as her older brother, Jake."

"Yeah." Jake smiles, and there's nothing of that boisterous, loud, cocky detective grin left in it that he used to know. It is soft and kind and full of love, and it might be one of Holt's favourite expressions. "Amy did a superb job again."

"As did you."

"I'm sure I don't gotta explain this to you, Cap, but I didn't really do much." Jake jokes, and Holt can tell he's trying to divert the attention to a simpler topic, but sometimes things must be said.

"You do a lot, Jacob." He continues, then. "Far more than a lot of fathers do. Far more than many would expect of you. And you do it all perfectly right, with heart and determination."

Jake nods, swallowing down a lump in his throat, it seems, and it might be a step too far for his already emotional state, but Holt feels like it needs to accompany his accolades.

"I am very proud of you, son."

Jake is very obviously fighting back tears as he replies.

"Thanks, dad."

The little girl in Holt's arms stirs right at this moment, and Jake seems to want to interject immediately in fear that she'll start crying, but she simply stares up at Holt with impossibly big, brown eyes for the first time. And he realises, just as he did two years ago when Mac's little hand tightened around his finger for the first time, that there is a child in this world that he would literally do anything for. There are four of them now, even if two of them have not fallen under the category of a child for several decades.

"Hello, Maya." He says to the little face that seems to be inspecting him. "I'm Captain Raymond Holt. Your grandfather."

He looks up at Kevin and Amy, who've stopped their conversation while Amy is lifting her phone in their direction, and then at Jake, who's looking at Maya as well with shining eyes. Then he looks back down at Maya, stretching her arms out of her swaddle as if she's reaching for him.

"You are a very lucky little girl."

[angelicamerlinbarnes]

Modern AU: "Lilies"

Severus knows Lily is dead before James comes by to tell him. How, you ask?

Well, because she shows up in his kitchen on Sunday morning, translucent, to yell at him about his life choices.

Severus is living in a rundown old white house that he used to share with his wife Lily. She left him for James, a musician travelling with the other half of his duo act, Sirius. Last Severus heard, the two of them are world famous and Lily and James have had a son named Harry.

As it happened, five years ago James and Sirius had come to town for Sirius to reconnect with his little brother, Regulus. As they had a falling out and a difference of opinion regarding their parentage, their relationship remained just as strained and cold as it had always been despite Sirius’ best efforts. While James spent most of the visit having a smoky and lazy affair with Regulus, he met Lily at the grocery store one day and it was love at first sight. She’d left Severus a month later, choosing to travel the world with James, and had had Harry within the year.

During this visit, Remus, who had been married to Tonks at the time with a child on the way, had fallen deeply in love with Sirius, but had broken Sirius’ heart when he chose to keep his marriage vows rather than run away with him. Sirius tried to keep in touch with Remus after he and James left, but Remus never replied, though Sirius never stopped sending letters. Remus’ wife died two weeks after their son Teddy’s premature birth from complications, and Teddy followed in the hours after. Overwhelmed with grief, Remus shut himself away, only going out for work and to drink. The night he got fired from his job as a teacher, he drank so much he got into an accident on his way home, and is now confined to a wheelchair. That, paired with his self-inflicted scars and depression, led to a suicide attempt that Severus saved him from. Now, Remus is still a recluse, though he now works as a librarian, volunteers at the orphanage, and takes the time to have tea with Severus every day.

Severus grows lilies in his garden in memory of his wife, and nearly dies of a heart attack when her ghost shows up in his kitchen one Sunday morning. She yells at him about throwing away his life for her when she was clearly never worth it and Severus yells back at her for leaving him. But while their new living arrangement is a bit stiff, they remember why they loved each other well enough, so they get on fine, though Lily still cries about missing James and Harry nearly every day.

James shows up in town about a week later with Sirus and Harry in tow, saying he came to deliver a letter Lily left Severus upon her death, since she’d been sick for a long time. Severus invites them in for tea, because he’s British and he’s polite, and Sirius spends most of the time staring at Remus’ house through the window and asking questions about him. James holds Harry on his lap while Lily’s ghost fusses over both of them, though neither of them can see or hear her. Severus still hates James for stealing his wife, but it’s faded into a dull ache by now, especially as seeing James is now a single father, though James does assure him that since Sirius is his partner, Harry will be far from alone.

Though originally only planning to stay long enough to deliver the letter, James decides to stick around for a bit for unspecified reasons. (It’s not because Sirius and Remus both just smiled stupidly at each other for five gay minutes when they were reunited. Of course not.) As he usually leaves Sirius with Remus for the two of them to catch up, James takes to leaving Harry with Severus when he becomes too overwhelmed with grief to take care of him. Severus grows fond of the boy, and often translates Lily’s stories for him since Harry can’t see his mother the same way Severus can.

James tries to patch up his relationship with Regulus, but Regulus is not hearing of it, feeling abandoned and hurt since James left him for Lily. This does however make him more perceptible to Sirius, who is delighted to have his little brother back in his life, though his strained and shy relationship with Remus is wearing on him. Regulus tells James and Sirius that he had a partner, Amir, who died in a home break-in and Regulus, who is trans, suffered a miscarriage of their daughter upon hearing the news. Severus and Remus take care of him, though their own unstable mental states make it difficult some days. Working at the library with Remus helps, he says, but still refuses to speak to James and is tolerating but far from welcoming of Sirius. Only at Severus’ advice that he would be a far happier person if he just allowed Sirius into his life does Regulus begin to open up towards both his brother and his brother’s partner.

James stays at Severus’ house per Lily’s request, and Harry grows quite attached to Severus. Remus begins to spend more and more time with Severus, growing increasingly anxious about his strenuous relationship with Sirius. Lily and Severus begin to slip back into a domestic relationship even though she’s a ghost, and Severus tells Remus about it, believing he’s going crazy. Remus shrugs and says he still hears Teddy crying sometimes.

As times passes, James and Severus slip into a limbo of sorts. As James has become increasingly close to Remus through Sirius, they spend more time together than ever before, and end up falling for each other in their shared grief. Still, despite their unofficial connection, Severus encourages Regulus’ feelings for James, believing them the better match and hoping Regulus can find some sort of happiness after all the shit he’s been through. Unfortunately, this all comes to a head when one day Sirius and Remus break up in an explosive fight, leading James to leave with Sirius and Harry in tow. Severus bids them a bitter goodbye and settles into taking care of Remus and Regulus, both of whom are now far more broken than they were before.

Remus tries to kill himself again. Severus is alerted to this by Lily, who has been doting on Remus since finding out about his and Sirius’ love for each other. Severus races Remus to the hospital, getting him there just in time. Regulus is beside himself, and Severus calls James using the hospital phone, saying he thought he and Sirius should know. James hangs up on him, but shows up in the waiting room with Sirius and Harry three hours later. Severus offers to drive James home, since only family can stay and no one is doubting that Sirius is Remus’ husband even if there are no papers to prove it, and by his rights, Regulus is allowed to stay as well. On the way back to Severus’ house they have a conversation about their feelings for each other, though Severus continues to insist that James choose Regulus instead of him. This evolves into a shouting match until their attention is so far from the road that a semi crashes into them, gravely injuring Severus and hurting James severely, though Harry remains unharmed save a few cuts and bruises. James breaks down over Severus’ body, trying desperately to call 9-1-1, but it’s no use. Severus passes away in Lily’s ghostly arms, James’ screams still echoing in his ears.

Severus wakes up in his house, surrounded by the things Lily destroyed in her anger at him and James over the past few months. Lily is pressing kisses all over his face and crying, explaining that he’s a ghost now too, and stuck with her forever. Severus comments that he doesn’t think that’s too bad, and Lily slaps him but laughs anyway, drawing him into a kiss. They stay wrapped up in each other until James shows up at the house with Harry, sobbing and sagging to the ground in the doorway as both Lily and Severus wrap themselves around him, whispering, “Oh, Jamie…”

Sirius is trying to take care of James and Harry, but he’s pretty much a wreck himself, having been sleeping with a record number of men since his and Remus’ break-up and drinking and smoking his problems away. He’s been writing in manic frenzies, mostly songs about unrequited love, and has spent the rest of his time enduring depressive slumps. Remus is released from the hospital and tries to help him, but is struggling to deal with the loss of Severus, even if he has Sirius back.

Regulus begins to shoulder much of the responsibility of James’ care. He watches over James while Sirius and Remus watch over each other, and comes to care for Harry like a son. Sirius loves him for it, and does his best to pitch in where he can. Though his trust issues and grief are incapacitating, Sirius starts to rebuild his relationship with Remus, this time on a solid foundation of trust and truth, though it takes time. He begins to understand, through their conversations about both of the times they fell in love, why Remus chose to stay with Tonks despite his heart belonging to Sirius, and comes to a new understanding of Lily’s choice of James, as she was already pregnant with Harry by the time she left Severus, and in the minds of parents, children come first. Severus is a bit heartbroken to learn that Lily had cheated on him, but is too tired to truly be angry, and tells Lily it’s in the past now. She smiles at him and kisses his cheek.

James, meanwhile, is working himself into a downward spiral. He’s wondered for years whether Lily ever really loved him like he loved her or if she just chose him because of Harry, and he’s also felt terribly guilty for stealing her from Severus no matter how much he loved her. While he tried to treat Severus right, he knew it was a failed pipe dream from the beginning, as he could never truly keep his heart from Regulus’ delicate hands. Severus and Lily both try to speak with him, but in vain, as he cannot see them.

The ghosts try to take care of Harry, though he can’t see them either. As it comes to be, Sirius and Remus rebuild themselves and each other enough to give Harry and James a stable home. Their partnership with James gives him the strength to keep going, and he begins to make things right with Regulus, who seems happier these days despite all his sadness. As the years pass, Severus and Lily watch their family grow. Sirius and Remus marry, adopting four children from the orphanage where Remus volunteers: Luna, Hermione, Newt, and Draco. They and Harry make friends with the Wealsey children from down the street, and James marries Regulus in a quiet ceremony shortly after tying himself to Sirius and Remus permanently. Lily’s body is moved to their town and buried beside Severus, and the two ghosts settle down in their graves, willingly passing on.

And in case you were wondering… (which I know you’re not)

Remus makes Sirius quit smoking. He and James give up their famous lifestyle for their spouses and children, settling in the town where this all began. Sirius and Regulus build a strong relationship that does not fray or break any longer. Sirius is Harry’s second favorite person after James, and Harry makes Remus take him to visit Severus and Lily’s graves at least three times every year. Sirius loves Remus a lot, but that’s okay, because Remus loves Sirius a lot too.

Sirius is James’ favorite person and he loves him so fucking much - Remus too. He misses Severus and Lily every day, but he’s got their son and the flowers to remember them by. He thinks maybe he could have a Happily Ever After here, maybe. If the world stands still long enough.

Meanwhile, Peter has lived in a homeless shelter since he got dumped by his ex-wife Mary, who is a kindergarten teacher now dating Dorcas the karate teacher and Marlene the bartender. He meets Max and their son Seamus there and falls in love with Max immediately, eventually building a home with them on a generous gift from Sirius that allows him to start up his own bakery. Though Remus offers to put him up every time he visits, Peter always refuses, though he bakes him plenty of thank you muffins once he’s out. James comes to Peter for advice about all of his relationships, and Peter indulges him every time, though really he just wants to bake cookies and sleep. Peter is the happiest person in this story how is that possible

Mcgonogall is the head librarian who listens to hard rock and has her wards (Sirius, Remus, and James) over for tea when she needs to give any of them a swift kick in the rump for their stupid life decisions. Dumbledore and Grindelwald are a married couple who grow petunias in their garden and live next to Mcgonogall, since she and Dumbledore are partners. Grindelwald glares at everyone and everything and Dumbledore hums Beatles songs under his breath off-key and brings an open umbrella on his walks on sunny days, so yeah. The Weasleys are the nutcases who run the orphanage and the homeless shelter, Peggy Schuyler is Newt’s best friend and a schoolmate of the children’s, and life is alright.

Yeah I don’t know what this is either.

[bestworstcase]

for months i’ve been dwelling on the, like, foundational differences between canon cassandra and bitter snow cassandra and meaning to write a. write-up of those differences and basically:

appearance

- canon cass is a bog standard slender but curvaceous woman with disney sameface and wavy hair and that is not how we roll in this household 

- one day i am going to do a proper design sheet for bitter snow cassandra but in the meantime this gets the gist across. cheekbones, strong jaw, squarish face, bigger more defined nose with a bump, thicker eyebrows, curls. plus, stocky and muscular. i imagine her being like 5′7″ she’s pretty short. 

- it is just emotionally important to me that all of you know bitter snow cassandra is not a skinny waif

- also she is trans

- disney heroine syndrome aside it’s clear that the intention is for canon cass to bear a strong resemblance to gothel, but - there being no biological relationship between bitter snow cass and gothel - i don’t imagine there being a significant similarity in her appearance and calanthe’s. obv they’re both strong-faced women with dark curly hair but that’s the extent of it. 

cutting here for length

parentage/family

- this is the obvious category lol 

- canon cassandra is gothel’s biological daughter, father unknown. she was an only child, and if she had other living biological relatives then we did not get to meet them.

- gothel abandoned her and she was thereafter raised by the captain of the guard, unaware of her heritage.

- bitter snow cassandra is the daughter of sholar and morana hároham, who were farmers of no particular renown in the remote saporian village of socona. she has/had two aunts—sholar’s older sister sirin hároham, and her partner maíne dathámar—who had two children, tathēdora (tath) and cornaīn, both older than cassandra.

- cassandra also has a number of living relatives in artois: her maternal grandparents perun and sibéal ghealach, their other children ronan and acanth, and their families. the ghealach side of the family is estranged from the hároham side and has been for two decades.

- several months after rapunzel’s birth, sholar and morana were implicated as ringleaders in the socona poisonings—an (alleged) terroristic attack on the royal court of corona involving tainted crops, which killed six and sickened dozens more, queen arianna included. they, and seven other farmers from the area, were arrested and swiftly hanged for treason.

- sir peter morgenstern, then a sergeant, was among the guards sent to arrest the hárohams and found cassandra in their home. he brought her back to herzingen with him, put her in an orphanage there, and then adopted her himself three years later once things settled down.

- except there was no treason or conspiracy. the socona “poisonings” were in actuality the result of a magical blight that burned through southern corona from artois to alcorsīa, killing hundreds and leaving its survivors disabled; the farmers of socona were a politically convenient scapegoat, nothing more. 

- maíne died in the first wave of blight-sickness. tath also became ill but survived for another fourteen years before succumbing to a secondary infection. cornaīn was killed almost four years after that by soldiers aboard a coronan prison barge. besides cassandra, sirin is the only surviving member of the hároham family. 

- cassandra is informed of the coronan version of the story when she is ten years old, and learns the truth from sirin shortly before her twenty-third birthday. 

trauma!

...which brings us to this section. 

canon cass

- suffered early childhood neglect and emotional abuse in gothel’s care. witnessed her mother’s abandonment at the age of four. this early trauma was exacerbated by the captain, and she suppressed the memories of her life with gothel. 

- her sense of self worth is tied to service and what she is able to do for other people; this was inculcated in her by gothel through parentification and neglect, and inadvertently reinforced by the captain’s militaristic and emotionally distant approach to parenting. he taught her to “earn her keep,” and seems to have used the credible threat of forced imprisonment in a convent to encourage good behavior. 

- that lack of self worth is further exacerbated by her station as a servant. cassandra’s closest—and perhaps only—friend is the princess she is duty-bound to serve, and this relationship becomes more and more toxic for her as time goes on and rapunzel repeatedly and consistently transgresses her boundaries. she has no viable support network and by the end of s2, she is completely alienated from her friend group and vulnerable to zhan tiri’s abuse. 

- learning about gothel is the final straw that pushes her over the edge, leading her to take the moonstone herself and lash out and rapunzel and corona in a blind rage with encouragement from zhan tiri. 

bitter snow cass

- sholar and morana were loving parents, and as a child cassandra was doted upon by her aunts, cousins [tath being 5 years older, and cornaīn 3], and the tight-knit socona community in general. around 4 she started to become insistent on being a girl, and was both allowed and encouraged to live as one. 

- the blight began approximately one and a half months before cassandra’s fifth birthday. maíne became sick and died very suddenly, and both tath and morana became severely ill almost as fast. the arrests began in tárosh, just weeks before cassandra would turn five. the trauma of all this and her abrupt removal from her home was all intensely traumatic for her, and compounded by her negligible grasp of the coronan language at the time. 

- in the orphanage in herzingen cassandra was mostly neglected and left to her own devices, but punished harshly for speaking saporian or asking for her parents. she began to suppress her memories of socona and her fluency in saporian was badly degraded. she continued to live as a girl but began to grasp that the particulars of her girlhood were not acceptable in herzingen and went to great lengths to avoid being identified as trans.

- shortly after her adoption, she met feldspar willipeg, who took her under his wing and helped her relearn and retain the saporian language as well as reintroducing her—lightly and delicately—to certain aspects of saporian culture. he remained an important anchor to her saporian heritage and friend/mentor throughout her life. 

- being a saporian child growing up in herzingen was traumatic in and of itself. much of her sense of self-worth is wrapped up in the idea of being coronan, and her various failures to measure up in this regard. she is riddled with self-disgust and self-hatred after years of active, subtle and not-so-subtle coercion to reject her saporian heritage. as a child and young adult she feels a tremendous pressure to demonstrate loyalty and service to the kingdom of corona in order to ‘prove’ that she is not like her parents. these internal feelings often manifests as compulsive acts of self-sacrifice or self-sabotage. 

- after she learns the truth of her parent’s innocence, her sense of identity and self-worth come unmoored altogether and she begins to oscillate wildly between defiant pride and vicious self-loathing. she is able to find community and solace with other saporians—moira caine and the crew of the zampermin—but her self-hatred and doubts continue to fester, and she struggles with feeling alienated from both her saporian heritage and her coronan upbringing.

key behavioral differences

- both canon cassandra and bitter snow cassandra are defined by their inability to articulate what they truly want. however, the sheer depth and breadth of the injustices bitter snow cassandra faces do mean that she is able to describe broad long-term goals or desires in a way that canon cassandra is not: she supports saporia’s side in the emergent civil war, and she wants redress for what was done to her family. where canon cassandra agonizes over shapelessly vague notions of “destiny” and “proving herself,” bitter snow cassandra wrestles with more concrete questions—how does she reconcile her friendship with rapunzel and her newfound separatist sympathies? what role will she play in corona’s civil war once the black rock problem is dealt with? who does she want to be? is [insert problem that is absolutely not her fault] secretly her fault?—and this gives her a certain sense of direction even when she is floundering and unable to come up with any answers. 

- bitter snow cassandra seeks to separate herself from rapunzel and embraces the support of other friends long before canon cassandra’s friendship with rapunzel even begins to truly sour. there are several reasons for this; the situation in herzingen becomes untenable for her after she learns the truth and her loyalties change, and the simple fact that she has somewhere else to go enables her to leave. but also, rapunzel’s difficulty accepting her shifted allegiance and saporian heritage in general accelerate the crumbling of their relationship. at the same time, however, because bitter snow cassandra has both left rapunzel’s service and found a solid support network of her own, she is actually much better equipped than canon cassandra to assert her boundaries with rapunzel and attempt to repair their friendship.  

[extremelyblackandwhite]

handmaid - 36

PAIRING: mob!sebastian stan x ingenue!reader

WARNINGS: age gap

A/N: the next chapter is gonna be the last one and i think i’m gonna need therapy. hope you enjoy this chapter x

NEXT CHAPTER

Y/N was dressed in a baby pink and white tweed two piece, her almond white heel hitting the ground as she looked around the same halls she used to run as a child. Yet, this time everything seemed a bit more somber, the red of the walls seemed to almost swallow her in her own mind. Everything seemed a blur to her, from Dan showing up at the house with most of Mr. Forrest’s men to Sebastian being taken away. She wasn’t sure how long it had been, all she knew was that she had been moved around by Dan and several other associates from place to place until she had finally been placed in her old bedroom of her childhood home. However, the home no longer felt like home and as she waited outside Mr. Forrest’s office, fingers picking at the fabric of the very expensive skirt which for the first time seemed to fit her like a second skin. 

The door opened and one of the maids gave her a kind smile before pulling the door completely open. She stood up on her heels, wondering what awaited her behind the threshold into the office of the man she had just discovered was her father. Not that it was a completely bad new, Mr. Forrest had never been anything other than kind to her but it was odd. It was odd that the father she always wished would be around during Father’s day, who would come to see her recitals had always been there but at the same time it wasn’t. He had always been in the crowd, unbeknownst to her and as she stepped inside his office and looked at the man she had seen ever since was little standing up, staring at her as if she would disappear at any minute, she wondered how she felt. Between Sebastian and being moved around like a lost package hadn’t given her enough time to even consider how she felt about her actual parentage. The young just turned heiress wasn’t sure how she felt about actually having one parent alive yet being somehow the reason as to why her mother wasn’t around anymore.

    - I know you probably have several questions, Y/N. - his voice trembled, almost in fear of what his daughter had pent up inside of her. - If you allowed me, I would like to explain it to you what really happened.

    - I guess. - her hands held the top of the chair, not sure if she should sit or not. 

    - I really loved your mother. I met her at the Opera, I swear I can still hear her voice in the quiet of the night ... I nicknamed her Robin, gave her the necklace you’re wearing. She loved you so much, she painted your nursery herself, spent hours and hours deciding on a name before finally sticking with Ella and would constantly read you her favourite books even before you were born. We were so ready to have you but after your mother I just, I just couldn’t let anything bad happen to you. I thought many times about placing you with some of my associates but then they put you in my arms and I saw your mother’s eyes on you, how tiny you were, I just couldn’t let you go. I do realise it was selfish of me and I know you probably will never forgive me for lying all these years but all I did was to protect you ... Not that it worked very well in the end. 

Y/N just starred at the powerful man in front of her lay it all down. Maybe it was her curse to get powerful man at their most vulnerable yet Y/N just couldn’t be mad. She knew she should be mad, she should be mad that all this time she had a father, she had a completely different name in her mother’s eyes without even mentioning being in the shadow. Yet, she couldn’t be mad, when she looked at him all she saw was a man who had lost the woman he loved and the opportunity of having a daughter, or at least having her the way everyone ordinarily had one. 

She sighed, a faint smile pulling at the corner of her lips as she walked closer to the old man, wrapping her arms around him. What use was it be mad? They had both lost something, something important and while Y/N had lost her mother, he had lost the woman he loved. As much love Y/N held for the mother she never knew, her father had lost the woman he had loved and the opportunity to have an ordinary lifestyle. She was in no place to be mad at someone who had lost so much.

   - I forgive you. - she took a step back, her eyes slightly glancing to the little robin attached to the golden chain. 

   - We should get some dinner. I would love to show you some photos from when your mother was pregnant. 

   - I would love to but I’m afraid I have to check on someone. - Y/N wasn’t entirely sure if she should mention her relationship with Sebastian. She had mostly begged Daniel not to mention it and while Gwen had jetted off the moment she didn’t have to get married anymore, she was wise enough not to drop it on her newly found father that she was not only in a relationship with the man who was supposed to marry Gwen just a few weeks ago but also pregnant. Either way, she wanted to go check on Sebastian. No matter how much she asked, no one would tell her anything and her phone had been removed right when they both were rescued from Mr. Williams. - Maybe later on?

   - Make sure you take Daniel with you. - Y/N nodded as one of the employees escorted her outside the study and back to the hallway where Dan was.  She gave him a playful smile before walking up to whom she guessed she now had to call her step-brother, not that he hadn’t act like one since she was a little girl. 

   - Tweed? Starting to dress like an heiress, Y/N? 

   - One of the maids left it in my bedroom. - she twisted her foot slightly behind her, a bit of heat climbing up to his cheeks. - Mr. Forrest, I mean, my father said I need to take you if I wanna go somewhere. 

   - It’s okay, he only told me he was his father when I was 10. You get used to it eventually. 

  - How do you get used to suddenly becoming first in line to owning ... - she motioned around her. - All of this. 

  - I’m sure you can ask Sebastian for help. - his words made her stop on her tracks, a furrowed eyebrow at his statement before Daniel took a file from under his shirt. - I had my suspicions but after he was ready to sign off his place in the mob for you ... well, didn’t take long to puzzle it out. 

  - Did you tell anyone? - she grabbed the file away from him, not wanting anyone to hold it and mostly because she wished to destroy it or give it to Sebastian. 

  - I don’t think Gwen would be too interested in it considering she went on holiday with one of his bodyguards the moment she got told the wedding was off. Besides, if someone is to tell our father about it, it certainly won’t be me. 

  - I thought you hated Sebastian. I’m sure you called them standoffish and murderous. 

  - I still dislike him but ... you like him and considering you’re gonna be my boss someday, I don’t think I should really go against what you want. 

Y/N merely chuckled at him as both of them got into the car and, following a bit of banter discussing if it was the best idea to go visit Sebastian or not, started to drive up to the Upper East Side. Sebastian hadn’t been taken to the hospital despite most of Y/N’s complaining, whenever she did all Dan would say ‘we don’t want the police in our business’ so all she could think about was if he was alright and recovering just fine. It wasn’t like someone would harm her if she made a call, however Dan and the other associates were firm on keeping Y/N as isolated as possible for the very first weeks.

Maybe it had been for the best, she had spent the two weeks feeling sick or very tired and weirdly enough, only a few days ago had she been able to get up without feeling like a goblin. However, she sure hoped he was alright and as his apartment because visible, her heart soared. It wasn’t like Sebastian had tried to contact her either, maybe he didn’t want to see her. After all, she was the reason he had three bullet holes in his body. As Dan parked in front of the building, her heart beat faster.

    - I’ll wait for you here. - Dan took her off her mindset. - Be safe, okay? 

    - I will. - Y/N climbed off the car, scarily walking over to the door which was opened by the doorman with a smile on his face. She entered the very familiar lift, looking at the light buttons on the switch panel until the penthouse was reached. The doors opened horizontally and the once familiar house felt cold. Maybe it was because there just wasn’t so much staff running around. Actually, she could only spot a few bodyguards and overall staff before Amelia came strutting her way.

   - Miss Y/N, I was so worried. When you didn’t come back with Mr. Sebastian. Thank god you’re alright, you look so good. 

   - Yeah, they’ve been moving me around for a few weeks. Do you reckon I could see Sebastian?

   - He’s been in his room for a few weeks, doctor’s orders. I told him to go the hospital but the police rule. - she started to walk up the stairs with Y/N right behind her until she led her to Sebastian’s room. - You let me know if you need anything.

Y/N took a deep breathe, trying to shoo away all of the negative thoughts she had within her mind before pulling on the door handle, pushing the door open to see Sebastian laid down in bed surrounded by several papers, most likely contracts, with his glasses resting on the bridge of his nose. She leaned against the wood of the door lining, her eyes calmly set on his tense forehead as he went through each paper faster than a computer, writing what looked like unreadable calligraphy. He was the one to notice her first, taking his glasses off as a soft smile appeared on his face.

    - Didn’t think your father would let you near me any time soon. - he spoke out, voice slightly raspy as if he hadn’t caught a wink of sleep in the past weeks. Y/N merely rolled her eyes at his statement, walking up to his bed and taking a seat in a spot free of papers. - Are you alright?

    - I should be asking you that. - her hand creeped up to his, her fingers shyly touching his. - You should’ve gone to the hospital, Sebastian.

    - Just bullet wounds, angel, nothing new. 

    - I thought I lost you, Sebastian. You didn’t try to reach out to me for two weeks, I was worried. - she bite down onto her lip, afraid her emotions would get the best of her. Sebastian noticed this, pushing the contracts away from his lap before his hands wrapped around her waist, pushing her closer to him despite the lingering pain of the gun shot wounds still present but he didn’t care.

    - Angel, I thought you were gonna die and it was my fault. I promised nothing bad would happen to you and that ... that despicable rat had you chained to the ground .. the things he said he would do to you and if he had done it it would’ve been my fault.

   - Sebastian, it’s not your fault. - her hand raised to caress his jaw. - You couldn’t have done anything, whatever he wanted ... it goes way past me and you. 

   - I allowed him to be near you and I let you be alone at the hotel ... I should’ve just ran off with you, I should’ve just ... I should’ve just told you I loved you when I had the shot, we could’ve jus ...

   - It’s no good to live in the past, Seb. You’re okay, I’m okay, we’re fine. Whatever happened, let’s just forget it. - she took the documents from her purse handing it to him. - I thought you should have those. I don’t think it would be very safe for those papers to be wandering around. I can’t believe you would give it all up for me.

   - I would do anything for you. - he leaned his head against her shoulder. - How is the baby? 

   - Baby’s fine, probably got tired of making me feel miserable all the time. - she made herself comfortable in his bed. - How do you feel about it? The baby, I mean.

   - I would’ve rather heard about it in a less stressing situation but I just can’t really believe it. Somewhere in my life I must’ve done something good, I must’ve done something good because I really don’t deserve you much less a family with you.

   - I don’t really think it’s about deserving, it’s just ... maybe fated considering I was supposed to marry you all along. 

   - That is a contract marriage I can’t really complain about.

   - From now on, let it just be the two of us. Nothing else, no more Gwen, no more lost parents, just ... an ordinary family. 

   - I’d like that.

tag list: @lilya-petrichor​ @xoxohannahlee​ @nikkipea​ @irespostthingsiwanttoseelater​ @madisonpillstrom​ @cevans98​ @thelostallycat​ @sideeffectsofyou​ @anxiousdreamersworld​ @captainchrisstan​ @lookiamtrying​ @sarge-barnes-sir​ @stuffforreferences​ @thebadassbitchqueen​ @sebastianstansqueen​ @nsfwsebbie​ @strangerliaa​ @emzd34​ @everything-is-awesomesauce​ @dreams-in-blxck​ @krismeunicornbaobei​ @buckysteveloki-me​

[ninjastormhawkkat]

My Crazy Wordgirl Theory #2

I will get to writing stories for my version of the Becky Boxleitner au. I just really need to get this out of the way. After going through sites for the canon facts of the Wordgirl television series and re-watching old Wordgirl episodes to help me write some stories for my version of the au, I sort of discovered something interesting. In a scene from “The Rise of Miss Power” we see an image of a male and female Lexiconian superhero duo painted on the ceiling of the room in the episode special. Now about everyone in the fandom has speculated that image is a painting of her biological parents, or an idea of what her parents would look like. But what if that were not true? What if that painting was just a symbolic image of what the humanoid people on Lexicon typically looked like? Back in the episode, “Wordgirl Makes A Mistake”, Becky mentions that she accidentally crawled onto the ship of Captain Huggy Face, a famous (Lexiconian) Air Force Pilot when she was really little. For about 10 or 11 years, Bob and Becky have been raised on earth with no attempts to get back to Lexicon, and no one from Lexicon has come to find them. I am not trying to paint Becky’s biological parents in a bad light, but why was no Lexiconian searching for their lost child? From looking at Wordgirl’s Spaceship Hideout, it appears that people from Lexicon have the technological resources to track down the crashed ship of a famous pilot and find him and a lost child. This would take them only a few years. Also looking at Wordgirl’s origin story, it seems that Lexicon is not lightyears away from Earth or Becky and Bob would have been a bit older than when they were found in the origin flashback. (I know it is a cartoon, but some rules of science still apply to the show). I don’t know how far the planets are from each other but I think they exist in the same solar system if indicated by the alien tech that Lexiconians are able to travel faster to planets without aging much. Again I ask if this is possible, then why has no one come to rescue Becky and Bob? What if it was because Becky was meant to have crawled onto Huggy’s ship and never be found? We don't know the strength of Lexiconian’s memory at a young age. We know they can remember everything they read since Becky knows every word in the dictionary, but we don’t know how early they maintain a photographic memory. I believe that Bob may have told Becky the story about how they came to earth when she was old enough. From watching that scene, we can assume Becky only has memories of crawling onto a ship and falling asleep, then waking up to a startled pilot. Bob even has no clue how a child with no business being near a spaceship about to take off so he tells her what he only knows. Could it be Becky was never meant to be found by anyone else from Lexicon? Why so? Why hide from a planet of heroes? Here is where the conspiracy I formulated in my head starts. Let’s consider this question: What if Becky was only half Lexiconian?

We first need to look at Lexicon’s political structure. About everyone who has watched or watches the show must have thought at one point that Lexicon was a planet of heroes which is why Becky wanted to use her powers for good and become a superhero at an early age. What we may not realize is that the term hero could apply differently on Lexicon than on Earth. In the flashback of Wordgirl’s origin, Becky refers to Huggy as a famous air force pilot. He is even called Captain Huggy Face. Also in the special, “The Rise of Miss Power”, Huggy gives Wordgirl a book titled Super Advanced Secret Battle Moves of the Planet Lexicon in order to help her in the final battle against Miss Power. Now I don’t know about you, but this makes me think that Lexicon had some type of military control and the term hero on their planet was a military term. One of the statues of a Lexiconian in that special was wearing a Roman-style helmet, something a soldier in the Roman army would wear. I don’t know if Lexicon has a military government or just a government with a strong military influence. I don’t know what type of rule Lexicon has, but it definitely has a military of some sort. From the statues and painting we seen of Lexiconians, Wordgirl’s outfit is typical outer clothing for Lexicon. This also sparks an idea of a common uniform for Lexicons which would make sense if there is some type of military influence on the planet. This ties into my theory about Becky. Now from what I have learned about aliens from all the sci-fi themed shows and movies such as Doctor Who and Monsters Vs. Aliens, most aliens seem to view the human race as a lesser species compared to them. We can see that with how Miss Power acted toward the villains and the citizens. Even though she was not a Lexiconian, Miss Power still viewed everyone as lesser and as servants to herself. In my opinion with Kid Math, before Wordgirl set him straight, he seemed to view heroics as a game or something interesting that he could copy for himself. He was friendly, but he appeared to take what Becky was teaching him about being a normal kid as a learning experience at first. I don’t know if this also applied to Lexiconians, but I think that due to the implications of military themes shown in the series, there are some that might have had a purity complex. There could have been Lexiconians might have wanted only their species to be the “heroes” and keep that in their own bloodline. I don’t think every Lexiconian held that belief since in one episode we see Bob on a date with Bosco, but maybe some in higher social classes strongly believed in purity, or would never consider marrying a human. With the evidence of military themes, it is possible they have class structures on Lexicon. Now what if a high class Lexiconian, broke that purity thinking and mated with a human. Here is my theory on Becky’s Parentage.

A woman from Lexicon, someone with military training like huggy has and in a high position, was put in an arranged marriage with someone she did not love at all nor could ever love. This person, a military man, possibly with a higher rank than the woman and have strong familial ties on Lexicon, was a corrupt person. She tried everything she could to get out this arranged marriage, but even her family was pushing her to do it because of reasons such as tradition or importance of appearance or something that only concerns them and not the woman. The woman soon takes an exploration opportunity and uses it to get away from all the drama she is facing and for her own mental and emotional health. She soon lands on planet earth, specifically a place called Fair City, and explores around for a while. This woman soon spots a distracted human male about to cross onto a busy road. This woman already has a good nature and quickly pulls the man out of danger without anyone noticing her unusual super speed. The man, grateful, turns to thank the woman. According to how love works from the Hotel Transylvania movies, they immediately zinged. This man and woman get to know each other a little bit more over the time the women was allowed to stay away from Lexicon. She does not give every detail about herself (her alien background), but she feels free with this man who respects her emotions and loves her for her. They get more intimate over months and everything is going great. Then she feels ill one day and under the guise of going to a hospital, the woman goes back to her ship for a medical scan. To her surprise, she is pregnant with her boyfriend’s child. This is bad because her time on exploration is about to be up and if she returns any time later, they will find about about her hybrid offspring and her corrupt fiance may kill her and her child as “punishment” for finding true love. She doesn’t have the option to not come back because they can and will do anything to find her and this would put her lover in danger as well. With a heavy heart she soon leaves her lover and returns to Lexicon and marries her corrupt fiance. She does this to protect her lover and child. This woman soon gives birth to a daughter that has her human father’s eyes with her mother’s facial features, hair color and style. The top parted bangs is a possible mixture of her human father’s and Lexiconian mother’s hair style. Her husband soon becomes suspicious about his wife’s time away and “their” child. About a year later, her husband discovers the child’s human lineage and goes into a dark rage. This woman hurries and escapes the dome city she lived in and soon encounters Captain Huggy Face about to take off. She sees that her husband and his men are about to catch up with her. She puts down her child and urges her to walk towards the ship. In a last ditch effort to save her child, she sacrifices herself and holds back her husband and his men long enough so the ship takes off and there is nothing that can be done. The fate of the woman is unknown.

In regards to Becky’s human father, let’s go over some canonical evidence. It says on the Wordgirl wiki that Becky has light brown skin. I believe Becky might be biracial. She could possibly be an offspring of an African American Woman and a white ethnic man. I googled what biracial kids look like and Becky looks similar to a biracial child born of a African American parent and a white ethnic parent. (I don’t know the what proper term I should use for referring to White ethnicity and I do not want to offend anyone by accident.) (I am just basing my conspiracy theory on visual evidence and scientific fact.) For about everyone, except one person, on Wordgirl, they have black eyes. I have seen fanart of the characters with different eye colors. For Becky’s dad, while I agree he could have blue eyes, it is also possible for him to have brown eyes as well, the eye color Becky inherited. Another thing I noticed that Becky could have inherited from her human father is his personality. Let’s review Becky’s personality and behaviors. Becky does not enjoy her family singing on the road or doing about any family car activity on a constant loop. Though not often, Becky is able to use gadgets and seems to have an understanding of how each part should work in a machine. She was able to make sure the egg and apple slicer that was entered in the Young Inventor’s competition was able to still function as intended after pressing them together using her super strength. Another thing is that she gets irritated when the spotlight is taken off her every time she accomplishes something as Wordgirl such as with Tiny Big and Granny May when she was an undefeated bingo champion. Wordgirl/Becky also tends to get a bit sassy when she is irritated just like her dad. She also acts proud of herself and her accomplishments as Becky and Wordgirl which border on the line between humble and prideful. Like her dad she does get distracted and a little absentminded such as when she leaves Huggy behind after a crime or when she gets too focused on her interests such as Pretty Princess and boy crushes. There are times when Becky wants to accomplish something, either for her own desires or to just impress people, she will become inconsiderate of others. Examples include Becky interrupting Violet’s rehearsal for the Romeo and Juliet play and revealing Scoop’s personal tooth secret when she took over running the school’s paper for a day. Becky also sometimes feels she “needs to always be the winner”. It can be assumed that she copies that behavior from Tim Botsford who gets very competitive and upset when his family does not win. The thing is that Tim is almost immediately humbled afterwords when he puts into perspective that he did his best and is a winner in his family’s and his own eyes. Becky may also share that perspective sometimes, but she will still tend to fret over her mistakes until someone calms her down. As I said, Becky sometimes still needs to feel as the winner, more so in her battles as Wordgirl against villains. We have also seen Becky feel upset when people don’t like her work such as when Violet and Bob hid Becky’s horrible painting in the janitor’s closet when they were decorating the school gym for a dance while Becky was fighting evil as Wordgirl. Becky is also seen to be clever and tricky when she needs to such as in the episode “Bend It Like Becky” when she was trying to get Dr. Two Brains to agree with a soccer match that would determine which group was going to enjoy the field for the next 3 months.

One final thing before I finish is that throughout some episodes, we can see Becky similarly imitate her human dad’s facial features and body gestures when he is there. Now I leave off with this question. Do Becky’s personality and behaviors I mentioned remind you of any cheese loving, villain scientist? I will let you think about it.

[not-wholly-unheroic]

On the Origins of Hook: The Complicated and Often Contradictory Backstory of a Villain

The story of Peter Pan has been told and retold in writing, on the stage, and on the big screen countless times, yet in the original storyline, we are thrust into a world with a pre-established (and presumably long-standing) relationship between its hero and villain with little information regarding their pasts. So far as the audience is concerned, Peter and Hook have always been a part of the Neverland...yet as evidenced by the many retellings that attempt to answer the question of these characters’ origins, clearly, people want to know more. Barrie, however, leaves a great deal to the imagination and while he tackles a bit of Peter’s past in The Little White Bird, there is significantly less information about Hook in his writings, and much of it is up for debate, as Barrie arguably contradicts himself. 

In terms of canon (which for the purposes of this article I am limiting to Barrie’s final published version of the novel), much of what we know about Hook can only be inferred from a few brief passages. In the initial introduction of the pirates, Barrie gives us the following description of Hook:

In the midst of them, the blackest and largest in that dark setting, reclined James Hook, or as he wrote himself, Jas. Hook, of whom it is said he was the only man that the Sea-Cook feared. He lay at his ease in a rough chariot drawn and propelled by his men, and instead of a right hand he had the iron hook with which ever and anon he encouraged them to increase their pace. As dogs this terrible man treated and addressed them, and as dogs they obeyed him. In person he was cadaverous and blackavized, and his hair was dressed in long curls, which at a little distance looked like black candles, and gave a singularly threatening expression to his handsome countenance. His eyes were of the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly. In manner, something of the grand seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air, and I have been told that he was a raconteur [storyteller] of repute. He was never more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest test of breeding; and the elegance of his diction, even when he was swearing, no less than the distinction of his demeanour, showed him one of a different cast from his crew. A man of indomitable courage, it was said that the only thing he shied at was the sight of his own blood, which was thick and of an unusual colour. In dress he somewhat aped the attire associated with the name of Charles II, having heard it said in some earlier period of his career that he bore a strange resemblance to the ill-fated Stuarts; and in his mouth he had a holder of his own contrivance which enabled him to smoke two cigars at once. But undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw.

From this, we may be able to draw a few conclusions about who Hook was before he came to the island. (1) He was likely a sailor, if not a pirate, BEFORE he met Peter, given that he had previous interactions with “The Sea Cook”--that is, Long John Silver. (2) He was alive and most likely an adult by the mid 1700s, as in Treasure Island, Billy Bones--a former crewmate of Silver’s--has the date 1745 in his log and the dates 1750 and 1754 on his treasure maps. (3) Hook’s hairstyle and fashion is similar to that of Charles II, whose reign ended with his death in 1685. 

We are also informed by John that Hook was supposed to have been Blackbeard’s bosun. Blackbeard was born somewhere around 1680 and may have been a privateer earlier in his career at sea, but he didn’t actually take up piracy until 1716 and had only a very brief reign of terror before he was killed off the coast of North Carolina in 1718. Assuming Hook was meant to be Blackbeard’s bosun after he went pirate, this gives us a pretty narrow window of time during which Hook might have interacted with him. And, if we take the comment about the Sea Cook seriously, then Hook must have been pretty young at the time he worked for Blackbeard, given that there is a twenty-seven year gap between Blackbeard’s death and the earliest date Billy Bones offers in connection with Silver. 

Hook also uses words and phrases such as, “Pan, who and what art thou?” which would seem to indicate that he is from a time period centuries before the Darlings come to visit. (“Thee” and “thou” had pretty much completely fallen out of common use in English by the late 1700s/early 1800s.)

So far, so good. The dates might make it a bit of a stretch, but we can pretty comfortably say that prior to Neverland, Hook was a sailor--and probably a pirate--during the 1700s, was likely born in the late 1600s, and was possibly a related to Charles II, who had many illegitimate children. This possibility fits nicely with Barrie’s statement that, “Hook was not his true name. To reveal who he really was would even at this date set the country in a blaze.”

We don’t know much about his parentage, however, except that Hook’s voice cracks when he is speaking to Smee about mothers regarding the neverbird’s refusal to leave her eggs even after the nest falls into the water. Whether this is because he was close to his own mother and is lamenting her loss or he had a rather indifferent (or even cruel) mother and he is lamenting his own lack of a loving childhood is up for debate, though the official sequel, Peter Pan in Scarlet--written in 2006 by Geraldine McCaughrean--favors the second interpretation. (Again, however, for the purposes of this article, I am only considering Barrie’s published novel as canon.)

We also learn that Hook attended Eton, a rather prestigious school for boys between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. Assuming Hook completed his schooling there and was, therefore, at least eighteen by the time he joined up with Blackbeard, it would place his being born somewhere close to 1700. Assuming his interaction with Long John Silver was, at the earliest, probably around 1745, and that this interaction happened prior to his visiting the Neverland, it puts Hook (physically) at approximately age 45 by the time we meet him in the book, give or take a bit.

There are two potential problems with that timeline, however. (1) In Barrie’s original novel, only Peter stays young forever. The boys can technically grow up, and Peter “thins them out” when they do. (Decide for yourself whether that means banishment or something worse.) If this is the case, Hook shouldn’t still be alive or, even if the aging process is slowed down, at the very least, he should be an old man, given that the Darlings visit in the early 1900s...making him at least two hundred years old. (2) Near the end of the book, when Hook is trying to convince the boys to join his pirate crew and John asks innocently whether they would still be loyal subjects of the king, Hook responds with, “You would have to swear, ‘Down with King George!’” John (and likely the audience) assumes here that Hook is talking about King George V, who would have been the present king of England at the time the novel was published. If this is the case, how does Hook know who the king is? Has he been able to leave the island and find out this information? Or is Hook, perhaps, from a more modern era than we suspect? Cleverly, Barrie leaves this question open-ended, as Hook could just as easily have been referring to King George the First, who ruled England from 1714 until 1727. 

As for personal hobbies, we know only that he loves flowers and plays the harpsichord--an instrument that was once quite popular but which had fallen out of favor by the 1800s, replaced by the piano. 

The rest of the information we get from Barrie about Hook’s origins comes primarily from his “Hook at Eton” speech, delivered in 1927--many years after his original play (1904) and novel (1911). And here’s where things get interesting (read: contradictory). Because he wrote the speech so many years later,  as a sort of afterthought, and because of the inconsistences with the novel, I personally reject this information as canon. Nevertheless, it is Barrie’s take on his own character and, therefore, is worth at least considering.

In this work, we are told that Hook not only attended Eton but also--at least briefly--went to Oxford. This in and of itself poses no major problems for the timeline suggested by the novel.  What DOES pose a problem, however, is the fact that Barrie claims to have been in contact with Hook’s “Aunt Emily”--apparently his closest surviving relative--and has been in search of possible photographs of Hook during his time there. This would indicate that Hook MUST be from a much later, more modern era than the book suggests, as photography didn’t really come into fashion until the mid-1800s, and even if “Aunt Emily” is quite old (and she is likely a good fifteen to twenty years OLDER than Hook if we assume she is near in age to one of his parents) at the time of Barrie’s supposed meeting with her, she couldn’t have reasonably been expected to have been born before the early 1800s, placing Hook’s own birth nearer to the 1850s. While some of the information in the novel might be explained away to fit with this date (his choice of dress and hairstyle, for instance), he could not possibly have interacted with Blackbeard or Long John Silver. In fact, he could not have been a pirate--at least, not in the traditional sense--at all, as the Golden Age of Piracy (1650s--1730s) had long passed and the Age of Sail ended in the 1860s. Because of this inconsistency, some have argued that Barrie may have intended Hook to be a more modern man who essentially became trapped in a child’s fantasy land. He became a “pirate” only AFTER his interactions with Pan--that is, he took on the role of a villain because that is how Peter and the children imagined him--and that John’s assertions about his interactions with Blackbeard and Silver are merely rumors that the boy has heard.

Setting aside this apparent contradiction in the timeline, we DO learn some other interesting facts about Hook. For instance, Hook’s blood (which was said in the novel to be thick and strangely colored), is specified as having been yellow. This, along with his appearance having been described in the novel  as “cadaverous” has lead some to conclude that Hook was likely rather sickly as a child. We also learn that Hook enjoyed the Lake poets and strawberry mess (a dessert),  collected keys, performed well in sports while at Eton (though he did not like water sports as he rather surprisingly hated the feeling of water on his skin), and played the flute. We also learn that he was politically conservative and was probably never in a romantic relationship. 

There are a few other bits of information about Barrie’s idea of Hook that can be found in the early manuscripts for the play, which feature “deleted scenes.” One such manuscript--the earliest, I believe--can be found here. (Though good luck with reading it without going cross-eyed because Barrie’s handwriting is BAD.) However, I think this post has gone on long enough, yet we are still left with many unanswered questions. But perhaps this is what Barrie intended all along. Perhaps, fittingly, we are ultimately left to fill in the blanks about this villain of the Neverland with our own imagination. 

_____

Thanks to @katherinenotgreat for asking me to do a post on Hook’s origins. Thanks also to @concordia-cum-sinistro for your input. Feel free to add your own information regarding the original manuscript drafts, as I know you are more familiar with them than I am.

[wintershieldedheart]

if you want to, because you said 'just three? jk', here's round two of 'name any three things about the rpc that bother you.' (i'm gettin a giggle out of resending, you do not have to answer it again)

ask and you shall always receive!

1) telling people what their relationship to a character is without any communication or plotting. now I know you're probably thinking, "ellie you play a child oc isn't that what you do?" and the short answer is no. I have a disclaimer in my bio for this reason; while margot was created with specific parentage in mind, I would never dictate the relationship she has with another mun's character's. as such, there's always room for a different relationship/dynamic to be plotted instead. going to someone's inbox and saying 'your character is my characters parent/aunt/sister/best friend/lover/etc without any plotting is rude. it disrespects boundaries and really pushes into godmodding territory.

2) not reading bio pages; this goes for both canon and ocs. if there is a bio written and linked - read it before interacting with that muse. for oc's this is vital because nothing makes my head spin more than when people come to me asking questions that are literally answered in the first paragraph of her biography. it tells me you didn't bother to read it and came at my character with your own assumptions and that's frustrating as all hell and frankly, makes me lose interest quick. I've seen it happen to people that write canon muses as well, where their characters are divergent and other muns just steam roll over that for their own versions of that character. it's a dick move; don't do it.

3) JUST LIKE WITH CONSENT if someone says no, it doesn't mean keep trying to convince me to do the plot. someone not wanting to engage in a plot with you doesn't mean they're policing content, it means they're laying down boundaries and you better damn well be respecting them. whether it's a trigger or something they just don't want to write, if the answer is no the first time, drop it. don't try to creatively bring it up again or slip it into other plots or badger them with it. that's not consent, it's coercion and it's gross as hell.

[fontofmercy-archived2]

TROS spat in the face of every single abused child who was looking to this fairytale for hope. The sequel trilogy wasn’t about a farm boy looking for adventure or even an abused child falling to villainy, it was about three abused children from the different class systems all rising out of trauma and dysfunction. This was our fairytale, our story, and JJ Abrams perverted it into abuse apologist propaganda in a pathetically desperate attempt to appease the most hateful groups of fans who never understood or appreciated the story to begin with (which is why the story had to be butchered in order to appease them).

1.) Rey

Rey’s parents selling her for profit into slavery was portrayed as a good, loving thing. Child trafficking was literally portrayed as excusable, and even loving, in this children’s film. Just let that sink in for a second.

What is the message there? If your parents did something horrible that caused you years of trauma and torment, you should just not lose faith in them because they may have had a good reason (even if you have no evidence of that). Maybe a space wizard who has been dead for decades forced them to traffic you. This scene makes me want to vomit. This is how a children’s fairytale portrayed parents who sell their children into trafficking:

There is no excuse for this. Rey’s parentage was solved. Her identity crisis was over. This wasn’t needed except to force this abuse apologist message. Oh, and of course to feed the sexist fanboys a bit of eugenics to make them stop whining about how a woman could possibly be important and powerful.

TLJ was about Rey discovering her identity and letting go of her unhealthy, irrational dependency on parents who she never knew, who sold her to an abuser and left her to half-starve alone in a desert. TROS decided to give her a new identity crisis out of literally nowhere just so they could erase all that “You are not your parents, even if your parents don’t love you and/or aren’t special, you are still special and still deserving of love. You can find belonging ahead of you.” stuff with dynastic “Actually, your blood family does entirely define your identity and you should always assume they’re right even when all evidence points otherwise, just ignore your own trauma and blame it on a dead space wizard.”

The whole Rey Palpatine thing left a very bad taste in my mouth. Not just because it’s fucking stupid and something Reddit would write, but because Rey was horrible in TROS. She acted like she was possessed by Palpatine, she stabbed Ben (who she cares for and always had compassion for) to kill while he was distracted. She suddenly acted like she didn’t care about anyone around her. She just overall acted unrecognizable from the warm, loving, empathetic woman we saw in TFA and TLJ. The message here is clearly that because she has this “bad blood”, Rey can’t have an identity for herself. The only thing that saves her is taking on the identity of the good guys, she never finds her own. All the traits she’s had up until now don’t matter, who she actually is doesn’t matter. All that matters is what man’s blood runs through her veins. All Rey is is someone’s granddaughter, because if she wasn’t, then she’d really be nobody.

And thus, JJ Abrams decided that “Anyone can be special, even nobodies. Your worth is not defined by your class or your background.” was a stupid message and instead it should be pure eugenic “You’re only special if you have important people blood/name. Your identity is entirely your (male) family, not your own. No silly woman could have power of her own!”

Rey taking on the name of Skywalker is an utterly shallow attempt to fix the fact that they took every bit of Rey’s real identity from her, took half her soul (Ben is her dyad, two that are one), and then left her alone on a desert planet as if to say that her “true self” is the abused child she once was and that she can’t actually escape that. The moral of this fairytale was “You don’t need friends or love, as long as you have a glow stick (material possessions) and a super duper special name that makes you important (which you weren’t before, you were nobody).”

Not to mention that Rey basically named herself after Luke, no one else she knew actually used that name. And Luke didn’t do anything to deserve that, he rejected her at every single opportunity and only did the bare minimum to help her after being berated into it. Han was her surrogate father and the first person to offer her a life outside of Jakku. Leia was her loving mentor and pseudo-mother. Ben was the love of her life who has always been there for her when she needed someone to confide it, someone to see her true self and tell her she wasn’t alone. Luke was nothing but some cranky old guy who made her feel awful about herself and never accepted her (not to mention telling her she was inherently dangerous and also trying to murder her soulmate when he was a child which the real Rey was furious about).

2.) Finn

Finn’s character has not been given much in terms of development. For the most part, he’s been reduced to “Rey’s friend” and then “Finn’s friend”, with a little moment in there where he got to be with Rose and have his own identity but TROS of course decided to reward racist bullies and cut out Rose instead of giving the rest of the fans a satisfying story.

In TROS though, the one thing that Finn actually did that was heroic by himself, his character defining moment of turning from The First Order, was credited to the force and described like it wasn’t a choice at all. Which brings up a lot of questions and, as Han would say, “That’s not how the force works!”. It was so entirely unneeded to take that from Finn, but they gave up all of Rose’s potential screentime to do it.

There’s also the moment when Poe, our alleged hero, so hilariously (i.e callously) compares himself being a criminal to Rey being a scavenger and Finn being a stormtrooper. Completely ignoring the fact that they had no choice in that, as if their trauma doesn’t matter at all. It’s a small moment, but it was very insensitive and highlights how much the writers Did Not Care or even understand their main characters’ experiences.

3.) Ben

I don’t even know where to start with Ben Solo. His ending was the one that broke me as a person, I had so many hysterical sobbing fits over it that my loved ones were actually getting tired of it and it genuinely put me in a really bad place with my depression that I’m only just not getting out of.

Ben Solo’s story in TFA and TLJ was abuse victim’s epic, it was the story of a boy who was tortured and groomed from the time he was in his mother’s womb. A man who never knew a life without abuse. Ben Solo was described as a pure beam of light in his mother’s womb who was ensnared and tainted by a predatory force bigger and stronger than himself that he could not escape.

The feeling of being tainted and corrupted is common in abuse victims, and the fact that TROS told every single abused child out there “Yes, you really are tainted and corrupted. You do deserve to die before experiencing more than a moment of happiness and safety.” is something that I’ve yet to get over. It still infuriates me, it still breaks my heart. Ben’s entire arc up until this point has been about how he is still worthy of love.

And no, this isn’t me woobifying; it’s in the text of the films and the canon novels that Ben worked for his redemption, that he earned it. Ben fought Snoke from the time he was a child, but Ben was only a child and Snoke was too powerful, too relentless in his cruelty for him to withstand. The one and only person in the entire galaxy who had the training and the knowledge to protect Ben was his uncle, who chose to try to murder him in his sleep instead of protecting him. Ben was left with nowhere to turn except to his abuser. And even then, we see him struggle every single day to try and force himself to be this evil person that he never was. Ben was light itself who was convinced he was darkness through abuse and manipulation.

Then, when Ben found the first person who he could feel and connect with through the force, even though Snoke and Luke had abused and betrayed him - Ben still took the chance to reach out to Rey and be vulnerable with her. While interrogating an enemy, he took off his mask and revealed himself (something we only see him to for his father and when Snoke forces him to maliciously). In the middle of a war, under the thumb of the monster who has tortured him since forever, Ben was able hold Rey’s hand and tell her she wasn’t alone. He was still able to be kind. And because of that kindness, that connection, Ben found the courage to finally destroy his abuser and free himself.

Ben freed himself, and he did it out of compassion for and a need to protect Rey, not out of wrath or vengeance. If Ben were truly a creature of wrath, he would have killed Snoke before, but it was only when he had to see and hear and feel his soulmate be tortured by his own abuser that he found that courage. And yes, he did take Snoke’s place at first because that was the only way he knew how to protect himself. In his experience, people without power get hurt and that’s it. But even then, Ben was able to muster yet more strength to shed the armor that was Kylo Ren and stand with Rey unarmored against the very thing that has abused and tortured him since before he was born.

That took so much bravery and love and selflessness for Ben to stand there as himself, ready to fight his abuse and trauma head-on as Ben Solo. For him to admit he was hurt for the first time in the series. For him to crawl up a cliff with a badly broken leg out of love. For him to willingly give his very life force out of pure love. All of these things are incredible for Ben to have been able to do after all he had been through, these are more than deserving of reward. But TROS punished Ben for doing everything right, they proved that abusers always win in the end. Ben was going to survive until the last few edits. Everything we see was literally leading up to him surviving. This was Ben’s redemption, this was supposed to be him fighting for his new beginning and taking his first steps into the happiness and safety he earned, and should have had as a child, not a pointless struggle before succumbing to death:

But TROS told us, told traumatized and neurodivergent children who saw themselves in Ben, that it wasn’t good enough. That love isn’t good enough. That doing the right thing deserves to be punished. That children tainted by violence and abuse and darkness don’t deserve love and healing even when they earn redemption, even when they do everything in their power to do the right thing and be brave. The hopelessness of that is what broke me as a person. That is not what Star Wars is about. Star Wars is about redemption and love and hope; TROS was about cruelty covered up with a thin sheet of materialism and confused, poor storytelling.