#parallel by proxy

[velkynkarma]

A year or so ago, I read your Shiro and Ryou fic that was inspired by “The Most Dangerous Game” and was like this the entire time

Thought you would like to hear this :)

This made me CACKLE when I saw it, so yes, I absolutely did want to hear that lol. I'm glad you enjoyed. Sorry about your broken laptop and the damage to your teeth lol

[fromtheseventhhell]

"I have no sister." The words were knives. What do you know of my heart, priestess? What do you know of my sister? | Jon VI

--metaphorical knives at feigning neutrality regarding his sister

Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger's hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. "Ghost," he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold... | Jon XIII

--literal knives from breaking that neutrality to save her

[raayllum]

I love rune cube placement foreshadowing, it's my favourite

[dandelionjack]

i have a maybe lukewarm maybe hot take about this godforsaken show that some people could find mean, but i stand behind it, no elaboration (okay, some elaboration in the tags below… a lot of elaboration)

opinion: if you claim to like clara’s dynamic with the doctor and her character development in series 8 and 9, but simultaneously say you hate the impossible girl arc/elevenclara, you don’t actually understand anything about their relationship and what makes it the way that it is

[existentialcrisisetcetera]

does anyone actually have a source on deimos' dad also being zeus?

bc ive gone through all of ghost of sparta and thats literally never mentioned. the wiki says deimos' dad is zeus but again, i cant find an actual source for that.

[unohanadaydreams]

Sometimes you just have to leave whatever's real to you,

you have to clomp through fields and kick the caps off all the toadstools.

Sometimes you have to march all the way to Galilee or the literal foot of God himself

before you realize you've already passed the place where you were supposed to die.

I can no longer remember the being afraid, only that it came to an end.

Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before by Kaveh Akbar

[rometabss]

succession (2018-2023) / interview with the vampire (2022-)

[ipsen]

re 52 vs. re 54

[clotpolesonly]

Blue Lily, Lily Blue ch 44 // Greywaren ch 28

[fatalism-and-villainy]

I am having so many profoundly insane thoughts about Will and Hannibal’s dynamic in the Red Dragon arc - the way their affect is so tense and jagged-edged when they’re together, the warmth they shared gone, but with residual intimacy that allows them to hit each other where it hurts. But what I’m thinking about specifically is the fact that the moment in which they connect the most and start to fall into their old dynamic together is in their most antagonistic moment at that point in the arc - at the end of And the Beast from the Sea, in the wake of the Dragon’s attack on Will’s family.

It’s that scene, where Will gets angry at Hannibal for the first time (and Hannibal is forthcoming but tense and guarded, not delighting in his evils the way he so often does with Alana and Jack) where they recapture their old rapport. The confrontation yields a dialogue where they build off each other and Hannibal guides Will towards a breakthrough in understanding. Will starts off angry, and when Hannibal starts to discuss Dolarhyde’s personality, Will angrily responds, “And now he thinks he can do anything! Anything!” Hannibal continues from that train of thought, but in another direction - he explains that “the dragon represents freedom” to Dolarhyde, turning Will’s line that “he thinks he can do anything” from an angry outburst to the literal truth, that Dolarhyde’s murders convey power and invincibility to him in his mind. Then, when Hannibal says, “he craves change,” Will (with the anger abating somewhat) comes to the epiphany that Dolarhyde thinks of killing the families as “changing” them*. This kind of exchange is the marker of so much about how they communicate earlier in the show - their back-and-forth involves a lot of quick subject changes and shifts in tack, but the underlying development of ideas remains the same and is understood subliminally by both of them.

(*And there’s an interesting meta quality to that shift - the show is much more concerned with empathic understanding of killers, the narrative and aesthetic symbolism of their crimes, than the practical forensic process of finding them, and that’s reflected in the show’s adaptational approach to the book. The book’s plot centers heavily on the question of how Dolarhyde chose his families, and it’s key to finding him, but here’s it’s less important than their emotional significance to him, his drive in preying on them. Will has been prioritizing the former in an effort to stay emotionally detached, but narratively, in terms of his character arc, understanding the latter, being able to operate on Dolarhyde’s level, is more significant - and this is the moment, rebuilding his connection to Hannibal again, where he starts to lean into that more.)

And Hannibal’s ability to steer Will towards a shared understanding, the way they both speak the same language in how they communicate and how they interpret others, has been key to the unique bond they share. This scene shows that the dialectic is still there even when their dynamic is suffused with bitterness. And Hannibal is able to guess at Will’s darker impulses, specifically his nightmares and counter-fantasies about killing Molly, when he asks “When you look at her, what do you see?” and Will answers “You know what I see.” And even though Will is angry at him, there’s a kind of relief, I think, that Hannibal instinctively recognizes this side of him, and that he’s able to admit it freely.

Furthermore, what Hannibal did is a continuation of the games they used to play, where they used third party proxies to unleash violence on each other. Hannibal has turned Dolarhyde into yet another figure to be manipulated into facilitating the charge in Hannibal and Will’s partnership/rivalry. Except it’s different now, because now Will has a life outside of Hannibal, and there are innocent people outside of the show’s bizarre murderous otherworld involved. Hannibal quotes “Two souls, alas, are dwelling my breast,” referring to the two sides of Dolarhyde vying for control, but of course he’s also obliquely referring to Will, which is made explicit in the last line, when he asks, “Don’t you crave change, Will?” Will split himself in two as well - he built a life away from everything to do with Hannibal and the FBI, but he chose to come back and seek out Hannibal, and Hannibal forces him to reckon with those two allegiances. (Suitably, Will walking out of Molly’s hospital room is edited to merge seamlessly into him walking up to confront Hannibal.) The attack on Molly and Walter draws Will’s internal conflict outside of him, reminding him what he’s known already (as he’s been having nightmares about killing Molly even before this): that he can’t cut this part of himself out. But it’s also a reminder of what Will and Hannibal could have again, if Will would come back to Hannibal. (It’s hilarious that Will responds to Hannibal saying Dolarhyde probably thinks Will is as evil as Will thinks Dolarhyde is with “Is this a competition?” Of course it is, Will! You know it is! Hannibal loves to pit his murder protégés against each other. You’ve been here before.)

So with that said, it’s telling that when Will is the angriest at Hannibal for interfering with this other life he’s made for himself, it’s also, simultaneously, the moment when he manages to recreate the intimacy he shared with Hannibal, the reminder of the dangerous games they used to play with each other, and the uncomfortable fact that he found those games exciting and pleasurable. This is probably on his mind when orchestrating the triangular murder showdown with Hannibal and Dolarhyde in the finale. He picks up the gauntlet Hannibal threw down and deploys Dolarhyde for his aims in getting revenge against Hannibal, and, of course, ends up teaming up with Hannibal and loving it. [Bedelia voice] that’s reciprocity.

[velkynkarma]

yo so I just realized (rereading Parallel by Proxy again) that it’s been six years since I started reading your stuff!! that’s crazy!! I’ve kept following you as a writer even when I fell out of Voltron a few years ago (good Gen writers are hard to find), and I realize I have so many good memories of reading all your fics as they’ve come out. I used to read the new installments of PbP during my afternoon commute, and then you started the Price Cut Paladins series— ah! I still remember where I was when I finished Premium Pandemonium for the first time (the Hunk hot chocolate chapter is still my absolute favorite, it’s such a warm scene). Your work has had a really profound impact on me (I could write a whole essay— Parasite Knight in particular has gotten me through a lot of tough times, it’s very relatable), and I still really like the way you write relationships (found family is ALWAYS gonna be my favorite trope, hands down) and hurt/comfort. Honestly, thanks for sticking around with the Voltron stuff for so long, and I hope that you’re having fun with your current fics/fandoms!!

P.s— something that’s been itching my brain since I finished Familiar Faces all those years ago: what would Ryou’s quintessence be like to Shiro if he’d been in Parasite Knight post becoming his own person? How would it have protected/interacted with Shiro— like, what internal differences would he notice? (I’m assuming its color would be still be key lime pie, ha)

Awww, anon! Thanks so much for such a nice message! I'm delighted to hear you've stuck with me so long as a reader, and I'm glad my stuff continues to satisfy. I'm also glad I could be a helpful distraction during the rougher times. Knowing I can make even one person's day a little better always makes it worth it.

Ooh, what an interesting question! You referenced Familiar Faces, but since you're talking about Parallel by Proxy as a whole, I'm assuming when you refer to Ryou you mean mine (also known as Quiet) and not @bosstoaster 's variant (who remains just Ryou).

If it's PbP!Ryou, his quintessence would actually still be very similar to Shiro's, since he's genetically designed to be identical on a physical, memory, and quintessence level and that's not the kind of thing you can just change. After all, Haggar did design him to be able to replicate everything Shiro can do, including flying the Black Lion, so their quintessence does have to be similar. (Remember, Parasite Knight was written before s2 and the lion swap were released, or even Keith temporarily piloting Black, so it is written under the assumption that they're all created for one lion only). This also means he's the most compatible for donating quintessence and his would last the longest, too. Because it's basically still Shiro's.

So it would still be a violet windstorm, like Shiro. But I think Ryou's would be closer to having almost no color at all (like actual wind) because he's also been designed as a stealth unit. He's supposed to literally fly under the radar and he's designed with mimicry in mind. As for how it would protect Shiro--just like how he protects Shiro now! Primarily with ambush strikes and misdirection, maybe even creating mirages to confuse the illusory Haggar so Shiro gets a moment to rest because she can't determine which one is the real one. (Yeah, Haggar, two can play at that game).

What a good question, anon! Thanks again for such a nice message :D

[mystical-moonmagic]

The end of Thomas and Richard's friendship but make it Obi-Wan and Anakin at the end of Revenge of the Sith.

Thomas: You were my brother, Richard. I loved you

The way his voice would just break -

[raayllum]

Viren + the "greater good" / weighing people's lives

[themoostking]

Friendly PSA: if you haven’t read any fics about Kuron (clone Shiro) you are missing out. These are some of the best Voltron fics imo. There are so many AUs that save him and develop a personality/relationships for him and its beautiful.

Don’t Let’s Start by BossToaster and Parallel by Proxy by VelkynKarma are two of my favorite series that focus on Kuron and Shiro, and really just an excellent place to start. There are also many other fantastic standalone fics under the Kuron tag on Ao3 that I would recommend exploring.

[jencsi]

The pose, the arm, you guys, I am 100% not okay.

[harumscarumcos]

would be really fucked up if donald blake as serpent and ben reilly as chasm teamed up to fuck with thor and peter’s lives