#s2e7 my love

[shaunashpmn]

we don’t talk about the scene where shauna goes to bury her son in the snow and then instead of going back to the cabin she goes to what is essentially jackie’s grave/place of remembrance enough.

“it’s you and me against the whole world.” into “jackie…i really need you right now.”, because she thought that if she just had her son, she could do it without jackie. she longed for jackie but she still had love to give, until now. now everything she has is jackie, because the one thing she thought she had that wasn’t her is gone. her daughter, her husband, her life, everything is jackie.

there is no baby without shauna and there is no shauna without jackie.

[trouticide]

drawing a frame from every episode of its always sunny season 2 episode 7: the gang exploits a miracle

[deehaans]

𝘐𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘐 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭 𝘞𝘦 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘉𝘦 𝘶𝘴 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘐𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘐 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺 𝘚𝘰 𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺

[justaz]

Where’s the au where Ekko manages to carry jinx with him to safety circa s1e7 and help heal her and bond and eventually kiss???? Where’s the fic??? Hello????

[impossiblekittydelusion]

Look at himmmm

Hes so cute look at that smile!! Lassie! Oh my god!!

[dairyofateenagegirl]

CLAUDIA MY LOVE YOU DESERVE SO MUCH BETTER THAN WHAT YOU GOT

[zhongli-lover-69]

house is such a manipulative little CUNT he is my babygirl i'm going to slice him into paper-thin little segments and wet mount each one onto a slide and examine him bit by bit under a MICROSCOPE. bitch IDIOT.

[gayness-and-mayhem]

Happy 8 year anniversary to that scene of Maggie and Jocelyn kissing on the clifftop in Broadchurch.

[insteading]

Ed's so attuned to visual patterning and metaphors (in a way Izzy isn't, cf s1e4 and the frankfurter clouds) that I've been thinking about the twine as his way of trying to suggest tying the parts of his life together, but not having found a way to do so yet.

And he explains the twine's presence on the breakfast tray by saying "I panicked," but whatever foreboding he has in the morning about whether the parts of his life can be tied together hasn't curdled the way it does after he's seen Stede leaning into fame and responding dismissively to Ed's desire to try different work.

I think the twine is a bid for connection and a sign of trust that it's possible, which makes the later parts of the episode sting more: they had to have that conversation, but it didn't have to go that way.

it's also worth remembering, right, that ed and stede both wanted that night. ed gives stede a nod before stede kisses him. he kisses back enthusiastically. he goes to bed with stede. we see him sitting a little shyly, on stede's bed - still fully dressed, even, where stede's lost his shirt.

look at how achingly tender that face is. it's ed wanting to take care of stede the way no one took care of him; it's stede wanting to protect ed where he's failed in the past. it's a near-death situation drawing the love and need and desire out of them like bleeding a fever. it's accompanied by a romantic song. the imagery we're giving is fireworks. it's fucking fireworks for them.

the morning after, ed makes breakfast in bed. shares with stede the beautiful moment of his mermaid vision, which is an incredible show of vulnerability. you see the first sign of ed Having A Realization when stede says avoiding near-death situations isn't likely in their line of work.

then they go out to the republic of pirates, but ed takes stede out of the town and into the countryside, to a place where he feels safe. ed high-fives a child who isn't afraid of him. stede tells ed about writing him love letters. they're having a great day together, they're laughing, they're having fun.

it's not really until after ed sees stede becoming famous, until he sees stede stepping into the role of The Pirate, that he starts to pull away. jackie says he's trying to be a regular dude, and that sounds good to ed. trying something new. he wanders off to go watch fishermen and these shots are weird until you see that he's focusing on the twine the fish are caught up in - just like the twine he left stede on their breakfast tray, just like the twine he wrapped up his leathers in. and stede, who is feeling accepted and powerful and capable for the first time in his life, pulls back too.

they each want to be something the other is trying desperately to leave behind. how does anyone reconcile loving someone who loves the parts of yourself you hate the most?

when the fireworks clear, all you have left is smoke.

for ed and stede to find something real, something they can hang onto, they're going to have to put in the work. that's how you build the happily ever after. brick by brick.

[linddzz]

Does mage Viktor's reality-hopping and 'only you can show me this' line imply that dozens if not hundreds of other Jayces have done what our Jayce did and end up there on that slope hearing the same thing from him? Did the Viktor that succeeded and lost everything, lost his own Jayce, keep getting to meet new Jayces one by one, allowing himself a small modicum of wistful joy in getting to see Jayce living and breathing again if only for a short time before he sends them back? talk to me here

Not only is it implied, we for sure see at least 8 (if my count is right) times Viktor has saved Jayce as a child, including the current one. You see them flash through and each time, he gave Jayce a different runestone

(gifs by @hextecht)

Since his phrasing was "all timelines, in all possibilities" it's pretty safe speculation that Viktor has been at this for way more than 8 rounds. We don't know if he's tried messing with other points of the timeline or if any other Jayces got as far as the our Jayce did when he reached the center of Wizard Viktor's hellscape (and I made such a distressed noise when the clouds parted and I realized the only beautiful place left, the center of the storm, the oasis, is where Jayce got assimilated).

The general consensus is that this is most likely the first time it worked, because Ekko used the rune Jayce had been given (the "acceleration rune" as Ekko calls it in S2E7) to make the time travel Z-drive that he cranks up to "break reality" levels before chucking it at Viktor's head and knocking that dork off enough for Jayce's "power of love" gamble to actually get through to him.

(I also have the opinion that Wizard Viktor is not going to stop here. He's got nothing but fields of dreamless solitude for him, this IS his project and he's probably going to keep trying to refine the process across timelines until some kinda multiverse cops show up like "dude. Fucking quit it!")

And OH BOY can I sure as hell talk about the way Viktor looks at Jayce over the top of the Jayce he destroyed!!!!

(gif by @glassrunner)

Look at him. LOOK AT HIM. His expression is already wistful and pained as he turns, but you can see him exhale with the breath knocked out of him. his eyelids actually flutter. He softens, he's struck. He looks like he's barely able to keep himself from crying in that moment where he not only looks at Jayce, but lets himself be seen by Jayce in return.

And which is more heartbreaking? That this is the first time Jayce got this far, the first time Viktor had to finally properly look at him after so many tries?

Or has this played out over and over for him? Has he looked over like this time and time again, and every time it takes his breath away? Subjecting himself to this repeatedly, and every. single. time. he's hit with the most classic doomed romance line

(Im holding myself BACK from rambling yet again about how Actually Deranged it is for Wizard Viktor to be doing this but @avelera and I talk about him being a fucked up little guy so much that I need to consider just having a wizard Viktor tag lmaooo but for more Wizard Viktor rambling enjoy

Wizard Viktor doesn't care about saving the world, he's just making sure Jayce and himself are intertwined

How many times has Wizard Viktor had to watch this himbo yeet himself into Pretty Hippy Viktor's cult?

Me giggling and kicking my feet in the air over Wizard Viktor being a control freak egomaniac about Jayce )

[questionablecuttlefish]

Okay Fine Let's Talk Timebomb and Season Two.

I do want to talk about this because I have a Lot of thoughts and feelings and it has been building up and building up, not only based on what's happening in other social spaces, but what people keep bringing into mine despite my best efforts to avoid it.

This isn't any kind of hatepost, I don't think I could hate Ekko or the ship if I tried, I just want to explain my very mixed feelings about the whole thing.

My likely-to-be-very unpopular take on Season Two's Timebomb romance is that it left me feeling uneasy and uncomfortable.

Not with what was in the show itself, I feel like that was perfect. Powder and Ekko sold me completely. They made me feel things. I even liked how Ekko and Jinx's story ended. I think it was beautiful, poignant, perfect...

...until.

'The Discourse' since, the way the fan culture has exploded around it, and particularly some of the creators' commentary on it, has made me sour on the whole thing.

It feels like I'm suddenly part of an increasingly small subset of people who saw what they did with S2 Timebomb and applied our media literacy to what was on our screens and got something very different to what the fandom consensus seems to be.

For context, I semi-shipped TB before this. Though I've always been Team Lightcannon, I had a lot of respect for timebomb, I understood it, I had read a few very good fics, I was just in the space of "Jinx has hurt Ekko too much for him to ever fully forgive her for murdering his friends, they might come to an understanding, and there will always be a silent undercurrent of love beneath the hurt, they may fight together on the same side again someday, but whatever bond they had as kids is broken and they can't go back, and both know it."

I respected, and still do, people who shipped them romantically, but I've always seen them as a broken childhood friendship being a much more interesting dynamic, and being hot for each other lessening that to an extent and not really adding anything to it.

All of his interactions with Jinx in season one are violent; she murders five Firelights point-blank in front of him in her intro scene, and Ekko reacts particularly upset to the pink-haired girl, Eve or Eva, whom Jinx shoots in the back. It's clear this isn't even the first time she's fought them. We don't know how many of Ekko's found family she's put on the Memorial Wall or how close he was with any of them.

Ekko is clearly convinced that "Powder" is gone, and the person who replaced her is a cold-blooded killer who can't be reasoned with. Leading to the Bridge confrontation, and this:

This is the first time Ekko catches a glimpse of "Powder", yes, but more importantly, this is the first moment he recognizes Jinx's humanity. He's hurting her, killing her, and he can't do it.

....and she knows he can't do it.

So, to save him the weight, she pulls a grenade, with the intent to kill them both, foreshadowing quite neatly where Ekko/Jinx (but not Ekko/Powder) is going to go in S2.

Fast forwarding from Season One here, Ekko disappears for 2/3rds of the second season, completely offscreen.

When we catch up with him he's woken up in the S2E7 AU; the Powder Timeline.

Here's where I start to get a little confused by the fandom take. Because, you know, I've seen enough Star Trek and Stargate and Supernatural and Batman the Animated Series and Quantum Leap to know exactly what this is.

This is the 'bottle episode', this is the 'Perfect World' trope, where the protagonists find themselves in an alternate universe - or trapped in a dream - or they've died or think they've died and this is their 'heaven' - where they have everything they ever wanted.

This is familiar storytelling and E2 follows a familiar pattern, the protagonist struggles to adapt to the surreal new circumstances, they are seduced by the illusion, particularly falling in love with someone in the Perfect World, but eventually, they start noticing something incongruous - something isn't quite right - (In this case, it's Vi's death, and Powder holding back her genius and hiding her grief to be support girl for others) - that reveals the Perfect World to be not as perfect as it seems.

And the hero has to choose to go home, because he realizes that this isn't real, it doesn't belong to him, he doesn't belong here.

Which is exactly what happens with Ekko in E7.

Which brings is to AU!Powder and Jinx.

And here's where I really start to struggle with the seeming consensus that the romance between Ekko/Powder automatically leads to Ekko/Jinx, like you can just transfer the one to the other.

I'm sorry, fam, I thought my basic media literacy was telling me that this girl:

Is not the same person as this girl:

....and I am not getting into any debate about "Jinx" vs "Powder" as identities within our current Jinx. I'm talking about Powder in the E7 AU.

AU!Powder is literally a different human being.

She may have been the same person up until the explosion in Jayce's laboratory, but from that fork in the timeline, she becomes a FUNDAMENTALLY different person to Jinx, shaped by different experiences, different relationships, different life events.

Powder's physicality with Ekko, as you can see in those GIFs, the casual intimacy, the clear affection, the way she touches him, looks at him, her awareness of him in her space, is so utterly opposite to the way Jinx interacts with him that if anything, it nailed home to me how savagely absent this kind of feeling is from his relationship with Jinx.

Powder loves Ekko. She leans on him, snuggles into him, touches his hands, dances with him, kisses him.

Jinx cares so little about him she barely makes eye contact and would casually kill him without blinking.

And I thought that was the point.

I really thought that was the whole point of E7. Being in the perfect world, getting his perfect love story with his perfect Powder, the girl Jinx could have been, but can never be, drove home for Ekko that his feelings for Jinx, both romantic and resentful, were tangled up in his illusions of "Powder", and it took living those illusions as a physical reality for Ekko to see his mistake.

To be true to himself, and true to her, Ekko had to let that go and go home.

To face his world's Jinx, and be there for her in her darkest moment, even if it meant giving up the love he'd found with Powder, a love that belonged to a different Ekko, for someone who could never love him back.

To me that was Ekko's most heroic moment, an act of selfless sacrifice. But that's what it was - a sacrifice.

Meanwhile, Season Two Jinx is not aware of any of this. The last time she saw Ekko was on the bridge where she nearly killed him, and for all we know she might have thought she succeeded.

She never talks about, thinks about, refers to, or even has scribble-nightmares about Ekko, not even once.

Season Two Jinx is, instead, having a love story of her own.

And Isha was and is a PUZZLE to me. Because she's more plot device than character, she isn't necessary except as a way to give Jinx a villain-to-hero arc and a way to reconnect to her humanity.

But she could have been Ekko.

If they really, really wanted us to have Timebomb Canon, instead of confining the entire arc to a bottle episode in an alternate timeline with a literally, physically different girl, they could easily have given all of Isha's considerable screentime to an Ekko and Jinx romance.

I'm sure Amanda Overton would have been on board with that. But that's not what we got. It's almost like reading two different fix-it-fanfics for the same character, put into the same show and running in parallel.

I'm not crazy, this is what's happening for Ekko in s2;

While this is happening for Jinx at the same time.

But Jinx's love story, too, ends with a tragic sacrifice.

And here's where the two stories finally intersect.

When Jinx is in her darkest moment, her absolute rock bottom, Ekko comes back into her life, a miracle, impossible, a Boy Savior.

But she's still ready to kill him.

Because she didn't dance with Ekko. She didn't invent a time machine with him. She didn't sit and watch the city lights with him and share a tender kiss and a heartfelt gift.

That was Powder.

Jinx and Ekko are resuming right where they left off on the bridge, right back to "I pull this pin and we both blow up".

They've both loved and lost, but their stories are absolutely unknown to each other. Ekko Doesn't Know About Isha. Jinx Doesn't Know About Powder.

It's only when Jinx (a genius, a reminder here) sees monkeys of her own design inside the Z-drive - recognizes her own handiwork, but knows SHE didn't make those - that, I think, sheer curiosity stirs her out of her darkness.

She has to know what that was about. She hesitates, just long enough for Ekko to speak. And, though offscreen, he tells her his story, and maybe she tells him hers.

And it's enough, just enough, to set Jinx back on her Redemption Arc, to become the hero Isha always saw in her.

Maybe even the hero Vi and Ekko saw in her, too. Her new costume is full of references to all of the people in her life who never gave up on her.

(side note, the yellow stars and crowns puzzle me, though - they're quite prominent, but who are THEY for? Isha? Maybe? Yellow isn't a color associated with anyone in Jinx's life, but that crown's identical to the one she scribbled on Demacia in Fortiche's map, is... this a very subtle future Lightcannon tease? Nah. I'm not that crazy.)

I mean her costume is also almost literally both a Fishbones and a Fiddlesticks cosplay, with her hair as Fiddle's tongue, so take from that what you will.

It's clear Jinx and Ekko war painted each other for the battle, but the Firelights are also similarly painted up, and (with Linke even confirming this) there really wasn't time to develop anything else, guys.

And I am, honestly, fundamentally angry at anyone who would suggest that, even if she'd been in any space to want it, our boy Ekko, one of the most genuinely good men in recent fiction let alone in Arcane, would take advantage of a girl he just talked out of suicide.

Moving on. During the battle, Ekko is knocked out and lying not far from Jinx. She doesn't even look at him, she leaps up to defend Vi instead.

And that's their final interaction on the show.

Instead of returning to Ekko, Jinx chooses one final act of sacrifice.

Ekko's final shot of the show is this.

He's sitting, alone, burning a mourning paper, where he sat with AU!Powder - where he and AU!Powder kissed - a place that has no significance to himself and Jinx, whatsoever.

It's little wonder who he's thinking about here, and which name he's burning on that paper. The girl he truly loved and lost.

For all he knows, Jinx is dead. But it's not only her he's mourning.

Or maybe he does know, or suspect, she's alive.

But either way, he's making one final act of sacrifice, too, with that paper burning into the breeze.

He's letting her go.

He's choosing his own story.

He's staying where he belongs.

Jinx may have become a symbol of the revolution, but it's Ekko who is, and always will be, the true hero of Zaun.

And this is Jinx's final shot.

Because let's face it, we all know she's on that airship.

She's "breaking the cycle". She's "walking away". She knows that Jinx has left too many scars on the people she still loves - on Vi, on Ekko, on the cities of Piltover and Zaun - for her to pick up the pieces.

She knows that if she's going to find out what "Jinx" might stand for now, she has to go very far away from everything and everyone. She has to leave it all behind and find something new.

Maybe even someone new?

And ultimately, that's why I feel the Timebomb we got was perfect, they shouldn't touch it, they shouldn't try to force it to be "Endgame", not because it couldn't have worked, but because that's the opposite of the story they told.

For the rest of my analysis, lol, this got a bit long but i have FEELINGS.

Now, I'm not saying I wouldn't buy Jinx and Ekko as a love story if they had actually told that love story. But they didn't. It had no screen time. They have less interactions in S2, maybe even in both seasons added up, than Vi and Loris. Let that sink in a bit.

We know it's Amanda's favorite ship, so she may have intended more, and may even actually give us all more at some point, but please, dear god, let's stop pretending they fucked or kissed or even held hands offscreen.

That's honestly a bit insulting to both of these characters, to insist hell or high water that this very important milestone in their relationship happened, but they just didn't even bother to depict it. That an entire love story (because it would be a whole one, remember, Ekko and Powder had a romance but Jinx did not experience any of that, she and Ekko are back at Square One) would just be cut for time.

They both deserve better than that.

Let's stop pretending there was some grand, horny, Forever Love story with 60 minutes of cut footage, all of it timebomb content, somehow left on the cutting room floor of an animated show where every single frame has to be deliberately hand painted.

Because if in some insane universe they had written, storyboarded, voice acted and animated an entire 60 minute additional timebomb storyline and then cut it from the show, that would itself be a searing indictment of the quality of the storytelling in that imagined arc, but that's not what happened. Anyone who knows how filmmaking works would shoot this one down, and the showrunners already have, so let's leave it behind.

I know Timebomb blew up hard, and I get it, but what we got on the screen is not confirmation that there is any relationship at all between Ekko and Current Timeline Jinx. If anything, Ekko and Powder's beautiful romance only highlighted the tragic 'never to be' of Ekko and Jinx.

And it's absolutely fine to look at the art book, look at the creator comments, and imagine what could have been. Draw the fan art, write the fanfic, imagine the what-ifs and the fix-its, those are all beautiful and valid expressions and deserve their space.

But don't go insisting it's "the canon" and going after the shippers of other ships for these characters as "not canon" or somehow offensive for existing, especially toward one particular ship that, yes, has been around much longer than timebomb, is uncool.

I think this is mostly people who are New From Arcane, it's Baby's First Ship and they don't know how to share space. The timebomb fans I knew pre-season two didn't do this, at least not often enough for me to notice or care.

But I'll just say to them, if a Timebomb follow up happens and they actually tell a good love story for Ekko and Jinx, I will accept it. Grudgingly, because I think Lux/Jinx is an untold, untapped story full of incredible character dynamics that would complete Jinx's story in ways that as much as I love Ekko, he's too tied to her past, he can't.

But I love Ekko, and I love Jinx, and I will accept it.

But I'll also say to them, if the followup doesn't eventuate, if things take a turn they don't expect, if Jinx's airship is heading for Demacia, maybe they'll have to experience just a taste of what it's been like for Lightcannon fans for ten long years.

And maybe that's healthy. Maybe that's okay. Maybe our endgames don't need to be 'canon' to have value and that's a lesson we should learn.

Maybe there's a new Light on her horizon, and that's okay too. Maybe Ekko won't be alone forever. Don't forget - until Arcane - his story had nothing to do with Jinx, and there was a whole lot of it.

More with the Firelights, maybe bring in the original Lost Children of Zaun from his old stories, his inventions, his parents, all could yet be in his future. Who knows? He might find a way back to AU!Powder - or she might rebuild what they worked on together, and come to him, no matter what butterfly effects that could set in motion...

But if Jinx is heading for a Light on her horizon, maybe Ekko might Explore some of his possibilities. Find a new Spark of connection. Just saying. Jinx isn't his only ship, either 😌

And it is okay for people to move on, and let go. Maybe, for two characters whose themes are letting go of the past, living in the moment, redefining their identities, and moving on, that's what their story should be.

[some-anonymity-preferred]

He really does go through an evolution, doesn't he?

Responds with a tone-deaf quip.

Uses inside knowledge of the aggressors' weaknesses to get them to set themselves on fire.

Defends Ed's honor as he understands it without clocking Ed's changed reaction to such a slight or listening to Ed's request to not do this.

Uses Ed's honor as an excuse to pick a fight that he was already misguidedly gunning for on behalf of his own butthurt feelings.

The S1e5 party ship is the peak of Stede's skill in defending Ed's honor so far. And even then, Stede was sowing his chaos almost as much on his own behalf as he was on Ed's. (Not that I dislike that; I feel it adds spice, honestly.)

I want to see Stede regain that peak and maybe even surpass it.

They're gonna have to talk some things through, though.

Stede + defending Ed's honor

[narnian-neverlander]

Unconditionally [Masterlist]

I did not plan on my Viktor One-Shots turning into a series, but somehow, that’s what’s happening, so I decided to put it all into one post so it’ll make things easier to navigate for everyone who’s interested in actually reading all of it 💞

This series is:

➡️ Viktor x GN!Reader

➡️ Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Childhood Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Smut

➡️ Mature Rating

➡️ Set of One-Shots that can all be read as standalone, but take place within the same continuity/feature the same reader

➡️ Canon compliant with Season 1 of Arcane, canon divergent from Season 2 [Machine Herald Viktor AU]

➡️ Last Update: 03/01/2025

Cross-posted on AO3

🎶 For You, Always

💐 One of the Fools

🛁 Your Villain

⚙️ Meant to be Yours

❤️‍🩹 Would You Fall in Love with Me Again [Current WIP]

Bonus:

⏳ What Could’ve Been

[Takes place in the AU of S2E7, not part of the main continuity, but written with the same reader in mind]

[liennka]

Another tragedy in your pitiful collection of plays

Interview with the Vampire characters x gn reader

Summary: you witness the tragedy that happened that day in the Theatre des vampires and tell your side of story to Molloy…(s2e7)

-> This one is pure angst and rage, I am open to any criticism (be nice pls) and I hope you like it :)

I just wanted to say that I am not the owner of this show, but I did make this story, so don't copy it without my knowledge, thank you.

I've never been so scared. As if the whole world pressed against me, its weight crushing my chest, squeezing my heart. As if I was suffocating, my lungs empty, squeezing my windpipe. One look at the stage and my heart threatened to burst, yet I couldn't tear my eyes from their faces. Madeleine's blank gaze, her pale skin covered in blood darker than her lipstick. Claudia's resigned sneer, her mouth open, always ready to defend herself. Louis' furrowed brows, one eye slightly swollen. The smell of blood everywhere. Just another batch of strawberry syrup with dye for the people watching, even for me in other situations, but today it was the blood of my friends. Reeking of metal and bitterness, flowing straight from their hearts, poured onto the floor from their mutilated heels. 

I could not hear what they were saying. What made Claudia stand up and gasp with pain, what made Luis fall to the ground. No pre-written words from Santiago, no laughter from the people, no retelling of Lestat's life, no music.  My head was silent, only Armand's whispering, a voice that was familiar, a voice that lulled me to sleep. His powers that immobilized my body, his pity, his reassurances. My mind was clouded. Inside I was aware of what was happening, the fear and disgust, I wanted to scream, wanted to get out. But Armand did not. I could feel tears streaming down my face, but not my muscles… Then all the whispering stopped.  

"Banishment!" The crowd shouted in unison, in unprecedented desperation. The sound broke my hypnosis. What happened? I scanned the audience carefully, glancing at the man next to me. He sat behind the bars, giving the impression of a prisoner, but I knew very well that the only one holding him captive was himself. His inner self-degradation, his way of avoiding guilt. Why did Armand let me loose? What took his attention that even his love could not keep? Was it an unpredictable course of the play? Did the audience disappoint him?  He didn't move a hair, his eyes didn't flicker, his hands didn't clench. Still, someone had manipulated the crowd. If it wasn't him, then who? Lestat's ear was bleeding, his hand was shaking, and his eyes were red. It was him. Lestat. Armand wanted Luis dead.

"Is this what you wanted? Another tragedy in your pitiful collection of plays? Another reminder of your endless suffering?" I finally regained my voice and snapped at him, my hand gripping his arm. 

I've never been so mad.  As if the whole world was laughing, its ignorance signing the death penalty for these three vampires, the audience enjoying the show. As if they wore sunglasses while their skin burned. No, I was not mad at those fools in those seats, I was mad at the fool in my coupé, in a cage he designed himself. Watching a play he wrote himself.

"Louis!" Claudia yelled, clutching his shirt in despair, though there was nothing she could do to prevent it.

"You can still end it. This time you can say No", I begged Armand, I always begged. He just shook his head. "Not to the laws," he whispered. Luis's screams filled the backstage until it ceased altogether, stifled by the doors.

"Is this a revenge on Lestat? Is this a way to regain the power over your coven? Is this revenge on your coven?" I took a breath "This is not the way! For once, do not let others trample over you, swallow your wounded pride and let it go. This plan of yours will hurt all of us, not just them! This is a mistake!" my voice wavered, I was desperate. Out of the corner of my eye, Santiago was talking to the humans, warning them. So did I, warning Armand, pleading with him, threatening him.

"Stop," his cold tone pinned me to the ground again, literally.

"Let them live," I cried, unable to move.

"They broke the law, they committed a crime. You are being irrational" he looked into my eyes.

I knew they were criminals, but more importantly, they were my friends, two girls doomed from the moment they were born. If anyone deserved to live, it was these two.

"They don't deserve this, please!" The burgundy tears fell from my cheeks onto my white blouse, forever testifying my misery.

"'There's nothing I can do," he shrugged and turned towards the performance.

"Coward."

He did not react. The stage fell silent, all the actors retreating, pushing the two vampiresses forward, holding onto each other till their last breath. I do not know what their last words were, it belonged only to their ears.

The dark curtain began to draw . Claudia looked up for the last time, meeting my gaze and smiling. "I'm so sorry, Claudia," I sniffled, not accepting what was about to happen. "It's okay," I heard in my head, her voice rough but sweet. "'s not your fault." I choked on a sob. She was like Joan of Arc, ready to die, knowing she was right, knowing they had misjudged her, yet she did not give up on her ethics, kind till the end. She stopped smiling and glared at the whole room. "Follow the bouncing ball!" she mocked them, gently embracing Madeleine.

When the sun's rays hit them, Claudia shielded Madeleine with her body, but the newborn vampire did not know daylight, did not know the pain of a sunburn, because Claudia loved her, she never let her suffer like Louis and Lestat had let her. With a shriek, she fell to her knees, the ash from her body swirling through the air. Claudia's singing led Madeleine out of this world, and then herself. 

I've never felt such pain. As if the whole world ended, the lights went out, the music stopped. As if my heart had turned to stone, fallen out of my body, shattered into a million pieces. But the world didn't end, only their lives. The lights didn't go out, only their eyes, the music didn't stop, only their screams. They turned to dust, the dust we'll all turn to one day, human or not.  

I dropped on my hands and knees, nothing holding me down, but I stayed there anyway. My choked cries, muffled by the vampires watching, turned to wheezes and  wheezes turned to screams. I had never screamed that loud before, not on stage, not as a human, never. It was so loud my eardrums were bursting, I could feel my own blood on my tongue and my vision darkened. I heard the cracking of glass, the clattering of shards as they scattered across the floor, all the glass in the hall shattered. That was the power of  vampires. I hope Claudia saw it somewhere, and I hope I made everyone in the hall deaf. The last thing they would hear would be a cry of pain, haunting their conscience.

The people fell silent, waited, and then began clapping. They applauded death, they applauded violence, they applauded Armand's writing.  How humorous. He frowned at me. 

"Are you all right?" He asked. 

No, I wasn't all right. I wanted to gouge out his doe eyes, break every bone in his body, make him suffer, but I still cared about him. 

"How can you even ask?!" I growled at him, waving my hand at him. My fingernails left scars, sure, they would heal, but my words won't. "I hate you! You should have stayed a slave, not ruining people's lives!" I didn't mean that, did I? I don't know. I do know that Armand took it seriously. 

"That's enough." He grabbed my hand and then I didn't feel a thing. He shut me down, just like in the restaurant.

“Thats how it happened mister Molloy” I sat in a cafe with the interviewer.

“And tell me, how did you know he directed the play?” he asked, recording my voice again.

"In the café. He stood up and headed for another drink, but ended up at the door, I think. I found it odd, so I followed him. Followed his gaze as Santiago entered." I glanced down at my hands, mindlessly fiddling with Claudia's green necklace.

"They took my friends by force and covered their heads with sacks. They were shouting, I was shouting too. I demanded an explanation from Armand, to stop the madness. Instead, he embraced me, pulled me close, and told me to stop fighting. That he was saving us, saving himself. I asked...and I remember it like it was yesterday:'So you've chosen...you've chosen to suffer again?' and he said, 'Yes'. He said he wrote a play that would make everything right again."

“He didn't lie to you about the play? He never told Luis, you know?” Molloy asked

"Honestly, I don't know. I think he always saw himself as my brother, he knew that I could not leave to live on my own. That I would stay by his side. That I would always forgive him" I smiled a little

“Did you?” he smirked

“No, not this time. I do think he can be redeemed, but never forgiven, not by me.” I looked into Molloy’s eyes. “So, if you see him again, tell him to find me, it's been 70 years and we have stuff to discuss”  

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

I've been working on a fic lately that has me thinking about how Ed responds to Stede killing Ned Low, and the more I think about it the more I really love it.

Ed seems to be the only person at Calypso's birthday who fully understands that Stede is seriously about to kill Ned. The others are surprised (but definitely pleasantly surprised) when Stede does it, but Ed's warning takes him completely seriously before anyone else realizes what Stede's thinking. Ed warns him not to do that because killing someone intentionally like that is something he thinks "you can't come back from" - he's worried killing Ned will fundamentally alter the way Stede thinks about himself and his ability to be compassionate with himself, just like it did for Ed himself.

And it would've been so, so easy for this to be a big part of the leadup to Ed and Stede's argument in s2e7. For Ed to get an "I told you so!" moment, for him to see Stede celebrating with his fans and stress that Stede has somehow been changed, that he's too much like Ed now.

But they don't play it that way at all. Ed gets one moment of quiet disappointment, but from that second on his priorities shift. It's happened, Stede's done it, and not even for a single second does Ed blame Stede or be cruel to him about it. He just wants to make sure he's okay. When he sees Stede's hurting, all he wants to do is comfort him and be with him. He finds it so easy and natural to empathize - "I was a mess after my first kill - well, it was my dad, so..." It's by far the most casually Ed's ever referenced that event, because it's something he has in common with Stede, now, and he can no longer depict it as a fundamentally monstruous thing because Stede's not monstruous at all!

I think it's an important element of Ed's beginning to forgive himself. Ed has been trying for so long to make up rules to allow him to live with himself, and he's always held others to a different standard than himself, but with Stede it's different. They just know each other too well for Ed to distance himself from what Stede's done. And maybe, just maybe, if someone who Ed loves so much did something very similar to Ed and killed someone to protect the people he loves, then maybe Ed was never all that bad after all.

[sol-draws-sometimes]

Ask and you shall receive

The Barbie trailer mugshot meme but it's Adam looking Concerned and Caleb is here for the ride

ooooh YES can someone please draw this, I want to see this SO badly