#seriously if I’m writing a scene and wondering what on earth these characters are doing while they give us exposition

[aheathen-conceivably]

Design what your blog would look like if it was a person!

[ PICREW ]

No one tagged me but I had to join in because I just love a good picrew! Loosely based on me scheming with the the general vibes we got going on around these parts. I’m a melodramatic bitch, what can I say 😌

I tag @swiftviolets @allfrogsmatter @feroshgirlsims @honey-and-sims @void-critters or anyone who sees this and wants to give it a go!

[mylittleredgirl]

💝 candy hearts exchange 💝

Thank you in advance for writing for me! I love these fandoms and characters, and I’m very easy to please as a reader. If my collected likes and prompts are helpful, please use them, but if you have another idea (or don’t feel like scrolling through a letter that's much longer than the minimum word count for this exchange), please ditch my requests and write what you like! I love being surprised and look forward to seeing what you come up with.

--

💕 I love: canon divergence | complications (e.g. emotional baggage, working together while in a relationship, traumas inflicted by canon) | episode-related fics | fix-its | friends to lovers | happy/hopeful endings | hurt/comfort | “it’s just casual” to lovers | other canon characters included in the fic | pining | polyamory dynamics | 5-times | all ratings are welcome.

🔥 Kinks enjoyed: aliens made them do it (or local canon equivalent) | blow jobs | body worship (especially related to body changes like aging, scars, weight gain, etc) | edging | hand jobs | masturbation | soft dom/sub (in bed not 24/7 lifestyle; bondage and praise yes, pain and shame no) | watching/voyeurism | sweet I-love-you sex works for me too!!

⛔️ DNWs: alternate-setting AUs (canon divergences big and small are welcome, as long as they’re in the same canon universe) | bashing of other characters or past canon relationships | crossovers (except between series in the same universe, like star trek) | hurt no comfort | non-canon nicknames | non-sexual bodily fluids in sex scenes | permanent character death | spelling out accents (for human characters) | zombies or blood-sucking vampires (other canon-typical aliens and cryptids are ok!).

--

🍦 The Good Place:

Ships: Janet/Jason | Chidi/Eleanor Friendships: Team Cockroach | Janet & Michael

I seriously love every character and friendship dynamic in Team Cockroach and would love to learn more about any or all of them. I ship Jason/Janet (I am down BAD for them right now) and Chidi/Eleanor. Janet is my all-time fave, so it would be great if she can be part of the fic!

DNW: Michael as part of a sexual or romantic pairing (but I love him in friendship fics!)

Prompts:

Earth hijinks in season 3

5 things Janet learned about herself by interacting with Team Cockroach

Janet & Jason had so much fun on their little “let’s pretend we’re on a fancy person museum date” in the extended version of A Fractured Inheritance, so I wonder what other little dates they could go on…

--

🛸 The X-Files:

Ships: Doggett/Reyes | Mulder/Scully

Poly Ships: Doggett/Reyes/Scully | Mulder/Scully/Doggett/Reyes Friendships: Reyes & Scully | Doggett & Reyes & Scully | Mulder & Scully & Doggett & Reyes

Doggett/Reyes and Mulder/Scully are lifelong ships for me! I love the season 9 dynamics between Doggett, Reyes, and Scully – how they work together professionally, their developing friendships and trust (and romantic attractions). For Mulder and Scully, I have a special love for fic set in the early seasons, but anything set in the original canon is great (please don’t use canon from the revival seasons).

What if it’s Monica’s turn to be hurt/in danger/kidnapped on a case, and John’s turn to find her or care for her afterward?

I have always wondered about Scully’s drunk little “I like her :)” in Empedocles. Did Monica keep in touch with her after This Is Not Happening? How does their friendship grow?

[Writer’s choice of agents] get snowed into a cabin with ghosts (either paranormal ghosts, or the metaphorical angsty ghosts they’re all carrying around)

OT3 or OT4 prompt: Just... how do they not kill each other?

--

👽 Stargates:

Atlantis: John Sheppard/Elizabeth Weir SG-1: mini!OTP (Clone Sam Carter/Clone Jack O’Neill) | Janet Fraiser/Daniel Jackson

Sheppard/Weir: I am equally fine with fic set in seasons 1-3, fics where “that just didn't happen,” and AUs where Elizabeth comes back. In post-replicator AUs I’m fine with “came back wrong” or suffering along the way as long as at her core she's Elizabeth and it ends in a hopeful or happy way. Prompts:

John and the challenge of giving/receiving affection and Having A Feeling in general

A little off-world surprise (telepathy, alien bonding rituals, strange alien booze, you know) could do everyone some good

She’s almost entirely human, thank god… but maybe there’s something to like about the part that isn’t.

Clone Sam/Jack: I love this ship when they’re still themselves, but now with some understandable existential angst and alienation from both their past and new lives. I love exploring the tension between what they have lost and this new life they have, and the challenges of navigating a relationship when they spent so long NOT being in a relationship. Ideas:

One of them gets injured or is somehow in danger. That used to be normal, but now it feels different…

A field trip.

What happens after high school? At what point does this life start to feel like their own?

Daniel/Janet:

Janet survives and is healing from her injuries – how does her brush with death affect her? What about Daniel and Cassie? (Especially given everything Daniel & Cassie have been through?)

5 Times they fail to go out on a date… and maybe one time they succeed

--

🌲 Twin Peaks:

Maddy Ferguson/Donna Hayward | Dale Cooper/Harry Truman | Dale Cooper & Harry Truman | Dale Cooper/Audrey Horne

I love Twin Peaks and its whole wacky cast of characters and inscrutable world logic. I am most familiar with the original seasons, but I will have finished season 3 by the time this fic exchange comes due, so write whatever you like!

Cooper/Harry or Cooper & Harry: I need a happy ending for them, either romantically or as best friends who care about each other The Most. Prompt idea: A canon-divergent AU where Cooper doesn't end up in the Black Lodge for 25 years, and he has to work through his divided loyalties between his life in the FBI and his heart in Twin Peaks...

For Maddy/Donna, James is definitely a part of their story so it’s fine if he and his canon romances with them are in the story, but I’d really like Maddy and Donna to realize that all this love drama is not actually about him at all. (And Maddy lives!)

For Cooper/Audrey, I’m fascinated by their connection (romantic or otherwise), and the tension that comes with it because Dale Cooper sees himself as an Upstanding Morally Responsible FBI Agent™️ and she’s a high school girl involved with a case. I imagine he’d have to wrestle with that even if they got together after season 2. Prompt idea: Cooper needs Audrey's help with an undercover assignment (or.... she decides on her own that he does, and Audrey Horne does what she wants).

--

🛰 Babylon 5:

Ships: Michael Garibaldi/Susan Ivanova/Talia Winters | Michael Garibaldi/Talia Winters | Lyta Alexander/Talia Winters | Jeffrey Sinclair/Catherine Sakai Friendships: Lyta Alexander & Talia Winters | Michael Garibaldi & Talia Winters | Jeffrey Sinclair & Delenn

A few thoughts that aren’t really prompts but might inspire you:

I just really, really, really want Talia to be saved. It’s very important to me.

It seems like Lyta would be the most qualified, and Garibaldi and Ivanova would be the most motivated, so really any combination of people can be involved. If any of them want to kiss in the process that’s also fine.

A fic that takes place after she’s saved off-screen will also work!! Anything from “everything is fine now and it’s fluffy” to “wow everything hurts and all these people are still very fucked up in many interesting ways.”

Talia and Lyta have the same backstory of having briefly trained with the Psi Cops before moving on to being commercial telepaths – could they have known each other when they were young?

Sinclair/Sakai are good and pure, they should have had the chance to be happy!!

I have read “To Dream in the City of Sorrows,” so if you have also read that and want to include that canon in a story including Sinclair, feel free.

Sinclair & Delenn’s connection is so awesome and worth exploring, but I don’t have a specific prompt in mind.

--

⚾️ Deep Space Nine:

Ships: Kira Nerys/Keiko O’Brien/Miles O’Brien | Julian Bashir/Ezri Dax Friendships: Jadzia Dax & Benjamin Sisko | Julian Bashir & Jadzia Dax

Prompt ideas:

I love the extended O’Brien family so much, and I want to see more of any part of their journey. Did Kira and Keiko spend any time together before the pregnancy arc, or are they really just getting to know each other then? What about after the baby is born? (I’m fine with an AU where she doesn’t move out at all, but if you want to go on a canon journey including Kira’s other relationships that’s fine too).

Kira’s faith and culture are so important to her – how is that a part of the relationship, and how does she share that with the kids?

For Bashir/Ezri I love the idea of an AU where the war/show lasts longer so they can take more time having crushes and getting to know each other before getting together. And then maybe they get into danger together to help things along.

(It’s also fine if you want to explore a canon version where they’re probably a little messed up by the end of the war, but somehow they work through it and stay together.)

Jadzia & Benjamin: One last ride into shenanigans, for Curzon’s sake…

Jadzia & Julian: “Watch and learn.”

--

🍺 Cheers:

Diane Chambers/Sam Malone

This couple is my platonic ideal of “ship that needs to be together monogamously forever as a quarantine measure to protect everyone else.” I love them. They’re the worst. They have incredible sex. They should annoy each other til death do they part. I will happily read canon-like comedy disaster shenanigans but also fluff, smut, angst, fix-its, anything goes. Prompts:

How do they support each other (well or very badly) in their ongoing mental health/addiction challenges?

If they DID get married, Diane would co-own the bar…

--

🍄 Star Trek: Discovery

Ship: Christopher Pike/Vina Friendships: Michael Burnham & Christopher Pike | Christopher Pike & Discovery Crew | Michael Burnham & Spock

Pike/Vina: I liked the classic version as a kid, and then the Discovery version grabbed me by the throat. Those 90 seconds or whatever they shared on-screen? Life-changing.

I think about the possibility of long-distance telepathic connection/dreams/etc...

Or an AU where she came with him after “In Memory Serves.”

Pike & Disco Crew & Burnham: Pike is, according to Number One, unsentimental… which made it hit me hard when he called the Discovery crew “my family” at the end of season 2 as they went into the rift. We saw how having a good and noble captain changed them, but how did being with them change him?

Burnham & Spock: AU where Spock made it to the future with them.

Burnham & Spock: Five Times Spock remembers her from the past, or Five Times Michael remembers him from the future.

--

🖖 Star Trek: Enterprise

Trip/T’Pol | Hoshi & Travis | Hoshi/Travis

Trip/T’Pol prompt ideas:

T'Pol lets Trip help her in her ongoing recovery

I love interspecies complications! What’s it like for Trip & T'Pol to be on Earth or Vulcan as a couple? If they have a child/children, how do they negotiate parenting them?

How about that touch telepathy Vulcans have… 😏

Hoshi/Travis or Hoshi & Travis: They are so sweet in the tiny moments they have alone together, and anything you have to offer for them as friends or lovers would be fun! Some ideas:

How does he help her recover from her experience on the Xindi weapon?

Five times Hoshi and Travis were left alone (or left in command) on the bridge

If you want to write mirror Hoshi/Travis that would be cool too!

--

🎬 Stargate Atlantis RPF

Torri Higginson/Joe Flanigan

If you are one of the three possible people on Earth to offer this pairing, you already know what I’m about. But for completeness’s sake:

I’m really into the Oh No We Mustn’t temptation, often followed by Oh No Looks Like We Did, Now What Do We Do With This Mess And These Feelings?

Anything from friends with flirty pining to endgame OTP works for me, but I would really like them to hook up at least once 😉

Prompt idea: Maybe one or both of them don't actually remember what happened last night...

Prompt idea: What if Torri's with someone else and now it's Joe's turn to be jealous?

Prompt idea: Missed connections, bad timing… how does it almost happen? And then how does it happen for real?

--

Thank you again, and happy writing!

[the-gateway-to-madness]

✏️, ⌨️, and 🕯️ for your new fic?

;-; cannot thank you enough for asking

One Equal Temper of Heroic Hearts is actually an older project than For The Good of All, fully planned out, 40-something chapters and an entirely original ROTBTD premise. i lost inspiration for a bit and i'm very happy it's coming back for the moment. Major spoilers under the cut!

✏️ My favorite plot point:

Oh, man, HARD CHOICE. There are a couple I really seriously adore- there's a chapter in the second of the three major arcs (Sea, Earth, and Sky arcs) based loosely on the song "The Underworld" from epic the musical. There's some really wonderful character beats I'm looking forward to writing in that chapter. Rapunzel's character arc is also something I found really intriguing to plot out and not one I've seen in the Tangled canon or in the fanbase that I can recall. Oh, and there's actually some later Jamie content I'm pretty hyped about :D

⌨️ The biggest positive or negative shift in a main relationship between the characters:

the biggest shift in ANY of the character dynamics is a spoiler so massive it would ruin the whole plot. Other than that the biggest dynamic shift is probably between Merida and Hiccup, going from "actively at war" to close friends planning to try and stop that war together.

🕯 My favorite scene so far:

another EXTREMELY hard pick.

Jack was the first to notice Hiccup’s muted demeanor, and he dropped out of the games to walk next to him. “Hey. You all right?”

Hiccup wasn’t sure how to answer, and said so.

“You want to talk about it or do something about it?” Jack asked.

Hiccup looked up at the winter spirit, surprised by his combination of sympathy and directness. “I guess just- I’m a bit confused by Chauncey. Dragons don’t usually bond so easily. And I’m worried about Toothless, worried that he didn’t make it out of the water after I got pulled out of that sea battle.”

Jack nodded. “Alright. So, you’ve voiced it. Now what can you do?”

Hiccup looked up ahead, watching Rapunzel and Merida chasing each other and laughing wildly. “Nothing. That’s what bothers me most.”

“Hm.” Jack frowned a little, thinking, and then smirked. “Then maybe you just need to take your mind off of it. Gimme your hand.”

Hiccup held out his hand, palm-up, and Jack placed a snowball from nowhere in his grasp.

He gave Hiccup that same wicked little grin. “Now, I want you to throw this just as hard as you can at Eugene.”

Hiccup stared at him, then busted up laughing.

“I’m serious!” Jack laughed, but Hiccup didn’t need more convincing. Terrible as he had always been at throwing things, Eugene’s back just made too perfect a target to miss, somehow.

Jack cheered, and it was at this point that Hiccup noticed the snowfall starting all around them. “Bullseye!”

Eugene spun around, making a shocked noise of offense, and Jack took off running again, whooping and laughing.

“FROOOOOST-” Eugene took off running after him, and Hiccup wheezed, doubling over.

[delugyu]

so i finished reading🧍‍♀️soobin is waaayyy too nice 😭 i am still rooting for him !! he should have a bit more self respect tho (much like yn 😭)

and omg the astrology thing is so cool and creative !! is it the same for beomgyu? i wonder what placements would make him this crazy lmaoo

soobin is for sure too nice lol but that’s part of the reason why i like writing his scenes so much 🙈 it’s so funny to see the divide in ppl rooting for beomgyu vs soobin lol it’s much more 50/50 than i anticipated (i thought ppl would hate gyu LMAO)

thankssss, i love astrology!! i did not do the same for beomgyu but if i had to make up a big 6 for his character on the spot, id say he’s a pisces sun (true to life lol), cancer moon, aries mercury, pisces venus, scorpio mars, and scorpio rising. lots of water energy makes someone very emotional and sensitive. the aries mercury can make him a motor mouth lol and have him saying things too much and too fast. and too bold 🫣 having a scorpio rising would put his sun and venus in his fifth house, placing an emphasis on romance and fun. also scorpio risings may leave an ambiguous/unsure first impression, and soobin’s first impression of beomgyu was very shaky lol. people who are water sign heavy, especially in the big three like this, can be completely run by their emotions; this chart also lacks any earth sign that might keep him grounded. water dominants may turn to manipulation to protect themselves. scorpio mars craves intimacy and deepppp connection with someone, so he HATES that mc isn’t only his. scorpio mars tend to have jealousy issues big time. whew ill cut it off there but i could seriously go on and on lol

that got so long i’m so sorry 😭😭 but im glad i got to yap about that for a minute LMAO i’m not a pro by any means but i think it’s fun ! thank u for asking abt it!! <3

[applesfallingfromblondehair]

Hiyaaa! my brain is proper mush after this chapter, so i’m just sharing whatever i wrote down while reading this 👁️👄👁️

It’s stupidly cute how Matty’s just incapable of languages and it kind of reminded me of one of my favourite scenes ever!! Pretty early on, when Matty tells Ross about the constellations while they’re both on the roof (and i believe way too high to be on a roof), when Matty’s just spreading misinformation but Ross holds back from correcting him because he’s too cute. I love how Ross finally corrects Matty 😂 Unfortunately I can very much relate to Matty in regards to French, I took French for 5 years and I can barely speak it , mais c’est comme ça (i did not look up whether that’s even correct, i will die like a man 💀)

Mr. Rigby…. fuck

I love Darren

“You’re so hot when you speak Italian.” Matty please Ross is always hot 🤭

example a) “He pulls Matty in there with him, pressing him against the warm brick wall. “Are you saying you’d fuck Mr. Rigby?” he asks, his lips grazing the side of Matty’s neck.” 👁️👄👁️ fucking hell

example b) every fucking time Ross is exploring the side of himself that will one day become (Rolex) Daddy Ross

“[…] Which does sometimes make Ross wonder what on earth he’s doing with him.” ROSS BABY PLEASE

okay i’m suddenly very glad i had to take french, i’m giggling

LUCA IS JUST THE SWEETEST AHHH I LOVE HIM

he deserves the world and they all deserve to love openly and loudly 😭

okay i might have been too invested to write anything down until “That’ll be fifty quid,” and then remembered that i am in fact writing down things while reading so i don’t forget to talk about them 🙃 like i texted you immediately when reading that, i didn’t only giggle, i laughed out loud 😂

(it happened again right after that)

“I’m not interested in a life without you. Or the band.” okay.. way to make me cry? pardon me??

THE TEACHERS UGGGHHHHH LOVE

i’m. so. normal. about. the. church.

I THINK YOU SHOULD HAVE A SNOG

MATTY YOU EVIL DRUNK BASTARD 💀💀💀

Woah. A true rollercoaster of emotions. I’m incredibly soft for the two, especially in all those tender moments. I don’t even have words right now, but the thrill of Matty being onto something 👁️👄👁️

Again, I loved every second of this. Holy shit, you never fail to entertain and amaze me ❤️

Helloooo ✨

Matty's ineptitude at languages opposed to Ross's try-hard attitude is probably one of my favourite elements in this whole chapter so I am very glad you picked up on it 😭 and yes, Ross is definitely coming into his own and evolving into the early stages of (Rolex) Daddy Ross ��� again, very pleasant stuff to write.

Darren is currently my fave side character and Mr Rigby is very much inspired by me having the hots for You Know Who, so I'm glad you're on board with that too. he's just A Lot and unapologetically gay and I love him dearly. I had to give the teachers some entanglement because of course I did. I think I may have started seeding that since chapter 1, actually 👀

and yes, Ross is affectionate, hot AND hilarious :) the full package, seriously.

the church bit, I owed it to them and to myself for the irreparable psychological damage that Fleabag caused when I watched it 5 years ago. I'm glad it went down well 🌚

Matty is an evil bastard and his demon twink tendencies get multiplied by about 1000 when he's drunk. he knew exactly what he was doing (or did he? 👀)

thank you so much for taking the time to send this in, I've already told you but I appreciate it immensely 💖💖💖

[nanowrimo]

Pro Tips from a NaNo Coach: How to Keep Writing

NaNoWriMo can seem like a daunting task sometimes, for NaNo newbies and veterans alike. Fortunately, our NaNo Coaches are here to help guide you through November! Today, author Rebecca Kim Wells is here to share some tips for meeting your goal this month:

Hello, dear writers! By this time in your NaNo journey I hope you’ve made some progress on your novel. (As far as I’m concerned, any progress is winning progress!) But I also know that the second week is often where doubt sets in. While the first few days are full of jitters and adrenaline, by week two things aren’t as new and exciting. You might be tempted to turn off that early alarm. You might have hit a plot quagmire and have no idea where to go. You might be facing the fact that all novelists face—that in order to write a book, you actually have to, you know, write it. And writing a novel is a long-haul project.

So how do you keep making progress when things get hard? Here are a few pitfalls I’ve experienced (and things I do to keep myself going):

1. I don’t know what happens next. 

Have you reached a point in your story where you don’t know how to get from point E to point G? Are you wracking your brain trying to come up with point F with no success? 

Good news, you’ve got several options! Do you really need point F? You can always just skip directly to point G. If you’re certain something happens between E and G, you can just write in “Somehow, the intrepid adventurers made it to the Pit of Despair!” and move on to the next scene. (Seriously, you’re allowed to do this!) 

If you’re well and truly stuck with no idea what happens next at all, take a moment to come up with a few “I wonder” statements: “I wonder what my hero is doing right now.” “I wonder what would happen if a three-headed monster interrupted dinner.” “I wonder which character is plotting a betrayal.” “I wonder who is secretly in love with who!” Then step away from your novel. Go for a walk! Read a book! Watch a TV show! Take a shower! Make dinner! But keep a notebook close, because the answer to at least one of your “I wonder” statements will come to you…

2. This feels like work and I’m bored! 

This does not mean you’re doing it wrong—writing is hard work, and sometimes it’s very boring! So as much as possible, take the opportunity to indulge yourself. Are you bored with your story? Throw in a cuddly penguin or a banter-y fencing duel or a secret tragic backstory—delight yourself with your favorite tropes and story elements! 

If you’re groaning over the plodding monotony of writing, indulge your writing self: write with the fancy notebook or the pen with cool colored ink. (I recently bought my first fountain pen and I am in love.) Light a candle. Make a special snack, use your special mug. Write with a silly cap or luxurious sweater a la Jo March. NaNoWriMo is a ridiculous, wonderful endeavor and it’s time for you to embrace that ridiculous wonderfulness wholeheartedly.

3. Is this any good? 

Great news! It is not your job right now to make anything good. Your only job is to keep writing your draft. Whether or not your first draft is good is irrelevant, so stop worrying about it! The only way a first draft can fail is if it doesn’t exist. I think Shannon Hale was the genius who said once, “When writing a first draft, I have to remind myself constantly that I'm only shoveling sand into a box so later I can build castles.” Let’s all have fun building our sandcastles.

Rebecca Kim Wells writes books filled with magic and fury (and often dragons). Her debut novel Shatter the Sky was a New England Book Award Finalist, an ALA Rainbow Book List selection, an Indies Introduce selection, and a Kids’ Indie Next Pick. She is also the author of Storm the Earth and Briar Girls. If she were a hobbit, she would undoubtedly be a Took.

[aoitrinity]

Why Do I Have to Feel Like a Fucking Conspiracy Theorist -- OR -- How I Find a Semblance of Peace on Sunday Night

I’m also going to start this out with a GIANT DISCLAIMER.

I am about to theorize about what may have happened to the SPN finale. I have absolutely no insider knowledge. I am merely speculating here based on the panels and a bunch of Twitter and Tumblr posts that I have been reading over the last few days. If you are not in a good place to read such things, TURN BACK PLEASE. Go take care of yourself and your mental health. You and your feelings are valid and deserve to be handled gently right now.

Additionally, if you are here to give me shit for being unhappy with the ending, please walk away as well. I am here to reach out and share my feelings with people who might be struggling to make sense of something that upset some of us in very deep-seated ways. I am not here to bother you or critique you or tell you that you’re lesser because you liked the ending. If you felt it was good, then go enjoy it.

Long-ass post beneath the cut, everyone.

Alrighty folks...I debated whether or not to do this because I have been spiraling down the hell that is the SPN finale since Thursday. The travesty of what happened to our show--to this beloved show that seemed to have been so perfectly and precisely written for at least four years that it had basically already paved its own tarmac on which to land its plane and we all thought we knew exactly what we were going to get. And then we didn’t. We had a nigh Cas-less and entirely Eileen-less ending. We had no goodbye between Cas and Jack. We had Dean dying young after finally finding his freedom, only to ascend to heaven with no one but Bobby. We had the weird, weird, weird incest-y death scene. We had the bridge crane shot thing because...sure. You do you, Robert Singer.

It was so terrible, so truly awful, and I couldn’t seem to square any of it with anything we had known going in. I tossed and turned and cried and didn’t eat or sleep all weekend. I spent hours just reloading tumblr and twitter, going to the Misha panel, reading and reading and listening and trying to figure out what the fucking hell is going on because I needed to know exactly where to direct my anger. And after a fuckton of talking with @winchester-reload, I think we have at least a very plausible theory about what happened here--I’m laying it out below as much for my own peace of mind as anything else, because otherwise all of these thoughts are going to continue to spin around in my head for weeks and I won’t be able to do jack shit.

Now to start off, unfortunately I do think Dean was slated to die from the beginning of this season. I don’t know WHY they thought that was the best way to go, and I wish they had listened to Jensen on this one. Part of me wonders if it was an order from on high based on the discussion between Becky and Chuck earlier this season--the writers knew it wasn’t a great choice, but they were trying to signal to us that we should feel free to write our own endings to the story because they’d be better (I can wax poetic on the signs of why many of the writers probably wanted Dean to live, but that’s another post). I’m not defending that choice by any means, just laying it out there that I think they didn’t necessarily all want to kill Dean like they did.

However, what I THINK I can explain now is what happened with Misha and why we got so jerked around with Cas’s story. Consider what we know (I can’t immediately source all of it, but I did my best):

At the end of episode 15x19, Lucifer has been returned to the Empty after being killed AGAIN. He talks with Cas. Maybe harasses him a bit about Dean, idk. But then...Jack shows up. New God Jack. And he picks up Cas and pulls him out of the Empty, leaving Lucifer behind, because seriously. Fuck that guy (also leaving behind his abusive father is character growth for Jack, so yay for that).

-Misha was contracted to film 15 episodes this season. He was only in 14.

-Misha told Michael Sheen he had to go back to film 1.5 episodes after the shutdown in March. (Starts at 6:13)

-Misha was in Vancouver during filming of the finale.

-Mark P said at Darklight Con that the last scene he filmed was with Alex and Misha (and Mark P was only in episode 19).

-Misha implied that he was present for various filming moments, including Dean’s death (start at 35:15), and said that it felt like a “mini-reunion.”

-Various sources have mentioned that Jimmy Novak was supposed to be in the finale.

-After episode 18, Stands tweeted a fan who was angered and hurt by Cas's death that they could talk about the “bury the gays” issue after the finale aired.

-In episode 19 we know there were takes of the parking lot scene where the only thing fans observing could hear was Dean yelling “CAS” at Chuck (fuck I can’t find this one right now, but it’s definitely out there)

-Also in episode 19, we had a very strange, awkward montage at the end of the episode.

-In episode 20, we know there were a FUCKTON of missing scenes

-We also had no opening montage, but three other separate montages.

-Carry on My Wayward Son was played TWICE, back-to-back at the end of the episode.

-Episode 20 was shorter than normal and had surprisingly little dialogue. The pacing was VERY strange.

-The cast and crew has been almost completely silent about the finale since it came out. When they have spoken, it has been with an awkward excuse of “Uh...COVID?”

-Samantha Ferris has specifically noted that, despite the Harvelle’s being back in play and a big heaven reunion having been planned pre-COVID, neither she nor Chad Lindberg received any such invitation to return.

-Cas and Dean POP Funko figures were pictured together in a replica of Harvelle’s in 15x04.

NOW with all of this in mind (and I’m probably missing some stuff too because there is so much--feel free to add on to that list), please bear with me because here is what I think we were SUPPOSED to get POST-COVID (after it was determined that the reunion couldn’t happen because of the virus):

In episode 20, we start with our NORMAL OPENING MONTAGE, like always. It traces everything that happened during the season. We are reminded of Cas. The confession. Rowena. Eileen. Jack. Billie, God, the Empty, all of it. 

Things then follow along in the episode where they did up until Dean dies and wakes up in heaven. After his conversation with Bobby, he drives off to find Cas (who, in the script, was listed as “Jimmy Novak” in order to protect against script leaks--who wouldn’t want to do their best to avoid spoilers about the finale with the wrapping of a fifteen-year show?). He does indeed find Cas. We get Dean’s end of the confession. Hell, maybe we even get a kiss. And then Dean sets up his new heaven home in the recreated Harvelle’s. Maybe Cas even fucking moves in. 

Years pass. We get Sam having his life on Earth (still can’t explain why they cut Eileen and couldn’t even have Sam signing vaguely to the blurry brunette in the background; if anyone wants to take that on, go for it). Eventually, Cas tells Dean that it’s almost Sam’s time. Dean takes Baby and goes to meet Sam at the bridge. The cover of Carry on My Wayward Son plays during this much shorter sequence. End of episode.

But that’s not what we got. Instead, much of what I just wrote about was excised from the episode. The remnants were stitched together after shooting had been wrapped. Filler was added in the form of montages and long, unnecessary extra shots to get the episode to something approaching a reasonable length. 

But why? Why would they spend all that time and money and quarantining on Misha, only to almost completely cut him out of the finale? I struggled with why the fuck the CW would want this mammoth show to go down as the greatest queerbait in TV history when they had the chance to do something truly beautiful and monumental with it? It couldn’t just be sheer homophobia, right? Well, I think that factored into it, my friends, but here is where my head is at right now.

It was about cold, hard cash.

Now I could be wrong, but this is what I’m thinking at the moment: Supernatural is going off of the air. Supernatural, the CW’s cash cow for fifteen years. Sure there is still money to be made on blu-rays and merchandise and cons...but they need people watching their shows. They need that sweet advertising revenue. And you know what show they have about to premiere? A show that could, potentially, bring with it a chunk of that SPN revenue?

Walker.

And if any of you know anything about the original Walker Texas Ranger, you know that the show was predominantly a show about a very heterosexual white man being very excessively heterosexual. And for SOME REASON over the years, many of the execs at the CW still seem to think that this show, Supernatural, is really attractive to a lot of middle-American white men...whom they desperately want to watch this new show with this guy from Supernatural that they already know.

Now here’s where COVID fucked us. I think Destiel was greenlit by TPTB, at least in SOME form, before COVID. But then the pandemic happened, and they panicked. They got the cut of the last two episodes and watched them in their original, probably queer form. And then, the execs at CW looked at the economy. They looked at their cash cow, about to make its journey to the great beyond. And they looked at this new little calf Walker that they were so desperately worried about. And they made a choice.

They decided that it would be too risky to take the step with Destiel. They were worried about frightening off their ever-so-valuable hetero male demographic with the possibility that a traditionally masculine man in his 40s could be in love with another man in an overt way. It was homophobia mixed with greed, spun up by fear for their revenues because of COVID.

So they called in Singer, possibly Dabb, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they went straight to Singer. They told them that Destiel had to go: executive orders. And the only way to make it go in a way that removed any trace of what had been there was to rewrite what happened to Cas and cut him out from the last two episodes entirely. It was too late to reshoot anything. They had to just cut and stitch and fill with bullshit montages. 

They removed the scene at the end of 19, probably because Cas and Lucifer discussed Dean. All that was left of Misha there was his voice on that fake phone call. They may have cut other things too, but I would bet my life that they cut a scene from the end of the episode and replaced it with that very strange montage. Then they moved onto 20. They cut out every scene with Cas. And left in only two platonic mentions of him, neither made by Dean. They tried to imply that Cas might show up in Dean’s heaven at some point, but that was as far as the editors could go in the time they had. They filled in with montages, awkwardly long shots, anything they could do to fill all of those missing scenes.

And they even had to take the opening montage, because literally everything in it pointed to Cas being there at the end of it all. They wouldn’t be able to leave out his scenes, they were too critical to the season. They couldn’t cut his confession without raising eyebrows. So they cut the whole thing and moved “Carry On My Wayward Son” to one of the newly-added driving montages at the end. Which is why we awkwardly had both songs play back-to-back--again, such a strange choice unless they were out of options and couldn’t exactly buy rights to a new track or compose anything else.

And so we were left with the shadow of the finale that we deserved, that Cas and Dean deserved. We were left without resolution or happiness or words. Bobo told us the most important thing about happiness is just “saying it” and our characters were silenced without anyone ever knowing the truth.

I think the writers might have known and been given the new party line that “Misha never filmed, he couldn’t, sorry, it was COVID, no one’s fault!” But I don’t think most of the cast even knew it had happened until they watched the finale on Thursday with us (though they might have been confused why the bit from 15x19 was sliced, they could reasonably have assumed it was a time thing and also BL episodes don’t make sense anyway). Why do I say that?

Well, first of all, Misha started sending out a bunch of excited texts to fans with some old BTS pictures about an hour before the show started airing on EST. He also wanted his children to see the episode, his YOUNG children. Why would he show them such a traumatic episode if their Dad wasn’t in it? What if it was because he wanted them to witness what was going to be a monumental moment in queer television history that their DAD got to be a part of? And then that was all dashed.

Which is why I think the cast and crew went almost completely radio silent the next day. I don’t think they knew. And based on how they have been acting on social media since then, I think many of them are absolutely furious, but they have been silenced because of NDAs, because they want to find work again in a cutthroat industry, because they don’t want to bring down the hellfire of Warner Brothers Entertainment upon themselves. So the most we have gotten is a little acknowledgement from the MERCHANDISING COMPANY trying to validate our pain (god bless Shirts, she is a LIFESAVER) and a response to my salty tweet about keeping good stuff in the closet from Adam Williams (the VFX coordinator) that seemed to acknowledge the validity of my complaint.

Then there was a scramble behind the scenes, I would bet my life. Talking points were fed to the boys who had panels today, to CE, to all the cast and crew:

Toe the party line. Misha never filmed. This was always about COVID. Do not mention Destiel. Do not mention Dean’s feelings for Cas. Do not promote the Castiel Project or anything that validates the idea that this was anything less than a superb ending.

And that is why we have heard so little from the cast on this front, and what we have heard has been muddled and contradictory. That is why the writers are saying nothing. That is why we have been left adrift.

Now before I close this out, I do want to say that I really, genuinely do not think this was on the writers at all. I feel like they tried to give us the best ending that they could, in a writers room that we know is notorious for splitting along party lines about the overall story (BL and Singer, who have always been about the brothers and their man-pain vs. Dabb and the rest who always seemed to want more for them and for Cas). I think they did everything in their power to at least end with Dean and Cas happy together. If they could give us nothing else, they wanted to give us that. And then the network took it from them. From us. From everyone.

For the sake of fucking money. 

And the WORST PART OF IT ALL, for me, is that in the wake of this disaster, the fans have been left to try and figure out what happened. We have had to wade through a mire of conflicting information in the midst of all of our collective anger and grief over this garbage ending of a show many of us have loved and even relied on for YEARS, all the while wondering if we’re just fucking crazy, if we have all fallen collectively into the hole of conspiracy theories. That hurts ESPECIALLY badly because we have taken so many hits over the years from other groups on social media saying we were crazy for seeing things that weren’t there (especially Destiel), for writing meta and analyzing tropes and believing the evidence of our eyes and ears. The network has made us relive that entire nightmare WHILE processing our grief for a show we wanted so badly to celebrate and which instead we now have to mourn.

So again guys, I cannot prove that this is exactly what happened at all; this is simply my idea of what may have happened. But right now, it’s the most sense I can make from this mess, and to be honest, the act of typing it out has helped me enormously in my processing of it all. I feel like I can see more clearly, like I know where to target my outrage and where to direct empathy. I feel like just fucking maybe, I might be able to do my job tomorrow without bursting into tears at random moments. 

I really hope that this post has helped some of you to, in some small way, process this too. We get through this the way that Misha told us at his panel this morning, the way the writers have told us to do all season long...we throw out the story God gave us and we make it better. We write our characters the happy endings they deserve. 

We save them.

One last thing--if you have not already, please consider channeling your rage into a donation to one of the five causes our fandom has put together to pay tribute to our beloved show and to mourn the ending it should have had:

-The Castiel Project

-Dean Winchester is Love

-Sam Winchester Project

-The National Association of the Deaf

-The Jack Kline Project

[cocoabubbelle]

Watching “Scooby Doo, Where Are You?” (1969-1970 CBS) + Thoughts

Episode 3: Hassle in the Castle

Episode title cards have changed.

Whoever was in charge of designing the Environment Scenes did an impressive job.

Were Shaggy and Scooby-Doo’s enormous appetite and occasionally odd taste based off of anyone the writers knew by any chance?

Scooby vs Crab Dance Off!

Scooby must have gotten reading lessons between now and last episode bc he did not know how to read before.

Someone has or will write an AU where the Scooby Gang’s inability to stick their nose out of a potential mystery gets the majority of them killed.

Doubting Velma = coincidental proof that she’s right

I suppose that it could be explained that Scooby and Fred were able to past the trapdoor but Daphne fell right in because she had turned to look at Velma as she was talking to her. That or the creative team behind the scenes thought it made more sense for the “pretty girl” to be the designated victim.

Either Fred had an offscreen moment of panic and joined Shaggy and Scooby in jumping into Velma’s arms or Velma suddenly reached over and grabbed him (that would explain his hilariously confused look as they run away).

Daphne’s debut as a damsel in distress, but she’s pretty feisty and capable of taking care of and defending herself here.

I’m less concerned about Shaggy being perfectly happy with eating a ham sandwich that appeared out of nowhere than I am with the antagonist just happened to have the specific sandwich and even mustard prepared for Shaggy in the first place.

Daphne used a vase to defend herself. It was very effective!…ok the guy she thought was coming after her turned out to be poor Shaggy, but it’s the thought that counts! Seriously, I don’t know why she was reduced to being a more helpless victim in later episodes. Too much girl power?

“There’s a very logical explanation for all this.” “Quick, tell me!” “The place is haunted.” “Thanks a lot.” Tell me I’m not the only one who ships Velma x Shaggy 🤣

How convenient that there’s a library to help the gang out figure out the clues.

Was “what a ham!” supposed to be a catchphrase for Velma before she settled for “Jinkies!” ?

How on earth do you mistake an entire room for a closet, Fred?

“Hey! This is just a dummy head!” “Someone mention me?” In other news, how on earth did the culprit make a perfect replica of Shaggy’s head in such a short span of time?

Shaggy’s eyes disappeared. Animation bloopers are fun 😋

John Wayne = the personification of bravery?

Either some parts of the castle are just plain painted walls or someone gave up on the environment design.

Day 2 of Freddie’s Traps being perfect in planning and poor in execution.

That phantom was totally transparent a second before he got caught. I’m calling shenanigans.

The Policeman character is actually useful?

The culprit is actually quite friendly and accommodating. Shame he made stupid life choices.

Day 3 of no “And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids.” Starting to wonder if my childhood was a lie.

[brawltogethernow]

@mirrorfalls​ submitted: Came across this while searching for James Bond’s scrambled-eggs recipe (long story). Your thoughts?

~~

But did you find James Bond’s scrambled eggs recipe?

In this article, Scocca laments his inability to find accessible, lighthearted superhero comics suitable to read with his young son, while also demonstrating a mysterious aversion to looking at DC and Marvel’s lines of comics for children, which is where the accessible, lighthearted superhero comics suitable for reading with young children are. He wants his elementary schooler to be able to safely have the run of all superhero media so he doesn’t have to touch the yucky baby books.

This is not an industry-wide crisis. This is just one dude who got paid to write an article where he accidentally exposed one of his personal hangups.

The child headed toward the trade paperbacks of Marvel and D.C. superhero titles on the side wall […] a few steps in front of me. […] Is he with you? a clerk asked me. I said he was. You know, the clerk said, we have a kids’ section. The clerk gestured backward, at a few shelves near the entrance. I said, Thanks, we know and tried throwing in a little shrug, as the kid kept going.

You can’t just turn a seven-year-old child loose in a comic-book store to look at the superhero comic books. […] My seven-year-old really wanted to see that last Avengers movie […] that is, he wished it were a movie he could see, but he understood that it was, instead, a movie designed to scare and sadden him—a movie actively hostile to people like him.

They have a children’s section. Because comics are a medium suitable for stories for everybody, and they are sold in comic book shops, which have sections, like bookstores. You can use this organization to find books that you know in advance are suitable for children. What goes in that category is determined by industry professionals. This area will be bigger the bigger the shop is. These comics are not lower quality that titles from the main lines. They are actually slightly better-written on average.

Your local comic book shop has considerately wrapped Empowered in a plastic bag, so your child will not be drawn in by a colorful superhero and accidentally read a graphic scene. If you think your kid might find a memoir about internment camps upsetting, it is your job to notice them picking up They Called Us Enemy and read the blurb on the back before you let them have it. This comic adults are meant to read is in a comic book shop because that is where comics are sold. Not every public place is supposed to be Disneyland.

Movies have ratings systems. If you do not want your child to watch a PG-13 movie, you will find that most superhero cartoons are for children. They are about the same characters. Some are quite good! I really enjoyed Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Your child may like Avengers Assemble. At least I think that’s right. I’m always mixing those titles around.

This is a deeply weird bias for Scocca to casually demonstrate, because he identifies in the article that real childishness is striving for empty maturity.

He compares an old comic,

[…]a 1966 Spider-Man comic in which Spider-Man meets, fights, and defeats the Rhino; participates in a running argument between John Jameson and J. Jonah Jameson about his heroism; buys a motorcycle; breaks up with his first girlfriend, Betty Brant; flirts with Gwen Stacy; and reluctantly agrees to let Aunt May take him to meet her friend Mrs. Watson’s niece, Mary Jane.

and a new comic,

[…]a 21st century comic book in which Thor, brooding in a Katrina-destroyed New Orleans, beats up Iron Man. He also yells at Iron Man a lot about some incomprehensibly convoluted set of grievances, including involuntary cloning, that he believes Iron Man perpetrated against him while he was dead(?), and then summons some other Norse god from the beyond somehow for reasons having something to do with real estate. I think. Where the 1966 comic is zippy and fun and complete, the whole contemporary one is muddled and lugubrious and seems to constitute a tiny piece of a seemingly endless plot arc—simultaneously apocalyptic and inert.

and concludes that the edgier comic is actually less mature. This is true. (This is not news about mediocre comics.)

It also has nothing to do with either comic being child-friendly, the article’s nominal thesis, except in the sense that ASM #41 (yes, I eyeballed that from that summary, yes I am just showing off now) is better written, making it more everyone-friendly. It also has practically more space dedicated to word balloons than art and is about a college student juggling girl problems and a part-time job with a tyrannical boss. But the immature one, as Scocca points out, is dour.

These are both teenagery issues, separated only by quality. It’s true that lots of new comics published by the big 2 are bad in the specific way Scocca describes here, taking themselves too seriously and hauled down by associated stories instead of buoyed by them. Some are not! Some titles from these companies’ main continuities are zippy, contained, and child friendly. Give your child The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl! Or if you like vintage comics so much better, why don’t you…buy some?

The books on the kid’s rack are good and fun and totally suitable for parents to read with their children without wanting to scoop their eyeballs out. Scocca cites the Batman ‘66 comics as the brightly colored, tightly written all ages solution to his problem about sharing superhero stories with his son. My local comic shop stores this title in the kid’s section. I am glad that Scocca’s does not, as he seems to have a peculiar aversion to looking for comics to read with his son there.

Scocca cites Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as a superhero movie he could watch with his kids. (I was surprised when this line made it sound like he has several. I don’t want to assume the other one isn’t in this article because they’re a girl, but I very much am assuming that.) Great! Go to the kid’s section and look for Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man. It’s a fun, zippy title directly inspired by ITSV where Miles, Gwen, and Peter superhero together. It’s much more tightly written than most of the various Spider-Verse comics, which are ambitiously messy ubercrossovers. You may not want to give those to children because they include murder and so on, but also you just have the choice between the two as an adult reader deciding how much continuity you want to deal with. Adventures is one of the only titles I would buy on sight before corona. The kid comic rack is a reliable place to take a break from How Comics Get Sometimes regardless of how old you are.

This article makes me feel quarrelsome. Maybe it’s that it doesn’t seem like exploration of a single idea so much as a loosely grouped bundle of things to kvetch about. Maybe it’s that the experience of getting into superheroes that Scocca describes experiencing, projects his seven-year-old son will experience, and from which he extrapolates a metaphorical microcosm of the history of the genre is completely alien to me.

Comic books [and] comic-book movies—are […] trapped in their imagined audience’s own awful passage from childhood to adolescence. A seven-year-old has a clean […] appreciation of superheroes. They like hero comics because the comics have heroes: bold, strong, vividly colored good guys to fight off the bad guys and make the world safe.

But seven-year-olds stop being seven. […] They become 13-year-olds, defensively trying to learn how to develop tastes about tastes.

The 13-year-old wants many things from comics, but the overarching one is that they want to prove that they’re not some seven-year-old baby anymore. They want gloomy heroes, miserable heroes, heroes who would make a seven-year-old feel bad. (Also boobs. They want boobs.)

Not because of the boobs line, although that does illicit an eyeroll that this gloomy thinkpiece is fretting over preserving the superhero experience of little boys who resemble the little boy the writer was while casually dismissing everyone else. I was one of those unlikable little seven-year-olds with a college reading level and the impression that maintaining it was the crux of my worth. I only read Books - distinguished media you could club someone with. I have a formative memory of pausing, enraptured, in front of a poster for Spider-Man 3, preparing to say that it looked pretty cool, and being beaten to the punch by my mother making a disparaging comment about how the movie was trash. It wasn’t out yet, but it was a superhero movie. That meant it was for loud, brainless children.

That was the total of my childhood experience with superheroes, excluding being the unwilling audience to incessant renditions of “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells” that left me wondering why in god’s name Batman’s sidekick was named Robin. I certainly never visited a comic book shop. I got into TvTropes, which got me into webcomics, which got me following David Willis, who got me into Ask Chris at ComicsAlliance, which led to me rewarding myself for studying like a demon for the AP tests with three volumes of Waid’s Daredevil, pitched as a return to the character being colorful and swashbuckling. I was seven…teen.

This is of the same thread as Scocca’s point that immaturity is running from childish things. It leaves me baffled that he doesn’t follow that maturity is embracing them.

I will disclose here that while I think it was dumb I had to overcome my upbringing’s deeply embedded shame associated with enjoying arbitrarily defined lowbrow media and children being childish, I think it’s fine that I was allowed largely unchecked access to technically age-inappropriate content. In my limited experience, content small children are too young for is also content they’re too young to understand, so it kind of just bounces off of them, and what actually ends up terrorizing them is unpredictable collages of impressions that strike out at them from content deemed perfectly child-friendly. I would not forbid a seven-year-old I was in charge of from seeing an MCU movie unless I had a reason to believe that specific child would not take it well. These are emotionally low-stakes bubblegum films. It will probably be easier to socialize with other kids if they have seen them.

But then, when I picture being in charge of a hypothetical child, I usually imagine this being the case because they are related to me, and the pupal stage in my family strongly resembles Wednesday Addams. ALL children love death and violence, though, right?? This isn’t a joke point. I know it looks like a joke point.

The MCU thing seems especially weird in light of the article’s particular focus on Spider-Man, which is the kiddie line of the MCU, even if they refused to waver from their usual formula enough to get a lower rating. Though I am more inclined to describe it as “preying on the young” than “child-friendly”.

(MCU movies are increasingly dubious propaganda, but I would not judge them in front of a child who wanted to watch them for that reason, just in case this led to them partaking of them without me the second they were old enough to and then they grew up to run a blog about them while our relationship suffered because they didn’t feel like it was safe to talk to me about their interests…Mom.)

I tried to overcome the philosophy of letting anyone read anything while compiling this handful of mostly-newish superhero recs for the road that anyone can read. (Handily, I have been in spitting distance of being hired as a comic shop clerk enough to have thought about it before):

For actual children:

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man (the new one is reminiscent of ITSV, the old one is more like 616) any DC/Archie crossover, Archie’s Superteens The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (for bookish children who think they’re too good for comics and adults afraid of the kid’s section) Teen Titans Go (even if you hate the show) Superman Smashes the Klan

For teens:

Ms. Marvel Young Avengers (volume 2) Unbelievable Gwenpool Batman: Gotham Adventures Teen Titans Go (the tie-in comic based off the old show was also called this)

Here are a bunch of relevant C. S. Lewis quotes.

[alby-rei]

[Arthur Week, Day 3] Midnight Snacks

a/n: in which MC (ft. accomplice Dazai) wants to make the resident flirt, Arthur Conan Doyle, jealous. Why? Who knows! But what I do know is that it ends up working in his favor rather than MC’s... wait, what?

a/n 2: changed the title cuz it was bothering me xD nothing else changed.

My entry for @scummy-writes​‘s Arthur Week! 

Day 3: Coffee and Fudge || Writer’s Block

[Pairing]: Arthur x You/gn!MC, (pre-relationship)

[Characters]: You, Arthur, Dazai, Sebastian

[Word count]: ~2300 words

[Rating]: T

[POV]: 2nd Person 

“...and all of a sudden, I hear Mozart yell ‘stop releasing chickens in my music room!’ but Dazai didn’t even flinch!” You brought a foam-covered hand up to your mouth to cover your laughter.

You and Sebastian were cleaning the dishes together after lunch time. You’ve made it a habit to catch up on your day and share observations with Sebas, as pretty much no one steps into the kitchen around this time.

Well, that is except—

“_____~!”

Except Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, naturally. He must’ve finished his writing session and been wandering around the mansion, as is his trademark since your arrival.

You closed your eyes, hoping the man would walk past the kitchen without checking. You weren’t exactly in the mood for flirty games with the mystery writer, especially not after dealing with a haughty music teacher in Mozart. Sadly, luck was not on your side, today.

“I’ll tell you the rest later,” you wipe your hands with a towel. Picking up the tray of plates and cups to put them in their rightful places, you didn’t pay the writer any mind.

“After this I gotta find Dazai,” you said as you opened a cupboard. Your turned around to find Arthur leaning on the door frame, and your tone shifted dramatically, “Oh! Arthur, funny to see you here.”

Sebastian knew that tone very well. It was your sickeningly sweet voice that you dedicated to either (a) dodging conversation, or (b) planning something against that person.

“I’d say the same to you, ___, but you’re always in the kitchen. I couldn’t help dropping in to check on my favorite bird,” Arthur leaned against the door frame, flashing you a grin and a wink.

“Oh please, don’t talk about birds after what happened this morning,”  You caught sight of your target at the end of the hallway, “aaaand I have to go, see ya!” 

You duck under Arthur’s arm while his guard was down. He twirled around to follow you, but you evaded him, calling out to Dazai. Arthur stood in his tracks, as he watched the japanese author stop for you, and you beamed up at him.

“Dazai-san, I’ve been wanting to ask you for something, if you’re… free,” you noticed mid-sentence that the chicken that was still nestled in his arms.

“Hm?” His piercing yellow eyes brightened, “I’ll always have time for you, Toshiko-san.”

“Bawk!” The chicken… agreed, supposedly.

You laughed sheepishly, “That’s very sweet of you, I was actually interested in learning about your writing style and get some advice. I’ve been going through some terrible writer’s block.”

“I was working on a short story earlier, it’s in my room. Want to come with me?” He began to lead her towards his room.      

“I’m honored! I’d love to, Dazai-san.”

Oh yes, you were definitely planning something, Sebastian noted.

As the two of them walked away, Arthur stood glued watching the scene. Sebastian had been poking his arm the whole time, but he didn’t budge. Even shaking his entire arm didn’t spur any sudden movement from him.

“Sir Arthur. Earth to Sir Arthur,” Sebas continued tapping his shoulder and pinching his arm.

“Huh? Oh…” His gaze held an odd expression, one that Sebastian hadn’t seen from him before—a hint of sadness, maybe even frustration. But it was quickly replaced by his signature grin as he finally took notice of me, “Sorry, Sebas, I must’ve been blocking your path, got to go!”

And just like that, he scurried off.

After a moment’s pause, and after making sure the hallway was clear of esteemed residents, Sebastian did much the same, but in the opposite direction. He has notes to take, pronto. 

~*~

You and Dazai sat in the lounge room, having passed by his room, and Dazai collected his writing material.

“You have really pretty hands, Toshiko-san. I’ve heard you playing in Mo-kun’s piano room, you’re a wonderful pianist,” Dazai held your hand delicately in his, as he ran his thumb over your knuckles.

“Thank you, it’s something I take a lot of pride in,” your heart swelled from the warmth of his compliment, “but I’ve been much more interested with writing as of late. Actually, I’ve always wanted to write a novel.”

“Oh? I admire your ambition. How can I help?”      

“Well well well, what do we have here?” A third voice chimed in.

Right on time, as you expected.

“Have I interrupted your little rendezvous?” Arthur walked slowly and purposefully, as if he had caught them red-handed doing something they shouldn’t.

Internally, he was trying his best not to jump to conclusions. That would be uncharacteristic of him, after all. You weren’t tied to him in anyway, so there was no reason to feel so jealous that you went to Dazai for writing help instead of him. He didn’t even know about it!

So why was his heart pounding so loudly in his head while his eyes were fixated on their linked hands?

Dazai withdrew his hand, occupying it with his writing pen instead. He shot Arthur a smile with closed eyes.

“Of course not, we were just talking, Arty.”

“…Don’t call me that,” Arthur narrowed his eyes, “and second, I’d like to steal ____ now.”

“I’m sorry, Arthur, but I want to talk with Dazai a bit to improve my writing.”

Being shot down so directly caught Arthur off-guard; his insecurities getting a hold of him. For the first time, he found himself at a loss for ways to turn the conversation in his favor. At the moment, if he persisted, and you kept turning him down, he wouldn’t be able to let it down for the rest of the day.

Instead, Arthur straightened himself, fixing his tie, “Well then, I’m heading to the pub soon enough to find me a pretty skirt for the evening. Have fun, you two, I know I will.”

He huffed childishly, going out with a wave. Dazai turned to you with a polite smile.

“Do you think it worked?”

“Oh, he is definitely salty, thanks for agreeing to this, Dazai-san.”

“Any time, Yoshie-san, what are housemates for?” He smiled fondly at you.

“You’re a great actor, didn’t even flinch!”

“Ah, but who said I was acting?”

He got up with his writing tools and stepped out of the lounge before you registered what he said.

“Wait… what?!”

~*~

Later that evening…

…Well, more like around midnight, you just happened to catch the insomnia bug and were heading to the kitchen, as all people naturally do when they’re insomniac. You switched on the lights, thankful for the dimness of the lanterns in the kitchen. Scanning your options, your eyes settled on the coffee pot that sat quietly in the corner. Thoughts of a certain mystery writer gnawed at you, but you darted them away and walked past the coffee pot to get a glass of water instead. You leaned forward, filling her glass with bleary eyes that refused to slumber but also refused to open properly.  

Suddenly, you felt a touch to your backside. Eyes cracking wide open, you spun around and swung your makeshift weapon of glass at your offender. The offending mop of ash blue hair felt the full force of the blow, and the glass shattered across the floor.

Well crap.

“Ow… If I’m not mistaken, I’d say you were trying to kill me there, ____.”

For the love—.

“Arthur what the hell were you trying to pull?! Bloody hell! You made my heart drop.”

In a flash, his body was pressed against yours, caging you between his arms and the kitchen counter. The crunch of the glass under his shoes was the only sound in the room. You saw a small stream of blood start to fall by his ear.

“I was going to prepare myself a midnight snack with my coffee, but it seems I already found one ready for a taste test,” he licked the back of his fangs.

“At this hour??” It was well past midnight by now, and caffeine was the last thing you’d recommend anyone at this time. 

You felt his breath on your ear before he inhaled your scent. It was comforting to him as much as it was intoxicating to his senses.

He sighed, “____… I can’t get you out of my mind, no matter what I do.”

His arms circled around your waist, pulling you away from the countertop and flush against him, instead. All sorts of alarms were going off in your mind despite the drowsiness, with your instincts telling you to push him off.

“But then, you started avoiding me. And then… Sebastian and Mozart and even Dazai took you away from me,” he sniffled.

You pushed him off gently but still within his arms, as you stared at his face. There was a pink dust across his cheeks and a redness in the corners of his eyes.

“Arthur, are you… drunk?”

His frown flipped into a grin as he nuzzled his nose into your disheveled hair.

“Oh, don’t be silly, dear. I may have been out drinking, but I can bloody well hold my liquor. Theo can vouch for me on that.”

(a/n: no, he can’t lmao)

The sight of him in a somewhat vulnerable state, as well as the smell of his cologne, made it hard for you to properly fight him. Plus, you felt bad for crushing a glass cup on his head. Speaking of which…

“Is your head okay?”

“Hm…” He brought a gloved hand to his forehead, feeling a dull pounding in its wake, “I must say, you got me good, even the most daring fools never landed a hit on me yet.”

Just how thick is his skull to endure that?! You were both dazzled and frightened by their realization. 

With one of his arms off of you, you took this chance to escape, but you slid on a shard of glass and would have fallen face first onto the floor had Arthur not pulled you against him and taken the impact of the floor to his own shoulder. He laid on his back, clutching you protectively against his chest. He groaned with pain, but he pushed it aside to check on you first.

“Clumsy tonight, are we, or are you seriously trying to kill me?” He chuckled wryly.

Before you could even blink, you felt your vision do a 180-flip, and you were suddenly beneath him, away from the glass shards that littered the floor. The scent of his cologne flooded your senses again, as he smirked down on you with a drunken lopsided grin.

“I was absolutely livid when I saw Dazai hold your hand. Was that part of your plan, darling? Well, I’ve taken the bait.”

You flinched, your body wide awake to every touch and caress of this man. You bit your lip to avoid playing into his hands. You were still in control of the situation, you thought. His lips descended to your jaw, barely brushing your skin, like he’s testing your limits. Instinctively, you sighed, unaware of the breath you’d been holding.

Ok, maybe you weren’t entirely in control, either.

“Arthur…” You commanded, trying to regain some semblance of control back.

This was not part of your plan, however, and you were quickly losing grip of all reason and logic. You needed to get him off and away from you before you acquiesced to his ministrations.

“But don’t worry, ____. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.”

He drew back from you, staring down at you with an uncharacteristic tender look. He continued.

“The effect you have on me is not one I’ve felt with any woman I’ve ever encountered before. It’s confusing—maddening, even— and I can’t escape it… because I don’t want to,” he sighed in surrender, “I want you, ___.” 

It was a look of pure love and affection that shone in his eyes. His half-opened shirt invited your gaze to roam his body, and his thick-rimmed glasses framed his features in such an alluring glow that outshone the dimness of the kitchen. His hair looked softer than usual, too. Your hand twitched at the thought of running your fingers through those ash blue locks. Your mind was thrown into a whirlwind with the influx of new information, one that dented your rationality. Your desire to get closer to him wrestled against your impartial stoicism, threatening to crack the armor around the stone gates to your heart.

“Hey Arthur,” you started, twirling a lock of his hair with your hand. It was ever-so-slightly damp; he must’ve bathed in le thermae earlier.

“Yes, ____?”

Damn that seductive voice of his, you shooed away that thought as soon as it entered. You chose to focus on something much more pressing at the moment. 

“We need to get you bandaged up. You’re bleeding terribly from your head.”

~*~

It took a lot of convincing, but Arthur finally acquiesced to your persistent request.

“There, all done,” you stepped back from Arthur, who was sitting hunched over on his bed.

You were both settled in his room with his medical bag open on the desk and his equipment strewn all around. You didn’t exactly know what to do to treat Arthur’s wound, but you insisted on doing it for him… with copious amounts of instructions from him.

“I brought you some fresh coffee and fudge, as an apology.”

“At this hour?” He mimicked your tone from earlier. You rolled your eyes at his childishness.

“And here I am trying to make it up to you, and this is how you show gratitude?”

You huffed indignantly, ready to head out and leave the unappreciative writer to his own devices.

“Hold on, now,” he gripped your wrist before you could fully turn away, “you’re the one who smashed glass on my head, so you owe me a favor.”

“…a favor on top of tending to your wounds and bringing you coffee?”

“Oh, indulge me, won’t you? You did those of your own volition.”

You sigh, “Depends on the request, then.”

“Feed me,” he perked up with no hesitation or embarrassment in his tone.

You wanted to turn him down, to tease him about his child-like excitement, but you couldn’t resist his puppy dog eyes. Those eyes held a very powerful hold over you though you blame it on your own tiredness outweighing your better judgment.

“Alright…” You moved aside his things to sit next to him, leaning towards the table to drag the tray closer to yourself.

“Open wide, you incorrigible baby.”

[hamliet]

Chemical Weddings in RWBY

So once upon a time Hamliet said she’d write a meta about ships in RWBY, and then arrived months later without Starbucks. 

The central tenet of alchemy is solve et coagula: dissolve, and then coagulate. The process (RWBY appears to be following Ripley’s 12 Gates) repeats, rinses, and repeats again and again throughout the steps, “each time at a more refined level.” The point of a chemical wedding is to reconcile opposites, which is something I touched on in my pseudo-quick meta here. Lyndy Abraham, the author of A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, describes the chemical wedding as: 

a crucial operation in the creation of the philosopher’s stone. The alchemists were ultimately concerned with the union of substances, the reconciliation of opposites.

Basically, it unites opposites (fire and water, air and earth, sun and moon, passive and active,  etc., etc., etc.) and then the opposites start to take on each other’s qualities, creating the “Rebis,” or a person both male and female. 

The first chemical wedding is usually somewhat violent, primitive even, whereas the second one signifies the creation of the stone. However, characters can have more than two weddings, and chemical weddings do not inherently have to be romantic--Sam and Frodo aren’t, for example--but most often are, because it’s the most obvious way to show a union between separate people (the old adage “two become one” in marriage, for example). 

If we look at George Ripley’s 12 Gates, chemical weddings tend to be focused on in the fourth stage of conjunction (which I wrote about here) and in the ninth, fermentation (which is probably going to be in volume 10--maybe a little in volume 9, but traveling between worlds seems to be a hallmark of sublimation in fiction so I’m guessing we’re stuck there for the time being). But in a lengthy series spanning eight years and counting, there is going to be overlap. 

So let’s talk about chemical wedding imagery historically. It tends to involve dissolution (via water or fire--keep in mind metal was associated with fire in olden days, so stabbing with metal was considered liquid fire, or so it was believed to be by alchemists) and then coagulation (healing/coming together). 

Four of the five ships--two of whom are definitely happening, one of which I think is happening and one of which I think has a good chance--reference historical alchemical artwork and symbolism in key moments. (RWBY does reference alchemical artwork; see here and here.) So let’s dive in and examine potential chemical wedding allusions in RWBY:

Lie Ren/Nora Valkyrie (Renora)

Let’s start with the most obvious couple: Ren and Nora. Their first chemical wedding occurs when they are children. In alchemical art, birds are often used to show the volatility/primitiveness of a first chemical wedding:

The raven is replicated in the Nevermore which forms a similarly threatening pose over Ren and Nora when he unlocks his semblance to protect her, thus honoring his father and mother’s legacies. 

You can even see earth (trees), water (river), fire, and air (the bird flying) in the scene as it pans out. After this, Ren and Nora become “Ren and Nora,” as Nora herself says in Volume 8. They’re inseparable, because they’re on their way to becoming one. However, unification doesn’t mean that they’re literally the same person; in stories like these, it’s more like they become better versions of themselves through growing towards each other and adopting each other’s traits (like Nora’s courage for Ren, and Ren’s caution for Nora). 

Their second, elevated chemical wedding is in the same place as their first, when in Volume 4 they return to the village and defeat the monster they were too young to defeat last time. This time, Nora is the one who protects Ren by telling him he could not sacrifice his life by pulling Ren back, in a reversal of his running to her in their first moment years ago. 

Like the first, there’s water involved--Ren and Nora hide next to a river, watching as the Knuckelvee advances on them. I talked previously how I thought this looked like a possible allusion to this alchemical image (look at the moon symbol on the head of the aggressor): 

The moon symbol actually shows up quite a bit in this scene, first when Nora and Ren discover the Nuckelvee is still alive in the cave: 

And then in the moment when they defeat it: 

While I am certain this is a chemical wedding, I’m not certain why the moon symbol is so prominent in this, though I do think it is possibly in reference to this image and how Nora and Ren are united now: 

Yang Xiao Long/Blake Belladonna (Bumbleby)

Firstly, the alchemy image is somewhat of a creepy image, right? In this, Mercurius has united the two principles by beheading them (amputation is a Thing in alchemy), leaving them to putrefy and then coagulate.

Like the Nuckelvee for Nora and Ren, Blake and Yang have a somewhat antagonistic Mercurius who unites them: Adam Taurus. He doesn’t cut off their heads, but he does seriously injure Blake and cuts off Yang’s arm in a scene that is romantically charged (you have Blake’s possessive ex telling her he’ll target someone she loves and specifically chooses Yang). 

While I have my issues with how Bumbleby is written, it’s hard to interpret that as anything other than him seeing Yang as a rival for Blake’s affection.

Their second chemical wedding also involves Adam. There’s no one direct image that seems to have inspired it, but it does take place in a place full of waterfalls (fountains and flowing water in general, like the ones in Nora and Ren’s village, are common elements of chemical weddings’ settings) and by the ocean (the “mercurial sea” is where the elements dissolve to make the Philosopher’s Stone, so it’s also a common hallmark for chemical weddings).

(To briefly address this: this is where my complaints about the writing pile in, because you can also make a damn strong case that Blake and Sun fighting on the ship to Menagerie is a chemical wedding, which it is, but I think it’s clear at this point that Bumbleby is endgame. Either both were written for a reason, like if they weren’t sure if they could do Bumbleby, or a narrative reason, in which case Black Sun should have been dealt with rather than hand-waved away, or they were just teasing, but baiting fans is never, ever good writing; it’s cheap. All that to say that while I think there’s a compelling case they were interested in pursuing Bumbleby from the start, Black Sun shippers have a right to feel tricked and not all criticism thereof is based in homophobia or a lack of narrative understanding, or even in a dislike of the ship.)

At the beginning of this scene, Adam makes it clear that this is a redo of their previous chemical wedding by reminding them of it: 

Blake stabs Adam with a silver weapon; Yang with red. We have earth, air (clouds), water, and weapons as a stand-in for fire.

It’s still somewhat of a violent wedding, which makes me wonder if Bumbleby will have a third (and Renora as well). But it also parallels Renora in this: returning to a pivotal scene where they were traumatized, but this time being able to overcome it because they’ve become more like each other. Blake is in many ways Yang’s trauma stretching far beyond Beacon (Blake runs away, as does Raven, Yang’s mother who abandoned her), and likewise Yang for Blake (she’s hotheaded and holds grudges, like Adam). But Blake and Yang have been working on becoming better versions of themselves. 

At the end of this scene, they even exchange quasi-wedding vows (since Blake’s promise is to not abandon Yang): 

And the artists drive home the point by drawing Blake’s hair far bushier than normal (more like Yang’s), and Yang’s far tamer than normal (like Blake’s). 

Jaune Arc/Weiss Schnee (White Knight)

Weiss and Jaune have had one chemical wedding thus far (possibly two but not sure) and I didn’t ship them at all until I saw this scene. Like Bumbleby and Renora, they have an antagonistic Mercurius: Cinder.  

(This one I’ll be arguing a little bit about why I think it’s set up for romance as well.)

In this scene, Cinder directly compares Weiss to Pyrrha in regards to how Jaune feels about them (and we know Jaune and Pyrrha were romantic--you can also argue Cinder was an antagonistic Mercurius uniting Pyrrha and Jaune). 

When Weiss screams, Cinder gets an idea and slides her gaze from Weiss to Jaune. 

And then reenacts this: 

As I also mentioned previously, Jaune then plays the role of the Prince to Weiss’s Snow White (which is an alchemical fairy tale). Like when Ren unlocks his aura to protect Nora, Jaune unlocks his to save Weiss. Weiss looks as if she is in a glass coffin that gets more and more golden, symbolic of refinement. 

It’s also probably an allusion to this image of a chemical wedding presided over by Saturn (Mercury in this scene, since he’s there) and Death (Ruby and Qrow, who are also present in the scene with Jaune and Weiss). (For more on this image, see here.)

Weiss and Jaune also have some oppositional imagery and arcs: Weiss starts Beacon with a deep family legacy and an inherited semblance, she chooses to go to Beacon on her own and is the favored child (at first). Jaune too has a family legacy of warriors, but instead of feeling empowered because of this, he is insecure and  literally cheats his way into the school. He doesn’t have a semblance until season 5. After this incident, Weiss and Jaune spend some time recreationally together (seeing a movie in vol 7); Jaune becomes more confident as a leader, and Weiss continues her arc in becoming more sympathetic to those from less privileged backgrounds.

Arguably, what happened at the end of volume 8 could be seen as having some symbolism of a chemical wedding for Weiss and Jaune too, but I don’t think it actually is one since they weren’t focused on as characters enough (if this was intended to be the start of one, we’ll get something next season, I’d imagine). The only reason I’m mentioning it is because it does function as an inverse of the previous one, which is the case for Renora and Bumbleby’s first and second weddings too. Cinder again almost kills Weiss (she falls in the exact same position as in vol 5), but Jaune saves Weiss when he screams after killing Penny. Instead of saving Weiss by healing, he kills. There’s also some distinctive red and white imagery. 

And then Winter arrives with a six-pointed star and birds before telling them to run together:

But again, I wouldn’t really call this one; it just has some imagery of one and fits a pattern, so I’m including it as a potential lead-in to an actual one in the void or later. 

Ruby Rose/Oscar Pine (Rosegarden)

Like with Weiss/Jaune, I’ll be arguing a little bit about why I think this one is likely to end up romantic, too (for example, Cinder most recently in volume 8 used Oscar to taunt Ruby in a callback to using Pyrrha and Weiss to taunt Jaune).

Also: oh look, finally a wedding that isn’t violent. They just... meet. Which is also normal for a chemical wedding but less dramatic.

Behold, the bird uniting the solar king and lunar queen: 

(Fun fact: unless CRWBY came up with ship names which I highly, highly doubt, this is pure coincidence, but it’s a funny one: the art series this image is taken from is called Rosarium Philosophorum--which literally means “rose garden philosophy.”)

Let’s look at the scene where Ruby and Oscar meet for the first time. What makes this a chemical wedding is in part how obvious their markings are and the overall imagery is in the scene.

They are united by Qrow (who in addition to being named after a bird can literally transform into a bird):

Oscar asks about Ruby specifically (yes, I know because Qrow’s her uncle, but the writing is telling us to focus on his relationship with her): 

And immediately notes/is in awe that she has silver eyes (i.e. the moon): 

Qrow seems to realize he’s done something momentous in a way that almost doesn’t entirely work within the frame of the narrative (but he is drunk, so). 

The scenery of this room is also telling. The table is literally an Emerald Table, the legendary foundation of alchemy itself. 

Once they sit and talk, behind Oscar are the elements of earth and water, which he represents, and also the moon, which while traditionally associated with earth and water, he does not (at least not as strongly as he’s associated with the sun/gold):

Similarly, behind Ruby we have the elements of fire and air (like, if you zoom in, they actually drew air), which she is marked as, and the sun, which again, she’s not as strongly associated with as she is with the moon:

In Splendor Solis, which CRWBY has referenced before, the Solar King does eventually end up grounded in the moon, and likewise the Lunar Queen in the sun:

Oscar and Ruby also do have oppositional arcs and roles: Ruby starts the series in the very first episode by being invited to Beacon two years early because of her leaping into action to stop Torchwick. She’s scolded for her recklessness, but immediately picked out as special because of her silver eyes. In contrast, Oscar is reluctant to leave his farm once Ozpin inhabits him; he refuses at first, and then once he does leave, is nervous and timid.

Anyways I wouldn’t be surprised if Qrow arrives in Vacuo with RWBYJ in tow and this time reunites Ruby with Oscar in an inverse. We’ll see. 

I do want to say that I also see potential for Emerald Sustrai/Mercury Black, in that they often act as one and share a theme song, but I haven’t seen any actual visual references to a chemical wedding for them... yet. 

[hawkland]

(Mostly) Destiel Fic Recs #5

This is a LONG recs post because it’s been a while since I did an update and I fell hard into reading one author’s work (DeanRH). In fact I could easily do a rec post just of their fics alone, but for this round I’m just going to pick out a handful of my absolute favorites so far, the ones I’d recommend to start out with, along with more other authors’ works I’ve especially enjoyed lately.

Absolution at the Five-and-Dime by DeanRH (125k)  - this is perhaps THEE DeanRH fic to start with if you want a good, long read with a little bit of everything (Roadtrips! Intriguing casefic! Americana! Tasty Dean/Cas pining! Wing!kink and unique angel lore! Kinky soul fisting and tentacles!) It’s kind of two of parallel stories in one: the first, a flashback to Dean and Sam's first year hunting on their own (as well as trying to avoid hunting, and John in general); the second on how Dean and Cas finally get together during an unusual case and when Dean is able to really let go of his past trauma and accept himself/accept love from Cas. 

What I love about DeanRH’s work is that they write from the unique point of view of a drifter, so they understand living on the road, traveling place to place, and the highs and lows of that life like no others I’ve encountered in SPN before. (The author’s notes are often as much fun to read as the stories themselves). They also write a kickass angel!Cas and never lose sight of his non-human traits and background. Their writing style is unique - almost poetic in nature, and I know some readers have found it difficult to get into. But it works really well for me in their SPN fic...gives it the flavor of oral story telling as might actually happen at a drifter’s camp (with one story written exactly as such). Be warned this particular fic does play up the idea of John Winchester being mentally abusive and Dean having to turn tricks when he was younger in order to support him and Sam, so there is some dark stuff. But as someone who grew up with mentally abusive parent, reading this was extremely cathartic to me and believably written (unlike some stories that go too over the top with abusive John, or just don't understand how that kind of abuse leaves lifetime psychological scars.)

The rest of this round’s recs below the cut.

Carnevale by DeanRH (18k) - Actually the first fic by this author I read, because I just couldn’t resist a story set in my favorite place in the world, Venice, Italy. Castiel is the Angel of Venice, banished there for so long he does not even know or remember the reasons why. But Carnevale season is the one time a year he can let his wings out - figuratively and literally. And during this particular Carnevale season, he meets an intriguing masked young American tourist there with his brother and their one night stand turns into something far more powerful than either expected. This one’s hot, romantic, and achingly sad at the end as it all ties together unexpectedly with canon-verse...though with a hint for the future so it’s definitely not totally sad. I loved how DeanRH clearly understands Venice as a fellow lover of the city, the side of it most tourists never see unless they spend a long time there. This story made me cry just from wanting to be back in Venice again.

Ice cream was sweeter, food more satisfying, everything was an epicurean delight. There was just something magical about Venice, and he had lived here in the city for hundreds of years, so the shine should have worn off by now.

But it didn't, and there was always something more, something wonderful to discover around the next corner. The painted eaves of a church. The beauty of two women dancing with flowers in their teeth across the Piazza San Marco one day, overcome by the sheer joy of just being there. The way the university students still created Venetian masks, like Castiel's extravagant volto mask and Dean's humble servetta muta, with crafts that had been handed down across the generations. The morning silence that lay against the stones.

Hard Landing by DeanRH (26.9k) - A bit similar in theme to Carnevale. A pre-series Dean and Sam are sight-seeing in Spain when an angel, struck by a babel-spell, crash lands right in front of Dean. A strange yet seriously hot encounter with the angel turns into something much more complicated when the brothers return home and realize something more serious is afoot and they are both trapped in the middle of it. This is another story where things are very much not as they seem at first (as fun as that is!) It features master strategist Cas at his best, with a side helping of delightful trickery care of Gabriel and Balthazar as they deal with Lucifer, Michael...and a few others along the way.

The Sacred Band of Thebes by DeanRH (14.5k) - The last DeanRH fic I’m gonna allow myself to include in this round up, because it’s just very soft and sweet and beautiful - for a story about Dean & Cas being magically transported back in time to ancient Sparta! This is another story infused with a great knowledge of place and history, with some wonderfully delightful original characters added in that make it all the more enjoyable to read.

And now on to some other authors, I promise!

IPAMIS OL OLPRIT by emmbrancsxx0 (56k). A really wonderful fic that take a different look at what might have happened with a temporarily resurrected John Winchester during Season 14. Dean & Cas are in an established relationship here, and John here isn’t too happy about it — though mostly because he sees Cas (and Jack) as monsters, the kind of monsters he spent his lifetime hunting. This is a great fic for the emotional complexity of how John, Dean and Cas are all handled. John isn’t a cardboard evil dad, Dean is struggling between his loyalty to his father and to Cas, and Cas is increasingly bitchy/frustrated at Dean still being so desperate for his father’s approval (and all the more complex for not just being a quietly suffering perfect supporting boyfriend.) There’s some great action sequences in this too along with the emotional angst and a delicious dose of hurt!Cas if that’s your thing (as it is for me :D)

Abrenuntio by Neonbat (51k). A very dark but compelling AU take on the/a apocalypse universe. Dean, Sam and John are all alive in this post-angel war-apocalyptic world. They are part of a group of human survivors fighting against the angel army when they manage to capture “Blue” — a particularly feared angel of death. Dean is tasked with bringing Blue in for interrogation and he becomes a prisoner in their camp after John is killed. As mentioned, this is a pretty dark/sad fic (with some rather gruesome torture scenes) but I still found it quite compelling as a look at how things could have gone in some other parallel universe. And somehow the author manages to make the Dean/Cas relationship come together despite them starting out as complete enemies. This is one of those AUs that works for me because the core of the characters really shine through despite the differences in the setting.

if it all fell to pieces tomorrow by spocklee (37k) - a gorgeous post-Empty rescue fic that takes an approach I haven’t really seen explored in detail before (despite being something I’ve actually thought about as something that could’ve happened.) What if Cas has spent so long denying himself happiness, and then trapped in regrets and false-rescue scenarios created by the Empty, that he can’t trust that his rescue is real? And so he runs off to be on his own - literally stealing the Impala because he can’t handle being in Dean’s presence one moment longer - and only slowly comes to terms with the idea that it’s over now and he can be happy with/around his friends and family. This one’s both deliciously angsty and at times funny/sweet, looking at Cas’s relationships not just with Dean but with Sam, Jack, Claire, even Eileen. It does some fun stuff with other returned angels and demons who now find themselves back on Earth (and human), and...I just really enjoyed this one a lot.

Both Saved and Lost by angelfishofthelord (13.7k) Gen Cas character study, absolutely gorgeous and sad and one of those fic I couldn’t stop thinking about the day after reading it. AU where Apocaverse!Cas isn’t immediately killed by our Cas during 13x22 but instead hitches a ride back to the main ‘verse. Dean and Sam want to keep him alive for information on Michael; Cas is torn and trying to figure out just how similar—or different—they really are. Some great angel stuff here (I also highly recommend this author’s Jack & Cas “dadstiel” fics, they’re equally lovely and heartbreaking at the same time.)

flesh of the mighty by Mudprophet (2.7k) - THEE “What exactly did Dean eat in Purgatory, anyway?” fic you’ve probably already heard about. *cough* I’ve been trying to work up the courage to read this one for a while and finally gave in and OH MY CHUCK I’m so glad I did. It’s perversely disturbing and beautiful at the same time, Cas is wonderfully DERANGED and ALIEN in that way that I love it when fics managed to convey just how much angels are NOT human. Do heed the tags.

Full of Grace by ilovehowyouletmefall (11k) - Another one for the weird-as-fuck-angel!Cas lovers’ list. Heaven/canon-compliant fic where Dean knows he should feel happy and at peace but he just...isn’t, even with Cas and all of his friends and family there. He finally goes looking for Cas when he’s been absent for a time and, for the first time, gets to not just see but experience his true form. Another one that hits some kinks I knew I had and others I didn’t...until now. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

don't ask me where i've been by saltwound / @1x06 (8k) - I can never resist a good 09x06 fiction gap fic! What makes this one really stand out is how well it captures Cas’s internal voice - his struggles adapting to human senses, limitations and emotions versus what/how he experienced things as an angel. The longing and feelings between Dean & Cas here are so achingly beautiful and I just wanted to cry when Cas says he misses hearing Dean’s prayers, so Dean, he...oh, I’m not going to spoil it. *happy sigh* Just read it.

this room is wrong by DarkHeartInTheSky (12k) - Sometimes I like torturing myself with some good 15x03 divorce arc angst and this fic hit that button just so. It’s an alternative take on where Cas might have ended up after leaving the bunker and features some great Cas & Sam friendship feels, when Sam sets out to try to bring Cas home. It’s all the stuff you’d wish the writers would’ve let them talk out in canon.

Well that’s more than enough for this round! Go forth, read and give some great writers some kudos & comment love!

[star-going-supernova]

So. Madison Russell. Godzilla vs Kong. Welcome to my ted talk.

From a writing perspective, they totally wasted her character. She, Josh, and Bernie were almost exclusively used just as a method of showing the audience what was happening "behind the scenes" at Apex. Pouring the whiskey on the computer was about the only thing of note they did, and even that didn't do much. Mechagodzilla was only slightly hindered by it, and if they'd just written Kong and Godzilla differently in the fight scene, they could have skipped the whiskey part entirely. They could have done so much with having people "on the inside" but Monarch as a greater organization barely had any presence at all, which negated the need to have people on the inside. 

Maddie's steadfast insistence that Godzilla wasn't a bad guy at the beginning had so much potential, but it became the conspiracy thing instead. It felt less like she wanted to prove Godzilla wasn't turning against humans, and more like she and her new conspiracy friend wanted to crack open a shady organization, which was frustrating. If they wanted to depict her as someone who was forced to become competent at a young age, which was part of the serious, intense vibe I got from her, instead of the inexplicable personality shift, they should have showed her doing something to help. Getting in contact with her dad/Monarch, giving them evidence to begin a city wide evacuation outside the Apex Hong Kong HQ, messing something up or making it harder for the Apex people to get Mechagodzilla up and running—just, anything. 

The fact is, we had Maddie being very proactive in KotM. Stealing the ORCA was the game changer. Instead of taking that to the next level in GvK and giving her an opportunity to continue that aspect of her character—that is, being someone who refuses to sit by when she can do something to help, even if it’s dangerous—they rendered her obsolete. 

The movie wouldn't have significantly changed if you took her character out. If Bernie went by himself and ended up in Hong Kong, nothing would have changed, because Maddie didn't do anything of personal importance. She went from being an active character in KotM to being a passive one here, which are a pet peeve of mine. If you saw my post about what I liked and didn’t like about Godzilla (2014), that might sound very familiar.

It would also have made so much more sense if she developed a love for studying Titans instead of focusing on conspiracy theories. Plot-wise, it would have given her claim to her dad that Godzilla was being provoked more credence, and could’ve opened an interesting dialogue between them to reinforce that she knows what she’s talking about. Monarch was obviously still a big part of their lives, given that Mark had rejoined, so it would’ve been the perfect opportunity for Maddie to pursue a Titan-related future. 

Now, don’t get me wrong. I loved Jia, and wouldn’t want to take her out of the movie or even diminish her presence in it. In fact, I think they should have focused on Jia, and only on Jia. 

Hear me out: Godzilla vs Kong should’ve been split in two. A Part 1 and Part 2 situation. 

For Part 1, we keep a lot of the GvK canon, especially the Kong-centric stuff. Include even more scenes showing us that he’s protective of Jia, don’t just have Dr. Andrews say that he is. Have him defend her from something dangerous, maybe even from some humans. Include their backstory, how he saved her during the storm. And start it even earlier, before Godzilla attacks Apex the first time. Keep the whole Hollow Earth plot, keep the fight scene in the ocean, keep the discovery of the temple and the axe.

And on the Godzilla side of things, start earlier on that as well. Keep the other Titans in, have humanity tentatively believing that a time of great peace is upon them. Their mere presence is restoring the planet. There was an emphasis of nature, particularly in relation to the Titans, in KotM that I really think they should have included more of in GvK to better tie the two movies together, if only they hadn’t swept all the other Titans under the rug. They wanted a movie about a fight, not about the Titans. So, undo that. Show us a little of what Mark does, do a sweep of the other KotM cast (cameos at the very least) to show how they and Monarch are working to uphold that peace post-Boston. I’d also have loved to see Boston itself, too, five years later. 

Instead of giving us a Generic High School scene, show Maddie learning about the Titans alongside the experts. Bring back the wonder and amazement she had when she saw Mothra for the first time, when she reached out and touched her. She’s second generation Monarch, make that mean something. When Maddie took the ORCA to Boston, she had a conviction. She couldn’t not have. She was there in part to lure Ghidorah in, but I can’t even pretend to believe her plan ended with that. She knew Godzilla would come. 

That sort of belief is hard to kill, and if death via Ghidorah wasn’t enough to scare her off, no way anything else in those five years afterwards did. Her belief that Godzilla is good survived to GvK, and should’ve been a main focal point of her character. Godzilla attacks Apex—she and every other Monarch person who has spent years studying the Titans knows something is up. 

Keep Mark’s character development regarding his opinions on Godzilla. He believes Maddie when she says something has to be wrong, not just because he trusts his daughter, but because he looked into Godzilla’s eyes and saw more than just an animal. 

They’re in Part 1 only minimally, just to establish their presence and how they feel about Godzilla destroying Apex. The focus is clearly on Jia and Kong’s side of events. 

Sorry, but I’m leaving Josh out and seriously dialing back Bernie’s role. Instead, the character we follow inside Apex is Ren Serizawa. We see his motivations, his ambitions, and he becomes a character with more than just a few lines. Does he resent Godzilla? Or does he resent his father, too? Serizawa’s sacrifice was willing, after all. He was no accidental casualty. 

Part 1 ends in the Hollow Earth, with Ghidorah taking control of Mechagodzilla on the surface. Alter the timeline just enough so that Godzilla has only just arrived to Hong Kong, and Kong’s still in the Hollow Earth. The final scene is Mechagodzilla emerging into the city as the sun rises. The post-credits scene is our KotM cast in the Argo, location unknown, watching a screen with Mechagodzilla on it. 

Part 2 begins with a reveal: Ren Serizawa isn’t dead. 

Backtrack. This part focuses more on the Godzilla side, and Monarch. It’ll have flashback scenes from the five years between KotM and now, showing exactly why Monarch as a whole firmly believes Godzilla is reacting to something instead of being anti-human all of a sudden. The Titans are not inherently malicious; destruction is a side effect of their size, no more, no less. He earned his title of King in KotM—make it mean more than just trying to make Kong “bow.” Make him a protector, a guardian. He’s nature’s balance. By definition, he must protect humans as well. 

What Monarch needs to figure out is this: what is he trying to protect them from? 

They investigate Apex in search of the answer, but knowing from past experience the sort of things Godzilla gets proactive about—the MUTOs, Ghidorah—Monarch mobilizes. They prepare for another fight, at Mark’s instructions. He witnessed both San Francisco and Boston firsthand, even if the former was from a civilian standpoint. 

Godzilla has more hunt scenes. He targets a second Apex lab after his ocean fight with Kong, telling Monarch that they’re on the right track. 

Maddie, being a minor and not dragged into the thick of things (yet), has to stay home. Remembering the podcast she sometimes listened to, when the topic was focused on the Titans, she tracks Bernie down, and he tells her about what he saw: the eye. 

The two of them go to the ruined Apex building and discover the eye is gone before getting caught. With Monarch currently breathing down their necks, they recognize Maddie to be Mark’s daughter and take her to Hong Kong. Sorry, Bernie, but that’s mostly as far as you’re involved. Timeline-wise, this is roughly when Kong puts the axe in the temple floor and Godzilla blasts a hole to the center of the earth. Monarch is following Godzilla, but they’re behind a bit thanks to the tunnel shortcuts. They’re still unaware that Maddie has been kidnapped and is en route to Hong Kong.

This is also when Mechagodzilla gains a life of its own. Walter Simmons is killed and Ren Serizawa becomes trapped in the link to Mechagodzilla, serving as the bridge between the robot and Ghidorah’s mind. Ghidorah is essentially controlling MG by controlling Ren, who is controlling MG. Make sense? He’s the puppeteer’s puppeteer. 

We reverse some things. Godzilla fights MG first, gets beat around but not as much as in GvK because he isn’t fresh out of a different fight. Kong returns to the surface through the tunnel Godzilla created, having carried the one remaining HEAV out himself, because Nathan Lind has never flown one before and doesn’t know how they work. Kong wants to protect Jia, and Ilene Andrews and Nathan Lind are very lucky that Jia likes them. 

Mechagodzilla sees Kong and takes off, and Kong decides now would be a great time to fight Godzilla, who’s having a pretty bad day. Monarch arrives, and half of them split off to follow MG while the rest stay to try and deescalate the situation. Other than Godzilla faring slightly less well, the fight goes mostly the same as in the movie, except for one big difference: one of the Monarch crafts pick up Jia and Co, and she’s able to get Kong’s attention from the back of an Osprey well enough to tell him to stop fighting. There’s a bigger threat out there, and Godzilla definitely needs to be okay enough to fight it. Either they work together, or they reschedule. 

She’s very stern about it, and though no one’s really sure what the two Titans decide on, they stop fighting. They leave together to go after Mechagodzilla, who is currently being slowed down by Mothra, because she deserves to be in this movie. The other Titans basically hinder Mechagodzilla as much as possible as it rampages, telling Godzilla where it is. Monarch finally figures out that it’s heading for the nearest entrance to the Hollow Earth, right around when they also figure out that Ghidorah is involved. With Dr. Andrews and Nathan Lind’s input, they theorize it intends to take more of the power source down there to further strengthen it. 

They do their best to clear the cities in its path, evacuating as many people as possible. It’s all they can do. As in the past, they must trust Godzilla to do the heavy lifting. Around the same time, an assistant tells Mark that some guy named Bernie called and is asking for him. This is how he finds out Maddie was taken to Apex’s Hong Kong location.

Meanwhile, the Apex guards and Maddie finally arrive to find the facility abandoned and damaged, MG gone, and Simmons dead. The guards more or less split, leaving her there alone. Maddie, being Maddie, goes deeper until she finally discovers Ghidorah’s skull and Ren Serizawa inside, trapped in his own head with Ghidorah. It’s killing him. 

He’s aware enough to have a conversation with her. They argue about the Titans. He wants Godzilla destroyed out of anger over his father’s preference for Titans, rather than his own son. 

(“You’re not the only one with ghosts!” she yells at him. “You’re not the only one who resents a parent for putting Titans ahead of you when you needed them!” He chokes out, “I do not resent my father—” “Coulda fooled me. Why else would you be spitting on his sacrifice like this? Who are you trying to help, huh? All the other kids out there who are losing their moms and dads because you let Ghidorah out? Sorry, mister, but the last time someone did that, your dad paid the price.”) 

Ren is getting worse. He’s going to die if he stays in the link much longer, but he can’t disconnect. Maddie, looking around, gets to work on something. The camera slowly pans around to show that there’s a second pilot seat, back-to-back with Ren’s. It would allow for seamless switching between pilots without MG ever not having someone at the controls. 

Even with the other Titans’ help, Godzilla and Kong are unable to stop MG from going through the tunnel and into the Hollow Earth. Monarch is unable to follow, because of the gravity issue. They’re both tired from the journey and their fight, especially Godzilla. This is their last chance. If Mechagodzilla reaches the power source, it’s all over. 

The fight doesn’t go in their favor. They’re both bad at working together, so their attacks are uncoordinated at best, actively hindering each other at worst. Kong gets flung off a mountain and MG pins Godzilla. Even thought he caught himself, Kong isn’t going to make it up in time to help him. 

Maddie puts on an identical pilot setup, and with Ren’s instructions, switches the link over to herself, freeing Ren. He collapses forward, immediately falling unconscious from the release of the strain. Fighting past the pain and overwhelming presence suddenly in her head, Maddie does what she does best: she causes Ghidorah problems. 

She screams, and it echoes like a roar through his skull. 

In the Hollow Earth, Mechagodzilla stumbles. 

It’s the beginning of the end. She can’t control it or even really stop Ghidorah, but she gets in his way as much as possible, giving Godzilla and Kong the edge they need to finally get their act together and use some teamwork to take Mechagodzilla down. They destroy it and return to the surface before parting on amicable terms. 

After too long, Mark arrives at Apex with a whole team of people. Ren Serizawa is found comatose but alive, and he’s quickly removed for medical attention. Though Maddie’s also alive, there’s something else clearly wrong. She’s still wired into the piloting gear, stiff and unseeing, as if she’s frozen. Her eyes are open but distant, pupils virtually gone from how constricted they are, and her jaw hangs open slightly. Despite how tense her body is, she’s limp. Nothing they do wakes her up, even after getting her out of the skull. 

They wheel her out on a gurney to where a handful of Ospreys landed, but as they leave the building and step out onto the roof, they find Godzilla has returned. He watches them, and he’s exactly as aware as Mark remembers. 

(“She tried to help you,” Mark calls out to him. No one knows exactly what happened in the Hollow Earth, during the fight, but the scene in Ghidorah’s skull was telling. “No, she—she did help you!” For the second time in her life, Maddie put herself in Ghidorah’s path and, ultimately, won. Only this time, her victory came with a price.) 

Godzilla snorts before leaning over the roof’s railing, moving toward the gurney. The humans all back away, even Mark, though he doesn’t go far. Spines humming, eyes flaring blue, Godzilla rumbles deeply. 

On the gurney, Maddie stirs. 

Later, much later, after Maddie and Jia have met—heaven help everyone else, honestly—they sit together on the edge of a pier over the ocean, Jia leaning comfortably against Maddie. It’s quiet. They’re alone, watching the sunset. A heavy footfall behind them, the feel of the vibration trembling through the wood, makes them turn around. Half concealed in the brush at the edge of the island’s foliage, Kong stands, facing them. 

They both wave before standing. They sign goodbye to each other, then part ways. As Maddie walks away to a waiting Osprey, we see behind her as Kong crouches to allow Jia to climb into his palm before vanishing into the forest. 

The Osprey takes off over the calm ocean. It has a different design than most, with a large door set in the side instead of at the back, more like an ordinary helicopter. It’s open as they go, Maddie secure inside as she stares out. A smile spreads across her face as jagged spines slowly breach the ocean’s surface, easily keeping pace with the Osprey, which lowers to be closer to the water.

For just a moment, in the fading light, Maddie’s eyes almost shine blue. The screen goes black to the sound of Godzilla’s roar.

[twistedtummies2]

Top 12 Pandora Hearts Characters

Moriarty the Patriot may be my new favorite anime and manga series, but today, I feel like talking about my OTHER favorite manga (and what COULD have been my favorite anime, if it had only gone on longer): a little franchise known as Pandora Hearts. Japan has a huge following for the works of Lewis Carroll, but Pandora Hearts has probably the most unusual manner of reinterpreting the characters. The story of PH is set in a world where human beings coexist with monstrous entities known as Chains: demon-like beings who are all directly inspired, in terms of name and design, on characters from Wonderland. With a few exceptions, the characters themselves do not have the names of characters from the books; instead, it is the Chains they make bargains with, form “Contracts” with, that tell you what character from the stories they are meant to represent. It’s a cool idea, and whether you look at this franchise as a new take on Wonderland, or just look at the characters on their own terms separate from the books, they are all fun and engaging characters who are frequently much more complex than they at first seem. Now, Pandora Hearts is a series with a lot of twists and turns, so I’m going to try and keep this as spoiler-free as possible when it comes to some of the REALLY big twists, but there’s only so much I can do. So if you haven’t read the manga, or at least watched the anime, and don’t want things spoiled, just be wary in case something pops up here you weren’t wanting to know ahead of time. Also, because this is me writing this list, I will give away which characters from the Wonderland stories these characters are analogous with in their descriptions. With that said... “The time has come,” the Walrus says, “To honor them today! So here’s a list of my favorites to lighten up your day!” (pauses) Yes, I’m aware that rhyme was terrible, just run with it. These are My Top 12 Favorite Pandora Hearts Characters!

12. Echo & Noise.

Wonderland Analogues: Tweedledee & Tweedledum.

One thing you need to know about Pandora Hearts is that...honestly, like a lot of anime/manga, in my opinion...it can be rather confusing at times. The lore of this world, partially because it takes so many twists and turns all over the place, is a little hard to follow at times. I’ll try be succinct and as major-spoiler-free as possible, as I said before. With that said, these two are a prime example of how things get twisted up. Echo and Noise are essentially a classic Jekyll-&-Hyde scenario; a pair of separate identities occupying the same body. Noise, also called “Zwei,” is the original personality: a member of the mysterious and dangerous Baskerville Clan, she is, as her name suggest, loudmouthed, crazy, and rather all over the place. Noise is in control of a Chain known as “Duldee,” and the Chain is responsible for the creation of the other personality: Echo. Echo is the exact opposite of Noise: she is quiet, constantly polite, and indeed often seems to be little more than a robot, very emotionless and unnervingly calm, even in the heat of battle. As Echo, she is the unsettlingly loyal servant of one of the series’ chief antagonists, Vincent Nightray, and their relationship is...a little creepy. Vincent frequently treats her like a beloved child or pet, but he also frequently uses her for his own selfish ends, never worrying about nearly killing her in order to get what he wants, and seeming to see her more as an object than another living being. Despite this, the most upset with him Echo ever gets is calling him “annoying” (now, THERE’S an understatement), and Noise herself is absolutely obsessed with him. Their twisted relationship with Vincent, and all the fun that’s had with these two different personalities, is a big part of what gets them a slot on the list.

11. Oscar Vessalius.

Wonderland Analogue: N/A

While most of the characters in Pandora Hearts are easily identified by their Chains, some don’t even have Chains, and thus cannot be readily identified as any character from the Carroll classics. Oscar Vessalius, whom I frequently and affectionately refer to as “Uncle Oscar,” is one of those cases. Now, to be fair, Uncle Oscar is not the most complex character in this series, but he IS one of the most endearing. Oscar is the paternal uncle of our main protagonist, Oz, and considering Oz’s father is...well...a gigantic douchebag of the highest order...Oscar really is more of a father to Oz than anybody else in the series. Oscar is unflappably encouraging and jolly, and extremely protective and caring when it comes to his family. He’s always there to support Oz and his friends, tries his best to get along with everybody, and generally speaking brightens up every single scene he has. Despite this, Oscar does have a bit of a sly and sneaky side to him, as well as a slightly lecherous leaning in some cases, which keep him from being too perfect or one-note a character. While he has no direct ties to Wonderland, some have suggested that he MIGHT be inspired by Lewis Carroll himself, and there are a few subtle things that could suggest that...but either way, he’s ultimately a purely original character, and of those ranks, he’s easily one of the best.

10. Reim Lunettes.

Wonderland Analogue: March Hare.

Reim, sometimes called “Liam,” is the best friend of Xerxes Break and one of the most notable members of Pandora: a not-so-secret organization dedicated to the study of Chains and the protection of the world. Sort of a Victorian-styled Men in Black, if you will. (pauses) The Will Smith Men in Black, I should say. ANYWAY, an interesting thing I’ve noticed with many interpretations of the March Hare in Japanese culture is they tend to make him a somewhat more serious and more easily flustered character than the Mad Hatter. Reim is no exception: he’s a panicky workaholic who is frequently the butt of other people’s jokes, and tries to treat things with a no-nonsense demeanor, taking his job extremely seriously and always worried about what’s best for his employers. In some ways, one could argue he acts more like the White Rabbit, but that character is one we’ll get to later. At any rate, while Reim is constantly obsessed with his work, and frequently frustrated by Break’s antics, as well as the shenanigans of other characters, he has a heart of gold and is always there to try and help his friends and colleagues when they most require assistance. His Chain also has a pretty impressive power that one does not expect...but I mustn’t say more, or I’ll spoil something important.

9. Sharon Rainsworth.

Wonderland Analogue: Unicorn.

Another character with close ties to Xerxes Break, Sharon is an interestingly dichotomous character. She’s one of the first people we encounter in this series, and she plays a big part in the story as it unfolds...but in the early parts of the franchise, what’s interesting is that Sharon stays largely in the background. Now, at first, it seems this is because she’s one of the head members of Pandora, and Break is technically her servant; so it makes sense the others would interact more with Break than Sharon. But as time goes on, and we learn more about Sharon, we find that’s not so much the case. Sharon and Break have a brother-and-sister relationship, with Sharon seeing Break as her surrogate big brother, and Break seeing her as his little sister. The problem with this relationship is that Break will do anything to protect Sharon, and at times that can go a bit too far, as Sharon truly wants to be of use to him and prove she’s just as powerful as he is or any other major member of the team. Indeed, her Chain, Equus the Black Unicorn, has many impressive abilities, including being able to open a gateway between Earth and the Hell-like dimension of The Abyss. A lot of this dichotomy is visible in Sharon’s personality: most of the time she’s very demure, polite, sweet, and ladylike. But the more we see of Sharon, the more we become aware of other facets to her personality. She’s shown to have a tough and domineering side to her character, and has some eccentricities of her own. Most notably, she’s absolutely INSANE when it comes to romance stories and romantic situations, and holds both the standards of ladies and gentlemen in high regard. Whether she’s a soothing presence or a downright scary one, Sharon is always an interesting character to return to.

8. Rufus Barma.

Wonderland Analogue: Dodo.

There are a few characters in the frequently twisted-up world of Pandora Hearts who have a habit of constantly keeping you guessing...but the king of mystery, without a shadow of a doubt, is the Duke Rufus Barma. His analogous Chain, Dodo, is able to conjure impressive illusions, and this illusionary skill is only the tip of the iceberg in showing how this man constantly manages to make you wonder just what is going on in his head. Barma lives by the code of “knowledge is power,” and constantly seeks to learn everything he can about...well...anything and anybody he wants. Money and prestige are secondary to him. He’s very soft-spoken and cold, even when angered, and carries himself with a sense of grace that’s rather flamboyant, but somehow not exactly loud or over-the-top in the way some of the other characters can be. His exact goals and motivations are constantly second-guessed, and you’re never really sure what makes him tick or what side he’ll take. You’re never really sure if he’s a villain or a hero. I love characters like this, in general, so it’s ultimately no surprise that Rufus Barma gets a solid spot on this list.

7. The Will of the Abyss.

Wonderland Analogue: White Rabbit.

The Will of the Abyss (sometimes called “Alyss” and sometimes called “The Intention of the Abyss”) isn’t a villain we see a whole lot of. She is the queen of the Abyss; the ruler of everything there. The Abyss, itself, is the home of the demon-like chains: ghoulish entities who feed on human beings, body and soul, and are formed from those who have fallen into the Abyss in the past. The place is described as “a broken toy box” and is a horrifying limbo realm of killer dolls and psychotic puppets. Needless to say, it’s not exactly an ideal vacation spot. The Will is a mysterious and mercurial character; she’s mostly a peripheral villain, since we see more of the Chains she controls than her, herself, and much of what we DO see of her actually comes through flashbacks...but in that overall brief amount of time, she proves to be honestly the single scariest character in the series, as well as one of the saddest. Part of this is due to her mood: the Will can shift from seemingly innocent and playful to screaming like a banshee in a split-second; she can go from crying and sobbing like a sad little girl to being as refined and elegant as a proper queen. And there really isn’t a safe place with her, in any of this, either; sometimes that playful and sweet persona is a good thing, but other times...yeah, it’s...um...REALLY not. Like many Chains, she’s violent and bloodthirsty, but unlike other Chains, there’s some humanity to her and you get the feeling that a lot of her actions are justified. She’s still very much a villain, but she’s also a victim, in a way, and as the story goes on, you feel bad for her and are truly sorry when her part in the series’ events is finished. Whether she makes you whimper with terror or makes you want to hug her and console her, the Will of the Abyss is bound to get a major reaction from you.

6. Vincent Nightray.

Wonderland Analogue: Dormouse.

One of the main antagonists of the series (though not, for the record, THE main antagonist...they actually don’t appear in this top twelve), Vincent Nightray is another character who changes throughout the series. What I find most interesting about Vincent is that he, himself, changes very little. It’s more the attitude the reader has to him, in the manga, that changes. See, if you only know Vincent from the anime, or the chapters in the manga that the anime covers, chances are you find him to be a pretty repugnant person. He’s creepy, he’s treacherous, he’s responsible for some of the most screwed-up things any character in this franchise does, and that’s saying a lot. He’s totally insane, and sort of seems to be aware of it, and seems to have an unhealthy interest in his own brother, Gilbert. In fact, with how disturbing he is, and the kinds of things he tries, you start off thinking he’s the main antagonist...and, for a while, he pretty much is. However, as the series continues in the manga, and you learn more about Vincent - why he is the way he is, and what exactly he wants to accomplish - the more you come to understand him and sympathize with him. Make no mistake, Vincent is a villain; in fact, even he seems to be aware of the fact that he’s sort of a monster. But he’s the kind of villain you come to feel sorry for and realize that, if things had been different, maybe could have turned out a much better person. In a way, Vincent is a foil to the ACTUAL main antagonist. Without giving anything away, the real main villain of the series follows the opposite path: at first he seems sympathetic and endearing, but the more we learn about him and the more horrible things he does, the more we come to loathe him and want to see him kicked in the face a thousand times over. Vincent, meanwhile, we start off hating his guts, but by the time his part in the story ends, we’re sad to see him go, because we understand him and care about him, and realize not everything was his fault. I actually feel a little bad for not placing Vincent higher, but I doubt the characters above him will drastically disappoint. He may have been one of the nastiest characters in the franchise, but if ever proof was needed that Evil is a lonely course to take, Vincent Nightray could provide it.

5. Cheshire Cat.

Wonderland Analogue: Doesn’t need to be given, because IT’S HIS NAME.

Again, the Cheshire Cat doesn’t have a lot of time in the series - he gets one major arc fairly early on, appears in several flashbacks afterwards, and then makes a sudden and unexpected return much later in the story - but that doesn’t keep him from being one of the most fascinating figures in the universe of PH. Cheshire is the reincarnation of an innocent kitten who belonged to a girl named Alice; the kitten was brutally murdered by Vincent Nightray. As a Chain, the Cheshire Cat is steadfastly loyal to the Will of the Abyss, and - at least at the start of the series - dwells within a mysterious realm simply known as “The Cheshire Cat’s House.” The “house” is an eerie Victorian mansion that is literally made up of all of the worst memories the Will has, and Cheshire guards the mansion and the Will herself with ferocious zeal. It’s ironic because this is a very different take on the Cheshire Cat, in general: the character in the book, and most other adaptations, is a chaotic being who shows loyalty to seemingly no one, and while some versions lean more towards good or evil, friend or foe, than others, he ultimately isn’t an obedient housecat. He’s more of an enigmatic agent of madness. This Cheshire Cat is a totally different spin on things. He’s got human-like intelligence, for the most part, and occasionally speaks in a cryptic or evasive manner, but he’s not the puzzling imp of Carroll’s classic. He doesn’t even SMILE all that often...and when he does it’s...well...the most terrifying thing you’ll ever see. But just because he’s a very different take on the character, doesn’t mean he’s still not a good one; Cheshire’s mixture of ravenous hunger (all Chains are so), sadistic ferocity, and childlike adoration of the Will make him a very layered character. Like the Will herself, he can be very creepy and menacing, but he can also be sympathetic and sweet, since he still very much is that loving kitten whose life was cut short. In a very short time, he becomes one of the most standout characters, and despite a relatively short lifespan (so to speak), it’s clear the creators really liked Cheshire, since they tried to find ways to fit him in all over the place. It’s a sign of restraint on their parts, I’d say, that he doesn’t pop up more often throughout the franchise. When he does pop up, he’s a scene stealer, and I was always excited to see him.

4. Oz Vessalius.

Wonderland Analogue: N/A

Our chief protagonist, and another original character, Oz Vessalius is a teenager whose life is turned upside-down when, at his Coming-of-Age Ceremony, a group of depraved cultists send him body and soul into the Abyss. He makes a contract with a Chain called Alice, and escapes the Abyss, only to discover that the very short time he spent down there equated to a full decade in the real world. He is enlisted by Pandora, and the rest of the series focuses on his adventures as he tries to discover the secrets of a cataclysmic event from the past known as “The Tragedy of Sablier” - in which an entire city was somehow sucked down into the Abyss. Oz is an endearing young hero, as his youth is mixed with a curious maturity. At times he’s very silly and almost hopelessly optimistic, but at other times he shows a very fatalistic and calculating side to his personality. Part of this is due to his upbringing, as his father never showed him any love at all, and the best friend he ever really had was his own servant, Gilbert. He didn’t exactly get out much to explore the world. So while he’s lived a very sheltered life, it’s also been a very cold one. Oz works on a philosophy of acceptance, just going with the flow and trying not to let the bad things get to you...but considering he frequently claims his own life means very little to him, it’s very clear the bad things DO get to him. In fact, despite his privileged youth, he puts the lives of others vastly before his own, even when he doesn’t know them all that well. He just doesn’t like to show how much things can hurt him, and tries to press ahead no matter what. It’s a complex sort of way of thinking - being proud and unflinching and yet humble and downright self-loathing, all with a dash of youthful exuberance - and as the series goes on, and we learn more about Oz than maybe even he knows, it only becomes more fascinating. He may not be my favorite character, but he’s a fine protagonist for us to follow, and certainly worthy of high marks here.

3.  Gilbert Nightray.

Wonderland Analogue: The Monstrous Crow...probably.

I say “probably” because Gilbert’s Chain, as well as his own codename, is “Raven,” which is an obvious reference to the riddle “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” I guess it’s possible both were inspirational, but the Crow is an actual creature/character in the stories, so it’s the one I choose to credit. Whatever the case, Gil is one of the other major protagonists in the series, and...this guy is freaking adorable. I know he doesn’t look it, but trust me, he’s adorable. At the start of the series, we meet Gil as a small boy, who has amnesia about his past and works as a servant for Oz. Oz is not only his Master, but his best friend, and Gil will do absolutely anything to protect and serve his “Young Master” no matter what. After Oz descends into the Abyss, Gil - blaming himself - tries to run away...and is enlisted, at a very young age, by Xerxes Break. He becomes a double-agent, working for both the Rainsworth and Nightray households, upon discovering he is actually a long-lost member of the Nightray family. When Oz returns years later, Gil is a seemingly changed man: stoic, stern, always dressed in black, smoking heavily, and rarely speaking. Very quickly, however, we discover a lot of this stoicism is a facade: underneath it all, Gil is very much still a child at heart, and even though he’s grown older, he still sees Oz as his brother and best friend, as well as his true master, and will do anything to protect and to help him. Just as Oz always puts his life ahead of others, Gil’s foremost thoughts are always with Oz and how he can help him, and the lengths he’ll go to in order to keep Oz safe are sometimes touching, sometimes hilarious, and sometimes downright heartbreaking. Gil’s “dark side” is certainly engaging - he’s a crack shot with a pistol, and has a gloomy and cynical sense of humor - but I think what’s most endearing about him are the moments...and there are surprisingly many...where we see the cracks in the armor, and this “seaweed head” shows that he really hasn’t changed as much as he often claims. Whether he’s a man of action or a man of hilarious hijinks, Gilbert Nightray is more than worthy of a place in the top three.

2. Alice.

Wonderland Analogue: Again, IT’S HER NAME.

The secondary protagonist of the series, after Oz, this Alice is a far cry from the little girl we know of from the Carroll stories. At the start of the franchise, we are introduced to Alice as a Chain known as “B. Rabbit” - a title that stands for both “Black Rabbit” and “Bloody” or “Bloodstained Rabbit.” (In fact, her full title is often given as “The Bloody/Bloodstained Black Rabbit.”) B. Rabbit is one of the most powerful Chains out there, and in her Chain form, Alice is a nigh-unstoppable powerhouse ruled by bloodthirst - a maniacal berserker whose morning star chains and massive scythe cleave through even the toughest opponents with ease. However, Alice can also resort to human form, and here she’s much more...well...human. She has the same basic weaknesses a human has, she’s not quite as psychotic (though she DOES have a nasty temper at times)...really, the only sign of her being a Chain is her ravenous hunger. Like any Chain, Alice is ALWAYS hungry, and always hungry for MEAT. Thankfully, unlike other Chains, Alice has no desire to consume human beings. Indeed, while at first she comes across as frightening and intimidating, Alice has a very vulnerable side to her; she’s lived her life without any real friends or family, since the only “family” she has is her twin, the Will of the Abyss...and, to put things simply, they don’t get along very well. Much like Oz, she often feels like she’s undeserving of other people’s care and attention, but while Oz compensates this through being charitable and caring, Alice compensates by over-inflating herself; a classic “superiority complex via inferiority complex” issue. She’s never unlikeable, however, and as the series goes on - and we come to realize that Alice’s true identity, and her status as a Chain, is a lot less cut-and-dry than we might think - she only becomes a more and more fun and fascinating character...arguably more fascinating than Oz. Indeed, it’s really Alice who drives so much of the plot of the series forward, as her whole goal in the series is to find out the truth of her past and regain her lost memories, and it’s through the team’s efforts to help Alice in this goal that so much of the story is told. Oz is really just along for the ride, at least at first. Powerful but not invincible, and easily one of my favorite takes on the title character of the Carroll stories, Alice nabs second place easily…

...But who in the great wide world could take first? That honor goes to...

1. Xerxes Break.

Wonderland Analogue: The Mad Hatter AND The White Knight.

Yep. Two characters. How is this possible? Well, the first thing to know about Xerxes Break is that he wasn’t always called “Xerxes Break.” Once upon a time, he was a knight called Kevin Regnard, who served a noble family; his Chain was called Albus the White Knight. When Regnard’s mistakes led to the destruction of the entire family, he went absolutely bonkers and became a twisted serial killer known as the Red-Eyed Ghost. Ultimately, however, his contract with Albus ended, and Regnard was dragged down into the Abyss, where the Will and the Cheshire Cat ripped out one of his eyes (...yikes…), and plotted to turn him into another Chain. Things get a bit complicated at this point, but basically, Kevin managed to escape and was thrown into another time and place upon doing so. He was taken in by the Rainsworth family, befriend Reim Lunettes, and steadily began to come out of his shell. He took the name “Xerxes Break,” because he felt “broken,” later formed a contract with a very special and powerful Chain known as The Mad Hatter (in fact, one of Break’s nicknames is “Mr. Hatter”), and crafted a whole new personality for himself: Kevin Regnard was stern, work-obsessed, and wore his heart on his sleeve. Xerxes Break is in every way his opposite. When it comes to takes on the Mad Hatter, Break is one of the best; granted, we very rarely see him WEAR a hat, but the personality of the guy speaks for itself. Break often comes across as clownish and childishly hyperactive, constantly eating sweets, performing magic tricks and weird stunts just for the sheer sake of it, prancing around and giggling like a small boy, and even interacting with a puppet he calls “Emily”...which...may or may not actually be alive. However, much of this is a facade, as underneath it all, Break is...well...broken. Not just in body (he’s much, much older and more frail than he often seems), but in terms of his mind; he’s half-crazed and extremely mercurial. Much like with Rufus Barma, Break is somebody you’re never entirely sure of, but in a different way. Break, you see, is very open and honest; he never tells lies and he makes his loyalties and disloyalties very clear. But at the same time he’s very secretive and enigmatic, often speaking in riddles and partial-truths to throw people off. He’s very cunning and intelligent, and a gifted swordsman, and will do anything and use almost anyone to get what he wants. So while he can be extremely funny, he can also be very frightening and ruthless. You’re never sure what’s going to set him off and if the next line he says is going to be a threat or a joke. And as the series goes on, and we see more and more of Break’s vulnerabilities, we only come to care about him more and more, though, at the same time, he always remains an eternal mystery. A riddle with no real answer...just like the Mad Hatter’s from the book. (Way to bring things around, don’t you think?) Whether you look at him as a version of the Hatter, or look at him just for who and what he is on his own terms, he is, in my opinion, the most well-rounded and fascinating character in the whole series, and easily takes the top spot as My Favorite Pandora Hearts Character. Xerxes Break, I doff my own topper to thee. (tips hat)

Honorable Mentions Include...

Elliot Nightray.

Leo.

Jack Vessalius.

Lottie Baskerville.

Lily Baskerville.

Ada Vessalius.

Phillipe West.

[dauntingdarling]

In Defense of the Weeping Monk

So during my first ramped scrolling of Weeping Monk content post-completion of the series, I came across a number of people against the Weeping Monk not just for this storyline but because of how people have been quick to obsess over him and ship Nimulot.

In particular, calling the Nimulot ship racist or homophobic, his character a predator, and those shipping him with anyone toxic. While these points are valid and come from a place (I would assume) of good intentions (anti-homophobia, anti-racist, protect the children etc.) they are strong accusations that should not be linked to this character. And here’s why:

Racism:

-I’m going to be blunt here. Seeing as Racism isn’t a joke, it shouldn’t be thrown around as an excuse not to like WM just because said character didn’t end up with a person of color. If you don’t like him, you don’t like him. Don’t blanket cover your reasoning with a serious accusation that even today is still running rampid and needs to be taken seriously in today’s society (see George Floyd)

-It would be one thing to call out a show if they were expressing Racist undertones, but Cursed hasn't. Two of the most powerful characters in King Arthur lore are played by wonderful actors of color (Arthur and sister Morgana) and should this show continue, we will see the pair of them raise in the ranks of power for both good (King Arthur) and evil (Morgan le fay). 

-People are stating that WM should have been black, as we’ve had more than enough white edgy boys out in shows and movies (see Winter Solider, Kylo Ren/Ben solo...) I’m not against the idea of a black or someone other than white actor portraying WM. That’s not my fight. My fight is over disliking Daniel Sharman’s casting because of his race rather than his acting skill. The guy plays WM fantastically and shouldn’t be docked points just because he’s a white British guy. Like... come on. 

-I could go on, but we have more topics to cover so I’ll close this part with this: keep up the good fight to end Racism, but don’t use it to elevate your own ship/actor profile/ etc. 

Throwing around this topic to benefit your own belief (more than just in media) is what makes people degrade racism in the first place. Don’t be that person.

Homophobia: 

-WHY WOULD SHIPPING NIMULOT BE HOMOPHOBIC? WHY

-I would have thought this show already established that they were not homophobic seen by the great response Nimue gave to Morgana after spotting the scene above^. She normalized their relationship as any other and that was beautiful *chef’s kiss* 

-Back to WM, from what I read on the topic from a person with this view, they stated that because people are shipping Nimulot over Nimue and Morgana (I’m sorry I don’t know their ship name), they are homophobic? WHAT

-Dude that’s great that you saw the fantastic chemistry between Morgana and Nimue, but do you really want Nimue to bed both siblings like that? 

-What I just stated isn’t my real fight on the topic, it’s just something I just thought of as I am here typing away. My fight here is just because Nimue hasn't entertained the possibility of a romantic relationship with Morgana doesn’t mean those shipping Nimue and WM together are homophobic. We just are ex-reylo trash (as I’m noticing so far) and love the enemies to lovers trop. 

-Also I am pretty sure that those shipping Nimulot adore the relationship Nimue has with Morgana as they give off major feminism vibes. And have a healthy relationship overall. 

Which brings me to my next point:

Toxic Shipping:

-No one is stating that WM should hook up with Nimue immediately. And if they are, take notes. WM still needs to grow from the horrors he has done in the past and what he has ahead of him. Only then would he be deserving of Nimue (should she take him)

-I honestly believe people are not shipping Nimulot because it’s toxic, but rather because they hope that WM will come around on the other side as a better man (for he has been through the ringer) and should find peace. With Nimue? Sure, if the storyline fits. 

-I’ve read that some don’t want Nimue to be the fixer upper of WM, and I agree, but do not find this statement to be enough to call the Nimue ship toxic by any means. We just want to see everyone happy, is that so bad? 

-And after growing up idolizing the major character arch of Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender, I can’t help but hope (as the optimist that I am) that WM will get a similar ending to Zuko. 

-As for why people want Nimue with him and not, say Gwenevere, it is because of all the similarities they carry so far that complement each other (while also playing the opposites attract card). Similarities include:

cursed out fay (N- the villagers scorning her, WM- the monks attitude toward him as a weapon and not a being)

lingering on the edge of dark and light (N with the cursed sword, WM with his faith)

scars (that happen to be on their backs)

their relationship with Squirrel (both protective, not smothering)

Symbols of their side in war (WM is the monk’s best fighter, N is their queen)

I’m sure people can give you more reasons. This is just what I came up with on the spot after one watch through of the series. If you have others, please write them below, I’m curious. 

Now onto the topic that I find to be atrocious: 

Predator: 

-EXCUSE ME, a predator prays on others. How on God’s green earth is WM that? He was a literal sword for hire/raised to fight against his kind through mental strain from this messed up ideology of christianity. 

-And for those calling his relationship with Squirrel unhealthy... fair point but I’m not done yet. 

-I don’t mean all this to say that what he did under the red monks was good or even acceptable. No it wasn’t, the dude was practicing mass genocide of his own race, that’s fucked up. (That torture scene in front of the mill was really something)

-But as we learn in later episodes, all of his actions linger on not being damed and going to heaven (I assume) as seen in the scene when we got a nice look of him shirtless while he was having a moral crisis.

-Speaking of moral crisis, did you notice that he had one when the rest of the villains present in this show do not? Even Iris (a fantastic villain) had a tragic backstory with her family like WM, but rather than question her motives, she starts on the villain path. 

-Now while I do admit he doesn’t treat Squirrel right in the beginning, it makes sense for his character and where he is at. Not to say that hurting a child and using him as a pawn to kill leftover tribe members is justified. 

-But the writers always wrote the interactions between Squirrel and WM with a hint of humor. Squirrel was always talking back, calling WM and his horse ugly, and even hissing out “you” in front of the red monks. All this going on while WM maintains a blank expression, that to viewers is almost comical (because it breaks away from the sad emo boy cliche) 

-In the end, WM needed someone like Squirrel to get out of the disastrous rut the red monks had WM in. For WM to start on this journey of his (that I’m sure will continue through season 2) he needed to show he had a moral code. 

-Also, like many complicated characters, WM never thought through the damage he has done and how his work impacted children up until G called him out for it. For this reason, I think G had just as much a part of getting WM to revolt as Squirrel did. 

- I think his relationship with Squirrel will continue to grow into a more protective association now that G is dead. G made Squirrel into a knight, the next step is for this kid to train like one. Who better than Mr. Lancelot himself. (They better have a training scene in next season or I will riot)

-And lastly, all of you who know the lore of Lancelot understand that he will become the best of the best and also the most loyal and chivalrous knight out there. What a better way to love a character with these attributes than if he started in the proverbial gutter and grows to understand and value these characteristics?  It’s the shiny ending that he needs to work hard to achieve and that is what, at the end of the day, all lovers of WM want to see in the next few seasons. 

Him becoming that knight in shining armor.

[whitherliliesbloom]

lights, camera, duty commenced!

[ ffxivwrite2021 ] ★ [ masterlist ] ★ [ prompt #14 - commend ]

[ illya, g’raha & emet ] ★ [ 2,263 words ]  ★ [ actors au ]  passing mention of some friend’s ocs and illyanaud

commend: praise formally or officially

behind the scenes of the critically acclaimed long running tv show, final fantasy fourteen, g’raha tia is (almost) inconsolable after he reads the final act’s script

The not-so everlasting light shining down feels radiant and warm, but not scorching. In the distance, one can hear the push and pull of the tides from the nearby lake, as well as the rustling of the purple hued leaves that hung and swayed ever so gently upon the trees. A light baby blue canvas with dusty cotton candy clouds crowns lakeland, painting the perfect, serene vista for an uneventful day of shooting.

Though, Illya has to remind herself, as she looks up at the peaceful sky, and sighs in contentment that she was in the completely wrong headspace. Even though the sky above was bright and undoubtedly beautiful on this fine afternoon, she knows that all it takes is for a little bit of compuer-generated television effects magic to turn the tranquil landscape into a scene of naught but utter devastation and war.

Think termination. Think termination. You’re in the middle of a large-scale battle between Elidibus and the people of Norvrandt. The tone’s supposed to be somber and tense. You’re the warrior of darkness. You got this!

“Oh.... How could this be...?”

Her train of thought is rudely interrupted by the sorrowful moping of her co-actor, and she has to resist the urge to chide him for dragging his early morning sulking all the way into the afternoon. 

“G’raha, please...” the lalafellin sighs, though cannot help but to let a sliver of sympathy slip into her tone. “The next scene’s starting soon.”

“I know, I know... But...” the man heaves a heavy sigh, hanging his head low and letting his arms drop onto his lap so dramatically she’d almost thought that his flesh really was made of crystal and wasn’t just a product of the hard work of extremely talented make-up artists. “I can’t help it. I can’t believe that my poor crystal exarch is-”

Illya can say she at least empathizes - though perhaps not to the same extent. She’s been casted into roles of characters who would meet an unfortunate demise later, but to be fair, they weren’t often major characters within the narrative of the show or film she was playing a role in. 

The crystal exarch on the other hand, has played a key role as one of the many recurring supporting casts in the show. He’d lingered in the background as early as the first season, and was, to G’raha’s jubilation, finally given a main role in the fourth season they were filming. 

Only to be killed off in the final act - succumbing to the crystallization of his entire body, from head to toe, in the throne room of the crystal tower after the warrior of darkness’ battle with the ascian Elidibus. His death scene was to be an emotionally poignant one... and Illya herself has spent the last few days getting into the headspace of the protagonist - who would understandably be utterly devastated by the loss of a dear friend. 

It didn’t help that the crystal exarch was a considerably popular character within the international community of fans - and his significant increase in screen time was due in part to fan demands... though that perhaps made his long foreshadowed death even more of a cruel irony. 

And there was nobody in the world who was a bigger fan of the crystal exarch than the actor who played him himself. It wasn’t narcissistic either, in their line of work, it’s easy to get attached to the roles they play... even more so when they’ve hovered within the headspace of their character for as long as 6 years - she would know, Liliya Liya is as big a part of her as the crystal exarch is for G’raha now.

Thus, though she felt the urgent need to get G’raha back up on his feet in preparation for the remaining scenes on their schedule to film... she could not bring herself to so callously talk down his very real and personal attachment of a character he was meant to portray well anyways. 

“Oh come now... you should’ve seen this coming.” with a swagger in his step and lazy grin plastered over his expression, Emet Selch strolls over to the pair.... far too comfortable within his own role that he was speaking with Hades’ signature slur in his speech even while out of character. The man has always noted just how similar he was to the god of the underworld, and Illya wouldn’t be surprised if he’d claimed to not even be acting in his scenes at all.

“I...” G’raha pouts, looking up at Emet as his ears flatten atop his head. “I guess I was in denial of it. I thought they would maybe subvert expectations... but-”

“But that wouldn’t be a very compelling story to tell, now would it?” The older man shrugs, and Illya regrets to think that she’s inclined to agree. 

“I guess not..” 

The robed miqo’te man sighs, and she notes with an amused raise of an eyebrow as his tail that had once been tucked tightly to his side was now swiveling from side to side and puffed up in annoyance.

“Still! They could at least let him go out with more of a bang! Maybe... after he has a solo action scene... or give him a kiss scene to make things more dramatic!”

“Is defeating the big bad and saving the heroine not dramatic enough for you, already?” Emet’s voice is in part mocking as it is exasperated, his arms thrown up to his shoulders in a shrug. “Also I hope you didn’t mean a kiss scene with Liliya.”

“W-what-?? I-” Illya’s mouth hangs agape. 

“No! I wasn’t thinking anyone in particular, honest. Besides, she’s already caught in that love triangle subplot with the twins, isn’t she?” 

At the mention of the topic, the lalafellin woman’s smile fades.

“D-don’t remind me of that. I’m really not looking forward to acting those scenes out.” 

She’s already read the script for the fourth season in it’s entirety... and though she has incredible respect for the masterful writing and the wonderful character dynamics that has only gotten better with each passing season... she has never been... entirely comfortable with the romantic aspects of the scenes involving the elven twins. Scenes of the pair vying for her attention, scenes where she held hands and even got unsettingly close to kissing them... 

Though, she will admit... her own uncertainty over her competence in filming those scenes are a result of her own, very personal emotions... something of which Emet Selch seemed to be more than aware of.

“Is it not because you harbor actual feelings for one of them? Would having scenes of you being close to him not be a blessing for you, then?”

The miffed glare Illya’s shoots up at Emet rivals moments of shadow possession Liliya experiences throughout the show, and he can only shrug with a cocky grin as her star-spangled swirl with indignation. Anger aside, heat is spreading across her cheeks in the form of a burning red hue that reaches the tips of her short, pointed ears.

Please stop. 

Her expression spells out. She’s as annoyed as she her frightened about something.

Oh dear. 

“Relax. Workplace romance here is nothing new.” His words only serve to worsen the already infuriated gleam in her blazing, shimmering eyes. “Mint certainly isn’t shy when it comes to showing she’s in a relationship with Estinien. Nor your friend Laurelis for that matter. She’s still keeping in touch with Haurchefant, no?”

Illya doesn’t say anything, but her silence and the paling of her complexion speaks louder than any words she can spill from her lips. 

It’s precisely because he doesn’t know. So please, please shut your mouth.

He still cannot understand why on earth she would stay so adamant about keeping her feelings a secret anyway. For all he knows, the entire cast of actors... and the whole final fantasy crew for that matter, was fully aware of their pining - and Illya’s feelings towards her close co-worker and friend wasn’t unrequited either. 

Just like in the show, the pair are completely oblivious to their attraction to one another... something he’ll just have to fix with his bare hands then... 

But the matter is neither here nor there, and there was something of greater urgency to rectify now. 

Emet Selch turns his gaze back down to G’raha, who has gone uncharacteristically quiet... and sensing his seriousness, Illya too diverts her attention back to the sulking redhead. 

“You know... you’re a very talented actor. It’s so very rare to find someone who can capture the emotions and nuances of a character as well as you do.” Emet is the faster of them to speak, and Illya can barely believe the words she’s hearing leave his lips. 

Compliments and praise, genuine ones at that, coming from one of the cast’s eldest, most experienced actor who is not only known to be critical when it comes to the art of acting - but is a certified acting coach himself? The monumental honor is not lost to G’raha, as his ears perk up and he whips his head up with widened ruby eyes to look at Emet.

“Death is difficult to portray - dare I say, almost impossible. After all, how can we, who have never experienced death... truly capture the sorrow and despair in it?”

Emet Selch pauses, drawing in a breath before he lifts his hand up to gesture at the pair before him.

“Which is why this is your biggest opportunity to showcase your talents, to move the audience with not just the story, but your very acting! The only thing we can do, as men and women of this field, is to act as vehicles and carry the emotions of the story into the hearts of the fans.”

The man finally sighs, shoulders falling and arms flopping lazily to his side, the sentimentality of the words he just spoke tasting bitter on his tongue.

“Besides, even in death there is a beauty. The crystal exarch lived his life fulfilled and having realized his wish at the end. I expect you to remember that when you eventually see him off.”

There’s a silence that hangs and festers in the air for a moment, before the fur on G’raha’s tail stands and his chest puffs up in a show of renewed determination.

“Y-you’re right, Emet! The crystal exarch dedicated his life to finding a way to save others... There is no better way to end his legacy than to see the world he’s protected for so long finally saved!” 

Standing onto his feet, the miqo’te clenches his hands into fists and nods before casting a glance down at Illya.

“Illya! I will act my heart out to the best I can! I’ll act so hard that I’ll make you cry on set for sure!”

The corners of her lip tugs upwards into a wide smile, glowing as the afternoon sun basks down and reflects upon her snowy white hair and the blossoms of her amethyst eyes. Even with the black of the garments she wore and the eastern patterned ribbon that held the braid around her head in place, she was luminous and blinding in her radiant presence... not unlike the heroine of their story.

“Of course! And I’m sure the rest of the crystal exarch fan club will too when they watch that episode.” 

“Illya, G’raha!” A pink haired lalafellin calls out to them from a distance away, her olive green eyes wide and excited as she waves her hands high above her head. A raven haired man stands just behind her, his dark blue eyes narrowed as he reviews the script in his hands intently. “We’re starting soon! Get over here!”

“Coming! Just give us a second!” G’raha waves back with a grin before turning back to look at Emet Selch with an apologetic, yet grateful bow, his relaxed tail swaying gently from side to side behind his back. 

“Thank you, Emet. I won’t soon forget your encouragements. I’ll do my best and make sure to not let everyone down.”

“Yes, yes. Spare me the nauseating mush. I was just making sure you didn’t drag your co-actor down with your sulking.” 

The elder man now glances at the starry eyed girl with amusement flashing through his expression, and Illya can already feel her earlier lighthearted elation fade as quickly as it came. 

“By the way... I’m sure if you asked Yoshida properly.. he’d be willing to consider writing in a kiss scene with Liliya and-”

“If I were the warrior of darkness, I’d take my crescent moon cane and stab you with the end of it......”

------

Meanwhile, a little distance away from the trio, Kaye lets out a low hum as he reads and re-reads the words upon the small stacks of paper he held, expression doubtful and confused.

“You sure this is the script to Endwalker?”

“Yeah, I am! Alphinaud gave this copy and said that he got from miss Ishikawa directly! Apparently he’s playing another major role in the next season, which is why he got the script early as a heads up.”

“But... it says here that the crystal exarch gets reincarnated? Assuming that’s not gonna be changed... that means G’raha’s gonna be...”

Kaye’s head lifts and turns, eyes wide and brows furrowing in bemusement only to see an impish smile glimmer upon Lily’s face.

“Should we tell him?”

“Hm...? Nah... He’s gonna film the exarch’s death scene soon, right? I’m sure he’ll appreciate the little surprise later, anyways.”