#tag I should be using?

[faejilly]

@rebelren requested the deeply complimentary if slightly broad "I WANT TO KNOW ALL YOUR RICKY/ESTHER THOUGHTS" and I have so many thoughts

let's see where I ramble, huh? There is no plan here? This is mostly just season 1 stuff because that's where I am in my very slow attempt at fic writing.

They very much have a Lois and Clark vibe to me and that is one of my foundational OTPs, so.

She's too smart and sharp for almost everyone else she's ever met but that is in fact what he likes about her. He's deeply impossibly committed to actually being nice and kind and doing the right thing ALL THE TIME without any ability to tell how that's even more unusual than his superpowers absurd good looks and physical abilities and she recognizes that about him.

Ricky is not subtle about his crush on Esther, but he is completely respectful about it. He texts her whenever he has a thought, but that's because he wants her thoughts back, not because he's trying to make her think about him, if that makes sense?

I spent most of the first campaign being very 'she likes him back?' but not sure if I really thought that based on anything she was doing, or I thought that was how the story was being built/structured and it was just gonna... happen. And I was honestly fine with that because Brennan and Zac have such good chemistry, plus the aforementioned respect in approaching the relationship, so I was just gonna take what I got and be happy about it.

BUT on a rewatch (or transcript re-read on the wiki) it becomes increasingly obvious surprisingly early that she is INCREDIBLY KEYED IN ON RICKY AT ALL TIMES and it makes me *pterodactyl screech* a lot A LOT A LOT:

See how quickly she responds to all his texts every time! In group settings even if she hasn't said anything lately she'll usually answer a Ricky-question before anyone else can! She legitimately seems to enjoy figuring out how to rephrase things she's said that were too academic for him to follow!

Like, she's not just humoring him, she is in fact interested in how his mind works and the way he feels his way around information whether or not he understands it in at all the way that she does.

Usually not, obviously, but that doesn't mean his perspective isn't valuable to her.

And also funny, sometimes entirely on purpose, which is again a Lois/Clark thing because Clark is absolutely a bit of a troll about making terrible Superman jokes for no one except himself and eventually also Lois, and Ricky and Esther give me the same "we're in this nonsense together" vibes whenever Zac managed an especially good dumb-but-hilarious-and-not-actually-stupid Ricky line.

I guess what I'm getting at there is that, even beyond the quality chemistry and adorkableness, they genuinely enjoy each other's company, yk? They like each other even when there's an invisible barrier that the audience (and Ricky) can only sort of tell is there that prevents a deeper relationship/understanding during s1.

There's a really good line in a fic, tenets of devotion by fensandmarshes: "[Ricky] took his Oath of Redemption to the world; he took Devotion to Esther, he thinks, no matter that that’s not really a thing." which is I think incredibly accurate and is a thing I am weak for, the conscious deliberate explicit choice to devote yourself to a person because they are perfect for you (even if you are completely aware of their supposed flaws and weaknesses and humanity at the same time). THEY'RE BOTH JUST SO COMMITTED Y'ALL, I'M LOVE THEM.

While I have no problem with inter-party romance and am deeply fond of battle couples and all that stuff, I do think it's important that Esther is not an active party member, and while incredibly competent at it, is not explicitly designed for combat in the same way the PCs are, because despite his skillset, Ricky is pretty damn conflict adverse personality-wise, so it's nice his partner is a research nerd and not usually a combatant.

Because Ricky never wanted a blade. He accepted the Questing Blade but he didn't choose it, it chose him. (Obviously his weapon-searching-arc in s2 makes me feral. Someday I will manage fic about it, hopefully?)

This is a recurring theme in TUC actually, that except for Cody who is definitely the other side of that coin on purpose (sorry not sorry) most of the PCs and their primary NPC friends/relatives/whatever did not go looking for magic or power, but DID accept the responsibility once it happened. (This adds a nice depth to their relationship, the fact that part of why they're careful getting together is that sense of responsibility, so I'm including it here even though it's more about the setting/campaigns rather than Ricky/Esther specifically.)

They have not even been on a date and her curse is broken and they are immediately "let's live a dangerous life together" aka they are my favorite kind of batshit, 100/10, no notes

(I mean, obviously I have a lot of notes. I have all these things I just wrote down, and a fic about the almost-year before s1, and one about the campaign itself from Esther's POV, and a thing about Ricky cataloguing all the ways he'd broken the tenets of his Paladin Devotion Oath as part of his transition to Redemption, and a thing that takes place between campaigns that is mostly smut and crying for probably obvious reasons, and a s2 epilogue mostly about the proposal, (not currently anything during s2 unlike Esther's POV for s1, but I suppose that might change if I ever figure out the stuff that takes place before it), and possibly an AU where the curse wasn't broken before the final battle so when Ricky dies, Esther falls, and an entirely different Curse Breaking Thing After That, so.

So many notes.)

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[shadesofmauve]

I want to step away from the art-vs-artist side of the Gaiman issue for a bit, and talk about, well, the rest of it. Because those emotions you're feeling would be the same without the art; the art just adds another layer.

Source: I worked with a guy who turned out to be heavily involved in an international, multi-state sex-slavery/trafficking ring.

He was really nice.

Yeah.

It hits like a dumptruck of shit. You don't feel stable in your world anymore. How could someone you interacted with, liked, also be a truly horrible person? How could your judgement be that bad? How can real people, not stylized cartoon bogeymen, be actually doing this shit?

You have to sit with the fact that you couldn't, or probably couldn't, have known. You should have no guilt as part of this horror — but guilt is almost certainly part of that mess you're feeling, because our brains do this associative thing, and somehow "I liked [the version of] the guy [that I knew]", or his creations, becomes "I made a horrible mistake and should feel guilty."

You didn't, loves, you didn't.

We're human, and we can only go by the information we have. And the information we have is only the smallest glimpse into someone else's life.

I didn't work closely with the guy I knew at work, but we chatted. He wasn't just nice; he was one of the only people outside my tiny department who seemed genuinely nice in a workplace that was rapidly becoming incredibly toxic. He loaned me a bike trainer. Occasionally he'd see me at the bus stop and give me a lift home.

Yup. I was a young woman in my twenties and rode in this guy's car. More than once.

When I tell this story that part usually makes people gasp. "You must feel so scared about what could have happened to you!" "You're so lucky nothing happened!"

No, that's not how it worked. I was never in danger. This guy targeted Korean women with little-to-no English who were coerced and powerless. A white, fluent, US citizen coworker wasn't a potential victim. I got to be a person, not prey.

Y'know that little warning bell that goes off, when you're around someone who might be a danger to you? That animal sense that says "Something is off here, watch out"?

Yeah, that doesn't ping if the preferred prey isn't around.

That's what rattled me the most about this. I liked to think of myself as willing to stand up for people with less power than me. I worked with Japanese exchange students in college and put myself bodily between them and creeps, and I sure as hell got that little alarm when some asian-schoolgirl fetishist schmoozed on them. But we were all there.

I had to learn that the alarm won't go off when the hunter isn't hunting. That it's not the solid indicator I might've thought it was. That sometimes this is what the privilege of not being prey does; it completely masks your ability to detect the horrors that are going on.

A lot of people point out that 'people like that' have amazing charisma and ability to lie and manipulate, and that's true. Anyone who's gotten away with this shit for decades is going to be way smoother than the pathetic little hangers-on I dealt with in university. But it's not just that. I seriously, deeply believe that he saw me as a person, and he did not extend personhood to his victims. We didn't have a fake coworker relationship. We had a real one. And just like I don't know the ins-and-outs of most of my coworkers lives, I had no idea that what he did on his down time was perpetrate horrors.

I know this is getting off the topic, but it's so very important. Especially as a message to cis guys: please understand that you won't recognize a creep the way you might think you will. If you're not the preferred prey, the hind-brain alarm won't go off. You have to listen to victims, not your gut feeling that the person seems perfectly nice and normal. It doesn't mean there's never a false accusation, but face the fact that it's usually real, and you don't have enough information to say otherwise.

So, yeah. It fucking sucks. Writing about this twists my insides into tense knots, and it was almost a decade ago. I was never in danger. No one I knew was hurt!

Just countless, powerless women, horrifically abused by someone who was nice to me.

You don't trust your own judgement quite the same way, after. And as utterly shitty as it is, as twisted up and unstead-in-the-world as I felt the day I found out — I don't actually think that's a bad thing.

I think we all need to question our own judgement. It makes us better people.

I don't see villains around every corner just because I knew one, once. But I do own the fact that I can't know, really know, about anyone except those closest to me. They have their own full lives. They'll go from the pinnacles of kindness to the depths of depravity — and I won't know.

It's not a failing. It's just being human. Something to remember before you slap labels on people, before you condemn them or idolize them. Think about how much you can't know, and how flawed our judgement always is.

Grieve for victims, and the feeling of betrayal. But maybe let yourself off the hook, and be a bit slower to skewer others on it.

[prismsoup]

Watched the horrible minecraft movie trailer </3 My friends and I decided to make this stupid thing while suffering Bingo to find out how bad that movie is actually going to be

@a-witch-in-a-dumpster thank you for half the ideas <3

[galaxylover06]

Their name is Barry and they can't escape the digital cir

[anniflamma]

Y'all asked for a part 2 of Odysseus seducing Zeus. This is all you get. .... Part 3

[spacerockband]

Quetzalcoatlus! poised to spear her prey!

[bixels]

me too, luna.

[pepurika]

Manticores from a future knight comic!!

[dormatheus]

Later the lamb would just think that the real thing is nicer than the gaunlet idk

I gave up so fast holy shit

-💊

[gongyussy]

if nothing else can save america this zero-year-old fairy baby otter with no gender can. chiitan's platform is love. and chaos.

[420technoblazeit]

has anybody else seen the bit in tommy's new video yet. where he asks mumbo jumbo if he can revive technoblade with redstone. bc that actually made my jaw DROP hol yshit. the pause just before he says it. you can hear the gears turning in phil's head as he realizes what tommy's about to say. the immediate psychic damage. truly horrid thank you tommy. ik techno would be losing it over that joke

[keferon]

Don’t mind me I just like to see him go bananas about cartoonish Autobot rules

Maaan…..if Prowl was in tfp he would spontaneously combust at least once a day

[bagofmice]

*scribbles on him**scribbles on him**scribbles on him**scribbles on him*

white tattos version

[weaselmcdiesel]

Do You Love The Color Of The 413?

[goosologist]

(How weird! To be noticed, and known!)