#the narrative is shipping them and I hate it

[utilitycaster]

How did you feel about the end of c2? This time around it seems the discontent is c3 was was a poorly made story with narrative failure. Less outright attacks at the cast. I remember c2 ending with people expressing much more personal hurt and anguish, cries of homophobia, ship discourse and the cast was directly attacked more. C3 is the characters are bad. C2 was the cast is bad. Personally I liked c2's ending but meh on c3.

I loved the ending of C2! You can go back to my archives of early June 2021 to get the full rundown, but I thought it was phenomenal.

I'm going to keep this brief because I've said it before: Campaign 2's haters at the time were either people who were mired in bitter shipping wars that were largely due to their own immersion in echo chambers during the extended hiatus and who already had a history of harassing the cast; or people who uh, think that if a character dies and remains dead it is a failure to be rectified and failing that, punished.

Campaign 3 didn't really have ship wars at all because frankly there weren't sufficiently rich character dynamics to justify them, and most of the people, such as myself, who felt Campaign 3 had a burnt crust and a raw inside are not the sort of people who would send the cast hate, because we are adults who do not do that sort of thing. Were the cast to manifest in my apartment physically and say "Ms Utilitycaster, how did you like the finale?" I'd say "it was pretty bad, and the campaign overall is a distant third of your three main campaigns in terms of quality, would you like to hear my thoughts in depth" but I'm not going to like, @ them on Twitter because who the fuck does that. So yeah I think the lack of hate towards the cast for C3 is not an indication of higher quality of the work so much as an indication of the higher quality of Critical Role fans who disliked it.

[iwasbored777]

This is kinda a ramble but while I understand some people don't like romance or Sonamy in the Sonic movies, I think it's really dumb to say that the movies will be bad because of it.

Because my immediate response is: pal, have you never watched Across the Spider-Verse and the masterfully written couple, Ghostflower? Hell, Sonamy can easily have that level of development because the secret to Miles and Gwen's relationship working so well in the movies is because it's an integral part of the narrative. That's it, that's the secret. And ATSV handled the family theme and several other characters well too. Sonic can too. So yes, saying that Sonamy will ruin the 4th movie is a big fallacy. The fault is never the type of couple but how well written it is.

Warning: Positive Sonamy content!

If this really becomes canon, I can't wait to see Sonic and Amy having a crush on each other. I'm so ready. I bet that Sonic will be HILARIOUS while trying to flirt, like, I already know that I'm gonna laugh a lot. I can't wait to see how his family will react too. Unlike some fans, I'm not worried if the writers will do Amy justice because these are Sonic The Hedgehog movie writers, for Christ's sake. They fleshed out their characters so well, even the original characters that weren't in the games.

I understand that there will be ship wars because many people ship Sonic with Shadow. It's ok to not like Sonamy if that's not your thing but if Sonamy really becomes canon I hope that Amy won't get hate for being with Sonic like Gwen is getting hate in Spiderverse fandom mostly because they ship other characters with Miles (since you've mentioned Spiderverse). And, while I don't like some things about how writers handled their relationship in Across The Spiderverse, Gwen and Miles are very much a proof that you can make a good story with a complicated romantic subplot (I mean, I was shipping them so hard that I was whining for months because they didn't become a couple in ATSV 😂). Spiderverse fandom has already pushed me away lately with how they're treating Gwen and I desperately hope that Sonic fandom won't be like that because this is my favourite fandom so far and I have a good feeling that I'll love Amy a lot. I doubt that Sonic and Amy will have such a complicated Gwiles type of a relationship with angst and all, but I think that they will be cute to watch.

Sonic movies have always been about found family and all kinds of love (romantic, platonic, parental and such). I don't see a problem with them continuing that tradition - actually, that's exactly what makes them so good and they proved that they can handle all these relationships well.

I know people are worried about the sudden change in the story if the main character gets a romantic subplot, but I think that it will be a very fun thing to see and like I said, we can trust the writers. Sonic is growing up and it's natural for him to start developing a crush. We should be thankful that they're not trying to give him a human girlfriend, like some other franchises do with non-human characters who are growing up with humans. That would be bizarre, honestly. Amy will totally be a good match for him.

[adorawasright]

ppl tend to act like you're exaggerating for disliking spop, since they love arguing "but it's a show about (romantic) love and redemption! you're just mad to see lesbians winning <3"

but the thing is, c//a ISN'T the only issue with spop.

it's all the "friendships" where the characters don't like each other OR WORSE, the "cool and popular" characters bully the ones that are "weird", "annoying" or "different" overall (read: entrapta and kyle).

most romantic relationships weren't written well or were downright forced, such as g/limbow, s/corfuma, and especially r/epkylonnie (rooted in bullying of all things!). even the healthier ships like s/pinnetossa or bow's dads were sidelined. they only gave spinnerella and netossa screentime in s5 bc they wanted to parallel them with adora and catra.

the diversity isn't even that good, honestly. the characters of color receive little to no love from the show and from the fandom. BOW, my god, he's not only the black best friend character, he also has no meaningful character arc. he's just there for the plot, he changes his personality and morals when the plot wants him to (especially to make catra look better). although glimmer was probably one of, if not THE best character in the show (saying this with s4 in mind), sadly s5 only shoved her with bow romantically since they were reduced to wingmen and not adora's actual best friends. and if i talk about the other characters of color, such as micah and castaspella, we'll be here all day, and i've written about it in other posts.

other than that, disabled characters (hordak and shadow weaver) are the villains, the canonical trans/non-binary character was deceiving the good guys by pretending to be a little girl, the themes of war were never taken srsly, only when it was convenient, and in the end the creator dared to sum everything up by "it's catra's and adora's show!!!".

yes, there were elements in spop that i loved, like the original best friends squad and entrapdak, and i liked the narrative of abuse when it DIDN'T spit on adora's face. i loved seeing her standing up to shadow weaver and catra for what she believed was right. like it was so inspiring! i would've loved this as a kid!

this show had so much potential but they teach the worst messages to kids, especially "they hit you because they secretly like you". that fucking sucks. i don't hate lgbtqiapn+ rep - the rep here is BAD. and again, the grievances ppl have with spop are BEYOND the romance!!!

[mamawasatesttube]

Are you still accepting asks for the ship ask game? Bc if so what are your thoughts on TimSteph?

oh sure, i'll take it!!

Don’t Ship It (gently)

1. Why don’t you ship it?

so when i say i don't ship it i mean like... i like what they had in canon vis a vis "childhood sweethearts driven apart by The Horrors and they can never go back". i love divorce.

but also if i'm being honest, a lot of chuck dixon's writing of steph was really grating to me - the way he bashed ari and later zoanne to prop up steph as the Correct/Better tim love interest (she's Quirky and Fun and #NotLikeOtherGirls!!!) left a kinda bitter taste in my mouth, and made it a lot harder for me to actually like steph or tim/steph as a ship, tbh. and it's really not steph's fault she got juggled from misogynistic shithead writer to misogynistic shithead writer, but it did mean that plotlines like "steph becomes robin in order to spite tim because she saw darla kiss him against his will and didn't stop to ask any questions. this is how teen girls behave right?" made me so tired in robin '93. i honestly enjoyed the times she got to appear without tim more than their relationship, for the most part, but ... oof.

2. What would have made you like it?

lewis getting to write more than like 20 issues of the run before fucking willingham showed up lmao. lewis run was the first time in robin '93 that i actually liked seeing tim and steph together or felt like steph even had much of a character. which is wild because dixon is the one who created her! it's just that dixon only knows how to write two kinds of women: "the old ball and chain" and "quirky whitegirl who throws herself at robin do you like her do you like her do you like her you have to like her!!!!"

as opposed to lewis, who actually gave her depth, like... explained some of how her dad made her childhood shit, went into her complex feelings on him and her relationship with her mom, and made it actually read like she and tim enjoyed spending time with each other, not just "he was a boy. she was a girl. can i make it any more obvious." if he'd stuck on the book i probably would like tim/steph way more than i do.

3. Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

oh sure! i think tim and steph have a fascinating dynamic. when you pick through all the issues with dixon and with willingham and with war games and all the writers that could not stop hating steph for the crime of being a girl (which... is a pretty tall order because jesus christ so many of them wrote her so shittily), you can kinda piece together a narrative that is really juicy.

my possibly unpopular steph take is that while i know her post war games and resurrection writing was not very good, i do actually find it compelling that she set assassins on tim at bruce's orders. i think having such a demonstrable and visible example of bruce being the driving force behind every single nail in the coffin of their relationship is fun. like, to me, timsteph is a formative relationship, but never an endgame one. there's a lot of fun stuff to say about them! i just unfortunately struggle to really enjoy picking through the mess of how steph has been written, so they don't compel me all that much.

[crimeronan]

my most irritating severance theory is that "gemma" was never real and that she's a carbon copy of dichen lachman's character in dollhouse, who was a tabula rasa woman living in a hole that could be programmed with different personalities to fuck rich clients. i'm like 99% sure this is what "exports" are -- it's lumen shipping pre-downloaded sexbots with custom human personalities out to people. and/or using those sexbots for the company's own manipulative agenda.

in keeping with this, the entire relationship and """death""" and subsequent soulshattering grief were all painstakingly manufactured by lumen to get mark scout to sever himself, because for some fucking reason, he's the only one who can complete project cold harbor, whatever the Fuck that is. (i have not been in any theory tags and do not have any ideas about what it is or why mark s is special. or even IF he's special.)

then once mark finds out that gemma isn't real, his feelings for and about her will vanish in an uncomplicated puff of smoke. he will become miraculously free to continue his deeply fucked-up """love triangle""" with the helltwins without needing to answer any complicated questions about, like, the self, and his emotions, and his commitments, and polyamory.

(the helltwins don't count as complicated relationship dynamics because they are the same person, aside from not being the same person, and they hate each other, and also most importantly, mark absolutely Does Not Want to fuck one of them. hurrah!)

this theory irritates the fuck out of me bc i really do think i'm right about gemma. and this "twist," as a way to avoid any interesting themes, would be the laziest, most boring thing they could Possibly do.

i am on my fucking Knees praying to god that they KNOW this is the laziest, most boring thing they could possibly do. Please, God, If You Love Me. Please. Please Don't .

...

HOWEVER.

i WILL accept the lumon-engineered-a-sexbot-relationship-to-coerce-mark-into-severance plot, IF and ONLY if:

gemma is a person.

not like, gemma is a human being whose outie parents aren't actors. i mean, gemma is an artificial sexbot with a nonconsensually programmed personality, AND gemma is a fully sentient living breathing person. who wants her life back. who wants her AUTONOMY back. who is just now learning that she Literally Never Had Autonomy In The First Place.

we, as the audience, get to see her reckon with her identity. we're used to innies being the most oppressed class in the show, but gemma is something else entirely. even less than an innie. she is, legally and corporately, Nothing. she is an object built to serve lumon (and, upsettingly, mark!) without any sense of interiority or free will.

but here she is. having interiority and free will.

if the writers take the themes of personhood and "what is identity?" and "how do we define each other?" to their logical conclusion, by making gemma a non-person who Absolutely Fucking Is A Person....

and so we get to See Her be absolutely fucking MESSY and WRECKED and COMPLICATED, instead of always being the laughing dead wife or the gentle vapid servant....

if gemma Gets An Arc. if gemma makes Choices. if gemma has Motivations and Desires and Fuckups. if gemma gets to be centered in the narrative thematically, the same way the other innies are, if gemma gets to drive the story Herself instead of being the carrot on a stick for mark...

well. then the writers will have my heart. 5eva.

🙏🙏🙏

[dearweirdme]

Sorry I'm sure you're tired of the airport head kiss asks. But my opinion is that if it were ANY other pairing from BTS everyone would most likely be agreeing it was a kiss. But since it's taekook ppl need to argue that it's anything but. It's exhausting being a tkkr sometimes... 🙄

Hi anon!

I think the issue is, that people think we’re claiming a definite romantic acts here.. and they’re partly right.. because within my believes about Tae and Jk I do think there’s things they do that are romantic. I don’t claim this moment as something inherently romantic though, but rather of their closeness and how they want to show that. That one anon’s ‘openly kissing in a public place’ is willfully turning our thoughts into something they are not. They wouldn’t say something like this about Tae kissing Jin on his head during a live.

Going to go a bit ranty here, because yesterday’s conversation has me thinking a lot…

None of the tkkrs I know are on here trying to figure out whether it’s Taekook or if it’s jikook. I’m sure there’s a subsection of fandom somewhere where that happens, but it’s very far from what we encounter here. It’s also not a mindset that I find agreeable, because it seems to originate from wanting to ship in general rather than actually seeing something special between two persons. What I am doing here and what most of us are doing here is looking at Tae and Jk and thinking about the extent of their relationship. Jkk is not a factor in that at all. For me Jm’s place in this is as both Jk and Tae’s friend and bandmember. Jkk as a fandom is spoken about because that fandom causes false narratives and hate, not because their ship ‘triggers me because deep inside I know it’s real’.

Talk about closeting comes with a lot of grey area imo. There’s a big deal of space between someone in a country where there’s a death penalty for being queer and who’s closeted and someone being closeted because their advisors tell them it’s bad for business. Both are horrible imo, and both can be extremely damaging on a personal level. It’s hard to speak about being privileged when it come to a closeted person, but at the same time I think such privilege does exist. It exists because aside from being queer.. there’s other factors that make up a person. Tae and Jk have the privilege of wealth and of having a great network of friends and family. I love knowing they have this privilege. I think it allows them some peace in a messed up situation that has harmed them immensely. I think they would have been out had it not been for their careers. Neither one of them is actually afraid of being seen as queer imo. What they’re afraid of is losing their careers and the effect it will have on BTS as a whole and the good they do through BTS. It’s also very much a question if their contract (which will have image clauses) allows them to be out at all. When I look at Tae especially, he’s not been afraid to show his queer self at all.. so I think there’s space that allows for signals.

I see their situation like this: there are things they definitely can’t do. Living together publicly, enlisting together, obviously romantic acts like kissing on the lips, telling the world they are queer, things that fall in that category in general.

There are also things Hybe hasn’t allowed, but that I feel would have been manageable. A taekook collab. Being portrayed as close friends throughout.

The grey area would be things that shows them as close, but not necessarily romantically involved. This is a huge area in my opinion and the reason why there’s so much discussion on ‘are they, aren’t they’. It’s why at times we see things that make us go 😳 (like hearing a person sleep next to Tae, and the sweetheart shirts, and the airport kiss, and Jk flying to Hawaii) but other times we have mentions of ‘why doesn’t Jk support Tae more’. It’s stuff that’s highly dependent on moments. Stuff that has temporary impact, but not much in the long run (like enlisting together will have).

This is what I apply to both Tkk and Jkk. There are things that I know can’t happen and there’s grey space.

Imagine for a bit being them. Being young, in one of the most popular bands in the world, still on a rise to more fame…. And you fall in love with each other. So deeply in love, it’s impossible not to be together, because you aren’t even able to stay away on a practical level. The company catches on.. what does your boss tell you? Does he tell you to hide and be professional or else you’re putting your (and your member’s) career at risk? Or does your boss go and allow you to publish footage of your romantic getaway to Tokyo for everyone to see? Does your boss give you boundaries to what you can do together or does he put a spotlight on the two of you as a duo?

It is exhausting to be a tkkr at times. I know I have gone through periods of huge fandom fatigue (honestly have only found pleasure in blogging back only recently) because of it. The exhaustion that comes from people trying to place what we say in black and whites, people willfully bending our words or only pointing out one specific sentence without looking at what we say as a whole. Tkk is a very sensitive topic for many. I try to balance my own peace and allowing for interesting conversations and different opinions, but it is hard at times. I’m at times too trusting, at times too reactive, at times I do get triggered. What’s helped me a lot though is just keeping my focus on Tae and Jk. Them together, but also them as individuals just give me such joy.. that truly trumps fandom shenanigans for me every time.

[scorpi14]

I never said he didn't do anything wrong. I said he didn't stab Thing because he didn't. Logically it doesn't make sense given what I said in my original post. If you want to harp on him being an accomplice, fine. Go for it. I won't argue that since he was providing a distraction.

I kind of amazes me you only care that he's a killer and don't care about the grooming or the lack of will a Hyde has, which by the way is a canon fact. No speculation needed for that it's stated point blank. We also know Laurel told him to kill because she needed certain body parts for the ritual, and needed Eugene killed to keep her secret (which btw he wasn't killed. Kinda crazy huh?). Again... none of those are speculation. Every detail might not be shown in your face, but enough is given for you to figure it out.

And if you want to harp on the whole scene about him saying he enjoys it, well I'm not gonna get into that because we'll get into the 'speculation' part you don't really like. And I'm not gonna claim Tyler did nothing wrong. He lied. He hurt people. He killed. He should have to take accountability for that, even if it was against his will because of the Hyde control thing.

I just choose to see the more nuanced and fucked up narrative surrounding him, instead of falling onto the 'well he's a killer he's bad he should die' that so many people here seem to blindly fall in to.

And it's not even about Wyler. Is that my ship? Certainly. But I'd rather see Wednesday hate him forever/them never end up together and Tyler get a proper redemption arc and justice for what he went through, than see the psycho murder couple live happily ever after.

Tyler did NOT stab Thing

For everyone who thinks Tyler stabbed Thing, there is NO way it could be him. He’s on his date with Wednesday when it happens, and with what he set up in the crypt, he wouldn’t have time to slip away and stab thing while Wednesday is on her way to meet him.

Miss Thornhill/Laurel Gates is the one who stabbed Thing. She has access to the room, and had the time to search for the diary because Wednesday was on a date and Enid had moved out.

So everyone hating on him for this act of violence can stop, because there is NO WAY it was him. 

Thanks for coming to my Tyler Talk.

[justatalkingface]

Himiko’s “thing” for Ochako always felt like it came out of nowhere to me. Like, we’re given reasons and justifications for her love for Izuku, but the Ochako thing felt like it just randomly happened, just because Horikoshi needed something for the two of them to do in the final battle, especially since it seems to have completely overshadowed her original thing for Izuku anyway

Hmm. I hate to disagree but, on Himiko's end at least, the fact it came out of nowhere made perfect sense because, well, it's Himiko. Part of her characterization is 'falling in love' with people more or less at random, and then using that 'love' as justification to hunt them down. (it's pretty clear to me that, among other things, her Quirk makes her look at people and, at some unconscious level, see them as 'food' as much as they are 'people'. No seriously, so much of Himiko is coded as a predator: stalking, mimicking, ambushing; these are all things that a predator will do to successfully hunt their prey. In all honesty, reading her as, like, a half-vampire or something, one that is badly raised and so doesn't properly understand her own motivations, makes so much of her actions make sense, because Himiko is mixing 'hunting' behaviors and desires with 'romantic' ones. Then, between the mechanics of her own Quirk, how feeding, which gave her positive feedback in both being full for once and doing something that is natural to her, turned her into someone else, and just how little understanding she has of herself and her own desires, all these various conflicting impulses eventually evolved into her 'love' and her obsession with being her 'loved one'.) So, Himiko 'loving' Ochako makes sense because she doesn't understand what love actually is, and the way she uses the word is basically a sort of personal slang for a combination of obsession, lust, and hunger. It's not someone genuinely falling in love, it's her predatory behavior locking onto another target, often for shallow reasons about her finding them attractive, so I'm sure as soon as she sees Izuku again, she'll refocus right back onto her other desired food source, and that much makes sense.

(Really though, when you look at her and what drives her seriously there's a fascinating story here, but Hori clearly can't be assed to actually do that in the slightest. Put her in a story that'd spend time on her motivations, like Tokyo Ghoul, and she'd fit a lot better.)

The problem is the narrative, because it keeps placing them together, and dramatically panning in on them, as if there are real feelings there. Not only that, it makes it seem like those feelings of Himiko's are, to an extent, returned when Ochako's interactions are dead ass, 'Hey, what if you stop murdering people alright?'

Until recently, there's been basiclly no justification for there being any sort of feelings between them, because one is channeling her usual stalker serial killer behavior, and the other is literally trying to arrest her, but it's just the narrative is just... shipping them so damn hard. At this point I'd swear it's going to start playing romantic music in background while it zooms in on their faces or something.

Worst part, though, is just as Himiko has her 'big moment of villainy' (which is terrible on so many levels), it feels like Ochako is.... giving into the narrative's peer pressure, at least in part, and trying to approach Himiko as more than just the hero trying to stop her, between being concerned about her tears and apparently unironically wanting to talk about love with her, when before I thought it was her frantically trying to distract Himiko while she was on Twice Time. And that? That has no real support anywhere in story, beyond in the most meta of senses the story itself, and feels just a few steps below the author physically pushing their heads together and saying, 'Now kiss'.

[cursedshrines]

of course the show that is fundamentally centered around two sisters and their tragedies becomes centered around men and said sisters are sidelined and their arcs are pushed to the sidelines and all the phenomenal care that went into their characters went down the drain. ​one’s arc is literally “the traumatized / mentally unwell character’s happy ending is committing suicide because they are simply too broken to heal and be happy” trope, and her mental instability is forgotten. the other is reduced to a mere plot device, has no agency of her own, and her trauma and anger is treated like a complete and utter joke for the sake of a shitty ship, and because the writers literally, point blank, were bored with her. it’s so sad because the tragedy of these sisters is so utterly devastating, so encompassing and so intricately woven into the narrative. but make it about two men i suppose?

[nyxi-pixie]

hello average tumblr user. in front of you is a femslash rarepair. your challenge is to not start psychoanalysing its fans and saying they only pretend to like it to score social points, not depart from your 'shipping is for fun people can do what they want' view of mlm rarepairs, and not start randomly commenting on posts about them how you actually prefer those female characters with men who are or are not important to their characters. Live or die. Go.

[sir-fenris]

Took me a little while to get to this 'cause my head was elsewhere yesterday, but I'm always here for the commmentary :D

I'm in the middle of an allergy attack and running on 4 hours of sleep, I'm gonna do my best.

Vi had lied to him, essentially. Paris was a prisoner just as long as he was here. But, as she reminded him frequently, he could leave at any time. They’d give him his sword back at the door. They’d take it away at the next base they crashed into. 

Lorelai was in her element, though. She was one of them now, clear as day. There was a little medallion around her neck, the gold markings which he recognized as distinctly imperial.

So funny to see Paris thinking about his kinda imprisonment, and then Lorelai is just having the time of her life.

He indulged her. He had to. And it was good for him too, to see the last stop before leaving Empire. Some kind of closure. One last goodbye.

I love Paris "having to" do stuff, it's delightful. Especially about Lorelai.

And love closure 👏👏 I know not always it's realistic to have one, but I really enjoy closure in whump.

It was a tundra. The frozen kind, though some stages were now in thaw. It was painfully beautiful. 

Ohhhh you didn't............ 😵‍💫

Only in the middle of the night, when they were already tangled in between each other’s limbs, did he realize the fever was upon him.

Own, Paris has a fever? Fucking god, he can't have one chapter of peace 🤣

“It’s my ship,” she said, the same way she ended all her arguments. “I could leave anytime I wanted. Why are you always trying to get rid of me?”

He desperately did not want to be rid of her. 

Then, as if reading his mind: “You give yourself way too much credit. I wanted this too.”

Well, Paris does actually give himself "too much credit" (I would say too much guilt). but that's to be expected after everything.

He wondered if he regretted it. Really, he regretted everything.

There we go. Love love love. Whumperflies.

If she was surprised by the change in topic, she didn’t show it. He suspected she wasn’t shocked at all. Delta was on the cusp of his thoughts, all the time.  Everything lead back to him. Lorelai raised one eyebrow at the new proclamation.

I need to say it.

👏HAUNTING👏THE👏FUCKING👏NARRATIVE👏

🗣AAAAAAAAAA

He didn’t mean to say that last part. Because he had killed Delta — and it had not felt kind. The ice felt colder beneath him as he went on.

Oh my fucking god, I need him metting face to face alive Delta so much, please, please, please, please.

I LOVE THE GUILT <333333

She barely reacted. He thought she might argue. Maybe he wanted her to. Maybe she saw another way out, some path that he didn’t. If he could do it all over, what would he change? Or would he always end up here — and Delta, dead on the ocean floor?

I'm......... AAAAAAAAAAAAA-

“They told me I needed to. It’s his conditioning. He needed to feel powerless, all the time, or he would stop working. I was fucking terrified of what would happen if I lost control of him, if I lost the only edge I had. I was scared of him. And I needed him.”

“I hated needing. I hated feeling like I was losing control. And that’s all I was doing, the entire time. Just losing control, constantly. Over everything. Over myself.”

THIS IS FUCKING AMAZING AAAAAAAAAA-

I'M KICKING MY FLWOWOWIRJDIAOQOKW GIGGLING

No words, just feelings. Fucking christ.

“I’m sorry, Lorelai. For everything.

I wish I could take it back.”

this is effectively the final chapter of Crash Out

paris and lorelai will return in Destroyer

I'M DYING WITH THIS OMG YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME HANGING LIKE THIS-

-

Just a reblog and like isn't enough for the last chapter.

Here it is the super like, super kudos, super heart of "I really liked this"

Very very excited about what comes next (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)

Crash Out - Love

(Content: fever, drug mention, bruises, discussions of past abuse, guilt)

He was in and out of sleep for a long time. He remained supervised. They didn’t trust him with as much rope as he could hang himself with. 

Vi had lied to him, essentially. Paris was a prisoner just as long as he was here. But, as she reminded him frequently, he could leave at any time. They’d give him his sword back at the door. They’d take it away at the next base they crashed into. 

Lorelai was in her element, though. She was one of them now, clear as day. There was a little medallion around her neck, the gold markings which he recognized as distinctly imperial.

“Did you scavenge that off a corpse?” he asked.

He had meant it as a joke.

He got the distinct sense that he had killed something beautiful. Like setting a butterfly on fire. Had she been changing all this time?

And yet she didn’t leave him. She changed all the time, but that didn’t. Over the border was still the goalpost. CTRL sheltered them at most stops. She’s their own now, of course she can stay. He offered what he could — intel when he had it, labor when he didn’t, when his body allowed him to. Sometimes he merely slept, looking sheepishly at the night guard for the time they were both wasting.

The border was a stone’s throw away and she wanted to make one last stop. 

He indulged her. He had to. And it was good for him too, to see the last stop before leaving Empire. Some kind of closure. One last goodbye.

It was a tundra. The frozen kind, though some stages were now in thaw. It was painfully beautiful. 

She had an eye for it more than he did. He’d have followed her up into the mountains and along the frozen stream, walked the whole length of tundra ten time over. Anything. Lorelai pulled winter weeds out from the ground to press into the journal she still carried. Small, living things dashed across the dead-land. Foxes and rabbits. Owls and swans. Living things, not so unlike them. Hot blood flowed through all of them, proof they still existed. Alive.

It was her idea to break into the cabin, which to him did not seem very altruistic, but he had no better ideas. Luckily enough, it was empty, seemingly abandoned for a time. They’d get better use of it.

Only in the middle of the night, when they were already tangled in between each other’s limbs, did he realize the fever was upon him.

A real one, this time. Not induced, not even dopesick. An honest to god fever.

Paris stood up blearily, feeling some of the heat recede when he’d detached from her body, but not much. It was still bright outside, something to do with the equinox. The sky was an odd, soft color. It was freezing out, which felt nice against his flushed skin. Lorelai groaned slightly from the bed. She wrapped the blanket tighter around herself before she shuffled over to the door. At that point, he’d already stepped out.

Paris was on his knees in the snow. He pressed some of it to his face, still appreciating the contrast between the cold and the burning. It felt nice. It was strange, the things that felt nice to him now. As the last dregs of the drugs cycled out from his body, he found pleasures unmuted in their absence.

“You okay?” she called from the doorway. She was barefoot by the entrance, where the carpet was still warm.

He nodded, though he probably wasn’t. The fever was cooking his brain. 

The blanket hung off her bare shoulder. He hadn’t seen it as well in the dark, but the bruises marked her skin just as much as the love bites. She’d been busy. She’d been through a lot.

“I’m sorry for dragging you out here,” he blurted out. He’d been meaning to say it for a while. 

“What?” She blinked. “I wanted to come. This was my idea.”

“But you didn’t know what you were getting into. I didn’t tell you anything. It was taking advantage.”

“Did you know?”

He shook his head

“I knew it would be bad. I didn’t know it would be like this.”

“It’s my ship,” she said, the same way she ended all her arguments. “I could leave anytime I wanted. Why are you always trying to get rid of me?”

He desperately did not want to be rid of her. 

“I don’t understand you.” he said. He couldn’t fathom the thought of anyone staying with him by choice. If he could’ve left himself behind, he would’ve. He’d have done it in a heartbeat.

“What part don’t you get?” she asked. It tickled him how annoyed she sounded then. Like her clarity was being taken for granted. 

Then, as if reading his mind: “You give yourself way too much credit. I wanted this too.”

“This?” he laughed.

“Not all of it. I never wanted you to get hurt, Paris. I just wanted us to get out. I didn’t know how hard it would fight to keep you.”

A pause. She said:

“I had fun, though. Is that horrible to say? I had fun. I don’t regret it.”

He wondered if he regretted it. Really, he regretted everything.

When he didn’t answer for a while, she sat down on the wooden steps. The blanket shielded her from the cold contact. She lit up a cigarette, holding it delicately between her lips.

Another pause. He said:

“…You know I couldn’t have let him go, right?”

If she was surprised by the change in topic, she didn’t show it. He suspected she wasn’t shocked at all. Delta was on the cusp of his thoughts, all the time.  Everything lead back to him. Lorelai raised one eyebrow at the new proclamation.

“I couldn’t just let him go,” Paris said, because he had been thinking a lot about it. “He was too dangerous. Nobody would ever let that kind of power live in peace. He would have always be wanted, always somebody’s captive. He never could have had a happy life. It’s not his fault. He didn’t do anything to deserve it. But its true. There was never any hope for him. The kindest thing to do would have been to kill him.”

He didn’t mean to say that last part. Because he had killed Delta — and it had not felt kind. The ice felt colder beneath him as he went on.

“I know I didn’t have to treat him the way I did. I’m not saying anything about that. But yeah. I never could’ve let him go.”

Clearly.

“I don’t know. That’s beside the point, now.”

She barely reacted. He thought she might argue. Maybe he wanted her to. Maybe she saw another way out, some path that he didn’t. If he could do it all over, what would he change? Or would he always end up here — and Delta, dead on the ocean floor?

“Why did you treat him like that?” Lorelai asked, leaning forward slightly onto her knees. “…You didn’t have to.”

It felt like being stabbed. But it was a miracle he’d even avoided the question for this long. She’d been patient with him, endlessly. He could afford to be honest. The fever would make it so, regardless.

“I was so angry,” he admitted.

“All the time. At everything. I couldn’t stand it. I hated my life and I hated myself. I still hate myself. The only reason I had to live was to try to keep empire running — and I didn’t even want that. It felt like the whole place was fucking diseased. There was this rot at the center of the machine. He was just the worst of all of it, the worst thing it had ever created. It wasn’t his fault. I know that, it wasn’t his fault.”

“They told me I needed to. It’s his conditioning. He needed to feel powerless, all the time, or he would stop working. I was fucking terrified of what would happen if I lost control of him, if I lost the only edge I had. I was scared of him. And I needed him.”

“I hated needing. I hated feeling like I was losing control. And that’s all I was doing, the entire time. Just losing control, constantly. Over everything. Over myself.”

“It just became a habit, after a while. It started with just…punishment. Then it was just because he was there. Because I could.”

He was acutely aware of how cruel the word punishment sounded in his mouth. He was aware of how absurd it was, without any of the false authority he’d once put behind it. Who had he thought that he was? He’d never had the right.

He forced himself to look up at her, scared as he was of what he’d find. The scars of his body ached in the cold.

“I’m sorry, Lorelai. For everything.

I wish I could take it back.”

~~~~~~~

this is effectively the final chapter of Crash Out

paris and lorelai will return in Destroyer

tags:

@catnykit @snakebites-and-ink @scoundrelwithboba @whatwhump

@pumpkin-spice-whump @deluxewhump @fuckass1000 @fuckcapitalismasshole @defire

@micechomper @writereleaserepeat @aloafofbreadwithanxiety @whump-queen @sir-fenris

[sukibenders]

Intersectionality is something that, sadly, is often pushed to the side in Arcane discussions, specifically from a certain side of that fandom. They will go on and on about Viktor, as they usually do, talking about how he suffers from classicism and ableism within the show and fandom respectively (as they should as these are issues, but there is a catch when it comes to these fans as well), but when others in the fandom, especially Mel or even Sky fans, point out the racism and misogyny (misogynoir) that is often rampant in this fandom, particularly from said fans mentioned prior, all of a sudden its not possible or being overdramatized. Like they suddenly can't understand how some of their rhetoric includes or invites the same thing black fans have been calling out since the beginning, because how can you discuss the ableism and such that Viktor faces, but laugh or joke around with people who call Mel slurs or just denounce her to a trope? I thought you were for calling out forms of hate within fandom, or does your "activism" only stretch so far? And back to a previous statement, about the catch regarding those particularly fans----some of them regurgitate the same harmful rhetoric towards Viktor that they say they supposedly hate, just in mode subtle ways. How are you going to say you hate when Viktor is infantilized, but will be quick to forget he's a grown man who can defend himself (often when trying to pair him against Mel, framing her as the aggressor, and sometimes even Jayce too but to a lesser degree)? Not saying Jayce doesn't get equal amounts of hate, but his more so gets pushed aside along with his character to ultimately frame Viktor in higher regard, often making him ooc. It's like they pick and choose when the issues are prevalent, and when they aren't, and it's so frustrating.

[kna1lgrau]

it took me a while to put two and two together but. it's so painfully beautiful that the only thing Jellal remembered after all the brainwashing was Erza's name and the first memory that returned to him was connected to Erza's last name. :_) she's truly his light huh. :_) i think i'm gonna die.

[kismetconstellations]

☆.☆.☆

[fromtheseventhhell]

When Dany and Arya are the first Targaryen/Stark duo to interact and people start seeing the light on Daenarya >>>>>>

[thetwilightroadtonightfall]

so I’ve been trying to think of the best way to talk about Skuld’s fate for a while now and I think I’ve finally got it. My feelings about how she could be handled are a bit complicated (maybe even controversial? lol) but I hope I can make myself clear. This is essentially gonna be the post I point to whenever and if ever I need it later in the future. Thanks in advance if you read this!

If for whatever reason it’s confirmed that Skuld isn’t Subject χ and she gets together with Ephemer in canon (which I don’t believe will actually happen, but who knows), I do genuinely think there’d be something incredibly poetic about both of them leaving behind a legacy together.

Skuld as Subject χ is a super intriguing concept that I want to see get played out in canon, and even outside of that possibility, I would really love to just see her go on her own journey, have her own story where she can grapple with the events of khux in her own ways. But as someone who also happens to love her and Eph’s dynamic, I like to indulge in the possibility of them founding Scala together too.

Believe me when I say that I’m very skeptical of Skuld getting the credit and spotlight she deserves given the track record of how female characters are treated in this series. It would break my heart if Skuld got turned into an accessory or got shafted or worst case scenario, is used only to kickstart the Ephy lineage and nothing more outside of that. She deserves good, solid writing no matter what her fate is, I’m sure we can all agree on that at least.

And then there’s also the question of whether or not Nomura would ever establish a canon romantic relationship, and if he even should do that in the first place. I think it would be great, as long as it’s written in such a way that it doesn’t impede on the other types of relationships he’s already established. It could delve into some interesting new territory that can highlight the themes of kh, and make them even stronger and more profound. But you don’t absolutely need romance in order for that to be accomplished, ya feel?

Do I love Skuld and Eph together? Yes. Do I think they should be together (romantically) in canon? Not necessarily. You can both enjoy a ship AND recognize the nuances involved.

But anyway anywaaaaay, long disclaimers aside, these two characters have been through so much together…they witnessed two apocalypses. They’ve suffered the loss of a dear friend at their hands, along with their other friends as a result of horrible circumstances they had no control over. They stayed side by side as their home collapsed around and on them. But they also laughed together. They looked out for each other, stood up for each other. Encouraged and comforted and teased each other so they would smile.

From the very beginning, to the very end, they had each other over and over again. Clinging to hope with incredible resilience. From party members, to friends, to leaders. They’re both wonderful characters who I have no doubt would support each other throughout the rest of their lives, just as they always have.

I’ll be fine if a romance between them doesn’t become canon, in fact I’ll probably be pretty relieved. But I can’t deny that the idea of the two of them being entwined forever, bonded by the tragedies they’ve been through, yet also by all of their happy times and shared memories, is a beautiful thought to me.

Surviving to see the other side and building everything from the ground up again together, and seeing the legacy that follows their love, is a story worth telling, in my opinion. In the end, if that’s a story left to us fans to tell, that’s more than enough for me. We have so much to work with. Regardless of what Nomura and/or the rest of the writing team choose to do, I don’t need them to be a canon couple to enjoy the profound love and care they have for each other.

TL;DR - Whatever happens with Skuld, I’m down for the ride. As long as she’s present, period, I’m here for it. Just…please for the love of god, let her be written well. I miss her so much and I need all these years of loving her character to pay off