#the whole no metas vibe he had to me feels more like a safety thing

[tanglepelt]

Dc x dp idea 53

Jazz leaves amity for college. She did all the application and stuff via tuckers computer. For some reason nothing was going through on hers.

Due to majority of her extracurricular activists not being sent thought she didn’t get accepted to her top choices. Ended up going to Gotham u.

Things don’t add up. Leaving was a big deal. Like she ended up just going in the middle of night. The roads were closed for “construction”. They were absolutely fine when she ignored the signs and drove.

It took her less then a 6 hours to figure out amity couldn’t be contacted. She tried calling Danny upon getting to Gotham. Nothing. Research, nothing. It’s like the town didn’t exist.

She does have a communicator from tucker. One of the multi dimensional ones. She gets ahold of them just to hear the chaos. There is a hunt for her. Lockdowns. The whole town is shutdown.

She didn’t inform her parents where she was going. They only insisted she goes to the university in town and nowhere else. That could be the issue. She is 18 but they are extra special.

Obviously she’s gonna head back. What else’s is she supposed to do. She had to go get her brother and his friends. Do something. Authorities in amity never cared why would any outside force care. To bad her car suddenly doesn’t work.

Leads to her walking at night. Her goal is to find a rental car place or bus that maybe would be open late.

She doesn’t find a car or anything. But does punch a would be mugger. That punch back home would have not knocked a person back 5 feet into a wall. Were people here just that weak.

This leads to some guy in cosplay called Batman. Which come on that name is just as bad as box ghost. Telling her it’s not safe in Gotham for metas.

Jazz just lectures him on how that not his decision. She is going to be attending college here after she figures out why her home town completely shut down. All when she left for college. Besides she’s not whatever a meta is.

Long story short. Batman now has to deal with two not-metas in Gotham. Plus a whole town that didn’t exist. Multiple arrest. Then a possibility of pissing off the afterlife.

[fightwing]

dick's relationship with bruce + the titans too-long meta

there's been so many of these but i have many thoughts on this subject!!! dick's two biggest allegiances are to the batfa.m and to the titan.s and the two simply do not vibe (with pictures!).

for the most part, i feel like (at least in team settings) the titans are pretty vocal about not being batstans and bruce in kind has never put a 'proud parent of a teen titan' bumper sticker on the batmobile. like i feel like there's so many examples of:

and:

and:

i also think both sides thinks dick goes too easy on the other. that dick will always give batman the benefit of the doubt, and he will always answer a titans call. like the titans are constantly grilling dick about why he would listen to batman:

and batman thinks the titans focus too much on the power of friendship:

& i personally do think its a dash of 'what do you mean you're adults you were twelve yesterday'. like all the titans are the original sidekicks to most of the JL, and generally speaking the firsts of their mantle's so i do think there's a dash of parental caution at letting your newly adult kid do whatever they want with their friends. especially considering its not like theyre working at safety & gentle work emporium theyre all vigilantes/heroes and their missions are often life or death. they also are very excessive about each other and would absolutely kill or die for each other given very little prompting (ex: wally literally turned back time and revived dick grayson, thereby killing himself in this very issue). and the titans cannot go a single run without saying 'we didn't create a team... we created a family' and saying shit like:

when they are also (often) the JLs family. But especially in younger years, like the titans were dicks main reason for ever leaving gotham. and in early years robin, dick's sole focus was gotham, bruce and robin. & they worked so well together, dynamic duo who became such a cohesive unit and spent every waking moment together in some capacity (and often enjoyed that time very much)

but once the titans started to meet his duties split and like any teenage kid he found himself wanting to just hang out with his friends rather than his dad sometimes. and dick was so lonely in the early years and naturally sociable that finding other kids who could relate was so important to him. & i just think there's no doubt the titans were the rift that caused b&r to end. at the very least the timeline was sped up by the titans because dick was the youngest of the OG 5 and watched them all break off into their own adult selves and being the first active sidekick i think dick started thinking if they can be adults, can no longer be someone's #2... why can't i? and considering the titans were older than him, dick had several places to land or look for comfort or reassurance in his friends who seemed to have it together more than seventeen year old him. and bruce pushing him away (whole meta on that later) and dick seeing everyone else age out of their sidekick roles, led to stuff like:

and don't get me wrong, no matter the age, i think dick values very few other opinions than batman's. like titans (2016) broke apart because bruce was disappointed in dicks leadership and eventually convinced him wally & donna needed extra supervision (context: wallys heart problems & troia). also, dick rarely leaves things out of reports so im sure bruce saw that /technically speaking/ both dick (bruces son who he is not normal about) and wally died on this mission. but the titans didn't back down:

i also think the titans really respect dick's leadership, and they rarely (if ever) take well to anyone outside the titans shittalking dick grayson (sidenote -- specific titans can do it all they want because they have been a long time dg stan sufferer(TM) but outside of the team it rarely goes over well). but anyway, only dick could convince the titans to not fight this (much) and only bruce could convince dick:

so when dick stopped fighting it and agreed with the JL i feel like it was obvious bruce influenced that.

AND i think super important is that batman/most of the titans aren't super close so all they hear about each other is through dick. and dick can be emotionally intelligent, but he can also be unreasonably secretive. so every time bruce and dick fight or like, those big moments like dick's firing, or kicking dick out of the mansion after jason's death or like any of their big, shocking fights its like dick coming to the titans at his lowest. and because he places so much self worth on bruces opinion on him, i feel like that in turn might make the titans dick does run to in those moments (donna, roy, wally, etc.) resentful because he doesn't always go back into how or why they made up, when they always do.

but anyway all that to say this wouldn't be a problem if dick didn't love them both SO MUCH like:

and:

[ruiniel]

Oooo 1, 4, 12, 18, 25 for the ask?? (Also shush about your lukewarm views, I love your takes!)

Aww Hi, thank you 🖤for helping me procrastinate from writing/drawing which I want to do but also don't! And it wasn't self-deprecation on my end, I'm really okay with lukewarm! I have a mild temper and extremes tire me out generally! OK lemme see...

1)the character everyone gets wrong

HMMMM I'm an adept of 'it's canon if it works for me' so I shrug at this usually. If a take's not to my liking, I'll ignore it and move on. Everyone's valid in having an opinion.

That said.

I generally don't vibe with the 'merchant-mindset-that's-his-best-asset-and-that's who he is' HC often stamped onto Caranthir during his time in Thargelion just because "... to journey into Beleriand all the traffic of the dwarf-mines passed first through the hands of Caranthir, and thus great riches came to him." I just don't see that as being his main trait.

4)was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

I block so liberally, bc I treat this as a safe space and will use all tools at my disposal to try and keep it that way. But if you're being overly confrontational over fictional characters in meta or uppity/rude on points such as 'people can ship who they want but they'll get a lesson in this and that if they don't ship X the way i ship it,' I'll be so tired I might miss the Block button the first time. I like peace and quiet. Nothing personal.

12)the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

Not sure if this means 'unpopular - usually hated for what they did in canon' or 'unpopular - not-seen-very-often-in the fandom limelight'?

I'll go with the latter. This might've changed in the meantime, not sure, I don't check the tags for safety reasons lmao. Gwindor - a dramatic flawed character with their own dramatic choices/another Angband survivor, nuff said.

18) it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

"but Morwen remained in Doriath with Niënor as guests of Thingol and Melian, and were treated with honour."

What went on during that time?

25)common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

Can't think of any right now that caused an eyeroll. But as an honorable mention: the whole Elwing/kidnap family debate... won't touch that with a ten foot pole, everyone else can get their kicks.

On the Castlevania front: Gameverse fans gatekeeping and being obnoxious about the series. Relax, the series is its own thing, nothing was taken away. A reason why I also don't check and rarely use the Castlevania tag.

~~

And bit of a PS, bc lately I noticed tumblr at large still needs the reminder:

opinion: the ideas that a person or a group of people have about something or someone, which are based mainly on their feelings and beliefs, or a single idea of this type. - dictionary.cambridge.org

someone having a different opinion/disliking or being 'meh' about something you love does not invalidate your existence, doesn't mean they dislike you as a person etc. We can still love each other and have our differences, it's okay.

there's an ongoing war neighboring my country, recently we had several earthquakes where my home wobbled with me in it, and this is why getting down and personal/oh so serious about fictional worlds on the internet is something I simply find… inconsequential/don't have the energy for, because of all the you know, actual important sh- happening? What's this, Ruiniel? Perspective.

[autisticandroids]

I appreciate you being Dean concerned and not Dean critical. I’m sure you’ve already answered this before but what do you genuinely like about him? A lot of his good traits get twisted in your meta (and in the show) which is really interesting! But like. What about him do you just think is neat?

Also, you don’t talk about Sam a lot but I’m rewatching season 8 and it really feels like both a continuation of preseason one -> season one (Sam has a normal life, Dean is gone -> Sam wants to return to his normal life but Dean coming back gets him back in the game) which also gives it finale vibes :(

Besides the fact that the stuff with Amelia is really boring, it all just feels ooc and like a step back for Sam. Not to go on a rant but Sam seemed to finally make peace with his life back in season 7.

The stuff with Amelia also has both the same and the exact opposite energy as the stuff with Lisa. During his time with Lisa, it was always like Dean had one foot out the door back to hunting. During his time when he goes back to hunting with Dean in season 8, it feels like Sam always has one foot out the door back to Amelia.

That and I just can’t bring myself to give a shit about Amelia (maybe because she’s boring and inconsistent, maybe because info about her is drop fed instead of presented mostly all at once like with Lisa in season 6, maybe because she’s just shoved in for something for Sam to be up to and it feels ooc to me idk)

I thought I’d like season 8 (and I do really like a lot of Cas’ stuff but he’s always my favorite anyway so that was basically gaurenteed) but a lot of the stuff just makes my brain feel like a white noise machine. I’m only on episode 10 so I’m sure it’ll get better for me once the Sam stuff gets resolved but for now it’s very.... eh.

Thoughts?

okay so, what i like about dean. hm. that's hard! i love dean, for all sorts of reasons, and i know i'll miss stuff, but: - he charms me, on a sort of pure, animal level. he's very charming, that's true within the show but it's true for the audience, or at least me, as well. he's funny, he's affectionate, he's sweet, and he tries so hard. and it makes me love him - he's compellingly tragic. like dean is a fucked up guy, he hurts both himself and everyone around him because of patterns of trauma an neurosis he can't break out of. no one wants to be a bad guy, no one wants to hurt the ones they love, least of all dean, but he can't stop doing both those things. like his self-made cage of ideology, emotional repression, and control is killing him, and it's killing everyone who doesn't get away from him, and that's sad! it's awful! no one is winning except dean's self-image. he will sacrifice everyone and everything he loves on the altar of never having to re-evaluate himself. or, i hope he won't. but he might! and that's sad! it's the perfect tragedy! - second hand deangirlism due to cas kinnie disease. men will be the first person who was ever nice to castiel and then me and castiel will love them forever about it. - he is my little puzzle box and i will solve him - straightmarried gf i liked that sam ran off and tried to escape The Life in s8, that makes sense to me. i think sam really fundamentally doesn't want to be a hunter and the only reason he gives up on trying to leave post s8 is that it is impressed upon him that he's completely trapped. he can never be free. dean will always drag him back, kicking and screaming. i actually feel like sam's equivalent to lisa isn't amelia, it's jess. i talked some about that here but like. both jess and lisa were kind of synecdoches for a false ideal of the american dream, each in their own way. they're both images of suburban perfection, and what draws the winchesters to them is the desire to fit into that image.

but comparing lisa and amelia..... like, dean promises sam that he will go try to make a normal life with lisa, and then he does, because that obligation is all he has left to cling to. like dean is nothing but a miserable little pile of duties and tasks, he doesn't know who he is without a chore (see: demon!dean's total directionlessness) and lisa is the last promise he made to his brother, so he fulfills that. she's an idea to him, not a real woman. the thing he's clinging to, in sam's absence, is not lisa, but the idea of a normative suburban lifestyle. but then the moment sam shows up and voids his own last wishes, dean is like okay bye i don't need to fulfill this obligation anymore. like he was never all that interested in lisa. he didn't love her and his relationship with her was built on obligations, normative images, and anxiety over her safety, which finally resolves itself in dean horrifically violating her by asking cas to wipe her memories.

whereas sam is with amelia because he like, meets her and they form a connection. they hit it off. and sam has a pattern of like. when he wants to get away from something, especially if dean isn't around, he jumps into bed with the nearest girl who smiles at him and then forms a super intense with her. his early season one-off love interests, ruby, and now amelia. (amelia is actually kind of the last time he does that, because after season eight he gives up trying to escape for real). but what he's clinging to there isn't an image that he's trying to fit into. it's the girl herself. like he likes amelia and he wants to be around her and he dives into like. spending time with her and building a relationship with her. and like amelia is a real woman and sam sees her as a real woman. like she's a fucked up mess and so is he and they connect. like she's a bitch and she clogs her drain with limes. also #MyGirlfriendsHusbandFightsForYourFreedom. like samelia is a little boring but i don't begrudge sam that. it's almost compelling because it's boring.

i'm actually not a huge season eight guy myself but my issue with it isn't samelia.

actually, and this is a complete tangent, can i bitch about season ten for a second? like. okay. seasons eight and nine are about sam learning that dean will never let him go. that he's trapped forever in the hunting life and trapped forever with his brother, that dean will do horrific things to him in order to keep them together. and slowly just... giving up. deciding to relinquish his dreams of getting out once and for all.

and then season ten rolls around and suddenly sam makes a hypocrite of himself? suddenly sam is the one who will go to any lengths to save dean, even against dean's own wishes? NOT believable. like sam should be like. sad and fucked up about it, but letting dean go his own way. if anything, cas should be the one trying to save dean against his will, that's way more cas' move. like there's definitely a certain level of cas -> dean :: dean -> sam that exists in the show, at least in terms of protective fixation. cas is somewhat more respectful of dean's boundaries and autonomy, but he's the one with a pattern of blowing up at dean for being self-destructive etc etc.

like, sam should have been way different in s10. i don't know exactly what i would do with him, maybe give him his own distinct plot? or maybe have demon dean last somewhat longer and make "demon dean tries to kill sam" a whole multi-episode arc, i think that would slap. and then the relationship fallout from that can be many more episodes.

like imo this happened because jeremy carver got his start in season three, when sam legitimately was trying to save dean against dean's wishes, but in s3 that made sense. like, one, the brothers were much closer then, dean wasn't quite as much of a prison guard for sam, but two, much more importantly, dean's deal was sam's fault. he blamed himself. he wasn't just trying to save dean from dying, he was trying to save dean from going to hell because of him. like girl, it made sense in mystery spot. but this is not the energy you should be bringing to the table with sam in s10. ooc!

[justalittlebluetiefling]

That is an interesting thought. Where does Fjord's devotion for the Wildmother and his love for Jester lie? Do you think he would really forsake the entire world if it meant she was safe? If so where does that take his character arc, it would be a bit of backwards development for him.

Disclaimer 1: This touches on some aspects of how protective Fjord tends to be and I would like whoever reads this to know that my feelings on that character trait are nuanced and I am not going to go super in depth, because I’d like to post this at some point. I’m very aware that some people aren’t fond of that part of him and I respect that, but I like that part of him and I’ve seen a lot of the arguments for why people don’t like it and I don’t agree. So, please don’t come at me about how Jester “could punch Fjord through a wall” or whatever. I know that. Fjord knows that. He respects that. He trusts Jester and her opinions and her decisions. But his protectiveness is a major character trait that he directs at everyone and a major factor in my opinion on this, so I had to bring it up.

Disclaimer 2: I’m not really great at faith-based meta, so this is mostly focused on how Jester makes Fjord feel.

Disclaimer 3: The likelihood I think this has of happening is like.. 0.5%. The circumstances would have to be exactly right and there are multiple things that would have to go wrong for Fjord to get to a point where he was sacrificing the world for Jester. I also strongly believe there is a road that could lead Jester to this point as well, but again, a lot of things would have to go wrong.

All right! With that out of the way! Let’s get on to what might be my most controversial post. (Actually, please keep those disclaimers in mind throughout this answer.) I’ve been trying to figure out how to describe my mindset on this. Because... it’s hard. But it comes down to a few things.

Fjord’s devotion to the Wildmother and his love for Jester aren’t mutually exclusive.

It’s already been confirmed that he would have been willing to fight a god’s servant to protect her.

There are very few things that Fjord has ever let himself want in life.

And right now if there was a point where he had to choose, I think he’d choose Jester.

And here’s why.

I mean, there are a ton of reasons why. But most of all, Jester’s the first person to show him what unconditional love and support look like and it’s not something he ever thought he would have. She’s backed him up every step of the way, even when he thinks he doesn’t deserve it. And he’s been devoted to returning that. I don’t even mean this from a “romantic” love standpoint, although that’s what it’s developing into. And nothing against the Wildmother or his developing faith, but he’s still figuring out how that works. I do believe he’s devoted to being her paladin and he believes in what it means to serve her. I also believe he’s just as devoted as Jester is to stopping what’s coming. However. I don’t believe he’s devoted enough to stopping it that he would be willing to give up everything i.e. her.

I’m gonna bring back the kiln talk, because it goes back that far. And the way it relates to Jester goes back that far. Farther, actually, but these are the only real receipts I decided to pull up.

He tells her that he lost his powers and that they eventually came back.

Jester: How did you feel when they were gone? Fjord: *without hesitation* Terrified. Jester: Did you want them back? Fjord: *without hesitation* Yes. Jester: Would you do anything to get them back? Fjord: *long pause* Fjord: No.

I mean, it’s a one-on-one conversation, but he still doesn’t break focus. He’s staring at Jester the entire time. And this is where I jump into excessive speculation, but it’s always been my headcanon that Fjord here is thinking about how he wouldn’t give up Jester for his powers. I can never get the idea out of my head when I’m watching this scene, because he’s so intense about the way he’s looking at her in this moment.

So... Jester gave him the strength to move on from that and seek out the Wildmother, right? And the Wildmother accepted him. And she’s already protected him from Uk’otoa’s influence. So he has plenty of reason to already feel devoted to the Wildmother. But like I said above, his faith is developing. He feels like he’s fumbling his way through it, even though he’s a shining paragon of the tenets of his oath. 

And now, I’m going to veer off and talk about Fjord and protectiveness and how he seems extra intense about it toward Jester specifically sometimes. 

A lot of that, in my head, comes back to the Iron Shepherds. Fjord is still holding onto the blame for that. He’s never let it go. Fjord was always fairly protective, but after that, he doubled down. I don’t think very many people realize how deeply that affected him and how a lot of the way he chases Jester out into danger can be traced back to that.

I mean, really, there were three big steps in how devoted he is to Jester and her safety.

The Iron Shepherds

His promise to Marion

The second Uk’otoa temple

I don’t need to say much about his promise to Marion, but I will touch on the pirate arc pretty quick. He was spiraling here. He was trying to figure everything out and how far he would go. It didn’t take long for him to figure out that he wasn’t willing to go the distance for Uk’otoa. And I do think a lot of that was resolved in his head prior to the second temple, but his conversation with Jester there was a big one. And also, don't turn evil, okay? But if you do, I'll still be your friend. I mean, it's okay. You know, some people are evil. It's okay. Just don't turn evil to me. That whole thing was just a reminder that Jester has always been there and that he can count on her constant presence in his life.

So, after that minor spiral he had during the pirate arc, he doubled down again with the protectiveness. He came out of that determined to be for Jester what she is for him. Fjorester really does give me cute Briarwoods vibes sometimes. It’s because they’re so ride or die for each other and I think that there is definitely the possibility of them breaking the world for each other.

That brings me back to a point I mentioned above. Fjord has let himself want very few things in life. He’s lost so many things. His life has not been great. But he wants Jester almost in spite of himself and, more than that, he wants Jester to be happy. The past few episodes, though, where he’s been feeling like she’s being threatened? He’s giving off this... vibe of... almost desperation to keep her safe. He probably should have kept the necklace, but he gave it to Jester, because she’s more important. And he felt as though Lucien was targeting her specifically. And then in 118? He watched her lose five years of her life in the blink of an eye. Forgive me for the hyperbole, but Jester’s mortality was literally paraded in front of him and he saw that there is a very real chance that he might lose her in this. It was enough to get him to stop holding back and tell her how he feels, which he intended to keep under wraps until after he wrapped up his own problems.

So... this is a really long-winded way of saying that I could absolutely see him picking Jester over the rest of the world. Do I think she could talk him out of it in a very emotional scene? Yes. Do I think the Wildmother would be able to stop him? I mean, maybe. She’s a god. But I think he would break his oath for Jester. Because he’d do anything for her. But if Jester wasn’t there to talk him out of it??? 

Would this be backwards development? Absolutely. It would be a very selfish action. But love can be a pretty selfish, sometimes.  

Remember how he said that he has a problem when they were talking about stopping the city? He knows they have to stop it and he’s committed to that cause.  But, everyone has their breaking point. Right now? Fjord’s breaking point appears to be Jester. And he knows it. He has to decide how much he’d be willing to give up and I think that the things he would do to not give up Jester scare him. I don’t really think he knows what his life would be like without her at this point and I don’t think he wants to entertain the possibility. Ever.

Totally Briarwoods vibes.

If you’re thinking I’m totally wrong right now, I would like to refer you to the top where I laid out some disclaimers prior to this answer. Thanks for your time! And thanks for asking me this! 

[panharmonium]

I would like to add Gwaine to the list of friends Merlin had. Especially in the 3/4 seasons he really was ride or die for Merlin, they shared intimate details with each other, they truly trusted each other. There were instances where the show alluded that Gwaine knows about Merlin's magic and is fine with it.

hi there!  i’m assuming this is in response to the post i reblogged about will and lancelot being merlin’s only “real” friends?  

i’m actually happy to write about this, now that the question has been posed - it’s been a while since i wrote anything long about gwaine!

fair warning in advance: i don’t personally classify gwaine the same way i do will and lancelot, and that’s what this piece will cover in more detail, but these are just my own thoughts, and it is totally cool for everybody else to have different opinions.  my take is my take, but it does not have to be everyone’s take - if people wanna scroll past because this isn’t their vibe, i don’t mind in the slightest. :)

so, without further ado - i LOVE gwaine, and i have written extensively about how amazing his relationship with merlin is (some examples here, here, here, and here, if anybody’s looking).  he is the most likely of all merlin’s living friends to ditch arthur in the name of addressing merlin’s needs, which is super important, and he also has a much healthier friendship with merlin than arthur does (in my own personal opinion, of course, which nobody is obligated to share).  he definitely does go ride or die for merlin in S3/S4, i agree.

but my own thoughts on this particular point are still the same as they were in that original post.  i tend to hide my clarifications/explanations in the tags, so they might have flown by, but i’ll just copy/paste the relevant bit here for ease of access, as some background for the rest of this post.

re: will and lancelot were merlin’s only ‘real’ friends:

#what this does not mean: merlin has no other friends!  merlin doesn't have meaningful and important relationships with other people!   #what it does mean:  #every single one of merlin's other relationships is undergirded by the sickening knowledge that those friendships are conditional   #every single one of his other relationships is accompanied by the constant undercurrent of 'they would hate me if they knew'   #merlin knows his friends 'care' about him   #except they don't really; because it's not truly him they're caring about   #they care deeply - about someone merlin made up   #about a facade.   #in the most basic sense   #those relationships aren't Real   #the love merlin feels for the people in them is real   #but you cannot truly be 'friends' with somebody who doesn't even know who you are   #you cannot be loved without being known   #you certainly cannot be loved without being safe

obviously i suppose a person’s thoughts on this would be different if they headcanoned that gwaine knew about merlin’s magic, and that’s fine.  i personally do not believe canon indicates or supports that, but i’m not out to convince people to abandon their own fanon interpretations of things; i’m happy just hanging out in my own space talking about my thoughts.  me writing meta is the virtual equivalent of me talking to myself in my room - if other people have different conversations with themselves, that’s fine :)  i don’t mind if other folks organize their thoughts about things differently.  

in accordance with that - everybody please feel free to continue on with your own interpretations, and ignore mine if mine do not appeal to you!  if people are interested about how i organize my ideas on this, though, they are essentially as follows:

1) a cage fighter, a class traitor, and a fake sorcerer walk into a tavern

ok, to start with - here’s a graph.

(...who tf starts a meta post with ‘here’s a graph’ lol i just drew a venn diagram for the first time since like...middle school...i LOVE fandom, man, this is RIDICULOUS)

anyway

this is a very rough interpretation of how i think about gwaine, lancelot, and will:

to address some of these elements individually:

lancelot and will give merlin something that gwaine can’t - safety, authenticity, the comfort of being known and seen for real, a respite from constantly qualifying every friendship with ‘they would hate me if they knew’

lancelot and gwaine, likewise, give merlin something merlin wouldn’t be as likely to get from will (if will were still alive, i mean) - an understanding of merlin’s devotion to the Crown, a supportive ally in the fight to promote arthur’s reign and keep arthur/camelot safe

will and gwaine, for their part, are more likely to tell arthur to go fuck himself, if it’s important for helping merlin, and that’s a different kind of support that merlin also really needs.

and will, on his own, gives merlin something that neither lancelot NOR gwaine can provide, which is a friend who isn’t connected to or even particularly interested in arthur pendragon (merlin has nobody in his life like this, not after will dies) - somebody who knew and cared about merlin before merlin had any proximity to arthur, before this whole ’destiny’ issue reared its merciless head.

everybody in merlin’s life matters to him and gives him something important.  gwaine is STUPIDLY important to merlin.  the love there is real.  but in canon, because gwaine is not in the know, gwaine is still one of the people from whom merlin feels compelled to hide himself.  gwaine is right up there alongside gwen, arthur, elyan, percival, etc - every other person who merlin loves, who merlin nonetheless constantly, back-of-his-mind fears, ‘they would reject me if they knew.’

the above is part of why i personally have never been too interested in ‘so-and-so knows about merlin’s magic’ canon-imaginings.  there’s absolutely nothing wrong with them, and i’m sure people must have tons of fun with them - and in an AU context maybe i would have fun with them too - but as hopeful interpretations of actual canon, they don’t appeal to me.  merlin’s near-total isolation and desperate, constantly-frustrated desire for real, honest love is an inalienable aspect of his character for me, one i can’t separate from who he is and why he does the things he does and why he eventually ends up in the place where we find him towards the end of the show.  

2) i just want someone to see me for who i am

i have seen a bit of sentiment out there along the lines of ‘merlin should have told (x person) about their magic’ or ‘(x person) obviously doesn’t have a problem with sorcerers,’ but i guess i personally don’t think it’s as clear as all that, and i think me saying it is would be doing merlin a disservice.

merlin’s desire to be seen/known/accepted is literally the most base urge he has.  if he truly thought he could tell somebody safely, he would.

i think merlin knows the people in his orbit well enough to know how they feel about sorcery, at least in a general sense.  and even if they aren’t bloodthirsty bigots like uther, they aren’t exactly welcoming magic with open arms, either.  at the most basic, elementary level, merlin understands something that we don’t like to think about: none of his friends ever challenge arthur on the sorcery ban or express any dissatisfaction with the political status quo, and, even absent outright bigotry, this fact speaks loudly enough in and of itself.  merlin’s friends might not be out clamoring for sorcerers’ blood, but they aren’t criticizing a society that criminalizes sorcery, either, and they are never shown to have a problem with the way things are, even though the way things are is wrong.

The Way Things Are is, in fact, unjust.  it’s oppressive.  and allowing that state of affairs to continue, unquestioned and unchallenged, when you have access to the king’s ear and aren’t personally in danger of being persecuted, indicates that you’re okay with the injustice.  that you’re comfortable with the oppression.  that you don’t see a problem with the status quo, and that you're unbothered enough by it to let it be.

it doesn’t matter that merlin’s friends have never straight-up said ‘boy, magic sure is evil’ onscreen.  they never say that camelot’s policies are wrong, and that delivers a clear enough message on its own.

3) it is not a crime to fight for your freedom

to bring this back to gwaine specifically, since that was originally the focus of this ask -

for me, for all that i adore gwaine, and for all that i think he was, for the most part, an INCREDIBLY sound, healthy relationship for merlin, the truth is that gwaine is as much a part of this problem as everyone else.  does that mean i personally think gwaine would have summarily dumped merlin if he’d found out merlin had magic?  no.  but i don’t think it’s as uncomplicated as maybe we wish it might be, and i think merlin has every right to be as uncertain of gwaine on this issue as he does of everyone else.

for one thing, like i said before, even gwaine, who used to have fewer qualms than any of the knights about pushing back on arthur’s BS, has never said a word about camelot’s injustices, or ever acknowledged that the laws of the land are unjust to begin with.  

for another, there are specific moments that kind of make you wonder.

5.05 (’the disir’) is a good example of this - when gwaine finds osgar in the woods, the two of them have this exchange:

you are a sorcerer, a heretic, and a murderer.  

the rhetoric of this sentence frames all three of these things as equivalent entities - criminal ones.  

to pick this apart more carefully:

a) sorcerer

it’s worth noting here that we’re never told osgar has done anything worse than evading arrest for the crime of being a known sorcerer.  when leon mentions him in the council meeting, the conversation consists solely of the following:

“as you know, a few days ago our garrison in the forest of breckfire intercepted the man who goes by the name of osgar.”

“the sorcerer.”

“the same.  they were trying to apprehend him when he used his powers to escape.”

and…that’s it.  osgar’s crime, as far as we know, was simply being a sorcerer (and then, after that, attempting to escape an unjust arrest, thereby killing a knight in the process).  there’s no mention of any other activities that would have warranted his arrest in the first place, other than the possession of magic.

but magic, even on its own, IS a crime in camelot - and gwaine levels the accusation at osgar as such.

b) heretic

that’s a hell of a word to throw around, if you think sorcery is chill.

“heretic” isn’t a mild accusation.  "heretic” has vitriolic severity behind it.  people are accused of heresy when they’re perceived to be in brazen defiance of what is (in the eyes of the accuser) unquestionably right and correct.  “heretic” is like…it’s like blasphemer.  the connotation is not just that something is bad, but that it’s sinful.

for gwaine, either osgar’s association with sorcery and/or his defiance of camelot’s army makes him a heretic.  and that’s not something a person who is down with sorcery or supportive of a magic-user’s struggle for freedom would say.

c) murderer

if gwaine were cool with sorcery, we would expect him to understand that a sorcerer who resisted arrest for the crime of being a sorcerer isn’t a murderer.  

it’s like kara said in 5.11 - it is not a crime to fight for the right to be who you are.

camelot has been killing sorcerers for decades.  osgar mortally wounded a soldier (not an innocent civilian, i might note) who was trying to imprison him.  he was resisting the armed forces of an oppressive state.  that’s not murder.

somebody who understands that camelot is an oppressive regime wouldn’t think of this as murder.  they would understand that it is not a crime to protect your own life when the state has literally been trying to exterminate your people for years.  and even if osgar had been engaged in rebellious activities against the state (which as far as we know is not the case - nothing like this is ever referenced!), they would understand that people with magic have long been overdue for a righteous uprising.  

but gwaine is a little more like arthur, in this moment - he sees the “wrong” that osgar has done (in the form of sir ranulf’s death) without seeing the thousands upon thousands of wrongs that camelot visited upon the magical community first.

4) you can’t go armed into a sacred place

the rest of this episode is similar.  gwaine pays just as little heed to merlin’s warnings as the rest of the knights, when merlin admonishes them that the disir’s cave is sacred.  gwaine doesn’t relinquish his sword or take special care upon entering the cave.  in fact, he is the one who outright interrupts the disir while they’re speaking - as they’re telling arthur a series of hard truths, that he’s persecuted magic-users, “even unto slaughter;” that he’s desecrated their space: “you come here, to the most sacred of the sacred, to the very heart of the Old Religion, with weapons drawn - trampling hallowed relics - treating our sacred space like you do your kingdom - with arrogance - with conceit - with insolence - ”

and gwaine cuts them off, pushing to the front of the group and shouting at them “enough!  you speak of the king!”  and that’s when the fight starts, when mordred gets stabbed.

someone who was fully accepting of magic, or who knew anything about it at all, would not have behaved this way.  they would not have bristled at hearing how arthur’s regime unfairly persecutes the magical community.  they would have known that it was true.

5) i just want to be myself

the above is just one example, but it’s a clear enough one to illustrate what i mean.  gwaine IS an amazing friend to merlin.  he does treat merlin well.  and merlin loves him to death.  but gwaine is NOT totally chill with magic.  i’m not saying he actively hates it, but he is not, from what merlin has witnessed, entirely safe.  merlin loves him, but he can’t be himself around him.

and i do think that pains merlin terribly.  all these people who he loves so much, and every time he’s with them there’s always that whisper: ‘this is a charade.  all the love in my life is a lie.  they only like me because they don’t know me.  if they knew who i really was, this would be over.’  

and we wonder why he never tells anyone.  we tell him he ‘should’ have told gwaine, gwen, morgana, arthur, like it would have been easy, or even possible, for him to ever consider putting himself in a position where he could lose what precarious, partially make-believe connections he has.

merlin, in the later seasons, when he worries about his magic being exposed, isn’t afraid of being executed.  he’s afraid of becoming even more alone than he is now.  and he has good reason to feel that way - even people who appear to put him first aren’t fully on board with the thing that makes him who he is.  and merlin knows this.  he’s seen it.  none of his friends are out fighting for people like him at court.  some of his friends shake their heads and assure arthur “you are a good and just king” when arthur expresses concern that maybe the disir are right, maybe he has indeed transgressed.  some of merlin’s friends used to buck the system in defense of the powerless, but now they defend the regime even when the accusations levelled against it by an oppressed population are true.

merlin knows that revealing himself is a kind of risk that could very plausibly end with him utterly disowned.  every single friendship he has is subject to this justified fear, this bitter knowledge.  merlin has every reason to doubt the soundness of his relationships.

and, circling back to the thing that started all these musings - the only friends who never made him feel that way were will and lancelot.

that’s all i mean when i say that will and lancelot were merlin’s only “real” friends.  i wish there were a better word to use than that, because i really don’t mean it like…as if merlin’s relationships with other people weren’t…valid, or important, or based on true love and care.  they were.  but there’s just not a better way to express that will and lancelot were the only people who ever even knew who they were friends with, who saw merlin for exactly who he was and said “i love you still.”  they were the only ones whose friendship was something merlin didn’t have to be afraid of losing solely for existing.

i always think of morgana’s line in 2.11 - ‘i don’t want to be brave.  i just want to be myself. i don’t want to be alone anymore.’

around everyone else, merlin has to be brave.  he has to keep up the pretense, which means even when he’s surrounded by friends, he’s completely isolated.

with will and lancelot, though, he could be himself.  with will and lancelot, he wasn’t alone.

6) post-script

i really appreciate being given the opportunity to muse to myself about this in more detail - i actually needed to think through some things regarding gwaine anyway, for writing purposes, and this was actually really helpful in organizing my brain.  so thanks, anon, for the prompt!  

i know my answer probably runs counter to your own interpretation of things, but as i said, this is just my own personal outlook.  i typed it up because the message got me thinking, and because i know i have a couple of friends who might find it interesting, but my thoughts apply only to me, and i do not mind at all if folks think about these things differently!  nobody is obligated to agree with anything i write, or give it any further thought, or even read it at all - we’re all going to engage with this story in different ways, so if anybody finds that this isn’t their cup of tea, please feel free to scroll on by, and keep having fun with this show in whatever way makes you happiest! :)

[dungeonsanddragonsfifthedition]

4, 9, 24, and 30 for Anthe :nevplead:

4 answered! it’s blood!

where does your character look when they’re the only one walking down a road?

so this is. familiar to her. she’s very used to being alone, so she looks for nature that will protect her where people won’t. a solid place to rest and find food, and a path to safety.

what made your character the angriest they’ve ever been?

hm... i think it might be the pride’s call situation, but anger feels too much. she’s an angry person, but most of that anger is repressed, you know, and it bursts out, but it’s all piled up from little things. so. yeah. pride’s call, but anger is a very odd word for it.

let’s put 30 under a readmore...

how has your character’s first impressions of their party members changed since they met them? have they stayed the same?

here’s everybody.

d’nou: anthe is still trying to figure him out; her first impression was a drunken ohhhh he seems interesting, and then a sober He’s nice. Too nice? because she’s anthe. he’s growing on her as he shows more vulnerability and helps the team, but. yeah. she’s just protective over nev and vic.

jhe: she really thought jhe was fun! she did. her first impression was scrappy, which stuck, and then it was sort of reinforced until we lost them. anthe wishes the party mourned them more. not being able to help jhe really really dwells in her brain. yeah.

nev: first impression was, oh, wow, she seems so cool. anthe’s really liked nev from the beginning, found her really interesting and wanted to know more. and she still thinks nev is really cool and interesting, and she always always wants to know more. but she is also in love with nev now, so. yeah. we know this. she’s gay.

nol: intimidating but interesting wizard friend! -> oh god she hates me and thinks im evil -> we’re friends now maybe -> she probably still hates me oh god oh fuck oh god oh fuck. -> we are friends even as we disagree and fight. we’re normal. we’re normal. -> i understand why she’s leaving. -> everyone leaves me and i deserve it.

pat: she’s glad he developed a sort of selfhood. she was really worried about his whole... state of being. yeah. she is less worried now. she’s still worried. but she’s glad he’s more of a person.

raelian: tough and cool! she liked raelian right away i think. they could vibe! and raelian was like... admirably good at dealing with her feelings, and was kind of inspiring to anthe in that regard; she very much wants to have that kind of chill wisdom to her. but. then. yeah. uh. she understands--like she said--probably better than anyone what raelian was going through emotionally, at the end. and then. um. yeah. anthe thinks everyone leaves me and i deserve it again.

veil: still figuring it out, but first impression was scary sexy lady!!! she thinks it’s cool and that blood magic rules, just, like, generally, but... possessed weapon? that’s concerning! just, inherently! so, again. protective of nev and vic.

vic: a sweet guy who’s carrying a lot on his shoulders. that’s the immediate thought. and then... like, obviously, she still has that thought. but now it’s so much more than that. they’re so similar and they’re so close and she wants to help him so, so badly. she wants to protect him. that’s her boy. that’s her fucking boy. (i do think there’s meta to be written about how, of the two of them, it’s vic who eventually became a barbarian. but. yeah.)

ziggy: she thought he was strange and funny. she thought he was strange and funny and that he was still learning how the world worked. she thought he cared too much for himself and not enough for others. she thought he was selfish. she thought he was selfish to leave. she thought he was selfish to come back. she thought he was trying. and then she thought she had to help bring him back, because that shouldn’t happen to anyone.

[bradycore]

12 14 25 for Sandy's ask game

12. thoughts on mary: i really like her. more as a character than a person, i think. the way she was idolized in her death--"their marriage wasn't perfect until after she died," how she represented normal/safe life to both sam and dean and even john after he left that life himself--is much more interesting once we find out she was actually a hunter. she in turn saw her husband and sons as the symbols of her safety and normality once she broke away from hunting, and there's both irony and tragedy in that two-way idealization. as it turns out, sam and dean are both mirrors to her, and it's not in the way any of them would have wanted.

speaking of sam and dean, this might be an unpopular opinion but i think she had every right to distance herself from them when she came back to life. up until her resurrection and actual screen time, she existed in the show only in the context of her family, not as a person but as what they needed to imagine her being. that's how we knew her and i really enjoyed seeing her break away from that simply by existing as a proper character. and yeah, she was grieving for her baby and four-year-old, and yeah, she had to adjust to a world decades past her time, and yeah, she came back younger than sam and dean. i'm with amara on this one, mary needed very specifically to not be a mother in s12 and on (at least not primarily)--for herself and for the show.

14. thoughts on the bunker and men of letters: the bunker is very cool and pretty but it also takes away most of the liminality of the show. we still get to see different places depending on the ep but i do miss when there was a different motel for every episode. i honestly liked it better when sam and dean didn't have a home base--it felt more raw that way. the bunker makes things feel...heavier. i don't know.

aside from that, the whole men of letters thing felt like it was placed kinda awkwardly in the spn universe, as are many things in the later seasons. on the more positive side, though, knowledge! books! secret societies! the vibes aren't bad.

25. thoughts on jack: babey!! i adore him. he strives to be good--more than that, he chooses to be good, and to learn from people he thinks are good. thinking about how he considered cas his father presumably before he was even born makes me want to go lie down in a meadow and cry. i do think it's kind of sketchy that sam and dean are two of his role models lmao, both jack and cas learned what humanity meant partially through the winchesters and they aren't the best representatives, but they were good for him too and i love that jack is surrounded by so many people (including mary!! there's more to be said about them in the apocalypse world, soldiers and parallels and etc etc, but the main thing about them is that they cared about each other in a really good way). one thing that's interesting to me is how his naivety manifests in him mirroring the people around him. he absorbs absorbs absorbs, and if we want to get meta, the way he drains energy from the plants around him in 15.19(?) could be reflective of that (not the energy part, but taking the nature of what he encounters onto/into himself). i wish he had more chance to be a kid and grow up. he has never done anything wrong ever and he deserves to be given a kiss on the forehead and tucked into bed at night.

[inappropriatefangirlneeds]

Gotham s5ep4 “Ruin” Personal Review

“There goes the element of surprise..”    Warning spoilers below (ahaha not this week, boy am I late, not that anyone would have missed this though, also little meta content this week)  

What I loved about the episode is that it´s the “apocalypse” and then it comes down to a crime scene investigation! I would take much more of that! Much more!  Just less of a bloodthirsty MOB. Like would they really want Zsasz hanged? The evidence was pretty clear, Jim Gordon really got no reason to lie to them, actually it would greatly benefit him if he did. Do they really not want to see the real culprit punished? I´m not a fan of lynch/mob law in general but does it make sense for the mob to want the wrong guy hanged, that way the police probably will think / claim everything is settled and call it a day, which means the real culprit is free to do that again, but then again I wonder how many people know about Zsasz and him having been a hitman, did some of them have had relatives that got into Carmine / Sal Maroni crossfire, was this partly a he´s a guilty filthy criminal *anyway* thing?  * “You don't need to smuggle in explosives when you can detonate 250 gallons of highly pressurized heating oil that's coursing through all the floors.”  Ah damn, they really had Edward Nygma do it, I kind of didn´t want them to follow that route. Also why put that running guy with bomb in there then, huh .. damn exploding herrings.  HOPE goes on and off this week:  “But whoever destroyed that building can't destroy the hope we've built. Not unless we let them.” “I told the people it was safe. I made them into a target.” “Jim, you gave 'em” “Don't tell me I gave 'em hope. They're dead.”  * It´s GOOD vs. EVIL “This city will never be what you want it to be, Jim. It's always gonna belong to the bad guys, like me.”  “People like you are always trying to own this city. But you never will.” * It´s GOOD ft. EVIL Oswald Cobblepot poses as if he was the synthesis of both those opposites: A bad guy that cares. “I lost people, too, Jim. People you lured with promises of safety and security, only to have them incinerated.”  Oswald arms the GCPD talking about working together just to take over and get his own trials and justice going. He´s claiming to provide what Jim can´t. While both Barbara Kean & Oswald Cobblepot claimed their help came no strings attached Oswald´s help does not include staying aside and letting them do their work. Although to be fair he said “Save for the one that we will cinch around the neck of the Haven bomber.” What is it with people that it always needs a couple hundred dead people that they can focus on nice things. Anyway everyone is appropriately appalled with this atrocity. They also gave all the villains some selfish reasons. OSWALD COBBLEPOT wants people and their cheers. EDWARD NYGMA wants the file of the inmate.  “I've been putting out feelers.” BARBARA KEAN is worried Sirens might be next, making her probably the least “selfish” one because she seems to care about the people that she protects and might not demand the same level of praise that Oswald does. (I know probably other things but unless canon proves me wrong I headcanon slightly differently) She feels hurt but understands Jim would suspect, even for a moment that she could be responsible for the destruction Haven. They slowly get her back on suitable for Jim Gordon to kiss track, which phu idk. I liked her and their relationship in S1,  but there´s just so much happened in between. And plenty in Barbara´s characterization I didn´t like so it´s nice to see her on a more reasonable track now but how about they just gave her an awesome relationship with Tabitha ........  Characterization questions aside I really loved that she did not and could not kill Oswald in the light of the explosion! That was a touching moment!  Also her outfit is nice, although they toned down the make up. And Jim gripping her arm during the kiss almost gives old timey movie vibes. I´m sure I don´t need to write on Babs / Oswald paralells, I assume I just can reblog better words on it from someone ..  * Also something tells me if JIM GORDON  had gotten that shoot out with VICTOR ZSASZ, that kiss would not have happened …… “Inmate number 1215 knows! Knows what???!!??!” Ha, distressed, puzzled, annoyed EDWARD NYGMA is a joy to watch. I don’t really have to say more on that. Edward snatching the blanket from the woman when walking into the GCPD makes me wonder, what would he have done if that woman hadn´t been there? Just walked in? Did he have a stupid disguise and was like, oh no wait that´s better.  He and LUCIUS FOX were a delight. Edward trying to snatch the file from him and run was wonderful! Him preening in pride when his expertise is wanted was delightful! Lucius claiming, he´ll deny having said the praise he gave Edward in the end, precious! Lucius playing him like a fiddle, and moving him with barely more than his fingertips, damn! Just that the whole thing was shot like when Ed pursued Kristen Kringle!  Their dynamic is just wonderful: “Impressive. Calculated the angle of incident to follow the trajectory through the window, into the fuel oil tanks.” “Yep. That, and the RPG case is right over there.”  * One thing that stressed me was Ed sending the Files flying around him on the rooftop. Like at that moment he didn´t yet know that the woman he saw in the window was connect to the note he put down on his hands. Even when the inmate was dead there could have been some hints in the file or who knows in hid grave. Like, no Edward! No! Go run and pick them up.  * Someone needs to do a Parallel Meta for 5x04 & 4x12  when Ed found out he hired the hit on Leslie Thompkins. * “I did not make that building go boom, Jim.”   Yeah, that´s a VICTOR ZSASZ line. Love him. * ““Hey, do you guys have any canned peaches? Man, I'd trade an arm and a leg for that right now. Not mine, somebody else's.” Food and cut off limbs, that´s another one. Love him. * And that one: “Do the math.  If I blew up a building full of people, I would have covered every inch of my body in sweet, sweet scars.  You guys want to do a strip search?” “I'd let Alvarez do it. He's handsome” * Him shooting Oswald´s head on the major poster after he said something was a great detail! * Him drinking while waiting for the bullet hail to stop as well. * I´m gonna make a post about the Gunman magazine that fell on the floor, after Jim tackled him so majestically ...  * Zsasz usurping the applause afterwards, and later was adorable. * “Is this about Sofia Falcone? Because you should really move past that. It's not healthy.” DOES HE KNOW SHE KILLED CARMINE, DOES HE OR DOES HE NOT ???? They had him express sympathy towards Carmine in Season 1, they showed that he cared when Carmine got killed. I get that he might abandon issues like that in the current environment but they can´t open up such a plotline and then just drop it. Does he know that Oswald didn´t kill Carmine? Like honestly .. I know it´s the Jim Gordon show but I would have loved it if Victor Zsasz just had saved himself!! I would have loved it even more if along the way they somehow figured out the whole misconception, Zsasz would recognize that Sofia and not Oswald is to blame and maybe even apologize. * But hey Oswald´s “Well said” about the mumbled last words was mean but awesome. * Soooo who went in the trashy local torture museum to get the guillotine? * How does Zsasz work? There where zero people shown around him. What is it like to live on Zsasz turf? * Zsasz mumbling must have been bewildered that they aren´t honouring the tradition of the last meal before an execution, like he got his order ready, that was the last silver lining, if he´s really going to face his end at the hands of penguin in those halls at least he´s going to get his teeth into something juicy and tasty before it happens ..  SELINA KYLE, (Bruce Wayne), JEREMIAH VALESKA, ECCO * Sykes and the Soothsayers digging a tunnel for Jeremiah Valeska. Is that poetic justice? Also is this a new tunnel, when the Soothsayers had the children dig it they went out of their way to state that their cruelty is even more infuriating because the whole endeavour is very likely futile.  Like they made it damn clear that the TUNNEL is not going to go anywhere. Also would Jeremiah, who made the bridges go boom want a tunnel that remedies that  issue partly? Only for himself? His cult? Is he doing something else altogether? Is it about what he can get into the city through it? Is he better at static issues and remedied the tunnel digging plan? Was he involved before?  * “Yes you certainly have set a very high bar - for devotion.” Fucker gave me an earworm, Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio & Spiritual Front - A Song 4 Hate and Devotion (live) I mean quite a fitting mood considering all the other portrayals of the Harley and Mr. Jay relationship, but maybe they give ECCO and JEREMIAH VALESKA a different path. Aside from that the little dance was slightly nice. * “Bruce Wayne and his sidekick Curls Or is he the sidekick?” Yes! Ecco got the right spirit. I wonder if Ecco sees herself as sidekick?  “You see, a river cuts through rock not because of its power, but because of its persistence.So what do we do when we feel like giving up?” “Dig a little deeper.” “And what do we do when we can't possibly go on any longer?” “Dig a little deeper.” “And what do we ..” “Deep enough?”  I´m afraid it was not deep enough, I´m afraid it was quite shallow because the show is not as clever as Ecco, I bet that he isn´t dead, if he was it if could have actually been just about her. Honestly, I would love that. All the BatJokes built up and then it´s about Selina. And she has plenty right for it to be about her, Jeremiah almost killed her. What else does it need.  * SELINA KYLE keeping in the shadows investigating, disguising herself as one of the people there, then getting close to Jeremiah dressed as Ecco: She´s good! She´s awesome! * That GCPD woman that was doing PAPERWORK when Ed sneaked into the building. Do they do regular paperwork? Cause damn, considering the governmental neglect if Jim got them to bother to do the regular paperwork he must have given one hell of a speech. Or is it paperwork related to organize a place like Haven? How do they do things? * Oswald destroying all strategy with a megaphone: “There goes the element of surprise.” * “Elevated position, back to the sun.” * “Never ever ask me to do anything like that again. Pull yourself together.” Harvey does not approve of Wild West Jim  * “ I know the wheels of justice turn slowly, so I'm here to provide - a modicum of grease.” / “I did not expect you to go soft, Jim. Actually, I did.”  / “By the power vested in me by well, me, I sentence you, Victor Zsasz, to die.”   * “One of the areas in which I excel is the loosening of tongues.” “No. He's mine”  Oh damn I thought Jim said “it´s mine” as in he´s better with interrogations. Well there goes my whole comparison with the Edward Nygma & Lucius Fox expertise quip:  “So, the second smartest man in Gotham needs my help.” “Explosives are not my expertise.”  “Didn't realize you had one.”  *“Jim Gordon cares more about protecting a murderer than he does about protecting you!” Okay look who is projecting .... 

[sanrionharbor-blog]

Thoughts on Sansa S8 Endgame

Speculations galore! Long post ahoy!

Let’s run through every possibility I can think of for the end of show-Sansa’s story (and yes, there will be many more possibilities besides these because GOT is layers upon layers, man, I’m still new to the fandom, and there’s probably a lot I’ve missed).

At the very least, let’s do this categorically.

Dead, Alive, or a Fate Worse Than Death?

1. I’d bet money that Sansa survives the whole dang thing

2. But if she does die…it could be A) Sacrifice to save Arya, Jon, and/or Bran, B) in a possible collapse of Winterfell, C) after ensuring the demise of Cersei or a similar threat, D) something worthy of a song

3. Crack Theory: Sansa Becomes the Night Queen?

Shipping...

1. Let’s start with the most popular ship: Jonsa. While I’m not personally a Jonsa fan, I neither hate it nor see it as a complete impossibility. And while I’m not personally a Jonerys fan, I neither hate it nor see it as a no-brainer. Jonsa makes sense practically (uniting Targ and Stark, North & South; they already trust one another; cousin marriage isn’t considered incest in-universe, etc.), though I’m not entirely convinced if the show goes this direction that it would be the most romantic ship ever. The best I see is that it has vibes similar to Ned/Cat when they were first married to one another; they didn’t love each other romantically at first, but it would come with time. As for political!Jon Theory making this ship possible, while I wouldn’t completely put it past the GOT universe to make Jon that cold, it honestly doesn’t jive with what I think is at the core of Jon: which is a hardscrabble sort of nobility, decency, honesty. I mean, if he was politcal!Jon, wouldn’t he have come up with a smoother way to handle Cersei in their first meeting? Anyhoot, the ship isn’t hateful. I think the biggest obstacles are the fact that, even though they are technically cousins, they were raised as brother and sister. You don’t just erase that. This is somewhat “remedied” by the fact that they were never close and Sansa pretty much treated him as a whole-lot-less-than-a-brother for most of their childhood. But GOT has never shown incestuous relationships (again, I don’t really consider historically based cousin relationships as incestuous, but it is a close family bond never-the-less) as a good thing. At all. The Targ’s went mad; Dany’s brother was creepy as fudge; UMM Jaime x Cersei dear Lord; Craster and his Merry Brood, etc. (But this mainly just spells doom for Jonerys, IMHO). So, as with anything in GOT--it’s possible, it’s also not possible, there’s undertones, but there’s undertones for the complete opposite thing happening, etc. Lastly, as for the “romantic framing” of S7, I think it falls under that same maybe/maybe-not. I LOVE Jon and Sansa’s dynamic, even if I don’t see it as romantic, even if does or does not end up romantic. It is certainly one thing: intimate. And the framing (forehead kiss, bittersweet reunion, worrying for one another’s safety) supports that at the very least. If they don’t end up romantically, Jon is the last real strong male relative that Sansa has. That’s not to diss Bran, but D&D have made him a remote magical old man stuck in a teenager’s body. In some ways, he’s dead to Sansa too (as Meera said, “You died in that cave.”). The poetry, the irony, is that the people Sansa had the most problems with in her family (Arya and Jon) are all that Sansa has left now (yes, yes, I love Bran, but again he’s acting more like a solo unit than a family unit at this point)--and she realizes how much they’ve always meant to her. Jon, and Arya for that matter, are different sides of Sansa, just as she is a different side for each of them. The parallels are lovely, and this ship could very well set sail.

2. My personal favorite: Sanrion (Sansa x Tyrion, Tyrion x Sansa, whatever the preferred parlance is). Yes, I’m biased, so this entry will be the longest--BUT, let’s remove my shipper goggles. This, to me, is just as possible as Jonsa. That is, I don’t see it as guaranteed at all, but there’s plenty to read from the text. Let’s get the trouble spots out of the way: 1) the build-up has been few and far in-between since S4 (though they did throw us a bone in S7). 2) the 50/50 chance of Tyrion dying in S8 (no, I’m not basing this on “leaks,” interviews, or what-not--I’m just using this as a baseline guess, given that this is GOT and given that Tyrion is at the center of a very dangerous web of relationships), 3) the show possibly not wanting to ask a twentysomething actress and a nearly 50-year-old actor to act out anything deliberately romantic (however, I don’t expect an on-screen ship to be anything but unconventionally romantic--I very much see it being done with subtle dialogue, color theory, ambiguous looks, an epilogue, etc), and 4) Tyrion may or may not be in love with Daenerys. None of these trouble spots spells doom for me. The greatest “doom” is simply Sansa ending up alone (thematically possible) or with someone else (also thematically possible). Let’s break down counter-points to the trouble spots, then I’ll list my reasons why this ship could sail. 1) Almost all relationships in GOT are troubled and/or unconventional, built up over one season, hidden underneath layers of symbolism, or suffer from the fact that one or both partners are either dead or seperated (by this same token, Sansa’s other popular ships, Jonsa and Sansan, also suffer the same dearth of “development” or copious screen time. Arguably, Jonsa’s foundations were mostly built over the later seasons), 2) yeah, Tyrion could die (and I would be heartbroken but not blindsided) or Tyrion could live (but I would bet money that Sansa lives through the whole thing), 3) the show already put them through the most awkward phase of their “relationship” (i.e., their wedding night, though it was toned down compared to the books) and they can still sell this relationship in any number of ways (again, dialogue, color theory, looks, just holding hands again geez Louise), 4) Tyrion’s “love” for Daenerys is incredibly debatable and may only be used as fuel for a soap opera plot that I really hope doesn’t happen, but even the director of the S7 finale said Tyrion’s main concern was political and Dinklage proposed the idea that Tyrion only “think he’s in love” with Dany, that what most people feel for Dany is awe (I’m neither a Dany fan or hater, but it’s hard to deny that she’s shocking, enthralling, powerful, attractive, a force, for lack of a better term). Now, on to the practical/thematical reasons why I think this ship would work. Let’s use letters for this, haha. A) Fairy Tale parallels/Turning Tropes Upside Down: It’s easy to read inversions of fairy tale archetypes into Sansa’s storyline, as that is what her character is naturally drawn to: songs, princesses, true love, beauty. So far in the story she has learned that looks can be deceiving; life is not a song (though I wouldn’t be surprised if GRRM turns this on its head again, and Sansa simply learns that all great tales involve sorrow and darkness as well as joy and light--i.e., bittersweet vs. simply sweet); people are not black and white (Tyrion shows her that the Lannisters aren’t necessarily all evil and Littlefinger shows her that allies, even someone who loved her mother, are not necessarily all good); etc. Just some of the fairy tales/tropes that play into Sansa’s personal storyline and the subtext of Sansa x Tyrion include: Beauty and the Beast, Psyche and Cupid, Hades and Persephone, The Princess in the Tower archetype, and many, many more (I’ll meta about it one of these days--and there are already many excellent posts under the Sansa tag that expound on these). B) The Queen Elizabeth Theory: So Sansa has parallels with two remarkable historical Queen Elizabeths: Elizabeth of York and Queen Elizabeth I.  Since this has been said by so many before, here’s a quote and link to the article as summary: “The show is based off the War of the Roses, the real-life family feud between the Lancasters and Yorks that ended with the two broods combining their houses. Since the storyline happening at the end of season seven is extremely similar to this moment in history, we can infer that GoT will follow that path...” Link  C) Character Actions Written Especially For the Show: Just to name a few: GRRM purposely changed a moment in the books to where Sansa hands Tyrion a cup instead of him having to crawl underneath a table to do so; Tyrion remains loyal to his wedding vows (and this is probably inspired by his trauma for having killed his father and lover as well) even when it was very possible that Sansa had left him high-and-dry and the marriage was, in Tyrion’s own words, a “sham marriage”; Sansa and Tyrion both stick up for one another’s character, etc., and D) Also, aren’t they technically married? :-p [There’s a lot more, but again, I’ll save that for a future meta]

3. Sansan: While there may end up being a slight possibility in the books, I don’t think show-Sansa and show-Sandor are heading in this direction. However, the same fairytale motifs play into play here: Beauty and the Beast, Hades and Persephone, etc. Also, bridge4 over on Youtube has a fabulous analysis of the “unKiss” over on his channel, which I think could pop up in some shape or form in S8. Here’s the  link

4. Sansa Alone: Also supports the Queen Elizabeth theory. Specifically, Elizabeth I “the Virgin Queen.” This would a different form of poetry/irony: Sansa, the one who wanted most to be a queen consort and be married to a handsome king and have babies, ends up as a queen (full-stop) but leverages her power as a single lady. Not my favorite ending for Sansa, as I’m Teh Unabashed Romantic, but it’s plausible, thematic, pragmatic. Only time will tell!

The Fate of the North, Night King, Direwolf Theorizing

Just spitballing various takes:

1. The war is “won” (as in mankind survives), but Winterfell or possibly the entire North is compromised. As in, perhaps they have to trade the North to the Winter King at the promise he won’t invade the rest of Westeros. Or Winterfell explodes, so the North and all of Westeros is saved but the Starks lose their home

2. The Starks deliberately blow up Winterfell, for any number of reasons. Perhaps a bunch of wights or what-nots ended up there. Perhaps the dead in the Crypts were resurrected, and this was the only way to neutralize that threat. Or something deeper and darker lurks in the Crypts, something worse than the Night King. In fact….

3. Maybe the true enemy ends up being something awoken within the Crypts of Winterfell, and the Night King is not what he seems….

4. The old gods play an unexpected role

5. The godswood is burned or ends up in splinters or is used to create a new throne (ending the age of iron, fire, blood and making this a “time for wolves”)

6. Sansa’s direwolf Lady is resurrected (of course, poor Lady is headless…) and manages to wound Cersei (if she gets her arse up north, which seems unlikely) before Cersei’s killed by whoever the heck the Valonquar is

7. Speaking of, could Ghost be the Valonquar? I mean, he was the runt, the littlest brother of the brood. Eh, dunno. I just don’t expect the Valonquar to be anything close to what we think he/she/it/them is.

8. I like the idea of parts of the ocean being permanently frozen over because of something the Night King does. Dunno why. I don’t think there’s any foreshadowing to that in the show; it just sounds cool, and represents a permanent consequence to the land. Because I do not expect there to be zero consequence for the landscape of Westeros itself. The Greyjoy’s are already kinda sorta doomed (with eunuch Theon being the last male of that line, unless Euron’s got a kid somewhere and he ends up surviving to take the throne and not be a dick about it), so it’d be a bit of tragic poetry if their islands, their seas were frozen and lifeless but thanks to their efforts the rest of Westeros is safe and their people will have to make a life on land

9. One or both remaining dragons are frozen for all timez

10. Sansa becomes Queen in the North or Queen of the Seven Kingdoms (is there really an in-between?)

Bonus

Lastly, here’s just an observation on an important part of Sansa’s storyline and character development: Arya Stark. I believe Sansa and Arya adopted different pieces of the original storylines in GRRM’s book proposal outline--not that I put much stock in the outline. Sansa was created, at first, to add tension to the Stark family. GRRM says he was surprised by Sansa’s developments; he also says he empathizes with whichever character he is currently writing, so I think he just naturally found things that he liked in Sansa that made her more than a complication device. Because his original vision included Arya as the sole Stark daughter, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sansa and Arya aren’t the result of this once singular character being developed into two very different ways. The archetypal Amazon Wild Child and the Princess in the Tower. Two sides of the same coin--or, in Ned’s words, Sansa is the sun to Arya’s moon and vice-versa. For this reason, I don’t put it past Sansa to continue developing her personal brand of Brave Northern Lady and Arya developing her personal brand of Brave Northern Lady. Because that is what they both are: brave, northern, ladies. Will Sansa find herself at the center of a love triangle? I really, really hope not, but at this point if it is gonna happen I find it much more likely with Sansa than with Arya.

[whitewolfofwinterfell]

Jonsa

Grab a drink and some snacks and make yourself comfy, because this is gonna be a long ride.

My opinions on Jon and Sansa as a pairing are very complex. In the time that I’ve shipped them I’ve gone through these different phases where at some points I’m hardcore for them and other times I’m not really that fussed about them. Currently, I’m somewhere in between. Before I get started, you can read what I’ve previously said about Jonsa here (just scroll to the bottom, they’re the last ship I talk about).

The thing that drew me to Jonsa as a ship is the chemistry. To me, when Kit and Sophie are on-screen together I don’t feel like I’m watching siblings (even when the dialogue and circumstances portray that), I feel like I’m watching lovers. The eye contact, the tension, the tenderness; it’s all there. Every single scene they share feels like it has an undercurrent of sexual and/or romantic tension. It was that tension that led me to stumble across the Jonsa fandom and I was immediately like, “hey, so, I’m not the only one!”. Because you know when you’re watching something and you sense that chemistry between two characters that you know probably shouldn’t be there and you think you’re going crazy? Well, that was like me with Jon and Sansa.

There are so many aspects of the ship I enjoy and their story is beautiful to me in lots of ways. The fact that they grew up estranged, then parted ways, endured awful tragedies and finally found each other and began to heal as a result of that is beautiful to me. Jon and Sansa both reserved themselves to the fact that they would never see or be with their family again, and the emotion in their reunion scene encapsulates that immense surprise and relief that they feel at having found each other. I love that Jon was amidst a deep dark depression following his resurrection and was ready to give up on everything until Sansa walked back into his life and gave him a purpose; a reason to fight. Her strength and determination that they needed to reclaim Winterfell impassioned him to join her and fight for their home, for what what rightfully belonged to them and their family. I love that despite the fact that they were each others least favourite sibling growing up they were able to have a second chance and forged an incredibly unique and special bond as unique as the bond they had with any of their other siblings.

Psychologically I find Jonsa fascinating, because I think the possibility of Jon and Sansa developing romantic feelings for each other speaks to the experiences and traumas they’ve had. They both endured so many horrors and regardless of the coldness between them when they were children, for them the Starks and Winterfell have been and always will be their safety and strength. So in each other they found that literal embodiment of home and family, of safety. For Sansa, Jon is the only man she can truly trust after being used and abused by a string of men. For Jon, Sansa is his purpose; someone he needs to protect and that’s important because Jon as a person is built to protect others, that’s what drives him at all times and without that he’s lost. There’s a reason there’s so much emphasis on Jon’s instinct and desire to keep Sansa safe (besides the fact that he loves her and wants to protect the future of House Stark), and it’s because her safety has become one of the two sole purposes of his life (the other being to end the Night King). It’s funny because whenever I see criticisms of Jonsa as a ship it’s mostly about how gross or wrong it is because they grew up as siblings and are blood related, but that connection, in my opinion, is specifically a part of why they make sense as a pairing. It’s complicated for me to explain, but I’m going to give it a try. But the way I see it is that they grew up distant enough that they didn’t develop a full brother-sister bond so there isn’t that whole “ew he/she is my brother/sister” vibe between them. However, the familiarity they have and connection to Winterfell and the Starks draws them to each other. They longed so much for home and for family that it makes sense that when they found each other their feelings for each other would become conflicted, particularly when there’s that lack of brother-sister bond from childhood.

However, despite how much I love Jonsa, I’ve realised that I like the possibilities and tropes associated with the ship more than the actual ship itself. I guess you could say that I’ve been conditioned by fanfiction and meta to perceive Jon and Sansa’s relationship in a certain way, but over time (especially recently) I’ve come to realise that in canon they’re not necessarily written that way. For example, on the show they’re written as being quite untrusting of each other and resistant to work together. Sansa calls upon the Knights of the Vale without telling Jon about her plans, Sansa constantly questions Jon’s decisions, Jon rarely listens to Sansa’s ideas and has to be told to listen to her because she might actually have valuable advice and insights, he barely writes to her when he’s away south in season 7, he bends the knee to Daenerys without consulting her first and even in the season 8 premiere, there’s still that kind of vibe between them where Sansa doubts Jon and he’s fighting for her to trust him completely. There is a lot of conflict between them and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because all the best ships have conflict, but I think that until recently I failed to see that this conflict existed between them and projected my own perception of them (shaped by fanfiction, fanvids, meta etc.) onto their canon relationship.

Following on from that, based on 8x01 I’ve also realised that I have some issues with the way Jon and Sansa are being written. Their scene in that episode and Sansa’s behaviour generally throughout the episode is an exact repetition of what’s been going on between them since season 6. They seem to be stuck in the same cycle - Sansa picks at Jon and questions his decisions, Jon gets frustrated that she doesn’t trust him and she then confirms that she does trust him, despite all of her words and actions being the contrary. At this point, it’s just bad story-telling because it’s been established repeatedly that Sansa does trust Jon and vice versa (Jon left Winterfell in her hands, the ultimate symbol of trust), so why are they still writing them this way? If Sansa has faith in Jon and she knows it and he knows it, why is she questioning his decision to bend the knee? At this point in their relationship, Jon and Sansa should be united. They definitely needed to have a conversation about why Jon bent the knee, with Jon apologising for doing so, but immediately after that all of this tension between them should be put to bed because it’s being unnecessarily dragged on when it no longer makes any sense. However, I’m trying not to be too judgemental about their scenes in this episode, since it’s only the first episode out of 6. There’s still plenty more to come from them and it could go in a much better direction from here onwards.

Generally, I hold a lot back when it comes to shipping Jon and Sansa, because I don’t want to get caught up in the Jonsa-Jonerys ship war (I’m still too exhausted from the Stelena-Delena ship war that took up 8+ years of my life lmao), but mostly because unlike most other Jonsa shippers, I don’t have much faith that they’ll actually be endgame. I’ve over-invested in so many ships in the past and I don’t want to do that again. I always try to be realistic with my ships, regardless of how much I love them, and in my opinion, the chances of Jon and Sansa being endgame are very slim. It’s clear that D&D are invested in Jon and Daenerys, and that that’s the main love story of their show. They condensed the development of their love story into one season so that they could make it a central plot for season 8, so the chances that they’re going to completely scrap that relationship or end it abruptly and go for a Jonsa endgame doesn’t seem feasible to me. The chances of Jon and Sansa marrying for a political alliance is more likely, but still not very, because that would require Jon not only surviving the war (which, I don’t think he will) but also fully embracing his parentage and proclaiming himself King of the Seven Kingdoms. Also, if you go to other sites and read fan theories or opinions, barely anyone thinks a Jon and Sansa endgame is feasible. So I suppose you could say I’m being cautious not to become over-invested in a Jonsa endgame only to be disappointed. The ending is going to be emotional enough without the added blow of being disappointed that my ship isn’t endgame.

Having said this, you don’t choose your ships, they choose you and whether I like it or not I am a Jonsa shipper. It’s my shipper heart that wants to believe they’ll be endgame and to trust in all of the signs I’ve seen that indicate they could be. I mean can it really be a coincidence that Jon and Sansa fulfil so many romantic tropes or that so many of their scenes share characteristics with romantic ships from the show? (x) (x) (x) (x). Sometimes I think that fans put more thought into analysing the show than the people that create it do (which I definitely think is true), but nonetheless great consideration is given to every single scene that makes the final cut of an episode. We know that GOT suffers from great time constraints since they have so many characters and plots to fit in and do justice, yet Jon and Sansa consistently get scenes. Familial relationships have been important throughout the show, but from my recollection no familial/sibling relationship has had the kind of emphasis Jon and Sansa have and certainly not scenes framed in the same way that theirs are (with the romantic undercurrents). And what’s the significance of showing us not one but two scenes where Jon physically threatens people because he’s so protective of Sansa? Why is it important to show us that? If Jon is really just Sansa’s big brother (cousin), isn’t it implicit that he’s going to be protective of her? We don’t need to be shown that unless it serves some other purpose. And why is so much of their relationship saturated with this ongoing tension? Starkbowl didn’t happen in season 7 (at least not between Jon and Sansa) and I doubt it’ll happen in season 8, since there isn’t enough time to fit it in, so the only real purpose that kind of tension serves is because there’s underlying sexual tension. There are so many what ifs about the ship, so many signs that indicate that we Jonsa’s aren’t just imagining their romantic chemistry, but I’ve been very wrong about this stuff in the past, so like I say, I’m proceeding with caution.

To sum up, because I could talk about this all day, my opinion on Jon and Sansa is that I love them individually and together. Their chemistry is fantastic, I love their relationship platonically and see a lot of potential with them romantically. I adore reading and watching Jonsa content and writing Jonsa fanfiction (they’re my favourite couple to write for out of all my ships). They are potentially the most interesting couple on GOT and could have such an incredible love story. If the show was to follow through and deliver what I believe should happen (political!Jon and Jonsa) I’d be ecstatic and have no hesitancy in proclaiming them my OTP. But, unfortunately, I have reservations so for now I’m keeping my guard up because my shipper heart has been burned too many times before. Instead, for the final season I’m trying to focus more on enjoying their relationship from a platonic POV and if they are endgame I’ll be over the moon, but if not I’ll love and appreciate the depth and emotion in their relationship no matter which direction it takes in canon.

Thanks for asking!

send me a ship and i’ll give my honest opinion…

[raging-violets]

"I gotta say, I'm a little surprised" Cisco/Averey

This is actually and idea I’ve had to introduce to Cisco’s character in my fics, but also didn’t think it really fit him at the same time? So, thanks, Anonymous for selecting this prompt! It fell came in perfectly at the right time. In my fic, “In a Flash”, I had a scene where Cisco and Averey talked about what brought them to Central City. In that conversation, Cisco had mentioned that he had grown up in Detroit in a not so great area, and he helped Dante with a not so great situation, before the Ramon family moved to Central City. I was thinking that he had to have internalized some “tricks of the trade” so to speak, on how to make it living there, so what if that side of him was shown in his every day, better, life in Central City? And that’s where this came from!

                                                               ——–

“All I’m saying is, mate, that there’s nothing wrong with taking public transportation, yeah? I mean, I’m saving a whole bunch of money a year with it.”

“You don’t even own a car.”

“Still. With my bus pass, I don’t have to pay each time I come aboard.”

Cisco twisted his mouth to the side, before allowing his smile to straighten it. “Ok, but I like walking. You really get the chance to see Central City this way, instead of a blur as you’re racing down the streets.”

“Sounds like something you should be saying to Barry,” Averey laughed. She shoved her hands into her jeans pockets, making a show of extending the width of her strides. “I see your point, but there’s no way I’d forget anything about this city. Not with these eyes, anyway.” She made a V shape with her index and middle finger, pointing at her own eyes before making a show of pointing them around her. With her abilities, she could see and remember every little thing about her day. There was so much everyone else would miss or just forget. For that reason, she kind of felt sorry for the average citizen of Central City

“We all can’t be blessed with amazing eyes like yours,” Cisco said. Averey returned his smile with a shy one of her own, briefly bowing her head. She didn’t see the group of people at the corner. Cisco placed his hand in the small of her back, guiding her off the sidewalk and across the street. To her look of bewilderment, he just said, “You’re right, there’s nothing wrong with taking the bus.” He removed his hand, briefly glancing over his shoulder at the . “If you don’t mind being stuck in one place with so many people. I may be open to people most of the time, but I need to recharge by my lonesome, too.”

“Right,” Averey laughed, “how is it any different than taking a car? Just pop in your earbuds and go.”

“Because you choose who gets to be in your personal space. No worrying about some random guy choosing to take the spot next to you when all the other seats are empty.” Eyeing a man walking towards them with purposeful strides, head cocked to the side, lips moving, Cisco felt himself lift his chin upwards. He pushed his hands into his coat pockets. Rolled back his shoulders. Turning his head to speak to Averey’s profile, he used his hair to hide the sideways gaze he kept fixed on the approaching man. “You can choose what music you get to listen to and not at the will of the person blasting theirs at 20,000 decibels. And, if you ever needed to make a quick escape, just pop open the door and go.”

“You’ve been thinking about this a lot, haven’t you?” Averey shook her head back and forth, clearly amused. “When have you ever needed to escape a bus?”

“I’m just saying,” Cisco said, watching the man stride past them saying, “I’m almost there. Just a couple more blocks. Please, hold the reservation.” Cisco spotted white earbuds in the man’s ears, and then he noticed the   He sighed in relief through his nose. “It doesn’t hurt to know how to get out of situations.” He put his hands to his chest, widening his eyes in innocence. “I’ve seen stories online. I know I’m not the only one that can let their minds wander and think about how they would save the day in certain dire situations.”

“Liiike, what Vibe would do if a meta attacked right now?” Averey asked, referring to his super alter ego.

“I would bravely breach us to safety,” Cisco said, “and let the Flash deal with everything sowe can enjoy ourselves on our date.” He removed his hand from his pocket and Averey grabbed a hold of it. “I think you should avoid trouble when you can, that’s all.”

“Reckon in our line of work, that’s not entirely possible, hey.” As if on cue, a loudpop was heard over the sound of the early evening traffic. Instantly, Averey’s head whipped around and her eyes darted from car to car, and person to person. “See what I mean?”

“You’re the one who jumped at the sound.” Still holding Averey’s hand, he curled and uncurled his fingers, trying to get some feeling back in them after her grip tightened dramatically. “Practically have to peel you off the ceiling, scaredy cat.” Averey stuck her tongue out at him. “It’s OK, it was just a car back fire.” Cisco squeezed her hand just as tight for good measure. “Come on, I know a shortcut to the park.”

“But if it was something–”

“Then the police or the Flash, will handle it. Besides, I asked for the night off and Barry said he’ll do his best to not bring us in to it.”

“Guess it pays to have your mate for a boss.”

“Considering our business meetings are usually done over binge watching baking shows? Yeah, it’s the best.”

The two of them laughed as they made their way to Central City Park. After a quick trip up and down the promenade, they decided on making a stop in a little Italian eatery, ordering some food to enjoy at the tables by the water front. Conversation flowed easily between the two of them over the clinking of silverware on plates.

“So, are you going to tell me what’s been bothering you?”

Cisco speared a chunk of lasagna, smiling as he watched the melted cheese stretch and stretch as he lifted the bite towards his mouth. “How do you mean?”

“I notice a lot of things, Cisco.” Sliding a forkful of spaghetti to her mouth, she nodded in his direction, gaze shifting upwards towards his hair. “Like you’ve put in some extra work today. Your hair is wavier than usual.”

“Well, you know,” Cisco laughed, proud of himself, “you can’t get incredible locks like this without putting some effort into it. But, I get the feeling that, that’s not what you were referring to.” He took his bite of lasagna into his mouth and chewed happily.

“As soon as we left the car park, you’ve been acting strange, yeah?” Averey pointed at him with her fork. “We changed directions twice, crossed the street earlier than we needed to, and you puffed out your chest when that bloke was coming towards us.”

“Oh.” Cisco stared at her, his chewing slowed. “I didn’t realize I did that.”

“And you could quickly decipher a car back fire. I thought it was a gun”

“I’ve listened to neighbors shoot off fireworks whenever they felt like it, not just on holidays.” Cisco shrugged. “And we’ve been around the police, and Joe, long enough for me to distinguish between all three pretty easily.” Averey continued to scrutinize him. “Ok, yeah, I guess I learned all this stuff back before I moved to Central City. I’ve already told you I grew up in a rough area, and the kind of trouble Dante used to get into, right?” Dabbing at her lips with a napkin, Averey nodded. “There were just some rules you quickly worked out for yourself. You knew what times were best to be walking by yourself, who to avoid, knowing when not to talk, that kind of thing.”

“And throwing yourself out of a moving car?”

“Too many people can be on a bus. You could sit in the wrong spot, tune out, and be surrounded faster than you know what’s happening. I was the ‘debt collection’ so to speak once or twice.” At Averey’s silence, Cisco managed a weak smile. “Not really a romantic topic is it?”

“No,” Averey agreed, sharing his smile, “but I asked. I gotta say, I’m a little surprised. You really do know how to handle yourself.”

“Because you wouldn’t expect it from my soft exterior?” Averey widened her eyes and chose to take another bite of spaghetti instead of answering. “I told you; I grew up with two older brothers.” Cisco shrugged. “I mean, I know I’m smarter than them, but they taught me a lot. That, and having to deal with Hartley for as long as I did, and being employed by a psycho from the future that murdered my best friend’s mom in the past, turned me into the resourceful man you see in front of you.”

[ Angst/Fluff Prompts | Ask Box ]

[theravennest]

Thoughts on “Seeing Red”

I actually quite liked a lot of the last episode. It had some great directing that I immediately noticed and appreciated. I enjoyed the general premise and acting. 

There were also moments from several characters that I really took a shine to. Barry and Iris worriedly waiting by Nora’s bedside and trying to help her when she woke. Queen Iris getting all mama bear over Sherloque investigating Nora. Nora herself dealing with potentially being paralyzed less than a year after gaining superspeed. Barry having a slow escalation of aggression after Nora is hurt until he loses it against Cicada. Barry with a new power, the electric fist was rad. Cecile and Singh getting to do their thing and shine even more of a light on how the justice/legal system is adapting to meta-humans. I enjoyed getting to see a bunch of these metas, especially my boo Shawna.

I even was ok with the Frost and Caitlin stuff, tho I think it would’ve been better served as the B-plot conflict in the last episode to replace Cailtin’s far-fetched notion that Cisco would ever forcibly remove someone’s powers and their subsequent knock-off Mutant Cure argument. 

Frost opposing the cure because she considers it a threat to her literal existence as an autonomous being within Caitlin is far more interesting to me than watching Cisco talk himself into stripping his own powers out of fucking nowhere and Caitlin overreacting like Cisco is the kind of monster who would strip other metas without their consent. 

Instead, Cisco’s story could’ve been threaded more prominently through the first half of S5 and focused on him struggling with not having his powers, getting back to being an engineer, being temporarily or potentially permanently disabled/weakened, and how that informs his relationship with the Vibe hero persona and his abilities in general. 

But, whatever...back to this current episode.

The whole thing was undercut by some seriously poor writing choices that again could be easily remedied with tighter edits to the script/story.

For example, the below:

1. When Cicada broke Nora’s back it should’ve happened because multiple victims were present and everyone was occupied trying to get like 4-5 people to safety without their powers then Cicada could’ve sneaked up on Nora. As it stands, all 4 heroes were distracted helping one woman culminating in Caitlin dropping Frost just for her to say “We gotta get her to a hospital.” What?

2. Instead of Cicada attacking the transfer by helicopter that made no sense, Barry could have successfully sped/breached the metas to an FBI safe house/facility and Team Flash leaves thinking their job is done but Jones could have leaked the FBI location so they have to run back to save them. 

As it stands, they transfer the metas to a helicopter even tho Flash could’ve sped them or breached them to the FBI? That’s ridiculous.

3. The most egregious one is for sure Barry walking away from Cicada without restraining him at the end. Come on, guys...

I’m fine with Barry losing it and wanting to get his hands dirty beating Cicada’s ass for what he did to his daughter. That’s all good. But then Nora could’ve run there with meta cuffs, stopped Barry from lowkey murder, and Barry puts the cuffs on Cicada. Then they could’ve hugged.

Then the dampening cuffs could’ve just not worked on Cicada!!!

They’ve already established that Cicada is not the ordinary type of meta-human. They easily could’ve said that his unique external connection to the knife (that they spent the 100th ep trying to build a special weapon against) makes it so that restraining him with cuffs are not enough. Surprise!

Then when Barry and Nora think he’s secured with the dampener cuffs, the dagger could overpower Frost, snap to Cicada, break the cuffs off his wrists, and he could fly away. That’s a waaaay better way for him to escape than Barry got distracted by his feelings and wanted to hug Nora while an unrestrained serial killer is on the ground. The fuck?

Now it just looks like the team is super incompetent cuz they won’t take a second to restrain this dude or plan a better meta transfer.

It’s the same for the 100th episode. Cisco could’ve breached the dagger to another Earth instead of space but because Cicada has a special bond with his knife, the breach won’t close and Cicada pulls it back through. Or more spectacularly if they have the budget, the breach does close but his bond to the knife literally rips a hole through the multiverse and brings the dagger back to him.

I just wish the show would take a few more passes over the script to just make the story better. They’re obviously working towards a specific thematic goal, which I’m perfectly fine with, but the steps to get to those story beats could be much more thoughtful. 

I’ve not written off the Flash or anything. I like it too much. Every episode I am entertained and I can have fun with at least something that happens. I’m all in on the show, it’s premise, and it’s characters. 

I just really want them to do better like I know they can.

[ts-autumns-world]

Episode 1: “Autumn you are a crazy fucked up host” - Giraffez

AHHHHHHH AUTUMNS WORLD HI!!!!!! THIS CAST IS AMAZING IM SO EXCITED AND SCARED!!! JINX YES!! AND 4 KILI PEOPLE INCLUDING LILY?? cant wait !!!

Omg! first day and im placed on the Eener tribe <3 love the way it sounds like an alarm so much ! xo love the tribe divisions and love my tribe mates! super excited to get to know them more, and reconnect with others :)

https://youtu.be/9P1GrFrTHnQ

---

it’s the way i keep putting my birthday as the date...as if this is a doctors office and not autumns world...I DONT NEED NO DOCTOR THO I AM CURED IN AUTUMNS WORLD ‼️‼️‼️ anyways manifesting a jinx win 🕯 hi my name is jinx and i am the winner of tumblr survivor 103: autumns world. i keep telling myself that. it’s okay to be hungry for the win like i am this time. i can’t let it blind me but it’s okay! it’s okay to say i’m gonna win! if i fail, it’s not smth i haven’t done before. but. im taking a page from autumns book and speaking it into existence. my name is jinx clementine and i WILL BE the winner of tumblr survivor 103: autumns world. *uptown funk vc* don’t believe me just WATCH ‼️

It feels absolutely insane to be back. I feel like I’m a bit oversaturated tbh

I can’t believe this cast. Packed with icons. So many people from Kilimanjaro?? I’m just like??? I’m just so excited to play and hope that our team does great. I just don’t want to lose cause I really don’t want to vote any of these other people out! 

when i’m the annoying overactive player... i keep putting my birthday as the month/day/year 😭 so watch out for that. anyways, important announcement: the only song i ever listen to is potential breakup song by aly & aj. i never listen to anything else. if i feel like listening to music that’s what i listen to. it’s been on repeat since 2007. my itunes consists of 1 song, potential breakup song by aly & aj, and the play count is somewhere around 50,000 plays. if you ever see me listening to music, don’t even ask what song i’m listening to, because you know it’s potential breakup song by aly & aj, so why would you even ask

I don't give one fucks, two fucks, red fucks, or blue fucks, I'm gonna put all my effort and energy into this season. I have a point to prove, not to just myself, but to every person who has doubted me in any way. The biggest concern I have is meta gaming, alot of it but its going to be okay. Chris and Jinx? Vibing. Mikki and Captain? that group chat was made 5 minutes into the game. Monty and Lily C are gonna be vibing since they're winners. Lily O and I played fr*nce, but that's... no good. I'm going to just let go and have a great time. This is Autumn's World, and sometimes, we all need to just relax and let nature take its course

Autumn you are a crazy fucked up host....... Legit i was like oh come in have some fun then BOOM FUCKING MESOPOTAMIA FLASH BACK OUT THE GATE so sevice to say I'm nervous as hell about this challenge i so don't want to get voted out first .....or on the same challenge as before so even if we do have to go to tribal hopefully the winning tribe will take pitty on me and you know give me safety

feeling delusional for writing what i wrote about winning 😭🌚 LIKE DKKDKDKDKDKDDKDKKD IM TRYING TO BE MY BEST POSSIBLE SELF AND APPARENTLY THAT FACILITATES DELUSION GOOD NIGHT 

https://youtu.be/FJM9fQW7evY

---

autumn not letting me in the game at first bc i’m mixed. i can hear my ancestors screaming

Yknow I’m not exactly thrilled that the song decision was made without everyone being present but like my stupid night shifts make it completely understandable at the same time. On that topic, though. Party in the USA for our music video, hmm. Not even bleach is that basic.

good morning it’s day 2 in autumn’s world and i don’t feel any better about the whites. ps. daily i love monty 

https://youtu.be/DAXdEjZW1mc

https://photos.app.goo.gl/mQ3vUbaX1nEnsp2Z9

My tribe has a varying amount of timezones which makes it harder to connect with them socially as I cannot PM them as much as I would like to. Additionally, I am finding it difficult to message them because I have to work from 8 to 5 everyday of the week. This sucks because I know I can at least make people like me in the per-merge enough to keep me. However, I can no longer reliably use this strategy. I just have to hope others are way more inactive than me and that my tribe somehow wins immunity. On that note, I am really liking that Mikki and Benj took a leadership role in the tribe. So, they are definitely people I want to keep on this tribe. It would have to be Blake or Khalid that gets the target from me. We'll see how talking to them goes before results.

I LOVE THIS GAME!!!!!!! Ok so starting with my tribe:

Mikki - ABSOLUTELY THE FAV!!! We got along right away on day 1 and are def the closest in timezones which is so great to have someone like that. Sooo fun and easy to talk to really wanna be #1 allies. I know shes amazing at orgs and won and probs is getting along well with everyone but who cares i wanna play w her!!!! The main thing is too have fun and i just know it will be with Mikki

Captain - Also amazing!!! Super active in helping with the challenge and great personally love that hes gonna do english teaching which is smth i was looking into and also in a closer time zone to me and had fun discussing stuff w him so far!!

Blake - We played Kili together!! Shoutout Autumn for getting 4 Kilis back omg. I was on a tribe with Blake and Autumn together for like 2 rounds and we did vote together once so have some positive history at least hes a bit more quiet compared to the others but hes cool and i think we could do good!

Raffy - Iconic parts in the video challenge and also fun so far!! Havent talked as much as the above 3 but still feeling good about him!

Khalid - Seems nice and friendly but we havent messaged yet and no clue if he will do his lines in the music video :O we'll see But overall love my tribe and the overall cast. LILY THE KILI WINNER QUEEN???????? Cant believe shes back would be so awesome to play w her again since last time we were mainly on opposite sides. JINX MY ONE MONTE FRIEND??? YES!! SO excited i hope we get to tribe swap together since in Monte we werent that close and i voted them off i know such a disgrace but since then we have become more friends so would love to play together!! Also played w Chips in Kili and were sort of friends! Chris we are hosting a season together but i think itll be cancelled tbh no ones applying and we dont know each other at all outside of that but i loved his intro and just started getting into agatha christie literally ordered 2 of her books a few  weeks ago sdhksa cant believe he mentioned her in his intro so super excited to properly meet him. Joey we are sorta friends but i voted him out recently in other game so dunno how he feels abt me!! Everyone else i dont really know but will meet some soon surely WOOO AUTUMNS WORLD

SO THE GAME JUST STARTED so there's not really that much to spill right now but I do really enjoy my tribe. I have my bestie captain who I will protect as much as I possibly can. and I've spent all day yesterday and today talking to benj who I LOVE so so so much. I feel so good with him. SO UM ASAHJSHSJAJHASHJAS IM ON THE SAME TRIBE AS RAFFY WHO UM ASHJSAHASHJ I played with once before where I was super chaotic and I literally fought him (playfully) and it was so messy and chaotic and stupid BUT I DIDN'T RECOGNISE HIM AND HE DIDN'T REMEMBER ME SO WE JSUT WERE LIKE "nice to meet you" and I didn't realise until later and idk if he knows yet and I am not bringing it up COS LIKE IDK I DON'T WANT IT TO GET WEIRD AND MAYBE HE DOESN'T REMEMBER BUT MAYBE HE DOES IDK but besides that I love him a lot he's so fun and his videos for our music video are AMAZING he's so full of life. Khalid hasn't been on much but I really enjoy his energy when he is. he's so cool and lovely. Blake is nice!!!!! but I can't help but feel my instincts being like WATCH HIM. like something inside me is saying beware of this white man.LIKE IDK WHAT IT IS but I just get instincts in games with people sometimes where I just feel like unsettled??? and that's how I feel right now. we're all in different timezones so socialising is the opposite of overwhelming. I've never had a game so quiet in the beginning like this before. but I've never played survivor either. I think I might be okay??? if we went to tribal but I really don't want us to go to tribal pls....

JINX IS OVER ON THE TUA TRIBE BTW and I'm sitting here with grabby hands. I wanna play with them so bad and just get to have our redemption arc because we didn't play on the same side the first time we played so LET ME HAVE THIS I just wanna play with them and have fun with them but they are so far away :((((

I'm so excited overall tho the whole cast looks amazing and I'm having fun so far. this challenge has been a blast and. a great way to bond with everyone. I feel so close to benj already. I really love him a lot. so I'm having a good time yes ashjshajjahs YAY

oh and I also did my tarot and idk where things are going to go exactly but I'm very :eyes: raffy got the tower and Khalid got the devil....hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

also I wanna play with women at some point PLS PLS I haven't been this surrounded by men since I was a closeted 15 year old surrounded by posters of Robert Pattinson and Taylor lautner

Benj just submitted his version of the music video and it is..... bad. I don't know why Mikki filmed vertically? Like, I feel like that's the first rule of music videos? You have to always film horizontally. Also, some of these people's energies were not giving at all. The beginning waking up part was cute though. It's just.... these people aren't giving what they think they're giving is all I'm saying. And Benj put this weird filter on all my videos that makes it hard to see what's actually going on tbh. Anyways, time to kick the socializing into high gear so as to not get voted out! Or pray that Mikki's version of the video is better

hello autumn's world.. this is captain's speaking. sorry i'm one day late to this confessional booth stuff but i'm here and i'm ready to give u some tea. *ahem* thanks jarod for these questions.

1. How do you feel about your starting team? Anyone you are happy/upset to see? OOOOH i feel like my team is very CUTE! like i didn't think autumn was gonna put me and mikki in the same tribe lmao .. i thought it was gonna be divided from ur race and u know mikki is white and i'm not. ANYWAYS, im happy to see mikki in my team of course. thats my ride or die and i know i'm gonna have someone i can 100% trust no matter what for sure. but blake knows for sure that mikki and i are very close so thats gonna be interesting. which leads to the next part, i'm kinda eh with blake in my tribe thats only because our previous experience in CoW so i just hope that its gonna be better here this time *prays*.. for others, i don't know them before so i'm excited to get to know them!!!

2. Who are you most excited to play with on the cast? Most afraid of? oh of course mikki for sure and another person is geekoffilm cause u know we're like besties besties and i love both of them so much. most afraid of... probably monty tbh. they tried to gun for me/mikki(/cora) in jarod's mini so i think they know that mikki and i are gonna be tight so i'm just gonna have to keep an eyes on them cause they are a great player.

3. What are your first impressions of everyone based on this first challenge? OH GOD. i love benj!! benj is very organized so we started off pretty well. i threw out lush life randomly and then we decided to go with lush life, how cute!!! but yea, benj and mikki have done lots of works and i love THEM. RAFFY ALSO DID AMAZING in his parts!!! like he has PROPS and his camp is sooooo summery and AHH he's so great. blake.. ahem if blake didn't look at his lyrics at the first part, it would've been a bit better. and idk about khalid. i'm very worried cause khalid hasn't sent any of his parts yet. and like he seems inactive??? so idk but i don't wanna lose the points for full team participation :oooooh: I DIDNT JUST SHOW ANYONE I CANT DANCE TO LOSE AND I DIDNT HAVE TO DANCE AND MAKE MY LEGS ACHE JUST TO LOSE!!! SOBS!! but that is a sign that tells me i should exercise more x ANYWAYS!!!! its just interesting point to add x

4. What is your strategy going into the first portion of the game? trying to lay low and build some connections with ppl from my tribe. benj and raffy for sure. i rlly like their vibes so i need to stick with them. and just try not to lose challenges cause its gonna be suck voting one of them out. also, if we somehow win, i want to send someone who i can trust moving forward to exiled island.. but we'll see. its gonna be a lot of thinking and convincing people.

5. How do you want other people in the game to view you in the early stages of the game? as someone who they can trust and talk to and someone who always puts effort into challenges cause thats what most important in the first stage of the game.. i'll come back here after results x

HELLO AUTUMNS WORLD IM PISSED! not about raffy getting sent to the outback. its what raffy deserved. i like raffy so thats fine i just need to work on my relationship with him after he comes back. BUT KHALID. GOD. he just doesnt care about the challenge AT ALL. he was inactive. he didnt even talk about the challenge. and then coming to the chat and telling us SORRY after we have submitted… god thats BS. we literally all put our effort into this. and for someone who just dont care about the pandemic (idk about the uk but i guess they allow partying now) and go out and party. GOD i mean he’s going back to bahrain anyways WELL GUESS WHAT, HERE IS ANOTHER PLANE TICKET HOME. take that and sashay away babe

---

cause thats just FUCKED UP. everyone put their efforts in. benj — his leg is HURTING he cant move much btut he still did his parts and helped us with the editing. RAFFY — he literally worked 8 to 5 but he still found time to just shoot his parts and like more random parts. blake — well even though he didnt study the song much, he still did it and he is a team player. MIKKI — well u know i love mikki and ik how much shes in her head for this challenge but every scene she is on, i smile watching her because she just did it SO WELL PLUS she stayed up late for khalid and her health is not good. fucked up khalid u done fucked up enough. hope u enjoyed ur short time at autumns world.

First challenge, done, middle of the road WOOOOOOOOOOOOO, absolutely love that my music video streak has been continuing! Coming into this game, I felt absolutely nervous as hell about playing with 2 winners on my team, but in all honesty, I’m gonna take the Jinx approach- Embrace it, you don’t get another opportunity like this. I love the fact that I’m being more engaged than before and that’s what I want to be, especially in confessionals. I’m always trying to be better, and how can I better myself I HATE THE WAY MARV ALBERT PRONOUNCES PARENTHESES, YOU DON’T SAY IT LIKE “THE C’s”? JESUS MARV ITS GONNA BE YOUR LAST GAME YOU CALL IN YOUR CAREER COME ON MAN.

---

I hate to be called Joestradamus, but when Captain or Mikki get voted out first because of how tight knit they are, don’t @ me

*slides into splits* WE WON YES YES YES YES WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO YEAH

re khalid missing the challenge: no everyone in our team worked rlly hard on that except khalid who went out fucking partying then he lied about going to send the vid soon cause you know what if he already filmed his parts, looking for a vid and click send are not that hard he fucking told us he was about to send ASAP and then disappeared and then had the NERVE to tell us AFTER THE DEADLINE that he's so SORRY OH PLS

This tribe name is Autumn's last name backwards! https://thumbs.gfycat.com/VigorousBiodegradableIrishterrier-size_restricted.gif  

Now that that is out of the way, let me list my tribemates... Giraffez Joey Lily C Lily O Monty. Something is incredibly amusing about how there is a tribe with someone named Chips and someone named Giraffez. What is not amusing is that I get a "I don't like/want to speak to/etc." vibe from Giraffez? I could just be a delicate and annoying flower but our conversations have been short and dry. Joey has some great high energy and excitement and I love that he loves being part of this game. He is also pretty fun to talk to. Hoping that we can keep an open dialogue and that perhaps I can rope him into a future alliance of sorts. Lily C is a sweetheart truly and I adore her personality so much. She is such a go-getter and goes to bat for those with who she feels can be loyal. I'm hoping that we can build loyalty and trust together. Lily O has been busy with work at a bowling alley. That's actually really cool because when I was a child that was my dream job. Not even joking... my parents were in leagues when I was growing up and my brother and I entered ones designed for children. It was a big thing in my family and I thought that I would love to be in that "atmosphere" all the time. Anyway, we haven't spoken until after the results were announced so honestly if I had to guess I was their intended target if we had had tribal council and they were mine?? (perhaps...) It has been really nice getting to connect with Monty and really cool finding out that they are beginning job searching after college and thinking of pursuing education as a career. I have a soft spot in my heart for all educators.

Okay so I'm just going to say this now. Autumn needs to simplify the twists to more like Blue's Clues with an OBVIOUS large blue paw prints where I'm supposed to look. I have no idea what that announcement was about war rooming someone into the game and feel like I"m fifty million steps behind these big-brained people who figured it out. https://media2.giphy.com/media/m59avtxDzXeiQ/200.gif

I think that I missed the message about what we do with tickets or I'm still just as clueless as previously stated but I am intrigued nonetheless. I think even if I knew what to do with them I would just hoard them like I would Chuck E. Cheese tickets in case something else came along. Hope they're not like Fire Tokens and let you buy like Peanut Butter and Idols because I am anti- fire token. https://media.tenor.com/images/d7de1f75f2c43f8e044e958b964430fa/tenor.gif

On a side note, I'm paranoid when I see people on calls because even if they're not talking about me or plotting they are potentially aligning with each other and that does not include me. I don't really know much about how calls work on Discord as I am a pretty big noob generally speaking with the platform but it did say that Joey and Giraffez were on a call earlier?? I'm stressed. https://media0.giphy.com/media/3o7TKRwpns23QMNNiE/200.gif --- http://www.purplerockpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/survivor-pearlislands-lillian-morris-post-savage-blindside.gif

https://voca.ro/1lb9WKsDr6xA

Ok.....so after talking to Joey a little ive learned a few things mikki is a bit of a beast Benj is well......social to and everyone despised Mesopotamia........which i get from the stuff that pumped me up to 16th place that season but I'm mostly hoping that i can make it to the end this time....... So far I've talked to pretty much everyone Lilly and Joey and monty not sure which one really but the one whose discord is 13survivirgirl13 so hopefully soon i can work out some kind of an alliance with them and if we swap or merge from three to two either next week or the week after (probably the week after honestly) i feel i can maybe set us up as one and us four can really rule the roost for a moment....hopefully.....who knows i could just he a delusional old queen whose doomed to be nothing more then premerge every time i play tumblr survivor......or maybe I'm just crazy *shrugs* either way it should be a damn good hoot

we won the first challenge, god bless. which brings up something funky i realized: that the best part about winning immunity is having the day off. and also…idk something just doesn’t sit right…the way autumn was emphasizing that someone would be eliminated from the game…like….hm……….idk….never trust a bitch named after a season!

omg we lost AHHHH but thankfully we have an easy boot sorry khalid im glad i dont have to vote mikki captain or blake eeek pls lets win the next one

I'm totally pumped for this game! Like when I saw my tribe and Jinx is on it I screamed! I want us to have the same success of being together at ftc!! Jude honestly is great to me and I'm enjoying getting to know her a lot, Ricky I remember from HvV4 but we both say no to that and start anew! Bryan I am hopeful to talk more since its been dry and that is okay. Sucks we ended losing Michelle early but I am sure it was for the best! We WILL reign successful

---

Yesterday was so stressful to me like editing I have no problem with but I thought my biggest worry was that I needed Bryan to submit stuff late-ish. But turns out an hour before due time thd program wanted to stop working 🙃🥲 and I felt so close to wanting to forfeit- which is something I never do but I just felt hopeless and guilty and even imagined getting voted out. So I had to call Jinx who assured me something could be salvaged and they'd make sure I would stay (rip Bryan) but after the extension by cool hosts I found encouragement and did my magic stuff. SOMEHOW we won and to be honest I dont think anything will top that feeling of relief in the org (give me 3 days) but man what a ride yesterday was for me!

I got a Super Idol! Well, at least I now know that I can fuck around in this game a little bit more since I have this extra insurance in my back pocket which guarantees I stay around in the long run. I want to start getting into alliances because being a solo person with not much time on their hands is definitely a scary position to be in. Preferably, I want an alliance with Nikki and Benj (though I suspect that they already have an alliance with at least one other person on the tribe). It does suck that I am not at tribal considering that it will help build my bonds even stronger. I guess I just have to suffer for the time being

i think this is gonna be an easy vote cause khalid needs to go. but idk you can never feel safe in survivor :/ but so far everyone has been telling me they're voting khalid so lets pray

Omg that immunity was so hard, I literally did not know what I was doing and I think out of everyone I was a bit lackluster. I will say on the tribe I have not really talked to all of them but I will say I trust Jinx the most and we have talked a lot and I think that moving forward we will have each others back. All I need to do is talk to the rest of the tribe and form bonds that will last me to a swap or merge. 

https://youtu.be/kKOciJGjrzw

https://youtu.be/mx7WPjx8zCk

---

khalid babe this ones for you 🥺 https://youtu.be/QX2boYNUbxw

[elizabethrobertajones]

Bi!Dean meta: idk if this has been said or not, but I haven't seen it. In s01e10, Sam was denying his demon powers and Dean says "don't ask, don't tell." That, of course, was the official US military service involving LGBT personnel. At the time of the episode, this policy was still very much in effect. Thoughts? P.S. I also sent this to ibelieveinthelittletreetopper, just so you know.

Hi! :) 

Aw, season 1 stuff :D I’ve noticed that line before in this context and I think I’ve also seen people talking about it, somewhere, and I’ll go look in a moment. 

There’s some good meta out there about season 1 Sam’s queercoding via abstract magic powers contrasted with the very different form of queercoding for Dean via shit he says and does and circumstances and tropes etc. They both feel like freaks, which is said on screen for both of them by like 1x06, so you have Sam who is magically different from everyone else, and Dean who just feels socially ostracised and the metaphor works on a social level instead, which makes it more directly personal to his upbringing and why he doesn’t feel he connects just as a person. It’s part of the structural subtext of season 1 that lends to a bi!Dean reading (like I was recently snarking in the tags of this post about) :D So I don’t think there’s any reason not to think that some sort of early bi!Dean subtext is out there in a sort of structural way which to me validates every reading of him taken off random lines and actions. And Dean going around saying stuff like that in season 1 is part of it :P

I… I just looked through my tag for the episode and couldn’t find anything, which is really weird because I *remember* having a conversation about it and/or reading good long meta about it. The only post I could find was this one which is not only one of 2 posts dealing with bi Dean stuff in this episode (aside from some slightly larger collections), I didn’t write much myself for this entire episode and the only reason it’s mentioned here is my tags snidely alluding to it:

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/137427332398/f-ckyeahfutbol-rainbofiction

I’m going to have to assume that this is such an obvious line we all just kinda don’t pay it any attention because like the one about him teasing Sam about the hotter psychic, you have to go through a few loops more than you need to with later subtext, even though it fully counts in a projection/anxiety way that Dean’s behaviour is quite predictable even by this point about in other ways.

Well I don’t think these are my own thoughts but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it talked about vis a vis Dean’s awareness of the concept and social commentary e.g. he’s calling Sam out for not wanting to talk about it because he is trying to say he’s NOT as unwelcoming as the military and would be supportive of Sam if he’d just talk to him normally about it instead of getting defensive. Especially since Sam brushes it off as weird vibes and dreams, when he previously, in Home, was much more certain he was having premonitions and was visibly distressed and beating himself up about having predicted Jess’s death. Dean’s not stupid, he’d have been waiting to find out what Sam was hiding since 1x04 and he knew Bloody Mary’s MO so of course he knows that to Sam this is more than “just” weird vibes and dreams, but he’s having some serious plot-arc, thing-that-killed-Mom-and-Jess weirdness going on right now. Sam blows him off talking about it and Dean snarks at him that fine keep your secrets if you think I’m going to - well, dishonourably discharge you from the family for the truth, to finish the parallel. 

Obviously Dean using the term critically means a level of social awareness to make the parallel and to use it as a negative concept. And then there’s the reflecting onto Sam, because the term obviously is *only* about being gay in the military as the first and only read you need to make of it in this context. And he barbs at Sam a lot for being feminine or gay or whatever in the early seasons, which is the negative side of the performing Dean thing: establishing that strength is one thing, that Dean doesn’t approve of these things, and that Sammy is instead, because obviously Dean’s the big manly older brother who’s never worn women’s underwear ever. Which just makes us go “oh hon” to Dean and try and steer him away from all these toxic masculinity related ideas of what he should be or not be. 

But anyway the projection and anxiety that you get with Dean is he says stuff but secretly he’s afraid of it and how it applies to him, and ribbing Sam like that is a fast way to reassert himself to the top of the masculinity ladder, but it turns pretty much everything he insults Sam with into an I’m rubber and you’re glue situation. Because at the heart of it Dean’s biggest issues are he’s scared and doesn’t have full control of the situation, and most of the first MotW episodes in season 1 have something or other where they absolutely expose Dean’s layers. There’s some good recent comments from @wherethewildthingswerent who watching for performing!Dean rather than bi!Dean stuff and found a whole bunch of examples in the early episodes which prove that Dean NEVER had the facade for the audience. I think 1x03 or 1x04 pretty much immediately set us up to question Dean’s act anyways, like, the first 2 episodes are the only ones which are mostly about setting up the playing field and letting us know how this all works, and as soon as we are getting the idea of it, take it all away from Dean :P

I suppose the conclusion would be that Dean fears as much as what he’s jabbing at Sam about fearing - that would his family disown HIM for his queerness if they knew and from Sam’s POV almost the entire episode is Dean acting like John and following orders. Being HIS soldier and trying to do what John would want and earn his approval. John as their drill sergeant is something he eventually confirms to them in his own words, so the military references to how their family works, especially with John as an ex-Marine, are really important. 

That entire episode has John looming over it because he sends them to the case and Sam spends the first quarter expecting to meet John there, and then realises it’s been a distraction to send them away, while Dean is determined to work the case because John wants them to, and push Sam to do it no matter what as well. Hence the big outburst, and this episode leading directly into Scarecrow where they fall out completely for Dean not having a mind of his own and Sam wanting to get revenge instead of save people blah blah… Point being the idea about Dean there is he’s completely absorbed his own personality, wants and desires into being John, which isn’t even really called out and addressed until 3x10 when Dean’s demon!Dean dream self calls him out, and it takes further long years for any serious improvements to be made on Dean expressing himself, even if he’s begun to think for himself more after mentally grappling John’s ghost all of season 2, struggling with the orders, and finally being freed from that burden when they see his ghost move on in the sense of not being *directly under orders* any more, so he’s left to figure out the rest of his life how to be his own person or scuttle back into the safety of being John (and the timing of demon!Dean calling him out on that is pretty much because it’s season 3, John is dead and ALSO gone (which were 2 different events :P) and Dean’s still stuck in these things from back in season 1…)

It’s usually time to stop when the next paragraph would be summarising the rest of the show while making anguished Dean!girl noises. :D

—-

And although tbh this was badly stocked for this episode, if you’re wondering about bi Dean stuff in the show, I have collected this shockingly large collection of posts that you can start with - you can use the search function to skip to episodes:

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/164196287338/the-dean-is-bi-meta-masterpost-full-credit-to

If I’m ever THAT bored for some reason I kinda want to change the links to descriptions of the meta but that is not currently something I am bored enough to do :D

[justalittlebluetiefling]

idk if anybody has freaked out with you about this song before, but last weeks's Fjeast has me listening to Sleeping At Last's "Two" on repeat...I mean, "Tell me, is something wrong? If something's wrong, you can count on me," "It's ok if you cant find the words," the ocean imagery in the chorus, "It's ok if you can't catch your breath you can take the oxygen straight out of my own chest," "I just want to build you up til you're good as new and maybe one day i'll get around to fixing myself too"

OKAY BUT I LOVE THIS SONG SO MUCH IT’S ONE OF MY FAVORITES

This song. It’s SO GOOD. And it’s SO Fjorester. 

you know i’ll take my heart clean apart, if it helps yours beat.

LIke. Who gave them the right?

i will love you without any strings attached.

This entire fucking song. Sorry. I’m getting excited. 

Fjord has literally once given her the oxygen straight out of his own chest. Like, literally. And it flows so beautiful between both of their POVs. Okay. Gosh. I’m gonna get carried away. Hold on. Let me just loosely meta this whole song underneath a cut lol.

sweet heart, you look a little tired. when did you last eat? come in and make yourself right at home- stay as long as you need. tell me, is something wrong? if something’s wrong you can count on me. you know i’ll take my heart clean apart, if it helps yours beat.

I mean. We’ve got Fjord at Travelercon finally reaching out and telling Jester that she can come to him with any problems. We’ve got Jester in the last episode asking if he’s okay with everything. It’s just. Their entire dynamic? In one verse?

it’s okay if you can’t find the words, let me take your coat and this weight off of your shoulders.

The way they’re constantly trying to make sure the other person has someone to share their burdens with. So they’re not holding it all inside. Someone safe to go to? But they’re also not going to force the other person to talk. They can just sit and deflect and goof off.

like a force to be reckoned with, a mighty ocean or a gentle kiss, i will love you with every single thing i have. like a tidal wave, i’ll make a mess. or calm waters if that serves you best. i will love you without any strings attached.

The OCEAN imagery! The way Fjord just loves Jester with everything and that love comes with zero strings. He is content with it not being reciprocated as long as she’s happy. The way Jester backed off of things when she assumed she was making Fjord uncomfortable, because her love for him doesn’t have to be about that if he doesn’t want it to be?

it’s okay if you can’t catch your breath, you can take the oxygen straight out of my own chest.

They’re so ride or die for each other? Jester gives up spell slots to help him close out his past. Calling Vandran when he asks her. Offering to call Kotho with her sixth level spell slot. And then Fjord? Constantly jumping into danger after Jester so she won’t be alone. Giving her the necklace because her safety matters more to him than his own. The way he made sure that seeing her dad was a priority. The way he made sure that protecting her mom was a priority. Any time either of them are too nervous to bring up their own needs, the other will do it in a second.

i know exactly how the rule goes: put my mask on first. no, i don’t want to talk about myself- tell me where it hurts. i just want to build you up, build you up ’til you’re good as new and maybe one day i will get around to fixing myself too.

I MEAN.

Come on. This is so both of them. It seems a lot like Jester at first, but it’s totally Fjord, too. How they both have to be pushed into talking about their feelings and they tend to deflect. The way supporting each other takes priority. Jester building up Fjord’s self-esteem again and helping him feel like he can be his own whole person for the first time in his life? Fjord constantly prioritizing Jester’s needs and feelings. The way they support each other and build each other up and reassure each other about their powers. 

i don’t even know where to start, already tired of trying to recall when it all fell apart. and i just want to love you, to love you, to love you well. i just want to learn how, somehow, to be loved myself.

They’re BOTH learning how to love and be loved. They have big first love vibes. And Fjord’s never been loved unconditionally like this. And Jester’s never had an example of a healthy romantic relationship. And they both have so many self-esteem issues it’s hard to count them all. It’s so much easier to love each other than to love themselves sometimes.

and what a privilege it is to love, a great honor to hold you up.

OKAY BIG EPISODE 108 BRJEAUS CONVERSATION VIBES HERE. Fjord just feels so lucky to have Jester in his life. 

But yeah, this song, right???