#there is so much conflict because people invade each others tags to hate on their ships

[astercontrol]

Why we can't talk about pizza

Okay, we actually can talk about pizza. But I'm using it as a stand-in here, for other things that are a lot harder to talk about.

I've seen a few different posts like this already, addressing some of these problems. But I haven't seen one addressing all of them-- or exploring all the interconnected conflicts between the problems, which make a full solution pretty much impossible.

For pizza, substitute any controversial topic that people post about online.

The kind of thing some love and and some hate. Some love to hate on it. Some love to hate on the haters. Some don't want to see any mention of it at all, ever, because it'll set off flashbacks and panic attacks.

Whole range of perspectives.

Now let's assume "pizza" stands for a topic of that kind. And let's assume we're just debating how posts about that topic should be tagged-- not whether any type of discussion about it should ever be outright banned. Just gonna go into the problems of tagging, right now.

Because that's plenty.

So, suppose you post about how much you love pizza. You want make your posts about pizza findable for other pizza lovers, so you can geek out together-- but also findable for anyone who wants to avoid seeing any pizza posts ever, so that they can filter it out and live their life blissfully free of pizza.

For that purpose, you gotta tag it with #pizza or some other such obvious, intuitive tag. Otherwise it's not gonna be recognized, by either group.

But then come the haters. Maybe there's an especially nasty faction of the anti-pizza side of the discourse, whose favorite activity in life is to search every tag that could refer to pizza, and go into the notes flaming and doxxing everyone who expresses any positive interest in pizza.

Your reasonable tags are now a danger to you. The only way around it is to make up an obscure tag-- #p//zz//a, #9122@, #peetzah, etc.

And this immediately ruins the findability, for both those who like pizza and those who want to avoid it-- unless they are somehow aware of the secret tag while the haters aren't. Which even if they are, that won't last long. The haters will catch on, and they'll invade the tag eventually.

There's no tagging option that preserves both Connections (with contacts you want) and Safety (from those you don't).

Same thing if you want to talk about how you don't like pizza. Tag it with "pizza" or anything straightforward like that, and suddenly you're putting hate in the tag where pizza-lovers go to find stuff to be happy about. Mean!

But if you leave off the tag, or use an obscure one, then you're being mean to those who are trying to avoid all mentions of pizza, good or bad, for their own mental health.

If there were enough widespread agreement on one small set of tags (for instance, "pizza" for positive talk, and "pizza-critical" for negative talk).... Well, that'd get us somewhere.

But it would still have the problem that the predatory haters-- the ones looking for a fight, on either side-- can easily find people saying things they hate, and swoop in to attack.

As long as there are those types of haters, no system is gonna work all the way.

In a way, it's kind of like the debate over whether heterosexual people should use the word "partner" for their significant other. The history behind it is, gay people have for some time been saying "my partner" because it can balance Communication (to signal to each other that they have that thing in common) and Safety (not explicitly outing themselves to any homophobes who might be around).

And the problem is split between Communication and Safety.

Since safety relies on "partner" not always necessarily meaning "same-sex partner," the Safety part only works if heterosexuals also talk about their "partners" sometimes. But the Communication part of it doesn't work if heterosexuals also use that term.

That type of balance between communication and safety never lasts for long, and it's never perfect while it does. It requires a term that is known by all of one group, but not known by any of a different group.

And that stasis never, ever lasts, because information spreads.

You can't stop it. You can only do your best to shift from one semi-secret term to a new one when the old one wears out.

As long as there's hate, words will always be in an arms race.

[swordofpevensie]

Anything I Do, I Know You're Gonna Watch

[Chapter • II]

warnings: mentions of strict parents, jane eyre appreciation, peter is being annoying but we still love him, i don't know why i made y/n's mother sort of a villain, y/n you go honey!

a/n: writing this chapter was fun! sorry for writing very slowly though :( it really takes some time for me to write because writing in english is can be hard sometimes :( but i sincerely hope you like it! and let me know if you want to be tagged in the taglist! ♡

word count: 2981

Books. Leather bound, thick, and beautiful books. Oh, how much you loved them.

You were in the library of the university. You had an essay to write, therefore you were looking for sources, such as encyclopedias or books that were related to your subject.

Walking between the shelves and wandering inside the library made you feel so good. Libraries were the places where you felt free and truly happy. Books were your saviours, they saved you from reality and took you to the places you needed to be.

This time you were in Thornfield, walking inside the hall with Jane. You knew you were supposed to read scientific researches right now and your mother would've been very upset and angry if she'd seen you reading a romance novel, however you couldn't resist the beauty of the book you were holding in your hands, and you were curious to learn what was going to happen in the next chapter. You gave yourself fifteen minutes to read it, then you were going to start doing some research about your topic.

You touched the page to turn it, your fingers caressed the paper, and you felt the beauty and antiquity of it. You loved to think that so many people had touched the same very page before you did. That idea was very romantic for you. You bit inside of your cheek not to smile. ‘If only my mother knew I am smiling while reading a romance.’ You thought and it increased your desire to smile.

You looked at your watch and saw that you have eight minutes left to read. You frowned a little and focused on your book again.

You changed your position, this time you leaned your right shoulder to the bookshelf. You read for the eight minutes you had left in that position. You were truly captured by the incidents that Jane experienced and it was really hard to leave the book the shelf it belonged, then left the book section you were in.

You walked through the desks, there were so many people studying or reading. You quietly walked and finally reached to the section you were supposed to have been when you first arrived at the library.

You took a short breath, pulled your bag’s handle to your shoulder (you probably didn’t notice it felt down from there while you were reading), and started wandering between the shelves. When you found a book that could help you, you took it and soon, you had a tower of books in your arms. That old but beautiful scent of the books was everywhere and it made you feel good. You loved everything about books, you couldn’t help it.

After collecting the books, you decided to sit down somewhere and take a look at them to see if they could actually help or not. You’d visited the library during summer a few times, for this reason you knew where the studying desks of this section were. You quickly walked there and tried to see whether there were any empty seats beneath your tower of books. Luckily, there was an empty chair and desk. You breathed out; you really were relieved to find a place to study. Otherwise, you would have to borrow them and go home to study. But you really liked to study in the library because the aura of the place had always motivated you.

As you got closer to the desk, you realized there was a boy sitting next to it. He was looking at the books he had on his desk, he seemed completely lost to you because he almost buried his head to them. He had a stack of books consisting of five or six books. He also had some opened and his hand was touching one of them.

You put your books to your desk, took of your bag and sit down to your chair. You took a short and silent breath, and then opened the first book you grabbed and immediately started reading.

At first, you forgot him, the rest of the library, and almost where you were because you were really captured by everything you were reading and also realizing the subject was actually a bit hard and writing an essay on it wouldn't be easy caused your stress level to increase. You were too busy with being stressed and panicking to pay attention to the boy next to you.

However, when you heard someone taking a really big breath brought you back to reality. ‘Oh,’ You thought. ‘At least someone is as stressed as me.’ You turned your head to your right, where the boy was sitting, and you saw that he was already looking at you.

You'd rather have deceased than seen him, and his blue eyes looking directly to you.

You knew what you must do was to look away but for some reason, you couldn't turn your head. Maybe you thought it'd be rude; he was your classmate after all.

It gave him courage to talk to you. Now that you weren't looking away, he could finally introduce himself properly.

“Hi,” He said in a low voice.

You almost couldn't hear him and you didn't know what the reason was. Was it your excitement that came out of nowhere or was he really speaking whisperingly?

“I think we are in the same department and class, aren't we?” He had a smirk on his face after he stopped speaking.

You nodded. You were scared of talking because you really didn't want to be one to bother others.

“Peter Pevensie.”

You saw his hand was waiting to be shaken. Normally, you weren't supposed to do this because your mother wouldn't approve, but you were scared of being that girl again because of your mother and her never ending demands, therefore you took his hand and shoke it quickly, and then let go of it.

“Y/N Y/L/N.” You whispered and turned your head to your book again.

But you couldn't focus at all. Why was he there? No, why on the earth must he be there at the same time you decided to visit the library? No, why the last empty chair was next to his? Why couldn't it be somewhere far away from him?

You put your finger to the page, hoping it'd help you to focus on what you were doing. You shouldn't mind him, at all. He was just your classmate and the person who'd been bothering you for a week.

Actually, you were trying your best to not take it personally or let him invade your mind. You needed to focus on studying, your lectures, and professors. But, oh God, that boy was trying his best to overshadow you during the lessons.

At first, he raised his hand to speak, and it was good. At least he was waiting you to stop talking. But then he started interrupting you in the middle of your speech and somehow, everything he said went counter to your ideas. He was looking down on the things you said and was making of them in a very sarcastic voice.

You were a competitive person and honestly, you liked being challanged. You never held back; you answered him and put him to his place when needed to be. You politely asked if you could continue to talk because you weren't done when he inturrupted you. You knew your calmness and kindness drove him crazy because you saw him breathing out furiously. You enjoyed annoying him and loved to be the cause of his rage.

You never showed it tough. You weren't allowed to get closer with any boy, even if you made them mad and they hate you. Your family was one of those families who didn't approve any interactions between a man and a woman unless it was for marriage.

For that long and tiring week, besides your lessons, duties, dealing with your family, and helping your father in the bakery, you had to put up with him and his hate towards you, whose reason you didn't know and couldn't understand.

It wasn't like you liked him, but at first you didn't hate him. Until he drove you crazy with everything he said. You never thought a person would be able to conflict with a person in the way he did. It felt like he tried to say and defend the exact opposite of everything you said, thought, and defended on purpose. It felt like he spent hours at home to find things to say so that he could put you out of temper.

The only time he couldn't object to you was when you said something he'd absolutely say to see what he'd do. And he did what you expected; he didn't raise his hand and he was quite for the rest of the lecture.

Well, he took his revenge by ruining all the other lessons but you still were happy to beat him.

Oh, God, you wasted minutes while thinking about him. No, not him. You thought the things he did all week and the things that bothered you.

You took a short breath and this time managed to focus on what you were reading.

After skimming through two books, you saw there weren't much information that could help you in them. Therefore, you put them away and grabbed a new book.

But wait, what was he reading so intensely? What was he studying? Was he doing the same assignment with you? You wanted to figure out.

You threw a glance at the books that were on his desk. You could see five books and all of them had titles related to the subject of your assignment.

Oh, how strongly and badly you wanted to hit him with one of those books. You didn't do it becayse you felt pity for the book you'd be hitting him with.

Maybe that was the reason why he introduced himself out nowhere, and although you knew each other already. Maybe he wanted you to pay attention to him so that you could see he was studying with the books you needed.

You clenched your left fist (because he couldn't see your left hand). You didn't react in any other way as you didn't want him to intuit you were pissed off. You wanted to leave and come back later when he set those books free but you couldn't because he'd guess why you left and you just didn't want to give this pleasure to him.

You were going to stay there, read anything you find, and wait until he was done with them. You didn't care if it would take hours for him to finish studying. You were going to wait and meanwhile make the best of the books you had.

You took your notebook and pen from your bag. After opening a page, you started reading again. Meanwhile you took some notes that could actually help you. You were relieved to find a book that really had some information you could use.

Throughout the time you spent reading and taking notes, you heard him and the noise he made. You heard the noise his pen made as he was writing. You heard his breathing. You heard the noise of the book page he turned. The library was so silent that you could hear his hands running on the pages.

You were distracted sometimes but never showed it. You kept your eyes on the words, never looked at him. Thank God, you were a stubborn person, otherwise you'd probably keep looking at his desk to see what he was doing.

You stood up to put the books you wouldn't use back to their shelves and also to see if you could find new books, or books that he didn't see yet.

You felt safe between the shelves. He couldn't see you and all you could see was book covers. You were happy now.

You wandered for a while, picking up some books hoping to find something. When you were done, you went to your desk with three books you held in your arms.

His eyes were on you. He wasn't even trying to hide it. He was watching you as you approached to your desk. He looked at the books. He looked at the ink covering your fingertips. He let himself gaze at your clothes.

You wore an brown skirt with pockets. The pockets had cream lines on them. Your shirt was also brown and it was simple. All the buttons were buttoned up. Your shoes were black, had short heels. Your hair was tied up in a loose bun on your nape. It was loose because you were playing with your hair while reading. He saw you mussing it.

Honestly, you were fine according to him. You were simple, but fine. There was nothing exaggerated or you weren't trying too hard. He of course didn't have any problems with people wearing fancy clothes or trying too hard; once upon a time he himself wore magnificent things. But he liked this simplicity on you. He secretly envied the way you could look fine without even trying.

When your eyes caught his, he immediately looked back to his book and pretended nothing happened. You couldn't understand why he was looking at you but you didn't mind and sit down. Then, you put your books to your desk and got lost in reading again.

Your notes took almost two pages when you were done. You felt good while you were making progress. You were going to start writing your essay at home with a clear and relaxed mind.

You actually weren't done with searching but you felt satisfied because of the things you'd managed to learn and find. After collecting them in a logical order at home, you were going to come back and continue searching and writing your essay.

Despite knowing you said you'd stay as long as he stayed, you also knew you had to go to the bakery and help your family. You were stubborn and competitive but you were also aware of your responsibilites. Besides, he couldn't piss you off enough to make you stay there for hours and forget about your other duties yet. Therefore, you quickly put your notebook and pen to your bag, and left your desk with the books in your arms waiting to return back their shelves.

You heard another chair moving. You didn't look back, and kept walking. You knew he was behind you and probably following you, however you didn't know why. Why on the would he stop studying and follow you? Despite being a girl knowing many things, you didn't know the answer of this question.

When you put the last book to its place, you decided to ask him why he was following you, yet the moment you turned, you realized it wasn't him. It was just a girl you didn't know looking at books.

Why did you think he was following you? Did you want him to follow you? Oh, no, you definitely wouldn't want that. Because if he followed you, he would just bother you and you'd had enough of him today.

After taking a short breath and calming down, you walked to exit door. You were really going to leave until you saw him standing in front of the circulation desk.

He was smiling to the staff member and he seemed having fun. Then you realized the books on the desk. You could see there were more than ten books. It dawned on you.

It was a really cliche and cheap move, even for him. Was he really flirting with the stuff member and trying to borrow books more than allowed? Oh, there was no way way you let it happen.

Besides reading very fast, being pretty witty, and baking really delicious pies, one of your superpowers was being extremely annoying when you wanted to be. Oh, how strongly you wanted to be annoying at that moment.

You walked there and stood next to him.

“Hi, classmate.” You said with a obviously fake smile on your face. “I was leaving but I saw you and didn't want to leave without saying goodbye. What are you doing?”

He was shocked and it was very clear. You wanted to smile so badly but could stop yourself. Victory seemed so close that you could almost taste it.

“Nothing.” He tried to sound casual and shrugged his shoulders. “Just borrowing some books.”

“Yeah, I can see. For our assignment?”

He nodded.

“But, Mr. Pevensie, I believe there are thirteen books. I thought we could borrow only ten, am I wrong?” You turned to the staff member when you finished your sentence.

“Yes, you are right ma'am.”

“Oh, I think you counted wrong then Mr. Pevensie.” You used your most irritating voice.

“Yes, yes, Miss Y/L/N, I think I might have counted wrong.”

He seemed so angry and annoyed that it made your whole day.

“To help you, I think I could borrow these three. Would you mind if I did? I sincerely hope you wouldn't Mr. Pevensie. I'm just a classmate trying to help you.”

He took a short breath and you saw his jaw clenching for a moment.

“You can borrow whatever you want, Miss Y/L/N. Thank you for your help.”

You grabbed three of the books.

“You are very welcome, Mr. Pevensie. I'm always here to help you. Have a nice day!”

He didn't say anything and you weren't expecting him to speak. You left him behind you and walked to the door.

You looked at the books. They seemed they could help you.

You couldn't stop smiling until you arrived at your bakery. You loved that sweet taste of victory and weren't going to let it go easily.

Peter Pevensie wanted a battle but now you declared a war.

•••

taglist: @thegrxywitch @generalblizzarddreamer @bast-s

[fireemblems24]

SS Chapter 18 & 19

Whew, felt like it took a long time to reach this next chapter. Life's been busier than usual lately, but here we are.

Spoilers possibly up until Silver Snow Chapter 18 (and other routes around the same time).

Pre-Battle 18

Should I tag this as Verdant Wind spoilers since they basically follow the same plot? Only slightly kidding.

We storming the capital now! Woot! Is Edelgard really going down in one freaking chapter though?

Are they finally going to acknowledge that Byleth's marching to chop down his former student? Because so far he's felt exactly nothing about Edelgard. Not regret, not longing, not horniness, not anger, not vengeance. It's like she's some faceless evil emperor he's never meant before for all the emotional impact their former relationship's had in part 2 so far.

ARE WE GONNA GET RHEA BACK SOON??? Please. I want to see what role she's going to play. There's still so much I don't know about her.

Ok, seeing the map, I don't see Edelgard, but I do see both Hubert and the Death Knight despite defeating them a million times already.

They really shouldn't let us fight the Death Knight so many times if they wanted him to come across intimidating. Even early on, Lysithea with Dark Spikes and Dimitri with a horse killer weapon just melt him. Maybe it's harder on Maddening.

Battle 18

Ugh, I hate split maps. No, Seteth, I don't want to split up.

Hubert sounds so sinister. OMG I love him. He doesn't care - at all - that there were his former classmates.

So Lysithea nuked the Death Knight into another dimension . . . again. Is he dead for real this time? Because it seemed official this time. Finally.

Oh, unique dialogue with Hubert and Ferdinand. The drama. Too bad his Boltings have a 0% hit chance on Ferdinand.

Now time to waste Hubert's second Bolting.

LAMO that Imperial Soldier lady also has Bolting, but Linhardt just waited her out. She did a total of 1 damage to him lol. She's got 5 though and that's annoying, so Petra just took her out.

Having Byleth finish Hubert off since I bet there's more unique dialogue.

Hubert threatening Byleth. Name a more iconic duo.

OMG Byleth' gaunlets broke lamo. Guess someone else will actually finish Hubert.

Wow, Hubert's generic dialogue "not even death will make you consequential." Told that to poor Bernie. Still took an arrow to the face though.

And seems like he's dead-dead this time.

Does he always give you a Goddess Icon when he dies. Because that's funny if he does.

Oh - MVP Petra! She deserves it. She's really catching up to Ferdie and Sylvain. It's just - she never dodges like Ferdinand does, and can't take the punishment Sylvain does.

Post-Battle 18/Pre-Battle 19

WAIT - WAIT - WAIT - WAIT. DEDUE. DEDUE IS HERE? MY BOY? HE'S HERE. WHY IS HE HERE? 😭😭😭😭😭😭

Yeah, wtf is he doing in Enbarr?

Oh - Dedue here's for Edelgard's blood. Nice.

Does this mean I get to use Dedue????

Holy shit, Dedue. He infiltrated Enbarr and gathered intell?

What a champ.

Dedue is low-key the best spy in this game guys. Gathered intel to help an invading army take a castle literally under Edelgard's and Hubert's noses and let's not forget how he broke Dimitri out of prison.

Dedue 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

And Rhea's inside! We get to see Rhea AND Dedue again.

Wait, why is Dedue leaving me? No 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Don't worry Dedue. In another playthrough, I am pampering you and Dimitri and in the next one, you two are getting married pairing up.

I'm guessing we're not going back to Garreg Mach between these battles? Because that would be - eh - make no sense.

Oh, so now we have the "I don't want to kill Edelgard" or "Can we walk the same path as her." Why are those two my only options though? Where's the "fuck yeah" option? It's way more fun to embrace the kill 'em all thing. Except Dimitri and Dedue because my heart

Ok, Caspar, you're forgiven for your CF nonsense calling Edelgard out.

Why is Seteth always lying to me? He keeps saying "I'll leave it in your hands." But then doesn't and yells at me.

Battle 19

Ok. I decided I'm playing these two back-to-back.

Does Verdant Wind do this too? Fight Hubert and the Death Knight, then jump straight to Edelgard, no month in-between?

Because it if it does - it's going to take forever to get to Azure Moon, because, unfortunately, I won't be able to play this game for close to a month after this because of work and other stuff.

Mannnn, I am NOT looking forward to this map with my VW gang. In SS, my Sylvain, Ferdinand, and Petra are all super reliable. And Lysithea can nuke anything. No one in my VW gang is as good as any of those four (though, Claude has gotten more speed lately - thank the stars).

OMG DEDUE IS BACK. HE came, but he's green. WHYYYYY.

So . . . does Dedue have unique battle dialogue with Edelgard? She's all that's left and he's marching towards her. I think I'm going to test this. I'd laugh my butt off if he crit and killed her.

No unique dialogue, but it feels good letting Dedue get a hit on here. I get Dedue could kill her. I could just keep healing him, and she's got no one left. Should I do it guys?

I think I'm going to do it.

I'll let Byleth peck at her with his puny magic damage so I can get that dialogue, and then Dedue's killing Edelgard next round probably.

LAMO Sothis is a false Goddes, but like, she's living in Byleth's head so. We know she's not false.

Oh, well, Edelgard crit Dedue. So I just reset things and my ever reliable Lysithea nuked Edelgard onto another planet, as she does.

Weird she and Lysithea got unique dialogue though.

Ohhh cut scene. Why does Edelgard have a sword though?

Why is Edelgard asking Byleth to kill her? I guess it makes sense. He was her teacher here.

She does know all these people are killing each other because of her, right?

Oh, wow, he just lopped her head off. That's maybe as badass as when Byleth just offed Randolph (or however you say his name). I'm legit impressed the game didn't milk that harder.

Though they did that "I wanted to walk with you line . . ." Which . . . I'll take it. That's not too bad. She did, but what a twisted path she's walking.

I'm a bit conflicted about her death here though. It seemed kind of . . . weird? I expected Edelgard, from the way she talks in CF, to do down fighting. Not pleading to "my teacher" on her knees and panting.

MVP Lysithea. Guess landing that last hit on Edelgard motivated her.

Post-Battle 19

Are we finally gonna see Rhea?

Why did Hubert right us a letter?

Oh, it's about those mage people. And they want revenge. How original. If they're the enemies of all of Fodlan, why did you fight with them? Like why not take them out, then Rhea, who doesn't . . . you know . . . want to destroy the world?

Hubert and Dedue the real MVPs of this route though.

I can't with the name "those who slither in the dark" though. How lame.

Seteth said "kill every last one of them" though.

RHEA. REAH's BACK. 😭😭

And her hair is down! She looks pretty. She looks sickely though.

Oh, we going to learn some stuff now?

I don't remember who Nemesis is. So he's a grave robber. And a genocider. Wonderful. So is that when Seteth's wife died? Or?

I'm guessing we don't get playable Rhea, though I bet someone would've told me already if we did, because she's in such poor shape.

Now we get to kick the people's ass who killed Jeralt?

RHEA IS COMING WITH US

OMG Caspar wants to carry Rhea on his back 😂and then Dorothea has to point out how that might not work for our short king.

No one really mentioned Edelgard and Hubert dying though. Maybe in the monastery?

Guess I'll find out later. Now to go play these exact same maps, but with the Golden Deer!

[onewomancitadel]

I sincerely don’t get the ire directed at Rose/Garden. What happened to all of yous lol? He’s a boy with an ancient reincarnated wizard in his head and she’s a girl who has inherited the purifying embodied power of moonlight and silver to protect life, they both have mystical things going on for them that are entirely removed from the real world. If the way the story is going the way it seems to go, Oz will probably be freed from Oscar and reunited or at least healing the wound with Salem (she can’t be killed). RG is easily going to be a slowburn and not happen for ages, especially because it involves the main character.

I’m not even that invested in RG, it’s not really that structurally or thematically interesting to me (yet), I have very particular tastes, even if I don’t categorically dislike friends to lovers. Hopefully V9 ramps up some of the longing and makes it more overt, though I do think symbolically RG is extremely obvious on paper. I guess I am saying RG is obvious to me even as a non-RG shipper. Also I think it’s really weird what’s happened to fiction consumption, like to a degree yes fiction affects reality, especially when you send death threats over your hatred for your pretend made up ship, that is affecting reality because you yourself see no separation lol. (general made up person you pronoun used there).

Btw this isn’t a backhanded compliment and this is just intended to go on my blog not show up in tags and annoy people. RG is so harmless and just a little friends to lovers ship with little to no funny business going on other than magical powers that only exist in the world of Remnant.

I don’t know it’s sort of funny to me, but I guess R/eylo is pretty similar in that it’s an extremely harmless vanilla ship by all rights but people lose their absolute minds over it (Ben never even hurts Rey, Rey invades his head all the same, she cuts up his face, they’re enemies and then even when they’re supposed to hate each other in TLJ they don’t and they have fee fees for each other, because the conflict doesn’t fucking matter, if the First Order and the Resistance didn’t exist they would be that couple making out constantly and holding hands too much), I guess because it’s just people-shipping-what-me-no-like. I mean yeah I absolutely loathe J/aune slash W/eiss as a ship and it gets in the way of my OTP but I just live and suffer and let other people do what they want and just personally whine on my personal blog.

[panharmonium]

Hey! Loving the Merlin takes on ur blog, and I wanted to ask—what are your opinions on Morgana? Haven’t seen a lot of talk abt her. I loved her, esp in season 1, which is also my fav season cuz after that I feel like things started to make less and less sense, lmao. I understand her descent into villainy (mostly, but why does she start to hate Gwen so quickly? feel like that could’ve been handled better) but I would’ve loved to see some solidarity between her and merlin!!!!!

hi there! :D

so, i LOVE morgana.  most of what i’ve said about her has been in the tags of gifsets that are now scattered haphazardly around my blog; i don’t think there are larger pieces yet besides my finale round-up (urgh lol), and most of that is just a function of time - i can’t possibly write expansive tracts of meta about every single merlin thing i love, because i love the whole show; i’d never leave my computer again.  i generally sit down to write long essays about whatever grabs my mind at a particular moment, even though there are a bazillion other things out there i love just as much. XD

but with morgana, i also feel like part of the reason i haven’t written much about her is because up until three and a half weeks ago (....oh my god, was it THREE AND A HALF WEEKs???  IT FEELS LIKE A YEAR) i hadn’t even finished the series yet, and the whole time i was watching this show i was sort of...waiting to see whether they would finally tie her arc together.  i didn’t feel like i could say too much about what was happening with her, because my evaluation of her arc was going to depend on where the writers finally chose to take it and whether they brought it to the place i thought it needed to go.

and...they didn’t, obviously, which is what i sort of suspected would happen, though i was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt all the way up until the end, because i don’t believe they ever wrote themselves into a corner with her.  there were things they could have handled with more depth, definitely, but i do not believe that they ever dug themselves into a hole they couldn’t climb out of.

i. what happened to you, morgana

essentially my opinion (just mine; nobody else is obligated to share it) of morgana is this: that the series ended before her arc was over.  

to me, season 5 was the nadir in our characters’ journeys.  they had reached their lowest point, their...“darkest hour,” to quote the show itself.  and in many familiar storytelling formats (the ones that have the most in common with bbc merlin, at least), we take our characters to a moment where they hit rock bottom, where everything is going wrong and things seem hopeless, and then we light a spark under their butts that starts the process where they fight their way out of it.  the nadir isn’t the endpoint of the curve; it’s the point where characters start climbing their long, slow way out of the pit.  it’s what they have to overcome in order to earn their eventual triumphant ending.

to me, season 5 was that nadir, for morgana and everyone else.  i never would have imagined season 5 to be the final season of the show, if i hadn’t known it was beforehand. i would have read season 5 as the show’s ‘empire strikes back’ moment.  the episode that ends with our team losing, but with a whole other episode remaining where they can fight to Make It Right.

i view merlin bbc as tantamount to a cancelled tv show, to be honest.  i know that’s not necessarily what happened (though it does feel pretty weird that they officially announced S5 would be the final season only four weeks before the finale was about to air??  very bizarre), but regardless of the actual behind-the-scenes-whatever, the fact of the matter is that for me, the series doesn’t end.  it stops.  and those two things are not the same.

this is particularly relevant to morgana because, as you said, there are aspects of her character arc that weren’t handled as deftly as they could have been, but if the show had brought morgana’s arc to the place where it felt like they were going in 5.09, they could have rescued so much of what came before.

to get into more detail -

i think the biggest issue with morgana’s arc for me isn’t so much what she does, it’s what we’re not shown as she does it.  

i fully believe that morgana would eventually start working to ensure uther’s downfall.  (obviously.  she’s been presented as the voice of moral authority on this show since episode one, and there’s no reason to believe that she wouldn’t ultimately start rebelling against the king’s oppressive policies.)  i believe that she would reject arthur, eventually.  and i believe that she would reject gwen, too.  but i don’t believe the show illustrates enough how painful this would be for her, or how conflicted it would make her feel.  

and again, as i said, there are my own personal opinions, couched in...some personal experience with certain kinds of family conflict - but i do understand where morgana’s bitterness toward arthur and gwen comes from.  arthur, for all that he’s “a better man than [his] father,” never fully breaks with uther the way morgana does.  he has his own little rebellions, yes, but ultimately he always falls in line.  he tolerates his father’s actions even if he doesn’t necessarily agree with them, and he continues to support uther even after uther is revealed to have lied about being morgana’s illegitimate father.  and because of this tacit acceptance of uther’s poor behavior, arthur reaps benefits and privileges galore.  morgana is cast out with nothing, whereas arthur, who didn’t even take a stand for justice, wants for nothing.  arthur is sitting pretty on the throne of camelot because he continued to bestow his honor and respect upon a man who deserved neither of those things, because he chose the villain of the series over his sister, even knowing what uther did to her.  and that’s gutting, for her.  he betrayed her.

(and there are things to be said on arthur’s end of this, too, of course - morgana doesn’t ever confide in him; she doesn’t come to him for help or give him a chance to even be informed about what happened to her before she jumps into invading camelot and dethroning uther - so for arthur, her sudden turnaround comes as a total shock, and HE feels betrayed, like he has no choice but to fight her - i mean, it’s just a big mess.)

but i understand why she hates him.  he continues to stand with a man who did demonstrable evil, despite the harm that was specifically done to morgana herself.  and by shutting up and letting atrocities be committed in front of him, arthur escapes the harm that morgana suffers for speaking up.  i understand why morgana is so bitter about it.

and gwen is a very similar situation - from morgana’s point of view, gwen is playing the arthur to arthur’s uther.  gwen sides with arthur over morgana, despite knowing full well that arthur’s policies harm people with magic.  gwen abandons morgana for her love interest, and for morgana that’s just like - “why would you do that?  i was your friend before he ever cared about you, i loved you before he ever did - don’t you see the evil he’s perpetuating?  don’t you care what he does to people like me?”  

that’s why morgana tells merlin, “don’t think i don’t understand loyalty just because i’ve got no one left to be loyal to.”  she feels like everybody who supposedly cared for her ultimately dumped her because her situation interfered with their comfortable, morally uncomplicated lives.  they weren’t willing to acknowledge what was done to her, and they stuck by the man responsible for it, and it seems incomprehensible to her, that they would make that choice, when his misdeeds are known and out in the open.  i can’t blame her for wanting to raze the city to the ground.

HOWEVER.

while i believe that all these things are completely plausible, i don’t believe that the series shows us appropriately how these things would be tearing morgana apart inside, underneath the rage and the armored front of  ‘you brought this on yourself, so burn in hell, i don’t care.’  

there are moments where the show gets it right.  when morgana wakes up after uther dies and says that she felt his pain - it’s not presented as gloating; she’s - almost confused.  uncertain.  like she doesn’t know what she feels.  when she confronts arthur at the end of season 4 (i thought we were friends/as did i) there’s real pain under the surface there.  when they confront each other at the beginning of season 5, too (what happened to you, morgana/i grew up) - you can feel the undercurrent of something deeper there, too.  and that moment with mordred in 5.09, when he appeals to her humanity (i hope one day you will find the love and compassion which used to fill your heart) - that is an amazing scene.  the show absolutely nails that moment.  morgana hesitates.  you can see the grief and the - the conflict written all over her face.  it’s perfect.  it’s exactly the turn i would have expected morgana’s arc to be taking, at that time in the series.

but then the show just stopped.  and without taking morgana’s arc further - without following it through all the way to its conclusion - there’s never any resolution to all the ways the show dropped the ball earlier.  all the moments where morgana appears to be just...evil-smirking her way through her revenge, the way she suddenly seems to have no feelings for gwen whatsoever, the utterly lost opportunity that was the “enchanted gwen” arc (which could have been such a powerful exploration of their broken relationship) - all those could have eventually made sense and fit into a narrative where morgana’s conflicted feelings finally begin to escape the stranglehold in which she has them choked, where we start to see the pain of these destroyed relationships rising to the surface.  

i can understand how morgana would just - shut off her feelings about these people.  she had to close her heart to them - the alternative would have been too painful.  but underneath - we know it wouldn’t be that easy.  we know it eats at her.  and it’s just - so incredibly frustrating that the series was starting to go there - the moment with mordred in 5.09 feels like the beginning of morgana’s big crisis of faith - and then the show just Stops.

so the thing about morgana for me is that, like you said, the show does drop the ball on illustrating her quick descent into evil-villain territory, and they especially drop the ball on her break with gwen, but all of it could have been salvaged, if they had committed to following her arc all the way through to its conclusion.  instead they chose to kill her (and everybody else, lol) just as her deep-rooted internal conflicts were finally starting to rise to the surface.

ii. we can find another way/there is no other way (aka the merlin problem)

i’ll say right up front that anything i say here is, as always, just my personal interpretation of things.  this is not necessarily the One True Way this show is meant to be understood; it’s just my own preferred read.

i have definitely seen some things in my brief foray into internet fandom that are sort of...piling on merlin for abandoning morgana or “gaslighting” her, most of which seem to be centered around the beginning of episode 2.03, which is weird to me, because the whole point of that episode is that merlin does help morgana, in the end - he’s the one who doesn’t gaslight her.  he defies gaius and takes her to the druids, specifically so they can tell her yes, she does have magic.  he tries to distract the attacking knights in order to enable morgana to escape with the druids permanently, like she wants.  and when the attempt fails, and they’re brought back to camelot, he comes to morgana’s chambers specifically to check on her and to assure her that he won’t reveal her secret to anyone, and she’s grateful for this - she thanks him, she’s appreciative of everything he did for her, she feels comforted to know the truth and to know that someone else knows it, too.  this episode ends with their relationship at a high point - it’s overwhelmingly positive, and it doesn’t take a nosedive until 1.12, when morgana gets in way over her head and merlin thinks she’s trying to murder them all.  (and even in that episode, it’s worth it to note, merlin is still covering for her magic in front of arthur, giving her chances.)

(and obviously also, of course, the end of that particular situation gets Real Bad Real Fast, which could be a whole post in and of itself, so let’s stay focused on the earlier eps, for now.)

the criticism of merlin in those earlier episodes seems to stem solely from the fact that he doesn’t out himself to morgana, which i can understand - i mean, i like the idea of a ‘merlin+morgana secret magic squad’ AU as much as anyone - but i’ll be honest and say that nowadays, i’m not quite as willing to condemn him for it as i might have been on my first viewing.

i’m not willing to condemn him for it at all, actually.

(and again - as i said, these are my own opinions!  everybody else is welcome to have different opinions!  we all engage with media differently, and there isn’t a right or wrong way to approach this situation, just whichever way feels best to you.)

so, for me, i’m not interested anymore in telling merlin that he should have revealed himself to anyone, at that point in the story.  it would be different if he had been like - continuing to tell morgana ‘oh, no, you don’t have magic, don’t be crazy,’ or if he had been pretending to hate magic like everyone else so he could blend in, but he doesn’t do that, at the end of the episode.  he sends her to the druids.  he chases after her when he realizes she's in danger.  he openly acknowledges her magic, he supports her in having it, he makes sure she knows she has nothing to fear from him.  by the end of 2.03, he’s gone to great lengths to help her; he’s already made certain that she knows he’s on her side and that she can trust him.  she clearly knows that he accepts her and that he supports her - those are his responsibilities to her as a fellow human and as a friend, and those are exactly the responsibilities he makes sure to fulfill.  she knows her secret is safe with him.  

now - whether or not merlin feels safe enough to out himself, after making sure morgana knows he accepts and supports her, is his own business.

i think there are a number of reasons why it wouldn’t be fair for me to criticize merlin for continuing to conceal his secret, the first of which is something i already mentioned in another piece - that a marginalized person’s first responsibility is to their own safety, when forced into hiding under oppressive social conditions.  merlin isn’t obligated to reveal himself for anybody.  he’s not obligated to put himself in danger out of some kind of...responsibility to the community.  (not at this point, anyway.  it gets more complicated later, as merlin becomes more powerful, which i also address in that other piece, but that’s all in the future for him and not relevant at this moment.)

i think it would be easy for me to forget that merlin isn’t safe, in the early seasons.  we’re so used to thinking of merlin as ‘the greatest sorcerer to ever walk the earth,’ because that’s what we keep being told he’s going to become, but again, that’s all so far in the future for him.  merlin in the early seasons can do some things with his abilities, but not consistently, and not to the level where we can reasonably expect him to resist the entirety of camelot’s army, if they were to come for him.  merlin is in real danger, and he’s not evil for being unwilling to share a secret about himself that would ensure his death, if it somehow got back to the wrong people.

second - i don’t think it would be fair for me to discount merlin’s personal history, either.  merlin’s life didn’t start in camelot, and he hasn’t even been in camelot for all that long, comparatively, by the time we get to S2.  season one takes place over a few months, starting in either spring or summer and ending in the fall (after the referenced harvest in 1.10/1.11, but before winter sets in).  the weather is nice by time season 2 starts, so we can probably assume that S2 takes place once winter has passed (although, it’s technically possible that S2 takes place over the same autumn as S1, I guess...but it’s not made clear to us, timeline-wise.)  either way, we just really have to remember that merlin’s stay in camelot by the time we reach 2.03 is still this blip compared to the rest of his life.  

it would be very easy for me to say that merlin should have told morgana, that there’s no way she would ever have given him up - and i probably would have said that very thing, after the first time i watched the show - but like - nowadays, i really think i have to step back from that certainty and be a little more gentle.  we say we “know” that morgana wouldn’t have willingly betrayed merlin’s secret at that point, and sure, i agree, that’s probably true - but does merlin know that?  

of course not!

i think he hopes that.  i think he would dearly like to believe that.  i also think merlin grew up in a situation where he couldn’t fully trust even the people he’d known all his life, with two (vital!!!) exceptions, and he has been in camelot with a bunch of brand-new people for less than a year, and he can’t be certain of them, however much he wants to be.  (and that’s not even considering the possibility of accidental betrayals, or coerced ones - remember, the witchfinder shows up in S2 also, as just one example.)

remember that exchange merlin has with freya, later this season?

“you can’t always trust people.”

“i know.  that’s why i left home.”  

merlin is not used to showing himself to people.  he has been taught all his life to NEVER, EVER show himself to anybody.  everyone in camelot who finds out about his magic finds out either by accident (like gaius or lancelot), or necessity (like freya and gilli - though gilli is interesting, because i think merlin’s decisions there are motivated precisely by the choices he didn’t make with morgana - which i’ll go into more later).  

in twenty-odd years, merlin has only ever told one person about his magic.  and even that generous assumption requires a little bit of inferencing for us to determine, though i think it’s likely enough, if not confirmable.

(i am, in case it’s unclear, referencing 1.10, when merlin is explaining to will why hunith sent him away to camelot: “when she found out you knew - she was so angry.”  that, to me, has always been a signifier that merlin told will about his magic, as opposed to will finding out by coincidence.  i know there are a lot of headcanons floating around out there about various...accidental situations that may have occurred which forced merlin to reveal his magic in front of will, and those are all obviously totally fun to play with, but after hearing this particular line - i never understood that to be the case, to be honest.  we’ve seen hunith enough to have a pretty solid understanding of her character.  she and merlin are always easy and gentle together, she’s so kind and calm and thoughtful - i can’t imagine that she wouldn’t have understood, if there had been some kind of accident that forced merlin’s hand.  she’d be just as afraid for his future safety, of course, and she would have wished he’d told her right away, but she wouldn’t have been “so angry.”  

...she might, however, have been “so angry” if she’d found out that merlin had specifically undermined every sacrifice she’d ever made to keep him safe/ignored every single one of her warnings/rejected every cautious thing she’d been telling him for his entire life and TOLD somebody about his magic when it wasn’t remotely necessary.  that’s the only scenario i can imagine that would prompt merlin to say “she was SO angry” in that half-awed, half-intimidated tone, with that little headshake, like it was such a singular event, like it’s still formidable for him to remember.)

so anyway, that said - it’s too easy for me to say ‘he should have told morgana/gwaine/gwen etc; they would never have turned on him,’ as if it would have been such a simple thing for him to do, as if there were no dangers associated with their knowledge even if they would never have willingly given him up, as if he was refusing to do it because he didn’t want to, or because his fears were overblown, or because he was foolish for thinking they would ever hate him for his gifts.  i think that really minimizes the reality of his struggle, and the danger of his situation.  without the pressure of some crisis to force his hand, merlin has only ever willingly revealed himself to one person.  that person is dead.  that person died specifically ensuring that merlin could stay safe and hidden from the rest of the world, morgana included - merlin’s continued secrecy is a gift that was bought at an impossibly high price, and it’s not simple for him to contemplate squandering it, especially with no guarantee that things will turn out okay.

because there IS no guarantee that things will turn out okay!  a lot of the “merlin should have told morgana” online talk centers around the idea that knowing about merlin’s magic would have kept morgana from feeling alone/betrayed, thus preventing her from turning to the “evil” methods she uses later, but again, i don’t think we actually know that at all.  solidarity between merlin and morgana would have been a nice thing, definitely; i’d like to see that too, but i don’t think the fact that she and merlin are both magic-users would have guaranteed harmony between them.  merlin and gilli are both magic-users, too, and merlin expects this to be enough to convince gilli to “see the light,” but the fact of the matter is that merlin and gilli just have very different ideas about what it means to do the right thing.  merlin thinks it means biding his time and waiting for change to come from the top (because he’s been TOLD by greater powers that this is the right course of action, of course; let’s note again that merlin’s situation is extremely complicated) whereas gilli thinks that doing things merlin’s way makes merlin complicit with an unjust regime.  gilli says ‘i shouldn’t haven’t to wait for someone else to give me my rights.  i’m going to take them myself.’

the fact that merlin and gilli share a bond as magic-users doesn’t protect them from an ideological divide that puts them on different sides of the same struggle.  i’m not sure that merlin and morgana wouldn’t have still ended up in the same situation, eventually, if merlin had chosen to out himself to her - but doing so would certainly have made him a thousand times more vulnerable to attack.

third - it’s also important to remember that if we’re going to hold merlin to this rigid ‘he should have told morgana everything/confided in her/trusted her at the expense of possibly his own life despite the fact that she exists at the completely opposite end of a rigid social hierarchy as him and he’s known her for less than a year’ then maybe we ought to raise the bar for morgana, as well.  morgana is very clearly shown to trust and appreciate merlin at the end of 2.03, but by 2.11, when alvarr and mordred show up and convince her to steal the crystal of neahtid, she doesn’t hesitate or come to merlin at all, despite the fact that we never see him do anything to lose her trust between then and now.  she never asks him for help, even when she’s uncertain about alvarr’s methods, and that leaves merlin in the dark, only privy to confusing images of her sneaking around and acting suspicious.  and even with that, merlin doesn’t condemn her for what she does, the same way he doesn’t blame her when she tries to kill uther in 1.12 - he helps arthur retrieve the crystal, but he doesn’t give morgana up.  and he doesn’t hold any kind of grudge, either - in the next episode, merlin doesn’t even suspect her, at first - he thinks it must be her magic protecting her; he doesn’t even consider the idea that she has anything to do with the illness, not until kilgharrah tells him.  

and even after that, he STILL covers for her in front of arthur, and he gives her a chance to come clean to him - but she doesn’t take it.  

i’m not condemning her for that - i get why she would be afraid to admit to such a big mess - she was in way over her head and didn’t know what to do.  but if we’re going to cut morgana this much slack and accept her fears as a valid enough reason to block a potential moment of connection, then we have to accept that merlin’s fears were valid, too - morgana’s descent into “villainy” was not something we can pin solely on merlin’s already overburdened shoulders.  the end of season 2 was not some kind of one-way failure.

in summary: merlin and morgana were trapped in an impossible situation.  they were both victims of the same oppressive regime, and both of them had very real, very dangerous obstacles to letting themselves trust in and reach out to others, and i think pitting them against each other while forgetting who the real villain was is unfair to them both.

also, a brief postscript: circling back to the first section of this piece, where i talked about how season 5 just stopped before anyone’s arc was finished - merlin and morgana could have had so much more, if we’d gotten another season.  their relationship is really in the pits, by season 5, but there is this deleted scene where arthur is reflecting on what happened to morgana and blaming himself, and merlin says arthur shouldn’t take the blame, that “there were others better placed to help morgana” (implicating, of course, himself) and that was SUCH a jumping off point for their story to have continued.  merlin wanted to do better by her.  he blamed himself for what happened to her.  and morgana, for her part, was starting to question herself, as we saw during her confrontation with mordred in 5.09.

there were places for this relationship to go.  it wasn’t a lost cause.  but the writers decided that it made more sense to just...eliminate everybody at the exact moment when things were poised to possibly change.

the story wasn’t over at the end of season 5.  but the show was, and i am always going to regret those many lost opportunities.

[cinaja]

Hello! I've been following you for a short time, so I'm sorry if you answered it before, but could you elaborate why you think the Wall was a bad choice?

Oh my god, my first ask!!! Thank you so much, I'm super excited😊 And I've never written anything on the problems of the Wall - this blog is still rather new.

So, here we go.

I think that the Wall (the entire policy surrounding the Treaty, really) is responsible for 90% of the problems in acotar. The thing is that after the War, they freed the slaves, but they never did anything about the mindset that allowed it to happen in the first place. Fae thought humans were less than animals before the War and they continued thinking it afterwards.

The Wall was the coward's way out. The issue was the Fae's mindset and changing that would have taken work and time. So people decided to build a Wall between the people, nice and easy. Except that it solved nothing.

This is what the Wall did:

"But surely other territories would protect it [the treaty]", I said, scanning their faces.

"Not as many as we'd hoped", Rhys admitted, wincing. "There are many - too many - who have also felt squashed and suffocated during these centuries. They want their old land back beneath the Wall, and the power that came with it. Their vision of the past has been coloured by five hundred years of struggling to adjust and thrive."

(Acowar, chapter 16)

So basically, 500 years after the War, no one is ready to fight for the humans anymore - not even their former allies. I think that if people who were willing to die in for human freedom now won't lift a finger to help them, something went extremely wrong. The Loyalists, on the other hand, are ready to do just about everything to get their slaves back. This is not how things should look 500 years after slavery was abolished.

So here are the problems the Wall and the policy surrounding the Treaty created:

The first issue wasn't really the Wall but rather the Treaty. Namely the fact that they let the Loyalist leaders get away unscathed. Of course,you can't just kill all enemies if you want to work towards peace, but someone like Amarantha? Who killed all her slaves instead of letting them go as the Treaty demanded? Something like this cannot go unpunished. And there needs to be a change in the ruling class - someone like the King of Hybern cannot remain in charge. Putting new rulers in place of Loyalist territories would have been absolutely vital to make it possible to change the mindset of the people. (It's what they did in Germany after WW2)

Now, moving on to the Wall. Building it meant that thousands of Fae lost their homeland. They basically just drew a line through the map and any Fae south of it had to move. Imagine leaving behind your home, knowing that you'll never see it again. With immortal beings, this bitterness can last quite a while and over centuries, it's no longer the Treaty that gets blamed, but the humans. This creates real hate towards the humans and the Fae who fought with them and lead to Hybern's almost-success.

Afterwards, all these different Fae had to somehow share the new space. We know from another scene that the lesser faeries took the human's place at the bottom, so I understand why they would be angry. But everyone lost wealth, influence and land. All of this adds to people wanting to go back to the time before the Wall.

And, of course, the biggest issue: The fact that both cultures were completely separated. There was no interaction over 500 years, meaning that on both sides, the view of the past and each other is no longer realistic in any way. Humans see Fae as monsters, Fae see humans as less than animals. The Wall allowed hate to fester on both sides (Although, of course, the Fae side is more problematic. Humans may hate Fae, but they don't run around invading their countries to slaughter and enslave them. Besides, they have more reason for their anger/fear than the Fae do, after everything Fae did to them.)

Now, without a Wall, humans and Fae would have been forced to work together. For example, there would have been trade between their countries which would have lead to more wealth for all (Hybern, for example, suffered greatly because their biggest trading partner - the Black Land - went to the humans) and created a co-dependence. You don't easily attack your trading partner.

Beyond that, cultures and people would have mixed. It would have needed laws ensuring equality as well as protection for the humans and there would have likely still been conflict, but it could have worked. Perhaps not in the first generation, but the second. It is easy to see the faceless humans as lesser - but what if you work together with humans, your child's best friend is human and your sister is married to one? The more interaction there is , the more do humans seem... well, human, and not like property. And they, too, would learn that not all Fae need to be hated or feared.

Now, I'm hardly an expert on these things. But I think the only way to achieve peace and to overcome prejudice is to have people live and work together (with people in charge who make sure that things develop in the right direction.) The Wall does the opposite of that.

The really sad part, I think, is that they had such a unique chance after the War to get things right. Humans and Fae had just fought side by side in tze Alliance - the Fae had helped to free the human slaves. There were friendships, sometimes even more than that, between them. There were many Fae who cared for humans and likewise - Mor, for example, was respected by the humans and in a relationship with Andromache, a human queen. Miryam (a half-human former slave and, likely, war hero) was married to Drakon (a Fae prince). All these people held sway over humans and/or Fae. They were in a position to make change work.

And it could have worked. Perhaps not all Loyalists would have been swayed, but at least for the Alliance, it would have been possible to get humans and Fae to live together. The proof are Miryam and Drakon.

Now, I know that Miryam and Drakon are a unique situation, being a married human-Fae couple. Having your rulers be a mixed pair just makes a lot of things easier. Besides, the Seraphim had been pro-humans during the War and as their ruler, Drakon was in the position to make the choice to live together with the humans. But "Miryam's people" weren't really her people at all - they were former slaves from a country (the Black Land) that treated humans worse than any other. Miryam wasn't their princess or anything, she was just a half Fae female who had been enslaved just as them and then returned to free them. They owed her their freedom, but otherwise, they were not beholden to her. Getting them to choose to live together with Fae and actually create a working system was certainly no small task.

I'd say that if it was possible for two people with a vision and some influence to get Fae and 50k former slaves to live together in peace, it would have been possible elsewhere, too. There would have been conflict and it would have taken work, sure, but after five hundred years, humans and Fae might have become interwined enough that no Fae ruler would have been able to gather enough support to wage another war against the humans. The Wall ruined that chance and with it, any hope for lasting peace.

Once again, though, I'm no expert on sociology or politics, this is just what I pieced together with my understanding of these subjects. Also, I'm sorry for the long post - I seem to be incapable of keeping things brief😂

Tags: @sjm-things

[littlemisssquiggles]

So I have been thinking on the idea that if they do show it Oscar and Whitley could form a sort of friendship given that both sort of have a big thing coming for them (Whitley in running the Dust company and Oscar's chosen one deal) What do you think? Also I feel it'd be cool is Whitley's sembalence was like good stratigic planning he is able to see two moves ahead like in chess and plan for it.

Hello again Crystal. Y’know once upon a time, I would’ve been open to Whitley and Oscar becoming steady friends and having an almost love-hate type of friendship mirroring Ruby and Weiss. I came to appreciate Rich Farmers as a FRIEND-ship which is ironic since before that I wanted Whitley and Oscar to be rivals for Ruby’s affections XD

Oscar and Whitley are my boys and seeing them finally meet and interact would’ve been an interesting sight. But now that I’ve seen nearly half of V7, I’m unsure of whether or not Whit and Oscar will ever get a chance to meet given how the PLOT has been shaping up.

If we’re lucky, Oscar would be attending the election Watch Party up in Atlas with JNR_RWBY and would just so happen to bump into Whit who just so happened to be attending the Watch Party too on behalf of his father just to promote his campaign at the school or something—I dunno. Just a crumb of interaction would’ve sufficed. 

However, as I said, I’m not sure if these two will ever meet at all. At least notfor V7. I’m still waiting to see what either of their roles will be like for this volume.

I have a sinking suspicion that Whitley will be the one to reveal to Weiss about how their mother has been really doing since she departed. Who knows? Perhaps…he might even allow her back into their home to see her while Jacques is away on business (or rendezvousing with Watts). 

I say this since I don’t think Klein is around anymore. I’m starting to wonder if he was unceremoniously let go after it was discovered that he helped Weiss escape. It was odd not seeing him at Schnee Manor, even when Watts came to visit Jacques. Then again the PLOT hasn’t visited the Manor much for this season outside of the end of CH4. I wonder if we will get more on that as we move into the political subplot for the season.

Since Jacques sparked quite an uproar in Mantle, I’m intrigued at how that’s going to be played out next episode. I’d like to imagine that part of the reason our young heroes were ultimately granted a night off was due to them needing one after working possibly double time to deal with all the ruckus bringing forththe Grimm that was caused by the People of Mantle revolting against the General and Atlas after what Jacques caused.

It wouldn’t surprise me if more Grimm start invading the city due to all the risingnegativity at the city in the clouds, thanks to the Ice King himself.

The start of V7 and the narrative that follows afterwards surrounding Jacques, General Ironwood and even Robyn Hill and her Happy Huntresses should be more than fascinating to watch play out. I can’t wait. 

But going back to Whit, I really feel like Whitley’s role for this season will be delegated to outing Jacques on his underhanded cooperation with Watts.

I feel as we’re going to get Whitley snooping around on his father and Watts.

Oh! Do you know what would actually be pretty darn cool?

What if…Whitley allows Weiss back into Schnee Manor when she shows up to visit their mother who, as we remember, was told to not be doing so well since Weiss’ departure. While checking in on her mom, Whitley invites Weiss to show her something and it’s basically a scenario where Whitley reveals to Weiss another secret passageway within Schnee Manor that leads into a hidden area overlooking Jacques’ office where Whitley and Weiss could spy in on their father.

Let’s say…Whit wants to tell Weiss about what his father had been doing to win the elections. However since he’s also aware that his sister might not believe him, he decides a better way to prove himself is by showing her the truth. So basically Weiss and Whitley end up spying in on Jacques just when Arthur Watts pays him another visit. Maybe Tyrian Callows tags along with Watts this time?

Now here’s the thing with this. Weiss doesn’t know who Tyrian is. The only person on Team RWBY aware of Tyrian is Ruby. So as an alternative to this theory of mine, let’s say:

Weiss returns home to see her mother. Ruby tags along with for morale support. Unfortunately the security at Schnee Manor deny Weiss access even if it was to see her mother, thanks to Jacques giving them strict orders to. Fortunately for Weiss, she reunites with good ole Klein who helps her and Ruby sneak into the manor to see Mama Schnee. 

In her mother’s room, Weiss discovers her mother passed out drunk but sleeping more or less soundly. As it turns out her fears were proven right as her mother looks ill and let’s say her room is a mess, littered with empty wine bottles and glasses as a sign of several alcoholic episodes. This upsets Weiss dearly at seeing her mother in such a state. Luckily her best friend Ruby is there to comfort her.

Weiss then goes to wake her mother up to show that she is still there for her. Unfortunately Weiss’ time with her mother is cut short as Klein comes in to warn the girls that they needed to now leave since Jacques had returned home and security was coming down the hallway.

Weiss and Ruby leave just as Mama Schnee opened her eyes to an emptydark room, missing seeing her beloved daughter again by a millisecond.

Similar to how Klein assisted Weiss with the passageway that led straight out of the manor, he attempts to use the same one from V4 to provide Weiss and Ruby a means of escape. However they are forced to make a detour since the room with the passageway is used or something. Klein is then forced to leave the girls on their own when he’s called away by Jacques.

Long story short, Weiss and Ruby Scooby-Doo their way around Schnee Manor, avoiding as much encounters with security and staff as they could. Eventually their hide and seek results in them stumbling upon another hidden passageway that takes them to the secret hiding spot I described before overseeing Jacques’ office.

From here, Ruby and Weiss listen in on Jacques once again scheming with Watts. Tyrian happens to be there as well and Ruby immediately recognizes him; informing Weiss that the Scorpion Faunus was bad news since he was the one who poisoned Qrow and attacked her and JNR back in Mistral. Thus meaning that Weiss’ father was getting himself roped in with people who work for Salem!

While Weiss and Ruby are processing this revelation, let’s say…that they are caught by Whitley who knew about the passageway since he used it to spy in on Jacques. Whitley has an opportunity to rat Weiss and Ruby out to the in-house security or worse Jacques and his associates. But rather than do that, Whitley does the last thing Weiss expected him to do for her—help her.

With Whit’s help, Ruby and Weiss are able to make their way back toKlein and eventually out of Schnee Manor undetected.

One of my Whit-ty headcanons for Whitley is that he will redeem himself, at least in the eyes of Weiss by helping her in some shape or form. 

My rationale for this is because I strongly believe that Whitley will be the Huntsman (ironically) in Weiss’ Snow White story. 

In the original fairy-tale, the Huntsman was sent to kill Snow White by the Wicked Queen but instead the Huntsman took pity on her and allowed her to go free into the forest where she eventually met the Seven Dwarves.

The assumption here in that Whitley is meant to be exactly like Jacques and thus act as an antagonist to Weiss in some way, right? However I still wish to hold out on the concept of Whitley proving himself to be trusted in the eyes of Weiss, finally opening the door for the potential of these two sharing an actual good relationship.

While all the sisterly moments between Weiss and Winter for this season have been nice, it still bothers me how nonchalant Weiss and Winter are with continuing to wholeheartedly support each other while still leaving their little brother in the dark in the hands of their father; the thought of extending that olivebranch to him still crossing neither of their minds even now. Like…really?

Who knows. Maybe if we do get a moment of Whitley helping Weiss, it may spark the thought of her reaching out to Whit. Perhaps…we can finally have some backstory for these two for once. Again, all the stuff between Weiss and Winter is cool and all that jazz. However this squiggle meister is more intrigued to learn what Weiss’ story with her brother is all about, y’know what I mean?

As for Whitley’s semblance, I’m more inclined with the theory that Whitley possesses the same hereditary Glyph semblance that all Schnees possess since he is a Schnee. 

Regardless of how much the PLOT wishes to have me believe that Whit is exactly like his father, I wish to stand by the thought that he is more like his sisters than he realizes. 

Whitley is a Schnee so if he’s to have a semblance, I want it to be Glyphs. I want to see Whit have his own summon and long ago, I pegged Whit’s choice of summon would be a Geist Grimm he accidentally killed after it attacked him and Klein at the Manor.

Then Whit ends up being haunted by said Geist since he couldn’t control it. Whitley awakening his semblance and needing help to control his powers could be a potential way for him to bond with his sisters. 

Imagine Weiss and Winter coming together to help their brother understand what he’s going through with his gift. Imagine Whit becoming conflicted by this since his powers give him a connection to his sisters and an actual good relationship with them (which I still believe is what Whitley wants above anything else) however at the same time, he is torn by his loyalty to their father.

This could’ve been a great subplot to flesh out Whit as a character.Buuuuuuuuuuuut….this is only just me and my headcanons. Whitley’s true purpose in the PLOT; I shall leave that to the CRWBY Writers to reveal. In the meantime. I’ll just have my own ideas.

I do like your idea for Whit’s semblance though, Crystal. Basically your idea is for Whit t have a foresight type of semblance; similar to how Maria’s Reflex semblance operates in a sense, right? 

Either way, I can dig that. However, like I said, my top choice for Whit’s semblance is dem Glyphs. I want my boy to be the Schnee that he is, dagnabbit!  But we shall see how that goes as the volume unfolds.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

[meteors-lotr]

I will now be adding dragons

As the title suggests, dragons will now join the mix.

Earlier today I posted a long thing about dragon individuals (here) and I love them so much so they will now interact with each other.

And I will ignore things like timelines, because one of them is like a thousand years older than the rest.

I’m just gonna give a quick summary of the nine people, but if you’re not interested at all I will tag all the posts with them with #The Dragon gang, so just filter it if you just want the Lotr and The Hobbit characters.

Smaug/Sirvil 

Is Benedict Cumberbatch, because obviously

Wants to be famous

Fire Dragon

Doesn’t like feelings that much

Had a brief relationship with Poiya

Is a pretty good salesman

A bit stiff

Vrilti/Elva

Loves water

Killed a hatchling

Is seen as wierd by others because of her water obssession

Loves her brothers

Hates her half sister

Blue Haired

An elf

Water Dragon

Became a dragonling just because she wanted to be a sea creature

Has siren like abilities

Moln

???

Is so old he doesn’t remember his past

Is kinda like Yoda with Amnesia

Dragonlings comes to him for advice

He’s the Dragon dad

Ice puns

Just chills in his cave in the north for the most part

Is the tallest

Qrikti/Hijami

Non-binary

Killed a forest dragon to avenge their mothers

Had no idea about the dragon curse

They are just so confused

Hates dragon

Hates themselves

‘While you were doing drugs I studied the blade’

Literally, they trained to kill a dragon from their early teens instead of getting an education

Multi colored hair because they fancy

Yalye/Remdi

Transgender

A dwarf maiden

Used to live in Erebor with her siblings but dammit Sirvil

A jeweler

Got lost in the desert and was forced to kill and eat spike dragons to survive

Loves her beard more than anything else

Can someone please come pick me up

Diavanta/Jessie

A hobbit

Which is ironic, because she’s a Mountain dragon which is the largest dragon species (alive)

Was just out on an adventure and then a dragon asked her to kill it because it was getting old, and she was just like sure

She’s a Took

Had a pony friend named Kimmie

Collects animals basically

Just doesn’t know what’s going on at all

Curious like you wouldn’t believe

Easily gets bored

King Rilva/Stjarna

Literally a psychopath

Killed his siblings because they were too annoying

Only truly feels when he kills someone, so he does that as much as he can

Accidentally joined a cult devoted to a Sky Dragon

Killed the sky dragon to become the leader of said cult

Invaded villages and towns in his new form, and became King of the southern skies

Likes to draw creepy pictures he sees in his dreams

Is just a smug bastard

Eniph/Alleth

Is twelve

I’m not even joking he’s twelve years old

The youngest dragon slayer to ever live

Got scared by a Swamp Dragon one day and just stabbed it with a pointy stick

Went through his Dragonling life together with another Swamp Dragonling named Reskal

Is babey

A lot of anxiety

Writes everything down in his notebook

His notebook is his life

Giftatt/Poiyo

A Batman type of character

Orphan and was raised in abuse

Kind of a vigilante

Became a Venom Dragonling, aka the dragon puppy

Experiences a lot of new feelings such as love and happiness

Does not like it

Eternal conflict 24/7

Had a brief relationship with Sirvil

Everything about him is poisonous

Tilda and Bard might join in this thing too, since they technically are Dragonlings, but they are also the killers of Smaug and Qrikti so yeah that happened

[chaotic-undying-loki]

I really hate aggressive, hateful, bullying, and petty fans in fandoms. Tldr, can't edit, on phone but feeling my annoyance hard

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

Also, kinda long, feel free to scroll past, I'm just dealing with the stress of negative fans toxifying fandoms, on either side. Also if you don't like negative critiques of Kylo, feel free to scroll.

(on phone, can't cut it off, sorry for length, or typos)

Often there's two sides, half the time those two sides are ship-focused, though not always, it can be character focused or narrative focused. And I try to be, and mostly am, reasonable, patient, and respectful of people's opinions.

Sometimes my opinions might sound as if they're judgmental if a character, but I do my best to deliver my opinion honestly but without it seeming aggressive. Sometimes I might even with-hold an opinion to not offend or start a fight (I hate TR now, but have friends who love it, that I rp with, so I keep most opinions to myself and try to stay respectful when, if ever, I share my opinion).

I don't like people, on either side, ie that share my opinion or stand with the opposite (over a ship, character, it any content), who will attack in any way, shape or form; calling people idiots, generalizing in misogynistic/sexist/racist/or any other close minded fashion that is often in accurate and or offensive, and just belittling someone who just happens to have a different opinion (sometimes in a respectful fashion, sometimes aggressive).

I've been through so many fandoms with such arguments over character morality, character treatment, how a character translates into an example of toxic real life people or not, if so and so should be together or single or with that other character. I've had my aggressive days, fewer than others, but I'll admit to my doing. But it's not worth attacking and I'm constantly working towards bring better, expressing my opinions and views freely without arguing and attacking.

But I also I'm beginning to learn to stick to that fandom advice/fact of "you can like things, and not support all the bad; you can be interested in a character and not have to feel guilty or feel you have to defend every part of them. Fandom isn't black and white, and it shouldn't always be a responsibility" (not to say you shouldn't be aware of how things can be offensive or harmful, but not Quit Culture just because you feel guilty).

All this leads me to stating that I'm sitting here, trying to figure my opinions of a character without ignoring all the realities of their good nor their bad, and worrying I'd offend friends by having a positive opinion or negative opinion, and in trying to scan tags I'm Tumblr, certain fandom members are making me feel fucking disgusted.

So, I'm gonna say, I have a complicated opinion of Kylo Ren/Ben Solo from the recent Star Wars trilogy. I'll list it like this, a 1st watch and Reflection phase of each movie.

TFA; 1st Watch,--love the actor, so only minimally biased. But I liked the conflicting factor of who he was, where he came from, where he could go. Reflection-- after a while, the appeal half wore off, and given the hidden/limited backstory to his fall, half the fandom assumed he was influenced and wronged with no choice, or that he was deeply loved and cared for kid that turned his back on so much light for the legacy of a grandfather that he should have known wasn't all that Darkness he was trying to become and so he becomes a killer and leaves his family behind, for bullshit.

TLJ; 1st Watch--clearly struggling and growing in his desires and conflicts, may or may not have done fucked up shit to his fellow students and just continues to be a raging lil whatever, and then we have the Rey connection which, albeit out of his control, seems to come off stalky and invasive and forced. Just, very angry, little change other than expressing he's conflicted and masking it with further rage and aggression. Reflection--basically felt the same afterwards. But from here on out, I hear fro others or notice myself that he seemed to fit the tormented but actually spoiled an whiny, angry nice guy archetype, bordering on tyrant student if not actually so. My opinion was lowered, I didn't try to analyze like I do Loki, for fear I'd get sympathetic for a character who's too morally fucked for it to be okay.

TRoS; 1st Watch--confliction grows, he seems like an angry, lost robot, alone, just trying to regain control in whatever fashion he can, trying to stay on top, find answers. Will admit, what I had wandered and hadn't had evidence to before, that his evil master (thought to be Snoke but really Palpatine) was manipulating him through Anakin/Vader, then Smoke, changes my views w decent amount (as does some novelisation reveals, I think, that state the original trio kept the truth of who Vader was from Ben for years and such a lie, when growing up believing one a valiant Jedi and the other a powerful and mostly evil sith saved at the end of his life was surely confusing (but this is one of those conflicting facts of, Was this always the truth and plan or was it added in for sympathy? Not gonna argue)). Then we have one scene, a battle between 'Good' and 'Evil', he's trying to kill Rey for Palpatine or for himself, can't really say. He is stabbed, deadly wound, saved, and it's like a painful rebirth, he speaks to his father, and sheds Kylo, going to join Rey as Ben and out a stop to it once and for all. For all my conflicted feelings before and still standing by such, seeing that last scene had me hyped and crying, I thought it was all amazing, and he made many good actions to balance against his good. But still not enough, and I'm tired of the Villain Dies to Earn Redemption arc, good or badbor misunderstood, these characters should be able to live, pay for their crimes, and grow from it. But also, deeply against reylo for personal and none personal reasons, I found the kiss sweet and heartbreaking, it was a soft moment that made me feel (I prefer her with Finn, if not the impossible Finn and Poe, but I understand why reylo is shipped). Reflection--basically the same, except I've learned that there was implied neglect, assumption of evil, lying about his family, and an Evil Dark Lord whispering in his ear as probably both Snoke AND fake Vader, and he's still fucked up for all the death, pain, and torment he caused that most of it could have not be necassary. But maybe I'm fucked up for now suddenly wanting to analyze and understand him and for thinking he deserved to live his redemption, not die and earn it.

But whatever. I've decided I'm gonna RP, and analyze. And I keep sifting through Tumblr for feels post or just pics of Ben, not Kylo. And there's a lot of Reylo, I either admire it and move on.

But then there's posts trying to demean other characters in twisted, if not cruel ways. Example 2; Finn kept taking Rey's hand on Jakkuu without her consent, but Kylo always asked, such a gentleman!! = ...Finn grabbed her hand while they were running, it was a protective instinct, not in any way trying to violate her. For one, Kylos reach was a 'please take my hand and assist in making the universe cry while we spread evil' so it's not a healthy comparison, not to mention, Kylo actually violated her, using the force on her body, making her unconcious, kidnapping her, and attempting to torture her and invade her mind. I'm sorry, there's no arguing who has violated her. Example 2; referring to Finn, in just a simple small statement if who deserved her, as FN2187 = Nice, so you just stated you're an aggressive, hateful shipper AND a racist willing to use a black characters literal slave title.

Like, I'm just trying to look for pics or meta that relate to what I'm feeling, but the characters I love more than Ben, and sometimes the actors (Rey, Finn/John, Poe/Oscaar) get attacked or demeaned, or called bullies for doing less than what said fans actually say and do on a daily.

I'm just here for Kylo/Ben, but got people being toxic fucking bullies while defending him or vying for his worthiness and happiness, which makes me disgusted for even considering interest in him.

And it shouldn't. And it won't. But I'll just say this, you people make fandoms like a fucking fire pit. Just here for warmth, maybe to admire the fire, but you don't handle it properly and he burn others in the process, while making others turn around and fear the fire.

So please. Just...chill. Be respectful. Or feel free being the aggressive assholes that making the thing you love into something toxic and unlovable.

[lavenderhazelover]

my lovely ladies @satans-helper and @gretavanyeeeeet tagged me in this & I'm stoked about it. Let’s do this. 

1. What is your middle name?

Nicole..... basic

2. How old are you?

24

3. When is your birthday?

June 12th 

4. What is your zodiac sign?

Gemini 

5. What is your favourite colour?

purple and silver 

6. What’s your lucky number?

22 or 00:00

7. Do you have any pets?

my cat winter who is a lil diva 

8. Where are you from?

Georgia

9. How tall are you?

5'9.5″ I refuse to claim 5′10″ lol

10. What shoe size are you?

8.5 or 9

11. How many pairs of shoes do you own?

maybe like 20

12. What was your last dream about?

walking into the preschool for my field experience and forgetting everything I know about kids

13. What talents do you have?

my friend told me today making my boobs dance (like Terry Crews) is one lol and I would say my gif/meme reactions to people’s posts, photos, texts, etc. They are pretty spot on 

14. Are you psychic in any way?

My women’s intuition has never let me down. 

15. Favourite song?

Flower Power - GVF or Fancy by Reba McEntire

16. Favourite movie?

Forrest Gump

17. Who would be your ideal partner?

The male version of my best friend lmao. or sam kiszka, who is probably the male version of her if I had to guess. really just someone who is goofy and thinks I'm the funniest person they know. 

18. Do you want children?

I want a whole slew of them

19. Do you want a church wedding?

Nah. More of a “let’s elope” kind of gal. 

20. Are you religious?

Yes. Jesus is my homie. 

21. Have you ever been to the hospital?

Yes, I was on the verge of kidney failure. But look at me now, surviving not thriving. 

22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law?

Just speeding tickets.

23. Have you ever met any celebrities?

Troy from Swamp People LOL

24. Baths or showers?

Showers unless its winter and I need to warm my bones up then its baths.

25. What color socks are you wearing?

Barefoot

26. Have you ever been famous?

In the reality show in my mind, yes yes I have. 

27. Would you like to be a big celebrity?

No. Just famous enough to hangout with celebrities I want to hangout with but not cool enough to have my privacy invaded. 

28. What type of music do you like?

There’s not much music I don’t listen to. 

29. Have you ever been skinny dipping?

Many times. 

30. How many pillows do you sleep with?

like 5

31. What position do you usually sleep in?

all of them. I am a wild sleeper. 

32. How big is your house?

Small

33. What do you typically have for breakfast?

pop tarts or toaster strudels lmao. I am a child.

34. Have you ever fired a gun?

heck no

35. Have you ever tried archery?

No, but I'm into it

36. Favourite clean word?

fart and heifer 

37. Favorite swear word?

biiiiiitch. (if I ever call you bitch, just know I’ve used the most enduring pet name I can offer) 

38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep?

around 36 hours. not by choice, but because people wouldn't stop dying. 

39. Do you have any scars?

Si 

40. Have you ever had a secret admirer?

In 6th grade.

41. Are you a good liar?

oh heck yeah. this is why I would totally win Survivor or Big Brother. 

42. Are you a good judge of character?

hundred percent. 

43. Can you do any other accents other than your own?

not well, but I still try

44. Do you have a strong accent?

maybe. I did not realize how southern my accent was until I left the south. 

45. What is your favourite accent?

all of them. I love hearing each person’s unique accent. 

46. What is your personality type?

goofy as hellllll

47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing?

I don’t purchase much over $30 because ballin on a budget

48. Can you curl your tongue?

yes

49. Are you an innie or an outie?

are we talking belly buttons? mine is both

50. Left or right-handed?

Right

51. Are you scared of spiders?

of all bugs

52. Favourite food?

hot wangs or Taco Bell 

53. Favourite foreign food?

pasta

54. Are you a clean or messy person?

Clean, housekeeping ruined me. 

55. Most used phrase?

....litty titty or that's what she said or I wish a heifer would (I h8 myself)

56. Most used word?

heifer 

57. How long does it take for you to get ready?

20 minutes usually 

58. Do you have much of an ego?

kind of... especially is someone says I'm not funny. I crumble. 

59. Do you suck or bite lollipops?

both. I am trying to get to the middle of that blow pop

60. Do you talk to yourself?

all the time

61. Do you sing to yourself?

all the time

62. Are you a good singer?

not even close

63. Biggest Fear?

my mom dying and snakes 

64. Are you a gossip?

no, but I do tell my best friend EVERYTHING. so just to her?

65. Best dramatic movie you’ve seen?

Um, Forrest Gump (does that count lmao) 

66. Do you like long or short hair?

All hair

67. Can you name all 50 states of America?

I work at an elementary school..... so in other words, “fifty nifty United States from thirteen original colonies. Shout em, scout em, tell all about em, one by one till we’ve given a day to every state in the USA.... Allllabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas....” you get it lol. 

68. Favourite school subject?

History

69. Extrovert or Introvert?

Both

70. Have you ever been scuba diving?

no 

71. What makes you nervous?

Human Interaction

72. Are you scared of the dark?

Dark outside, but not dark inside... if that makes sense. 

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes?

no. I hate conflict. 

74. Are you ticklish?

Yes

75. Have you ever started a rumour?

I hope not

76. Have you ever been in a position of authority?

as a teacher, yes. 

77. Have you ever drank underage?

Yes

78. Have you ever done drugs?

yes, no regerts 

79. Who was your first real crush?

His name was Brett. He was also my first kiss. 

80. How many piercings do you have?

just my first hole in my ears. I use to have my nipples pierced and I miss them. 

81. Can you roll your R’s?

oh heck yeah. It’s that Spanish blood. 

82. How fast can you type?

decently fast. 

83. How fast can you run?

I do not run

84. What colour is your hair?

dark brown

85. What color is your eyes?

dark brown......boring

86. What are you allergic to?

nothing

87. Do you keep a journal?

yes

88. What do your parents do?

my dad is a mortician and not sure what my mom does lmao oops 

89. Do you like your age?

my 20s have been the best years so far

90. What makes you angry?

ignorant people, people who say the R word, people who treat children as if they’re not human beings (aka other TEACHERS I work with)

91. Do you like your own name?

its chill 

92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they?

yes

93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child?

I'm not picky 

94. What are you strengths?

my loyalty and honesty 

95. What are your weaknesses?

my struggle to say no when people ask things of me 

96. How did you get your name?

My parents choose it for my brother had he been a girl and then just used it when they had me. 

97. Were your ancestors royalty?

Probably, I mean I'm too cool to not come from royalty. 

98. Do you have any scars?

si 

99. Colour of your bedspread?

grey

100. Colour of your room?

idk honestly. the girl who lived in it before me painted it. its some random color. 

I’m tagging: @safarimama @saywecanart @flowrxchild @gretavanshellie @camomillacatalina @moonchildwildheart @shesouttasight @lantern-inthenight @myownparadise96 @dreams-madeof-strawberrylemonade @bigthighsandstupidguys

[travllingbunny]

The 100 rewatch: 1x05 Twilight’s Last Gleaming

I’m a new fan of The 100, who first binged it last year, August to November. This is my first full rewatch of the show. I was planning to start it anyway and finish it before the season 6 premiere on April 30, and when I saw that Fox Serbia was airing a rerun (Monday to Friday, 40 min. after midnight, with repeats the next day), starting on 1st February, it was a great opportunity to start my rewatch in HDTV on my beautiful new TV. I decided to do write-ups and tag other fans on SpoilerTV website, as I did when I was first watching the show. But my posts turned into full blown essays. So, finally, after over a week, I’ve realized: Why don’t I post them on my Tumblr blog, too? I’ll copy my write-ups of the first 7 episodes, and then I’ll post my rewatch posts after I watch each episode. (The next one, 1x08, is on Monday’Tuesday.)

Spoilers below for all 5 seasons of the show. I go of on a tangents and make a lot of references to future events.

Rating: 8.5/10

This episode really shocked me and emotionally affected me back when I first watched, and it's when I first realized the show didn't pull punches.

Killing individual characters for shock value - that's nothing new, but killing a bunch of innocent people like that, having the audience expect throughout the episode for them to be saved at the last moment, and then instead they die anyway, when it could have been stopped... I really wasn't expecting that. Now it's far less shocking after you've seen The 100 use mass murder as a plot device multiple times. Well, this is not a murder, technically, since the people eventually volunteered for it to saved their loved ones. But before Abby decided to be seriously badass and show Jake's video to everyone and tell them the truth about the Ark dying, the 100 being sent to the ground, and the upcoming culling, the Council was planning to straight up murder 320 people and then lie about it, claiming it was an accident. And, as Clarke points out to Bellamy in this episode, it's certain that those would have been working class people rather than the Ark elite. The class issues the show keeps stressing is of those things that keep it from justifying the Ark leadership for their actions on the grounds of survival, tough choices, blah blah blah, and I'm glad for it. Jaha was here planning to be one of the people who died (but I bet a large part of the reason was because he thought his son was dead... which he was, just not for the reasons he thought), until Kane convinced him not to. They had a back and forth about who's the better leader, with Jaha arguing Kane had the strength to make tough choices, and Kane arguing later that Jaha was able to inspire people. And they were both kind of right, but not in the way they thought. Kane has changed a lot during the show, from pragmatist to idealist, from pessimist to optimist, but he's always been a guy who 100% believes in whatever course of action he's chosen, thinks it's right and throws himself into it, in a way that often comes off as a bit naive. But he does suck at winning the popular vote, going by the fact that he was never elected Chancellor and that he lost to Pike in S3. While Jaha somehow managed to get elected, bull&s.hits really well in a speech in episode 1x07, and in S4 we see him give speeches to the people for the benefit of Clarke and Bellamy that show how good he can be at swaying people, even when he's not in power. But S2-3 also showed the most awful version of his messianic complex and influence. Something else that has always bothered me about the culling is, we see people sacrifice themselves for their children (like Tor Lemkin for his daughter Reese) or their romantic partners (the guy who wants to do it for his wife), which is something we see multiple times in the show. But we don't see how their loved ones feel about it, whether they tried to stop them (Tor's daughter Reese didn't realize what was going on, but the adults did). How will Reese will about losing her father when she learns what he did, and that he did it for her? In the next episode, we see the husband of one of the victims in the culling in 1x07, and in S5 we learn Kara Cooper's father was one of the 320. I wonder how many of the people from the Ark that lost there loved ones are even alive by S6? This is also the episode that made me feel better about the Clarke/Finn/Raven love triangle, because it was dealt with much better than I expected. Another reason why this was a turning point when I was really on board with the show. Speaking of that love triangle - this show really loves the scenes where Clarke is shocked and hurt to find out someone has a girlfriend by seeing him reunite with her and kiss her. They did the exact same thing in S5. And both times the camera zooms on Clarke's face rather than on the couple, though in this case, they didn't go as far as to blur Finn and Raven out of focus. But these are two very different situations, of course. Among other things, because in S5, it was no one's fault, while this situation is fully Finn's fault. I've loved the way Clarke dealt with learning Finn had a girlfriend, absolutely not doing the "being catty and fighting over a guy" thing, but the exact opposite. She's heartbroken, but she immediately bottles it up. She clearly hates being the 'other woman' and her instinct when feeling unwanted is to completely withdraw. You know who definitely isn't dealing with it well? Finn. He's clearly uncomfortable as he wasn't expecting Raven to come, and then he goes to indicate to Clarke that he would like to continue a relationship with her, which she refuses... so he then goes back to Raven and acts like everything is fine, because if Clarke doesn't want him, why not stick with Raven, and has no intention of telling Raven that he slept with someone else, or that he's in love with Clarke or that he would like to be with Clarke. Just like he never thought it would be right to tell Clarke that he has a long-term girlfriend on the Ark. Speaking of relationships, but in this case, not very serious ones, one of Bellamy's friends with benefits we see him in bed with in this episode, Bree (the blonde one), is the same girl who came onto him and presumably had sex with him in season 4, while partying as one of Jasper's end-of-the-world suicide group, and who went on to be one of those who killed themselves. But I'd be lying if I said I would make that connection if I didn't see it on The 100 wiki. The other girl, Roma, ends up killed by the Grounders in 1x07. This was still the time when Bellamy was often acting in a very frustrating way - due to his narrow focus on just Octavia and himself and not yet the group as a whole or people in general - and massively screwing up things, and never more than in this episode, by stealing Raven's radio and throwing it in the water, so Jaha couldn't come down to execute him. Now, he did know about the Ark being on its last legs, but had no idea about the culling before Raven told everyone. I predicted at the time that we'll see Bellamy feeling super guilty later, since he doesn't outwardly show it much in this episode, and boy, did we see that in 1x08. (Much more than we ever did from Jaha, who was actually directly responsible for it, but that's what Jaha is like, always justifying his actions as necessary.). Here, Finn, Clarke and Raven confront Bellamy about the radio, and the former two learn about Bellamy shooting Jaha, while Bellamy learns Jaha survived, but with a massive difference between how Finn and Raven confront him and how Clarke does. The former two are basically like "You're the worst" and Finn calls him selfish, while Clarke - already at this point - seems to understand him better and have a much better opinion of him: "You're not a murderer. All you have done is to protect your sister", though she then gets angry at him a bit later, asking if he even cares that he caused the deaths of 320 people. It's so weird that the flares the 100 use to signal the Ark won't help at all (the Ark leaders, aside from Abby, will just dismiss them), but will end up burning a Grounder village and cause more conflict with the Grounders. Which is so consistent with Murphy's Law - not the episode or John Murphy, but actual Murphy's Law - whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. But just to be clear, the Grounders using that to justify their war was utter bullcrap. There's no way anyone intelligent could consider the 100 an invading force (LOL) after seeing what they were like (and we know they did: Lincoln was spying on them and making notes) and anyone who's not a small child knows that people can't be considered guilty for causing things by complete accident, which they never could have predicted happening. (I just had to have that mini-rant because people who try to portray both sides as equally responsible, or even demonize the Delinquents and/or excuse the Grounders, get on my nerves, a lot.) A minor-running theme in this episode: at the beginning of the episode, when Clarke and Finn are lying together in the afterglow, before their super-brief relationship came came to a crushing end after Raven came back, Finn - always the one saying romantic things - mentioned a falling star and making a wish, which Clarke was initially confused by, since she just thought of meteors in real world terms and didn't know about that old superstition, while Finn said he had read about it. At the end of episode (in a moment I've seen in a few Tumblr gifsets!), when everyone is watching the flares, Clarke and Bellamy are looking at them together and she asks "What would you wish on a falling star" and then assumes Bellamy wouldn't understand what she's talking about. But she obviously does (the guy has read a lot), since he says "I don't even know what I would wish for". Which is probably true, and sad - I imagine that he had never given any serious thought to what he actually wanted out of life, beyond "Protect Octavia - make sure she is not discovered." Of course, the scene was also an occasion to show Clarke looking sadly at Finn and Raven, so we'll know she's actually really heartbroken and pining. There's more pining from Clarke in the next couple of episodes, and after that, IIRC, fortunately barely any. BTW, let's just take in the fact that Clarke, in all 5 seasons, has never actually properly dated anyone, or specifically, she had one friend with benefit with no stronger feelings involved, and she had the two romantic relationships (with people she had known for a few weeks. and who both relentlessly pursued her romantically and made the first moves) which lasted a few hours each and consisted of having sex exactly once, but were portrayed as epic romances, where 95% of the overall relationship, in both cases, consisted of not dating, but a lot of angst, betrayal, and ended in death, and Clarke getting traumatized and feeling guilty (without actually it being her fault). It's amazing how similar overall her relationships with Finn and Lexa are, including in how much they lasted and how much focus they had on screen and for how long, but one is almost completely forgotten and ignored by the fandom now, while the other one is over-hyped.

[wellhellsbelles]

it’s a switch flipped, it’s a pill tipped back, it’s a moon eclipse

another installment in my riarkle new girl au! please enjoy! :)

ao3 link here.

//

It’s been a long enough time after what happened between her and her ex Brandon where she’s finally starting to accept that: a.) he’s not going to take her back, b.) she doesn’t want him to take her back, and c.) she’s a permanent fixture in the loft.

The pushback against her was clear at first, but then they came to know each other, came to accept each other for their slight differences and annoyances, and they started to become friends. Now, Lucas, Zay, and even Farkle would do anything for her if she asked and likewise, and Riley feels warm every time she thinks about how she gets to live with these amazing people that genuinely like her back.

It's amazing. Even better than living with her ex, for sure.

But then there’s still this small hesitancy from Farkle’s end that takes Riley forever to combat. She doesn’t get it, really—they really had been getting along the most out of all her roommates, but all of a sudden Farkle reverted back to how he was when she first moved in, just like the flip of a switch.

She has no idea why he’s so insistent upon keeping her out and why she’s so insistent upon pulling him in.

Maybe it’s because he doesn’t see her as permanent in his life. Perhaps he feels like he’s just biding his time living in the loft, because she knows he’s still in love with his ex, Sarah, and he’d do anything at this point to get back together with her.

Whatever the reason, Farkle still manages to avoid her like the plague when he can, maintaining an almost palpable amount of distance between them, something that endures for quite a while until Riley can no longer stand it.

So she begins to press Farkle’s buttons by invading his space in any way she can—brushing up against him in the hallway when they go in or out of their rooms, a soft touch of the arm when they have a brief conversation . . . things like that. She can tell she’s testing his patience, but frankly she doesn’t give a damn. He no longer has the option to ignore her, and if he has a problem with it, then he’ll talk to her.

Easy as pie.

Except Farkle has to be the nicest person on the planet, because even though he’s obviously bothered by her intruding upon his personal bubble, he is so non-confrontational that he doesn’t do anything about it. It frustrates Riley to no end.

“Alright, I give,” Riley announces in a huff, collapsing into the chair at the kitchen table in front of Zay and Lucas. “Why is Farkle avoiding me?”

“Maybe because you can be slightly irritating,” Zay tells her, sipping at his tea nonchalantly. Riley shoots him a look of disdain.

“Impossible. C’mon guys, really. I’m really upset over this.” Lucas shrugs.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Riley. I mean, Farkle’s always been really shy with girls in general, and living with one certainly doesn’t make things easy. Have you tried asking him why he’s avoiding you?” Riley blinks a moment, her face blank.

“. . . No, I haven’t. That’s . . . that’s actually good advice.”

“Go figure,” Zay quips. Riley reaches into the fruit basket on the table and throws an orange at him. “Ow! She hit me!” he cries to Lucas, who’s only grinning.

“You kind of asked for it, man.”

“Well, thank you for your help, Lucas,” Riley emphasizes as she rises from her chair. “I’ll go talk to him.” Zay sticks his tongue out at her as she leaves the table, and Riley makes a point to ignore it.

She’s got bigger fish to fry.

 //

 Unfortunately, and this is absolutely the truth and not her trying to avoid conflict, but Riley becomes way too busy with life and doesn’t get her time to talk with Farkle. She’s busy with preparing for the upcoming EOG for her class, the end of the year test that they take before saying goodbye for the summer. Riley has to admit, she spends a little extra time working on her class because she always hates to see them move a grade up and out of her class.

What can she say? She loves her kids.

As soon as that wave passes, however, Riley’s schedule frees up, and she tries to plan the perfect time to talk to Farkle. She’s noticed that he’s eased up quite a bit, and that’s probably due to her not trying to viciously invade his personal space like she had been doing before. But now she’s off the clock for the summer, so it’s his time to suffer again.

He can’t get away with ignoring her that easy.

But then life gets in the way again, and Riley becomes increasingly frustrated.

The boys announce that they have a wedding to attend on Sunday, the first day of summer, and that’s exactly when Riley was planning on confronting Farkle. They end up inviting her to tag along, however, and she thinks to herself that maybe it’s not all for naught. It’ll make it even easier for her to approach him, too, because Zay and Lucas announce that they know Farkle’s ex is going to be there and that she needs to help them be on “Farkle Watch” so that he doesn’t do anything idiotic like try to get her back or something.

Well, they can definitely count on Riley Matthews to be on Farkle Watch duty as his wing-woman for sure.

She always thought she’d be a good wingman, and now’s her chance to prove that.

“No, you are not bringing a deck of cards with you. Why are you like this?” Zay asks as he takes the card pack from her hands, tossing it onto the floor. Lucas looks at her disapprovingly, as well.

“Because I like to be fun, and card tricks are fun!” Riley exclaims in a huff. “Alright, fun police, what’s next on your fun police agenda?”

“We’ve gotta approve your dress,” Lucas tells her, and Riley gapes.

“What, now you’re the fashion police, too?” Zay and Lucas exchange glances before nodding profusely.

“Yeah, we kinda have to be. Your dresses are cute, but they’re only cute around third graders. We’re going to an adult wedding where we’ll be around adults, so you better show us an adult dress,” Zay instructs. Riley sticks her tongue at him before disappearing into her closet to rifle through her menagerie of dresses and find ones that Zay and Lucas might deem “appropriate”. She manages to find three dresses she thinks are perfect, but Zay only groans, pushing her out of the way after taking one look at them to search her closet himself.

Zay returns not too long after with a dress in hand, and Riley backs away, shaking her head. It’s one that she had stuffed in the back of her closet for a reason. The dress is hardly modest, the length of it reaching barely the middle of her thighs, the neckline plunging too far for her liking. It’s what she calls her “little black cocktail dress”, or rather what Maya called it when she gifted it to her when she realized that Riley didn’t have a single sexy dress in her closet.

“Ohhhhh no no no no,” she insists, waving her arms around sporadically. “Maya gave me that one for my twenty-fifth birthday and really it’s not me and—”

“Go put this one on now,” Zay demands and Riley swipes the dress away from him angrily, returning to her closet to change. She steps out after struggling with the dress for several minutes, her arms crossed and lips pouted.

“This up to your standards?” she asks. A look of relief washes over Lucas and Zay’s faces.

“Freaking finally!” Zay shouts. Lucas seems to approve, as well, and Riley storms off with her makeup bag towards the bathroom afterward, tired of being around those two buffoons. On her way out the door, she bumps into Farkle, the makeup bag dropping from her hands.

“Whoops, I’ll get that,” he tells her, crouching down to retrieve the bag off the floor, relinquishing it to her once he’s back up. His eyes shoot open in surprise at her, and she tilts her head as she accepts the bag.

“What?”

“That dress . . . it looks really good on you,” he says, clearing his throat immediately after.

“Oh!” Riley exclaims, a prickle of heat biting at her cheeks. “Thank you.” Farkle offers her an unsure smile and a nod and then turns away without a word, heading towards Zay and Lucas. Riley sighs, knowing fully that she’s got no idea how to approach Farkle on the subject of how he feels about her. That always was her fatal flaw, especially during grade school.

Riley cares too much what people think about her to the point where it can destroy her from the inside.

Luckily, she’s got faith that things can smooth out. So where her shortcomings lie, she makes up in an unyielding dedication to any task she sets for herself, no matter how difficult or unlikely it can come to fruition.

She stalks off to the bathroom, a lot on her mind as the three boys yell loudly from the other room, something that’s become almost the norm for her now.

 //

 They arrive at the wedding late because Zay insists they pick up a last-minute gift from IKEA for the bride and groom, taking only about an hour to pick out a stupid nightstand that they will probably a.) not be able to figure out how to put it together, and b.) not even use at all in their lifetime. Riley taps her foot rapidly in the car as finally parks outside their destination, silently wishing she had driven her own car to the damn wedding instead of agreeing to carpool.

Luckily enough, by the time they make their way up to where the ceremony is being held in the building, they find out they’ve got five minutes to spare, quickly making their way to a row of empty seats in the back, hoping no one notices them slip in late. The music starts up and the wedding party begins their procession down the aisle, and Riley counts the minutes until she can get to the reception.

Riley should feel bad about that, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t even know these people, so why should she even care? She’s just on Farkle Watch today to make sure he doesn’t do anything idiotic, so even though she likes weddings, she’ll be glad when this one’s over.

After a painstakingly long amount of time, the ceremony finally draws to a close and the bride and groom announce that the reception is in another room in the building, and Riley lets out a sigh of relief. But unfortunately for her, the relief doesn’t last long because suddenly a familiar, long-haired brunette rounds the corner, and her, Lucas, and Zay all go still around Farkle.

It’s her. The ex.

Sarah Carpenter.

And suddenly it becomes a waiting game as she closes in, everyone silently trying to figure what the hell kind of move to make. Riley watches Farkle carefully, trying to decipher his emotions as she approaches, but he’s a statue, unmoving.

“Well, well, well, Farkle Minkus. Long time no see,” Sarah greets him, adjusting her glasses on the bridge of her nose.

“Oh hey, Sarah. Good to see you, I guess,” he mutters, scratching the back of his head. It’s so cringe-worthy, Riley can’t stand to watch anymore. She grabs Farkle’s arm, tugging him towards the reception hall.

“Come on, we’ve gotta go to the reception hall, remember? It’s good to see you, Sarah,” Riley waves, gritting her teeth as she guides the boys away from the horrific situation.

“What did you do that for? I was handling it!” Farkle exclaims as she drags him along.

“I don’t think you need to interact with her. Nothing ever good comes out of interacting with your ex,” Riley explains.

“You looked like you had met death at your doorstep,” Zay comments. “It did not look pretty.”

“Sarah did always have that effect on him,” Lucas adds, much to Farkle’s chagrin. “C’mon, man, we’ve gotta get to the reception.” Farkle sighs, giving in as the rest of the group guides him down the hall.

They find their table huddled in the corner away from everyone, and Zay complains the whole time because he’s nowhere close to any of the bridesmaids. Lucas is just bothered by the fact that he hadn’t eaten much in the morning and the pictures were taking way too freaking long, and Riley couldn’t help but notice Farkle’s gaze glued to the other side of the room, right where Sarah Carpenter is sitting, laughing away with a man by her side. She reaches out to him underneath the table where his hands are curled into fists, gently taking one and lacing her fingers with his.

“She doesn’t know what she’s missing out on,” Riley offers him a small, sympathetic smile. Farkle’s breath hitches and he nods.

“Yeah, for sure,” he says quietly, only loud enough for Riley to hear him.

“Farkle, do you want me to set you up with a bridesmaid, too? It might be good for you,” Zay announces across the table. Riley thinks to herself that he’s lucky he’s not in front of her or she’d kick him in the shin with the stiletto heels she has on.

“Uh, no thanks,” Farkle shakes his head. “I appreciate it, though.” Zay shrugs.

“No problem, dude.”

They all make idle chatter from then on to ignore the fact that they’re growing increasingly hungry. About thirty minutes later, the wedding party bursts into the reception, breaking apart to showcase the happy couple as they have their first dance. As she watches them, Riley makes a note in the back of her head to never, ever play “Low Rider” at her wedding because it is just atrocious. The guys seem to echo the sentiment, their expressions ranging from to disgust to horror at the display in front of them.

When they finally finish, the couple announces that everyone can go grab food and the four of them race for the buffet line, practically pushing over elderly people and children in the process to get towards the front of the line. They fill up their plates and then head back to the table, each one of them not saying a word as they devour the meal in front of them, happy to be eating at last.

A sudden clink drags their attention away from their plates as the groom holds up his champagne glass, clearing his throat. The chatter in the room dies down, all eyes falling on the happy couple. Riley sighs in her seat, leaning her head back as she prepares to listen through the droning of speeches from the wedding party of people she doesn’t even know.

Why, exactly, did she come again if she doesn’t know these people?

. . . Oh yeah. She’s supposed to be Farkle’s wingman.

For Farkle’s sake, and as her word to Zay and Lucas, she tries to appear happy and stays in the room, but she’s itching to take a plate of food and sneak out the back. Good thing she’s fairly patient. She does have to work with children all day, after all.

After half an hour of speeches, the bride and groom finally raise their glasses, toasting to one another for a long and happy life together. Riley hits her champagne flute against the rest of her table’s, draining the glass once it touches her lips.

It’s just that kind of night.

Then they watch as the father-daughter dance happens, and Riley has to admit, it’s very sweet. It’s one of those things that she’s anticipated about getting married one day because she’s so close with her father, so she doesn’t mind sitting through it. Even the song is sweet—it’s “Wildflowers” by Tom Petty. She taps her foot to the beat, humming under her breath.

Once it’s over, the dancefloor is opened to everyone. Zay hops up from the table almost immediately, making a beeline for the bridesmaids table while Riley, Lucas, and Farkle all remain.

“You’re not going to join Doofus McGee over there?” Riley asks, pointing at Zay. Lucas shakes his head.

“I’m good. I’m not really looking for anything right now.” Riley shoots him a suspicious look, making a note to look into that later. When she turns to look back at Farkle, however, he’s gone, and she begins frantically searching the room for where he might be.

“Uh oh. Where’d Farkle go?” Riley grits her teeth. Lucas scoffs.

“We give you one job and you already blew it?” She sneers at him, crossing her arms.

“You told me to help. You did not say this was my job alone. You, mister, are just as accountable. Now help me look for him!”

Riley stomps over to the other side of the table, tugging Lucas up by the ear. She drags him over to the dance floor while he complains, instructing him to search the right side of the floor for Farkle while she checks the left. She has to elbow her way through people way too close for comfort as she scans the crowd for the genius she’s supposed to be, essentially, babysitting.

It shouldn’t be all that difficult all things considered. Farkle is tall, towering over her by several inches, so he should be noticeable in this sea of people.

Apparently not.

She really wishes he was wearing his bright orange turtleneck today of all days.

Riley discovers him finally, but much to her dismay, he’s talking to Sarah Carpenter, and she looks like she’s flirting with him hardcore. She pushes her way up next to him so that she can do her job as a wingman and get him out of there as quick as possible.

“Farkle, there you are!” Riley exclaims as soon as she’s beside him. He looks at her surprised, while all Sarah does is sort of sneer.

“Riley? What did you want? I’m talking to Sarah,” he nods toward her, as if to say, “Get out of here.” She links arms with him, gently pulling him towards the dancefloor to get him away.

“You promised me a dance, remember?” she tells him. He furrows his brow, confused.

“No?”

“Farkle, what is going on?” Sarah interrupts them.

“Nothing, Sarah, it’s—”

“Hey, Babe.”

Before Farkle can finish, he’s cut off by a big, burly man leaning in to kiss Sarah. Riley can tell he’s confused and hurt by it, and she can understand why.

It’s like Sarah’s keeping him as a backup. He’s on her hook just in case she needs companionship, and Sarah had no intention of cutting him loose. So Riley does the only thing she can think of.

She cups both sides of Farkle’s face with her hands and pulls him in, pressing her lips against his and kissing him passionately.

. . . It goes on for a good thirty seconds, too, until they both decide they need air. If Farkle was confused before, he’s absolutely bewildered now.

“Uhh, I guess we should leave you two alone?” Sarah asks, obviously annoyed. Riley decides for the both of them, nudging Farkle out to the dancefloor and waving goodbye to his ex.

“We’re gonna go dance now. Goodbye, Sarah.”

The two of them say nothing until they’re stopped in an empty spot of the dancefloor, and Riley guides Farkle into a dancing position with his hands on her waist and her arms wrung around his neck. His eyes aren’t looking to focus on her any time soon, but she clears her throat, demanding his attention.

“Uhhhhh,” is all he can say, the internal conflict clear in his eyes. Riley breathes.

“You needed to let her go,” she explains as they sway back and forth with each other. “She was just keeping you as a backup plan in case the rest of her flings didn’t end well. You deserve more than that, Farkle.” Farkle swallows, nodding his head.

“I know. I just . . . yeah. Thank you for helping me out, even if it took you, well . . . you know.” Riley offers him a small smile.

“Of course. You’re my friend, you know that? I want you to know I’m here for you, even if you don’t want it.” He tilts his head, frowning.

“What do you mean ‘even if I don’t want it’?”

“You’ve been avoiding me lately. I thought it was maybe something I did or something, but I . . . I don’t know. I guess it’s because you just don’t like me.” Farkle laughs, actually laughs at that, and it’s Riley’s turn to be confused.

“Riley, that’s not it at all. I like you, a lot, in fact. I’ve just been . . . I don’t know. You intimidate me, and I feel like half of the time I don’t deserve to have someone like you in my life,” he admits. Riley feels her cheeks begin to burn, her throat running dry.

“I intimidate you? But I’m just a stupid, crazy, annoying girl who you guys don’t take seriously half of the time. I’m not intimidating.” Farkle shakes his head.

“You’re not annoying. You’re fun, kind, smart and . . . and really beautiful, and it’s hard for someone who’s just lived with guys to get used to that. I’m sorry you felt like you weren’t wanted.”

Riley has no words for that. Instead, she just pulls him close, hugging him tightly, her face buried into his shoulder. He leans his nose into her hair and hugs her back just as tight, and they stay there on the dancefloor for the rest of the night, talking and enjoying each other’s company.

And Riley . . . Something’s changed. She doesn’t quite understand what it might be exactly, but after tonight, she’s certain that their dynamic has shifted.

She’ll figure it out. Eventually.

[writing-frenzy]

Don’t Bottle Up (that’s how Molotov Cocktails come to be)

I thank Discord, @crowsketches , and multiple sad songs for this installment of the Devilishly Employement Au :D Enjoy, I hope you have tissues, cause you might have some issues! (Announcer is still @circateas they just let us peons enjoy them! Au is inspired by @crowsketches can be found here and my tag Devilishly Employed) Warning for Angst, action, and- Shot

Don’t own Cuphead

The day was here; it had finally come at last. An event that everyone in the higher ranks of the Casino hierarchy had been subtly preparing for since a certain little mug came into the Devil’s employment:

Cuphead had finally managed to break through the Casino’s security. And as if to make the already stressful enough event even better, he wasn’t alone in his little invasion, managing to bring in some ‘familiar friends’ to aid him. Amazing, the lengths the young man would go in his quest to free his brother from the Devil’s grip.

Almost made it an utter shame they had to roadblock them every single step of the way.

Almost that was.

“Mic, how are the back entrances, do we still have a blackout there?” King Dice asked, even as he dodged a rather well thrown Balloon dog, one of his handy throwing cards popping it and the one right on it’s tail.

Damn, but wasn’t this reminding him of just why he hated clowns.

“Our men are working on it now, they were a bit busy helping the Tipsy Troop; the bar almost caught on fire.” was the answer the announcer gave, making Dice want to shiver, only stopping from doing that because he had to dodge some rather questionable cakes thrown in his direction, using a card shield to give him some breathing room.

“Have the Security spells at least been put up? We really don’t need more foes to worry about right now.”

“They’re loading up now, but it’s going to be patchwork at best; swiss cheese will have a better time of stopping them then what we got up now.” Mic warned, before rapid cursing could be heard over the line.

“Listen, I need to help coordinate Mango and Wheezy; they’re in a bit of a pinch now. Can you try and get a hold of the Boss?”  

“I will attempt it; good luck Mic.”

“Right back at you, friend.” and with that, the comm went dead, no one else using it as they were all fighting right now, each with their own threat to manage.

Frowning at his own enemies, Dice glared; Bon Bon and Beppi were no joke, even if they came from a place full of them.

Best he let them tire themselves out elsewhere.

Snapping his figures, teeth gritted as he did so, the Manager of the Casino’s eyes glowed green even as two holes appear right below his enemies, making them fall in.

Gasping, the die man leaned against the table for a bit, shaking his head; with no roulette or gamblers table to use, it was that much harder for him to use his abilities like so, especially his warping. While on his own he could do it easier then blinking, doing it for others was rather taxing as it was draining. Still, that should distract those two for a bit at least; wonder if they’ll enjoy the Casino’s Trick Trap Room as much as Chip does?

Taking one more breath, Dice focused, allowing him to center himself as he felt out for a familiar energy, one that should be obvious in all this chaos.It didn’t take him long to find it; within the time it took him to sort his Boss from the rest, he already had his warp at the ready, instantly putting himself right next to The Devil…

…

...Who was, for some reason, hiding in the Chandelier right before his throne room, a thick wall of magic surrounding them.

“... Do I even want to know?” King Dice asked, pinching the bridge of his nose as he did; of all the things his boss could be doing, he chooses to hide up in the ceiling…

Honestly, he’s more surprised the other wasn’t in a convenient bush or something; that would certainly be right up his alley… At least he was doing something productive up here though, the magical blueprint of the casino in front of them as they manipulated it, twisting and changing it here and there to their sadistic whims.

“Shhhh, I ordered Mugman to delay anyone who comes near the door, just until backup arrives to aid them.” the furred demon whispered, their grin nearly seeming to break their face in half with just how big it was, even as he made the grand stair case turn into what looked like an acid slide.

Now that wasn’t foreboding at all.

It only took him a moment to take this information in, consider his boss’s character, and just how determined the little Mug below them was, their Sniper Shot out and clear for all to see as they looked around, for Dice to take in the picture. “... Mugman doesn’t know it’s his brother and friends invading, does he?” Dice asked softly, the green glow in his eyes dimming as he took in Mugman below, who was carefully taking in every little thing he could, though thankfully for now not looking up at them, the wall of magic probably had some effect there though

(Though he still made a note to self; make room for more environmental awareness training in all employees. Such obvious gaps could not be allowed be.)

“Nope; all he knows is that we’re being invaded as we speak, and that people will be on their way to my room to get at me. The mug probably is thinking it’s some of our more gutsy and smarter competition; they’re been getting pretty out of hand as of late after all.” was the answer his boss gave, a chuckle now leaving them as they did, though if that was from his words or the fact that the kitchens were now turned into some sort of torture chamber could be anyone’s guess.

Taking in a breath, Dice looked down at the youth below them once more, his chest feeling slightly tighter as he watched the unaware Mugman patrol a little bit, the targets in his eyes zooming in and out as he did. It would only be a matter of time before things really became red hot… and probably not for the best…

After all, The Devil wouldn’t be watching so intently otherwise if nothing were to happen.

(Even if he had to ensure that it would, his right hand watching just as warily at his side.)

Would you look at that, but he was right; he could already hear the footsteps down the hall, a group of running feet on the go, urgency heard easily in every slap and slam on the ground. Mugman stayed close to the wall, ensuring that those running his way wouldn’t see him, but with all the reflective finishes in the hall, he would be able to have them in his own sights. The young mug got in a crouching position, hands already done in the shape of a gun, readying a no doubt effective ambush as his target filled eyes narrowed and a foreboding red light shown on his finger tip.

From his position on the ceiling, and with a little help from his own magic, King Dice was able to see the group of four coming right before Mugman did, a low curse escaping the die as he did.

Hilda Burg, Matchstick, Blind Spector, and of course Cuphead in the lead, all of them grimly determined, faces hard as they ran forward to the Devil’s lair.

Looks like someone has taught the kid how to think then; absolutely wonderful, just what his nightmares needed. Though speaking of such, King Dice looks over to Mugman just as they realize just who is coming.

The effect it has is instant; the Sniper Shot immediately deactivates, the red rings gone from those now wide dark eyes, their face falling as they do.

Pip, thump, clack, pip, thump, clack.

King Dice doesn’t think he’s ever seen that look on the boy’s face, such a look of hope and fear at war there, their whole body shaking with the conflict of emotion they must be going through him.

Pip, thump, clack, pip, thump, clack.

The young man covers his mouth, a gagging sound escaping them as they release a muffled cry through clenched fingers. King Dice wonders if they’re white with strain under those gloves, what with the grip they have on their mouth, and how their other hand hasn’t unclenched from the fist they’ve made.

Pip, thump, clack, pip, thump, clack.

King Dice won’t lie; he jumped just as the running (well, floating in the spector’s case) group did when they heard a fist slam into the wall, just before they turned the corner.

“Whoevers there, it’s best to just come out and show yourself! We know you’re there!” Cuphead called out, eyes narrowed at the space before them.

Seeing how Mugman closed his eyes at the voice, leaning his head against the wall before them and biting his lip, the strain in their body obvious as the shaking hasn’t stopped; it in fact has gotten worse...

(The casino king didn’t like it.)

“We’ll give you five seconds! If you don’t come out, we will make you come out!” the blimp woman ordered, voice hard as she readied herself, her magic already at her fingertips as a small tornado shown through. The rest followed in her footsteps, with the dragon letting lose a few sparks of flame, the ghost with his eyes, and Cuphead already having his finger gun out, the blue at the tip sparking off.

“... That won’t be necessary.” was the soft, and ever so defeated tones that washed over everyone, making everyone pause as they did.

Right before them all, the slumped, no longer trembling form of Mugman came out from behind the wall, hands in his pockets as he let himself be seen right before the group.

“Hey Cuphead; long time no see.”

“Mugman?!” was nearly half yelled, the brother in red nearly falling over their own feet as they did, only kept from eating marble because of one of his companions assistance.

“The one and only.” the mug in blue said, nervously fiddling with his bowtie as he did, a grimace making it’s way home on their face.

For a bit, no one moved after that, no action was taken besides the chaos elsewhere in the casino, the group above and below all seeming to hold a collective breath… until it was broken.

“... Hilda, cover me if needed.”

“Wha- Cuphead!” the young woman started, reaching out for the boy who was now running to his brother, the boy in blue stiffening, hands coming out of the pocket only too late to-

Clink.

-to stop the hug they were suddenly engulfed in.

“...I-I’m so sorry Muggy, it was my fuck up and you payed the price for it. I didn’t think, I didn’t listen, and like always, I ended up dragging you through the mud.” was the cracking, slightly muffled voice heard, those normally ever so confident tones broken and shattered as the youth they belonged to clung to his brother, face hidden in their shoulder.

“...I was never dragged; I was always walking at your side willingly.” was the soft tones that spoke, even as Mugman returned the hug with just as much force as it was given.

“If only to keep my ass out of the fire.”

“... Point, but you forget about all the good times I enjoyed just as much as you; our pranks wouldn’t have gone off nearly as good if we didn’t both want to work together on them.” the younger brother reminded, getting a crackly laugh in return.

“You should hate me.” Cuphead near whispered, only to be heard easily in these large halls, even as he made to pull away.

Only to be stop midway by familiar hands on his arms.

“Never.” was the hard tone Mugman gave in reply, an actual glare now being directed at his brother, who gave a weak smile in turn.

“You say that now, but-”

“And I will always say it; I will never hate you Cuphead. Get angry at? Hell yes. Disappointed? Plenty of times. Frustrated with? More times then I can ever remember.” Mugman said flatly, each one causing his older brother to cringe.

“But hate? Cuphead, you are still the warm brother I remember threatening to punch anyone who bullied me, checked if there were any monsters under my bed no matter how many times I asked, and made life an adventure no matter how small. Don’t go forgetting that I do love you bro, even if you can be an idiot the size of hell itself sometimes. You can be pretty cool when you try.”

For a beat, no one said anything, something unreadable going between the two staring cups as they had a conversation only the two of them could have, even as the blue mug finally let go.

“... We’re going to have to fight, aren’t we?” Cuphead said quietly, his words making the mug in the suit close their eyes.

“I really rather not.”

“Me too.”

“...But?”

“...But I need to get pass you.”

“I can’t let you do that; I have my orders.”

Again, another unreadable moment passed between the now fully separated brothers, before Cuphead narrowed his eyes.

“I will free your soul.” these words giving Mugman a sad smile.

“You can certainly try.” the youth said, even as the familiar red rings entered his eyes.

And like that, the fight was on.

For such a terribly matched fight, Mugman was holding his own rather well. With the accuracy of Sniper Shot on his side, and his familiarity of fighting inside the casino, the young man could use all the tricks and traps to his advantage here. Not to mention throwing in his own powers into the mix, and it was easy to see just how one of the isle’s heros managed to beat all the debtors and the Devil himself.

And yet, the only reason why they could hold their own so well was there were no shots aimed to kill.

Sure, Mugman could probably handle both Hilda and the Specter easily, but adding in Grim Matchstick? That was problematic on it’s own, the dragon being rather skilling in fighting, even if he couldn’t fly here. But even then, it was still possible for him to pull off a shallow victory.

No, what would guarantee to make this a loss for the blue mug was Cuphead himself. The red youth hadn’t just been twiddling his thumbs and sitting on his bum all this time, what with the way he was fighting. The way he moved, the way he shot, to even how he actually was able to even read the battle to help out one of his allies made it obvious; someone had not only taught the boy to properly fight, but to also strategize.

(... Not to mention the motivator to fight was probably greater than his brother’s ever could be.)

King Dice couldn’t stop the full body shudder going through him at the realization; just the headache he wanted, an actually intelligent red cup to fuck everything up.

Pushing the nightmare fodder away, Dice went back to watching the fight, frowning as something about it seemed… Off. He knew something was, he just couldn’t put his finger on it.

Shots of all different types going everywhere, reds, greens, and blues going wild everywhere-

… all of them going wild? That wasn’t like Mugman at all, especially when he has his Blessing equipped, he was always very much accurate, even in his non-fatal way.

So why? Looking over, green eyes went to take in the moving mug, trying to see why he would mess up like so, only to stop, stilling as he did.

Those red ring eyes were practically dripping, big drops hitting the ground every time the young man they belonged to moved, obscuring his vision, making him stumble, making him shoot wild as well as take on damage he would have otherwise easily dodged.  

Mugman was crying as he fought, the shaking back as his teeth were gritted tight.

That… That was unacceptable.

Before the die even realized it, he has warped right down before the mug, cards up and at the ready, taking the damage all around him, shielding the two from everything easily. With a flick of his hand, the cards shot out all before him, easily taking the four before him off guard as they exploded into them, leaving each of them with a card suit symbol on them.

“I believe that is quite enough; you have all more then worn out your welcome here.” was the grim words King Dice gave them, glowing green eyes narrowed even as he snapped his fingers, the symbols on each of the four enemies glowing in response.

“NO, Mug-” Cuphead tried, only to disappear in a flash before their eyes, along with his companions.

Good riddance; that should get them at least back at the entrance if anything, where they could hopefully be kicked out.

Thump.

Frowning, King Dice turned around, catching the sight of the youth he was protecting on their knees, hand over their mouth, gagging as their other hand helped them keep their balance on the floor. This was when the sobs started, big, wrenching ones with hiccups and coughing in it, tears now fully taking over those eyes, Sniper Shot still active despite this.

Hesitating, King Dice looked back up and over to the chandelier he had been in, only to see the Devil was gone, as if he had never been there at all. Shaking his head, the Manager looked back down on the crying mug, letting out a sigh as he did.

‘Not like this suit could get any worse at this rate honestly.’ was the die’s though as he knelt before Mugman, gently letting his hand rest on the other’s shoulder, causing them to look up at him.

“Hey there.” was all he had to say before he had an armful of sobbing mug in his arms, the force of the other’s grip on him near crushing as tears got soaked up in his shirt. Gently rubbing the other’s back, King Dice let them have it all out.

What a fine mess he was delt.

[tinnefoil]

I’m pulling this out here because tumblr post/reply structure sucks. 

@lazaruspithottub

Karamel fans. Every time one of you makes a post, for example, ‘calling out the Superkarps/Supercorpses’ you invade our (the Supercorpers) and my safe space. 

According to the person who made the post, the post was appropriately labelled with the anti tag. The anti tag is where a person is supposed to post their anti thoughts. 

Just look at things like tagged melwood, tagged mon-el or tagged karamel how long you have to search for a person who intentionally mislabeled their post. 

Now I personally have some sympathy for people who use “neutral” tags. Like if you write “I hate Supergirl” and then tag it Supergirl, since after all Supergirl is what you are talking about. But there is a long history of Karamel fans intentionally tagging obscure things (like “mon-el defense squad” or “karamel soda club”) just so they would be left in peace from people who accidentally mistagged them and people went OUT OF THEIR WAY to mistag stuff that you would NEVER tag like that by accident. This is something done for the sole reason to be spiteful. 

We even have people writing hatefic on AO3 and not just tagging it not just with the descriptor (Kara Davners/Mon-El), but also the shipname karamel. So not only are some of your people so hateful that they write hatefic for their own characters they also intentionally mistag it shipper stuff just to be mean spirited. 

the majority who are desperately trying here should have some peace for goodness sake. 

I assure you a great number of Karamel fans feel the same way. 

I see maybe one that actually deserves it

Have you considered that that might be because you don’t spend time in the karamel tags? 

I have never engaged in the hate that you are supposedly ‘calling out’, nor do the vast majority of Supercorp fans.

I hope you remember this point. 

And before someone attacks me for ‘being a hipocrite and invading the Karamel tag’, it is not the same. 

You are judging all karamel fans, but at the same time you ask for not all Kara/Lena fans to be judged the same. You presuppose what Karamel fans are and what they are like and you based on this decide that YOU deserve protection, but others don’t deserve protection and instead deserve to be mistreated. 

And this is a fucking dangerous mindset. That you think that you have the right to decide that others deserve to be mistreated, deserve to have their tag invaded, deserve to be punished for the actions of others. 

Something that you precisely argue against. 

What do you know about the lives of Karamel shippers and whether or not they are in need of a safe space? 

But I’m not even asking for special consideration or anything like that

You are absolutely doing that when you say that you invading the karamel tag is not the same as karamel invading the Kara/Lena tag.Which is precisely you saying that you have the special right to invade other tags and that is okay, but when others do it is bad (I think shitty behavior regardless of who does it). 

Once more, invasion supposedly didn’t happen in the post you talked about, which supposedly was correctly tagged with the ANTI tag. Unlike the the anti posts that show up in the karamel tags. Which again means not only people deliberately writing stuff about things they hate, but also going out of their way to mistag it just to be hateful. 

Compared to people who at least have the decency to tag their anti thoughts with the anti tag. If people according to you aren’t even allowed to voice their thoughts in the anti tag, what are you saying other than people are not allowed to dislike anything you like? 

I’m only asking for a bit of: understanding, thought, self control and basic human decency to come back into the equation. 

Again, I’m pretty sure many karamel fans feel exactly the same way. The question is: are you willing to apply the same standards when somebody from your side of the aisle does it? Are you willing to call them out and demand they exercise self control and basic human decency to NOT purposefully mislabel their stuff with elaborate would-never-name-anything-like-that-by-accident tags or even create fake love blogs just to troll karamel fans? All crazy shit that has totally happened in the fandom? 

I’m very much for human decency in the fandom (though based on various interactions inside and outside of fandom, I don’t have high hopes for it), but once more, are you willing to apply the same standards to your side? Or are you genuinely saying “the other side” should apply standards of human decency, but what does it say about your side that you think that asking for basic human decency is just way too much to ask for your side? Because to me that makes your side look like at worst disturbed, horrible people who want to wallow in their evilness or at best people who really should seek professional help for their emotional problems if they are not capable of basic human decency anymore. 

Karamel fans. You have it all. 

You don’t know us. You presume to know everything about every single one of us to presume that there is not a single person among us with a genuine need or claim to a safe space. You presume that you know exactly what we are all like and based on this pass the judgement that unlike you we deserve to be abused by your side. 

Why? Just because our couple was affectionate with each other on screen? That is supposed to mean that no karamel fan can serious life problems or just as much be part of a minority? 

And that’s the thing about human decency. It applies to humans. In general. 

Finally, many of the people you are attacking in these broad sweeps are some of the kindest, sweetest, most badass, most awesome, but also the most vulnerable and wronged people you will ever meet.

I could say the same thing of many karamel fans. And you don’t care just because, I don’t know, the fact that they like a couple that kissed on screen must mean that it’s okay to abuse them? Because liking a couple that is canon means that you are not deserving of human decency? 

Welcome to how it feels every second of every day for a person who ships two women and then gets shamed for it by strangers on the internet, just because of the actions of a couple of people, and just because they are two women — instead of a woman and a man. 

People suck. But people get called out for bad and hateful behavior and also for standing silent on bad behavior. As they should. Just because you ship a woman with a woman doesn’t mean that bad behavior is okay. Just like it’s not okay if you ship a man with a woman. (just like I think it is unfair if people get attacked just because they ship something that is “in the way” of another person’s preferred ship)

But how can you genuinely look at this situation and surmise that this means it’s okay to invade the other tag, just based on things you suppose about them. You talk about how it’s not okay that you are judged by the actions of others, but you are more than ready to judge based on what you assume. You wholesale decided that nobody in the karamel fandom could possibly have a genuine need for a safe space. 

I say, bad behavior is bad behavior and it deserves to be talked about if there is hope that it might change.

For the record: I don’t like tag invasion. I think tumblr often overdoes it, especially when people fight over “neutral” tags and I think it can get very eyerollworthy the way people. Still, I think it is tacky at the very least. 

I personally also dislike it when people in a ship obsess over “the other side”. I’m just not a fan. I think people should try to focus on the good in their ship and trying to make their ship fandom the best it can be, by being supportive of each other. Praise your ship, love your ship, give each other support, write fic, make arts, make videos, run contests, write metas, leave comments, leave likes, make recs. Be the change you want to see in the world, but for the good of the world. Show that your ship brings out the good in people. (I also don’t like the name calling/making fun of other shipper names, regardless of whether it is done by or against my fangroup, it’s catty when the other side does it, it’s just the same when you do it) 

I think spending too much time obsessing over the other side is genuinely harmful for the soul and people should try to abstain from it for their own sake at the very least. 

I think “they started it” thinking is deeply harmful on like a million on levels, since that’s exactly how myriads of real life like “actually people get blown to bits” conflicts start off. 

@calliopesmuse 

I genuinely don’t understand how you think that talking to people privately is a reasonable alternative. 

1.) A lot of what happens isn’t accidental misstagging. It’s people going out of their way to mistag or even create fake troll blogs. Things that take effort. 

2.) Have you seen how many people misstag in the karamel tag? Trying to talk to each and every one of them would take ages. 

3.) Talking to people privately is not exactly what I would call efficient. I might see it an contact the person, and three other people might also without realizing that person in question has already been informed. Not to mention there’s a lot of places where non-public debate can get a lot more personal and ugly than if it is done in public where everybody can see how people are behaving. 

Ideally it is BEHAVIOR that should be called out, not people. 

4.) The advantage of calling out types of behavior in public is precisely that third parties can see it and learn from it. A lot of the time when a person does mean spirited things, the chance that they personally will change their opinion is pretty low. But maybe onlookers will see it and see for themselves that they don’t want to be like that person or they now understand why others have a problem with that behavior.

For the record, I’m not actually 100% down with name and shame either (even if it is on a non real life name environment like tumblr) and I see a lot of problems with it (I personally prefer posts discussing behavior in general, if possible without naming names, even though I see how sometimes concrete examples might be necessary if some people just don’t believe it), so I don’t wholesale support it either. But I think it’s still very much more of a reasonable approach than hand contacting large swaths of antagonistic people privately.   (it should be noted: if you are blocked and hence don’t see your post, that also means you can’t contact them privately.At least if it is public, maybe there is a chance that it will turn into a fannish debate and they will at least notice that there is a debate going on via the other people they are following; not to mention, if a person engaged in this behavior there is a good chance that they have already decided that “the other side” is the enemy and so if we told them they were acting abhorrent it doesn’t mean nearly as much as if somebody from their own side is telling them that; because their own side, there is a higher chance that those are the people who matter to them, the people whose gifs they reblog, whose meta they read, whose fic they love, that’s why it’s important for anybody who is genuinely interested in human decency in fandom that people should call out their own peeps).

@puppiestay 

I really hope you reported that person who sent you that kind of hate messages. I don’t know what the youtube policy on it is, but I’m very glad that tumblr put it into their tos that “suicide baiting” is being treated no different from threats of violence. 

I take part in a lot of politic debates online and it’s just shameful how sentences like that (or like the ever popular I wish you would get raped/murdered that a lot of feminists get online) are used to circumvent rules about threatening direct bodily harm on people. 

I really dislike it when some shippers, including the occasional karamel shipper doesn’t seem to get it that some people ship non canon and in the end, that’s also just a different flavor. Some people only ship what is canon or close to canon and other people don’t either by choice or not, but that doesn’t make them inherently weird or inferior anymore than let’s say somebody who doesn’t listen to pop music. 

[imaginesparadise-blog]

Two it’s better than one 5/?

Warnings: sex (stay safe kids) and curse words (?)

words:6.414

tagging: @georgiagrl1990 @synnersaint @miss-brightly-red

N/T: I got over excited this chapter and also tried to make up for the other shitty one.

Ivar was not present anymore in college since his brothers dragged him out before they could be seen from the authorities, of course everyone saw the shot but few saw who really shot that bullet. Vivian was on the floor and her arm sting with pain and she quickly rose to her feet and looked all over her clothes to see if she was the one who suffered the injury, Harash stood up and looked at himself and he wasn’t hurt too but Axel that was with Harash was moaning from pain on the floor holding onto his arm.

“shit!” Harash squat down to the floor and helped Axel get on his feet watching the wound while everyone was being cleared from the area by the principal and the boarder of teachers from Harvard. “it’s not that bad Axel but I will need to take the bullet out and you need to man up clear?” Harash looked into Axel eyes who widened into Vivian direction and she kneeled down caressing Axel face.

“ Trust him please, he knows what he is doing and if the bullet stays to long on your arm it can cause a big infection and it would be worse if we have to wait for the paramedics to come” Vivian took some tissues from her purse and handed to Harash who looked at the principal Harold with a serious expression.

“sir if you don’t mind I need some pure alcohol, tweezers and some bandage to put around his arm and be fast please” principal Harold nodded and order to the school staff to get it done exactly like it was asked while all the time axel was moaning with pain looking at the most recent injuries on his arm, Vivian seeing how scared he looked she sat behind him and pulled axel into her holding him carefully so he could relax and kissed the top of his head, inside she was scared and she knew that wasn’t meant to Axel but to Harash and she felt bad that she wished things turned exactly like this. While Vivian was holding axel in her arms Harash was sterilizing the tweezers with a lighter and alcohol, when he finished he looked at Axel who just nodded and Vivian hold his hand so he could squeeze when the pain was unbearable. After Harash begin to take out the bullet Vivian eyes were tearing up seeing her friend in pain, when she looked up to see if anyone was around she noticed Ivar was with his back turned to her and his brothers noticed how she was looking at him, Ivar was far from the scene but he fought his brothers since he didn’t wanted to leave without knowing Vivian was safe.

“she is looking to us Ivar, I hope you know the consequences of what you did” Ubbe reprehended his brother and Ivar turned back to look at Vivian who sighed and kissed Axel forehead after he finished his screaming and he was all good, she stood up and started to walk away from the previous local she was before, when Harash noticed he turned his head to her calling her out.

“ where are you going?! We need to go and now” Harash cleaned his hands with a towel that Quinn gave him and Vivian stopped looking at Harash over her shoulder.

“I need to just do one more thing before I leave I’ll be right back” Harash nodded and never took his eyes off of her when he saw she was walking in Ivar direction, when she came close to them Bjorn smirked at her serious expression and Ubbe nodded his head to Ivar to let him know she was standing behind him, when Ivar turned back he looked Vivian up and down and sighed relived she was hurted by his reckless behavior but he didn’t want to look weak in front of his brothers or show any emotion since all of them still had the bets going on even though Ivar was no longer involved in that stupid and child like behavior.

“can we talk?” Vivian spoke looking into Ivar never breaking her serious expression and the hurt in her eyes, Ivar fought himself against the urge to kiss her and saying how much he is happy she wasn’t hurt but his pride took it better.

“whatever you have to say you can say right here princess or you want some action away from my brothers? Because I’m down with that” Ivar smirked and his brothers chuckled rolling their eyes while Vivian just crossed her arms over her chest and smirked at his remark.

“I wanted to talk to you in private so I wouldn’t embarrassing you in front of your family but since you want that to happen I gladly will, you know when you asked me to be your girlfriend before this happened and you even confessed how I made you feel really happy and you were your truly self with me and not with your family and those so called friends? My answer is no and after this I don’t think I will ever say yes and when it comes to have some action Ivar, you can ask Axel how things were after I leave with him today, goodbye.” Vivian turned around satisfied with herself and how she was able to stand up to Ivar throwing him down of his own pedestal, Ivar face was shocked and all his brothers were surprised at the boldness of the girl actions, when Ivar saw Vivian holding hands with Axel to help him out he couldn’t deny anymore… she was in control of his emotions, he felt betrayed, hurt, stupid for acting the way he did with her and he dropped his head walking past his brothers and going to his car not wanting to deal with the mockery of his brothers, Harash noticed Ivar’s face and Vivian’s face as well when she walk to his side and he looked at her with a expression she hasn’t seen before.

“what’s wrong now? What have I done?” Vivian sighed defeated and Harash chuckled not believing in what he was seeing, she knew Vivian more than she knew herself so he knew exactly what she was feeling in that moment.

“you like him don’t you? You are conflicted about him being part of what we know because you are afraid he will hurt you again but in other way you don’t know if he is just like his family or if he was involved somehow in what happened. You were always very emotional and excited to fall in love with someone but I never expected to be with him to be honest” Harash spoke low only for the both of them to ear and Vivian eyes widened at his words and she turned her face away in a attempt to hide the blush  created by his bold words.

“Love is a strong word Harash” Vivian started to walk with Quinn and Axel by their side and Harash walked a little apart so they could continue their conversation without being heard.

“ So is the feelings you two share and I can see in both of your faces Vivian, I saw how he looked when you talked with him about whatever it was, I won’t ask because I don’t want to invade you space to much but still, you know I hate that guy and his family more than anything but maybe he can be different, your father was different when your mother meet him and married him and your grandparents thought he was just like Ragnar, a selfish son of a bitch and now look at it. The empire they are building because your father used his knowledge and showed he was more than a business man but also had a heart. I’m no good with feelings but even I felt bad with the guy’s face when he left” Harash looked at Vivian who kept her gaze straight but her vision was blurred with her tears that were so close to fall, her lower lip started to tremble and Harash just pulled her into a hug saying for their friends to leave them alone, when they said their goodbyes Vivian hugged tight against Harash and cried hard against his chest letting go everything she need to let go.

“you are not committing treason against your people just because your heart choose to love someone you had no power over to choose, the only person you are betraying is yourself Vivian. There is nothing worse than having a war inside of us, but please majesty there is no need to cry like this calm down please” Harash sighed against Vivian blonde locks and Sophia was hidden in behind the lockers hearing everything and her eyes widened when she heard how formally Harash treated Vivian.

“that girl is royalty? The things someone discovers without much effort” Sophia smiled to herself and walked away thinking of how she could use that in her advantage, maybe becoming close to Vivian so she could be more popular or bring the press to the school, who knows what was going through Sophia’s mind after the revelation.

“ I was so mean to him and he was utterly obnoxious to me Harash” Vivian stepped away from her friend and Harash reached a tissue for her to clean the blurred make up and she took it doing it so. “ he was acting so different in front of his brothers and I refuse to be the naïve girl anymore, I won’t let anyone step me over or pretend to be something they are not” Vivian took a deep breath and Harash raised his eyebrows at her.

“you are talking about someone being totally different from what they really are but aren’t you doing that too? From what I am seeing you are not that different, both with some temper to them, stubborn and proud individuals, but who am I to say more than this?” Harash chuckled and brushed a couple of loose strings of hair behind Vivian’s hair and she pouted at him confused and frustrated at his words knowing he was right.

“what are you talking about? You in one minute is beating the living out of him and wanting him dead and the next minute you are saying for me to go after him and that we both care for each other? When I pushed you to the floor did you hit your head that hard in some rock or whatever?” Vivian looked astonished at Harash and he just burst into a fit of laughter at her expressions.

“nah, I still want him dead and for everyone of his family to pay for what they did to you and your family, but at the same time I want you to be happy and if happy is him then why not? All I can do is sit and wait for him to step the line because if he does I will break every bone of his body and things are not going to be that pretty” Harash titled his head at Vivian and she pushed him rolling her eyes and picking up her purse walking to the car and opening the door entering right after Harash and both of them stood silent on the way home.

“you are an asshole sometimes you know that right?” Vivian mumbled and Harash smirked looking at the road.

“so I heard, you are a pain In the ass you know that right?” he retaliated and she smiled shaking her head,

“ I know but what would be the fun in not being like that?” Vivian looked at Harash and both of them smiled already reaching home. Once they arrived Vivian was already fresh clean from her long day and Harash was talking on the phone with Quinn couldn’t contain the smile of his face, when Vivian stopped by his doorframe she just leaned on the wood of it and giggled to herself seeing the real reason why her confident was being so romantic these days.

“do you think she is a good woman to my son your majesty?” Depitka spoke kindly standing close to Vivian and Vivian looked at her mother figure and smiled widely before kissing her forehead and grabbing her hand so they could go and start to get ready to go and eat out for a exchange.

“ I do believe so, Quinn is a girl of her worth and she handles herself with a lot of class something I don’t see often in America, to not mention the love for art they both have and how she is showing a different side of Harash I was unaware of, but only time would tell if it’s meant to be” Vivian helped Depitka doing her makeup and hairstyle at the same time she was doing her own and Depitka smiled to Vivian through the mirror.

“you are too wise for you age, you are showing more and more traits of your mother has days go by princess Vivian, she would be proud and I am equally proud like you were my own child” Vivian turned her head gazing at Vivian who smiled sadly at her mother mention and quickly composed herself. “wait I have something for you, it came this morning but I didn’t open since it has the royal symbol, I forgot about it with all the things I had to take care of at the store I’m so sorry” depikta quickly stood up and walked to the living room coffee table and grab the letter reaching it for Vivian to grab and Vivian heart stopped when she recognized the lion symbol. It was her family representation and maybe this could be her chance to get back, Vivian grabbed the letter and open it immediately reading it leaving depikta and then Harash who came into the room behind paying attention to her mother’s letter.

From Queen Anaya Mahlia

To Princess Vivian Mahlia Pierce

Dear Vivian my sweet daughter, I am so sorry for everything that happened to our family and I’m sorry you weren’t aware of how dangerous things would turn out to be, I hope you can understand that we just tried to do the best for you since you weren’t fully ready to cope with such a heavy emotional baggage like this. I can’t and won’t tell you were I am because knowing who you are I know you would come and try to be by my side but I can’t risk losing another child of mine. When I lost your brother at birth my heart broke and I thought I had no hopes for a family and heirs anymore but then you came and changed everything for us, you grew up to be stunning more than I dreamed of you would be, you grew strong and fierce and full of courage in that precious heart of gold that I grew to love more and more has each day goes by, I want you to know that I am safe but your father I don’t know yet, my heart is breaking without him by my side and without you here too my sweet daughter and about your sister… I’m sorry I failed to give you a sibling, she was born premature because of the nerves and the whole anxiety I was in, the doctors I have with me tried everything but she didn’t react,  she didn’t even opened her eyes so I could see them, she was long gone even before I could be ready to deal with such awful event, her funeral was a couple of weeks ago, we burned the body has a tradition of our family and threw the ashes into the sea so she can get the rest and happiness with our ancestor that she haven’t had the chance to find within us, I know I am supposed to be the queen and like that be strong to guide or people but I can’t Vivian, I just wish you were by my side, I miss my little girl, I miss you so much. I know that if you are with Harash and Depitka you are safe and protected so my heart can get some rest and my hopes and prayers are always with you my daughter. May you find your way back to us so we can return to be a family and give back the hope of peace and prosperity to our people, we count on you Vivian and I know the gods blessed me with you for a reason. You are the lioness of Persia, blessed with the blood of Alexander the great and I know when time will come you will put together and conquer like the true and strong queen you raised to become, if you want to write me Depitka knows the address to send me the letters but I will always keep an eye on you my princess, see you soon, With love, your mother.

Vivian looked at the letter speechless, her father whereabouts were still unknown and her sister to be was born dead and Vivian couldn’t be close to her mother to give her the support she needed, when she finished the letter the same fell from her hand to the floor and Vivian looked emotionless through the window while Depitka was with her hands in a prayer close to her heart and Harash was with an arm around his mother shoulders looking worried and the silence of the princess.

“Vivian is...” Harash was about to start to talk but Vivian cut him short.

“My mother is alive and my sister never made it through, my father is still missing, I am okay because this gave me more strength and hope. I just needed to hear from her or him.” Vivian took a deep breath and turned around to look at the mother and son standing with sad faces in front of her.

“It’s okay to cry Vivian you don’t need to be strong all the time, nobody will judge you honey we understand” Depitka spoke concerned.

“Why cry? Things don’t change if I cry all the time and I grew tired of crying, queens don’t cry but make people cry over them and if I am meant to be one then so be it, I need to let go of the girl inside of him to let some room for the woman that is growing more and more strong each day so right now lets it something shall we?” Vivian walked to the couch grabbing her bag and opened the door while mother and son followed her surprised at her speech and braveness among all of this.

“Do you think she is going crazy?” Depitka spoke low so only Harash could hear and he chuckled.

“mother we are talking about Vivian, she was always crazy” Harash smiled proudly at his friend and all of them entered in the car going to a restaurant that Depitka owned when she saved all her money to create something that had Persia culture in it and it could be a place away from home, when they arrived Harash was proud of his mother hard work and commitment to this restaurant and Vivian looked enchanted at this exotic restaurant and she felt like she couldn’t move if Harash didn’t drag her inside by her arm, when they sat on their reserved table they made their orders and everyone knew who Vivian was but they made no reference has a request from Depitka, they looked around and it was crowded and loud and full of Arabic music that Vivian loved to dance to, when she was looking at the people in their tables her eyes landed on someone she thought it would never found on this restaurant since he had a few for himself, Ivar eyes wondered as well and landed on Harash first and his heart started to beat fast in hope to see Vivian with him and he didn’t fail, Vivian was there looking stunning in her white long skirt with a slit on both of the sides showing a bit of her tights and a crochet beige top, she was wearing some sandals with shells on it and her hair was straight and loose on her back having zero make up on her face, Ivar breath got caught on his throat and his mother noticed how flustered his son looked and when she saw what made him like that she smiled at Vivian the girl he talked only with about.

“ she is truly stunning son, why don’t you go and talk with her? I can distract your brothers and father” aslaug spoke in Ivar ear and Vivian just smiled at Ivar before turning away when Depitka called for her,

“ not now mother, but she looks so…forget let’s eat so we can leave then” Ivar brushed it off the conversation and saw Vivian standing up and going to back of a room, he was drinking his beer but couldn’t help trying to follow her with his eyes.

“are you looking for something son?” Ragnar spoke drinking his wine while resting himself against the chair he was sat on.

“ what if I was? It’s nothing you need to know or care about” Ivar spat annoyed and Ubbe gave him a reprehending look before Ragnar smirked at his son’s words.

“ you are quite the mystery my son, one day you are telling me everything and the other day you are willing to try and give hints that you are hiding something away from me, and you know how much I hate secrets right?” Ragnar leaned on the table looking Ivar dead in the eye.

“Ragnar stop with that behavior not in public please” Aslaug tried to reason with her husband but only earned a angry look from him.

“you don’t tell me what to do or how to act are we clear?”

“don’t you speak to mom like that in front of me or I swear I will lose my shit and I don’t care what happens then” Ivar leaned in Ragnar direction and a Arabic music started to play while some female dancers came out from behind a curtain and everyone stood still on their seats while the music started, 4 girls came out and one of red headed very beautiful, two brunettes with exotic looks and long dark hair and then there it was Vivian looking like a goddess with her belly dance outfit decorated with gold and brown colors, her hair was curly her makeup was mysterious making everyone look at her eyes that would turn from blue to light blue, covered in necklaces and with a short skirt and short top the 4 girls danced giving a great evening show for anyone that was watching. Vivian stepped out of the stage with the girls and all them dance around the restaurant stopping close to Ivar’s table who looked at Vivian like she was the reason why he lived, like she was the first woman he ever saw in his life. The way she swing her hips made everyone hypnotized, the way her arms moved so gracefully alongside the rhythm of the music was perfect and she just closed her eyes moving her whole body to the music dropping in that moment all her frustrations and not worrying about nothing, she whipped her long blonde hair down and backwards and drew a figurate with her hips and locked eyes with Ivar like he was the only one there and nobody was, with her silk fabric she walked over him and circled him with the fabric pulling into her and almost brushing their lips making his whole family look surprised and aslaug smirked to herself seeing how Ivar was looking hypnotized by this goddess like woman in front of him, Vivian gave him on last brush on his lips with hers and when the music was ending she walked away swaying seductively her hips making very man swoon and every woman filled with envy at her hourglass shape and she then disappeared to the back so she could get ready to take her clothes off, Harash laugh at her surprised and with how comic the sexual tension between her and Ivar was palpable and then he explained everything to his mother, meanwhile Ivar excused himself to the bathroom while his family left laughing at him and the brothers protesting about how Vivian didn’t even looked at them. When Ivar walked into the room all the girls were surprised and  covered themselves and he apologized but asked them all to leave and so they did leaving only in that tiny room Vivian and him, Ivar looked at Vivian who looked at him through the mirror before starting to standing up and Ivar walks fast to grab her from behind by her waist against him while his lips found her neck but only let them hover it sending shivers down her spine with his hot breath and Vivian dropped her head on his shoulder giving him full display of her neck. Ivar smirked to himself and let his hands travel to her toned and flat belly, his fingers brushing lightly and she sighed closing her eyes.

“  I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you at school and for what I did  before, I didn’t meant to hurt anyone especially you gene” Vivian smiled to herself and Ivar looked at her face through the mirror smiling as well.

“ I don’t know if I will apologize that quick, what makes me think you won’t act like that ever again? And Axel is fine he is still alive and breathing” Vivian opened her eyes to showed them full of lust while Ivar was looking the same, she was amazed at how perfectly handsome he looked on his white t-shirt showing his muscular arms, tight enough to show his muscular chest and abs, dark blue jeans and black sneakers while his hair was loose and a few strings of hair was falling on his god shaped features.

“ did you fuck axel?” Vivian smirked and decided to play with the situation turning herself to face Ivar in the eyes.

“maybe I did, who knows” Ivar jaw clenched he gripped her waist pushing her against the table and throwing everything to the floor and pick her up to sat her on the table while he stood in between her legs, Vivian was burning with desire and Ivar grabbed her jaw locking their eyes.

“did you let him touch you? Did you let him inside of you? Answer me” Ivar was angry and lustful a dangerous mix and Vivian was keeping up with the emotions biting her lower lip and smirking at him grabbing his hand and taking it away from her jaw and grabbed him by the neck pulling him towards her and kissed him full of lust, desire, passion and love combined even though she didn’t realized how much emotion she was putting on the kiss and Ivar corresponded letting his hands travel up and down her body, when reaching her hair he  grabbed a fistful of it and pulled back earning a moan from Vivian and he attacked her neck leaving love marks and hickeys so everyone would know she belonged to him even though it wasn’t official, Vivian hands travel to his shirt and she took it off with his help and she let her hands roam all over his torso admiring how he was, even better then she had imagined,  Ivar pulled her skirt up and returned his lips to her plumped lips he grew to be addicted and let his hands travel all over her tights, his fingers brushed lightly in her panties feeling the wetness he had caused her and he smirked against her lips.

“ I’m going to show you who you belong to” Ivar whispered huskily against her lips and unzipped his pants and dragging them down alongside his boxers let it show his big erection and Vivian bit her lip feeling a bit nervous since he was quite big and tick, he pulled her more into him and positioned himself into her entrance and Vivian hold herself onto his shoulder biting his necks making sure he too was with marks afterwards and in one push Ivar was inside of his goddess, Vivian moan against his neck and her pussy clenched around his hard cock making him dig his fingers deeper on her hips then before, she was sure to be marked in the morning after, she leaned back a little bit and Ivar rested one hand on the table for support while he started to move inside of Vivian’s slowly to tease and she just groaned looking at him with her mouth parted and he smirked wanting her to beg for him.

“ Stop with the teasing now!” she groaned and grabbed his hair pulling him to her and she came close to his ear  “fuck your tight little girl daddy” Vivian was letting her animal and wild side coming out something she never was able to do since she never found someone that made her turned to this state, when Ivar heard her words and how sexy her voice sounded he just lost the control he was having and pounded in her pussy hard and strong, Vivian moans grew louder and louder but no one could hear since the music outside was a little loud for anyone to hear, Ivar moaned her name over and over again praising how good she felt around him and how he never had anyone like her in his life or in his arms, Vivian pushed him away and Ivar stepped back turning her around and bending her over the table teasing her wet pussy with his tip and resume to fuck her in the most animalistic way he ever fucked someone, he grabbed her hair in a ponytail and pulled her head back earning a loud moan from her lips and be bend over her feeling close to his climax and also knowing she was close to since her pussy was convulsing around his cock more than once.

“you are mine Genevieve, no one will fuck you like I just did, you drive me so crazy” Ivar moaned in her ear pushing himself all inside of her and Vivian arched her ass to his earning a hard slap on her ass cheek thing that made her climax around him right away and Ivar came after her and inside of her. Both of them stood still there until she tried to get up but her legs where trembling and he hold her carefully against him embracing her in his arms.

“please I need to know, did you and axel…”

“no we didn’t, I just didn’t like the way you spoke to me in front of your brothers and I won’t let no man no matter how much I love him to humiliate me like you tried to do” Vivian rested her hands on hips and he smiled at him kissing her cheek and picking up her normal clothes and then getting himself dressed at the same time, when she was about to grab a towel to clean herself he stopped her and looked at her with a huge smirk.

“No pet, I want you to put on you panties and to walk around with my cum inside of you and dripping from you pussy so everyone knows you are not that saint and you are mine and only mine, like I am only yours if you give me one chance” Vivian dropped the towel and smiled to the floor getting full dressed and after she removed her makeup she looked at Ivar who was sitting at the table next to her looking at her every movement smiling widely, he grabbed her hand and pulled Vivian to him resting his hands on hers and they intertwined their fingers while he rested their hands on his chest looking up at her with his bright blue eyes and the biggest smile he ever had.

“would you be my girlfriend Genevieve rose? Please?               I will never hurt you, I will show everyone I am yours and no girl or guy will come between us not even my family, I love you gene and I was an asshole to understand that a bit later.” Ivar kissed Vivian’s knuckles and she looked at him biting her lip and leaned over kissing him on the lips tenderly.

“ I love you too and you were not the only one who was late to realize it, and yes I will be your girlfriend” Ivar screamed from happiness and jumped grabbing her by her waist and spun her around while she involved her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply, once they heard a knock on the door Vivian and Ivar exchanged a look between them completely lost.

“who is it?” Vivian called not coming close to the door and Ivar looked at it expecting an answer,

“It’s me open the door mom is worried about you and so am I!” Harash spoke and Vivian eyes widened and Ivar laughed but covered his mouth when she went and opened the door to Harash.

When he entered he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, Vivian hair was wild and so was Ivar, the room smelled like sex and the marks on their necks, Harash got shivers and turned away before he would pucked at the image of his little sister having sex with someone else.

“come on you two, we are leaving and Ivar, my name is James and seeing that something happened and maybe some things changed, welcome to the family “ Harash pushed his pride aside and reached a hand for Ivar to hold something he did when he saw how happy Vivian was, she mouthed a thank you to Harash and he rolled his eyes leaving with Ivar and Vivian following him behind, after they left the restaurant Vivian was being held close to Ivar chest while one of his hand was around her waist in a protective way and another one was holding a cigar, Harash looked at them and he now knew she was a more close to be in danger but he trusted Ivar to take care of her even thought he still didn’t like him at all.

Ivar was turning off his cigar and kissed Vivian’s temple making her smile and snuggle in his chest “do you want to take a walk around new York? We can crash in some hotel if it becomes too late” Ivar looked at Vivian who turned her gaze to Harash and he just raised an eyebrow.

“ you can go, I’m dropping mom at home and I will be with Quinn after this” Harash spoke and smiled to himself at the thought of him with Quinn.

“are you going to be really with her or you are just lying to me?” Vivian teased and Depitka chuckled.

“ all of you go have fun and I will be fine and Genevieve thanks for dancing tonight, you made my wishes come true” Depitka smiled and walked over Vivian kissing her cheek and kissing Ivar cheek too leaving with Harash in their car.

Ivar turned to Vivian smiling and hold her by the waist close to him and rested their foreheads together enjoying the silence of the night and the happiness he never felt in his life.

“I was never so thankful for someone to come into my school like I am now” Ivar whispered and Vivian giggled making him smile and look up to see her eyes shining in the moonlight.

“Your school? You own Harvard and I didn’t know about?” Vivian rested her hands on his chest and he rolled his eyes playfully.

“ you know what I meant, but to be honest gene, I will change for you and I won’t let this be over or let anyone hurt or take you away from me without giving a fight first, I can’t lose you not now or ever and I don’t know how you turned me into this cheesy boy but I feel happy being like this and I don’t care what others will say, I really do love you and the sex is just a bonus babe” Vivian smiled the entire time at her boyfriend love confession until the last part where she burst into laughter.

“Oh god Ivar you were going so well! But yeah the sex was something else, maybe I need to piss you off more so this can be repeated” She teased Ivar and he laughed walking with her through the streets of new York and coming close to a park where they sat and looked over the whole street and the people walking by until Ivar laid on the grass and looked at the stars.

“I love you Ivar, I really do and I don’t know why or how you woke up this feelings inside of me since I never loved no one like I do with you” Vivian whispered softly making Ivar look at her while she looked at the stars.

“How do you know it’s love? You feel the butterflies on your stomach?” he smiled teasing her and she just turned her face smiling.

“no, I feel peace and happiness things I haven’t felt for a long time, I feel like I am at home in your arms and this feeling scares me because I don’t want to be vulnerable only to get hurt in the end” Vivian confessed and Ivar caressed her cheek and kissing her passionately hovering above her.

His phone rang and he groaned sitting by Vivian side and she also sat looking at his phone without him realizing it, when he opened the message from Ubbe he saw what his brother wanted “the bet about Genevieve is still on? Or you have already slept with her because with the time you took on the bathroom we all started to think action happened! Ahah”

Vivian mouth dropped and she looked at Ivar whose eyes widened and he looked at Vivian who face was put shock and hurt.

“fuck” Ivar whispered to himself growing anxious at this sudden perfect moment ruined.

[37h4n0l]

1) Don't worry, I (aka the anon who started it all) don't think your reply came off as hostile at all. It's just so tiring when you want to get some things that bother you off your chest and then the obligatory 'but not all xyz do this or that' happens. Yes, I do know that, but it's a generalization. Not all, but enough to make you think it may even be the better part of the fandom. That being said, I agree with all your points against YOI. OK, so the victuuri relationship may be a cute and

(Rest under the cut) (I also hope no one will lynch me for being lazy and putting this out without doing anything about censoring shipnames but I’ll spam it with all the possible anti tags, fear not)

fluffy one that makes you feel good and warm inside or whatever, but is there really a need to write essays analyzing every single gesture or facial expression and then feel proud of your analytical skills, as if you've just discovered a new planet? No, there is not. It's not that deep; it's actually as straightforward a show as it can be. The bashing of otayuri and pliroy is one thing and it has more to do with the general moral poilce anti trend that is spreading everywhere, so I wouldn't attribute it solely to the YOI fandom. Now on the other hand, the bashing of pliroy just because it's contradictory to otayuri, one of the holy doublet of YOI ships, is something that bothers me personally. It's almost as if shipping anything that directly contradicts victuuri/otayuri is a blasphemy in this fandom and generally looked down upon. I've actually seen someone outright ask why would anyone ship pliroy when otayuri exists/is canon/is clearly a better and more healthy option for Yuri etc. So, this and the constant victuuri/otayuri wank, while all the other characters/smaller ships are mostly a background noise to it; it really seems to me as if 5 fanarts out of 10 on my dashboard would feature victuuri, 4 would feature otayuri and there's only one left for other pairings (one-track-mindedness at its finest). And there's of course the fact that most YOI fans seriously think that victuuri is the first canon gay couple in the history of anime, that the anime itself is revolutionary and progressive, that victuuri is a prefect representation, that YOI is the actual anime of the year, because popularity doesn't lie, and if you dare to disagree with all of those, then you're clearly homophobic and whatnot. Plus, there's the invading of the tags unrelated to YOI (not even for the purpose of recommending other titles but to say something along the lines of 'if shit like xyz got a second season, then YOI deserves at least seven' - actually seen something like that with my own eyes) or hijacking of the serious topics (like the oppression of sexual minorities) and making them all about YOI. And that's just the top of the list of what the YOI fandom is guilty of. But hey, it's alright, because it's 'not all' YOI fans. Siigh. Sorry it got so long, but ugh. Sometimes I wish someone would just delete YOI from existence so that we would be spared of all this saltiness. As for 91d, you're probably right about everything but still, I'll never be able to understand why anyone would just voluntarily turn off their thought processes and comprehension skills just because of some personal biases, especially when it comes to a show such as 91d, that requires at least the bare minimum of thinking and analyzing. But whatever, I guess people nowadays are just too used to having everything spelled out to them and handed on a silver plattter (ex. they should've had it explicitly stated on-screen that Avilio and Nero didn't hate each other).

This goes for all the ‘not all’ arguments; the important thing is, as you said, how widespread a behaviour is statistically within a community, but also whether the other members acknowledge that it’s happening or not. I know it’s easy to take it personally when you hear someone complain about a fandom you’re in, but at that point it really only depends on wording (which is deliberately harsh when someone is just venting, it’s just the way it is). 

About meta; yeah, I find a lot of it superfluous as well, as I’ve said before. And by this I don’t mean it should be eliminated from the face of the planet, just that I don’t personally put the 2934892348th detailed explanation on why vn and yk love each other so much in the same ‘tier’ as, say, speculations about the second season or character parallelisms and stuff like that. It’s shipperwankery in the end and I don’t think me making fun of it harms anyone? The only thing I worry about is that it’s hard to separate banter from an actual serious opinion from time to time (could be about how I express myself? Probably yes). No, for the record, I don’t want to exterminate anyone who makes extensive posts about vn’s lustful glare. It’s just... There’s too much of it. Way too much. By the way, the ring controversy and the reaches made there will never not be funny, sorry not sorry.

A bit of a tangent on the otayuri-pliroy conflict; it always seemed so weird to me how similar the two ships are aesthetically? (Considering people keep confusing the two on fanart, I’d say that’s a major fuckup in terms of JJ’s and Otabek’s character design, but that might just be me). I keep getting the impression that they wanted the pliroy bait to go somewhere but then changed their mind for whatever reason and created otayuri as kind of a ‘tamer substitute’. But this is besides the point; it all brings me back to my personal beef with this tendency of positing ‘sugary sweet’ as the only acceptable standard for a relationship because... people are more sensitive nowadays? I can only guess. Viktuuri and otayuri got tied together for some reason, it’s like they come in a package and everyone who ships one has to run with the other as well. 

I grieve for the background characters and smaller ships as well, anon. Just imagine the sheer crack potential; and instead, everything gets pushed in the back in favour of the same things over and over. The things that could’ve been: victurio (the underage ship that tumblr will fucking lynch me for), emil/michele, sara/mila, georgi/yurio (yes I do love my crack), chris/victor, chris/that guy we saw in his room, yuuri’s sister/literally anyone (because I like her) and the list could go on and on. But this is not even always about the ship itself; it’s the dynamics, those are what popularizes things. Even when there are ships in other fandoms that have been popular for a longer time, there’s a tendency on tumblr to make them very mild and fluffy. I’m not saying there’s anything we can do about this, nor that something should be done about it, all I’m in opposition to is people who claim it’s the ‘right’ way to do shipping because it’s ‘healthier��� or something, as you put it.

Because popularity doesn’t lie

Thank you, this is exactly how I’d word it as well. The crux of this issue isn’t yoi being objectively good or bad, it’s whether popularity implies that something is good, or not. Or what ‘good’ even means in this context. My personal (salty) opinion is that there are anime that could be enjoyed just as much as (if not more than) yoi if only they got more exposure. I’m not talking about 91d either because I’ve already explained in detail what the problem with advertising it was in the previous post. And yeah, I’m pretty sure you’re talking about that certain addition to the Chechnya post. I can see it was well-intentioned but it was... well... a little bit out of place, to put it in euphemisms? ‘Too soon’, as they say? But, in the end, I’m sort of glad that yoi exists because if not anything else, it can be considered a massive social experiment, an example of fandom behaviour. And if it made some people happy, then I wish them all the best. The fixation with it will go away with time too, eventually.