#what a colossal character writing failure

[agenericplaceholdername]

Hearing mixed thoughts on this "destruction" thing... is it bad? Or good if it means Lloyd suffers?

[brw]

Remember when Charles became the richest man in the world and it is very subtextually clear that the only reason the Krakoan project even took off is because Charles (a white billionaire American) put all his money and effort behind it, and not any of this was really talked about or a theme of Krakoa past like, the second year, and it was basically not mentioned in any of the FotHoX and RotPoX comics... genuinely utterly embarrassing for everyone involved. It's hard to give a shit about any of the so called great character moments with Emma or Scott or Jean or whoever during these comics when they were so clearly a complete and utter failure as politically or even just thematically coherent pieces. I mean this with every fiber of my being. I hope Gerry Duggan wakes up every morning ashamed and humiliated over his own political ineptitude, his lukewarm liberalism that is more concerned with pleasing followers on twitter than writing an interesting piece of work with the bravery to say the most basic of statements. What a colossal fucking failure that Charles becoming the world's wealthiest man and it is only off the back of that that Krakoa got anywhere was essentially flavour text and not a deep theme of how capitalism and neo-colonialism go hand in hand. Fucking embarrassing.

[wingsofhcpe]

yeah now I see why everyone's saying Netflix ruined the Witcher story in s3 and why Henry Cavill hightailed it the fuck out of there.

They ruined Dijkstra by making him a coward and a drunken fool by the end. They ruined Philippa by making her a "sexy dominatrix" cardboard cutout instead of the calm and collected mastermind powerhouse she's in the books AND it seems they'll give her secret magic meetings orchestrator role to Yennefer because fuck any female character who isn't her or Ciri, I guess. They changed Cahir's story for.... God knows why, actually. They FUCKED UP Fringilla and Fransesca and the emergence of the Dol Blathana kingdom, seriously I don't even know where to begin when it comes to these two.

And worst of all, the one thing I will absolutely never forgive them for: Tissaia.

My brave, strong, arrogant Tissaia, brought so low for a man. Making mistakes not because of her arrogance or her immense power and her belief that she was protecting what she treasured, but for a fucking love interest. Oh, but he turned her soft, she finally trusted, she was finally happy, she's better for it per Yen's literal words. And she gambled and lost not because of her unwavering beliefs, but because she was shagging Vilgefortz and he manipulated her.

The lightning scene and her hair turning white? Yeah, that was fucking badass. But since they went through all that trouble to keep her around longer/have her do more things, I don't understand why they had to kill her in the same way as the books in the end. With the path they chose for her, she should have died during the lightning spell. That would have been okay. But no, they had to do that part like the books, I imagine for shock value. And somehow, that made everything even worse.

CW for self-harm and suicide under the cut.

In the books, Tissaia taking her own life was not a dramatic, prolonged scene. It wasn't an emotional decision she took by smoking drugs and writing farewell letters. She made a mistake because of her own arrogance: not because of men or love but because she truly believed herself to be powerful and infallible and trusted herself to protect Aretuza. And so when she gambled and lost, taking her own life felt like her acknowledging her colossal mistake and not cowering at the face of consequences, but instead delivering those consequences herself, which only strengthened her image as a powerful, self-sufficient mage; she didn't even need someone else to point out her failures and deliver punishment, she did it herself. And to be clear here, I am not glorifying her act; suicide is no "proper punishment", nor should it be regarded as something admirable. All I'm saying is that it was very much in line with Tissaia's character and thematically fitting. This is fiction, not reality. Let us not confuse the two.

In the show, however? They dragged it out, they had Philippa rubbing her mistakes at her face, humiliating her in front of the other sorcerers. And the last straw for me was her conversation with Yennefer, because it really came off as Tissaia accepting that her living and staying strong and leading them would be the proper way to atone for what she did. It came off as Tissaia accepting responsibility, recognising the truth in Yennefer's words, and actually trusting in them. Then, the moment Yennefer looked away, she got high, made a callback to season 1 for... some reason with the rock and flower trick, and killed herself.

In the books, death felt like her righteous punishment that she accepted for her mistakes. Here, it felt like running away, choosing the easy way out and, ultimately, doing it all because of Vilgefortz.

And I am never, ever forgiving the show writers for that. Tissaia was my favourite character in the books, and they absolutely destroyed and humiliated her, and for what? For shock value and to prop up Yennefer. Because God forbid this show has more than one badass woman character in the lead. If yall wanted to change Tissaia's character you could have done that by keeping her alive, having her stand by Yennefer, maybe having lost her powers after thar spell but still being there to guide the new generation of sorcerers as they rebuilt their home- that would have been what book!Tissaia would have done as an alternative to dying. But no. You just had to make her a pathetic little coward whose actions were mostly because of her relationship to Vilgefortz. Taking away her strength and agency in every possible way.

I'm glad Cavill left this shitty-ass production and I honestly hope s4 flops SO bad you'll have to cancel s5 even if it's already renewed. Fuck this shit.

[chaifootsteps]

if you want an alternate universe where viv wrote bojack horseman, then i want an alternative universe where raphael bobs waksberg made helluva boss/hazbin hotel. the art and animation probably wouldn't look the same, but could you imagine all the writing potential for these characters actually being reached?

We'd be sitting here talking about the colossal failure and abysmal waste of potential that was BoJack Horseman, but we'd do it in between gushing over what a masterpiece HH/HB was. Win some, lose some.

[itsbinforever]

SUMMER SWEETHEART

Summer held many charms for you, and Seo Changbin was one of them.

WORD COUNT: 3.8k GENRE: Desi Cottagecore PLAYLIST: Here If this fic was a movie, Badra Bahaar by Amit Trivedi would be the song that plays during the ending credits. 

© itsbinforever. please don't steal my work!

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I hate everything I write, with the exception of this story. It's like my words have an expiry label that says "BEST BEFORE: 2 WEEKS", after which I start cringing at them. Summer Sweetheart is the first and only story of mine that I cherish so deeply. I love the characters and I love their banter, and I like to pretend I didn't write it so that I can return to read it. I hope it receives a fraction of this love from its readers on Tumblr too.

｡°⚠︎°｡ This story is heavily influenced by desi culture. Here's a lexicon to guide you through foreign words, which have been used sparsely in the story:

Mandi (muhn-dee): A large market for fruits and vegetables

Haveli (ha-way-lee): a manor house, usually in villages or smaller towns

Charpai (chaar-pa-ee): a bed with a wooden frame and jute webbing

Kurti (ker-ti): An Indian tunic

Dupatta (doo-puh-ta): An Indian scarf

Nani (na-nee): maternal grandmother

Summer brought you to the bustling haveli in the countryside, where your grandmother and her retinue of servants fussed over how thin you’d gotten and took it upon themselves to flesh you out. Summer brought family reunions and nightly ruminations, cross-legged on charpais under the star-spangled skies until the conversation was taken over by that uncle whose astrological fascinations overflowed into a panoramic commentary on all the constellations that your city was never graced with. Summer brought bright mornings, waking up under the mosquito net that sheltered you from the plaguing insects but not the beaming sun rays. Summer held many charms for you, and Seo Changbin was one of them.

The last day of summer was yet another day spent frolicking through the orchards, amid the fruit laden trees and kempt grass, barefoot and hand in hand with your childhood sweetheart. You wore silly grins on your faces, cheeks tinted red under the leafy canopy that filtered in light from the sweltering summer sun, too young and too in love with the present to notice everything that could go wrong.

The orchard boasted of ripe mangos, ready to be plucked and sold in the nearby town’s mandi, from where, your mothers would ensure, the delectable summer treat would find its way onto your plates in a variety of preparations each meal for the rest of the season until you were sick of its cloying sweetness. But young and callow as you were, Changbin and you couldn’t let go of the opportunity the old neighbour’s visit to the city presented - an orchard full of free fruits with no one to stop you. 

Off you’d went, the mischievous, little delinquents that you were, tiptoeing out of your houses after lunch when all admonishing adults were lost deep in their midday siestas. Leveraging the catch in the wall, you’d scrambled into the orchard and scampered off under the security of the shade, ready to sink your teeth into someone else’s bounty.

“That’s a dumb idea.” You didn’t need to stop or turn his way to tell that the only thing Changbin could achieve with his idea would be a colossal failure when you heard a pause in his footsteps.

“What’s dumb is your outfit,” He shot back without lifting his eyes from the heap of dried leaves and fallen twigs that had been swept to a nook in the buttress roots of a rather large tree.

“You’re one to speak.” Changbin was the image of utter comedy in your eyes, wearing a comically large t-shirt over a pair of shorts one size too tight for him, no doubt hand-me-downs from his cousins. After all, what would a summer family reunion be without the ritualistic passing down of elders’ outgrown clothes to the youngers? But you didn’t fare any better. “Besides, it’s not my fault that my mother wants me to ‘connect with my roots’,” You huffed. Your mother made you dress modestly here, lest her family comment on the city culture that was apparently tarnishing your traditions. Dolled up in a kurti and a long skirt, only the embroidered dupatta you’d stolen from your aunt redeemed for your otherwise cumbersome attire.

“Whatever,” He mumbled absently, twirling a twig between his fingers. “Just wait and watch.”

You did neither, continuing down the trodden path as you adjusted your glasses to scan the dark, glossy leaves overhead for fruits within reach. The trees were regularly spaced every ten feet or so, teeming with mangoes that hung in bunches high up. Neither Changbin nor you had a stature worth bragging about; you were just two awkward midgets who’d have to step up a few branches to reach even the lowest of the heavy hanging fruits.

Secretly, you liked the way that would always play out. 

It would start with the firm hold of his hands on your waist, hoisting you until you caught onto a branch. Your flimsy skirt wouldn’t offer your knees much protection against the rough, ant ridden wood as you’d scramble to mount it, Changbin’s hands hovering cautiously until he’d be convinced you were ready to help him up. His crayon fingers would dig into your clammy palms, face scrunched with effort that would only relax with a sigh of relief once he’d be seated beside you, knees bumping into each other’s as your legs would swing in a platonic cadence.

Of the whole mango thievery experience, this was the part that made your heart race the most. So, a twinge of disappointment coloured your frowning lips when you saw that Changbin seemed to be inclined towards a different plan this time.

“I said wait!” He called from behind in his typical whinging tone, only to evoke a defiant snicker out of you. You switched to a brisker pace with the sole intent of annoying him. “Hey! Don’t go so fast! You’ll stub your toe on a rock and fall on your butt if you don’t wait for me, I’m telling you!” He warned, finally rising from his crouched position.

You couldn’t resist sticking your tongue out at him before you broke into a sprint. The scenery around you blurred in motion as your bare feet pounded the grassy ground, one hand lifting your skirt while the other held onto your dupatta. Luckily for you, it seemed that the area had been pruned recently - barely any pebbles caught in your feet, though the grass did tickle you. But your focus was directed on outrunning the short, skittish boy chasing you.

It was so easy to irk Changbin, so easy to elicit his grumpy wails of complaint and adorable scowls, to urge him into this frivolous game of chase. A hearty laugh bubbled in your chest as you chanced a glance behind, sneering at his flushed face as he brandished the stick in his hand in a way that, you supposed, was meant to be threatening. His torrent of threats drowned in ripples of giggles and squeals as he began to catch up with you, startlingly quicker than you’d imagined. After all, he wasn’t the one hindered by a flowy outfit. Just when you’d expected his arms to close around your waist in the dizzying way they always do, you felt a light pull at your braid. When you turned, it was too late. 

An impish grin adorned Changbin’s face as he held up the hair tie he’d slipped out of your hair. “Wait, no- ” You pulled off your glasses - they had fogged from the run - and leapt at his blurry figure, trying to snatch it out of his hands. He hid it behind his back and sidestepped you, moving out of your range of reach.

“Bin, my hair’s oily, I can’t leave it open!” You pleaded. Your grandmother had a peculiar passion for oiling your hair every other night, and today was just one of those days when you’d been too lazy to wash up in the morning, leaving you with a greasy mop of hair drenched to the roots in amla oil, barely tamed into a braid.  

But Changbin refused any empathy towards you or your hair. “‘My hair’s oily’,” he mimicked you in a nasal voice, adding, “Nope, you’re not getting it back! It’s mine now!” Mischief radiated from his sparkly eyes and scrunched nose and the high pitched giggles he let out at your distress. “Besides, I like it better this way,” he said, gesturing to your hair. You would’ve swooned at the scintilla of sincerity that peaked through his taunt, if not for your untangling braid that threatened to curtain your face in oily locks.

“Changbin.” You spoke carefully, enunciating his whole name with a low voice and a pointed stare as you tied your dupatta at the waist, the sternest equivalent of rolling up your sleeves you could imitate in this attire. “Give. It. Back!”  

And yet, Changbin’s response to the most intimidating front you could’ve put up was of nonchalance and disregard, complete with an exaggerated eye roll. “Oh, calm down! You don’t look that ugly.”

“Excuse me-”

“Leave your hair be.” He brushed you off with a dismissive wave. “I want to try something first, watch this.” 

“What- Oh goodness! It’s not going to work, Changbin, I’ve told you - it’s a dumb idea!” You splayed your arms and stomped your feet like a toddler throwing a tantrum, miffed with his antics. But your words fell to deaf ears as a beaming Changbin carried on with his - might you add, utterly foolish and entirely useless - plan. The stick he’d picked was shaped like a Y, and with your trusty hair tie, Changbin aspired to put together a makeshift slingshot. Fruitlessly ambitious, in your humble opinion - quite literally, you’d say.

“We won’t have to climb the trees then, it’ll be much easier with this.” He tried to persuade you. Not that it worked, you weren’t convinced in the slightest. But all the summers spent together had acquainted you with Changbin’s tenacity enough to know his dogged determination wouldn’t let up until he went through with it.

A huff of resignation left your lips. Arms crossed above your chest, you tilted your head in a way that said ‘Prove it’. Changbin didn’t stand down. Producing a marble out of his pocket, he stretched your hair tie as far as it would go and locked the target, taking in a deep breath and exhaling as he let go. The marble flew a few feet before dropping at an unimpressive, rather embarrassing distance, not even making it as far as the tree.

The shade of defeat suited quite awkwardly to his beefy body. The urge to iterate your triumph was nearly irresistible, but you settled for a cocky smirk that spelled out ‘I told you so’ as you held out an open palm. Lips curled in a grumpy grimace, Changbin gave you the stink eye as he relinquished your hair tie.

“Why are you looking at me like it’s my fault?” A gleeful laugh tinted with a noise of complaint left your lips at his expense, pushing him deeper into sulky mode. 

“It is your fault.” He humphed. “Why do you roam around wearing cheap hair bands, huh? Spend money, buy branded ones.” He pursed his lips in a petulant pout, turning away from you.

“Oh, please. Why don’t you get me some yourself, then?” You muttered as you attempted to gather your hair into a bun - the braid was beyond salvaging at this point and you had too little dexterity to redo it the way your aunt did it for you.

“I might as well.” You heard him say faintly, still not facing you as he waited for the mortification to wash away.

“Wait, did you just concede to buying me a gift?” You popped your face right in front of his, taking him aback with this sudden invasion of personal space. “Who are you and what have you done with Changbin the cheapskate?” You poked him in the way that vexed him most, a reaction which brought you the purest joy; a repeated tap, tap, tap of your index finger on his upper arm, waiting for the delight of them bouncing back from the squishy skin. Only, this time came a surprise as they touched rather firm and shapely muscles. Since last Summer, you noted mutely, Changbin had grown a lot. It brought heat to your already flushed cheeks. 

“Excuse me, Miss Imma-Buy-Cute-Things-That-I-Don’t-Need! I’m not buying you any gifts. It’s an investment. It’ll actually reap fruits next time,” He scoffed, before adding, “And I’m not a cheapskate!”

You were ready to contest that claim but your snarky arguments fizzled out on the tip of your tongue - a quick movement in the periphery of your vision distracted you.  

What happened next was a blur. 

Thwack!

Looking back at it, you weren’t able to tell a thing from another except the throbbing presence of a dull ache rippling throughout your head. It arrested your senses in a moment of numbness before you could even register what had conspired. 

Did something just hit you?

Involuntarily, your arms tensed and your fists flew overhead a moment too late, clenched as you cowered to brace yourself from whatever could come next. Eyes squeezed shut, scrunching like tight screws till everything became darker and slower - you were blacking out.

“... Y/N.”

You were unthinking, immobile. The heavy thrumming in your eardrums was the delirious beating of your heart pounding louder and louder. It was a heavy veil over your senses making everything else seem dull. 

“Y/N!” 

A yell made its way over the chaos in your head. You couldn’t clearly register it, but the resonant ring of urgency clawed at you as you tried to surface from the haze you had been stupefied into.

“RUN!”

When your eyes snapped open, the only thing you could discern was the panic in Changbin’s pale face and frantic touch. You were still frozen, mirroring his frightful look until he was grabbing at you and the next moment, you found yourself being pulled along with him as he ran. 

It was a mad, mad rush. Even as Changbin held your hand in a vice grip, it wasn’t easy to keep up with him, especially in your disoriented state. He managed to steer you clear of the many roots and heaps of fallen twigs and anything else that you could trip on. But when your now muddied skirt and hazy vision made you stumble more than once, it was only Changbin’s firm grasp that kept you upright and running. From what? You still didn’t know. But you trusted Changbin.

That wasn’t to say you weren’t curious; if anything, your state of bafflement fueled your curiosity. So, in a flash of daring, you looked over your shoulder. Squinting through your bleary sight, all you could make out was a brown blob hurtling towards you at a speed faster than you were running from it. A whimper caught in your throat as you turned, trying to fathom the vague shape you saw, and that’s when you realised - 

“Shit!” You brought your free hand over your eyes, confirming your suspicion. “I dropped my glasses somewhere, Bin!” You managed to speak through your panting but Changbin didn’t respond - if he heard you, that is. “Bin, we need to go back!” You tugged at his hand, squeezing your fingers that were entwined in his. He just squeezed back harder. “CHANGBIN-”

“IT WAS THE MONKEY!” He let out a shaky shriek. “The monkey stole your glasses!” 

What?

“Came out of nowhere!” He sounded afraid and panicky and, like a contagion, the same emotions began bubbling in your chest too. “It jumped on your head and took off with your glasses - Geez! You were there too, you saw it happen!”

You were stumped. “ ‘Took off’ - then why is it chasing us?”

“Ask the monkey that!” Changbin yelled. He looked behind and you did too, now more cautious than curious. The brown blob - the monkey - was gaining on you. Cursing under his breath, Changbin sped up and your entangled hands forced you to match his pace. “I looked at it and it snarled and it tried to pounce on me!” 

“Oh, my.” You let out a shaky whimper. Fear and exertion doused you in a cold sweat. It pooled in the dip in your neck, eventually slipping in between your clammy fingers. Changbin’s grasp faltered. Anxiety doubled over you, but then he let go of your hand entirely before briskly grabbing your wrist in a bruising grip that lent a much needed sense of security.

You didn’t dare look back again, keeping your eyes trained ahead. An escape appeared in the form of a rusty turnstile, the only visible outlet in the brick wall that lined the perimeter of the orchard. The fencing wouldn’t be a hindrance to the monkey - it could as easily chase you outside the orchard too - but surely, the stick wielding guards flanking the dilapidated gate would offer protection.

“HEY!” Changbin was a loud and whiny kid of much repute (not the good kind) and as much as your parents would use him as a bad example, you’d always racked your mind for any argument that would work as a clapback in Changbin’s defence. “GUARDS!” Right now, a rush of admiration overcame you, followed by the urge to rub it in your parents’ faces that his ‘bad manners’ kept you safe. Oh, the satisfaction of having your parents reluctantly approve of your best friend - Hang on. Your parents could never know - should never know. They’d be furious.

And so would the guards, you realised as you neared the gate. The closer you got, the clearer you could make out their expressions. Initial confusion morphed into fury, and you almost considered running off in another direction when you saw them pick up their sticks before noticing that you didn’t fall in their line of sight. They were looking further. The monkey. Of course. Warding off monkeys was more of a priority than reprimanding thieving teens.

“Changbin!” You called, trying to convey the plan to him before you’d come within the guards’ earshot. “We have to run off before they return. They’ll tell on us!” What you’d gathered from your mother’s recollections was that everyone knew everyone in small towns, as if they had everybody’s entire biodata memorised like the back of their hands. Thank goodness you weren’t a local, else there’d be no hiding this from your parents. “Got it?” If it wasn’t for the barely audible grunt of acknowledgement, you would’ve thought he didn’t hear you.

The guards whizzed past you, charging at the monkey as they waved their sticks, yelling at them in their native tongue. You could only make out a few words, but you figured the majority of their speech translated into crass variants of “Get away!” When you heard the monkey screech in response, you shut your eyes. Changbin’s hold made sure you didn’t stop in your tracks, but a sudden turn he took made you flash open your eyes. “Bin, the exit-” You couldn’t even put words to your confusion before Changbin pulled you to a halt in front of the perimeter wall, further away from the turnstile. Without skipping a beat, his hands found purchase on your waist in a practised choreography. Except, this wasn’t in the shade of a deciduous canopy that would shelter your ministrations. This was out in the open - without any spectators, thankfully; the guards were still preoccupied chasing away the monkey - but still enough to make you feel sheepish, despite the predicament you were in.

“Swing your leg over it, quick!” He instructed once you were perched on the narrow wall. You made quick work of it. Seated with one leg on either side of the wall, you didn’t need Changbin to tell you to offer him your hand; it was the obvious next step. The wall was crumbly but there were no nooks for Changbin to place his feet into. His entire weight was yours to pull and as you did, a fall became inevitable.

“Ouch!” You exclaimed. Changbin whined on top of you. Crushed between him and the unyielding ground, you felt pain shoot through your spine before little stabs exploded all over. The wall was barely a foot taller than you, but with the way you fell headfirst and with Changbin’s weight propelling you, you had imagined nothing less than a cracked skull. Well, maybe that was too dramatic. But the lack of symptoms of a looming concussion was somehow more worrisome than the existing pain.

Changbin stirred, a string of grunts and groans limning the effort it took to heave himself off you. He barely rose before crumpling to the ground right next to you. “Shit.”

“Why did we just do this?” You groaned. The pain felt less severe now, but Changbin lying motionless next to you only fueled your urge to bask in the moment a bit longer.

“They won’t be able to find us here.” He forced out between heavy breaths.

“And here is…?”

“Good question.”

There was a pause. It lingered uncomfortably. It was the silence before the storm, and the storm came in the shape of your fist punching his arm. Changbin screamed bloody murder, making you retreat your hand to cover your ears, elbowing him nonetheless. “What the hell, Changbin?”

“OKAY, OKAY! I may not know where we are, but I made sure we’re safe, at least!” 

“You call this safe? I nearly died!”

“Oh, shut up, you drama queen.” He made to pull his hand to himself and when you felt it slide from beneath your head, the absence of a headache started to make perfect sense.  A fuzzy feeling swaddled you and Changbin’s “Let’s get going” did a great job slicing through it. Having taken umbrage at your jab, he was determined to find your way home to prove his point. His point being… something that escaped you. But it was cute, his steely look, so you played along and followed his lead.

The sun was no longer at its zenith, hovering lower in the sky as it bathed the town in shades of pink and gold. People had emerged from their houses once again, the streets filling in as Changbin and you wandered like vagrants. You would ask someone for directions but ‘nani’s haveli’ was the only address you knew. Besides, Changbin was adamant that you didn’t need help, that he knew where he was going despite being caught reciting eeny meeny miny moe under his breath at the fork - he denied that allegation, insisting that he was actually reciting his evening prayers since he was “a man of principles”.

By the time you stumbled upon your home, your feet were aching and your kurta was awkwardly patchy with sweat, thinly veiled under your dupatta. The sun was barely peeking from the horizon when you greeted your mother, who settled for telling you off with a look of disdain that bounced off your thick skin as you headed for the shower. It was when you went to dry your towels on the terrace that the last rays of the sun were disappearing into the darkness, which brung with it weak flashes of dancing lights as the first swarm of fireflies trickled out of their retreats.

“Beautiful, aren’t they?” The haveli next door was separated by a low stone wall but in the convoluted ways of ancient architecture, the two buildings met at the top and merged into a single terrace, subtly demarcated by a badminton net. Peering through the nylon mesh, Changbin chirped, “They’ve just begun to come in. Do you know what that means?” His eyes gleamed. If it was merely the reflection of the fireflies or pure mischief ablaze, you didn’t know, nor did you care. All you cared for was the way it made your heart race, and the way you wanted this moment to go on forever, the way you wanted this summer to go on forever. “The night’s still young.” 

And in those four words, you found your forever in the last moments you’d spent with your summer sweetheart.

[saintsenara]

What are your least favourite types/pet peeves when it comes to characterisation of Tom Riddle?

thank you for the ask, @sarafina-sincerity!

a lot of what follows is expanded upon elsewhere in my writing, above all, in three other metas: voldemort as a character archetype; on writing voldemort; and what does dumbledore get wrong about voldemort. these three pieces look at pet peeves i have with how voldemort's relationship with the genre conventions of the series is misunderstood - as well as at what i think his political beliefs are, what he's doing in the wars, and what his best real-world analogies are - in more detail.

this will focus more on personality traits and aspects of voldemort's appearance which unjustifiably annoy me. obviously, i recognise that none of this is as deep as i may appear to be making it - and readers should enjoy and writers should create what they want - but i'm about to be on call; i deserve a little overthinking about a fictional man. as a treat.

the first - and probably most significant - aspect of voldemort’s characterisation which i dislike is when he’s written as a sociopath or a psychopath. this is, i fear, something which deserves a deep-dive into - and i’m already planning the ten-thousand-word meta in which i bore you all to tears with an examination of what we understand about the genetic factors behind sociopathy/psychopathy, how these interact with environmental factors, whether voldemort meets any of the diagnostic criteria for either condition [the answer is a lot more complicated than you’d think…], what other explanations there could be for his behaviour [lots! most of them completely treatable!], and so on.

but here, i’ll just say what i’ve said before: i think it’s incredibly boring for voldemort’s role in the series to be reduced to him being a sociopath/psychopath, above all, because the conditions are widely understood to have a genetic cause and widely considered to be incurable.

the central theme of the harry potter series is the value of choice, under which umbrella comes the fact that it believes that anyone is capable of redemption. but understanding voldemort as sociopath/psychopath is basically shorthand for saying that he cannot ever truly access either of these central themes, since he will always be fundamentally remorseless and fundamentally incapable of empathy.

which is not what the series thinks it’s saying…

i think it’s much more interesting for the reader - and much more challenging for the writer - to have to confront the idea that voldemort’s villainy is a decision actively made, and that it has more complicated and multifaceted motivations than simply a predisposition towards remorselessness and cruelty. i loathe the idea that he was simply born bad [and especially the implication in the fanon - which, to regrettably have to defend her, is based in something which jkr never said - that the circumstances of his conception caused his inability to understand love; children conceived through rape are not broken]. 

i also loathe the implication present in the idea of him as innately sociopathic that his childhood trauma merely props up traits which were always there - rather than that his childhood trauma could, if anybody bothered to help him with it, be explored and treated. the failure of the state in his early life, and dumbledore and the rest of the hogwarts staff’s colossal missteps in dealing with the facts of his childhood are ignored by the text - particularly in the fact that the ways in which harry differs from voldemort in his response to his own childhood experiences are considered a demonstration of inherent goodness and ability to love rather than that harry is an enormous anomaly, who, unlike most other children in his position, experiences his neglect as character-building.

i’m always critical of the fact that the harry potter series prioritises only one type of love - love as suffering and sacrifice - and i think that voldemort’s rejection of this specific form of love makes perfect sense and isn’t - in and of itself - the moral failing the narrative treats it as. i prefer to think of his rejection of love as deliberate and understandable - that is, that he is somebody fundamentally capable of it [as he also is with remorse and empathy], but that his issues constrain his ability to allow himself the vulnerability of loving or being empathetic or being sorry. i just think he’s a more interesting person that way.

thinking about voldemort’s childhood also intersects with a couple of other fanon characterisations which peeve me. firstly, when he is portrayed as being extremely traumatised by the second world war. voldemort is at school during the blitz, the main periods in which children were evacuated from london, the bombing campaign of 1942, and much of the bombing campaign of 1944. he clearly feels no emotional attachment to the orphanage, he has nobody in london he’s inclined to worry about, he would have no shame in freeloading off of one of his friends if his childhood institution were destroyed [plus, they’d definitely have to let him stay at hogwarts then, which he’d like], and his disdain for muggles as crude suggests that he regards the war as unsophisticated and futile. he clearly isn’t that worried about grindelwald either, seeing as he is apparently incapable in deathly hallows of remembering what the magical world’s equivalent to adolf hitler looks like.

[my headcanon is, though, that he’s quite concerned by the atomic bomb - dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki when he’s nineteen - because of its ability to wipe out wizards too unless muggles are brought under magical control.]

secondly, when he is portrayed as being traumatised by his first meeting with dumbledore. i’ve written about this in detail in this meta, in which i note that dumbledore makes a lot of missteps in their first encounter, but that these are rarely the ones which end up being discussed in fanon around voldemort.

above all, the young voldemort does not care about dumbledore setting his wardrobe on fire. he gets over it the second he realises that he could use magic as dumbledore does - to frighten, destroy, and control. similarly, he immediately gets over dumbledore making his stolen possessions rattle - and, as we know, dumbledore’s attempt to teach him a lesson has no effect whatsoever on his criminality.

indeed, while the adult voldemort hates dumbledore, the voldemort of chamber of secrets treats him as a mere annoyance, whom he talks about carelessly. in the meta linked above, i think that voldemort’s indifference towards dumbledore transitions to hatred after the fake job interview we see in half-blood prince - but that, while he’s at school, he considers him largely irrelevant.

i also dislike the fanon that voldemort was bullied at school or was unpopular in slytherin. it seems to have become accepted that the young voldemort would have been bullied by his housemates for his secondhand possessions and because he could be initially assumed to be muggleborn.

but this fails to note, i think, several things about voldemort’s character: that he is a chameleon and that class in britain depends just as much on performance as background [severus snape may remain identifiably working-class into his late teens, but voldemort is probably aping his classmates’ accents, mannerisms, and references the second he’s on the train]; that there are poor purebloods and half-bloods, and his shabby possessions won’t matter given that he can pass as from a wizarding background; that he is a shameless flatterer; that his looks and talent immediately elevate him to a prime position in slughorn’s social network; and - crucially - that he can prove that he’s descended from slytherin. i am sure that dumbledore is inadvertently right when he speculates in half-blood prince that voldemort finds out slytherin was a parselmouth the night he arrives at hogwarts, and that he uses this to immediately establish his importance in the ecosystem of the slytherin common room.

outside of hogwarts, especially in au fics, i tend not to vibe with things which show him as extremely politically-minded or wanting to work for the ministry. voldemort turns down slughorn’s job offers because he wants a job he gets himself, and he clearly has no interest in even pretending to respect or conform to the patronage networks which define wizarding society. i think his job at borgin and burkes suits him far more than many of the fanon careers he’s often given - including being a teacher, since hogwarts is the sort of ivory tower detached from the reality of the world that voldemort seems inclined to chafe against.

the other main au theme i dislike is things which change his background and expect his personality to remain the same. pretty much everything about voldemort comes down to the fact that he’s an orphan and that he was raised in an institution - if he’s rich, socially important on the basis of a family name, or raised by one or both of his parents, he’s going to be somebody entirely different.

connected to this is also the fact that i’m peeved when authors don’t take his mammy issues into account. voldemort’s grief over his mother is something i’ve written about in this meta - and dumbledore’s spectacular mishandling of it in this one - but the tl;dr is that it is the driving factor for a huge number of decisions he makes, and it’s often not drawn out as much as it could be in fanon.

then, and i’ve written about this in more detail in this meta, i hate with a passion the fanon that his horcruxes make him insane. this seems to be mainly influenced by the films - in which voldemort is, let’s be frank, deranged - but it is directly refuted by the way that the series understands the soul as something which exists separately from the will. the damage voldemort inflicts on his soul through dark magic has no effect on his cognition - and the canonical voldemort remains lucid, methodical in violence, a brilliant tactician, and someone with the upper hand in the conflict throughout the entirety of the second war. after all, he very nearly wins.

he certainly changes after his resurrection - he seems to become more superstitious, paranoid, secretive, crueller to his minions, and less inclined to take advice -  but this is because he’s pissed off at the death eaters for leaving him in a tree in albania for fourteen years. which, to be fair to him, i would be too.

when it comes to other of his personality traits which seem to be left out of a lot of fics, i dislike things which don’t recognise that voldemort is incredibly funny [there will never be a line harder than him telling wormtail he’ll get a task "my followers would give their right hands to perform"], which portray him as being preternaturally emotionally controlled [the canonical voldemort is feral - he’s extremely emotionally demonstrative, he has a really expressive face, he needs no prompting to start spilling his secrets, he isn’t austere in the slightest, he seems to be interested in sensory pleasure, and he is desperate to be perceived], which portray him as inflexible [voldemort can obviously be obsessive - and he has a clear tendency towards hyperfocus, which he shares with harry - but he’s also extremely adaptable and pragmatic, and is often shown in canon as pretty introspective], or which don’t take his weird sense of honour into account [his dislike of liars and hypocrites seems to be pretty sincere, he admires courage and daring and loathes cowardice, and he has no respect for anyone he considers disloyal - especially wormtail, whom he berates not only for being disloyal to him, but to the marauders as well]. i also dislike things which portray him as very culturally sophisticated, since i just think it’s funnier if he hates being forced to go to fancy dinner parties with his death eaters because he wants a plate of beans on toast and a night at the pictures.

in terms of his appearance and demeanour, one of my pet peeves is when he’s written as being very masculine. on the basis of his canonical description, he’s actually quite effete - and far too few fics lean into just how camp he is. more petty - but it really does bother me - is that i hate when he has brown hair. jet-black only, i beg.

and, of course, the slash-related one - i loathe it when voldemort won’t bottom. enjoying getting railed doesn’t make you any less capable of being a terrorist.

[5targrrl]

⸺⠀🕯️³ 5TARGRRL / WRITEBLR INTRO.jpg

Hey babes! The name's ALEX (she/her) and I'm an 18yr old P.R. lesbian located in the U.S. (gmt-5). I'm a indecisive, hot mess of a writer who's been writing for around seven years now. Which is an embarrassing fact considering I have yet to finish a first draft *sobs*. I write in multiple genres but tend to gravitate towards darker content, dark academia? Horror? Thrillers? sign me tf up, I'm drooling. I love me a good trope and some of my favorites include found family, enemies to lovers, mutual pining and emotionally constipated characters who are secret softies.

⸺⠀MY PROJECTS.txt

" WE WERE LAMBS  -  adult  sci - fi  surrealism horror novel.

WHEN DORIAN STAROSTA   is arrested alongside three of his old childhood bestfriends for the murder of his mother, Dorian's world begins to crumble all around him. After being sentenced to life in prison, the four are given the opportunity to participate in a brutal virtual-reality game. If won, their criminal records will be wiped, but if they lose? They are guaranteed to die a slow, tortuous death. With nothing left to lose, they begrudingly accept. Dorian Starosta is many things but a murderer is not one of them, and he is desperate to prove that.

" IDLE TOWN  -  ya contemporary romance novel.

THE  SUMMER  OF   1998 for Vincent Callaghan is already what you would call a colossal disaster. but the news that his ex - bestfriend Jude Navarro will be returning to Harmont for the annual surf camp, the very camp Vincent’s been forced to help run, is the perfect, rotten cherry on top. Battling the stress of upcoming graduation, his band, and dealing with Jude’s attempts at rekindling their lost friendship, Vincent is ready to sign this summer off a complete failure, because there's no way this can turn around, right?

⸺⠀ENDING CREDITS.txt

Thats all folks! Thank you for so much for reading. I'm always looking for new friends so totally don't hesitate to reach out / interact. Have a great one <3

[emersonfreepress]

Sorry if you've answered this already but, what does the nerve stat mean? What lowers/increases it? Will there be any consequences if it's too low or high? Cheers :)

I don't think I have! Honestly, it's still a bit of a work in progress, along with the Remorse, Stress, and Thrill stats. I think going over them all should give you an idea of what I'm trying to do with them, but they're very subject to change.

Stress - pretty straightforward: stressful shit increases Stress 😆 High Stress can fuck up your execution of certain choices and will be noticed by other characters in day-to-day life. New Kid's Stress goes down when they engage with their hobby, when something good happens to them, or in positive social interactions with the ROs or their family.

Remorse - also pretty obvious: feeling bad feels bad! Expressing guilt or regret over your crimes and immoral actions increases Remorse. Compassionate MCs can gain more Remorse than Cutthroat MCs over certain things. I think this stat will also be relevant if I decide to make all action choices available during Missions... like instead of blocking off a particularly cruel choice for MCs with high Compassion, they would still be able to do it but they'd take on a bunch of Remorse. I haven't decided all of the situations that Remorse on its own can impact yet, but I imagine the success of attempting some out-of-character monster shit when your Remorse is already high would be a disaster 🥰🥰

Thrill - Relishing in your crimes and manipulations. This one's very much in development (like, in the earliest prep portion lol I don't even got the seasoning out yet) because it needs to be included, but I'm not interested in writing a colossally destructive or gleefully violent killer MC. Thrill is meant to relate to all actions that significantly go against the law or societal expectations. So obviously your Thrill can increase due to how you react in Missions but doing shit like sneaking out to a punk show with Rupan/Rohan (one way you can spend Halloween 🥰) would also increase it. I once had it as an opposing variable with Remorse, but that doesn't feel right since Thrill doesn't have to be directly tied to cruelty and evil.

Nerve - Finally! It's the ability to successfully carry out difficult or complicated actions despite external distractions or personal feelings. High Nerve is great if you are, for example, trying to get your Compassionate MC with High Remorse to do something terrible. You would still be able to try with low or decent Nerve, but with a chance of mixed results or failure. However, having high Nerve in a situation where all of the normal people in the room are freaking the fuck out? It's not necessarily a bad thing... but it does stand out.

These kinds of variables could probably be applied to things like artistic or academic performance too, but so far I really want to stick to applying them to social interaction and criminal activities only. Keep it consistent with the game's stakes. There should be no debate about the New Kid's talent, but their morality should always be in flux.

ok i talked way too much about this bye!!

[worldweary-walker]

So the very first panel of this does something that the game is very fond of- understandable, because it's an excellent writing technique: Kim (or someone else) says something that is, itself, fairly straightforward, despite how much you can read into it: "Hell does not exist." This is followed by something more philosophical, but still straightforward: "Only you exist." The third line, the punchline, is just that- a punch to the gut. "Verdict: Hell Is You."

Though it starts the comment, our understanding of the characters leads us to believe that Kim's statement is in response to something deranged that Harry says. In the art, Kim has a very present halo- a halo that surrounds him distantly, is fractured. That might only be to frame him as distant, imposing, an artistic choice that works damn well- but you can read something more in it. It looks, in that panel, like Kim is bleeding on his chest, and around his eyes.

In the second panel, I don't recognize the first half but centered is the fan, and hanging down from it is an iconic character from the game- a Horrible one. The necktie, in the image, is colored like blood; so are the letters. The impetus is clear: a tie (heh) to Harry's self-hate.

"It is real because you are," the third panel says. The box obscures Harry's face. The text is the color blue, blue is the color of grief- Harry's grief is real because he is. It is the cause, philosophically speaking, of his memory loss. His loss is his cope with his grieving.

The fourth panel, the second comic, is practically a poem on its own. I especially like the phrase "a man unlacquered." Harry DuBois has lost his shine; Harry Dubois has lost the coating of transparency that shields him. Saltwater has a corrosive effect on the finish of wood. I don't know about alcohol, but that probably isn't good for it either. The meaning, of course, is obvious- Harry has stripped away the shielding in himself, has stripped away himself, in a wash of alcohol and seawater (and, possibly, the Pale.)

There's a second meaning, too, however- Harry has stripped the shine of him away, but it turns out there's Harry that remains. "Spat back out in its whorl." The tide did not consume him. He could not kill himself with alcohol. The sea, metaphor and literal (recall the motorcarriage?) could not kill him. He abandoned himself, but has found himself stuck with the body. "A tidal-colossal nucleic rejection." (I'm probably missing something in the meaning of that phrase.)

Third comic, fifth panel! I have no idea what's happening in the background. The main part is clear enough though- Harry bemoaning his failure to commit suicide. (The necktie is Horrible for a reason. It was hanging from the fan. It's a damn good thing Harry couldn't stand up straight.)

Fourth comic, panels 6-8! Lot of blood in this one. "Hematic fluid," "Primordial pit to primordial pit," really emphasizing the themes of loss and forgetfulness. The text isn't subtle about it either: "a puncture of color against the whiteness of snow." The memories that Harry has lost, the ones that he recalls, mean very little against the vastness of the Pale. (I can't comment on the significance of "Dolores Fucking Dei," unfortunately.)

Fifth one, single panel- Harry is weeping. He has many such breakdowns in the game, he is a weeping man of habit forced to rediscover what he's lost. The significance of this one is that he is not alone. He weeps, for what he's lost, again and again and again, he offers to leave first so his partner isn't hurt by it. Kim will have none of it- he says, "I'm here." He is. He's holding Harry.

It's really poignant and sad and I don't have as much to say about it because it's not as symbolically dense as the others but asbdu asbuiheicuuiwhvuichewuivb. Agh. Good comics.

The last comic... just like in the first one, Kim is haloed. The halo is not fractured and imposing, this time: it is an anchor, solid around him. He's looking up, the halo's spiked as in surprise- but it is Kim, and the halo seems warm rather than threatening. The red is prominent. The text says "do they glow as her innocence did?" This disguises a double meaning. Her Innocence is Dolores Dei; she, the innocent one, Harry's ex-wife, he speaks of often. Dolores Dei was said to glow, specifically her lungs- and, at times, there are implications she was a robot. Halogen glow. Kim is someone holy to Harry- he does not have a halogen glow. "Instead, a sunrise." Kim smokes, just once a day, at the end of things. Meeting Kim is the beginning of something new. Smoke goes in the lungs. "Instead, a sunrise." His hands, something that Harry comments on, are prominent.

ASJDKHHSAS JFHAFH this art is so cool and I've covered everything I noticed about it but I'm sure there's a lot more bc I do Not have a good head for lore and I've tried to draw connections where I can but this is so dense with symbolism I'm insane about it. The artist is incredible, the poet is incredible, this is incredible and damn good work. Props to them, props to y'all, I'm gonna go scream about it.

tw topics of suicidal ideation. self harm.

[billconrad]

A Writing Setback

You may recall a recent article discussing a YouTube video that trashed the movie Men in Black International. I chose to write about this criticism not because I disliked the movie but because the review revealed a significant plot problem in one of my books.

What about the people who were part of that movie? I bet they were not impressed with that YouTube video. But it was not always that way. They were optimistic at the film’s launch and felt crushed when it did not perform. The YouTube video added to their anguish by explicitly describing the film’s failures. To add insult to injury, the video generated a profit for the YouTube creator, but the movie failed to make a profit.

   Well, everybody involved in the film moved on. Hopefully, they will learn from their mistakes, and their following projects will be better. In life, the painful lessons are often the most important.

    In another article, I confessed that writing these articles is a form of low-budget therapy. So… Time to eat some crow. This article is going to be “open therapy.” Four days ago, I received edits from a professional editor. They included a detailed report on several issues. I have severe plot, character, logic, and grammar problems. To make matters worse, they were fundamental issues that were difficult to fix without a total rewrite. To further pile on the pain, I now know these flaws were also present in my other books.

    This mountain of criticism was a lot to confront, and I stopped self-editing for a few days to reflect. I was depressed, and it is now challenging to write this article, and editing has become a miserable chore.

    I again viewed the Men in Black International YouTube video and wondered what the people who were part of the movie thought about the criticism. I suspect having flaws publicly pointed out was much worse because the result was very public. Having my flaws pointed out by one person was the only bright spot in my sea of self-pity.

    I have had many setbacks during my writing adventure and even considered closing this chapter in my life. (Ha, a writing joke!) I often remind myself that a primary life goal is to start a business, and writing takes much away from that effort.

    Looking in the mirror and seeing the face of failure is difficult. “Your best is not good enough.” Of course, it is easy to deny my problems. I do not have an English degree; writing is not my career, and I went into this project knowing I would never be able to compete with the great authors.

    That’s enough self-pity. How am I going to salvage this situation? I have failed many times in my life and unquestioningly developed a recovery technique. I will gather all the information, analyze it, and form a plan. Sometimes, I talk to people about the issue but typically hunker down and work on my problems in solitude. Hence, I took a bike ride today. Yes, it helped.

    For this problem, I will fix what can be fixed and ignore the other issues. The main criticism concerns my weak characters and plot. There is not a lot I can do about that. Learn from my mistakes and try harder in the future. After all, this is life, and it is reasonable to expect issues, failures, and colossal setbacks.

    An author writes the story they want to tell. It might be pretentious, arrogant, weak, and unrealistic. However, my story came from my heart, and I based the characters on people I have met. On my bike ride, I came to a conclusion. After all that stuff the editor pointed out, I still like my plot and characters. They mean something to me; if I can make that happen with only one other person, I have succeeded.

    I certainly appreciate my core flaws. The identified flaws will take a lot of work to fix, but I never give up on a dream without a fight, even if the dream is unrealistic.

    You’re the best -Bill

    November 01, 2024

    Hey book lovers, I published four. Please check them out:

    Interviewing Immortality. A dramatic first-person psychological thriller that weaves a tale of intrigue, suspense, and self-confrontation.

    Pushed to the Edge of Survival. A drama, romance, and science fiction story about two unlikely people surviving a shipwreck and living with the consequences.

    Cable Ties. A slow-burn political thriller that reflects the realities of modern intelligence, law enforcement, department cooperation, and international politics.

    Saving Immortality. Continuing in the first-person psychological thriller genre, James Kimble searches for his former captor to answer his life’s questions.

    These books are available in soft-cover on Amazon and eBook format everywhere.

[goddamnwebcomics]

Reply

I talked about this before, but it still feels blatantly disingenuous. I mean, Jon tried spinning it to him having a realization about the seriousness of writing a bully character and its affects on his audience back then, but I called bull to that (not directly since I was being nice about it) considering he spent a decade writing one (you already know who I’m referring to) as a primary bully antagonist before deciding to put her on an actual redemption story. Like, this guy should already know the “attachments” people get to bully characters portrayed in media. He’s a victim of bullying himself, so it’s not like he didn’t know this already.

No. It became pretty clear to me that Tracy’s whole bully persona that Jon wrote and planned for originally had become an inconvenience for him when he decided to make Peter & Whitney, with the mouse being reintroduced with the personality actually based on the real-life version of Tracy. But he was still getting negative comments around her in both comics due to her first appearance in Peter & Company, so he decided to softly but abruptly end that part of her in both comics to save his own butt and “convince” others that she’s redeemed.

Yeah, it bears repeating but the way Tracy has been handled has just been a colossal failure in both comics. I don’t know what else to add to that what you just said.

[sonofthesaiyans]

Most USELESS AOT Character

I already said my piece on the alliance this week, and there’s a lot of reasons to hate it for the fact that we have the series’ original protagonists aligning with and forgiving the worst war criminals in the story, the ones who caused Eren to initiate his cataclysm upon the world. And I’m sure the reasons for why the alliance is so heavily mocked don’t there. 

But the dishonor of being the most useless member still goes to Gabi Braun. 

Literally the ONLY thing Gabi does for the goddamned alliance, something that only became “necessary” in part due to her own actions in provoking Eren. 

Yeah, Gabi shot Floch. Possibly the only character to have fewer fans, I might assume. But for someone who is the subject of all those tacky “FAZE” memes on Twitter and elsewhere, the little shit didn’t make it count in the ONE moment where she actually was justified in shooting a gun. 

Isayama was never shy about his malicious intentions or his many, many plot contrivances and this is just another instance of such. Gabi shot Floch in defense of the ship carrying the seaplane. Which may have bought the group time to escape, but her failure to land a fatal shot on the son of a bitch still resulted in him sabotaging the plane in his suicidal assault on the alliance, which in turn led to Hange Zoe senselessly sacrifcing herself for time the plane didn’t have anyway........Making this little bitch indirectly responsible for Hange’s death. ON TOP OF SASHA’S. 

I cannot comprehend why people enjoy Isayama’s writing, if a guy needs to produce that many coinciding moments between characters and subplots to move his worthless final arc forward, maybe he’s not what he’s cracked up to be. Gabi just very coincidentally hits Sasha after boarding the blimp shortly after their first encounter, she just HAPPENS to run into Sasha’s family, which is still an enormously offensive subplot by the way......she just HAPPENS to miss the second-worst Yeagerist when she’s never missed before......And boom, she’s got the blood of not one, but TWO of the show’s best girls on her hands. 

And it doesn’t get any better for Gabi after this, Falco is the one pulling all their weight between the two of them and Gabi is still the worst equipped to fight Eren or the Colossals under his command, because one fucking rifle ain’t got jackshit on people trained specifically to kill Titans, even less on the Ackermans who are practically bred for that purpose. Not to mention the other Titan Shifters, Falco included. 

So all of this buildup with Gabi and a very ill-advised “redemption” arc just so she could shoot the second biggest douchebag on the show and miss. We lost Sasha just so she could continually screw up repeatedly in her attempts to stop the Rumbling. 

Sorry, but shooting Floch is NOT enough to validate all the focus on Gabi. And it is nowhere near enough to redeem her of her crimes. At this stage, CONNIE FUCKING SPRINGER was more of an asset to the team than this little shit. Yeah, I went there. Quote me on that if you like. 

And let me be straight up with you people, even in a series about child soldiers, do you honestly take the image of a twelve-year old with a sniper rifle twice her size in her hand seriously? Are we supposed to rally to her side, is that supposed to be badass? 

There’s no debating how overpowered Gabi is when lined up with everyone who has years on her combat experience. There is no way she should have walked away so cleanly when she repeatedly threw herself in the path of death. 

And if you are still not convinced of how insulting her actual role in this story is, here’s a tidbit from those morons on CBR.com. https://www.cbr.com/attack-on-titan-gabi-best-sniper/ TOTALLY NOT A SASHA REPLACEMENT. Except even CBR thinks she is, and yeah. That seems to be the only reason she’s here. And I’m not fucking okay with that. There’s no valid reason why Sasha isn’t here for the final act. 

Instead of giving Sasha her all, Isayama gives it all to some nobody from out of nowhere who never even receives the Armored Titan she was banking on getting. That at least would be something but no, we just got a twelve-year old given bullshit excuse after bullshit excuse for why she shouldn’t die in a story where she causes a disproportionate number of problems for the main cast. 

She simply doesn’t do enough to make up for her most infamous action. And nobody is really willing to acknowledge her part in Hange’s own death. Girl who “never misses” until the moment where her skill, SASHA’S SKILL, needed to count for every shot. Literally. 

So sorry Hajime Isayama. but after all this time you spent building up Gabi as the ace in the hole, I’m NOT buying it. 

There is no Attack on Titan without Sasha or Hange. 

Also, we need an “anti snk 132″ tag. Someone please make one official. 

[constantvariations]

I can't help but feel we're somehow having very different conversations. I'm very aware of the many issues regarding the writing of RWBY as a whole and the White Fang in particular, so for that to be your goal is rather odd and, frankly, annoying

Also, I must ask when was the last time you watched RWBY because you keep getting things mixed up, like claiming Corsac was the brother killed when it was actually Fennec or quoting Cinder saying Glynda sealing the breach as a "colossal failure" when her actual words are, "All in all, I call today a success." I've avoided correcting these because it's pedantic and unnecessary, but it's not exactly lending you any credibility

It's in the white fang meeting, that's how he convinces them to listen to him cause they weren't willing to listen otherwise- and then the volume 2 commentary confirms it. They literally state his reason- the commentary states it as well He literally says "he didn't sigh up for that and it wasn't the same"

Once again, I am not taking writer commentary into consideration. That's what death of the author means (and, no, it does not absolve them of their racist intent). If they wanted people to interpret a scene a certain way, they should've written it that way

Unless your copy of RWBY is radically different from mine, you're misremembering things because I've watched that White Fang rally multiple times this week not only for this discussion but for my own project. Not once does he mention a tower or robot opposition. Watching Tukson's scene right now and he does not state his reason. In fact, Emerald is the one to inform the audience that Tukson is running to Vacuo right before she goads him into attacking

Blake speaks of something that happens offscreen- if we're to take that at face value then we also need to take Pyrrha saying that they joined team RWBY and battled murderers during volume there where they're chilling by the ramen stand I'm taking what they write with a grain of salt, I'm still waiting for weiss's "they been at war with my family for years" bit to be true

Reading comprehension seems to be selective here.

You also have a habit of cherry picking when to listen to characters despite you earlier saying, "So I defer to the character... cause when I'm watching a show I normally don't assume they're lying." I also don't believe Weiss when she says this considering we spend several volumes in Atlas and not once does it come up, but either we take characters at their word or we need to scrub the series for evidence, not both

Another discrepancy is your willingness to let faunus get away with doing bad things because they "can't consent if they're nonexistent mouthpieces" yet you hold all of humanity accountable for their actions against the faunus. Which is it: are we to let actions slide because fictional characters can't consent to the things they're written to do or are we to judge them for both action and inaction within the story?

You can't jump from Doylist analysis to Watsonian when it suits your narrative. Ideally, you use both to balance and bolster your claims rather than one or the other

Unwarranted and not appreciated.

I can't help but notice you missed the entire last section of my response, so I'll put it here for convenience's sake

We aren't discussing if Remnant is worth saving or how the humans are worse. The question is: does the label of terrorist apply to the White Fang?

Whether they're being manipulated into it or not, even if their goal of faunus liberation is an objectively good one, the result remains the same: indiscriminate chaos, destruction, and death that spreads fear to the public at large in the name of a political agenda

Aka terrorism

Weiss's line "Not every story has a neat and tidy ending" is an absolutely buckwild thing to say to someone freaking out about how they don't know what the true goal of the people who just let loose a horde of grimm on a civilian city

Girl, this ain't about a messy ending to a fictional tale, this is about a terrorist attack wtf!!!

[nichoberri]

when reality blows up in your face (literally)

chapter 1- ‘that damned potion’

member- heeseung

word count- 1.1k

warnings- none

a/n- I’VE FINALLY WRITTEN IT AFTER A MASSIVE BREAK FROM WRITING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but it’s not very long and probably horribly written. this is my first scenario in my fairytale au ‘series’; i’m very excited for this. the first scenarios for each member will be setting up their character and their situation, and later scenarios will get into their actual journeys. well i hope so anyways ahaha. so anyways, i hope at least one person enjoys this <333

in which heeseung is an apprentice at Wendlyn’s apothecary; he’s good at everything, well almost everything. he just can’t seem to perfect one particular potion, which leads him on a journey to discover his true abilities...

KABOOM!! electric blue explosions seemed to pause the dreary weather for half a second, before the granite clouds continued their miserable performance, as pitiful rain came back into view. at the back of the quaint apothecary, a frustrated and slightly singed heeseung sighed in defeat, as he loosely held the remnants (literally one shard of glass) of a conical flask in between his thumb and forefinger which was dripping in blood. it had failed again; another one of heeseung’s attempts at making that damned reality shifting potion, which was meant to be a swirling bright blue liquid, usually allowing people to teleport to different realities when ingested. in heeseung’s case, the potion merely exploded, shaking every shop on the main street. every. single. time. the poor boy was sick and tired of his failure, yet hope still managed to bloom in his chest that he may succeed even after countless attempts. after all, the explosion was the right colour this time, much to heeseung’s bewilderment. however, as quickly as the feeling of joy flashed into his heart, it was swept away just as fast, by the remembrance that he had to clean the entire shop as well as the insane amount of mess he had created.

eventually, an exhausted heeseung gave the swinging sign above the doorway, which read ‘the hidden universe apothecary: helping with your aches and ailments since 1346’, one last lick of paint, before he could clock off for the day without a scolding from his younger yet surprisingly professional boss. the young apprentice snatched up is bag and tattered cloak, locked up the apothecary and set off trudging to pay for the light damages to baker’s across the street, which had been hit by the colossal explosion just a couple of hours earlier. after the awkward yet fairly friendly exchange with the kind baker boy, heeseung traipsed back to the cramped two-bedroom house he shared with his mother, who sold woven goods from their home.

as soon as the lanky boy stepped a foot onto the flagstone of the dimly lit living room, his mother looked up at him over the brim of her rounded spectacles and chided with a slight eye roll, that heeseung did indeed see, “i’m guessing by the smell of burning emitting from you and the ash all over your face, that you failed that potion yet again.”

“it was the correct colour this time though,” heeseung retorted, turning his nose up, “a blinding electric blue in fact.”

“well at least there’s been some improvement to your efforts, but what would your grandfather say if he saw you struggling so much to perfect the reality shifting potion that he mastered at the age of twelve. then again, it’s his absence that has meant you have gone without proper training for so many years.”

“if he would be that disappointed, it’s a good thing he’s been buried for god knows how many years then isn’t it?” heeseung snapped, as his mother gave him a disapproving scowl. she knew how hard it was for her son to try to live up to the name of the great merlin, his grandfather; and it irritated her as much as heeseung, that he could not grasp the manufacturing of the ancient potion. “i’m sorry to nag all of the time my son, but you’re an absolute ace at everything you’ve ever set your heart on doing, so it hurts me to see you struggle so much,” she exclaims apologetically. at hearing his mother’s sweet words, heeseung approaches his mother and bends down to engulf her into a tight hug, just like he did when he was a child. “i’m sorry mother, i guess all of the added pressure has got to me, but i’m going to succeed. i’ll try with all of my might. in fact, i’ve been planning to seek out some of my grandfather’s friends, both students and teachers of his, in order to improve my magic skills. if you would let me of course.” the middle-aged woman in front of him blinked, trying to process what her son had proposed, but after a minute she spoke up again, “of course you can go sweetheart, but you have to be careful, there’s a lot of evil out there, just as much as there is goodness. so if you’re setting off on this important yet dangerous journey, you will have to keep this around your neck at all times.” heeseung’s mother then produced a gleaming chunk of black jade threaded through a thin silver chain. ‘ahhhh…black jade…it helps to protect me from evil and negativity on new adventures,’ heeseung thought, as his mother roughly shoves it over his head, in turn, tousling his brown locks.

about an hour and many shed tears later, heeseung waves goodbye to his mother from the end of the garden path up to his house, promising her that he will keep safe and eat regular meals. his first stop however, is to slip a note into the apothecary to notify his boss of his plans, hoping, actually more like praying, that his boss understands, even though deep down, he knows his boss is too kind to scold him and will appreciate the apprentice’s efforts further down the line.

with that job over with, heeseung weaves his way through the streets, swinging his battered old suitcase to the beat of the wind, withhis head held high. “i’ll show everyone that i’m no dithering fool. i can master this potion and so much more. i can do this. just be confident, just be confident, JUST BE CONFIDENT,” he muttered to himself, yet the slightly crazed mantra actually rose to a yell, earning him some confused stares by some concerned villagers. gradually, he reached the entrance to the great enchanted woods which stretched out for kilometres, covering the ground with gigantic looming trees, shrouding the nearby city from both the wonders and horrors held inside. upon peering through the bars of the intricate golden gate that guarded the pitch black woods, heeseung couldn’t help but to feel a strange concoction of fear and wonder creep up into his chest, making him smile at the new adventure ahead of him.

whether the grin painted across his face was genuine or just there to mask his growing terror, he did not know, but he was sure he would be finding out soon enough.

[ourmondobongo]

Idk if it's because I got late into Tumblr - and probably Hanji's analyses are many chapters/years ago to go research for it -, but I've got the slight impression we don't talk enough about Hanji Zoë...

Like, Hans is more than just some captivating "crazy" character in AOT. Hans is more than a replacement for Erwin, or worse, a"failure" shadowing him. And more than a source for any ships' content...

What I meant is that, yeah, I know I've got here late, and I know I've lost many cool stuff people definitely must have written about Hans (and I'm looking for them and I know it's my own problem lol). But I'm being genuinely sincere when I say I would like to see more Hanji, only and solely Hanji material more frequently...

And idk if it's because the more I myself write about her, the more I suffer remembering her ending...

It's just that... I miss Hans a lot. And, God, this hurts.

So If you read this and have any indications of analyses, metas, and blogs only or mostly focused on Hanji's character, I would really give you a colossal virtual hug if you could put links in the comments (or even reblog the answer in this)!!!

Thanks in advance to whoever may respond to this!

[ambersock]

On the Edge of Forever

Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Castiel, Lucifer (Cassifer)

Summary: Sam has a plan to deal with the Darkness. Dean is definitely not going to like it.

Word Count: 4095

Warnings: Angst, Minor Sam Whump, Swearing, Sam Winchester Has Self-Worth Issues

A/N: Takes place in Season 11, after 11.10 The Devil in the Details. More notes at the end.

Now: Dean

Baby’s tires squeal in protest as Dean uses up a month of tread taking yet another turn too fast, her back-end fishtailing with only intermittent traction keeping her from spinning out. He’ll apologize to her later. Dean slams the accelerator down as he exits the curve and hits 90 on a straight section of the backwoods road on the outskirts of a town probably called Where The Fuck Are We We’re Lost. He starts to recognize landmarks from the last time he was here almost three years ago; he’s close. Not close enough.

He hurtles towards his destination, praying to who the hell knows what (because, really, there’s nothing out there that gives a shit, is there?), that he makes it in time to stop his idiot brother from doing an idiotic thing. Because he idiotically let his brother go to talk to fucking Lucifer, and of course Lucifer got inside his head. And here he is again, wracking his brain to figure out what the hell he can possibly say to convince Sam to abandon his insane plan.

Five days ago: Sam

Ever since the train wreck that was supposed to be a “safe” visit to the Cage to ask for Lucifer’s help against the Darkness, Sam has been replaying the Lucifer-guided tour of his worst fuck ups over and over on an endless loop, hoping that repetition and whiskey will numb him just a little more each time. For the hundredth time Sam curses his hubris, thinking he would even register on God’s radar, let alone that He would answer his prayers and send him visions. For the hundredth time he curses himself for being so naïve that he never suspected that the visions were just a lure from Lucifer to reel him in, break him down, and use him as a ride out of the Cage. And he hates himself for how close he had come to caving in. More than once.

On his third shot of whiskey and his umpteenth rerun through his trail of regrets, it hits Sam: within the chain of events of disaster begetting calamity begetting catastrophe, there is one moment in time where it could have easily all fallen apart. One small delay, one broken link, would cause a cascade failure and drastically alter everything that came after. He can’t help fantasizing, over and over, about all of the different little things could have happened that would have changed the entire outcome. If only.

On his fourth shot of whiskey, Sam remembers the sigil that allowed Henry Winchester to travel through time, and he huffs out a laugh.

On his fifth shot of whiskey, Sam staggers to the archive room and starts pulling books.

******

Sam continues to stare at the passages describing the Enochian time travel spell. The task he’s set himself is a flame that has both sustained him and consumed him for days on end. There’s a tree’s worth of paper covered in notes scattered across every horizontal surface, held down by mostly empty coffee mugs distributed randomly around the cramped space. His eyes are dry and red, an eyestrain headache thrums in the back of his skull, and his back is aching from being hunched over musty tomes for hours at a time attempting to deconstruct and reverse engineer the spell, to adapt it to his specific purpose. He’s not sure when he slept last, and Dean has started to give him those sideways I-know-something’s-eating-you looks which means he’s got limited time before Dean drags him out of the bunker “for his own good”. Sam forces himself to clear his mind of everything except the patterns of Enochian writing in front of him. He’s close, he thinks he’s found the right figures, he just needs to understand how to combine them with the original blood sigil. As Dean would say, he’s on the one-yard line and it’s time to push through it.

Hours later something finally clicks like a circuit closing in his brain, and suddenly the pattern of the lesser symbols within the larger whole makes sense to Sam. The solution is simple and elegant, and it’s so obvious to him now that he can’t believe he didn’t see it sooner. He adds the figures to a drawing of the original blood sigil and he knows, just knows, that this is going to work. He allows himself to luxuriate in the endorphin rush that accompanies success, the feeling that he’s about to score a win. For the first time since he threw himself into the Cage, he feels like he’s finally doing something right.

The only problem now is finding the right way to tell Dean. He’s going to need some time and distance, a head-start to get out in front of Dean’s inevitable knee-jerk reaction, because Dean is definitely not going to like this. Even if it was his idea.

Yesterday: Lucifer-wearing-Castiel

It was a stroke of luck, really, that Lucifer landed Castiel as a vessel instead of Sam as he had originally intended. Dean might have caught on to Lucifer-wearing-Sam, but it was just too easy to pass himself off as the besotted pet angel when Dean had caught him tearing through the records. A contrite little “I’m sorry Dean” coupled with a soulful look and Dean was sold. It is surprisingly so much easier to masquerade as someone else topside than it ever was in the Cage. He never could fully convince Sam that it was Dean who was carving out his organs.

Fun aside, there is now a possible monkey wrench in Lucifer’s carefully laid and, so far successful, bid for freedom. He stares at the disarray of notes decorated with Enochian symbols strewn all over the small bunker storage room by his erstwhile vessel, and can’t dismiss the growing possibility that everything is about to unravel.

“Oh Sammy-boy, what are you up to?”

His vessel has been mucking around with a time-travel sigil, and it seems like he’s pretty far along. Logically, Sam would be looking to prevent the release of the Darkness, which also certainly means undoing the events leading to the damage to the Cage that allowed Lucifer to escape. There are two lessons he files away for later: one, never speak Enochian in front of a chew toy; two, sending Sam Winchester on a guilt trip tends only results in a manic attempt on his part to fix things, which is exactly how Lucifer ended up back in the Cage the second time. He takes a moment to appreciate the irony of how tormenting Sam with his past regrets might now colossally backfire on him. He questions whether it was really worth it just to see Sam squirm like that once again, but then he can’t keep a smile of contentment from spreading across his face.

Yes, yes it was. Definitely worth it.

So now to the problem at hand: Lucifer-wearing-Castiel has other important, and definitely more amusing, things he needs to attend to, such as feeding Crowley his own intestines. But this potential threat to his plans is not something he can abide. He mulls over the merits of just disintegrating Sam—not very satisfying, but efficient—when he feels a tickle from a small, dark corner of his consciousness. He sighs in irritation.

“What do you want, Castiel?”

I believe I can help.

“Yeah, not really buying that.”

Give me five minutes, and I promise that Sam will no longer be of concern.

Lucifer is loath to cede control, but at the same time his curiosity is piqued. He can always return to Plan Disintegrate later. Or maybe he’ll think of something more entertaining while he’s waiting.

“Five minutes.”

Castiel takes out his phone and picks Dean out of his contacts. As Dean picks up, Castiel reaches for the page holding the altered blood sigil.

“Dean… I’m afraid your brother is planning to do something very foolish…”

Earlier: Dean

“You’re going to what?”

“I’m going to fix this. Fix the Darkness. I figured out a way to take Abaddon off the board in the past. No Abaddon, no Mark of Cain. No Mark, the Darkness stays locked up. Kevin lives. Charlie lives. It’s a no-brainer.”

Dean is standing in the room where Sam had been doing his clandestine research, now devoid of the notes that Castiel had described. After 17 frantic, unanswered calls to Sam, who had gone missing all night, Sam has finally called back and Dean knows that something’s seriously off. He sounds eerily upbeat, which immediately sets off Dean’s alarm bells given how shaken and preoccupied he had been after coming back from the near-disastrous visit to the virtual Cage. Whatever Sam’s planning, Dean is pretty sure he’s not going to like it, and Sam’s not exactly forthcoming with details. Either Dean needs to get Sam to spill, or he at least needs to get a trace on his phone and figure out where he is.

“Aren’t you the one who always says not to screw with time? Mothra Effect, or whatever? And if you go back and meet yourself, won’t the universe, like, explode or something?”

“Butterfly Effect. And I’m not going back, I’m sending something back. Seriously, Dean, do you really think I can possibly screw up the time line any worse than The End of Everything?”

Dean doesn’t have a good response to that, so he switches the topic to keep Sam talking. “So how, exactly, are you gonna take Abaddon out without the Mark and the First Blade? You planning to send her one of your documentary podcasts and bore her to death?”

There’s a huff of exasperation on the other end and Dean swears he can hear Sam roll his eyes. “Hilarious. Look, I’ve found another way.”

“Then tell me where you are and I’ll come help.”

Silence.

Then, “Don’t worry Dean, I’ve got this. It’s an easy spell. You should keep researching the Darkness in case this doesn’t work.”

Sam being evasive confirms that Dean has good reason to be suspicious about this plan, but the trace is still going and Dean plays for more time.

“Don’t worry? Might as well tell me not to breathe. Let me guess: you’re sending a bomb back to blow Abaddon to fucking bits so we can’t sew her head back on.”

“…Huh. Interesting idea, but there’s too much risk that I’d end up blowing up one of us. Anyway, it’s a blood spell. Whatever goes back has to be infused with DNA so that it can latch onto the same DNA. I’m just sending some cloth back. Like I said, it’s simple.”

Dean gives in to his growing irritation at Sam’s caginess and decides to go for the direct assault.

“Sam. What aren’t you telling me?” Dean already has his suspicions of what Sam isn’t telling him; there’s only one way he can think of that takes Abaddon out of play and saves Kevin. He’s hoping he’s wrong. He’s also dying to know how time travelling cloth comes into this.

“Don’t get mad.”

“Sam.”

“Look, just promise you’ll hear me out, okay?”

“SAM.”

Dean can hear Sam take a breath, like he’s getting ready to plunge into deep water. “…I’m going to make sure I finish the third Trial.”

There it is. Damn it.

“LIKE HELL YOU ARE.”

Click.

Sam disconnects before the trace finishes, but Dean doesn’t need the trace to know where to find him. He hauls ass to the garage where the Impala is waiting.

Now: Dean

Dean stands on the brake and Baby skids to a halt next to the car Sam had appropriated, sitting in front of the old, decrepit church. It’s exactly as he remembered it last, like it’s been frozen in time waiting for their return. Overgrown bushes still cling to the rotting siding, and stained glass still litters the ground from the blown-out side window. The only thing missing is the shower of angelic fireballs cascading toward the earth with Sam dying by his side, an image that perversely reminds him of watching fireworks in a field with next to his little brother.

The last time they were here, Sam was half out of his mind with fever and remorse, and Dean’s desperate I’m-Your-Big-Brother-You-Have-To-Do-What-I-Say tone had actually, thankfully, gotten through to him and Sam had backed down. He can’t believe that he has to talk Sam down from the same fucking ledge again, only it’s worse this time because Sam is laser focused on his mission to fix the problem. This time, emotional pleas and yelling and demanding aren’t going to work. This time, so help him, the only way Dean will be able to talk Sam out of this will be to throw logic at him.

Dean launches himself out of the Impala and bursts through the doors of the church to see Sam sitting, chin in hand, in the chair that once held a nearly human King of Hell. A crimson stain is spreading on a strip of cloth that he’s holding to his arm, and there is a bowl of already-mixed spell ingredients on the floor in front of him. Sam has clearly been waiting for Dean.

“Well, that was quick.”

Dean, bent over huffing, heart still pounding from breakneck drive here, is seriously tempted to punch Sam.

Before Dean can take a deep enough breath to start in on forcefully explaining to Sam how idiotic this is, Sam launches into his sales pitch. “Look Dean, I know what you’re going to say, but just listen. I’m not throwing my life away on some impulsive, reckless act. I need you to understand that, that’s why I waited for you. I’ve had days to think this through. This endless cycle of crossing lines we’ve got no business crossing, of throwing away the world to save each other, this is where it all started, and I can stop it before it starts.”

“Damn it Sam, are you even capable of coming up with a plan where you don’t die? Closing up Hell wasn’t worth your life then, and it’s not worth it now—”

“Isn’t it though? I mean, my insides were going to be deep fried whether or not I finished it. You were right when you said you shouldn’t have pulled me back. Look at everything that came after—Kevin, you becoming a demon, and—and the things that I had to do to get you back, to remove the Mark… getting Charlie killed… and how many people died when the Darkness infected that town? I mean, how can you tell me that saving all of them isn’t worth it?”

Dean feels a knot growing in his stomach because he knows damned well that it wasn’t Lucifer who got into Sam’s head. It was the Mark that told Sam that he should have been on the pyre instead of Charlie. It was the Mark that told Sam he should have died finishing the Trials. It was the Mark that told Sam that he was evil. It had said all of this to Sam for his crime of saving Dean from an eternity of suffering.

But it was Dean who never apologized, never tried to set things right.

They have both said and done abhorrent things to each other while under the control of some entity or force, and there has always been an unspoken understanding between them that they don’t take it personally. Mostly. Sometimes. Okay, Dean usually gets mad, leaving Sam to trail after him afterwards apologizing profusely. But Sam always brushes these incidents aside and moves on without a word. Hell, the first thing Sam had done after the hammer episode was to go out and get Dean a double bacon cheeseburger with extra onions and three different pies.

But this… this has really gotten to Sam. He didn’t just dismiss it like he did when they were under the influence of the Siren. He buried it instead and let it set down roots and infest every corner of his brain. And when Sam gets like this—like after he set Lucifer free, like after he found out what he had done while he was soulless—he just can’t let it go until he does something to atone for it. This is ironically what Dean both most admires and most infuriates him about his little brother: his unwavering determination to make things right and his absolute faith in their ability to do so. More than once he has carried Dean along in his wake by sheer willpower when all Dean wanted to do is crawl into a bottle. But these crusades never end well for Sam, and the one thing that Dean will never be able to protect Sam from is himself.

Sam crosses over to the oversized wooden double doors at the entrance, already adorned with the augmented blood sigil. He winds the cloth through both handles and ties it securely as blood continues to ooze from the cut on his forearm. Dean gets what Sam is doing now. He’s using the spell to send the blood-infused cloth back in time, homing in on his own blood in the past, to hold the doors shut back then. Dean had barely gotten to Sam in time to stop him from curing Crowley, and if it had taken him just a few more seconds to push through the door it would have been over. Will have been over.

“Kah-nee-lah. Poo-goh.”

The sigil on the door starts to glow dimly, and the reality that This Is Happening hits Dean like cold water in the face. He had every intention of trying to talk Sam out of this with a reasonable, adult discussion, because he knows damned well that Sam doesn’t respond to orders being yelled at him. It all flies out the window at that moment and he’s barking at Sam like a drill sergeant, because if he doesn’t, he’d be breaking down instead. He grabs Sam’s arm and spins him around.

“What the hell, Sam? You know that nothing I said while I had that thing on my arm counts. You can’t seriously believe that I meant any of—”

Sam cuts him off, his gaze intense, his voice fervent. “It’s true, Dean, what you said. Mark or not, it’s the truth. I chose to cross those lines; I chose to let the Darkness out. You told me not to, and I did it anyway. So this is me stepping up and taking responsibility. If I’ve got a chance to undo all of this, I have to take it. And right now, it’s the only play we’ve got.”

Angry words propelled by desperation shoot out of Dean before he can stop them. “Yeah, that’s exactly what you said about your visions of the Cage, and how did that work out for you?”

Sam visibly flinches and pulls away from Dean as his expression hardens. “Kah-nee-lah. Poo-goh.”

The sigil blazes.

This is not at all what Dean intended. He came here to talk Sam back from the edge, and instead he’s pushing him toward it. Dean swallows his anger and it tastes like acid going down, and all that remains is panic.

“Sam, just stop. I don’t care what came out of my mouth when I had the Mark, it’s all bullshit. Sam, you don’t need to do this—”

“Yeah, Dean, I really do. I wasn’t strong enough to make the right choice then, but I can do it now.”

Dean flounders for whatever magic words he needs to get through to Sam and comes up empty. He does the only thing he can think of to shock some sense into him or, preferably, to knock him cold so that he shuts the fuck up and can’t finish the spell. Dean’s fist connects with Sam’s jaw, propelling him backwards. Sam goes down, sprawling on the floor, but he’s not out. He sits up, hand to jaw, and Dean expects to see shock or anger on Sam's face, but all he sees is compassion. And Dean knows that he’s lost.

“Sammy, don’t—"

“Kah-nee-lah. Poo-goh.”

A blinding light envelops the cloth holding the doors shut.

Yesterday: Lucifer-wearing-Castiel

Castiel ends the call after warning Dean about Sam’s intentions. He takes a marker to one of the added symbols and alters it slightly. He freezes as Lucifer gets back in the driver’s seat.

Lucifer asks suspiciously, “And what exactly are you doing with this, Castiel?”

I’m just disrupting the sigil. The change I made will prevent the spell from accounting for the current position of the Earth relative to its position within the—

“Summarize, Poindexter.”

With the change I’ve made, whatever object Sam is sending back will end up in space. Sam will think that his alteration failed, and he won’t interfere with your plans. You would know if I was lying.

“So… I’m trying to understand this. You’re helping me by sabotaging Sam’s work… why, exactly?”

To eliminate your motivation to kill my friend.

Lucifer considers Castiel’s response. “Huh. We’ll see.”

I can still expel you.

“Now Castiel, we both know that’s an empty threat.”

Castiel is silent for a moment. Then:

It’s a small world after all, it’s a small world—

“Alright, alright. Just kidding. Grow a sense of humor.”

Now: Dean

The cloth binding the door handles is gone, but as far as Dean can tell, nothing else has changed. Sam is still on the floor, a stunned expression on his face that would be comical under any other circumstances, and all Dean can think is thank fucking God, and he starts to wonder if maybe there isn’t something out there intervening on his behalf after all.

“I don’t… it should have… it didn’t work.” Sam looks around in dazed confusion for a moment before pushing himself to his knees, and he looks up at Dean, eyes filled with defeat. Dean can’t stop the memory from superimposing itself in his mind of Sam kneeling in front of him, resigned in his acceptance of Dean’s judgment of him, waiting for the scythe to swing.

“I’m sorry...” Sam apologizes for not being dead.

Dean thinks he’s going to be sick.

He drops to Sam’s level and doesn’t know whether to shake him or maybe hit him again. He pulls Sam to himself instead and holds onto him like he’s going to blink out of existence if he lets go. Sam doesn’t resist, but he doesn’t respond.

Dean knows that there is something that Sam needs to hear, something he should have said weeks ago. Dean hasn’t been able to tell him, because it’s selfish and the good guys aren’t supposed to be selfish. The good guys are supposed to put the rest of the world first, and happily throw themselves into oblivion for “the greater good”. He keeps his grip on Sam because he doesn’t want to see Sam’s reaction to what he’s about to say; he’s not sure what Sam will think of him afterwards.

“What you said… after you risked the world for me, when you said that you’d do it again in a second…”

Sam tenses in his arms, and Dean takes a breath.

“Sammy, that wasn’t evil. That was the best fucking moment of my life.”

The statement hangs there for a few heartbeats. Then Sam relaxes, lets his chin drop to Dean’s shoulder, and tentatively folds his arms around him. Dean feels him starting to shake.

“I wanted to—I couldn’t save them.” Sam’s words fall out of him between hitched breaths.

“I know Sammy.”

“It should have been me up there instead of—”

“Don’t.”

All of the mourning that Dean hadn’t allowed Sam to express as they watched Charlie’s body burn, all of the grief that Sam has held bottled up ever since pours out of him then, and Sam clings to Dean like a drowning man to a life preserver. He doesn’t know how long they stay there. His knees are aching and his legs are falling asleep but he doesn’t care because Sam is still here and he’s alive. He waits until the tremors slow and finally stop, then slowly pulls back.

“Hey, you don’t get to put this all on yourself. I’m the one who took the Mark without reading the warning label. We’re in this together. We’ll figure this out, both of us.”

Sam just nods numbly.

“Now let’s get out of here before we hit menopause.”

Sam rewards Dean with an expelled almost-laugh and a flicker of an almost-smile, and Dean chooses to count that as a win.

~~~~~~~~~~

More Notes:

I have this nagging need to address all of the drama from 10.23 Brother's Keeper that the writers just decided to drop on the floor.

The title is named after the ST:TOS The City on the Edge of Forever. The theme of the story, at least from the original script, is that it is possible to love someone so much that you would throw away your whole universe for them. I can't help but notice the parallel to SPN.

This is exactly what Dean wants from Sam throughout seasons 8 and 9, and when Sam does it in season 10, Dean calls him evil for it. Sam just can't fucking win.