#you ever noticed a fandom for a thing has like. a specific common denominator in the art style??

[jaqdawks]

oh thank god u like moomins

dhjshsjsbsjq what would be the problem if I didn’t????

[shipping-receiving]

Fictober 2019 Day 21: “Change is annoyingly difficult.”

Rating: T | Word Count: 1673 Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones Relationship: Jaime Lannister / Brienne of Tarth Tags: Alternate Universe – Retail

(read on AO3)

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Brienne has always prided herself on her ability to present a veneer of patience. She had cultivated this ability through all her years of working in retail—she’d been doing it on and off since she was a teenager—and once she had mastered it, it had always served her well. Don’t react to the bullies, her father had told her, when she was a child, it only encourages them. And so she dealt with any uncomfortable situations at her various jobs with the same principle. Patience. Non-reaction. A smile and a nod of understanding. A firm but kind tone of voice.

That’s not to say she’s patient at all on the inside. On the inside, she could be a wellspring of irritation, and indignation, and sometimes even rage. Working in retail does that to you too.

But on the outside—patience. That very specific kind of patience you need to deal with particularly difficult customers. And it’s a patience she hopes she will only need to practice for the rest of this summer, before her final year of university. Three days a week at an internship, three days working at the biggest megastore just outside King’s Landing. One day to recuperate from them both. Just for the rest of this summer.

Of course, no matter how practiced her patience is, there are always those customers that just get under her skin.

Such as the man standing on the other side of her cash register, who has been counting coins out from a small leather pouch like some kind of medieval travelling merchant, for what feels like the past two hours.

“Change is annoyingly difficult, isn’t it?” he says, as he drops coin after coin in her hand.

Brienne tries to give him a conciliatory smile in response, but she can feel the muscles in her face straining to present any degree of sincerity. Change really isn’t difficult. It’s simple mathematics, and there are only so many coin denominations.

It only becomes difficult when you insist on paying for your entire purchase in change.

Normally, she wouldn’t be too upset by this sort of thing. He’s not the first customer to attempt to do this, and his purchase isn’t even that big to begin with. But the thing that confuses her is—she knows this man has a credit card. She knows because for the past few times she’s been put on the register, he’s somehow managed to find his way into her line, and he’s always paid with a credit card that looks far too fancy to be used in a store like this one.

In fact, he looks far too fancy to be in a store like this one. The first time Brienne saw him—and she remembers, because you don’t forget a man like that in a store like this—she thought to herself: this man is lost. This man, in his well-tailored coat and his shiny leather shoes and what she assumed was a very expensive watch, must have wandered in by mistake. This man is not a man who even does his own shopping, unless it’s to walk into some high-end boutique to buy—with a too-fancy credit card—other well-tailored coats and shiny leather shoes and very expensive watches that would then be organised neatly in a walk-in closet the size of the apartment she shared with her three roommates.

For once in her life, she actually wishes there were other customers waiting in line behind him. She could have maintained her veneer of patience, while gesturing at their annoyed faces and saying, “Ser, please, if you could step to the side and count your change, I promise I will ring you up as soon as you’ve got the full amount.” But as soon as any of the other customers had spotted him and his silly leather pouch, transferring coins one by one into her outstretched hand, they had immediately made a beeline for another register. Registers with longer lines, but shorter waits.

And now Brienne is trapped here, with several piles of change on her counter. Piles that are increasing at an excruciatingly slow pace.

“It’s Alayne, today, I see,” he says, interrupting her thoughts.

Brienne just stares at him blankly. First of all, she has no idea what he’s referring to. Second of all, he really shouldn’t be making conversation while he’s counting out change.

“Your name.” He lifts a finger at her nametag. “It’s Alayne, today. It was Jeyne, I think, last time I was here. Lyonel, the time before. You’ve liked the names with Ys in them, lately.”

Brienne’s free hand immediately whips up to cover her nametag, though of course the act is pointless, considering he’s already seen it, and considering she never puts her real name on it. She doesn’t like the idea of strangers calling her by her name without any proper introduction. But now she can’t decide which is worse—a stranger knowing her real name, or a stranger who seems to be keeping track of her fake ones.

Oh gods, he’s a stalker.

“I swear I’m not,” he replies, as if in response to her thoughts.

Oh gods, I said that out loud.

“Yes you did.”

“You remember all my names,” she blurts out. It sounds nonsensical, like she’s some kind of spy with multiple identities.

The man just shrugs and smirks. “I think it’s hilarious.”

“How did this—why do you—” Brienne stammers.

“Well,” he begins, as if she’s even asked him a complete question. “First time I was in the store, there was some argument between a couple of customers. You were trying to defuse the situation, I believe, and you handled it well. Really impressive. I think I would have screamed at them if I was in your position. Then I happened to glance at your nametag, and it said ‘Jaime’—that’s my name. So I thought that was funny, since my name isn’t all that common, and you handled that situation in pretty much the opposite way that I would have.”

Jaime, of the well-tailored coat and the shiny shoes and the expensive watch, doesn’t even pause to contemplate the irony of suggesting he might ever work in retail. “But the second time I was in the store, I think your nametag said Damon, or Damien, or something like that? And then the next time, it said Walda, I think. Or Walder. I think you’ve done both of those before.”

“So you’ve been coming in the store—lining up at my register—just to check my nametag?”

“Well, when you put it like that—”

“You are a stalker.” So much for her veneer of patience. She just called a customer a stalker to his face.

Jaime looks like he can’t figure out whether to be offended or horrified. “I swear, I’ve just been trying to figure out how to speak to you, that’s all. Also, I’ve never stepped in here until a few weeks ago, and—it has so much stuff. I keep finding something new to buy, although I don’t really need half of what I’ve bought, come to think of it—”

“Wait. You’ve been trying to speak to me?”

“Look, um, Alayne,” he sighs. “You—you’re very efficient with all your… scanning. Before I’ve ever had the chance to say anything, everything is already bagged up and paid for.” He lifts up the leather pouch sheepishly. “I thought I’d buy myself some time.”

“Why?”

“Well, for various reasons, I find it difficult to strike up a conversation with strangers I’m attracted to—oh, alright, I hear it now, it definitely sounds creepy. Gods, I’m so sorry. This hasn’t even happened to me before.”

This is it. Brienne has always known this megastore is really some portal into some alternate dimension. She must be in the alternate dimension right now.

“Hold on—could you repeat that?” she asks, slowly.

“It hasn’t happened to me before?”

“No, the part before that.”

“I find it difficult to strike up a conversation with strangers I’m attracted to?”

She points a finger into her chest. “You’re referring… to me?”

“Yes?” Jaime looks at her with a clueless expression on his face. “You seem very nice. And you have, you know, the height, and the eyes.”

According to this man, she is nice, and tall, and also, very crucially, has eyes, and therefore she is attractive. That settles it, Brienne thinks, I’ve crossed over into an alternate dimension.

And then she hears the cacophony of many tiny pieces of metal hitting the floor. Fuck.

Wherever she was before, she’s definitely back in reality now. Or in some kind of even weirder sub-dimension constructed specially to torture her, because she’s knocked practically all the piles of change off the counter.

“Oh gods,” they both say at the same time.

Brienne looks up at Jaime, trying not to notice that he too has ‘the eyes’. “Ser—”

“Jaime.”

“Ser,” she stresses, “I’m so sorry, I’ll pick all of this up—”

“No—I’ll help you—”

Brienne holds a hand up, and Jaime stops. “In the meantime, ser,” she says, as calmly as she can, “would you like to use another mode of payment?”

“Yes. Gods yes.” Jaime fumbles for his wallet and fishes out his credit card. “Please.”

Once everything is paid for, Jaime comes around to her side of the register and squats down alongside her. As they pick up the change, dropping each coin into his leather pouch—oh, she can see now that it’s monogrammed, J.L.—he clears his throat.

“So,” he ventures, though he’s speaking into the floor. “I know I’ve probably ruined everything. But is there any chance I could at least get your real name?”

Brienne considers his request as she attempts to sweep the coins on the floor into a single heap. She supposes there’s still the off-chance that he’s actually a stalker, but he does seem nice enough. Better to be on the safe side, though.

“Hmm. Maybe next time,” she replies cautiously, even as she tries her best to hide a smile. “As long as you pay with your credit card.”

[ettadunham]

A Buffy rewatch 3x19 Choices

aka everyone’s just dying to give each other a piece of their mind

Welcome to this dailyish text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and rant about it in 10-3k words. What you can expect: long run-on sentences and disjointed observations, often focused on one tiny detail about the episode. What you shouldn’t be expecting: actual reviews that make sense.

And I’ve been waiting forever for today’s episode to finally discuss some quality Willow and Faith feelings... And it turns out that it was just a 2-minute-scene all along? Still, we’ll be making the best out of those 2 minutes, folks.

There’s actually a lot going on in Choices, but I want to get the main rant out first, before I get lost in all the small details of it.

So... Willow and Faith.

Fun fact, did you know that that is actually the 5th most popular BtVS F/F pairing tag on Ao3? Right after the popular canon, the popular “it’s basically canon and you can fucking sue me” ship, the pairing of the two main female characters (shout out to the Wuffys, I got you) and the less popular canon ship.

Which... wasn’t really what I was expecting? I mean, I also wasn’t expecting #6 being Faith/Dawn (having a 2 fic-lead on the ultimate OTP because you’re all heathens), so I guess I know nothing.

Some of those switch though if you filter for the F/F category, look, I have charts:

(Meanwhile Buffy/Kendra has like 12 fics, you really are all heathens.)

Anywho, thanks for coming to my Ted talk about the math of Buffy femslash. Now, back to Willow and Faith specifically.

Once I thought about it, it did make sense that this is actually a popular fandom pairing I guess? On one hand, it’s a common denominator situation, as in note which characters pop up consistently on that chart... On the other hand, in this episode alone Willow taunts Faith to which she responds by punching her and threatening her with a knife... And that’s pretty much how foreplay works as far as Faith’s concerned.

Faith just likes it rough, okay? Remember the screencap I used for Consequences after Buffy punches her?

I rest my case.

But I’m already way off topic here. Because what I was actually planning on talking about initially was how Willow felt about Faith, and the source of those feelings.

I already pointed this out, but I feel it’s worth repeating - Willow’s dislike of Faith goes back to two episodes in particular: Bad Girls and Consequences. As far as I was able to discern this time during my rewatch, there were no previous signs of animosity between the two preceding that two-parter.

In Bad Girls, Buffy blows Willow off for their study session to go out with Faith, and starts rambling about how Willow and Xander wouldn’t understand anyway what she and Faith do.

Willow is deeply hurt and jealous... She actually blows Buffy off too in return when she tries talking to her at school in the next episode, and only listens once Buffy shows up crying at her doorstep not knowing what to do about the whole Faith killed a guy situation.

In the same episode, Xander lets it slip that he and Faith had sex... And Willow is once again obviously hurt and jealous. She even has a good cry about it in the bathroom.

And I guess that that seems like a stronger emotional response than how she reacts to Faith stealing away Buffy from her, but it’s still coming from the same place. Note her line in that episode when she acknowledges her biases:

I'm not the most objective, I know. I kind of have an issue with Faith sharing my people.

“Sharing my people” - she’s pointedly talking about both Xander and Buffy here.

And there is a specific kind of betrayal that she feels from Xander, and that’s going to translate to pretty much all of Xander’s relationship... But at this point, it’s not really about her wanting that relationship with Xander. She had the option and she rejected it.

Still, if Xander has that with someone else, that makes their shared experiences feel less special. It makes her feel like less special in his life. (Which unfortunately tracks with a lot of Xander’s behavior about how he’s always chasing the new, shiny and unattainable thing in his life.)

Meanwhile with Buffy, Willow is mostly supportive of her relationships... up until to the point that she feels like they’re taking up the space that she occupies in Buffy’s life. And that very much happens with Faith in those moments, as Buffy suddenly feels like she can’t share with Willow what she and Faith has. (I swear, I’m not even trying, these sentences just turn out this way.)

So... yeah. Willow is super pissed at Faith for having the audacity to try and take away her people from her, and then hurting the both of them.

And I guess we can see some of that same kind of jealousy with Faith (I can and I will read parallels into Willow and Faith’s characters, just you wait) and her whole thing with Buffy and Angel in Choices... Except it’s weirdly misdirected? Like is the Mayor and the show seriously trying to tell us that Faith is jealous about Angel not wanting to make out with her, when that whole thing was all about Buffy in the first place?

Really, Mayor Wilkins? Really?

Well, I guess he is evil.

Back to Willow though, we have this scene where she gets taken hostage, and after she murders her vampire guard with a pencil (amazing), she decides to get comfortable in the Mayor’s office and read through all 5 tomes of the Books of Ascension??? It’s such a delightful nonsense.

Of course, I’m definitely with her on the whole “knowledge is power” notion. Even if they were to prevent the Mayor from having this Box of MacGuffin, there’s no way to tell if that would actually stop the Ascension. But knowing what’s to come and what they could do about it? That’s a definite win.

The issue is that as Faith puts it, being caught red-handed while gaining that knowledge makes Willow some very strong murder material for the bad guys. She could’ve just put the books in a bag, and tried escaping with them, or get the hell out there the moment she discovered those sensitive pages.

But do you know what I think? I think Willow just wanted to have the chance to confront Faith. She was ready to die just to give her a piece of her mind.

Willow: It's way too late. You know, it didn't have to be this way. But you made your choice. I know you had a tough life. I know that some people think you had a lot of bad breaks. Well, boo hoo! Poor you. You know, you had a lot more in your life than some people. I mean, you had friends in your life like Buffy. Now you have no one. You were a Slayer and now you're nothing. You're just a big selfish, worthless waste.

That’s commitment.

Notice also how she highlights Faith having Buffy in her life and not appreciating it enough to keep fighting. I do feel like Willow is deeply offended by that. I talk about her jealousy a lot, but her commitment to the people she loves is usually her more dominant character trait. Feeling like Faith stole her friends from her hurt her; but her anger mostly comes from the fact that Faith hurt Buffy and Xander in unimaginable ways.

I guess this episode did give me a lot of Willow feelings.

Someone else who shared Willow’s need to impart some wisdom in the most inconvenient times was the Mayor. And honestly? I didn’t care a whole lot about it. Angel and Buffy has a million other conflicts that come before him being immortal.

Like, I get that it’s supposed to shake them out of their own little bubble a bit, and face the fact that they don’t really see a future together. I believe the phrasing I previously used was that being together prevents them from becoming the people they want to be.

Their initial exchange at the graveyard is kinda hilarious though. “You never take me to any place new” - I’m still laughing, ngl.

At the same time, Xander and Cordelia still appear to be having their bitter verbal conflicts. Which is weird, especially after Earshot, an episode that I praised for including Cordelia in the group once again. (I guess maybe Earshot was written with a different place in the season in mind for it initially? I know that it didn’t air when it was supposed to too, because of the school shooting aspect...)

Here, the two of them are once again out to get each other. Even Buffy ends up in the crossfires, as Cordelia aims one of her pointedly cruel jabs at her. Yikes.

But we also find out here that Cordelia is working in a dress shop now, so there’s that.

And this episode of course is also about everyone’s futures. Willow decides that despite being accepted into literally every school ever, she’s going to attend UC Sunnydale with Buffy. Not just to be with her, but because she enjoys saving the world and all that jazz.

Oh, Willow, if you only knew...

This of course also presents a welcome contrast for Buffy, who feels like she doesn’t have a choice but to stay in Sunnydale. It’s a really nice moment between them, as Buffy realizes herself that she too very much made that choice herself. Because that’s who Buffy is. Someone who could never turn her back on the people who need her.

Buffy:  I kinda love you.

We all do, Buffy. Just ask Oz, and his decisive ingredient smashing move that annihilated the whole argument about whether or not they should rescue Willow. (”That’s your future wife!” - me @ Alexis Denisof in that scene.)

Also, shout out at that whole Mission Impossible heist premise we got going on in this episode. I always appreciate a weird clash of genres.