#you missed the entire fucking point of the show if this is the SWEEPING arc of Stranger Things

[starsarefire824]

“Stranger Things is about at the core - Mike Wheeler coming off age gay.”

And it’s the bI mIke TrUtHeRS who can’t analyze a show? 🫠

[janiedean]

Do you think Jonsa is going to happen? I did read some meta about foreshadowing and it's a "squint if you miss it" but there is stuff. For example. Jonnel/Sansa stark in the family tree. People say the fact that Jon didn't care about Sansa being wed to Tyrion, compared to Arya being wed to Ramsay means he his repressing his painful memories and how he has a secret crush on her.

... tldr and sorry for the harshness: no, but if you want to go into the details, with no offense to anyone shipping it of course:

as I already recently ranted, jon and sansa are in two totally different brackets - jon is a main five, sansa is in the following bracket, jon has the entire chosen one storyline plus being the center of the entire story going on, sansa has the I want the love story and I'll get it plotline which does not mesh with jon's so there's that;

sansa's story arc is admittedly painfully clear in the beginning as in: if she thinks she's going to marry a beautiful gallant pretty prince and she thinks it's joffrey who is like attractive and LOOKS gallant but we all know how it went, then she's going to end up with someone who is the total opposite, also if she wanted to be queen in the beginning then it means she's absolutely not going to be in the end bc her entire arc is about realizing that everything she wanted in the beginning is not what she truly wants, and since jon is absolutely poised to get kingship, divide the kingdoms and fuck off to the wildlings after there is no way that her storyline meshes with his like that;

sansa's only viable love interests at this point on page are sandor and tyrion, the end, which by the way are, guess what, not standard attractive and are two people who need to overcome their trauma but never treated her unfairly, and like... denying that in the text sansa is attracted to sandor (she MAKES UP that he kissed her, she dreams he comes to her on her wedding night, she's all like AH BUT JUST *I* KISSED THE HOUND etc like sorry but that's a thing never mind all the knightly investment subtext) and that sandor is her love interest on text is imvho absolutely senseless - you can ship whatever you want and realize that canon isn't going there and write fanfic, no one is gonna stop you, and I can accept the endgame theory from sansa/tyrion shippers even if I think sansa/sandor is it, but sansa/anyone else is absolutely out of the question;

also sandor is the only one sansa thinks about using all the criteria ned used to describe the knight he would find her which was better than joffrey bless whoever went and did the search (brave gentle and strong) and she doesn't use neither of those terms to think about jon, like there's more evidence for littlefinger based on that and idt lf is gonna be her intended;

they think they're siblings and like I know that saying 'BUT THE INCEST' in these books is not like an automatic NO because there's canon incest and the rival ship ie j*nerys also would be incest but like one thing is jc which is not endgame and plainly described as abusive/unhealthy, one thing is targ incests which like the narrative generally is like HEY THIS WAS NOT A GOOD IDEA ABOUT and one thing is falling in love with someone you thought was your sibling and you grew up with like that the moment you find out you're cousins - that... doesn't work like that. and like while I don't have a horse in this race and j*nerys is hardly my ideal endgame sorry but it's a lot more likely that jon would end up getting with someone who he never met before, was the sister of a father he never knew and doesn't even consider his father and he had no relation with before than with... someone he actually thought was his sister, even if he finds out she's his cousin that doesn't change it;

'repressing painful memories' jon has zero issue thinking about catelyn or sansa not treating him great so idk what he should be repressing;

arya vs sansa question: .... well that's like getting close to the entire point but not getting it, in the sense that while jon didn't take wf because it belonged to sansa - but he said he would have if ygritte had been alive and stannis said he could marry her and not val which I mean... says all honestly - technically he made vows saying he renounced his family which is the entire fucking point re arya - the point is that he didn't give those vows up for robb but he would for arya which was the one he was closest to which is what makes everyone else kill him and no he wouldn't have done that for sansa because she was the only one who kept him at a distance, but...

the entire damned point is that they have to reconnect as siblings. sansa going back north (which is gonna happen) and jon being there and most likely getting legitimized/getting robb's will etc means that they have, as adults (or at least... well not kids) realize that how she treated him was wrong and that they can build a relationship which means that each single text reference to each other which is really nothing romantic™ is posed to tell you THESE TWO WILL BE THE STARK SIBLINGS MEETING FIRST and since they didn't have a close rship before they will forge one now, but that doesn't mean that they're going to be romantic endgame, because jon's point isn't having the uber romantic storyline and sweeping a maiden off her feet and sansa already has at least one love interest posed to do exactly that and while their sl are absolutely meant to intersecate on a sibling finding each other again level they are off when it comes to romance;

also a j*nsa endgame would... imply that she becomes queen of the seven kingdoms and they stay reigning there when sansa is absolutely posed to stay in the north and do her own thing and jon is posed to destroy the united-westeros-because-a-targ-did-it legacy (which like... great bookend bc first legit targ king unites it, bastard stark-targaryen king who most likely is keeping the bastard name undoes it) and he is going to hate each second of it, so it doesn't add up with sansa getting her happy love song fairytale romance... which again she can get from other people that the text strongly pointed at already.

so: no because it makes no sense thematically for either of them and for that matter I don't even think jon*erys is eventual endgame tho I guess it has to happen at this point given the show mess idk but if either of them had to be j*nerys would make a load more sense and I still think that a targ restoration with two monarchs keeping on being monarchs is not what a dude who is obviously anti-monarchy has in mind for the endgame. like no offense to anyone into it ofc but again it has zero textual basis for being romantic endgame and it wouldn't even make either of them happy bc jon is not sansa's gentle brave strong knight and sansa isn't the kind of woman jon is actually into (ygritte reminded him of arya I mean) and idt he'd get romantic feelings for his sister who he's going to think of in that terms anyway so there's my two cents. and I understand that it's not smth that a lot of people would agree with but take it up with grrm because he's the one putting that in the text and not me X°D

[sometimes-love-is-enough]

I MEAN IT GAVE ME CHILLS IN A GOOD WAY. and also it would be hilarious to write imo; just these 6 dudes that all look the same and just made up A Guy.

“Thomas,” Roman announces quite suddenly, with a triumphant gesture that manages to inadvertently sweep half of the script drafts off the couch in the process.

“I still can not believe we’re doing this,” Virgil says.

“Oh, you’d better believe it, Way Down Gay-destown, ‘cause I just got the perfect name for him. Thomas. That’s his name – Thomas Sanders.” Roman pauses, and wiggles his fingers a bit. “Thoughts?”

Remus perks up. “Oh, our fictional character has thots now?”

“Crawling all over him like weevils,” Virgil nods.

“I thought we were calling ourselves ‘Sides’,” says Janus.  

“Guys, please,” Roman begs.

“Thomas sounds good to me,” is Patton’s opinion. “It’s nice and friendly, and also it has two syllables, like the rest of us! It kind of fits in like that.”

“It is a surprisingly apt name, especially when you take into consideration that Roman most likely did not know of the linguistic root when picking it,” Logan muses.

Remus waves a hand lazily from where he’s draped backwards over the couch, writing Transformers inflation porn on the notes app of his shitty phone. “Uh, noparoni, falsehood, all that jazz. I was watching. He went on babynames dot com and everything for this.”

“...What he said, yeah.”

“Ah, yes, babynames dot com, the internet’s premier and leading source for all accurate name derivations,” comes the dry response.

“Thomas means twin,” Roman says. “It means twin, and it’s funny because we all look identical! It’s like another layer of meaning! A fun little injoke, just for us.”

“Yes,” says Virgil, “you’re right. We need many, many deep layers of meaning and in-jokes woven into the shared identity we’re crafting as part of Roman and Remus’s wild, spur-of-the-moment internet scam.”

“How dare you,” Roman objects loudly, flailing so suddenly that he nearly falls off the couch. “This is polar opposite of a scam, we’re – we are merely taking advantage of our uncanny shared appearance to... share joy amongst the humble Youtube vlogging community! And perhaps show off. Just a little. But to say that it’s a scam – ”

“No, this is definitely a scam,” Janus says. “I mean, look at us. We’re inventing an entire person for internet clout.”

Patton looks like he’s having second thoughts about this whole thing. “I’m having second thoughts,” he says. “Like, on an ethical, moral sort of level, is any of this... really a good idea?”

“People invent other people for shittier reasons all the time, I think we’re fine,” Virgil says. “I mean, look at internet catfishes. Or every male fiction writer with a very obvious and creepy fetish. Or J.K. Rowling.”

“J.K. Rowling doesn’t exist?” Janus says. “Excellent. We won, boys.”

Roman grabs a pen and scribbles it into the notebook, next to a hasty little stickman doodle of an average-looking guy and a list of qualities and attributes and skills. “Well, all that aside, nobody seems to have an objection to this, so Thomas it is! Thomas Sanders. Thomas I’ve-Just-Realized-He-Needs-A-Middle-Name Sanders.”

“Thomas F Sanders,” Remus suggests.

“The F stands for ‘Fucking’, doesn’t it,” sighs Patton.

“Well, yeah.”

“Way to go for the low-hanging fruit, dude,” Virgil says. “Okay, put a pin in the middle name for now. Our collective brainchild has a name, so... that’s something. I guess.” He grabs the notebook from Roman and squints down at the short-ish list they have so far. “Any more character traits we wanna give this guy?”

“Intense love of Disney films,” Roman says.

“We’ve already got that; you suggested it about five times already.”

“Maybe he can play the ukulele!” Patton suggests.

Virgil nods, and starts to write it down before stopping abruptly. “Wait. Can any of us play the ukulele?”

Silence.

“He can only have traits that we already have,” Virgil reminds them. “That’s the whole idea. We’re derivatives of him.”

“Well, I’ll work on the ukulele thing,” Roman says decisively. “Put it down anyway. Anyone else?”

“He can’t cook to save his life,” Janus says.

“Catholic guilt,” Logan provides, with a little wince and a slight adjustment of his glasses. “It provides a good base for many of the plotlines we wish to include in this, I believe.”

“Give him a huge dick,” Remus says.

“Remus,” Roman growls.

“Just a humungous badonker of a penis. He beats his meat and the entire earth rumbles.”

“Remus,” Patton groans.

Remus grins. "He’s packing some real chunky meat down there. As in, his drill is a five star excavator. A proper manmade wonder. It's the kind of meal you get a prize for finishing. A bridge between two warring nations. And the girth! God had to resize the Earth so the radii wouldn't match. You can use his cast iron pelvic greatsword as a radiation shield in Chernobyl. His – "

“Remus, weren’t you listening? We’re only giving him traits that we already have,” Virgil says, looking Remus dead in the eyes. “I’m not going to let you misrepresent yourself like this.”

The room almost immediately erupts into a loud chorus of enthusiastic oohs. Quite a few people throw things at Virgil, who lets out a snort of amusement and ducks to avoid getting nailed in the eye by a stray television remote control. Remus just cackles.

“We’re going to have to tone back the dick jokes, probably,” says Janus with some regret, once everybody calms down a bit. “Don’t want to get demonetized within the first few weeks.”

“Well, Remus already broke the Youtube demonetization speedrun last week, so at least we know what not to do,” Patton says absently. “The real question is, though – who’s going to actually play this Thomas person?

“Don’t look at me,” says Janus. “I’m looking forward to getting the play the villain for once.”

Patton points at him, mock-glaring. “Hey, don’t think you’re missing out on a redemption arc just because you like the evil aesthetic!”

Janus lets out a little affronted hissing noise at that, but doesn’t actually object.

“Well, I’m not shaving my moustache for any of you fuckers, no matter how much internet clout we’re gonna get for it,” Remus declares.

A quick, meaningful glance is exchanged between the four remaining people in the room.  

“Leave me out of it,” Virgil decides.

“I don’t really mind, either way,” Patton says.

“In that case, I shall arm-wrestle you for the honor of portraying our glorious, talented and entirely fictional centre of being on our upcoming Grammy-award-winning sixty-part webseries,” Roman declares, flexing dramatically.

“Which may or may not be a scam,” Logan says.

“...Look, are we doing this or what?”

“Absolutely.” Logan places down his book, and shrugs off his jacket. “I should warn you, however – I am what I believe is colloquially referred to as ‘absolutely fucking ripped’.” He breaks out into a surprisingly wicked smile. “Roman, let me be clear. I am going to be the one to portray Thomas Fucking Sanders, our beloved nonexistent media superstar culmination-of-our-collective-selves. And I am about to flat-out destroy you. Let’s go.”

There’s a beat of silence as everybody stares at Logan. The stares range from impressed to terrified to obviously horny. All of these are equally valid emotions to be feeling, because Logan is ripped, and somehow none of them have ever realized this before.

“Well, before we do that, give me five minutes to make popcorn,” says Janus. “Because I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”

[taffystake]

So......Are you ready for the encore?

Taffy’s Take: Dark Nights Death Metal #1

Written by: Scott “Hallowed Be Thy Name” Snyder

Pencils by: Greg “Panikiller” Capullo

Inks by: Jonathan “Motorbreath” Glapion

Colors by: FCO “Fixxxer” Plascencia

So....it has all finally come to this. The finale. The ultimatum in a long saga of stories that started in the original Dark Nights, began showing its hand in No Justice, and was fully fleshed out with Snyder’s Justice League run. And it opens with a resounding boom that rivets your attention straight to the story and won’t let go until the pages run out. 

We open with Sergeant Rock, preparing himself and an unknown audience for a conflict to come. When or where this is set is somewhat unknown, but the massive futuristic assault rifle he levels to emphasis his last line says that Rock is somewhere in the modern day.

After the credits page, featuring a map of the current world of the DCU and a message that calls Death Metal an “Anti-Crisis”, we cut to Wonder Woman, hard at work deconstructing the invisible jet with a buzzsaw-like device in the literal depths of hell (Originally Themyscira) when someone interrupts her over approaching people. Said person is the flaming, green-covered skeleton that Swamp Thing has become in this world and he says that someone is coming with prisoners. And as Diana walks through her prison to meet these people, we get to see the absolute myriad of villains entombed in the place, including Joker. Once they reach the quartet, we get to meet Batmage, a red-suited Batman, a cloaked figure, and.....Bat-Tyrannosaurus. After some very terse banter, Diana is forced to throw this unknown prisoner into the pits of Tartarus. But before he is cast into the depths, he mutters something to Diana that makes her recognize the person for a moment.

After that, we are shown Castle Bat and given a backstory of a specific field within that area and the rebels who died within the tunnels underneath it before pulling back to a panel of a castle, with The Batman Who Laughs’ twisted Robins and Joker dragons dominating the structure. And then we meet The Batman Who Laughs’ League, composed of pairings of heros and Dark Multiverse Batmen. We have Harley Quinn and Dr Arkham, Aquaman and Bathomet, Wonder Woman and Batmage, and Mister Miracle and Darkfather. With each of them, we get a small question about their current work, with the most noteworthy being Mister Miracle revealing that Superman has almost succumbed to the Anti-Life Equation. Content with their briefings, The Batman Who Laughs begins to explain how Perpetua, the god who created their multiverse, has destroyed another of their universe, leaving only 8 before The Batman Who Laughs and Perpetua can remake the multiverse however they desire. Before we can hear more, we’re dragged into Diana’s perspective as the true Batman engages in a psychic link with her, trying to advocate for a small victory rather than the sweeping final win that Diana desires. As her thoughts turn towards what happened to result in the current state of the universe and her lack of memory about what caused it, The Batman Who Laughs interrupts her as he can tell that she is hiding something.

And at that moment, an explosive arrow fires out of the nearby woods and nearly vaporizes The Batman Who Laughs. Sacrificing one of his Robins, we soon see Bruce stride out to exchange threats with The Batman Who Laughs, who takes with some jest before ordering an entire squadron of Dark Multiverse Batmen to kill Bruce. While the enslaved Justice League does their best to take advantage of the distraction, their Dark Multiverse minders are quick to detain them from any rebellious actions. So Bruce is left alone, simply standing in this field to face down an army. And as The Batman Who Laughs monologues about how disappointed the brave men and women who died in this field would be at Bruce’s actions, he asks him what he would say to justify himself.

His answer?

One word.

“RISE.”

And so, with a BLACK LANTERN RING ON HIS FINGER, BRUCE WAYNE SUMMONS AN ARMY OF UNDEAD REBELS TO FIGHT THE DARK MULTIVERSE BATMEN JUST PURELY TO DEMONSTRATE WHAT HIS METHOD CAN DO TO DIANA BEFORE RIDING OFF ON A SKELETAL MOTORCYCLE AND LEAVING ZOMBIE JONAH HEX TO CONTINUE LEADING THE ASSAULT.

And now, as the audience both in the know about all of that and not in the know but hyped as hell because BRUCE WAYNE WENT FULL FUCKING NECROMANCER sits in the afterglow of that amazing moment, we cut to a single page depicting the planet Ossex as the Main Man, Lobo, unearths something from underneath the living bone of the planet.

Having made it back to Themyscira, Diana is quick to continue with the rebellion, setting off into Tartarus to see who this mystery prisoner is. And its...Wally West, with a Dr Manhattan-style hydrogen atom drawn into the forehead of his costume. And with Wally, we finally get an explanation of what the hell is going on. See, with the traditional multiverses, they are created using the positive energies that were explored in the Justice League run, things like the Speed Force, the Emotional Spectrum, Imagination. The inverse, stuff like chaos magic and the forces of doom that Perpetua wished to bring to power (and succeeded at doing) are what Wally calls Crisis Energy. And whereas the positive energies wish to create a strong united universe, Crisis Energies wish to simply make only one thing, one moment, one person important. And so, when Perpetua was trapped after her attempts to make a universe of war out of crisis energy, she did her best to instigate crises and came back empowered with all that energy. Meanwhile, the league, empowered by the slightly failed efforts of Dr Manhattan to ‘fix’ the multiverse, gathered all the positive energy they could and then, between the last issue of Justice League and Death Metal, the two forces clashed. Which, since they were basically smashing tow inverse forces together, resulted in both sides burning themselves out.

Now, that block of text could be extremely dry feeling, but it works really well in the two page spread, with the word balloons beginning to form an infinity symbol as images of past crises ranging from the original Crisis On Infinite Earths to Emerald Twilight to Dark Nights Metal in the background. 

But back to the story. With that explanation done, Wonder Woman begins to theorize potentially going back to those crises and gathering this information for themselves in order to reshape the universe themselves. Resulting in....”The first Anti-Crisis” The Batman Who Laughs interrupts with, striding into Tartarus to cut his own deal with Wonder Woman to let him take control over Perpetua. If she helps him, she gets all the people Perpetua has trapped and their own planet. And after that, he emphasizes how she can’t out-plan him, how he’s already prepared for her to knock him out, use the invisible jet she was being forced to deconstruct and melt down to give her armor that would render her undetectable. Wonder Woman is quick to counter that despite all the knowledge The Batman Who Laughs says he has, that entire plan is what Bruce would do. So he is quick to counter, stating so then she’d make a weapon, some sort of sword?

But it seems The Batman Who Laughs didn’t account for two things. One, for Diana to have already made her weapon before he showed up. Two, she didn’t need to make a sword. And so, with a pull of its ripcord, THE CHAINSAW OF TRUTH CLEAVES ITS WAY THROUGH THE BATMAN WHO LAUGHS IN A SPLASH PAGE OF PURE ENERGY ERUPTING OUT OF THE DEMON WHERE THE CHAINSAW IS CUTTING THROUGH HIM!

The comic ends with two quick one panel stories. The first, with Batmage executing a final plan that The Batman Who Laughs had in place to unleash a final Bruce Wayne. Which only sounds mildly menacing, unti the art shows both a button with a watchmen-style frownie face and the final Bruce Wayne in silhouette, a glowing hydrogen atom on his forehead.

The other is a cut back to Sergeant Rock, still continuing with his tirade from the beginning of the comic before he is taken out of the moment by Batman coming to retrieve him for the big fight. And as Batman promises One last fight with everyone together, we get to see in silhouette that Sergeant Rock is missing his everything below his torso, revealing himself to likely be another resurrection from Bruce’s Black Lantern ring.

So, in summary, IM PUMPED TO SEE WHAT HEIGHTS THIS THING HITS! THE BIG MOMENTS WERE SO DAMNED COOL! THE ART IS STILL THE ABSOLUTE ALL KILLER NO FILLER THAT CAPULLO ROCKED OUT WITH IN THE LAST DARK NIGHTS METAL EVENT AND I CANT WAIT TO SEE WHAT NEW SPORES OF MADNESS HE GETS TO CREATE FOR THIS STORY! 

And while I’d like to be pure hype beast, that feels a little disingenuous when I do have some small moments that seem like they could be tweaked. Both of the long exposition scenes for the Dead Bats and the Positive Energy vs Crisis Energy could have potentially stood for another pass just to really tighten them up, but I will also admit that both those scenes kinda deserve to be long-winded. The Dead Bats to make sure that the setup for Batman with a Black Lantern Ring summoning an army at that point works and the Energy one because its explaining the entire setup for the rest of the event series and it helps lull things down so that the hype of Chainsaw of Truth can hit like it should. 

So yeah, this thing is absolutely something any Scott Snyder fan, any DC fan, heck Id almost venture to say anyone interested in comics read. None of the story elements of the comic intrinsically need you to know the backstory behind them, but there are definitely rewards for knowing DC continuity in general and Scott Snyder’s previous works in this arcing story. So yeah, I am going to sit here, vibrating in anticipation as I await the next issue of Death Metal from the Cowboys From Hell on their encore tour.

[kat-hawke]

Preparations - II

(Following [Preparations], and subsequent sub posts.)

One after another, spaced evenly apart, Kat swung the dagger in wide sweeping arcs. She alternated from Light to Shadow to light again as the energy pulsated from the blade and cleaved the target dummies in two. A handful of the trees behind her home were scared, collateral from the training over the last week of experimenting with various sources of power and combinations, searching for the ideal equilibrium.

Letting the dagger rest at her side Kat pushed the sweaty raven hairs back out of her face, panting as the three-hour-long session came to pause. She plucked the waterskin from the windowsill and inhaled the contents, wiping away the beads of water from her lips with the back of her just as she heard the muttered 'fuck' from within the dagger.

"Three too much?" Kat asked, though hardly concerned. "Are you actually touching the energies, or do they flow through you? I'm not entirely sure how things work for you in there."

"Everything in here is me. Nothing just flows through. It looks like a place, but it's all me. Three is manageable. The Light just hurts."

"Well, I have to alternate," Kat stated, inspecting the damage to the dummies from afar. "I remember the pain. You get used to it."

With a soft thump, the empty water skin dropped to the wooden bench where a few other supplies were sitting. Nimble fingertips found the Azerite crystal next, pulling the stone into the palm as she siphoned off the raw energy to recuperate her strength. The numbing sensation that washed over her mind made her nearly miss Alyssa's next statement.

"It's not the alternation. It's my nature. It repels the Light. I'll get used to it. Keep going."

"No, that's enough of that for now. We found a flow and decent control point." Kat said as she turned to face the clearing, her left-hand coalescing with Void as she reaches out to tear a small hole in the plane of existence.

Pain search from the tips of her fingers to the left shoulder, her body was fighting against the excessive use of the dark magic. Kat grit her teeth and clenched her jaw as the air split open with a tiny portal, a tear into the void. Setting her gaze on the darkness beyond, she uttered a select verse beneath her breath.

"Are you going to tell me why we're doing this training yet?" Alyssa asked again. She did every day but never got an answer.

"This is the endgame." Kat's cryptic monotone offered little to go on as she stared into the vast nothingness as the repulsive voidling lurched itself free from the portal. Her gaze was cast down to the dagger in her hand as the creature gurgled and crawled about. "What did it feel like when I stabbed the Faceless and K'thir?"

"Chaotic. I lost myself for a moment both times...it felt like a moment, could have been longer. N'zoth spoke to me, and I saw the city." Alyssa's answer came with a cautious form of curiosity.

"Mmm, well, N'zoth is dead now, so that shouldn't be a problem." With a shrug, the blade spun around in her hand, gripping the handle and plunging the dagger into the voidling. The engravings upon the blade shift from teal to purple in the blink of an eye, and the shambling creature shriek out in what one could assume to be pain as its body turned to dust.

Running a fingertip across the glowing floral engravings Kat could feel the raw energy of the voidling's life force resonating from the blade, as minor as it was.

"How do you feel?" She probed, subtly searching for signs of danger. Unsure what to expect when directly feeding the woman's soul with the essence of the Void.

After a short and suspenseful pause, Alyssa gurgled her response."Bwixki... amala zal qulllll."

Kat's eye widened, threatening to nearly fall out of her skull as her gut twisted, and her mind began to panic. "I think not," she stated forcefully, tightening her grip on the blades handle to siphon off the power.

"I'm just fucking with you," Alyssa revealed with a mirthful tone. "It's painful but manageable."

Kat's widened eyes immediately narrowed into a severe squint as she stared at the blade's engravings as if the woman within could physically see the amount of annoyance that radiated off her. With her lips pursed to hide the faint snarl of the upper lip, she looked up to the tear in the Void again, reaching out with another uttered phrase. The second creature that was called forth leaped from the portal, a void spawn this time. One she had no control over as it charged at Kat with its bodyless form.

"Well, since you're having so much fun." She spoke in spite as the dagger was driven into the spawns would-be heart, shouting away the pain with her overhead attack.

Just as before, the process repeated, and the void spawn cried out as it's form drained of color until it vanished from sight. The dagger itself was glowing brightly from the engravings and pummel. The deep purple hue flicked off the blade in whisps. As Kat inspected the weapon, she snapped out of her blind rage, knitting brows together in a brief moment of concern.

"Still good in there?"

"Yes," Alyssa answered in a strained voice, "Won't be able to hold this for very long..."

Wanting to avoid an explosion, Kat did not hesitate to siphon off the energy from the dagger. The sheer amount set her soul on fire, and the bracers constricted against her wrists, and they struggled to contain the power. For a moment, her head was foggy, but she regained footing and forced the energy back over the blade with a broad horizontal sweep—the resulting wave of destructing cleaving down several trees and shearing the boulder in the back.

"That's enough for today." Kat conceded, doubling over to plant her palms on the knees, gasping for breath and reeling from the rapid absorption and discharge. Her mind jumped from one thought to the next, concerned that if this resulted from a simple voidling and minor void spawn, then cutting a lesser void lord would be catastrophic.

"You said that ten minutes ago and then stuck me into a void creature." Alyssa sounded doubtful.

"Would you prefer I stick you in the wall? Again?" There was no sense of jest in Kat's tone this time as she fell back onto the bench.

"Well, that doesn't feel like anything. It's just boring," Alyssa said, pausing for a moment before reaching out again. "I had a question, though."

Kat's eyes rolled. "You often do."

"I keep your mind active," Alyssa replies sardonically. "It's about our link, less question more observation. Something about it is different than it was with Riley."

"How so?" Kat entertained the query for now as she leaned back against the cabin wall. Odell slunk forward from the treeline to check on her condition. The huff of disapproval from the beast had been expected.

"It became clear that I could only see Riley's soul when she had the dagger in hand. I can see yours with almost any kind of proximity."

Kat shook her head a bit as she reached out to run her fingers through the massive fox's fur. Even though Alyssa could not see it, she made an expression that showed she was not at all surprised. "And this surprises you?"

"Yes. You sound like you expected this?"

"Well, I don't think Riley is as magically inclined as you and I, if at all for that matter." Unsure of how accurate her statement was, Kat, glanced up at the broken trees, shelving the thought for another time.

"Did you not expect this? I thought you were supposed to be educated in soul related magics? Our emotional entanglement strengthens the link, as you call it. That's one theory. The other, and most probable, is that it is because I made you, in a sense." Kat pauses for only a second before rushing into an explanation to avoid lingering on that subject. 

"You can't just stick a soul into an inanimate object on a whim, not without preparations and conditioning the vessel first. I conducted a small ritual while binding your soul to the blade. There was, of course, a cost. There always is. Physically many see it as just blood, but it's more than that on a deeper level; it's the life force. Mogu texts referred to it as anima, which they used to power golems. The phrase 'I put blood, sweat, and tears' into this dagger is much more literal in this sense. In a way, there is part of me in you, in there. So I would expect the connection to be healthier." "In my hand, the sheath on my thigh, or even just a few inches away on the desk. I can feel and hear you. More than a few inches, and there is nothing."

Fingers scrunched up a few times in Odell's fur before Kat pushed to her feet, allowing a moment of silence for Alyssa to process all the information given as she collected the few things from the bench to head inside.

"I've gotten very good at blocking out the sounds of souls in soul stones, or I'd have gone mad. Maybe I tried to erase in my mind the fact that part of me was in each of them too. It's a sound theory, though. It would make a lot of sense."

"Short of blaming lack of magical inclination, that is." Kat pointed out as she promptly poured herself a glass of whiskey from the home bar.

"I didn't read magic in her soul."

"Well, case and point, then." The drink was knocked back with a single, fluid motion. "I'm sure she loved you poking around her soul."

"I told her what I saw. I didn't poke into it...much..." Alyssa stated dismissively.

Raven brows pushed together again as a second drink was poured. Kat wasn't surprised, but still a bit annoyed and sought a further explanation. "Much?"

"Once I knew more about who she was, I stopped. I had no idea where I was or who she was when she picked up the dagger. I started probing because I needed to start figuring out how to take...her...o..." Alyssa trails off, clamming up. "Doesn't matter, I stopped looking."

"What?" Raw frustration overtook Kat's tone as she slammed the bottle of whiskey back onto the shelf.

"It doesn't matter now." Alyssa eluded.

Without realizing it, Kat's knuckles had gone white from the fist she was clenching in anger. "How to, what, exactly?" Though she knew where Alyssa was going with the thought, she continued to push for an admittance.

"I was considering any possible option to save you, regardless of who got hands on the dagger." Alyssa continued to evade. "That's all. I didn't have to do anything dangerous since Riley found me."

With flared nostrils, Kat let out an agitated huff as she spat, "Right."

"I was just considering that I might be able to hijack a soul." Composedly, Alyssa yielded. "Better not to have to find out, though, right?"

With a clenched jaw, Kat's teeth felt as if they would shatter. The sheer thought and suggestion of her best friend being subject to such a thing made Kat's blood boil. "Mhmm," she hummed out in reply, knocking back another full glass before walking away, abandoning the dagger on the bartop for the rest of the afternoon.

[ @alyssa-ward​ ] [ Mentioned: @blue-eyedraven​ ]

( [Chapter I] [Chapter II] [Chapter III] [Chapter IV] ) ( [pt.I] [pt.II] [pt.III] [pt.IV] [pt.V] [pt.VI] [pt.VII] )

[mindareadsoots]

I checked them out and I am SOOOOOOOO glad that I wasn’t paying money for this.

This’ll be no surprise to anybody who followed my Homestuck liveblog, but I REALLY hate Jasprose. Like, outside of the intentionally terrible characters like Gamzee, they’re probably my least favorite entity in the entire story.

Handling Jane’s “redemption arc” this way is probably the best thing they could do with her, and I mean that in exactly as backhanded a way as it sounds. The fact is that when you fuck over a character as badly as Jane got fucked over in the Epilogues, you can’t “fix it” because it’ll just look like backpedaling.

Luke Skywalker in the recent Star Wars trilogy is a perfect example of this. Very few people liked the direction his character took in Episode 8, The Last Jedi, but he was more like his old self in Episode 9, Rise of Skywalker. Now, Luke did go through a character arc in Episode 8, but if you look up any review or analysis of TROS, 90% of the time the reaction to Luke was, “Haha, look at how Episode 9 stuck it to Rian Johnson!” That’s not people missing the point of Luke’s character arc, that’s just the reaction you get when the audience isn’t on board with a character arc to begin with.

Likewise, Jane suddenly becoming good again in optional side content is a good way to just sweep that shit under the rug (or into the litter box, in this case). Just try to pretend it never happened.

(Also, this feels like a pretty damning admission to one of the big criticisms of the Epilogues, which was the absence of the Sprites. I still believe to this day that the Nannasprites were written out because it was already hard to believe that Jane would become a xenophobic fascist, but having Nanna there as a point of comparison would have made it even more dubious. And sure enough! The instant Jasprose shows up, they immediately prevent Jane from becoming a problem in the first place! Wow! Who could have guessed!)

On the other hand, the Problem Sleuth stuff is great. Sleuth himself is still funny. Hysterical Dame and Nervous Broad being married is cute. And Dad Crocker keeping up his odd manly friendship with Diamond Droog is kinda heartwarming.

All in all, the stuff is fun, but the fact that this whole thing is centered around flipping Jasprose is just not my cup of tea.

[drtwit]

RWBY and the Shades of EEEEEEVIL!

Villains aren’t exactly uncommon, in fact, you could say they’re a constant thorn in the side of reality that only exist to make a story complicated. They hurt our favorite characters, monologue a second too long, spout threatening one-liners they probably spent weeks in front of the mirror preparing, and sometimes they even have the audacity to have sympathetic qualities just to mess with us even more. In short, they’re a bit rude. However, we’re not here to talk about the sympathetic and redeemable qualities of our nefarious opposition. No comebacks here. No, we’re here to discuss the bushy mustache twirlers, the little Hitler youths, whiny brats and the candy thieves who have a pronounced hatred of puppies.

With pure evil characters who are there to break the story over their knees and practice their maniacal laughter, it’s often that writers forget to incorporate the character’s motivation, or at least fear the mention of that motivation. See, I find that many people find it hard to recognize that even for the most insane and cartoony of bastards, there is a reasoning, however twisted, behind their actions. The Joker commits crimes to spark chaos, push Batman to question his moral code and prove life is just one big joke. Darth Sidious wants to control the entire Galaxy and believe that nothing can be allowed to surpass him, not even his legacy. Zamasu wants to fulfill his image of a perfect universe and see’s Mortals as a stain upon reality. Prince Lacroix wants a bigger dick... Oh yeah, and something about fearing super powered Asians and the apocalypse, but I think he’s just racist. They have motivations and their actions are fueled by how they reason they can achieve their goals.

In RWBY, we have our fair share of evil ice cream flavors. Power hungry Fem Fatal? Darwin’s Edgy Fangirl? Sinster Overlord shrouded in mystery? Extremist swallowed by his hatred? Mustaches? We have them all, so feel free to choose your poison. But the one I want to talk about to illustrate this trend is the most pure evil of the bunch: Jac-ass Schnee.

This blight upon the good name of a bitching stache has been a point of apathy for me in the show, both as a character who always managed to feel like a background character forced to be an antagonist and as poorly done part of Weiss’s arc. He’s the best example of what happen when you need a character to always be a villain, no matter the scene, no matter the context, he always has to be hatable and pathetic to make sure you still hate him. This leads to a rather inconsistent character.

There’s a previous point of contention the fandom had with his post-volume 3 portrayal, where both in the way Weiss acts and how he’s mentioned prior to volume 4, there seems to be a disconnect to the abusive corporate worm we’d eventually meet. In the first three seasons, he and his company is something that Weiss clearly tried to emulate, something Weiss seemed to take enough pride in to be such a snob about it, something that Weiss goes out of her way to defend against accusations from Blake. You get the idea that Weiss’s father is harsh, distant and negligent, but that he’s still someone Weiss seems to hold a little affection for. Go to volume 4 and the way the two interact make it suddenly makes prior Weiss moments rather questionable, she seems suddenly very clear about how much she doesn’t like him, he’s very obvious with how much of a dirt bag he is and the everything we learn about the SDC and Atlas elite in general make it hard to think Weiss wouldn’t have agreed with Blake back in volume 1. Hell, I found it odd how Winter back in volume 3 cared about Weiss not returning her abusive father’s calls, you’d think Winter would be like “Yeah, fuck ‘em.”

But okay, maybe it’s just some subtleties missed, Jacques is the straight up corporate sleazebag, doing anything he can to get that payday. He has money, and he knows how to use it, dominating the market and knowing which shortcuts to take to move things in his favor. Now, let’s strip away these elements to the concrete core of the the type of evil Jac is. His evil is one of apathy towards morals in the face of greed. He wants money and power, and doesn’t care what he has to do to get it. He’s a good business man who’s worked his way up the ladder. This worked for volume 4, he uses Weiss as a symbol of sympathy towards future buyers at a party, he pretends to care about the fall of Beacon to look good and slaps Weiss when she starts to threaten that with her antics.

And then here comes volume 7 to take him down in the lamest way possible. We have the build up: Weiss running away, the songs about her wanting to break free, the whole motivation of bringing the SDC back to it’s former glory, the fear of having to return to Atlas on her own, ect. He’s her personal villain and as such you’d expect her returning home after he’s had two volumes to build up his already substantial power during a crisis where his business is needed more than ever, he’d take on a rather daunting role as secondary antagonist to Watts and Tyrian. Our first scene with him in volume 7 tells us the answer.

He storms in, easily loses his cool, is revealed that no one really likes him, Ironwood makes it clear he has very little power here, he’s unable to do anything other than throw petty insults at Weiss and immediately he’s stopped being the corporate bastard he’s supposed to be. This continues with the rest of the volume with him, where the writing seems to make him multiple villains at the same time and reduce him to Watts’s mindless flunkie who could have been replaced by any character. His actions don’t connect to his motivation and situation, there’s nothing that makes me believe that he actually reasoned that this would advance his goals.

He’s a ruthless business man who brought the SDC from poultry earnings to a global monopoly. But he doesn’t have one lick of charisma or cunning to the point he thinks taking away people’s jobs will get them to support him rather than hate him.

His company is constantly facing controversies, accusations and attacks with apparently everyone hating him. But he has shit security and isn’t the least bit paranoid of bugs from potential journalists in his house.

He wants money, power and security. But goes along with Watt’s plans that clearly weaken Atlas’s defenses and isn’t suspicious at all at Watts wanting admin access to Mantle’s entire system with no attempt at insurance in case the clearly suspicious mad man doesn’t stab him in the back.

He doesn’t care about Weiss at all, she’s simply a means to an end, even disowning Winter for joining the military. But he still let Weiss attend Beacon, went back to get Weiss from Beacon when he had Jac 2.0 on standby to be his heir.

He’s a man who’s been in the game of feeding people bullshit for years to justify his bad deeds. But he immediately crumbles the moment he’s accused of anything.

He wants to sweep all accusations of unfair labor practices under the rug so they don’t damage his business. But apparently he allowed faunus to get branded with his logo.

On and on it goes, where his motivation is thrown away because “He’s evil, he doesn’t need a reason to do bad things.”. Joker wants to push Batman over the edge, thus he creates a situation that fucks with Batman’s moral code. Sidious wants to crush the Galaxy’s hope, so he constructs a symbol of fear big enough that it can be seen looming overhead from the planet below. Zamasu wants to purge the universe, so he takes the body of the man who embodies the ‘sins’ of mortals and travels to another timeline to make sure the much more powerful Gods and Zeno can’t interfere with his plans. La Fuckwad knows that everyone is looking for an excuse to get rid of him and knows the apocalypse might be coming, so he manipulates a fledgling vampire to get him the sarcophagus of an ancient vampire so he can absorb that refine ‘87 vintage blood wine and become powerful enough to survive.

You can see how they reason they need to do the things they do to achieve their goal. What connects A to B. The only way Jac’s action sync up with his motivation is if he is such a profound moron that Weiss besting him means nothing. “Wow, you beat the illiterate kid at reading, well done.”

As I stated earlier, Jac is viewed strictly as a bastard, strictly as Weiss’s antagonist, in every scene the show has to push in our faces that he’s the bad guy and that Weiss is superior to him. He never gains an advantage over Weiss, or puts Weiss in a difficult situation, he never has a real chance in this story. He is there to be arrested by Weiss. Every scene changes him to be the villain it needs for him to be for us to hate him the most. So, in some he will be calm and composed to frustrate us, while others he’ll be made to yell like a petulant child to make him pathetic and other’s he’ll just be stroking his mustache. His first confrontation with her ends with him getting slapped down and humiliated, then he’s just a yes man who does what Watts tells him to do with no thought or agency, then Weiss just walks into his party, get’s handed victory on a silver platter and arrests him.

That’s it. You got your ice cream flavors, and all of them can be pretty good on their own. However, if you get a bunch of them, stick them in a bowl and then just take a few bites and leave ‘em out in the sun, all you’re gonna get is regular intervals of a muddy looking puddle that eventually becomes grey sludge.

[afishlearningpoetry]

Looking Closer at How The Abominable Bride Foreshadowed and Can Be Used to Chronologically Decode Series 4:

In the opening sequence of TAB, Sherlock imagines a recreation of John returning to England after being dispatched by the army and the two of them meeting for the first time. As this is his dream, everything about the sequence and the comparison and contrast with the unfiltered scene in ASIP informs of his own biases and desires. Sherlock imagines coming off weirder but suaver and John being less frustrated about it than he actually was, telling us both about his knowledge of John’s love for him and his wish to smooth out the dents in their relationship.

In TLD, John writes a sequence recreating his first night meeting Sherlock using his self-insert Eurus as Faith Smith as an outlet. As this is John’s story, everything about the sequence and the comparison and contrast with their first night together in ASIP informs of his own biases, desires, and in this case especially, deeply-held fears and insecurities. John imagines Eurus and Sherlock being more open and honest about their feelings and their night together, telling us about John’s own memory of the event and his history.

Of course, more important than the differences between Sherlock’s dream and John’s story compared to reality, is the even more massive gap between their own points of view.

[Continue below the cut for more ➤]

See also: Shout out to @shinka for “Something Borrowed, Something Blue”... 10 Revealing Things From The Six Thatchers That Haunt You Late At Night, 10 Revealing Things From The Lying Detective That Haunt You Late At Night, and 10 Revealing Things From The Final Problem That Haunt You Late At Night. (#tw suicide #tw self harm #tw depression)

Bonus: Substitute, point of view, insecurities, emotional context.

Right off the bat in Sherlock’s dream, his goal with the opening war montage is clear –– to objectify John and his bright blue eyes as much as possible, while in John’s nightmare of his army experiences, everything is dangerous and happening incredibly fast. Throughout the entire comparison of all these different scenes together, this will be a constant theme –– Sherlock will constantly express how much he wants to be with John and that he’s aware John loves him, while John will continue to deny himself his love for Sherlock, thinking Sherlock does not love him back. “I spent a whole evening with her. We had chips. I think she liked me.”

In TAB, Sherlock then imagines their first meeting as him completely nailing his deduction of John and and sweeping him off of his feet. John hardly says anything back and looks more starstruck than speaks dialog, while Sherlock imagines their exchange happening much faster than it actually did. Sherlock gets all the details right –– mentioning the violin, having an “eye” on a loft, John looking down at his leg, Stamford reassuring John that he’s always been “like that,” but misses, or perhaps brushes over the emotional context of what John was going through in this scene. But John was more frustrated than anything, and angry that Sherlock was able to see through him right away, while John has been hiding himself from the world for a substantial period of time. John expresses this a lot in series 4, representing his own insecurities through subtextual means. Sherlock isn’t without his own insecurities, however, and there is gloom beneath the romanticism –– Sherlock imagines whipping a corpse with a riding crop when John walks in, while John actually meets him shortly after in the lab, and throughout the episode Sherlock frequently lashes out at John in various ways over John not understanding his feelings. This is often shown through John’s stories of Sherlock, in comparison to real John’s blog in the present day and John clearly is not picking up on how Sherlock cares for him, so it’s fitting that Sherlock’s feelings in this sequence are actually clear as day, and that John’s own recreation of their meeting in TLD is much darker (and filtered through another character and story, which in its own way, also makes his own feelings clear as day).

What’s also missing in Sherlock’s iteration of their meeting is the vast depth of loneliness and self-loathing that John is depicted with in the opening scene of the entire show, which wasn’t recreated in his dream. John’s story in TLD is set after Mary’s death –– as series 4 with TST and TLD is about the coverup and fallout of Mary’s murder at the hands of John and Sherlock, who was working with Moriarty and isn’t really dead –– and so the grief, darkness, and haunting ghosts in it are easy to assume being for that, which is the purpose of John covering up what really happened with this story, but one of the thing that’s really going on behind the true events of this episode is John approaching his own crisis point. In John Yorke’s Into the Woods, a book about stories and the five act structure, he describes virtually all stories as being able to be broken down into five acts. Act four is the darkest point of the story, the act where things continue to get worse and worse before the final confrontation, and is defined at the end by the “crisis” point where circumstances could not possibly get any worse. John is approaching his crisis point in TLD and finally reaches it in TFP, after he’s shown being shot at the end (in this episode, the gun goes off less then halfway through and at the end of the episode fades to red).

In TLD, John is also back to the point he was at the beginning of ASIP, or act one –– he’s deeply miserable and lonely, and is isolating himself from the world with presumably as little human contact as possible. John has not solved his own problem yet, which means he’s approaching his darkest point before that change can happen –– and that change will be represented by Sherlock telling him that he loves him back. But before he gets there, it’s fitting that John’s construction of this episode revolves around John being unsure whether or not Sherlock is really is a sociopath and capable of romantic sentiment (“You lie all the time, it’s like your mission.” “He’s not a monster.” “Yeah he is,” and the text from Irene), John reimagines their first night together, when John both first fell in love with him, and when he was warned about Sherlock being a psycopath. “One day we’ll be standing around a body and Sherlock Holmes will be the one who put it there,” Sally Donovan says in ASIP. “Not long ago he shot Charles Magnussen in the face, we did see it coming,” John reiterates in TLD.

John’s self-insert in this episode is represented by Eurus. Eurus is one of John’s dark mirrors, is at the heart of everything of the lie of series 4, and is John’s own primary, totally invented plot device. While John was writing the coverup and fallout of Mary’s murder, the story was mostly done and complete, but when something happened to John at the end of TLD, he suddenly had to invent a third episode that had nothing to do with the character arcs of the first two episodes –– TFP is a false catharsis of character arcs, plot points, and thematic threads, and is completely contrary to everything the show has done up to this point. It’s totally imagined by John –– so in a butcher job, in a rush to fit in Eurus where she doesn’t belong to make a third story happen and cover up what actually happened at the end of TLD, John had to use her as a plot device and slip her in somehow in TST and TLD to make sure she was there all along, all along. In TST, John writes Eurus in place of his invented cheating storyline, which was 1) covering up his communication with Sherlock, working together to take Mary down at the end of the episode, 2) sublimating his emotional cheating on Mary with Sherlock, because John tried to fuck Sherlock in every episode of series 3, and 3) done to make John look like the middle age crisis husband who took his perfect wife for granted before her tragic death, which he obviously had no involvement in, how dare you say that. In TLD, Eurus somehow obtains Faith Smith’s private note, which she hid in her bookshelf from her own father for years, deciphered what it meant, obtained it from a third party, and then added some “deductions” of her own onto the letter in order for Sherlock to find. If you didn’t have fun reading that sentence, please know I didn’t have fun typing that sentence. She also controls everyone in the prison so she was able to just leave and disappear for enough time to both impersonate John’s therapist and Faith Smith before returning to set her magical psychic trap. Eurus’s additions to the letter are also telling in and of themselves –– they’re hidden, subtextual clues on a surface layer text that was planted for someone to find.

In TLD, one of Eurus’s primary functions is to act as John’s self-insert for his first night with Sherlock. One of the ways we can tell this is by her outfit design –– while everything in series 4 is filtered through the color blue, the color representing the false narrative at work and John’s authorship, the color red represents John’s “me-substitute,” as John tells Sherlock in TST.

As @shinka explains in “Something Borrowed, Something Blue”:

The red balloon. Striking touch of red in a season full of cold and blue tones. John the Writer tells the audience that Red is a Me substitute. In others words, if Blue is the color of John’s Fiction, Red is the color of John’s Truth. Which means we can have both blue and red in one scene; as John the writer presents a scene, John as himself appears through the subtext and the narrative.

Eurus is wearing bright red as the bus lady and as Faith Smith. Eurus is John’s own subtextual substitute for himself, appearing in places where his authorship is to be questioned. Of course, also keep in mind throughout looking at the rest of this comparison and contrast, that Sherlock realizes in TLD that Eurus as Faith Smith wasn’t actually there. Bill Wiggins and Mrs. Hudson both point out that nobody’s there. So how do they remark on this and how does Sherlock realize it only to have Eurus appear again at the end of the episode and in TFP, as if she really had been there the entire time? Eurus isn’t there. Eurus is John. Eurus as John as the author, placing a substitute for himself.

John spells it out as he writes Sherlock deducing Eurus as Faith.

“Oh, of course you don’t own a car, you don’t own one, do you, living in isolation, no human contact, no visitors.”

This is something Sherlock doesn’t picture in his recreation of their meeting in TAB. In TLD, John states it in their first conversation to establish where Eurus as Faith is coming from. This is also where John himself is at the beginning of TLD on the surface layer text, and as we continue the comparison, it becomes even more obvious.

Next, Sherlock imagines John asking how Sherlock could know about his army history. John in TAB is less angry about this, as Sherlock immediately proceeds to sharing rooms instead of questioning him. In ASIP, John is frustrated someone was able to see through him right away. In TLD, Eurus angrily replies back at Sherlock, “You can’t know that.” In TAB and ASIP, Stamford didn’t say anything to him in either versions, reinforcing that Sherlock claiming he researched John in TRF was a lie meant to trick John into seeing him as a fraud so he would really think Sherlock is dead be safe from Moriarty’s clutches. This also feeds into John’s own self-loathing, as he thinks that if someone sees him for who he thinks he really is, they wouldn’t like him. If Sherlock is a genius, he must eventually notice that John loves him, and if he doesn’t say anything about it, then Sherlock must not feel the same way back. Even though in TLD, John classifies his relationship with Sherlock as a romantic one, through his self-insert Eurus as Faith.

John as Eurus as Faith is talking about two different things when it comes to Sherlock deducing her failed romantic relationship, something Sherlock doesn’t do in ASIP and has no clue about until TSOT (where he’s surprised at and jealous of John’s history with Sholto). Since this is a recreation of their first night together, John is partially talking about Sholto, but since John is writing this story now and specifically after TRF and Sherlock’s 2 year disappearance, he’s also partially talking about Sherlock. In TLD, Sherlock deduces that “Presumably you downsized” when you left your job and “maybe” when you ended your relationship. John did indeed move (and downsize) after being discharged from the army, and he moved out from the loft after TRF. In both situations, he also left his previous line of work, the army and investigating with Sherlock. The “maybe” on Sherlock’s part, written by John, means a couple of things here; first, that John thinks Sherlock doesn’t consider their own relationship to be romantic, and that Sherlock doesn’t consider himself responsible for ending it, whatever exactly it was, by faking his own death, which is what really happened in reality. Instead, as we later find out through Eurus as Faith’s marks of self harm later, John blames himself for his relationship with Sherlock being a failed one, because he was afraid to be vulnerable with Sherlock and open about himself and what he wants. This is also a remark on his relationship with Sholto, reiterating that John is back where he was in act one, now in act four. He feels he repeated his mistakes with Sholto with Sherlock and hasn’t changed as a person, that nothing will change, and that he feels utterly lost, isolated, and completely hopeless. “There wasn’t anything physical going on, was there?” “For quite some time, in fact.”

In TAB, Sherlock continues his deduction of John without interruption, as John continues staring at him starstruck. In ASIP, John continues to push back against what Sherlock is doing. Soon after in ASIP however, Sherlock recruits John on his case investigating the four serial suicides. Sherlock ironically imagines the lab meeting as the one where he came off seductive, while the one where he John agrees to join him was actually where John plunged in head over heels. It does however, contain the same truth; that Sherlock was right about him, which leaves John scratching his head how Sherlock doesn’t pick up on John loving him, which must mean it isn’t returned. And while Sherlock is aware of that, how John misses the war, and that he enjoys being with Sherlock on his work, he isn’t quite aware of just how much he saved John’s life that night.

In TLD, John writes Eurus as Faith being suicidal. Sherlock deduces that Eurus as Faith is carrying a gun in her bag with no way home, meaning she was planning on killing herself if her meeting with Sherlock didn’t go well. In ASIP, this isn’t quite as obvious, particularly from Sherlock’s own point of view, which is why it isn’t depicted in TAB. That’s why Sherlock literally remembering John walking down the street in ASIP after leaving the crime scene is so completely contradictory; Sherlock had already long left that location. John was on his own. Sherlock has absolutely no way of flashing back to that moment, and its especially obvious because it happens while Sherlock is talking about how Faith as Eurus is suicidal... John is talking about himself. John himself kept a gun in his desk drawer and was considering killing himself, before he met Sherlock and Sherlock completely changed his life, giving him a purpose and a reason to live again, as John ended up instead using the gun on Jeff Hope to save Sherlock’s life, and John no longer needed the cane. Eurus is also carrying a cane here, which Sherlock looks closer at before flashing back to his memory of John he can’t possibly have.

The flashbacks in TST and TLD are indicative of all of this being written from John’s point of view. In TST, after Sherlock discovered the A.G.R.A. stick being hidden in one of the Thatcher statues, he kneels down and picks it up in his hand, as a projector light visual effect appears over the scene and the shot cuts to the stick being held in John’s hand. In the opening scene of TST, a projector with flickering light was used to display doctored footage of a trigger-happy fall-man meant to blame the death on, showing how Norbury was a random person blamed for Mary’s death. There’s no light effect with the flashback in TLD, since the fallman has already been chosen, but instead a distorted moving of the image of John walking down the street alone. Eurus is practically ablaze on screen in her red dress, in Sherlock’s loft and walking throughout central London, carrying a cane of her own. She is John. John is talking about himself through Eurus and Sherlock, having Sherlock pick up on something about John that he didn’t realize in ASIP, as is displayed in absence in TAB.

Continuing in TAB, Sherlock starts to leave the room like he did in ASIP, but John doesn’t push back. In ASIP, John is abrasive with Sherlock about what just happened. This is another display of Sherlock not realizing how cold he can come off, but it’s also a connection to TLD in that John is not willing to let the issue drop, since Eurus continues to ask him about how he deduced her as the night continues. Also in TAB and ASIP, Sherlock talks about the rooms they can share, and judging from how Sherlock immediately brings it up in TAB, compared to how it takes longer in ASIP, we can tell he was intending to seduce John. John was also trying to seduce Sherlock in ASIP –– as he asks him whether or not he has a girlfriend or boyfriend, John remarks that Sherlock is “unattached, like me.” Sherlock panics and shoots him down, saying he’s not interested, even though he very much is. In TLD, John states this rather more obviously, with “Sex” being Eurus’s starting point of conversation. “How did you know I wasn’t getting any?” Sherlock says that he’s not an expert, but assumes that her partner had “failed to notice” her marks of self-harm, indicating that their relationship was no longer intimate. John is talking about Sholto here, or “the most unsociable man he’s ever met”, failing to notice that John was hurting, but still is ultimately placing the blame on himself for not being vulnerable, but also about Sherlock. John writes that Sherlock deducing it came down to how her partner “failed to notice” what was going on. “How do you know he didn’t notice?” Eurus as Faith asks. John thinks Sholto and John didn’t care enough about him to notice.

“Oh, well, ‘cause he would have done something about it.”

“Would he?”

“Wouldn't he? Isn't that what you people do?”

“Well, that's interesting.”

“What is?”

“The way you think.”

“Superbly?”

“Sweetly.”

John is questioning himself a little bit here, partially over how much Sholto and Sherlock returned John’s feelings. Would he? Wouldn’t he? He’s questioning whether they would have even done anything if they’d noticed John’s feelings at all. Would he? Wouldn’t he?

Sherlock arrives at this conclusion through logical means, beating around the bush of the human element, but John as Eurus as Faith loves it, which is how he fell in love with Sherlock their first night together, by learning to see the great heart behind the brain. John will go back and forth on whether or not Sherlock is a sociopath throughout the rest of the episode, and while John concludes that Sherlock is flawed like any human, he’s never able to fully answer the question of whether or not Sherlock is capable of romantic feeling.

We know that John is still unsure of this the next episode, because TFP is structured around John interrogating the possibility of how Sherlock ended up the way that he did (similar to inserting Eurus into these stories last minute where it doesn’t make sense –– why was Eurus flirting with John important to her plan? And how did she get the note from Faith to begin with? –– John also hastily inserts Sherlock having recurring dreams about Redbeard in the middle of both episodes). This is where John, through his substitute, poses the question: would he? Wouldn’t he?

In TAB vs. ASIP again, dream John is compliant (while ignorant of Sherock’s true feelings and intent), while John pushes against Sherlock one last time (also, ironically, ignorant of Sherlock’s true feelings and intent). How could he know everything about him? How could he see through him so clearly? “We don't know a thing about each other; I don't know where we're meeting; I don't even know your name.” But even though they’d just met, both John and Sherlock saved each other from killing themselves that night. John was considering shooting himself, while Sherlock, in the midst of a drug bust at his loft while feeling utterly embarassed and exposed in front of John (“This guy? A junkie? Have you met him?”), willingly took a ride with the cabbie, knowing he was heading to his own suicide. Both ASIP and TFP contain multiple references to suicide, and John’s gun in his desk drawer is shown in an episode with a case about suicide.

But John doesn’t let that happen. By using his own gun he was going to use later, John is able to save both of their lives, and John recreates this in the episode again by having him save Sherlock from Culverton –– but as he’s approaching his crisis point in act four, John is feeling suicidal again. 

“Your own death is something that happens to everybody else. Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it.”

“You were gonna take that damned pill, weren’t you?”

As Sherlock is repeating to John as Eurus, keep your hands off it, Sherlock experiences an image of a gun going off, the gun in the opening, at the beginning of the episode hovering over John, and the gun that Eurus shoots John with at the end of the episode before fading to red. Eurus is John’s substitute (including a shot of the London Aquarium, where Mary’s death was covered up). The gun goes off, with a bright flash and loud bang as Sherlock is talking about John as Eurus being suicidal.

John shot himself at the end of TLD.

Somehow behind the true events of series 4, John is trying to communicate to us that he committed suicide. John’s authorial substitute, the subtextual red herring that was laced throughout series 4, shot him. John is telling the audience that he’s tried to kill himself. Unlike ASIP, he was not able to escape his own Samarra. It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the landing. We need to decide which way you’re going to fall. Would he? Wouldn’t he? The same scenario is repeated as John approaches his crisis point.

Though John is committing suicide through the subtextual narrative of series 4, and thus bringing about the death of the show, it isn’t a real death –– it was a faked one. 

In TFP, John writes a scene with the three Garridebs brothers being hung from a couple of ropes, making it look like a suicide when it was a murder attempt (see here for context on what “Garridebs” is about). In an episode that was titled “The Final Problem” precisely because it was not the real final problem, the Garridebs moment in TFP is not the real one. John shooting himself is the third Garridebs moment –– the Garridebs wound was self-inflicted. Sherlock is utterly oblivious to this in TAB. John thinks he failed to notice. John thinks he failed to notice “the big one” deduction on Eurus as Faith’s note. That’s what people do, don’t they? Leave a note. Would he have done something? Wouldn’t he have?

“Taking our own life –– interesting expression. Taking it from who?”

Yes, he would have... but John doesn’t know the answer. He doesn’t know how much Sherlock loves him –– and he’s finally going to know in series 5.

Before John is shot by his substitute, he wonders again if his love for Sherlock is one-sided, and whether or not Sherlock fell in love with him too, that first night when they met and saved each other’s lives, sitting under the pink glow of Angelo’s restaurant. Or, if Sherlock even noticed John liked him at all.

“I spent a whole evening with her. We had chips. I think she liked me.”

“We spent a whole night together. It was lovely. We had chips.”

But the reality is that Sherlock does love him –– if he’s failed to notice anything, it’s because of his emotional repression and fears of vulnerability, and the two of them both failing (especially on Sherlock’s end, given he’s aware of John’s feelings) to communicate with each other openly about how they feel. It’s not about either of them being solely responsible for ending the relationship, like John is so eager to assign blame to himself. They’re both idiots.

In TAB, Sherlock leaves his meeting John with a wink and a smile. “Shall I, um ...? Smile and wink. I do that sometimes. I’ve no idea why. People seem to like it –– humanizes me,” Sherlock says in MHR. Sherlock thought he was being obvious about his seduction in ASIP, and was even more blatant about it in reconstructing it in TAB.

John, however, remains unsure, and continues to deny himself.

[signoraviolettavalery]

strategist-scientia replied to your post “I know Carina is bringing Malex into the light and I am infinitely...”

Kinda scared now tbh because Carina said "Yes" when someone suggested that Michael is probably reminded of Jesse Manes's hand in causing the deaths of his people whenever he looks at Alex. ������

I hope it’s ok that I use your response as the jumping-off point for some meta, because I’ve been wanting to write this since i saw Carina’s tweets, and the inevitable Malex panicking that ensued. There’s a couple tweets about Michael’s headspace that she made that I want to get into, as I consider where Michael’s character will go next season and what that might mean for Malex. 

Now, my immediate response to this is: Yes?? Good?? Carina is saying Michael is going to have a character arc next season, and this is a good thing. Characters need arcs, and frankly, I’ve been frustrated that most of his “arc” this season has just been taking care of other people. Equally frankly, I’m glad that this will be the arc, because Michael is completely traumatized right now. He not only lost his family right after finding them, but he’s witnessed the genocide of his race. I’m glad the show is going to deal with that instead of sweep it under the rug. That’s what Michael s a character deserves. And I know it sucks to put queer characters through trauma and misery and suffering, because it seems like that’s the only thing they ever get to experience in narratives. But in a well-written story, you can’t shield your characters from the world and have nothing bad ever happen to them. There need to be low points in order for there to be development, as long as there are high points. 

The other tweet that people have been worrying about is this one, about how Michael will react to Alex and how their relationship will changed, based on the fact that Alex’s family is responsible for literally all of the suffering of Michael’s: 

This is where people start worrying that Malex will crash and burn, or that Michael will blame Alex for what happened even though it’s not actually Alex’s fault. 

So, first of all, I’m going to point out the obvious: it doesn’t sound like English is this person’s first language (which isn’t a dig at them, but just the observation that there may be a language/communication barrier here). Carina’s “yes” is vague af, and twitter is a really shitty medium to sort-of-but-not-really hint at character motivations and what’s coming. 

Moving on from that, my  thoughts are that Michael isn’t going to outright blame Alex - after all, Alex didn’t do anything. In fact, Alex has literally shut down project Shepard and blackmailed his father to protect Michael, and if Michael knows about project shepard he knows this. Logically, he understands this. But I do think that Michael will pull away from Alex - just as he’ll pull away from Max, Isobel, Maria, and even Liz. He’s going to need space, and he might get self-destructive in all his relationships, not just the one with Alex, because he’s going to blame himself for what happened. It’ll be difficult to watch, but I think that Alex, who himself has extensive experience sabotaging his own relationship as a result of fear and trauma, will understand where he’s coming from and try to help. 

I do also think Michael will have a hard time with Alex specifically. Again, it’s not that he’ll blame Alex, because he clearly didn’t blame Alex for his hand, if his desire to rekindle a relationship ten years later is any indication. But Alex will be a living, breathing reminder of the Manes legacy, which has taken literally everything from Michael, starting with his hand and ending with his family. It’s going to get complicated, because just last episode, Michael was telling Max that he believes that there’s no place for him here (on Earth) - something that Jesse made him believe, and something of which his hand serves as a reminder. And now he has even more proof, painful, heartrending, visceral proof, that there is no place for him on this planet, in the sense that humanity as a whole does not accept him for what he is. And the Manes legacy is largely responsible for this. 

But. The irony is that while the Manes family has destroyed his family, his life, his home, and his hope, Alex has been all of those things for him. Alex offered him a home when he had none. Alex told him “you’re my family.” Alex, as Michael said in 1x11, made him believe there’s is a place for him here on earth. Home can be a person, and Alex has been his. 

And I think Michael will realize that. If Liz can get over the fact that Max covered up her sister’s murder and was responsible for her family suffering hate crimes for ten years, then Michael can get over Alex having a legacy that he has completely and utterly rejected. But it will take time, because trauma isn’t rational, and because Alex did enlist in the military and become a “Manes man” before he ultimately chose Michael. So Michael will have to reconcile those two things - what Alex’s family took from him, and the fact that Alex himself gave back all those things to him. Honestly, I think it’s going to be the culmination of the arc that they’ve been planting the seeds of this season - that home can be a person. Michael Vlamis also hinted that Micheal probably won’t be deciding whether to leave the planet this season, so perhaps this will be a decision he’ll have to make next season. Alex will give him the spaceship piece and set him free, understanding that Michael has never felt like he belongs on Earth and that now he feels like he belongs even less, and that his family is responsible for it. And Michael will have to realize that despite Alex’s legacy, which he has outright rejected, Alex is his home. 

It’ll be a long journey, but I honestly think it’ll be fine in the end. Think of it this way: ships, just like characters, need arcs. I know we all say we’d happily watch an entire season of them just cuddling in bed, but come on. None of us actually would. We’d like an actual story. That’s why we tuned in. We want to see characters facing challenges and overcoming them. And yes, just like with queer characters, we don’t want queer pairings to just keep suffering endlessly. But we do want them to have actual, meaningful storylines. And what Carina is hinting at above sounds like an actual storyline. It’s Michael working through legitimate trauma instead of sweeping it under the rug, and Alex learning to live with the legacy of his family. If done well, this is a good storyline. The alternative is either no storyline, or contrived relationship drama, and no one wants that. Remember when, on The Vampire Diaries, Damon and Elena finally got together and the writers had to come up with a dozen reasons to break them up (the sire bond, Katherine possessing Elena, Damon temporarily dying and Elena erasing her memories of him and about a dozen other “plots’)? We really, really don’t want that. We want an actual arc. 

Of course, how much you believe Carina and the writers will do justice to this arc depends on how much you trust them to actually meaningfully write it, and that’s up to each viewer to decide on their own. Based on my own personal experience, I think it’ll be fine, because whatever the various flaws of season 1 of Roswell (and they definitely exist), the emotional beats have rung true to me. I understand why characters behave the way they do, their fears, their traumas, and their progress (with some exceptions). So, I think we’ll be fine. 

Part of the reason I’m so confident is because every other time we panicked because of a tweet, a promo, or a promo photo, we turned out to be pretty wrong to panic. Let’s recap: 

1x09 This is the OG throwback episode, and when Shiri leaked that photo of Michael and Maria naked in the desert, we panicked. We thought Michael and Maria would have a full-blown romance and Michael would leave behind Alex and forget about him, or that Maria would sleep with Michael while knowing about Alex, or any number of worst-case scenarios. 

What actually happened: Alex ended things, with finality. Previously, he’d walked away - and we’re led to believe he’s done this multiple times, which means that he’s also come back multiple times, because to walk away again, he had to come back first. But now, for the first time ever in ten years, probably, he said “we’re definitely over.” The love of Michael’s life broke his fucking heart by making him believe they could never have a future together, and Michael’s response was literal suicidal ideation. That line about “I’m just wishing a meteor would strike me down and end my suffering”? That’s suicidal ideation, y’all. 

So yeah, he hooked up with Maria because he needed comfort and a connection with someone - but one that he was 100% certain wouldn’t get romantically complicated and messy. He picked Maria because he had a connection with her but thought there wasn’t a chance in the world that she’d catch feelings. 

And then Alex came back to him and he took him back and bared his fucking soul and revealed every single one of his deepest secrets. 

1x11 This was the UFO emporium re-opening episode, and everybody panicked that Michael and Maria would talk and kiss and/or hook up in the place of Malex’s first kiss. Come on, guys. Like, I get panic, but this was a bit much. 

What happened instead: Michael misses Maria, who was pretty much his only friend, and tries to get back onto the same page they were (flirty banter that meant nothing), but which is pretty hard to do once you’ve slept together. Michael believes he and Alex are completely over, and....he skips the Emporium reopening (probably because it’s too painful). Then, Maria, the person he pretty much considers his only friend, gets roofied and possessed by an alien serial killer. So yeah, he’s concerned, and he watches over her, because Michael Guerin is, at heart, a protector who takes care of people, and frankly, if he wasn’t worried about Maria, I’d like him slightly less as a person. Maria drunkenly indicates potential feelings for him, which he shows absolutely no indication of actually reciprocating (he looks concerned and frustrated at best). 

1x12 We all thought Malex was going to break up in this episode, despite the fact that they were already broken up and Michael thought they were “over.” We knew there was a tear-inducing Malex moment and we listened to Tyler’s song and I saw no end of posts going around saying Malex was going to break up. 

What happened instead: Alex confessed his love for Michael, called Michael family, stayed by him in the face of literal certain death, and physically and emotionally supported him during a moment of devastating heartbreak. 

So yes, I get the worry. I especially get the worry because apparently The Magicians fucked over their queer viewers just last night. Believe me, I understand, and I’m not a person to have faith easily. I’ve been through Supernatural fandom and the great Destiel queerbait that was season 8. I’ve been through Sherlock fandom and The Johnlock Conspiracy of seasons 3/4. I am intimately familiar with the nonsense shows pull on queer viewers, and I understand the context in which queer viewers are wary of trusting and investing emotionally. I’m a queer viewer as well, and I get it. I really do. But my personal experience of Roswell has been one of the fandom panicking (because we’ve been burned so many times), followed by us getting literal fanfiction on our screens, with actual love confessions and words like “cosmic” and all the tropes. So in this particular case, I choose to trust, because thus far, I think the show has done well by Malex for the most part, and because so far, almost all of our worries have turned out to be for nothing. And I’m also excited for Malex to have meaningful storylines and things to work through. 

That’s my two cents. Thanks for letting me ramble. Feel free to reblog if you think we could stand to spread some positivity. 

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 165: The Baby-Sitters Club

Previously on BnHA: The kids began their supplementary lesson for the day. Tired Mera (upgraded to his final form from just plain old Mera) introduced Camie from Shiketsu and said she would be joining the lessons moving forward. Gang Orca showed up and flung Bakugou, Todoroki, and Yoarashi around some just for the hell of it before announcing that the three of them plus Camie would have a special assignment for the day. Cue the arrival of about 25 screaming children. They immediately set upon the lot of them and stole Bakugou’s grenade gauntlet and piled onto both Todoroki and Yoarashi and we’ll probably never see either of them again. Present Mic got all hyped up and stole Mera’s mic to start narrating all of the action. Meanwhile, Endeavor quietly asked All Might just how the fuck one goes about being a Symbol of Peace anyway.

Today on BnHA: The babysitting squad struggles to figure out how to “win the hearts” of this vicious group of six-year-olds. Bakugou proposes that they single out the kids’ leader and break their spirit to establish dominance. Inasa tries to bond with them. Todoroki tries to show the kids what kind of person he is by giving a five-hour oral presentation of his entire life story up to this point. Shockingly, none of these approaches is very effective. Meanwhile Endeavor opens up to All Might (I know guys, shit’s crazy) and says he’s obsessed his entire life over trying to be stronger than everyone else, but he knew from the start that he would never be able to top All Might. All Might says that he simply wanted to be a symbol the people could believe in to give them hope and help them not to be afraid. He says that he and Endeavor are different and that Endeavor should try to find his own way of doing things. Meanwhile the babysitting mayhem continues as the kids face off against the young heroes and activate their quirks.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’ve read up through chapter 187 now, so any ETAs will reflect that. I accidentally spoiled myself for something huge related to Deku and I’m so mad lmao. so now I’m going off on a frustrated reading binge and so help me god I will catch up with this manga if it kills me.)

our new squad!

“win the brats’ hearts” omg

I’m telling you guys, Kacchan has this in the bag. he has so much experience with being a brat. he knows how to reach the hearts and souls of brats. he is a natural leader. like Steve Harrington before him, he is a babysitting legend and doesn’t even know it yet

that’s it Katsuki. assert your authority. remember, they can smell fear

how did they get both of them??

this boy fought off six grown villains at once, and yet he has been completely outmaneuvered by four preschoolers in a matter of minutes

and yet, please note how even as he tries to get this under control and also finds the time to yell at Todoroki (who makes an excellent point btw), he effortlessly dodges this one kid who was trying to sweep his legs

Camie is all “I have no idea what to do next” and over in what has now become the announcer booth, Present Mic is all “I can just tell they have no idea what to do next”

he can just tell

now he’s handing the microphone over to the sobbing kindergarten teacher so she can clarify what exactly the hero kids’ task is here

“basically I want them to do my job for me k thanks byyyyyyyyyyye”

so she wants them to inspire these kids somehow

wow Shouto and Inasa are so moved

meanwhile Bakugou is just like (╬◣益◢)

well at least he’s motivated. you really want to go get yourself flung around by Gang Orca some more huh

now he’s ranting about how this is what happens when the teacher fails to carry out their role as the leader of the kids, and that the kids have sensed that weakness and taken advantage of it

and that somewhere out there is an alpha kid “who sets the mood for the rest of the class” and they just have to find them

like you, you little thug? speaking from experience are we?

he knows just how to deal with them once they find them too

this is all very Lord of the Flies

and now he is demanding that the strongest child come out to fight him lmaooooo

and he’s being called out by the Monoma child

more like he never mentally matured past the age of six. this right here is the lawless jungle of schoolyard politics. your civilized rules have no place here

the kindergarten teacher is asking Mic if this is really going to be all right lol

and actually, Mic seems to have a surprising amount of faith in Bakugou, stating that he’s “just doing a little side show” that’s all

yep. sure he is

meanwhile Camie is informing Bakugou that delinquents are out of fashion

and he’s all “WELL THEY SHOULDN’T BE”

delinquents in general are, but Delinquents With A Heart Of Gold are still as popular as ever, so you’re good, Kacchan, don’t you worry

now Inasa’s stepping up to the plate!

he says the fast track to becoming best friends is just to get to know each other. I assume he also turned to wink at Todoroki and I just missed it

“who wants to be a hero?! raise your hand!”

ooh, it’s working!

CAN HE FOLLOW THROUGH?

wow he’s a natural

okay in all honesty, Inasa would be a great dad. frankly, looking at his performance here just drives it home how absurd it is that he didn’t manage to pass the provisional exam the first time around. he has all of the qualifications and then some. it’s just that he’s Dumb

holy shit

THESE KIDS ARE CALLING THEM OUT LEFT AND RIGHT

looks like Team Rocket’s blasting off againnnn nnnn nnnnnn... *ping*

at this point should I be concerned for Todoroki

like, I’m starting to sense a pattern here

so now Inasa’s smashing his head onto the ground in his trademark deep bow from a standing position, and apologizing to the kids and saying he had no right to preach at them from his high horse

Camie is all “wow these kids are pretty fucked up huh”

and Bakugou is all “THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING”

he says sometimes you need violence to “put ‘em in their place” and that’s how he was raised

oh boy. so this is why everyone is all “Mitsuki is abusive”, isn’t it

goddamn you Horikoshi and your throwaway lines. does this mean I’m gonna have to do a Mitsuki meta after all

well for now I’m just gonna say that I don’t believe this line is meant to imply that Bakugou is being seriously abused at home in any way. it’s like... this, to me, is the same as when they had him all chained up on that podium at the end of the sports festival arc. something that was done for comedic effect. like, yes, if this was real life, that would be pretty fucked up and would definitely warrant some looking into. but this is a shounen manga where they had children battle each other to the point of unconsciousness for sport, and everyone was cool with it and cheering them on. when Bakugou says he was raised in a violent household, it’s clearly meant to be comedic sitcom violence where no one actually gets hurt. I’m not saying it’s not something that can’t be interpreted more deeply, because that’s half the fun of reading a manga. but I’m just saying that I myself am choosing to take it in the more zany/cartoonish tone in which I believe it’s intended, because in this case I think reading too deeply into it would lead to projecting issues onto Bakugou’s character that I don’t actually think are there. giving him angst I don’t think he actually has, in other words

I don’t think I’m doing a very good job of explaining this, though, so like I said, I really will end up having to post that meta I think

(ETA: so yeah, I posted that yesterday. thank you for everyone who took the time to read my rambling thoughts on this very touchy subject!)

anyway!!

meanwhile this kid absolutely was abused at home, though, and that’s a certified fact. and this is what he has to say about that

and immediately Bakugou is thinking back to the conversation he overheard at the sports festival

oh my god

this fucking kid omg

just. look at this shit though. he understands immediately that Todoroki is referring to his own violent upbringing, and he’s like oh snap, and then he actually backs down in his own way and doesn’t try to argue the point and is just like, fair enough, why don’t you give it a go then

and yet the way he does it is just. so exquisitely obnoxious. “let’s see... how can I try to be understanding, but like, in the rudest fucking way possible”

just. it’s magnificent. dammit Katsuki why are you like this

oh hey we’re cutting back to Endeavor and All Might

Endeav says he’s entrusted everything to Shouto

he says that he had already climbed to the number two spot when he was only twenty years old, and that he immediately understood that number one would always be out of his reach

okay, gonna press pause for a second now here. so just a reminder that we know Endeavor is 45 years old. maybe 46 now, idk. anyway though, so this means that he’s been the number two hero for 25 years. and that means that All Might must have been active for at least the same amount of time, and that he was already number one even 25 years ago. not just that, but he was well-established enough that Endeavor already knew he would never be able to beat him

so the question is, how long do we think it took All Might to become that established. could he have done it just two years after graduating U.A.? I think in all likelihood this means he’s probably a little older than Endeavor. I really can’t see him as any older than 50, though, so it’s hard to say. maybe he just ages like Paul Rudd. at any rate, he has obviously been around for quite a while

(ETA: to add onto this, we know from chapter 185 that no one had ever reached the top 10 as a teenager before Hawks did. so at minimum All Might would have had to be at least 20 years old before he became #1. so yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and say he’s definitely older than Endeavor by at least a little bit. honestly would it kill Horikoshi to go ahead and give this man an official age already.)

anyway, Endeav says he didn’t just want the title (which is obvious enough, given how he reacted when it was just handed to him following All Might’s retirement). otherwise he could have just gone around “foolishly smiling at everyone” the way All Might did

okay man, if you’re seriously trying to change your ways though, you might want to start with reconsidering that particular part of your attitude there

(ETA: though it seems his fans don’t like when he does this lol. no one wants a friendly neighborhood Endeavor apparently)

anyway, so yeah, he says he wanted to be the strongest

All Might’s saying this isn’t like Endeavor at all, and Endeavor is all “>:( JUST TELL ME THE ANSWER ALREADY”

All Might says he has no idea what to say to him. but All Might is a fucking liar, because you just know he’s about to go off into inspirational speech mode though

yeeeeep

basically he just tried to be a good, strong hero who could reassure people that everything would be okay. he won their trust. the reason why Endeavor is struggling is because no one trusts him in that same way. he’s just not a reassuring guy. people don’t feel safer just with him being there. he’s strong, yes, but more in a don’t-mess-with-this-guy way than a putting-your-mind-at-ease type of way. he doesn’t comfort people, he puts them on edge

anyway. while I went on my little tangent, All Might was continuing, and he mentioned how he ended up pushing away most of the people around him, and that was the path he chose

and there’s a flashback to Nighteye, and Endeavor is actually picking up on that

All Might says he know what kind of situation Endeavor is in and what people are saying about him

yeah we just got a nice demonstration of that less than a chapter ago

he says people keep comparing the two of them, but that they’re different

hmm

part of me is like “because he already has another successor in mind lol”

but he’s saying that Endeavor simply needs to find his own way of doing things. “and there’s no need to rush it”

wow, where did this chill, no-worries attitude come from all of a sudden I wonder. I seem to recall the six-years-ago All Might shouting at Nighteye that he had to continue carrying on even as a wounded Symbol of Peace, because even a small interim without that symbol would be disastrous

but now we’re all “it’s cool man, you just do you and you’ll figure it out, no rush.” it’s not like there’s a whole league of villains out there plotting or anything

though on the other hand, All for One is currently behind bars, and as for Tomura, All Might currently thinks of him as “Shimura’s grandson, so he can’t be that bad! I just have to get through to the misguided little tyke.” so maybe we’re not on the same page right now as far as urgency goes

now Mic’s commentary is drawing their attention back to the Baby-sitters Club over here

this is it, Shouto. all eyes on you my man

I have no idea what’s about to go down, but Endeavor is again aggressively showing his support

honestly, it’s very possible that even if Endeavor had actually not been a dick this whole time and had actually tried to be a good parent before now, Shouto would have still come out of it traumatized. Endeavor strikes me as the kind of guy who would have signed Shouto up for Little League and worn a shirt with his face on it to every single one of his games. “THAT’S MY SON!!! SHOUTOOOOO! DO YOUR BEST!!”

is that your dad, the other kids ask. in mortification, baby Shouto creates a little igloo with his quirk and ends up just hiding in there and refusing to come out for the rest of the game

you guys

I feel like. he actually has no clue what to do next

he’s thinking to himself that first he needs to show them what kind of person he is, and until he does that “everything I say will fall on deaf ears”

...please don’t break your arms. felt like I needed to say that. this is not a “what would Midoriya do” type of situation. he would get punched in the nuts is what

sfdalhkdhf

I fucking can’t with this dramatic fucking family

lol what

this is “showing them what kind of person you are”??

and the kids are not having it omg

lol he’s apologizing

YOU BLEW IT KID

lmao Camie is all “it seems like the three of you have been trying to do things the normal way this whole time”

not sure what chapter she’s been reading that she thinks all of this is normal

she’s suggesting that they use their quirks

you know what, I’m on board with that! because WHAT IS YOUR QUIRK, ANYWAY. I want to know omg

Kacchan is all “I WAS JUST ABOUT TO SAY THAT”, but were you. were you really

but wow, though

who does this nerdy gung-ho take-charge analysis remind you of? because I’ll tell you, it reminds me of a certain gung-ho take-charge green haired nerd

oh my god they got in a huddle

this really is my new squad. omg. look at them formulating their nerdy gung-ho take-charge plan to take on these two dozen six-year-olds

meanwhile said six-year-olds are gathering their power

did this one kid really fucking unhinge his jaw and produce a fucking cannon wtf

and then there’s rabid Pacman kid, Akatsuki jacket kid who appears to be sprouting moss, triangle eyes kid who’s producing some sort of hula hoop wave, some kid with antennae who really has no business being all “OUR GENERATION IS BETTER” when all he has is a fucking antennae quirk, and lastly this sixth child who isn’t doing anything at all except hovering above all of the other children in such a way that I can’t tell if it’s just wacky panel design or if that’s actually his quirk

at any rate though, these kids better watch out, because these high schoolers appear fully prepared to Stoop To Their Level

can anyone tell what Camie’s quirk is from this panel. I can’t make out a damn thing. is this something where when I come back to look at it later it’ll be obvious and I’ll just be like “how the fuck did I miss that”

(ETA: oh man you guys. I can’t fucking wait for tomorrow’s chapter lol)

anyway. we all already know that Bakugou will take virtually any challenger seriously whether it’s Deku, Ochako, All Might, a bunch of villains, or Deku again. so it’s not all that surprising that this would extend even to a bunch of literal grade-schoolers

but what is surprising is that the others are following his lead here. well, maybe not so much surprising as just hilarious

why don’t you come down here and try your hand at it then if you think you’re so smart, Mic

he’d probably just offer to sign autographs and then wind up devastated when they don’t all fall over starstruck because none of them listens to the radio

will our heroes be able to impress the group of jaded small children?? will they actually end up resorting to violence after all and to hell with Todoroki’s earlier objections?? will we ever find out what the fuck is wrong with these kids’ parents?? STAY TUNED

once again there is no bonus page. there’s only one more of them (since I always skip the staff introduction pages), and it goes with chapter 167 I think. but it doesn’t matter much since this recap is already super fucking long good god

[unchartedterritoria]

Dangerous (Sam Drake x OC) - Chapter 27

*NEW CHAPTER*

Previous Chapters: Chapter 1 * Chapter 2 * Chapter 3 * Chapter 4 * Chapter 5* Chapter 6 * Chapter 7 * Chapter 8 * Chapter 9 * Chapter 10 * Chapter 11 * Chapter 12 * Chapter 13 * Chapter 14 * Chapter 15 * Chapter 16 * Chapter 17 * Chapter 18 * Chapter 19 * Chapter 20 * Chapter 21 * Chapter 22 * Chapter 23* Chapter 24 * Chapter 25 * Chapter 26

As always, you can read the story thus far on A03  HERE

Tags: @jodiereedus22, @shambhalala, @missdictatorme

Reviews and comments are always appreciated!

Sam stormed through the doorway of the motel room, the door slamming into the thin wall hard enough to rattle its frame.

Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, he thought. Sam wiped the nervous sweat from his upper lip and shook another cigarette out of his pack and lit it with trembling hands while he paced in the confining space that he and Faith shared. Going to the cheap dresser that sat in the middle of the room, he yanked open the bottom drawer and pulled out the nine millimeter he had stashed underneath a pile of sloppily folded t-shirts. Setting it down on the bedspread, he went to the closet where Faith had stowed their duffels. As Sam dug through her black backpack, the smell of Faith that had clung to her clothes permeated the tiny closet. The citrusy scent made him angry, an unnecessary reminder that he had failed as a protector.

Fuck, just fuckin'- I'm a just- fucking FUCK!

His hands finally touched smooth metal. Sam pulled out the small 9mm that he had given Faith when this adventure had started.

He wanted more guns. He wanted a goddamn army.

Too bad Nadine don't own Shoreline anymore. Hell, she probably wouldn't even answer the phone.

Sam stared at the two handguns on the bedspread, his arms crossed in front of him while his thumbs drummed nervously against his elbows.

I need more firepower.

Sam took one last drag and pitched his half-smoked cigarette into the sink. He ran the tap briefly to extinguish it while he grabbed his phone. Sam opened his contacts. His finger hovered momentarily over the DIAL command.

I gotta do this. I don't wanna do this, but I gotta do this. He's the only one that's got what I need.

He dialed the number and waited what felt like an eternity between rings of the phone before it was finally picked up on the other end.

“Hello?”

“Victor, I need your help.”

The voice on the other end hesitated. “What did you do?” Sully scolded him. His anger dripped through the phone.

“I need the name of every arms dealer you got in the Keys.”

“What did you do?” Sully repeated.

“Legal, illegal, I don't care. I just need firepower.” Sam told him and ignored the question entirely.

“I asked you a goddamn question, Samuel, what the hell did you do?” He shouted into the phone.

Sam hung his head.

“Jasper took Faith.”

Sully's end was nothing but silence.

“I know I screwed up-”

“You think?” Sully suddenly shouted which cause Sam to wince.

"I know, but I'm gonna fix it. I'm gonna get her back, and I'm gonna end this," Sam said with determination.

“Call Knucky and Steve Ricker, then call whoever they tell you to. I'll send you their number. I'll be there in three hours.”

“I'm doing this myself, Victor,” Sam argued.

“I'll be there in three hours,” Sully said in a low icy voice and ended the call.

Sam let the phone drop from his ear. Closing his eyes tight, he smacked the back of his head against the wall.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” He growled, each word accented by the dull thud of his skull against the drywall.

Faith felt herself drift into a hazy state of consciousness. A very hazy state. She could hear the sound of the ocean, albeit muffled, and faintly taste the sea salt on her dry lips. She let her brown eyes open gingerly, squinting against the bright Florida sunlight. As her senses came back to her, her eyes began to focus. Ahead was a sight to behold. The Gulf of Mexico, blue as an azure crystal, rippling in front of her and stretching as far as she could see. It was breathtaking.

She would have appreciated it more if she wasn't tied to a chair.

Faith could feel thorough wood underneath her as its edge bit into the bottoms of her thighs. Her forearms and ankles were secured in place solidly with duct tape while a length of rope resting beneath her bosom bound her upright.

Oh no, not good. Not good, not good, not good.

She tested the tape that held her arms in place. Whoever had tied her up had sadly done a good job, giving her no wiggle room whatsoever.

“Good evening, Miss Spencer.”

Faith turned her head towards the source of the familiar southern drawl.

Jasper Nox strolled towards her down a long brick corridor. In his short-sleeved white shirt and Panama hat, he reminded her of the guy from Jurassic Park, the owner, he even had an ornate cane as he did. Jasper's was a sleek black onyx, the handle carved into an eagle with its wings stretched back, poised in position to attack its prey.

“Isn't she just a majestic sight?” He said, motioning to the ocean through the arches he passed, the large corridor lined with crumbling brick arcs on both sides.

"I've seen the ocean over one thousand times, and I tell you, she still manages to take my breath away every time," Nox said, leaning thoughtfully against the archway where Faith was positioned. "Have you seen the ocean before Miss Spencer?"

Faith opened her mouth to respond with the expletives floating in her head, but all that she could produce was a faint croaking, wheezing sound.

Jasper knelt down next to her and grabbed a juice box from the floor next to her. He poked the small straw through the top and held it up to her lips. Faith kept her mouth shut tight in defiance.

Nope, I'm not getting dosed again. Nuh uh, not happening.

“I assure you, it is plain cranberry juice. Scout's honor,” He said, giving the solemn Boy Scout salute as a show of honesty.

I did see him just open it...

Oh, fuck it, I'm dyin' here, Faith thought before clamping her mouth down on the straw in front of her, and sucked at it gratefully. Jasper smiled as the box crumpled in his hand before Faith let the straw go, her thirst only partially quenched but at least her throat didn't feel like the Sahara anymore.

Before she could stop herself, she muttered a "Thank you," her voice now back where it belonged.  

And you just thanked your captor. Nice Spencer, real nice.

“You're most welcome!” Jasper said, surprised at her manners.

"I don't believe we were ever properly introduced at the Mariner's Gala. Jasper Evangeline Nox," He said, removing his hat. Bowing deep in front of Faith with his ponytail of red hair tumbling over his shoulder, he took hold of her restrained hand and gave the back of it a gentlemanly kiss.  

Faith could only imagine what this looked like. She also wondered if all kidnappers introduced themselves this way.

"It is quite the pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. These past few weeks have proven you to be an interesting character, to say the least," Jasper continued, regarding Faith like a specimen of a science experiment.

“What do you want?” She asked, trying to keep her voice as evenly toned as possible. Sounded desperate or freaked out wouldn't help matters any.

“Straight to the point! Most unlike a woman, how refreshing!,” He said, clasping his hands together in delight. The dig at her gender made Faith's nose wrinkle.

“All I am looking for is the location of the diary of John Wilkes Booth. Once you give me that, you can be on your way,” He said, making it sound as simple as drawing a square.

“It's with the rest of the Lincoln stuff. Some fort, in the middle of fuckin' nowhere,” She told him, the last word managing to just leave her lips before Jasper brought his cane down hard on her hand with a thwap!

“Language!” He bellowed. The word carried through the concrete corridor like a boom of thunder and echoed through the archways into the courtyard inside. Faith closed her eyes and bit the inside of her lip to keep from yelling, or cursing even more. She flexed her fingers. Thankfully, they all moved, despite the throbbing in the top of her hand.

"I will not tolerate such foul language coming from a woman. Is this understood?" Jasper said, enunciating each word slowly. He leaned forward. His face close to hers, evil green eyes staring over the head of his cane that threatened the space between the two of them. Faith glanced down at the figurehead, the hooked beak nose of the black eagle almost touching hers.

Don't ever argue with crazy people, Boogie, the words of wisdom from Susan Spencer burbled up to the surface of her mind, making her yearn for the warm safety of her mother's arms.

Faith gave a small nod.

“Good, now that we have that little matter out of the way, we can resume business. Where is the Booth diary?”

“I don't know other than with the rest of the Abraham Lincoln stuff,” Faith spoke truthfully.

“You're sure of this fact?” Jasper verified.

“Yes.”

“And where is that located?”

Faith sighed in frustration. The redundancy of his questioning making her grow restless.

“Fort Jefferson, it's in the middle of the...ocean, in the middle of...nowhere,” Her voice trailed as the realization of her current location settled in.

“Yes Miss Spencer, I had managed to deduce that much, as you have finally seemed to recognize,” Jasper said with a grand sweep of his hand to the building that surrounded them, the sarcasm in his voice more than evident.

“75 miles to the closest thing around that could even remotely be considered as civilization,” He continued, his voice hollow in her ears where she heard nothing but the sound of her heart trying to pound its way through her rib cage.

I'm alone in the middle of nowhere, I'm alone with a mad man, I'm alone, I'm alone.

Whap!

Jasper brought the head of his cane down hard on Faith's other hand, the beak breaking the skin enough for a bead of blood to form.

“Focus!” Jasper yelled, “You will pay attention as well as using appropriate language is this understood?” He said, bringing his face closer to hers with each snarled word.

“Yes,” Faith agreed.

“Wonderful, now shall we continue?” Jasper questioned breezily, his menacing demeanor changing quick as the tides. When Faith didn't answer immediately, his eyes began to darken again. Jasper cleared his throat, enough to bring Faith out of her momentary daze and her focus back towards him.

"Mm-hmm," She said with an emphatic nod.

"I really am a reasonable man Miss Spencer, I just simply want what is mine. To be quite honest, besides that Booth diary, I couldn't give two dimes for what happens to the rest of that stuff. Burn it, sell it, throw it in the ocean for all I care as long as I get what is mine."

"How's that diary yours?" Faith asked. In all the research she and Sam had done, she had never seen Jasper's name or even the surname of Nox.

"A brief history lesson then," Jasper began as he took off his hat, trying fruitlessly to wipe away the sand and dirt on the floor before placing it down on the aged cement. "By now, I'm sure you are aware of Mrs. Lincoln and her proclivities to collecting all things concerning the matter of her husband's tragic death.”

Wow, Confederate sympathizer much? Maybe? Just a touch?

Faith gritted her teeth to contain her sarcastic quip and snort. With both of her hands still stinging, she knew to keep her mouth shut.

"It was confirmed, multiple times, over the years, that one of the items she had acquired was the private journal of one John Wilkes Booth. And stored within the pages of that folio lies the Atzerodt confession," He finished, both hands clasped together in front of him, his good hand masking his bad.

“What Atzerodt confession?”

Jasper sighed and shook his head at Faith like she was the world's biggest disappointment.

“I see this history lesson won't be as brief as I'd hoped. John Booth, you see, his action was just one of many to be carried out that night. While Mr. Booth was set to take care of Mr. Lincoln, a man by the name of George Atzerodt was charged with the disposal of-”

"Andrew Johnson, the vice president," Faith interjected, hoping to speed this along. Jasper regarded her interjection with a look of somewhere between impressed and irritated. He began to pace as he told the rest of the tale,  

"Now this group of rebel seditionists, determined to change the course of history by disposing of the current government regime, met in secret for months until their plan was set. While Booth did manage to succeed in his part of the plan, Mr. Atzdrodt did not."

“He got drunk and chickened out,” Faith added. Jasper's face snapped towards her in anger.

“He changed his mind and came to his senses now may I continue?” He yelled, annoyed, his arms stretched dramatically apart.

Faith closed her eyes while her stomach flip-flopped, waiting to feel the cane on her hands or somewhere worse on her body. When nothing came, she looked up at Jasper meekly.

“I'm sorry,” She said in barely a whisper.

"Now," He continued, setting his cane aside momentarily to smooth the front of his shirt, "When the dust had settled, and the government had rounded up their band of rebels, Mr. Atzerodt gave the constables a detailed confession of the groups treasonous crimes. The secret meetings, the gathering of provisions by Dr. Mudd and the Surratts. He even handed over the diary Mr. Booth kept, the whole kit n' caboodle. And did you know it was only meant to be a kidnapping? There was no talk of murder before John Booth went and changed his mind!"

Faith was at a loss for words, unsure how someone could be so bitter and dramatic from something that happened so long ago?

"Meanwhile, Dr. Mudd insisted that Mr. Booth was a friend, nay, an acquaintance! That he knew nothing! And he was just upholding his medical oath," Jasper spat the words out, leaving shiners of saliva in his red mustache.

"What about what they got from Atzerodt?" Faith asked curiously, she didn't see herself getting out of this predicament anytime in the immediate future. After weeks of no information and no leads, the reason for this journey seemed to be coming to a head, the answers she'd been searching for somewhere close.

"Now Dr. Mudd knew what that confession could mean for him, it was his golden ticket. Between the time they were questioned and the trial, the confession vanished along with Booth's diary, which of course would have been just as damnatory for him. Gone. All traces either ever existed, erased! Dr. Mudd was given leniency while George Atzerodt swung from the gallows. Of course, between the words of a distinguished doctor, or a carriage repairman, whose story do you think they chose to believe?"

Faith let the lapping of the ocean fill the moment of silence. Jasper was on a roll and Faith was too afraid of the consequences of stopping it.

“Dr. Mudd became a prisoner here and very soon assured everyone he had changed his ways. Became a model inmate, helped out as fort doctor when the yellow fever hit. So they decided to let him go! Then, years later, the government had nothin' else betta' to do an' they went n' pardoned the slick son of a bitch!” Jasper's thick southern voice grew from a bitter annoyance to a core-deep frustrated roar as he slammed his cane down violently against the floor. Faith jumped, the sound reminding her of a pool cue being accidentally dropped.

With a sigh and a surprising gracefulness, Nox bent down and picked up his cane with his good hand.

“I deeply apologize Miss Spencer for my language.”

"What do you want with me?" Faith asked quickly. The question had been screaming in her head since she had regained consciousness. She had been too afraid of the possible answer until now, convinced if she had to listen to her psychopathic kidnapper apologize to her one more time, she was going to scream.

"As I have said, you just need to simply tell me the location of John Booth's diary," Jasper said, his original temperament returned.

“It's with the Lincoln stuff,” She repeated. She was really getting tired of this question.

"Yes, and where is that?" He pushed.

“I have no idea. Ask Sam Drake, he's the treasure hunter.”

Sam, her brain turned to him for the first time in what felt like it had been days.

“I think you do,” Jasper retaliated.

“How in the world do you think I know where it is?” Faith asked, thoroughly irked.

Oh, Jesus Sam, where the hell are you?

“Well, it's not without reason, Miss Spencer, you are a Mudd after all.”

[ganymedesclock]

As a Lance fan, I’m officially tired of Langst

It’s really hard for me to get behind posts about how Lance is so unmourned and ignored by the team and how other characters are so mean to him, because they blatantly ignore so many scenes where the obvious blatant text of the scene is that the team pays attention to Lance and thinks highly of him.

Especially Allura. People act like because Allura dated Lotor in s6 that clearly has to mean she was thoughtlessly dancing on Lance’s heart or something ignoring that right there in s5 Allura saw her father’s old sword, a weapon from her own destroyed culture, in Lance’s hands, and pretty unsubtly talked up the idea of Lance being worthy of following in Alfor’s footsteps. Her beloved father, her beloved people, who are things Allura keeps very close to her heart, and seeing Lance holding that explicitly Altean sword her response was “it’s in good hands, then.”

Hell, people even actively point to scenes of the team being attentive to Lance as proof of his abuse and isolation.

Like almost every langst thing I’ve seen seems to insist they want Lance to be treated better but that’s not really the case, is it? It just feels like the appeal is imagining Lance broken and helpless and withering and suffering, because I guess that’s fun to fantasize with and I guess all these people who say they love Lance have decided he’s the weak link out of the team.

If this sounds bitter, it’s because it is. Lance is probably one of the characters I find the most intensely, personally relatable out of the team, and as an autistic, ADHD guy, as someone who people would probably describe as sensitive, I notice a pretty damn obvious pattern where characters that I find deeply personally relatable are always targeted for this sort of thing. Canon depicts them as competent, friendly, likable people who have a lot of talent and yes, sadness and struggles and imperfect interactions too, but full characters who are living their lives and dealing with their problems effectively.

And in sweeps fandom wailing about how the cruel world has dashed this helpless butterfly upon the rocks, torn him to pieces, he’ll never recover- and I get tired of it. It feels like a personal attack. Why are sensitive people never allowed to be heroes who are celebrated for their strength? Because again- nobody in canon has a consistent problem admitting Lance is a hero. You know who has a consistent problem admitting Lance is a hero, to the point that their vision apparently clouds over with TV static as soon as canon shows an unambiguous obvious image of Lance being praised and valued by his team?

The fandom. The people who are allegedly stanning him. I skim AO3 and it’s like somehow we stopped entirely writing about a heroic, charismatic teenager who meaningfully addresses his unhappiness and works to be a better person and are suddenly writing about a Victorian novelist’s conception of a woman.

Here’s fanon Lance, leaning over the balcony, a lace-gloved hand clutched to his bosom while someone unimportant, probably Allura, tells him to come inside before he gets consumption. A tear delicately crosses his cheek. “woe, fate. When will my true love, Keith, return from the war? For he, and he alone, is the only person to ever appreciate me.”

Hunk, sitting in a nearby tree, who has been patiently throwing flower petals for ambiance this entire time, remembers that he is playing a prop, and does not actually exist.

I like Lance. I like Keith. I like the idea of Lance and Keith being a couple.

I hate the idea of Lance being distorted into this devastating black hole of emotional wallowing where the only way he’ll ever be happy or properly appreciated is if the entire plot is derailed and everything beaten over itself until there are no other paladins, there is Only Lance, who pilots Voltron alone, because everyone else has their schedule booked solid prostrating themselves before Lance’s image and attending his fanclubs and kissing his hand. All must love Lance, constantly. The moment they turn their eye to any other thing, for a second of their time, it is an irretrievable wound and Keith needs to run on stage to hold Lance’s corpse, Shiro, how could you, he was relying on your undying adoration to survive!

There is way too much langst that insists it addresses a deficiency that it made up in its entirety. There are too many RPs I’ve been in, too many speculative conversations, that are completely derailed to be all about Lance.

I have literally RPed a conversation between injured, rift-fried Lotor sitting in a prison cell and Lance where the Lance genuinely tried to insist that Lotor had it better than Lance did.

Lance has problems! He does! He’s allowed to have problems, he needs them as a complex and multifaceted character! But can we just... cut it out with the endless exercise in flagellation where Lance is the eternal victim suffering for our sins and actively demonizing other characters because they have the audacity to have their own lives and not cater to this pretend vision of Lance entirely divorced from canon?

Because canon gives us Lance being mildly disinterested in playing a game he’s never tried before where he lets himself be talked into it a second later, makes a total power fantasy character that the rest of the team barely bats an eye at, and, having a blast, decides to play another round with the rest of the gang, and I open the tag to see twenty thousand posts talking about how they can’t believe poor baby Lance is isolating himself.

This isn’t a struggle to comprehend what we’re watching here. I used to think maybe it was, that I could just patiently tow someone by the hand through the active text of the show where it illustrates that Lance is not alone, that he’s doing better than he started, that proportional to everyone else in the team he’s got struggles and upsets and also happiness and affection and solidarity.

But that’s the thing about Langst- is it’s a game that you win by being unsatisfied. It’s a game you win as long as Lance is suffering, as long as nobody loves Lance as much as you do- and because of that the majority of people writing Lance don’t actually want to be proven wrong. It’s at a point of active malicious distortion of canon to focus on how sad Lance is.

And I’m pissed. I’m pissed because I love Lance and this kind of shit makes me genuinely hesitate to bring him up in any context that doesn’t have me folding over myself eight different ways to make it clear that Lance is not crumbling into the abyss before our very eyes for fear a bunch of other people are going to seize my words and run away with them.

I’m pissed to hear that all the characters I relate to constantly reduced into helpless tragic baby victims who can never stand up for themselves and definitely didn’t shoot a man in the elbow of his prosthetic while falling backwards, with surgical precision, missing the hostage that he was practically using as a shield, and it wasn’t even that hard for him, or if he did it’s just proof that he has to do these herculean things and get no respect.

(Never mind Shiro and Pidge had both obviously not taken Lance’s marksmanship into account before then, but when he said “I got this” about that difficult shot they both sat the fuck back and didn’t interrupt him because Lance said he got it, and when he made the shot Shiro literally praised Lance by calling him exactly what Lance called himself at the beginning of the episode, y’know.)

So like... if we’ve all agreed we love Lance here, why are we consistently ignoring every good thing he does, every good thing canon has to say about him, every good thing his friends think about him, and then getting sad because the wasteland we’ve made out of Lance’s character arc doesn’t have anything good left in it- and that has nothing to do with the heaping pile of canon scenes we’ve just finished misconstruing or wholesale ignoring?

[momestuck]

Epilogues: Candy, Ch 16-21 [Epilogue 4]

So we’ve lost (spoilers will remain below the cut). This section starts progressing a lot faster, as the couples we’ve established all very rapidly start adopting kids. Jane’s whole eugenic vision, and fucked up relationships, starts coming much more to the forefront.

I call this the “we live in a society” chapter. Or perhaps the “edelman” chapter.

Chapter 16

At this point we get a six month time skip. Or for Terezi, a single day timeskip, because apparently there’s heavy time dilation between Earth C and the Furthest Ring.

The wedding itself is handled by recap, emphasising anecdotes. Of note is that Terezi is continuing to ghost basically the entire cast apart from John, which she claims is because he’s the most annoying.

In fact this entire chapter is text convos between John and Terezi, which is a nice return to early Homestuck when typing quirks were actually, well, typing quirks lol. Jane, it turns out, is now dating both Gamzee and Jake, which, well, ok.

ok.

ok.

anyway, there’s some wonderful dialogue on kismesis relationships at least:

TEREZI: Resentment can be fine in a short term black affair if the gaol is just to fill pails and avoid culling.

TEREZI: But in a sustained romantic rivalry it will always spell ruin.

TEREZI: Just like in a caliginous relationship, how it’s important for you to be able to communicate with your kismesis.

The rest of Terezi’s dialogue, talking a bit about Vriska, is a joy to read. I miss Terezi.

Oh yeah and Roxy’s pregnant. That’s important! Their wedding was 6 months prior, though it’s not clear from the narration when their baby was conceived.

Chapter 17

Another three month timeskip. That means nine months from the wedding - just about long enough for John and Roxy’s baby to be born.

Rose and Kanaya have outright named their child Vriska, which is... ok she may be a clone but that’s one hell of a thing to put on a kid, fucking hell.

Like, just wow. Imagine knowing Vriska and deciding to not just adopt her clone but name her clone after her! I take back whatever dumb shit I was saying about Rose and Kanaya being well adjusted. Poor kid.

There’s an amusing conversation in which Kanaya has misconceptions about how human children are born - from Karkat, via Dave. This is really going hard on the whole reproductive futurism angle huh.

The question of Vriska’s name comes up. Rose says that Vriska defeated Lord English - apparently having entirely forgotten all the things she said before, about how that whole plot point of how he was ultimately defeated was unresolved.

JOHN: rose, no one knows what happened to lord english.

ROSE: Of course we do. Vriska used the juju and her accompanying ghost army to defeat him.

ROSE: Why else would we be here?

JOHN: i don’t think that’s what actually happened though!

KANAYA: Then What Did Happen John

JOHN: i... i JUST said! JOHN: no one knows!

So uh... it’s like there’s some all-encompassing force, pushing the kids towards a “happy ending” defined in terms of pairing up and raising kids, editing their memories to leave nothing unresolved... and only John seems to be immune?

And moreover, whatever this force is, it seems to have robbed Roxy of her independent will. She’s going along with whatever John wants - much to his consternation.

Everyone is contorting themselves into a standardised template of “adulthood”, focused on reproduction above all, telling themselves it will make them happy... even the lesbians!

(Is this all one massive attack against the Harry Potter epilogue lol)

Chapter 18

In this chapter, Jane explains the need for eugenics to Gamzee. She insists that, if trolls were allowed to outbreed humans, the ‘natural’ Alternian social order might assert itself. It’s not racism! Some of her best friends are trolls!

Gamzee suggests this might get her ‘cancelled’, and she calls him ‘a literal insect in clownface’. Because she’s totally not xenophobic or anything. They have kismesis-hatesex, which includes...

In spite of Jane’s protests, Gamzee makes a desperate play for a lusty squeeze. Jane puts up a valiant show of resistance, but Gamzee knows she has no real intent of fighting him off—it’s all part of the kismetic dance. He has his big clown mitts right on her busty bags, honking away.

...what feels to me like a dangerous blurring of consent lines. Bottom line: this relationship is all kinds of fucked up...

Also why did I have to see the words “busty bags” with my actual eyes.

Not sure what the story is going for with this troll eugenics plotline. Jane explicitly tries to draw a line between this and actual racism insofar as there are, she says, actual biological differences between humans and trolls such as birth rate, unlike human ‘races’ (the story does not deviate from the idea that the kids are ‘aracial’, incidentally, though it’s hard to take Jane as anything other than white the way she acts). But why does the narrative feel the need to go there? I guess it’s about Jane’s character specifically; the not-so-subtle fascism in her whole image as a ‘proper’ businesswoman. She’s just doing what needs to be done!

I recall that ‘prison camps’ was up there in the content warnings list.

The latest Homestuck Baby is named Tavros. Naming babies after your dead friends is all the rage these days!

The narration stays with Jake as he leaves the room, but we still hear more than we’d like of Jane and Gamzee fucking.

The subject of kids - the REPRODUCTIVE IMPERATIVE - comes up. Jade explains that merging with Beq has done something to her bits, so she won’t be getting pregnant. And nobody’s really feeling ectobiology. Though that’s probably not the biggest issue with her and Dave...

She says she’s discussed surrogacy with Rose, and neither Dave nor Karkat would be ‘the father’ in this scenario. Ah, I think I see where this might be going. Beq was a male dog, as I recall.

(so this is basically... V Homestuck, apopros of nothing: do you know i think jade probably has a dick)

Chapter 19

In accordance with our headlong rush into families and reproduction, John has started working on becoming his dad I guess? He has a moustache, and even carries a briefcase.

New world, new social order... or not, I guess.

Anyway, the troll racism/eugenics metaphor is really speeding up:

KARKAT: JADE, DON’T YOU READ THE NEWSPAPERS?

KARKAT: THE NEW ADMINISTRATION IS CRACKING DOWN ON CERTAIN KINDS OF INTERSPECIES ADOPTION LAWS.

KARKAT: IF YOU’RE SO INTENT ON IT BEING “THE THREE OF US,” WE LITERALLY WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ADOPT A HUMAN CHILD BECAUSE THE HUMAN ADMINISTRATION IS AFRAID THAT I’D...

KARKAT: I DON’T KNOW.

KARKAT: TEAR INTO IT, AND FEAST ON ITS ORGANS.

KARKAT: AND IN THAT KIND OF POLITICAL CLIMATE? WELL, I’M NOT SURE IT’S A WORLD I WOULD WANT TO RAISE A TROLL CHILD IN RIGHT NOW.

Later on they outright call Jane a fascist. Not beating about the bush here. And John has apparently described Jane’s treatment of Jake as outright rape, which his friends generally assent to.

Thinking I should have picked up more of that dynamic when I read the earlier Jane/Jake scenes. There was a line...

It’s not the most rousing speech Jake has ever given, but it seems satisfactory enough for Jane. He releases a tremendously relieved sigh when Jane breaks into a smile.

JANE: Oh, Jake!

He flails when she kisses him. But this time, there’s no doubt he hasn’t said no.

Yeah that pretty much made it clear didn’t it. Jane has absolutely no regard for Jake’s will; and Jake is in no way in this situation able to assert how much this dynamic is harming him, without Jane pulling out the same manipulative tricks, playing hard on his ridiculous ‘old-timey gentleman’ thing.

Anyway, any discussion of their own relationship is forestalled when a dead body of Jade falls from the sky! Apparently it’s a much younger version of Jade - the origin is utterly unclear. (Perhaps we’ll find out in the Meat storyline?)

Whatever the cause, it prompts Jade to go to Jane - whose Life powers could bring the dead Jade back, in theory.

Chapter 20

But Jane’s powers... don’t work at all. (Also her relationships are pretty dire and she’s exerting fascist influence behind the scenes). Apparently whatever’s afflicting this Jade is more fundamental than poison: a ‘metaphysical’ rot. Meanwhile, it’s heavily implied (as was more or less said outright earlier) that Rose’s Seer powers don’t work anymore.

Jade wonders if her presence in Earth C implies the other selves across other timelines can no longer exist. But this is maybe only brought up to dismiss it.

Instead, Roxy brings up the whole fascism thing - as a political divide pushing them apart (metaphor ahoy). Which prompts an impassioned - and justified - rant from Karkat. Gamzee steps in, and Karkat has a go at him too, and the way he’s exploiting his claimed ‘redemption’:

KARKAT: NO.

KARKAT: NEVER IN THE WILDEST DREAMS OF YOUR SOPOR SOAKED PEABRAIN WILL WE BE “MOTHERFUCKING GOOD,” GAMZEE.

KARKAT: BECAUSE YOU’RE SLEEPING WITH THE GODDAMN ENEMY.

KARKAT: BECAUSE I STILL HAVE NIGHTMARES ABOUT WHAT YOU DID.

KARKAT: AND BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE FUCK YOU EVEN DID WRONG IN THE FIRST PLACE!

In the framing this story has developed, he’s not wrong, obviously. The words ‘redemption arc’ are thrown out again by Roxy and Jane in Gamzee’s defense, and Karkat storms out.

Karkat is good in the role of moral authority, directly confronting cruelty and hypocrisy that his more ‘polite’ friends would rather sweep under the rug in the name of unity. We see their reactions:

Karkat leaves a stunned silence in his wake. Jane fuming silently to herself, Kanaya and Rose exchanging a knowing look about World Politics, John chewing his lip and mulling about how Karkat is probably right, and how if he were braver, he would have backed him up.

Kanaya and Rose - on the ‘right side’, but in many ways, the middle class, above-it-all. John, the coward. Jane, put on the spot, soon falls back on her ideals of propriety...

Karkat’s ancestor was the Signless/Sufferer, who led a rebellion against the Condesce. Perhaps he’s stepping up to fill a similar role...

Chapter 21

As was discussed in the prior chapter, Roxy insists on holding a funeral for the dead alternate-universe Jade... for the sake of unity, or something. This works about as well as you might expect.

Oh, and, on the subject of Jake and Jane, well.

You gave it the old college try chap, Jake said to him earlier as he waxed his mustache in the mirror. But its better for a man to just let his wife do whatever she wants. I promise youll experience less pain that way old boy.

yeesh

Also Calliope is here! She gives a little speech about death, and shares a tender moment with Roxy... so... still playing into that ambiguity huh.

Then Aradia and Sollux show up?? I guess they were, technically, still alive! They have not, indeed, been absorbed by the big black hole... and they certainly liven things up.

Honestly, the massive pileup of characters leads to them playing off each other in ways I’ve really missed. It’s like a good old classic homestuck group chat feel.

Roxy gives a speech that’s ultimately all about Dirk - about the ways things might have been different, whether it’s even meaningfully possible to compare. Good old Homestuck themes. Then she has her actual baby because why not.

As if this isn’t enough melodrama for one chapter, Jade’s ‘corpse’ gets up, and reveals it’s not actually Jade in there at all, but... someone who speaks in red text, and is known to Calliope. Alt-Calliope perhaps..?

Sure enough, it is... the Calliope who predominated over Caliborn in an alternative branch of that timeline, who created the big black hole, and who has now arrived ‘to protect your world’.

Phew.

Epilogue 4 as a whole

Bloody hell that was something.

So Jane’s gone full fash. For significant chunks of the comic she was mind-controlled by the Condesce, but I guess within this story she’s capable of going fash on her own devices.

The awful relationship between Jade and Jake is well-realised, I think, for all its awfulness. It comes across as a believable, ugly dynamic.

The whole redemption arc thing, that keeps coming up - it’s about fiction, but perhaps also more broadly about transformative and restorative justice; the kind of difficult conversations that I struggle with a lot, of how we collectively and individually respond to instances of cruelty, abuse and violence, and how these things arise in the first place.

At its best, this story is challenging a perspective that people who have been hurt in terrible ways should be obliged to grant forgiveness and absolution; a ‘too easy’ story where all pain disappears and everyone can just be friends again. But we must avoid two failure modes: one is a model of the world which takes it that some people are just bad, justifying any extent of “retributive” violence, and systemising that in a way that can and will inevitably be directed as a further weapon against those who are vulnerable to it, rather than in any way that prevents harm. All expansions of prisons are justified by appealing to the worse “predators”, but they do basically nothing to prevent sexual violence (rather, they concentrate it) and instead conveniently provide slave labour.

But there is still an obvious danger in the presumption that someone who has learned to be abusive and controlling has ‘reformed’; of refusing to act when someone needs help. Any system can be exploited.

Note that, of course, there is a considerable gap between imprisoning Gamzee in a fridge, and welcoming him as part of the friendship circle. When practised on a community scale, exile is an instrument of violence, but no individual person or small friendship group is obliged to maintain a relationship with a particular person...

So that’s what it’s dealing with. Only with ‘lol this clown is gross’ jokes; Gamzee, as presented here, is a repulsive person in every way possible, and those who defend him are painted as idiots.

The whole thing with the clowns in Homestuck has always been a bit of a weird one. The cultural markers invoked are heavily associated with class: they’re dirty, they drink a lot, they’re literally juggalos. But they’re also declared to be the ruling class, relating to other trolls as oppressors. And of course, haha, it’s only jokes, right...

(That’s not to get into the extent that clown imagery is racialised in the US, because hoooo boy that’s a complicated one. Discussions of ‘coding’ in media can get horribly oversimplified, and I think I’ve put my foot in that elsewhere. Coding is never just one thing)

Anyway I’m probably like, going on too much about this. Tell me I’m full of shit lol.

Alt-Calliope is hopefully finally going to explain wtf is going on as a result of John’s dubious decision at the start.

[kiheons]

someone asked for a sugar mommy au timeline, I realized that this is pretty long so I’m just making a post. This takes place over a few years. If you hate it just hate it, I’m not in the mood for more controversy. 

So this is the most basic timeline for it.

They meet because Vixen, who works for Brianna, brings Aquaria to her new job to just show her what she does

After that they keep running into each other and realize they both frequent a cafe near their workplaces

They start having weekly lunch dates and eventually Brianna starts paying for Aquaria’s meals. Through this they start getting close

Brianna buys Aquaria gifts and stuff and they spend a lot of time together. Brianna has been flirting with Aquaria since like day 2 and Aquaria thinks she’s gorgeous so there’s a lot of sexual tension

Aquaria is struggling to pay rent one month and has to ask Vixen if she can borrow some money. Vixen, who actually finally has some money, still can’t lend Aquaria that much. Brianna overhears and offers to pay Aquaria’s rent

It becomes a regular thing and now Brianna is paying Aquaria’s rent, buying her food, they’re spending a ton of time together and Vixen makes a joke that Brianna is like Aquaria’s sugar momma or something and that’s kinda where it starts

At some point, after weeks of sexual tension Aquaria says fuck it and kisses Brianna

They start dating and it’s fun, sexy and Brianna takes care of Aquaria

Eventually Aquaria just moves in with Brianna but she insists on paying rent and buying her own stuff

Aquaria calls Brianna mommy accidentally one day and that’s where the mommy kink starts

As time passes Aquaria learns more about who Brianna is and what exactly she does.

This entire time they’re having a lot of great freaky sex and Aquaria is very open with Brianna but Brianna is not the same. Aquaria can tell that Brianna is still very much guarded She learns that Brianna is divorced and that she’s still quite close with Bob. Aquaria can’t help but feel jealous. Brianna realizes that Aquaria feels this way and reassures her that while she and Bob are on good terms they’d never get back together for a multitude of reasons

Aquaria is working her ass off at her job, Brianna goes abroad a lot and they both miss each other a ton so Brianna promises her that she’ll make it a priority to spend time with Aquaria

This is what is the initial motivator to take Aquaria with her to these large meetings/parties

Aquaria is pretty nervous about it at first because it’s a lot of powerful people but Brianna is almost a different person at these events. She always looks like she’s ready to go to war and she’s fiercely protective of Aquaria

Aquaria starts going to more and more of these and people start expecting her to be there. Aquaria herself is super busy so it’s difficult for her to go to all but she likes being with Brianna so she does.

At this point Aquaria has become decently engrained in Brianna’s professional life and it starts a tension where Brianna thinks Aquaria is too immature because she doesn’t conduct herself in the same straight laced manner that Brianna does

It becomes a point of tension that escalates into an ongoing issue. Brianna is then expected to attend a dinner with Aquaria but she has a meeting beforehand. She asks Aquaria to go ahead, Aquaria doesn’t want to, and therefore the scene with Aquaria showing up in that skimpy dress happens

After that incident Aquaria really sees what Brianna is capable of and it scares her a little

Monet warns Brianna that she has to be careful. Aquaria must never feel like she has to do something or that she’s scared of Brianna or else Brianna is just as bad as everyone she has to work with.

They are still dating, Aquaria’s job becomes high pressure and Brianna’s revenge on multiple members of this elite group for bothering Aquaria paints a target on her back. All of a sudden she’s being pressured by all sorts of people and it’s incredibly stressful.

They have a huge fight that results in Aquaria walking out and breaking up with Brianna. Brianna insists to herself that it’s nothing and Aquaria will be back. Aquaria goes to Katelyn and the two decide to go to Brianna’s office and talk to her.

Brianna, who’s already barely hanging on by a thread life wise, has security drag them both out of the building. This results in Vixen coming into Brianna’s office and quitting angrily and Katelyn, Monet and Bob blocking Brianna’s number and refusing to talk to her.

This begins what is essentially the Kameron arc. Throughout the fic Kameron has been mentioned before as a head of a tech company and one of the few people that Brianna can actually stand. However, the two of them have a huge rivalry because if either of their companies collapse they each stand to gain the most.

Aquaria says fuck it to Brianna and decides she’s gonna move on. She goes out, casually hooks up and eventually goes to this one bar and runs into a very hot, tattooed girl. On the flip side Brianna, who’s solution to deal with her girlfriend leaving her, her friends refusing to talk to her and her life falling apart, is drinking until she forgets, happens to be at the same bar.

She sees Aquaria dancing with and kissing Kameron of all people and is immediately pissed off. At this point she’s had a few drinks and isn’t in the greatest state of mind so she comes up to Kameron and asks why Kameron is dancing with her girlfriend.

Aquaria snaps that they aren’t dating and she’s not Brianna’s girlfriend and Kameron, who sees an opportunity to fuck with Brianna, says if Aquaria’s single she can take her home

This results in Brianna trying to punch Kameron and Aquaria steps in without even thinking about it, telling Brianna that if she gets into a drunken bar fight her public image will tank. Aquaria gives Kameron her number and drags Brianna outside to call her driver.

It’s the first time in the time that she’s know Brianna that Aquaria genuinely thinks Brianna is just pathetic and sad looking and Aquaria can’t help but feel bad for her. Aquaria takes Brianna home, sleeps the night in the guest room because she doesn’t want to leave Brianna alone overnight and leaves early in the morning before Brianna wakes up

Kameron, who does think that Aquaria is cute, asks Aquaria out on a date. They go on a few and Kameron quickly realizes that Aquaria still loves Brianna. Kameron mentions this to Aquaria but Aquaria brushes it off and insists that she’s over Brianna.

One day they decide to go on a lunch date. Kameron decides the place and it happens to be the cafe that Brianna and Aquaria used to frequent. Kameron says that she likes Aquaria but Aquaria is clearly not over Brianna and this is honestly kind of weird. Kameron is curious about what happened, Aquaria says it doesn’t matter, all that matters is that she tried to talk to Brianna and Brianna kicked both her and Katelyn out of her building.

It’s around this moment that Brianna walks in with a client and by the time they notice each other it’s too late for Brianna to leave without making a scene. Aquaria refuses to leave out of sheer pettiness. The whole thing is awkward and uncomfortable. At some point Aquaria leaves to use the bathroom and Kameron decides to talk to Brianna.

Tells her that “hey I don’t know what you did or what you and Aquaria’s relationship was like. I really didn’t pay that much attention. But she’s a real catch and she still cares about you so whatever you did you should try and fix it cause someone is gonna come and try and sweep her away and that someone is me.”

Brianna tells her that it’s none of her business and Kameron is like “well it is my business after you tried to drunkenly punch me in a club a few weeks ago cause I was dancing with your girl. Oh wait, I guess she’s not your girl anymore. How unfortunate.”

This time Brianna does actually manage to punch Kameron in the face. Aquaria comes out of the bathroom to find Brianna literally being held back by her client while Kameron gets tissues for her bloody nose. Aquaria is absolutely furious and tells Brianna that they’re over, and that it’s not Brianna’s business if she’s dating Kameron or not.

The client is also furious but Kameron says it’s fine. Turns out Brianna was meeting with a rep for a subsidiary of Kameron’s company. This pisses Brianna off even more but the cafe owner says that if this escalates all of them are permanently banned so she leaves it as is.

Thus begins Brianna’s hell of seeing Kameron, who are previously never been interested in all these fancy parties and meetings, suddenly show up to every single one, all with Aquaria. Aquaria hangs off Kameron’s arm, laughs at every bad joke and seems deadset on making Brianna’s life even worse.

People start talking because Kameron ‘stole’ Brianna’s girlfriend and everyone knows they’re rivals. Brianna is asked if she’s going to do anything about it. It’s bad enough that her company is being targeted but all of a sudden it’s also her personal life.

Aquaria herself is also a lot more comfortable at these things. Over the few she attended with Brianna she got to know people and now people come up to her to talk to her specifically. She’s starting to build a network of people who are interested in her. She also likes that Kameron doesn’t care at all what she does, Kameron isn’t protective of her at all.

Kameron can tell Aquaria doesn’t like her, Aquaria can also kind of tell the same but this is her opportunity for revenge and she’s going to take it. She asks Kameron is she can call her mommy at these events. The first time Brianna hears it, because Aquaria does it shamelessly, she slams her utensils down and storms out of the event.

Brianna starts a downward spiral. Every time Aquaria sees her she looks just a little bit worse. Brianna is chain smoking which Aquaria has never seen her do before, she’s not nearly as personable and she goes from being one of the best dressed to showing up in something that barely makes the dress code. Aquaria, who was previously having fun fucking with Brianna, can now see that Brianna is straight up going off the rails.

At one point Brianna asks Kameron for a light like 6 times and Kameron just gives her the lighter and Aquaria is pissed. She asks Kameron why she would do that, can’t she tell that Brianna is gonna chain smoke herself to death? Kameron tells Aquaria that no one cares. Literally no one in this room except Aquaria cares about Brianna’s health. Everyone stands to benefit from Brianna going crazy and losing control of her company. If she wants someone to help Brianna she’ll have to do it herself.

Kameron also reminds Aquaria that’s she’s making headway in her own life. People are wondering if she’ll start her own fashion house and she’s getting attention from big names. Does she really want to put her time and energy into trying to save Brianna.

Aquaria decides that no. She doesn’t. She starts focusing on her own career, breaks up with Kameron and Kameron isn’t surprised because she knew that they were never anything to start with. During this arc Aquaria leaves Alaska’s company and starts working for Violet’s company. Immediately she’s getting requests to design for big names that she knows personally and she delivers. Brianna is in the back of her mind and Aquaria throws herself into work so she doesn’t have to think about how much she misses Brianna.

Brianna’s situation gets worse and worse. She hates herself for what she did, she misses Aquaria so fucking much, but it’s clear to her that Aquaria really has moved on. Katelyn unblocked her but she never talks to Brianna. Brianna’s own mom called her about Aquaria and told Brianna to get it together. She lost the one person she actually cared about cause she wanted to be stupid and a know it all so the solution is work until you drop and that’s exactly what happens. Brianna overworks herself and collapses during a company meeting. She’s sent to the hospital, the media gets a hold of what’s happening and that’s how Aquaria finds out what happened.

Aquaria is absolutely terrified cause when she sees on the news that Brianna is in the hospital she assumes the worst. She decides this has gone far enough and there’s too much left unsaid between the two of them. She admits to herself that she still has feelings for Brianna. The staff won’t let her into Brianna’s room so she borrows Katelyn’s keys and goes to wait at Brianna’s apartment.

It’s been like 8 months since she’s been here but it looks exactly the same. Brianna hasn’t changed anything. Like, seriously, there’s still closet space for Aquaria, there’s 2 bags of the coffee Aquaria drinks in a cabinet, the plant Aquaria bought when she first moved in is still in the corner. The only difference is that there’s ash trays everywhere and Aquaria is pretty sure if Brianna didn’t have a cleaner this place would be a complete mess.

When Brianna comes home Aquaria actually gets a good look at her after a while and realizes that Brianna looks like a disaster. She looks absolutely drained and miserable and Aquaria feels her heart break. When Brianna asks what she’s doing here Aquaria says that she doesn’t want to leave things like this. She still cares about Brianna, she never really stopped. Dating Kameron was fun but it that’s all it was. There was nothing else there. She still loves Brianna but she knows Brianna probably doesn’t feel the same anymore. Still, she wants them to be on good terms.

Brianna, on the other hand, completely loses it. She tells Aquaria that she regrets everything, she’s been through the fight hundreds of times thinking about all the things she could have done differently. She hates that it took her as long as it did to realize it but by the time she did she had already lost Aquaria. Apologies won’t do it justice. Over the past few months Aquaria’s opinion of Brianna has changed. She no longer sees Brianna as the person she did at first. She says that if Brianna wants to, if she’s willing to give it another try, Aquaria wants to get back together.

They do and Brianna starts getting her life back together. She starts talking to Monet, Bob and Katelyn again, she stops smoking nearly as much. However something has changed. Before Brianna was very much protective of Aquaria cause Aquaria seemed naive. Aquaria now is leaving the apartment with a suitcase and when Brianna asks where she’s going Aquaria says she has a fitting for the Korean president’s wife and she’ll be back in a few days. She’s almost unrecognizable and Brianna realizes just how much she missed in the few months they were apart.

Aquaria will go with Brianna to meetings and break off because she has her own business to attend to. She starts buying Brianna gifts and talking to her about this amazing restaurant she went to in Switzerland that they have to try next time and Brianna is in awe. It seems like overnight Aquaria grew. She’s started calling Brianna mommy again but the dynamic has shifted.

Brianna on the other hand is trying to do better. She decides to see a therapist cause she knows she has a lot of issues. Self acceptance and self love are hard things for her but she’s trying.

They have a small fight about how Brianna doesn’t trust Aquaria even now and that Aquaria always loved Brianna more than Brianna loved her. Brianna admits that she’s scared to trust people and it’s an issue that’s been around since she was a child. Aquaria asks her to at least try and Brianna does.

It’s been about a year since they broke up and got back together and Aquaria leaves Violet’s company to start her own. All of a sudden she’s on the same level as Brianna and Brianna is happy for her. Aquaria has grown a lot since they first met. Aquaria is not happy. She’s still not at the level she wants to be so she keeps working.

They go through a period of domestic bliss. Brianna’s doing a lot better, she’s open and vulnerable with Aquaria, it’s a lot less onesided than it was when they first met. Brianna let Aquaria call her mommy when Aquaria fucks her. Aquaria is doing amazing things with her brand.

Aquaria isn’t happy with where she is. She’s seen what Brianna can do and she’s not there yet. Before it was whatever but now they’re operating on the same level. Aquaria knows if she doesn’t tighten up her defenses she’ll get eaten. She’s young, she grew fast, she doesn’t have the same base that Brianna and a lot of other people do. Either she’s out for blood or she’ll be destroyed.

She’s out for blood. Aquaria isn’t concerned with playing dirty. As long as her hands are clean at the end of it and she gets to where she wants it’s okay. Brianna eventually starts noticing this and she’s concerned. Aquaria reminds Brianna too much of herself at a young age. Except Brianna wasn’t in charge of a large fashion house then. Aquaria is becoming someone Brianna can’t recognize and it scares her.

When she confront Aquaria about it Aquaria doesn’t want to hear it. She accuses Brianna of trying to bring her down just as she’s beginning to succeed. They have another fight and Aquaria says that she can’t be around Brianna right now. They don’t break up but Aquaria immediately travels abroad. They don’t see each other for nearly 2 months and Brianna is seriously concerned. She tries to figure out what Aquaria is up to through her contacts but realizes Aquaria has an iron defense. It’s almost worse than Brianna’s. Brianna has no idea what she’s doing.

Aquaria comes back and they head to a party. Brianna finishes her conversation and goes to find Aquaria only to overhear Aquaria joking about how it would be a first if a fashion house bought out a biomedical company. Brianna leaves immediately, spends the next three days going over all the company finances and confronts Aquaria about it. Aquaria says it was a joke, Brianna is overreacting and that she’s never do that. Brianna says that she has spent months working to be open and trusting with Aquaria and now Aquaria is joking about buying Brianna out? This is the one reason Brianna has never trusted anyone. She thought she could trust Aquaria but can she really?

Aquaria tells her that she’s being paranoid but Brianna points out that Aquaria literally bought out a cotton company. She can’t tell who she’s dating anymore and Brianna doesn’t want to be with someone who will step over anyone and everyone to get what she wants. Aquaria tells her that’s how one survives here and when Brianna uses herself as an example Aquaria says that’s funny because you nearly destroyed yourself and your company until I stepped in and pulled you out of your own head.

Brianna is understandably extremely hurt. She tells Aquaria to get out and not come back until she resembles the woman Brianna loves. Aquaria says fine, Brianna is dragging her down and she doesn’t need that in her life. It’s so similar to their big fight but it’s almost like the roles are reversed. Brianna is scared of Aquaria for the first time in her life.

They spend four months apart. Brianna hopes desperately that Aquaria will come to her senses and realize the path she’s on. Aquaria ignores her texts and calls. Vixen is freaked out too and she tells Brianna to talk to Aquaria. Brianna tells Vixen that she’s tried. Brianna sees Aquaria at events. At one point they’re in a conversation with a few other people. Someone in arms asks Aquaria about her production and Aquaria says that she takes care to make sure those who work under her are cared for. The guy she’s talking to laughs and says Aquaria is naive. Switch your production. There’s a lot of countries where child labor is easy and cheap. It’ll cut your costs. Brianna, you should really do the same. I’ve been telling you for years. I know someone who will help you cover if you’re concerned about public backlash. 

Aquaria looking absolutely horrified. She glances at Brianna and Brianna just looks tired. Brianna catches her eye and squeezes Aquaria’s hand and that’s when Aquaria realizes what Brianna was so worried about. Aquaria quickly runs through everything she’s done so far and none of it is to that extent but she’s gone full speed ahead, easily bought out smaller companies, fired people that she thought were a hindrance to her success. Brianna was right.

Aquaria realizes that there’s no way she can reach the level at which some of these individuals operate without exploiting others. She doesn’t want to do that. She asks Brianna about it later, freaking out a little and Brianna just looks sad. “Aquaria I don’t know how to tell you but I’m nothing compared to people like that. If you want enough power to topple full governments you have to hurt others. I don’t want that. I don’t want you to do that either.”

Aquaria comes back to her senses. She comes home for the first time in months. This time they’re actually a united front. Basically the power couple of the world. Aquaria stands equal to Brianna and Brianna trusts Aquaria to do that. It ends there but there’s a epilogue where they get married.

[operator-amelia]

Dusk Arc 01

(01: This is not meant to convey a position in time, this is just the first piece of writing in this part of Amelia's life)

"This is irresponsible."

Cherno lumbered into Aria's quarters without knocking, the lights of his Chroma twinkling a charred red. Aria, still behind the eyes of a Mesa platform, simply shrugged, standing up from her meditation pad and turning to meet Cherno's gaze.

"Was it now?"

"Yes," he spat. "Not only inviting new blood into Argent Dusk, but bringing her on a deployment-"

"There is no "new blood," Cherno, only lost memories-"

"I don't see how that makes a difference!" he hissed angrily, sweeping a hand as he spoke. Flames trailed behind it. If warframes could raise their eyebrows, Aria would have.

"Helminth is getting the better of you."

"Which is another conversation we desperately need to have," Cherno groaned. "Most of us haven't spent this much time in transference in years. How long until you wake them? It can't wait forever. It's too limiting."

"What precisely do you want me to do? Take her out by myself and show her Lua? You want me to take my shotgun? Tell her about the rabbits too?"

"Very funny."

"It's not actually far from the truth, either!"

Cherno sighed, rubbing his forehead. Warframes didn't get stress headaches, of course, this was entirely out of habit.

"We're an old clan."

"Not that old."

"Old enough to know that was reckless."

"So maybe it was. Konzu vouched for her."

"Konzu isn't a Tenno, he's-"

"He was right, for one thing, so watch it." Cherno held up his hands in mock surrender.

"Okay, so he was. She has skill. That wasn't the place to find out."

"And where would you like to have found out?"

"In the ring."

"An experience Chroma pilot pinballing a Mag that hasn't even woken from the Second Dream yet isn't "finding out," Cherno, it's bullying."

"Never said it'd be me in the ring with her.

"Not the point. Like you said, we're an old clan."

"Not that old," Cherno parroted back. Aria scoffed

"Fuck you. We need something to work on at the homestead, anyways. This many deployments isn't healthy. Makes the rest of the team listless, you know these things."

"So what? She's a pet?"

"Pet project, maybe, and either way that's a fuck of a lot better than you've been treating her."

"Respect is earned. She hadn't earned mine."

"You speak of respect as an authority, but you didn't respect her as a person. Difference."

"Well, now she has both. At the potential expense of Cetus."

"Think maybe that was the point."

"Really. That's what we're going with? All that, giving her your rifle, just to prove a point?"

"Vulkar's are a dime a dozen. Besides-"

"Not that one."

"-besides, we needed her in the end. What would you have done?"

"Waited for Gaz."

"Who we all know would have missed."

"And by the time he gets to the plains, circumstances change and the mission changes. You don't know we needed her."

"I know we did. I know waiting meant chancing that there was no shot to take at all. Would that have been optimal? Losing?" From the looks of it, Cherno wanted to say something else, but at the last second, bit it back. He sighed, shook his head, and walked out. "We still on for sparring tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Got some shit to work through."

"Looking forward to it!" Aria called back, but the door was already closed.

Person A: “You can’t just keep adopting every stray child, you meet.”

Person B: “Watch me.”

[the-desolated-quill]

The Witch’s Familiar - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Now that we’ve gotten past the pointless and mindless prologue that was The Magician’s Apprentice, I was hoping that The Witch’s Familiar would be where the meat of the story would be. Sadly there’s barely any meat on this thing.

Yes, while The Witch’s Familiar has more narrative coherence than the previous episode did, sticking to one time and location for the most part, it’s in fact just as bad as The Magician’s Apprentice, if not worse.

Let’s start with the biggest problem. Davros. Specifically how he’s utilised. Seeing boy Davros on the Skaro battlefield was quite an exciting development and could have opened up some interesting directions for the character to go down. Unfortunately that’s not the case. Turns out the story is not about Davros at all. It’s, once again, all about the Doctor. What? You thought Moffat had finally stopped the introspective bullshit in Death In Heaven? You thought the Doctor’s speech about being just a guy in a box was the end of the matter? Well you’d be wrong, wouldn’t you? It looks like brooding angst is going to be a staple of the Twelfth Doctor’s tenure, so you’d better get used to it.

Good God, I’m so fucking tired of this crap. Not only has the Doctor’s constant, guilt driven introspection been serving as a detriment to numerous plots, it also doesn’t make a pixel of sense, especially when you consider who he spends most of his time talking to in this story. Remember in the episode Journey’s End back in the RTD era where Davros started flinging moral judgements at the Doctor? Remember how bloody stupid that was? Well The Witch’s Familiar is like that, but somehow even stupider (and I didn’t even think that was possible). Once again the Doctor’s good guy credentials are being criticised with no justification whatsoever, and it’s hard to take it seriously because it’s fucking Davros. Davros is the one waggling his finger disapprovingly at the Doctor. Davros. Forgive me if I don’t consider Space Hitler fit enough to judge the Doctor’s moral standing.

It’s such a shame because both Peter Capaldi and Julian Bleach really give it their all and you can tell they’re really trying for something hard-hitting and emotional, but it just doesn’t work because the whole thing is utterly ridiculous. At one point Davros asks the Doctor if he’s a good man and whether he did the right thing trapping his own race inside pepper pots, which is clearly supposed to mirror the Doctor’s question to Clara in Into The Dalek, but it’s so fucking daft because... IT’S FUCKING DAVROS! He’s a racist, genocidal maniac who performed brutal experiments on his own people and was responsible for the deaths of billions. Let’s just say Santa Claus won’t be paying him a visit anytime soon. That got quite possibly the biggest laugh out of me this whole episode. And it just gets even weirder when you consider the Doctor’s response. I could buy the Doctor visiting his deathbed, taking pity on him and even sharing a laugh with him (they’ve had a long history after all). But giving him some of his regeneration energy?

IT’S FUCKING DAVROS!!!

I know I must sound like a heartless bastard, but I honestly wasn’t moved by the Doctor and Davros’ interactions. Not even slightly. It’s just too stupid and too unlikely for words. And it just gets worse when you find out that the two have been lying to each other through their back bloody teeth this all time. Were you moved by Davros’ emotional pleas to the Doctor? Turns out he was lying the whole time! He just wanted the Doctor’s regeneration energy for his Daleks (they never explain why or how this would benefit the Daleks. Moffat was too busy trying to be clever rather than filling in that little detail for us) and didn’t mean a single fucking thing he said. But it’s okay because the Doctor was lying too! Yeah, he knew all along that Davros was lying and so played him at his own game, so not only does this have no emotional weight whatsoever, there’s also nothing even remotely at stake! Isn’t Moffat a genius?

I really wish the story had stuck with the Doctor and boy Davros because that was interesting. I even liked the idea of the Doctor giving up his sonic screwdriver due to his own guilt (although that’s later ruined thanks to the sonic sunglasses. Seriously?! Sonic fucking sunglasses?!?! Give me strength!), and had they left it with the Doctor abandoning boy Davros to his fate, it would have been fine. Instead Moffat had to take it one step further.

This whole scenario is clearly taking inspiration from the classic Who story Genesis Of The Daleks. Specifically a line uttered by Tom Baker’s Doctor during a pivotal moment of the story:

"If someone who knew the future pointed out a child to you and told you that that child would grow up totally evil, to be a ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives, could you then kill that child?"

Now if you haven’t already, I strongly urge you to watch Genesis Of The Daleks. It’s one of the best stories in the whole of Doctor Who (some even consider it to be the best) and every Whovian needs to watch it at least once. One of the many reasons why Genesis is so fondly remembered is because of the morally complex question at the centre. Terry Nation smartly chooses not to answer it, instead allowing the audience to come to their own conclusions. Steven Moffat, on the other hand, chooses to tackle the question head on. The Doctor is given the opportunity to exterminate boy Davros, but instead ends up saving him. But you see, by doing so, Moffat completely misses the point of Genesis Of The Daleks. It’s not about what the Doctor would or wouldn’t do. It’s about the question itself. Rather than expanding on the legacy of Genesis, Moffat ends up tarnishing it, sweeping all the moral complexity under the carpet and spoon-feeding us a neat and tidy answer. No of course the Doctor wouldn’t kill a child! Are you crazy? And all the millions of lives destroyed are very quickly brushed aside with some bullshit about mercy. Not only is it too simplistic, it also makes the Doctor come across like a complete hypocrite. While he’s busy trying to decide whether killing Davros is the right thing to do, he’s setting up the Daleks so that they can kill each other. Obviously this kind of manipulation is very much in character for the Doctor, but it’s ironic how he shows a lot of guilt and angst over a humanoid child, but doesn’t even so much as bat an eyelid at killing all the non-humanoid Daleks.

Let’s quickly talk about the Daleks. They always tend to suffer in Davros stories, and this is a perfect example of that. Yes we do get a lot of new info about the Daleks (most of which doesn’t make sense. Why dump old, decaying Daleks in the sewers? Why not just kill them? Isn’t that their usual MO? Obsession with purity and all that. And while the Dalek machine altering your speech sounds like a good idea and adds to the trapped and claustrophobic nature of the Daleks, it also completely contradicts what we already know about them. How did Ian Chesterton manage to have a conversation with the First Doctor, Barbara and Susan when he was in the Dalek machine?), but they’re also not in the slightest bit threatening, and that’s because nobody takes them seriously. You’ve got the Doctor whizzing around in Davros’ chair asking them if they want to play dodgems, you’ve got the Master back to her annoying, goofy self (the bitch is back? Moffat, may I remind you this is a kid’s show) undermining the Daleks’ authority at every turn. Add to that apparently it’s easy as fuck to cheat death thanks to the Master’s teleport and the TARDIS’ newfound superpowers, and the Daleks don’t really have a leg to stand on. If the show isn’t going to take them seriously, why the fuck should I?

Speaking of the Master, what are she and Clara even doing here? They contribute precisely nothing to the story at all. You could just cut them out of the story entirely and it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference. And why does the Master try and trick the Doctor into killing Clara? What’s the point? Didn’t she bring the Doctor and Clara together in the first place? And why did she even do that? That’s never been explained. I wasn’t kidding when I said Missy was basically Moriarty in a dress back in my review of Death In Heaven because they both share the exact same problems. With both Moriarty and the Master, Moffat is trying desperately to emulate this kind of Joker style madness, but there’s more to the Joker than just being insane. He actually has consistent motives and morals, with his insanity serving that. With the Master and Moriaty, Moffat seems to be using insanity as a way to excuse his own shitty writing. There’s no need to create a consistent character with clear goals or proper reasoning behind their actions because they’re insane. It’s just incredibly fucking lazy and it’s an utter waste of the Master. Neither she nor Clara have any kind of agenda of their own, hence why they feel so superfluous.

Finally there’s the series arc. Usually bad arcs from Moffat are to be expected, but this is the first time I’ve ever been truly worried by the direction he’s going in. It seems that Moffat is going back into Listen territory and trying to redefine the important building blocks of the show. So there’s a prophecy about something called the Hybrid and apparently that’s why the Doctor ran away from Gallifrey in the first place. Like with Listen, it seems Moffat is once again trampling over one of the most integral parts of the Doctor’s character. His mystery. We don’t really know who he is, where he comes from or precisely why he left Gallifrey all those years ago, and we shouldn’t know either. It’s like dissecting a frog. Yes you could cut it open and find out how the insides work, but then you’d just be left with a bloody mess on the table. I have no idea where Moffat is going with this Hybrid stuff, but it seems like we’re going down a very dangerous path indeed and after all the damage he’s already caused over the years, I’m deeply concerned about him potentially lifting up the bonnet and messing with the vital components of the show.

Overall The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar is a pretty rubbish start to Series 9. Nonsensical plots, pointless padding, non-threatening villains, recycling of tired ideas and an attempt to expand on a classic Doctor Who story that ultimately misses the point by several galaxies.