#She's a complex character and I like playing with the effect their relationship and general dynamic has on Steve

[sp0o0kylights]

 Part Five Part Two / Part Six YOU ARE HERE. / Part Seven

A03

"No come back here and hug me dammit!"

"I told you it'd be funny." Gareth stage whispered to Steve the following Monday, as Eddie proceeded to cause his usual amount of chaos in the lunchroom.

Tiff just shook her head.

"Come on, just do it and then tell everyone I'm better!" Eddie shrieked again, loud enough to be heard across the school. Possibly into the parking lot, given the winces and glares their peers tossed Eddie's way.

Jeff had his own head in his hands having been Eddie's prior cuddle victim and still suffering the consequences from it.

"I hate you." He groaned, and every single person knew he was talking to Gareth. "I cannot believe you told him his stupid hugs didn't even compare to Steve's. He almost broke my back this morning!"

Which wasn't an understatement--Gareth himself had dodged his best friend's aggressive hugs only by bolting to his first class, then acting like a ninja as he snuck about all day.

He'd even dropped to the floor and army-crawled at one point.

Now he stayed close to Steve, blatantly using the jock as a meat shield.

"Anyone have any ideas on how we can get him to chill out?" Stewart asked, from where he'd taken refuge under the lunch table.

Their second eldest member put up with many things, but drew the line at bodily injury by overly affectionate metalhead.

"Same as always." Jeff grumbled, making sure Gareth saw his glare. "We wait him out."

"Tiff!" Eddie whined, whirling around, hands reaching out for her.

"You touch me Munson and I'll burn the trigonometry notes I promised you." Tiffany threatened without looking up from her book.

"Fine." Eddie wheeled right back around. "Graaaaant-!"

"This could take days!" Stewart complained, acting like a man caged. "I can't wait much longer!"

'Dramatic, the whole lot of them.' Gareth thought fondly, knowing he was just as bad.

"Okay. Seriously, how are we fixing this?" Jeff said sourly, as Grant once again picked Eddie up by his jacket and bodily threw him as far away as he could.

Like an eldritch being from a B horror movie, Eddie simply bounced back up and came for him again.

"His issue is that he thinks I'm the better cuddler, right? Nothing else?" Steve said thoughtfully.

"Yes." Groaned the other four in unison, as Grant laid a hand on Eddie's forehead, the latter pinwheeling his arms like a cartoon character.

Steve nodded once, before his face morphed into something devastatingly smug. "Yeah we're screwed."

Jeff switched targets from Gareth to glare at Steve instead. "Really Harrington?"

"I'm back to Harrington now? Jeff, man, you wound me." Steve faked a gasp, putting a hand over his heart.

It made Gareth grin, if only because Steve wouldn't have done that a month ago. "God I love when you're a bitch."

Steve looked over at him and winked.

"Just for that, we should make you cuddle with him." Stewart grumbled. "Tell him he can decide for himself who's better!"

Which of course killed the playful look on Steve's face.

Two pairs of shoes proceeded to kick at Stewart (who dodged Jeff's only to be nailed by Tiffany's far more tactical aim.)

Except when Gareth though about it, it actually wasn't a half-bad idea.

If one pitched it right.

"You know," Gareth said slowly, a plan forming. It was half-baked, but it'd work. "--you could end this pretty easily if you did. You  have the power."

"Are we being serious right now?" Jeff grumped. "This does not feel like we're being serious."

Gareth ignore him.

"You up for one last cuddle, Sir Carrington?"  He asked, playfully.

He got a flat look in return. "You've got to be kidding me. You're seriously suggesting the solution here is for me and Eddie to cuddle."

"I am indeed." Gareth said with a grin. "So long as it's an absolutely terrible cuddle."

That got an interesting reaction.

"Good luck, I'm an amazing cuddler." Steve huffed, offended--and it looked like he actually believed it.

A curiosity, considering even with everyone announcing themselves before touching him he still got jumpy.

"Then pretend." Gareth wheedled. "You don't even have to do it for that long. Sneeze in his ear and he'll be done for."

He got a few grossed out looks for that, but it was worth it all to see Steve growing more comfortable with the idea.

"If I were to do anything of the sort I wouldn't sneeze in his ear." The jock retorted, but he looked contemplative.

"I'm sure you could come up with something else. " Gareth suggested, and gave his best, award winning smile as he said it. "You're creative when cornered."

No ulterior motives here, no sir!

"I know what you're doing, Gareth." Steve said, calling him out immediately. "But I might be convinced to take a hit for the team--for a price. My reputation would be on the line."

"What do you want?" Stewart asked immediately, more than a little desperate as Eddie carried on in the background.

"Well..." Steve trailed off, slowly meeting each and every one of them in the eye. "what are you offering?"

"You know what?" Jeff said, putting his head back in his hands. " Just for that, you and Gareth both are on my shit list."

"I'll bake you those marble brownies you wanted and get right back off it." Steve said, the smug air only growing as Jeff sighed loudly.

"Name your price, Harrington." Stewart said, talking over Jeff's second, overly dramatic sigh. "You want some D&D treasure, or an item for your character? You got it. You want a fucking," He paused, eyes scrunching up in thought. "--new basketball? Or whatever sport ball you're into right now?"

"Not even close." Steve told him.

Jeff sighed a third time, loud and obnoxious.

"Why does this always fall down to me?" Tiff asked the ceiling, as though God himself might respond back with the answer. She tilted her head back down, aiming to make eye contact with Steve. "You're in Rucker's class right? I'll write your poly-sci paper. Highest grade I will guarantee is a B, and that is because it would be suspicious if you looked like you suddenly had strong, A-grade opinions on current, geopolitical policies."

Steve snapped and pointed towards her. "Sold!" He called, mimicking an auctioneer.

Smooth as butter, he turned towards Hurricane Eddie. "Hey Munson!"

In two seconds the jock had summoned that cocky persona of his, wearing a smarmy smile like a cloak. It was getting easier and easier to tell which "bitchy Steve" was the real one and which one was a total front.

(Tiffany had decided the man was a mean girl at his core and honestly, the label stuck.

But Mean Girl Steve was a hell of a lot different than King Steve--or any of the other overly confident swaggering personas Steve adopted like a second skin.)

For for all the preparation he'd had, was still rigid most of the time Gareth had occupied his lap, only relaxing when the younger boy had gotten Eddie so wound up their eldest friend couldn't form coherent sentences.

Now, as Steve strode over and issued the challenge of a cuddle off during the next Hellfire game, he was already less stiff.

Eddie had that effect on people. Particularly ones who had crushes on him.

"This is the stupidest thing I've ever been involved in." Tiffany complained.

"Is it Tiff? Is it really?" Jeff challenged as he finally sat up.

"She's definitely forgetting the purple griffin incident." Grant said, completely ignoring what was going down on the other end of the table as he took advantage of Eddie being distracted to make his escape.

"Fine." Tiff conceded before anyone could list anything else off, "But it's at least in the top five."

"This Friday, Harrington." Eddie announced loudly then, fire in his eyes and a finger in Steve's face. "Me and you. It is on."

"Hope you're ready to lose." Steve taunted.

It was hilarious as it was ridiculous.

Which meant of course, that dumb shit had to get in the way of it.

xXx

Steve backslid the next morning.

Worse, he kept backsliding, growing worse throughout the week until the person left looked a whole lot like the guy they’d dragged to their table all those months ago.

He sat silently next to Eddie during lunch, only speaking if asked a direct question, all banter and playful bitchiness gone.

He avoided Hellfire’s members in the hallway, Stewart reporting he had been uncharacteristically silent during their one shared class.

Most damning?

He’d flinched when Eddie had done their dumb little “shoulder bumping” routine.

Which officially meant that ghost Steve was back.

(“I didn’t realize how Steve was our little ray of sunshine and positivity until he stopped being it.” Tiff complained, idly spinning a pencil in the library. “Worse, I didn’t think I’d miss it.”

Gareth, who definitely wasn’t skipping again, agreed wholeheartedly.)

Not even Eddie's antics got a smile out of Steve. He really tried too, to the point where Gareth was starting to worry his best friend was going to do something dramatic just to get a little chuckle.

Steve at least, picked up on the fact he was freaking out all of Hellfire when Grant started to get blunt with his questions.

A part of Gareth (the part that appreciated Grant’s bluntness, instead of the rest of him, that wanted to duck and cover in case it made things worse) was curious if this would finally get Steve to open up; but instead it just made things worse.

Within two direct “No really dude, what's wrong?” ’s, Steve retired the haunted act and instead brought the downright freaky return of one Hawkins' jock's doing a real good job at pretending he was okay.

Pity for him this wasn't Tommy H or the rest of the public Steve was trying to fool.

This was a group of people who tended to be hyper aware of things, ranging from their surroundings to their people. (And then went on to play, as Steve regularly teased them, “one giant math game about it.”)

Not a single one of them was fooled by the act, or the evasive answers Steve pulled out of his ass when the rest of them all, individually, in their own way, tried to figure out if their newest member was okay or just having a few bad days.

"He told me he wasn't feeling good." Jeff said, worrying his lip with his teeth when they all finally convened together after school to discuss it.

"Are we choosing to buy that?" Tiffany asked, one eyebrow raised in a challenge. "He's been off since Tuesday. It's Thursday."

Grant huffed an agreement, arms crossed over his chest.

"Devils advocate, people are typically sick for more than one day." Stewart pointed out. "Dudes probably got allergies or something, it is the end of May."

"It's not allergies." Gareth said flatly.

Allergies usually came with symptoms like coughing and sneezing.

They did not come with vacant stares and falling over one's feet when their friends said hello in the hallway.

"Well clearly he doesn't want to talk about it so maybe he'll just…work himself out of whatever it is." Jeff reasoned. "I don't know if we should really push him about it."

"And miss out on another week's worth of baking?" Stewart bemoaned, as if Steve's lack of treats was the sole reason they were concerned.

Tiff swiped at him with her paperback.

Interestingly, Eddie had yet to say much on the matter. Everyone knew he was just as worried. The guy was a secret teddy bear, and they all still knew to warn him if a dog so much as got hurt in a movie. Worse, Steve was one of his "sheepies" as he so lovingly called them all, and was notoriously defensive of Hellfire as a whole.

Gareth had been eyeing him throughout their little gathering, watching as his best friend tapped his foot anxiously.

The guy seemed lost in his own head and while it wasn't completely unusual, it too, was odd behavior.

Gareth squinted at him, making eye contact and asking if he was alright with the kind of subtle facial expressions only best friends could pull.

Eddie didn't respond, but instead, looked away.

'That's a no.' Gareth thought, as the conversation around them wound down, without anyone coming up with any solid plans on what they were going to do about the Steve situation.

This is exactly how he ended up following Eddie home.

"Inviting ourselves over I see." The elder teen muttered out of the corner of his mouth as Gareth chased him to his van, hopping into the passenger seat instead of heading for his bicycle.

"It's a good night for a smoke sess." Gareth responded casually.

"You hate smoking weed." Eddie returned with a snort. "You prefer edibles."

"Just think of what we could do with Harrington's baking skills." Gareth replied wistfully--but made sure to watch his friend.

There it was. The slightest of weird expressions, flitting over Eddie's face like a shadow before he hid it back into whatever cage it escaped from.

"You're worried." Gareth guessed. Not like that was a hard one.

"Aren't we all, Gare-Bear?" Eddie returned, eyes never leaving the road.

He pretended like he couldn't feel Gareth scanning him, taking in the too tense shoulders and the shuttered, guarded look on his face.

"You know something." Gareth guessed after a moment.

The declaration made his best friend flinch, hands squeezing tight on the wheel.

'Got you.'

"Are you going to spill or do I have to blackmail it out of you?"

"Please Gary you have nothing you could blackmail me with." Eddie challenged with a snort. "I am shameless."

A challenge that could not be ignored, if only because Gareth wanted to remind him who had had the upper hand since Steve had crashed into Hellfire.

"Really? So you wouldn't mind if I show Steve those photos of the time we dressed up as a Barbie “ken doll” band for Jeff’s sister’s birthday? You know, the one were you were wearing that pink boa and the star glasses--”

A hand shot out, clapping Gareth over the mouth.

"Thank you, I got it!" Eddie said, voice an octave higher than normal. "Why do you still even have that!?"

"My mom." Gareth managed to get out, even if it was horribly muffled between Eddie's bony fingers.

"Curse that woman's thirst for nostalgia and scrapbooks." Eddie hissed, as if his mom was some grand villain.

"You love her crafts, you ass." Gareth rolled his eyes, wiping his mouth when Eddie finally removed his hand. "Now spill."

"I'm not sure this is what's causing it." The elder cautioned after a pause just long enough to be dramatic. "But rumor has it his parents are home."

"You think they're why he's acting all…" Gareth trailed off, unsure of what to compare Steve to and not wanting to say a kicked dog.

Eddie hummed in agreement. "Every time I walk into Steve's house, the place starts off feeling like a living tomb. There’s got to be a reason for that, and the only one I can think of is that his parents want that. The tomby-ness."

Gareth leaned back in his seat, contemplating. Turned the idea of Steve's mysterious parents over in his head, comparing it to how the guy's house did have a sort of museum quietness to it.

It wasn't that the place was huge, or even that Steve was typically its solo occupant beyond the occasional weekends one or both of his parents "popped in."

It was the perfectness of it.

How on any given day a photographer could show up to take pictures and the place would be camera ready.

A sort of--trophy house.

He went on to tell his best friend this.

"It’s like a shrine to their success." Eddie added an hour later, when they'd resettled onto his couch, trying to break down just what exactly about Steve's house made it so weird.

They'd shared a beer each--some gross kind that a cat couldn't have gotten buzzed off of, and Gareth had just finished helping Eddie select their chosen flower to roll when an awkward sound erupted throughout the trailer.

If Gareth knew any better, he'd say it almost sounded like someone was knocking on the shitty aluminum door.

Couldn't be though, because he'd never in his life heard someone knock--Eddie's uncle Wayne had a key, and every member of Hellfire was aware that the window in Eddie's room had a broken lock.

To get it open you just had to push at it from a specific angle, and with a few tugs it'd come right up for you.

The noise came again, this time a little louder.

Gareth looked to Eddie, and found his friend holding all the weed.

Understanding flashed between them, and Gareth stood up to answer the door as Eddie magically made the drugs disappear.

Thankfully, it wasn't the cops.

"Hey." Steve said, standing awkwardly on Eddie's porch, looking like he desperately wanted inside but wasn't sure he'd be allowed in. "Eddie said I could just come over if I needed to…?"

He trailed off, awkwardly miming smoking with his fingers.

Gareth couldn't hold in the snort.

"You're in luck man, because I just finished rolling a few." He said, stepping back to let their wayward jock in.

"Hey Stevie." Eddie drawled, now in the process of making the weed reappear. "Come in, have a seat, take a puff."

Rather than sit on the admittedly small couch, Steve chose instead to drop his ass to the floor, leaving the open spot above him to Gareth. He waited until the younger was seated before he leaned back, broad shoulders brushing both his friends legs as he relaxed.

Eddie’s hand twitched, as though he wanted to run it through Steve’s hair and thought better of it.

(Knowing him as Gareth did, that was very likely exactly what the weird little movement of his was.)

“You wanna tell us what’s goin’ on?” Eddie said softly, long after all three of them had an inhale of the joint Eddie had lit, sitting in relaxed silence. "Cause you've been pretty down, Stevie."

"Yeah." Steve agreed hollowly. "Sorry."

Eddie nudged his leg with a foot, then offered him the blunt again. "Don't apologize man, we can't all be sunshine and rainbows."

“You’d be surprised at how many people expect an apology for just that.” Steve muttered.

Gareth traded careful looks over Steve’s head, Eddie turning back and resolutely plowing on.

“You don’t have to, but talking tends to make people feel better.”

“Does it?” Steve asked, before taking a slow, measured inhale of the joint.

Idly he added; "Gareth you can't roll for shit."

"Fuck you dude!" The younger teen exclaimed, instantly offended, but knew a redirect when he saw one. "You try rolling them then!" He snatched the joint out of Steve's hands, huffing audibly.

It was an offer. If Steve didn't want to take the opening Eddie had given him, he could instead take the out Gareth had given.

The option reminded him of Alice in Wonderland (Gareth’s actual favorite movie, even if he tells everyone else it's The Empire Strikes Back)

Specifically when Alice was lost, standing before a split path and asking advice from the Cheshire Cat.

Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" Alice asks.

The Cheshire Cat spins its head, smiling its smile as it answers;“ That depends a good deal on where you want to get to."

Steve proved himself to be a stronger man that Gareth had given him credit for, and took the harder path.

"My parents are home." He said, eyes glued to the TV in front of him, as if that would make the conversation easier.

Perhaps it did.

Eddie to his credit, didn't treat the declaration as anything important. "Yeah? They bring you something nice back from New York?"

"Florida this time and no."

Steve fussed with a thread on his sweater for a moment, a single yellow thread unspooling from the end. It looked like he’d been tugging at it a lot, a small imperfection on an otherwise expensive looking piece of clothing.

"Apparently I've been such a disappointment they're demanding I get a job." He began again. "They want me to learn the realities of hard work."

Gareth traded puzzled glances with Eddie.

Steve had never shied from hard work.

Everyone had heard the story of how he’d won over every coach in Hawkins' High’s favor. It was practically school legend, since he was the first freshmen to take up and finish some bullshit exercise challenge they hosted every year.

The guy even had a herd of some of the most obnoxious children he looked after, without pay.

There was no way the source of whatever was eating at him was a summer job.

Or perhaps, not just a summer job.

"Summer jobs fucking suck, but I hear that new mall’s finally finished.” Gareth said hesitantly. “You could probably get in somewhere there before you head off to college.”

"I'm not going to college. Didn't get into any." Steve said flatly.

Ah-ha.

"I only applied to the one Nancy made me." He added, still refusing to look at either of them. "Couldn't bring myself to apply to any of the others."

Which--odd, but it wasn't the oddest thing ever. Some people just didn't like school, or traditional learning methods.

No matter how much Gareth's counselor insisted otherwise.

"My dad found that out too." Steve said after a moment.

"College isn't the fucking answer to life." Gareth continued. "There's plenty of other things you can do."

Eddie’s head cocked, like a dog who’d been presented with a puzzle.

Steve shrugged. "That's not my issue with it, but the old man thinks it is. He keeps insisting that the free rides are over now." His voice kicked into a deep mockery of his fathers at the end, the condescending tone coming through loud and clear. “Thinks I'm here to screw my girlfriend and party my life away. Wouldn't hear me about not wanting to go to college, at all. Definitely didn't care that I broke up with Nancy." The last part was muttered, almost said more to himself and for himself than it was for them.

Eddie’s head tilted the other way.

"Did you have an idea of what you wanted to do?" Gareth asked. He figured it they knew, they might be at least able to help.

He got a shrug in response.

Gareth was about to open his mouth--probably to put his foot in it, but hell if Steve wanted help brainstorming what he did want to do with his life, or at least get positive support from someone who wasn't a rich asshole, it might as well start here.

Eddie beat him to the punch though, because as usual, Eddie was able to track the weird unspoken thing that no one else could pick up on.

"It's the kids, isn't it?" Eddie asked softly. Reverently. "You don't want to leave Hawkins, because of the kids."

Steve took another sip of beer, waving off the joint Gareth offered him. For someone who'd come to smoke he'd barely touched it or the beer, but then no one here would push.

It was pretty obvious, (to Gareth anyway) that the weed had been a flimsy excuse to begin with.

"When those damn kids started trying to trap the--dogs." Steve started, correcting his slip so smoothly Gareth almost didn't pick up that he'd intended to say something else. “I was the only damn adult they could find.”

Steve gave up fiddling with his sweater to tug angrily at his beer tab, twisting and pulling at it.

"They had figured out where the dogs would be. Had an entire meat bucket they wanted to use as bait and but I was the only damn person to try and at least wrangle the little shits. You wanna know how they found me?" He picked up steam now, and Eddie couldn't even be satisfied that he'd managed to hit the nail on the head because clearly whatever was happening here was the actual thing Steve needed to get off his chest.

"Football practice?" Gareth asked mostly to fill in the tension-filled pause, and then ducked from the swat Eddie aimed his way.

Steve blew out a harsh, mocking breath.

"Dustin found me on the way to Nancy's house, where I was planning on apologizing. Had flowers and everything."

Oh.

Steve's tone said a hell of a lot more than that, the raw emotion making Gareth's own stomach roll.

A careful glance showed an equally punched-out expression on Eddie's face, the metalhead having physically reared back like Steve's words had struck him.

"What were you apologizing for?" He asked, recovering faster than Gareth could.

"Honestly man? I don't know." Steve laughed then, a harsh little disbelieving noise. "I just knew Nancy had said--well she said some shit while drunk, and wasn't able to say some shit sober, and I realized after that maybe I--I rushed her or something you know?"

He ran a hand through his hair, a self soothing behavior. "Or that I did, fuck I don't know. She's Nancy Wheeler, she's smarter than me by a longshot, so if she was mad, than I figured I must be at fault." Steve shrugged, like that was a fact of life.

Eddie interrupted immediately. "She's not smarter than you."

"I--what?"

"Nancy isn't smarter than you.' Eddie repeated firmly. "She's booksmart, Stevie. School smart. Nancy Wheeler absolutely owns tests and papers and things you need to study for, and she’s a hell of a researcher--but she's not people smart."

"What?" Steve repeated incredulously and there Gareth caught a flash of bitchy Steve.

The real one, who'd been shoved aside by the apathetic version.

"Have you ever seen that girl get fixated on something? She's tenacious, gets her teeth in and won't let go.” Eddie snapped his teeth, shaking his head while growling like a dog.

Gareth rolled his eyes, but a ghost of a smile graced Steve’s face.

“But she hasn't figured out how that hurts people yet. She's caught up in getting the results. She's not intentionally unkind, she's just--a little out of touch." Eddie flopped back against the couch, making a grabby gesture for the joint Gareth now held. “People like you--”

Here, he poked Steve in the chest, before reaching past him to wave his hand obnoxiously in Gareth’s face for the joint (and get smacked at for the effort) “are people smart.”

"That's not--no." Steve protested head jerking from Eddie's fingers to Eddie's face, but it was weak, his eyes wide as saucers.

"Yes.” Eddie mocked, but it was in jest, proven by the easy, soft smile he gave Steve. “You said it yourself. The kids go to you, man. They go to you even now, when Nancy or Jonathan could be driving them all over town. You get people; how they work, how they tick, what makes them happy or sad, and people are drawn to you because of that.”

“Jonathan drives.” Steve muttered in disagreement.

“And yet we all witnessed the clown car act when all those kids came out of your backseat two weekends ago.” Eddie refuted. “You’re just as smart as Nancy is, Steve. Just in a different way.”

Steve frowned.

“My parents don’t see it like that.”

“Your parents can get fucked, Sweetheart.”

That was pushing it, but Steve didn't comment on the nickname. Never commented on any nicknames Eddie came up with, beyond the occasional eye roll.

Which is right about when the phone rang.

They all glanced towards it, then down at their respective watches.

It was well past midnight.

"Think that's Wayne?" Gareth asked, eyebrows raising as Eddie stood to answer the phone.

His friend just shrugged, before picking up.

"Munson Mortuary, you stab em we slab em." He chirped as he pressed the phone to his ear.

"Tiffy-Taffy isn't it kinda late for--whoa." Eddies easy smile flipped, back going ramrod straight. "Slow down, what happened?" And oh, shit, that was Eddie's "somethings wrong and I'm going to fix it" voice.

Gareth sat up, making sure the joint Eddie had put down was out as he stared worriedly at Eddie.

"Okay. Gareth and Steve are with me, we're all coming." Eddie finished, prompting Steve to also sit up. "Stay there and for the love of God, tell Stewart not to touch anything else."

"What happened." Steve and Gareth demanded as one.

It'd be funny if the look on Eddie's face wasn't so serious.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to break my promise about not going to the lab, Steve." He said, a hand going to tug anxiously at his hair.

"What?" Steve said, immediately on the defensive.

Then; "Why?"

"Because all our darling friends went to the Hawkin's lab without us. Apparently they ran into some kids on the way and now Stewart's stuck in a hole."

“All of them?” Gareth questioned, because sure, yeah he could see Stewart doing it. Could see Grant and even Jeff really, but Tiffany? Out exploring an abandoned lab that had killed people?

On a school night?

"She's gonna give us the full story when we get there, she called from the nearest payphone. Had some kid who kept interrupting her so she just gave me the basics, but apparently Stewart is really stuck, and for some reason the damn kids won't let anyone try to get him from some other door. They keep saying it's not safe or some shit." Eddie's anxious tugging grew as he moved to snatch up his wallet and keys, walking and talking as it were.

Gareth had expected a reaction out of Steve then, but  what he hadn't expected was Steve to surge to his feet in a near panic.

"Kids!?" He shouted, eyes wide and frantic.

Eddie flinched, but Gareth knew immediately what the jock was thinking.

"You don't think they're your feral pack of kids--do you?" He asked.

"It's always them so yes, yes I do." Steve snarled and for the first time that week, the guy looked alive.

Gareth just wished it was under better circumstances.

#steddie #adopt a jock #once again we are discussing Nancy #no hate #plus its an OUTSIDER pov #Nancy does come in later in AaJ but what were seeing is Eddie seeing the fallout of Stoncy or whatever that pairing is called pre s3 #She's a complex character and I like playing with the effect their relationship and general dynamic has on Steve #Steve harrington #eddie munson #gareth emerson #tw drugs #tw weed #tw drinking #(beer) #steve harringtons shitty parents #no one panic eddie does not drive under the influence even if it is the 80s lol #I mention Steve not partaking as much for a reason #lab tiiiime #poor Steve hes havin a go of it #hey we're getting closer to adding Robin!

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

yooooo!!! you’re my favorite ethan winters artist i just wanna say that first and foremost, thank you for the wholesome content of my comfort character and father figure 🥹🫶

i’m really curious bc i feel like i see a lot of people against mithan (not me personally, i’m p neutral on them!) but i’m curious to know all your thoughts on them! thoughts on their canon relationship, their fanon portrayal, the backlash against them/mia accusations, and your headcanons? i’m just really interested!!! hopefully that’s not weird :”)

have a good day!! sparkle on!!! ✨💖

i heart mithan... i think that they can be so cute...

i personally hc them t4t and i like to think that the dated in highschool before they both had fully transitioned

mia likes to bake and ethan likes to scrap book and he always likes to take pictures of mias cakes/ baked goods and has a album for them 😭

i am a multishipper so i draw a lot of ethan ships so my girl is left out sometimes and im sorry mia 😔

i actually really like their relationship, its a really complex dynamic that i like to talk about with my friends

i think the issue is that when talking about mithan or mia in general, theres just SO MUCH misinformation that its honestly a pain the butt to talk about

people still think that she was responsible for the creation of eveline, people still think that she experimented on eveline, people still use examples of her attacking ethan as if she did it on her own will instead of being mind controlled

in reality she was just someone who oversaw the transportation of evie. im not excusing her or anything because obviously she knew what she was doing, but people really try to accuse her of doing something she didnt and it bothers me alot lol

the problem with the fandom is that people either try to water her down to girlboss who did nothing wrong and fail to acknowledge the complexity/ moral grayness of her character and the other side is misogynists 😭😭😭😭

its hard to talk about her without people either going "stop trying to villainize her and make her look bad!" or people ACTUALLY villainizing her and acting like heisenberg would have treated him better 😭😭

mithan is such a sad relationship because they loved each other so much and that ended up being the reason their relationship fell apart (sort of... its not like the broke up... ethan kinda just straight up died)

i get a lot a trouble for saying this, but mia is a selfish person.

its not a bad thing! well i mean it is but it doesnt make her some evil witch who is somehow worse than the guy how made a werewolf american ninja warrior. its just a major character flaw she has! which is good! mia being a flawed person who makes mistakes and morally gray decisions make her a more interesting person!

she is selfish in the way that she wants to keep her family with her no matter the cost. even if it means lying to ethan about her job so that he wont think different of her. here is a interrogation from the re7 DLC, which is easy to miss!

she isnt necessarily trying to apologize for the things she has done, she is more of a, "u wont need to forgive me in the first place if we just forget it all and move on"

she doesn't try to redeem herself for what she has done, she tries to move on and return to the normal life that she wants so bad. which is fine! everyone copes a different way and she has to right to move on from her trauma. the problem that lies in this is that she has a shared trauma with ethan who still has no idea what went on in dulvey and still effects him till the present (he is mold! this is a important thing to know! most people would want to know if they were a walking corpse)

she played a direct part in what happened in dulvey, and im not referring to the email, she did not send that. she never wanted ethan to come in the first place. she tried her best to send a video to him, begging him to forget about her because she wanted to protect him, BUT it didnt send.

he got involved because she was involved. its honestly a series of really really unfortunate events.

THOUGH! she did know what she was getting into. im tired of seeing the narrative that mia was innocent and didnt know what was going on or was simply a bystander. she knew what she was doing, she knew eveline was a bioweapon, she knew eveline was a child. she used a MACHINE GUN! she knows how to use weapons and was obviously trained for it.

she tried her best to keep everybody out of the mess, ex: warning the bakers not to take them in, warning ethan not to find her, sacrificing herself for ethan in the later half of re7

but again, those are the consequences of HER actions

her consequences just happen to get really big and end up hitting ethan on the head like a metal sheet 😭

their relationship is really so interesting, it makes me really sad to think about sometimes 😭they both went through something that nobody else would ever understand, in the end they really only have each other. they get moved to an entire different country and the dulvey incident gets covered up with a "gas leak"

its really tragic because their marriage definitely had some flaws and bumps. and i know im repeating myself but its because people always take this in the worst way possible but just because i say their relationship was rocky doesnt mean im saying they dont love each other!!! thats the entire basis of mias character!! saying she doesnt love ethan would destroy her entire character!

you can see in the re8 DLC how fondly ethan talks about mia! he loves her so much, though im not sure if his comments in the DLC are him narrating current (post re8) or his thoughts before everything went down and he died (pre re8)

everything mia did was because she LOVED ethan. she would never do anything to intentionally hurt him, she is not a cruel person. she hides the truth of her job from ethan pre re7 because she loves him and doesnt want her job to drive them apart. she CONTINUES to refuse to tell ethan the truth post re7 because she wants to move on a live a happy normal life with him and knows something like her being directly associated with the connections would probably cause (more) problems. she refuses to tell ethan that he is mold because again, hard to live a happy marriage with your husband after you tell him hes a bioweapon.

obviously i dont think it was right that she did this, thats what makes her selfish! she did it for herself! she did it for her family! she thought it would work out, she thought that they could move on and be happy together.

the issue is that ethan didnt want to forget. he wanted to know what happened, he wanted to know the part mia played, he wanted answers! which is reasonable! he knows to some extent that mia was partially responsible for his involvement and he was always suspcious that mia was lying to him about her job which is implied when mia says "you were right, i did lie to you"

she doesnt learn, she doesnt stop lying, her lies get bigger and worse and it sucks yeah but it makes her so interesting!!! she keeps doing stupid things under the idea that this is whats best for her and her family, that if she hides this everything will work out and it will be for the better but its not!

just because telling your husband hes dead and a bioweapon is a hard subject to bring up doesnt mean you DONT bring it up. people shouldnt use that as a reason to excuse mia 😭, its a very bad excuse and honestly highlights how horrible their communication skills were. you cant just not tell your husband that he is actually infected with the mold and not tell him for the tree years between post re7 and pre re8.

im not saying these things to put mia down, or try and villanize her. these are all just actual things her character does! she isnt evil, but she isnt a knight in shining armor either. we need to be able to have talks about complex characters without crying everytime someone points out a flaw. characters have flaws! and mia just happens to have a lot of them!

im not mad at her, i dont dislike her because i think this way of her. shes a fictional character! you can like characters that are morally gray, or villains that drink blood and make corpse soldiers. they are fictional! pointing out the flaws of a character does not mean i dont like them.

i wouldnt call her "the real villain of re8" but i wouldnt treat her like a damsel in distress either. she is a competent person, she knows what shes doing, she has her reasons for doing them. she made bad descions with good intentions behind them! they can coexist and we should let them!

i like mithan! its a complex relationship because they both love each other so much but hurt each other in the process

talking about them is just a pain in the butt because talking about mia is a pain in the butt lol

i really hate how she keeps getting sidelined, its super frustrating to see mia get put in a cage in every game 😭

its even more frustrating that mia straight up just disappears???? in the shadows of rose DLC... like she just stops taking care of rose and theres nothing said about it. no reason or explanation. i dont think mia would ever ditch rosemary because she didnt care about her, but we probably will never know because capcom sucks at writing and they probably forgot the mia ever even existed.

all in all, i think the fandom is really just full of misinformation which make people either think mia is some horrible evil person, or its full of people who think that saying mia messed up is the equivalent of comparing her to wesker lol.

i really love mia, shes a incredibly fun and complex character, its just hard to enjoy her sometimes with the people in the fandom haha.

also ive got no idea what u meant by "the backlash against them/mia accusations" so sorry if i didnt answer that!

thank u for the ask! sorry for the long response!

#mia winters #resident evil #ethan winters #mithan

[graceshouldwrite]

The Most Powerful Hack to Make Your Readers Cry

You’ve seen it all: show, don’t tell, plant a visceral image in the reader’s brain of the environment/character, write a complex character arc with lots of growth and setbacks, establish deep relationships, high stakes, etc. 

All the advice for making readers cry I’ve seen so far is basically that list. But, while those things are absolutely important, I find that the thing that always does the trick, whether as a tipping point or in and of itself, is this: 

THE CALLBACK! 

Before we move on, this is an ANALYSIS heavy post, so all the book + show examples contain spoilers!!

So, what do I mean by a “callback?” Think of Chekhov’s gun, but, here, you use the gun to pierce your reader’s heart. As a refresher for anyone who needs it, Chekhov’s gun is just a rule in writing that anything you introduce in the book should play some role in the plot.

Specifically, the name comes from the example that if a reader introduces a gun in the first act, it MUST go off later, (maybe, say, in the third act). For example, in the TV show Breaking Bad, the protagonist Walter White prepares a vial of poison (ricin) that he wanted to use to eliminate an opponent early on in the series. After the assassination attempt falls through, the ricin makes an appearance again in the very last episode of the show, when Walt finally uses it to kill another opponent. 

Got that? Alright, onto the examples of successful, tearjerking callbacks: 

1. The Last Olympian (Rick Riordan); “Family, Luke, you promised.” 

Context: The character Annabeth says this line. Years ago, Annabeth had run away from home, and Luke had effectively adopted her into a found family with another kid named Thalia. Common reason for leaving home = parental trauma! Yay! He promised Annabeth that they would be each other’s “family” from now on. 

Now: Kronos, the antagonist titan, has possessed the demigod Luke and uses his body to strike Annabeth, injuring her. She’s also holding a dagger that Luke had given her when she joined his “family.”

Significance: her words + the dagger are a mental + physical reminder to Luke of his promise. They force him to recognize the sheer degree of his current betrayal by bringing him back to a different time. The fact that their found family only happened because of parental trauma bringing them together makes it worse—Luke felt abandoned by his Olympian father, Hermes. Now, he realizes that he basically did the equivalent to Annabeth by joining the titans. 

2. Les Miserables (Victor Hugo); Jean Valjean’s death 

Context:  At the beginning of the book, the bishop had caught Valjean trying to steal candlesticks to sell. Instead of handing him over to the police, the bishop told the police that he had given them to Valjean, saving him from arrest and showing him mercy. This changed his life forever, kickstarting his character redemption arc. 

Now: Jean Valjean dies surrounded by his loved ones, remembered as a benevolent man who bettered thousands of lives. He’s surrounded by light from candlesticks that once belonged to a bishop.

Context: Valjean had once taken in an impoverished woman named Fantine, showing her mercy and promising to take care of her daughter, Cosette, after Fantine died. Valjean then rescued Cosette from abusive quasi-foster parents (it’s a long story), raising her as his own daughter. This furthered his arc by allowing him to finally understand how unconditionally loving someone feels. 

Now: Valjean describes Fantine to Cosette, who never knew her mother. 

Significance: Both examples throw readers back to much earlier points in the story before the completion of Valjean’s character arc. In a way, this final scene feels like an external manifestation of his kindness paying off; both he and the reader feels a sense of accomplishment, relief, and just a general “OMG WE MADE IT.” Readers don’t feel cheated, because they were with Valjean every step of his 1,400 page arc. The weight of it all just crashes down on you...

3. Your Lie in April (anime); Kaori’s letter after she dies

Context: Kaori’s entire plot significance is that she helps Kousei, a piano prodigy who can’t play piano anymore due to traumatic parental memories associated with it, play again—but also, just to help him enjoy life again after a turbulent upbringing. She meets him a year before she dies of a medical condition, and her free spirit + confidence influences him to find beauty in life and music again. They basically do a crap ton of crazy funny stuff together lol

Now: Kaori has died, and she leaves a letter to him. Among other general confessions and thoughts, she references things they did and memories they shared: she says, “sorry we couldn’t eat all those canelés,” reminisces about  jumping with him off a small bridge into the stream below, “racing each other alongside the train,” singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star as they rode the bike together, etc.

Significance: Yes, the nature of the letter is just sad because she’s revealing that she loved him all along, apologizing for not being able to spend more time with him, lying that she didn’t like him (to spare his feelings b/c she knew she would die soon), etc. BUT, these small details highlight exactly how many experiences they shared, and the depth of their relationship. Thus, they emphasize the significance of her death and the emptiness it leaves behind. 

4. Arcane (show); “I thought, maybe you could love me like you used to, even though I’m different.” 

Context: Character Jinx says this in the last episode to her now estranged older sister, Vi. Without going into the crazy complex plot, basically, orphans Vi and Jinx used to care for each other before a bunch of crap went down that got them separated. They then grew up on opposite political sides; Jinx grows up on the side of the underbelly city rebellion, and Vi grows up working on the side of the richer city that essentially oppresses the undercity. Thus begins the development of their opposing viewpoints and work environments, to the point where they always meet on opposite sides of a political battle, never able to come together as a family or understand each other again. 

Now: After a super dramatic confrontation, Jinx reveals that although she wants Vi to love her like she did before their separation, she knows it’s not possible because “[Vi] changed too.” She finishes with, “so, here’s to the new us” before blowing up a political council meeting a few blocks down filled with people Vi sides with. Oops! This cleanly seals the fate of their relationship as something basically irreparable.  

Significance: This callback isn’t through literal flashbacks or items like in the previous examples. Jinx’ lines are enough to bring back images of their childhood to the audience’s mind. Now, the audience subconsciously places this image of: 1) two sisters so different, hurt, and torn apart, right next to 2) the image of two sisters as innocent children who loved each other and would care for each other no matter what. 

Why do callbacks work so well? 

If you’ve noticed something in common with all of them, you’re right: they remind audience of a time BEFORE the characters have come so far on their arcs, developed, and put on so much more emotional baggage. 

Callbacks force the audience to SUDDENLY and IMMEDIATELY feel the weight of everything that’s happened. The character’s anguish and overwhelming emotions become the audience’s in this moment. Callbacks are a vehicle for the juxtaposition of worlds, before and after significant development. 

This works because we, as mortals, fear IMPERMANENCE the most. We fear LOSS. For us, time gone is time we will never get back; callbacks make us face that exact fact through a fictional character. A lost moment, time period, or even part of oneself may hurt as much as losing a loved one, and nothing makes humans grieve more than the realization of a loss. A callback slaps the audience in the face with the fact that something was lost; loss hurts so much because almost 99% of the time, what’s gone is gone forever. 

Of course, a good callback requires good previous character development, stakes, imagery, and all that jazz, but I thought I’d highlight this specifically because of how under covered it is. 

∘₊✧────── ☾☼☽ ──────✧₊∘

instagram: @ grace_should_write

I’ve been binging general media lately: I finished Death Note, Your Lie in April, and Tokyo Ghoul all within like a month (FIRST ANIMES I”VE EVER WATCHED!!), reread lots of Les Miserables, analyzed a bunch of past shows like Breaking Bad, watched a bunch of My Little Pony, worked to fix up my old writing... and that’s not even all! The amount of times I’ve CRIED while enjoying the above media and so much more honestly just inspired this post. 

Like, no joke, my eyes were almost always swollen during this period whenever I hung out with my friends and it was so embarrassing help 

Personally, I just find that this method works super well for me, and I watched a bunch of reaction videos to these above scenes (and read book reviews on the book scenes I mentioned), and it seemed that just about everyone cried during these parts. That’s when I realizes that the callback might also just be a universal thing. 

Anyway, this post is long and dense enough as is. SORRY! As always, hope this was helpful, and let me know if you have any questions by commenting, re-blogging, or DMing me on IG. Any and all engagement is appreciated <3333

Happy writing, and have a great day,

- grace <3

#writers on tumblr #writing tips #writing #booktok #writer #writeblr #novel #writerslife #writergram #wattpad #media analysis #wip #ya fantasy #plot holes #characters #writing ideas #writing a book #anime #your lie in april #percy jackson #arcane

[doodlegraveyard]

I also wanted to know how you felt about the pixies and if you were going to use them in your au

@seth-the-whalelord you are two for two on 'asking very simple questions that send me into a brain spiral' lol thank you this is. actually very useful for getting me to figure this stuff out. This is what i've gotten to write thru on my lunch break.

So! Pixies.

Once again I have no idea if I’m about to spout an Unpopular Opinion or not but…..I don’t like…..little, ‘Mascot’ characters. And I tend not to like the Pixies. Theyre trying Too Hard to be Beloved and it CAN be pulled off..........but I’m sorry I can’t stand their shrill little voices………………

I GET that it’s a kids show and you want little critters to appeal to little kids and sell toys of but like… the cast of Winx is HUGE and bloated at a baseline?? Like the Winx and Specialists by themselves are already so much to deal with. I will say upon rewatch, the Pixies are definitely better than like, any of the other little critters they add in later seasons. There are definitely episodes where the pixies Work and aren't completely overwhelming, and they're liked enough to be worth keeping, conceptually.

I like the idea of the pixies being plot relevant to the fairies development, and I actually have been thinking about explicitly tying them to charmix (or, idk if I’m keeping the concept of Charmix entirely intact because its BARELY a form. But i guess it can remain as a concept, and as a stepping stone to leveling up a fairy has to get her pixie/charmix (so its a standard step not just something the Winx girls have)

I really like how Amore and Chatta specifically contrast Stella/Flora’s respective personalities, because it brings to mind to me that charmix is supposed to be about overcoming some personal fear or weakness/character flaw, it makes sense to me to tie them together.

THAT SAID some of the pixie/fairy relationships are stronger than others.

Lockette’s theming as Pixie of Portals/a wayfinder can be styled as helping Bloom who is currently feeling ‘lost’ in an unfamiliar world, help her navigate both herself learning about and her newly discovered backstory/identity. I think that pretty much works: Lockette encourages Bloom to find the truth even if she’s kind of afraid to/ has been avoiding it. Amore’s calm peacekeeper demeanor definitely helps to temper Stella, and I feel like she could help deal with issues of not just romantic love but her relationships with her friends and her parents. I think Stella is full of love and affection, but doesn’t always show it / in the most considerate way.

Chatta forcing Flora to talk to Helia about her feelings is a pretty good example of what she brings to the table there, though I never want it to be just flattened to Flora’s romantic subplot - Flora could do with speaking up more in general! Have her forced to intercede in a friend conflict or assert herself when previously she was just letting the group overrule her!

Piff. I am conflicted about. Because like… she’s just a fuckin’ baby. there's a limited amount of personality there. She's sleepy. She's baby. I guess I think it’s cute that she helps Aisha with her bad dreams. I knee-jerk wondered if it was in bad taste to ‘mom-ify’ Aisha by giving her effectively a baby to care for but it really doesn’t read like that too much because Aisha is arguably one of the best-written and most complex of the girls. Piff could play a dual role - as someone Aisha has to stand up for and be brave for, but also a manifestation of childish wonder, to push Aisha to enjoy things she maybe didn’t have the opportunity to experience as a kid.

Tune is where it starts to lose me. I get it, Musa is tomboyish and brash and Tune is about manners but that really doesn’t feel as…important a problem to deal with? I feel like it may be a thing where Musa has to like… repair difficult relationships she has that are made rockier by how quick she is to argue, or maybe take responsibility for mistakes - like a formal apology and maturely talking about things rather than being avoidant? I’m not sure it’s best styled as ‘Etiquette’ if that’s the case. I’m taking suggestions on this one idk.

Aaaaaand they didn’t even try with Digit. She’s just a Flanderized version of Tecna. It doesn’t feel like she contrasts or challenges Tecna’s personality in any interesting way...Idk I kind of feel like she has to be changed whole cloth?

I know they replaced Tune and Digit but I’m not as familiar with Cherie or Caramel. I might look into whether their concepts work better for Musa and Tecna character arcs as they are currently swirling around in my head. What's the general consensus on those two?

My design thoughts are. I want to make the pixies much more…. Abstract I guess? What if they’re not their own species as much as concentrated sparks of magic - Fairies generate a lot of excess magic, hence ‘their pixie’ is actually a part of them - a little external manifestation of their magic fissured off my whatever internal conflicts or unaddressed needs they have, and resolving that allows them to re fuse with the Fairy? (Bonus: pixies are only around when relevant and I can poof them away when I don’t want them in a scene lol)

#winx club reboot #winx club #winx #winx pixies #winx club rewrite

[shallowrambles]

Soas not to hijack this lovely post about Ruby's manipulation...

This goes back to the generic-fandom tendency to see absolutist truth in the mouths of villains instead of a layer of truth or an unflattering reflection of a character's hidden anxiety.

The villains so often chisel out the most uncharitable, two-dimensional explanation of a situation, and even utilize an underlying hang-up, like Sam's issues about feeling like a poverty-stricken, podunk outsider, "a freak."

And the thing is, sometimes the villain's interpretation is just flat-out wrong!

///

Other times, it's a flattening of multiple complex, sometimes competing, truths, like how AU Michael acknowledges Dean's probably-real, underlying issues

of feeling like Sam is a burden who abandons him

that Jack is a burden he didn't ask for

that Cas is someone he owes everything to but who also hides things and makes mistakes over and over

But those are just a tiny portion of what Dean feels, and so you get this messed up, black-and-white, face-value interpretation of a situation.

Everyone has fleeting feelings of negativity. Sometimes, we even have drawn-out pity parties and languish in our worst thoughts. Sometimes, we all long for escape and easier lives, and that includes the love and work we put in to maintain our cherished relationships. We wish it could be easier, or that we could get away from it all.

But the thing is, we know Dean wasn't happier when it was just him and John, and extrapolating that, we know he was indeed grief-stricken by Jack's death and he does indeed want Castiel around just as much as he is grateful for his heroics and frustrated by their past baggage.

Real relationships have baggage. This is a theme that optimism and Amara's idealization of her nursery warn us about! We are supposed to beware of this kind of figmentary Apple White Romanticization/White Picket Fence Idealization.

Anyhoo...

///

Ruby uses insecurity to great effect. She plays Sam, disrespects Sam, and puffs up her plans as the right ones.

///

So does Zachariah, throughout his entire tenure.

We got our vintage, classist Zach, who showed Dean a world where not protecting Sam led to a devil-incarnate-Sam. And the other half of this nightmare scenario is the degradation of Cas, that staying with Cas would literally turn him into a performing!Dean 2.0 to the power of ten.

This never never happened, because it was a reflection of Dean's fear. In fact, when Cas broke bad, he broke bad in his own unique, tyrannical Chuck-adjacent way, not Dean's mode of fatalism. He never even saw it coming the way that it came!

///

We also saw Zach turn his shit on Adam, hurling classist stereotypes about his half-brothers and trying to demean them in such a way as to get Adam to lose hope in them and in their hope of rescuing him.

///

Then, we got the cruel, torturous Good Intentions AU version of Zach:

JACK: What about Sam and Dean? ZACH!CASTIEL: Well, if only they’d accepted you, instead of teaching you to fear your powers. JACK: My powers… ZACH!CASTIEL: Because they feared them. Now, if you’ll just do as I say—

We know that Sam, Dean, and Jack's powers is more complicated than simple fear, though fear is an undeniable layer of it!

///

Anyhoo. This tension.

It's why characters like AU Michael and season 15's Belphegor do what they do!

You're supposed to wonder, "Hey, wait a minute. That's not the full scope of the situation here, is it? That's not how life is. Life is waaaaay more complex. My feelings are letting me see the absolute worst of the situation!"

#meditations on life

[hisunfinishedsymphony]

ㅤ 𓈒 𓉸ྀི 𝓥𝓲𝓮𝓷𝓷𝓪'𝓼 𝓟𝓪𝓰𝓮 𝅄 💌 ۪ ݁ 𓈒

╰⪼ ۪ ᰔᩚ ࿐࿔ 𝅄 ꒰ αᑲⱺυ𝗍 𝗒α𐓣 .ᐟ.ᐟ ꒱ ۪ ݁ ۪

⤹ vienna ~ internet devotee

⤹ taken by my god , @transnpd-soot !! <33

⤹ yan / she / gore / it / nya . nyan / snuff / kill . killer / testing out more !!

⤹ professional xenogender , transid , n neopronoun hoarder / silly

⤹ pro delusion / rq / para / sweetspo ed / sh . pro / comship , complex contact . discourse dni !

⤹ cis : audhd , severe social anxiety , bpd , dyspraxia , plural , and probs more i am forgetting hehe [ intra not listed cuz too many to name ]

⤹ i use a tq and rarely pt , often only for major trigger warnings . sorry !!

⤹ i will call readers of general posts chat ! if anyone would like to be a specific name under anon please let me know [ anon list will be in masterlist which is currently a wip ]

⤹ dni / tws / tag codes below cut !!

╰⪼𐙚 ‧₊ ˚ ꒰ 𝗍α𝗀 𝖼ⱺᑯ𝖾𝗌 / 𝗍ω𝗌 .ᐟ.ᐟ ꒱ ⊹ .

⤹ i am delusional and engage in behavior others may find triggering , so i have a tag system ! if i make a post with content chat finds triggering , tell me in asks / dms and i ' ll get a tag sorted out !!

⤹ 🎸 !! means Wilbur Soot / william gold . things tagged with this discuss william / wilbur and / or contain images of them . [ before judging , read to final disclaimer , or just block me and politely move on ! ]

⤹ tws for intox of any kind [ more specific in actual tags ] , vent , ed , sh , nsft , etc content are present

⤹ masterlist of tws and full tag codes as they ' re written is a wip , please be patient with me !!

╰⪼ ⊹₊ ꒰ ᑯ𐓣𝗂 / ρᥣ𝖾α𝗌𝖾 𝗂𐓣𝗍𝖾𝗋α𝖼𝗍 .ᐟ.ᐟ ꒱ /ᐠ. .ᐟ\ฅ

⤹ dni if : you are a cisbigot , an anti , looking for discourse / drama , anti dsmp / mcyt , fakeclaimers / those who dont support self diagnosis , those who hate on addicts

⤹ please interact if : you like mcyts / qsmp / dsmp [ esp jack manifold , james marriot , chuckle sandwich { including charlie } , genloss , tommyinnit , tubbo , ranboo ] , you want to encourage / talk about my delusions , are a fan of hamilton / undertale / serial experiments lain / super sonico / fnaf / wendigoon / phisnom or uhyeah / more that i ' m probs forgetting ehehe

⤹ even bigger please int if : cc ! mcyt / mcyt character factkins / fictkins / fictives / factives [ i am taken . play nice no weird stuff . ]

⤹ cc / c of mcyts be warned ; i am socially awkward and very obsessive , i am not trying to come off as overbearing , please plainly state boundaries and source connection / comfort discussing source first and foremost

╰⪼ 𐙚 .˚ ꒰ αᑲⱺυ𝗍 ω𝗂ᥣᑲυ𝗋 ... ꒱ ― ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

⤹ kit will only say this once . i under no circumstances supports william gold or his abuse . it is horrid and i do not ever support noncon abuse . i am an abuse victim myself . however , i have " delusions " about my relationship with Wilbur Soot [ along with many other ccs / their characters ] . this " delusion " is not up for debate , and any hate received will be blocked and reported , and have whatever was said removed . unsolicited reality checks and discussing the abuse / it ' s effects on the mcyt space without asking me for permission first are all massive triggers for me and doing so will be treated as listed above . if i want to be reality - checked i ' ll ask for it . mistakes are alright , but going out of ones way to harm me is not , and will not be tolerated .

⤹ the tag discussing william ' s treatment of shelby will be " ⤹ tw 🎸 ab !! " , although i hopes i will never have to use it . support victims .

╰⪼ ༘˚⋆ ꒰ 𝖾𝗑𝗂𝗍𝗂𐓣𝗀 ρα𝗀𝖾 .ᐟ.ᐟ ꒱ ᯓ★ . ݁

⤹ thank chat so much for reading all the way through ! if this account is not for you that is totally fine , but please avoid reporting . instead , block me ! i block freely , and so should chat !!

⤹ please do not act a fool on this page , and stay respectful . feel free to drop an ask or dm ! responses may be slow but i promise i will try my hardest to keep up , ehehe ~ !! sorry for how long this all is by the way !

⤹ alright , buh - bye ! (⁠人⁠*⁠´⁠∀⁠｀⁠)°.ﾟ<3

ㅤ 𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ 𓈈ウィルバーの娘 ۪ ݁ ۪

#rq 🌈🍓 #pro rq 🌈🍓 #radqueer #rq safe #rq community #rqc🌈🍓 #rq #🌈🍓 #tw 🎸 #tw 🎸 ab #paraphiles please interact #paraphile safe #pro paraphile #paraphilia #paraphile community #comship #proship #tw delusion #delusion #pro delusion #delulu #pro ship #com ship #transid #transid is valid #transid please interact #transage #transrace #transabled #pro 3d

[butchhamlet]

Do you have any Othello thoughts? I liked it all but most especially when unprompted and for no particular reason Iago constructs a lie about making out with Cassio in his bed at night. Like. He very very easily could have just said a slightly different lie that didn't involve an unconscious Cassio pulling him in for a smooch and then he lets it happen for? Minuets? I guess? Never pulls away? Like I'm truly floored by the sheer level of how unnecessary it is for Iago to construct this particular story. Just fucking tell the guy you heard Cassio sleep talking. Huh. Also why were you sleeping in his bed already in the first place that is never brought up by anyone, ever. Truly an insane scene to me

LITERALLY WHY DID HE DO THAT. WHY DID HE DO THAT!!! in general i don't love the directions people take gay iago (often, like, "he's jealous of desdemona for getting to have othello and thus decides to ruin their relationship because he's gay and twisted" or whatever) because i think it kind of ignores the occam's razor fact that iago is racist. like. he is a complex character with a lot of motivations but the prime motivation for the specific shit he does to othello is racism. HOWEVER. the WAY he acts toward cassio. there is NO heterosexual explanation for that what the fuck is going ooooooooooooon. othello doesn't even call him on it he's just like yeah okay that sounds about right he threw his leg over you and you guys made out

anyway i don't have a ton of thoughts on othello but i do like it! it is the only shakespeare play that makes me actively tense even when i'm rereading it for the third or fourth time. i've seen it compared to merchant & taming of the shrew as the plays with the most potential to do harm and perpetuate/create stereotypes, and i think that's true, but i also think othello has over merchant and taming that it is actually well-constructed and interesting. and i do think it's fascinating that it does have real points to make about the psychological effects of being forced into a model minority role, but also, like, it's a white guy writing in the 1600s, so how good can it really be and is it still worth performing today? (recommended reading on this: this article, keith hamilton cobb's american moor. please read american moor it's so fucking good it's a stage play in monologue format about a modern black actor trying out for othello and musing on his complicated relationship with shakespeare and it's SO good)

scattered personal feelings: emilia is a lesbian. i know it's important that desdemona is not actually cheating on othello, but i feel like if she and emilia kissed it wouldn't count because they're girl best friends. iago has gotta be one of shakespeare's best roles, actingwise, but it always strikes me as somewhat discomfiting that he gets more lines than and as much exploration as othello, the titular hero, because imo it again emphasizes that this is a play written by a white man, however hard that white man is trying, from a white society and a white vantage point. desdemona and othello make me really fucking sad. and cassio's fun i like him that guy's bisexual as fuck

#max.txt #asks #othello

[radiohead-spiderman]

Sirius Black character study I guess.

This is will follow canon to the best of my abilities however, screw you Joanne.

(Content warning, mentions of abuse, though vague, idk if I should add a cw but just in case)

Sirius’ childhood and home life; Contrary to popular belief, Sirius wasn’t heinously abused, in fact, we can assume that Walburga did love him, in her own way of course that’s not to say that she was a good mother, but it is something to keep in mind. His home life was bad, yes, but a common misconception I see in this fandom is that Sirius canonically got cruciatus cursed by his own mother, which is in fact not canon. Sirius had a terribly complicated relationship with his mother, he used all those spells on his room to keep it in that order and pristine, yet when he came back to his home years later, he chose to sleep in his parents bedroom. With Walburga’s painting, he tells them to move it, or cover it up, but he doesn’t tell them to destroy it. Sirius and Walburga had a terribly complex relationship, she wasn’t a good mother by any means, but she wasn’t an overly abusive cruel one.

Sirius’ running away and disownment; Another common misconception is that Sirius got disowned then ran away when it’s actually the opposite, he also did not leave because he was getting horrifically abused, that’s not to say his home life wasn’t awful, it was, but he left because of his parents pureblood beliefs and politics in general. Sirius did not get disowned before he ran away, it was after. We also have no proof that he was beaten the night he left, unlike some people try to point at.

Sirius and The Prank: Sirius did not tell Snape about the whomping willow for a good reason, he did not tell Snape about the tree out of fear of being blackmailed, or hurt, or anything else like that, the very simple and easy explanation for The Prank is that Sirius, was an idiotic teenage boy who did not think about the consequences of his actions, or the effects it would’ve had on both parties. I see the common, “oh Sirius would’ve been so lonely and sad and it’s so unfair how his friends isolated him”, when we can safely say that he did not feel remorseful for it, at all. In fact when he’s later talking about it in the shrieking shack, his exact words and justification are,

“It served him right,” he sneered. “Sneaking around, trying to find out what we were up to … hoping he could get us expelled …”

I could only see Sirius feeling even slightly remorseful for how it caused Remus to feel, but even then, I don’t imagine Remus would’ve brought the issue up all that much. (Which I will get into it you guys want to hear about that :D)

Sirius and arrogance; Sirius’ arrogance has a HUGE part to play in both the marauders and in James and Lily’s deaths, throughout the books we see Sirius and James as the main aggressors in their back and forth bullying with Snape(back and forth from both parties but still). With James and Lily’s death, it was James primarily but Sirius was mentioned that turned down Dumbledore’s offer for him to be the Potters’ secret keeper, insisting that Sirius was the right guy and that he could do it, however Sirius decided that nah that was too obvious, that they’d make “weak talentless” Peter the secret keeper, because no one would expect that, to make this plan even better, they then did not tell Dumbledore of this genius plan, nor Remus because Sirius was so convinced that Remus was the spy, that they just did not feel it was safe to tell him. That is what kept him in Azkaban for so long, theoretically he could’ve broken out anytime he damn pleased but, the guilt of being quite accidentally responsible for Lily and James’ deaths, that is what kept him in there.

Sirius and his loosened grip on his sanity; The man spent twelve years in Azkaban, his sanity definitely had declined by the time he left, we can in fact see this is certain choices that he makes and when he tells Harry “nice one, James”. He wasn’t the best father figure because he was still basically trapped in his twenty one year old mind. We can further point at grief and guilt as another reason for his sanity dwindling, as we know, he felt a good bit responsible for James and Lily’s deaths, add that on top of the grief of losing two of the closest people to him, and bam, you have a guilt ridden twenty one year old to throw into what was basically hell for twelve years.

Anyways that’s the end of my ted talk, I love you Sirius Black.

#god Sirius is such an interesting character #if you guys want I can do this with Remus too #honestly recommend me a character and I’ll do it lol #idk if I’m supposed to tag this Sirius slander because istg it is not it’s just an inside look into Sirius’ character #this is NOT Sirius slander #I tried to make this as canon as possible #this is just how I perceive his character with canon to back it up #do not burn me at the stake y’all #semi Sirius black slander?? idk guys I promise it’s not slander #screw jkr #marauders #marauders era #harry potter #remus lupin #the most noble and ancient house of black #bellatrix lestrange #narcissa black #sirius black #sirius orion black #character study #I think #don’t be mean if you disagree with me #jily #wolfstar #though not mentioned all that much #I still love wolfstar though I promise #james potter #walburga black #walburga’s c- parenting #please don’t flop oh my god please

[sapphic-story]

What's Lee working on in 2024?? A Mini Guide:

I have a better job with slightly less hours so hopefully it is time for creative things again yippee!! Text under cut

Slide 1:

Liho (comic)

Themes: definitions of love, social expectations, relationships dynamics, idealization

Welcome to the loveliest campus in the world, protected by the ever adored Cupid Heart!

Ifeolewa is a sophomore college student that has been chosen to become a magical girl and defend the sanctity of love around her school!

…unfortunately, Ife has a 5th grader’s understanding of love at best and doesn’t quite understand the complexities of modern relationships and romances.

Now, Ife juggles school, fighting villains, “fixing relationships”, and trying to win the heart of her crush, Liho (her best friend’s incredibly recent ex-girlfriend).

Slide 2:

Slips of the Stars (comic)

Themes: loneliness, abandonment, free will vs fate, individual perspective

Kaasey “Slips” Marion is a aimless, bored, burnt out college student who doesn’t know where they’re going in life. 

They’re also convinced that every person around them is literally in a story, meticulously recording the story details in her notebook. They believe they are a background character in these stories, probably for comic relief.

Also, every day the world ends and then she wakes up at the beginning of the day again. 

That one’s new.

Slips has to step out of the shadows and work with her main characters to figure out what’s happening, why, who’s causing it, and how to help this story finally have its happy ending before time runs out.

Slide 3:

Hospital Food (achronological ergodic novel-y thing..?)

Themes: Mental health and chronic illness, identity, multigenerational relationships, life and what could lie beyond it (if anything)

Sickly new employee Ward devoted her time and energy to her new job at an inpatient care facility for individuals with deadly parasites eating them alive. Ward and her team fought day and night to save patient lives from the very same parasites that threatened Ward’s life more and more every second.

Now, Ward, her coworkers, and their clients are nowhere to be found. The facility they worked and stayed at no longer exists. 

What happened? Where did they go? Is anyone left alive? All that’s left are the forgotten files, notes, and memos collecting dust in abandoned desks and drawers, waiting to be discovered.

Slide 4:

Other odds and ends 

I share story custody with some friends on some things about spies, zombie apocalypse, urban fantasy mysteries, and more magical girls

You might see me posting about an experiment I did polling college students about loneliness and their relationship to technology

Additionally might also just generally see things for my class/work 

There’s also a lot of story ideas and tropes that I really like (see next slide) so you’ll see a lot of very specific tags regarding those concepts 

I like playing with different mediums like art, writing, music, video games, and many more!

All the art in this is my own :) save for the jojo reference

Slide 5:

About the Author

Hi I’m Lee sapphic-story

I’m a 22 year old Black American lesbian

I use they/them pronouns

I’m a master’s student in educational psychology and work in a community college system to enhance student services 

I have a lot of specific interests including…

Time loops

All things urban fantasy

Perceptions of love

Familial relationships

(Former) christianity 

Atypical relationship dynamics

The physical/emotional/ psychological effects of being a “hero”

Story structures

Self aware characters

And way more I have so many tags 

Stay tuned for further story updates

#writeblr #wip intro #my posts #I know usually people make really nice intros but I love the look of powerpoint style intros and I am unapologetic #also hi I live!!! at least until school gets wilder #liho #hospital food #sots

[butterflydm]

wot reread: overall view from LoC through KoD

spoilers through knife of dreams

Fav arcs:

Rand dealing with LTT. This is kinda The Big Arc for Rand in the Jordan-penned books and it is also the arc that lands the best... when it actually gets screen-time. We see his growing worry over how clear LTT’s voice is becoming, his worry that LTT might seize saidin from him. It’s a rollercoaster a lot of the time, though mostly he’s going down and down, but it’s intense and dramatic. And it feels like we really effectively build up to the scene in KoD where “Lews Therin” does seize control for a while. Main problem with this storyline is simply that Rand gets minimized as a character in the last few books (though not as much as Nynaeve does), so we don’t see enough of this on-screen.

Egwene becoming a Real Amyrlin and not just a figurehead. The most significant difference between Rand and Egwene’s leadership arcs, I would say, is that Rand is thrown in the deep end and has to learn ‘on the job’ while Egwene gets extensive (albeit unorthodox) training before she gets put into her leadership position. But her storyline throughout these books stays interesting all the way through.

Black Ajah Hunters; take two! Elaida accidentally starts off one of the best subplots in this second half of the series. I LOVE the Black Ajah Hunters subplot. Seaine and Pevara, especially, are both great characters and it has a lot of interesting twists and turns. In a set of books where I felt like most plotlines were being stretched out too much or shouldn’t exist at all, I would have been fine with more Black Ajah Hunters! scenes.

Elayne and Aviendha’s journey to becoming first-sisters. I am absolutely on the Avilayne train for the show, but I do also love pretty much everything about their relationship in the books. This relationship has a depth and a complexity to it that the VAST majority of the romantic relationships only WISH they had (and is more romantic too). If the first five books kinda centered around Mat x Rand as the central relationship I cared about, the latter five Jordan books center around Elayne x Aviendha for me.

Elayne dealing with politics in Andor. Genuinely enjoyed so much of this! Politics & intrigue. Sieges. Plots and treachery. It was such a breath of fresh air in the last two books, especially. I was always relieved when I got to an Elayne chapter.

Least fav arcs (or themes):

Perrin and the Shaido. Perrin’s whole meandering plotline is a mess. The Shaido should NOT have been an issue after Dumai’s Well, period. They were absolutely played out at that point and it was kinda ridiculous that they apparently managed to survive yet another complete bloodbath of a battle that they were the losers of, after already going through that once with the Battle of Cairhien. And then Perrin deciding to partner with... the Seanchan? Instead of getting back into contact with Rand’s forces? You accomplished your mission, Perrin! Masema is Right There. You and Rand don’t have to play at being enemies any more! This is all a result of there just not being Enough Plot for Perrin, I’d say. I think it was @essie007 who suggested we should give Perrin the Seanchan plot with Tuon, while Mat goes back to Caemlyn and actually gets to be the General for the Forces of Light for a worthwhile period of time. Since Perrin ends up slogging through a Seanchan plot anyway, consolidate and give us only ONE Seanchan team-up plotline in this section of the books.

Mat and Tylin. Poorly framed. Turning rape into comedy is always a bad choice, and I don’t care if Jordan’s intention was to go “look at the role reversal” because way too much of the world doesn’t care about women being sexually assaulted either, so it unfortunately doesn’t even make an effective point about how reversing the ‘typical’ genders can flip PoV. That it ends with Mat deciding that actually it was All Okay and He’ll Genuinely Miss Her is... particularly awful and has been used by so many people to say it actually wasn’t sexual assault at all.

Mat and Tuon. The Joy Of Talking Yourself Into Being In Love With a Slaver. Will always hate that Mat was given this as his endgame pairing. He deserved so much better. I could pick a random character from the books out of a hat and they would probably be a better match for him and a happier ending. Ugh. Featuring such hits as: a. Consent King Mat no longer cares about consent and thinks that Tuon is ‘more beautiful than ever’ when she is actively enslaving people; b. Tuon turning genuine gifts from Mat into ways to hurt innocent people because she is a trashfire of a person; c. Mat putting in 110% effort while Tuon passively accepts it as her due because she’s the One Real Human In The World (the only person who can never be non-person’d, from her PoV). I think more than Tuon herself (who had the potential to be interesting), I really despise what this relationship turns Mat into. Which is a common problem with Jordan’s romances! Same thing happens with Faile and Perrin. Their relationship turns Perrin into such an annoying person. (#AreTheStraightsOK?)

The ‘Actually, Slavery Isn’t So Bad And Makes Life Better For Everyone Else’ Seanchan-related narrative arguments that we start to see, especially in CoT & KoD. This is the point in the books, I guess, where Jordan wanted to start making it clear that We Are Going To Ally With The Slavers (since Rand wasn’t able to drive them away in TPoD) and so he needs to buff and shine them up to attempt to make this entire concept less vomit-inducing. And I guess this also kinda goes along with the increasing vibe in the series that Love and Prophecy are both also kinds of leashes/servitudes and that it is Right and Good to submit yourself to this kind of slavery (plus we also keep having Bad Women Who Deserve To Be Slaves due likely to Jordan’s own Can’t Kill A Woman issue, and it all leaves a very bad taste in my mouth).

Rituals involving women Must Contain Nudity. *frustrated sigh*

The ‘love triangle’ between Perrin-Faile-Berelain aka a supposedly saavy ruler spends... 6 books (?!?) desperately chasing after a married man who is desperately in love with his wife and was never going to ‘pick’ her in a million years. So pointless! So annoying!

Min Completely Changes Herself For A Man, all while protesting that she hates women who do that sort of thing. She goes from someone who seems confident in herself and personality to someone who has molded herself to most closely fit Rand’s desires as best she can determine them without ever actually having a conversation about it at any point. It’s especially sad because... Rand liked Actual!Min fine? She didn’t need to completely change herself for him. When we find out in Winter’s Heart that her hair isn’t naturally curly and she’s been curling it daily ‘for him’ ever since she showed up in Caemlyn... and there isn’t a single mention of her hair when it isn’t in ringlets, which means that she’s doing that literally no matter what other important things might be happening because Glamming It Up For Her Man is her Most Important Job.

Women Deserve Fates Worse Than Death (because it’s so terrible to get them killed!). The double-standard around how female villains are treated vs how male villains are treated is GLARING in this set of books.

Top 12 characters (in alphabetical order because I can’t pick):

I added extra because two of them are conditional and so only half-count.

Aviendha -- we finally get some Aviendha PoVs and they are absolute gold, every single one. We get to see her being thoughtful and adapting to new situations and being sweet and emotional and honest, but also have that ruthless core still.

Berelain (Lord of Chaos/pre-Perrin chasing) -- she’s such a competent ruler! And she flat-out borders on being adorable when she’s interacting with the Aiel. And then... the one-sided Triangle of Doom happens. It’s such a bizarre and useless thing to do with her character. It never adds anything of value. It feels like it was there as excuse for Berelain to tag along with Perrin but she already had a POLITICAL reason for that. But I love Good Proxy Ruler Berelain and her dynamic with the Aiel. TBH, a Good Ending for Berelain would have been to get married to one of the Aiel clan chiefs. I think it would have made everyone happy. Sorilea would have been happy to matchmake for her.

Egwene -- I like Egwene a lot better once she stops lying to the Wise Ones and starts lying to the Aes Sedai, lol. Mostly because at that point she’s doing political maneuvering, rather than lying to people who have been nothing but helpful and kind to her and have considered her essentially family. But once she gets to Salidar, she feels like an underdog who is working her way to success by gaming the system to her advantage. The Aes Sedai deserved to be lied to, basically. And she is probably the best part of KoD, though Elayne comes close.

Elayne -- love seeing her get super-excited about creating ter’angreal in LoC. she gets a lot of growth in re-thinking her assumptions about Mat in ACoS. It’s just a shame all that growth gets cut off at the knees when Mat gets spliced into the Seanchan storyline. And I liked her politics in Andor arc. She grows into herself as a queen and an Aes Sedai. Love how her relationship with Aviendha develops.

Elaida --  okay, hear me out, lol. After being reminded in LoC that she’s been tainted by Aridhol, her story is actually both fascinating and tragic! She’s early books Mat, only she doesn’t have anyone who cares for her enough as a person to see her becoming a paranoid monster and fight to find a way to heal and save her from it. Also, while Elaida is becoming more and more egotistical and paranoid, so is Rand, so she actually provides a compelling counterpoint to Rand’s descent. She parallels Rand, but a different part of Rand than Egwene does.

Loial -- he’s a tertiary character and always been sent off somewhere out of the main plot but he’s an enjoyable stand-out, whether he’s feverishly taking notes about whatever it is that Rand’s is doing or putting a long handle on his axe to help out or finally getting married.

Mat (pre-Tuon) -- Mat in Lord of Chaos: S-tier. Amazing. Wonderful PoV. Love him to pieces. Peak of his development. Flawed but always interesting. He’s funny in an oblivious PoV way, we get to see some very nice leader of the Band of the Red Hand stuff from him. It really does suck that this dynamic almost immediately got taken away? He gets the BotRH at the end of TFOH and then the very next book, he loses them when he goes to Ebou Dar and doesn’t reunite with them until KoD. It really does feel like Mat HAD an arc as Rand’s general and then Jordan remembered about the prophecy and he was abruptly sliced away from that plotline so that he could be spliced into the Seanchan plotline instead (he doesn’t even get to finish out the plan that he made about Sammael!) where he is slowly ground down to a shell of his previous self and it is heartbreaking. He goes from flying Rand’s banner and risking his life to free slaves (LoC-WH!Mat) to giving a slaver gifts and pandering to her whims in hopes that she’ll fall in love with him so that his marriage isn’t a total hellscape (that marriage is gonna be a TOTAL hellscape; she does not respect him as a person)... in less than two months! A character assassination arc that pretends to be an ‘arranged marriage’ romance.

Nynaeve -- my darling angel, our lovely rage healer. She grows so much in this second half of the series! Love that she was able to break her block and get her man. She helps Rand cleanse saidin as well, which is epic. She kinda drops off the map after that, with the exception of a great set of scenes with Lan & his people, which is unfortunate. We needed more Nynaeve!

Rand -- All three of the main male characters get put through negative character arcs in these six books but Rand’s feels the most purposeful so it doesn’t bother me like Mat and Perrin’s do. The actual progression of his ‘relationship’ with Lews Therin I like. The increasing amounts of paranoia, reckless, etc. is very concerning but makes sense. His relationship with Min mostly feels like it undermines his story, though, rather than adding to it.

Seaine -- our first of the Black Ajah Hunters that Elaida semi-accidentally sets up and I love her to pieces. Her love for her dead family and for kitties and that she has friends outside her Ajah! She kinda gets less and less important as the Black Ajah Hunters storyline goes on, but I do love her.

Sulin -- (Lord of Chaos) We have her struggle to try to protect Rand without setting off his overprotectiveness alarm, her willingly incurring toh to do her best to ensure that he’s guarded appropriately. Her servant arc and then dropping it, again, for Rand’s sake. Claiming Rand as her first-brother! It kinda sucks that she gets sent away from him in ACoS. imo this was done because No One But Min is allowed to be affectionate towards Rand now that she’s got him on the hook, so Sulin got sent away so that MIN and only Min could play caretaker.

Verin -- Always fascinating. A ruthless pragmatist in many ways, she’s also subtle enough to avoid detection. I feel like she would have made a much better post-Moiraine mentor for Rand than Cadsuane and even more complicated.

And just a quick shout out to Selende and Merana for being excellent tertiary characters. And while I hate the Shaido sideplot, I like Faile & her companions inside it -- I just think they deserved a better plot. Galad gives SUCH a strong performance in the prologue of KoD that I have to add him too. Ituralde is also a good tertiary character, as well as Bashere. I also enjoy pretty much the full set of Black Ajah Hunters, not just Seaine.

Fav scenes (roughly in chronological order):

Bashere dealing with one of Rand’s fits of cold rage, early on in Lord of Chaos. It’s an impressive scene for Bashere and shows why he is a good fit for working under Rand, who does have certain issues that he literally can’t control.

Literally every time the Maidens fuss over Rand in Lord of Chaos.

Rand with the Two Rivers’ girls in Caemlyn! It ends sadly, but the early part of it is fairly cute and sweet and Rand enjoys himself even with the guilt he’s feeling.

Elayne and her joy about creating ter’angreal. She likes it and she’s so good at it.

Rand at the school in Cairhien! Love love love! Everything about this scene is magic and I hope we get Rand’s Schools in the show.

Egwene and Rand refuse to help each other in LoC. A sad scene but it works really well as two PoVs clashing and they both make perfect sense to themselves but are completely coming across the wrong way to the other person.

Mat dealing with the Aiel attack on the BotRH.

Rand figures out that IF THEY WERE FARMERS, he and Elayne wouldn’t be considered related at all. lol

Berelain takes tea with the Wise Ones. Even in Egwene’s negatively-biased PoV, Berelain comes off so well here and her relationships with the Aiel Wise Ones are beautiful.

Sulin being done with her toh because she needs to save Rand.

Perrin calling on the wolves to come help save Rand.

Rand removes the Cairhienin crown from Colavaere’s head using the One Power.

Elayne stands up against the Salidar embassy and re-affirms that she IS Aes Sedai and they will stop treating her as if she is still Accepted.

Nynaeve breaking through her block & being reunited with Lan. (if we take out the Jordan-obligatory Romantic Violence)

Elayne takes the Aes Sedai to go meet the Kin and they learn how old Reanne is (much older than any Aes Sedai).

Elaida accidentally putting the first ball in motion for the creation of the Black Ajah Hunters in the White Tower.

Seaine immediately disobeying Elaida’s order for secrecy and bringing her old friend Pevara into what she has decided MUST be a hunt for the Black Ajah.

Mat’s fight in the warehouse in the Rahad, trying to avenge Elayne (he thinks she’s dead at that point).

Though I HATE that Mat isn’t there to finish out the plan against Sammael, when we actually see Rand’s side of it unfold, it’s very cool and clever. First in Illian and then in Shadar Logoth.

Rand meeting Moridin in Shadar Logoth and their streams crossing!

Rand getting the crown of swords. I love how it marries the kindness that we remember from Rand in earlier books to the arrogance that he’s developed in the time since then, and the ominous warning note that the book ends on.

Elayne unweaving her Gateway and the aftermath of it, the moment she realizes when she wants Aviendha for her first-sister.

Egwene takes control during the meeting to declare war on Elaida.

The Black Ajah Hunters find one of the Black Ajah!

Elayne and Aviendha become first-sisters. 💕💕💕💕

Elayne and Aviendha finally getting to see Rand again; it’s been a million years (we’ll ignore how quickly he dips on them, just for the moment).

In the middle of his own escape plans, Mat frees the captive Windfinder and shows her how to free the others.

The cleansing of saidin is pretty epic.

Elayne and Aviendha reacting to the huge usage of saidar that makes the cleansing.

Egwene declares that they can open negotiations with the White Tower... with their terms being Elaida surrendering completely, resigning, and going into exile.

The lesser consensus of the rebel White Tower stands to send an ambassy to the Black Tower to open negotiations for an alliance.

Aviendha has a careful conversation with Egwene in TAR, where she doesn’t disclose any of Rand’s secrets.

Egwene takes over Bode’s place in the plan to create the blockade in the harbor of Tar Valon.

Having learned that Morgase was abused and imprisoned by Valda, Galad challenges him to trial by combat and defeats him, taking control of the Whitecloaks.

Egwene is taken inside the Tower as a captive, but realizes this gives her a chance to bring her battle inside the Tower itself.

Ituralde vs the Seanchan. 💕

“Will he ride alone?” 💕

Lews Therin grabs saidin and fights against Shadowspawn, introducing Rand and Logain to Blossoms of Fire, Deathgates, and Arrows of Fire. Rand struggles to get LTT to release the Power afterwards.

Elayne gets rescued by Birgitte and immediately realizes she has an opportunity to move forward and secure the throne of Andor.

Thoughts on canon Romances so far:

For the Rand romances: Whenever Rand and Elayne think about each other, I am Struck Dead by Romance. When they finally get to interact in a scene again, it is Amazing, and Elayne is the key element to making the poly relationship feel poly and not like a harem. Sadly, they have far too little screentime, once again. Poor Aviendha is also avoided by Rand during this latter set of books, despite how much he likes her. The main romance to feature for Rand in this arc is, of course, Rand and Min. Oh, boy.

First, gotta say, such a strange narrative choice for Jordan to focus on how Rand loves Elayne and Aviendha too much to subject them to his dangerous presence, and then have him drag Min around everywhere with him like a backpack after TPoD. It’s especially weird because, as the ONLY non-channeler in this set of relationships, Min is actually way more vulnerable than either Elayne or Aviendha and much more likely to have been accidentally killed. Min is constantly put into dangerous situations as a result of standing next to Rand. I mean, I assume the reason for this is that Min has already done everything for the narrative that she’s required to do, so she literally has nothing better to do with her time than be Rand’s accessory, but it does stand out.

As for Min, her thought before she sees Rand again (in Chapter 41 of LoC) kinda sums it all up on her side of things: you’ll be whatever you think he wants you to be.

Aviendha and Elayne are both very much still essentially the same person with or without Rand in their lives -- they love him but they do not shape their identities around him. Min embroiders her clothes when she’s never done it before and grows her hair out and curls it into ringlets down to her shoulders and wears heeled boots that make her wobble and that she hates, and sits on his lap and simpers and flirts even though she’s harshly judged other women for doing the same. Out of the three women in Rand’s life, Min is the only one who ‘changes herself for a man’. She shapes her entire identity around being of service to Rand and being mildly sassy as she does it doesn’t change that fact. It would probably bother me a lot less if Elayne x Rand and Aviendha x Rand were also being given screentime at the same time, but when Min x Rand is the ONLY pairing that gets actual attention, I notice all the things I dislike about it more.

Related: Min is bad for Rand’s mental health and well-being, actually, imo. My evidence consists of a few main points - viewings she has that are bad for him, and her inability to keep secrets about him while being able to keep secrets from him.

Her viewing that “Aes Sedai will hurt you” ends up being part of what makes Rand run headlong into Elaida’s embassy and The Box.

Her viewing that “Cadsuane needs to teach Rand a lesson” actually hinders a potential Rand & Cadsuane partnership because Rand isn’t actually honestly responding to what Cadsuane is doing; he’s responding to Min’s viewing, which means that Cadsuane uses ineffective and counterproductive means for a long time.

Her viewing that Elza will “serve Rand” “in her own way” does not age well in the long run. And that’s a weird viewing, too, because Min DOESN’T have a viewing at first but desperately WANTS a viewing and then all of a sudden a viewing appears that is exactly what she wanted it to be.

Her viewing that Alivia will ‘help Rand die’ seems to feed into Rand’s death wish. And then she’s an asshole to Alivia for no good reason.

She spills all of Rand’s Box trauma about Aes Sedai to Cadsuane, Cadsuane’s two Aes Sedai minions, and Caraline Damodred and Lord Darlin. She does not tell Rand that she’s breached his privacy.

She initially hides from him the fact that she’s had (what she believes is) a failed set of viewings, which means that he views her viewings as Absolutely Certain. Given Rand’s dependency on prophecies at this point, I absolutely believe having an ‘in-house’ fortune teller is a bad thing for him. (she does tell him sometime between CoT and KoD but it’s clear that Rand’s belief in her viewings has solidified by this time, even when she WANTS him to doubt her now)

She almost immediately also tells Cadsuane that she’s bonded to Rand, continuing her saga of “can only keep a secret from Rand, but never on Rand’s behalf”. And she ALSO tells Cadsuane that she told Rand that he needs Cadsuane, so she very much is giving Cadsuane every possible advantage over Rand that she can, despite this being AFTER she was disturbed by Cadsuane saying she would only hurt Rand “as much as she needed to”. She appears to like and trust Cadsuane much more than she trusts and likes her romantic partner.

In their brief scene together in CoT, she appears to be trying to stoke Rand’s paranoia higher by telling him that her viewing of Logain having an aura of glory might mean that he’ll try to displace Rand as the Dragon Reborn. She had that viewing of Logain back in TFoH, I believe, and there’s never been anything in it to indicate danger to Rand. But in KoD, Rand uses this viewing as part of his justification for not trusting Logain’s warnings about Taim subverting the Black Tower against him, which leads to Taim’s control over the Black Tower remaining unchecked.

Rand didn’t want her to come along to meet with (fake) Tuon, but she manipulated him to make a promise to her during sex, and then she refused to stay with the rest of the group (like he asked) and came up next to him instead, so that he essentially had to choose between protecting always-helpless Min (and losing his hand) or letting her get killed. Min is relatively helpless, an absolute damsel-in-distress compared to Rand’s other love interests. It really was inevitable that she would end up being used by the narrative like a damsel-in-distress if she kept insisting on going with Rand to all his most dangerous locations. It’s only surprising that it didn’t happen sooner, tbh.

Also, how strangely convenient it is that Min ‘which one of us will he REALLY marry’ Farshaw “doesn’t remember” her viewing that Elayne is pregnant, despite telling half of the Royal Palace about it before she jetted with Rand and Nynaeve.

Overall, Min is a LIABILITY to Rand for pretty much the entire time that she’s with him from LoC through KoD. She contributes nothing useful, despite actually having knowledge that would help him (she knows about the sul’dam secret), mostly spends her time being Rand’s Sexy Sexy Lamp or making his quality of life worse via her viewings stoking his paranoia and her lack of trust in him leading to her empowering people who treat him poorly (Cadsuane).

For Egwene: Kinda meh to ‘eh, might as well’ lol. She flipped a switch over to Gawyn during TFoH and basically just marches along that path in these books. It’s not a romance with very much substance to it (or screentime!), imo, even as they tell me how much they love each other. Egwene’s real love is politics, and THAT pairing I do like for her, lol. (apologies to @markantonys lol)

For Mat: Kill all ‘romances’ here with fire, lol. Hated everything with Tylin. Hated everything with Tuon. I do think Mat has a lot of chemistry with the women that he’s not allowed to seriously romance in the narrative (Elayne or Auldra, for example), which makes his actual ‘romances’ even worse in comparison, lol. Before, I was all “just let him be single; he’ll be happier that way” and am now on “wtf, just let him be single because the Pattern sucks at matchmaking”.

For Perrin: For all that the domestic violence/struggle between Faile and Perrin frustrated me early in the series, I have to admit it comes off much better in retrospect when compared to what’s happening between most of the relationships NOW.

In The Dragon Reborn (book 3), Faile and Perrin’s struggle over her preferred name vs Perrin forcing her family-given name of Zarine on her ends in Faile’s favor with him accepting that HER choosing to be Faile means that she’s Faile. In Tuon and Mat’s storyline, Mat is NOT allowed to have his preferred name be used by his wife -- instead, Tuon will use anything EXCEPT his preferred name for him, and we end in Knife of Dreams (book 11) by having her force his family-given name on him, refusing to call him ‘Mat’ and only using ‘Matrim’.

When Faile punches and attacks Perrin in The Shadow Rising (book 4), he makes it clear that he does not consider this acceptable behavior between romantic partners. I’m not thrilled with how Jordan went for a ‘fire vs fire’ approach of having Perrin humiliate/beat Faile into not enacting violence on him (violence to stop violence generally is not a great solution) but no one even tries to push back against the domestic violence anymore! It’s just considered acceptable for wives to punch their husbands hard enough to make their knees buckle (Setalle Anan to her husband in Winter’s Heart, book 9) or make them worry that they’ve broken a rib (Tuon to Mat in Knife of Dreams).

When Faile and Perrin get married in The Shadow Rising, though it is a rush decision, the relationship is still entered into with honest and clear eyes on the parts of both parties. Perrin is technically fated to be involved with Faile, but his decision to be with her is not based on Because Destiny Says So and is instead because he genuinely WANTS to be with her (even if he doesn’t understand her and there’s a major culture clash between them). They do choose one of their cultures to get married by but, again, Faile still AGREES to marry Perrin and she doesn’t do it by accident or get tricked into it by the Pattern, the way Mat is tricked into saying his vows to Tuon in Winter’s Heart.

The entire Faile and Perrin courtship is looking a lot healthier by comparison with all the later relationships that get featured screen-time. Both sides actually have to compromise and talk things out and the burden isn’t placed entirely on one party to do all the compromising. They’re together because they both freely choose it. And, after some struggle, they’ve realize that impulsive violence is not something that should have a place in their relationship.

I do still hate the tunnel-vision that Jordan gave Perrin in these recent books though. Literally anything that isn’t Faile gets dismissed as unimportant, whether that’s a best friend losing a hand or slavery infesting the continent where he lives.

For Nynaeve: Actual Equal Relationship? Sorta? With Consensual Kink? It Seems? The only bad part is that Nynaeve continues to feel shame about sharing her sexual feelings with... her husband? Like, Nynaeve if you can’t share them with LAN??? He is literally the most appropriate person to share them with. Please stop feeling ashamed about wanting to have sex with your husband; it makes me feel so sad for you and also makes me judge the Two Rivers hard. Plus the fact that the narrative kinda tricks them into the kink makes me sad all around. Don’t do it if you don’t like it! It doesn’t matter that the Sea Folk literally write kink into their wedding vows! They are not in your bedroom!

... if Avilayne were a canon romance, it would definitely be the winner right now though, with barely any competition. Emotionally intimate! They are never violent with each other! They support and care for each other and are a safe place for vulnerability and trust. This is what a healthy relationship looks like. I would like every heterosexual relationship in this series to please take some notes.

I’m planning on rereading New Spring and maybe The Strike on Shayol Ghul before I dive into the Sanderson books. But my next post is going to be my personal evaluation of The Slog (tm). Summary: oh boy it is so real.

#wot #wheel of time #wot reread #knife of dreams #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers #crossroads of twilight #winter's heart #the path of daggers #a crown of swords #lord of chaos #let's see if this actually gets into the tags this time #the wheel of time

[carecrowgames]

Yazeba Readthrough #2

After some technical difficulties (hello twitter) i am continuing my aspirationally daily readthrough commentary on Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast on here!

I am changing the format from readalong commentary to an end of day summary of my thoughts. Right now i am still going very granular though, allthough that might change over time.

Today I'm leaving the cover and the table of contents behind for actual text.

But first! Shout-outs to the welcoming sign to the bed and breakfast. It's absolutely overflowing with rules in different fonts, in a way that feels like such a perfect mixture of stubborn and caring. It immediately gives me an idea who yazeba and the residents might be. "No snitching" and "no unnecessary smalltalk" one after another realy paint the picture of someone who doesnt want to be bothered, but isn't gonna be an autocrat about chasing down missbehavior. This all ending with "room for everyone" realy warms my heart!

This reminds me to introduce a little game for this read through! Last time I listened to the official ost "running away again" by naked lake, but I want some variety. So I'm gonna add a new song to my read along Playlist once a day whenever the book reminds me of one.

Today that's gonna be one of my favorite mountain goat songs "colors in your cheeks" because it’s what i most closely connect to the emotion 'room for everyone' evokes. I have a bunch of others I want to add but I will wait to grow it organically, as I read the book - so in the end listening to the playlist can remind me of some key moments from the read through.

Enter “Go home Kid, Gertrude’s Arrival”. Immidiately the small narrative text evokes images of a point in click adventure in my mind. Playing Gertrude, clicking on Sal and getting the little animation of him awaking before the conversation pops up below.

The whole thing is the kind of opening that leaves me wanting to play these characters which is exactly what the game is gonna allow me to do. I love it!

Favorite parts: Gertrudes character becomes so well lined out: the facts that she ran away, that she doesnt like her birthday and that she chose her name on the fly. This sentence

I opened the door. And my name is, uhh…Gertrude.” She said, and over the course of the sentence, it became true.

is a standout to me. The phrase “and over the course of the sentence, it became true” builds such a specific genre space, i immidiately know the tone i am supposed to read the characters and the narration with.

Gertrudes reaction to potentially not getting a room, her getting something and knowing she's gonna become a resident are also incredibly emotionally resonant, while building a very effective fantasy. It all makes me realy want to see the story, and *be* in the story.

Enter the next page, which is. incredible. The small blurp on how Yazeba came to found the Bed & Breakfast is yet another amazing character pitch - and one that answers questions that have been brought up by the last text. That one had realy build up the mystery of who yazeba is .. and now we know, because does such a good job developing her relationship to the world and how it evolved to have space for the people and trouble of the bed & breakfast. “In her own cruel and spiteful way the witch made a friend” is such a beautiful and complex character summary. There's something about this I immediately deeply relate to and once again it builds up a fantasy that I want to inhabit.

We finish this read through on page 16 "Welcome to the Bed & Breakfast”

i love how the book reinforces a lot of the impressions narrative and pictures have sketched out so far in its own voice. The magical realism and genre expectations it establishes for the stories we can tell with it being wrapped up as “mysteries of the bed and breakfast” feels super clever because it makes narrative hooks that also establish storytelling modes.

In general another thing the book has been super good at so far is seeding questions for narrative exploration that I assume will be done by playing the chapters. But the buildup to them doesn’t only take place in the chapters or the playbooks, but the rule explanations and world outlining itself.

Example here: Gertrude is the only person the b&b does not have a room for. It might be an more fictional ground work for the genre, but it also lends itself to the basis of a deeper exploration into the b&bs nature, or yazeba and Gertrude as characters. It makes me wonder if the book will drop threads like this as something to be develop3d and explored by yourself in addition to the chapters, or something that will be developed through them (and maybe the shelves?)

I also feel like these small narrative facts also do a realy good job at building a kind if fun fact library in the readers head. Which assuming they are the only one who read the book in the playgroup gives them alot of ways of enticing and introducing people to the vibe of yazeba and its cast. Similar to how it can hook the reader into the narrative they can use them in conversation to give other players some narrative hooks to develop some expectations for stories they might want to tell or elements they would want to explore at the side of a chapter. It all propably also realy helps with choosing a character one wants to start out playing.

Speaking of giving players entryways into playing the game! I appreciate how the narrative text on this page feels like it also gives an example of what playing the game might look like, while giving a more lived view into the mundanity of the fantastical reality of the b&b.

This one also seeds amelie, another resident I'm super excited about (I happen to know they are a robot which the text hints at it!)

What an interesting narrative tension btw, for Gertrude who dislikes September the 15th for being her birthday, to now live a life that's always September 15th. I feel like that might be an early narrarive thread i would like to pull on - and would you look at that, one of the early chapters (chapter 1 actually) happens to be A Birthday for Gertrude (I had an inkling i saw a birthday among the early chapters so i jumped back to confirm). I had to physically stop myself from jumping ahead to find out if it's her first day in the b&b or another one, but for once I don't want to jump around in a ttrpg book.

And thats all i managed to get through today. We made it 5 more pages in, let’s see how many it’s gonna be tomorrow ~ I’m super excited to get to some more mechanical explanations but so far i am enjoying letting myself get introduced and teased by the wonderful narrative elements.

-----

you can find my other Yazeba readthrough posts under #zeebthrough!

Preorder the game on https://possumcreekgames.com/pages/yazebas-bed-breakfast

#zeebthrough #yazeba's bed & breakfast #possum creek games

[withlovelunette]

Hi Lunette! How've you been?

So full disclosure this is about a self indulgent fanfic with a self insert oc lol but anyway I still want it to be good™

The characters of the actual show have super tragic backstories and my oc is just a regular ol girl, but she's still like.. an emotional/sad character, do I need to give her a tragic backstory for it to make sense & for her to be able to connect with the other characters?

Hello hello!! Upfront, sorry for the super late reply; I began answering this almost immediately when it came in, but then I fell ill again shortly afterwards and struggled to get myself to write anything, and I didn’t want to give you anything that was half baked, hence the delay :,) Aside from that, I’ve been good! And been looking forward to tackling your question!

Firstly, my short answer here is no, you don’t need a tragic backstory for a character to be tragic, nor does your character need to be tragic to connect with tragic characters! But I figure you’d like something more in-depth, so I’ll try my best to provide something more concrete.

I think it’s actually a very good exercise to practice making characters connect despite not having anything specific in common backstory wise. The reason I say this is because I often find that this can be something of a crutch for writers, and there’s a risk of this connection coming off as somewhat superficial. Don’t get me wrong; there are incredibly well written character relationships where part of their bond is shaped by their shared tragedies, but this should never feel like a component that their connection depends on. If removing their equally tragic backstories suddenly breaks their bond completely, then there’s likely something else missing there (the notable exceptions here would be more dysfunctional/codependent/complex relationships). Try and see if you can find some other components than tragedy (such as shared themes, opportunities for narrative foils, opposing or shared ideologies, etc.) that your characters can connect over!

I also think that writers (myself included) can sometimes overemphasise backstories as a "function" for why a character is a certain way. Sometimes, characters can just be a certain way without there being a blatant cause-and-effect in play! Some people are just naturally more emotional and sensitive than others, and have an easier time connecting to other people as a result of that.

There is also an inherent sadness to such characteristics which you might be able to play around with. A character who is very emotional and has an easy time connecting with other characters, but maybe has a difficult time allowing others to connect with her in that same manner. There's a lot of vulnerability that comes with putting in so much emotional labour into other people, which somewhat generates a certain tragedy to her own arc without having to explicitly give her a tragic backstory to justify the way she acts. That in and of itself could be something for your character to connect with other characters (I'm speaking a bit vaguely here, since I don't know what media this is for. Hopefully that's ok!)

A very longwinded answer to what basically amounts to just a "no", but I hope I was able to help you churn some ideas and get the gears going :,) Thank you for trusting me with your question! And again, very sorry about the delay in my answer. If there's any follow-up questions or anything you'd like me to explain more thoroughly, don't hesitate to send in another ask, and I'll do my best to help out!

#answered asks #writing advice

[lemonhemlock]

1 and 8

character everyone gets wrong

hmmm.... there's so much asoiaf meta at this point it's hard to say.... tyrion perhaps? he generally maintains this antagonistic view of his father and sister, but, in hindsight, it does seem to me that not everything tywin and cersei did was to designed specifically attack him or to work against him. tywin does send him to KL to be hand of the king in his stead and gives him actual power to reign cersei in and cersei does try to team up with him at the beginning of ACOK. but tyrion is so set on undermining her that he never really takes this offer of collaboration seriously and everything escalates quickly afterwards.

idk how to best express this but i feel like, even though the ableism was real, there was a point where they could have mended their relationship, but tyrion did play a crucial part in destroying this truce, it wasn't all a premeditated assault on him. but, while fans have smartened up to his POV trap and realised that he is truly on a downwards spiral and not necessarily a "good" person, this unblemished victimisation narrative remains

by now i sound like a broken record but i cannot truly investigate these leads until i begin the great re-read project (if only i wasn't preoccupied with other books rn !! )

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

i'm gonna start this with cersei bc this is the shorter rant, but people are so obsessed with this take that she doesn't really love her children, they're all just extensions of herself and that's what she cares about. it's so boring. it sounds like something parroted back from a psychiatry textbook. listen, cersei is her own brand of delusion, but she is also a person with feelings, not some ice-cold demon. people forget that in the quest of stripping her of her humanity, they also make her a less interesting and complex character. yes, she is an awful person with the capacity for love, otherwise what's the point? why do you think she became a POV character if it's all clowning around? also i think many people are way too eager to mistake paranoia and the effects of two recent traumatic deaths in the family with stupidity in her case

i'll have to move onto jaime rn bc his redemption discourse is also reaching tedious levels. first, in the ancient days, you had the dudebros who considered him a villain from the get-go and absolutely hated his guts, then these same dudebros discovered his POV in book 3 / season 3 and thus jaime gained a lot of fans who were suddenly on board the redemption train for him. then others got sick of this interpretation and countered with "jaime is not on a redemption arc !!! insert many exclamation marks!!!". this reaction was necessary at the time because debates were getting frightfully silly, but, nowadays it's like we've veered too far in the other extreme (from what i've seen anyway. i'm not an up-to-date scholar in jaimeological studies).

what i mean to say is that "redemption" has become such a dirty word in relation to jaime, when it's truly just a term. what does it matter what you really call it? redemption arc, identity arc, we're getting bogged down in definitions, snootily pointing the finger at each other and not really seeing the forest for the trees anymore. like he is objectively reconsidering, reinterpreting and trying to redefine both his relationship to the people around him and to abstract concepts like knighthood, justice and honour.

he doesn't exactly """regret""" pushing Bran out of a window, but he doesn't not regret it, you know what i mean? (another thread people are obsessed with: jaime will not get "redeemed" bc he doesn't regret pushing bran. i mean sort of? it's not that black or white, though: the situation was constructed in such a way as to be a fucked-up trolley problem with no true right answer. even sainted NED thinks this, i.e. to what lengths he or cat would have been willing to go to save their children. EVEN NED). yes, he also famously threatens to trebuchet edmure's baby, but he is also kind of pissed off in that moment, bullshitting and playing the tough guy in front of edmure. he lies a lot, to others and to himself. he is prone to violence, but he's not heartless. he is delulu but he is also re-evaluating his life. he's thinking about emulating his daddy but also cosplays as goldenhand the just. the man is really going through it.

if you ask me, it's vvvv likely jaime is the valonqar and his story will end with cersei in a bout of violence. but: as a manifestation of his unjust jealousy or as an act of kindness (to save her from a worse death)? i think both are possible. jaime is the pendulum swinging, he is a work in progress, he can get better, he can get worse. he is not a good person, he is pretty decent at heart and trying to do better. his 'identity' arc or whatever you want to call it might as well be a 'redemption' arc but with the quest unfulfilled. or partially unfulfilled. he might retcon himself into a true white knight, but still choose to go back to cersei, because he feels responsible for her or, you know, (incoming controversial opinion) because it's the right thing to do. yes, the incest is a bad coping mechanism, yes, you did many fucked up shit together and that was wrong, but, for better or worse, she is your sister and the person you shared your life with. you can't let her die alone. whatever she did, you also did, and you should carry the burden together. there is love there and you must honour that or else nothing means anything in this world. you go into the light together!!

#hi starlight 🌟 #ask game #tyrion lannister #cersei lannister #jaime lannister

[danggirlronpa]

Ohhh, your next generation thoughts are very interesting. I tend to agree with what you said; I would like more exploration of generational trauma and the like...

People have asked me if I'd ever do fankid content, and I always say that the only fankid thing I'd do is my Fanganronpa of the next generation of the cast. My Fanganronpa is... well, it's an exploration of how nurture effects you, and generation trauma too to some degree. It only had two fankids of the cast - a Junkan fankid that is actually adopted and a Naegiri fankid (who both fall in love and are gay). It's somewhat an exploration of how despair!Mikan raising a kid would effect them, and also explores the implication of Makoto opening HPA again, the start of all of this. It's sort of a criticism of the idea of opening HPA again & how I think that was a horrible idea. I haven't written a lot of it yet, but yeah, that's the idea of it.

Any other "kid" content I have for the DR cast are like... AUs where the V3 cast is their kids - but even those are somewhat atypical. For example, I have an AU where Kokichi is raised by Junko/Mikan/Chiaki, and the whole thing explores how chaotic being raised by those 3 would be. I tend not to go the fluff-angle for fankids, which, a lot of people approach fankids with the fluff angle, so it's somewhat atypical. Nothing wrong with the fluff angle, of course! Just not as interesting to me.

I think one of my favorite "DR cast has a kid" content I've seen was one where Kaede was Komahina's kid & the fic explored how that marked her as untrustworthy in the killing game. I also saw one where AI Junko and AI Chiaki co-parented Kokichi, and one where both Tsumugi and Kokichi were a) siblings and b) children of Makoto and Junko. All super interesting versions of the "DR cast as parents" trope.

Oh, I also have written a P5 crossover fic where Makoto is the P5 protagonist's dad. That one's pretty interesting too, I guess? But yeah. "DR cast has kids" is a very interesting concept to me to explore from the angle you described, but I don't really see it explored that way as much.

I wondered if someone would bring up the "V3 students as the others' children" AU! It's a neat one. My favorite is the idea of Fuyuhiko finding Maki and taking her away from the assassin organization to raise her as a poorly-prepared single father, because she reminds him so much of his dead best friend. There are two family tropes that really get me: complex mother-daughter/sister relationships, and adoption. And I think that exploring the way Maki is a despair-induced inheritor of Peko's legacy in a way that also enables me to get my Watch A Traumatized Child Receive Parental Love For The First Time Ever trope is highly appealing.

But in general, I tend to keep to my own, incredibly specific, oftentimes hilarious headcanon: that the V3 kids are the D&D/Pathfinder characters of the people they share a VA with, or vice versa. I'll make anything an AU where the characters play tabletop games if you let me. It's my greatest power.

#asks #anon #talk to the mod #not dangan girls

[tollundmen]

les mis stage show thoughts (as promised) (it’s long) (and unedited)

Lost the playbill so I can’t credit the actors by name but Valjean and Eponine both had incredible voices

Before Valjean goes into Digne, he passes by Petit Gervais and steals the coin. Nice little easter egg that I could annoy my sister by pointing out

I’d forgotten how overtly Christian the musical is. Like, Jesus references everywhere. I guess this element is present in the book and all adaptations, but I think the musical lacks depth and complexity in its religious metaphors since it effectively cuts out the social commentary. Not begrudging the musical of this—I think in order to make an entertaining musical you’re going to cut out Hugo’s polemics—but still an observation. 

What Have They Done To My Girl Fantine

^^This is one of two major complaints I have with the musical. Obviously, Hugo’s writing is riddled with strange misogyny, both unique to him and typical of his time. However, I’d argue he does try to portray his women sympathetically. Despite the ultimate message of lower-class women as victims of upper-class male society, the book’s Fantine does have agency. She is desperately trying to life a live free from the patriarchal realities of her day. The musical robs her of this agency. I may be misremembering, but I don’t believe the foreman wants to fuck her in the book, and I don’t think that builds resentment between her and her coworkers. You could maybe argue that this relationship between her and the foreman takes the narrative place of her relationship with Thomolyes, but I don’t think that’s a strong argument. I dislike how involved and kind she is with Valjean. I think it’s crucial to his relationship with Cosette that Fantine is effectively a stranger to him. I also dislike how she leads Valjean to heaven at the end of the musical. Again, I think it weakens her character because she becomes a supporting character to Valjean. But I digress.

Also I still think it’s weird to reverse Fantine’s descent into prostitution and the Fauchelevant cart incident. Not that problematic, just weird.

Who Am I is a great song though. Like watching it happen onstage is just fantastic. I adore a scene where you can see the characters running through time and space. It’s one of those scenes that can only happen in musicals, I think. Just super cool.

I wish it was insinuated in the musical that Javert’s appearance killed Fantine. But the choreography with Javert and Valjean during The Confrontation is sick as fuck. During this production, they did stuff with a chain.

I forget how valverty the musical is

The woman behind me kept laughing really loud at the Thenardiers. I forgot where the homophobic line is so I was distracted during those parts instead and forgot to laugh.

Mdme Thenardier is an interesting character because her writing is like sooooo misogynistic, dude. Not the musical’s fault here, though.

Little Cosette was cute.

Political background of the musical is not really explained at all. The audience is just expected to know about the June Rebellion and General Lamarque. Didn’t realize this until my mom asked me about it afterward (unfortunately I’ve developed a reputation for knowing things like this… not sure how). But now that I think about it, Les Amis and the barricade does seem super random. I think this has to do with nearly completely cutting out the whole class struggle part of Hugo’s Les Mis—or at least skimming over it or making it comedic. Pretty hard to cut it out completely. Honestly, I think the playbills should just come with a brief overview of French political turmoil at that time & that could solve a lot of issues. 

Actor who played Grantaire was a good actor (maybe I was just highly attuned to him, though). All of his movement seemed to circle around Enjolras. He played the part of the cynic really well. I’ve read some other people’s reviews of the current US Tour that have said they’d heard Grantaire picked up inspiration from fic, and I could definitely see it here. Not just the whole Enjolras thing, but because he took a lot of care of Gavroche during the whole show. Maybe that’s an established stage Grantaire role, but I still enjoyed observing it. 

But Maybe I Just Love Gavroche

However, What Have They Done To My Girl Eponine

^^This is my second major complaint with the musical. Reread everything I said for Fantine. The musical completely replaces her class struggle plot line with a romantic struggle plot line with some class difference undertones. Idk. I wish her relationship with Marius was explored differently, is all. She becomes an underutilized supporting character for Marius. 

However, On My Own goes hard. I already mentioned that her actor just had a fantastic voice. She was incredibly talented, and I really wish I still had that playbill.

Where the fuck does Marius comes from? I didn’t realize that in the musical this is not explained at all anywhere. He’s just some random dude until he and Cosette have this lavish upper-class wedding. Kinda funny.

I also think it’s funny how politically involved musical Marius is. He’s not a loser at all! Poor guy. He’s noble and stuff. What a chore.

Drink With Me fucks incredibly (except the second part where Marius gets all sad and stuff). Grantaire put his everything into his lines—delivered with such vitriol toward Enjolras, but I have to give credit to Enjolras’s actor for displaying such complicated emotions toward Grantaire in their little stage time together. You could tell he cared for Grantaire deeply. They have several moments where they pressed heads together, shared long, meaningful looks, etc. Nice to see. 

Bring Him Home was delivered so so well, but I can’t help but laugh a lil. His ass does not see him as the son he never had. 

Woman behind me was WEEPING when Gavroche died.

The lighting during the barricade was absolutely incredible. 

Grantaire was the last to die, and he did so in the same position as Enjolras had a few moments ago. The also pointed/saluted each other a lot. Again, nice easter eggs for those of us who Know. also he never touched a gun during the whole show. I think he’s handed one once but quickly passes it off. nice touch.

The staging during the sewers part was super cool. There was a projection on the back wall of the stage that moved and really created the illusion that Valjean and Marius are trudging through this long tunnel.

The rest of the musical I didn’t have much to say. I already said my piece on Fantine/Valjean. 

To love another person is to see the face of God does kinda kill me right in my heart though (good way) (almost joined the woman behind me in tears)

#les miserables #les mis us tour #also i was like way in the back and without my glasses so i couldn't see great #don't ask me what anyone looked like i have no clue

[earlgreytea68]

Hello! You recently mentioned that you were listening to Taylor Swift’s new album quite a lot, and honestly, same ))) I wanted to know what songs are your fave, obvs, but also, which ones you find more interesting, captivating, clever? Which one got the best lyrics, which one best music and rhythm? Basically, what I’m trying to say, talk Midnights to me, please :)) P.S. I almost forgot to ask, if any of the songs got you thinking of fob?)

With pleasure!!

My favorite song on Midnights is Question...? and my favorite, like, passage of Midnights is Question...?, Vigilante Shit, and Bejewelled. I adore every single one of those songs and I think that's the strongest stretch of three songs on the whole album. I have seen some hate for Bejewelled and some of its lyrics make me cringe but also like it's totally what I would want to play as an anthem to perk myself up.

I actually love all the songs on the album, except for Labyrinth, which I find a bit dull, tbh, but that happens! But this album just *moves* and it's full of great refrains and the usual perfect bridges and sometimes I think Jack Antonoff gets to be a bit too self-indulgent of his quirks (I really hate the effect on the bridge of Question...?) but mostly I love when Jack Antonoff and Taylor Swift make music together and I appreciated that this album just felt...really fun and less earnest than evermore? I love folklore, but evermore just kind of felt like too much to me, and I'm happy to be going back to having more fun.

I've listened to Question...? the most, and I was just thinking as I was listening to it tonight that I feel like it's kind of crept in to influence my Christmasfic this year, like, its attitude full of "what if"s, and that line about "I just may like to have a conversation," like, all my characters about each other hahaha they're all longing for a conversation. Idk, the relationship in Question...? just feels so instantly complex and interesting to me, like, I want to know so much more about those two people.

Sweet Nothing is kind of a theme song for all of my characters, though, I feel like every fic I write is about a Sweet Nothing kind of love.

Mastermind is totally a Mattrick song from Swan Song. It doesn't sound like a song Matt would sing or write, but it's a song Matt would *think,* if that makes sense.

In general I really appreciated how this album was Taylor kind of accepting that you've got be a bit of a schemer to be a success, which is a theme of Swan Song, too, and so it resonated with me. I mean, Anti-Hero is also very Matt Usher: One day I'll watch as you're leaving 'cause you got tired of my scheming. I like to see Taylor owning "I'm smart and that's okay."

Okay, my favorite lyric on the whole album is: I'm the wind in our free-flowing sails and the liquor in our cocktails. ...Ugh, I just love that line.

I also love, also from Mastermind, "I'm only cryptic and Machiavellian because I care," ha, makes me laugh.

Mastermind is just so tropey, she just writes a trope song so well, that's just a full story, beginning to end, and when you're done you think, ...I've read that fic and it was GREAT, Idk. Her songs can sometimes feel like an entire ship, self-contained.

"Draw the cat eye sharp enough to kill a man," is, I think, a great opening line, even though I've seen some people hating on it. I think it's great! And I also enjoy "situation-ship" as a term in Glitch. And "no one sees you lose when you're playing solitaire" from Dear Reader.

In general I like the refrain of Karma and appreciate what she's doing there but "karma is a god" just always completely throws me, it's, like, all these metaphors of what karma is and it just feels like that one could also be personal to Taylor: her cat, her boyfriend, her beautiful weekends, her relaxing thoughts....a god. Idk, it bothers me every single time I hear it lol

Okay, so, Fall Out Boy-wise. Taylor Swift is on the record that Pete Wentz is basically her favorite lyricist of all time and that she's been influenced by him, and sometimes I feel like I can sense that influence. Sometimes she does something and I think, That's a total Pete Wentz move. And sometimes it works, but sometimes I think it just doesn't work, because actually what Pete Wentz does is incredibly hard and he makes it look like just anyone can stumble into all those perfect double and triple meanings but it's really, really hard to do. So, to be unkind, that "Get it off your chest, get it off my desk" in "Lavendar Haze" reminds me of a Pete Wentz move, to take an idiom with words in common and juxtapose them (like broken hearts and broken stallions that I just wrote about). But to me it doesn't work here, I don't get it, what are you getting off your desk, why are these two things going together? Is it that you're talking about her relationship and she doesn't want it on her desk? Idk, I just feel like the juxtaposition there doesn't really add anything. She does it again in The Great War: You drew up some good faith treaties, I drew curtains closed. I feel like that one is slightly more successful.

I also appreciate when a Taylor song picks up some Pete Wentz tropes, like in Maroon when she's like "laughing with my feet in your lap like you were my closest friend," or in "You're on Your Own, Kid," with "He's gonna notice me, it's okay, we're the best of friends," yeah, Pete Wentz also is always trying to figure out if someone is his lover or his best friend lol.

Also, "don't put me in the basement when I want the penthouse of your heart" could have been the name of one of Pete Wentz's LJ entries lolololol

And High Infidelity is such a Fall Out Boy title, Pete Wentz is kicking himself he didn't think of it first

Ironically my very least favorite lyrics on the album are from her collaboration with her other favorite lyricist of all time. I just find Snow on the Beach unbearable lyric-wise, it's just...too much? Like, trying too hard the whole way through? And then culminating in lines I absolutely hate: Your eyes are flying saucers from another planet, I'm all for you like Janet. I just cannot with those two lines. So, I've always had this great fantasy of what could come of a Pete Wentz / Taylor Swift team-up and then I heard Snow on the Beach and was like, ...Idk, never mind lol

#taylor swift #midnights