#and the fact they work in entirely different parts of the ship kind of. Alienated them a bit. And suddenly hes like. Oh. Oh No. Oh FUCK.

[dootplusone]

(OG post has Reblogs turned off. You can find it here!)

(OG post has Reblogs turned off. You can find it here!)

(If the OP would prefer this post not link back to the OG post or is otherwise is not okay w/ this post in reference to theirs, please let me know in some form so I can delete/edit it as needed.)

Thinking. Abt this but with Bones. Like. Post-Tholian Web? Post-Mirror Mirror?

For AOS, could be after Into Darkness and/or Beyond.

A Bones who's just. So anxious. So stressed. So overwhelmed that it starts taking a toll on his health. Maybe he doesn't even realise - or maybe he does and tries his best to push through it until it knocks him on his ass. Kind of in the vein of "You don't actually know how tired you are until you stop. And then you just physically cannot start again." It becomes his new baseline, a problem that just brews and storms in the distance.

And he just carries on. And keeps going and going and going until one day he realises that 'Oh fuck, I'm not okay' and has about 5 seconds of warning before he straight up collapses, doesn't matter if it's on the bridge, in the madbay, on a planet - he's going down. (Maybe a repeat of Tholian Web where he just straight up faints into Spock's arms? Full whammy, why not)

Maybe it's a high-tension situation getting resolved that does it. The pure relief of it reminds him of how tired he is. How tired he's been for a while. His body sees that momentary rest and goes "More of that, please. And I'm not asking."

And he's so rendered by it that he doesn't grumble about being coddled like he normally would when he wakes up. He knows not to fuck with the medbay staff - they're just as firm as he is on recovery, and that's not by accident - and he knows that Spock and Kirk will be hovering, because they see any problem as something they, too, should shoulder the burden of.

...And because they're some of the most protective people in the damned universe. And that goes for pretty much all the people on board the Enterprise.

In some scenarios, it's just a case of letting his body and mind rest properly. In others, there's a lot more recovery involved than anyone initially expects. Luckily for him, he has a found family who are determined to be there with him at every step. It just takes a couple reminders, every once in a while.

#leonard bones mccoy #star trek tos #star trek aos #whump #back on my bullshit #aos bones fretting over Jim and Spock and their injuries; completely forgetting that hes also a little worse for wear #thinking back to dustykneed's post abt him being fucked up and grieving after ST:ID and. Lets just make it even more physical #After the issues they face from that; Spirk are more aware of Bones' tendency to brush things off. are more equipped to take care of him #when he needs it; just as he does for them. He's so stubbornly self sufficient and it worries them. But they're equally as stubborn and #loving. Unstoppable Force meets Immovable Object. I feel like post ST:ID is where they kind of Learn that Bones keeps shit on the down low #Because like. Bones will complain. Unless it's smth that's just affecting him. And then he suddenly keeps it to himself. When he complains #abt that whole fiasco he complains abt Jim dying. Abt Spock almost dying on that planet. About how they all almost died. But he doesn't tal #about how HE almost died from that fucking torpedo almost blowing up on him. Not a word. Jim forgot it had even happened until like. Carol #brings it up in passing. Maybe she has nightmares on the incident. But he realises Bones has just NEVER fucking mentioned it despite him #being the master complainer. That sets off the first alarm bells. And then maybe Uhura asks Jim how Bones is doing bc she knows that Bones #would just say he's fine. But Jim is like ??? Bc why wouldn't Bones be okay. And then she realises that HE HASN'T realised that Bones is th #kind of motherfucker to suffer in silence. and she's like Jim. Jim he literally ran himself to the ground trying to revive you. Jim. Are yo #kidding me have you NOT TALKED ABOUT THAT??? ANY OF IT??? Thus... Jim realises or maybe even Remembers what Bones is like #bc maybe at some point he DID know Bones well enough to know when he's fucking himself over. But all the Bullshit that theyve gone through #and the fact they work in entirely different parts of the ship kind of. Alienated them a bit. And suddenly hes like. Oh. Oh No. Oh FUCK. #because Jesus how the FUCK does he even approach this. But he manages it. And Spock gets in on it too as he slowly gets to know the doctor #And then post-beyond its like. Yeah. All three of them gang up on each other. That includes Spock and Kirk making sure Bones is as Fine as #he always says he is. #anyway. Yeah. I just think Bones probably stresses and overthinks too much but god forbid anyone comfort him. Self sacrificing bastard #wow this is a lot of alphabet soup im so sorry AHAHA

[arcane-abomination]

I recommend reading my piece on Eldritch Witchcraft before this blog.

Its hard to find resources on this practice yet quite a few pagans seem to flock to it like a hidden gem. Getting started on this path can be a little difficult for some, as there are some books out there that have been published but they can be somewhat obscure, and let’s be honest, cost a pretty penny. I remember seeing one for $52 online and that’s not including shipping.

In this blog I have compiled some basics of the practice just to get those who fancy this craft started on their journey. For the most part, this path isn’t set in stone, and can be manipulated to the casters will as they see fit. Most of the modern witches that delve into it are chaos practitioners or already practice Eldritch witchcraft. So this information is very basic but will serve as the foundation for one to build and discover their connection with the gods.

What is it?

A branch of Eldritch Witchcraft, It’s the practice of worship generally centered around the creatures created by the author HP Lovecraft. Originally he wanted to go with the term Yog Sothothary, however others would dub the mythos after Cthulhu, and later after the late author himself. As such, It isn’t uncommon to hear the practice referred to as Cthulhuism or Lovecraftian Paganism as well.

Are The God’s Real?

Well, technically yes but it also depends on how you look at things. Most people fall into one of 3 main categories on the subject.

⚜️ Egragores - This is a type thoughtform creation, a being of pure energy given life and sentience by the belief of multiple individuals. Those of Yog Sothothary can sometimes believe that the gods were created in this way, and it’s the belief and worship in them that satiates and feeds them. They are sentient, and have developed over the years into powerful gods.

⚜️ Alien-like Deities - This system is a little different from the first. It generally holds the belief that Lovecraft had a connection through his subconscious to the astral realm. In some retellings he didn’t even know it. When he slept he unconsciously connected with other worlds and dimensions, but didn’t understand them for what they were and so wrote them the way he did.

⚜️ Real Forms Of Historic Gods - This theory states that the beings Lovecraft saw and created were actually the real forms of other well known deity. The forms we see them as are either epithets or avatars. (An example would be Pan being an extent of Shub Niggurath) This makes it easier to work with us since our mortal minds can’t completely comprehend what lies on the other side and can go mad when seeing a god in its true form.

How to work with them

They work very much like other deity would. They command some sort of respect, and offerings. Typically they will tell you what kinds of things they prefer from you, this is not limited to offerings alone but also other correspondence as well. One thing to make note of though is that it is very common for them to greet you with an avatar of some sort. That way they can choose a form that best connects with you. These avatars can look like animals, humans, or other monstrous creatures. The possibilities are limitless. Sometimes they may even choose one that resembles their true form although not entirely because mortal minds can’t fathom it.

The last thing I have to stress is that while Lovecraft was a racist nihilist, those qualities did NOT pass into the deity of his mythos. Racism is a human trait, concocted through human concepts of bigotry. Deity don’t have the same concepts. They do not view race the way we do. To them, a human is a human. Their skin color doesn’t matter. This practice will never be one that works in a racist manner.

Types of Magick

For the most part people tend to gravitate a lot towards ceremonial magick. This is in part due to the fact that most of the stories involved with summoning the gods have a ceremony motif to them. However, if you’re not into this type of Magick you needn’t worry. Calling a deity can be worth more casual Magick. Personally this is the way I do it for the most part. It’s the intention the gods really care about not whether it’s a whole lengthy ceremony or not.

Symbolism

Each deity’s Symbolism can be derived from their respected texts. It’s important to remember that while the bigotry isn’t apart of their actual makeup some of the symbolism in the writing is. It’s not as cut and dry as the story presents though. Which has lead to many processing the information in various ways. For the sake of this blog I will list some of the more favored gods as well as what’s typically associated with them. However, you are free to draw your own conclusions, as much of this practice operates this way.

⚜️ Azathoth ⚜️

Known as the blind idiot god, he is said to be in an internal slumber dreaming up our universe. While the last part is often seen as just apart of the story for lots of practitioners the slumber of the great god isn’t always. Those who work with Azathoth work with dream magick. Believing it’s one of the only ways he can communicate with his followers. The other by using the messenger god to relay information.

⚜️ Yog Sothoth ⚜️

Son of Azathoth, he is typically regarded as the main god of the mythos by most of his followers. It is said he is called the key and the gate, the keeper of dimensions. Existing outside space and time. Because of this he knows all and is often called upon as a god of knowledge, divination, and dimensional travel. In the mythos he’s also associated with bringing back the dead, thus many practitioners view him as a god of necromancy as well.

⚜️ Shub Niggurath ⚜️

The wife of Yog Sothoth she’s a motherly deity that is said to appear deep in forestry areas, almost constantly creating life from opening mouths on her body. She’s seen as a benevolent goddess, one that stands mainly for fertility. In the story she creates milk to feed her followers. Those that drink it become known as Dark Young. From a realistic stand point, the dark young can simply represent her followers, some even view it as a title like priest or priestess. A lesser known association, however, is the belief that the dark young are the dead souls of those that worshipped her in life. They are said to appear on her behalf when she can not be present. Regardless of which one you hold to be true, milk is often used as an offering. She’s called to bless it with protection and fruitfulness, before it’s drank my the witch.

⚜️ Nyarlathotep ⚜️

Known as one of the most malevolent gods of the mythos, he’s said to wander the earth causing havoc. It’s also stated that he’s the messenger of the gods, talking word back to even Azathoth himself. Now, in reality he’s not seen as evil but rather a trickster god. Trickster gods often walk a grey area between light and dark, and can be known to teach in very unconventional ways. This matches what Nyarlathotep is about. Those that work with him can describe him as protective or even stern one minute then care free the next.

⚜️ Cthulhu ⚜️

Arguably the most popular of the mythos, this deity is another dream worker. The story says that the great one slumbers and reaches out to his followers through their dreams. Cthulhu is described by practitioners to be very knowledgeable and protective of those who follow him dutifully. He’s often seen to give gifts to those he feels worthy.

⚜️ Hastur ⚜️

Hastur isn’t always considered part of the pantheon because his creation is a little different from the others. He was only mentioned briefly in one of Lovecraft’s stories. He was later reimagined by Ambrose Bierce, in his short story “Haïta the Shepherd” in which Hastur was described as a the god of shepherds. He was later fleshed out again as a malicious god called the yellow king. Like Nyarlathotep, he isn’t seen as actually evil but rather a chaos or darkness deity. In practice he’s seen as a king, but this doesn’t mean he’s no longer a shepherd. On the contrary. A fair king is seen as both a ruler and a shepherd. He governs and lays down rules, while also protecting and guiding his people. That being said, those who have worked with Hastur often mention that he can be strict, and demanding of offering more profusely then any other deity. But when the castor complies he will be very protective and loyal.

Resources

I will add to this list as more become available, so feel free to link yours in the bottom so I can create a nice Hub. Also please remember that any symbol, regardless of whether it’s words, numbers, or sigils, has power when put down with intention. Even if it’s a symbol taken from a game. It may not have been created with real spirituality in mind but that doesn’t mean someone else can’t use it that way. Everything is just lines, squiggles, and circles until meaning is given to them.

⚜️ R’lyehian Text ⚜️

This is a text said to be given by Cthulhu in the story. While, in the story it’s only vaguely described, there are many people who have created their own versions. These ones I feel the most accurate to me. These are a free download that also comes with a free translator on site for those who just want to try it. The text comes in 2 variations.

• Dark R’lyehain Font Translator & Download

• Minor R’lyehain Font Translator & Download

⚜️ Magick Circles ⚜️

These are in no way meant to be the only circles you use. You can most definitely make your own. These are just some of the more popular ones people have uploaded online that are currently in circulation.

• Generic Magick Circle

• Chaos Star Magick Circle

• Azathoth Magick Circle

• Hastur Magick Circle

• Cthulhu Magick Circle

• Nyarlathotep Magick Circle

⚜️ Bestiary ⚜️

This was originally a tabletop game but it showcases seals & symbols for each deity and creature from the entire mythos along with where their placement is on the hierarchy. It’s a good starting point.

• Lovecraftian Bestiary

⚜️ The Elder Sign ⚜️

The sign is said to protect one against the outer gods. Although it’s not always used for this purpose in the modern craft. Sometimes it’s used as protection, not against the deity but bad energies as a whole. Again it all depends on the witch. Now there are technically 3 variations on this. One created by Lovecraft, another created by August Derleth, and a third depicted as a combination of the two.

• Lovecraft’s Sign

• August Derleth Sign

• Combination Sign

⚜️ Yog Sothothary Sefirot ⚜️

Originally the Sefirot, also called a Sephiroth, was a diagram in the Jewish Kabbala, that showcased the 10 powers, by which God would manifest. Since then their have been multiple variations created by practices, and this practice is no different.

• Lovecraftian Sefirot

⚜️ Links For Further Reading ⚜️

These are links that can help with further reading and understanding of this mythos. Remember though, each one of us works with the mythos in our own unique way. Take from the sources what calls to you and leave what doesn’t.

• Deep Cuts In A Lovecraftian Vein

• Cults Of Lovecraft

• The Influence Of HP Lovecraft On Occultism

• A Practical Guide To Lovecraft’s Lore

• Egragores & The Cthulhu Mythos

• Egragore Wiki

• Excerpts From Liber Yog Sothoth

• The Azatu Gate

• Rite To Call Yogge Sothoth

• Black Book of Azathoth

• Necronomicon Gnosis

• Chthon

• Working Worth The Cthulhu Mythos

#paganism #witchcraft #pagans of tumblr #chaos magician #chaos magick #eldritch magic #witches of tumblr #chaos witch #eldritch witch #chaos witchcraft #eldritch witchcraft #yog sothoth #Yog Sothothery #lovecrafian #lovecraft

[respondedinkind]

~ Character Info Sheet (MAIN VERSE)

name: Khan Noonien Singh

name meaning: Khan, which is more popular as a surname, is a Turkish boy's name meaning "prince". Khan is a shorter form of Khagan, and was originally a historic title given to military chiefs and rulers. Noonien is of Chinese origin and means "gifted one", though it's unclear whether this is accurate or not. Singh is derived from the Sanskrit word सिंह (IAST: siṃha) meaning "lion", and is used in the sense "hero" or "eminent person".

alias/es: John Harrison, created and given to him by Admiral Marcus as a smokescreen to hide his true identity.

ethnicity: Confidential information

one picture you like best of your chara:

three h/cs you've never told anyone:

During his time under Marcus' command, Khan was not only forced to create powerful weapons and design an entire warship fitting to Marcus' demands, but he was also forced to go through mental as well as physical abuse. Marcus used his crew to control him, threatened Khan to take their lives if he were to disobey; Two of his people died this way, leaving Khan devastated and broken.

Khan is, in fact, not human - this information is confidental, however, and the few papers existing from the time he was risen are locked up somewhere in the archives. Marcus knows, however, with him being of high rank - which is precisely why he wanted to keep and use Khan for his purposes.

During his time as a ruler in between 1992 and 1996, Khan maintained a close relationship to a selected few of his following (mostly males, with a few rare exceptions) - the mentioned relationship included connections of sexual kind, but didn't really turn into romantic love-interests. They all enjoyed each other's company together, as a group, on more than just one occasion.

three things your character likes doing in their free time:

Reading. He enjoys a lot of different genres, prefers the feel of real paper between his fingers, but will also use whatever electronic device is offered to him to entertain himself.

Stargazing. It reminds him of his childhood, back when he'd been risen in the twentieth century; The stars have always fascinated him, perhaps it has to do with his origins.

Cooking. He rarely gets the chance to do so, but Khan enjoys the logical but also creative approach of creating dishes - he's a big fan of the asian as well as indian cuisine.

eight people your character likes / loves: His crew, obviously. Seventy-two people, still within their cryotubes; He would do anything for them, as he knows they would do anything for him in return. He considers them his family, his friends, people he holds most dear.

Besides them, he doesn't keep any close connections at the current time. While residing under Marcus' command, he didn't really care about anyone else, only had the occasional chat with others working at Section 31, but nothing of significant nature.

The rest is entirely thread-dependent; Khan is about to connect to @darehearts, he also feels very close to @sxbaist (in every single Verse) and, besides that, is starting to connect tentatively to a few other muses. (Also very verse-dependent; In his MCU verses he's getting relatively close to @bloodstainedstar and is already deeply in love with @mehrere-musen - in one alien verse he is friends with @noblehcart and in another alien verse he is also deeply in love with @ssolessurvivor)

two things your character regrets:

Having put his people into the torpedoes he'd designed. Back when he'd done it, there hadn't been any other way available for him to try and smuggle them into safety - yet, with how the events unfolded in the end, part of him regrets that he's executed his own plan and, sadly, got discovered in the process, forcing him to leave them behind while escaping alone.

Having put himself as well as his crew into cryotubes to begin with. Back when all of them had been forced into exile, he'd planned for them to sleep a few years while their ship drifted through space, far away from earth, so as to allow them all to resume their lives at another point. That his own cryotube malfunctioned, didn't wake him up within the estimated timespan, he obviously didn't account for; Ten of his friends lost their lives because of that, and, in the end, Marcus found them over two hundred years after the Eugenic Wars had happened, resulting in the whole desaster that followed.

Phobias fears your character has:

The fear of losing someone he loves, either plantonic or romantic. Because of what he's gone through while being held hostage by Marcus, made to witness the death of two of his people caused by the Admiral's hands, Khan ever since experiences the overwhelming fear of being unable to keep someone safe and, therefore, lose them forever. Whoever gets close to him, he intents to protect, and he might become a bit overly protective because of his mentioned fear.

A mild 'fear' of doctors / scientists. It manifests less in actual fear but more in varying stages of discomfort; Because of what he went through as a child as well as under Marcus' command, he's not too fond of being handled by either of them.

tagged by: no one tagging: @bloodstainedstar because I don't think you did this yet. :)

#headcanon #(since the last time i filled this out is VERY alien verse specific... i decided to do it for my main verse too!) #(so here it is. NEW Khan character sheet heh) #(♥) #(i hope you guys dont mind me having tagged you)

[aquilathefighter]

Trope Game

Hiii i finally have spoons for this!! thanks for the tags @seiya-starsniper @immacaria @altair214 <3

Rules: How much do these tropes affect your decision to click on a fic?

-10 -> very dissuaded

0 - don't care either way

+10 -> very enticed

nope -> if it's a hard no and you'd never click on a fic with that tag or or you even have the tag blocked or you'd insta click out of the fic if it wasn't tagged

Bonus points for explaining the rating and whether it's conditional.

Age gap: +3

its a sometimes food for me, i just have to be in the mood for it or it has to be well done, whether it's clear we're playing in the space of sexy fantasy or something a bit more unethical

Codependency: -5

brings up some yucky feelings for me. if it's done by an author i trust i might still click though!

Obsession/Possessiveness, jealousy: +4

it can be sexy and i like when characters talk through it

Opposites (grumpy/sunshine etc): +8

*gestures at most of my favorite ships*

Enemies to lovers, Enemies with benefits: 0

eh just not really my thing!

Friends with benefits: +4

its a fun thing and i love a pwp where they're just buds. but i do really prefer more romantic pairings personally

Sex to feelings: +7

love the exploration of what happens when it becomes not 'just sex'. also smut yummy

Fake dating/relationship: +10

oh my god this is my favorite trope e v e r. the number of spirk fics where they have to pretend to be bfs/husbands bc of the aliens i've read..

Friends to lovers: +9

CLASSIC. i love a beautiful foundation of two people who really know each other well realizing their affection for each other have evolved into something different!! only knocked off a point bc sometimes its really amatonormative in that the romantic relationship is seen as more/better than the platonic relationship and i do not vibe with that.

Found Family: +1

i could take it or leave it for the most part but if it's done well its certainly appreciated!

Hurt/Comfort: +10

afjdskaf;jsda i dont even have an explanation other than i like to hit characters with hammers and then nurse them back to health

Love Triangle: -8

i just think its kind of played out and very rarely do the dynamics catch my interest

Poly, open relationships: 0

i tend to get really fixated on one pairing so its kinda hard for me to get really excited about them?? all the power to poly ships but i just have very few of them (e.g. mcspirk)

Mistaken/hidden identity: +3

it can be fun! love some drama but if its simply misunderstanding i get a bit frustrated. more phantom type hidden identity pls

Pregnancy: -1

kidfic is generally a squick for me on account of me never wanting to get pregnant in my entire life ever and some personal stuff, but if its more about the relationship between the pregnant person and their partner(s) i'm down! and breeding kink ofc, thats a whole other thing

Second Chance: +7

people who have history between them giving it another try? trying to move past the ways they hurt each other??? yesssss

Slowburn: -2

this is more about the fact that i simply do not have the brain power to read 100K+ fics a lot of the time!! when i do have the capacity i love reading a slowburn but unfortunately i expend a lot of reading spoons on work on account of being an academic at all

Soulmates: -4

man im such a pessimist but i personally find the idea of predestined people you're gonna fall in love with kind of depressing? much more a fan of love being a thing you create between people

i am probably the last one to do this XD take this as an open invitation if you would like to do this game and haven't been tagged!

#tag game #i am a pretty amiable guy when it comes to most things

[you-can-be-what-you-want-to-be]

Favorite wolf 359 episodes

1) The watch tower

It’s so interesting to see the aliens reasoning and understanding of the universe and why it’s needed, and I love the song that goes with the reveal, and how Doug is both the child and adult in this situation, both asking Bob to give him the kids glove treatment and trying to patiently explain things like an exasperated parent

2) Am I alone now? It’s the episode that made me care about this podcast. We hear from everyone and Heras speech about the solar flair and how she doesn’t know if she’s going to miss them fucking kills me

3) Boléro. Like a better version of team what’s wrong with handcuffs. Effiel is tired, and he hates this, and everyone who’s dead has tried to kill him at least once, but he’ll be fucked if they aren’t going to be people about this, if they aren’t going to treat them as people and loose all control of decency. Heras talk about what the point of this is and why they had to die, and her complicated feelings of getting betrayed by a friend and not knowing how to feel, and Minkowskis feelings of inadequacy…. Girl I am UNWELL

4) Time to kill. Not much to say about this one. It’s a Halloween favorite of mine and the idea of them sitting there for hours after that is chilling. No matter which version it is, there was A Jacobi out there who’s friends let him die. The dread and fear and tragedy in that episode are overwhelming

5) memoria. To feel there is something wrong with you your entire life, to find out the thing tripping you up was your own anxieties? To have to look at that and go “this is a part of me I can’t remove and have to live with, but because I know it’s there now, I can work around it. I’m not okay, but I’m going to be.”

6) Into the depths. Ok listen. The aliens telling Kepler that just because hes violent doesn’t mean he has a say in anything is delicious. Them communicating with Doug who is terrified and has no idea what the fuck they’re saying is delicious. Lovelace saying I’m choosing to be this person? 10/10. Minkowski going even if I think you were wrong you were willing to make a choice? Chef kiss. This episode can do no wrong

7) Wolf 359 live: deep space survival procedure and prodigal. This episode is comedy genius. The voice recording Eiffel going that’s impossible and everyone telling it to shut up, the microwave gag, the role-playing between Effielf and Minkowski? Top teir. Him utterly failing at keeping the meeting cool and immediately giving them away? So good. Loveless being just so fucking pissed and confused? Light of my life

8) Let’s kill Hilbert. Like a diet version of Boléro. Early enough that it could be naïveté but relistening makes you go wow doug really is the moral back bone of the ship, and at the end him offering the different options for Hera and her taking all three gets me every time

9) Mission mishaps: a little night music. 1: it’s funny to hear someone verbally describe that kind of music 2: him having a breakdown midway 3: the fact that hilbert would’ve known about the aliens if he listened to like 10 secs 4: his fake fancy accent

10) Minkowski commanding. Seeing her loose her mind is funny but the revelation that the plant just wanted to not be alone in the dark always got me like 😭🥺🥺🥺

#wolf 359

[headspacedad]

so i'm torn between ryou being rescued by the paladins or ryou getting rescued by romelle but then I thought... what if both. like, the first time he was captured by galra, he was rescued by romelle. he stayed on pollux for a bit, earned a place for himself but left to continue his quest for answers. then he got captured again, maybe on purpose, and was then rescued by the paladins.

I can completely and utterly guarantee you that by capture attempt number two Ryou would be So Done with This Shit.  Let’s strip it down to basic though.  Ryou has, for quite some time now, been pretty much at the top of his field.  You make it up, he can build it.  You ask for something, he can invent it.  He’s really been in a position of leadership (albeit an entirely different version from Taka’s) and of being the one that’s ahead of everyone else and giving them hands up to catch up.

And then, suddenly, he’s at the very bottom of that pile, so far behind in knowledge and ability that he might as well be a first grader learning how to work simple addition all over again.  He does not have a fancy lion, he does not have an Official Role, he does, honestly, not have much point or usefulness when he finds himself in space.  This is a man that’s built himself from the ground up to be the one that can provide and create what everyone else needs and its been his goal as well as a huge purpose of his for years now.  And it’s gone.  Hell, he doesn’t even know which knobs to turn on things anymore or where the hell the nearest equivalent to a screwdriver is and if anything out here even uses screws.  Yes, Hunk is shown pretty much understanding everything, including how to hotwire a drilling elevator or fix a junked up alien vessel, right off the bat without even scratching his head but lets be realistic here.  In a civilization so advanced they’ve made a flying lion that can literally phase itself through solid objects without any harm to the pilot inside and I’m supposed to believe they’re still be using technology on a level that a human whose highest accomplishment isn’t even light speed yet could completely take apart and know exactly what they were doing right off the bat?  Really?  Look we all suspend a lot of disbelief for this show and that’s part of the fun but if you really look at the basics of it - Pidge can, quickly and with very little trouble, immediately crack code in an alien computer system that’s had longer to advance itself than the entire human race has had to evolve.  Really?  She can, and I’m still having a hard time swallowing this one, hijack Shiro’s arm with - a wifi signal? and shut it down when not a single other Galra grunt or scientist or soldier or Haggar have?  Don’t get me wrong.  In all honest, I love Hunk muttering to himself and hotwiring the elevator at the same time.  It’s one of my all time favorite scenes from season one actually because it is so perfect in timing and delivery and tension and laughter and Hunkness but - the thing that challenges my suspension of disbelief most is how casual alien tech is treated and how easy it is to crack even by two beings I’m perfectly willing to acknowledge as complete geniuses. I realize, as writers, there’s a limited amount of time the VLD script crew have to pack all kind of information into things and they really do need to hit the ground running with the characters.  Pidge and Hunk both need to have their skills shine just as bright as anyone elses and it would take a lot of time and slow the story way down if they were put on a learning curve.  In fact, a hell of a lot of the situations that moved things along in the first couple of episodes (Pidge hijacking Rover, Hunk hijacking the lift) wouldn’t have happened at all if we had to stop and have them really wrestle with how utterly alien and outside of their usual pattern of programing and problem solving everything is.  But dang.  Are we going to upload a virus to the alien ship with a lap top next?

#Anonymous

[theseventhoffrostfall]

Mass Effect also had some of the lamest neoliberal "we want to be star trek but dont understand the nuances of star trek" wishful thinking as well. Humanity is the only race that constantly has to put aside its own ideals for everyone else, every "good" choice is ultimately you guys taking the L because of how good Humanity is. Fuck it. Why does Humanity always get fucked over for the sake of everyone else? Cerberus was treated (at least in 1/2 before they went insane) as lawful evil at best when that attitude was the baseline attitude of every alien race and somehow no one else had a problem with THEM being pro-whatever-species-they-are. I want choices where WE get concessions for helping other species, I want an expansionist Shepherd who understands we need a strong militarized empire because they WILL view us as threats when the reapers are dealt with. The Krogan were interesting but I wish there were more consequences, if you cure the genophage imply it will HAPPEN again, maybe best case is that you convince scientists to modify to plague to only be 1/4th as fatal or something. But there were too many good endings where everything went well and not enough parts where your choices mattered. For everything. Even the best outcome should have a consequence you would have to live with. Three especially should have made you choose which systems to throw at the Reapers. Maybe a system begs for evacuation and you have to decide how many of your ships to risk sending?

Also Tali is fucking majorly overhyped as moe qt alien waifu when Miranda "literally genetically perfect and the only person who can understand what Shepherd is going through and also has a giant ass" is right there.

Your first point is, again, I think a symptom of the writers not actually having any aptitude for writing political/military science fiction. A normal human would look at situation of humanity having to find its footing among galactic society and realize yes, this is political reality, humankind as a polity needs to ensure its interests and work to prevent being reduced to a client state with no agency or representation as numerous species in the setting are. A small-minded ideologue with no ability to think about political issues outside a modern first-world lens hears any discussion of a species/race as a polity with its own interests too look out for and thinks "What!? Ensure a future for human children, is that what you're saying? You're some kind of KKK Nazi racist!??!?!!"

The Star Trek comparison is an apt one, because while yes, the Federation frequently engaged in high-minded diplomacy and compromise, that's because that was, in fact, their ideology and way of life. When they abutted a culture that went against those principles, they held their ground and didn't compromise who they were, for all their desire to reach mutual understanding.

While I have no interest whatsoever in waifu wars, I will say that while both of them had the obligatory father issues because goddamn writing something else is hard, that's at least not Tali's entire character and there is indeed a modicum of acknowledgement about her weird-ass situation with her isolated collectivist nomad culture, even if it's written more like she's from a big family with strong ties rather than an entirely different civilization. Miranda, the fact that she's a custom-made clone is window dressing on the deep core of her issues, which are that she had an overbearing father.

[staringdownabarrel]

For all the flack the Ferengi's presentation gets in TNG's early seasons, I feel like this was actually a better direction for them to go in than what we got later on, especially in DS9.

Sure, they jump around like feral children and the mouthpieces they wear impair their speech, but as silly as this is, it also is one of the most properly alien sets of behaviour in early TNG. With the exception of aliens like the Q or the Borg, which aren't entirely humanoid, most of the aliens on the show veer towards a more restrained, late '80s/early '90s adult American set of mannerisms.

The other thing they really did well was that the Ferengi also had a very alien set of weaponry compared to Starfleet. For the most part, a Star Trek alien's ship might have phaser banks and photon torpedoes, or maybe disruptors instead of phasers, and maybe a cloaking device on top of that. At most, the exotic weapons will be something like "...and here's a missile with a fancy sounding name, but we won't actually tell you how it's different from regular photon torpedoes."

This wasn't the case with the Ferengi. In The Last Outpost, the D'Kora-class marauder is shown to have electromagnetic pulses that fire from an aft weapons array, and when they beam down to the T'Kon planet, they're carrying the energy whips. Both of these speak to a different design lineage than the Federation was used to.

I think from a storyline perspective, these were also good weapons for them to have. Stuff like the energy-dampening weapon used by the Breen in DS9 were more powerful, but they were powerful in a way where introducing a technical countermeasure that'd become standard fleetwide or having there be some sort of simple limitation that could be taken advantage of easily was inevitable. This was the same deal with the Zalkonian weapon that disrupted the Enterprise's life support systems in Transfigurations as well.

This wasn't really the case with the Ferengi EM weapons. They were in that sweet spot where even though they were novel, they weren't overpowered to a point where there'd have to be an episode where they worked out how to overcome it or abuse its limitations somehow. It could have just been a weapon that was part of a sufficiently alien arsenal that Starfleet hadn't encountered them previously.

It's a similar deal with the energy whips. I know why these weren't used that much after The Last Outpost: there were issues with the special effects involved with them, so they were largely discarded after that. Still, conceptually I think these were cool weapons for aliens to have, and they did make the Ferengi feel more alien then just having them have a different kind of pistol like most other aliens had.

I think having energy whips also speaks to the Ferengi cultural mindset as well. In early TNG, they were leaning more heavily into the idea that the Ferengi were militarily Starfleet's equal, but they were always hypercapitalist. Slavery is the kind of thing that you'd expect these guys to deal in, so having an energy whip would make sense. This is the kind of thing they'd use to discipline a slave for a perceived transgression--in that case as literally just a whip--or as a combat weapon, where the energy discharge would be used.

This is where the comical, almost grotesque, element of their presentation in early TNG comes in as well. I guess this wasn't really as politic to say in 1987, but a lot of capitalists do have that kind of grotesque comedic element to them. I mean, following whatever is going on with Elon Musk or Donald Trump is very similar to watching a major car crash and being unable to look away. If it weren't for the fact that these are two of the most powerful, most influential people on the face of the planet, you probably would see them in a very similar light to how most viewers see the Ferengi.

This is exactly why they should have stuck the course with the Ferengi's original presentation. The way DS9 tried to backpedal on this was a mistake. Having Quark come out and say that the Ferengi hadn't ever fought an interstellar war in The Jem'Hadar and having that largely fit with how they're presented in the show is much sillier than the overt silliness of the feral, hyped up children presentation in The Last Outpost.

The fact that they were silly and difficult to take seriously in early TNG is exactly why they're fucking terrifying. As amusing as they might be, a Ferengi will whip you and steal your coat just as easily as he'll play nice, just like a real billionaire. A minor disagreement could lead to a bizarre but ultimately harmless tantrum, or it could lead to an actual shooting match.

Ironically, this style of presentation is one of the most explicit fuck yous to capitalism imaginable, but the shows shy away from it entirely. Yes, a real life billionaire, especially one that's old money, will be well educated and occasionally even well mannered, but in terms of actual mindset and values, they're basically aliens compared to most people. At their most overt silliness, they're just like a Ferengi.

I think this is the angle people really struggle with when it comes to that early TNG style of Ferengi. Even though they are mostly just silly, that style of presentation easily could have been more terrifying than the Borg and just as insightful as the DS9 Ferengi if they had have stuck with it. Instead of the overt Rom starting a union style episodes we ended up getting, we could have had episodes that make it very clear just how ugly capitalism is for large chunks of the world.

I don't know if the main Trek audience would have been as receptive to this in the '80s and '90s, though. For the most part, these were people in the developed world for whom capitalism was working. They didn't necessarily want to hear about the kind of conditions that have to be endured in large chunks of the world to make it feasible for them to live as they do, much as they don't now.

To them, this style of depiction probably would have been a little bit too real. By the same token, I feel like a more brutal Ferengi probably would have been better. As they are in DS9, most people can write it off as a joke, even if they don't really agree with the underlying message. A more overt depiction would have forced them to consider it.

It also would have done a much better job at highlighting the relative merits of the Federation at its best, and its greatest failings. Quark might get some good lines here and there about how humans aren't so different from the Ferengi when push comes to shove, but this would have gone from being "funny up until it isn't" fodder to being deeply off-putting if the Ferengi had have always been taken seriously.

While early TNG Ferengi have their issues, overall I sorta feel like people make mountains out of molehills with it in general. Yes, they can be a bit annoying, but literally every member of the main cast has at least a few annoying moments in the first season, and with the exception of Wesley, none of them are treated with as much disdain as the Ferengi are. If they had have become the main villains they were originally slated to be, they would have grown out of that eventually, much like everyone else did.

#star trek #star trek tng #star trek the next generation #tng #the next generation #rant

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

*sigh*

I really enjoyed the second What If episode upon first viewing, but the more I think about it the more it pisses me off.

Let's set aside the fact that the episode essentially told us Yondu could have formed a kind of father-son bond with literally any random kid, therefore cheapening his relationship with Peter considerably. It's the premise, we have to work with it.

Seriously though... You're telling me that none of Peter's siblings showed T'Challa's spunk and hunger for the stars, when many of them were presumably from races that had dealings with alien species? All it took for Yondu to take to T'Challa instantly was the fact that he found the universe cool??

Seriously though, an important part of Yondu and Peter's relationship was that Yondu could never make himself soft for Peter until the very end because of how dangerous it was in a crew full of bloodthirsty jerks, and because of how badly Yondu himself was damaged by his own childhood. He also took to Peter - incredibly slowly - because he felt guilty about the deaths of Peter's siblings, a connection he wouldn't have had with T'Challa, and because Peter was an orphan with a monster for a dad - y'know, like Yondu, who was sold by his parents. Peter had no one else who could have protected him, that's why Yondu kept him around - not because he wanted an heir or he felt like turning to babysitting.

T'Challa's simple curiosity about the galaxy shouldn't have been enough for him to bond with Yondu, because Yondu's primary motivation to become a Ravager wasn't that he wanted to see the world - he became a Ravager because he had nothing else and they offered him a family. It makes NO SENSE that in that universe, he would make himself soft - the cardinal sin to his crew who turn on him like a pack of frenzied sharks when he does - immediately for a kid who doesn't share any of his own experiences and characteristics, and who already had a family. Yondu had no reason to tolerate having T'Challa aboard, much less decide to just keep him forever.

They essentially took his end-of-GotG2 personality and slapped it onto his younger self!

Also, Yondu lying to T'Challa was the cheapest way to write him as the same kind of terribly flawed father figure he was to Peter. The real Yondu, believe it or not, was actually a very strange, peculiar brand of self-loathingly honest. He only ever lied about things that would make him look better if they were explained:

He kept saying he was going to eat Peter, which wasn't true, he said he saved Peter's life because his crew wanted to eat him and he stopped them, which is also mostly a lie covering up the fact that he saved Peter's life in a much more significant - and actually heroic - way by keeping him from Ego, he told Peter he kept him around because he was useful when he could have explained that he was protecting him, he apparently never told Peter about his past as a slave (because Peter mocks him for his use of the word in GotG1) even though it would have helped the two of them, he pretended he didn't know the Sphere wasn't the real Power Stone and he let Peter believe he was angry when he was actually proud (Peter even thought he'd kill him for that if they ever met again when Yondu laughed about being tricked out of billions of units), he claimed that his motive for not capturing the Guardians was greed when it was because he cared, he never mentioned or used the tracker he'd stuck on Peter's ship, falsely validating Peter's assumptions that he had never come after him because he couldn't rather than because he didn't want to, he apparently didn't tell Stakar that he had spent decades taking care of Ego's last child even though it might have helped him get his place back, he lied to Rocket about why he kept Peter even though he knew Rocket knew the 'skinny' excuse was bs...

Yondu never, in either of the GotG movies, lied to make himself look better, he consistently presented himself in the worst way he possibly could. How the HELL does that translate to 'he'd tell a kid that his entire country is gone just because he thinks the kid would be happier as a ravager'????

Yondu was physically abusive and emotionally distant, not openly warm but dishonest and manipulative.

Yes yes yes, it's a 'what if' scenario and they're different people, so I'm not all that mad. Just ever so slightly miffed.

#what if #yondu udonta #peter quill #t'challa #what if marvel #child abuse #gotg #guardians of the galaxy #gotg2

[perthshirecottage]

I keep thinking about how differently T’challa and Peter grew up despite both being taken in by the Ravagers and the people they became. A lot of people are using this as an excuse to point out that this shows that Peter is a horrible person because look, all they did is change it to T’challa and suddenly all these people had wonderful lives! Yondu was a better father and Thanos learned the error of his ways and was also a better father! T’challa was space Robin Hood and helped people! The thing is that it’s not just one factor, one moment that literally changed the how everything changed. Yes, one moment was a springboard to change, but there were so many factors, so many little moments after that really and truly changed the course of history. It’s not a matter of who is the better person but it comes down to how each kid was brought into the Ravagers. It also makes a difference how they were raised before they were even abducted. And how they were raised after. All of these factors effect how the story unfolds. But the biggest factor is Yondu himself and how he, as the adult, chose to treat each of these kids. Some of this is speculation but it’s all based on evidence from the source material. I’m going to go through how each kid was raised so we can get to the bottom of how things turned out so differently.

Let’s start with T’challa.

T’challa was a kid who grew up with everything. He was a prince and therefore lacked for nothing. He was safe and had never had anything personally bad happen to him. He grew up in a palace with both of his parents and has not experienced loss. It’s good that he has never had to deal with these things but it means that he has felt more safe and comfortable in the world than Peter and T’challa has the confidence that kids brought up with all those comforts and safeties has.

T’challa is also specifically a prince. This means that T’challa is growing up with the absolute best tutors that money can buy. He has Wakandan tutors who are teaching about technology that is more advanced than other places in the world. He is taught about peaceful negotiating skills. T’challa grew up on diplomacy and learning what it meant to one day have to take responsibility for an entire country. And being a prince, the crown prince, it means that in the hierarchy of things the only people with more power than him are his parents. His parents have taught him to be humble and that he doesn’t have the right to lord that power over others That he is meant to serve his people and to take care of and love them. So he is kind and not a spoiled brat but it doesn’t change the fact that that kind of environment means that people treat T’challa with a certain amount of respect that is due to one in his position. T’challa expects people to listen to him. He expects people to respect him and to not push him to the side because this is how he was raised. Up until this point T’challa has not known loss and this will affect his initial encounter with the Ravagers.

And then comes the abduction. T’challa has just had an argument with his father. T’challa wants to go out and explore, to see the world. And suddenly T’challa is on space craft with real live aliens! This is so cool! He isn’t scared of all these strange looking aliens. In fact he thinks the whole thing is awesome. They haven’t hurt him or shown themselves to be a threat so he hasn’t had a reason to be scared. T’challa is looking around in wonder and awe and not the slightest bit intimidated. Yondu is upset that they got the wrong kid but he also sees a kid who was just abducted who isn’t scared, who is eloquent and talking about adventure. He is impressed by this kid and his fearlessness. So Yondu figures, hey, might as well give this kid a fun little adventure before I take him home, you know, to make up for this little mistake. And T’challa may be eloquent and have learned how talk to unreasonable people (I think it’s a natural skill T’challa has, but he was also taught to talk to people and that skill was nurtured in him) but he is still a kid who wants to go have some fun and not be burdened by his duties and responsibilities for awhile. So of course T’challa isn’t thinking about how his parents will be feeling when they wake up and see him gone. All T’challa wants is a good time and is thinking like the child he is. He will be home soon enough anyway.

And if Yondu gets attached and decides that he doesn’t want to return T’challa well, a little white lie might hurt for a bit but Yondu has always been a little selfish. And to make up for the lie, Yondu will treat T’challa really well, as if the boy were his own son. Yondu is caring and comforting when he tells T’challa that his whole family is dead and while it makes him uncomfortable to openly show his own caring side, it also eases Yondu’s guilt considerably as he hugs a sobbing T’challa. And to top it off he just found out what Ego was doing, and, well there’s no point in uprooting Peter Quill from his life cause Yondu isn’t working for that stupid planet anymore. He has T’challa and he doesn’t want any other kid. So T’challa is given a place of honor among the Ravagers as Yondu’s son. T’challa is listened to and given respect. T’challa is kind and calm and respectful and he keeps worming his way into Yondu’s heart. T’challa is well behaved and Yondu doesn’t even have to resort to threats to keep him in line. And T’challa trusts Yondu and talks to his father figure and works out any problems they have. They form a bond built from love, trust and respect. And Yondu protects T’challa from the rough crew. No one dares to offer up a harsh word towards T’challa because they all remember Yondu’s wrath the last time someone tried. T’challa was taught to fight on earth and Yondu is still impressed by how much T’challa knows and man that kid sure knows how to throw a punch. Yondu has so much respect early on and he has guilt about lying about T’challa’s family and all these factors affect their relationship as T’challa grows.

T’challa is raised by thieves so of course he becomes one himself. He was still young when he was taken (and it never feels like he was abducted. He was brought on an adventure and then offered a home when he lost his. The Ravagers are his family and the ship his home and there is nothing for him on earth but painful memories) so T’challa learns from the people who are raising him but he never loses the morals that were instilled in him from birth. So when T’challa gets a little older he starts to speak of the right thing to do and Yondu is touched by the words in a way he wouldn’t if he didn’t have to make up for so much red in his ledger. Which makes Yondu not want to listen. Yondu tries to ignore those thoughts of what he has done and he wants to continue going around stealing and living his life for himself and his crew as he has always done. He doesn’t want to change that much, not even for T’challa. But T’challa will not let up about the noble things they could be doing. And Yondu knows that it was a mistake to start out letting T’challa know he thought of him as a son so early in their relationship because when Yondu threatens to let the crew eat T’challa if he keeps going on about this nobility, T’challa simply laughs in his face. As if after all these years T’challa would actually believe that threat. As T’challa keeps talking about how they should be helping people, it upsets some of the crew. They don’t want T’challa and his morals in their ship and they don’t care if T’challa is Yondu’s son, the boy is trying to mutiny against their captain and they won’t stand for it! Yondu doesn’t take it well when Taser Face tries to throw T’challa out of an airlock. Yondu feels obligated to truly listen to T’challa after the whole fiasco. In the end Yondu tries to resist, but T’challa doesn’t let up and those words strike a nerve and Yondu dedicates his life to making up for those kids who were killed. He never does tell T’challa why his crew accidentally kidnapped him. Yondu knows he couldn’t bear to see the disappointment on T’challa’s face. Yondu is determined to be the best father he can be and he’s so glad he didn’t wait until it was too late.

And because T’challa and Yondu are on a crusade to help people, they specifically search out Thanos to have a talk about how crazy the man is starting to become. And it’s well over a decade before The Infinity War so Thanos isn’t quite as crazy as he will become and can still be reasoned with because someone got to him so early. (I still think this is a stretch cause the man was insane and you can’t reason with insane people but this is the only explanation I can come up with for why T’challa stopped Thanos with one conversation).

T’challa becomes such a big part of the Ravagers. He in fact becomes their leader in a way. Yondu is still the captain but the crew looks to T’challa as their moral compass. He helps to plan the heists. He figures out who is corrupt and that’s who they steal from. He figures out who needs money and he gives it them. When people ask for a name he remembers his noble birth and how he now lives among the heavens. And while he is not a king, or a prince, he is nobility and he answers Starlord. And so people spread tales of their savior and soon everyone in the galaxy has heard of Starlord.

And so T’challa grows up surrounded by love and support. He knows how to talk so people listen and this changes his dynamic with so many people and the galaxy’s destiny is changed.

Now to Peter. Peter is a kid from Missouri who lives in a small house and goes to public school and has absolutely nothing about him that makes him special. His mom works hard to provide for him but it’s just her because no one knows where Peter’s dad is. They don’t have much money but Meredith loves her son and he loves her. It doesn’t take the sting out when Peter sees other kids with their dads but Peter is grateful to have someone who cares. And then the person that Peter loves most, the person that his whole world revolves around is dying. Slowly and painfully. He has to watch her suffer for months, maybe years. Peter has to see his mom go from happy and healthy to withering away in a hospital bed. To see her mentally deteriorating and be completely helpless to stop it. Peter is suffering but he is still going to stick up for those who can’t fight back, like the poor frog those mean boys squished with a stick. His mom taught him to be kind and a good person, he just doesn’t know how to get people to listen to him. Peter has never been taught diplomacy and no one is going to listen to some skinny little kid who is vulnerable and a prime target for bullies.

And then Peter has to watch his mom die. Peter didn’t want to take his mom’s hand because he is scared and irrationally thought that if he didn’t take her hand, if he didn’t give her that permission to die, then she wouldn’t. He regretted it the moment her heart stopped and he would regret it until years later when he found a new family that helped him learn how to heal. Then Peter is shoved out of the room and everyone forgets about him and the grief and the fear and the guilt, it’s just too much and so Peter runs. He runs until he can’t and he falls to the ground sobbing.

And then comes the abduction. One moment Peter was on the ground and then suddenly he is on a spaceship, hurtling away from his home and his mom. Peter only needed to get away from that hospital room! He didn’t mean to truly leave! Everything feels too big and it’s completely overwhelming! And he is surrounded by large monsters who are scary looking and one of them is talking to him and he has blue skin and sharp teeth and everything is too much, too much and Peter screams! He screams and he sobs and he scrambles away from these terrifying creatures and he just wants his mom! He wants to go home! Where is his grandpa?! What is going on?! And then the creature threatens to let his crew eat him if he doesn’t stop making such a racket and Peter’s gaze catches those sharp teeth, gleaming, ready to tear a little boy’s flesh from his bones and he stops screaming, completely paralyzed by fear.

Yondu looks at this sniveling, snotty creature before him and he feels his ire rise. Stupid kid has only been on his ship a few minutes and he is already on Yondu’s nerves. So Yondu barks at the kid to shut up or the crew will eat him. The kid doesn’t stop crying but the screaming does stop so that’s a win in Yondu’s book. And there is a twinge of satisfaction when the men laugh at the whole scene. As if any of them would actually eat a child but it got the reaction Yondu wanted. The sooner this job is over the better. And then Yondu finds out that Ego has been killing his own children and while Yondu isn’t particularly fond of Quill, he is still a child and Yondu won’t be a part of killing another kid. There’s enough red in his ledger as it is. Anyway, Quill is small, he can fit in places adults can’t, is good for thieving. Yondu will make more money keeping the kid in the long run.

Peter is taught how to steal, how to fly, how to shoot. Peter is a rambunctious child who has a plethora of issues and loss and has to navigate the waters of grief by himself. No one holds him as he cries for the loss of his mother, his grandpa, his planet. There are no hugs or words of comfort. Just glares and sneers for a weak kid who is terrified of all the scary aliens he is now stuck with. Yondu has offered a few pats on the shoulder when Peter is feeling especially low, and sometimes Yondu will sit in companionable silence when no one else is around. Yondu keeps the crew from eating him (and Peter never grows out of this fear, not really) but Yondu doesn’t do a thing about the harsh looks and the harsher words. And whenever a Ravager takes a swing at Peter, Yondu allows it since it will toughen him up. And Peter’s whole world has crashed down around his ears and he has no support and whenever he plucks up the courage, Peter does what he can to cause some chaos for these aliens that have taken him from his home. While there is a part of Peter that doesn’t want to return to a home that no longer has his mom, Peter can’t forget that the Ravagers forced him into this life, and he is their prisoner. When he is old enough to escape Peter has been gone for so long that he doesn’t see any point in going back. All that’s left for him on earth are painful memories. So Peter learns to get good at stealing so that he can earn his keep and not end up as dinner. He learns how to protect his belongings so no one takes it. He learns how to be wily and to use his wits to fight and escape from those who are bigger and stronger than he is. He learns to look out for himself first and foremost, because no one else is going to. Peter sticks with the Ravagers because he has no where else to go. No one recognizes him besides a Nova Corp officer. No one knows his name because Peter has been lost in the shuffle as another Ravager. One day the Ravagers are hired for a huge score and Peter decides that this is the one that’s big enough that he can finally strike out on his own. People will know his name and his mom’s legacy of her Starlord will live on. And if Peter’s betraying the Ravagers, oh well, it’s not like they have ever given him a reason to be loyal to them anyway. And this does turn out to be the big score Peter was looking for, but it didn’t come in the form of money. Peter found the family he had been so desperately longing for since his mom died.

Yondu teaches the kid the basics. How to steal, and shoot, and fly. Yondu also teaches the kid how to fight because it’s rough out there and he needs to be able to defend himself. The kid has no idea how to throw a punch or block one, so Yondu lets the crew take some swings at the kid because man, if that kid doesn’t learn to fight then he’s as good as dead. And Yondu reminds the kid that he is protecting him from a crew that wants to eat him. At first it’s a way to keep Quill in line when the kid does something stupid (Peter does a lot of stupid stuff and why can’t the kid just behave?) but it eventually stops being a threat and becomes an inside joke between the two of them. As Peter gets faster and stronger and more skilled and less weepy and fearful, Yondu starts taking a liking to him. He doesn’t really let on because why should Yondu make himself uncomfortable by talking about feelings, he doesn’t owe Peter anything since Yondu already saved the kid’s life by not giving him to Ego. If anything, Peter is indebted to him whether he knows it or not. Yondu knows, deep down that he isn’t talking care of Quill the way the kid deserves but Yondu can’t just give the kid up (Yondu’s always been a little selfish). And nothing forces Yondu to confront his own feelings and own up to his mistakes until they’re about to blow up a planet and Peter’s about to die and this is Yondu’s last chance to make up for the way he treated Peter and what he did to those other poor kids that Ego killed. So Yondu finally steps up and becomes the father he should have been all along. He just wishes he hadn’t waited until it was too late.

In conclusion, the changes that were made were not simply from it being T’challa instead of Peter. It was so many factors. It was the initial introduction to the Ravagers, where T’challa wanted an adventure and got one. He wanted to go with the Ravagers and so it was fun and it was kind of his friends to let him stay after his family died. For Peter he had just watched his mom died and was emotionally vulnerable and the entire abduction actually felt like an abduction. It was traumatizing and nothing about it was fun. Yondu actively chose T’challa because the boy actually had a home to go back to. Yondu got stuck with Peter so the boy wouldn’t be murdered. Yondu had guilt about lying to T’challa and something to cause him to repent and treat T’challa better. Yondu could keep himself emotionally distant since he could reassure himself that he saved Peter’s life and didn’t owe the kid anything. T’challa was never given a reason to fear the Ravagers and so felt he could speak freely about his beliefs and change Yondu’s and the other’s minds. Peter spent his whole life worrying that he would mess up too big and be eaten so he tried no to bring too much ire on himself. T’challa was calm and had an extensive education and impressed Yondu from their first meeting. T’challa was respected and so therefore respected those who were raising him. Peter was brought in during the worst day of his life and already emotionally charged and a grieving kid was not something the Ravagers wanted to deal with. And Peter wasn’t equipped in anyway for the Ravager lifestyle and had to sink or float and I doubt anyone was that understanding when he floundered. Peter was a terrified and confused kid who sometimes acted up with his abductors.

Peter and T’challa were raised by the same person but they were also raised in completely different environments. It’s not fair to place of the weight of how either child turned out on their shoulders. They were children who had to deal with the world they were literally abducted into. And you can see that Yondu specifically treated T’challa differently than he ever did Peter. And it’s not fair to say it’s because T’challa was simply a better person because Yondu was the adult in the situation. They were children and they had no say in how they were raised. Yondu was the one who decided to keep them both. He was also the one who decided treat T’challa better. In gotg vol 2, Yondu was correct when he said he ‘didn’t do any of it right’. Yondu may have come to love Peter, but at the end of the day, Yondu was abusive towards Peter. Yondu wasn’t given an incentive to change his ways until the very end when he had to choose between Peter’s life and his own. It doesn’t mean that Yondu and Peter didn’t love each other in their own way. Yondu still raised Peter and took care of him, but it is canon that Yondu beat Peter and spent Peter’s whole life hanging the threat of being eaten over his head. Yondu wasn’t obvious in the ways he looked out for Peter. Yondu kept the Ravagers from killing him on several occasions, but Yondu never let Peter know he was protecting him until the last possible minute. In What If…there is not a single implication that Yondu ever threatened T’challa’s life or beat him or any of the other crap that happened to Peter. And gotg happened 26 years after Peter was abducted while the events of What If happened only 20 years later. So in far less time T’challa was able to accomplish more because he was better adjusted not because he was a better person. The whole conversation about Peter getting into a fight with some boys because he was protecting a frog shows his kindness and how he wants to defend those who can’t defend themselves. But Peter was raised in a place where he had to take care of himself because even in his 30s he was being threatened by Yondu (remember after Yondu pulled Peter and Gamora out of space and beat Peter up and pointed his arrow at Peter’s neck? Yeah that’s a pretty big threat and Peter isn’t surprised by it. Like this kind of treatment is normal). No one was looking out for Peter so he had to learn to survive his abuse and look after himself because he couldn’t count on anyone else until he met the rest of the Guardians. And T’challa was treated with worry and care. He was given support and understanding. T’challa has had a family since the moment that Ravager ship picked him up. The differences between these two stories has nothing to do with who was abducted, but with the how and why.

#what if #what if…? #marvel #guardians of the galaxy #gotg #t’challa #yondu udonta #peter quill #I wish people would stop saying this proves Peter is horrible #T’challa is a different person yes #but he was also raised differently #both of these boys deserve love #but it is canon that Peter was abused #and there is no evidence that T’challa was #and that made a difference in how they each turned out #and they type of impact they made on the galaxy #the Ravagers were T’challa’s family #the ravagers were Peter’s abductors! #there’s a difference #blame Yondu #he actually made the choices #that created this universe #perthshirecottage posts

[space-city-traffic]

yet again im back on my bullshit so... (gazes with mixed feelings at the TV show Firefly) i could fix him.

my extremely long thoughts about my Own Personal Good Version of Firefly (with plenty of spoilers for the show and the movie) under the cut:

things that are getting axed first thing no question:

out with the whole “let’s add in a thin veneer of Chinese cultural aesthetics out of context for ~flavor~” deal. just no.

instead, let’s hire some actors from a bunch of different cultures and work with them to figure out how their characters would bring those cultures into space with them!! and also hopefully bring some experiences with immigration/alienation/travel into it, since the Whole Core of Firefly is about how humanity always brings our doomed and silly and stubborn and unique warmth with us even into the cold void where nothing is familiar or homey in the slightest.

let’s respect our sex worker character shall we?

i do appreciate that Inara’s work as a companion is described as legitimate and well respected in the show. however please stop having your captain and hero call her a wh*re every five seconds against her clearly expressed wishes and portraying this as just a totally acceptable thing

let’s be more respectful of our characters of color and also have some more diversity, shall we?

others have put it better than me but yeah, the way Zoe and Book are treated is very uncomfy, and the rest of the show is depressingly monochromatic. come on let’s do better.

stop the weird confederacy hat tips

again others have pointed these out with much more thoroughness than I could, but the names of some characters and locations, as well as some of the language used to describe the browncoats, has uncomfortably confederate vibes. instead i propose we very Clearly tip our hats to the Alliance equaling space capitalism instead! you can’t go wrong with space capitalism as a villain.

don’t! make! the! psychotic! character! violent!

listen i love River Tam with my whole heart. but you should absolutely not portray your only character with psychosis as violent because of that psychosis!!!!!!! and yeah, a huge part of her character is that her brain got fucked up by the alliance and so she hallucinates and is also a super ninja. but like. she doesn’t need to be a super ninja for her character to work, okay? the crew does not need to be scared of her for her character to work, okay??? more on this later bc it would take a lot of care and nuance to make her character work but i really think it can be done

things we are absolutely keeping:

found family tropes my fucking beloved

this should be self evident. this is why the show is as appealing as it is despite its flaws, at least in my eyes.

malcolm reynolds, the knight in dusty armor

there’s something so appealing to me about what Mal stands for. because at his core is this ridiculous, silly, stubborn, doomed devotion to what he thinks is important and right, a romantic idealism thinly covered by cynical cowboy platitudes that he thinks make his bleeding heart totally invisible. and he is so obvious and entirely incorrect. bless. this is a man who will do anything for his family, who charges into swordfights to defend his friend from a man who wants to turn her into an object despite having no clue how to hold a sword. at his worst, he starts brawls in bars just for the martyr’s thrill of being persecuted for supporting the right; at his best, he inspires downright religious belief from his crew because he represents a romantic and chivalrous and doomed dedication to the right thing over any practical concerns. and then he throws a “selfish” quip over it with 100% confidence that everyone fell for his clever distraction and believes him to be a dirtbag. he’s oblivious and ridiculous and god he makes me want to be a better person because he’s just so goddamned sincere. stupid, but sincere. 10/10 himbo. <3

Mal and Inara ultraslowburn friends to enemies to friends to lovers to enemies to friends to lovers to friends to...

there’s nothing i love more than a ship that’s just two people who know each other way too well, and they’re each the only one who knows the other well enough to call them out on their bullshit. the way Mal and Inara interact in the show sometimes makes me uncomfy but like. the core of their relationship has to stay.

space western aesthetic

i need the cows on a spaceship scene to stay like i need air okay

that sweet sweet religious shit

mal, who lost his faith in gd and a whole lot else during the war. who lost his faith in himself, and now feels he has to hide the part of him that still wants to be good, because he knows he can’t be anymore, and he feels like it’s embarrassing for a guy like him to want something so unattainable. who takes a preacher on board, and the preacher has lost something, too. the preacher has his own past, and his own questions. but not questions like the observant neurodivergent girl, the one who wants to interact with and understand this thing that’s so important to him, but it just doesn’t click with how her brain works and she feels like something needs to be fixed, either the Bible or herself. and Mal takes care of them all, and slowly, he begins to find gd again, not in a prayer but in humanity. humanity doesn’t need to be fixed, like the alliance thinks. the shining imperfect strawberry sweetness of it in his family’s smiles is something to be worshiped and served and devoted to. and he finds he has something to believe in again. (and his crew find that he’s given them someone to believe in, too. and maybe suddenly he’s a saint.)

and finally, my brilliant ideas as to what i would like to add:

TRANS WOMAN KAYLEE RIGHTS

listen her femininity is so important to me okay? it’s so thrilled about everything that’s pretty, from dresses to the spaceship’s electric innards, and it’s so non-traditional and grease stained until it’s not and it’s pink and ruffly and twirly, and she never sees any of it as a contradiction, because none of it contradicts, it’s all just her! her gender is warmth and love and prettiness, feeling pretty and appreciating the pretty and making her friends’ days pretty too.

i want us to find out she’s trans in that episode with the ball, and i want us to find out alongside Mal who just never asked or never realized. Kaylee gasps and squeals at the dress in the shop window and Mal makes an off handed, ill considered comment, and then... someone yanks him aside and hisses a few very significant words in his ear. and suddenly he remembers what the blue white and pink she painted all over the engine room means, and he knows he has something to make right. so he buys her that dress himself and lets her know just how pretty she looks, and when he walks into that ball with her displayed on his arm like something precious, he looks the proudest out of any man there. and she notices. for a few seconds, of course, until there’s chocolate, and ‘nara, and a chandelier—and some horrible girls, but she’s used to that, until—suddenly, she finds her people. a group of old men who light up when she jokes about compression coils and whack presumptuous boys who ask her to dance. they adopt her as a treasured granddaughter, and Mal is beaming at her like a proud dad, and she finds that one of her new elderly friends gazes a little too long at her bracelet, and so she gives it to xem and teaches xem a few new words, and... it’s a good day, huh? it’s a really good day. (of course, then the captain has to go and punch somebody in the face, but it was a real nice party up until then.)

also she and Simon are both transhet t4t im correct and you know it

time for a better River Tam

the first thing we’ve established is that this version of her is not unpredictably violent and the crew is not scared of her!!!! it makes no sense to take a kid who’s primarily brilliant, experiment on her brain, give her telepathic powers....... and tack on the fact that she also has super strength and speed and dexterity and what not, AND say that they programmed her to be super violent. no! no. not only is that extremely harmful rep, that’s also just stupid.

instead!! my version of River is in fact not terrifying to the crew, but is actually the one they feel safest around. River has always been totally blunt, she was one of those kids you could tell realllllly early was autistic, and she doesn’t like being disengenous at all. so you can always trust her to tell the truth and not play weird passive aggressive games or have any hidden agenda, which makes her just a really chill person to be around. also, one of her longtime special interests is music and dance, so whether or not she’s nonverbal on a given day, there will always be some sort of beautiful sound when she’s around. she does have the singing voice of a dying crow unfortunately but that’s ok bc Simon’s is even worse and they’re both incredibly competitive so you’ll at least get free entertainment out of the affair.

my version of River does have psychosis and hallucinations because of the trauma of the experiments, and they are really troubling to her. she and Simon work together to find ways to cope and meds that help, and it’s a process, but there are some things that help.

the only thing she gained from the academy was the ability to hear people’s thoughts and sense the future a little bit. and yeah, that led to her picking up a few spooky secrets at the beginning, which, yikes. and for a while, it was hard to figure out which voices were real and which were hallucinations. but around her friends, she always feels safe to ask “did you just think about triple cheese burritos or was that just a me thing?”, and they’ll always tell her the truth no matter how embarrassing their thoughts are, bc it’s important to all of them to respect her and help her sort accurately through what’s reality and what’s not. and bit by bit, she gets better and better at figuring out what kinds of things tend to be telepathy and what kinds of things tend to be psychosis, and that each one feels a little different. and because of the trust and respect and support of her found family she’s able to do that in a safe environment!!!

trans man Simon rights

listen i wanted to keep him as just a side note on Kaylee’s list but he is my son and he’s important to my heart so here goes

out on the outer rim where Kaylee’s from, gender ain’t much of a big deal, there’s an individualistic quality to life out there, and so if the trail you blaze is the trail of a woman or a man or neither or both, that’s respected even in the rare cases where it’s not outright encouraged. but in the inner planets, where competition and connections and public faces and family names are everything, you have to be what’s expected of you to survive. you can’t change your brand, you can’t be anything other than what your family planned for you since before you were born, it’s incredibly hard to survive in such a hyper competitive environment, and so your very identity becomes just a tool in how to market yourself for better success.

needless to say Simon (just as autistic as his little sister and also very trans) fuckin hated it there. but he was very good at it. correction: he was very good at his very specific field of STEM, good enough to where people stopped talking about how cute he looked in bows and started talking about how impressive his work was from a very young age. and his work had no gender. he could be whatever he wanted to in equations. so that was where he could express himself, and gd, he got so much praise for it, he never wanted to stop.

not until he discovered that his sister needed him, and ran away, and needed a disguise, and realized... suddenly, every stifling rule and prying eye was a million miles away. he was freefloating, freefalling, with none of the charted paths he’d been following all his life... so you know what? fuck it. he’s always enjoyed the name Simon. and since it’s not on any legal records, it’ll make him just that much more untraceable.

and on Serenity, starting over with new people who never knew him before his transition feels like an unbelievable blessing that just dropped right into his lap. he has to keep up the secrecy, he has to make sure they never find out who he used to be, because gd, it’s so nice when they look at him and say his name right, and he doesn’t know if he can handle losing that, not when it’s so new and so important to the person he’s finally becoming. but then one day, the unthinkable happens, the wanted posters for his arrest have an old name on them, they’re looking for the Tam sisters, and... nothing changes. the crew of Serenity could not give even a tenth of a percent of a fuck, and it doesn’t seem like they even know they’re supposed to. huh. that’s new. Simon could get used to that, he thinks.

i’m sure there’s more i could add, but it’s 4:30 in the morning now, so if more occurs to me, ill simply add it in a reblog tomorrow. if you’ve read down this far, i am in love with you. please let me know your Better Firefly ideas, too, bc im always down to yell about this show!!!

#firefly #Serenity #in which i choke out joss whedon with my bare hands and rescue his characters and give them better homes #ollies fix it series #malcolm reynolds #ollies personal good firefly canon

[writings-of-a-hufflepuff]

Pheromones

Fandom: Mass Effect

Collection/Series: N/A

Pairing: Selene Shepard x Garrus Vakarian

Writer: @writings-of-a-hufflepuff​ aka @hufflepuffing-all-day-long​

Rating: T - Suggestive themes but nothing NSFW

Warnings: N/A? I think (if i’m wrong let me know!)

Summary: Selene’s a little confused about something Javik says to her, she naturally asks her Turian boyfriend about it. 

Notes: Based off this conversation with Javik. I’ve never actually written Shakarian stuff in all my years of loving the ship. But, with Mass Effect: LE taking over my life, why not? 

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“So...Javik said something really...weird when I went to see him earlier.” 

It had been a long day; finding out Cerberus was turning people at Sanctuary into husks, seeing Miranda again, stopping her father from killing Oriana...it had taken a toll and then to come back and have a really bizarre conversation with their Prothean teammate? Well, Selene Shepard was glad to be back in a pair of yoga pants and a large jumper. 

If Selene was completely honest with herself she was exhausted. The war was taking its toll on her, all the responsibility that lay on her shoulders only seemed to be lightened by the support of her team and most importantly, Garrus. Her cybernetics had been bright and bold across her skin as of late, a sure sign that she was running out of steam. Despite the exhaustion, Javik's words weighed on her mind, confusing, curious and just a reminder of how alien he really was. 

Garrus came out of her, no, their shower, towel around his cowl, visor, no longer obscuring his face for once. God, it is so utterly domestic between the two of them now and something in her aches with the awareness that this might all be cut short, that domestic might never be a long term option for them. She hopes it will, hopes silently that they’ll get to retire somewhere, have a couple of kids, a varren or two, and life out their days into old age. 

“Weird? Weird to humans or...just weird?” The dual tone of his voice rings with curiosity. It had taken her two whole years of missions with him for her to actually get a good grasp on his subharmonics and even now there were things her weak human ears couldn’t quite pick up on, or even hear at all. 

She thought for a moment as Garrus sat down next to her on the bed, nuzzling his face between her shoulder and neck like he always did. It was something she’d taken as a turian sign of affection, the way his plates scratched at her skin and mandibles fluttered across her shoulder, she could only compare it to a human placing kisses down. A nuzzling that he never failed to do, whether they were standing and he had to bend over or they were sitting or lying down. 

Leaning into him with her eyes closed, she traces a hand across the plates on the back of his neck. “I...think it's just weird? He said he could tell we were ‘joined’ because of my...pheromones…” 

Garrus froze in his nuzzling, pulling back with his face plates drawn together, mandibles fluttering in confusion. “Well, yeah? I scent you all the time, been doing it since you agreed to be a one turian kind of woman. I thought...I mean I smell like you too…?”

“Scenting? I what?” Selene was decidedly confused, Garrus didn’t smell like her at all. In fact, the little scent that he had was of the more metallic and engine grease kind from spending all his time tinkering with things or modifying his sniper rifle. She certainly didn’t smell like him, not to her nose anyway. 

She pressed her face into his cowl and took a big, over exaggerated sniff. Nothing. He didn’t even smell like her shampoo or the jasmine soap she’d managed to find on the Citadel. Just...Garrus. 

Garrus chuckled, three fingered hand cupping her cheek, filed down talons grazing carefully across her skin to smooth out the furrow between her eyebrows.  

“Oh, right, you humans and your terrible sense of smell. Cute.” His grin flared his mandibles out wide, sharp teeth on show in a display of good humour.

“Garrus!” He liked getting a rise out of her, enjoyed seeing the pale skin of her cheeks turn as red as a Palaven sunset, something Turians just could not do. It was always so distinctly human, glaringly alien, but adorable. Not that many people would describe the Commander Shepard as adorable, but most people weren’t in a committed relationship with her...or he hoped most people weren’t. 

“Honey, it’s normal. We sleep together, we make love,” She groaned a little at the word choice as he returned to nuzzling underneath her neck, talons moving up and down her back in soothing motions, “we shower together, we go on every mission together, we spar together…” Selene can’t help the little moan that leaves her mouth as his breath warms across her skin before that tongue of his, blue and ridiculously dexterous, carves a path over her shoulder and up her throat, lingering on a spot behind her jaw that he knows all too well. 

“And turians are kind of known for scenting their partners.” 

“What does that even mean? Scenting? Like a cat? Are you marking your territory?” She’s never taken Garrus for being possessive, in fact, he was decidedly cool under pressure whenever someone decided to try it on with her. Occasionally he’d shift in a way that told people to back off, pressing his chest to her back, but that was only in instances where the person didn‘t know when to quit. Usually an overzealous asari or persistent human. The idea of him marking his territory, or even seeing her that way was kind of out of character to her, he just wasn’t like that. They were equals in everything they did. He was her person and she was his, one of them wasn’t more dominant in the relationship, they were partners. 

“Yes and no. You're not my territory, honey, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad you're a one turian kind of woman, but I trust you and I know you can handle yourself. It’s a habit really, an instinct. I’m surprised you don’t know, you do it too.”

It’s a relief to hear him say that. While she finds Garrus ridiculously hot when he goes all bad boy vigilante turian on someone, the raw power he exudes is something else entirely, something different that starts a fire in her belly, she also doesn’t want to be seen as an object or possession. 

“I do?” They’ve gravitated, as they always do, towards each other. Selene finds herself curled up in Garrus’ lap, arms wrapped around his cowl and nose pressed to the junction of his neck, pressing light little kisses there had become a favourite pastime of hers. Calming, soothing. 

“Mmm...all the time, that little nuzzling thing you’re doing?” She pulls back, startled, eyebrows almost comically high and red still tinting her cheeks, “Yeah, I thought you were just a little possessive, but maybe this is one of those interspecies miscommunication things, huh?”  

“I...oh.” She curls back into his neck, bashful in a way no one else sees. Garrus enjoys seeing her like this, out of her element but trusting, seeking comfort in him even as he’s the source of her embarrassment. Their relationship is unconventional and with it has come embarrassment and nerves from both sides, but it’s the trust in him, and his trust in her that’s made it work, that makes it worthwhile. 

He runs his fingers through the red of her hair, the strands soft and silky, a sensation that he still finds fascinating all this time on and one that he knows she finds soothing. He can only compare it to how he feels when she caresses underneath his fringe. 

“So is that why that C-Sec officer stopped flirting with me every chance he got?” She thinks of the dark brown turian, bright orange markings across his face. Before she’d seen Garrus again, before they’d rekindled their relationship, he’d been determined to flirt with her, no matter how many times she politely turned him down. He’d since stopped, his tone always overly polite and formal, nervous even. She’d assumed Bailey had given him a dressing down, but...maybe not. 

“Mmm, probably.” His chest rumbles with the hum, soothing and deep, reverberations running through her, “Most turians aren’t going to flirt with a taken woman, ever seen two turians get into a proper fist fight? It’s more claws and teeth than anything else.” No turian wanted to get into a fight over someone they had a passing fancy for, that Garrus knew for a fact, best to leave someone alone if they were clearly in a relationship.

“Would you? If someone tried it on?” She’s curious, deeply so. Part of her wants to know he would, but part of her wants to know that he’d think about it, and take his time to decide if it was necessary. Garrus had always had a bit of a temper, quick and righteous and determined to put things right. But, he’d mellowed with age, with her nagging him and convincing him to spare people who’d wronged him and others. He was more calculating these days. 

“Depends.” A hand falls to her waist, circles being rubbed into the skin underneath her jumper, absent minded and soothing as his blue eyes look to the skylight above her bed, staring out at the stars. Contemplating his next words.

“On?” She leans up to press a kiss underneath his chin, the soft exposed skin tempting her.

“Do you want me to? How badly are they trying to get into your pants? Are you in danger? Do you need me to? Is it someone I know and despise?” His voice rumbles in his throat, she feels the vibrations against her lips and ringing through her ears. That was something about being with a turian that she loved, the subharmonics were soothing to her ear, the rumble that always seemed to roll through his body was comforting. She wouldn’t call it a purr, mostly because Garrus would fix her with that look, narrowed eyes, mandibles drawn tight against his face. He’d probably go back to calibrating the guns for a week or two straight. God, she hated that. 

“Are you telling me you wouldn’t fight for my honour?” She’s teasing him, but she can still feel him tense up. Her lack of subharmonics tended to confuse him whenever she joked and he couldn’t see her face. 

Taking pity on him Selene pulls back so he can see the amused little smirk that tugs at the corner of her mouth, freckles scrunching up across her cheeks and nose. 

“I...you’re messing with me aren’t you?” There’a a palpable sigh of relief from him as his shoulders relax and he rolls his neck before pinning her with a playful glare, huffing through his nose at her. He’s the only person she can truly be playful with and she knows he enjoys it, the closeness of their relationship isn’t lost on either of them. He makes her feel less tired, more alive, younger, even if it's for a brief moment before reality crashes back down again. 

“Yeah, just a little, big guy.” She tugs his face down gently by a scarred mandible, he follows easily, putting himself in reach so that she can press a kiss to his cheek, across the blue colony markings that are oh so familiar to her. Affection with Garrus is easy: “I love you, but I don’t need you tearing someone’s throat out for me...unless it’s Kai Leng, you can tear his throat out.” 

The assassin was a thorn in her side and she was close to snapping, her usual restraint and desire to talk things through was failing. She wouldn’t negotiate or talk with Kai Leng. If she finally got the chance...well, he probably wouldn’t be recognisable afterwards. 

“Oh, I'm tempted, believe me. There’s nothing I'd like more than to put every ounce of my anger and hatred into beating Kai Leng into a bloody pulp. Buuuut, I think you deserve the satisfaction yourself.”

“I love you, you know that right? Even if I'm walking around stinking like a turian vigilante.” She caresses the lengths of his crest and underneath, scratching short nails against the soft skin there and the purr, because it is a purr, that rumbles from his chest is almost as satisfying as the thought of finally getting revenge on Kai Leng.

“Reaper Advisor actually.” He brushes his cheek against hers, hard plates brushing against soft skin, gently, not hard enough to chafe or rub. “I love you too, even if I'm walking around stinking like a self-sacrificing human spectre.”

#shakarian #selene shepard #selene shepard x garrus vakarian #female shepard x garrus vakarian #fem shep x garrus vakarian #shepard x garrus vakarian #garrus vakarian #mass effect

[helisol]

dude im not sure you will get it after reading this either, but you Can read it now

okay so first of all do not expect me to adhere to rules of grammar or Proper capitalisation, I am writing from the heart

so it’s been said before by other people but if Quark and Odo didnt look like the aliens that they are but instead like two regular prettybois the fandom would do cartwheels over their dynamic and Not call them a crack ship. because really, their dynamic fucking SLAPS and I’m here to tell you Why.

their surface-level dynamic is “Respected and Talented Security Chief and Cunning Immoral Businessman who are in Love but pretend not to be” and that's just an off-brand version of enemies to lovers! which is excellent and for some people that’s all you really need to get invested in a ship.

but some people look at it and go “Hm, no, that’s not enough. I mean, they work as friends but it doesn’t really have to be romantic.” and to that I say you are Absolutely Valid, not everything has to be romantic.

it just so happens that these two fuckers have one of the most compelling romance stories ever, and it’d be a shame not to explore it.

so before I dive into the internalised homophobia and repression, I’d like to take a moment to talk about Quark as a character.

because if you have brainworms like me you can kind of see that its an honest to god greek tragedy.

this guy comes from a race of people where being kind, ethical and fair is considered Abnormal and Horrifying. and I’m not gonna call Quark out of all people kind, ethical or fair but,,, 

you ever notice how he’s A Much Better Person Than Pretty Much All Other Ferengi?

dont get me wrong, Quark is still a bastard, but every once in a while his True Character shines through. and I say True Character because guys,,, the way he behaves around other people is an Act. he’s pretending to be something he’s not.

he has to try so hard to be a good ferengi it’s honestly painful to watch at times. because he is a SHIT ferengi! 

he loves his friends- because that's what the ds9 crew are. they’re his friends! and it makes him miserable because that's not! normal! for a ferengi!

let’s compare Quark and Rom for a second. 

Quark reeks of self loathing because a lot of the time he just Doesn’t act like a ferengi is supposed to, and this drives a lot of conflict in the show. he knows how a ferengi should act, it’s just that he can’t!! fucking!! do it!! but he still tries and tries to fit into that mold, which straight up ruins his life on multiple occasions.

Rom is also not a Model Ferengi, but he lives without hating himself. and it’s mostly because he doesn’t care about how a ferengi Should act, he’s loved and cared for even when everybody knows that he’s a shit ferengi! because his non-ferengi-ness works to his benefit. it encourages and highlights his abilities as an engineer. the success and love he finds make it easy for him to be content with his true self. Unlike Quark, who doesn’t get unconditional love from anyone.

its so!! tragic!! because you can see what Quark is really like!! his true self!! he’s a nice guy who cares for people!

its right there all the time and it's so blatantly obvious. especially in episodes like “Body Parts”, “Bar Association”, “The Way Of The Warrior” and “Ferengi Love Songs”

his own wiki page literally calls him “a compassionate and generous man by ferengi standards” which pretty much translates to “not really a good ferengi”.

anyway so Quark is a tragic figure or whatever but we’re actually here for the REPRESSED! HOMOSEXUAL! TENDENCIES! that he and Odo both exhibit.

with characters like garak you don’t really need to have brainrot to pick up on those tendencies, because that was something andrew robinson chose to do, on purpose. 

and to be fair, Quark wasn’t intended to be Any kind of representation, not even by the actor. I’m just pointing out that he Does look and act and talk like a little gayman.

I will admit that he is Painfully Straight in the text of the show, but on a meta level he’s just. a dude who has a serious case of repressing his real personality. and taking it a step further- he also represses his feelings towards another man.

and that man is Odo.

a few things on him:

Odo is literally desperate to be a person. unlike Quark, who at least has the comfort of belonging to a society of people with a set of rules and expectations, Odo has never met anyone or anything like him in all his years of life.

like, we all know Odo basically grew up in a lab, right? 

with people who didn’t know anything about him. who he was so unalike that they literally called him “Nothing”

but he still learned to look and talk and act like them (because if he didn’t he’d feel *pain* which is very fucked up by the way?)

so we know for a fact that Odo wants to be recognised as a person- which is why he tries really hard to conform to the ideals of the society that raised him. instead of exploring his nature as a shape shifter he maintains a humanoid form, picks up a job and creates an entire personality around what he wants to be seen as. but not what he really is.

and that's the thing that causes all the conflict between Quark and Odo. the type of person odo wants to be seen as is the polar opposite of whatever the fuck quark wants to be seen as.

In the same way that Quark acts like a Normal Ferengi, Odo acts like a Normal Security Officer.  and in a cruel twist of fate, the Ferengi happens to be the antithesis of the Security Officer.

If you only look at them as the things they act like, and not the things they are, you might say they’re way too different to like each other, right? 

but,,, if you think about the fact that they’re both putting on this act,,, this performance of idealised versions of themselves,,, you can see that they are The Same. They Are Both Gay Repressed Loser Aliens Who Try To Act Like Things That They Aren’t!

Imagine you’re Odo. 

Imagine that you’re Nothing, because you’re not like anything anyone has ever seen- and because you are Nothing you don’t fall in love with anyone for years and years. since who could love something that isn’t like them at all?

But then one day this Thing shows up in your path and you just hate it. Because it’s not like anything *you* have ever seen. It’s disorderly and looks grotesque and it’s criminal to boot.

It’s all the things you learned would make a “Bad Person” It’s everything you aspire not to be, because if you were any of those things you would BE PUNISHED.

But the trouble is, eventually he’s not an “it” anymore, he’s “Quark” and you see him every day of your miserable little life because you live on the same damn station in space and it’s hard to avoid each other.

He also happens to be one of the only things in your life that are constant. He will never leave because he is stubborn and greedy and you just *hate him so much* that you’re convinced he must be doing all of it to spite you. And yet you also can’t seem to leave him alone.

So Odo Must Hate Quark. everything else is a non sequitur for him. he can’t not hate Quark.

because Quark is, and i’m sincerely sorry to apply christian fucking imagery to this, The Forbidden Fruit.

If he liked quark he’d admit some kind of moral failing. it would be the end of his act. but on the other hand...it might be a good thing, because at least he could have quark.

but Odo can never go through with biting into this apple because the consequences are horrifying to him. he could never have quark because, according to his performance, he would Never like quark to begin with.

and here’s a take for you: Odo's Brand Of Internalised Homophobia Doesn't Stem From Heteronormativity. It Stems From The Fact That He Was Kind Of Assigned Asexual At Birth.

and the show sort of alludes to this, for real! not just subtext! canon! except the writers used the wrong person. 

because instead of Odo having these Forbidden Feelings for Quark he has them for,,, Kira.

but since this is My Quodo Manifesto you’ll understand that i am 100% willing to just toss that part of canon out the airlock.

so Odo does canonically have that mindset of “no one could ever love me”  for decades he repressed any and all feelings of love to avoid getting hurt. in the show he breaks this cycle of repression when he takes a chance and enters a relationship with Kira. yay?

but we all know that aint it chief. and part of the reason why That Ship Ain’t It is the fact that Quark is Right There. and he is simply the more interesting choice for odo.

he and Odo literally share the same problem and have weird intertwined character arcs! they are both dreadfully afraid of not conforming to the ideal versions of themselves, so they reject everything that could challenge their Performance!

on some fucked up level they hate each other *and* themselves individually. and this hatred makes them reject parts of their real identities for the sake of protecting their image. which. yknow. in gay people. is internalised homophobia!

so you can see that they’re both repressing A Lot even if you view them as Friends, but the most important thing in this kind of romantic dynamic is usually,,, when the characters *stop* repressing.

and the thing is. the thing that Kills Me with these two. They Never Get That Moment. Thats Why You Need The Brainrot To See Them As Romantic.

The Ascent gives us an example of what happens when they both take their act too far. I mean, who could forget “Fascist!” and “Fraud!” That is what odo thinks of quark’s performance and vice versa, but we don’t really hear them adress the fact that they *are* playing these roles to a ridiculous extent.

We also never get an example of what would happen if they dropped their act instead of over-performing it. or rather we don’t get to see both of them drop it.

And the reason why we never get that moment is because there’s this one key difference between Quark and Odo. 

Quark knows that he’s constantly repressing his true nature and his feelings for odo. We pretty much hear him say so in the iconic root beer scene in Way Of The Warrior. he knows that he’s not a good ferengi but he keeps up his act.

So quark is aware enough to feel that sweet sweet self loathing. But Odo isnt self loathing as much as he is just self sabotaging.

and this subtle difference between them is why, at the very end of the show, we get “That man loves me, can’t you see? It was written all over his back!”

this moment is quark dropping his act and asking odo to do the same. he wants to hear a genuine Goodbye from him because they have known each other for Decades and they are Friends. but odo is so unable to express the feelings he’s been repressing all these years. that he self sabotages again and just walks away.

even though this is like. very anticlimactic. considering I just spent 2000 words talking about how Odo and Quark are Most Certainly Gay For Each Other.

The fact that their ending is so Weird is the reason why quodo is so engaging and appealing to me? especially post-canon quodo.

like, the amount of “what if’s” this ship has are Astounding.

What if either of them had dropped their act a little sooner? What if they both did, for just a moment, and it was the straw that breaks the camels back?

What if Odo comes back after a few years? What if Quark comes to get him?

What if, in that moment in the finale where Quark drops his act, Odo had returned the gesture? What if Gag-Reel Quodo Kiss.gif Real?

with the depth that I read into their relationship, those what ifs are really fun to think about.

anyway its 1 am and i’m not an english major so literary analysis is not like, my strong suit. plus most of this was written in a late night screaming session with a friend who has the exact same opinions as me. i just think aliens hot and in love. thats all.

#the SOUND of my HEAD hitting my DESK with TERMINAL VELOCITY #quodo #star trek

[maxwell-grant]

One last one for the moment; top five superheroes who definitely AREN'T Pulp Heroes, but could be with a little tweaking?

Oof, that's a hard one. It's a hard one because, again, there ultimately isn't that much separation between the two to the point there's enough of a hard line in there to work with, but I guess the cat's out of the bag now that I've staked claims on there being differences between them.

Okay so, not counting superheroes who are deliberately modeled after actual pulp heroes, so no Tom Strong or Night Raven here. I'm sticking mainly with comic book superheroes (barring one oddball exception) since the medium separation is important), who I think could become pulp heroes with some tweaking.

5: Captain America

Sort of cheating because I already covered it here, but I definitely have to include Captain America in here, especially in the stories they actively go for a "pulp" vibe as well as the earliest ones.

Fun fact about Marvel: As Timely, they actually began life as pulp publishers. Not just pulp publishers, but specializing in some of the sleaziest, ghastliest magazines of the era, and you can bet this carried over to their superheroes. Where as DC's superheroes took inspiration from the big pulp heroes such as The Shadow and Doc Savage, Timely's superheroes seemed instead much more inspired by Weird Tales stories and Poverty Row horror films, and even in the 60s, Marvel never really abandoned their horror roots, the trick was just using them as a baseline to create superheroes. In DC, the world's first contact with superheroes begins with the world looking in wonder at a friendly strongman. In Marvel, it began with the world looking in panicked horror at a flaming monster rampaging through the streets desperately trying to not burn everything it touches. It should come to little surprise then that the majority of characters I'm including in this list are Marvel characters.

People think Captain America's first comics largely consisted of him fighting Nazis left and right, but they were actually much more often based around him encountering monsters and creatures of horror, like the above panel where it looks like Cap's staring down the beginning of Berserk's Eclipse (RIP Miura).

The early Captain America comics pretty much consisted of Kirby dipping his toe into the monster comics he'd make in the 50s which would later bleed into the 60s Marvel entourage. They even tried repackaging Captain America into a horror anthology in the 50s titled "Captain America's Weird Tales", just imagine how different the character would be today if that somehow stuck.

Imagine a world where Steve Rogers never became leader of The Avengers, never got to become the shining beacon of heroism of an entire universe, and instead, when he was unfrosted, he woke up to find a world running rampant with crawling nightmares and Nazi tyranny, and he has no idea what's become of his former sidekick. That definitely sounds like the start of a promising pulp adventure.

4: Namor

Another Timely creation. In Namor's case, he didn't so much encounter horrors from beyond imagination, as much as HE was the terrifying thing beyond us ready to rampage upon mankind, whose first on-screen act consists of the calculated slaughter of a ship full of innocents. The first true villain protagonist of comic books. Not just an anti-hero, a villain intent on wiping out the human race.

And not just a cardboard supervillain, but the beautiful prince of a race of ugly fish monsters, a momma's boy who's doing what he thinks is right by warring with surface dwellers. While Namor's become largely defined by his gargantuan arrogance, here, he's almost childlike, despite being much more brutal and villainous here, spurred on by the whims of his mother, who even acknowledges that Namor had no real reason to kill the divers but did so anyway, and now encourages him to genocide. His mom even tells him "Go now, to the land of white people!", and the very last panel of the story even states he's on a "crusade against white men".

The massacre of explorers at the hands of something beyond their understanding. A monster born of an interracial coupling. A race of fish monsters with bulging eyes, antagonistic towards humanity but are shown to have positive traits just the same. A dash of racism. There is no mistaking The Sub-Mariner's pulp horror influence.

A non-white superhuman warrior born from a Lovecraftian horror story, who gradually moves away from his villainous crusade into becoming more of an anti-hero, never truly putting aside his hatred for humanity, remaining a temperamental, unpredictable outcast, with a strong, palpable undercurrent of anger in his stories. I could very easily buy Namor as having crawled out of a Weird Tales story and I can't think of other superheroes whose origins are as steeped deeply in pulp horror.

3: Doctor Fate

Technically we already have a pulp hero version of Doctor Fate in Doc Fate, and I'll get to him separately, but even besides him, the earliest Doctor Fate stories in particular feel very much like he's a character steeped in the worlds of pulp and pulp horror who decided to put on a superhero costume and show up in comic.

He's got a similar set-up to The Shadow, from the pulp Shadow in the sense that he's a mysterious, eerie crimefighter who dwells as a presence more often than an active character and who kills criminals without remorse, always watching and waiting for the right time to strike as a a wrathful old-testament force of vengeance, and from the radio Shadow due to him using superpowers to fight crime while being accompanied by a smart, fierce love interest.

Originally, Fate was not a sorcerer, but instead a scientist who discovered a way to manipulate atomic structure, of his and other things, thus making it appear that he can do magic (although we never see his face, and he's implied to be thousands of years old, before they settled on the Nabu origin). And going back to Lovecraft, a lot of it appears in the earliest Fate stories. Fate was given powers not by a sorcerer, but an alien worshipped as a god. He barely encounters traditional monsters, but instead contends with hidden races, zombie slaves, abandoned alien monoliths, and half man and half fish creatures. Fate may have actually been the very first pastiche of Lovecraft in pop culture.

And of course we can't forget the gloriousness of Doc Fate pulling an Indiana Jones on us.

2: Wolverine

I don't even think you'd have to tweak Wolverine at all. You'd just have to get him out of the costume and Avengers/X-Men associations (although the X-Men have a substantial background in pulp sci-fi stories like Slan and Odd John, so they aren't really at odds here), maybe tone down his powers a bit and, that's it. Logan's already the kind of character who has such a varied sandbox history, whose powers can lead to so many different scenarios, that it's not a stretch at all to picture Wolverine in the usual pulp hero scenarios.

You can have half-naked Wolverine running around in the jungle with animals Tarzan-style, take him to Savage Land if you wanna throw dinosaurs in there. He's already Marvel's foremost "wandering samurai/cowboy" character which was one of the stock and trade types of the pulps. Western? Done. Samurai? Done. Wuxia? Just put him in China and add a couple extra fantasy elements. Wanna make a sword and sorcery story with him? He already comes with a bunch of knives and savagery and ability to survive grisly injuries. Horror? The MCU is crawling with them, or alternatively, tell a story from the perspective of someone who's being hunted down by Wolverine. Wanna tell a detective/noir/post-apocalypse story? Logan's right there.

Wanna have him crossover with pulp heroes? He's lived through the 1800s and 1900s and traveled all over the world, you could feasibly have him meet up with just about any of them. Logan may actually be the purest example of your question, because he's very much not a Pulp Hero, and yet, he definitely feels like a character who could have been one, at just about any point in the history of pulp magazines. He's perfect for it.

1: Wario

WAAA-okay, look, bear with me for a second here, I'm not just picking Wario because I love oddball choices and he's one of my favorite characters, I got some logic to this.

Okay so, the first question here: is Mario a superhero? While I'm usually adverse to calling characters prominent outside of comic books superheroes (hence why I'm definitely not interested in debating whether Harry Potter or Goku or Link or Frodo are superheroes), I do think it's a pretty shut case that, yes, Mario is a superhero. Superheroes don't just come in the form of skintight crimefighters, right from the start comic books have had varied types of superheroes appearing in comics and comic strips. For example, the "funny animal" superheroes are a type older than superhero comics, and they were arguably not only the most successful type of superhero of the 40s-50s era, but arguably defined trends dominating nonfunny animal superheroes, traits that predated or influenced Captain Marvel as well as Otto Binder's reshaping of Superman that defined much of superhero convention as we know it. It's part of why the question of "Is Sonic a superhero" has a very clear Yes as an answer.

So upon establishing that, yes, funny cartoon characters can be and are superheroes too, is Mario one? Well, I'd say yes. He's got an iconic uniform, he's got superpowers, he goes on fantastical adventures, he is both a nebulously general do-gooder as well as having a clear mission as protector of the Mushroom Kingdom. His adventures span multiple storytelling formats, he's got catchphrases, he even dresses up in Superman's colors and has a Super prefix iconically associated with him. Not a superhero the way we usually think of, but a superhero nonetheless.

And Wario? Well, putting aside Wario-Man who's more of a running gag than anything, Wario does just about everything Mario does. He's got all the traits that define Mario as a superhero short of a Super prefix and the selfless mission (which isn't exactly a rule). He goes around and gets into crazy adventures, he picks up items, beats bad guys, conquers the odds, and gets some kind of prize for it. He's got Mario's physical traits, and Mario's costume, and just about the same name short of a single letter. The caveat being, of course, that he's Wario, and so everything Mario is or does has to be exaggerated to gross extreme.

Mario is paunchy and strong, Wario's round and built like a powerlifter. Mario's got a friendly face and a fluffy mustache, Wario's got a massive horrible grin and jagged razors for a stache. Mario is a bit of an overeater, Wario can and will eat anything in front of him. Mario gets around with acrobatics and magic power-ups, Wario brute forces his way through everything and just rolls with whatever injuries he picks up along the way.

Mario gets fire powers by consuming magic flowers. Wario sets himself on fire and barrels around destroying everything in his path. Mario harnesses the elements or abilities of beings around him to clear obstacles and solve puzzles, Wario gets turned into a zombie, a vampire or a drunk to get the same things done. Mario befriends and rides dinosaurs who raised him from infancy, Wario piledrives dinosaurs and then uses their bodies to beat up more dinosaurs. Mario pals around with fellow heroes, princesses and friendly fantasy creatures, Wario pals around with aliens, witches, mad scientists, cab drivers, and lanky weirdos. Mario always ends his adventures joyfully leaping to the next one, Wario usually ends up either cackling in a pile of treasure or completely broke.

Mario races through plains to rescue princesses, Wario invades pyramids to hunt for treasure. Mario jumps through planets with baby stars guiding his path, Wario crashes into the Amazon jungle and fistfights the devil. You can see where I'm going with this.

If you were to take one of Nintendo's heroes to make them into pulp heroes, Wario, specifically the Wario Land Wario, may be the only one who really could do it, because in essence, he's the videogame equivalent of Professor Challenger. He's Bluto moonlighting as Indiana Jones, the weird brute adventurer for weird brute adventures where everything's off limits and you can trust our intrepid hero, who really shouldn't be a hero on all accounts, to deliver us a good time, give or take a couple deaths, scams, shams and oh-damns to complete said mad treasure hunts.

#replies tag #not pulp heroes #comic books #dr fate #wolverine #captain america #namor #wario

[hatboyproject]

This is very long, but it might be of interest to someone, somewhere. I was asked recently about the direction I'm taking this romance in and whether or not I'll be addressing certain disability specific subjects within it. The answer, of course, is yes - I have always planned to do this in one form or another. Whilst no single piece of media can address everything I'd like to say on the subject, and I am working within the bounds of a larger story with its own pacing and focus to consider, there's still room to touch on some of these things.

I'm aware that my interpretations won't always be the same as others'. They are my interpretations, coloured by my experiences and feelings, and ultimately, this is my mod - I'm writing it for everybody who 'wears the ballcap,' so to speak! But, it's my interpretation of this character that I'm trying to share with everyone. Different people "took the helm" (laugh, I'm hilarious!) on writing Jeff across the trilogy, and as time has gone on I've been trying to convince myself that it's okay to have my turn at doing that, too - albeit in a non-professional capacity. So... Let's get into my interpretation of Jeff, where his stuff comes from on my view, and how things went to get him to where we are at the beginning of ME3, where the romance can occur.

A lot of how I interpret him comes from experiences in my own life with my own issues, and with those of my loved ones, some of whom are physically disabled in similar (but not identical) ways to Jeff. Some of this carries an element of catharsis for me.

Mechanically and narratively speaking, what draws me to writing this romance is the contrast between how these two characters are strong. It's this core idea that strength doesn't have only one manifestation in a person. That loving somebody doesn't have to be done only one way, that it can be beautiful and passionate and fulfilling - even if, when it gets physical, the headboard can't exactly be made to shatter with the force of it all. For me, it's also an exercise in insecurity and dealing with feelings of frustrated inadequacy - something that has plagued me my whole life.

Yes, yes, he's fictional - but the only way for me to really get into a character is to think about them as if they're a real being. When I look at Jeff as a person, I see many things... Some very positive, some pretty negative... I try to see him as a complete person with strengths and flaws.

On the surface he is often defensive, dismissive, sarcastic, and emotionally avoidant. But why is that? He is highly skilled, dedicated and capable, and knows it, but at the same time is a person who is constantly overlooked, underestimated, and asked to work thrice as hard to get the same considerations. Even then, his validity is questioned often by almost everyone around him. Over time, combined with the realities of living with his physical condition, this has given him some deep-seated insecurities. He feels the need to brag about his skills because they are, ultimately, the one thing about himself that he is absolutely certain has real worth. He overcompensates for this by abusing rules and technicalities wherever he can, because I think he knows that if he played life by the rules, he'd never have gotten anywhere. It's a stacked deck, so why not hide some aces up his sleeve? When you don't fit in the box provided, you question the value of every box you see.

When a person lives with this long enough, it can get hard to swim against the tide of society's expectations and still remain chipper about it, let alone not internalise some of it. It can cause a person to create a shell constructed out of distrust and untruth.

Living with a disability can really suck sometimes, and the suck is compounded when having to deal with your own frustrations plus those of others. In my personal experience, that happens a lot.

There is a certain sense of alienation that it can create, and it can become a kind of Sword of Damocles. It can be easier to anticipate rejection and others' assumptions, inabilities to understand or relate than to keep reaching out, only to have the same tired conversations about being different. I see a lot of this in him. I understand the chip he has on his shoulder.

I also see an extremely sensitive, empathetic, devoted and boundlessly loving person under all that. In fact, it's because of these things that I think he actively tries to distance himself. At the core of his being, I see Jeff as somebody who loves quickly and completely. I think he sees that as a vulnerability, incompatible with what he's learned he has to do to survive... and also with the machismo thing that comes with being a pilot. I think on some level he's terrified of that about himself, but he also can't help it. Jeff is ride or die. So, he tells himself he doesn't care and never lets anyone in. Any time anyone showed interest, he'd shut them down, alienate them, distance himself, and get in the seat of something that flies.

I think up until now, (ME3) he's seen intimacy both as a thing he longs for, but is also afraid of because of his fundamental knowledge that he is different. He thinks he can't "measure up" to what he sees all around him. He sees romance as something that will lead to his inevitable rejection and being crushed, emotionally - and if he's not careful, physically, too. I think he's embarrassed about that as well. He's very interested where it comes to all that, but the things he likes to watch, he knows he can't do like that. His only experience is second-hand as a voyeur, so some of his perceptions about that are unhealthy for him. I think any kind of attempt by the medical professionals in his life to broach the topic and offer support on, he's angrily changed the subject, or stopped listening to, because of the entire mess above. I think Jeff is kind of a lonely person, and some of it is self-imposed, though the reasons for him thinking it's the right thing to do aren't all within his control.

All this is difficult for him to reconcile with, because he has been desperately in love with his commanding officer since almost the moment s/he met him, but entirely unprepared to face it.

I think at first it was easy for him to dismiss it as a stupid crush. Everyone gets them when cramped up in close quarters in stressful situations and the Commander's magnetism was hard to ignore. But then it became clear that Shepard really hadn't read his file and really hadn't made any assumptions at all about him. S/he just wanted to know him, and as time progressed and that actually bore out, it got hard not to really feel something powerful, even though s/he was the Commander and it wasn't strictly appropriate to think that way. But, then there was that thing about not fitting in the box provided...

I think he agonised over coming to Shepard with it, but ultimately decided it would be selfish with everything they were going through. I think there was a part of him that decided s/he'd never be interested anyway, not when there were other, healthier people to choose from... People who didn't have these hangups or need special accommodations made for them. I think he decided to keep it to himself, for what he felt was both their sakes.

If/When the Commander quietly hooked up with someone else, I think he had a lot of feelings all at once. On the one hand, the person he cared for most was finding some peace in all the craziness. On the other, he wished that particular brand of peace was shared with him. Most of the time there were more important things to worry about, but during downtime, I think it was on his mind a lot.

I think he feels very sheepish about it, but occasionally his jealousy got the better of him and he interrupted Shepard at moments that got too hard to watch on the security cams. He watched the cams around the ship lot, and listened in on all the others a fair bit. I think because he saw himself as being at a remove from most people in a lot of ways, it was easy to justify that to himself. I think he saw it kind of like listening to a podcast or a soap opera or... Nature documentary, almost, or something. He got to know all of them in this way... Parasocially at first, but gradually, socially too. He felt better about trying, because he had this secret edge. Not the greatest stuff he's ever done, but... Complete person. Strengths and flaws.

And then, the unthinkable happened. He couldn't accept that the ship was dying. He was sure he could save it... But when Shepard's hand touched his shoulder, when s/he'd come back for him, he knew it was over. And then, it really was over. Shepard paid the price for his arrogance. The person he wanted to protect the most spun off out into space. The communicator between his mask and that helmet was still in range for long enough that he could hear the choking. For a long time afterward, even hearing people cough made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

The Alliance grounded him. I don't think he even had the capacity to be mad about it. I think that was a hard time for Jeff. I think between being burdened with the knowledge of the Reapers, the loss of Shepard, and the weight of his guilt, he was pretty close to the very, very edge when Cerberus knocked on his door and made him a bunch of promises. Pretty sure those promises had nothing to do with leather seats and everything to do with Project Lazarus. I'm very sure that the promise of Shepard coming back is the reason he even let Cerberus pay for the surgeries he agreed to undergo, because I don't think he valued himself much at all at that point. I'm pretty sure it was being ready to help Shepard that he was thinking about when he was learning to walk on his painful legs without crutches for the very first time. When Cerberus offered him a big shiny reset button I think he took it without hesitation because there wasn't anything else to hope for. I think seeing Shepard in the docking bay galvanised him and without ever telling them so, he pledged his life to them even harder than before. I think he told himself that he would support Shepard in every way he could. He would go wherever, do whatever, and when dealing with him, try to give them what he knew they needed; a goddamn break.

So, fast forward again, and now we are here. With all of this in mind... Shepard might have had a dalliance with someone else, or might've been too damaged by their previous love interest on Horizon, or whatever. Either way, I think Jeff saw it as not his business to even dream about that. I think the guilt tore him up every time he looked at Shepard. I think he felt like on some level, he deserved the pain of unrequited feelings which only ever got more intense. If he didn't think himself worthy of it back then, doubly so now. I think during the six months of house arrest, he tried to visit, but the Alliance denied his every attempt. Then the attack on Earth happened.

And so now we have Jeff, who, just like other humans is confused and groping about for a sense of what's up and what's down. Fortunately for him, Shepard is part of that sense of stability. He's just better at hiding it, because avoiding it and telling himself to focus elsewhere is second nature to him by this point. But things are a little different, now. Shepard seems looking around for a connection too. Future days seem short in number and the rulebook less and less important by the minute. Denying it to himself becomes impossible, and even EDI prods him about it. Shepard won't stop being so goddamn nice to him and even responds with things that if he didn't know better, he could interpret as... But then all the old insecurities come rushing back and he's walking on his own damn eggshells again. Fuck it. It's time to admit it. To come clean. S/he has to know.

So he asks. And s/he accepts. He's equal parts thrilled, stunned and terrified. He's even on some level, suspicious. Is s/he setting him up for a fall? Are they angry about his responsibility? What do they want out of this, actually? He hasn't explained what it'd be like. That what they're doubtlessly expecting of him is unrealistic. That he's completely inexperienced. I think at this point, he's a bit pissed off with himself and feeling a lot of dread because he's pretty sure how this is going to go. He realises he's got so caught up in it that he's done things in the wrong order. Damage control. He has to talk with Shepard and explain what s/he should expect from him, because it will be different. Manage expectations because he's had to manage his own. He goes in steeled.

But s/he knows it will be different, it turns out. As ever, Shepard has made no assumptions whatsoever. S/he only wants to get to know him. Wants him for everything he is, and accepts what he is not. It was never an issue for them beyond understanding how to work with it, because he is worthy just as he is, and has worked hard enough. He has to teach them about his limitations, about underestimating and overestimating... But where there's a will, there's a way. Time for a few shared moments of peace before the end of days, and through all the craziness, something feels right at last. He feels safe enough to let Shepard in properly. Thus begins his reassessment of himself and reckoning with letting go of the insecurities he has that aren't actually his own, but come from outside.

Also he totally gets to sext the Commander now when s/he's on missions. Nice.

So. There's a lot more I could say and expound upon but it's been hours and I have stuff to do. That's my direction. It's not going to suit everyone, and I doubt I can get everything across... But I'll try. I'm just one person, with just one perspective, with just one version of this story. But I hope people like what I come up with surrounding this framework, because I have lived a lot of it myself. Just a few less Reapers in my version. Not everyone's experiences and responses will be the same.

#shoker #shoker mod #hatboyproject #jeff joker moreau #character study #my approach

[curioussubjects]

come be a season 12 truther with me; or what if dean and cas got together offscreen

Originally, I wrote this post to celebrate “Galaxy Brain” airing as Berens & Glynn gave us “The Future.” It’s been a while since that episode aired, and some things have changed about this meta. As such, there are multiple versions of this post floating around, so make sure to go back to the source for the most up to date version.  For all intents and purposes, this post functions as a meta manifesto not unlike shipping manifestos from days of LJ past. In keeping with that tradition, this post is a close reading of Dabb Era Destiel in which I argue that by using narrative gaps, queer coding, and romance tropes, Dean and Cas are shown to be in an established relationship. Although beyond the scope of this post, it’s worth pointing out that keeping Destiel mostly off screen was a way for the creatives to bypass network censorship while still remaining true to the characters.

This post is divided into three sections. Section I focuses on giving an overview of why earlier seasons of Supernatural aren’t as compelling as season 12 as a turning point for Dean and Cas’s relationship. That said, special consideration is given to 09.06 “Heaven Can’t Wait” as a potential rest stop in our journey due to it’s significantly placed narrative gap as well as themes in the episode. However, this post isn’t going to examine season 9 trutherism in depth, though it does coexist with and allow for it. Section II analyses season 12 and proposes a timeline and justification for the shifting Destiel dynamic. Finally, Section III will offer an analysis of how Dean and Cas’s relationship has changed dramatically from previous seasons in a way that is most like the shift from a “will they or won’t they” pairing to an established one. 

Before I move to Section I, I’d like to note something this post takes for granted: Dean and Cas are the main romantic subplot of Supernatural, and, in fact, their relationship is elevated to main plot for both characters in season 15. This post won’t argue about the canonicity of Dean and Cas’s feelings for each other, therefore, and so won’t spend time looking at many Destiel defining moments. I’d also like to make clear that this post also takes for granted that Destiel is being intentionally developed by the writers starting with Carver’s Era, and more so in Dabb’s. 

I. Why Seasons 4 through 11 May Not be It

The tl;dr. here is that while there are many moments throughout these seasons that Dean and Cas could potentially get together, none of those moments are ideal for a bunch of reasons that can be summed up as really bad timing. I also think the narrative is actively pushing them towards a moment that works. We get plenty of stepping stones, especially once we hit seasons 8 through 11 (and 11 most of all).

Seasons 4 & 5:

I know there’s been a lot of get together fics over the years set in this time period, but I just don’t see it. Do I see them being intrigued and drawn to each other? Yes. Do I think either Cas or Dean would act on it? Nope. I’m not arguing anything re: Dean’s feelings, but with everything going at the time I find it hard to believe he’d pursue anything with his angel friend. Most importantly here, though, is that during this time Cas was still very alien and other. There was too much angel in him, and while he obviously came to care about Dean (and Sam) very much, I just can’t see him navigating the realm of human relationships. That said, seeing human!Cas in “The End” is the first we see of potential developments for how Cas could behave without his angelness interfering. Being human changes Cas a lot, beyond even his experience existing among humans, though that of course matters too. This development will be important later /wink.

Seasons 6 & 7:

Before anything else let me just recognize that if we could see some sexual tension in seasons 4 & 5, these two seasons come with our first taste of romantic tension. The pining! Also note the difference between season 4 Cas and season 6 Cas in terms of behaviour. He is much less the angel we saw in that barn in “Lazarus Rising.” In season 6, we have a Cas making misguided decisions guided entirely by his emotions – namely, not wanting to involve Dean with the war in heaven – which is peak human, honestly. Put a pin on how sad Dean is in both seasons with Cas’s absence. Finally, put a pin on this being our first moment of Cas doing things on his own to spare Dean and it not ending well (soulless!Sam, Cas “dying” after Leviathan) because this is *the* hurdle in their relationship (along with Dean’s lashing out and self-worth issues). With all this said, the marked distance between Dean and Cas in these seasons negates the possibility of them entering into any kind of relationship. Much like seasons 4 and 5, there’s too much going on.

Season 8:

Ah, yes, the summer of purgatory. If you thought we had pining before…! I think we’re all very clear on season 8 being a turning point for the show, not only because new showrunner, but we also get the bunker. TFW now has an HQ, which pretty soon becomes home. Yes, Baby will always be home, but the bunker becomes the *unmovable* safe haven that Baby couldn’t be. The bunker is a place to coalesce, and for all the amazing things Baby is, she is not that. The acquisition of the bunker marks a shift in the psychology of the show: with the stable home space we can start to imagine domesticity, a place to come home to, the stuff of ordinary living. Most of all, the bunker is emblematic of security, of safety –keep this in mind, as we go forward.

This season also continues to see Cas go down the path of independently solving his problems instead of asking for help from Sam and Dean (his family in a way heaven never was) – note that the better together issue is at play in different ways with Sam and Dean also, but I digress. I also want to point out disastrous instance #2 of Cas’s insistence on figuring it out on his own: he loses his grace, and the angels fall. As for Dean, season 8’s focus for him has much to do with Sam, and them coming face to face with their issues with codependency, which hit catastrophic levels with the gates of hell and Gadreel plots.

So despite all the deliciously angsty get together purgatory fics and spec, there’s too much distance between Dean and Cas on Cas’s part due to his guilt over betraying the Winchesters in s6 plus slaughtering angels plus unleashing Leviathan. We do see Dean being more emotionally open with Cas and continue to voicing his wish that Cas would just stay with him and Sam, and let them help. It’s clear as day how much Dean cares. The timing is still bad, though.

Before moving on to next season, let’s take a moment to appreciate that this is the season Dean admits being kinda done with one night stands because “always with the adios.” Remember the bunker as a sign of stability? Yeah. I wouldn’t say Dean is craving a relationship, exactly, but I think we can see that he does want something more (ahem also I’m nodding to Cas refusing to stay put just cause).

Seasons 9 & 10:

The most important thing to happen between this two seasons is Cas’s stint as a human for an extended period of time. There’s been plenty of spec and meta written over the years about the effects of being human on Cas’s grace (a proto-soul now maybe?). What we can say for sure, regardless, is that Cas is much more humanized once he becomes an angel again. The understanding he gets from being human doesn’t go away once he regains his angel powers. You’ll notice that while we still see some of season 4’s characterization, Cas is not the same as he was – he is alien to angels now and is more intelligible to humans. Additionally, in an interesting reversal from previous seasons, we now get to see the depth of Cas’s feelings for Dean (thanks, Metatron) as well as seeing him be more open emotionally, while Dean does most of the pushing away (first because of Gadreel, then because of the Mark of Cain). In short, the timing is still bad as Dean and Cas are largely kept apart both physically and emotionally.

9.06 Heaven Can’t Wait

This episode is my white whale, friends. While I’ve come to fully subscribe to the idea that something did happen between Dean and Cas during the fanfic gap, I don’t actually think it’s feasible that it marked the start of a relationship -- be it sexual or romantic. My reasoning here is quite simple: the timing is bad. Were it not for external events (Cas regaining his Grace and Dean taking on the MoC), the course would have likely differed. Furthermore, Dean’s guilt over making Cas leave the bunker as well as Cas’s own hurt and self-loathing pose a significant and as yet insurmountable obstacle, which is easily seen with how Dean and Cas’s character trajectories go separate ways.

YMMV on what exactly happened between them in that Motel, but something definitely did. Perhaps one day I’ll have a proper s9 trutherism post to link to here for more details (likely won’t be written by me, though). 

10.16 Paint It Black

From the point Dean gets the MoC until the end of season 10, anything between him and Cas is quite impossible due to distancing, to say the least. Again, yes, the fic is really good, but alas. One of the reasons I’m bringing up this episode in particular is because of the confession scene. One, it’s a rare bit of explicit emotional honesty from Dean, and two, it tells me that while he and Cas may be well aware of the Thing™ between them, it’s still uncharted waters. It’s scary, and murky, and they’re unsure how to navigated it or if they should even try. Makes sense, too, there’s been A LOT going on since s6. Anyway, he’s the full confession:

You know, the life I live, the work I do…I pretty much just figured that that was all there was to me, you know? Tear around and jam the key in the ignition and haul ass until I ran out of gas. I guess I just thought sooner or later, I’d go out the same way that I live – pedal to the metal, and that would be it. […]  Now, um… recent events, uh… make me think I might be closer to that than I really thought. And…I don’t know. I mean, you know, there’s – there’s things, there’s…people, feelings that I-I-I want to experience differently than I have before, or maybe even for the first time. […]  Yeah, I’m just starting to think that… maybe there’s more to it all than I thought.

Can I just say, first, that this confession keeps me up at night because we never actually see anything done with it explicitly? I mean, obviously, I think we do in fact see the effects of this confession in the show, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this behemoth, but still, like. Damn. Ok, so, remember when I brought up that thing in season 7 about Dean being kinda done with hook-ups? Here’s where that led us. We’re seeing a Dean here who wants more than what he has convinced himself he gets to have. He wants more than dying bloody. And when he talks about wanting to experience people and feelings differently, well, that says a lot not just on the queer coding front or the romantic front. I mean, jfc, Dean is accepting the idea that he can have more in life than just hunt until he drops, and he’s specifically talking about experiences at the interpersonal level.

Do you ever see a character having an epiphany and find yourself wanting to cry because this is it right here. Dean is just blatantly admitting he wants more and maybe he can make himself be open to that (!!!), which all culminates in season 11, so…

Season 11:

The pining is still here, but it’s worse now since it’s the whole plot? It’s been *checks calendar* 5 years of this. How are any of us still kicking I don’t know. Your slow burns could never. Cool worth noting points: Cas says yes to Lucifer (bad decision #2.5, lots of mitigating effects_I don’t actually hold it against him that much but Dean is another story & not entirely rational at this point); for the first time since the early days, Dean and Cas are on equal grounds: they’ve both fucked up a lot and have hurt each other. The issues this season are outside their dynamic. Amara and Lucifer here serve as externalizing forces for Dean and Cas’s problems: Cas checks out with Lucifer because he thinks it’s the only way he can help, Dean is caught up in the turmoil of Amara, the emblem of absence and avoidance of struggle. We do get something like an affirmation from the two of them to each other via Dean calling Cas his brother (and I want y’all to consider the historical queering of that statement, and Cas’s “I could go with you.” It feels like we’re headed to them being on the same page. By the end of the season, though, it feels like we’re getting a clean slate: Mary is back, nobody died, no end-of-the-world in sight, no interpersonal crisis. We’re also getting a new showrunner, so. No wonder. We’re gearing up for something, but I’m getting ahead of myself. What this season does that is super important is that it sets up the stage for the possibility of an actual relationship between Dean and Cas, something that has, up until this point, been pretty much impossible.

11.04 Baby

Y’all know what I’m about to quote here, right? That conversation between Dean and Sam about having something with someone who understands the life. Here we still have Dean reverting to the idea that it’s impossible, which is a direct contrast to the openness in 10.16. It’s understandable, though, considering there’s been little reason to think anything like that would be possible (see all the mess and poor timing from seasons past). The quote in question, though, marks a continuing development regarding the issues Dean is struggling with this season:

DEAN: Piper? That’s awesome. Heather. One-night wonders, man. Shoot, we’re lucky we still get that at all. SAM: Really? You don’t … Ever want something more? DEAN: I’m sorry, have you met us? We’re batting a whopping zero in domestic life, man. Goose eggs. SAM: You don’t ever think about something? Not marriage or whatever. But … Something? You know, with a hunter? Somebody who understands the life?

We wouldn’t be talking about this stuff all these years after Sam and Dean had a serious relationship if it wasn’t important, right? Also who else do we meet this season? That’s right! Eileen! And doesn’t that hit different with season 15 hindsight? And who does Dean have that understands the life? Whose stories have been intricately connected to his? Right now, this is all conjecture. A pipe dream Sam is revisiting, and Dean is skeptical about. Except, well. Look at what we get in “Into the Mystic” and “The Chitters.”

11.11 Into The Mystic

I’m bringing up this episode as a cross reference to “Paint It Black” as well as to complement the talk from “Baby,” and to show, again, that, for all the closeness between Dean and Cas, there’s still a marked distance they haven’t yet bridged. There’s still truths they haven’t told each other. Thanks Mildred for the delicious exposition:

Darlin’…If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years on the road, it’s when somebody’s pining for somebody else. […] Oh, don’t try and hide it now. Follow your heart. Remember?

11.19 The Chitters

And here we see some validation to Sam’s imagining of a possible future with someone else. We actually see hunters who not only are married, but they both make it out alive. Jesse and Cesar get their happy ending. They make the dream come true. And the reality of it important not just for Dean to see, but Sam too.

Dean: [with realization] Oh, so … [points back and forth to Jesse and Cesar] Cesar: Yeah. Dean: Okay, that’s… Cesar puts his beer bottle on the table and looks at Dean, while Jesse is being silent. Dean: What’s it like, settling down with a hunter? Cesar: Smelly, dirty. [turns to Jesse] Twice the worrying about getting ganked.

I’d like to point out, too, that the fear of getting ganked is thematic when it comes to the tension between Dean and Cas. More on this when we hit s13.

Alright, now, having said that, let’s take a look at season 12. Bear in mind, this is the official start of Dabb’s era, even if he kinda began taking over in season 11, and the change in vibes is obvious. In fact, 12 jumped out at me as a turning point, in hindsight, after getting smacked by the domesticity of seasons 13 and 14.

II. Why Season 12

[Out of date section. Update coming soon when spoons. After significant debate, I’ve altered the definitive start of Dean and Cas’s friend-with-benefits-with-mutual-pining relationship to between 12.02 and 12.03. I briefly explained why here, and yes it’s a shitpost--still true tho.]

Finally, the promise land, y’all. Getting right to it: what s11 was for Dean in terms of setting up the relationship stage, s12 was for Cas. In its initial beats, any way. That is, until the Kelly debacle, this was the longest Cas has been around the bunker and with the exception of seasons 13 and 14, it’s one of the first times we get to see how Cas might actually fit into the bunker-as-home. Things seem remarkably chill. Of course, we’ll notice that there’s still a lot of baggage hanging around because despite Dean and Cas being in a more stable place, they haven’t actually dealt with their interpersonal problems. I didn’t single out directly this episode, but do keep in mind Cas’s declaration in 12.09 First Blood as far as how much the Winchesters matter to Cas & how we also see Dean and Cas be particularly singled out with them seating together in the backseat of the Impala. What we also see this season is Cas trying to prove he is worthy of this family, his family. He’s not fighting for heaven or to right some grievous wrong (a la s8). No, this season he’s fighting to spare the Winchester, to bring them a win. To bring Dean a win. The major disconnect is that Dean (and Sam & Mary) already sees Cas that way, he doesn’t think Cas has anything to prove. And just maybe, Cas starts believing that too – or, at least, believing it enough.

12.10 Lily Sunders Has Some Regrets

This episode, oh my god, the goodness. In the wake of 12.09 we have Dean and Cas in a tiff because Cas mistake #3 (killing Billie and “cosmic consequences”), this is a pattern. Twice the worry of getting ganked, etc etc. But where this episode really shines is through the contrast between Ishim’s obsession with Lily and Cas & Dean’s mutual affection for each other. Ishim sees no difference here and, to him, Cas’s feelings for Dean are a human weakness. Returning to my point about human!Cas, this episode underscores that Cas’s increasing humanity is what puts him in the place where he can want what Dean wants instead of either being too alien to get it (see s4 & 5) or unable to experience it properly (Ishim).

12.12 Stuck in the Middle (With You)

Cas’s trajectory culminates here with the whole I love you (@ Dean), I love all of you (@ Winchesters). Let’s note too that Cas is dying here, in a way that is much more human than going up in light. This declaration of different types of love is entirely human. It’s also a definitive step wrt to Cas and Dean’s relationship because of what happens in 12.19. This. is. it. Oh, and, of course, let’s not forget to point to Dean’s face when Cas says that “I love you,” and how terrified he is that Cas is dying. Might make one rethink some things, hm?

12.19 The Future

This episode is simply hella suspicious, and all the kudos to Berens and Glynn for writing it. It’ll haunt me forever. Consider watching it again and just questioning everything. So. Weird things:

1. Dean’s reaction to Cas no getting in touch as opposed to Sam’s. Dean is pissed, which is Dean-speak for worried out of his mind. Sam is very worried, too, and puzzled, but he’s mostly expressing his relief that Cas is back. But Cas has gone awol before, but this time Dean is much more worked up about it; Sam takes note of this, too. Now, let’s imagine that maybe the events of 12.12 led to something happening between Dean and Cas. Then Cas decided to leave to find a lead on Kelly, but eventually Cas decides to work with Heaven and goes radio silent. For days. Having taken a chance, and something having happened between them, how would Dean react to Cas just going poof and not contacting him – despite Dean having called Cas multiple times.

2. Cas knows about the Colt. Ok, nothing off there. But when he goes to Dean’s room to talk, right after Dean leaves we see Cas looking around briefly. Like he know Dean would keep it in there. Maybe Cas had looked other places already. Who knows. What we do know is that eventually he does find the Colt not only in Dean’s room, but under Dean’s pillow. Sam didn’t even know the Colt wasn’t in the safe. So how did Cas know?

3.“He came into my room and he played me.” So, this quote right there, makes it seem like some seduction for personal gain, right? But can you see Cas actually doing that if they hadn’t gone there previously? For Dean not to suspect anything and go with it? There’s plenty of plausible deniability here, but the gaps in time in the narrative make me question what is there in those spaces. The scene where Cas tried to give Dean the mixtape back doesn’t read like “playing,” so it’s about a different interaction. Hm. Hmmm.

4. Dean and Cas’s brief conversation in Dean’s room is clearly Dean just wanting Cas to stay, so they can work (and be) together – because they’re better that way. Which, yeah, truth, but also ow.

5.And most importantly: When did Dean give Cas that mixtape??? How did that happen?

Sequence of events: Cas tells Dean he loves him – Dean is clearly shook by it – Dean gives Cas a mixtape (romantic gesture, often a declaration of feelings; in true Dean speak too lolsobs) – Cas goes awol - Dean acts like he got ghosted by his new bf -?????- Cas somehow knows the Colt is under Dean’s pillow – "He went into my room and he played me."

What am I supposed to do with that, hm? Like. Y’all realize they probably had some emotionally constipated getting together moment, right? Something that Dean clearly initially thought meant things were gonna change, now. Something that Cas couldn’t allow to happen until he could give Dean a win. Y’all are seeing this, yeah? I’m not saying they slept together and were full of feelings, except that’s kind of what I’m saying. But YMMV, there are other possibilities beyond sex. The full of feelings isn’t up for debate, though, even if the whole thing is informed by ridiculous amounts of miscommunication.

III. Seasons 13 through 15 As Established Relationship

Regardless of what happened in season 12, exactly, I can’t shake the feeling that something did happen, and something did change. My reasoning here is actually really simple: in comparison to previous seasons, Dean and Cas’s dynamic shifts significantly come season 13. I know some folks have been disappointed with some of season 13 and then season 14 for having dialed back on the destiel side of things. And, hey, maybe there’s truth to that in terms of backstage stuff, but I also want to point out that...well, the dialing back isn’t quite dialing back is it? Let’s look at 13 a little more closely:

Season 13:

So I said the deancas dynamic changed, right? I also think that change caught us unaware because the pivotal turning point that would cue us in never happened on screen as well as being subsumed by Cas’s death and Jack’s birth. But if I ask you about deancas in season 13 what would come to mind? Grief arc? Brokebacknatural? How domestic Dean and Cas are? There’s just something easy about their relationship after Cas returns from the Empty. The tension we’d grown so familiar with over the years is gone. Actually, it feels like we skipped the getting together bit of their relationship and went straight to established relationship and parenting. Some of the most peak married deancas moments we see circulating? Season 13, (and 12.10). It’s a lot, and it’s different, and it’s amazing.

13.01-13.05

Dean’s grief mini-arc. He was acting like a widower. Here’s me vaguely gesturing towards the mapping of Jonh, Mary, Dean, and Sam onto Dean, Cas, Sam, and Jack. And the reunion? I can’t help but be giddy at the song choice: “it’s never too late to start all over again.” To. Start. All. Over. Again. I’m just saying.

13.06 Tombstone & 13.16 Scoobynatural

I’m not going at length about these episodes, I just want to point out that they reveal that Dean and Cas have a whole thing going on off screen: they watch movies together, Cas knows about Dean being an angry sleeper, Cas seems to have been aware of the Dean-cave before Sam was. It’s little things like this that are examples of the narrative gaps surrounding Dean and Cas that have cropped up over the years. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to wonder what else could be hiding there. And when did the movie nights alluded in “Tombstone” happen? Maybe in season 12 when Cas in hanging around the bunker? The same period when Dean and Cas seem to be coalescing into something safer and more stable? Something that we never see come to a head because plot happens and Cas dies? Something that is immediately taken back up once Cas is alive again?

Season 14:

Overall, this season is more of what we got during 13, but it had two high notes I wanted to single out before ending this already too long post.

14.15 Peace of Mind

Look me in the eye and tell me Dean and Cas talking in the kitchen about Jack doesn’t read like husbands talking about their child. Look me in the eye and tell me Cas just texting Dean to gossip about Sam isn’t couple-y as hell.

14.18-14.20

Ah, yes, the divorce arc. Awful. Terrible. The culmination of Dean’s problem in all this: he lashes out, he pushes Cas away, his anger is alienating. Cue all of us suffering. But while Dean is clearly in the wrong in how the deals with his feelings, let’s not pretend some of his anger doesn’t come from a long established, and unaddressed, rift between him and Cas, which had its last traumatic turn when Cas died in s12. Dean isn’t being rational here: he saw Cas doing something on his own, and he saw that his mother is dead. What else could happen? Why won’t Cas just trust they can work as a team? What if Cas died again? And why should Cas put up with Dean’s behavior without knowing the cause? How can any relationship work this way? But notice how caught in the middle Sam was during all this. Notice how Jack is running off and acting out. The whole family is falling apart. Divorce arc, indeed.

Season 15:

But what about what we’re building up in 15? That seems like it could be a getting together plot, too, right? Well, yeah. It could very well be. But I’d argue the tension we’re seeing isn’t a will-they-or-won’t-they because they already have. We’re are watching a getting back together plot! The tension is, instead, will-they-or -won’t-they use their words to talk about the baggage that has kept them from truly being confident about their relationship. That’s the crucial step in their togetherness that they’re still missing, which is also the bedrock of the divorce arc that spanned twelve fucking episodes -- y’all, that’s half a season.

And technically? We’re not even done with yet because Cas never let Dean finish his prayer/confession in purgatory. What’s more, Cas hasn’t grappled with his role in the breakdown of their relationship, either: that he keeps going off on his own and getting hurt (and getting other people hurt), and Dean has to deal with the fallout. The deep emotional understanding, the truly being on the same page is what we’re on the edge of our seats for. We’re waiting to see what else Dean had to say, and what will happen when Cas’s deal with the Empty comes to light.

Finally, could we still have this plot without Dean and Cas having gotten together off screen? Sure, but I think the stakes are higher if they already did have something between them. If they actually have an established romantic relationship going on. Something real and tangible and as of yet much too fragile.

"...you asked what about all this is real. We are."

#destiel #deancas #supernatural #spn #spn meta #this thing is gargantuan yikes #anyway enjoy? let's chat #my writing #this thing is half meta half my adhd unleashed