#have i laid enough groundwork for this? does it makes sense? does it make sense for the reader? does it make sense for all these characters | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

buckttommy · 11 days

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hrmm. i feel like. there is a conversation to be had about whether or not a storyline is racist that a lot of you are not having and that conversation has a lot to do with intention.

i'm seeing a lot of people call this mara storyline racist and as a literal black woman, i just. do not get it. is mara a brown/black girl? yes. has she been traumatized/retraumatized beyond belief? yes! and that is horrible. but the question i don't see anyone asking is why? was there precedent? did the story just come out of nowhere or was there build? does the event make sense within the context of the story overall? and like. i mean. yeah. it does.

the groundwork for mara's introduction was laid last season with a different little girl, though the premise ("hen and karen are going to be adopting a girl") remained the same. the groundwork for conflict was also laid in 7x2 when ortiz's (an established person in power) son died under hen's care. these events led to the rising action and revenge we saw play out last night. this is a clear arc with a clear and defined progression that could make sense if exchanged for a predominantly white family without any significant changes and with all the same emotional (soul crushing) beats.

versus noah's storyline last season, which existed solely to prop up maddie as the hero white woman while coloring noah—a sweet, black boy—as a criminal. that was it. there was no build. there was no tension. there was no story, except to say "here is a black boy and he is bad." there wasn't any real cause, reason, or structure and that is what makes that storyline rancid. that is why i roll my eyes every single time. it is racially lazy, not to mention just kind of boring, and 9-1-1 can do and has done better.

so. on the topic of, like, "is this story racist or not?" the conversation should not be these characters are black and multiple bad things are happening to them, therefore this story is racist. but rather, the conversation (or critical analysis) surrounding the story should be does this storyline make sense within the context of the story itself? is there enough narrative and structural build to support this storyline or is/are the black character(s) being scapegoated? is this trauma porn for the sake of trauma porn or is there a legitimate story being told for a legitimate reason? (*non-black people are not equipped to answer that last question, as the topic of trauma porn is multifaceted and layered, but that doesn't mean the question still can't be asked and considered)

anyway. the point is. well. the point is, i really don't think you guys are asking the right questions tbh. lol. and that's frustrating to me because every conversation about racism gets swallowed up by what you guys think is racist and none of it ever really amounts to anything except to make people painfully reactionary and angry. both which i'm sure we can agree is not conducive to having a productive conversations about anything. so you see. anyway. that's all i have to say. back to bucktommy posting + eddie/bobby spiraling.

#I'm not answering asks about this #If you're going to be a dick fuck off #If you legitimately want to talk send me a DM #if you're going to agree with me: thanks #white people can reblog #but mostly I just want to say my piece and be done #tv: 911 #jack.txt

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acourtofthought · 8 months

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I'm about to put my foot in my mouth because I just responded to an anon on how I don't see Gwyn playing a major role in an Elucien book because I think Elain's journey will distance herself from Nesta and anyone associated with Nesta (and Az). Just as Nesta needed to discover who she was outside of being Elain's protector, I think Elain needs to do the same and that includes Nesta's found family. I think they'll get along during holidays / dinners in the NC 100%, I just don't think they'll bond in any major way. With Gwyn as a Valkryie and her found a family in the NC, I don't see her traveling to Spring by herself or with Az in an Elucien book.

With that said...........I'm about to steal Mor from Feyre 😂

In SF we have Feyre saying that Mor was her drinking buddy however things are a bit different with Nyx......

Which wouldn't be worth a second thought unless you look at the following:

Rhys laid the groundwork in the novella. He's telling us that Mor is not completely happy remaining in the NC for major periods of time. We're also given her POV, showing that she has a bit of wanderlust:

In SF, Cassian tells us the darkness of the Hewn City lurks around her like Azriel's shadows, another possible nod to her leaving the NC on a more permanent basis.

At the end of SF, Mor had still not managed to get the peace treaty signed, a situation that had been going on for nearly a year.

That's where we left Mor at the end of SF.

It's possible a Gwynriel book could deal with Mor finally getting the treaty sign, she and Az are connected. Though I wonder if it would be better if Mor played a minimal role in a Gwynriel book. Not to mention I don't necessarily see Az or Gwyn being the ones to help convince those on the continent to sign the peace treaty.

I can easily see Elain and Lucien, along with Vassa and Jurian, being the ones to join her on the continent to work on obtaining an alliance through the treaty. Not only are both Elain and Lucien excellent at talking to others but along with Vassa and Jurian, they represent the voice of more than just the NC. They'd speak on behalf of the human lands, Autumn (especially if Eris traveled with them as well), Day Court, and the Spring Court.

Which again, might not seem like enough to convince some, however.....

Elain and Mor already have an interesting bond. When Az said that Elain was a Seer, it was Mor that Elain looked to. Mor also used her gift of truth on Lucien and found him worthy. It was Mor who subtly sat next to Elain after the ravens attack. Mor is protective of Elain, but not overly so. When Elain was glamoured to head to Graysens estate, it was Mor she shared a poignant moment with and Mor who she chose to sit next to:

And for some currently unknown reason, SJM also decided to tie Mor into Tamlins storyline whereas she could have left her minor part back in ACOMAF.

I don't necessarily see Mor settling wherever Elain does, or even remaining with her throughout the entirety of the book, she seems to need to roam. I'm not even convinced she'll end up in the NC with Emerie unless Emerie is willing to travel with her (though wouldn't it be interesting if the Golden Queen is alive and now a lion shifter - playing nicely into Mor being drawn to the "untamed wild things of the world").

However Mor leaving the NC on a more permanent basis makes sense to me. As travel companions / plotlines go, not only does it make sense that she and Elain would find common ground as Mor has always been about girl empowerment (something Elain needs) and they are both associated with light and sunshine but I think with Az most likely ending up with Gwynriel in one of the next books and Nesta and Feyre moving into a new phase of their relationship, it's a convenient time for Mor to make her exit, especially with the history that existed between she, Cassian and Az.

I could see Elain gathering friends all along her journey rather than having a smaller found family in the way Feyre and Nesta did. Vassa, Mor, some in Spring and Day, maybe even in Autumn once Lucien reconnects with the LoA. So to me, giving Mor page time in an Elucien book makes sense when you look at the outstanding plots and how Elucien could lend aid to the major one Mor is currently connected to. Not to mention Mor has a past with Eris that needs resolved, possibly before a Gwynriel book, so that when it's time for an Az pov, she's ready to tell him everything. And Eris sharing page time (but not a pov) with Lucien, Elain, and Mor gives SJM a chance to tie up a lot of loose ends including getting rid of Beron once and for all, especially when he also has been traveling to the continent to keep tabs on his father.

Edit / Also Adding: the more I think about it, the more this makes sense to me because now that Feyre has Nyx, she can't really be Mor's found family outside of Velaris. If Mor is meant to not keep getting pushed way into the background and her plans / plot involve her traveling outside of the NC, she needs someone to do that with her. She's got no found family / female friends that can easily leave.

#elucien #pro elucien #elain archeron #lucien vanserra #mor acotar #acotar theory #jurian acotar #vassa acotar #pro lucien vanserra #pro elain archeron #morrigan acotar #eris acosf #eris acotar #eris vanserra

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twig-tea · 10 months

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PHEW, ok, now that I've compiled and read all the meta (everyone is amazing, I love all of you, thanks for the love back!) and slept on it, I feel like I have processed enough to gather some thoughts and make a prediction on ep12 [clown checkpoint at the end of this long post].

Pre-Prediction Groundwork i.e. what the heck are you thinking and why did this take you two days

First, I want to say, I still think the montage over the years was not off. The depiction of a happy couple that annoys one another, accommodates one another, is sometimes just happy to be in one another's presence and sometimes happy because of one another's presence, is a perfect summary of a long-term relationship to me. Some folks mentioned that it seemed like they were unfulfilled but as an introvert and a homebody I can tell you when I look back on time spent in relationships these are the moments I think about. Yes, I've gone and done fun things with significant others, but those moments aren't the ones that necessarily feel like they're about us. It's the moments doing nothing that feel like they really capture a relationship, to me. And @rebel0777 hinted at this in a post: sharing food has been the love language for this couple all along, so for it to have mostly focused on them sharing meals doesn't feel strange at all. Anyway I'm fully ready for the show to have a different message but reading everyone's thoughts didn't change my mind on this.

That being said, the thing that other people have said that has swayed me most is the idea that Pisaeng does have some things he left unsaid, and going back in time gives him a chance to say them (whether or not Kawi is fine in future). As mentioned in the roundup, @bengiyo and @incandescentflower get credit for their thoughts on this theory.

In a conversation with @pandasmagorica the potential for a time loop was raised; I laid out why I don't think the show will go that route here--writing this also helped me frame my thoughts around what the show is trying to say and where I expect it to go as a result.

One thing that I think Pisaeng hasn't really been called out for in this series yet is how dedicated he is to Kawi--maybe that's just romance tropes doing their thing, but this man really has been through it in the various timelines. He fought hard for that plushie, celebrated his confession-aversary for at least 8 years, continued to follow and support Kawi's career even when he removed himself from his presence to save him from gay rumours...Pisaeng may need to learn to not sacrifice for Kawi's sake.

The other thing that I've been thinking a lot about is why Kawi seems to have a sense that the amusement park date has already happened [based on the ep12 trailer], when in the other timelines nobody had that same feeling of deja vu, and the reason I came up with is: in all of the previous timelines, Kawi made significant changes to his behavior that rewrote the timeline so profoundly nothing in it was the same. He spent time with his dad; he befriended Pisaeng; he went on the departmental trip and confessed to Pear; he tried out for student council and joined a band; he convinced his dad to get surgery; he confessed to Pisaeng. Because of these major changes every time he goes back, we don't see Kawi relive any days from his original timeline (or any of the other timelines) except kind of the first one (and even that one has major differences).

However, to my mind Pisaeng must be terrified of doing anything differently, other than maybe put some things into words (as mentioned above) and/or staying away from Kawi entirely [and I highly doubt that could work since Kawi knows Pisaeng's tricks from the other timeline as per @zzh3], so if he tries to relive their date from the latest timeline, the events would be similar enough that there could be multi-verse/timeline bleed-over. [There are other potential explanations, and of course this is fully blown out of the water if I'm wrong and Pisaeng does decide to make major changes to the timeline, but this is the one that my brain kept chewing on].

This also made me realize that if I'm right and only Pisaeng's consciousness travels to the past, and if Pisaeng does not decide to make any major changes to the timeline, if Pisaeng stays in the past, it will not make Pisaeng and Kawi equal, but will instead give Pisaeng a huge knowledge advantage, because Pisaeng will have lived all of this once before; in the last timeline, in contrast, Kawi did not jump ahead to peek at his future before sticking with the timeline after making significant changes, so he didn't know what was going to happen (he just had the imbalance of knowing what could happen, which he did share with Pisaeng though it's not the same to live it as to hear about it). The only real way in which they would be equals is if Pisaeng jumps back to the future [so they will be equal in their time travel experience and opportunities to make change], or makes a significant enough change in the past that their lives will be completely different [so that both of them will be equal in their uncertainty]. This is not quite counter to, but is a wrinkle to the points made by @bengiyo, @grapejuicegay and @he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle about relationship equality being achieved with Pisaeng time travelling, which at first really resonated with me and I think still hold true if they go one of the two routes I mentioned above. [And yes, I do think leaving things as they are would still put them on equal footing because choosing not to make a change is still a choice, and is still exerting power over their future that the other doesn't have.]

Speaking of this, thanks to a great conversation with @pandasmagorica and @thegalwhorants I went back and dug into the timeline of the series here, but TL;DR I think we could in theory have reached a few months before Kawi time travelled in the first timeline. That doesn't massively affect my prediction but I wanted to capture it because I do think it's relevant re: the balance between Kawi and Pisaeng; if Pisaeng goes to the future and I'm correct that this lines up closely to the point at which Kawi first travelled backwards in the original timeline, then in the current timeline both Kawi and Pisaeng will be at a truly equal point where neither has seen anything past where they are.

Shifting focus slightly, @grapejuicegay's thoughts about consciousness and the mechanism of time travel also made me wonder, if Pisaeng jumps back to the future [going to keep saying this because it continues to be funny to me], does the consciousness of the version of him who he took over from in the past go back to being the one in control? Is that why the Kawi of the past always seemed to stagnate whenever he jumped into the future, because the person left in Kawi's body had not had the character growth and life experiences that allowed him to make the changes in his life, so he was his former self living a slightly better life but without the personal growth to really take advantage of it? Essentially what I'm getting at here is, if Pisaeng doesn't make a change and does go back to the future, maybe the version of their relationship captured in the montage isn't lost after all, because they would make the same choices? [shout-out to the mourning of the montage by @ellaspore that got me thinking about whether it could be salvaged]

One last point I want to make: As much as it would be deeply satisfying to see Pisaeng and Kawi fight for their rights like @rocketturtle4 theorized, or going abroad so that they could get married like @marbles290 posited, or even working out a lavender wedding arrangement like @grapejuicegay suggested, I think the show already made points on these possibilities with Max and the changes to his choices, and so it would be repetitive to make it with Pisaeng and Kawi [I would not mind if the show did this, I just think this show has so much to say that it will take the opportunity to make a new point]. I think instead it's going to help Pisaeng learn the same lesson Kawi had to about time travel not being able to solve everything [hat tip @waitmyturtles], and needing to be brave and resilient enough to face the future without knowing what the future will bring, and reinforcing appreciating the time you have by being present in the present and not sacrificing your own happiness.

This show has set up so much that could happen, and this isn't the only ending I would be satisfied with by any stretch, but what I think would be most satisfying (at least for me, as I write this) would be if Pisaeng learns to accept that he can't fix everything and goes back to his future to live in the present, not knowing what the outcome will be. Also can I just say, it is really exciting to have multiple endings that I could be satisifed with?! I feel like that doesn't happen that often, at least for me.

Theory time!

So, all that being laid out, here's my Official Clown Theory about what happens in ep12 (adding lots of details so that there are a lots of opportunities to be wrong):

Pisaeng goes to the past and tries to play it cool; they re-live their first date and when Kawi notices something off, Pisaeng tells Kawi that he time travelled [this is based on the trailer so I'm not numbering it as a guess, though this show has done such a good job recontextualizing what we saw in the preview before so this could still be clowned]

Pisaeng is able to put into words what Kawi means to him

Kawi helps him come to terms with not being able to change everything the way Kawi had to come to terms with it too

[More because I want it than because I think it will happen but I'm writing it to manifest it] Pisaeng also talks to his mom while in the past to say hey, if you care about my future, help change the politics in Thailand rather than sending me abroad--giving his mom a chance to change with her kid like how Pear's dad said she should

Pisaeng jumps back to the future

We get the montage again and it looks almost exactly the same maybe just sped up, also maybe [because I've been good and deserve a treat] added bits about marriage equality moving forward?

Kawi recovers, and Kawi and Pisaeng are the ones married May 2027, at the beach [because almost all BL weddings are beach weddings, I don't make the rules]

Kawi tries to give Pisaeng the same speech Pisaeng gave him about if how he does die in future, Pisaeng should try to move on [credit to @tinycowboybro for thinking about the importance of this speech]

Pisaeng responds by reprising Unable [Gawin's OST which I have become recently obsessed with] or one of them performs a new OST we haven't heard yet? [GMMTV seems determined to milk having two protagonists who can sing]

Kawi and Pisaeng confirm neither knows what will happen from here but they'll face it together in the present [YAY]

Post-credit cut scene is Not being given the chance to go back in time by Time Travel Guy [this is still the funniest possible ending to me and I'm not going to stop speaking it into being until it's proven wrong]

Alright we'll see how many of these 10 guesses I get right on Friday. [You may have noticed I ditched the his-death-was-inevitable theorizing I did initially, even though my timeline deep dive does potentially support it, and it could still work with a lot of the above, but I just decided to go with what would make me happiest. I would still be satisfied if they do go that route or leave it ambiguous, as long as they lead up to it well.]

No matter how this goes, it has been an honour and a privilege digging into this show with all of you!

[That being said I realized I will be travelling on Friday and Saturday so depending on the train wi-fi, I may end up being late to the final episode].

cc. the other folks whose writing I was thinking about and have linked in the round-up post but didn't reference directly here: @telomeke; @benkaaoi; @jjsanguine; @stuffnonsenseandotherthings; @shortpplfedup; @williamrikers; @heretherebedork; @visualtaehyun; @knighthacker; @minorista; @neonsbian; @nemesis-21; @snidgetwrites no pressure to interact I just want to give you all credit becuase reading what everyone wrote has informed my thinking [though of course if you disagree with my conclusions, I am the only one to blame (and also I'd love to hear about it)!]

#be my favorite #be my favorite meta #be my favorite ep 11 #twig theories #typed so i can stop thinking it #clown checkpoint #long post

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greenhappyseed · 3 months

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hi with the current leaks of 417, do you think vestiges are completely erased from existence but i know that they got transferred to tomura but i hope it's not the end for all of them especially Nana and also do you think that nana and tenko would atleast have an interaction? i love your leak reactions btw. 417 was gutwrenching

Thank you anon! I agree, this chapter brought the PAIN. To answer your q, I don’t think the vestiges are perma-gone. At least, I really hope not, because I still want Tenko and Nana to interact, just like you. I need Nana to know that, before AFO’s distortions, Tenko DID want to be a hero. He was THRILLED she was his grandmother and wanted to know more about her. I also want Toshinori to see Nana and let them both have closure. She may have made a mistake in adopting out Kotaro, and Toshinori may have made a mistake in never meddling in Nana’s family affairs, but they both did their best and don’t hold anything against each other. Now that they know better, I’m sure they’ll do the right things for Tenko.

As for why I don’t think the vestiges are perma-gone yet, we know:

(1) AFO and OFA are resonating and can see inside each other. It goes both ways too. Shigaraki can see En inside Izuku, for example. It follows that Izuku should be able to see his vestige buddies inside Shigaraki, if they choose to appear

(2) But they’re shattered and gone! How can they reappear??? Well, remember how All Might can see/hear what’s happening inside Izuku AND Shigaraki? He learns about the black mass and scar inside Shigaraki from Star’s vestige (who was gone but then manifested somehow to become our reporter on the scene, coming to you live from inside Shigaraki’s soul). All Might also learns about OFA “unraveling” from within Izuku. Is it his status as a former OFA holder that’s letting him see & hear both sides? Or does he have more than one vestige??? All Might’s vestige is different from the other vestiges because it’s not tied to a quirk factor. It’s more like a spiritual essence or embodiment of willpower, so there COULD be more than one. To recap, “dead” vestiges can reappear within the same physical body when THEY have something urgent to say/do, plus there’s an Aura Might wildcard. “Its very will finds its way to me” indeed.

(3) Throwing the vestiges at Shigaraki so hard that they “shatter into nothing” is Kudo’s theory. The vestiges don’t actually know what will happen, because nobody’s ever done this before. Notably, Kudo points out this tidbit:

…WITHOUT GIVING [SHIGARAKI] CONTROL OVER MY POWER, he says. Ah, but what if….what if our heroes need for Tenko to use that power? Or what if, like the Sports Festival, Izuku is incapacitated and needs a lil vestige jolt? Or, what if Izuku needs the various vestiges inside AFO (the quirk) to help free Tenko in the first place?

Basically, between these 3 things, I feel like Horikoshi can cook up whatever he needs in order to have our vestige friends appear one more time. He’s laid the groundwork for it to make enough sense in-universe. I don’t know if the vestiges, OFA, and AFO will survive the ending of the series (cynically, I think it depends on the sequel/spinoff possibilities the publisher will undoubtedly want to explore), but I feel pretty confident that the vestiges will reappear to fight one more time, just like Ochako, Shoto, Tenya, Katsuki, Himiko, and Toya.

#bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha 417 #mha 417 #izuku midoriya #Deku #tomura shigaraki #Tenko shimura #all might #toshinori yagi #vestiges #ofa vestiges

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haircoveredwriter · 8 months

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Episode 1X05 "Deux Amours" thoughts

(Warning: if I don't make sense in this post, I apologize. I've been trying to put this together for the past 20 mins but my brain has been fried by the episode it seems).

The fifth installment of the Daryl Dixon series is a GIANT - let me repeat this - G I A N T culminating expression of Daryl's fears/desires/drive to get home to Carol. If anyone was in doubt before they would have to be living in another dimension not to see it after "Deux Amours".

Starting with the conversations between Daryl and Azlan throughout the episode, Daryl's focus on getting home is clear. Our boy is still obsessed with finding a working radio for a specific call even in the flashbacks, but more on that later 😉. Azlan asks him about the promise he made which drives him on his journey to get back home, and Norman's acting of subtle reacting to the other man's points of (I'm paraphrasing) "sometimes a man's promise gets detoured around the realities of life" encompasses the tone of the entire show and the rest of the episode. "It's a home for the soul" If that isn't Caryl, I don't know what is.

When Laurent asks him about his friends there's an obvious pairing and splitting up of the groupings he chooses to answer with; Judith & RJ, Connie & Ezekiel, Carol. There are the kids, his friend ... and then " a woman named Carol". His pause and voice change upon saying her name warms my little shipper heart. If only Laurent hadn't jumped in so quick to continue the conversation. Look kid, the man was having a MOMENT! Read the room, sheesh. Lol.

I've haven't seen many bring this up but imo the young man at the gas depot during the flashback's was another huge planted plot point for Caryl. Daryl's whole thing has been how he needs to get home, and the kid is there "just trying to make it home to his girl". He promised he get enough gas to pick her up and take her away, the two of them together, out to California. Does that ring any bells to anyone???? NEW MEXICO IS STILL OUT THERE.

THAT radio call scene. Yes. Everything about it ... yes. I don't think I can do it justice trying to put it into words but @mcbride made a wonderful gifset of it for you to view or I know there are clips of the scene out there as well.

**Special recognition for the fact a lot of these Caryl callback scenes occurred by the river/while Daryl was in a make shift tent similar to the one at his s9 camp.**

Now we've reached the infamous Daryl/Laurent/the boat scene. I'm not going to get into a debate of whether he was wrong or right to go off on a kid like that; I'm going to deal solely with my perceived reasoning behind Daryl's actions. IMO finding the boat gone and subsequently that Laurent is the one who cut the rope was the straw that broke the camels back - so it were - for Daryl's emotions through the whole show about going home. Everything had been building up emotionally for Daryl until this point in the series; every past attempt to get home thwarted or delayed somehow, and having the person who he's supposed to be getting to The Nest where he will get what he's been after ... a way home ... blow things up in his face was too much to bear. The thought that maybe he may not actually get back to Carol overwhelming him and leading him to blow up at Laurent. I think the timing of this scene in the episode should also be taken into consideration, immediately after the radio call.

The groundwork has been laid out for Carol's reappearance in the season finale, whether that is in France or somewhere else that is still yet to be seen but all roads lead to Caryl.

#caryl #caryl positivity #carol peletier #daryl dixon #carol and daryl #twd spoilers #twd: daryl dixon #carol loves daryl #daryl loves carol

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27thfirefly · 2 months

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hi. i just read the last chapter of your fic went blind last year and HOLY FUCK it is so good. i get it if you don’t want to like spoil things about your fic but i have many many questions and thoughts so im just gonna write a bunch of them.

the whole thing with like. dirk tapping into ultimate dirk and part of canon and then being shoved out? and then kind of realizing that he is a small part of something very big and wanting to be a bigger part of it, and then getting orange eyes representing a stronger connection to dirk-ness? fascinating. and is daves eyes turning red then symbolic of him becoming closer to dave-ness? and speaking of that- dante??? great character, very interesting. is he like somehow a version of dave? and what was he talking about on the swings? is he also in some sort of a loop? and what was it that dirk did at the end of chapter four? he did something with the sword, right, did he make dante decapitate him and then somehow come back to life?

and hal. and cal! holy shit, i can’t believe it but you kind of made me LIKE cal somehow? in the sense that he can be violent and outrageous and insane and vengeful when dirk can’t and its kind of cathartic.

its interesting to see where things stay the same as in canon and where they dont. like dave has chat logs with rose in 2014 and 2015? but hes only fourteen. so he’s technically both older and younger than he is at the beginning of homestuck. and dirk was like 13 in 1997, which is about when daves meteor should have dropped? but did they come with the meteors at all, in this world? dirk came with lil cal on his meteor in canon, but here he got him when he was 12. but dave still seems to be somewhat in touch with his time powers, and dirk with his heart powers, so some things carried over from the game?

god. this is all so fascinating and good. i will be probably rereading the fic and eating drywall until a new chapter comes out. you are an amazing writer.

wahhh thank you very much! for what it's worth i too have been thinking a lot about went blind last year. glances at the +50k word txt document of story notes and wip chapters. so i do love getting to talk about it even if working on it is very slow at the moment! i will put this under a readmore cos i got carried away but

there's a lot of things i don't want to spoil yet yes... but i think i've laid enough of the groundwork that these things won't feel terribly out of place within the story.

one thing i do feel comfortable in divulging is that any connections to canon are deliberately tenuous... how far can a character diverge from canon while still being understood as fitting the mold for that character? when a character is deliberately obscured, how much does fanon interpretation impact what feels in-character?

when you read fanfiction or fancomics or whatever kind of work about a specific character, your mind creates a superposition of the character as they exist in the original work and the character as they exist in the fanwork. as long as the "shape" of the character in the fanwork doesn't stick out too much from your perception of the canon "shape", you can accept that character--as written by someone else--as the same as in canon. some of the choices i have made are deliberately contradictory to the text of homestuck the webcomic. i have made these choices in order to tell the story i want to tell. even so, the basis for the characters in wbly are understood to be the same as in homestuck, creating an expectation for what these characters will act like, what their baseline is, and how you as a reader approach them. your feelings about cal changing within the context of wbly is an interesting case of this in my mind--the cal within wbly is presumably still close enough to canon that you can call it the same character, but the role of cal is changed enough that your impression of him is changed. that kind of thing is FASCINATING to me.

the reason wbly would not work as an independent work is the same as why the homestuck epilogues do not work without the pre-existing fandom of homestuck: there need to be expectations for these characters and relationships in order for me to challenge those expectations.

another thing i will divulge is that went blind last year is not the full title of the story in my mind--i won't tell the full one, but it does tie into just about every conflict in the story.

thank you again for reading my overly complicated fanfic! hopefully you'll stick around even if it'll take me a lot longer than expected to complete. if not, that's fine too.

also every time i send updates to my friend i get lamentations so you know stuffs going great

#dirteater69 #ive been reading umineko and its seeping into my vocabulary and way of talking #but to be fair if you read wbly i think you should already be primed for the amount of bullshit i can spew #I HAVE MOST OF THIS FIC PLANNED OUT I JUST NEED TO GET IT DOWN...#this answered nothing but how i think about this work #which might be interesting! i spose #if you dont already know me that well lol #kris.txt #wbly

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utilitycaster · 2 years

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The Beaujester/Widojest stuff actually reminds me of why I almost wasn't on board with Fjord/Jester at first - I really don't like ships where it feels like one party has to wear down the other, and at first, I thought that was the vibe. So I get really stumped on why people are pushing for closure here. It reminds me of that wild d&d court case. Why would they needlessly burden their friend (Jester) with this information? What do fans think would happen after???

Hi anon,

You are 100% right in that I also think of that D&D Court Case (for those wondering, it's the one that starts here and basically, a couple is playing in a D&D game together and the DM some time ago confessed drunkenly to the player who is writing in that he has feelings for the player's girlfriend...and is now romancing her in-game as an NPC). Like, for real, keep that to yourself! It's so awkward and for what! Tell your therapist! Tell other friends outside this social circle! Do some weird art about it! Have weird feelings! But do not say that to the actual couple involved, holy fuck.

It would require someone with far more knowledge of fandom history to back up my hunch here, so I am presenting it as just a hunch, but it feels like there has been a very heavy drive in the past maybe five or six years towards, rather than "oh man, I wish this ship had happened instead, and here are my AUs and fics in which it did" to "here's why the story is BAD and UNRESOLVED and WRONG." And I don't quite know how it came to be, since internet forums have been around for quite some time, and maybe I'm just clueless because I have come relatively late to every social media ever and it was always like this and the volume has just increased. My personal theory is that people saw all those quirky letter writing campaigns of the 2000s and didn't realize that mailing potato chips or whatever to an NBC exec who was cutting the show because it wasn't getting enough viewers by metrics that were well behind current technology and who would see this and say "oh, shit, this has fans, maybe we can make money off it" is very different than writing hate mail to actual creators, but I could be totally wrong.

But anyway, it is pretty apparent that Uk'otoa was left unresolved! Travis actually had laid the groundwork in-character as Fjord (the bounty hunter hire for Sabian, telling Jester in 2x117 he wanted to deal with Uk'otoa before other things) to return, but it made sense for the show to end after Aeor. Meanwhile, it's not unresolved for someone to quietly nurse a crush, and I'd argue, actually, that both Beau and Caleb's feelings were largely resolved in show. Beau outright told Fjord that she'd had a crush on Jester, but her feelings for Yasha were deeper and more real (and in general this tracks with Beau's repeated self-sabotage when things felt too good to be true). And if you take off the Widojest shipping goggles, it's hard to see Caleb's actions following the party's return from Rumblecusp as anything but quietly admitting that this is not going to happen, as he pushes Jester to dance with Fjord and finally tells her about his past. The goal post of "resolved" secretly means "the preferred ship happens instead."

And then no one ever has an answer for what happens after. Does Beau break up with Yasha? Does the entire scene in Aeor with Essek in 141 - absolutely pivotal, despite coming so late, to Caleb's arc - just not happen, because you really cannot read that as anything but romantic? Does Jester break up with Fjord? How do we reconcile that Jester does not wish to live in Rexxentrum as a housewife, and does want to continue to see the world and be able to regularly spend lots of time in Nicodranas? Do Caleb or Beau make even the slightest concession to Jester's wants and needs, in this fantasy?

I guess I'll wrap this up with this thought: I think that Beau and Caleb's romantic feelings for Jester and how they deal with them are very well played by Marisha and Liam and are incredibly important - indeed, crucial - to understanding their respective character development. But that's the thing in the end. The romantic feelings are deeply important to the stories of Beau and Caleb. They are a footnote on the story of the Mighty Nein. And they are utterly irrelevant to the story of Jester.

#answered #Anonymous #cr discourse #i was actually pretty generous and one day i shall write the meta of why those stories are so important

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amaranthhiding · 2 years

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Dean’s Angel Kink and Sam’s Witch Kink (Part 1)

You can find part 2 here.

Supernatural really went and gave Dean a canonical angel (and demon?) kink, and Sam a canonical witch (and demon?) kink…

I'm going insane over this because the groundwork for all of it was laid in the earliest seasons, and the meaning reaches so much deeper than just some stripper fantasies.

The image above is Dean's reaction to seeing only the girl dressed as devil in episode 5x13 The Song Remains the Same. This whole scene is a dream inside of Dean's mind, by the way.

Then a second girl dressed as angel enters the stage, and this is what Dean's face does.

Then Anna (the real one) walks into his dream, right onto the stage, and Dean's face gives things away again.

If we compare this to the insides of Sam’s mind, we have his hallucination in episode 10x19 The Werther Project.

Of course this hallucination features Rowena specifically, so this doesn’t really prove a general witch kink. But let’s go all the way back to episode 3x09 Malleus Maleficarum.

The brothers are investigating a crime scene, and while Dean talks to the witnesses, Sam finds a hex bag in the bathroom.

Dean is clearly digusted by the contents of the hex bag, and Sam seemingly agrees on how gross this is. He then proceeds to tell Dean, in detail, what the hex bag is made of.

He must have examined those bones thoroughly enough to actually identify the species of animal they stem from.

The disgusted frown on Dean’s face is not at all mirrored by Sam’s face. Instead, he seems interested, maybe even fascinated.

This isn’t disgusted Sam, this is full-nerd-mode-engaged Sam.

The way he’s holding the bag is almost reverent, cradling it in both hands like a valuable trophy after Dean can’t get it out of his own hands fast enough and returns it to him.

Sam doesn’t sound disgusted or hateful as he says this.

He sounds impressed.

Dean hates witches.

This is Sam’s face of brotherly agreement.

(No, it’s not.)

(Sorry, I had to.)

Sam says “Pretty much” in a quiet voice, with a thoughtful stare to who-knows-where... which, for me, pretty much means that he doesn’t agree with his older brother at all, he just isn’t telling Dean what he really thinks.

Then they find out in this same episode that Ruby is, in fact, a witch.

Sam’s reaction is... interesting.

(Especially given the fact that he’s currently pinned to a wall by magic and really should have things to worry about other than Ruby’s status as a witch.)

Once he knows, it seems like Sam can’t stop staring at Ruby.

Dean seriously has to push Sam out of the room backwards because he simply won’t quit staring.

Well, we all know which particular road that attraction to Ruby followed. I just never actually realized before that the witch thing may have been a big contributor.

Sam is such a nerd (affectionate).

(The following pictures are from 4x09 I Know What You Did Last Summer.)

Suddenly, the expression on Sam’s face when he reads about Rowena on a website in episode 10x07 Girls, Girls, Girls before their very first meeting makes so much more sense to me.

Or his speechless, heavy swallow when she says this:

Poor guy had to wait for 7 seasons to get his Old World black magic!

If one thing is certain, it’s that this witch is the real deal.

Rowena isn’t a borrower witch like Ruby who gained her powers from a demon.

No, she’s a natural called the most powerful witch alive by multiple sources.

So you’ll have to excuse Sam if his mouth is running a little dry at the thought that everything he thought he knew about magic so far was nothing but child’s play and that he’s about to gain insights into the good stuff.

The moment where Dean throws Rowena’s hex bag at Sam in 13x12 Various & Sundry Villains is even funnier to me now than ever before:

Ahem, anyway, let‘s return to Dean’s... divine fascination and take a closer look at both Dean and Sam in episode 2x13 Houses of the Holy (and it will actually tie back to Sam’s witch kink in the end as well).

I might have to move that second half of my musings into a separate Tumblr post, though, because I’m afraid I will reach the maximum number of allowed images per post in this one here soon.

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amorne · 5 days

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#This is your daily reminder that Miss Daphne Bridgerton can and [WILL] play. #She knows. #She knows she has this entire city wrapped around her finger. #She is a performer and she has perfected her craft. #I’m telling you she falls under the Obsessed Artist Trope in this essay I will- #She has spent her entire life curating her image and when it was finally her time to shine she DAZZLED #Look even the Queen is amused #Daphne dropping the fan so the Prince’s gaze falls with the fan [I.E. He sees her figure from her bosom to her feet WHILE #she is fully dressed and dignified] #Her eyes immediately looking back up from the fallen fan back to the Prince’s to evoke devotion and submission? A FEIGNED INNOCENCE? #Her small albeit noticeable opening of her mouth to evoke a sense of surprise urgency BUT ALSO seduction from her lips and EXPRESSION? #It takes a certain kind of talent to be Always sparkling and dazzling BUT #To bring a man [a Prince] to his knees all the while feigning doe dyes ingenuity and KINDNESS BEYOND COMPARE? #Oh she is THE femme fatale. #Daphne did all this in a white dress FULLY CLOTHED AND UNCOMPROMISED she is a MASTERMIND. #She said /I laid the groundwork - And then just like clockwork - The dominos cascaded in a line - #What if I told you I’m a Mastermind? - AND NOW YOU’RE MINE - It was all my design. #Me to Miss Daphne Bridgerton: 🧎🏻‍♀️🧎🏻‍♀️🧎🏻‍♀️

Taylor Alison Swift wrote this for [one] Miss Daphne Bridgerton. You know what's surreal to me that I figured out from this? Daphne has curated perfection for herself ever since she was a child. She demanded it for herself, crafted and molded herself into the idealized version of what a Lady should be. And she has been this way since she was a child. Do you understand how much pressure that is? To strive for something [unattainable]? That's fucking insane. AND YOU KNOW WHAT? This is partly why Simon expressed hesitation in having children with Daphne [Of course he has his own trauma and that's an entirely separate post], but subjective to Daphne [from Simon's point of view], her self-induced perfection is obvious, and for someone who has been labeled imperfect as a child, to try to even be a part of that must've brought up so much trauma. Simon felt like he could not live up to Daphne's curated perfection, and what if their child couldn't as well? This is pivotal for Daphne's character because through learning of Simon's story, hearing his side of it, and finally understanding him, she comes to the realization that perfection is unattainable. It's not real. The impossible burden she has placed on herself is not a burden anyone else can [or should] carry. "Just because something is not perfect, does not make it any less worthy of love." Daphne herself realizes that she does not need to be perfect in order to be loved or respected or cherished. It is precisely her loud snorty laugh, her cheeky opinions, her teasing nature, her competitive streak, her puns and love of love that makes her enough. She, her true self, is enough.

#I am not playing with you.#I have never felt like I've cracked a character as much as I do for Daphne.#I know the ins and outs of her thoughts and her words - IT IS INSANE.#I feel like she was written for me [and others like me]#I know her like the back of my hand.#which is why writing her comes so easily to me.#She IS my muse.#[ 𝑫̲ ] ‚ hc.

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novelisi · 2 months

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In the Roses of Pieria by Anna Burke

Summary: When Clara Eden is offered a job as an archivist working for eccentric estate owner Agatha Montague, she thinks her prayers have been answered. Soon, she finds herself sucked into her research world, captivated by a romantic correspondence thousands of years old. But as her feelings for her employer's assistant, Fiadh, deepen, so does her suspicion that something about Agatha Montague isn't right. Unfortunately for Clara, it is far too late to run by the time her suspicions are confirmed..

Rating: ★★★★☆

Non-spoiler review:

Right from the beginning, I was enthralled. The beauty of the writing within this book is undeniable. Burke does a fantastic job of setting the scene without overdoing it with the descriptions of the spaces the characters are in.

The language in Gata and Natek’s letters is just as beautiful and poetic. I love the sweet sapphic yearning mixed with the intimacy of a handwritten letter to the woman you love but can not have. I can see how Clara gets swept up in their love story.

There are some.. steamy.. scenes within the story that, admittedly, I had to skip through. Not because they were poorly written, but because I’m not someone who enjoys reading about such things. I don’t doubt that the descriptions during those parts were written as wonderfully as the rest of the book, but that’s something you’ll have to discover for yourself if you’re into it.

The reveals that Burke had laid the groundwork for all clicked into place, but there is still enough mystery left over for book 2. Overall, I did really enjoy In the Roses of Pieria, which is why I got through it so quickly! I’ll be keeping an eye out for the release of the second instalment.

T/W: R*p*

I will say, though, that there is a scene that can be interpreted as being similar to a r*p*. Clara is forced to do something that, while not sexual in nature, is written with sexual, or at the very least sensual, undertones. Other readers may not interpret it the way I have, but I felt it important to mention anyway.

If you'd like to know more about this scene before reading the book, I've briefly gone through what happens below without any of the details. It is at the bottom of my review under the T/W in bold, so you can skip the other spoilers.

Spoiler review:

Right from the beginning, I was enthralled. The beauty of the writing within this book is undeniable.

Burke does a fantastic job of setting the scene without overdoing it with the descriptions of the spaces the characters are in. The story opens with Clara in her classroom as she finishes up a lecture, and the way Burke is able to romanticise what would usually be a depressing, soul crushing environment had me amazed. I’ve not long left university myself, and making a lecture theatre sound almost magical that is not an easy feat.

Overall, I think that the reveals of (some of) Agatha's history, Fiadh's connection to Agatha, and Natek and Vezina were interesting. Burke certainly did well laying the groundwork for these, so they didn't come as a shock, more of a "oh my god, yeah, that makes sense!!".

There were only two issues I had, which is why my rating is 4/5. The first is that I finished the book feeling like something was missing. Like some scenes should've had more to them. It's hard to explain, and I don't know what exactly I wanted from these scenes, just that I wanted more. At the end, Burke states that In the Roses of Pieria was intended to be one book, not two, so maybe that's why I feel this way, but who knows.

Another reason I've gone for a rating of 4 is the following:

T/W: R*pe ------------------------

Something that had me rather unsettled was one of the scenes following Clara’s discovery of Agatha’s secret - that she’s a vampire. Clara has been brought in to Agatha and, rightfully so, is terrified of the woman in front of her. She is also struggling to process what she’s learned and seen, as her entire understanding of the world around her crumbles. To ensure Clara remains subservient to her, Agatha uses thrall to make Clara come to her and ask to be bitten. Clara is unable to fight against it, and her mind is manipulated, making her feel as though she desires Agatha’s lips against her neck and wants to obey her completely. It is written as having some sexual, or at the very least sensual, undertones. After the incident, Clara is sickened and distraught. She can’t sleep out of fear that Agatha will make her act against her will again, or suck her blood (which Agatha has also done without Clara’s knowledge while she was asleep in bed).

As I read, I felt as though this incident reflected r*pe. Or at least, that was my interpretation. Agatha had taken Clara’s control of her own body, almost like she had been drugged, and made her believe in that moment that she wanted it. Afterwards, Clara was traumatised, scared, and angry. What added to the disturbing nature of it all was Fiadh’s almost… justification.. of it? Despite witnessing the entire thing, when Clara expresses her disgust at what happened, Fiadh tells her that Agatha shouldn’t be held to the same standards as humans, that this is just what she knows and, the fact that she makes you want it is actually “a kindness”. Now, Fiadh has been brought up with her family serving Agatha for generations, and it is briefly mentioned that she has probably been groomed by Agatha to believe this is okay and “kind”. But her dismissal of Clara’s trauma was frustrating. Clara is shown to be greatly negatively impacted by this event, refusing to sleep, being too scared to turn her home lights off, or on, and jumping at every little noise out of fear it’s Agatha.

Now, I’m currently 64% of the way through this book, so perhaps this will all be addressed later on. I’d like to see Fiadh break through this illusion that Agatha is kind and good and simply doesn’t know any better. I want to see her acknowledge what happened to Clara and apologise. To validate her feelings rather than brush them aside. Agatha’s intentions were clearly evil - she wanted to show Clara the extent of her control and to make her fearful. She knew exactly what she was doing. I don’t think this is something that should be ignored.*

*I have finished the book, and this incident wasn't brought up again. Clara ended up agreeing that thrall was kindness, and Agatha was seemingly redeemed as she risked her life to save Fiadh. Perhaps it's just me, and other readers will disagree, but I'm disappointed that this event wasn't criticised. The reason I mention this is because it may be important as a content warning for future readers.

#in the roses of pieria #bookblr #book blog #booklr #bookish #reading #books #bookworm #book community #novelisi reviews

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daisyachain · 2 years

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Hanazawa arc ranking.

1. Teru Arc. Mob meets the first person he’s ever met who is Like Him with catastrophic results on both sides. Teru is the first person that we see force ???% out into the open, the first to engage with all of Mob however unintentionally. The tension of the two hating each other’s philosophy and the loaded wording of Shigeo refusing to fight as Shigeo rejecting Hanazawa. Teruki singlehandedly marks the transition from a good joke manga to a proper, serious story and is the last of the main 4 to appear. Can’t go past it.

2. Ritsu arc. A tough choice, but the complete 180 from intro Teru fills in the other half of his character. As ???% and Mob are two halves of one whole Shigeo, the silly flashy fop and the powermad sadist are two halves of one fully Hanazawa. He quickly shocks the viewer with his laid-back charity and shocks Ritsu with his brute force. We are left to wonder—who is this? Can we trust him? To which the answer is: it’s still Teru, he still has his nasty sense of humour and need for control, and we can trust him, he has learned that he needs to be more than a bully to survive and engage with the world. His brief appearance is both as Mob’s proxy (protecting and disciplining Ritsu) and his saviour (taking him home and caring for him until he wakes up). All contradictory aspects of Teru are fully present.

3. ???% arc. A tough choice. This is the perfect culmination of Teru’s character arc, with him and Shigeo switching places. The aggressor becomes the victim, the pacifist the brute and the sadistic the nonviolent. Teruki not only shows his growth as a person by attempting to resolve the situation through peaceful conversation, he also ‘passes’ the rest of the arc by acknowledging Shigeo’s explosion as a natural and normal part of personhood AND achieves a narrative victory through surrender. After being beaten, he refuses to go in futility and instead saves the city—at the same time saving Shigeo. Shigeo’s conscience can’t bear a life, and this is something Teru protects him from. Teru does everything right, he is humiliated, but his reward is to be the hero of the arc where all others are bystanders. He achieves main characterhood.

4. Claw II

Cannot believe this one is so low. Mob is knocked out for so much of this story that Hanazawa is forced to be not just a main character but a protagonist. His managing the Shimazaki situation isn’t 100% successful, but what he does is mobilize the anti-Claw alliance. In this story Teru struggles with himself as embodied by Shimazaki, his counterfactual, an all-powerful esper who skates by on his powers. He saves Ritsu, keeps the team out of despair, and defeats the OP enemy using nothing more than sheer smarts. Here, Teru gets to show off a little of what makes him special—he’s cunning, compared to Ritsu’s outright intelligence, Reigen’s charisma, and Shou and Mob’s brute force. Unfortunately we don’t get much in the way of introspection this arc, even if Teru is sick as hell in it.

5. Divine Tree

Another arc where Hanazawa takes over the protagonist role from Shigeo! He spends a lot of time as a brainwashed zombie, downgrading it from Claw II. Still, there are enough good moments to make it worth that cost. He’s the only character to avoid brainwashing outside of Mob, and he does it through cleverness, not luck. Teru notices the problems, outsmarts the antagonist, and tracks down Dimple to confront him before Mob even knows he’s in an arc. A great showing! He even gets some pathos; Teru’s captivity is the first thing from Dimple that drives him to action. Divine Tree shows off Teru’s skills and character while unfortunately not having any standout moments to rival 1-4.

6. Claw I

A good arc for Teru! There’s never a bad one. Hanazawa is relegated to support for this story, yet he doesn’t just fade into the background. The air whips encounter lays the groundwork for his talent—adapting any other esper’s technique and improving on it—while the pyro battle provides some interesting background on who he is. Teru is a boy who likely has faced Claw before and has only gotten this far by fighting off their agents. In a kill-or-be-killed situation he does kill without hesitation, then holds his own in a telekinetic duel against Sakurai. The story shows us a clever, cold tweenager who is very nearly as good as he thinks he is. This is the closest we get to a platonic Teru, independent of Mob and his gravity. Still, a lack of interiority and independence knocks it down.

#kelsey liveblogs mp100 #if I do not see an explosion of meta for my lad once season 3 airs I’m detonating this website #blorbinho. a great character. just complex enough to be good; just simple enough to stick the landing

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drifting-pieces-blog-blog · 2 years

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I think Khonshu's nice to Jake because unlike Marc where he has leverage, or Steven where he has nothing, Khonshu's relationship with Jake is straightforward business. Jake wants the suit, Khonshu wants an Avatar. They each get something out of it, and it's all out on the table. There's no unspoken resentment or reluctance. Just a simple transaction, and the ability on both sides to pull out whenever.

While it is absolutely hilarious to me to picture Khonshu like he was in a few comic runs begging and pleading and doing anything he can to get Jake's attention "My good friend. My best buddy. My all time favorite avatar Jake Lockley.".... I will acknowledge that Jake does want a suit and a means to protect the system.

So now that you've tricked me into a Meta post, let's do this! I'm going to refer to a few things I've come across, though I cannot remember the posts or users that first brought them up. So thank you to my terrible sleep deprived memory for making me feel like a jackass and thank you to all the people that laid the groundwork for me!

O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

So there's a quote any Shakespeare casual reader should recognize. But there is an interesting thought. The moon is so variable. It pulls and pushes the tides. It eclipses the sun and is in turn eclipsed by the earth. It is ever changing and in turn, often romanticized to dance with the earth. It is also consistent and predictable in its cycle.

But Khonshu isn't just the moon. He reminds Steven that he is the god of the sky. Which is even more ever changing in mood and beauty.

Khonshu who could not let go of humanity and abandon it, but also does not know how to treat humanity once he is in direct contact with it.

He wants to love but only manipulates and abuses. He wants to protect and care for but only threatens and bullies.

He is decayed and weakened but he still has power.

He handles Marc roughly. He cares for Marc and trusts him immensely, but he also found Marc dying in a dumpster with a gun to his own head. He has seen inside and knows that Marc sees no self worth for himself. Marc has no reason to want to be protected. He has stated multiple times that he hoped the people he fought would win and kill him. So how does Khonshu protect and keep someone so utterly self destructive?

Give them something worth fighting for. Or in Khonshu's warped sense of how to handle things, scare him into compliance. If Marc fails a mission and dies, then Layla is obviously going to be his replacement.

When it comes to Steven, Khonshu straight up torments him. Steven is a threat to controlling Marc. So from Marc's early perspective, Khonshu threatens Steven and tries to scare him away. When Steven proves that isn't going to work, he switches gear from tormenting him and scaring him to going back to Marc and blaming Marc for not keeping Steven under control.

But why go after Steven at all? Why not strike a deal with Steven? Again, we have to go back to the more useful avatar in Khonshu's mind: Marc. While Steven is incredibly smart and learns to fight and even improves how Moon Knight functions as a system, Steven encourages Marc to start taking value of himself. He also encourages Marc to be less murder happy.

Over all, Khonshu has a better hold over Marc is Steven is not in the picture or being held as a threat over Marc.

If Marc is out of the picture, Khonshu lightens up and treats Steven with more respect. If given enough time alone with Steven, Khonshu would have entered into his nurturing phase for the first time in who knows how many years. (See amazing and long series of posts by other people about the phases of Khonshu of protector, nurture, and so on because damn that was good stuff).

But this isn't what Khonshu needs or wants right now. Ammit is a threat and so is Harrow. Khonshu thinks he needs Marc's brutality so he doesn't even try to find a way to keep Steven happy. He has nothing to hold over him at that time. If desperate enough, he would have found a way to hold Marc over him. Marc's vulnerability and Marc's tendency to self destruct. He could have offered Steven a hero position without the murder and Steven would have considered.

But why barter with a problem child like Steven when Jake is so much simpler? Steven is not yet aware of how destructive Marc is. He has only scratched the surface. JAKE on the other hand, who makes his life out of saving Marc and stopping the melt downs and attempted death by fight gimmicks Marc keep trying, knows exactly what the healing armor and protection is worth.

So once again, while Marc is and always will be Khonshu's main love, he will settle for Jake until the time is right to somehow get Marc back. Jake is just as valuable, after all.

But cleaver Khonshu also knows that Jake could be a bigger problem than Steven ever was. One wrong word or request and Jake isn't just out to drop him like a bad ex, Jake could turn around and straight up come for his decayed bird ass. He has to treat Jake right. Jake knows this. So they are at a mutual understanding right now. Honestly, I think Jake watched it all go down, including Steven's bargaining strategy. There's a good chance Jake is using Khonshu and they are both playing nice. It's a thin line.

BUT. Cleaver Khonshu has forgotten something about himself. He's been stuck in one phase for so long. Dealing with one Avatar for so long. Decaying and stuck in one frame of mind.

In the event that Marc, Jake, and Steven ever come to an understanding and learn to co-exist, AND still decide to be Moon Knight, Khonshu would be a full lunar cycle. HE COULD GET HIS FULL POWER BACK.

Now, this is just a personal theory of mine. But if Moon Knight was co-piloted by all three of them they would be more powerful of a force than any avatar he's ever had before. He may still resent Steven for how easily it would be for Steven to pull Marc out of their agreement and walk, and he may still treat Jake with kid gloves because Jake could turn the whole system on him...

ON ANOTHER SMALLER AND SIMILAR TANGENT:

Khonshu has family problems. Specifically father problems. Jake also has unresolved family problems that we don't yet know about. Khonshu was banished. Jake also has been self banished from interacting with the system in order to protect them.

If Ammut is representative of Marc's mother, Season two: Jake deals with his own problems with his banishment and father problems while Khonshu also deals with his banishment problems from his own family....

Khonshu inadvertently found his own connection with Jake. Season two please. Khonshu and Jake's wild ride into family resolutions.

WOW. I don't know where I went just there or if I even remotely answered any part of a question that absolutely wasn't asked... But here we are! ...Ta-dah!

#Moon Knight #Moon Knight Meta #Seriously I don't plan any of this out I just start typing and what happens happens #Send me asks and see what happens!#I'm a tragedy full of no sleep and the desire to talk about Moon Knight #This often results in incoherant rambles that make me come off like a crazy person in the street screaming at clouds about Moon Knight

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strawberrystar7 · 9 months

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Yk Lila (is that even her name? Cerise? Whatever her name is I’m just going to be calling her Lila for simplicity) seems interesting to me. Why does she have at least 2 if not 3 different identities? How did she turn out this way? Why does she want the butterfly Miraculous? What is her plan going forward. What the heck did she see at the end of the season 5 final? She looked so scared. I hope we get some answers in season 6.

I have to be honest I don’t really like her as a person but as a character she’s very interesting. Similar to Chloé in a sense I guess but also different. I don’t really like Chloé as a person either but when it comes to her as a character I find her interesting. When it comes to Chloé she has both potential to be a villain but also potential to get a redemption if done right (well maybe not anymore after season 5 but up until season 4 final she had that chance). I like reading Chloé redemption fanfics because of it. Tho I don’t like the ones where the redemption takes place over only a span of a week since that seems unrealistic. For Chloé to change she needs first to learn that she can’t get everything she wants considering how spoiled she is that takes a significant amount of time to get into her head. And that’s just the bare minimum.

After that she needs to do some self reflecting. Why does she want to change? It’s not enough if she only wants to change because of the Bee Miraculous or because others tell her to. She needs to want to change from deep inside of her. The wish to change needs to come from her and not from others or from what they can give her. At the same time send her to therapy. This girl needs it. Only once she has begun to self reflect can the redemption actually begin. All of this is just the groundwork. The real redemption can only start now. This is also precisely why the presumed „redemption arc“ in the show has failed. None of this groundwork has been laid.

At least a few months would have gone by by the time all of this has happened. That’s why just a few weeks or even worse only a week are unrealistic in redemption fics. No one works through their issues in such a short time especially not if they are as deeply rooted as Chloé’s. Oftentimes it feels forced because people just make Adrien, Marinette or one of their classmates tell Chloé that her actions are wrong and she suddenly has a change of heart. Like no that is not how this would actually work. Just because someone tells Chloé that it’s wrong doesn’t mean that she suddenly would change. This would take far longer than just 1 sentence. It would take therapy and self reflection and the realization that she can’t just have everything

Then there’s the possibility for Chloé being a villain and not just a flat one dimensional villain. We actually know why she is the way she is. It gives her a motive.

Anyway I swerved off topic. This was supposed to be about Lila and not Chloé. If you want to read more on my thoughts on Chloé you can read my post on Chloé’s role in the season 3 finale. It’s a bit outdated since it was written during the run of season 4 but it still matches mostly with my thoughts today. Either way Lila is interesting in a different way. I don’t think she has the same potential for redemption as Chloé has but she seems like she could be a great villain. She is cunning and manipulative. She is also very mysterious, which allows for speculation. We don’t know anything about her. We don’t know who her actual parents are, we don’t even know if she’s actually Italian and we don’t even know what her real name is.

Not gonna lie it came as a shock to know that she lied about her real identity. But now that I think about it maybe I shouldn’t have been shocked. Thomas Astruc has been alluding to the fact that Lila is lying about her identity. If I recall correctly he had posted a tweet talking about how Lila is a Liar and that we shouldn’t believe anything she says and she could be lying about being italian or something along those lines. I can’t find the tweet, maybe he deleted it, so sorry I can’t provide a screenshot but when trying to find it I saw other people talking about the same tweet. Either way that’s not even the main point of this post. (A Tweet? An X? Twitter was renamed to X so no way the posts there are still called Tweets so what even are the posts on X called? X is such a weird name change.)

Lila is cunning, manipulative, a liar and very mysterious. It makes her interesting to me and I do hope we get some semblance of a backstory for her in season 6 as well as some answers to those questions I stated above. I mean don’t get me wrong it’s fun to speculate but it’s also nice to have some confirmation on what actually happened and to add onto that canon framework. That way it’s easier to get an actual grasp onto what she’s like and why she’s this way. Similar to my posts with Chloé. They are built on the canon framework of Chloé’s backstory and current life but they also allow for analysis which isn’t exactly possible if you know nothing about a character (at least from the time when they were posted so not including season 5 since those posts were made 2 years ago.). In Chloé‘s case you can analyze her character arc as well as add onto her canon framework. But in Lila‘s case you can only speculate. And like I said speculation is fun and I‘ll probably take advantage of it until season 6 airs but it’s also nice to analyze the canon framework and add onto it. Both are nice in their own way I guess.

Not gonna lie when Lila first entered the show in the Season 1 Final I thought she was going to be a girl who lied because she wanted friends. Because she felt lonely and thought lying was her only possible way of making friends especially since some of her classmates are famous like Adrien Agreste, a world famous model, Chloé Bourgeois, the mayors daughter, and Alya Césaire, the Ladyblogger. I thought that she would resent Ladybug in the beginning but eventually would get over it and that Marinette would try to befriend Lila because she felt bad for blowing up on Lila as Ladybug. But then Lila disappeared in season 2 only to reappear in the season 2 finale to create the illusion, and then season 3 happened which changed my opinion on Lila once and for all. But even then I didn’t expect Lila to aim for the Butterfly Miraculous or that her lying went so far as to the fact that she had multiple sets pf parents, lied to all of them and that she even had multiple sets of identities. What kind of teenager even does that and why does she even need multiple identities?

Either way should that happen and they do elaborate on Lila‘s backstory I‘ll probably be back after season 6 trying to analyze Lila‘s character. It’s been a long time since I analyzed or theorized about Miraculous and if anything I would be interested in doing it with Lila but for that I don’t have enough information on her right now. In the meantime I‘ll be speculating about who she is and why she is like that. Who knows maybe I‘ll post some of those speculations on this Tumblr page, maybe I don’t. It depends on how I feel.

#miraculous #mlb #lila rossi #miraculous ladybug #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #mlb lila #chloe bourgeois #mlb chloe #butterfly miraculous

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travelling-on-the-octopath · 2 years

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i think what's getting me the most about the Claude Thing is that like... there are people trying to say that this makes sense for his character? like people saying that this is just like 3H!Dimitri or something where it's "fallen Claude" who fell off his path of ideals.

but like... no? it really isn't? because it's not a case of Claude slowly losing grasp of who he was until he becomes both almost unrecognizable and yet almost expected to become like this due to the circumstances around him building up and causing him to break like Dimitri on non-CF routes, Claude just... becomes unrecognizable. out of nowhere.

even if you were of the belief that Claude was going to conquer Fodlan, how does that translate to him bringing an entirely different continent (Sreng) into the fighting and causing international conflict he has no way of even remotely controlling (unlike if he did something similar with Almyra instead)? even if you were of the belief that Claude wanted to kill Rhea, how does that translate to him invading a nation who's just defending themselves from another invading force? even if you were of the belief that Claude and Gard were similar, how does that translate to him believing her word after she literally lied to his face about violently invading his land?

how does it make sense that he thinks Crests are to blame for people having duties and obligations when he's a prince of Almyra, a place that not only doesn't have Crests but actively looks down on the one place in the world with Crests? when is he ever okay with sacrificing people he's allied with? where on earth did he get the idea that the Church forces marriages onto people when no one ever even implied that was a thing, even Gard? without the events of 3H, how is he suspicious of the Church and wary of Crests when his strongest link in Fodlan is 1) a devout believer from 2) the one land in Fodlan whose founding has nothing to do with the Church and 3) who helped him gain his inheritance, which he needed even though 4) he has the Crest of Riegan?

you know what i mean? like i know people have always wanted Claude to either break like Dimitri does or do evil stuff like Gard does to add some spice to his character, or otherwise pull more schemey stunts because he's just kinda Mostly Nice To Everyone, but like... this isn't schemey stunts that's he's doing it's just him being flat out evil/stupid with no justification. i feel like i'm crazy when i say that the writing for 3Hopes!Claude isn't only completely incongruent with 3H!Claude's character but completely nonsensical even by its own standing :/

I should preface this by saying: There is absolutely nothing wrong with wishing a character were different. I do it all the time. The problem lies in the fact when people then try to force what they wished were canon onto what is.

I'll be addressing this piece by piece, if you don't mind ^^"

You've hit the nail on the head. Dimitri falling from his path of justice is irrevocably framed as bad and out of the ordinary within Houses' canon itself, with people struggling to forgive him, being scared of him, pointing out how differently he's acting, etc etc. They could have done that very easily in Hopes, as they laid the groundwork for Houses!Claude within Hopes (as @fea-and-fehf-headcanons was kind enough to itemize for us in this ask) but they turned around and decide they couldn't have him be the same because they wanted a new conflict. It doesn't feel natural or logical within the story because it isn't; they went the route of cheap conflict and used Claude to do it, resulting in a confounding mess of a character who comes off as completely normal despite the pile of evidence that would tell us otherwise.

Spoiler: it makes no fucking sense. Like in the slightest, at all, in any capacity. Because they used Claude like a plot device rather than a character, and it results in nonsense. Claude throwing a fit (hyperbolic wording, but I get to be a little petty about this) about how no one should be awarded their power based on Crests feels like such a fucking backhand when you stop and think for less than a second about how Claude got his authority based on a gene he happened to have, and how he used the social currency awarded by that gene to the literal peak of advantage it gave him. He rode it and he rode it hard! Right to the Officer's Academy, right to the seat of Sovereign Duke, and then he dips and goes back for the throne. This is going to sound really mean, but I don't think people are uncovering their ears or eyes to understand that Claude is awarded practically every accidental advantage, and that his struggles stem from xenophobia, not classism. Even when Lorenz calls him a crappy noble because of how he acts, it's not because Claude was born and grew up poor; it's because his cultural background just does not compute with those from Fódlan, or likely most other countries (or continents? Almyra is a kingdom despite being Fucking Massive, and I can't recall if the other places are divided into states or not). That's not to say he doesn't care about it, but he cares less about the minutiae of the poor being valued like the rich and the Crested having the same opportunities as those without them; his goals lie more in the foundation of respect for all regardless of background or inherent nature.

Claude is a big guy. Not that he's tall, or broad (but he's muscled as fuck i know he is look how he holds onto that wyvern with no hands), but that he's grand, and uncontained. He has dreams bigger than the sun, but he's one guy, and the dichotomy between those is something that goes unexplored. Yes, even in Hopes, where we see that dichotomy officially crop up, because it doesn't go anywhere. He just turns into . . . whoever the fuck THAT is. Not my Claude, I assure you.

I do know what you mean, anon </3. Let's sum it up nicely.

Claude is someone who knows right and knows wrong. He knows what he stands for, and he knows for damn sure what he stands against. He's nice to people because he is a good guy. He's scarred by his upbringing, and the fact that he's never set foot in a place and felt like he belonged; self-proclaimed outsider though he may be, it's because that's how he's treated for the most part. He doesn't so much as use those scars as accept them; instead he turns to the rest of him, the good he got from every part of his life, and uses that to make sure no one suffers the way he did. He wants to put into the world the good he wished he'd gotten, and he refuses to drag others down for it. He wants a world of equal footing, but knows there's power in those who can make decisions and be listened to. He wants to trust and he wants to feel supported, but has to trip over himself a little to get to that point.

Claude is an amalgamation of love, and the guy I see in Three Hopes--who wrecks peace between Faerghus and Sreng, who allies with conqueror he himself condemns, who's trigger-happy with violence and antagonization--acts like he's never even heard of it.

#wow i went on for a while #sorry anon #anonymous metropolis #fe #fe3h (the remix)#fewth spoilers #fire emblem warriors: three hopes spoilers #s responds

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reginarubie · 1 year

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Omg that ending??? Oh lord, is Larys really lusting after Sansa or is this one of his and Otto's schemes? And akskks, I do love the idea of them mistaking her as a Whent bastard and that she's finally legitimized as a Whent but it just sucks that it's thru Larys' own machinations and I really wonder what's his M.O. but oh boy, now Lady Bat makes sense. I love the possibility that one of Sansa and Aemond's children might found House Whent like it goes with the theory that Aemond and Alys' son did. Also what I'm more scared of is Sansa being brought to Daemon or Daemon offering to help. Their interactions are honestly creepy and scary.

And sjkss the dagger!!! Sara seeing Sansa and her son (with Aemond ig?) sjjsksls I am so excited for these to unravel!!! The plot thickens even more. So excited for Aemond's reaction too!!! 💚

Ciao nonny!,

I am happy you enjoyed the chapter! I knew it would be very hard pressed, with many things happening together, but it needed to be done as soon the Dance will blow out and Sansa will have to have already laid the groundwork to ensure the North comes out of it stronger than it did the first time around.

Larys did say he didn’t want only her body which doesn’t mean he doesn’t want her sexually, just that he covets her mind more than her body. It’s an understandable contradiction if you think of his own condition, he is forever bound to his clubfoot, to the point people only saw his physical disability and not his mind, which played in his favor but still would have made him half hateful toward physical beauty and striving for it in a partner and Sansa is very beautiful and she also has a sharp mind, he means to mold her in his own pawn and who know what else? I doubt a man as clever and observant as him missed the fact that Aemond and Helaena both are very protective of her and that Aemond seems to be enamoured by her, so maybe he means to use her for that as well.

Sansa does have Whent blood so she could easily pass off as a Whent bastard, especially since as of now the Whents are a family of landed knights who was lucky enough to score a match with the second son of House Hightower, but they only have a name and basically nothing else but the lands given to them thanks to the marriage match; especially with the fame of its Head as he was known to have bastards everywhere.

It would give her a name and kinship with the queen consort which would give her a pretty big — if feeble — degree of protection against extern plots against her. It would put her somewhat in a similar condition that as Joff’s betrothed did, for however briefly because the Greens will be in open war as soon as Viserys dies. I also loved the idea of Sansa being known as the lady Bat and have a link to House Whent since the bats on House Whent banner are nine as nine are the spikes of Robb’s crown and the crown on kings of winter. It made sense to me.

House Stark has First Men abilities in their blood — warging as well as greenseering — so it made sense to me that Sara could have such a vision and it also wrapped together nicely Sansa’s past and their time with the finding of the dagger by Sara Snow. It was imo a nice touch to wrap up the end of this first phase of the story in which the groundwork for the changes needed to the Dance is laid.

I wonder how Aemond will react 😂😂😂😂 and especially how the entire Green faction will react to her plots to be free of Larys.

Thank you for dropping by and showing your love for the story! As always sending all my love ~G.

#ask the hag #anon asks #kissed by fire ~ kissed by steel #firesteel #aemond/sansa #aemond targaryen #aemondxsansa #firesteel fic #firesteel brainrot #sansaemond #aemondsa

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