#is so great because it makes sense! we know why he does crime! we know the root of his mental illness!

[dcxdpdabbles]

Cave boy Danny starts talking about one of the debates Tucker and Sam without mentioning their names when asked who the two are,Danny panics again and says that Sam is Selina since that's not that big of a jump when he starts saying her name

"One of my best friends would agree with you." Brucie suddenly speaks up one night at Dinner when Damian rants about his school not offering enough Vegetarian options. "She is an ultra-recyclo-vegetarian."

Bruce blinks having never heard the term before. A quick glance around the table tells him that neither have the others. Must be slang from his universe then. "What does that mean?"

"She doesn't eat anything with a face," Brucie explains. The curve of his lips has the tiniest amount of bestowed fondness that could only come from infatuation. Oh, Brucie is sweet on the girl. Bruce feels mildly alarmed as all his kids and Alfred sits up in interest when spotting it.

Unaware of what he just unwillingly gave away Brucie continues "Not to be confused with being a vegan because she will eat bread and cheese, but not often. She gets real mad when people mislabel her."

Dick grins, leaning over his forgotten dinner to pin Brucie under an eager stare. "I bet. Mislabeling is the worst."

"It is!" Brucie agrees, seemingly satisfied that someone else feels the same. "Especially when getting her to like you is like trying to get a cat's approval. But it's totes worth it when you do. No one has your back better than her."

A....cat's loyalty? Oh no. Surely it couldn't be-?

"What's your best friend's name?" Steph speaks up asking what's on everyone's mind. They all lean in a little closer as Brucie mindlessly gathers some rice on his fork.

"Her name is Sa-" Brucie takes a bite of his rice before swallowing. It takes everything in him not to quote Alfred and scold him for speaking with his mouth full. How Brucie grew up with such manners, Bruce would never know. "Selina! Her name is Selina."

Oh.

It seemed even in another world Bruce's heart would fall into Selina Kyle's hands.

His kids all but burst into cheers. Even Jason, and that was very hard to accomplish in the last few years.

"I knew it! I knew it!"

"Of course, it's Selina! Who else could it have been?"

"I suppose Kyle is not too horrid a partner for Father."

Duke and Cass high-five while Alfred seems to be glowing in parental pride as the other kids chat about his on-and-off girlfriend again. If a civilian version of himself still fell for her, Bruce could convince his Selina to quit the crime life and be his permanently.

Brucie stares a comprehensive eye around the table, so Bruce takes pity on him.

"I have a Selina as well. My kids....enjoy her company." He says, watching blue eyes swing at him as tiny black bangs fall slightly over them. It's adorable, and he finally understands why he had so many admirers. He bets civilian Brucie breaks just as many, if not more, hearts than he did at that age. "How long have you known Selina for?"

"Um...since she moved to my school when we were ten, so about four years, give or take?" Brucie shrugs, a slight blush overtaking his face. "She's great."

Oh, Bruce bet she is.

"Wait." Tim suddenly speaks up, eyes narrow in mistrust. Bruce had noticed before that the second youngest was suspicious of their dimensional visitor. He had been meaning to pull him aside to talk about it. "You said one of your best friends. Who is the other?"

"...Ethan. My other best friend is Ethan," Brucie says after a moment. He must mean Ethan Bennett. Bruce thinks wistfully of the old days when he would play basketball with his dear friend before he was lost in Clayface.

But why did Brucie pause on Ethan's name like that? It almost seemed like he was very carefully selecting that name or was trying to control his facial reaction to it.

A familiar blush bloomed over Brucie's checks and- oh. The boy had spoken about wishing he was from a world where bisexuality was more common, didn't he?

It would make sense. It's not like Ethan hadn't crossed his mind once or twice when Bruce was a teenager, either.

Tim's eyes narrow further. "I don't believe you."

"And I believe you can't stand the sight of your reflection because you're convinced no one will ever want it either." Brucie cheerfully chirps back before closing his eyes and sighing as if tired. He slumps in his chair, leaning his head against the headrest. "Sorry, that was mean. I'm trying to be less mean."

Bruce frowns at him, aware of Tim's eyes going glossy to his right but his son doesn't seem to want to step away. All conversation stops as they glare daggers at Brucie. Dick especially seems the most upset. "That was uncool Brucie"

"Yeah, sorry force of habit. My older sister and I-"

"Your what?" Bruce cuts him off, wondering if he heard right.

"My older sister?"

"You have a sister?"

"Yeah, don't you?"

"No," Bruce whispers. "No, I don't. I'm an only child."

"Oh. I'm the second youngest. I have an older sister, an older brother, and a younger sister." Brucie turns over to Tim to offer a sincere apology that the other gracious takes, but Bruce can't hear him over the sound of blood rushing between his ears.

"Mother and Father had more children?"

"Kind of." Brucie's face twists slightly in consideration. "Tommy and Harley are adopted. They are technically cousins since they were made by my uncle Vlad. Kate.....my older sister Kate, is my aunt Alicia's bio-kid but she was raised by my parents since she was one since Aunt Alicia wasn't...in the best mental state to care for her. No hard feelings are between them."

"Tommy, as in Tommy Elliot?!" Dick gasps, springing to his feet. "He is your adoptive older brother!?"

Brucie appears startled by his reaction, but he nods all the same. Bruce feels dread sink into his stomach.

"He's evil!" Dick shouts.

"I know." Brucie shrugs, uncaring. "Tommy has some issues, and he had them since he was...fourteen, but he's not dangerous.."

"Did you all miss that he said Harley is his younger sister? Harley as in Harleen Quinzel?" Jason cuts in, twisting to pin Brucie with a hard stare. "That's her real name, isn't it?"

"Well, her real name is Harleen Wayne, but she prefers Harley," Bruice says carefully. "Why? Do you know her?"

"She's evil too!" Dick gasps. "Brucie, you're in terrible danger with those two around!"

"Nah, Kate will stop them." Brucie waves his hand. "Sides Tommy and Harley are always traveling. Neither are home much these days."

Bruce feels a headache growing behind his eyes as Dick desperately tries to explain what happens to Brucie's adoptive siblings in their world. At the same time, his counterpart argues on his sibling's behalf.

(No one knows about the electric candles disappearing from the dinner table as the house descends into madness, trying to make the dimension travel realize his danger. Even fewer are aware of Danny's silent apology to Sam, Tucker, Jazz, Dan, or Dani for butchering their names and somehow still connecting them to someone in this world.)

Master Post Link

#dcxdpdabbles #dc x dp crossover #cave boy #Part 5 #everlasting trio #Danny has a crush on his best friends #Bruce is having a heart attack #Yes Danny did feel bad about his knee reaction #Tim forgot already once he found out about Danny's adoptive sibs #Deeper and Deeper the hole has become #misunderstanding #Danny once again picked random names and they somehow all fit

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Been thinking about Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and what makes Death the Wolf such an effective villain, and like… character design and voice acting is certainly doing a lot there, don't get me wrong, but I think there's something else at play.

Death is the most terrifying character in Puss in Boots, because he's the only one playing the genre straight.

The premise of the Shrek films has always been that they're normal, modern people living in wacky fairytale land.

The evil king uses his magic mirror as a dating app. The fairy godmother uses business cards to contact her clients. Her workers consider unionising over their lack of dental plan.

Puss in Boots 1 kinda broke the mould in that— while there are plenty of modern elements to how the characters act and how their world works— it's more specifically intended to be characters from the world Zorro living in wacky fairytale land. But the point still stands.

The aim of the Shrek films and spin-offs is to subvert common fairytale tropes for comedic effect. What if the princess fell for the ogre? What if Prince Charming was an entitled dick? What if Goldilocks teamed up with the three bears and started a crime family?

But Death? Death, for the most part, isn't playing that game.

No character questions why he doesn't just kill Puss outright. There are no gags about him being inconvenienced by Jack Horner losing so many men. Nobody makes any self-aware fourth wall breaking jokes about why he bothers with the whole whistling thing.

We all know why he does the whistling thing. It's the same reason why Little Red Riding Hood has to go through the whole "what big eyes/ears/teeth you have, Grandma" rigamarole. The same reason why the wolf takes care to knock before blowing the little pigs' houses down.

The Wolf is scary because he's the only actual fairytale creature in this entire setting. He's not bound by rules of logic or common sense, or his own will, he's bound by the narrative.

And that's also why he backs down at the end.

The first time he and Puss fight, in the bar, Puss is arrogant. The second time, in the Cave, Puss is scared out of his wits. It's the third time, on the wishing star, that Puss learns his lesson. Of course the Wolf backs down after that! The rules say he has to.

But, on another level, there is also the issue of Puss realising that he wants more from his life than just to be a legend.

They say "legends never die", but the most famous part of any given legend tends to be the story of how the hero finally bites the dust.

And "he was such a great fighter that Death himself had to kill him off, personally!" is just the sort of ending that would fit the legend Puss has constructed around himself. In a sense, the Wolf is giving Puss exactly what he proclaims to want— the chance to go down in history.

Puss realising he doesn't want that anymore is the catalyst for sending the Wolf away. Through his own egotistical and reckless attitude, he turned himself into a story and thus summoned a narrative device. Only by choosing to value his life over the legend is he able to escape that trap.

The Wolf's defeat is both the natural ending of the story that he and Puss have been playing out since the film began, and a rejection of the natural ending to the story Puss has been telling about himself since he first became the hero of San Ricardo.

#puss in boots: the last wish #pibtlw #rambles #meta #puss in boots #puss in boots meta #puss in boots the last wish #puss in boots the last wish spoilers #death the wolf

[babydollmarauders]

MEDIA MANAGEMENT — JACK HUGHES (23-24 SZN PART 20)

au masterlist

y/ndevils00

liked by jackhughes, john.marino97, and 435,722 others

y/ndevils00 we lost.

well…we won.

but we lost.

we won 5-4 against the orange and blue fucks, but my best friends conspired against me and went against my explicit wishes and CUT THEIR HAIR.

@/dawson1416 @/john.marino97 I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME, ASSHATS!

don’t worry, dawson was jailed for his crime against me

anyways 😒

we racked up 5 goals tonight to secure our second win in a row for the first time this month! including goals from traitor number 1, captain slut, uncle lizard and my beautiful baby angel doll face, Jacky!!

i’m so proud of my boys for not losing their confidence and coming together to win another game!

and special shoutout to my great uncle lizard, who got us our game winning goal with TWENTY-SEVEN SECONDS LEFT! i truly thought we would be going to overtime and i would be out past my bedtime, but no! because Laser’s got my back! thank you, king!

p.s. if you saw, or if you didn’t see, my lovely boyfriend was the first star tonight! and with being first star, means doing an interview! tonight, i bet my sweet boy $20 that he wouldn’t call our wonderful captain a whore in his interview— and although i didn’t think he would… he took that bet! AND took it a step further by saying, and i quote, “Nico’s our whore.” oh how i love this man! sorry, i wasn’t aware that you were chill like that @/jackhughes . enjoy your newfound $20, my love! it came from your wallet last week!

p.p.s. Mathew Barzal, you bald headed bitch, stay away from my goal net and my boys

tagged john.marino97, dawson1417, jackhughes, nicohischier, and curtislazar95

Load more comments

jackhughes when the hell did you take 20 dollars from my wallet?

y/ndevils00 remember when you were sleeping last week?

jackhughes i can’t say that i do because i sleep every night

y/ndevils00 yeah, lame. well, it was then

jackhughes you know i’d give it to you if you just ask?

y/ndevils00 yeah, so why ask?

lhughes_06 can’t argue with that logic, Jacky

jackhughes @/lhughes_06 i’m not appreciating this new thing where you two gang up on me

lhughes_06 oh really? cause i’m having a blast!

y/ndevils00 me too!

jackhughes yeah, i’m sure you guys are 🫥

trevorzegras remember dude, you chose this life

y/ndevils00 it’s a sad day when even @/trevorzegras understands

trevorzegras what have i done to you?!

y/ndevils00 @/trevorzegras breathe.

lhughes_06 @/trevorzegras bro, her answer is never gonna change. just accept it

y/ndevils00 @/lhughes_06 Lukey, you are my bestest friend in the world

john.marino97 hello?? right here!

y/ndevils00 @/john.marino97 shut up! bald men don’t get to speak!

curtislazar95 i got a special shoutout! you’re welcome, niece!!

y/ndevils00 of course you did! because you did great things!

dawson1417 i did great things too!

y/ndevils00 @/dawson1417 did you? did you, really? 😑

jackhughes @/dawson1417 the answer is no, dude. just say no

dawson1417 … no

user63 THEIR HAIR! THEIR BEAUTIFUL HAIR!

dawson1417 John made me do it!

y/ndevils00 that must be it because i know YOU would never defy my wishes

john.marino97 you liar! i didn’t “make” you do anything!

y/ndevils00 @/john.marino97 i trust nothing that comes out of your mouth

john.marino97 well then it’s a good thing that didn’t come out of my mouth. it was typed with my thumbs

y/ndevils00 @/john.marino97 next game, you will be jailed for your crimes AND your sass

dawson1417 @/john.marino97 😝

tofff73 why does Lazar get to be king and i’m queen?

y/ndevils00 because you give queen energy? what kind of question is that?

tofff73 you’re right, that was so silly of me

y/ndevils00 it’s okay! you were just feeling silly goofy! i forgive you!

nicohischier i thought he said horse

y/ndevils00 oh you sweet beautiful slut,, what sense would horse have made?

nicohischier makes more sense than calling me a whore

y/ndevils00 in what world?

nicohischier all of them?!

y/ndevils00 i do not believe you

nicohischier fine, yeah, whatever, i’m a whore

y/ndevils00 AH ACCEPTANCE! YOU FINALLY HIT THE FINAL STAGE OF GRIEF

nicohischier and what exactly was i grieving?

y/ndevils00 a normal life <3

nicohischier oh yeah, you ended any chances of that as soon as i met you

user02 2 wins in a row… are we… back?

user94 I THOUGHT THAT’S WHAT JACK SAID BUT I COULDN’T BELIEVE IT

john.marino97 does it really look bad?

y/ndevils00 do you want me to be nice or honest?

john.marino97 i can’t believe i’m saying this, but honest

y/ndevils00 it looks great. i just miss your curls!

john.marino97 they’ll grow back, i promise!

y/ndevils00 but how can you know?!

john.marino97 it’s MY hair??

#media management au! #media management series <3 #jack hughes #jack hughes x reader #jack hughes imagine #jack hughes blurb #jack hughes fic #nj devils #nhl fic #nhl imagine #faithlynn’s insta edits <3 #faithlynn’s writings <3

[yuri-is-online]

The TWST cast from the original Fyuuture Kid timeline is so Cleopatra by Lumineers coded. They just get their (pregnant) joyfriend ripped away from them, cursed, and then sent back to earth, where they can't follow all in one day. That's gotta be a fucking nightmare. They just lose everything at the same time. Bro. Imagine Jamil or Azul, they had to fight for everything and just when they finally, FINALLY, think they have something that will never leave, it's taken away. Imagine malleus or cater or silver; they've already lost so much, silver just lost his dad and now, when he's going to make his own family, they're taken from him too.

TW FOR SUICIDE.

You wrote one time that of Yuu ever died, Floyd would be quick to follow, so. Did Jade and Azul have to put him on suicide watch? My mind is reeling there were NO WINNERS in this timeline Goddamn.

Sorry for the angst dude I just think about this AU a lot

i am so sorry for making you all live with this many thoughts and just waltzing on off to do fuck all

So there weren't any winners in the original timeline no, but the way things went down sort of prevented the type of outcome you are describing with Floyd due to the potential for hope, that most dangerous of falsehoods. In a way that sort of makes it worse though... so lets talk about what went down shall we?

(I'm going to keep this post to more general information, but I did write some specific ship thoughts I'll probably use for another post later on, I just need to think on some of them more...)

notes: they/them used for Yuu, this is part of my fyuuture kid au which can be found under the series section of my masterlist. This post will not contain discussions of suicidal ideation, but will contain major character death and descriptions of violence. If you are curious about what happened to Yuu and Fyuuture kid, look at this post here.

General Original Timeline Facts

To give a brief re-cap of what happens to Yuu, they were arrested by the Magical Marshall's office and sent back to their world, while pregnant, and cursed to forget everything that had happened to them in Twisted Wonderland. Something I didn't mention in that first post, mostly because I intended to imply it in the answer about Riddle's relationship with Yutu but ended up cutting, is that none of the characters actually know that this is what happened at first. They know that Yuu disappeared, but they don't know that the Marshalls were involved or that Yuu went back to their world, which causes a real sense of panic in all of them because holy shit their spouse and unborn child just went missing and they can't seem to get anyone to take this seriously. How the Marshalls went about hiding this information, and what the general public believed happened to Yuu depends on who their husband was, as did the fallout of their disappearance.

For anyone who might be a bit confused, the Magical Marshall's Office is an elite squad of police officers who investigate magical crime, and occasionally deal with overblots. They are the organization that Deuce wants to join one day, which does mean that the people who made the decision to see Yuu as a threat to public safety and send Yuu home were Deuce's own co-workers and friends.

Deuce is the first to suspect that the Marshall's might have had something to do with Yuu's disappearance, but he isn't able to really do much with that. He tries, but he is stonewalled and eventually fired- though by the time that happened monster attacks started getting really bad in the Queendom and Deuce had a whole other set of questions.

Speaking of those monster attacks, the instant Yuu is removed from Twisted Wonderland Grim overblots I have an idea as to why, but it isn't super set in stone. This "Chimera" begins hunting and stirring up monsters, inciting them to attack civilization while it focuses on trying to "wake up" the Phantoms of the Great 7. These phantoms want to re-join with their respective overblot boy, which is an easier task for some of them than others.

The first phantom to re-appear was the Thorn Fairy's. Malleus chose to seal himself and his phantom in an eternal sleep inside the Briar Valley capital after ordering Sebek and Silver to evacuate everyone who lived there, leaving his people truly leaderless and in shambles. He technically also ordered Lilia to go with them, but he refused. He wasn't able to abandon another Draconia to die alone. A lot of nocturnal fae died to the Phantom before Malleus's sacrifice, but because the problem was more or less contained to Briar Valley not all of the other nations saw the monster problem as a threat. They should have.

The second phantom to re-appear was The Queen of Hearts'. Riddle, having been approached by Deuce with his suspicions regarding Yuu's disappearance and outraged by what he saw as a clear violation of the law (if nothing else) was easy prey and re-assimilated into the monster. The phantom then began hunting down each of Riddle's previous dorm mates to corrupt them into card soldiers for its army, eventually fashioning four lieutenants that were a touch more sentient that the others out of Trey, Cater, Deuce, and Ace.

Certain members of the Al-Asim family saw that happen and quietly, without Kalim's knowledge, arrange to have Jamil killed. This doesn't prevent the Sorcerer of the Sands' phantom from reuniting with him, it just means the monster is puppeteering a corpse. And dragging around a second once it gets its hands on Kalim...

Obviously at this point something of a pattern has been established, meaning S.T.Y.X. is expected to do something. Idia does not actually overblot for a second time thank you very much, Phantom Ortho has a mind of his own and he promised to stay in the Underworld until it was Idy's time. His first order of business is to check in on Vil, Azul, and Leona to make sure they're ok. He manages to make contact with Vil, but the Coral Sea proves impossible to get a message through to and Leona is M.I.A. Literally, he and Ruggie have both disappeared while investigating monster attacks around the slums. Idia has a decision to make, and it's not one he really likes, but S.T.Y.X. has a better relationship with the Sunset Savannah than it does the Coral Sea, so it's off to the Elephant Graveyard while Vil agrees to stay behind on the Isle of Woe under observation for his own safety.

It's a decision Idia regrets later. He gets to Leona in time to help him fight and kill the King of Beasts's phantom, but it costs Leona and Ruggie their lives, and while he's there, the Sea Witch's phantom finds Azul and begins using his magic to drain the merfolk dry. Floyd manages to use his unique magic to distract Azul long enough to allow Jade to escape, who only flees because he thought his brother was behind him the whole time. The oceans become polluted with blot, forcing the surviving merfolk to the surface. Many go to NRC and take refuge in the Octavinelle dorm pocket dimension, resulting in the Mostro Lounge being closed to make more room. Somehow that feels more like a killing blow to Azul for Jade than what the phantom did.

Schools like NRC, RSA, and Nobel Bell become sort of centers for survivors due to the large amounts of mages, magical wards, and artifacts that such schools typically have made them safer than most towns. NRC specifically has seen a large influx of magicless people who run a lot of the things the ghosts used to and runs a lot of normal school classes in additional to the magic program, which shifts over time to be more focused on fighting due to the increased monster attacks.

Also Crewel is now Headmage. It would have been Trein but I don't think he needs the stress. I haven't decided if he is still alive or not, but Vargas and Sam are still kicking.

So to give a run down of where everyone stands in the original timeline in order: Malleus and his phantom are trapped in an eternal sleep, Lilia is dead, Silver and Sebek are alive (at least at first) and trying to help the fae refuges displaced by the Thorn Fairy's Phantom. All of Heartslabyul are overblot phantoms, and actively making the Queendom of Roses unlivable. Jamil was assassinated and the Sorcerer of the Sands's phantom went on to kill Kalim and most of his family. To be clear that wasn't because of Jamil's lingering emotions, but good luck explaining that to most people. Vil and Idia are overblot free, Vil because he is being detained on the Isle of Woe and Idia because of his promise with Phantom Ortho. Leona and Ruggie died fighting the King of Beast's phantom. Azul and Floyd are blot phantoms, while Jade is alive and tending bar at what remains of the lounge at NRC.

Now Epel, Rook, and Jack aren't named in that list. No one really knows what happened to them, but they are assumed dead (or at least Jack and Epel are.) Since this is my AU and I get to give out the information, I'll let you know that Rook is a phantom under control of the Fairest Queen's phantom, Jack is dead, and Epel is alive, but cut off from the rest of Twisted Wonderland by the monsters under the Fairest Queen's control. He's right teed off about that, hey Yutu go get him that ladder he's gonna give Rook a piece of his mind-

I do have some ship specific thoughts but I want to cook with them a bit more... but to maaaybe tease some of them?

Yutu and his friends had to fight the Heartslabyul boys multiple times. Yes this hurt their Yutus a lot, and is one of the main reasons Riddle! Yutu hates his dad so much.

Vil can hear the Fairest Queen talking to him and it's not great for his mental stability. Neither is being cooped up in the Isle of Woe, his Yutu did meet him and remembers it being a terrifying experience.

Jade has a good relationship with Floyd! Yutu, Jade and Floyd are their own people but losing Floyd killed a part of him that was slightly healed by getting his nephew back. He likes to tease Azul! Yutu and told him a great deal about his dad. As for his own Yutu... their relationship is a tad strained by how protective Jade is over his son. He is terrified of losing him and what is left of his pearl...

Not all Yutus are in the same dorm as their father. I haven't decided on where all of them are yet, but I did mention once in my replies that Azul! Yutu is in Savanaclaw. I did not mention that he did intend to transfer but couldn't when he accidentally became the Dorm Leader because he got tired of being mouthed off to and knocked someone out. I have an ask about Cater! Yutu I'm working on but I'll add him here as having been put into Octavinelle, and I think I want to put Kalim! Yutu into Pomefiore but I need to cook more...

#<3 asks #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #future kid au #tw character death #ngl i cried when i was writing about jade #so no one yell at me i am already yelling at myself ok

[oliveroctavius]

Doesn't the decision to get involved with Sam Bullit prove Gwen was a bad person?

Hey, I've been looking for an excuse to post about this. The Sam Bullit arc isn't really about Gwen (though it certainly reveals some things about her character). The Sam Bullit arc is about racist dogwhistles and why they work.

ASM #92 pg 19: "I will bring law and order to the people of this great city! I will show no mercy to the anarchists and all others who would destroy our way of life!"

Bullit's platform is not openly white supremacist in the sense that it doesn't overtly mention race. He talks about laws and safety in a way meant to appeal to rich white voters. The true meaning should be clear to anyone with any political awareness (who are those others and what is our way of life?), so why does this rhetoric attract "otherwise rational" people?

ASM #91 pg 6: "I want to volunteer to help you--in your campaign for DA. Because--I want you to bring Spider-Man to justice!" "We need strength--strength to punish those who mock the law! I will use such strength to bring Spider-Man and others like him to justice! I will not betray your trust."

Gwen makes her decision to back Bullit on the way home from her father's funeral. There's a very real phenomenon of tough-on-crime bills named after (white) murder victims. The grief of families who feel like justice hasn't been served is a powerful tool to push harsh laws while smothering any criticism as "disrespectful" to the victims. What’s in a Name? An Empirical Analysis of Apostrophe Laws, 2020.

Bullit showed up at George Stacy's funeral with this exact goal in mind, and when Spider-Man "kidnaps" Gwen later, he leverages the media obsession with white girls in danger for his cause. Gwen is a pawn, but she did offer her help first. Her desire for closure is very human and her short-sighted reactionary faith in "the law" is very white.

Oddly absent from your "proven bad person" takeaway is J. Jonah Jameson. The Bugle lends Bullit a platform to make Gwen's personal tragedy a political talking point. JJJ has the ~Black best friend~ excuse and everything, and he still blows past red flags like crazy.

ASM #91 pg 7: "Maybe they were better days than now! At least we had law and order then." "Yeah--and lynch mobs, and bread lines, and Uncle Toms..." "Come off it, Robbie! What's wrong with a man standing for law and order, anyway?" "Maybe it just depends on whose law--and what kind of order you're talkin' about, man!"

(Another point of this arc: marginalized groups learn to recognize dogwhistles pretty quickly for survival reasons. If they tell you something is a dogwhistle and you don't see it yet, look closer.)

ASM #92 pg 9: "Parker's story just served to open Jameson's eyes--but I've kept a dossier on you. I haven't been city editor all these years for nothing! I know where your support comes from. I know about the lunatic hate groups who are backing you. I know what you really mean by law and order!"

Late in the campaign, the Bugle switches sides. This scene tends to be described as JJJ giving the racists what-for, but the moment is truly Robbie's. (Note that it took Peter getting roughed up for Jameson to take this seriously!) JJJ can yell at Bullit all he likes without consequences, but Robbie is kidnapped and threatened by white supremacists in retaliation. It's Robbie's determination to speak up that eventually puts Bullit out of the running for good.

The Bullit arc isn't there to sort characters by Bad Person and Good Person. Neither Gwen nor JJJ have to personally hate black people for their self-centered sense of safety to be weaponized by a racist agenda. This is a Stan Lee PSA about masked bigotry and how it might appeal to you even if you consider yourself a Good Person.

But for some ~mysterious~ reason, Gwen's brief agreement and Jameson's brief rejection are the only parts of these two issues I ever see brought up, with Robbie's major role not mentioned at all. Some ideas fit more neatly than others into smug ship-war quote tweets and anon asks, it seems.

#olivertxt #comics #reductionist takes from people who clearly do not care about this arc have been getting under my skin for ages #gwen stacy #robbie robertson #jjj #/ racism

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Do you think Tom getting Hagrid expelled was probably the best thing to happen to him? Because, assuming the Chamber of Secrets fiasco never happened, Aragog would have got out of Hagrid's trunk and he would have killed someone eventually.

It was probably pretty clear to everyone that Hagrid didn't open the Chamber and Aragog didn't attack anyone, as why would a Acromantula petrify a bunch of students and kill only one without eating any of them? Hell, Acromantula's can't even petrify people, so Aragog's clearly not the culprit. But, they were just the covenient scapegoat to make it seem like they were doing something.

It must have been pretty easy to justify Hagird remaining on school grounds as gamekeeper since he was just the fall guy and to everyone else the real culprit must have either got cold-feet after Myrtle's death or got killed themself by whatever monster they were using since the attacks stopped after that.

But, without the Chamber opening, Aragog would have no doubt escaped sooner or later and would have made lunch out of some poor little first-year. If that happened, Hagrid would have probably ended up in Azkaban.

There's a lot to unpack here.

What I Think is the Going Theory By People

At first, it looked like a prank, a very terrifying and unsettling prank but a prank. Someone rights blood on the walls that The Chamber of Secrets is Open, Enemies of the Heir Beware. And just. What the fuck.

The prank continues to get worse as several students are petrified. However, there's a key thing there, they are petrified and not killed. Petrification is a terrible but very reversable process with no after effects going by what we see in canon. It's just a pain in the fucking ass and you better hope you have enough mandrakes on hand or else it'll take for fucking ever to order them all.

Because of that, while it is terrifying and harmful, it's not quite the same as say when Katie Bell was cursed by the amulet in HBP where she had to go to an intensive ward in the hospital for months.

It still I imagine for most people falls in the realm of 'really stupid, dangerous, awful, what the fuck prank that some pureblood idiot thinks is funny'.

I imagine there's increasing speeches of "please knock this the fuck off whoever is doing this" at dinner in the Great Hall from Dippet and him only getting blank stares in response as the vast majority of students is not the ones doing it.

I'm sure like in canon people outside Slytherin blamed the most Pureblood Slytherin they could find (like how Harry assumed it was Malfoy at first), Dumbledore blamed Tom because he always does/he knows Tom is the Heir of Slytherin in actuality and that there might very well be a Chamber of Secrets or even if there isn't Tom would sure use the mantle if he ever found out about it, and I have my thoughts for what the Slytherin's thought but that's another post for another day.

Then a girl dies and suddenly this isn't a prank. There's a period of panic when the school is considered being shut down by the board, maybe there really is a Chamber of Secrets, and then they find a likely culprit, Rubeus Hagrid who has an Acromantula wandering around the school and has a history of bringing in extremely dangerous creatures into the school.

The thing is, I think most people at the time, and even later (barring those we see in canon who for their own reasons do not believe this) think it was Hagrid and a no brainer.

He has a creature whose bite causes death wandering about the halls and then shock of all shocks a student dies. True, while Acromantulas don't petrify, it's entirely possible that the petrifications/blood on the walls wasn't Hagrid and an unrelated stupid Pureblood prank. Added to this we don't seem to get much of a sense of forensic investigations/autopsies when it comes to wizarding world crimes (note that crime scene investigations is never really mentioned and there's only Aurors who come up whose job is just to catch dangerous Dark Wizards, not figure out what the hell happened at a place). So, I'm not sure that they could conclusively say what Myrtle had or had not died from/if they did an autopsy. For that matter, I don't know if it's common enough knowledge of what death by Acromantula looks like in a body after X hours have passed.

It's also not clear, I'm sure to most people given that Hagrid seems to be a pioneer of studying creatures, how Acromantula's feed and how they behave. Do we know that Acromantulas under threat don't poison their victims then scamper away? Do they always bite to feed? Since we know the spiders are sapient this has an extra layer of spice as well--humans certainly don't always kill to feed.

Which makes the defense of Hagrid of "but Acromantulas don't cause petrification!" or "An Acromantula would definitely eat that person it came across and never kill them in any other circumstance" very thin.

I imagine it depends who you ask but there's probably a few prevalent theories on how this all fits together:

Hagrid's spider killed Myrtle, but the blood and the petrifications were an unrelated stupid prank and no one wants to stick their nose into it after a girl died. After Hagrid's arrested/the death, all of it stops anyway so let's not think about it.

Hagrid's spider killed Myrtle and Hagrid had prepared for this eventuality by writing blood on the walls and petrifying students via some other method left and right so that people would think it was a Pureblood Slytherin. Hagrid has notably had run-ins with Slytherins before (see Tom noting the werewolf cubs under the bed/presumably having clashes with Hagrid) and it's possible he already resented them and that this was a ploy to frame someone else for murder/the spider's activities.

Hagrid was innocent! Someone else unrelated used some other monster that then never struck again and was never seen again and was never found in fifty years since to kill Myrtle and petrify those students! Sure, Hagrid has a bad history of bringing in dangerous creatures, doesn't get along great with other students who keep narking on him, and has been quite isolated and admittedly resentful of Slytherins but he's innocent! Because he's a good person who'd never harm a fly! (Except that there's the possibility this was unwitting manslaughter because Hagrid was letting a spider roam the halls)

I don't think anyone thinks Hagrid's actually the Heir of Slytherin or that the Chamber of Secrets even really exists. There might be some, but they'd be considered very stupid.

He has a creature whose bite causes death wandering about the halls and either the petrifications/blood was an unrelated prank from someone who was very unfunny or else Hagrid did it to cover up for himself/out of gleeful preparation for when his spider finally did kill someone. I imagine it depends who you ask, some will think Hagrid only did the death, some will think he did the whole Chamber of Secrets thing as well.

I imagine several don't even believe the Chamber existed or was opened at all but that Hagrid was definitely 100% guilty.

That is, unless you're Dumbledore, in which case it was that fucker Tom Riddle and you know it, you know it in your bones, you can smell it in the air, you just can't fucking prove it. But one day, Tom. One day.

Was Hagrid a Scapegoat/Was it Clear He Didn't Do it?

Honestly, I don't think he was. I think they honestly and truly believed that he was the one responsible because of what's outlined above. Added to the fact that arresting him caused it all to stop when the spider disappeared... it's not a good look.

A scapegoat is one thing, but very important people's children all go to Hogwarts, and people like the Blacks, the Malfoys, so on and so forth don't want a scapegoat they want this stopped. If it was just Dippet appeasing them then I imagine there'd be a lot more pushback for investigation. I think the Board of Governors believes it was Hagrid as well as does the Wizengamot at large.

So, no, not a scapegoat, they 100% thought he did it.

Similarly, I think pretty much everyone except Dumbledore believed Hagrid was responsible. No, it wasn't obvious that Hagrid didn't do it (for much the reason it wasn't obvious to Harry and Ron after Riddle told them. Harry didn't want to believe Riddle, Hagrid's so nice, but it... tracks...)

The them getting killed themselves by the monster is... well... who is missing aside from Myrtle? And why would that stop the monster from rampaging? The spider's gone and we know it's gone so kind of makes sense that everything stopped when the spider's gone.

Was it Hard to Hire Hagrid?

I imagine it was actually quite difficult for Hagrid to be hired on as assistant groundskeeper. I think what saved him there was Dumbledore really going to bat with him for Dippet using the "this poor orphan boy with no prospects and I personally think he isn't responsible for reasons I can't get into because no one will ever believe me" and Dippet feeling sympathy and telling himself "okay, Hagrid had his wand snapped, he is an orphan with no prospects who will starve if we don't employ him here, and his supervisors can keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't do anything".

I imagine a lot of the students and the Board of Governors were very leery of Hagrid being hired/in proximity of the students but some combination of Dippet and Dumbledore brushed that under the rug.

By the time we get to canon enough time has passed, enough has happened, that people have kind of forgotten about this as shown by it not being discussed until the Aurors arrive for Hagrid because "wow Hagrid, this is exactly like fifty years ago, you're still here, and we have you on record saying things like 'all Slytherins are evil at birth', are we doing this again, Hagrid?"

Would Hagrid Have Ended Up in Azkaban if the Spider Had Killed Someone?

Honestly, I don't think anything would have changed from what happened in canon. Because this is what people thought happened.

If there was no Chamber of Secrets debacle and this just randomly happened I think Dumbledore would still go to bat for Hagrid and get him the groundskeeping job (as it seems Dumbledore must have covered for Hagrid in the past). Dumbledore would probably blame Tom Riddle or else quietly admit it was probably Hagrid but Hagrid's just so sweet and it was clearly an accident.

Given that this is exactly what the Wizengamot/greater Wizarding World thought happened, I think Hagrid would be given the same punishment of expulsion and wand snapping, probably because it's manslaughter and he's a minor.

It was only when we went for round 2, fifty years later when Hagrid's an adult and it's looking very purposeful/not like manslaughter, that Hagrid got his stint in Azkaban.

And at this fucking point--

Well, @therealvinelle and I have an @rankheresy episode planned. I'll just leave it there.

#harry potter #harry potter meta #harry potter headcanon #the chamber of secrets #rubeus hagrid #anti rubeus hagrid #meta #headcanon #opinion

[un-bearablysweet]

Ben 10 Omniverse isn't a terrible show, but it often misses its mark for the sake of comedy. And it's not even good comedy either; it's the same old "Lol. Ben's so lazy, ignorant, and irresponsible. It's a wonder how he keeps the Omnitrix at all! LMFAO" And it's like, okay, we get it. Everyone thinks Ben is a moron, but if Ben's a moron, what does that make the people who lose to him? 🤨

One of the times Omniverse misses the mark on what could have been a legendary episode akin to Adventures Time's "The Hall of Egress." It is the episode Universe v. Tennyson.

The episode about Ben going to trial for recreating the universe. Besides seeing Alien X fight, the episode doesn't make any sense. And I entirely blame writers. They did not think of the logistics of how a trial of this sort of magnitude would actually go. I wouldn't be surprised if the trial was just an excuse to see the celestialsapiens in action.

They wanted a reason to explain the different art styles and all the retcons. Which in itself is stupid. As the audience, we know why specific changes are made. They didn't need to hand-feed us retconning; it always happens.

But more to the point, the entire trial is a sham. And it pissed me off to no end!

1. Ben was never subpoenaed. Alien or not, you can't part the sky like the Red Sea and drag someone to court. You have to set an official date and time for trial, allow the defense to acquire a lawyer, and build their defense. This is basic shit, and if your excuse is that it's just a kids cartoon, that doesn't excuse bad writing.

I just can't stand when people brush over essential details.

2. Only in certain circumstances can you forcefully take a person to court. And that is if the suspected criminal is considered a danger to the public or a flight risk. And even then, it's an immediate arrest before going to court for a hearing. Ambush arrests are considered a last resort; considering Ben's positions as a plumber and wielder of the Omnitrix, Ben has little to no criminal record.

3. Due process, refering back to my earlier point, the celestial sapiens would have needed to give notice of charges, and Ben would need to be heard in front of an impartial tribunal. The entire universe is not an impartial jury. There's a reason any Rando can't walk into a courtroom and decide whether a person is guilty. What if several people aren't even aware of the trial? That could skewer the vote in favor of the Plaintiff (Celestialsapiens)

If the writers on Omniverse weren't so focused on having a hate boner for the main character, this could have been a great episode. And it is a hate boner because why else would they pick Mr. Baumann as the first witness. This dude had beef with Ben since early childhood before having the Omnitrix. His opinion is beyond biased.

Also, Rook took the first chance to air his petty grievances with Ben in front of the entire universe in a court of law, and that is beyond shitty. Ben being "ignorant of many things" isn't a proven fact; it's a personal opinion. Also, being ignorant is a crime?

And had Ben been sentenced to death or died in the trial by combat, what was the plan afterward? Rook carries Ben's body to his mother and says,

"Sorry, Ms. Tennyson, your minor child didn't have the mental knowledge and fortitude of a 50-year-old veteran; his death was totally justified. "

If Ben is ignorant of many things, it is because he is young and has only just started exploring the universe. Many toddlers should be behind bars if simply being uninformed is a crime. It's like the show constantly forgets that Ben is still young but insists on punishing him for it.

The court case is to decide whether Ben recreated the universe; his lack of knowledge and irresponsibility are not up for debate. Besides, Rook has only known Ben for a few months; I doubt that makes him a sound judge of character.

I wish they had brought different people to the witness stand. They could have made excellent callbacks by bringing characters like

Tetrax- He is literally the guardian of Omnitrix and decided that even at age 10, the Omnitrix was safe in Ben's hands. Also, the fact that Ben restores the planet Petropia can be used to defend Ben's recreation of the universe. 

Reinrassig III- I'm sure the word of Highbreed Supreme would hold more weight in court than Mr. Bauman. A small store owner on a tiny planet in the far corner of the galaxy. 

Queen Cicely of the Lewodan( ep. Con of Rath) - The mother of the Tiffin, you know, the baby Ben jumped down a man's throat to save. Ben broke the law by doing that but still prevented a massive war. 

Magister Hulka- (ep. Basic Training) Hulka is a well-decorated Plumber and was Ben's academy instructor. Ben passed with flying colors despite disobeying orders, saving Hulka's life. He even gave Ben his medal for creativity and effective tactics. His word holds more weight than Rook Blonko's, a literally rookie in the plumber association.

Azmuth- do I even need to say anything?

Maxx and Xylene are more than familiar with the Omnitrix and Ben himself. 

Paradox is literally the number one expert on the subject.

Could you imagine the cross-examination with these characters? 

And even without proper character witnesses, Ben could argue that what is illegal is not always morally right.

What is the actual crime, the crime of caring too much? And if his crime is recreating the universe without prior permission. The celestialspaiens were a hidden society; how would he have gotten permission?  

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

If Ben was the only living thing left after the universe was destroyed, did he really break the law since no one was there to uphold it?

Especially since he created the universe up until the very moment it was destroyed, so no time would have passed at all.  

Ben's other option was leaving that universe for dead, and pulling a Rick and Morty, but he didn't do that cause he's not a sociopath. 

The only angle that makes sense for this trial to happen is if it wasn't to prosecute Ben, but to send a message. The message that Celestialsapiens are not to be trifled with and that any attempts will be met with extreme prejudice and even death by combat.

The Celestialsapiens have recreated the universe multiple times, with even more drastic changes than just a smoothie flavor. I mean, Grandpa Max can't even open his eyes, and Azmuth's voice has changed several times. They literally point that out in the episode, and yet this is the first time a trial has ever been broadcasted to the universe.

In fact, this is the first time any other aliens have seen a celestialsapien save for Alien X. And even he was deemed a myth. So why now? Why the grand fan fair? Why broadcast the trial at all? They never notified the universe before.

 It's because the celestial aliens were afraid for the first time since their conception. Their entire beings were briefly erased from existence and recreated, and they did not like it! Do you honestly believe that they changed anything about themselves after recreating the universe multiple times? Of course not!  

But Ben doing that sent the species into a mental spiral of worry and anguish with the fear of not being completely yourself. The same curse they've placed upon the universe prior without any hint of guilt.

The trial was about establishing dominance to keep Ben from recreating the universe regardless of his reasoning. But also to prevent other aliens from attempting the same thing. That's why the trial was broadcasted through the galaxy. This was just a bunch of dick-swinging, so the celestialsapiens don't have to face any sort of actual accountability. 

#ben 10 omniverse #ben tennyson #ben 10 #Universe Vs Tennyson #tetrax shard #professor paradox #Azmuth #Alien X #Rook Blonko #personal rant

[the-guilty-writer]

We Need You That Way

Request from anon: Hey Gill, love your work bestie anyway I have a request for Spence being with BAU reader but she's dyslexic and idk there on a case and she's insecure because some of the cops/agents don't think reader could be an fbi agent yk and Spencer just consoles her super fluff stuff anyway feel free to ignore me 

Spencer Reid x gn!BAU!reader

Summary: Spencer reminds dyslexic reader that they’re a valuable part of the team.

A/N: While doing research on dyslexia I learned a lot about how it can affect more than reading and writing, but that it also presents differently in everyone. I remember reading a Spencer fic a long time ago with a dyslexic reader, but I couldn’t find it. (I will keep searching for it, though anon!)

I DID NOT HAVE A CONSULT on this fic, so if anyone with dyslexia has an issue with it, please let me know how I can improve. I do my research, but there is only so much a search engine can tell me. My messages are always open and I’m always happy to learn about how I can make a fic better when it features a reader with specific traits I’m unfamiliar with.

CW: reader is dyslexic (this shouldn’t be a warning?), the deputy makes a rude comment to reader, small southern town slander (I live in a small southern town and can confirm that the stereotypes are true. Someone save me from this hell please.)

---

“Why does every small town we go to have a bunch of roads named after a bunch of people from the same family?” you huffed slightly.

You had just gotten back from visiting a crime scene; something that should have taken about an hour and ended up being far longer. The GPS had died and there was no cell phone service, leaving you to navigate via old-fashioned map, which wasn’t exactly your strongest suit. Mixing up left and right, finding out that you were holding the map upside down, and old road names made the journey less than ideal and exceedingly frustrating.

Most people thought dyslexia only went as far as mixing up words and struggling to read, but it got in the way of other things as well; today’s backroad adventure was just one example. It wasn’t often that you let those things get you down, but today you couldn’t help it.

After seeing you come back to the station so defeated, Spencer took you to grab a much-needed cup of coffee from the small kitchenette. It wasn’t a real break, but it was enough for you to cool off from your frustrations.

“Looking back at the town records, the Baskin family owned about one fourth of the town land for three generations and the Silvan family owned a third of the town for two generations before holding prominent government positions. Given the regional tradition it makes sense that so many roads are named after them,” Spencer sprouted a fact. It made you grin.

“My great grandpappy held onto the land as long as he could,” one of the old deputies said, though you could barely understand through his thick southern-drawl. “Broke his heart when he had to let it go. It’s devastating the first murder occured on the road named in his honor.”

It’s more devastating that someone is… you know… dead, You thought, but kept yourself from speaking. “And which road was that?” you asked politely, opening up your case file, but knowing it would be faster just to ask.

“Harper,” the deputy said. “There’s only one Harper road in this whole town.”

“Are you right?” you looked down at your file again, taking your time as much as you could, but still in a rush.

“What is it?” Spencer asked.

“I thought I just came back from the scene at Harper,” you told him.

“I’m right,” the deputy replied defiantly.

“I wasn’t-” you wanted to explain that sometimes you would reach for a word like “sure” but a word with similar meaning, like “right” would come out instead. Dyslexia didn’t just make you mix up letters and sounds, but words sometimes too, especially since you were distracted by your files.

But the deputy didn’t give you a chance to speak any further. “I know I’m right! What kind of FBI agent can’t keep track of where crime scenes are?”

Spencer interrupted before it could go any further. “Let’s go note the difference on the profile board, okay?”

“Yeah,” you replied to him quietly and the two of you quickly made your way to the other room.

Spencer shut the door behind you and tears threatened to spill from your eyes. People questioned your ability to do things at times, but never so loud and direct; most of it was whispered behind your back. You’d spend time pretending that you didn’t hear the insults, pretending that they didn’t get to you until you were alone and could cry silently to yourself. This time you had no time, no room, to ignore the interaction that occurred. Your vulnerability was on complete display.

You threw your files down on the table and sunk into a chair, feeling crushed. “He’s got a point,” you muttered.

“He doesn’t,” Spencer said, sitting next to you.

“It took me two hours to figure out how to get to the crime scene today, Spencer.” You should have felt bad about using such a bitter tone with him, but you couldn’t help it. “It wouldn’t have taken Morgan that long. Or you, or anyone else on the team.”

“Well when Morgan drives it makes all of us carsick,” Spencer said. “And no one lets me drive.”

“Spencer, you hate driving,” you pointed out. “You get all squirrelly.”

“I did technically fail the offensive driving course at the academy.” Spencer smiled sheepishly. “But that doesn't make me any less important to the team.”

“Of course it doesn't. You're a literal genius. I'm… just me.” Your voice quieted at the end, what was frustration showing as what it really was— insecurity.

“I think just you is great,” Spencer replied. “And you help me slow down when thinking through cases.”

“Wow, I slow you down… thanks, Spence. That makes me feel so much better.” Your voice dripped with sarcasm.

“It’s a good thing,” Spencer said sincerely. “I jump to conclusions sometimes. You make me slow down and catch the things I missed. My consultation profiles have been far more accurate since you joined the team, and when we’re out on cases we have to revise the profile less often.”

“Really?” You tried not to show how baffled you truly were. You knew that occasionally you helped slow down Spencer’s million-mile an hour brain, but you didn’t think it was helpful for anyone but yourself.

“Do you know why Hotch brings you to court the most?” Spencer asked.

You bypassed telling Spencer that his sentence could be taken in two very different connotations. “Because it would be a waste of time to have me review files when I can’t read them?”

“Because you can tell the story of the case as an experience instead of just a list of evidence. It makes it easier for the jury to understand what’s going on and more dangerous people get put away because of it,” Spencer explained.

“And Garcia always asks you to help review initial video footage for a reason. It’s like you can see the crime scene without being there, so when we get there in-person we have a better idea of where to start. Your spacial awareness is better than the rest of ours. We can build the profile faster.”

“Do I really help that much?”

“Yeah, you do.” Spencer looked at you softly.

He reached for you, pulling you into a tight embrace. You let yourself fall into his arms. The comfort and reassurance of his words cradled you, building your confidence back up. “Keep being ‘just you.’ We need you that way.”

#spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x platonic!reader #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid x y/n #criminal minds x y/n #criminal minds x platonic!reader #criminal minds #spencer reid x gn!reader #criminal minds x gn!reader

[brigdh]

I was thinking more about how Stede doesn't really have an arc this season (see my previous criticism here), and I've decided that what I would have loved to see was Stede actively attempting to court Ed.

Now, we did get a little of this in the first few episodes: Stede's letters in 2x01 are great, I love his attempting to track Ed down via a crime-map in 2x02, and of course the "I'll never leave you. I'll never leave again" speech at the end of 2x03 is fantastic. But once Stede and Ed are both in the same location and conscious, there's really nothing. Stede just hangs around, waiting for Ed to figure himself out, or take the lead, or something, I don't know, but Stede's certainly doesn't take any action to progress their relationship himself. He's such a static character in the second half of S2.

But! Imagine instead the arc where Stede is actively trying to romance Ed! I don't need him to be good at it; it's probably a better character arc if he isn't, in fact. Maybe he comes on way too strong at first and this is why Ed asks him to slow down, until Ed can figure out what he's doing about his own guilt/violence/identity/daddy issues (maybe Ed can actually figure out something about his guilt/violence/identity/daddy issues). Maybe Stede's entire conception of romance comes from poetry and novels and it hits a hard skid when he tries it out in reality. Maybe there are cultural clashes between how pirates approach one another and how the landed upper class does it. The exact way Stede fails doesn't really matter, because the point is that Stede is trying something, and fucking it up, and trying again, and growing as he does so, learning more about what the relationship between him and Ed needs and who they are as people.

This also could have been a really interesting arc for Stede internally. Throw in a couple of flashbacks to Stede courting Mary, to make a parallel between how he acted then and how he's acting now with Ed. If it's beyond the budget to fly Claudia O'Doherty to New Zealand or she's busy or something, give Stede a random other lady or two he approached as a young man – ones who obviously refused to accept his hand. Excellent! Now there's even more weight to him getting it right this time with Ed, when he's never managed to get someone to like him before! Or give young Stede an intense friendship with another young man that went wrong, and back then he didn't understand, but now he can look back and be like, 'oh I guess that wasn't as platonic as I thought'. (Personally, this would be my favorite option, but I know Jenkins & co said they didn't want to write a coming-out story, so maybe they'd have been less interested in this one. Fine, but I want it! 🥳 ) I think you could do this without taking up a lot of screentime – I doubt all the scenes we got of Ed's childhood add up to five minutes in total, but we got plenty of information from those three glimpses.

It would also make sense for Stede to discuss the issue with the crew, which gives the show a chance to flesh out their role a little more, another thing the season could have used. If he asks Lucius, what Lucius responds and how he reacts could help to develop the Lucius/Pete relationship. Similarly, if Stede turned to Olu or Jim, we could have heard more about Jim/Archie or Olu/Zheng or any combination of the four. Or any of the crew! What kind of relationship advice does Frenchie give? Roach? This also could have intersected with Ed's redemption arc nicely: which are the crew are willing to put aside their anger at Ed to help Stede (and them doing so would give more credence to Izzy's speech about them being family and loving Ed at the end)? Who isn't willing, and tries to deliberately sabotage their relationship for revenge, and how do Stede and/or Ed react to that?

Overall, I think such an arc could have fit the show's themes of masculinity and toxicity really well. There's so much about dating and pick-up lines and romance that reflects on gender – there are expectations of who should be aggressive vs receptive, flowery vs crude, prudish vs too fast, gifts as a sign of love vs gifts as obligation... it's endless. Obviously the season wouldn't have time to explore all these angles, but I list them as a sign of how many directions they could have taken this topic in. Ultimately it all comes down to: Who does Stede want to be as a partner? And who does Ed want him to be? And that would be so strong as a direction to go in, even if we didn't get final answers to the questions! At least they would be asking them.

But instead we got a vision of a mermaid and never explored who Stede is in reality. :(

#ofmd meta #our flag means death #stede bonnet #gentlebeard #blackbonnet #ofmd season 2 #ofmd critical #(for real this time unlike my last post)

[genericpuff]

To be fair, a country can have more than one head of state. Political systems aren't as consistent as we might think them to be and even absolute monarchies like Spain have a prime minister. Then you have things like elective monarchies and hereditary republics. From what I remember, the idea of an election isn't even really treated as that big of a deal... but that right there is the problem. The first and I think only time it actually gets brought up is when it's introduced for a single panel, and even then, it's only in relation to Persephone's trauma. No one really comments on it afterwards. Even in Apollo's own episode, he very briefly comments how he could do a lot as king—not president, but king! Ergo, overthrowing Zeus. So either the whole president thing was a dropped plot point or Rachel couldn't think of any other reason for Apollo to be on a giant poster.

Regarding Eros' comment, Apollo is the god of medicine and the literal god of doctors is his son. Even if Asclepius himself doesn't have a bad record, he'd have reason to be wary. It's why I don't blame Hebe for automatically believing Apollo that nothing can be done about the poison after he simply touches Zeus, given what one of his domains is.

And speaking of Hebe, again, to be fair, a lot of people don't notice their surroundings when they're grieving and her back was clearly turned anyway, so I don't think this should necessarily be a strike against her. I honestly didn't find anything off about Apollo gaslighting her either (I mean, besides the obvious; gaslighting is horrendous) and he'd also just threatened her, so I don't blame her for running away either. Plus, the episode just ends with her noticing the snow soon after, so it's not like we get her thoughts on this one way or another. I don't have fastpass, though, so does it show her actually believing she'd somehow poisoned Zeus in a future chapter, or...?

Hebe poisoning Zeus also wouldn't necessarily be outside the realm of possibility either if Apollo were to argue she did it for Hera's sake or something and then she just snapped. That said, it is still ridiculous she's the first deity he would frame, rather than someone alot more believable, like Ares. Didn't Zeus sleep with Aphrodite that one time? And we know how protective he is of Hera. Or hell, if he wanted to topple the current monarchy entirely, he could've just framed Hera herself! Maybe even Hades!

And if this were any other comic, I'd say Apollo returning to the scene of the crime and then calling the media is just him being a narcissist, because some narcissists can be really, really dumb. But the chances of it being framed that way are practically at the bottom of the Aegean Sea. Even a single panel of someone asking why Apollo called a journalist first is doubtful.

But yeah, not trying to slam you or anything and sorry if it comes off that way. I really like your analyses and I love Rekindled, I'm just trying to offer a few explanations here. I do agree with you overall, though! Rachel has alot of great ideas, but the executions of said ideas are just terrible.

Okay so, while I really appreciate the amount of effort you put into defending these points and I can totally get the points you're trying to make in many of them (and yes this is the part where I respond with my own points, as we do) I think the fact that you presented all of these "well to be fair" talking points is just highlighting and further proving LO's biggest problems in its writing, one that I've talked about before on here but I think bears repeating.

And that's the fact that we (the readers) have to make massive assumptions just to make the plot make sense.

Yes, to be fair, there are government systems that run with a dual-system of monarchy + diplomatic government, but there was never any implication of this being a thing in LO until all of a sudden Rachel dropped the "Apollo for President!" plotline in S3.

Yes, to be fair, Apollo is the god of medicine, but we've never seen him actually fulfill a single duty regarding that, Asclepius is far more qualified as an actual doctor than Apollo (*from what we've been shown), who we've only ever seen apply a bandaid to Persephone's hand five years ago.

Yes, to be fair, people in shock may not take in their surroundings fully, but it seems really silly to have Hebe positioned in front of a window that has a FULL VIEW of what's going on outside and still have her just freeze in time when she's offscreen so she doesn't see or hear anything that's going on just several feet away through a sheet of glass. Just get rid of the window and find another way to force Eros and Psyche into confrontation with Apollo.

Yes, to be fair, Hebe could have a motive, if she were written as someone with some vendetta against Zeus. But she wasn't. That version of Hebe does not exist and, as you said yourself, there are way more gods who would have reasonable motive to poison him. We've only ever seen her dote on him and love him unconditionally as her father, and we've even seen scenes of them in S1 where they have a functional father-daughter relationship (if anything I'd be more inclined to believe she'd have a vendetta against Hera for being an alcoholic mom during her childhood but I digress).

Through all of these "to be fair's" when do we actually stop and ask ourselves why we have to constantly have the benefit of the doubt and jump through all these logical hoops to make sense of the plot to begin with? Again, all this just lends to how poorly structured and written the comic is, and all of these 'to be fair''s you've presented cannot reasonably apply to LO because LO never wrote those things. They never showed Apollo being an actual god of medicine, they never showed Hebe having ill will towards her father, and they never showed Olympus running with a monarchy + presidential government system. So to fill in those blanks ourselves is to do the legwork for Rachel who's only managed to write half a plot. It's why it's so jarring for random plot points like this to happen because it's just like "wtf do you mean Apollo is running for president? He can just do that??" That's not something that should be established five years in, it makes it really hard to just give benefit of the doubt because if that was something that actually existed in this world, it should have been established ages ago when the foundation for the story was still being built. We're in the endgame now, this is NOT the time to be throwing in new random plot threads pulled out of thin air.

This is what I mean from my essay post earlier that Rachel constantly fails to provide context for things she's trying to say, while overexplaining things that are already being shown onscreen. It's completely imbalanced between what we have to know and what could have stayed on the cutting room floor, and it makes for a messy story where people have to make gracious assumptions and do all the thinking for a plot that was never fleshed out to begin with. Why should we as readers have to do all the thinking for Rachel's lack of storytelling ability, when she clearly couldn't be bothered to put any thought into the narrative or the worldbuilding or the characterizations to begin with? It's lazy low-effort writing.

#lore olympus critical #lo critical #anti lore olympus #ask me anything #anon ama #ama #anon ask me anything

[twodoorsnotone]

I was describing Psych to a relative recently, and I remember he said to me something along the lines of "it sounds very funny but I don't know how it sustains itself for 8 seasons."

And I feel like that's something about why the show works so well. Because it does always, consistently, deliver on its premise - yet what that premise does changes over time.

Like, beyond the first season or so we get less of the overdramatic psych-outs, extravagant over-performance of psychic visions from Shawn which you first think of with the show. Which of course, makes sense - because in real-world terms, it would get boring, but in-universe too, Shawn doesn't have to keep justifying himself as psychic because all the police department (or at least, Vick) care about is whether he delivers, and they know he does now, so they don't really care how he gets there as long as they don't know he's breaking the rules.

Instead, it shifts. Shawn and Gus need to solve their cases, and they become the focus rather than performing his fake psychic abilities. But despite this, the way we experience the whodunnit is always through Shawn's lens of "I can't be open about how I solve my crimes, I don't have the same resources as the police, because I have to know this from being psychic (or in reality deduction)."

We don't get the typical procedural 'we need to run the fingerprints' all the time - Shawn has to figure out the whole story, like any detective show, but the route he takes to get there is never conventional because it can't be, he's not (ostensibly) a detective. Later, Shawn has to deal with the fact that his girlfriend doesn't know that he's not actually psychic. The implications of it all come into play when Juliet finds out - that he can't tell the truth because all the often-killers who he found might then get to go free and hurt other people. He would go to jail.

All of this is premise payoff, but it's so different from the narrative issues explored when it starts. It's so inherent to the premise, but what really makes Psych what it is, what sets it apart from other shows, is the ways in which Shawn and Gus have to solve crimes in secretive ways which are also funny. Obviously it's not an uncommon theme in detective shows, but Psych has a consistency whilst also never feeling static.

Shawn is not the same character as he is at the start, but he still solves crimes in roundabout ways because he has to pretend he's psychic. Gus is not the same, but we still know he has to be there to moderate Shawn's behaviours and to have great comedic chemistry with him. Lassie changes, but he's always the skeptic. Juliet changes, but she's always the inside hand sympathetic to Shawn and Gus and willing to help them out. (Etc etc.) We have so many little recurring jokes and bits that we hear again and again, but we also have such a shift from start to end in terms of character growth and narrative priorities.

Anyway idk where this is going but I just love this show lol

#psych tv #psych #carlton lassiter #juliet o'hara #shawn spenser #burton guster

[startanewdream]

Pocket, for @jilymicrofics. Or how James Potter's most annoying habit is keeping his hands in his pockets.

***

It’s only when Mary calls her name for the third time that Lily turns away to look at her friend.

“Golpalott's First Law,” she says, some lost part of her brain finding the answer to a question that Lily had not paid attention to.

“Thanks.” Mary scribbles something on her notes before shaking her head. “I thought we were going to study.”

Lily lowers her head to the book on her lap. “We are.”

“I am. You are just ogling at Potter.”

Lily purses her lips. “I am not,” she says as dignified as she can. “I was glaring.”

“Glaring. Ogling. It’s hard to tell with you when it comes to Potter.”

“It’s not like that, just look.”

Mary does; it is hard to miss that group of four friends under the shadow of a tree by the lake. Lily guesses they were supposed to be studying for the OWLs, just like all Fifth Years by now, on the evening of the beginning of their exams, only they are laughing and teasing each other, loudly discussing some past nights that make no sense to her—they nearly lost a rat?—, and planning something else that has nothing to do with exams.

“What?” Mary asks, confused. “So they aren’t obsessively reading their first year notes about History of Magic. Wish I could be the same.”

“Well, they should. Lupin always gets nervous on exams, you know it. Pettigrew’s grades are not great, and Black—”

“Black and Potter always get good grades.”

“Still, they should at least pretend, I don’t know—”

“Like you are pretending to study Potions? You know it all already by heart.”

“That’s not—” Her voice falters for a moment. Lily has nothing to do if any of them fail their exams, or if Potter is a good student with minimal effort; it was not even their laughs that bothered her at first because it was actually nice to see someone not freaking about the exams. But their laughs had attracted her attention and she had turned to see Black, Lupin, and Pettigrew sitting by the grass, and Potter—Potter was leaning against the trunk of the tree, looking so casual, hazel eyes shining excitedly behind the lens of his glasses, and— “Why are Potter’s hands in his pockets?”

Mary blinks. Twice.

“That’s not a crime, Lily.”

It isn’t, but maybe it should be. If only Potter was sitting with his friends, then she wouldn’t notice how he had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, all the way to the shoulder, and Quidditch, who could know that being a Quidditch player could give someone so nice muscles in their arms?

“It’s annoying,” insists Lily. “We should get inside, I’m thirsty.”

Mary's eyes spark with sudden understanding. “I bet you are.”

***

It was not supposed to be just the two of them, and yet Lily finds herself walking down the path to Hogsmeade alone with James Potter.

Her heart skips several beats that have nothing to do with their lazy walk, neither in a rush to reach the village. Few Sixth Years were interested in even going there—Remus is in the infirmary, Peter has some extra classes this Saturday, Mary was only excited because she had a date, and Black plainly asked what was the point in going. James had mentioned then that he would stay if no one else wanted to go, and Lily had jumped (metaphorically) to say she could go with him then.

“I need some new quills,” she had explained even though no one had asked.

If James had thought anything else about her offer, he hadn’t said it. All through their walk to Hogsmeade, he keeps his cool, talking to her as he would talk between classes, as if they are heading to the Great Hall for breakfast instead to Hogsmeade in what one might say it’s a date—or else a good opportunity for something, for that tiny tension that’s been there between them to be explored.

But through the exchange of quips, lingering eyes that are diverted when their gaze met, and her racing heart, Lily knows this isn’t a date at all, because James’ hands stay in the front pockets of his jeans most of the time. 

Which means his hands are far from hers, even after her hand brushes his arm on the walk, so many times, as Lily recounts some stories. When he helps her adjust the scarf on her neck, fingers brushing softly on her skin, Lily thinks, this is it. 

But James just takes a step back, smiles at her as if he couldn’t notice how her skin prickled with his touch, and puts his hands back in his pockets. Respectful. Casual. Far.

Lily almost misses the day where he would run his hand through his hair upon noticing her—maybe not, because James used to be very stupid back then, but really, that habit wasn’t as irritating as this new one.

***

James Potter had a fair number of quirks, most of which Lily admitted it was endearing, but this one of releasing her hand every five minutes to check the pockets of his cloak is new and frankly, annoying.

“What?” She asks when he does that for the eleventh time. “James—do you have something else to do?”

He blinks. “No, no, tonight was all for us.”

Lily looks up for a moment; from that high tower, she can see the waning moon in the horizon. No meeting with his friends then. That doesn’t explain his new behavior.

“What’s bothering you?”

He sighs. “Nothing, let’s just enjoy our night.” And he gestures around, to the midnight picnic he organized for them at the top of the Astronomy Tower. With candles, a bottle of wine, and flower petals over a blanket, it was very romantic and private, something that Lily had thought she might enjoy with him, only her boyfriend was clearly distracted.

And despite his words, even as they are kissing, his hand falls from her waist once again to pat the pocket of his cloak, face clearing once he finds whatever is that he is searching there.

“That’s it,” Lily says, taking his cloak and tossing it to the ground in a swift moment. “It's annoying, James, you need to—”

Her voice catches; from the pocket of his cloak, a silver ring has rolled, drawing a circle until it stops at their feet. They both look at it for a full second before James kneels to pick it.

“That was not what I had planned,” he admits, holding the ring and offering it to her. “But here it goes. Lily Evans—would you do me the honor of marrying me?”

#pockets #jily microfic #i was obsessing with this prompt ever since yesterday #and only now I had the time to sit and write it #Jily

[vancruejovi]

IHNMAIMS Theories

Okay so a lot of people have a problem with the IHNMAIMS game for many reasons, but mostly because Ellen's storyline doesn't make much sense with the others. Nimdok is getting tortured by AM because he was a Nazi, Ted was being tortured because he was a playboy and a liar, Benny let his comrades die, Gorrister possibly sent his wife to an asylum, etc. But Ellen was only sexually abused. That is the furthest thing from her fault, and certainly one of the cruelest things that AM does. So why does AM torture Ellen? I think I have an explaination that might explain things.

First of all, AM isn't torturing the survivors because he wants to teach them a lesson about their past mistakes, because obviously Ellen doesn't have one, at least not one to be tortured over. Plus AM's just not the vigilante type. I think he's doing these things to make them recognise their fears - not face their fears or get over them - but recognise them, to see them, using their own guilt and fear as a weapon. Like that scene from A Clockwork Orange, he's keeping their eyes wide open.

-Nimdok's fear is his heritage, and his shame for his horrific experiments on his own people. He feels guilt not only for the experiments and for throwing his own parents to the Nazis, but that he knows he can never ever atone. His crimes are too great. He's also one of the more obvious cases of AM trying to force them to look at their fears. Nimdok doesn't remember his past, so AM forces his eyes open to see.

-Gorrister's fear is him being at fault for his wife's mental illness, and his guilt over her being put in the asylum. His guilt (and his other tortures from AM) are partly the reason for his attempts at suicide. But of course, AM can't have that, so he punishes Gorrister by, again, forcing him to face his fears.

-Benny's fear and guilt is never knowing if his comrades forgive him, if he is actually a changed man or if he is still an animal inside (and outside, thanks to AM). Benny in the book was gay, before being forced straight by AM. Benny in the game was a soldier who killed his commrades who were seen as weaker, that had shown weakness. The graves themselves say that Brickman is the one that Benny has to apologise to the most. I may have been the only one, but I thought that maybe Brickman could have also been an ex-lover of Benny's, which could have been seen as this supposed 'weakness' of Brickman's. Benny could have been so afraid of being discharged, especially as a drill sergeant, that he killed his lover Brickman so that nobody could have found out. That is why Brickman is seen as more important to apologise to, and why Benny feels that he has to prove himself a changed man even more.

-Ted's fear is his lies being revealed, he's mentioned to be paranoid (though that point was more obvious in the book) which could be due to constantly wondering if he was going to be called out on his behaviour. And his storyline could be reexamined as his fear of if he actually did fall in love with someone, that he wouldn't be able to pretend to be 'knight in shining armour' anymore. I don't believe he was actually in love with Ellen, the book made that part very clear, but because she was the first woman he had actually spent time with, without a mask or an act, that made her even scarier to Ted. Ellen knew who Ted was, without his armour.

-And Ellen. Ellen's story is told in a fantastic way. When we first start her story, she has panic attacks about the colour yellow, she has panic attacks over enclosed spaces. But later on it's revealed that it's not these things on their own that scare her, they're painful reminders of her attacker. It's how after trauma you can only remember certain parts, and not often the full picture. And AM does this to force Ellen to look at her fear full on. Not just yellow, not just small spaces. But of course, if you play the game right, she fights back and gains control of her fear again. But it's clear that Ellen is never 'cured' of these things, she's still scared. But she's probably the least willing to put up with AM bullshit. Her guilt is related to her rape, a lot of people such as myself who have been sexually assaulted/abused do feel guilty, and no matter what people say to assure you, you do often feel like it's your fault, or that your life has ended here, much like how Ellen started slowing down her education after the attack. And due to her being a black woman in the 60s/90s depending on the story, of course she wouldn't exactly feel safe coming forward with anything. This doesn't make AM's torture any less cruel than before, in fact it's probably more so, but it makes more sense than AM punishing Ellen for nothing.

I think it's a really interesting way of looking at it, and it makes a few of their storylines like Benny's, Ted's and especially Ellen's make a bit more sense. If you have any ideas of your own I'd like to hear them!

#i know this is a bit different from my normal post but I just wanted to get this out there #ihnmaims #i have no mouth and i must scream #harlan ellison

[cornyonmains]

Guys, when I tell you I've been OBSESSING over the interplay between the phrases 'his beloved son' and 'history is written by the victor' know that I mean it. And here's why.

For a long, long time, I've been trying to figure out what Tankhun's piece on the chessboard is. It just seemed to ridiculously simple to make him the rook and doesn't line up with the other long range attackers Korn placed on the board. Pete as bishop and Porsche as queen were both instrumental in Korn's plot against the minor family, hence their status as long range attackers. Tankhun won't even leave the house, which takes me back to that fucking dialogue, because it stuck in my over-analyzing craw.

Now, there's a few things in this exchange that jumped out to me, with the first being Tankhun's face when he uttered the words 'his beloved son'.

My horny on main masses of the KP fandom, does this look like the face of a son celebrating a victory with his father? Or is it the face of a man celebrating a victory against his father?

Well, I know I've got my opinion, so buckle in kids. It's about to be a ride.

The next thing worth pointing out is our jump to Korn's room, where if we follow the established pattern of green meaning danger, we're about to get ourselves some pretty heavy-handed messaging:

Now, a few things happened in this scene. The first is that Korn responded with 'History is only written by the victor'. He didn't say victors, as in the plural, he said VICTOR. I actually tried to include this photo with the words, but for some reason Tumblr decided to scoot them all to the right in this very unsightly way, but what's important is we have a visual of what's happening in the background.

You see the green Mr. Belvedere era lamp casting an eerie green glow on that bronze statuette of the violinist? You know who else played the violin? Kinn, in the Filmania version of KinnPorsche. Also pictured are the two fighting fish housed in completely unacceptable bowls, which is really going to play into the symbolism of where Korn FUCKED UP as I continue this long winded and convoluted rant.

Now something we've all been asking is why these bodyguards never wear bulletproof vests, why they're given all this training, all this great equipment, but no safety gear. Well, if Korn's staying true to his 'survival of the fittest' philosophy, the idea that competition breeds strength, then it makes sense he'd only want to keep the bodyguards most capable of survival around. And THIS is where we see Korn's first real weakness as a strategist.

The thing about 'survival of the fittest' is that people don't understand that it doesn't mean the survival of the biggest bads of the animal world. And if you doubt my word, may I present exhibit A of this desperate misunderstanding of that concept made manifest:

Like seriously? How do these dorks exist?

And the answer is because they adapted traits that would allow them to best REPLICATE in nature, not conquer it.

So with all this in mind, doesn't it stand out to you that Tankhun's bodyguards are really the only scarce few to survive? That Tankhun has a care for keeping them safe and alive? He clearly demonstrated this in his own way with Pete. There are subtle moments, subtle indications, that he's in fundamental disagreement with his father's philosophy.

Something else that stuck in my head was how quick and seamlessly he brought up his brothers with Chay, even going so far as to offer a visual aid, which most people don't do when they mention they have siblings. I think Tankhun knew about Kim and Chay, and that blowing up Kim's spot was a calculated move. And why was it calculated?

Because I think Tankhun knows that Korn wants Kim to take over the main family. That Korn has a deranged philosophy of pitting the family against one another to breed the strongest possible leaders for his empire, and that Kinn's life is in mortal fucking danger, for the crime of caring about his brothers enough to step up and do a job they didn't want to do. I think Tankhun knew Korn faked his death and was using it not only to draw out gun, but to get Kinn out of the way as well. Korn drove a wedge between him and Porsche to separate them, I think Korn was the one who told Kim where Chay was to keep him out of the final showdown, and I think he did that specifically to keep Kim from protecting Kinn, and Tankhun KNEW this.

But the thing about survival of the fittest is that while Korn might be a psychopath, his kids aren't. Korn's biggest weakness is he couldn't replicate himself in his sons, and that's why Tankhun sent him that text. He was telling his father, "You're the one who's weak. You're the one whose being is not worth replicating. Your lack of love is your weakness and I'm going to show you why."

Tankhun knows so much more than he lets on, and that's when it hit me. Tankhun isn't any piece at all. Tankhun is the invisible player on the other side of the board that Korn's REALLY playing against, but he's out to save all the pieces he captures.

Meanwhile, while the fish in separate bowls may be symbolic of a lull in the fighting, there's still two fish left, so Korn's giving them a break while he plots his next move. The trouble is, much like fish living in two separate tanks, raised to kill each other, his ideas are never going to breed, and that is where Korn's fundamental understanding of survival of the fittest being about strength rather than replication is going to fuck him over.

#kinnporsche #tankhun theerapanyakul #vegaspete #kimchay #thai bl #kinnporsche meta #After typing all this out it feels like my brain is a giant ball of spiders

[fatalism-and-villainy]

More thoughts about the dynamic I talked about here:

It’s telling that the way Abigail engages with Hannibal re: Nick Boyle’s death is very different from the way she engages with Will about it (and by extension, that the way Hannibal engages with Will about GJH’s death is very different from how he engages with Abigail about Nick Boyle’s death).

That is to say, Hannibal’s initial, outward response to Abigail killing Nick Boyle is primarily disapproval - foregrounding what she’s most trying to conceal about herself, and positioning himself as a moral authority who’s making a considerable sacrifice to protect her:

Hannibal: This isn’t self-defense, Abigail. You butchered him. Abigail: I didn’t. Hannibal: They will see what you did. And they will see you as an accessory to the crimes of your father. Abigail: I wasn’t. Hannibal: I can help you, if you ask me to. At great risk to my career and my life. You have a choice. You can tell them you were defending yourself when you gutted this man. Or we can hide the body. (1.3)

Later, he changes tack and allows that Abigail did do the right thing and that self-defense is an excusable motive:

Abigail: You’re glad I killed him. Hannibal: What would be the alternative? That he kill you? (1.3)

And:

Abigail: In the dream, I wonder how I could live with myself, knowing what I did. Hannibal: And when you’re awake? Abigail: When I’m awake, I know I can live with myself. And I know I’ll just get used to what I did. Does that make me a sociopath? Hannibal: No. It makes you a survivor. (1.4)

This change in approach is partly by design, I think - his more condemnatory initial approach impresses on Abigail the worst possible interpretation of her actions (and hints at the fact that he can see through the front she’s putting up), in order to get her to trust him, and then gradually he starts to show qualified approval and emphasize her agency to move behind her father’s influence. And his emphasis on self-defense in their conversation at the end of Potage serves as a way of deflecting Abigail’s sharp inference that he might be a serial killer. But he consistently only approves of Abigail committing murder in utilitarian terms, rather than emphasizing any satisfaction Abigail might have gotten from it.

And the person who does validate that for her is, of course, Will, when they compare notes on killing her father vs. killing Nick Boyle:

Abigail: I thought there was something wrong with me, because I didn’t feel ugly when I killed Nick Boyle. I felt good. That’s why it was so easy to lie about it. Will: Like you didn’t do anything wrong. Abigail: Feel like you’d done something wrong when you killed my dad? Will: I felt terrified. And then… I felt powerful. Abigail: It felt good. To get to end it, to stop it all. (1.12)

They’re both nodding so vigorously by the end of that exchange, just fully understanding in that moment how the other is feeling. And significantly, Hannibal doesn’t set himself up as someone with whom she can unload those feelings on, or find that kind of understanding with! Obviously he doesn’t want to go mask-off about being a serial killer immediately, but he doesn’t even drop any hints with about the appeal of murder; and meanwhile with Will, where he’s got all his “it’s beautiful, in its own way” and “killing must feel good to God” and “not flesh and blood but light and air and colour” lines. Aside from his initial intimation that she had darker motives, his approach with Abigail is mostly affirming her best qualities, suggesting she’s not like her father and that she had no choice but to kill Nick Boyle. And Will ends up being the one to affirm Abigail’s darker qualities.

And, well - my sense of why Hannibal takes this approach is that he was hoping for exactly that. He wanted Abigail to go to Will with those feelings, to be drawn to Will because he offered a potential source of a specific kind of validation and understanding that she wasn’t getting from Hannibal - and thus, for Abigail to help draw out Will’s murderous impulses in turn. Just as he used the prospect of protecting Abigail to push Will’s sense of ethics a little bit farther out. They were both the bait, for each other.

#hannibal meta #abigail hobbs #hannibal lecter #will graham #hannibal #my meta #hannibal talk #there was some group chat discussion awhile back about how hannibal intended to make the murder family happen #before his hand was forced in putting will in prison #and while i'm sure he was playing it by ear #in terms of revealing himself and pushing the others into a place where they could accept him #i do think a lot of his plan relied on using abigail to bridge the gap between will's s1 ethics and what hannibal wanted for him

[obsidiancreates]

Catching Up (With No Murders This Time!)

(I just wanted Shawn and Abigail to like, see each other again and get a little closure since they broke up under such horrible circumstances.)

"Hey, sweetheart. I just wrapped up a case and I just so happen to be next to that awesome bakery you love, do you want- sweet! Uh, no, no Gus with me, your croissant will make it to you with no bites taken out of it. ... No, I'll buy my own so I'm not tempted either. Yeah, well, Selene called and told him Charlie is running a fever so he sped off before I even finished the wrap-up. Oh, gotta go, someone is about to try and get the last Nutella-filled one."

Shawn hangs up and rushes up to the counter as the person who's eyes were lingering on the Nutella-filled croissant is about to order. "You know, I am amazed you guys still make these, because I heard that hazelnuts and chocolate combined can give you hair loss."

The woman freezes, and Shawn almost does a little celebratory shimmy- until she turns around.

Shawn's mouth parts in shock. "Abigail?"

"Shawn?" Abigail blinks. "Are you really..." She leans in and whispers, "Why are you in San Fransisco?"

"I- I uh, moved here. A few years ago with- uh, well with my wife." He holds up his hand. Please don't let this be awkward, please don't let this be-

Abigail holds up her hand, showing off her own wedding ring. "We match."

A tension Shawn hadn't realized he was holding bleeds out of him. "Look at that!" He grins at her. "Who knew us crazy kids would ever find that, huh?"

"Who knew. ... Oh, you um, wanted the Nutella."

"Yeah, if- it's Jules's favorite so I just-"

"Jules? The detective you worked with? ... Actually, that makes sense."

"... Is that a... bad, 'that makes sense'?"

"No, just... it makes sense. Here, uh, I'll have the regular chocolate instead. My husband is allergic to hazelnuts anyway, I'd have to brush my teeth before kissing him, it's... a whole thing."

They order, and sit together while waiting for the coffees.

"So, um... how long have you been married?" Abigail asks before taking a bite of her pastry.

"Let me see, uh... six years, now? ... Holy crap, I've been married for six years. ... What uh, what about you?"

"Four. We met through the program I do, for teaching abroad."

"Ha, that's cool. I'm a detective, I married a detective, you're a teacher, you married a teacher... fits, it-it fits good."

"Yup."

"... Sorry about uh... all the stuff I put you through, back then. Taking you to crime scenes and client's houses was a little-"

"Stupid?"

"I was going to say offbeat, but... stupid works too." They both give a small laugh. Shawn awkwardly picks at his own pastry, Jules's sitting in his lap. There's a beat of silence that's just agonizing.

"How's Gus?" Abigail looks up at Shawn again. "I mean, I just assume you're both still doing the psychic detective thing."

"Oh, Gus is great. He uh, he got married too, about four years ago now, just before the whole uh... pandemic, thing. She's basically a clone of him, but a woman, and they've got a kid."

"Let me guess. You're the godfather."

"Which still freaks me out, by the way. He's a great kid though. Smart and awesome, just like his dad, and it looks like he got The Super Sniffer too. Gus says it's too early to tell, but-" Shawn puts a finger by his temple. The movement feels weird. He hasn't really leaned into the whole "psychic" thing for a few years now, and when he does he usually use the finger-to-eyebrow device anymore. When was the last time he did? ... Dear god, it's been ten years. Ten years since he moved out of Santa Barbara.

"Time really flies," he finds himself saying."

"Tell me about it." Abigail shakes her head. "My husband and I adopted, about two years ago now, and she's just... shooting right up. When she started walking I couldn't believe it."

"Gus couldn't either. I think he showed me the video about a billion times."

"Crying?"

"Absolutely weeping, yes."

"Nice to know some people never really change."

"Mmmm, I wouldn't say that. He's done some pretty badass stuff since you last met him."

"You do know that seems... a little far-fetched."

"More far-fetched than the time we had to prove a polar bear was framed for murder?"

"... I'm not sure if I believe you about that."

"If we had time, I could condense each little weekly adventure into about a forty-three minute story each."

"That's not very condensed."

"... You're right, it's not." Shawn nods, and looks up as the bell on the door jingles- he hears Abigail laugh a little about it and mumble that yeah, people don't really change.

The man at the door spots Abigail and grins. Shawn hones in on a wedding ring, a tie with Abigail's favorite flowers as the design, and hair that just may rival Shawn's own.

"Hey, honey." The man sweeps right over to Abigail and leans down to kiss her in her chair. "Finally sorted out the issue with our plane, we should be on our way day after tomorrow."

"Oh, thank god," Abigail groans, holding her husband's hand as he pulls over another chair to sit next to her. "I'm so tired of hotel food."

"You and me both," her husband chuckles. He looks at Shawn. "Who's this?"

"Oh, um, this is Shawn Spencer."

"Ooooh, you're the guy who took her to a crime scene as a date one time."

"Guilty," Shawn says with a laugh.

"Nice to meet you, I've heard a lot about you. Good things!"

"And some not-so-good things, I'm guessing?"

"No, no. ... Not about you as a person, anyway. Plenty of bad things about your job."

"Yeah, I figured. ... Oh, there's our coffees." Shawn takes his paper tray with 4 coffees (Gus and Selene will need them) and stands up. "Well, this was totally unexpected, but I'm glad it happened. It was nice seeing you again, Abigail."

"Nice seeing you too, Shawn." She smiles at him. "I'm glad you're doing well."

"Me too. Doing well is pretty great. Oh, and, glad for you, I guess."

Abigail laughs again. "Bye, Shawn.

"Bye, Abigail."

He walks out of the bakery, the sound of Abigail chatting with her husband following him until the door closes. She sounds happy. Happy and relaxed in a way that even on their best days, she never was with him. And he's glad.

He's just genuinely happy for her. That's a really, really nice feeling. No jealousy, no feeling of missed chances, no wondering of 'what-ifs'. Just... actual, authentic happiness that she's doing well.

He tucks Jules's croissant into his pocket and pulls out his phone.

"... Hey, babe! Yeah, got the last Nutella for you, and a coffee. ... Yup, that perp was our case. Really? Described being caught by 'some kind of ninjas or something?' Well, babe, as much as I'd love to tell you I've secretly been a martial arts master our whole marriage, you can put in your report that he's absolutely lying because he's very embarrassed. Truth is Gus accidentally knocked over some marble statue onto him while he was chasing me through the art exhibit. ... Can I fill out the statement later tonight? I got coffee for Gus and Selene too. Awesome! I will hang around to tell you who I just ran into, though. Of course I'm neglecting paperwork in favor of personal matters, if I ever don't then your husband has been replaced by a pod person. Okay, love you, I'll be there as soon as I find a ride..."

#psych #psychusa #psych usa #psych 2006 #fanfic #my attempts at fanfic