#she looks like a paragon of goodness when she is actually pretty morally fucked up

[stinkbrat]

My beautiful paladin Odell and her horrible little favorite victor

#curse of strahd #victor vallakovich #Odell #pk draws #dnd #pk cos #she looks like a paragon of goodness when she is actually pretty morally fucked up #victor looks and is morally fucked up but #I don’t think he thinks she couldn’t care less what atrocities he’s committed as long as he wants to get better and she projects her own #issues on him???? #she will die for him

[felikatze]

stewing on it. 3-6 is a good map actually. 10 out of 10 suffering. i've never been this tense for any fucking FE map ever, except maybe the sov final boss map. jesus.

it took me a grand total of 5 attempts. there's 100% maps i've reset way more on (path of radiance's Clash! being one of them. fuck those boulders.) but for this one i didn't just wing it. every turn and every position needed to be deliberate. i did shit like actually take advantage of support bonuses to get +4 damage in one turn. it was. insane.

anyway.

you're the aggressor in the conflict but the map has you assume an entirely defensive position.

you barely scrape by because the most powerful units left after part 1. every character questions why they're fighting, strengthened by the presence of zihark and jill. zihark fought on the side of the laguz in por because he had a dead laguz lover, and jill had a whole arc about deconstructing the prejudice she was raised with and accepting the laguz as people just like her. sothe directly remarks how quickly the freedom fighters have just become bigots.

structurally. you're fighting in a swamp, which means even though there's a lot of enemies, they have incredibly limited movement. even if any given unit is liable to die in two hits, if you finangle it right, two hits never occur. because of micaiah's promotion, you also have a second healer, and if you look in the shop, it has a TON of strong weapons, including the beast killer.

even if sothe's damage output dropped toward the end of part 1, the presence of the silver dagger and the beast killer once again make him invaluable. for me, he, aran, and micaiah could hold the northwest by themselves and i could dedicate the entire remaining forces to the east.

the presence of yellow units here is also for once a fucking blessing. i found them really annoying previously, especially in fucking geoffrey's charge, where there was just so many of them and their turn took forever. but here, they can effectively take out a couple laguz each turn, provide healing, and take hits. the enemies seemed to prioritize them over my own units sometimes? either way, they were actually useful is here.

the arrival of the black knight completely turns the tide of battle. he's EASILY strong enough to take an entire side by himself. toward the end, more and more enemies came exclusively from the northwest, so i sent everybody there, and left the black knight to clean up the east. however, his spawn position means he'll need at least two turns until he's in a position to be useful, so you can't get cocky just because he's there.

this map is HARD because tigers hit like a truck. you need to be so careful about positioning, but you do have the tools to make it work, even if the dawn brigade isn't... the best. in retrospect to me now, cuz i am playing this blind, the strong backup you get in part 1 feels more and more like a trap. i used tormod a lot, in particular, and then he up and left. it may have also been harder because volug died in part 1 for me.... but i doubt he'd have been very good anyway. if i replay this game, i'll use the dawn brigade more for sure. i was lucky enough that i had bexp to get aran to lv19, so he promoted halfway through the map. and nolan was already promoted, so i gave him the paragon skill for a hefty exp boost that gave him 4 levels in one map.

a map of exclusively struggling against laguz is an exercise in moral bankruptcy. the ideal strategy is, of course, to attack and kill as many laguz as possible when they are untransformed. thus, unarmed, and, for the most part, utterly defenseless. it's a moment of cheer when a tiger detransforms and you hit them with the short axe.

their lack of 2-range also means pelting them with javelins that are guaranteed to miss so they'll detransform faster is a viable and very useful tactic. fiona and meg had both been benched and were pretty much deadweight, but a javelin in one hand and a wind edge in the other meant knocking down 6 transformation points of any given enemy. this absolutely saved my ass sometimes.

just. it's the most efficient and easiest to kill their enemy when they have no viable way of defense. you're practically required to do so. you're already chasing down soldiers whoare fleeing after losing the previous battle. you're scum in the story AND in the gameplay! it bangs!

man, like, the ludonarrative dissonance is really cool. your aim is to pursue fleeing enemies and kill as many as you can, but you're the one pressed into a corner, trying to hold on against a seemingly endless onslaught. when ranulf says daein's army has no clue how to fight laguz, you know he's right, because you felt it. the struggle recontextualizes micaiah putting on a strong front when negotiating peace with the laguz, saying they'd be slaughtered if the battle continued, so it feels more like she's realized she's in over her head and is trying to intimidate them into backing down to save her own people. mwah.

#feli speaks #welcome back to feli plays games and then talks about them #i was def more frustrated with the difficult maps in part 1 #but not really here i was just TENSE and FOCUSED #since fucking up really did just feel like my fault #instead of goddamn height advantage (i hate 1-E i hate 1-E) #good map 👍

[mdhwrites]

I think Luz's morality is an interesting topic. The more i think about it, the worse she seems.

She befriended Amity, after knowing the kind of things she did to people like Willow, which is fine. But, then she has the gall to try and FORCE Willow to become friends with Amity, even after she explicitly told her not too, and Luz should KNOW that. If your friend tried to make you befriend your biggest bully, youd be pretty pissed.

Luz is also rather selfish here, she treats looking into Willows memories as a theme park, for the 'bAcKsTORY'. The writers kind of have Amity call her out, but its framed as Amity being in the wrong. To be generous, maybe its solely good intention? but when you consider she gets with Amity, and how she uses Willow being bullied in wing it to essentially have her Azura sports fantasy, it... seems less so.

Also, youre right that Luz lies ALOT in the show. like JESUS. and its unforgiveable in FTF, your gf TOLD YOU TO STOP. It just makes Luz look self absorbed and apathetic to other peoples struggles and feelings, especially when shes having a pity party over 'hElPinG BeLoS' when there are people who arent sure if their FAMILIES ARE ALIVE WITH HER.

So... the short answer to this ask is that protagonist morality in general isn't nearly as 'pure good' as people like to make them out to be, they're usually more Lawful Neutral... But even compared to that, Luz is kind of a bad person and the longer the series has gone on, the worse that has gotten.

But let's first talk about protagonist morality in general. See, we all think "Main Protagonist and Paragon are the same thing!" No. Absolutely fucking not. I actually don't get where this opinion comes from, especially since even a cursory glance at most shows will have you going "Boy the main character is tempted to evil easily."

Because really, how many main characters don't fuck up all the time? Most plots in an episodic format either start with a fuck up by the main character or screwing up is used as a way to escalate things. This is often motivated by either trying to do the right thing, their own goals that can conflict with their morality or... Just being used for the morality play of the episode.

Now there is an easy saving grace to this: Main characters are meant to learn from these moments and they go fix the mistake. In theory, it shows their good heart and lets them grow as a character. There's a reason people get annoyed when a character has to go through the same lesson over and over again after all or do just ignore their mistakes and not suffer the consequences or put in the work to fix it and thus not deserve the consequences.

Which... Brings me to Luz. And her lying. NOW, I will actually admit that this is mostly a Season 2 B thing. I went back through the episodes and while her motivations are questionable (if you only ever work for forgiveness and never do random acts of kindness, your kindness comes into question) she actually isn't lying constantly or in a way that doesn't fit just being used in a minor way to help the episode... Minus the big one obviously.

Which is where I have to give credit to the show for making it so that her lie to a mother IS a white lie. It actually doesn't paint her as a bad person. Should she be lying? That's a philosophical debate for people but she was going to be gone regardless and so for her mother, the experience isn't that different. The only real problem is that when Luz is asked if she made friends, she has to say "Yes, but we aren't going to be able to keep in touch."

And then that lie gets complicated... And then devastating. And that's not the first lie in S2 that has hurt someone she supposedly cares about. It happened first with King. Her lying that he believed her was genuinely devastating for him. And her lying to her mother did the same thing.

So that's two already.

Then we get Falls and Follies where she straight up promises to STOP KEEPING SECRETS. Because her secrets, which classify as lies of omission, especially if asked directly about said thing, hurt Amity. Her girlfriend.

So she has now emotionally hurt and theoretically felt bad from hurting her found brother, her actual mom and her girlfriend. And now she has made a promise to stop.

Now, I actually want to address something here. One person tried to make a case "Oh, you can't actually keep that promise on Luz. What was she supposed to do? Tell every secret she's learned in her life, even other people's?" No. And don't pull that strawman shit with me. The point was going forward. That's what matters with promises.

Sorry means NOTHING without action. Because words are easy. Actions are what matters.

So... Then we get Reaching Out where she obliterates that promise... And suffers no consequences. In fact, the episode paints it as we should be sympathetic with her and forgive her for the lie she kept. You can feel bad for someone and still condemn what they did but the episode absolutely doesn't.

So that's FOUR EPISODES, within 15 episodes, so almost a third of that time, has been dedicated to "LUZ. STOP. LYING."

But we're not done yet. No... No we've got one more.

There is the multiple months long lie of omissions of A: I helped Belos and the Collector accidentally and B: I am not going back to the Isles. The first one is... Well it's dumb and it gets non-resolved because no one gives a shit which thank god because, again, it's dumb.

The second one though. This one is used... Because the writers know Luz is going back. So they never think about this one and still include a moment like Amity quoting Luz back at her. "I don't know what my future will hold, but I'm happy you'll be a part of it."

And Luz says nothing. That is one of the biggest moments of lying by omission you can make because by saying nothing... You're agreeing with her. You're letting her keep that belief despite knowing it's wrong.

Yes, she has her excuses but what happens to Luz, compared to what happens to others with this lie and action.

For Luz... At worst she has to live with the guilt and question of 'What happened to those I loved?" Despite, you know, reasonably being able to believe they're just going to die. Or that they're dead already. And she'll spend the rest of her days (generously) trying to forget that she ever went to Isles. This genuinely the kindest way I can put this.

Because for Amity... It means that she only gets to find out that the person she probably thinks is her soulmate dumped her when the portal closes. That she is entirely alone and was lied to and betrayed by the person she trusted most.

And the rest? Well, they had been planning on Luz being there. On being able to use her strength and her connections. Their plan is now compromised, they're weaker as a unit and they also have to deal with the betrayal now that they're in a land that seems like home but also not and is far more dangerous than they're theoretically used to.

Luz has condemned ALL OF THEM to death.

And what did she do before this? Oh... you know, go on dates, have fun with her friends, be willing to be by their side without saying a single. Fucking. Word. The pictures prove it. I mean... How do you do a milkshake date with your girlfriend, your supposed 'cotton candy haired goddess' while knowing your time is limited and you're going to do what in most romance stories is considered to be the literal worst thing you can to your partner? Except maybe cheat on them? MAYBE.

It is GENUINELY reprehensible. Especially since Luz DOES blame herself for this. She breaks protagonist morality here though by deciding "Nope. I don't know how to fix it and I might make it worse so fuck it. Let it all burn."

Because even if that's not what is said, even if that is not explicitly Luz's intention... It's what she does. Period. She doesn't say "Guys, I'll sit back, let you make the decisions because I don't trust myself anymore." No, instead she makes a HUGE decision, all by herself, with no input, despite her choices hurting people being what she is CLAIMING to be the problem (even though she hasn't even thought about her GIRLFRIEND'S feelings in this).

And there's a LOT of contradictions like this with Luz where what she says and what she does... Just doesn't match. At all.

But this has gone on long enough. I hope I made my point clear just hoe fucking awful these lies make Luz out to be. And how at some point it goes from being "A deep flaw the character needs to work on," to "they're just a bad person."

#Luz #The Owl House #Rambles

[nighttimepixels]

TALK TO US ABOUT MASS EFFECT I HAVE BEEN AN INSANE MASS EFFECT/SHAKARIAN TRASH PERSON SINCE 20-FUCKING-11 AND LEMME TELL YOU THOSE FEELINGS HAVENOT TARNISHED A SINGLE FRACTION IN THOSE TEN YEARS OH MY GOOOOOOODDDSSSS!!!!!!!

I DEMAND A PLAY-BY-PLAY UP TO THE MINUTE OF YOUR REACTIONS TO EVERYTHING!!!!

you are so valid and I totally see why everyone I've ever mentioned it to loves the hell out of it

aksdjlsdfj I meannnn if you want to hear my rambling about it then hell yeah

Okay, gonna put this below the cut to save everyone else XD also- since I'm not leaving this Mass Effect obsession anytime soon, if you're not interested in seeing occasional posts about it, please feel free to block the tag "night plays ME"~

(mild spoilers ahead??)

((also for real I mean it when I say this is rambling as hell lol, apologies and no stress if absolute no one reads all this))

OKAY SO Mass Effect 1-

Stars help me, I was honestly hooked right from the start?? Like even in Legendary Edition (the combined trilogy just re-released in one "can play it on one system + minor improvements", for anyone who doesn't know) where it's smoothed out, of course it's obvious that ME1 is a decade old... but the foundation for these relationships are all there and gods I love them already.

Like - Kaiden right off the top is a delightful good fightin lad, what the hell. I've heard that he's viewed as 'bland' by a good portion of the fan community but I dunno, he's a delight and even more complex by the time 2 rolls around and you encounter him on Horizon, it was honestly Ashley I was way more meh about - mostly because before you can learn about her family history/etc, she comes off as hella xenophobic and I was immediately offended for my growing space family that she didn't like/trust all the aliens around, pfff.

(she gets redeemed a bit through further actions/evolving thoughts, but I thought in retrospect it was a bummer that they didn't flip the order there, give her a chance to be liked before the complicating factor of being so rude about aliens >:c that then she could grow from... ah well. Apparently she has a good arc but uh, let's just say I chose Kaiden at the "key junction" in the latter part of the game so I won't be seeing anymore of Ashley uh... anytime soon, haha.)

Garrus??? Is??????? The ABSOLUTE best???????????

I liked him from the start, I'm always a bit of a sucker for a rogue-detective "the system won't bring this bastard to justice, so I've got to" type and all their moral shadiness XD But he just gets better, honestly, and where I'm at in ME2 (right before the Reaper IFF mission, as of typing this, with everyone's loyalty!) I am only digging myself deeper into this hole-

-*wheezing* okay anyways -

Wrex is AMAZING I love fightin' middle-aged krogan bastard, gods. Liara is great too, I'm a sucker for a wlw relationship (playing fem!Shepard, so) - buuuut I'll admit she's a bit more one-note in ME1. Last week while I was still on ME1 I remember hearing (while trying to dodge spoilers) that her arc is really good, though. I think they leaned a little hard on the 'innocent but sexy' sterteotype on her (so despite the yikes aspect of a few of the things I've learned in ME2, lol, I actually really like the complexity that's been added to her character.)

Saved Liara first, so by the time I got to Noveria and had the standoff with Benezia there was the chance to have emotions over Liara having to face her TwT and of course, I made the questionable but quality decision to free Queen Rachni heheh. no ragrets

More than a blow-by-blow of my choices though I totally wanna take the chance to say that even in the mild jankiness of ME1 (goddammit, the Mako.... please..... please just go up this impossible cliff I just want to resource hunt-) the way that the lore, both obvious/key to main plot and the lesser/filler/background/world-building kinds... I just love it. It incorporates it well, you can go ham in the codex learning more, or just dive into the basics - it's clearly a complex galaxy (and they do an even better job in 2 of fleshing it out further), and it never really felt overwhelming. It was pretty natural figuring it all out-!

Plus the interesting implications of resource hunting amongst the sapient races, and the little side missions you better bet I did every one of- there's so much rich depth in the story if you do 'em!! (And that lead with that Keeper side mission...? Looking back, damn, clever foreshadowing-!!!)

And oh my gods, Ilios??? hell yeah. I loved that mission so much, especially having Garrus & Kaiden with me when talking to the hologram/computer, and more than anything, that last sprint in the Mako trying to get to the jump before it closed-???

yeet the boi-

Also mannn I love a good setpiece, and having to go up the side of the elevator, space-side?? such a cool setup!!

Plus it felt good having been Paragon enough (as simple as the good v bad vibe system is, I don't hate it, lol) to avoid one of the Saren fights, ngl. And the er, "second fight" with Sovereign-Saren.... hell yeah

... I'll admit I had to double check my choice re whether to save the Council. I did in the end, but I swear, sometimes the way they phrase things I'm like ".... okay but Garrus is right, defeating Sovereign is more important than these few leaders??????" woops. Listen, priorities, is all I'm saying..... (￣ヮ￣|||)ゞ

'Course later they emphasize (in ME2) that there were 10,000 people on that same ship and I was like well I wouldn't have second guessed if I'd known that, I mean c'mon-

Also I did indeed romance Liara in this one, so I got that scene ;Dc But,,,, I also knew by the end that I was totally gonna romance Garrus in 2 since he's an option then finally,,,,, lemme tell you the guilt as I waffled over whether to romance Liara bc of it. hahaha.

Aaaaand Mass Effect 2-

So I'm only up to right before the Reaper IFF Mission, so I don't know the ending, etc etc lol. That said, I've just finished every side mission I've found with the exception of the Shadowbroker Quest and the Arrival Quest (I've heard the latter basically leads into ME3, and the former is best either right before the Omega 4 jump or in postgame).

So from the start - fuck yeah fuck yeah what a high adrenaline start Shepard noooooo but also yes save Joker aH-

The motion comic too hot damn nice job

I loved this setup, seriously - especially forcing Shep into this situation, having to work with/for Cerberus, and the compelling reasoning given behind "why" they do what they do (I especially found it a good point that the Salarians have the Task Force, the Asaris the Commandos, the Turians the- etc... like, true, when you put it like that, having a similar group advancing human interests/solving human interstellar problems is pretty reasonable...). That said, I love too that it really isn't shied away from how Cerberus is nonetheless fucked up - or its at least done fucked up stuff.

Listen, I still think some messed up stuff is gonna be revealed in 2's endgame......... after that Horizon mission and the Collector's ship???? TIM I SEE YOU YOU SHADY MF-

aaanyways lol...

I'm so so glad on a gameplay level they nixed the Mako style exploration. A few Hammerhead missions are fine and a lot more focused than the slippery ass navigation in that glorified ATV, pfff. The probes are a neat way of getting after similar resources - and more importantly, having good levels and some good hubs (the Zakera Wards, Omega, Ilium, etc) is way way more fun than having a more 'sprawling' space that is.... a lot of empty nonsense, lol.

Then there's the fact that we get Joker right off the bat and you can interact with him so much - and him and EDI??? Get out gods I love them. Kasumi is so right when she says they sound like a bickering old married couple lol. I have a terrible feeling that some shit is gonna happen with EDI..... but I don't think she's evil as-is, at least.

Side-eying the hell out of those "access forbidden" parts of her that she doesn't even know.... and the fact that her AI core has a locked door access................... something's gonna happen gdi LEAVE OUR ADOPTED AI ALONE.

(Also Joker pls stop fracturing your thumb on the mute button)

Also please save me there are so many hot aliens in this game,,,,, the xeno/monsterfuckers really comin' through strong in the sequels............... doin' the lord's work........................................

In general, I love how many levels ME stepped up in two with complexity and interwoven narratives!! Like, to the point it'd be almost a drag to replay ME1, even though it was fun going through it (if occasionally a bit tedious with the cookie cutter rando planet science/mine facilities, lol). Like, just from how fun and interesting ME2 is, mostly! more of all the pre-introduced races, plus new ones, plus more filling in of intragalactic politics, and more interesting implications of all these space-faring races mixing....

Also gods WREX and his planet holy shit,,,,, fuckin' hell yeah my man get their shit together and also adopt Grunt yes good-

And Mordin??? My singing semi-evil scientist best friend forced to confront his choices more than he thought he ever would have???? With some of the best ongoing general report chatter of all the companions??

(when I tell you I choked on my coffee when I talked to him after confirming romance choice w/ Garrus and that 'pamphlet' and 'anaphalactic shot if ingesting-' kajsldkfjsldfjk)

Like, fuck, the fact that they actually dive into the mixed morality and horrors of the genophage, and you can confront Mordin on it, for good reason, yet he still stands his ground, until finally some bits of his loyalty mission seem to... affect him, and I'm guessing might set up things for 3 with him? Unsure, but either way, damn, the fact that they start to dig into it...

And Taliiiii my beloved forbidden alien wife TwT her loyalty mission was SO GOOD. I love how varied they all are?? Getting to defend her and discover what she'd unwittingly been a part of-!!

Zaeed is a bastard but tbh I love that he is and that he's unapologetic in him - and Kasumi omg, best thief. A heist?? Gods, yes- I love our couch lounge chats XD

Samara is..... illegally.......... she's an illegally powerful and beautiful and eloquent MILF...........................

(.... listen I'm sapphic as hell and I'm kicking my own ass for picking her up last aksjdlfksjdfl - but her loyalty mission, damn. And seeing how there's this interesting cultural subset, and the struggle with the Asari in that they unquestioningly accept/respect justicars, but also know that the impact outside their culture is a diplomacy nightmare waiting to happen-)

,.,,,,,T,,, Thane,,,,,

I am weak for morally implicated murder dads okay?? And that voice??? His mannerisms?????? How you first see him, and that prayer after assassinating her...???????? And his history/his people's history with the hanar, gods I love how messy it is, it feels so much more real!

Also Jack is a mess and I love her (and want to get her some therapy, omg), and her and Miranda nearly duking it out after you've done both their loyalty missions??? so good and makes a lot of sense-! Honestly I would love more interactions between teammates on the ship, but there's already so much the devs had to balance I can't blame 'em for minimizing, heh. But suffice to say I also love Miranda and Jacob, even if I'm softest for my alien crew XD Hell yeah Jacob, we'll get loud and spill drinks on the citadel indeed TwT

.... I could write a whole essay on how much I love Garrus oTL Perhaps because he and Tali are the throughlines from 1 on your 2 crew, I have some of the strongest feelings about them... but genuinely, he was one of my favorite companions in the first game, and how you find him as Archangel in two? Getting to help him fight his way out after he's gone nearly 48 hours straight fighting off three gangs alone, jfc. His vengeance quest and what can happen there.... That line? fuck me, that line -

It's so much easier to see the world in black and white. Grey? I don't know what to do with gray...

How DARE you come for my heart like this, devs holy shit

(also, some other choice faves so far from the series from him include We can disobey suicidal orders?? and This wasn't in my training manual... [in 1, if you have him with you @ th Thorian fight] and his whole.... pop the heat sink - in his romance ;Dc)

asdasdfksadjfkl like I said I can write an essay on him PFFF suffice to say I'm very looking forward to his romance scene and where things go in 3

But yeah gods I'm just gonna keep rambling if I'm not careful lol. Gods I don't even know what to talk about it's all so good and while I can understand people roasting the obviousness of Paragon V Renegade (v neutral) choices/alignments, I think they do a pretty damn good job in 2 of pushing it further - to the point that there were some times that I accidentally got renegade points and I wasn't that mad, haha. There's so much fun in the interactions that I just have a good time anyways~

I have so many thoughts about TIM (The Illusive Man) and Cerberus.... theories evolving galore............... and like, what the hell!! Omega 4 going to the center of the galaxy is such a cool twist, goddamn - though my heart still breaks at losing Kaiden (his line if you haven't romanced him?? about feeling like he lost a limb when he lost you??? holy shit.... but I also can't blame him for not trusting Cerberus to the point of it affecting his ability to trust Shepard... like fuck Shep go after himmmm) I'm really excited to see where that goes since he comes back in 3, and what the fuck happens with Cerberus bc while I love the fact that obviously there are a lot of people in it for the right reasons, doing good work, there are those that are doing the opposite, and I have a very bad feeling about where TIM will end up landing....

All that said though I need to do the Reaper IFF mission (where I'm lightly spoiled as to getting That Boy, but not how/what happens to make it so - just that it's apparently wise to have all your side missions done before getting him...) and the actual Omega 4 jump. So we'll see what happens and what I think about it from there heheh!

.... major kudos and genuine props if you made it here to the end, I am so sorry for not editing on condensing all this, and appreciate you so much ;w;

#night answers #night plays ME #(yes that's a purposeful pun lol) #((i sure have played myself by starting this series its so good aksdjflskjfd))

[qqueenofhades]

I really don’t want to start a discourse™, but I want you to know that I really appreciate how you write joe and Nicky in deo volente. So many of the fics I’ve read have placed yusef in the role of more sexually experienced and less devoted to god, while Nicky is depicted as an inexperienced and virginal priest/knight/monk and so forth and so on. Your narrative of joe out there rescuing people and being faithful, while Nicky looks back on his life of gambling and pleasures of the flesh ...(1/?)

Not to say that there’s anything wrong with either, obviously. I love guilty priest Nicky and repressed Nicky and p much every Nicky. But in the vast array of fics out there, it’s rare to see the opposite. Not that you’re working in a binary morally good/religious vs. not way. Your writing in the fic is really subtle and and your characterizations reveal a lot of depth. I just think it’s cool to see Nicky, average second son of a duke, drinking and gambling and feeling terribly guilty (2/?)

Guilty about the crusades and the fucking horror of crusade 1 without being excessively devout. Just an average dude. Not some paragon of virtue (btw, I’m on chapter 2 of the fic, so I don’t know how much your characterization changes moving forward. You have a lovely ability to combine your incredible knowledge of history, your beautiful writing, and these intimate details of the characters that make them fit— fit the canon and fit the history. (3/? Shit I’m sorry this had gotten way too long)

I enjoy the way you’ve really inserted us into the quotidian aspect of history. Aaaaaanyway— the discourse that I was afraid of: I think that a lot of fans of the movie that are generating fan content (tysfm to all of you beauties, btw 🙏🙏♥️) are westerners (which is a whole nother kettle of fish) and that carries a sort of ignorance about the Muslim world in the Middle Ages and this desire to simplify Europe as “Christian” “fighters for faith” etc. (4/? Fuuuuck. One(??) more)

And when we do that, we end up as characterizing the brown people as “not that”. The thing I love about this fandom is that people are definitely down on the crusades. I feel like all the fic I’ve read has been particularly negative about those wars, but the thing I love about your fic is that you don’t just say war is bad because people died and it was despicable and this pious white dude says so and this one brown person agrees. (5/6, I see the end in sight I swear it)

Instead you give us a larger cast of Muslims and Arabs and really flesh them out and give them opinions and different interpretations of faith, and I really appreciate that. The crusades were terrible, and we know this because these regular dudes who struggle with their different faiths and lives say so. And I just. I think that’s really great. Also, I fucking love yusef’s mom. I feel like more people would be accepting of the gift in this fashion and I think she’s lovely and (god damn it 6/7)

Aaaaaaaand. The bit where yusef returns and she’s already gone breaks my fucking heart. Also the moment where he’s like “I’m not sure about Abraham’s god, but my mothers god is worth my faith”?? Just really fucking great. So. Excellent fic. Excellent characters. Excellent not-being-accidentally-biased-towards-white-Christians. That is what I came here to say. Thank you so much for your amazing stories. I love them and I love history. Sorry about the rambling. idek how I wrote so much. (7/7)

Epilogue: tl;dr: you’re great.

Oh man! What a huge and thoughtful comment (which will in turn provoke a long-ass response from me, so…) I absolutely agree that no matter what fandom, I don’t do Discourse TM; I just sit in my bubble and stay in my lane and do my own thing and create content I enjoy. And I don’t even think this is that so much as just… general commentary on character and background? So obviously all of this should be read as my own personal experience and choices in writing DVLA, and that alone. I really appreciate you for saying that you love a wide range of fan creators/fanworks and you’re not placing one over another, you understand that fans have diverse ranges of backgrounds/experience with history and other cultures when they create content, and that’s not the same for everyone. So I just think that’s a great and respectful way to start things off.

First, as a professional historian who has written a literal PhD thesis on the crusades, I absolutely understand that many people (and regular fans) will not have the same privilege/education/perspective that I do, and that’s fine! They should not be expected to get multiple advanced degrees to enjoy a Netflix movie! But since I DO have that background, and since I’ve been working on the intellectual genealogy of the crusades (and the associated Christian/Muslim component, whether racially or religiously) since I was a master’s student, I have a lot of academic training and personal feelings that inform how I write these characters. Aside from my research on all this, my sister lives in an Islamic country and her boyfriend is a Muslim man; I’ve known a lot of Muslims and Middle Easterners; and especially with the current political climate of Islamophobia and the reckoning with racism whether in reality or fandom, I have been thinking about all this a lot, and my impact on such.

Basically: I love Nicky dearly, but I ADORE Joe, and as such, I’m protective of him and certainly very mindful of how I write him. Especially when the obvious default for westerners in general, fandom-related or otherwise, is to write what you are familiar with (i.e. the European Christian white character) and be either less comfortable or less confident or sometimes less thoughtful about his opposing number. I have at times tangentially stumbled across takes on Joe that turn me into the “eeeeeeeh” emoji or Dubious Chrissy Teigen, but I honestly couldn’t tell you anything else about them because I was like, “nope not for me” and went elsewhere rather than do Discourse (which is pretty much a waste of time everywhere and always makes people feel bad). This is why I’m always selective about my fan content, but especially so with this ship, because I have SO much field-specific knowledge that I just have to make what I like and which suits my personal tastes. So that is what I do.

Obviously, there’s a troublesome history with the trope of “sexually liberate brown person seduces virginal white character into a world of Fleshly Decadence,” whether from the medieval correlation of “sodomite” and “Saracen,” or the nineteenth-century Orientalist depictions of the East as a land variously childishly simplistic, societally backward, darkly mysterious and Exotic, or “decadent” (read: code for sexually unlike Western Europe, including the spectrum of queer acts). So when I was writing DVLA, I absolutely did not want to do that and it’s not to my taste, but I’m not going to whip out a red pen on someone else writing a story that broadly follows those parameters (because as I said, I stay in my lane and don’t see it anyway). Joe to me is just such an intensely complex and lovely Muslim character that that’s the only way I feel like I can honestly write him, and I absolutely love that about him. So yeah, any depiction of hypersexualizing him or making him only available for the sexual use and education of the white character(s) is just... mmm, not for me.

For example, I stressed over whether it was appropriate to move his origin from “somewhere in the Maghreb” to Cairo specifically, since Egypt, while it IS in North Africa, is not technically part of the Maghreb. I realize that Marwan Kenzari’s family is Tunisian and that’s probably why they chose it, to honor the actor’s heritage, but on the flip side… “al-Kaysani” is also a specifically Ismai’li Shia name (it’s the name of a branch of it) and the Fatimids (the ruling dynasty in Jerusalem at the time of the First Crusade) were well-known for being the only Ismai’li Shia caliphate. (This is why the Shi’ites still ancestrally dislike Saladin for overthrowing it in 1174, even if Saladin is a huge hero to the rest of the Islamic world.) Plus I really wanted to use medieval Cairo as Joe’s homeland, and it just made more sense for an Ismai’li Shia Fatimid from Cairo (i.e. the actual Muslim denomination and caliphate that controlled Jerusalem) to be defending the Holy City because it was personal for him, rather than a Sunni Zirid from Ifriqiya just kind of turning up there. Especially due to the intense fragmentation and disorganization in the Islamic world at the time of the First Crusade (which was a big part of the reason it succeeded) and since the Zirids were a breakaway group from the Fatimids and therefore not very likely to be militarily allied with them. As with my personal gripes about Nicky being a priest, I decided to make that change because I felt, as a historian, that it made more sense for the character. But I SUPER recognize it as my own choices and tweaks, and obviously I’m not about to complain at anyone for writing what’s in graphic novel/bonus content canon!

That ties, however, into the fact that Nicky has a clearly defined city/region of origin (Genoa, which has a distinct history, culture, and tradition of crusading) and Joe is just said to be from “the Maghreb” which…. is obviously huge. (I.e. anywhere in North Africa west of Egypt all the way to Morocco.) And this isn’t a fandom thing, but from the official creators/writers of the comics and the movie. And I’m over here like: okay, which country? Which city? Which denomination of Islam? You’ve given him a Shia name but then point him to an origin in Sunni Ifriqiya. If he’s from there, why has he gone thousands of miles to Jerusalem in the middle of a dangerous war to help his religious/political rivals defend their territory? Just because he’s nice? Because it was an accident? Why is his motivation or reason for being there any less defined or any less religious (inasmuch as DVLA Nicky’s motive for being on the First Crusade is religious at all, which is not very) than the white character’s? In a sense, the Christians are the ones who have to work a lot harder to justify their presence in the Middle East in the eleventh century at all: the First Crusade was a specifically military and offensive invasion launched at the direct behest of the leader of the Western Roman church (Pope Urban II.) So the idea that they’re “fighting for the faith” or defending it bravely is…

Eeeeh. (Insert Dubious Chrissy Teigen.)

But of course, nobody teaches medieval history to anyone in America (except for Bad Game of Thrones History Tee Em), and they sure as hell don’t teach about the crusades (except for the Religious Violence Bad highlight reel) so people don’t KNOW about these things, and I wish they DID know, and that’s why I’m over here trying to be an academic so I can help them LEARN it, and I get very passionate about it. So once again, I entirely don’t blame people who have acquired this distorted cultural impression of the crusades and don’t want to do a book’s worth of research to write a fic about a Netflix movie. I do hope that they take the initiative to learn more about it because they’re interested and want to know more, since by nature the pairing involves a lot of complex religious, racial, and cultural dynamics that need to be handled thoughtfully, even if you don’t know everything about it. So like, basically all I want is for the Muslim character(s) to be given the same level of respect, attention to detail, background story, family context, and religious diversity as any of the white characters, and Imma do it myself if I have to. Dammit.

(I’m really excited to hear your thoughts on the second half of the fic, especially chapter 3 and chapter 6, but definitely all of it, since I think the characters they’re established as in the early part of the fic do remain true to themselves and both grow and struggle and go through a realistic journey with their faith over their very long lives, and it’s one of my favorite themes about DVLA.)

Anyway, about Nicky. I also made the specific choice to have him be an average guy, the ordinary second son of a nobleman who doesn’t really know what he’s doing with his life and isn’t the mouthpiece of Moral Virtue in the story, since as he himself realizes pretty quick, the crusades and especially the sack/massacre of Jerusalem are actually horrific. I’ve written in various posts about my nitpicking gripes with him being a priest, so he’s not, and as I said, I’m definitely avoiding any scenario where he has to Learn About The World from Joe. That is because I want to make the point that the people on the crusades were people, and they went for a lot of different reasons, not all of which were intense personal religious belief. The crusades were an institution and operated institutionally. Even on the First Crusade, where there were a lot of ordinary people who went because of sincere religious belief, there was the usual bad behavior by soldiers and secular noblemen and people who just went because it was the thing to do. James Brundage has an article about prostitution and miscegenation and other sexual activity on the First Crusade; even at the height of this first and holy expedition, it was happening. So Nicky obviously isn’t going to be the moral exemplar because a) the crusades are horrific, he himself realizes that, and b) it’s just as historically accurate that he wouldn’t be anyway. Since the idea is that medieval crusaders were all just zealots and ergo Not Like Us is dangerous, I didn’t want to do that either. If we think they all went because they were all personally fervent Catholics and thus clearly we couldn’t do the same, then we miss a lot of our own behavior and our parallel (and troubling) decisions, and yeah.

As well, I made a deliberate choice to have Nicky’s kindness (which I LOVE about him, it’s one of my favorite things, god how refreshing to have that be one of the central tenets of a male warrior character) not to be something that was just… always there and he was Meek and Good because a priest or whatever else. Especially as I’ve gotten older and we’ve all been living through these ridiculous hellyears (2020 is the worst, but it’s all been general shit for a while), I’ve thought more and more about how kindness is an active CHOICE and it’s as transgressive as anything else you can do and a whole lot more brave than just cynicism and nihilism and despair. As you’ll see in the second half of the fic, Nicky (and Joe) have been through some truly devastating things and it might be understandable if they gave into despair, but they DON’T. They choose to continue to be good people and to try and to actively BE kind, rather than it being some passive default setting. They struggle with it and it’s raw and painful and they’re not always saints, but they always come down on the side of wanting to keep doing what they’re doing, and I… have feelings about that.

Anyway, this is already SUPER long, so I’ll call it quits for now. But thank you so much for this, because I love these characters and I love the story I created for them in DVLA, since all this is personal to me in a lot of ways, and I’m so glad you picked up on that.

#history #medieval history #queer history #dvla asks #long post #the old guard meta #anonymous #ask

[voidselfshipp]

You deserve better

Cw: food ment and shitty parent ment.

Ok to rb.

Summmary: after a bad fight with his dad, Brandon aka paragon goes to find solace in his ever present friend,and crush, jerico aka the inmovable heart.

Jerico wasnt expecting any visitors that day, she was sitting on the roof of her appartment, can of soda in hand with some music in the background.

She saw the shadow of a Man from the Fire exit, he was inside her house.

She picks up her things and runs inside, using her powers to make her fists like rock.

She butts into her house ready to punch the intruder, she stops two centemeters from his face.

--bRANDON!-- shouted jer turning her fists to normal-- Jesus christ you scared me! I thought you were a burglar...!

She closes the door as her superheroe friend just sighs-- me and dad had a fight and I stormed off, can I stay for a bit?

She nodds sighing softly giving him a hug.

He hugs back tightly-- youre one of the few that havent died on me...

--I heard about blackstar, you did good

-- not enough for my dad apparently...

Both break the hug and sit on her sofá, she sits closer taking his hand.

--you know how he is,but you did good, im sorry he fails to see that , you tried your best

He nodds leaning on her-- god, what would I do without you?

He Snickered and she quickly went to the kitchen, grabbing plenty of snacks and drinks for them to play some videogames.

It helped to get Brandons mind off of his fight with his dad, jerico never failed when it came to cheer him up.

Her superheroe days are behind Her, though shortlived, she did a lot of good.

She wasnt aligned with his fathers League, she was but a mere secret amongst her Friends, between them Brandon. Her childhood friend.

Utopian never found out, he was sure to cut all ties with them if he found out about her alter-ego.

Yet,paragon was always there for her when she needed it.

-- oh Man! We died again!--complained jerico, throwing the joystick on the table.

--lets take a break okay?--suggested Brandon putting an arm around her and pulling her closer.

Theres a silence that lasts some minutes, just the two of them taking a breather.

Suddenly he Snickers-- remember when we kicked those bank Robbers near that waffle house we used to go?

She giggles-- yep, they were pretty scared when you threw me at em

--if I remember correctly you said 'YEET' as I threw you

--Heh that I did!

Both chuckle and he looks away-- yknow, the nickname we have you still applies

-- come on, "the inmovable heart" is pretty cheesy

Brandon looks at her with his brows raised--but im right though, you never back down, and even when things are at their worst you seem unphased by it

-- maybe it comes with the powers

He tilts his head-- jerico, dont diminish yourself

-- look im just saying, im used to be planted in one place, And survive, thats how I got here, im helping those who cant find a rock to lean on when things get rough

He leans in,and she does the same-- and for that ill be forever greatfull jerico, youre an amazing friend...-- brandons voice breaks a little-- I just wish we were...-- they are centemeters appart-- more--

Just as they are about to kiss, they hear a loud noise coming from the outside ,and paragon hears a voice he feared to.

--Brandon!-- shouted the utopian, brandons father-- get down from there right now!

Jerico sighs-- utopian has horrible timing

Neither answer the calls until they become too much.

--i have to go-- he said.

--no, you dont have to

Brandon whispers some not so nice things under his breath and both walk down to the street where his father was

-- didnt I tell you to work the farm!?--sheldon shouted.

-- and Keep me grounded? I understand what I did was wrong! I learnt my lesson!

--you Killed! Thats against the code!

--i did my best!

--no!you didnt!

--Oh for the love of-- jerico stomped to both of them separating father from son-- he did his best!

-- stay out of It!-- said the utopian.

--no! I wont!-- jer screamed back-- you Keep mincing every attempt he makes, he did what he thought was best! You dont mind that because hes not perfect, I know a shitty parent when I see one, ive Dealt with one my whole life! Youre never going to see what paragon does because you dont care!

Newsflash asshole people arent perfect and we arent meant to be perfect, Brandon is a good Man, hes perfect just the way he is, moral code or not your just a shitty parent!-- theres a bit or silence that she uses to Keep talking-- the utopian is such a good name for you, fits Like a FUCKING glove , you think of yourself as perfect? Theres no such thing, you are just another narcisistic, Holier than thou asshole

The utopian, mad as he could get tries to shove her away, but he cant, he looks down at jericos feet, covered by the ground, even with his powers he couldnt get her to move

Brandon tears up as she shileds him from his dad.

--try and move me, itll be the last thing youll do

-- dont threaten me kid

-- just a warning,now leave us alone

The utopian looks at his son-- youre really going to be with someone as foolish as her?

Brandon nodds grabbing jericos hand-- yes, yes I Will, shes the only one that treats me like an actual human

The utopian ends up leaving.

They get inside the appartment and collapse on the sofa.

-- thank you for standing up for me-- said Brandon hugging her.

--i couldnt Keep seeing you suffering like that...

They stay silent for a while, he then pushed her closer to him and smiled.

--Where were we?

She kisses him, her arms against his chest and him hugging her waist.

--hey-- said jerico-- if your dad gets that angry again come here, text me tho, just so I dont knock you out on accident...

--seeing how he was I migbt end up getting kicked out of the house

-- If that happends then, know theres a home for you here

He nodds--thank you

He kisses her again-- how about a shower and then we Keep playing?

She nodds standing up-- race you to the bathroom! And no cheating Brandon!

He laughs,and they run into the bathroom.

#💙more than enough💙 #cw food ment #tw food ment #cw food #tw food #cw shitty parent mention #tw shitty parent mention #cw narcissistic parent mention #tw narcissistic parent mention.

[janiedean]

I was wondering what you feel about the opinion that GRRM hates feminine/non-warrior women because they (Catelyn, Cersei, Sansa) are written with intentional flaws while his warrior girls (Brienne, Arya) are not? Do you agree with that? That Brienne and Arya have no flaws? It was some dumb meta about how the world is against Brienne, but she never does harm to the world, so she's a bad character and GRRM is a misogynist or something. (1/2)

I disagree obviously. Just because Brienne is not a demon doesn't mean she doesn't have flaws or she's a bad character lol. Like... why can't we have an angel in a world of monsters? What's wrong with that? Are these people jealous that Brienne is one of those pure character that their faves are not, so they feel like dismissing her as a bad character to make themselves feel good? I'm asking you because I know you love Catelyn and Brienne so I know you're the best person to ask this. Ty (2/2)

... I mean this has a long answer to give but this *meta* seems to me like it was written by someone who has no idea what they’re talking about when it comes to who grrm hates in his writing or his supposed misogyny because they have it all wrong and I think you pretty much guessed the point, but in order, let’s... tackle this one by one:

grrm doesn’t at all hate cat and sansa and their flaws are... flaws in the sense that he’s writing them like good people who aren’t 100% perfect but like.. sansa’s *flaws* from the beginning are stuff that’s common to most 12yo girls in existence and she overcomes them and she’s generally a good and kind and caring person whose main trait is that she’s good and kind and stays like that so how exactly now she’s written... like you’re supposed to hate her? bc she’s not. grrm never wanted you to hate sansa. he wrote her like a realistic 11-15yo but like most of us were like that at that age or have had friends who were like that, so... what the fuck. catelyn.... like guys the one heavy flaw she has is her treatment of jon but she’s written as a smart person who’s trying to live in a misogynistic society as best as she can and she’s written like a tragic character but grrm obviously likes her/loves writing her, it’s.... like if you read her chapters you can see how much work/love/craft went into them and how he worked on her bg very carefully also she is more of a protagonist than ned until asos when it comes to the stark side like.... how is giving her human flaws meaning he hates her?? grrm doesn’t hate her. the fact that she and brienne end up doing the knightly/lady sworn sword thing is even more of a proof he doesn’t but more on that later;

cersei... well I mean grrm obv doesn’t like cersei that much but a) he’s written a version of that character at least thrice already including the asoiaf one so I think he has an ex like that that he doesn’t particularly remember fondly or smth but like... she’s written to be a villain. she’s a villain. she’s a very well-crafted/thought out villain with a realistic background but diff. from cat and sansa she’s there to be the antagonist period, and just like... cersei and cat are aesthetically the same archetype and they couldn’t be more different so idk wtf are people smoking when saying that and if they can’t read cat chapters without fandom-hates-her glasses idk what to tell them;

brienne and arya have flaws are we serious, like arya has the flaws everyone has at that age (too impulsive/tends to judge people very fast/is too fixed on things/doesn’t listen to people etc) but like she’s fucking nine when it starts and she gets traumatized to hell and back, like arya’s sl to me is creepy af because no 12yo should be like that and it’s a very good trauma exploration but like....... she has faults but she’s not a bad person for obvious reasons as in SHE’S A KID same as sansa same as EVERYONE UNDERAGE IN THESE BOOKS except partially joffrey and even he has a background that explains how he is, like.... arya and sansa are supposed to be written in an equally sympathetic but specular way because they have opposite ways of reacting to trauma ie sansa holds on to her kindness arya gets progressively detached because she has to kill people to survive but you’re not supposed to hate either of them? honestly grrm wrote them with the exact same stakes, anyone who thinks it’s qualitatively different needs to go back and reread it with some intellectual honestly;

brienne... I mean we serious? the thing with brienne is that she’s a fundamentally good person who is written to become the ultimate example of a good knight™ and who is supposed to restore decency to the title after the institution has crumpled into the dirt, so... she’s... good, same as dunk is in the novels, but like: lmao she has a lot of faults, first thing that at the beginning she judges everyone on sight and sees everything in black and white, she has zero preservation instinct and nonexisting selfesteem because she thinks her life isn’t worth her vows and she thinks she’s not fit for anything she tries to do and would have died for a guy who danced with her once like sorry that’s not healthy, which are all things,... she’s... getting over.... because she has a character arc, but saying that brienne isn’t realistic or doesn’t have faults is ridiculous because she is;

now, this concept that grrm is misogynist is idiotic because a guy who has an insane number of female povs - some of which are the same trope ie brienne and arya - and have all a distinct different personality and voice and none of them are like too idealized or too evil and are to a level relatable means he’s everything but because a misogynyst wouldn’t be able to pull that off. like, in any other book brienne and arya would have been the same character, in his they’re not, so maybe like... give him some credit in the sense that the moment half of your povs are well-written realistic female characters and the ones without povs are equally well-written/manage to be fan faves (ie marg and olenna) maybe he’s just... not... a misogynist nor hates women so that’s out of the way;

re cat and brienne: like... saying ‘ah he hates catelyn’ when catelyn is literally the first *lady* who treats brienne like a friend/peer/person she cares about is completely fucking idiotic because guess what if you’re like brienne usually most Attractive Girls™ the way cat is are not your best friends in life (I mean c. calls her a cow and they didn’t even meet on paper lmao and it’s obvious from b’s povs that she has bad experiences with other women in general), so the fact that cat actually sees her worth, accepts her as her sworn sword doing a thing that’s usually just between men, trusts her with her daughters’ lives, thinks she’s a better knight than jaime could be and treats her as it befits her station (in riverrun she had dresses made for her but brienne wouldn’t wear them) and is actually good to one of the few good people in these books who gets treated like dirt by most others should tell you exactly what grrm thinks of catelyn, ie nothing too bad, and that she’s a good person who fucked up on one thing that the narrative knows and doesn’t excuse, but like.... lmao that entire argument falls flat just for that;

Are these people jealous that Brienne is one of those pure character that their faves are not, so they feel like dismissing her as a bad character to make themselves feel good? you’re on to smth but as I ranted on twitter once: this all falls again to the fact that people Cannot Accept The Fact That An Ugly Girl Who Is Going To Stay Ugly is one of the moral hearts of these series and is An Actual Good Person Who Deserves Good Things in spite of not performing femininity, and who’s going to get the guy of her dreams (who is Hot) without settling and without becoming beautiful, and she’ll manage to realize her dreams even without becoming beautiful and regardless of having been treated like dirt because of her looks all her life, and like... apparently that is too much or too complicated to conceive and so either they have to decide she’s not That ugly or make her things she’s not or decide she’ll die early wow and whatever else, but like: the problem is that usually the Pure Moral Center Of A Story Who Happens To Be Female and gets her dreams and the hot dude is standard attractive. brienne is not, she has trauma because of that, and she’s still the best person in there (or one of the best) and she’ll get her dreams and the hot dude, and people can’t handle this specific concept nor admit that grrm, having done a thing that no one else has until now because there’s no other brienne in genre literature/in that way, is everything but a misogynist, since he actually, ah, wait, gave decent rep to people who most times are relegated to playing the best friend who stays single or are usually evil bc ugly antagonist women are everywhere, ugly protagonist women who are actually Good People™ and aren’t a paragon of Pure Virtue and don’t die virgins? not really. so: people can’t handle that brienne the way she is is a Good Person and The One True Knight In Westeros and it’s a sad thing but it just shows that maybe more people should go for that trope and that’s my two cents;

other than that no guy who can write the range of women grrm does can be a misogynist by definition, especially a guy who managed to get perfectly how it feels being a straight nonstandard attractive woman in society in general because my friends if before I stumbled into asoiaf I never related 100% to one fictional character ever there was a reason, and I read a lot, so people can bite me on that thing;

to end and comment on one thing: 

how the world is against Brienne, but she never does harm to the world

congrats to OP they went THAT close to it: that’s the entire fucking point. being like brienne in her society (and not performing femininity™ correctly in ours) means that whatever you do people will criticize you and treat you like dirt even if you don’t mean them any harm. the world is absolutely against her because all the circumstances are stacked against her - she’s a woman, doing a man’s job, looking nonattractive and therefore other women treat her like dirt and men don’t consider her or see her as a threat and hate her for it because she’s better at their job than they are, wanting to be a knight which is a thing that’s technically forbidden bc women can’t be anointed as far as the westerosi law says, who’s doing that because she knows she’s good at it but every single person in her way doesn’t want her to succeed except for a handful, can’t use femininity to navigate the world and she has to survive as a woman in a men’s world in an extremely misogynistic medieval society and there’s a reason why no one but three people takes her seriously, ie that if you don’t count a few people in f&b that are history book material in her context/timeframe she’s an unicum and people tend to dislike it when you’re an unicum/sticking out/wanting to go against the system. the system is absolutely stacked against her, when everything she wants is do good to others and making her father proud and be a knight and find love, and even if it’s not that much to ask for her it’s, on paper, impossible.... and the entire point is that as impossible as it looks she’s definitely going to get it because she’s written exactly for that, and if people haven’t grasped that it’s her arc - overcoming a misogynistic society and living beyond gender roles regardless of your looks which in itself is groundbreakingly feminist - sorry for them but they’ll have a bad wake up call when grrm gets wow/ados out.

and that’s my two cents, but like: there’s nothing wrong in liking characters With Faults or evil ones and you can find Good Ones boring, just don’t try to make it pass like the author is a misogynist because the Good Character is a nonstandard attractive gnc woman because that’s actually a thing no one else ever did.

and this stated brienne is more similar to book!sansa than book!arya personality-wise so it’s an argument that doesn’t hold on even joking. /two cents

#brienne of tarth #janie writes meta #anti-cersei lannister #ch: catelyn tully #ch: sansa stark #ch: arya stark #idek #Anonymous #ask post

[bigskydreaming]

remember when devin grayson wrote about green arrow flirting with teenager dick grayson and then bruce and dick have an incestuous relationship............................

Listen, I have no idea what this ask says, I just see a string of random letters followed by dot dot dot. 

In completely unrelated matters, the only dynamic between Dick and Ollie I abide by is one where the nicest thing Dick’s ever said to Ollie is something like “hey why does your face look like you killed a squirrel and glued it to your chin, is that what you were going for or do people just not like you and so nobody ever told you til now that that’s what it looks like.”

And even there, that’s still just the best Dick could manage (or was willing to even aim for) after Bruce gave Dick a totally and one hundred percent genuine and sincere Talking To about how he needed to be more polite to Ollie. Cuz the way I envision it, all that’s after Dick initially opened with something like, idk, “hey wanna hear a funny joke, it goes “what do you call a known Errol Flynn fanboy who thinks putting on a domino mask when he fights crime with a bow and arrow like, magically makes his goatee invisible? A dumbass who doesn’t get how secret identities work, that’s what. Get it, its you, you’re the joke.”

LOL for the record, I don’t actually hate Ollie and have no really strong opinions on him one way or another, it usually just depends on how he’s being written in whatever story or issue I’m reading with him. Its just canon that Ollie is like, one of the few people that Dick just openly can not stand, pretty much, with this stretching back far enough that personally, I like to headcanon it goes all the way back to even before Ollie took Roy in and has absolutely nothing to do with Roy whatsoever.

Idk, its just really fucking funny to me to picture that like, for whatever reason, ten year old Dick Grayson decided upon meeting the Justice League that they were all awesome except for Oliver Queen. Dick doesn’t know why, he doesn’t care why, he just knows that like, “I do not care for that Oliver Queen guy, not one bit, and no, I am not open to constructive criticism on this matter, UGH BRUCE STOP TELLING ME I SHOULD AT LEAST TRY AND BE NICER TO HIM, I SAID HE WAS A BUTTFACE AND I MEANT IT, WHERE’S THE CONFUSION.”

Because see, while Ollie is not Actually The Worst, he IS one of the League heroes who is prideful and petty enough to like, absolutely take offense to someone hating his guts for no discernible reason, while considering this more than reason enough to hate their guts right back. Even if that particular someone happens to have both miles and years left to go before they hit either puberty or the top side of five feet tall, and thus in the meanwhile, Ollie must literally lower himself in every sense of the word in order to return fire at his pint-sized and prepubescent critic.

Like, if Dick for whatever reason decided he just doesn’t like Superman or the Flash and he’s not gonna and you can’t make him, then I mean, Clark or Barry or someone else along those lines would just be like, oh, okay, that’s fair I guess. No, its totally fine Bruce, the adorable little human incarnation of glitter, cotton candy and all things Cute and Precious and Wee that you just took in is allowed to hate me if he wants to, its absolutely *wheezing sob* not a big deal. I’m a big boy, I don’t need you to intercede on my behalf with him. Now if anyone needs me, I’ll be wallowing in my room for the next 84 years, trying to figure out if I was some kind of monstrous puppy-kicker in a previous lifetime and that’s why my fate here in this one is to be despised by a ten year old with the superpower of Absolute Preciousness. Its my punishment, clearly, for being just the worst kind of monster to ever exist, the only kind that could actually be hated by someone like your adorable little Fun-Sized sidekick of joy and sunshine and l-l-laughter......no, don’t look at me, I’m hideous! *bursts into tears and scurries away to hide from the light*

But see now, Ollie, on the other hand, like.....he’s not a monster but he’s not about to let even some paragon of preciousness go around painting him as one. Why the fuck does he spend so much money on publicists if he’s just gonna roll over belly-side up the first time one of the people bad-mouthing him just happens to be like, a toddler instead of the usual TMZ?

So Ollie’s not about to admit that he’s actually miffed and even a little bit wounded that this cherub who seems to like even most supervillains more than he likes Ollie, just like, can not seem to be in his presence longer than sixty seconds before drawing his weapons and stabbing Ollie with words that hurt, dammit, because he has feelings too, y’know, he spent a lot of money on pricey therapists figuring out that yes, those are feelings he’s feeling and he can even name some of them.....

Like, he’s not quite on board with actually ACKNOWLEDGING that hey this stings, and that he really just wants to know what the hell this kid’s deal is and why don’t you like me, tiny human, what did I ever even do to you??? But all of that is like......Advanced Level Therapy stuff that he hasn’t quite gotten around to finishing yet at this point in time. Like yeah he’s already dropped a mint on the A-list of the head-shrinking world by now, but apparently he was supposed to keep coming back or something like that, they all keep making a really big deal about that for some reason, and look, he’s been busy. So he really just hasn’t had the time to finish up the course on How To Make Peace With the Fact That Sometimes Tiny Humans Don’t Like Me Even Though I’m A Fucking Delight, Dammit.

But even if the why of this kid getting under his skin so much eludes him for the nonce, Ollie is perfectly clear on one thing: he doesn’t typically go around making enemies of the twelve and under set, but if you prick him, he doth in fact bleed, you little prick. So if this knee-high nightmare is gonna keep coming at me and trying to start shit, then I am more than willing to throw down, is basically Ollie’s take here. 

“He wants to dance? Then c’mon, let’s do this thing. We can dance if he wants to. I’ve got the time,” Ollie says to himself and any other nearby Justice Leaguer who might be looking at him with that swiftly-becoming-familiar expression of mingled judgment, pity, exasperation and something a bit more ambiguous but which probably lands somewhere in the ballpark of “We honestly don’t know what to make of all of this but we’re all a little concerned This Is Not A Good Look, Bro. And also, we would like to formally request by way of this petition with all 200+ signatures of Leaguers and auxiliary members and support staff: please don’t escalate this into something where Batman might actually kill you, because that’s definitely not gonna make any of this less awkward for the rest of us, and uh....not to be indelicate here, but all those times we’ve all said things like no Ollie, we don’t think Bruce is a better fighter than you and we absolutely agree with you, you could totally maybe take him in a fair fight if you had your bow and arrows on you and he had the flu probably.....like. Umm. How to put this....Okay, soooooo....here’s the thing. There may, perhaps, ever so slightly be a possibility slash definite hardcore certainty that there were fib-like qualities to those conversations. A little bit. Oh hey, look at the time, we gotta run, there’s a fire somewhere, hopefully. Lol wait whoops did we say hopefully, that’s so weird like where did that even come from. We definitely meant to say probably. There’s a fire somewhere, probably."

But look, at the end of the day, the thing is, Headcanon Ollie is not like, proud of any of this, but he’s not unproud of it either. He is hashtag justified and he wouold appreciate some validation of that Ugly Truth, even if it might go against the grain and not ever exactly be a POPULAR opinion with the “please don’t tell the ten year old that nuh uh, his face looks like a hairy butthole, nobody wins there, that is not the victory you are looking for” crowd.

Honestly though, at this point Ollie’s list of Big Asks is quite small. Miniscule, even. All he wants, all he really really wants, is for someone, anyone, to join him in grasping the one essential corn kernel at the heart of this whole clusterfuck. The thing that nobody but Ollie seems to get and that Ollie’s pretty sure would be enough to allow him to die happily, if he could just manage to find one other person to sign on to the one single extremely obvious observation he keeps trying to point out to everyone, with a whole lot of nada to show for it:

Because see, the one thing about all of this that drives Ollie just absolutely up a wall, is that for some reason he can’t seem to get anyone to understand that like.....this whoooooole ridiculous mess, just like, even in terms of its very existence in the first place?

None of it is Ollie’s fault.

Dick started it!

Mere moments after frustratedly trying to convey this to Dinah for the umpteenth million bajillionth time:

“Okay, could you at least say something?” Ollie asked exasperatedly. “Anything? Seriously, I would take you counting to ten in Cantonese as an acceptable response at this point.”

“I’m just trying to decide which concerns me more,” Dinah said at last. Several epochs and the equivalent of the entire Jurassic Period later. But whatever, its not like Ollie was holding his breath at this point or anything. “The fact that you are genuinely trying to find and occupy the moral high ground in your feud with....a ten year old. Or that you actually think you’ve found it. That this is it, this is what that looks like. ‘The ten year old started it.’”

That was apparently all Dinah had to say. She fell silent again, and said silence lingered through a recreation of now the entire Cretaceous Period, before continuing into a revival of the whole Paleozoic Era from start to torturous finish.

“Well?” Ollie said with a patience that belied the urgency of the many pressing matters he had to attend to. Like the vanquishing of a ten year old archnemesis most foul.

Dinah just continued to frown pensively.

“Hang on, I’m still deciding.”

[twilightknight17]

Today on P5S, it is entirely unfair how cool our Monarch of Arrogance is. God. What the fuck. Dark Souls, in my Persona??? X’D

Konoe’s Jail once again set off my fight or flight reflexes, because after the colored door and switch puzzle, it decided to once again emulate Okumura’s Palace by having us collect cards to gain VIP access to the airship that would take us to the castle.

Fortunately, it was a fairly straightforward area, and I got to run over an entire hallway’s worth of Naga with a futuristic golf cart, so things were pretty good! Got our keycard, entered the airship hanger, ready for departure!

........and that’s all we get. A fade-to-black, and a checkpoint in a new area. Disappointing.

Slightly less disappointing. What a cool view.

We have to leave the Jail for the day because “the great Akira’s hero show” is beginning, so there’s a crowd of people and guards gumming up the building entrance. In the real world, this translates to Konoe being on a talk show.

I swear to god, they only have one talk show set. XDDD

One of the things he says on TV is that “the world is about to undergo a massive transformation, and I’m hoping to steer it in the right direction.” I’m going to keep making jokes about you being Shido and Maruki’s lovechild for as long as you keep choosing questionable wording like that, sir. This country is not a goddamn ship. We’ve already proved that!

Pot??? Kettle????? Good god, you fucking hypocrite. X’‘‘DDD The world’s savior, everyone!

I am having a lovely time in Osaka. Apparently they’re well-known for their takoyaki specifically, aside from being a foodie paradise in general. But I swear to god, Akira, if you actually put mayonnaise, mochi, and cheese on squid all at once, I will end you.

My cat won’t let me eat a crepe, but he’ll allow this madness.

Anyway, after a good night’s sleep, it’s time to storm the castle! And once we made it inside, we were immediately teleported to a dungeon. I’m not mad about that part; we got out in like five minutes. Shoddy security. What I am mad about is that it cut off the ‘storming the castle’ music, because I really like that track.

The top of the tower revealed a cage, the same as the other Jails, and the Thieves were caught off-guard by the notion that Konoe has some kind of trauma. Futaba says that he seems far too confident and being traumatized doesn’t fit his image, to which I say, my absent boyfriend was the same way, sis. You never know.

They trick Wolf into touching the barrier and learning what kind of trauma it was that sent Konoe out of control. He screams. It’s great. :3

........hm. Apparently my Akira’s not the only one with shitty parents. At least his are improving. This sounds very bad.

Yusuke: “Nothing changes the fact that Akira Konoe is an incredibly dangerous man who changes other’s hearts and robs them of their free will.”

Me: Gee, kids, you waffled a lot more about Maruki. Konoe’s just trying to eliminate evil because of his trauma, right??? -_-;;;

Sophia’s confused why Konoe’s father would be that awful to him when they’re family. To answer your question, yes, darling, family is very important, that’s why I’m adopting you as my fourth little sister. You’re wonderful.

Konoe’s Trauma Cell is at his old family home. Twenty years ago, Konoe’s father was killed in a robbery. The killer was never caught. Here, the Phantom Thieves are treated to a lock keeper in the form of Konoe’s father, who has wonderful things to say, like...

“Keeping you around’s a real pain in the ass. Maybe I should just kill you, too.”

.....too?

“What the fuck are you mumbling about, you freak? Not like it matters, you’ll be joining your mother soon enough!”

...................uh...

Atlus.

God, they just keep giving me reasons to write the Hours version of Scramble, I swear to god. This is begging for some Goro commentary.

Zenkichi gets everyone back on track, reminding them that an abusive childhood does not absolve someone of attempting to take over the world. The kids head out for the day, and postpone planning the calling card because Zenkichi had something else to do.

That something else turned out to be meeting with Commissioner Kaburagi. Apparently she helped Sae get him out of prison. He tells her that he’s intending to arrest Owada once Konoe confesses, and she gives him three days to get shit done. Meanwhile, she strongly implies that she’s going after the Commissioner General, whose heart might have been changed.

And Konoe’s just chilling in his fancy office, talking on the phone with Owada and checking in with EMMA. He gets EMMA to confirm that the Thieves are still imprisoned in the Kyoto Jail, and that’s... interesting.

...........strange. Why is EMMA lying to him?

It also confirms for him that the Thieves’ hearts cannot be changed (but not why), and he basically shrugs and is like, “Well, I guess they’ll just have to rot in there.” What a paragon of justice and goodness, leaving teenagers to die.

EMMA seemingly being dishonest brings me to another interesting point from his interview earlier:

Now, this could be either Tokyo Tower or the Skytree. However, it doesn’t really matter.

The point is that I want an absolutely batshit final boss on top of one of those towers. XDDDDD

Anyway.

The Phantom Thieves hijack Madicce’s blimp to drop calling cards all over Osaka, combined with a live broadcast. They let Zenkichi write the card, without supervision for some reason, so it ended up reading like an arrest warrant. Zenkichi sees no problems with this. He definitely needs more practice. And then, it’s off to confront Konoe’s Shadow, and see what the fuck he has to say for himself.

......all of you people are the SAME. This is why Mitsuru doesn’t want this stuff to be public knowledge, oh my GOD. I know the gods are real to some extent but they are not picking YOU. Where did you even learn about the cognitive world, anyway?

He just flat out admits that he wants to rule the world so he can erase evil. Which, I can think of one entity that definitely ought to be striking you down where you stand. I’d be okay if there wasn’t even a boss fight here, there’s just a giant tentacle that appears and crushes him to death and then we go home. X’‘‘‘D

......god, if I really do set Hours!Scramble after Royal, it’s just going to be the kids stuck in a constant loop of “not this shit again”. X’‘‘D

FUCK OFF, MARUKI.

On the one hand, he has half a point, and I was literally having a discussion yesterday about how the Thieves’ methods definitely have an element of grey morality to them.

On the other, the difference is we’re specifically targeting criminals. You are targeting literally everyone, including innocent people. Show me your boss form so we can throw down.

.....oh.

He’s... He’s got a cool Zephyrman suit. And a giant mech. We’re fighting a big anime mech. omg. omg omg omg.

We get to use railguns to blast the shit out of his overpowered mech suit. And when it’s eventually destroyed, he walks out of the smoke ready to throw down with a red lightsaber and he looks like a fucking Dark Souls boss.

I unironically love this.

I’m writing Hours Scramble just so that Goro has a chance to swordfight this motherfucker. I love it.

I LOVE IT.

HE’S SO HARD. HE’S DODGING ALL MY SHIT LIKE SHADOW JOKER. HE’S USING THE SHIT IN THE ARENA AGAINST ME, LIKE I CAN DO TO HIM. THIS IS GREAT.

I stopped for the night before I beat him, but that just means that I get to watch that absolutely amazing cutscene again. Oh my gosh. I’m so excited.

#Li plays P5Scramble

[sob-dylan]

i find very refreshing how kim constantly owns up her mistakes and is aware how her actions can affect others ("i could have hurt someone") after almost three seasons of chuck and jimmy constantly going "NO YOU" back and forth

You know what scene I loved this season, even though it was a little on-the-nose? The morning after Kim and Jimmy throw beer bottles from their balcony, she cleans it up. Not only does she acknowledge the consequences of her actions, she deals with them. That was gonna be the end of my reply, but . . . what about season 6???

Everyone from Dostoevsky to Camus to David Chase knows that if you’re gonna write a character that commits a crime, the way they rationalize it to the outside world isn’t nearly as important (or interesting) as how they rationalize to themselves. Crime & Punishment is all about the post-rationalization of criminality, but The Stranger and the Sopranos are both good examples of criminality fitting neatly into the pre-existing world views of their main characters. Mersault wouldn’t have killed that Arab man on the beach if he weren’t already deep in the thrall of existentialism, and Tony Soprano wouldn’t have become a hyper-masculine mafioso if he weren’t raised by one. Jimmy’s closer to this kind of criminal character. In Better Call Saul, he still has a pretty decent moral code,  but his world-view has already been seriously warped by shit like watching his dad get grifted and Chuck’s lifelong, jealousy-fueled mission to undermine their mother’s adoration of Jimmy by exposing him as a good-for-nothing cheat, (that might be a reductive description of Chuck’s motivations, but whatever). All of that facilitates Jimmy’s criminal behavior from the jump. Kim, conversely, maintains a world-view that seems diametrically opposed to criminal behavior. (Btw: I’m using the word “criminal” very broadly. I’m not just referring to actions that violate written law-- I’m talking about any behavior that violates basic tenets of social order). Sure, she gets excited by scheming and scamming, but up until the season 5 finale, there’s been something holding her back. Kim’s fervent love of justice isn’t the mental road block on her path to a fun, care-free life of crime, (in fact, I’d argue that an over-inflated sense of justice is often conducive to criminality, driving people to take what they think they’re owed no matter what). Rather, it’s exactly quality you mentioned. She gives a fuck about how her actions affect other people and never rarely tries to deflect the blame she’s owed. One thing I’m really excited to see in season 6 is how she reconciles this major personality trait with her scheming. To go through with the shit she’s planning, she’s gonna have to ignore the part of her brain that takes stalk of how her actions affect others. In the finale, we saw her use the “greater good” argument, but I think there’s more to her deflection process than that. 

I love Kim. I love her so goddamn much. I look at her and I see the kind of person I want to be. When asking WWKWD? isn’t enough, I’ll watch Rebecca to inspire myself. (Unfortunately, I think Jimmy is much, much closer to the person I actually am. The line “Jimmy, you’re always down” haunts me to this day). That being said, she hasn’t been a paragon of morality. If I remember correctly, none of the scams she’s actively participated in up ‘til now have really hurt anyone (like, she never cashed that one check they got made out to Ice Station Zebra Associates) but she has reaped the benefits of criminal behavior and turned a blind eye to the consequences. I’m talking 1216 Rosella Drive, babey! That was Jimmy’s scam, but eventually she found out and she didn’t say anything. She allowed Chuck to suffer a horrible humiliation and then, just a short while later, he killed himself. To be clear, I am not arguing that Kim was in any way responsible for Chuck’s death. No person should ever take the blame for another’s suicide. But, since we’ve already established that Kim is a person who is hyper-aware of the consequences of her actions, she must have entertained the idea that her silence made her at least partially culpable for the degradation of Chuck’s mental health. Even if she came to the the healthy conclusion that she isn’t to blame on a conscious level, there’s got to be a little nagging voice in the back of her mind saying “you’re actions have consequences! Chuck’s death was one of those consequences!” The fact that she stayed at Mesa Verde for as long as she did means that she’s already got plenty of practice deflecting blame. My question is: what does that deflection process look like for Kim?

TL;DR: Kim’s gonna have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to justify her own behavior to herself in season 6, and it’s gotta be more complex than “I’m doing it for the greater good.”

#pls keep sending me bcs asks! #i love it! #i either respond with protracted drivel disguised as meta or veep screencaps #bcs #bcs meta #kim wexler #Anonymous #long post #better call saul

[5lazarus]

ooooh, can you write something for 'I thought we were family,' from the angsty prompt list, please? Any pairing/fandom <3

:) this is the sequel to the hug prompt you sent me, which I posted here. hope you like it. It’s companion-focused, so hopefully doesn’t break too much individual lore.

Anders isn’t well enough to move in the morning. It is frankly a miracle he managed to leave that coffin at all. Aveline and Fenris stick close to his bedroll. Aveline has a working knowledge of battlefield triage from her time in Cailan’s army--Hawke’s heart twists, remembering Carver--and Fenris is devoted, as always. Varric, Isabela, and Hawke confer and decide that waiting a day may actually help them. Sebastian would assume they would try to stay on the move, and this cave is hard to find. Then the sky breaks open and it begins to rain. That decides matters. They are to stay put. They need the rest. “I’m bored,” Isabela says. “I’m bored and I’m horny and I’m mad. Someone entertain me. Do a little dance.” She looks at Varric. “No,” he says. “At least, not this early in the day. Get me liquored up first.” Isabela stretches invitingly., consciously enjoying how everyone cannot help but look at her. “You’re no fun.” Aveline sighs. Anders is still not awake. The Smite was worse than the sword-wound. His connection with Justice makes any interruption from the Fade dangerous. Hawke is worried. They say, “Alright, Aveline?” “No,” Aveline says. “I’ve fought with mages before, but I’ve never seen one hurt like this. I have no idea what I’m doing, I’m not a trained healer, and the only person who would know what to do is currently in a coma. Not to mention he blew up the Chantry and the templars set fire to half of Kirkwall. So, no. I’m not alright, Hawke.” Everyone is silent for a moment. The rain patters down, and thunder shivers the shelter. Dog pads over and sits next to Hawke, demanding to be pet. They scratch him and wonder what the fuck they have to say. Merrill speaks into the awkwardness, “Felandaris might help. I’ll check the stocks.” She conjures a light and heads towards the back of the shelter, which is outfitted with shelves. Whoever kept it prepared for trouble. Hawke gets up and follows her. “Do you know what this place is?” Hawke says quietly. Merrill ignores them, picking up jars and inspecting them. She’s nervous. Her hands are shaking. She is still dealing with magical exhaustion from the battle of Kirkwall. Perhaps that will be how the Chantry will write it, Hawke thinks: the Battle of Kirkwall, which its Champion lost. Merrill stares fixedly at the containers. “I can’t answer that, Hawke. I--you’re my heart, my home, but this isn’t yours. This is my people’s, my love. Not as sacrosanct as the eluvian, but close. And Fenris should not have brought us here. Not even for Anders. Not without the Keepers’ permission.” She sniffs a jar and grins. Holding it out to them, she chirps, “Found it! This will wake him up. Or cause him to hallucinate. Or both.” She smiles at them uncertainly, but Hawke is even more annoyed. They walk away, shaking their head. The cave system is fascinating, massive, well-stocked, and highly-decorated. It is obviously carefully maintained. There is enough food, medicine, and bedrolls to supply a small traveling party for weeks. The wall paintings make Hawke suspect that it is Dalish, but that does not explain why Fenris would know about it, and why Anders might be an exception. “Not even for Anders”--how much have they all been keeping from him? Hawke wants to know. Bethany is sitting at the mouth of the cave, watching the rain. Dog sits by her, ever watchful. Hawke stops to take in the scene. Malcolm Hawke had predicted this sort of life for them, however much Leandra tried to change it. In the end money couldn’t save them. Hawke sighs. They thought Kirkwall would be different, but they’d fucked that up too. “Hey, sister,” Hawke says. “You know what the fuck is going on?” They settle next to her. Dog throws his full weight into their lap, and Hawke winces, patting his belly. “You need to lay off the mabari crunch, boy. Though I suppose there won’t be much of that on the road.” Bethany keeps her face averted. “How’s Anders?” “No one’s going to answer my questions, then,” Hawke says instead. “I’ll trade you an answer for a morning.” Bethany gets up and heads back to the back of the cave, leaving Hawke alone with the mabari. Hawke rolls their eyes: that answers that, then. “Right,” they say. “Just have to force it out of them, then. Nothing else to do, with this rain.” Then they hear shouting, and they perk up. Trouble is easier to handle than tension. Hawke can handle trouble. Tension just drives them up the walls. They bound to the back of the cave eagerly, Dog at their heels. The scene that confronts them is bizarre. Fenris is straddling a glowing Anders, carefully avoiding his wound, but pinching his nose. Aveline is holding down his shoulders, and Merrill is trying to force a drink down his throat. Varric and Isabela look up from their card game to gawk. “Heh,” Hawke says. “Justice can’t handle a taste of his own medicine.” Bethany groans. Merrill gets the concoction down Anders’ throat and he stops glowing. He falls back heavily, and Aveline and Merrill pull away as Fenris closes his eyes, pained, and climbs off of him. He’s very tender with him. He kisses Anders’ forehead and wipes away the sweat and spilled medicine from his face. “Cute,” Hawke says. “Now that Anders is less of a ‘blowing himself up’ risk, want to explain how you know about this place? What the Underground is, exactly?” “Hawke,” Fenris tries, but Hawke puts up a hand. “No. You’ve been working with the mage underground, haven’t you. And this,” they gesture to the space around them, “is somehow connected with this. Elves and mages all working together in happy harmony. And you didn’t tell me. None of you did. As if this isn’t my fight, too. As if I didn’t cover up for your shit in Kirkwall, as much as I could.” “It isn’t your fight,” Bethany says quietly. “Like fuck it is!” Hawke snaps. “I thought we were family. All of us. I can understand you keeping Varric out of it, and Isabela hates having opinions--” “Hey!” Isabela protests. “Actually, wait, that’s true. Carry on.” Hawke brushes their hair out of their face, exasperated. “Right. And I really don’t understand how Aveline handles all this conflict of interest--” “I don’t,” Aveline says shortly. “Not like you’ve ever asked, but I don’t.” Hawke decides they are going to address that later. Right now they want to mad at Fenris, Bethany, and Merrill, and it is easier to focus on one thing at a time. “Nice. Not like you’ve ever told me, but that’s not the point. The point is--this is my fucking fight. My father was a mage. Bethany--you’re the only other Hawke left! You’re my family. Merrill, you too, Fenris, Anders--all of you! If there was an underground I would’ve liked to be part of it! We could’ve leveraged the Amell name! There was only so much I could do through the nobility, you could’ve used my money--” Fenris says, “Stop acting as if you are the hero of every story, and we are just your companions. I have my life and struggle, and you do not need to be at the center of every battle.” “That’s not fair,” Hawke says. Fenris gets up. “You have no idea what happens to the elves in Darktown. Kelder is one of the petty monsters we must face. Did you think because you struck him down, you freed the alienage of their human plague?” Fenris has a tendency for melodrama when he’s angry. Hawke has always admired it. Right now, though, they’re insulted. “No,” they say, “but--” “Kirkwall’s at the center of the slave trade. You know this, we’ve fought enough of the Blind Men and the Carta. So we organized an underground. I am not the only self-freed man in Kirkwall, nor will I be the last. But to make sure I am not the last, we needed to keep it on a need-to-know basis, Hawke! And you did not need to know!” Hawke, abashed, steps back. They know they have misstepped. Fenris is angry, face twisted in a scowl, fist clenched. He is standing like a bristling watchdog over Anders, who is still asleep. Aveline looks at them sourly. “I tipped you off for a reason, Hawke,” she says. “I didn’t think you needed everything spelled out.” “Oh, not you too,” Hawke responds. “I got us to Kirkwall, can’t I get a little credit? And really, Aveline, out of all of us, you have no place to talk. You set off the Arishok! You didn’t even bother investigating the rape of that poor girl--” “You have no idea of what I’ve tried to do,” Aveline snarls. “Or what I have failed to do. Back off, Hawke. I’m tired. I don’t want to have this conversation.” “I think we should,” Bethany says carefully, “perhaps all take a second to breathe.” Varric chuckles. “Let them be, Sunshine.” He waves a hand of cards at her. “We’ll deal you in. Stay out of it.” Hawke blinks. They’re pretty sure those are contradictory instructions, but Bethany makes sense of it and sits down with him and Isabela. Isabela puts her arm around her: more things Hawke, apparently, doesn’t need to know about. Fenris sits back down, still scowling. He presses two fingers to Anders’ neck again, checking his pulse. Aveline sighs. “You know that does no good.” “Leave me alone. Hawke has a point.” “Oh, come off it,” Aveline says. “I’m tired of everyone’s moral superiority. As if any of you are a paragon of virtue. You blew up a chantry, for Andraste’s sake.” Hawke pauses. “I mean, that was all Anders. He didn’t tell me what the sela petrae and the drakestone were for…” Aveline huffs. “Aided and abetted blowing up a chantry, then.” She throws her hands. “And you didn’t think to ask? You didn’t think, as the Champion of Kirkwall, you could’ve reigned in this madness? Reasoned with Meredith? Petitioned the Divine?” Hawke narrows their eyes. “The Divine wants to bring an Exalted March on the city, Aveline,” they say. “The Left Hand told us that much. And if Isabela couldn’t convince her otherwise, I don’t know what you think I could’ve done. And don’t change the subject. You fucked with the Qunari. If you hadn’t set off the Arishok, the Viscount wouldn’t have been killed, and Meredith wouldn’t have been able to put Kirkwall under martial law. The mages wouldn’t have been backed into the corner, she wouldn’t have  had enough evidence to call for a Rite, and we could’ve….” Hawke sighs. Could have, would have, should have: it does not matter much, and Kirkwall was a gaatlock barrel, waiting for the fuse. “Are you done?” Aveline says acidly. “You really overestimate my influence, if you think I could’ve convinced the Viscount to order an internal investigation of the guard’s wrongdoing. I lost my position! ‘Captain of the guard’--they pulled me off fieldwork as soon as they could, and had me pushing paper where I could do no good. I was an administrator. I tried. What would you have me do? It would’ve been worse if I left. At least I was leaving a paper trail!” “You should have left,” Fenris says. “You were complicit in everything that happened, too. You could have done more.” “Fenris,” Aveline says evenly. “Go fuck yourself.” She gets up and strides past the card game, planting herself at the mouth of the cave. It is still raining, and it is still a long way down. No one can climb that alone. She stands there, back to everyone. “Well,” Varric says. “Go fish.”

#ask #catabasis #dragon age #dragon age 2 #da2 #dragon age fanfic #fanfic #hawke #aveline #fenris #merrill #bethany #varric #anders #musetta3

[imwastingmylifeinhere]

OMG they were roommates

My piece for the @spopzine She-Ra Bisexuality Visibility Zine! I had a lot of fun in this zine. I hope you like it!

Read on ao3.

----

Catra knew she wasn’t a saint. Sure, she hadn’t killed anyone, despite some people pretty much begging her to do it, but she wasn’t a shining paragon of kindness and morality either. She had done her fair share of breaking and entering, defacing public property - even though her graffiti was an obvious improvement on her old high school - and she could be a plain jerk sometimes. So she wasn’t going to win a Nobel Peace Prize anytime soon, but there were also a couple hundred people worse than her who existed.

So why, oh why, was she being tortured like this?

"Hey, Catra, have you seen where I left my sports bra?" Adora came out of their shared dorm bathroom dripping, her wet hair plastered against her collarbone and neck. Only the towel wrapped around her, held in place by a very muscular arm, prevented her from being fully naked in front of her roommate. Her cheeks and neck were flushed from the warm shower she just had. Droplets of water ran down her toned arms and thighs, as if Catra needed any more reason to ogle them.

Adora looked like Aphrodite herself had materialized in their dorm, only this time ripped and with an undercut. Catra would die defending the fact that this Aphrodite was better than Botticelli’s version. 

"It's - it's over there," Catra said, pointing at the headboard of Adora's bed. Adora kept doing this, forgetting where she left her clothes right after having a shower, and she always asked Catra where they were. Catra had given up teasing Adora about her forgetfulness - she had a lot on her plate, after all, what with her sports scholarship and double major.

“Why do I always forget?” Adora muttered, snatching up her sports bra. Catra tried to keep her eyes on the sketch she was working on for class and not on Adora’s back. She failed. “Thanks, Catra!”

With Adora back in the bathroom to change, Catra let herself face-plant onto her pillow. Don't get her wrong, she was glad to be roommates with Adora, even if their first few weeks living together had been tense - emotional baggage due to your shared childhood trauma could do that. They had made up though, and quickly went back to being an unstoppable duo. They fell back together like puzzle pieces and Catra had never let herself admit how much she had missed Adora until then.

You’d think she’d be satisfied with having her best friend back, right? Nope, her childhood crush had to come back, spurred on by Adora’s obvious win over puberty. Now Catra’s stuck living in a tiny, overpriced room with her goddess of a crush who’s lost any trace of body consciousness after years in locker rooms. Just her luck.

Catra had managed to get back to her sketchbook and not look like she had just been screaming into her pillow right when Adora came out of the bathroom again, in nothing but her sports bra and underwear. Despite her side of the room being much tidier than Catra's, Adora took a long time to pick out what to wear. She stretched to grab one of the t-shirts she put on her higher selves, the muscles of her back flexing, she shook her hips as she got into her jeans, she bent over to find her shoes under her bed.

Catra had long now noticed Adora’s dressing routine, courtesy of not being able to take her eyes off her. She’d basically memorized it, from her happy smile when she found what she was looking for, to the movements of her arms as she pulled her hair in a ponytail. It was slow and methodical, much like Adora’s attitude towards many things. Being able to watch even such a simple, domestic part of Adora’s life made Catra feel warm and content. She wanted to put her sketchbook aside, wrap her arms around Adora’s waist and tell her how beautiful she was, how much she cared about her.

She never did it.

“I’m going out with Glimmer and Bow,” Adora said, shoving her keys in her pocket. “You’re still up for movie night, right?”

Catra smiled. Adora asked her the same question every time, even though Catra never gave a different answer. “Duh, of course. Don’t forget the snacks.”

“I won’t.” The door closed behind Adora and Catra was left alone in the room. 

Time to start the plan.

~*~

Catra's previous confidence had left her when the moment finally came to put her plan into action.

She and Adora had a tradition of having movie nights every Saturday. They had been doing it since they were children, even back when Ms. Weaver only allowed them to watch the same three movies over and over again. After they reunited and made up, they had decided to revive the tradition.

Catra loved these nights. She and Adora would sit on her bed, their sides pressed together with Adora’s laptop balanced on their laps. All the lights in their dorm would be closed and in the darkness, with Adora’s body heat warming her up better than the blanket around them, Catra felt like she was home.

And what was Catra’s plan? To ask Adora out.

It had taken her a long time to muster up the courage. Scorpia had been on her case about it for months; she had even insisted that Adora walked around their dorm in minimal clothing as a way to flirt with Catra! As if!

So here Catra was, sitting on Adora’s bed, watching a Marvel movie she didn’t particularly care for and munching on popcorn to keep her nerves at bay. Come on, Catra! You can do this! 

Catra looked down at Adora’s hand between them. Just - hold her hand and ask her out. Easy. 

It wasn’t easy. Her palms were sweaty and her heart was beating so loudly she was surprised Adora hadn’t heard it. Maybe I can do it next week - no! That’s what I’ve been saying for the past month. I’m doing this and I’m doing it tonight!

A quick glance to the side told her that Adora hadn’t noticed her internal struggle. Her eyes were trained to the screen, a smile on her lips. The blue light coming from the laptop made her look almost ethereal, as sappy as it was for Catra to say that. Sue her, she’s in love.

Just as Catra was about to take the leap, Adora spoke up. “Damn! Chris Hemsworth looks so good in that armor.”

Catra’s hand froze where it was hovering over Adora’s. Her stomach dropped. The previous frantic beating of her heart disappeared.

“I’m still salty they cut off his hair, though,” Adora continued, oblivious to Catra’s slowly cracking heart. “I liked him with long hair.”

It was as if someone dumped a bucket of cold water on Catra, and suddenly she could see clearly. Of course a girl like Adora would be straight.

Of course she never had a chance.

~*~

Catra barely stayed in their dorm over the next two weeks. 

She felt bad about crushing on Adora and trying to hit on her. So much for not falling into the ‘predatory lesbian’ stereotype. She wanted to just ignore it and go back to the way things were before she realized she had fallen for her best friend again.

But she couldn’t. Adora had been acting different since that movie night. Particularly, she wore more clothes around their dorm. Gone was her routine of lounging around and doing homework in a sports bra and shorts, or coming out of the bathroom in only a towel to get her clothes. She wore t-shirts, even when the temperatures got higher and Catra knew she wouldn’t even have thought about wearing it before she went and fucked everything up. She always remembered to bring clothes with her into the bathroom and she came out fully dressed, despite always forgetting before.

To make matters worse, she kept stealing glances at her whenever she thought Catra wasn’t looking. She looked so uncomfortable, and Catra hated that she made her feel like that.

So she stopped being around. When Adora would come back, Catra would leave with a half-baked excuse about meeting up with Scorpia, or being tutored by Entrapta, or returning a library book. She hardly knew where the library was!

So here Catra was, slumped over on a stool at Scorpia’s bar, bored out of her mind. It was still too early in the night for Scorpia’s regulars to start trickling in and there were only five people in the bar, Scorpia and Catra included. A glass of orange juice sat by Catra’s head on the counter and she entertained herself by flicking her finger at it and watching the liquid slosh.

Scorpia, a woman way too intimidating for how sweet she actually was, had been working as a bartender in this bar when Catra snuck in during her last year in high school after a particularly bad fight with Ms. Weaver. Scorpia had taken one look at her rugged appearance and puffy red eyes and dragged her to the back room, where she proceeded to take care of a very reluctant Catra. They became friends after that, especially when it turned out Scorpia attended the same college Catra had gotten into. As much as Catra pretended that she didn’t want her around back then, she couldn’t deny that she was one of her best friends.

But damn, was she an aggressively caring person.

“Okay, that’s it, wildcat,” Scorpia said, slinging the towel she was cleaning the bar counter with over her shoulder. “You need to leave.”

“It’s still too early,” Catra said, not bothering to lift her head from where it was nestled in her arms on the counter. “There are no people here.”

Even though Scorpia let Catra hang out at her bar, she had a rule that Catra had to leave when the place started filling up with actual customers, at least until she was of legal drinking age. Despite Catra’s protests, Scorpia never budged.

“That’s not what I’m talking about. You need to talk to Adora.”

Catra’s heart skipped a beat. The guilt she was trying to fend off by shutting off her brain came back full force. “No.”

Scorpia grabbed Catra by the armpits and lifted her up, forcing her to sit upright. “Come on, wildcat. You’ve been avoiding her for two weeks -” Catra opened her mouth to talk, but Scorpia lifted a finger. “Don’t argue, we both know that’s what you’re doing. I mean, tonight is your movie night and you’re here! And this is the second movie night you’re missing in a row!”

Catra stared off into the bar. She knew she was acting like a pouty five-year-old, but she didn't care. "I don't want to talk to her."

"Maybe, but you need to." Scorpia sighed. Catra knew that sigh. Scorpia was going full mom-friend mode. "You're miserable, wildcat. Even Entrapta noticed you acting differently. I don't know what you and Adora fought over, but she cares about you. I doubt her reaction will be as bad as you think it will if you talk to her."

Catra didn’t respond. Her blood ran cold at the idea of talking to Adora. She was a coward and she knew it, but if she was good at one thing it was burying her feelings so deep she forgot they existed until they came back to slap her in the face.

"Plus, now there are actual customers coming in, so you do need to leave."

Catra groaned. The bar was filling up. She couldn’t stay here and avoid her problems any longer. She grabbed her things and headed to the door.

“Good luck, wildcat!”

When Catra made it back to their dorm, she was drenched from the rain. She had goosebumps all over, and they weren’t from the cold. She hoped Adora was asleep. She wouldn’t need to face the fear that sat at the pit of her stomach then.

She took a deep breath and opened the door.

“Catra!” Adora sat up so suddenly on her bed Catra was surprised she didn’t fall over. Her hair was in its usual ponytail, but instead of being tidy and perfect, it was a mess, hairs flying all over the place. She put her phone back to her ear, murmuring some quick goodbyes to Glimmer and Bow before hanging up on them and rushing to her feet. “You’re back! Where have you been?”

"Scorpia's." Catra moved past her, grabbing her clothes from her bed. "I need to change."

Adora grabbed her wrist. “Catra.” She looked nervous. You made her feel so uncomfortable, idiot. “Can we talk?”

Catra wanted to say no. She wanted to ignore her screw up until it went away. But Adora was looking at her with such pleading in her eyes that she couldn’t refuse her. She scoffed. “Yeah, fine. Just let me change, I’m dripping all over the floor.”

Adora’s eyes widened. She let go of Catra's wrist and jumped back. “Oh! Yeah, yeah, you’re right. Um, go ahead.”

This is gonna be fun.

Half an hour later, Catra exited the bathroom, fully washed and changed. Adora was waiting for her, pacing the length of their room the way she did when she was nervous about an exam. She perked up like a puppy when she saw Catra, but Catra didn't miss the way her fingers twitched at her sides.

Catra sighed, plopping down on her bed. Adora sat next to her without a word.

"What did you wanna talk about?" She winced internally at her tone. She didn’t want to sound so dismissive, like whatever Adora had to say wasn’t important, but she was scared. It was as if she was putting up all the walls Adora had managed to bring down in hopes it would hurt less.

Adora took a deep breath, her hands clasped in her lap. "You've been avoiding me the last two weeks-"

"I haven't." Catra slumped further into the bed. She refused to look at Adora.

"Yes, you have!" Adora's voice raised in pitch, becoming almost shrill. Catra bit into her cheek hard enough to draw blood. Adora only ever sounded like that when she was really stressed. "We live in what's basically a big closet, did you really think I wouldn't notice?"

"Yes, because I'm not avoiding you.” Catra glared at Adora. “I've just been busy."

Adora rolled her eyes. "Yeah, busy hanging out with Scorpia and Entrapta, who say you weren't with them half the time when I ask, or at the library. Do you even know where the library is?"

She didn’t, but Adora didn’t need to know that.

Adora was frazzled, her face red. Catra cursed herself. She thought she had gotten better at this - at not pushing people away before they had the chance to hurt her. Stupid.

"Look, Catra.” Adora laid her hand over Catra’s, her voice much quieter. “You're very important to me. I care about, and even if it's not in the same way you do, I don't want to lose you. I'm sorry I made you uncomfortable-"

Catra sputtered. "You? I'm the one-" She cut herself off. Why do I always ruin everything?

She always did this, didn’t she? Every damn time things were looking up for her, she just had to sabotage her own happiness. Why did she even open her mouth? Adora was offering to put the whole debacle behind. Wasn’t that what she wanted?

Adora leaned in. She was so close Catra could see the flecks of gray in her eyes. "Catra? What is it?" 

Catra couldn’t look at her. "Nothing. Forget it." Don’t ruin it now, idiot.

"Catra, please. Just talk to me.” Catra could feel her warmth against her side, could hear the desperation in Adora’s voice to fix whatever had come between them. “What were you going to say?"

Catra knew she would hate herself for this, but what could she do when Adora sounded like this? Like their friendship was falling apart and it was her fault. Maybe things between them would be awkward from now on, but Catra preferred that to Adora being hurt and blaming herself for Catra's screwup.

Her nails dug into her arms. Her voice was barely louder than the patter of the rain outside. "That I'm the idiot who fell for her straight best friend."

Silence fell over the room. Adora was frozen, looking at Catra like the words she had spoken did not make sense. Catra held her breath, unsure of what Adora was going to say.

She did not expect Adora throw her head back and laugh.

Catra’s heart sank to her stomach. She tried to stand and get out of the room, but Adora grabbed her hand and pulled her down.

"Catra, wait! I'm sorry, I shouldn't have laughed." 

Catra scoffed and looked away. She ignored her burning eyes. Her pulse thundered against her neck as she waited for Adora to speak.

"You really thought I was straight?" Adora finally asked, giggling as she spoke.

Wait, what? Catra didn’t know what was happening. This wasn’t how she expected this conversation to go. Even so, she wasn’t going to let Adora see how confused she was. 

She shrugged. "You said that guy in the movie was hot."

Adora, to her credit, tried not to laugh again. She didn’t do a good job at it. "You know being bi is a thing, right?"

Catra’s eyes widened. She jumped up like the bed was made out of fire. "Shit!"

Adora giggled, and Catra would be angry at her if she wasn’t freaking out. She was such an idiot! "You never thought about it, did you?"

"No!” Catra was pacing up and down - Adora rubbed off on her - and she gestured wildly with her hands. “I just panicked and then I refused to think about you in general and - my god, I'm so stupid!" 

Adora reached out, holding Catra hands in her own. Catra took a deep breath to calm herself. It didn’t matter if they were six, cuddling in their bunk after Catra had a nightmare, or all grown up, Adora’s hand in hers always made her feel safe. 

Adora guided her to the bed, making her sit down next to her. Catra waited for her to let go of her. Adora intertwined their fingers.

"If it makes you feel better,” she said with a sheepish smile, “I thought you were ignoring me because you realized I was flirting and you wanted to reject me.”

This night sure is full of surprises. “You were flirting with me?” Scorpia’s flirting theory suddenly came back to her. “Wait, that’s why you always forgot your clothes when you took a shower? That was your weird mating ritual?”

Adora’s face flashed. “I mean, I wouldn’t call it that, but yeah.”

Catra chuckled. What a dork. She slumped against Adora’s shoulder. “Ugh, we could have saved so much time if I hadn’t been such an idiot and just asked!”

Catra felt Adora shake as she laughed. “Well, yeah-”

“So kind.”

“But,” Adora continued, jabbing Catra in the side playfully, “now I have a girlfriend to take out on a date tomorrow.” 

Catra’s heart skipped a beat. When she didn’t respond - too busy making sure her heartbeat wouldn’t be heard in China -  Adora rushed to talk.

“If you want to, I mean!”

Catra laughed. “And you were being all smooth too.” She snuggled further into Adora’s side. With her head resting on Adora’s shoulder she could smell her shampoo - green apple. She hadn’t realized how much she missed this these past two weeks - how much she had missed her. “Yes, I want to.”

Adora’s grip on her hand tightened. “This isn’t fair,” she grumbled.

Catra craned her neck to look at her. Adora was blushing. “What?”

Adora's smile was small but so lovestruck. With me, Catra thought and her heart skipped a beat. “You,” Adora said. She had no right to make Catra feel like this; like her heart was full of fireworks. “You’re too cute. I want to kiss you so bad.”

Catra sat up. Adora’s lips glistened with the chapstick she wore and Catra wanted to know what it tasted like. “Bi all means, go ahead,” she said, sounding more confident than she felt.

Adora giggled so hard she snorted. “Did you just make a bi pun?”

Catra smirked. “Maybe.”

Adora laughed and Catra couldn’t stop her smile even if she tried. She wanted to hear that sound for the rest of her days.

She leaned in and kissed her.

#spop #shera #catra #adora #catradora #fanfiction #my fic

[thecorteztwins]

🔥 villains. 🔥 the hellfire club 🔥the difference between naive and unintelligent characters

Welp, this all got STUPIDLY LONG and I’m really sorry. Under a cut because HUUUUUGE.

🔥 villains.There’s just been a robbery! All the jewels in the museum’s vault have been stolen! The culprits are….Sabretooth and Magneto!Yeah, that doesn’t sound right, does it? Thievery isn’t really something either of them do, they’re not bank robber or cat burglar types at all. And Magneto’s not a fan of Sabes to my memory, it’s unlikely he’d work with him unless it was essential to his ACTUAL goals…which this isn’t. But hey, they’re both bad guys, so they must do ALL the bad things! No matter what it is, it’s in-character if it’s evil or unlawful, right?This is the logic that I see running both often in fandom, and also sometimes with canon writers. There’s a mentality that if someone is villainous or bad in ONE way, then they must be villainous or bad in ALL ways. I think there’s always been this misunderstanding, as people do tend to think in black and white a lot, but I think it’s also increased with the rise of purity culture in Tumblr, where people/characters/works are All Good or All Bad, and if the bad guys aren’t depicted as 1000% heinously evil then it’s APOLOGISM. An example in RP would be that more than once I’d had people expect Fabian to be a racist. I can see why, given that he expresses sexism, classism, a bit of ableism, and disgust with physical mutations. But not only does he never express racism, he never expresses racism DESPITE AMPLE OPPORTUNITY. Think about it—his main antagonists are Magneto (Jewish) and Quicksilver (Jewish and Romani), he once personally fights Bishop (Black and Indigenous Australian) one on one, he’s on one team with Shinobi (half white, half Japanese), and his allies/underlings in the second-gen Acolytes included people who are African American, Moroccan (and Muslim-coded), and Inuit. And he never, ever, EVER even THOUGHT anything related to race (or religions that are usually implicitly tied to race) about ANY of them. Given how blatant his other prejudices are, I think he would very much let the reader KNOW if he were racist, anti-Semitic, etc. An example in canon…look, I’m sorry to bring up this dead horse again, but it is the best example that I presently have—Sebastian Shaw making the “women’s work” comment. As with Fabian, I get why it makes sense on the surface. He’s a powerful man, the proverbial rich old white guy, and he’s part of an organization where women walk around in lingerie as a general rule. It seems like it makes sense, it does, I grant that. But then if you actually look at his history…for 40 years of canon, he’s been allies and enemies with many powerful women, and never made a remark about their gender, never relegated lesser or menial tasks to them, never treated any of them differently as partners or foes, he actually never even flirts with any of them, be they opponents or partners in crime  (except that ONE issue when Emma is in Storm’s body and he kisses her…yeah that was a weird issue, why does a telepath need a gun to switch bodies?) Which is pretty unusual for a male Claremont villain. And he actually reacts with “I…see.” the one time a comrade makes a genuinely sexist remark. He doesn’t agree with him, he’s more like “wow ok I can’t believe he said that but I guess I’ll let it go since I want to recruit him” So, it’s actually VERY odd for him to suddenly say something like that, once you know the character. Especially since, like Fabian, he had TONS of opportunity in the past and he’s also not a character that most writers want to seem sympathetic or likeable. So it’s unlikely the writers were just trying to make him look good by playing down some secret sexist tendencies all this time or something. It’s more likely he just doesn’t have them BUT IS STILL A HORRIBLE PERSON! He just doesn’t need to be horrible in every way! Most people, even the MOST terrible, aren’t horrible in EVERY WAY POSSIBLE.That’s also why I try to avoid having Fabian being too homophobic (beyond “I can convert lesbians”) or transphobic, despite the fact that I *could* justify it (since those things are very intertwined with sexism)—because he’s awful enough. Giving him additional bigotries just seems stupidly redundant and cheap. Especially since I think people actually hate a bigoted character more than they hate a murderer; like I feel like if Duggan ever graduates to Shaw making a racist or homophobic remark, I might have to close his blog, but it’s fine to have blogs for fictional serial killers. By the same token, a villain having good traits doesn’t somehow eliminate their bad ones, especially if the good and bad traits are unrelated to each other. A mass murderer supervillain is not “actually a good guy deep down” because he loves his family; it’s actually VERY common for even genocidal dictators to care for their own. Hell, not to go all Godwin, but Hitler was an animal-lover and had a beloved dog. You can certainly point to good traits to show that a villain isn’t ALL bad (which as I just said, I support) but not being “all bad” isn’t the same as “actually a good person and just misunderstood!” Like, Shaw being an egalitarian in a lot of regards or was good to Madelyne Pryor or loved his father, doesn’t change he’s a heartless, morally bankrupt monster who abused his son and sold out an entire oppressed species (his own, no less) for his own financial gain. Mystique is an incredibly complex character, far more so than Shaw, but her love for Destiny and Rogue and many of her other good points don’t change that she hunted down other mutants for the government, abused her human son for not being a mutant, has committed rape by deception numerous times (though I think that’s due to the writers not realizing that’s a thing), constantly tries to manipulate her daughter’s life and choices, and I’m pretty sure I recall an issue where she framed a guy for domestic abuse just for funsies?Basically, villains are people. They have individual different traits and beliefs and motives, and those things will drive them towards individual different types of villainy. One villain probably won’t do the same kind of villainy that another does. Likewise, someone being a shitty person in one way, or many ways, doesn’t mean they will be in ALL ways. Pointing this out isn’t the same thing as denying their flaws or defending them, but some people do do this and that’s wrong too. Nuance needs to be allowed for. Pointing out Shaw isn’t awful in every way doesn’t mean I think he’s a misunderstood woobie whose crimes should all be forgiven. Pointing out Mystique has done awful shit doesn’t mean I think she’s pure evil and all her complex points should be ignored. It just means I don’t think characters should be strawmanned by fans OR writers as paragons or demons, especially when it contradicts what canon has actually established (with the caveat that canon is dumb sometimes too, and also some characters canonically ARE one extreme or the other, but I’m talking about ones who AREN’T)🔥 the hellfire clubI’ll give two on this! One is “unpopular” just in the sense it’s not something I’ve ever heard anyone express, but I’ve never heard an opinion in opposition to it either. The other is “unpopular” in that it does directly contradict a popularly held opinion.The first is that I think it’s stupid that Grant Morrisson made The Hellfire Club into a strip club, and it’s stupid that writers since depicted it this way. The Hellfire Club is shown in the 80s and 90s as being, first and foremost, an elite social club for the wealthiest and most powerful people in society. It’s basically a big posh country club, and most of its members are just regular people. Super duper rich people, but still normal people, lots of old money and new money and big business owners and politicians and probably royalty/nobility. Most of what they’re doing is big fancy, stuffy galas and balls, that kind of thing. But under the surface, it’s hinted that there is indeed a much more sexual underside to it. The female staff wear very fetishy maid costumes, the female Inner Circles literally have dominatrix lingerie as their getups, and while we actually never see what goes on beyond the closed doors in the 80s, nor was anything directly stated, the hints are definitely there that it’s as libertine in the private rooms as they are prim and proper in the ballrooms. We don’t know WHAT exactly is happening, only that it’s dark and decadent and surely sexual in some kind of “abnormal” (read: kink shaming) way.And then it turns out it’s just a strip club where the dancers wear corsets? Really? REALLY? I’m sorry, you expect me to belief that these oh-so-forbidden and secretive sexual delights that are available only to the richest and most powerful people in the world are…a TITTY BAR WITH NO ACTUAL TITTIES EVEN OUT???? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! It’s so fucking juvenile! It feels like something a 13 year old made up while trying to come up with the mos edgy, shocking, “sexy” thing he could. It just…doesn’t work. It doesn’t work firstly because it completely took away the whole “upper class veneer” that is as much an essential part of the HFC as the sex. In fact, I think more so. Writers, artists, and fans all like to focus on ZOMG THE SEXY COSTUMES but thematically speaking, I think the fact it’s an elite organization exclusive to the super-wealthy is much more important; that should be what they’re really about as villains, but writers end up focusing way too much on the shock value of the kink, and that’s how you wind up with stuff like this. The second reason it doesn’t work is that…it isn’t even shocking. When what they were doing was kept hidden, the reader could imagine no limit of decadence and depravity. When it’s revealed, and revealed as something that’s frankly super and common and TAME (seriously, strip clubs aren’t edgy these days) that you can get anywhere else, you’re left wondering why exactly anyone gives a shit about being in the HFC if this is all it really is? We should NEVER get to see what the HFC patrons truly do in private, and we should definitely never get shown that it’s just watching a woman pole dance with Victorian underwear on. That doesn’t make the HFC look sexual, it makes them look like PRUDES!Honestly, I do actually love the sexy sinful decadent aspect, but it’s overtaken the “extremely rich and powerful people trying to rule the world from behind the scenes through political and economic manipulation” aspect (which is far more interesting and villainous) that I kind of wish sometimes they had been created without the kink or colonial cosplay aspects, and instead had just worn some 80s powersuits.Now, here’s the “unpopular as in contradicts the popular” opinion. I see the Hellfire Club described a lot, in canon and fandom, as an organization of powerful MEN, as a bunch of MEN who just want to control others, as a BOY’S club…but aside from Sebastian Shaw, all the most prominent and effective members of the Club have been women? I mean, think about it. The names most synonymous with “Hellfire Club” in fandom are Emma Frost, Selene, Jean Grey as Dark Phoenix, and Sebastian Shaw. Shaw’s the ONLY dude that really gets any focus from writers OR fans; the women are almost always utilized more by writers and remembered more by fans. Heck, in the London Branch of the Hellfire Club, NONE of the male members of the Inner Circle even got NAMES, while ALL the women did. Now, of course, individual women in an organization being successful in said organization and beloved by fans/writers, doesn’t mean the organization itself can’t also be sexist. And like most people, the disparity between the costumes of both the Inner Circle and the mere staff does lead me to believe that it was probably founded and run only by men originally, and I bet women probably weren’t even allowed in for a long time (especially given that it was established in the 1700s) But that’s my HEADCANON. That’s what I EXTRAPOLATE. But what’s actually on the page IN THE PRESENT is women that are on equal footing with men, or superior to them. They’re not just simply ALLOWED in the Inner Circle, they’ve been dominating it from the first appearance with Emma ruling it alongside Shaw over Leland and Pierce, and then Selene coming in to challenge Shaw and Emma (with Shaw being terrified of her) in a way that none of the other members (all male—Leland, Pierce, Von Roehm) could. Gender is never brought up by anyone, even the most despicable male HFC members like Donald Pierce. So while I believe it was founded by sexist men, the Inner Circle seems pretty egalitarian now.But of course, there’s the costumes. I absolutely think it’s a sexist setup that the men get to wear (super ugly) period cosplay while the women are in fetish lingerie. It seems to be the standard uniform, and the fact that they haven’t CHANGED it shows that there’s definitely still some sexism.Except…it doesn’t seem to be a rule in-universe that the women HAVE to wear them? We actually see female members of the HFC, such as Selene, wearing clothing other than that while hanging out there; there’s actually a scene wear Selene is wearing pants and a sleeveless turtleneck with gloves. Maddy also wears a lot of black leather when she’s a member, but it doesn’t look like the Hellfire Club ladies getup, it looks like all the other stuff she was wearing in the 90s. And when Selene, Emma, etc., AREN’T in the Hellfire Club…they often still dress exactly like that, or in a similiar manner. I think it’s pretty clear that no one is MAKING them wear the uniforms, they just LIKE them, they’re probably “encouraged but optional” or something like that. And Emma even has that WHOLE DAMN SPEECH about how this is her armor, how it empowers her, etc. That said, while I don’t think any other CHARACTERS are making these women dress like that, I do think the writers/artists are. If a real woman made the speech that Emma did, I’d be like “ok sure, you go girl, do what feels empowering for you”. But Emma ISN’T a real woman. Every word in her mouth in that panel is being put there by Chris Claremont, a horny man with a dominatrix fetish who is trying to justify it by selling it as feminist. That is what it is. But just because that’s the case on a meta level…on an in-universe level, no one makes these women dress like this, and that’s very evident, and while the way they’re treated by writers/artists is definitely affected by them being women, the way other characters, including the Hellfire Club men, treats them, isn’t. At least not til shitty recent stuff. (I’ve seen some people think SHAW made the women dress like that….yeah, sure, like he could make SELENE do anything? He’s completely afraid of her but somehow can make her wear something she doesn’t want? Emma and Selene dress like that no matter where they are and whether they’re presently HFC members or not, but somehow he’s making them do that? HOW DOES ANYONE GIVE THIS GUY THAT MUCH CREDIT?)Basically, I think people are TRYING to be feminist, but it often ends up feeling like SEXISM to me? Because it’s totally ignoring and erasing the power and agency that these women exert in this organization, and often even claiming that it’s actually the men who have all the control, when aside from Shaw it’s usually the ladies running the show. It just seems disrespectful to me. It’s like, as much as people are claiming to hate a lack of agency for female characters, they seem more comfortable with that idea than a situation where women actually HAD it. Maybe it’s because they’re villains, maybe it’s because the costumes really are distracting and unequal no matter how the writers try to justify it (again, I wish they’d just gone with business suits), but there seems to be an overall fandom determination to insist on women like Emma Frost and Selene as victims or simply accomplices to a greater (male) villain, rather than embracing them as the Top Tier Bad Bitches they were/are, and, again, that seems more sexist to me than not. But I worry people will think I’m sexist if I say that. But you know me, you know I LOVE agency for female characters, and how I rail against it when see them ACTUALLY lacking it in comics, so you know it’s not that. I think it’s just a part of the rise in purity culture that even “progressive” people would rather see a woman forced or coerced to be a victim than choose of her own volition to be a villain and be GOOD at it :/🔥the difference between naive and unintelligent charactersWell, firstly, obviously there IS a difference. Naivete is just a lack of experience or learned knowledge, neither of which has anything to do with intelligence. A naive character may make mistakes in a new situation based on their lack of knowledge about it, and that may LOOK stupid to those who have this knowledge, but it’s not the same thing. I think we can agree that, say, Tony Stark isn’t stupid, but if he had to navigate in the wilderness, he might do things that experienced hikers and campers and outdoors people know are SUPER BAD IDEAS. Because this isn’t something he knows about or has experience with.So, I think considering characters who are new to this world (as is common in comics—lots of people from other dimensions, planets, and times) as stupid because they don’t know a lot of things we take as a given, is erroneous. I think it’s pretty common for fandom to look at, say, Longshot or Thor, and deem them as basically being idiots because they’re not familiar with their new environments…when in fact, we’d all be acting the same if we wound up in Asgard or Mojoworld. Not that there’s not other reasons they can’t be idiots, but not knowing what a toaster is isn’t one of them.The big difference is that naivete is a temporary state, and I think both writers and fans forget that. The character’s naivete will gradually decrease as they learn more and more. So if you’re writing an Avengers fic where Thor has been on Earth for five years so far, he probably knows what a toaster is, can order normally at a restaurant, isn’t confused by normal sights like cars or traffic lights or computers, etc., but could still be confused if he went to a Midgardian country with very different cultural norms than the ones he’s learned in the United States. Likewise, I can keep Malcolm perpetually baffled by new worlds in RP since time is kinda wobbly here and can be static or move forward or back as we like, but if I were writing him in a linear story, he would have to learn along the way about the technology and norms of other worlds as he experiences them; if he didn’t learn, THEN he would be unintelligent, not just naive. If he touches a hot stove once because he didn’t know what it was, and it burns him, that’s naive. If he touches it twice to test if it does the same thing again, that’s curious and maybe even smart, despite looking stupid to others. If he keeps doing it every day by accident, then THAT’S an idiot. Also, even a naive character may still be able to deduce that certain things are bad ideas, dangerous, etc. For instance, let’s say my character is a normal everyday girl sucked into a fantasy realm. She doesn’t understand the language, and the people around her don’t look like anything humanoid, but when all of them go quiet and still when a larger, more decorated one enters, and they all give it a lot of space, she can probably deduce that this is someone of great importance, and she probably should do what the others are doing and not risk pissing it off. She may know nothing about these beings or their customs, but she still can use her powers of observation and common sense. It may end up being a TOTALLY wrong move—for instance, maybe newcomers are meant to come introduce themselves to the leader by touching them–but it was a good, sensible guess. Whereas if she’d just walked up to the being and given it a good swift kick, that’d be unintelligent to an almost unbelievable point, and no amount of “she’s just naive!” could excuse it.Oh yeah, and optimism doesn’t automatically equate to naivete either. To be honest, I think that extreme cynicism is just as naive in its own way as thinking everything is sunshine and daisies, and I’d like to see this explored more in fiction rather than the perpetual “happy positive people are dumb and naive and just don’t know better, whereas the grumpy cynics are always smarter and more experienced” that media is so fond of.TL;DR Not only is naivete not unintelligence, it also should be a temporary state. It’s definitely cute to watch a naive character stumble around their new experiences, but in gaining those experiences, they’re going to become less naive, and make few mistakes. Naive characters should also still be capable of acting in ways that are sensible, even if they end up being wrong for the new situation. And being positive doesn’t automatically equate naivete either, nor does negativity equate to the reverse (and can be naive in itself)

#unpopular opinion #salt #meta #badmusesdoitwell

[unnecessary-database]

every movie has multiple epilogues, right?

 (the epilogues will be multiple)  (if you’re new here, don’t start here.)

Filming with a freshly engaged Kara and Lena was both a dream and a nightmare, Sam reflected. Their chemistry on screen had only grown with the years, going from something big and raw and nervous and real to something easy and safe and true and wonderful. It was exactly what Sam wanted to show on screen with a relationship, especially between two women. It went even better since Lena and Kara were so clearly stupidly in love and on the same exact page. It was a nightmare because they were stupidly in love. 

Sam had been dumb enough to film the bedroom scenes in the middle of the schedule. There had been another hickey fight, which the makeup department thought was amusing until they realized they had to cover said hickeys every morning. Kara had most definitely started it this time. Kara still maintained it was Lena's fault, since Lena started it the last time. (That was partially true. Lena had started it in revenge for the first time, though Lena had started it the first time too. Sam was still torn between grateful and annoyed she had them film those scenes towards the end of the movie last time, so they were together in real life when they did it. She had specifically planned it so hopefully they'd get their shit together and she wouldn't have to suffer through them playing that one out as "best friends". She was right, but then had to deal with them as a couple. It was a marginal win.) 

The hickey fight was, while amusing to most of the crew, almost entirely irritating to Sam, though she was sure she'd laugh about it eventually. Like when she used it as blackmail. She did have plenty of pictures of both of them covered in hickeys in bizarre locations. "I'm honestly stunned the two of you manage to contain the hickey fight to the filming of those scenes," Sam muttered at them at the end of one. Kara, already a little red, blushed scarlet, and Sam held up a hand. "I don't want to know."

Filming with them was also a nightmare because of how many of Sam's crew were hopeless shippers that couldn't stop sighing dreamily whenever they did something especially cute. And a fifteen-year-old Ruby that only wanted to spend her time with Lena and Kara, who were mostly only too happy to take her in.

But all in all, the dream side won out. Sam rarely had to track them down separately anymore. They both had their own trailers, but Sam was pretty sure that Ruby had taken over Lena's and turned it into a video game hideout, and Lena had yet to be seen inside of it. They were both always in only the highest of spirits, and did that annoying thing where they dragged everyone else up to cloud nine with them. Mostly though, Sam was just pleased she didn't have to watch them dance around each other anymore. That shit had been painful. 

Maybe also because Kara and Lena had already asked her to officiate the wedding.

---

"Lena," Kara whined. "We. Are. Going. To. Be. Late."

"And whose fault is that?" Lena called, and Kara sighed. 

"Sam's, I'm gonna say," Kara yelled back. "She put filming that final sex scene on the second to last day. She knew we'd have another hickey fight."

"And yet," Lena reminded her, appearing from the bathroom and tilting her head back for inspection. Kara nodded; nothing was visible. "You were the one who put them in such an obvious spot." Kara tugged at her collar wordlessly, baring her collarbone, which was much more colorful than usual. Lena shrugged, unrepentant. "Maybe I did it because I knew Sam wanted you in suits until the movie came out for promotional reasons."

"Uh huh," Kara said, accepting Lena's chaste kiss on her cheek. "Or maybe you are the one that wanted me in suits."

"So what if I do?" Lena asked nonchalantly, reaching for her purse and heading for the door. "It's good press, that's all I have to say about--oh!"

Kara had picked her up from behind and spun her around. "If you do, I might have to have a word with your inner demon-witch," Kara said, releasing her and failing to contain a smile. "Because she's not quite so inner every once in a while."

"Oh, please," Lena huffed, "I've been like this the entire time you've known me and you love it."

Kara tilted her head, considering. She twisted her lips to the side, and Lena raised an eyebrow. "You're right," Kara decided. "Now come on, Miss Morally-Redeemable-Demon-Witch, we've got tickets to the gayest show on Broadway's final run with its original stars and we really cannot be late, Winn and James will kill us."

"Alright, alright," Lena said, pushing at Kara's stomach to get her to move out the door. "After you, Prince Charming."

"Don't start," Kara warned, trying for stern but unable to stop the smile from pushing up at her lips. "Actually, why did you even start that?"

Lena shrugged. "I think it's very fitting. You're very dashing, you always charm everyone, you're like this paragon of goodness. You rescued me from my horrible family."

Kara wrapped an arm around Lena's shoulders and kissed the side of her head gently. "I know we've talked about this a million times before," she said in Lena's ear as they stepped onto the sidewalk, "But I never rescued you. I'm thrilled to be awarded the honor of being there for you, but you rescued yourself all on your own."

Lena took a deep breath in and out. "I know." She was silent for a moment, squeezing at Kara's hand. She smirked. "Maybe it's just because of your abs then."

"For the love of--"

"Come on, Kara, we can't be late. I know you've seen the show fifteen times already but it's still their last run." Lena tilted her head thoughtfully, smiling widely. "And Winn and James' two-year anniversary."

---

"Soon-to-be-married superstars are taking a break to go rebuild a barn?" Alex stared at them. "Lena, unless you've got something up your sleeve, this is a very poor plan. Kara knows nothing about building. She might look it, but she is not the handy type of gay. She can build a set, but structural supports? That thing will crush you in your sleep and I am not ever going to be in the mood to drive an hour upstate to come dig the pair of you out of the rubble."

Lena snorted and Kara protested, Maggie snickering in the background. "Relax, Alex, we're just redecorating. We already paid someone to do it. We're just helping with the design. It's where we're going to have the wedding, you know we've already set the date. Plus, you're all welcome to come visit."

 "Just not right away," Kara muttered. "We've barely finished with the press tour and haven't been alone together for more than a minute since New York." Lena slid her fingers into Kara's, whose frown eased out slowly.

Maggie raised a glass. "Cheers to your lesbian hideaway, then. May we borrow it when you aren't aware for forevermore."

---

Lena woke up to the sound of Kara cursing fluently and the smoke alarm. 

"Fuck ow shit damn fuck, the fuck is wrong with this thing? Shut up, you're a fucking mechanical piece of engineering, so stop beeping at the smell of my burned flesh it is seven thirty in the morning, for the love of god and sweet shit, there isn't even any smoke, thank you, that's right, shut the fuck up you motherfucking little--oh. Hey Lena."

Lena felt her eyebrow rise as she moved into the kitchen, wrapping her robe a little more firmly around herself. They were still working on central heating solutions. "Having fun with the kitchen?"

Kara smiled sheepishly, her face at total odds with the stream of venom coming out of her moments ago, especially with two of her fingers stuck in her mouth in a fashion that could only be described as adorable. She removed them to show Lena a mild burn across the backs of them, and Lena clicked her tongue in disapproval, moving the freezer to pull out the frozen peas. "Thanks," Kara murmured, hissing as Lena pressed them against the burn. 

"Morning, darling," Lena said mildly, and Kara looked up from her burned hand shyly.

"I was going to make you breakfast," she said. "I had not, um, something went wrong."

Lena glanced over to where Kara had at least successfully turned all the heat off the range. "Has it been a while since you cooked this?"

"New recipe," Kara admitted guiltily. "I wanted to try that thing on Giada last night."

Lena's stomach chose that moment to grumble, and Kara quirked an eyebrow. "Shut up," Lena muttered automatically, and Kara grinned. "Darling, that's very sweet of you, but I thought we established after the knife-in-your-finger-instead-of-the-corn and blood-in-the-cornbread incident that you wouldn't try any new recipes without going over them with me first so we could plan it out?"

Kara pouted, and Lena sighed. "But Giada went over it," she whined at her peas, still firmly facing the floor. 

"You have different strengths than Giada, superstar." Lena ducked to kiss Kara, who accepted it with her lower lip stuck out just the slightest, and Lena smiled into her. "Sit down and walk me through it." The smoke alarm went off again, and Lena sighed. "Over cereal," she added firmly, and ignored Kara's dramatic sigh. "I have plans for you that involve you being whole, and I am not about reschedule because you were feeling chivalrous, Prince Charming."

Kara smiled, slow and easy, and Lena felt the familiar warmth creep into her chest. "Yes, ma'am, Miss Robot Murderer."

"That really was your favorite role of mine, wasn't it?” Lena mused, pulling cereal out of the cabinet. “And we hadn't even met yet."

Kara blushed and looked back at her peas. "No comment."

Lena narrowed her eyes. "Oh, there will be a comment," she vowed, and watched with satisfaction the red creep up Kara's neck.

#movie au #supercorp #id like to apologize to proudtobealuthor for making another outside the masterpost #oh well #we all know im a mess #finals aint too bad thanks for checking in #this is like #structured procrastination #it motivates me #so i tell myself

[lilietsblog]

anyway I’m just going to put this here.

Full text copy-pasted under the cut.

I've put 'tinfoil' in the title, because I find it highly implausible that I actually cracked Erratic's intent here, but... still: I can't believe it took me this long to put this together. We've had the pieces for a while now.

Bard is an utterly unscrutable entity, whose intentions, plans and opinions are as opaque as they are confusing. We do, however, know of two things that were explicitly the results of her plans, and intended ones at that:

- Second Liesse; - the formation of the League of Free Cities.

Second Liesse is an event that Bard engineered both the formation and the outcome of. She prevented the elves from killing Akua before she could implement it, and she fucked with Black's head in the Free Cities to ensure the exact thing happens as a result that, in fact, did.

(I believe there's more to her intent with Black than that, but more on that later)

The immediate direct result of Liesse happening, and ending the way it did, was... the crystallization of the idea of Liesse Accords: an utterly unprecedented pact between Good and Evil, allowing Evil's continued existence yet limiting the damage it can do to its surroundings, borne out of the unique circumstances post-Conquest and Catherine's unique position between Callow an Praes and between Good and Evil.

Except is it really? Unprecedented, that is?

Book 3 Epilogue

“Oh, that touch was probably just a drop of arsenic in the wine,” Aoede shrugged. “But I made your Name, sweetcakes. Back in the days before I knew better.”

“Prokopia Lakene was rightfully elected,” the Hierarch frowned.

“Right’s a pretty broad word, when it comes down to it,” the Bard said. “She was silvertongued like you wouldn’t believe, true, but that’s where I went wrong. The moment the tongue was gone, so was the Name.”

“The League survived her,” he said.

“The League’s skin deep,” the Bard said. “None of the forces behind moved any differently after it was formed.”

There has already been an attempt to bind Good, Evil and Neutral to work together. The League of Free Cities is a unique entity on Calernia, with polities of multiple alignments forming a single larger one ready to defend itself from outsiders and willing to all listen to one Named if such emerges.

And Bard's problem with it? It's too ineffectual for her tastes.

I believe Catherine's plan, and her currently being well on her way to achieving it, to be Bard's second attempt at doing the same thing. Oh, she'll butt heads with Catherine yet: not only does she have a knack for manipulating people into doing what she wants by positioning herself as an antagonist, but also her methods are... Catherine would much have preferred had Liesse not happened at all, and all that. That's going to be interesting to see.

I'm aware this theory has a lot of questionable points, and I'm going to address those one by one.

Q: Isn't Bard "the sound of lash in the dark"? Didn't Hierarch say that?

A: He did, and I'm utterly unsurprised at that. We know Bard has extremely mixed allegiances and extremely questionable methods. This is some of her chickens coming home to roost, and the universe finding a way to turn the whole free will thing against her as it has against every single other player at the table. It doesn't mean she doesn't have good intentions; Anaxares isn't exactly a paragon of clear thinking and infallible reason, god bless him and his sleeping hole.

Q: What makes you think Bard has the free will to do things like this? Isn't she a servant of Above and Below at the same time, and thus twice as bound as every other Named?

A: First of all, see: League of Free Cities. That's not my theory that she made that, that's canon text. Second, Above and Below are fairly hands off with their representatives, as we've seen. They apply tentative pushes - Above's moral guidelines, Below's propensity for strife - to prevent their Named from actually promoting the philosophy of the other side (though Catherine manages to anyway, god bless her), but don't interfere much beyond that. Choirs are distinct from Gods Above and fairly independent, or Neshamah wouldn't have said Bard's the closest to those, considering Heroes of Mercy are known to get literal constant whispers from Ophanim in their ears. Meanwhile Bard serves both Above and Below, and so doesn't even have those limitations. We've seen enough of her POV to know that while she chafes at her external restraints, all her will and saltiness are her own. Having to run errands for Above and Below doesn't preclude her ability to do shit on her own, she is a Named for a reason after all. They're known for pulling off the impossible.

Q: So what the fuck do you think is up with her and Black?

A: I believe a large part of Bard's current plan is to push Team Practical Evil away from the "Evil" part. She can't flip Cat, but she can with a bit of effort flip Black - he's too efficient a servant of Below to be allowed to continue to be such, and pulling him over to the side of Good will not only help right the balance - which has recently been skewed in Below's favor so badly heroes are going for "let it go all the way and wait for the inevitable backlash" as a strategy - but also help cement the alliance/cooperation, given that he and Cat are going to keep being the same side in this regardless of what their Names are.

This hypothesis explains a lot of Bard's seemingly random alignment/attitude flips by binding them together as parts of a fairly specific plan.

Villainous Interlude: Calamity III

“I’d say sorry, but you brought this down on yourself,” the Bard said. “I could probably destroy you in full, big guy, but that would take time. And effort. So I’m going to give you advice, instead.”

The Wandering Bard leapt down from the rooftop, half-falling. She came close, kneeling at his side.

“Go home,” she said. “Murder your little friend in the Tower and reign until someone puts a knife in your back. You’re not as good at this game as you thought you were.”

Hatred, Amadeus thought, was pointless. A bias that brought no benefit. And yet.

“But you won’t, will you?” the other Named sighed. “You don’t negotiate.”

She rose back to her feet, brushing away walnut shards.

“I doubt we’ll meet again,” she said. “And fucking Kairos slipped one by me, so I’ll have my hands full.”

The Wandering Bard looked down at him, shoving her hands in her pockets.

“This one feels like a sin, doesn’t it?” she mused. “Remember that, when the gears start turning.”

Giving "advice" to him to be more evil, that he's now even less likely to follow than before just because she said that, then planting the suggestion for him to be more aware of the concept of "sin" and allow it to influence more of his thinking?

Yeah. Yeah, that's planting the seeds not just for his reaction to Liesse, but also for further alignment drift down the line.

Book 4 Epilogue

“Catherine got herself killed again,” the Bard casually said. “And let me tell you, now that was a show. You don’t often see that calibre of foolishness slugging it out no holds barred.”

His fingers tightened. Breathe in, breathe out. Control. The moment he lost control, the creature would make use of him for whatever purpose she needed. It might be time to consider smashing his head into the ground until he fell unconscious.

“It’s fascinating, watching you take that paternal feeling by the throat and just…” Marguerite snapped her fingers, “There goes the neck. Back into the box it goes.”

This comment of Bard's is not exactly accurate. What part of "okay, I don't know for sure that she's telling the truth, nor do I think it necessarily means Catherine isn't okay even if she is, but I'm -this- close to just smashing my head against the rock until I fall unconscious again and miss my one chance to escape, just because of how much emotion hearing this is making me feel" is "taking paternal feeling by the throat and snapping the neck"?

But it's influence. It pushes Overton's window, subtly nudges Amadeus's own frame of reference - towards being more emotional, away from the cold rationality of gears.

And it's entirely in line with what she said last time they met, when you look at the direction it pushes him in and not what she literally said.

And, y'know...

“Claimant,” the Wandering Bard said. “You can have your second shot at it, you’re owed that. But if you really want it?”

She drank deep, then wiped her mouth.

“Well, there’s always a price isn’t there?” she shrugged. “So tell me, Amadeus of the Green Stretch…”

She smiled, crooked and wide under moonlight.

“What do you think is right?” she asked.

She leaned forward.

“How far are you willing to go, to see it done?”

I don't think the "it" that he is owed a second shot at and the "it" that she's hinting he might really want are the same "it", considering the "but" there.

And she's being vague about it for the exact reason she was giving bullshit advice the previous time: Amadeus is likely to do opposite things just to spite her, so let him figure out what he actually wants himself. That's more reliable.

Q: Why do you think Above and Below would allow this? Don't they want the game to continue as it is?

A: Actually, the main reason for us thinking that they wouldn't is Bard's speech to William about preferring Heiress's victory to Squire's any day. Considering how that one went... not exactly a reliable source of information. That entire premise might be wrong.

And whatever their private opinions on how the game should go, I think Above and Below would allow whatever the fuck. Below has spared Black's life as payment for his service, and he's literally devoted his life to making Praes less Evil. Above has Laurence de fucking Montfort and the precious Rafaella. They give general guidelines, have rules about how they themselves intervene, and beyond that allow mortals to do whatever they feel like doing. They're the ones settling the wager of Fate, after all.

Q: But what about the whole free will thing? Doesn't Bard being the ultimate mastermind behind Catherine's actions kind of undermine her as a protagonist?

A: Nah.

Bard's more strictly limited than any other Named. Unlike the rest, she can't make things happen just by wishing so, she's limited by others' agency. There's a reason it took so long between the formation of the League and now: Bard needed a possibility, first, Named who could be influenced to do what she wants. Black's plan to marry Praes and Callow gave her an opening she couldn't make herself, and Catherine was one failed Name transition away from coming up with the Accords - those things matter on their own, and they're not Bard's doing, they're what she needs. That's ultimately the essence of her limitation: she can only shove around things that were already plausibly likely to happen thanks to other players at the table. Catherine's far more potent than her, in terms of agency, and Bard's more a backdrop she acts in front of than anything.

Q: What about "eat the baby"? What the fuck does that even mean, anyway?

A: One of two things, I think.

Either Bard and Neshamah are close buddies who understand each other well and are genuinely straightforward with each other, in which case Bard is giving him advice that he can pretty much go all out here while still remaining a side dish, plot-wise, to the main course of the alliance being eventually gathered to push him back into Keter. He's going to gain more than he loses, and then go back in his bottle, which was inevitable anyway.

Or their friendliness is surface deep, and Bard's giving him "advice" to overextend himself and actually expose himself to being genuinely vanquished by plot backlash on a permanent basis. Which Neshamah would catch and absolutely not do, which Bard would know and have as the actual planned for outcome anyway. Making the whole exchange pointless, so y'know, I favor that first interpretation.

Either way, Bard's advice changes little about the fact that Neshamah coming out is the very reason the Accords have a chance of working. He's the leverage Cat can use to twist everyone else's arm into agreeing to them, and as it always is with Guide and characters in it getting lucky breaks, No Coincidences Were Involved (tm).

Q: What about William? Didn't he want him to beat Catherine?

A: First of all, plans can change. Catherine pre-First Liesse and Catherine pre-Second Liesse are two very different Catherines. Bard thinks on her feet, and the idea could have occured to her after seeing Catherine's "save the city from the devils, then get myself killed for the trouble, then say fuck you to that and get myself resurrected via a heroic story" stunt.

Second, she sentimentally hoped William could survive despite knowing for a fact he wouldn't, because Contrition sucks. That's not the same thing as counting on it as a plan :x

In conclusion, this is going to be fun.

P.S. Found another quote I'd been looking for.

“Seven battles I won on my feet, and lost the war sitting at a table.” – Periander Theodosian, Tyrant of Helike, after the founding of the League of Free Cities

(Book 4 Chapter 18 "Cradle")

P.P.S. I nearly missed this myself, but Bard's Free Cities comment that Amadeus should usurp Malicia and reign as a Dread Emperor himself, followed by a surge of hatred in him? Yeah, that pretty much seals the deal that he's not going to go for Dread Emperor. Even if it's the rational thing to do, Bard has ensured that every single scrap of irrationality he has in him is going to rebel against that, and also incidentally that those scraps are going to have a lot more influence on his actions than they otherwise might have. No Dread Emperor Amadeus in this timeline.

#a practical guide to evil #liliet reads pgte #amadeus of the green stretch #wandering bard

[janiedean]

When one of my favourite fic writers was asked why she doesn’t like brienne’s POV she said that she’s a minor character looking for two major characters whose location we already know, they lack suspense and it’s hard to see why they’re there :( I feel like a lot of people feel this way, but what do you think is the purpose of brienne’s chapters in the grand scheme of things?

well, there’s a lot to unpack here, but:

the fact that brienne is defined minor already says all because no, she’s a pove character. she can be a secondary or not one of the main ones, true enough, but minor character? yeah, nope. she has POVs. minor characters don’t have povs unless you count throwaways with just one, but then again, melisandre has one pov and you’d never say she was a minor character, would you? yeah, exactly;

also, ‘brienne is looking for sansa and we already know who she is’: yeah, except that it’s not about sansa whatsoever, it’s about lady stoneheart and brienne herself and their rship with jaime, which means that if you’re reading brienne’s chapters wanting to find stuff on sansa you’re already approaching it wrong because ofc we know where sansa is, but brienne’s arc in affc is about sansa as much as sansa is a pretext to show you a lot of things that grrm couldn’t do otherwise.

specifically, we have two main things: worldbuilding and brienne’s character development. in order:

worldbuilding:

now, what’s happened for the first three books? people went to war and it apparently ended (in westeros) with an unlawful massacre. all of our povs until now until davos have been from nobles/economically privileged people who have mostly survived the war. we had some inklings of how it went through a) the riverrun chapters in acok where you learn that edmure had let his people in, b) the cat chapters in general, c) something from davos because he has the not-noble perspective, but did we see how the war actually devastated the entire country? no. what do brienne’s chapters offer? brienne and pod going around one of the most war-torn areas of westeros (near where the red wedding had been) and showing you exactly how much it hurt the real people living it, and sorry but if grrm, a well-known conscience objector during the vietnam war who feels about the consequence of war and pacifism very deeply, has said in an interview that his favorite scene to write in the whole of asoiaf is brienne and maribald talking about how ptsd destroys soldiers’s lives in war and war ruins people, sure as hell I’m going to assume he thinks those povs were important enough to warrant their presence;

also, you get introduced in a very subtle but effective way to a lot of future key players. as in, randyll tarly is currently on the small council or should be soon, but we don’t see him first in a sam chapter, we see him in brienne’s affc chapters where he’s presented as being basically the asshole version of stannis who told her to go back home and find a husband when he technically saved her from the bet in renly’s camp, we find out sandor is alive (!!! THE QUIET ISLE!!!), we find out where the fuck gendry ended up, we find out where the bloody mummers have scattered, we have found out where the brotherhood ended up etc, and oh wait lady stoneheart shows up and scuse me but catelyn was a major character with a shitton of povs and you’re telling me it’s a coincidence she shows up with her purpose and all in the chapters of the female character she shared a bond with, that was sworn to her and who’d have fucking died for her even after cat herself died and it’s a coincidence? like, i know this fandom hates catelyn dead or alive but she’s important, deal with it;

this also means that through brienne’s chapters grrm deals with a lot of his favorite themes to touch in a general setting without going into character-specific things, specifically:a) war, the consequences of war on who fought it, which are all negative and peace being always the best choice over it;b) those same consequences on people who suffered it without fighting (ie: have a bunch of orphans being slaughtered by bandits because their parents died!)c) the fact that the people in power don’t give a single fuck about itd) justice and how it’s dealt (randyll tarly and his exemplary methods /sarcasm)

okay, all good, you say, and then why did brienne have to do it, couldn’t it have been anyone else?

no, it couldn’t have been anyone else, and this is where we touch the other point, as in, brienne’s character development. as in:

now, george is a good writer. he also knows that if you have to set a character up for something at the peak of the series, you have to build it up before (ie: if he knew that theon was gonna save jeyne and jump from that window after regretting he didn’t die with robb, he had to start working on it since his acok chapters which he did, but you couldn’t have told that would be his storyline reading acok, right...?) which means that you need to make sure the reader has a background and knows what the hell is going on with them and why they tick the way they tick. I have previously ranted about how you can guess a lot of things about brienne if you read just acok/asos when I explained why she’s important as a literary character and I refer to that for it, but until you get to asos, since you don’t have her pov, other than ‘she’s not conventionally attractive’, you can only go insofar as:a) at some point she was in love with renly enough she’d die for himb) she’s a very morally sound person who really believes in her knightly oaths to a point that’s maybe unhealthy sometimesc) she’d die for whoever she trustsd) she will change her mind if she misjudged someone but she needs to have proofe) she doesn’t trust people easilyf) she can fight pretty damn well and possibly best than any other man in westerosg) everyone thinks she’s a joke for wanting to be a knighth) she has conflicts about wearing dressesnow, that’s not little. but still, it’s not enough for what I think george has in plans for her. now, rewind a moment, because we need to establish another point, as in...

grrm has made A Damned Point in these books of deconstructing the concept of chivalry/knighthood and pointing out how people who are seen by others as perfect knights/Good People To Boot are actually anything but and people who tried to actually do knightly things aren’t seen as such for hypocrisy or because society sucks or both (jaime and sandor vs gregor vs jaime’s old kingsguard vs the gold cloaks etc) and he’s been pretty damn going at it with a flamethrower. what you know is that at the point in the narrative westeros is at knighthood is a corrupted institution, no one believes in it (or almost), no one fits the definition of what a true knight should be or if they do other people don’t see it, and not counting the above (sandor because he doesn’t see himself as one and he loathes it because the moment gregor got knighted he got his worldview of it tainted forever, jaime because he tried and he wanted to be it and all he got was the kingslayer name) no one in these books is a darned true knight and recognized as such. now, I’ll bring up the goddamned dunk and egg books again because in those books we have a) the actual knightly oath, b) an actual true knight, as in duncan, who is/was recognized as such by the entire damned realm and actually was one. now, the oath is:In the name of the Warrior I charge you to be brave. In the name of the Father I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother I charge you to defend the young and innocent. In the name of the Maid I charge you to protect all women....now, I’m gonna drop the question: who, while going around westeros with a *valyrian sword* she doesn’t think she deserves handling and duncan’s actual shield that she takes because there was a similar one in the armory while being on a quest to save a princess:- shows bravery at every other corner (no chance and no choice guys)- dispenses justice as much as she’s allowed to (the bloody mummers and most likely lady stoneheart later) because she kills people who did horrible things- defended the young and innocent (pod and the kids in the inn, again, no chance and no choice)- protected women (she’s out to find sansa and most people in the inn were girls and if you want to rape someone rape me)?answer: brienne of tarth. yes, brienne. no, no other. and no one else could have done that, because, and here we go to the last two points...

we knew what we knew about brienne, but the moment we go into her head we find out exactly all the reasons why she does what she does, we find out what she thinks about her life, jaime, catelyn, pod, the situation she’s in and whatnot, we find out what drives her, we find out why she was going to die with renly, we find out that her core problem (other than hating that people see her as ugly) is that she can’t reconcile being a lady and a knight and she hates disappointing his father and that she’s been subjected to a really damn crappy time in her life on account of her looks, which means that we saw her as a young girl who was about to get herself killed over renly and finally finds a woman who doesn’t laugh at her in cat chapters, we saw her as what jaime sees her as ie someone who gets him/changed his mind about him/a paragon of knightly strength and vows-upholding, but we hadn’t seen her from inside her own head.from where we find out that she’s a human being with very human issues, that she’s actually not a fluke in the sense that yes she’s that good of a person, yes she’s that nice, no she doesn’t care for glory or money or fame beyond ending up in songs where she’s celebrated as beautiful and strong and not called names like in real life, no she doesn’t have some hidden agenda to fuck things up for someone, yes she really believes in knightly vows, yes she really cares for the people she swears herself to that much, yes she suffers over catelyn’s death forreal, yes she really is gone over jaime that much, yes her self-esteem is crap, no she’s not gregor clegane.and she’s also duncan’s direct descendant, even if george isn’t dropping that bomb on her yet. (and her brother’s name is galladon like one of the fairest knights in legends and wait, in arthuriana the perfect knight is galahad of which brienne is a deconstruction in herself.)now, not to presume anything, but if I was writing a series in which I 100% deconstruct knighthood in every possible way - as an institution and as ‘what people thinks a knight has to look like’ - and I was planning to have as a plot twist to have a person who doesn’t look like a proper knight according to the audience and the other characters in the narration actually be officially hailed as The Best Knight In This Entire Fucking Realm I’d probably give them POV chapters instead of having them always be seen by someone else, because you can’t know if that person is deserving of the title until it’s always other people talking about it. the moment you’re in their head you know if they have what it takes for the job or not...

which means that the brienne chapters are there because from the moment she gets them and separates from jaime she starts on a journey which ends with her having to face her worst fears about her own shortcomings and put her in front of enormous moral and ethical choices (ie jaime - the man she loves - or stoneheart as in her former liege lady gone mad, also her mission for sansa vs saving the girls at the inn because if she’s dead she can’t find sansa... but no chance and no choice) which until now have about broken everyone who has faced them (even good people at heart ie jaime and sandor got their lives turned on for the worst when knighthood ideals and vows failed them) and guess what the entire point is that while everyone else couldn’t coherently live up to those ideals and vows, brienne most likely will because she’s exactly everything a true knight TM should be, and the moment she gets over it she’s going to get the results, and since I doubt grrm wanted anyone to say that if she got that he had written an overpowered mary sue who can fight anyone and take the moral high ground without being conflicted most of the time, he’s showing you where she comes from, that she’s hella conflicted and she has a hell of a lot of issues which still don’t stop her from pursuing her dreams.

and sorry but if she’s being written to become that (and the fact that she’s duncan’s direct descendant seals it nvm the knighting in the show which I’m 99% sure is one of the three book canon things they might have done this year because like hell dnd would have cared for knighting her before kingsguarding her, they’d have forgotten it as usual) then she can’t not have povs because then she really would look like your usual mary sue just not standard attractive, but then again you don’t get how much that hurts her or weights on her until you read her chapters. then it hits you in the face. like, reading it really cemented for me that she was top three for me and my favorite female character in existence, if it stuck at asos I don’t know if i’d have gotten it that much.

also, giving a pov to the only goshdarned canonically not attractive woman who stays not attractive with her experiences and background that ever graced mainstream literature has (for me and a lot of others I know) meant that for the first time we saw someone with our darned crappy childhood self-esteem destroying experiences being the protagonist of one storyline and believe me that didn’t hurt either, and most surely grrm also meant her as that specific rep, and that would be enough of a reason if he felt like it, but nvm that.

tldr: the purpose of brienne’s chapters is showing you that war sucks and make you understand that brienne is The Knight That Was Promised and they’re there so when she’s knighted and hailed as the best one since her ancestor and most likely even better than him you don’t go like ‘what the hell where did that come from she has no pov I’ve barely seen her in these books how am I supposed to buy it’, never mind that she’s fundamental to the conclusion of catelyn’s storyline whichever it is, and catelyn’s coincidentally an extremely major character in these series and one grrm also really obviously cares about. and grrm is doing the work now so no one falls off the chair gaping and wondering what the hell was her deal in ADOS. so if anyone thinks the purpose in those chapters is finding sansa they’re imvho very far off the mark. sansa being actually the purpose of the quest happens next book after the stoneheart situation is solved, then we can discuss it. but for now, it’s not what these chapters are about - they’re about brienne and her relationships and her quest and knighthood and the worldbuilding and about how war devastates the places it happens in always, and the fact that people read those chapters and then think ‘yes but what about sansa’ and/or ‘yes but what was the point’ is imvho a self-showing proof that it’s exactly why they need them: because like that, they them and only think about the other main characters or the overachieving plot or immediate gratification when grrm wants the reader to stop and think for five minutes about what he’s telling you and he’s pointing neon lights at brienne like ‘hey SHE is the one you need to keep an eye on because She Is The Quintessential Good Guy’. but the fact that I see people dismissing her chapters as useless and boring on principle because no plot gratification and ‘she’s boring’ about says everything that has to be said imvho, and that was my tea for today, thanks for coming to my ted talk.

#brienne of tarth #asoiaf meta #gotbrienneoftarth #janie writes meta #*shrug* #long post for ts #I said what I said #Anonymous #ask post