#and the name of the “series” is a reference to the quote “Have you ever gotten everything you ever wanted? No. but I once got very close.”

[flowersforthemachines]

Ghilasara Codex: Day 18 - A description of your OC’s family by a future historian

Masterpost of all Ghilasara codex entries can be found HERE.

By virtue of Rook being a city elf, we remain largely in the dark about her early life and extended family. What we know is that her mother, Innan Thorne (maiden name: Elgaris), hailed from a Dalish Clan of an unrecorded name and left it to marry a Haslam city elf Yeren Thorne presumably the same year that Rook was born. 

When Yeren died in 09:33 Dragon, Innan left the Haslam alienage to join a passing Dalish clan. She reunited with her daughter in 09:53 Dragon after Rook rescued her clan from the venatori, and the two kept in contact all the way until Rook’s death eleven years later. Innan lived well into her eighties, outliving her only child by a decade. 

Out of Rook’s romantic relationships of most note is the one with Lucanis Dellamorte, the First Talon of the Antivan Crows from 09:53 to 09:67 Dragon. Despite over a decade of romantic involvement, the couple never married or left behind any children. Numerous evidence and witness accounts suggest a tumultuous relationship between the two, though also one that continued the entire time they knew each other. Dellamorte was the last person to see Rook before her death, by her own invitation, and was observed to be in mourning even several years after her passing and died unmarried, reportedly never taking another lover. 

The book series “I Once Got Very Close” by the author Vera-Siobhan — frequently theorised to be the pen name of Bellara Lutare, Rook’s closest friend and confidant — is based on a similar premise of a complicated relationship between a Grey Warden and an Antivan Crow. While not recognised as an official source by any historian, the series is greatly beloved by fans of romance and tragedy, and is believed by some to provide insight into what could’ve transpired between Rook and Lucanis Dellamorte. 

 — From “The Heroes of Our Age: The Life and Death of Ghilasara “Rook” Thorne” by Nesiana Andras published by the University of Orlais in 09:99 Dragon

[theskywithin]

Shadow Work Series - Feeling Vs. Explaining - Planets in The Third House

The Third House is the voice you become when emotion gets too close to the surface. It’s the part of the psyche that spins, and spins, and spins, because staying still might mean remembering too much. Planets in the 3rd House show how your mind learned to protect you. How it built loops out of what couldn’t be processed. How it replayed the scene until the pain wore down into a pattern. They reveal the moment you stopped feeling and started thinking about feeling, so you wouldn’t drown in it.

If you want to support my journey, my book "the sky within" breaks down the birth chart completely, and it's on sale!! link at the end of the post! thank you!!

☉ Sun in the 3rd House

"Start talking, keep talking." The more you explain, the less they’ll ask. The more you clarify, the less they’ll misread you. The more you define yourself, the less you’ll have to feel that hollow echo that follows the question: But who am I when the sentence ends? You became the one who makes sense in every room, in every role, you know how to speak yourself into being. You observe, adjust, become fluent in translation especially when the thing you’re translating is you. But the danger of living in explanation is that you start to believe the script. You confuse coherence with wholeness. You perform your self-understanding so well that no one sees how much of you was left in the margins. The child in you still remembers what it meant to be misinterpreted, how it felt when your feelings were corrected instead of held. So now, you shine through language, you radiate through reference points. You become bright, digestible, correct. But beneath that light is a deeper ache to speak without having to make sense first. You fear being unclear, being questioned. You fear that if your words ever trail off mid-thought, someone will leave before you find the ending. But the Sun in the 3rd is not polished line that earns applause. It’s the heartbeat behind the metaphor. It’s the self that shows up even when you don’t know what to say. It’s the warmth in your voice when you stop trying to explain your worth and let someone witness it uncaptioned.

☽ Moon in the 3rd House

You speak to calm the waves before they reach your throat. To flatten the tide into language, so no one sees how high it rises in your chest. You learned early that words could be water but also walls. If you name the feeling just right, you don’t have to feel it. So you narrate your sorrow like a weather report. Today: cloudy with a high chance of apology. You joke when you’re unraveling, you paraphrase the ache, you quote someone else when you mean yourself. You learned to translate emotion into something easier to hold, easier for them to hold. And that’s where the fracture lives: You are full of feeling, but fluent in deflection. You crave to be understood, but fear that honesty will sound too loud, too needy, too messy to love. So you keep the story moving. You keep revising the memory. You keep telling the same scene in different words hoping one day it won’t hurt. But the Moon in the 3rd is here to let your voice tremble without rehearsing the line. You don’t have to speak it perfectly. You just have to remember that the sky doesn’t explain the rain before it starts falling.

☿ Mercury in the 3rd House

Thought never leaves you alone. It taps at your window. It whispers mid-conversation. It interrupts pleasure, quiet, stillness, with just one more question, one more theory, one more way it could go wrong. Mercury in the 3rd is a brilliant mind with no off-switch. A voice that speaks in riddles, reframes the truth, rewrites the past before your body even finishes feeling it. You think faster than you feel. You process more than you can hold. You survive through insight but you forget that wisdom and peace are not the same. The moment you start to feel something real, your mind steps in to name it, define it, debate it, doubt it. And somewhere in that spiral, the softness goes missing. You turn emotion into analysis, grief into language, love into a list of signs you might be misreading. You need to know. And yet , no matter how much you learn, the quiet never comes. Because Mercury in the 3rd is haunted by questions that don’t have answers. But maybe the healing is learning to sit with the noise without asking it to solve itself. Maybe it’s trusting that some truths don’t need to be spoken to be known. And maybe your mind will rest the moment it realizes it doesn’t have to earn love by understanding everything first.

♀ Venus in the 3rd House

You made your voice a love letter. You learned to phrase things softly, to shape sentences that wrapped around their moods. You smoothed tension with a joke. You made your thoughts lighter, easier, because heavy things were punished or ignored. Venus in the 3rd is fluent in charm, but that charm is layered. A softness with a cost. A performance of connection that often leaves you feeling further away. You want love to sound like poetry. You want relationships to feel like fluent translation. But so often, you’re the only one doing the translating. You speak to be loved, but silence yourself to stay safe. You offer warmth like punctuation. You dress your honesty in flowers and wonder why no one brings any back. You crave conversation that melts you open but end up curating the vibe instead. Smiling when you’re unsure. Making it pretty when it’s painful. Sounding okay when you’re already halfway out the door. Venus in the 3rd wants you to name your needs without flinching. To say: "I don’t like the way that felt." or "I’m not sure I believe you." or "I want to be loved, not entertained." Because love isn’t earned through elegance, and connection comes from honesty that still stays. You don’t have to sound beautiful to be loved beautifully.

♂ Mars in the 3rd House

Even when no one’s swinging, even when no one’s listening, you speak fast, sharp, certain, as if being wrong would mean disappearing. As if being misunderstood would mean defeat. Mars in the 3rd grew up with the need to be right. Because confusion once led to consequences, hesitation was punished, and softness made you a target. So now, every sentence is a stance. Every opinion is a shield. Every pause feels like a weakness someone might exploit. You cut with your logic, corner with your questions, strike with syllables. You use words like armor, and silence like exile. You crave real dialogue, but fear vulnerability more than loneliness. You want connection, but keep mistaking surrender for loss. So you win the argument and lose the intimacy. You say: I’m just being honest. But what you really mean is: I’m afraid of being hurt again. You say: I’m not afraid of conflict. But what you really mean is: It’s the only language I was ever taught to speak fluently. But there is power in the pause. There is courage in softening. There is strength in saying: I don’t know yet, and not needing to win anything for it. Because sometimes the most radical thing your voice can do is stop trying to win the room and let someone in instead.

♃ Jupiter in the 3rd House

You turn your life into metaphors before the moment even ends. You find the lesson fast, maybe too fast. Before the grief settles, before the joy deepens, you’re already explaining what it meant. Because stories feel safer than silence. Philosophy is easier than pain. If you can name it, expand it, teach it, you don’t have to feel how heavy it still is. But underneath that wisdom is often a child who couldn’t sit in the unknown for too long without spiraling. So you learned to speak in universals, to float above the chaos, to make jokes out of heartbreak, to offer meaning instead of memory, to retell the ending until it sounds like victory. You know how to find purpose but not how to stay present. You know how to speak from the sky but not always from the wound. So you fly too far from your body, too fast from your feelings, trying to escape the question you never got to answer: What does it mean if there’s no meaning yet? But Jupiter in the 3rd doesn’t need you to be profound or to explain the plot. It just wants you to come back to the sentence you skipped, the one where the ache lives, the one where the real story starts, the one where you’re allowed to not know what it means and still speak it anyway.

♄ Saturn in the 3rd House

You learned to think before you spoke. Twice. Three times. And then maybe not at all. You carry the weight of what could go wrong if you say too much, too soon, too honestly. You became careful, structured. You shrink your sentences so they don’t take up too much space. You cut your stories down to what’s necessary. You rehearse before revealing. You proofread your pain. Because somewhere, expression became a risk. Somewhere, you were told, in words or in tone, that your thoughts were too loud, too childish, too wrong to be trusted without edits. So now, you speak like you're building a house out of bricks, not breath. You have so much to say, but the voice in your head keeps asking: Will they understand me? Will they use it against me? Will it even come out right? You think being understood is something you earn by being perfect. So you wait until the thought is finished, and in the waiting, the moment passes. Saturn in the 3rd is here to teach you that your words don’t have to carry the whole structure of your safety. That not every sentence has to hold up the weight of your worth. That you can speak and still be loved, even if your meaning isn’t complete. Because the most honest things you’ll ever say might be the ones you were never sure how to phrase.

♅ Uranus in the 3rd House

You lived in your head because the room didn’t feel safe. You left conversations mid-sentence, not out loud, but internally. You stayed quiet while your mind went miles ahead. Uranus in the 3rd means your thoughts live far from your body. Far from the moment, from the people asking you how you are and expecting an answer you don’t believe in. You learned to detach before you dissolved. To stay sharp so nothing could catch you off guard. To make yourself mentally unreachable, because when they couldn’t follow your thoughts, they couldn’t touch your feelings. You crave intimacy, but keep creating distance. You want to feel safe with someone inside your thoughts, but you don’t know how to stay long enough for them to arrive. You cut out of the moment just as it’s softening. You change the subject before the truth lands. You leave the room by living in abstraction. And it feels like freedom, but sometimes, it’s just fear in a better outfit. Uranus in the 3rd needs to stay still long enough to let someone see the part of you that doesn’t want to be interesting, just met. Because underneath the quickness, the brilliance, the rewiring of every moment, is a mind that never learned what it meant to feel received.

♆ Neptune in the 3rd House

You remember things that never happened, you forget the things you needed most. Your memory is emotional. One scent, one glance, one song, and suddenly you’re back in a conversation that never quite made sense, but left you aching anyway. Neptune in the 3rd taught you to read between the lines, because what was said never matched what was felt. So you became fluent in atmosphere. You sensed the tension no one named, you swallowed the confusion as truth, you turned intuition into interpretation, and doubt into doctrine. You edit mid-sentence. You soften the edges of your truth so no one will disappear when you speak it. You learned to disappear first. Sometimes you mirror instead of answer, sometimes you speak in vague shapes and beautiful phrasing so no one notices you didn’t say what you meant. Or worse, that you don’t know what you meant. Because how do you claim a voice when it was shaped by distortion?Neptune in the 3rd wants a voice that’s allowed to quiver, to contradict itself, to change mid-thought and still be real. There is nothing wrong with the way your mind wanders. There is nothing broken about a voice that needs gentleness to arrive.

♇ Pluto in the 3rd House

You learned early that knowledge was power but only if you were the one holding it. So you listen more than you speak, you notice everything, you ask questions that sound casual but cut straight to the bone. You replay conversations in your head, not to remember, but to analyze. Because for you, words were never just connection. They were leverage, currency, and protection. Pluto in the 3rd is penetrating. It watches, studies and speaks when it’s already two steps ahead. But here’s the fracture: You crave intimacy but only on your terms. You want to be known but only once it’s safe, once they’ve passed every test, once you’re sure they’ll never use your truth against you. So you stay guarded. You speak in riddles. You reveal just enough to keep them close, but never enough to lose control. You’re terrified of being misunderstood, because being misunderstood once cost you something you never got back. Pluto in the 3rd is here to heal the wound that made you believe you had to out-think intimacy to survive it. Your words can be a bridge, not a trapdoor. Your story doesn’t have to be a shield. Because the deepest truths aren’t the ones you dig for, they’re the ones you say even when your voice is shaking and no one’s earned the right to hear them yet.

© 2025 francesca m. All rights reserved.

my book down here!!

[guidaozongshi]

I know Kishimoto probably wrote sns gay on accident but sometimes I see things and it look on purpose like double suicide. No way he didn't know what it meant.

I strongly disagree with the idea that Kishimoto unintentionally wrote Naruto and Sasuke's relationship with homoerotic and romantic elements.

While I am in disagreement with many of Kishimoto's writing choices, claiming that he or even the editors working at Jump don't understand what he is writing about is just condescending.

Firstly, let's make one thing clear: no Shonen mangaka since the 1990s has ever unintentionally put homoerotic subtext in their work.

Statements like :

" Shonen mangakas accidentally make their male characters gay because they can't develop their female characters "

Is simply not true.

Shonen Jump deliberately allows homoerotic subtext in their works because it is profitable; it attracts a considerable female audience, i.e., fujoshi, to be interested in their series. This is not a recent phenomenon but something that can be traced back to the 1980s with the advent of series like Gundam, which at that time had a primarily female audience due to the intense personal relationships between the cast.

Take this snippet from an interview with Yoshiyuki Tomino, the creator of Gundam

What I want modern day Gundam fans to understand is that Gundam wasn't nurtured by the PlaModel enthusiasts. It was young women who first came to the after recording studio, and Gundam is a work that began with their support. And it was a work that had no connection to the popularity of Gundam PlaModels. So I think the most important thing is creating a work that will attract those kind of girls to it again. I don't think movies as an entertainment industry can succeed without touching on that kind of fundamental portion.

The girls he is referring to are those people who are invested in the emotionally charged male-male relationships of the series.

A lot of people mistakenly believe that Weekly Shonen Jump solely targets boys, which is understandable given its name. However, the strategy of WSJ has continuously evolved alongside its readership, and for many of its series, more than half of the audience is female. In fact, many of its titles, such as Prince of Tennis, Kuroko no Basuke, Haikyuu, etc, have a primary female audience, you can guess why. The homoeroticism and shoujo-esque elements are deliberately added.

To quote a blog that does scholarly work on manga

I also want to make it clear i think any analysis of shonen manga especially Jump manga being soooo friendly to fujoshi and m/m shipping due to misogyny in writing falls flat when you think the authors and editors are thick headed and have no idea how the readers could possibly get that kind of interpretation from their works when Jump has been a STAPLE of the comiket yaoi corner ever since the mid-80’s and their whole shtick is being hyper aware of reader opinion. they know and have always known how female readers read into the works and authors who enter jump only get more and more savvy about how to feed into it. You can’t see the accidental kiss gag and trick yourself into thinking Kishimoto didn’t know what he was doing with that

Now that we have made it clear that whatever written was deliberate, let's discuss whether Kishimoto wanted to portray Sasuke and Naruto in a romantic relationship. This is something I cannot give definitive answers on.. as there are certainly mixed messages

Once again to quote the same blog

When talking about fujobaiting boys manga from now on i will have to put an asterisk on Naruto bc yes i know Kishimoto knows what he’s doing but this really isn’t normal behavior

-

The way that he does everything from being self aware by having the boys get called a slur ( homophobic ) for trying to save Sasuke to the lol wouldn’t it be gross and funny if Kakashi and Gai were gay for each other moments it all contrasted by Sasuke and Naruto playing out a fantasy novel marketed to girls where Sasuke (love interest) turns to the dark side and Naruto (the protagonist) misses him and yearns to have their time together back and is conflicted about the idea of having to fight him one day and the person who comforts him the most during this is Sakura (secondary love interest who gets the short end of the stick) like they can try to repeat the line that they’re like brothers but Naruto doesn’t have siblings like 🤨 how is he sure 🤨🤨 simultaneously to all this Gai and Kakashi are called gross old men for giving each other piggyback rides

But you are right. Kishimoto invokes a lot of romantic tropes that are impossible to ignore altogether or even dismiss as a simple fujobait, and concludes that he never intended to portray Naruto-Sasuke in a romantic light in the text. Libraries worth of content has been written about their relationship so I wouldn't be saying anything new that hasn't been said before.

As you mentioned, the prospect of Shinjū (心中), meaning "double suicide" is invoked between Naruto and Sasuke. At a point in their relationship, Sasuke stands against Konoha. He asks for an ultimatum from Naruto whether he would kill Sasuke to save Konoha or be killed by him, and Naruto says he wants neither. But they will inevitably have to face off against each other because of their obligations as a Uchiha annihilated by Konoha and a Jinchuuriki bound to Konoha. It's also inevitable that when they both clash, they will have died together since they are both equally matched in power. Naruto is ready to face Sasuke's hatred against Konoha and to die along with him. Naruto then says that if the above happens, in the next life they would be able to meet each other without their respective obligations.

This is an obvious romantic trope, especially how straightforward it's played in Naruto that doesn't allow for any other interpretation.

In Japanese theater and literary tradition, double suicides are the simultaneous suicides of two lovers whose personal feelings (人情, ninjō) or love for one another are at odds with giri, social conventions or familial obligations.

Lovers committing double suicide believed that they would be united again in heaven, a view supported by feudal teaching in Edo period Japan, which taught that the bond between two lovers is continued into the next world.

Dying together, because of their respective obligations, despite their feelings for each other, with the hope of being able to unite again in the next life. Is this literally not Naruto and Sasuke?

When one talks of the relationship between Naruto and Sasuke, the Land of Waves arc is considered one of the most pivotal points in the trajectory of their story. Their relationship is frequently made analogous to that of Haku and Zabuza.

And one of the most controversial points I will make is that Kishimoto added blatant romantic intent in Haku and Zabuza's relationship, portraying them as lovers, to make their relationship resemble wakashūdō.

In the warrior (samurai) class it was customary for a boy in the wakashū age category to undergo training in the martial arts by apprenticing to a more experienced adult man. The relationship was based on the model of a typically older nenja, paired with a typically younger chigo. The man was permitted, if the boy agreed, to take the boy as his lover until he came of age; this relationship, often formalized in a "brotherhood contract", was expected to be exclusive, with both partners swearing to take no other (male) lovers.

Wakashū were prominently featured in Edo-period woodcuts, where they are often distinguishable from the female beauties in the same pictures only by a sword or the shaved spot on the crown of their head. In erotic prints ( shunga ), they are often depicted as more feminine than their female partners.

You can't possibly believe that Kishimoto, who is known to imbue Japanese historical and mythological motifs throughout the series, does this by accident.

Why would Kishimoto make Naruto and Sasuke's relationship be compared to that of Haku and Zabuza, two people with heavy romantic implications? It also doesn't just stop at Land of Waves. Even the ending scene of the series, where Naruto and Sasuke lie together, is made to be a direct parallel to the final moments between Haku and Zabuza.

I am not condoning 'shipping' Zabuza and Haku at all, and I think people have the right to be repulsed by a romantic reading of their relationship, but this is a very obvious observation.

Even to an average viewer without any shipping intentions, Zabuza and Haku's relationship has always been weird and it has spawned countless discussions speculating the nature of it

Kishimoto could have easily used a less controversial and more recognisable platonic relationship as the one that onsets the trajectory of Sasuke and Naruto's relationship, but he didn't.

Why?

Decide for yourself.

[illustratedartist]

Jervis Tetch A.K.A The MAD HATTER 🎩🫖

OK So someone sent me an ask on here and unfortunately I can't find where it disappeared to-SO I'M VERY SORRY!

This person asked if I could make a reference sheet of my Hatter and share some headcanons, if I had any. I've never really done this before, or even had many headcanons so please bare with me lol. I didn't go into too much detail, Im not really a writer so I just tried to get the main points through.

Down The Rabbit Hole:

Has paranoid schizophrenia, and often hallucinates, especially when stressed. He mostly sees characters from Alice in Wonderland, seeing the Cheshire cat or “Alice” the most.

When very stressed or feel like hes losing control of a situation, he begins to stutter horribly. His words get jumbled in his mind, and thats when he starts reciting quotes or poems from AIW relevant to the situation hes in. Before he became the Mad Hatter, and became a criminal he stuttered constantly while speaking to anyone. 

 Jervis controls people by drugging and hypnotizing them, But the strongest form of mind control he has are the masks he puts on his “Guests”. 

For goons or regular street thugs he manages to get, he mostly uses cards on them instead of wasting materials to make masks for them. Figuring It would be easier than having Batman break them and forcing him to constantly  remake the same ones over and over. 

Also its a chance to call his thugs the “Card Guards” which amuses him.

His goons don’t matter much to him, but if he assigns you a specific character, you are highly important to his “Tea Parties” and are at risk of being forced to attend indefinitely.

 For his “Tea Party” guest list, he has crafted actual masks for them to wear, in correlation to the Character he assigned to each guest. He does make sure the guests are drugged with his special tea before putting the masks on them. Wouldn’t want to risk having you manage to break free of his control during the party! Or ever.

March Hare=Scarecrow, Dormouse= Riddler, White Rabbit= Ventriloquist, Cheshire Cat= Catwoman, The Dodo= Penguin, Mock Turtle= Mr.Freeze, Queen of Hearts= Poison Ivy, The Walrus= Bane, The Jabberwocky= Batman  

He customizes the masks so they even resemble the actual people.

His closest friends are Jonathan Crane, and Edward Nygma, his March Scare and Dorrat.

Jonathan was a psychologist so he knows how to handle Jervis, and can tolerate him for the most part. Edward on the other hand may think Jervis is a useful ally, but he's not nearly as patient with him as Jonathan is. Neither of them like being called by their "nicknames" Jervis gave them.

Jervis fell in love with the woman he had been working with, before he became a criminal, that put everything into motion. Her actual name wasn't Alice, but they both bonded over their fondness for the story, and he started to call her Alice as a fun nickname or inside joke. Though his obsession with her had already begun.

After losing it, and becoming a criminal and kidnapping "Alice" he was defeated by Batman, (Much like how it happened in BTAS). "Alice" fled Gotham after this, but Jervis doesn't know that, and is too far gone to realize that she would leave him. SO he roams the streets of Gotham looking for his beloved "Alice".

OK THAT'S IT! At least these were all I could think of. Obviously my Jervis is heavily based off the Arkham series and BTAS. But I love this little crazy guy.

[butchsophiewalten]

This is a largely speculative ask, so apologies if it’s difficult to find any references to answer it if any at all, but I was wondering if the crew or otherwise ever talked about just what Sophie being the narratives “Alice” possibly alludes to, outside of being the series’ primary protagonist. Especially considering Sophie’s lack of a confirmed vessel (animatronic) that Bon has planned for them, compared to his other victims. Also accounting for Bon’s infatuation with Sophie, I get the feeling her intended position in Wonderland has a lot of moving parts as far as Bon is concerned, at least compared to his previous victims.

I really like this question! And you're right that there's quite a lot of parts to it. The first thing I'd like to point out is a frankly ancient bit of Findjackwalten peculiarity that I'm really not sure how many people even remember. When we first got /Brightonghosts on the 6th of January, 2022, at the bottom of the page there was a list of "Posessions" (lol) that were written as follows:

Then just a month later, that section of the page quietly updated, with only a single line being changed:

When I noticed, obviously, I found this quite weird! To my memory this was the first real allusion to Alice in Wonderland we'd ever seen in The Walten Files, which is funny now that it's literally everywhere. The only other thing I can think of from then is Martin saying in a random Discord conversation, (which was ancient even at the time,) that he associated the song White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane with Sophie.

I made a couple posts about this on my blog at the time. We knew about the concept of "The Lobby" thanks to the Findjackwalten page quoting an excerpt from the (fictional) Dr. Victor Evans' writing of the same name. It is a theory that ghosts inhabit a space that is not truly "purgatory," (at least not religiously,) and is not Heaven nor Hell. It is a different subspace, which the spirits in Dr. Evan's writing refer to as a "Lobby". So there's an implied connection between the Lobby, and this "Alice in Wonderland" phenomenon, and I'm honestly surprised with myself for the answer I came up with:

This was quite an out-there concept, for the time! I remember a few people I knew even telling me personally that it was far-fetched. Which I don't even blame them for, because it was! But it's much clearer now: Wonderland is a 'Lobby', and we know from Susan's presence in it in TWF4 (and from a candid discord message courtesy of Eva, haha,) that you don't necessarily have to be a ghost or a dead person to enter it.

So there's a very clear concept there as to what it precisely means for Sophie to act as 'Alice' in this concept... though I don't think it necessarily has to refer exclusively to this.

Simply narratively: Sophie lives a life of malaise and disillusionment. She lives a life which, to her, feels directionless and incomplete. I think it's obvious that getting a taste of purpose, of greater meaning, and of closure is going to be extremely impactful for her. And I think she's going to follow that rabbit hole just about as far as it goes.

(And to append: I don't know if it's necessarily correlated with Bon's plans for Sophie, but there is technically an unaccounted for animatronic!

Truly, this mysterious sheet-covered mass could be anything... but considering its consistent appearances, I think it's probably plot-relevant somehow! )

[my-sun-m00n-and-stars]

Cad Bane Character Analysis: Part 11--Hunt for Ziro

Prev Next

In this blog series I will be going through all of Cad Bane's appearances in Star Wars Canon, and making commentary on what each piece of media reflects about his character.

Before we get into the episode, I'll open this post with some quotes from Clone Wars Season 7 Episode 7, Dangerous Debt:

"There was a prison break on the surface of Coruscant. Some gangster named Ziro. Then came the Jedi. We watched as they chased Ziro and his gang down the portal, leaping from speeder to speeder as they went. Finally, some red-eyed alien protecting Ziro blasted the engine of an ascending cargo transport. The ship went spiraling out of control...The Jedi didn't even capture Ziro. The distraction of the ship helped him get away."

We learn that Bane's escape with Ziro was not as smooth as we would have thought. He was a bit too eager to blow up the Senators, losing his bargaining chip that was keeping his crew safe. And as we know, he is not afraid to cause collateral damage if it suits him. He took advantage of the Jedi wanting to save innocents in order to get away.

But how the hell were they leaping from speeder to speeder with Ziro in tow? Was he like this behind them?

Or did they park him somewhere and leave him? That would be hilarious.

It feels like a bit of an oversight on part of the writers, but it's fine.

On to my most favorite episode of Clone Wars ever. It's so delightfully stupid. Everything from the Indiana Jones-inspired dance number, to Quinlan Vos, Mama the Hutt, and especially Ziro and Sy Snootles is just fantastic. Shout out to the best line in the show---"From the bottom of my fluid sac."

Our first shot of the Blue Bastard is him coming out of the back room of the Hutt palace. Some of you may think I'm reading too deep into this, but I am pulling out the magnifying glass with this shot.

He clearly had to have been there for a while; he had to deliver Ziro, and then Ziro had that meeting with the Hutt Council, and then Ziro gets locked up in the cell, and then Obi-Wan and Quinlan have to arrive. So Bane was there for at least several hours, if not a day or more. What was he doing in that time, you may ask?

Well clearly, he's been celebrating. Look how he takes that drink off of the tray without a second thought. And what do you think he was doing in that back room of a Hutt palace? Where a twi'lek is entering to serve drinks? I will always headcanon that he was 100% spending some of his fresh credits on those twi'lek dancers backstage.

Why does any of that matter? It shows that he's not "all work, no play". Ever since he was a kid he liked to get his fill of "the good life" after a payday---only back then he spent his money on crunchies.

But sadly, his celebration is cut short when he notices Obi-Wan and Quinlan. And once again, he barges in on the Hutts without any warning.

As much as he loves his work and what he does, he also gets fatigued with it, just like the rest of us lol. This would now be the third task the Hutts have set out for him involving Ziro. Those Hutt job benefits of booze and dancing girls are too good to pass up.

Why is he like a dramatic boyfriend in this scene? It's so funny how he bluffs them. Using such manipulative tactics on your clients is a risky move.

LOOK AT THE GAY LITTLE WAY HE'S SITTING!! WHY IS HE SITTING LIKE THAT??

Seems like Mr. "I'll take on any job for the right price" is regretting his motto. I've always wondered what specifically he was referring too. A Hutt job? Not likely, as they pay too well. A wild goose chase type of job seems more likely, but you'd think he'd be used to that as a bounty hunter. Maybe he means jobs in swamps. Maybe he just doesn't like frivolous chases.

"Then some slime sap and his droid charge in and force me to give up the skinny on where Ziro's headed."

"Big hat?"

"Yeah, Chad-something out for blood."

Chad Bane.

I like how everyone in universe can just tell off-rip that Bane is a sleaze. I can't even imagine the sass he and Mama would have given each other.

Sounds like it's happened to him before.

Let him say Fuck. But drat is a very cowboy thing to say.

He actually tries the diplomatic route first, saying that there doesn't need to be any trouble. I think the prospect of fighting two Jedi without any preparation is a daunting task, but also one that entices him. If he truly did not want to fight them, he could have stayed hidden. But I think his own personal code of honor mandates that he gives it a shot, especially since his hunt ended so unsatisfactory. So he leaves it up to them, but he knows Jedi, and he knows that they won't let him just walk away. He's ready to throw hands.

The fight between the three of them is just fantastic. We see Bane use his full arsenal, and also see his great athleticism. He's doing front flips, back flips, crazy martial arts, things far younger than his years. This leads me to believe that duros follow a different aging process, taking into account how short he was as a young adult as well.

LOOK HOW HAPPY HE IS WITH HIS LIGHTSABER. He's definitely held one before, but this is his first time fighting a Jedi with one, and you can hear the excitment in his gleeful laugh. He lives for this shit. This was the highlight of his job. To him, the lightsaber is the main component of Jedi's lightsaber, so to hold it and fight with it must be a powerful moment, even if he doesn't have the required skill to wield it.

Next

[mystycalypso]

do u ever pray u lived in an au where the show wasnt cancelled.... i wish theyd made season 3 according to their original plans then just went on hiatus until that company merger or w/e was done n they had money for s4 </3

Okay so, I was going to draw some- very fruity Laserblast art ngl, but this ask hit me enough I sat down, and opened my laptop to write a real response. I've also got the series on in the background. I started episode 1 when I began typing, and we'll see how far I am in the series before I finish typing it.

First of all, I love using au to refer to real life, honestly better than various timelines. And secondly

Absolutely. Every day of my life. Every time I draw one of the characters, or see fanart, or hear the VAs or- anything. Because- I'm insanely hyperfixated on this show. A disgusting amount, unhealthily. It's not normal lol.

And I do constantly think about what could have been, I mean, after all once again my favorite character is Laserblast of all things. Not Venomous, Laserblast. The version of that man that has like five minutes of screen time and no canon first name. So much so that when on the Saberspark Q&A when he came up in a question for quote "Me and the three other Laserblast fans" I cheered out loud, alone, in my apartment. I would have killed to not have to pull at removing his mask myself and Ian's one tweet calling him a himbo to show people characterization.

And honestly the wiki makes it all worse, in a loving way. What do you mean we were going to get multiple sitcom comfy style episodes where K.O. spends the weekend with his dad? I could've had more proof that Venomous isn't an abusive dad, just an unskilled and undisciplined one? I COULD'VE HAD AN EASIER TIME SEPERATING HIM AND SHADOWY TO OTHERS?!

And sure, I constantly wish that somehow someway I'll wake up and Ian will have announced the movie, the Hue Troop spin off, post finale storylines, the works.

But, on the other hand, here's why I'm grateful for what we did end up getting (this will probably be the longer section, sorrey)

tldwr (Too long don't wanna read): Cartoon Network is dead and pathetic and I don't wish that suffering upon this wonderful show.

So, something you guys can also notice from Ian's posts and the wiki, and just from what the cartoon industry is like in general, that getting what you want out of your series, storyline and representation wise and all that is actually pulling teeth.

For an example of later episodes, things like a seemingly Radmond episode getting changed to rad and mikayla. Or Voxman having to be pretty heavily censored (although I'm proud of the subtext they managed so heavily) which is partially because, and this isn't to take away from wlw rep and how hard it is to get on air, but is more difficult to get outright mlm representation simply because- it's harder to censor.

After all, it's much easier to pull a "they're just close friends!" Thing for two fem presenting characters, than it is for two masc ones. It sucks and they shouldn't have to be censored across different countries at all, but it's just- how it is.

Which is why, realistically, as cool as the movie centering around a voxman wedding would be incredible, I don't think it would've made it past S&P. Not to mention, even if it somehow did, It'd either suffer the fate of being a TV movie, getting limited as hell views, OR best worst case scenario, a box office release which would get hate bombed by people for it's- everything. Because people suck. I mean, even not counting homophobic people there's a disturbingly high chunk of this fandom that hates Voxman- because... *checks wiki* Oh yeah, "Evil people not being perfect good guys = bad representation"

Also, cartoon network was- already starting to die by now, with less funding each year in the first place. Meaning we don't know if it getting that funding was even an option as time went on. And the idea of getting a longer season three, with the reveal being drawn out another season like they wanted, and then potentially never getting closure on- any of it? That's horrible even to think about.

Sure, the entirety of season 3 was rushed as hell. And I cry about all the missing stuff we'll probably never get, because well there's not even a cartoon network building to make this stuff in anymore, I'm glad that we have a finished storyline and understanding of where arcs would've gone to fill in things ourselves. I mean, getting to look into and imagine all the things we didn't get to see is much more fun than theorizing on an unfinished story.

So, yeah, I do wish that somehow, someway, we will get more someday. I'm at least glad we got a finished storyline and an ending that, while rushed, is still one of my favorites. I love let's fight to the end so much, I love how much I hate shadowy figure, and I love that I can be here making content for you guys!

Well look at that, it only took me seven episodes to write this whole thing, and I get to end this rant knowing Raymond was on screen. That's cool.

[mellonieee]

Mellonie does FOP + A New Wish Analysis: 1

This is what a week of AC and Antifairy brainrot has led to. After this I think I’m going to actually watch through the entire original series from the Oh Yeah! Shorts all the way to Season 10. (Hopefully I wont hate it too much.) And then rewatch ANW again once it hits streaming for the full FOP experience. And also so I could maybe do more of this analysis stuff, its fun.

Plans for later aside, this and any I do in the future, will only use episodes the character actually appears in, and not ones that they are merely mentioned in. Its also important to note that I likely wont use all the episodes the Character appears in.

That old black magic is the introduction to Anti-Cosmo, Anti-Wanda, and the Anti-Fairies as a whole. They’re described as “Regular Fairies, but anti.”

This episode establishes a few things:

1.Fairy magic cannot interfere with Anti-fairy magic.

2.On Friday the 13th, Antifairies escape from Fairyworld and cause bad luck. Antifairies are naturally drawn to anything that triggers bad luck to happen.

3.Antifairies can only be seen by humans with anti-fairy goggles.

4.Antifairies are opposites of their fairy counterpart in personality. AW is “incredibly stupid and eats with her feet.” AC is “not an idiot, in any matter once so ever.”

But what’s really interesting about this episode is what Jorgen and Anti-Cosmo have to say about the anti-fairies.

“No one is allowed in Anti-fairy world!”

“You see, we’ve been trapped behind that blasted barrier for centuries.”

Jorgen, you cant just imprison a whole group without expecting any problems. Its no wonder they wanted to escape so badly. Is causing bad luck something, well, bad, enough to warrant the imprisonment of an entire race? The anti-fairies arent good at all, obviously, but they are biologically made to thrive off of bad luck and negative energy. This really muddies the waters when it comes to seeing this as a solely ‘black and white’ situation. Most, but not all, of what AC does is for the antifairies. He’s evil and chaotic by nature, but he’s not evil evil, yknow.

There isnt really anything else noteworthy to say about that old black magic outside of this, but I did notice that AC knew Timmy’s name despite the fact he never met him before that point, somehow. I merely brush it off as a minor goof and just figure AC mustve made a lucky (haha) guess, but if you want a crazy theory to explain it, then maybe anti-fairies share vague recollections or memories with their fairy counterparts. I dont actually think thats true, but theres your food for thought.

The second appearance of the antifairies, The Gland Plan instantly ditches the entire ‘antifairy goggles’ thing, which is honestly for the better, even if I do think it made anti-fairies more unique. They are sadly never getting the invisibilty thing back.

This episode establishes that the faggigly gland is a special organ in a fairies body that allows the fairy to change shape, and that both fairies and anti-fairies have one. Fairy biology in general is really questionable, especially if you factor in the angel forms from A New Wish, but thats a topic for another day.

A few things to note:

1.This is the start of that “Hello, Clarice.” quote that AC and Foop/Irep use. Its a reference to Silence of the Lambs but its a misquote anyway because Lecter never even says hello to Clarice.

2.AC claims that he cant see a thing without his monocle. If he isnt lying about that and isnt using the monocle only as a symbol of prestige, then he has really terrible eyesight and is most likely completely blind in one eye.

3.Despite AC calling his wife a twit, he prefaces it by saying that he loves her very much. Most instances of AC talking to his wife does include him being typically annoyed when she messes with his plans, but outside of that he acts courteous towards her. (“Chin up, my beloved Anti-Wanda! Your savior, Anti-Cosmo, will have you all free presently!”)

4.The more questionable line is when Anti-Cosmo and Cosmo are having the operation and AC claims that if he does live, Cosmo should take his wife. Needless to say, AC words things very poorly at times, but this statement does have them acknowledging that an anti-fairy and a fairy could hypothetically be with one another’s counterpart.

“Cosmo, old friend, since we both carry a piece of each other inside of us, I see no reason for us to do battle. But I warn you, don't look for me.”

AC doesnt hold that much ill-will towards Cosmo like how I figure most would expect him to. He seems to be fed up and annoyed by his counterpart’s foolishness, but he does not despise him.

Right as the episode ends, Timmy brings up the idea that maybe more than the faggigly glands got transplanted. There isnt much evidence to support this outside of the brief voice change Anti-Cosmo and Cosmo had, but I’m starting to think Timmy was right considering how Anti-Cosmo acts in A New Wish.

I dont know if AC and AW retired like Wanda and Cosmo did, but I feel like AC’s very obvious decline in intelligence is a likely theory as to why Irep now seems to be in charge of the anti-fairies as shown in A New Wish.

I frankly can’t see the New Wish Version of AC leading the antifairies compared to how he acted in the old show. Not when he now thinks leaving a cage unattended is a “good idea.” That isnt something AC would say at all if we’re going off of his original characterization. It’s interesting to think of a reason in-universe as to how he went from “not an idiot, in any matter once so ever.” to someone who definitely is not as smart as he use to be.

[thefallenangelsgang]

I know entering this into the main tag is going to invite opinions I do not want and probably put me on a few blocklists. I don't care. This is me holding this series to a personal standard that I am aware other people do not hold it to. You can keep your hatemail to yourself, thank you very much.

Somehow this review is spoiler free... enjoy that I guess

Whenever me or my sister complain about hating a book, my mother tells the story about the one book she has ever thrown out in 50 years.

It was a book she was really looking forward to and had saved up money to buy (it being a reasonably expensive book in the late 80s/early 90s and also a lean time in my mothers young adult life.) She spent the entire time absolutely dumbfounded by the quality and plot and the moment she finished the last line she walked over to the trashcan and pitched it.

I have spent my entire life wondering how bad a book would have to be to get me to that point.

I just found it.

Sunrise on the Reaping is a... baffling turn in quality from a woman I upheld to be the last great bastion against YA authors selling out. There are crumbs of gold in it but the plot screams for a second pass by eyes not connect to someone yes-anding Suzanne Collins into another movie deal. There are plot lines that desperately need trimmed and references that read as fan service at best and lazy writing at worst.

Where the original trilogy and Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes feel as though they have direction and purpose Sunrise comes up despairingly short. I spent the entire 382 pages grasping at straws looking for the thesis of this book and have come up completely dry. I know what the book is telling me its thesis is. I read the quotes, I was paying attention to the political messaging (maybe even paying more attention than typical given my above average education in political theory/philosophy), I read the fucking title. But that doesn't change the fact that the book rather quickly loses the plot in that regard, almost in favor of the Poe-inspired madness, which would have been well and good if Haymitch had been sold to us as mad character. But he wasn't. He's an alcoholic and he's smart as a whip but he was never crazy in the way Poe liked to write madness. (and I am intimately aware of how Poe writes madness, my writing pseudonym wouldn't be inspired by his name otherwise)

I just wasted 18 hours of my life and I'm $30 poorer and I'm pissed off to boot.

Where is the focus Suzanne? Where is the prescient political messaging? I count your books as treasures among my political fiction collection, next to greats like The Handmaid's Tale and Animal Farm and 1984. How the fuck am I supposed to put this unfinished draft of something that could be great next to them in good conscience?

I'm fucking pissed and I wish this book didn't exist. I would rather it didn't exist. My only consolation is I bought this damn thing at a local woman-owned small business. I can only hope that makes up for what a nightmare this has been.

Do better Suzanne.

[somedaylazysomeday]

A Special Case

Just some writing I did trying to nail down Soap's character. Lots of backstory, some smut, and the beginning of what will probably spiral into another series. (Damn it)

Johnny 'Soap' MacTavish x Private Investigator!reader (gn, no use of 'y/n' or pronouns)

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 3,300

Warnings: Private investigations, accusations of infidelity, lies about identity, voyeurism, male masturbation, background Ghoap, hints of future Ghoap x reader, author has only watched other people play CoD.

Next | Masterlist

---

Gathering information on Johnny ‘Soap’ MacTavish was the easiest job you had ever taken. 

As a private investigator, you were used to long hours, exhaustive searches, and tactics that bordered on illegal to get the information you had been paid to retrieve. Everyone left a trail, but some trails were harder to trace than others. 

And then there was MacTavish. 

The only mystery that remained for you was where his nickname had come from. In everything else, the man was a disconcertingly open book. 

It had been several weeks ago that a stunningly beautiful woman had walked into your office. Like most private investigators, you had quickly tired of the film noir jokes or references that many customers made. But something about Marie had made you think in terms of grayscale and overly descriptive narrators. 

Marie Bernard had struck you immediately as a false name, though you gave her credit for trying to keep her alias as French as her accent. She paid in cash, so you didn’t press the issue. 

“I need your help,” she had told you, eyes glistening. “It is my boyfriend, Johnny. I think he is cheating on me. I need you to follow him and take pictures of where he goes.” 

“And who he meets, I assume?” You were taking notes on your phone as Marie spoke. “Especially women?” 

She had waved her hand dismissively. “Women, men, anyone. Johnny is not particular about such things.” 

Your momentary embarrassment about your assumption made you write even faster. When you had finished, you had glanced up at Marie again. “I’ll warn you: my case load is heavy right now. I won’t be able to start working on your case for another week, maybe week and a half. I won’t charge you until I start working on the case, but there will be a wait. I want to be upfront about that.”

Marie had nodded agreeably. “Very well. Will you alert me when you begin?” 

That made your internal alarms ring just as her name had. If she was worried enough about being cheated on that she chose to have him followed, Marie should have given you more pushback about the delay. 

But a customer was a customer, so you agreed to text her when you started following MacTavish. You quoted her your daily rate, warning that expenses were extra, and watched as she counted out the correct number of bills for your advance. 

You also had her sign an agreement to pay the remainder before you would release the full information when you were finished, and she did so without hesitation. You almost changed your mind about the potential false name, but her signature was just a little too neatly written for someone who had been signing it for twenty five years or so. 

You had finished the previous case roughly on time. You had been hired to infiltrate a local business, posing as a new hire in training in an attempt to uncover potential corporate espionage. The moment you had passed that evidence on to the business owners, you had turned your attention to the Bernard/MacTavish case. 

Soap had been easy to tail and even easier to observe. If he had a single set of drapes or blinds, he didn’t use them. If you parked outside of his modest home, you would have been able to observe him clearly without leaving the front seat. 

Of course, you were more professional than that. And smarter, you liked to think. This wouldn’t be the first time a seemingly easy mark turned out to be luring you closer so they could fire off a shot or two. And you dearly hated being shot at, so you parked several blocks away. 

Working your way closer to Soap’s house in your dark hoodie was easy with your phone in your hand. If anyone asked what you were doing there, you had Pokemon Go on standby as an excuse for wandering the neighborhood at night. But, with a little luck, no one would ask. They would either see you and move on or assume you were someone who lived in the neighborhood. 

Your camera and a few lenses were tucked into the slouchy tote bag on your shoulder. The bag was misshapen with age, which actually worked in your favor, since it was much more difficult to tell what might be inside a non-uniform bag. But you rarely needed the camera. A handful of cell phone pictures or a few seconds of video were usually enough to confirm suspicions in a personal case like this one. 

Soap’s life was one of constantly being on the move. He spent a fair amount of time on the military base, just as you had expected for a soldier. But he also met friends, went to a gym, jogged in a park, ate at a new restaurant you had been dying to try. You were exhausted trying to keep up without being spotted. 

And after a full week of observation, you had yet to see Soap with anyone other than Marie herself. (That had been an eyeful you hadn’t asked for, but Marie hadn’t warned you that she was going to visit her boyfriend.) You hadn’t seen her since, and she hadn’t answered the text you had sent earlier that day, but there were good odds that she was avoiding what she thought you would tell her. That happened, sometimes.

You were starting to wonder whether it was time to tell Marie that she had nothing to worry about when you caught sight of Soap walking up to his house. 

The neighborhood was small without being desolate, homey without looking downtrodden, and inexpensive without being cheap. Soap’s house fit right in. It wasn’t overly large - you had looked it up on a real estate website and found that it had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a small garage. Big enough to bring someone over, but small enough to make sure they knew you didn’t want them to stay. 

Apparently, that hadn’t worked on Marie. You wondered if she had assumed that she would eventually share this comfortable house with her boyfriend. She seemed a little upscale for the neighborhood, like she worked somewhere far more sleek and bustling, but you didn’t know her well enough to say for sure. 

Soap walked inside, and you could track his progress by the lights that came on in the house. In the light of the hallway’s light fixture, you could see him smile as he walked into the living room. He seemed to be speaking. You couldn’t read his lips, not from that distance, but the exaggerated motions of his mouth made you think he was calling to someone.

Had Soap finally tripped up? Did he bring someone home only to be caught on your last night on the job? He turned to leave the living room, stripping off his shirt before he left. Your mouth went dry at the sight of his exposed torso. 

The moment he was out of sight, though, you swore to yourself. You had to follow to see what was going on, but there was no way to be a subtle potential neighbor taking an evening stroll when you were crawling through his shrubbery. 

You hopped down from the small half-wall where you had been perched and glanced both ways before crossing the street. Safety-conscious and it let you check whether anyone else was outside. Apparently, the unseasonably cool evening had kept everyone else indoors, because the street was utterly empty. 

You still kept your head on a swivel as you rounded the edge of Soap’s yard, sticking to shadows and whatever cover you could find as you worked your way around to the yard at the back. Fortunately, there was no fence and the house backed up to a small section of forest. You simply chose the tree that seemed least likely to be claimed by woodland creatures and settled against it to disrupt your silhouette. 

The camera did have to come out, though. You were too far away for cell phone pictures, not if you wanted any detail in the photographs. 

You carefully removed your camera from its case - it was the most expensive thing you owned, and you didn’t want to risk dropping it - but your attention was divided. Soap had stepped into his bedroom, turning on a small lamp at his bedside table. 

Even as your hands put the correct lens on the camera, your rapt gaze was trained on the square of golden light shining through the window. To see who else was in the room, of course. 

Soap’s lips were still moving, but the motions looked softer. He was speaking more quietly than he had been in the living room. You still couldn’t figure out what he was saying. It could be because his accent gave the movements a different look, but the truth was that lip-reading had never been your best thing. You promised yourself that you would work on it the future, then you turned your attention back to the task at hand. 

You tried to guess at the design of the room, but it was tricky based on the small amount of it that you could see from your place outside. Was there room for someone to be standing between Soap and the wall? To one side of the large window? You didn’t think so, but maybe there was a space you simply couldn’t see. 

Even so, your certainty began to grow, because Soap smiled and took a few steps forward, unlatching and opening the window. 

You frowned - it wasn’t the coldest night you’d ever experienced, but it was undeniably chilly outside. Winter was approaching quickly and the house had stood empty all day. There was no reason he would need to open a window… unless he was planning on making some heat.

With the window open, there was nothing to block your view of Soap as he stripped off the boxer-briefs he had wearing. He was facing away as they came off, leaving you staring through a lens at a surprisingly rounded ass for a soldier. 

Then he turned and you pushed away the sight of his bobbing erection long enough to snap a few pictures. 

You didn’t enjoy this part of your job. Capturing people in a vulnerable moment was a necessity, not a pleasure for you. And showing Marie these pictures would be something you did to complete a job, not for any other reason. 

Even so, you had to admit that there was something glorious about the way these pictures were turning out. The bottom frame of the window was low enough to show everything from the knees up, and all of it was lovely. 

Soap’s skin was golden in the light of the bedside lamp, throwing shadows over the dips and swells of muscle that made up his body. A thin line of dark hair traced downward from below his belly button, gathering in a thatch around his thick cock before thinning to a light dusting on his muscular thighs.

You shook your head in irritation as you realized you had stopped taking photos. He may have belonged in a damn art gallery, but you were there to do a job. And that job was not lusting after your client’s unfaithful boyfriend, no matter how gorgeous he was. 

“Like what you see, bonnie?” 

Soap’s voice made you jump. You hadn’t realized you would be able to hear him from that distance. It was faint, but if you strained your ears, you could hear his voice. It was confirmed, then: Soap had someone in his room. 

You took another few pictures, zooming in to focus on the way Soap was talking to someone behind the edge of the window. His light eyes were focused raptly on one place, a flirtatious smile curving the corner of his lips. 

If it was Marie again, you were going to be furious. 

Soap’s hand drifted downward, framing his hard length for a second that felt like it lasted a lifetime. Then he grasped himself, fingers wrapping in a loose fist. Your lips parted as you tried to focus hard enough to take pictures and breathe at the same time. 

It was hot as all hell, watching Soap work himself. You snapped pictures mindlessly as you watched him. In reality, you had everything you needed - you wouldn’t get anything else from watching and continuing to take pictures of the same scene over and over. The only thing you needed was a clear picture of Soap with whoever was behind the edge of the window. 

You took pictures anyway, too distracted by the frustrated clenching of your body to worry about the hundred extra photos you would have to delete later. 

At first, Soap’s efforts had looked good, but also seemed unsatisfactory. The way his curled fingers created a frame between the dark thatch of hair at his base and the reddening skin of his length. But it also couldn’t be giving him much in the way of friction. 

But as he kept going, Soap seemed to decide that it was better to sacrifice some aesthetics in exchange for more pleasure. His fingers tightened, head tipping back in response to the increased stimulation. When his thumb teased at the slit at the head of his cock, Soap gave a hoarse groan. And when he spat into his own hand, the next touch made his hips kick so hard that you could see it from where you were standing. 

Your mouth was dry and you realized that your lips had parted so you could take in more air. It was no matter - the instant you thought about taking Soap into your mouth, it watered so hard that you had to swallow before you started to drool outright. 

“Oh, bonnie,” Soap moaned, and you fought not to moan with him. 

It was frustrating that he wasn’t saying a name. That would have been an excellent piece of information to include with whatever photos you ended up taking… but you didn’t mind too much. No, unhealthy as it might be, you were fine with Soap being vague. The pet name let you pretend, for just a moment, that he was talking to you. 

“Ah, so good for me,” he said in a rough murmur that managed to carry across the yard. “Gonna make me come…” 

Your legs were trembling. You leaned more heavily against the tree you were standing beside, because your lust-addled brain was loudly insisting that you could always catch your balance by taking a few steps closer. 

“Oh,” Soap said, the note of surprise in his voice driving you dangerously close to actually stepping forward. “I’m… Bonnie, you-” 

And then he came. You were infinitely grateful that you had managed to keep the camera halfway aimed toward the window, because you wanted a way to remember that sight for the rest of your life. 

Soap’s back arched slightly, as if he were trying to push his cock more firmly into his own hand. Cum trickled over his fist in rhythmic pulses that seemed to last forever and you just managed hear the soft gasps that fell from his parted lips. Soap was silhouetted against the backlight of the lamp at his bedside table, but you could still make out the bliss of his expression, eyes closed under brows that had furrowed slightly. 

When Soap finally released himself and started to clean up, you were left with the unpleasant realization of how strongly that had affected you. Your heart was pounding in your chest, and not because there was a chance of being caught. Your breathing was ragged, and you could feel the damp cling of your panties every time you shifted your weight. 

Yeah, you needed to get laid. 

Before you could ponder your options too deeply, Soap finished cleaning the last of the cum from his fingers and - still sans a single stitch of clothing - leaned forward on the windowframe. With a pensive expression, he looked out into the night. 

“Was that as good for you as it was for me?” 

He still wasn’t using a name. For a final moment, you let yourself imagine that he was talking to you instead of whoever was standing patiently beside him at the window. 

Your fingers flexed on your camera, adjusting to frame the window more precisely. You needed to get this shot and get out while you still had some dregs of your sanity remaining. Just as soon as Soap’s lover stepped forward enough for you to get a picture…

Then he looked at the treeline, light eyes sharp as they scanned over the darkened forest. You held your breath as he looked directly at you for a moment, but his eyes tracked further before one corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. 

“Not very nice,” he said, a little louder. “A show like that deserves a round of applause.” 

You froze. 

“And if you’re worried about ‘Marie’, don’t be.” Soap shook his head, ruffling his mohawk with a charming smile. “She was a spy, trying to gather intel about a highly-classified team. She’s in our custody. You won’t be seeing her around your office again.” 

Even if you had been stupid enough to willingly reveal yourself, you couldn’t have moved with the shock of that revelation. Marie wasn’t a spy… even if that would explain several things. Like why you couldn’t turn up any relatives or friends. Or why you couldn’t find any of her prior addresses from longer ago than six months. And why you had seen her with Soap the week before. 

Shit, she hadn’t been answering your texts or calls, either. 

As if he could hear your frantic train of thought, Soap smirked again, standing upright behind the window. It framed his bare form perfectly and you forced your thoughts back into some semblance of focus. “Alright, I won’t force you to talk if you’re feelin’ shy. See you later, bonnie.”

You watched as Soap disappeared into the bathroom, then settled into bed. After his light switched off, you gave it a full half-hour before you ran back to your car in a half-crouch that left your thighs screaming. When you had turned on your car and were safely out of the neighborhood, you allowed yourself one loud swear. 

You weren’t getting paid for this, you could feel it. 

—

“Morning,” Soap greeted, walking into the room where the 141st did most of their planning. Ghost nodded back, the first to spot any new arrivals. As always. 

“You talk to that PI yet?” Price asked, cutting through Gaz’s friendly greeting. 

“Of course, Captain,” Soap assured him. “We had a meeting last night.” 

“You went to the office?” Gaz asked, sounding more than a little surprised. “I just found the address this morning.” 

“Did you?” Soap asked, plucking the paper from Gaz’s hand as Price watched him suspiciously. “I managed to track it down myself.” 

“Tell me next time,” Gaz complained, snatching the paper back. “Would have saved me an hour of overtime.” 

Gaz crumpled up the paper and chucked it half-heartedly at the bin. It bounced off one side, settling forgotten on the floor. Soap met Ghost’s eye for a long moment, offering a smile, a wink, and a nod. The masked man reached down to silently retrieve the paper and tuck it into a pocket. 

Soap grinned approvingly and turned his attention toward whatever new mission Price had found for them.

---

Author's Note - Like I said at the top, this was supposed to be a one-shot for writing practice. But I am being plagued 27/4 by visions of this turning into a Ghoap x reader fic and I'm not sure how long I can hold that off.

Anyway, I'm already working on a second chapter, featuring Ghost. I'll link it to this chapter when it's done!

Now, about Soap's accent: someone made a poll on here about whether people prefer to read stories where accents are written out or not, and 'not' won by a large margin. I'm ambivalent myself, but I thought I would try writing Soap without the accent, though I'll still try to incorporate Scottish speech patterns and slang as they come up. Let me know if you have any strong opinions either way!

Thank you for reading!

[storiesbyrhi]

Part Six: That sometimes, if love proves real

Eddie Munson x Reader Series Masterlist 2584 Words

If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them. Buildings burn, people die, but real love is forever.

Warnings: canon typical violence, references to sexual assault, swearing, drug and alcohol use, sexual references, child neglect, death/grief, references to organised crime

Late, 29 October, 1995

You recognised the caller as Hopper because he used your real name. He sounded afraid and out of breath. You both knew he should not have your number, both knew it could put you in danger, but you felt some sense of homesickness and relief hearing his voice.

“Listen, I can’t be on the line long,”

“Hop, what’s-”

“No, no, just listen. They’re gone. They’re dead. T-Bird and his kid. Tin Tin too.”

It took a moment for you to catch up. You’d only ever used their real names. They didn’t get to hide behind gang bullshit. Neil Hargrove. Billy. Andy.

You didn’t understand why he was calling with such urgency. People like them were bound to meet untimely ends. They’d probably accidentally blown themselves up.

“I can’t explain it… I don’t know… I don’t know what he is…”

“Hopper, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“It’s Eddie… He’s back. He’s killing them all… I, I didn’t know if you should know. I… Jesus, kid. He’s… He’s different…”

You had stopped listening after Eddie’s name.

Time stood still.

It wouldn’t move forward again.

You hung up the phone, found your keys, and got in your car. If the road were okay and you only stopped for petrol, you could be back in the city that killed you in just over thirty hours.

Morning, 30 October, 1995

While Grange visited Eddie’s grave, finding the ground open and the casket empty, Susan Mayfield was in the kitchen of her apartment.

The television was on. “This is the 7:00 am edition of Action News. For over a decade, the night before Halloween has had a darker and deadlier nickname in the inner city, ‘Devil’s Night.’ The name given to what has become an annual plague of arson. Last year, 200 individual blazes were reported, and eleven people lost their lives-”

Max was woken by the smell of eggs. She sat up, still on the couch. She’d fallen asleep there, hugging a Corroded Coffin vinyl to her body.

“Hi,” Susan greeted nervously. “Do you like them up or over? I can’t remember,”

“What are you doing? I don’t like eggs,”

“What? Wait, no, you loved egg,”

“Yeah, when I was five,” Max said, crossing their small apartment to the kitchen.

“So, what do you want now? Black coffee and cigarettes?”

Max looked at Susan. “What… What happened? Since when were you mother of the year?”

A dark look crossed Susan’s face. She shook her head a little. “Someone kind of… woke me up, I guess,”

“You’re acting weird. Did you win the lottery or something, Susan?”

“Forget it! I was never too good at this mom shit anyway,” and she moved to tip the frying pan of eggs in the bin.

“No!” Max jumped to stop her. “Over easy… I like them over easy…” They looked at each other. “Did you… Did you see him too?” Max asked.

Eddie had followed Susan that morning. He’d scared her, of course, how could he – like that – not? But he told her she had a shot. No Hargrove thumbs to be kept under. “Mother is the name of God on the lips and hearts of all children,” he’d told her. Susan didn't know the quote, but she understood the meaning of a second chance.

“I didn’t know… I swear I didn’t know it was them,” Susan began to cry. She hadn’t known it was Neil, Billy, and their gang who’d murdered you and Eddie. If any part of her had connected the dots, it had been suffocated under the weight of fear.

Susan hadn’t exactly liked Eddie, never bothered to get to know him beyond the metalhead exterior, but she’d appreciated the way you and he had taken Max in. She’d always wished she could have been more like the two of you.

With pulp free orange juice and over easy eggs, Max learnt about Andy, Billy, and Neil. Her mother shook like a leaf in a hurricane as she told her that something, someone had come for them. That he’d come for her too, but armed not with weapons but words.

“I’m glad they’re dead,” Max said. Susan did not doubt it.

“You know what Devil’s Night morning is for?” Hopper asked Annie. She rolled her eyes at him, refusing to say it. “That’s right! Coffee and contemplation,”

“HOPPER!”

Hopper groaned, looking over to where the D.A. stood at the boundary of the bullpen.

In an interview room, photographs of Neil fused to his car were spread across the table. Hopper looked at them and shrugged.

“This is the third in less than twenty-four hours. We’re gonna have to identify him through his teeth,”

“That’s T-Bird,” Hopper said. “Well, it’s T-Bird’s car. Wouldn’t let anyone else drive it. His specialty was arson… Looks like he zigged when he should have zagged. Case closed.” He pushed the photographs away.

The D.A. looked incredulous. “Bull-fucking-shit. You’re holding out on me. I got a goddamn vigilante killer knocking off scumbags left and right, and you are covering up for somebody… Who’s the cartoon character with the painted face?”

“I don’t know,”

“You don’t know? Gideon’s blows to hell, and you’re having a chitchat with some weirdo who winds up in T-Bird’s car when it zigs instead of zags? Then I hear you’re looking through old case files? Making calls to unlisted numbers? It’s dead now, you know. Whoever you called last night – the line is gone. And you’re saying this was just an automobile accident?! Come on!”

Hopper nodded. “That was… That was a good speech. Sorry, I didn’t want to interrupt it. Did you write it down before or-”

“Alright smartass, well, here’s something written down for you. Welcome to the first day of the rest of your suspension,”

“Suspension? For what?” Hopper looked at the piece of paper handed to him, signed by the chief of police.

“Misconduct.” It was a stupid catch-all reason.

Hopper left his mug of coffee on his desk. Let that spoil and smell while everyone is busy with Devil’s Night.

Eddie was in the apartment going through anything that was left, when he heard the creak of the stairs. He hid.

“Eddie?” Max called, letting herself in. “I thought you were dead.” She saw smouldering remnants in the fireplace. She knew what the loft should look like. She’d been going there for a year. “I knew it was you. Even with the makeup.”

Eddie listened.

“I remembered your song… You said, ‘Can’t rain all the time.’ That is from your song, right?” She walked through the apartment. “Come on, Eddie. I know you’re here.”

The crow, Max looked up at it. The Night Watchman.

“I miss you guys. I get… lonely by myself.”

Nothing. Silence.

“Fine. Whatever. I thought you cared,” Max said, holding back tears. She grabbed her board.

“Max…”

Brenner and Grange watched Chance as he tried to tell a cohesive narrative. When Brenner slid a photo across the table, one of Corroded Coffin, Chance almost choked on his own insanity.

“YEAH! That’s him! That’s him! But he was painted up like some kind of fucking clown! T-Bird sent me in for some road beers. Then he took him away. And I tried to chase them down, but I don’t have a car, and he fucking flash fried T-Bird to his car. T-BIRD, here’s to you, buddy!”

“Maybe we ought to just videotape this, play it back in slow motion,” Brenner said to Grange.

Chance took a swig of whatever foul concoction he was drinking. “Fire it up! Fire it up!”

“You see the grave?” Brenner asked Grange.

“Empty,”

“Fire it- Grave? What about my fucking grave?!” Chance asked, getting too close to Brenner, and earning a hard shove from Grange.

“Three out of four. He’s working his way back to this speed freak right here,” Grange guessed.

“It’s not fair. It’s Funboy’s fault. He was out of control. Then T-Bird came in. He says to waste them both. Now this ghost is gonna kill my ass next!”

Brenner stood, bored of Chance’s breakdown. He lashed out, pistol whipping him hard. “There are no ghosts in my city.”

Hopper stopped at the hotdog stand. Max was already sitting there, not touching her food. Steve and Robin gave him a worrying look. They started to make his order.

“When someone’s dead, they can’t come back can they?”

“Are you referring to anyone in particular?”

“You’ll just think I’m nuts.”

Steve looked at Robin, mumbling, “I think she’s nuts.” Robin whipped him with drying towel.

Hopper said, “Yeah, well, then maybe they’ll have us both locked up,”

“You’ve seen him too?”

“I saw somebody… Maybe it was your fairy godmother,”

“Eddie didn’t come back for me… He can’t be my friend anymore because I’m… I’m alive…”

“Okay, but what does that mean, Max?” Steve asked.

Hopper looked from him to Max, gave her a look to which she returned a shrug.

“She tells us everything,” Robin said happily.

“Not everything,” Max mumbled.

“Most things. Told us about not-dead-Ed,”

“Can it, Harrington,” Max replied, throwing a piece of onion at him.

“Well, great. We can fill out the whole ward,” Hopper groaned, still finding it within himself to judge Robin’s mustard allocation. “Just let me-”

“Seriously though. Let’s say you both aren’t losing it. Say it really is this guy. Are you sure he actually died?” Steve questioned.

“Yeah. You don’t survive sev-” Hopper cut himself off. Max had looked over at him. She didn’t need to know the precise details. “I was there. And I was at the funeral,”

“They were closed caskets,” Max recalled.

Hopper nodded. “Yeah… But, Eddie… He died,”

“And now the same person is back? Not just someone that looks like him?” from Robin.

“Nah. Definitely him,” Max confirmed. It was the way he spoke to her, the words he chose. There was no mistaking anyone else for Eddie Munson.

“It’s like what you were telling us about the other day. The one about unfair deaths,”

“The raven,” Steve nodded solemnly.

“The crow,” Max corrected. The Night Watchman, she thought. Had she willed the lore into existence? Had her graveside story been a spell cast true?

“A crow?” Hopper asked.

Max told him the story of restless souls and wrongs made right. When she finished, all four friends grew silent. It was uncanny, how the myth fit the man.

“What happens when he’s done? Getting revenge, I mean?”

“He’s not getting revenge,” Max was quick to answer Steve. “He’s… he’s balancing the scales,”

“Think that depends on whose scales of justice you’re using there, kid,” Hopper grunted.

“As long as he sticks to those scumbags, the dude’s alright in my eyes,”

“Well as long as he’s alright in your eyes, Steve,” Robin scoffed.

“Steve’s right though,”

“I am?”

“No, I mean, not right, but about asking what happens next,” Max clarified. “How many are left? Just one, right?” she asked Hopper.

“Look, I don’t even know how you know-”

“Everyone heard when the Hargroves got got,” Steve whispered, as if saying their name could summon them from the dead too.

“Good riddance,” Max declared.

“Jesus… You didn’t hear it from me but… Yeah, just the one…” It would have been the right time to tell Max about you. He knew, in part, what happened after Eddie found Chance. He would look for you. He hadn’t really considered the mechanics of it all. What allowed Eddie to come back? What would it allow once the wrongs were righted? Would he die a second time, before he found you? If Neil and co. were acting on Brenner’s instruction, then would justice not include him?

“What is it?” Max asked him.

“Huh?” Hopper replied, shoving as much hotdog in his mouth as he could, stalling any further conversation.

Max used to figure all the things that went unsaid with Hopper were irrelevant to her. She was growing unsure of that. “When did you see him?”

“Crime scene,” Hopper got out, crumbs falling from his mouth.

“Did you talk to him?”

“Just the usual, you know… Freeze. Don’t move. Why do you look like a clown?” Hopper joked half-heartedly.

It was the joking that tipped Max off. She raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, look. He just… kick started the memory. Implied there would be more… Vengeance… or whatever, and then disappeared.”

Max seemed to accept his statement; she turned her attention back to her food. Steve changed the subject to Ace Ventura and the night rolled on.

Evening, 30 October, 1995

While the crow scoured the city looking for Chance, Eddie played the guitar. It’s what he had always done when he didn’t know what else to do.

Above the club where Corroded Coffin had once played, above the mezzanine, in that cold room, Chance was shoved into a seat. Brenner started, “Gentlemen… It seems our friend T-Bird won’t be making it tonight, on account of a slight case of death…”

Eddie followed the crow, perched just outside the window of the meeting. The room was bustling with men. Guns, money, and plans were on the table. The shittiest D&D campaign table Eddie had ever witnessed.

“Well, Devil’s Night is upon us again. I thought we’d throw a party, start a bunch of fires, make a little profit. Problem is, its all been done before. You see what I’m saying?”

“That’s no reason to quit,” one of the men said.

“Wrong. Best reason to quit. Only reason to quit.” Brenner stood, and began a loop around the table. The gang leaders and thugs watched him walk. “A man has an idea… The idea attracts other like-minded individuals. The idea expands. The idea becomes an institution… What was the idea? See, that’s what’s been bothering me, boys. And I’ll tell you. When I used to think about the idea itself, it put a big old smile on my face. But… You see, gentlemen, greed is for amateurs.” Brenner returned to the head of the table. He looked at the men. “Disorder. Chaos. Anarchy. Now, that’s fun,”

“What about Devil’s Night?”

“What about it? I started the first fires in this goddamn city. Before I knew it, every charlatan was imitating me. Do you know what they have now? Devil’s Night greeting cards! Isn’t that precious,” Brenner said facetiously. “The idea has become the institution. Time to move on,”

“You don’t want us to do light-my-fire time for the whole city?”

“No… No, I want you to set a fire so goddamn big that the Gods will notice us again.”

The room cheered; Brenner was as close to a god as those men would ever get.

He continued, “I want all of you boys to be able to look me straight in the eye one more time and say, ‘Are we having fun or what?!’”

The men continued to cheer.

“And you? What’s your name again? Skank? Don’t you feel that?” Brenner asked.

“I f-f-feel like a little worm on a giant fucking hook,” Chance stuttered out. The men laughed at him.

“A little worm on a hook? Well, boy, your mama must be damn proud of you!”

The laughter and celebratory whoops died immediately upon the cawing of the crow, who landed on the table without a quiver of a feather.

Chance almost vomited. Most of the men looked confused. Grange stepped in front of Brenner while he himself took in the sight of this delivery of undead with both trepidation and glee.

End Note: Six down, two to go. I love ya'll. xo Rhi

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[a-lilac-lyric]

 Possible explanations for why King Roland made his first wish on the Wishing Well

Now all of these aren't so much theories per say as “throwing stuff on a wall and seeing what sticks” because the showrunners could not delve into topics like this in the actual runtime, and it probably wouldn't have been very relevant to the story that they were trying to tell anyway, so nearly every theory has an equal likelihood to be true more or less.

  (I'm also not going to mention this in my write ups for the possible reasons for the wish, and we have no way of proving this one way or the other, but I'm always inclined to prefer the thought that Roland II had discussed making the wish with Lorelei before he actually made it since it would be something that would affect both of them. Even if it only physically affected one of them. Because this just seems like the type of thing you should tell your partner about if you do it).

 This is a long post (Over 2000 words), so I'm putting it under the cut, but TLDR there are several different magical and physical reasons that are possible.

 General content warning for discussion of topics that are too dark/medical to ever be shown in a kids show. Spoilers for Forever Royal.

 We should first start off with what the wish was in the first place in case you don't know or need a refresher. Word for word, this is how it's stated in the flashback scene in the episode Forever Royal:

  “In the nearby castle lived King Roland the Second, who had wanted a family so badly he tried making a wish in a wishing well. The wish came true, and twins were born. But the Queen fell gravely ill….* The children were happy but never knew what it was like to have a mother.”

 * The quote never says that she is dead in so many words, but the visual on screen is of the queen arranged on a bed with her eyes closed, holding flowers. There's basically no other way to interpret it except that she's been laid out for a funeral.

 Now, as a note, we never actually get to hear what her name is in the show, but the creator of the show Craig Gerber made a Twitter post saying that her name was Lorelei https://x.com/CraigGerber_/status/1038831208430370817?mx=2 (as a personal note I normally consider stuff that show creators or writers say on Twitter or other social media as secondary Canon, but I basically completely accept this because we don't have any alternative name, and it works. And I'm sure that they'd use it in the sequel series if they ever talk about her.) So I'm going to be referring to her with that name for the rest of this post.

 When analyzing this quote, it seems that “wanted a family” basically means “wanted to have biological children” since we know he already has a wife and family members like a sister and a mom. I just think it's interesting that they word it this way because it kind of masks what his actual wording would have been to the wishing well. Because in the episode “When you wish upon a well” the well did grant Amber’s second wish in a way that fulfilled the basic criteria of her wish, and yet caused an unintended side effect that deeply distressed Amber and put Sofia in danger. So, it could possibly be that the way Roland wished for children could also be interpreted as accidentally directly causing Lorelei’s death. But we don't know what the words were, so we don't know if that was what happened or not. “Fell gravely ill” is a vague enough statement that it can basically be interpreted to fit any kind of theory.

 So without further ado, here are almost all of the ways I could think of that could be motivation for making the wish. (AKA infertility theories.)

Magical reasons:

 In this world, magic is an everyday fact of life, so they could have been unable to have kids because of a curse! Now it could be a curse on either Roland or Lorelei, and then the curse was just too strong to be broken by regular magic, but the Well’s magic was strong enough to get past it, (permanently or temporarily). The possible motives could be basically anything. It could have been cast by a jealous ex-lover, or a person who thought that the union was bad for political reasons.

 But I did come up with a fun little theory that maybe it was a curse that was intended to be benevolent, behold: The Double Bloodline Curse!

 We know that the throne of Enchancia passes from oldest child to oldest child, and the same seems to be true for the royal wizard as well. Both lines are hereditary, and both are always parallel to each other. It makes sure that the reigning monarch always has a royal wizard and vice versa. But it is interesting because Roland the First and Goodwin the Great are approximately the same age, same with both of their sons, and both of their granddaughters to an extent, although the age difference is seemingly larger between Amber and Calista.

 Now this could be just a coincidence that the people in these families born for 3 generations are very close in age, but what if it wasn't? What if there was some kind of spell or curse set on the people from both bloodlines so that they wouldn't be able to have children until their counterpart(s) was/(were) also in a position to be able to have children. Let's say that Roland the Second married and tried to have kids, but both Cedric and Cordelia were not married or seeing anyone and/or just neither of them were interested in having children at that time. Therefore, the curse activated to prevent Roland II from having any children.

 And this curse was probably put on the line by an actual royal wizard from it, assuming that it would be better off for both families and the sake of the kingdom if the new monarch and the new wizard were always peers age wise so that they could both ascend to their positions at the same time. Is that flawed reasoning and ultimately going to hurt their families more than help them in the long run? Absolutely! But it wouldn't be the craziest or worst thing that someone from either of these families has done.

 It's definitely possible for it to be magical reasons and would be interesting to explore in fanfic, but this isn't the only possibility.

Biological reasons that are linked to infertility:

 The first one is what if Lorelei was unable to biologically have children.

 It's popular fan-cannon (and I have seen it used in several fan fictions), that Lorelei was too physically weak for her body to/she had some kind of physical condition that meant she couldn't bear children. But the wish overrode that condition and after giving birth she was so weak that whatever possible illness/birth complications/regular pregnancy recovery happened afterwards she wasn't strong enough to survive it.

 In my opinion this one seems plausible, but I personally do not like it and do not think it makes sense for the characters. If she seemed medically unfit to give birth before the wish, then it would be ludicrously irresponsible for Roland II to make a wish for her to have the kids that didn't also strengthen her in a way that she could have them and survive. Additionally, I believe that if there was a lot of worry throughout the pregnancy that she might not be able to survive it, that Roland would have just made a second wish for her to be strong enough.

 Some may argue that it wouldn't have been possible to strengthen her enough to be able to survive giving birth, but may I point out that the wishing well has the ability to turn a regular human girl into a cat. Like literally change your species. Strengthening someone enough so that they can survive a pregnancy seems pretty minor compared to turning someone into a cat.

 And Roland is normally pretty good at noticing when people he loves are in distress, he'll stop what he's doing and talk with them and try to make the situation better. Now if Lorelei was hiding her physical symptoms from everyone for whatever reason, it could be possible to do that with others especially servants who she didn't spend much time with, but considering how much time Roland spends with Miranda he probably spent the same amount of time with his first wife. If they were in close proximity to each other that often for months on end he would notice if something was wrong and ask her about it and try to solve the problem. Therefore, I personally don't subscribe to it in my own headcanons.

 Another interpretation of this is that Lorelei was the one who is unable to have children, but it was because of some type of condition that was not due to weakness but another type of biological factor(s). The wish allowed her to have the kids, but then she died because the Well directly took her life as a price for the wish/because of how the wish was worded. Or she just happened to get unlucky and die from one of the several medical reasons that a person can die from giving birth no matter their physical strength. It's pretty similar to the first one but I am much more inclined towards it.

 But what if Roland was the one who was biologically unable to have children?

 This one doesn't seem to be explored in any fan fictions I've seen but I think this one is interesting to consider as well. I think most people's reasoning is that if Lorelei died from the wish, then the wish must have just physically affected her and therefore cause [wish] equals effect [death], but if it was going to take her life as a price/consequence for the wish anyway, it may not have necessarily needed to have affected her physically at all. Or the Well never took her life at all, she just got really unlucky and died from random chance. And there's plenty of medical reasons that men can be unable to have children. We don't know what kind of medical knowledge they have in Enchancia, but it may not have been advanced enough to find a solution for Roland or even know that he was the one who was infertile.

 He could have caught an illness as a child that had adult infertility as a side effect (angst potential. If he was also isolated for a long period of time away from other kids this could also partially explain why he became estranged from Cedric). Or it could be a genetic reason, like being intersex (I say as I read that one of the most common noticeable effects of Klinefelter syndrome is being tall. And it would fulfill a certain letter for possible LGBTQIA+ headcannons). Or he could have been severely overworking and under eating (there are a few times in the show where he does this, albeit not to a self-destructive extent, and that’s after he’s had kids and been king for years, also angst potential).

 If this was true, then it could also be possible that he was only temporarily able to have kids depending on how the wish worked. Or depending on the wording of the wish he might only be able the have kids with Lorelei exclusively. So if he and Miranda wanted to make a kid together, they might not be able to (more angst), unless another wish was made (but I doubt he would risk it).

 And a really dark possibility for Roland being infertile is that maybe the wish did NOT make him fertile but instead had a, what I am going to describe as a “love potion” effect on Lorelei and she got pregnant from someone who was not Roland. Now I think that this possibility is really horrifying for a number of reasons, but I've never seen it used in a fanfiction before and I'm not sure if anyone else has ever thought of it, but it exists now. I say that Amber and James do look like Roland, but I would also say that they definitely look more like Lorelei than him, so if you wanted to do a horrifying big drama fanfic this is a possibility for that.

Biological/other reasons that are not infertility:

 But what if their trouble with having children wasn't linked to infertility?

 There is the possibility that Royal Prep/other schools they had gone to had such a terrible sex education class that neither of them knew how to get pregnant and at this point were too afraid to ask. So they wished for it instead. I think this one only works if you're going for an adult humor fanfiction because, this just seems really unlikely to me. Even if they hadn't been educated in school, they would probably still ask someone or have been told by someone or have read it in a book by this point. Especially since part of their job as ruling monarchs is to produce heirs, I'm sure someone in the court would have explained it to them if they didn't know.

 Another slightly more reasonable but still unlikely reason is that maybe one or both of them was asexual. So they needed another way to start the pregnancy and decided magic was a good way to do it. I feel like if this was true then they could have just solved this by going to an actual wizard or doctor and getting help from them, so I don't think this is very likely but I'm trying to go through all the possibilities here.

 But on a far more serious note there as been a possibility I've been thinking about lately that does seem likely considering how often it happens in real life. It could be possible that Roland and Lorelei had already tried to have children, and she was able to get pregnant, but it ended in a miscarriage or a stillbirth. Maybe she was already pregnant by the time Roland made the wish, and he wished that this time it would be a successful pregnancy. The way he looks in the flashback makes it seem like Roland is really sad and kind of desperate about the whole situation and if this possibility was true, then it adds an extra layer of sadness to the whole ordeal.

 ****Also, this isn't attached to any single theory but I wanted to add this: I think that whether the wish caused Lorelei’s death or she died from completely natural causes, it must have happened fairly quickly. If the illness that she got after giving birth lasted a long time, then wouldn't there have been enough time for Roland to have made another wish to save her? Meanwhile if it happened very quickly or without much warning then he may not have had enough time to save her. If it happened quickly, it would also mean that there was less of a chance for the doctors or midwives or sorcerers to do anything to save her.

 *****And regardless of whether it actually was the magic of the wish that killed her or it was from the same causes that any non magical birth can suffer from, I think Roland believes that it was his fault that Lorelei died. He probably doesn't know for sure whether it was the wish that did it or not, but that wouldn't matter if he felt like it was his fault. His exact words to Amber about it were: “My wish didn't turn out so well either.” But we know that he loves Amber and James, and he's very proud of them, so the quote isn't about being a father to them or their existence. So the only other possibility for him saying that it didn't turn out well is what happened to Lorelei.

On that note, those are all the reasons I could think of. Feel free to say in the reblogs or comments which one you think is most likely and/or which one is your favorite. Here's a cookie for getting to the end of this post 🍪

[kindofcuntess]

the devastatingly ironic product of performativity culture: when actions aren’t self-announced (and rightfully so), activists go unrecognized while the virtue-signaling whitneys of the world receive praise…

i’m so tired of living in a society like this. i thought i’d share my response to the comments above. from your resident black, female social scientist who will be an emily cultist (kok reference ofc!) for life 🫶🏽

what you’ve never seen is her be performative, but it’s clear from the thread you and a number of others have the value of statements and actions placed inversely. she’s become one of the most politically disruptive forces in the industry and is progressive to her core. she’s actually been cited as being aware of the power she holds as a white, wealthy and extremely prominent figure and actively wanting to leverage that power to shield marginalized creators and projects about the systems of oppression we face. again, she just doesn’t parade around announcing these actions like celebs are apt to do, not that performative liberals in society at large fare much better. to name just a few examples, she’s financed and advocated for ‘i saw the tv glow, a film about trans identity, that the director stated may not have even had the political resources it would’ve needed to be made without her given an unwilling distribution system (regressive studioheads), acted as the principal force behind the most damning interrogation of performative white liberalism we may ever see put to screen called ‘the curse’ (it was outright ousted by the industry in a shocking emmys shutout and these politics of hers alongside those of her colleagues likely played a significant role in this occurrence), produced projects like problemista and fantasmas, both of which explore the “othering” of non-white immigrants in america and were directed by someone of that identity (always important when specific experiences that person has faced in relation to their marginalized identity factors are a fundamental part of the project), starred in and shaped (she’s been referred to as his “sous chef,” meaning she takes on any number of responsibilities an AD often would, but unofficially, and is always cited to be the one who chiefly develops her characters whether she’s producing or not) yet another unrelenting interrogative piece on domestic violence and rape culture (kinds of kindness: the one no one would shut up about in regards to it framing humanity “too cruelly” when it was simply accurate and truthful), produced one of the most transcendently feminist and humanist films we have today (poor things), and so much more.

she’s for all intents and purposes the paragon of cinematic activism. by the way, “activism” does indeed mean taking action as opposed to announcing one’s political views before a stage to be applauded or wearing a pin to be declared an “activist” when both of these things do exactly nothing to contend oppressive systems. they merely serve to garner social praise from the masses, which is par for the course in regards to a society in which performative liberalism is worshipped. hollywood exists as a microcosm of it. her series ‘the curse’ (also produced by her) would tell you alllll about that. she was the one cited to have, and i quote, insisted upon characterizing her performative white liberal character truthfully as an outright monster: evil to the core while hiding under the guise of so-called “activism,” which includes an incessant amount of shrieking about activism whilst actively degrading the marginalized communities she claims to be allied with on her little pins. it’s an unprecedented and daring action due to the that most have a proclivity for affording sympathy to these characters and the real people they reflect, which grants performative white liberals and the performativity complex at large (anyone can be performative, but those of the white variety are particularly pernicious given they assert their white saviour complexes and use them to assist in their vulterine machinations) immunity from the scrutiny they deserve given they are just as bigoted as those we see express it in a more explicit way.

by “explicit,” i refer to the right wing/maga people, which a scene in the show that depicts her character and her lack of a single progressive conviction converse with a “maga” kind of guy who happens to genuinely care about indigenous rights and the environment- things she only shrieks about being interested in- delightfully enunciates. anyway, the creators/directors of the show even explicitly told emily that she didn’t have to go this far and assume such a risk given the subject of performativity in particular is an “untouchable” one, meaning people retaliate he meaning that people fiercely retaliate when it is rightly condemned (it poses the risk of alienating her audience and peers alike, as has been discussed in an article i highly recommend), but she deemed it a “modern affliction,” which are words i actually take kindly to given she’s undertaken actions to back up that stance.

christopher nolan himself presumed that she had to be cajoled into characterizing her performative white liberal archetype that way (accurately, as all sources of education should) due to the way in which it jeopardizes her status (based unjustly on popularity and likability…that show was actually review bombed to 17% on the day it released and remains in the 40s on rotten tomatoes despite the critical acclaim that, as i have previously stated, did not translate into what was at one point an all but ensured emmy WIN for her. film and tv critics spoke of the nomination as a literal formality due to how much of a pantheon performance it was, but they didn’t take its political impact in a performative institution into account). THAT is how political she is and her willingness to make personal sacrifices for the collective cause while receiving close to no recognition for it (only those who announce it seem to, which is abhorrent given no true activist does so. a true activist acts in the name of justice rather than virtue-signaling for praise) should do well to attest to this.

[kosmicsyren]

Murderbot Ep 1-2 Review: Live-Action Fanart

Apple TV+

Once, in a conversation with my best friend who is also a writer, we fantasized about how if our stories were ever adapted to film/TV, we’d be so chill and cool about everything they needed to change. We understand that visual storytelling is a different medium, and the showrunners would totally see that we get it and would therefore love collaborating with us. 

I must confess that this fantasy popped like a balloon while watching Apple TV’s Murderbot pilot. Because this was definitely Murderbot. But it was not Murderbot by Martha Wells. I’m stating the obvious here, yes, but I genuinely didn’t anticipate how obvious (or jarring) it would be while watching. It reminded me of those “draw it in your style” art posts, where the characters are immediately recognizable but also clearly envisioned by someone new. 

That is to say: The series feels spiritually like Murderbot Diaries fanart—sometimes in a great way, and other times in a baffling way. 

Confronted with this reality, I must accept that I’d probably be a pain in the whole ass to work with if my stories were ever adapted. Stop replacing all the good lines I wrote with clunky expo, I might be tempted to say. (Not that I’m in danger of finding out anytime soon!) 

Let me back up. Who the fuck am I and why am I writing this tumblr post, you might reasonably be wondering. Well, I’m an indie author who writes cozy sci-fi novels that you’ve never heard of. Before I wrote even one word of my own book series, The Murderbot Diaries was a HUGE inspiration to me and one of my all-time favorites.

So, like many fans, I’ve been very curious about the TV series and how I’d feel about it—and the answer is: Mixed! 

First, the good: 

Going by the first two episodes, the clear strong points seem to be the world-building (delicious settings, awesome futuristic tech) and Sanctuary Moon, as the trailers suggested. It’s fun to see the world of this series come to life in such a cool and immersive way, and to actually see clips of Murderbot’s favorite show. Great fanart is a love letter to the characters it celebrates, and that feels especially true here. The reveal that Murderbot deliberately quotes dialogue from the show to improvise with humans came right out of the gate, but I can respect the decision to lead with that since it makes the character so compelling.

Great humor in the first two eps, as well! I’m interested to see if they’ll be able to keep this going. The tone feels very promising now, but I’m hoping it doesn’t stagnate or become trite. Overall, the cast seems solid, too—I’m a little sad that the show doesn’t have an Overse, but the team has decent chemistry and the throuple contract was a fun addition. 

Second, the WTF:

Okay, it’s possible that I got this wrong, but when I read the books, I thought that Murderbot was referring to the PreservationAux team by their last names because that was all it bothered to memorize from their files—or maybe that was all it needed to distinguish between them. Whatever the reason, I thought this was specific to Murderbot as a character, because obviously the people have first names, right? I therefore did not expect the human characters in the show to call each other their last names even in casual conversation . . . Out of everything the show could match exactly, this feels like the strangest choice to me!

The awkwardness doesn’t end there: There was quite a bit of rough dialogue where the original book lines would have worked better. I DON’T expect the show to line up perfectly with the book’s conversations, of course, especially in the beginning when there’s so much setup to get out of the way. But some of these early exchanges were needlessly clunky. Gurathin grilling Murderbot about the existence of "comfort bots" was boring and forced compared to the book version, where Murderbot simply snaps, “You don’t need to look at me. I'm not a sexbot." So much personality and expo packed into two punchy sentences!

Lots of book fans are going to have lots of opinions on Murderbot’s body being all skin with no visible robot parts, which . . . yeah, why??? But I’m going to be even more obnoxious and say that I’m specifically bothered by Murderbot's hair. (ETA: I have to admit that I misremembered that the character had hair at all in the beginning and thought it was supposed to be bald, but hair and eyebrows IS established, so I'm slightly less mad about it now.) Why does the hair look sorta styled in the front?? It reminds me of a guy I knew in college in 2007, which popped into my head not unlike Murderbot’s disturbing glitchy flashbacks. Bleh. Couldn’t it have been a standard buzzcut? 

In closing:

I’m looking forward to future episodes and hoping the show settles into a rhythm and keeps getting better. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if this version of Murderbot wins me over enough to make the series a favorite show—but I’m not ruling out the possibility.

[lillypad-monopoly]

Wild Life Episode 3 Thoughts

Sorry I don't have very good commentary this week. I was really busy and then life happened so I watched these POVs over the course of 6 days and didn't always take live notes.

The snail gimmick is iconic! Another amazing wildcard and a good Grian reference as well as being memey!

Someone joked about them being soulbound to the snails and I'm praying for the return of a soulbond Wildcard so hard right now

I'm genuinely concerned Skizz and Jimmy won't make it to episode 5. I hope we get some more passive wildcards coming up or this is going to be a pretty short series (also I would like them to get some stuff done)

Grian freezing the game is the lore event ever. Watcher powers are real but also he's clearly fighting back against their agenda more this season (once again such angst potential here RE: Grian knowing the wildcards ahead of time)

Ren digging all those holes looking for their horse is literally the definition of insanity and it's hilarious

Martyn and Etho interacting is always interesting both because the anime skin boys are hanging out together and because they have literally opposite playstyles. Martyn is crazy reckless and Etho is soo careful.

WHY DO REN AND MARTYN HAVE A DOUBLE BED

I really want to know all the snail names, since not everybody died this ep

I love that we're kind of going back to "suggestions" again, what with Tango killing Skizz and Martyn making snails invisible just for kicks. It feels like 3L and it's so fun.

I was so excited for Bdubs angst hour only for him to change his mind and not feel bad about anything after all

Etho's monologue 😂. The reason the go for you early is because they see you as a threat, not because they think you're not tough OMG.

Etho don't die to a creeper in the life series challenge impossible

Watching PICS build a base was actually so refreshing. I love the snail gimmick very much but it was nice to watch a POV where they were actually doing some classic life series stuff

Scott predicting violence for the next ep is...concerning lol. I don't know what he's seeing that I'm not, but outside of wild card stuff it doesn't really feel like we're at that point just yet

Actually I wouldn't put it past Tango to go wild. I'm just not sure the other Tuff Guys will follow him

I will be quoting "He's coming and he has only violence in his heart" from now on thank you Scott

Joel saying they have no enemies is so funny. The reason you don't have any enemies is cause everyone is too scared to cross you 😂.

Gem being excited about her snail while everyone else panics is iconic I love her

Joel giving Skizz a PVP lesson is so funny because Skizz *can* PVP from what I recall (I haven't seen a lot of Skizz so I could be wrong here)

Jimmy blowing up the car in front of Joel, Gem and Etho is the definition of "history doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes"

Lizzie I love you but you need to turn down something on your texture pack because everything is so bright

Bdubs manufacturing Tuff Guy behavior killed me. All of the Tuff Guys are such wet cats I love them <3

I've never watched Empires, but the bit where Jimmy gets blown up by a creeper has such powerful older sister/younger brother energy that I think I might have to headcanon them as siblings now

Scar and Lizzie being in the caves for the introduction of the snails and trying to figure out what's going on feels like a horror movie premise. People mysteriously dying to snail related stuff, and then a mob that's not in the game shows up and looks similar to the other person you're with and is following you around...

Team Bam/The Bamboozlers are as chaotic and struggling as hard as I expected. I don't actually want Lizzie to loose her teammates because I want everybody in until the last session, but it would be really funny if she did.

[smallishcats]

Lils au galactic translations and theories 3!

Previous theory post

Next theory post

WOOO here we go- I will be translating days 15-21 of @enkays-den and @cannibal-walleye’s whimsical and confusing lils au!

So, as usual, spoilers ahead!

Important lore burger game sauce impy made by walleye when I watched them and enkay play burger game (very important beta reader activities and very important doodle)

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/4663420

Also, before we start, Walleye’s art is amazing- it’s really interesting that they use irl backgrounds (or some really similar bgs) in the art with their style ughh they’re so good and silly

Okie

Day 15: Jevin

IV (4) Can hide anywhere due to being a slime but he’s pretty loud and visible when he’s a liquid.

Did not get a very hostile vibe from him.

How is he possible? Slimes should not be this sentient.

-Skizz has never been FISHING this sheltered man

-I love the blobbys they look so stupid and happy I would gladly throw one

-“Did not get a very hostile vibe from him” until he pulls the fire dog trick he did to the POE LOL

-A lot of things with the hermits is “How is this possible” and it’s either actually like how did this happen or Skizz is sheltered but it’s probably the former

Day 16: Scar

IV (4) Uses a ‘wheelchair’ to move most of the time and has no allay or vex wings so it seems like he can’t fly.

From what Cub and Scar say he is pretty clumsy.

Do not know how a vex and allay hybrid is possible, as they are natural enemies, unsure what possible powers could be.

Doesn’t seem like much of a threat.

-Skizz can I come and steal cats with you

-We should have a big lils cuddle pile pls

-Interesting that wheelchair is in quotes, I guess if Skizz has never seen redstone I guess it makes sense if he doesn’t know what a wheelchair is? What the heck is up with the Skizz society-

-I love convex so silly

Day 17: Ren

V (5) He does solo missions outside of the area which implies that he’s able to handle hostiles by himself. Could be pure charisma or he’s a good fighter, haven’t seen or heard anything.

No special abilities that I could detect. Enhanced smell is likely.

Does he represent the hermits as their leader? Who is their leader?

-Skizz definitely has a crush on ren in this universe/hj

-I love the puppers with their glasses and ren needing glasses for his eyes so cute…

-I don’t remember how the hermits refer to mobs, but Skizz just calls them hostiles, which is probably a more formal name for mobs anyway, maybe like sprites in that way

This idea holds no weight if the hermits refer to them as hostiles too

-“Detect” is standing out to me but idk

-Skizz seems to be doubting Ren a lot because of his charisma, if someone goes on missions outside of the hermit area I feel like they should be higher than a 5, but because of Ren’s boisterous attitude maybe he doubts him

Day 18: Shelby

VII (7) Showed off easy manipulation of plants and mud.

What is a swamp dryad? Is hydrokinesis because she’s part nymph? I thought they were supposed to be connected to a tree, not entire biospheres.

Intelligent, very familiar with potions and magic, not just her inherent magic.

Don’t drink anything she isn’t also drinking herself.

-The little shroomlings remind me of Inkay (the pokemon)

-I love the actual evil(?) witch in the swamp vibe she has going on like evil ESMP2 Shelby-

-She definitely throws (telekinetically throws?) mud balls randomly at people to spook them

-Skizz will never trust a drink in hermit land ever again

Day 19: Cleo

VI (6) Doesn’t appear to have all typical gorgon traits. Eye contact was no problem. Maybe they lost those powers to zombie infection must have been severe to interfere with her innate abilities like that.

Regardless, she would be a formidable opponent by size alone.

Fiery attitude feels different from other hermits, more threatening and cutting.

Snake hair means there’s no sneaking up on them.

-I love the zombie infected gorgon cleo…. Very very cool

Is that how it is? She was a gorgon and got infected? I would assume so

-More info on how lils are made, need fresh blood, but there’s still a missing piece on why age matters with lil creation

-Biiiiig Clebert! Skizz and them should fistfight for funsies I wanna see who wins

-I wonder how venomous Cleo’s sneks are :J (scar face)

Day 20: XB

VIII (8) Clearly an adept fighter, fast in the water.

Pure size makes him a threat.

I’ve never heard of the guardian species. The name seems to imply they’re magical in some aspect, but if they are, he didn’t show off.

Unknown what ranged abilities he might have, but is otherwise trapped in deep water.

Not too difficult to avoid so long as you stay on land.

-(very) Long boy

-Never heard of GUARDIANS so Skizz is from somewhere not really near water?

-Skizz: “Stuck in water, not my problem B)” totally, but Enkay did tell me they have aqueducts soooo

-“The minotaurs” so there’s more than one… well definitely beef, it’d be funny if sausage is the other one

-The munchies… love them…

-I’m imagining Oli swimming toward the big serpent man (he doggy paddles)

Day 21: X

IX (9) I don’t know what he is.

I think he’s the leader. Impulse deferred to him before and he’s in charge of the library. He’s the best guess I have so far.

Extremely knowledgeable and collected. He doesn’t need to speak up to get attention.

Always accompanied by the ‘lump’ sprite, even more than his own.

Do not cross or raise suspicion.

You can’t rule entirely with benevolence.

-Again with the lumps! Who the heck has the lumps… I thought it was Keralis for a while but nope- it could be Scott’s since that’s his son

-Still a 9- even the strange leader that Skizz knows nothing about is a 9…at this point on Skizz’s journal entry for himself he’s gonna make himself a 10 because he loves himself/j

-“You can’t rule entirely with benevolence.” Or what if he can?? Huh Skizzle… what if silly Xisuma can…

Or if he can’t, what does he do? Because this society seems really nice, stable, people don’t seem weird…

-“The one who warned us about the” THE WHAT???????? ENKAYYYYY

ugh I don’t even know how to come up with ANYTHING to go there- the what…

Shot in the dark, Skizz came from like an evil empire that takes over lands, and they’re coming for the hermits next

And Skizz doesn’t mention it because of the risk of people seeing this

Yes I know this is SO RANDOM AND I HAVE NO EVIDENCE FOR IT

(it’s probably some sort of evil force though)

but I wanna say something because this line is SO SUSPECT

WHAT IS IT????

okay I’m done don’t mention what I’ve written here I sound like a lunatic

-“Do not cross or raise suspicion.” I mean writing a different language in your journal is a start to raising suspicion, but no one is gonna see these pages anyways probably 

Xisuma WILL boot Skizz out of the stratosphere if he is planning to hurt his hermits

And that’s it

I’ve gone insane methinks

I blacked out and here’s my ramblings

my thumb hurts