#he's generally adaptable but it took a lot of maturing to get to that point

[attractthecrows]

Revallen was born in Tillahnen to Keeper Dirennen and Saoirse, the Craftsmaster. He showed a talent for magic at an early age, which thrilled Dirennen, who began teaching the boy immediately. They quickly discovered that Revallen's mana runs very hot; Dirennen's first attempts to teach Revallen to use wood-magic resulted in fires. Dirennen thus pivoted his focus to instilling in his son a sense of discipline and self-control.

When he was 10 or so, Clan Tillahnen encountered a family of city elves fleeing the Starkhaven alienage. Moren, his wife Ivanna, and their daughter Ilithra were welcomed into the clan. Despite fighting at their first meeting, Revallen and Ilithra became fast friends. Revallen took it upon himself to teach her the ways of the Dalish, and Ilithra was fascinated by magic, despite having no talent for it herself.

(cut for length)

In his sixteenth year came the Blight. Tillahnen favored the coastal, marshy regions of Nevarra, and were thus largely out of range of the worst of it. But there were still threats; desperate refugees and heightened tensions made their encounters with humans riskier than ever, and a cave in their favorite territory concealed a connection to the Deep Roads. When a part of the horde began to threaten the Clan, Dirennen took action. Over the course of two frantic, painful days, he pushed Revallen through his training as First, carving his full-body vallaslin and impressing upon him the need to keep the Clan safe at any cost.

Before the wounds had even healed, Dirennen set out to meet the darkspawn. He baited them, drawing the stragglers back into the cave connecting the surface and the Deep Roads. When they were upon him, every last one of them, he used every ounce of his mana to collapse the cave entrance, sealing it with a tangle of ironwood trees that even fire could not clear. Revallen grieved, he screamed, he thrashed in fury - but as First, and as his father's son, he had no choice but to take up the mantle of Keeper.

Ilithra supported him wholeheartedly, rallying the hunters and easing the transition from one Keeper to the next. Together, they led the Clan north, out of range of even the most determined of straggling darkspawn. Revallen and Ilithra were married within the year, and a year from that, they had Nessiava. The clan was happy for a time, though in unfamiliar prairielands. However, their lives of peaceful plenty were short-lived. Post-Blight panic and the influx of refugees from the south overtaxed the land; both human settlements and the Dalish were forced into lean times as harvests failed and game dwindled.

The clan grew desperate, hungry, and panicked. Remembering the kindness of the Chantry sisters in the alienage of her youth, Ilithra volunteered to lead a band of her hunters to try and trade with one of the nearby human villages. At a loss for better ideas, Revallen agreed. She took 5 hunters with what supplies the clan could spare.

But the human farmers, desperate and hungry themselves, saw a band of Dalish hunters, panicked, and attacked. By the time they realized their mistake, Ilithra and 4 of her 5 hunters had been killed. The survivor, a youth that had yet to earn her vallaslin, fled, bringing news of the slaughter back to Tillahnen.

Revallen was inconsolable in his grief and rage. He became unable to sleep, insensate to all but the needs of his daughter. His First, a youth named Tathamen, conducted the funeral rites in his stead, directing the clan to give Revallen the space to grieve. After days of this, grief gave rise to guilt, and he became convinced that the clan must resent him for allowing the hunting party to approach the human settlement. He stole away in the night with Nessiava, bidding the trees to conceal his tracks, and abandoned the clan.

Eventually, he and Nessie arrived at Clan Lavellan.

Deshanna had met him before, both as a child and then later as Keeper, and was alarmed by his sudden appearance. But when she heard his tale of loss, she could not bring herself to turn him away. She had already decided to accept them when Aiona, her niece and Revallen's half-sister, begged her to let them stay, volunteering to house them in the halla-keeper's aravel. Deshanna agreed readily, taking Revallen as her First; as he needed no training, he would help her train her Second, and could spend the rest of his time focused on raising his daughter.

In safety with Lavellan, Revallen and Nessie grieved. They grew around their grief, and they found some happiness. Nessie grew up well, becoming very close with her aunt. When she showed some magical talent, Revallen began to teach her as Dirennen taught him. Her mana doesn't burn like her father's, and she took very well to the wood-magic Dirennen wielded with such ease. Unbeknownst to Revallen or Deshanna, she began to wander the Fade; a Dreamer with no one to teach her, but the protection of the spirits of her kin.

In the aftermath of the events at Kirkwall, clan Lavellan fell on hard times. The mage/templar war caused widespread chaos, threatening their safety and decimating the wilderness they depended on for survival. Revallen recognized in this chaos the same lurking danger that stole his wife and Tillahnen's best hunters. When the time came, Deshanna decided to send a party to gather information at the Conclave - originally a group of Lavellan's best hunters.

Revallen intervened, pulling Deshanna into the Keeper's aravel. He impressed upon her the absolute necessity of keeping the hunters with the clan, to ensure their survival. He told her of the deadly mistake he had made. When she would not be swayed, he insisted that he be sent to the Conclave, rather than depriving Lavellan of the hunters they depended on for food and security.

After some consideration, Deshanna relented, but she was unwilling to send him alone. The Lavellan delegation would be only three in number; Revallen, the First, and the sisters, Valovera and Orathari. Valovera was a consummate warrior, more interested in battle than the hunt, and Orathari was the craftmaster's apprentice, clever and quick-fingered.

Revallen did all he could to console and reassure his daughter, promising to return to her no matter what. Aiona promised to him that she would keep the girl safe. Nessie was unconvinced, but at barely 10 years old, she could do nothing to stop him. Both shed tears upon his departure.

The journey to Haven was challenging between the dangers of the war and desperate human bandits, and the bickering between Revallen and the sisters. Valovera was always volatile, picking fights as if for fun, and Orathari, while patient, felt obligated to defend her. But they arrived at the Conclave without injury.

Then, of course, Corypheus and the corrupted Wardens changed that. Revallen survived, barely, because he interrupted their ritual and was cast into the Fade. But the Temple of Sacred Ashes and all within were destroyed.

[azaharinflames]

Okay, I come here for my weekly post-ep delulu. It usually comes on Thursday, but I was in a state of shock and, honestly, I was feeling emotionally drained, so. Now it is when I can finally verbalise something I've been suspecting for a while, but that I saw a bit more possible after yesterday's ep.

I think (heavily on something I think, I'm not saying it's a definitive thing) that the show is gearing up to, potentially, have Buck be the new Captain.

Now, per Tim's words, we know the captaincy question won't be answered this season. We'll have an interim Captain (Gerard, this we know), but he'll be there temporarily. The new Captain will be something we'll see come Season 9. So. From here on.

I know a lot of us also wanted to see Hen in this position. And if they go with Hen, please know I will be fucking ecstatic, because I think she deserves it and has worked so incredibly hard for it. But I also think that the incidents from 805, and her NDE in 815, and even the way that almost losing Mara was tied to her job... well, that might make her step down, or decide that captaincy is not what is best for her family. And if the show chooses this path for her, I will only be able to respect that and her choice. Because she deserves to finally be happy with her family, and I get that she does not want to jeopardize it. Even more so after Bobby's sudden passing. I think living through that might put her off the desire for captaincy, and it would ultimately make sense.

However... this past ep also let us see a glimpse of the opposite. Of how this tragedy might motivate someone to step up, take care of everyone, and be a leader. To fight for his people the same way Bobby did. Not only because that's just inherently who he is, but because we have Bobby using their last moments together to tell him he's gonna be okay, that their people will need him.

And that person is Buck.

Buck, who took control of the situation quickly, who has been taking control more and more lately, and who has been shown to be increasingly more comfortable with that. Buck, who has, quite obviously, taken the role of caretaker during this season. I will revisit this a bit later, but the important point to make here is that the foundation is there. Buck immediately went to Athena and started fighting for his team, and they didn't stop until (almost) all of them were out. Buck, who in the preview has already been shown to go and check on Chimney, make sure he can help him.

(I know Oliver mentioned something changing for Buck professionally, but personally, I think that was a reference to losing Bobby, and not to becoming Captain just yet)

Truth of the matter is that I've always believed the end of the series would see Buck as Captain (whether that was in the 118 or, if Hen was Captain there, starting over in a different house). I think that, narratively, that makes the most sense, given that we start the show during his probationary period. Granted, I had not imagined it going down like this, but I've been seeing the potential for a long while, and last night's episode kinda cemented that for me.

They had Bobby quite literally passing down the torch to Buck. Whether that is purely on a moral level or whether that will also bleed into the firehouse, we'll see. But I think it's quite possible that Season 9 will see Captain Buckley, and that his big storyline of the season will be adapting to that. It will also make sense to have this happen to mark the start of a new era, one without Bobby.

Now, as for my guess on how this would work in general:

I think that by making Buck captain, they would also be giving him more mature storylines (which, I think, would feel natural with his character's progression). I think there would be sort of two categories in the firehouse; the OGs (Hen, Chim, Buck and Eddie if he comes back), and then the newest additions (I will include Ravi here because if he becomes a main, it also means a new start for his character. I also think there is a big possibility of having a Grant kid join the firehouse). I think this would feel like a sort of natural progression (by the start of Season 9, Buck will have been at the 118 for almost ten years. He cannot be the puppy-dog of the station much longer).

On a personal level, I personally believe Tim very much intends to settle Buck down with Tommy. Of course, they will have their issues, as every couple in this show does, but I think the intention to have Buck settle in his personal life and be in an unknown world in his professional life might be the move Tim is making. Especially because, as I mentioned before, we've constantly seen Buck feeding and taking care of his team. But the show is making a point of highlighting how Tommy is the only one doing that for Buck.

Also, a small addition to back this up, having Tommy be the sole witness of Buck breaking down is very interesting and very intentional. Because (unless I'm wrong) it speaks of Tommy being the only one able to see through Buck's bs. It also gives Buck someone safe, someone he can break apart with, and someone who he doesn't have to be strong for. The show starting to establish that in 815 feels very important to me.

I don't know. Please feel free to tell me if I'm being too delulu but like, I think this has some potential of eventually happening.

[marley-manson]

Now i am curious to know what you disliked about crybaby if you feel like sharing

Yeah for sure, thanks for asking!

Mainly I wasn't into the first half, I almost dropped it after ep 5 or 6 until I accidentally spoiled myself about Mikimiki and decided to keep going lol.

My biggest issue is that I don't think the added edginess really worked? I'm not opposed to edginess on principle lol, and I get why you'd want to make a Devilman adaption overly horny and rapey considering Go Nagai's later additions to the universe, plus his original vision for the manga was a lot less tame than it ended up being, but I didn't feel like it was integrated into the story well. Miko being sexually assaulted was completely tacked on and affected virtually nothing since her internal conflict was inadequacy. And Sirene was a huge downgrade from the manga imo, from the disguised as a sexy seductive human plotline to Akira raping her mid fight - which again, I could see a version of the story where that works, but it's not this version where it's tacked on and unaddressed or even acknowledged characterizationally or thematically. The rape is basically window dressing, and awkward tonally imo.

I also didn't like the titular crybaby lol, Akira's weepy hyper empathy was honestly kind of annoying to me, and he was more obnoxious than in the manga in terms of like, lusting after Miki. And just in general I felt like the first half of the show dragged a lot pacing-wise, at least after that banger of a first episode.

And I can't deny that I was also a little disappointed that in a sea of in your face over the top sexuality basically the only chaste relationships were Ryokira and Mikimiki, to the point of being borderline ambiguous. Especially when the original 1975 manga has 0 ambiguity about Ryo falling in love with Akira.

I actually liked most of the changes they made to the original manga and I felt like most of their creative decisions were in line with the greater themes and point of Crybaby's story - like Miki being less violent but a lot more mature and more of a pacifist was a solid change, the greater focus on other Devilmen like Miko and that one gay guy, Ryo's entire character being completely different in his cold detachment but extremely effective wrt the thematic focus on love and empathy, the general aesthetic of the animation and character design (give or take Ryo's bowlcut), etc. But yeah, for me it took a while to get off the ground and start really working as a story. But like, when it did it blew me away lol.

[lesser-mook]

DUNE PART TWO (Recommendation: Round 2) *light spoilers

Went in for another watch: I wasn’t tripping, this is definitely Jesus parallel/more so Anti-Christ propaganda. On the level of The Matrix, which is what this is, this generations Matrix. (also Jesus imagery/Anti-Christ/transhumanist propaganda)

Dune is worthy of that position too; Cause think about it, it’s accomplishing a level of epic the MCU took 10 years to build up to.

There’s no, and I mean NO REASON why the stakes, the action, and the characters of DUNE (movieverse) are this good when not only is Disney trying so hard to do the exact same thing AGAIN and failing —

But this is custom lore a lot of people aren’t even familiar with, this isn’t a superhero or a anime adaptation, this is coming from some book I’ve never even heard of and it’s this good? (Not a masterpiece, it’s just well made)

Both propaganda, (Matrix /Dune movies) don’t get it twisted but they’re good, except Matrix 4, that was ass.

Reverend Mother said it best:

“There are no sides”, none.

Just the order, in chaos. And if there is no chaos, well well well, better brace yourself because we’ll create a tragedy to course correct.

(Said the person part of an elite group manipulating events of the world and pulling strings, wiping out bloodlines, breeding their own followers with certain people in power to artificially bring forth a force from the “outer world”. They’re literally telling you what’s going on.)

Both propaganda, but one works & the other doesn’t (Sequel trilogy, Phase 4 MCU).

Why? because them being female isn’t their stake in the setting or their stake in your mind as you’re watching it, they’re just good characters first, people first & it registers to you as normal, not woke. Not exceptional because they’re women.

I didn’t really pay attention the first time but Florence did a good job as Irulan, channeling that mature wisdom of a leader in the making. She’s pretty smart (not in the way that modern society WANTS girls to be smart which is a Scientist or something, she’s intelligent politically and well read) and after she explained her case of the dangers of downplaying prophecy, religion & martyrdom and what that means to people wanting hope — To the Emperor. He said she’d make a fine Empress.

And he’s right. It’s easy to miss what she’s doing (actually) in the story, you see Florence ofc, but Irulan is easy to miss. That’s because the story doesn’t over-inflate her importance, when she’s more significant than she appears.

Point being, she’s a royal with a conscience (a good example of a decent person on the side of the “enemy”), she’s here & there throughout the story, being the voice of reason even to Reverend Mother, until she’s face to face, not with Paul but Muad’Dib.

Everything she said and did led up to her facing him, a force of nature of a man. Completely different animal. And both of them told the exact same thing (“Strategic alliance”)

The story begins with Irulan and it ends with Chani.

Why doesn’t the movie inflate the fact that they’re strong women? Because the movie doesn’t treat you like an idiot. That’s how it should be done.

It’s not putting them on a pedestal like many woke productions, or bending them over the couch for the sake of pandering like in Anime. Two different extremes.

Yes, Chani mentions that the Fremen way is that men and women are equal or (how any competent society should be functioning). If anyone reaches to say that’s woke? (I’m not even going to entertain that, or be smartass. Just relax. That line doesn’t mean what you think it means/ And this is coming from a mf who’s calling this Anti-Christ propaganda, so IF I’m saying the line wasn’t that deep, then it wasn’t that deep.)

Cause if you wanted to nitpick? That’s easy bait, when it’s really not.

Overall, this reminds me of Aaron Ehasz’ writing chops, how a Live Action Avatar The Last Airbender should be written.

Paul survived a genocide just like Aang but “Usul” is going in a very different direction:

Unlike Deku & Aang, Muad’Dib is not here to make friends, appeal to your inner child or some shit or hand out mercy for nothing in return.

But you’ll see what I mean. Paul is a little Gary Stu-ish (on purpose, hence the chosen one narrative. One of the signs is that he knows some of the Fremen way without being taught. Neo was a gary stu too.)

Yet the guy (Paul) still has to be taught, like Neo & Aang, he’s not perfect. He cries, he gets pissed, he doubts himself, he’s human still.)

Not a perfect little angel like Deku (who cried way too much, gets pissed only when convenient but when abused by the same guy his entire life) or unless it was time to make a CRaZy FacE during a fight. Please.

DUNE PT 1–2, Not as groundbreaking as The Matrix, not even close.

But given the fact that this has an almost 200 million lower budget than Endgame and is a better film than Endgame in story, (some) visuals, direction, writing and effects?

So yes, still a decent little movie, outside the realm of conspiracy.

Part One did it’s justice setting the groundwork, which is why it felt dry or boring for some people.

It got the work done, so the second could come out swinging, which is why the pacing felt so much better in this movie, it started right in the thick of the plot. The work was done already.

The level of foreshadowing in this movie, throughout? Is insane (PT 1 too). I counted it somewhat, the most throwaway line or an establishing shot you’d easily miss or overlook as random or an artistic decision, sets up something that will happen later, or in a couple of minutes; Or the next movie, and no I’m not even talking about Paul’s dreams.

Visual foreshadowing, visual storytelling. Vision. Not agenda shoved down your throat, not blatantly anyway. If you want to sell people propaganda without them rejecting it?

Make it good & wait for them call it a “masterpiece” or something. (People won’t question what they like, because bias lowers your defenses. That’s warfare for the mind, The Matrix mentioned something similar.)

But? When he goes Lisan-Al Gaib mode? And his speech scene in the southern temple? (my fav scene in the movie, how it began, the scene that led up to it, his stride, that shot, the MUSIC. Jfc, Hans Zimmer.)

Projecting his voice, like a godly apparition in human form. His aggression, body-language, he’s not asking, he’s telling you what’s going to happen.

The man can see timelines without an Infinity Stone, the LAST thing he wants to hear is someone informing him he has to kill one of his many mentors because of “tradition”, ALL just to speak his mind in a gathering.

Yeah, anyone would get pissed when all they’ve been hearing is “Prophecy, prophecy, prophecy” for the past imma say…(3 months toa year)

That entire scene was him embracing the role, while expressing his frustration that he had to do it at all.

He sells it 100%, reminds me a lot of Jesus roasting the priests in the temple. Same exact situation. Some other hang ups I have would be:

We never get to see exactly how Worm Riders dismount their Worms, we’re never shown how they get off. Especially how they manage to get a pregnant woman & crowd on and off one of those behemoths.

The Voice, as a concept is too broken. There should’ve been some kind of criteria like if you try to use it on someone who can also use it, it can be countered or something (Like “The Force”). Or you risk injuring your vocal chords if abused etc. It’s way too broken, you can win pretty much any fight by just commanding them to die. It’s basically Lelouch’s Geass

Paul is a sympathetic MC, he’s cool, he’s a bookworm, it’s good to see him learn something from others (to negate too much gary-stu energy), he’s like the quiet, nice kid in class. But he’s not all that interesting, that is until he transitions and he starts carrying himself a little differently. Pretentious? Sure, Messiah complex to the max, but again, consider his frustration with the whole thing. And he’s got the energy to make people follow, and I’m interested to see what he does next, that’s the point essentially. He’s not that engaging until he is.

PART TWO is worth the money because it’s 2 films in one, surprisingly well paced. But there in itself lies an issue, there’s a lot going on in just this one movie that could’ve been fleshed out. As you notice, there’s very subtle points where time-skips are implied, like Maud’Dib’s reputation, we didn’t really get to see how Usul got that reputation just that the name means something infamous to the Harkonnen’s at a point, so much so that that’s how they address him, like he’s Robin Hood or Captain America during the Civil War Arc (books). But it works because it keeps the movie from being 3 hours, but definitely skimmed over some things.

Some of the fight choreography has some chinks in the armor in the bigger scenes, like a character’s back it turned to someone who’s facing them and they don’t strike. The combat is overall solid, but that (in any movie) drives me nuts, and I saw it on my first viewing lol. But I won’t specify when or where, I don’t wanna ruin it. Because I can’t unsee it myself.

I find it very, VERY unlikely that the Harkonnen’s wouldn’t have a contingency for The Sand “Demons”/ Worms by now. Nukes exist, space ships, personal shields, hover jet packs, but not an Orbital Rail gun? Or a mounted Rail gun on a base wall? Fishy. Awfully convenient. (Harkonnen’s would have my ass in R&D because that’d be my first question to Chain of Command “What if we simply designed-”)

This is not a masterpiece, it’s a well made movie with an interesting parallel to The Matrix, very very well composed (Props to Hans Zimmer), well acted, the setting & story are interesting for what it is and how ambitious it is.

And very ominous overtones that caught my eye.

Might shill it again another time.

I recommend you watch it in theaters at least once before it goes.

If you have tinnitus or something, DO NOT brave IMAX.

That shit gets so loud it physically assaults you sometimes.

And if not, then enjoy it however you can get to it. It’s the same movie wherever you watch it.

TMI: I personally ignored the first movie when it dropped, “Paul’s Dream” OST somehow found it’s way to me via a playlist in 2022, finally watched PART ONE March 2024, then I was impressed with what PART ONE was setting up, and the sequel impressed me more —

So, If this is trying to be a Trilogy, I’m definitely going to have eyes on that 3rd installment.

Because Paul’s Dream in PART ONE regarding what Chani does to him, definitely makes more sense given not only — how uneasy she was the moment he broke off from the worm caravan suddenly to (do what he did), what he did in the temple, and how scorned she was later on (won’t specify) —

We can only imagine what else he's going to do that (might) lead to her making that call.

And that’s an “if” because Paul says to Jessica (after the attack, tent scene) he saw his death but claims that’s not what it means. 

And it also makes sense in context of the story. The knife was given to him by Chani, and to begin his journey to become Kwisatz: Paul had to die through killing another (Jamis). Killing another is killing himself. So the vision’s meaning was likely isolated to PART ONE’s plot, but it’s something to keep in mind for potential PART THREE.

It’s funny, cause My Hero spoils the ending in just the second episode, it doesn’t work because there’s no narrative point to it, doesn’t progress or fit the kind of story that it is.

Like Spider-man 2002 didn’t begin with Peter saying he’s Spider-Man, it began with a question:

"Who am I?"

It ENDED with him saying who he is, answering the question, because narratively, it makes more sense to hear it AFTER we see the goddamn story, and what he just sacrificed to be who he is. All to justify the answer to the question:

I bet you before now, you didn't really even think that hard on Peter's question making sense to that extent until now lol. That's how subtle it is.

Tangent: (Horikoshi copied other people’s homework without knowing why their shit worked in the first place, in context. The man at heart was a fanboy of A LOT of franchises, and you can see it in the entire story *He named a street after "Tatooine"* But his execution & ideas needed more time to mature. His mistake was getting involved with Shonen Jump before he had it figured out and or getting involved with them at all.)

Otherwise, main reason SM2002 narration works: Is because it isn’t a fantasy film with prophetic elements, it’s a superhero title and it didn't spoil anything.

For that MHA story, us knowing Deku becomes the greatest hero contributes to nothing, because for that story, that doesn’t make sense to know it that goddamn soon.

But in this story, with visions & prophecies, all these biblical parallels, knowing what happens in fragments, works because of how the film executes it, the setting is compatible with it — hooks you to keep watching, some visions are proven right. So for the audience that gives us a sense of progress and achievement even though all we’re doing is watching, we’re not doing anything, It’s very immersive. 

Like J.J Abrams “Mystery Box” technique but it’s not shit.

Hence why, DUNE: The movies, so far, are already a better Sequel Trilogy than the Sequel Trilogy of Star Wars. Because like EPISODE 7, PART ONE was just 100% Set up and foundation. And PART TWO was basically EP8-9, and now we might get another.

2 ways to technically spoil events here, but 2 out of 3 examples work. Because the storytelling methodology are completely different.

MHA was just copying an aesthetic without understand why the original worked (which is why the story began promising but ended up a narrative failure)

DUNE is compatible with it because the story itself already has mystic/biblical/prophetic elements, so it’s compatible with the trope

And for Spider-Man 2002 specifically, it didn’t jump the gun before the story was even finished in the writing room. There was a long-term point to the narration and the question.

It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.

[yanderes-galore]

Can I request something for TWD, Carl Grimes with a partner who's pretty reckless?

(Romantic please and maybe this can be a short story)

Uhhh, sure! This will be an AU where you're both around 18 and where he doesn't die. Like the comics? Still upsetting that they killed him off instead of giving him the chance to mature like what I've seen in the comics. I decided as I am still new to The Walking Dead to make this a concept instead? It could always be adapted to a short story later. Just testing the waters as I'm new to this fandom. I'm sorry if this isn't quite what you wanted or I get something wrong. Sorry this took months and probably wasn't even that good :(

Possible Spoilers for The Walking Dead but I kept it minimal

Yandere! Carl Crimes with Reckless! Darling

Carl Lives AU

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Violence, Blood, Trauma, Suicide briefly mentioned, Murder, Obsession, Overprotective behavior, Paranoia, Manipulation, Angst, Dubious relationship, Isolation, Imprisonment, Carl is a broken man.

I feel Carl would have a tough time with a darling is reckless.

Let's look at how he grew up...

He grew up in the apocalypse, a world filled with corpses, violence, murder, suicide, betrayal, and a whole lot of death in general.

He had to kill his own mom and by this point his father is dead, too.

Now he's an adult... a hardened adult who has seen what this broken world has to offer.

He's used to a world where people kill each other.

He's used to all the blood and violence.

So the fact you, his partner, is reckless irritates him and makes him a bit nervous.

There's a good chance Carl will try to correct your tendencies.

When he met you he knew you weren't able to take care of yourself due to your behavior.

He had a feeling you'd easily be betrayed or Walker food if he didn't take you in with the rest of the group.

Sooner or later, you two get close enough to start dating.

Be that months or a year or two doesn't matter, Carl ends up falling for you despite what he's gone through.

Carl is an overprotective yandere but that's understandable based on what he's gone through.

I can imagine Carl getting frustrated at your reckless behavior.

Not only does he try to correct it but your behavior often causes arguments.

Carl fights with you and your behavior out of deeply rooted fear.

Don't you know how easy it would be to lose you if you don't be cautious?

You could be kidnapped, killed, or turned into a Walker!

He doesn't want to be the one to shoot you in the head....

As a result, Carl often gives you survival lessons.

You may call him paranoid... but in his eyes, paranoid is better than dead.

Carl has dark thoughts and intentions in him so his feelings of love for you could easily turn corrupt.

He feels he needs to protect you.

He can protect you from others, it's expected of him as your boyfriend.

Although with a reckless darling... he begins to realize he may need to protect you from yourself.

If he doesn't keep a close eye on you... you could go and get yourself killed.

Carl loves you and he tries to make that known to you.

Due to the stress caused by living in the apocalypse within a group that can betray each other easily... you both tend to fight.

By the end of it, however, Carl tries to show you he still loves you.

He'll apologize and just say your behavior scares him.

He'll comfort you with hugs and soft kisses on the cheek to make you smile.

He doesn't want to lose you like so many others... even if it is an outcome he can't avoid forever.

Even with weapon training or basic agility training he still feels you'll get yourself killed somehow.

Carl wants to protect the one he loves.

Imprisonment is just another form of protection, right?

Carl may actually decide locking you up would keep you safer than letting you free.

Not only is anyone/everything a danger to you... so are you with your tendencies.

Behind bars in a makeshift prison made at the group's base is currently the best situation for you in his eyes.

If anyone tries to fight Carl on this, he'll get violent.

They don't understand.

Carl is protecting you, as he should since he's your boyfriend, your partner.

Why should anyone else get a say?

Carl would kill over you.

Everyone else kills in this world, plus Carl had gained a taste for bloodshed throughout the years.

A bit of murder for your protection is a fine price in his head.

You may hate the cage... but Carl comforts you.

In there... you won't become a Walker.

No one can hurt you.

You won't be alone long either, Carl will be beside your prison with a smile.

His gaze looks so loving... yet it doesn't change the fact your boyfriend put you behind bars to "protect" you.

If you don't change your behavior, Carl will change it for you.

To adapt is to survive.

There's no need to fight him anymore... now you're better off.

Outside is dangerous and filled with all sorts of threats, threats Carl is protecting you from...

Carl says being in your little prison is the safest place to be... perhaps it is since it keeps you away from him, too.

[axe8472]

I have thoughts in my brain about six of crows and they may or may not make sense. So. The thing is when people talk about how the crows couldn't possibly be 16-18 because they're overly mature and competent and have life experience etc etc. i get that BUT is that not the whole point? I mean the books really hammer it home that notions of childhood in their world are entirely different from ours, like to the point where i would even say it's a main theme and kinda the driving force behind all the events in the duology.

Kids are taken away from their parent at like 11 to train as soldiers. Kaz was all alone in Ketterdam at 9 years old and there doesn't seem to have been any functioning system of care for kids like him, nor mandatory schooling. In Fjerda, it seems like the closest thing to foster care is being taken on by the Druskelle. Inej started training as an acrobat pretty much as soon as she could walk and was playing starring roles in performances by the time she was 14 (and probably a fair bit younger). I don't remember Jesper's backstory perfectly but I think he was put to work in the jurda fields (a hazardous agricultural job) as a small child, then worked with guns in some way, then got sent to school in a different country when he was like 15. This isn't exclusive to the crows - it's mentioned a lot that there are many kids in situations similar to Kaz and Inej in the Barrel. Even Joost, despite seemingly being quite sheltered, is working full time night shifts as a guard when he's not even old enough to grow facial hair.

It seems that there's just much more of a vocational focus for kids/teenagers in the grishaverse. This makes a lot of sense because many elements of culture across the grishaverse countries come from the ~1800s when the attitude towards kids was that they weren't all that different from small, inexperienced adults, especially in working-class and rural settings where you just had to get on with things. Kerch especially took inspiration from victorian England, where kids as young as 9 could legally work up to 60 hours a week in dangerous conditions. So yeah that's kind of the whole point imo. It's especially interesting because I read the soc duology as a (potentially semi-unintentional?) criticism of capitalism. This is highlighted by the fact that Wylan, the only one of the crows from a rich background, is also the only one who had a childhood and got an education even vaguely comparable to what we would consider normal. So clearly the whole childhood innocence vs being put to work at like 4 thing is closely tied to class. (obviously Wylan did not have A Good Childhood but it seems from the books that the standard for merchers' kids is to give them a really good and varied education with 1-to-1 tutoring etc, which is very different from what all the other characters seem to have had as kids.)

And okay yeah they're unrealistically skillful and competent and just generally smart, but that would be the case even if they were adults. Like you kinda have to just take liberties with your characters of they'll never manage to do anything, especially in a world that's so hostile toward them. And it's actually kinda hard to even say how unrealistic their capabilities are because their experiences are so different from the experiences of real-life modern teenagers. Like kids are crazy adaptable and good at learning things, especially when they've had no other choice, and the crows actually mostly have quite a lot of experience and had time to develop their respective skills because they haven't spent 8+ hours a day in school for most of their lives. The same goes for the degree of adult-ness in their general behaviour - they're really quick thinkers and less likely to panic in a crisis than any teenager I've ever met. Again I'd say that's the whole point. The charaters are acting older than they have any right to because the experiences they've had have forced them to develop the capacity to do so.

Idk maybe i just read it differently to some people but yeah i think that cross-cultrually throughout the grishaverse children just have very very different experiences to kids in real life. It makes sense that they would then grow up to be very different from real-life teenagers, and obviously the crows are an extreme example of that but there is like. clear historical inspiration behind a lot of the crows' backstories and the general cultural backdrop of the duology. And the whole thing with the books is yeah they're doing all of this stuff and they're capable of these amazing things but actually they are literally children and they are doing all of it mostly for the sake of survival and taking back the things that they deserve from the world. And everything they've done for years and the people that they've become has all been for the sake of survival. And they're kids.

[yostresswritinggirl]

Abandoned By The Altar

Part 1; When you were young.

A timeline oriented story focused on your once perfect childhood relationship as Diluc's bride to be, soon becoming estranged after the death of his father and his neglect. You only wish now that he looks at you the same way he did when you heard you were supposed to be together forever when you were young.

Pairings -> Diluc x Reader (Currently both young)

Word Count -> 3611

Themes -> Initial Fluff, don't be fooled by the title and summary, not yet at least lol-

Series -> #Bonafide Specials (100 followers event) Part 2

Warnings -> None, tooth-rotting adorkable fluff, this is part 1

The redness of his hair poked out like the moon in a blanketed, dark sky at the dead hours of the sky. His glaring flame of a hair starking in contrast against the sea of cecilias.

There were three knocks to the Winery that day and his father, renowned businessman, had greeted a new set of faces to their humble abode.

Diluc was but a mere child who had lived for eight years and he had exercised his mind to remember the people that had come and go. They were always regal in aura, high in stature, brimming with promises of riches. This occasion had the same weight, but with a lesser intensity with the politeness the merchant family carried.

As usual, business matter were talked about by the adults and Diluc, the young had no means to pry.

So when he finally stared at you, he was pleasantly surprised. Visitors were usually taller, more mature, and came there to talk about adult stuff... never had he met a child the same as he come with those that come talk about finances.

You slightly flinched back when your stares connected, from what he did not know why, but you carry the same shock and intrigue he felt. "H-Hello there!" Crepus ghosted a look at the two children with a wistful and amused look, softening at the sight. His sole child had always been demure and the distance from Mondstadt had kept him away from opportunities of friendship, so when your parents revealed you as their tag-along to their business proposal, he thought it was too good a coincidence to pass. He, however, didn't expect Diluc to be the first to talk.

"Hi, hi!" You bounded up to him as if barreling, your initial nerves dominated by childlike wonder as your eyes darted over him, so fast even that he doesn't know where they had already gone. "Your- your hair, eyes! So pretty!" You placed your hands on his shoulders enthusiastically, missing a distant horrified gasp and a slight shush. "Like, like... fire tornadoes!"

"Fire tornadoes...?" Diluc asked warily and you vigorously explained how the wildness of his hair carried the chaos of tornadoes that had caught a raging flame in its razor winds.

You had always been an eccentric child, your mother reasoned with the older Ragnvindr but earned a hearty chuckle. No harm done, he assured as he can't seem to take his eyes off the two of you, even tho his business was right in front of him.

After proper introductions between the two children, and a promise of a longer talk, your supposed quick visit somehow made its way to dinner.

The many servants of the Winery had caught wind of the sudden changes in the itinerary and they were quick to adapt on the preparations of dinner. In the backdoors of kitchens and maid halls there were surprising chatter that accompanied them as they work. "Young Master Diluc and the merchant's little girl seems to be getting along quite well," the nanny and the other maids started the gossip with fervor at the intriguing news. "It's greatly the reason why Master Crepus had entertained them this long, the gardener caught wind of how amused he is just watching the two interact." When the banquet table was completed before the diners had arrived, a lot of the servants hid behind the cracks of the doors to watch the spectacle for themselves, to guarantee if the rumor that spread like wildfire was true and not some hallucination.

There was a quiet series of gasps and 'aw's when the main door opened to reveal the owners of the house and its current honored guests. The towering adults parted to display you clutching to Diluc's sleeve as he guided you to extra long table, a display that you seem to not be used to based on their observations as you felt lost on which large seat to take.

And the young master thought of this as the perfect opportunity to show off the things he had learned in his sessions of proper etiquette. Locating the nearest seat, Diluc pulled the chair out and gestured you to take a seat before gently pushing it back under the table. Satisfied with the distance, he made his way opposite of you as a sign of respect for his guest.

Crepus, your mother and father watched in amusement... as you two took your seats at the other end of the table farthest from them. But they paid no mind to call you two over when they saw how engrossed you are over your own conversation.

The chatter that night was boisterous and lively on all parties, for besides business and wine, all had talked with the atmosphere of good friends.

And dinner turned into a promise of a sleepover, how generous of the Ragnvindr family. The master of the house simply reasoned that Mondstadt was still a distance from the Winery, and it was too dangerous to travel at this time of night. But the servants knew more than they had let on, for they too felt the somberness in the eyes of Diluc when your parents announced your need to departure.

At this point, this whole visit was now held up by the fact that it was their young master's opportune time for a play date.

The whole day you two had been inseparable. Either being connected physically or just naturally stuck to each other's side through and through. Despite his innate nature to be a recluse or lack of communication among his age group, Diluc find himself not at all minding the way you stuck close to him like this.

When everyone else had departed, you and Diluc were still wide awake in the parlor in front of the blazing fireplace, your hands buried in his wild hair as you talked about your travels before coming to Mond. The young man hums as replies with his eyes closed, concentrated on the way you weave your hands through his fiery locks as you made tiny braids here and there.

Once Crepus had finished tonight's negotiation and seek out his own child (of which was missing from his room) he happened upon the two of you coddled up between a fort of pillows and blankets. The fireplace long been extinguished as the children slumbered.

You were noble not by blood, but by high commerce. Your parents had been travelling all over the continent to procure business opportunities and partnerships, and their duo of both financial prowess and economic behavior mastery had earned them a place in high society and funding. Noble merchants who had found themselves in the city of freedom with their sole child in tow.

The true goal was to establish at least one commerce ports and business services in EVERY nation in Teyvat, and that requires a lot of scouting and connections to do so.

Because of the constant move, you had seen A LOT and met quite a thousand of people in every walks of life. At your young age you barely remember them all truly but the loneliness within you was not something that can easily be quenched, as travelling meant leaving everyone behind for an indefinite time.

Diluc was a one of a kind boy, most probably because you had yet to step foot in the land of the Pyro Archon, but his red hair intrigued you to wit's end. It was reminiscent of a campfire that protects you from the cold of the night, the last hues of sunset in the horizon over the cliffs of your expedition, the sweet taste of fresh strawberries hand picked from the Inazuman plantations.

So at the news of settling down for a few years in Mondstadt reached your ears, unadulterated tears of pure happiness flowed out of your eyes so shockingly that you didn't even notice them immediately.

Not until you felt small hands cup your cheeks, its thumbs fervently swiping at the wetness. Your wide eyes met Diluc's worried ones and he asked if you're alright with a gentleness you've never heard from him. You grinned, "We can play again tomorrow, Diluc!"

And the three adults in the distance sighed in great relief as your mood lifted.

You cupped back Diluc's cheeks to reciprocate and gasped in overdramatic wonder at how soft and squishy they were, squealing, and then tackling him back into the soft beds of Cecilias.

"They've really become quite close ever since we touched Mondstadt," Crepus smiled behind his cup of tea and reveling himself with the warmth it brought to his throat.

"Honestly, our daughter needs to learn manners after him. She's always been so rowdy, I was scared the young master would have run away from her brashness," your mother quipped in before picking up her own cup to savor.

Crepus shared a glance with your father as they both found their gaze back to the both of you. "Practically inseparable," they hum, "I'd say we might as well seal them together to make sure our bloodlines prosper."

Your mother choked. "Are you implying- Diluc and (Y/N)?!" At the mention of your names, you and your companion turned your heads to the adults. "An arranged marriage? At such an early age too!"

"What's an arranged marriage?" The children spat out at the same time, informing the older people of the audience they had brought upon themselves. Crepus smiles warmly at the sight of your tiny arms wrapped around Diluc's shoulder as the redhead holds a Cecilia in place by your ear.

"It's a serious promise," the Ragnvindr started, "it makes sure that both of the people stays together forever their whole lives. After a grand ceremony." Diluc knew when his father talked about serious business and that's when he usually pays attention to his words, even if majority of the time it's something he barely understands.

But the thought of being able to be with each other together forever, the young boy slowly turned his head to face you, which urged you to look at him too. There was the same color of his hair splattered at his cheeks, but his gaze on you was wide and wondrous, as if asking a silent question, "I would love to be with Diluc forever! How about you, Diluc? Do you, do you?"

"I-I do! Yes!" The young redhead tried to match your enthusiasm as the older men chuckled, your mother silently dying at the predicament.

"Then that settles it!" Crepus mused, "Even tho I didn't expect my son to be the one getting proposed on."

April 29th, the day before Diluc's 9th birthday, the first birthday of his that you would be in attendance.

The servants of the house had been busy preparing for the grand event for days now, and tasks were more than piled up on the day before the true date. Hence why you'd find yourself playing with Diluc outside of the mansion without adult supervision. Your parents had helped in organizing the party with Diluc's father, as it also doubles as an opportunistic moment of meeting nobles and honorable businessmen all over Teyvat.

"Are you excited for tomorrow, Dilu? Just imagine the towering cake, so many food, and toys!" You two were passing by the grapevines of the winery, fascinated by the shining grapes under the direct gaze of the sun.

"Mmm, there would be a lot of people tho, lots of talking and talking," you plucked a healthy looking grape from the vine before you finally looked at your companion, finding a cute little pout between his smooth and chubby cheeks. "You know I'm not good around many people."

You cooed at the confession, indulging momentarily by patting his cheek (Diluc raised an eyebrow at your weird obsession over them) before patting his shoulder, "Well, well, as your fi- financee?" Fiancée, he corrected. "Yeah that! I'll be right by your side, if you need help, I'll be right there!"

When you saw him relax under your enthusiastic grin, you patted yourself on the back before expertly throwing the lone grape into your mouth. And crunched.

"Well, I guess you're much better with people- are you okay?"

The sourness. The undeniably waxy peel. Your teeth colliding with the core seed. Diluc watched your face contort from surprise to disgust to pure horror as you frantically whip your head from side to side in search of something, yet finding nothing you slightly bow your head.

"(Y/N), hey, what's wrong-" he reached his hand out and under to cup your jaw and raise your face to meet his, but in a manner of time seemingly slowing down, these events happened: you opened your mouth to discard the disgusting grape to the ground when in some funny coincidence, Diluc's open hand reached out under your chin, the wet and slimey prune of a grape plopping on his palm spot-on with a sound of disgust escaping you.

When you'd open your eyes, you gasped at the sight before you. Whipping your head up, you've seen the most horrified look Diluc had ever worn as he stared straight at his hand, barely moving and breathing.

When one of the maids finally caught sight of the two children, she'd found you crying in distress as you wailed 'I broke Diluc, I broke him!' while the boy himself stood and looked just the same as you'd seen him last, still staring at the disgusting grape in his hand.

The festivities started the next day with you not by his side.

Guests were already swarming in given that the night has started its period. Crepus made sure that all of the preparations are in accordance with the party, yet he knew just how distressed and frantic his son has been acting, no matter how hard he tries to hide it.

He kneels in front of Diluc, finally getting his frenzied stares to settle on him. He offers a reassuring smile. "Are you looking for her?" Diluc was bashful in being caught but nodded regardless, earning a chuckle and a hand ruffling his hair. "Don't worry, she will come."

"But what if she doesn't?" His stubborn nerves replied still with uncertainty.

"You two promised to be together, no grape can easily break that," at the mention of the incident, his son gagged and whined at the reminder, causing another robust chuckle form in his throat. When Crepus has heard of the 'incident' that transpired yesterday, he had to stop himself from wheezing to comfort his own son.

At the better reminder Diluc found himself smiling again brought upon his faith on you and Crepus sighed in relief. That was when they heard a familiar voice shout from the distance.

Your little form broke through the crowd that had obscured your form, dressed up in a simple red chiffon dress and a massive white bow that holds as a belt. Crepus stepped to the side so you could approach the birthday boy yourself, presenting the red box in your hand with a trembling grip, you stood with nerve-wracking composure they've never seen you don before. "H-Happy birthday, Diluc! I uhm I'm really sorry about what happened yesterday, I really am! So I- so I bought you some gloves, so you'll never have to worry about your hands next time."

Crepus quirked an amused eyebrow at the 'next time' as he watches his son take upon the gift and opening it immediately, inside was a simple pair of white gloves with gold lines across its back and a pop button to keep it in place. When he fitted it, it was just the right size and fit his normal attire perfectly.

You watched him warily when you finally met eyes, opening your mouth to ask if he had liked it— when you were suddenly met by a hug, his fluffed up hair almost covering half of your hair. "Thank you, I like it. But you're late..." you laughed in relief as you squeezed him so tight, saying you were sorry with a giggle.

Diluc's father then watched on with a smile as the two of you held hands, disappearing in the sea of guests to mingle and admire the decorations they had put on for his birthday. At least, this time, he didn't have to worry that his son felt alone.

Your reckless imprudence and its adverse karma took a lot longer to manifest than anyone had expected. But it came with a paradoxical event both good and evil when you and Diluc were aged 10.

It was a rare occasion that it was Diluc who was visiting you (instead of the other way around) in Mondstadt's walled city. His father had the tavern to tend to that day and had entrusted Diluc's presence to you, the one who had been roaming the city for about two years now.

In your excitement and his cluelessness, you dragged your friend around the city for an impromptu tour guide. The cathedral, the statue, the HQ of Ordo Favonius; you exhausted him all the way as you somehow managed to find your way past the bridge and into the lush greenery of the outside of the walled city. He needed a breather, and you found the fresh air and quiet to be just the perfect spot.

The sound of rushing water in the distance helped as white noise for your relaxation, as you both stared up in the clear sky together, occasionally pointing at objectified clouds. At some point, Diluc had closed his eyes when the faint breeze urged him to rest more and he gave in just as easily.

The sound of your light musings grounded him just the same, together with the flowing stream and the distant pitter patter against the grass... pitter patter?

"DILUC, WATCH OUT-!" A force came bouldering against his side as he cried out in pain and shock, barreling against the grassland as he unceremoniously tumbles with the perpetrator. He snapped his eyes wide open and sat up quickly to look at what had come to your area—

And you laid there next to him, remnants of frost littering your clothes and climbing up your skin. As Diluc gathered you up in his arms, he felt the sting of the cold as he pulled your trembling form against his chest. At his peripheral he distinguished a few cryo slimes a few feet away, where he sees the dent on the grass he once laid on just moments prior.

"(Y/N)- (Y/N)! No, nonono stay with me, you're okay, please tell me you are," his body wracked in suppressed sobs as you desperately clung to his warmth. Your eyes were squeezed shut in pain as your teeth clatter and whimper from frostbite. He squeezed and pulled you closer up to his chest, desperately hoping the ice would melt before it engulfed you whole.

His gloved hands gripped at your back when he locked eyes with the slimes, watching them slowly advance to the both of you and he watched helplessly without any weapon at his arsenal to protect you two.

For the first time in his life, Diluc felt utterly useless and helpless at the face of looming death. And he prayed with eyes shut, to any Gods that spared him an ear, to give them divine intervention to help you two. To pray that there was something he can do, to pray that if only he was stronger—

And his world turned red around him.

Frost melted.

Grass charred.

Slimes dissipated.

In front of him a Vision was born.

...

A year and a half after that ordeal, you find yourself in the dimly lit hallways of Dawn Winery.

Diluc had expressed his intention to join the Knights of Favonius a day after he received his Vision, with a resolve you've never seen him wear before. He looked at you with longing yet courage of another promise, when you came to the same day. Ever since then, your visits became scarce and your play time had lessened, as you were left to watch him train in every hour of his day with either his father or one of the adept guards of the Winery.

You've never thought you'd wish to be able to wield a sword greatly to par that of a knight, if only to be trusted enough to wield the weapon against him in the guise of training. Ever since that incident everyone had treated you with utmost care and gentleness, even your dearest friend who had always gone along with your reckless spurs of action.

Today you were hoping to catch him on a day off from his sessions but it seems awfully quiet this time around and you were left to ponder with your thoughts as no one came to aid you with answers. You would press your ear against the numerous doors, linger to hear anyone, and then moved on to another if you come out empty-handed.

You were on your way to the last door of the hallway when you heard someone clear their throat behind you. You whipped your head in the thought that you had found your person of interest—

"What are you doing here?" But instead of the fiery red you were seeking for, you met a cold blue gaze that carried hidden hostility and confusion. You blinked at him as he did at you, an agonizing second passing with silence, and he opens his mouth once more to ask.

"I like your eyepatch!"

Somehow, you seem to have a knack on making people stutter on your first meetings.

Kaeya was no exception.

I didn't expect this to end with a cliffhanger holy shit, I loved writing this so much but I got caught up with so many other works and— it just became too long to continue...

Part 2 tomorrow midnight once again!

@creation-magician @boxofteenageideas @your-local-venti-simp @indigodreamtime47

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

Five years ago, the women on this site who treated me like trash over loving Labyrinth and shipping Jareth/Sarah were almost always obliviously consuming Radfem propaganda, or were out and out Radfems/Terfs themselves.

They were the types of people who casually threw the word “pedophile” around against grown women who shipped an adult Sarah with Jareth, aka literally one of the most popular ships for women in fandom for 30 years.

Pretty much invariably, these women had serious sex-negative anxieties, which included a severe paranoia about any and all kink and fetish, and porn in general. I saw a lot of shocking, fear-mongering propaganda surrounding sexual expression. Pretty much invariably, their method of approach involved immediate personal shock-value attacks on anyone they perceived to be “bad.”

Today, you can look at the way some people react to other popular so-called “problematic” ships and recognize the same toxic, fear-mongering rhetoric coming from women who consider themselves regular, trans-inclusive feminists. Sometimes it even manifests in the words of very well-meaning people (including myself here), who feel the need to talk about specific issues that pertain to their own experiences of trauma and oppression.

The people who shit on Labyrinth often seem to not really be able to comprehend that the Goblin King, like the film itself, is canonically a representation of a teen girl’s psyche, a soup of fears and anxieties and desires and dreams. He’s not a literal human adult preying on a literal child, and to read the film that way seriously undermines the entire point of the film. 

When I (and people of many fandoms) say “This is fiction, calm down,” I’m not just saying it’s not real so it cant hurt you and you can’t criticize me. I’m trying to call attention to what fiction actually is - artistic representations of feelings and experiences. The Goblin King is Sarah’s fiction. Therefore, he can be anything she or any woman who identifies with her wants him to be, including her lover when she’s grown and ready for such a thing.

I once took an alarming dive into Beetlejuice fandom to see what content was there (the cartoon was a favorite when I was little). Chillingly, what you’ll find is an extremely wounded fanbase, with a sharp divide between the older women who had long been shipping BJ/Lydia because of their love for the cartoon series (and whom were previously the vast majority of the Beetlejuice fandom), and a massive amount of young people riding the wave of the musical fad who had decided that the entire old school Beetlejuice fandom was populated by literal pedophiles. 

I saw death threats. Suicide baiting. Constant, constant toxic discourse. It did not matter how the BJ/Lydia fandom dealt with any particular issues that would exist in their ship, in fact I’m certain that the people abusing them cared very little to even consider if they were trying to handle it at all. The only thing that mattered was that they were disgusting subhuman scum asking for abuse. If you have at any time reblogged recent Beetlejuice fan art or content from fans of the musical, you have more than likely been engaging positively with the content of someone participating in toxic fandom behavior.

Nobody is really sticking up for them, either, as far as I saw. It’s really hard to imagine how painful it must be to have such a large group of people explode into into your relatively private fandom space to tell you that you are evil, vile, and deserve constant abuse, and also you are no longer allowed into the fandom space to engage in it’s content. But I think there’s something very alarming indeed about this happening specifically to the BJ fandom, and I’ll explain why. 

The pop-culture characterization of Beetlejuice, which is heavily influenced by the cartoon series to be clear, has always in my mind been a vaguely ageless being who matches with the psychological maturity of whatever age Lydia is supposed to be. He’s more or less like an imaginary friend, a manifestation of Lydia’s psyche. In fact, I would argue that i think most of us who grew up with the cartoon or it’s subsequent merchandizing before the musical ever existed probably internalized the idea as BJ and Lydia as this ageless, salt-and-pepper-shaker couple beloved by the goth community, similar to Gomez and Morticia. In each version of canon he may be a creepy ghost in the literal sense, but any adult who is capable of identifying literary tropes (even just subconciously) would read cartoon!BJ as an artistic representation of a socially awkward outcast girl’s inner world. Lydia’s darker dispositions and interests, which alienate her from most others, are freely accepted and embraced by her spooky magical friend. BJ/Lydia in the cartoon were depicted as best friends, but to my memory there was always an underlying sense that they had secret feelings for each other, which I identified easily even as a small child. In fact, their dynamic and behavior perfectly reflected the psychological development of the show’s target demographic. They are best friends who get into adventures and learning experiences together, who have delicate feelings for each other but lack any true adult romantic/sexual understanding to acknowledge those feelings, let alone pursue them.

Though I haven’t seen the Musical yet, I’ve read the wiki and I would argue that it embodies this exact same concept even more so for it’s own version of the characters, in that Beetlejuice specifically exists to help Lydia process her mother’s death.

This is not a complicated thing to recognize and comprehend whatsoever. In fact, it looks downright blatant. It’s also a clear indicator of what BJ/Lydia means to the women who have long loved it. It was a story about a spooky wierd girl being loved and accepted and understood for who she was, and it gave them a sense of solidarity. It makes perfect sense why those women would stick with those characters, and create a safe little space for themselves to and imagine their beloved characters growing and having adult lives and experiencing adult drama, in just the same ways that the women of the Labyrinth fandom do. That’s all these women were doing. And now, they can’t do it without facing intense verbal violence. That safe space is poisoned now.

Having grown up with the cartoon as one of my favorites and been around goth subculture stuff for decades, I was actually shocked and squicked at the original Beetlejuice film’s narrative once I actually saw it, because it was extremely divorced from what these two characters had evolved into for goth subculture and what they meant to me. It’s not telling the same story, and is in fact about the Maitland's specifically. In pretty much exactly the same way two different versions of Little Red Riding Hood can be extremely different from each other, the film is a different animal. While I imagine that the film version has been at the heart of a lot of this confused fear-mongering around all other versions of the characters, I would no more judge different adaptations of these characters any more than I would condemn a version of Little Red in which Red and the Wolf are best friends or lovers just because the very first iteration of LRRH was about protecting yourself from predators.

I would even argue that the people who have engaged in Anti-shipper behavior over BJ/Lydia are in intense denial over the fact that BJ being interested in Lydia, either as blatant predatory behavior a la the film or on a peer level as in the cartoon (and musical?) is an inextricable part of canon. Beetlejuice was always attracted to Lydia, and it was not always cute or amusing. Beetlejuice was not always a beloved buddy character, an in fact was originally written as a gross scumbag. That’s just what he was. Even people engaging with him now by writing OC girlfriends for him (as stand-ins for the salt-and-pepper-shaker space Lydia used to take up, because obviously that was part of the core fun of the characters), or just loving him as a character, are erasing parts of his character’s history in order to do so. They are actively refusing to be held responsible for being fans of new version of him despite the fact that he engaged in overt predatory behavior in the original film. In fact, I would venture to say that they are actively erasing the fact that Musical Beetliejuice tried to marry a teenager and as far as I’m aware, seemed to like the idea (because he’s probably a fucking figment of her imagination but go off I guess). The only reason they can have a version of this character who could be perceived as “buddy” material is because...the cartoon had an impact on our pop cultural perception of what the character and his dynamic with Lydia is. 

We can have a version of the Big Bad Wolf who’s a creepy monster. We can have a version who’s sweet and lovable. We can have a version that lives in the middle. We can have a version who’s a hybrid between Red and the Wolf (a la Ruby in OUAT). All of these things can exist in the same world, and can even be loved for different reasons by the same people.

I’ve been using Beetlejuice as an example here because it’s kind of perfect for my overall point regarding the toxic ideologies in fandom right now across many different spaces, including ones for progressive and queer media, and how much so many people don’t recognize how deeply they’ve been radicalized into literalist and sex-negative radfem rhetoric, to the point where we aren’t allowed to have difficult, messy explorations of imperfect, flawed humans, and that art is never going to be 100% pure and without flaw in it’s ability to convey what it wants to convey.

This includes the rhetoric I’ve seen across the board, from She-Ra to A:TLA to Star Wars to Lovecraft Country. We don’t talk about the inherent malleable, subjective, or charmingly imperfect nature of fiction any more. Transformation and reclamation are myths in this space. Everything is in rigid categories. It is seemingly very difficult for some of these people to engage with anything that is not able to be clearly labeled as one thing or another (see the inherent transphobic and biphobic elements of the most intense rhetoric). They destroy anything they cannot filter through their ideology. When women act in a way that breaks from their narrative of womanhood (like...not having a vagina), then those women must be condemned instead of understood. Anything that challenges them or makes them uncomfortable is a mortal sin. There is an extraordinary level of both hypocrisy and repressive denial that is underlying the behavior I’m seeing now. Much like toxic Christian conservatism, these people often are discovered engaging in the same behaviors and interests that they condemn behind closed doors (or just out of sheer cognitive dissonance). As an example, one of the people who talked shit to me about Labyrinth was a huge fan of Kill La Kill, which to my knowledge was an anime about a teenage girl in like, superpowered lingere (hence why I stayed the fuck away from that shit myself). Indeed, they even allow themselves plenty of leeway for behavior far worse than they condemn others for, and create support systems for the worst of their own abusers. 

Quite frankly, I’m tired. Instead of talking about theoretical problematic shit, we need to start talking about quantifiable harm. Because as far as I can tell, the most real, immediate, and quantifiable harm done because of anybody’s favorite ships or pieces of media seems to consistently be the kind that’s done to the people who experience verbal violence and abuse and manipulation and suicide baiting and death threats from the people who have a problem.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “Secret Weapon.”

Hello everyone!

Sorry I have not posted anything in like a weak. I have plenty of excuses number one being that the fourth book in my favorite book series (the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson came out) and I needed to finish reading it for my own sanity

number two being that I am currently working on a new novel and am trying to write 2000 words a day on that

plus I am trying to get into graduate school

also I have a job

And am experiencing a tiny bit f burnout :)

Either way I am sorry that It has been a while, and I hope you like the story today.

“Is he alright?”

“Not this again.”

“Someone should go talk to him.”

“I thought we were past this.”

Dr. Krill, Sunny, Dr Katie, Ramirez, and Maverick huddled outside the door to the observation platform looking inward to where the man stood in front of the window illuminated by a field of stars. His posture was eerily similar to how they had seen him once before, not long before a near breakdown had led him to take leave. Leave they weren’t entirely sure he would come back from.

They hoped this wouldn’t be like that, but this picture seemed all too familiar.

“Someone should go talk to him.” 

Four heads turned to face Sunny who turned the corners of her mouth down in the approximation of a frown, “Why me.”

“Well aren't you like…. His girlfriend.”

“Ex.”

Ramirez raised an eyebrow, “You guys have been pretty cuddly recently for exes.”

Sunny huffed, “The relationship has yet to be defined, but that's beside the point. Ramirez you’re his BFF or whatever you humans call it.”

Ramirez shook his head, “Me, no I think Maverick has this one. She’s all spiritual and what not, so she is like supposed to talk to people about their problems.”

Maverick snorted, “I’m a chaplain not a therapist. Talk to doctor Adric if you need that.” She turned to look to doctor Krill, “If anyone should be talking to him it’s you. You’ve been his friend the second longest and you are the most logical.”

Dr Krill waved a hand, “I am not equipped to handle your human issues.”

“That is such a cop-out answer.”

The squabble continued for a few minutes, until finally Sunny raised her voice, “Fne, fine, I will go talk to him. You all wait here.”

They quieted down clustering around the door as they watched Sunny move forward into the room. She took a deep breath and slowly approached coming up to stand beside him. She turned her head fearing what kind of expression she might find on his face, and was both surprised, relieved, and concerned to find he had an expression of puzzled concentration on his face, brows knit together, mouth turned down in a frown.

She reached up and rested a hand on his shoulder, “Hey, you alright.”

He turned his head to look up at her, “Hmmm, oh yeah…. Fine as I can be I suppose.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

His mouth turned up in a tight smile, “Only if you tell the others to stop loitering in the door and come help me out.” He raised his voice so that the others could hear and, in abashment, they headed into the room. Surprisingly Conn drifted in from the other side of the room where he had been spying from the other door.

They clustered together on one of the tables taking a seat as he turned to face them. He was smiling pleasantly, and the group glanced between each other in concern. It seemed like he was doing fine, but who were they to judge, they had been wrong before.

“Worried about me again I see.”

“I mean, you’ll forgive us. You have been…. Questionably erratic in the past.”

His smile continued,” I know, and I thank you, all for your concern about me. It is nice to know I have friends who I can count on.” He turned to look at Conn, “Go on, tell them.”

Conn floated off to the side ribbons undulating in his simulated zero gravity field, “He is stressed but not overly so.”

They nodded relieved.

He turned, putting his hands behind his back and began to pace. Hisback was straight and the way he walked was like a general examining his troops on the battlefield. “I admit that I have been distant, and I admit that in the past something like this would have overwhelmed me. I still FEEL overwhelmed though not in a drowning sort of way.” He turned the other direction, “I feel like I have been caught in an intergalactic game of chess where I am the king facing down a queen and her rooks.”

Sunny didn’t understand the metaphor but Krill certainly seemed to.

“I don’t have enough experience to play the game and so my movements are limited. But the chairwoman…. She’s a Rundi, and has trained for politics all her life in one way or another.” he turned back in the opposite direction. “And just like a king in chess I find myself the most important piece of a game that I cannot directly influence.”

They watched him pacing back and forth. They had never seen him like this, though it was better than the other options.

“I think you underestimate your position.” 

Admiral vir lifted his head, “And how is that?”

Dr Kate idly played with the ends of her hair as she thought, “Well, you know what she is planning. And she doesn't know that you know, which, I feel, gives you a leg up.”

He nodded, ‘And you are right, for sure, butI find the problem being that I’m not…. Smart enough to know how to use it.” He turned in the other direction, “I had my IQ tested at the academy you know…. Above average but nowhere close to genius, which I would need to be in order to play this sort of game.” He turned to eye krill, “We have a certified genius aboard the ship, but something tells me that politics wouldn’t be your strong suit.”

Krill shrugged rather abashedly. That was true enough.

“If only I had some sort of secret weapon.” 

***

Eris had never been off-world.

Noctopolis had been her home for as long as she could remember though the early days of her life had been spent inside a cage. She was Eunique, the only one of her kind, half human and half starborn, and sometimes, it felt, completely alone.

Despite her maturity, she was less than three years old, and had been grown at an enhanced rate inside a simulated womb using adapted DNA to configure her parts. She was completely unnatural, a freak of nature that had nothing to  do with nature. She was an unnatural abomination. And since they had been rescued, she had spend her days living and working for other people. The hybrids had needed a stable home,somewhere they could learn and grow and feel loved.

She had created that place, and provided that for a time, but she was growing exhausted.

Others had stepped in to help and volunteer. People from all over the galaxy had really shown their compassion in coming to her and either adopting the hybrids or offering to help and work athr foundation. A sweet LFIL couple (Tesraki and Human pair) had offered to take over for her as she was struggling to run what what essentially a business in some ways, though it was more a boarding house for the hybrids.

In the end there were only a few left who needed watching, and her burnout had been obvious to others.

She needed to get away.

To find her own path, but….. What was that?

Eris couldn’t survive in space like a starborn, that was well established, her bones and organ structures were like that of a human. The internal structures of a hybrid always had to be one way or another to avoid horrific malfunctions, so in most ways she was human.

Accept for her skin, and eyes of course which were starborn. She was as pale as alabaster and her eyes were wide and dark. This made her a freak to humans, so she kept her dark hair very long inorder to hide her face, which she grew more and more ashamed of by the day.

It didn’t help that she had the ability to read the thoughts of others, and knew better than anyone what people thought about her.

She wore a gravity belt sometimes since she found it felt better on her joints, but she had stopped when she left the foundation and struck out on her own. Today she wore a hoodie -- with the UNSC logo on it -- and very dark sunglasses. 

Final boarding call for flight 1427 to earth, Final boarding call.

Eris followed behind the tide of other humans pulling her luggage along behind her. She was tired, and her knees ached a little, but she supposed she was ok. Due to the nature of her eyes, she didn’t see very well as humans did, but reading the minds of others as a constant background in her head she was able to navigate better than anyone there as she knew when they were going to move on when they were going to stop. She maneuvered the tide of human bodies like no human could.

Again, Eris was mostly human. She didn’t hear though, and relied on others to do that for her, and she couldn't taste or smell either, but that was also something she could borrow.

Her senses lacked only what the people around her could and could not see.

She follow the boarding call with the other passengers and offered her ticket to the flight attendant.

The woman squinted under her hood rather suspiciously, but didn’t say anything. These space ports were well guarded, and Eris had already had to deal with other people staring at her when she went through security.

She followed the other humans onto the shuttle and took a seat. The floor glowed blue throbbi in time with the engine as she locked herself into her seat. Out the window she could see the surface of mars, Hazy grey in the distance with rough red plateau’s rising up in the distance.

It was strange to be in the human system, the genesis of half her ancestral line. SHe didn't know about her starborn half as she had never met one. She knew who her DNA donor had been in theory, though he had likely had his DNA stolen.

Eris doubted that he knew about her.

And then there was her human donor, Admiral Vir, the most famous human in the galaxy.

Eris Vir

She kind of liked that, though she never really used it, feeling he might see it as a breach of privacy. The man had been nothing but good to her the few times she had met him, and the one time he had saved her. She admired him a lot and wished she had a better relationship with him, though his job took him far away. She wasn’t the only one, most all of her hybrid brothers and sisters, who were part human,had been grown off his stolen DNA.

She was the only one, however, that seemed to care.

Eris Vir.

She sighed and leaned her head against the window.

What was she doing?

Below her the ground sped away as the automated safety system continued to give instructions.

“Preparing for warp.”

She held onto the seat feeling her insides churn as the warp sequence engaged. She jerked once against her seatbelt as te warp stopped, and below her she could see the glittering vista of the human homeworld.

Earth.

She pressed her face up to the window and gasped in awe.

It was beautiful blue and green swirled with delicate white clouds in churning spirals.

Herheart raced inside her chest.

This was it…. This is where it all began.

Preparing to dock on lunar 1 please remain in your seats until the seatbelt sign is off.

She waited patiently and stopped off with the others, walking out into the fifth spaceport of her trip, her suitcase rattling behind her.

She followed the sins to the proper docking station and waited for another shuttle that would take her to earth. It would be at least an hour for the next one to Mid-Mericanda, so she would have to wait.

She slumped in her seat and listened to the music of the girl next to hre. The music was ood, it had a nice beat.

When her boarding was called, she stood and followed onto another shuttle, which took her down through the atmosphere rattling and bouncing in her seat. She did her best to keep her hood covering her face as she stared out the window at the wondrous view below her. It was so bright!.

Noctopolis had no sunlight, but this was beautiful and colorful, and it looked so warm.

She didn’t see why everyone thought earth was so dangerous.

They touched down outside an Airport where she could see planes fuling for in-atmosphere flights, and stepped out onto the tarmac with wide eyes. Wides eyes under the radiation of the sun. Glorious, glorious heat, it warmed her through her sweatshirts and into her body making her drowsy and happy and warm. Her entire body felt energized, and even her knees seemed as if they were aching just a little less. She stood in the sun probably longer than she should have.

“Been a while since you’ve seen the sun huh?”

She jumped a little in surprise, which was unusual for her and turned to look at the human baggage attendant standing on the other side of the gate, “Oh yes…. A very…. Very long time.”

The smiling human tipped his hat at her, “Well enjoy your stay ma’am.”

She couldn’t help but smiling back thinking about how pleasant he was. His memories were warm, filled with sunny days spent with his family. It made her chest ache just to think of it as she turned and headed towards the baggage claim.

She picked up her bags just fine and then walked to stand just outside.

Suddenly very lost.

She looked up at the sky which  was a beautiful blue color she had never seen before and she breathed in the air of earth, Air thousands of years old, breath in by countless humans that had come before.

Eris frowned at herself. She needed to stop thinking of them as being so different from her. She was half human after all, even though her eyes and skin were a little strange. Still, it that moment she had never felt so alien, unsure of where to go or how to proceed.

“Need a lift. Lady.” 

She turned on the spot coming fact to face with a man leaning back against the hood of his strange yellow machine…. A taxi it seemed.

She searched or his intentions and heard nothing but his desire to work.

She walked over nervously and held up a small piece of paper, “I am looking for this address, do you know how I can get there.” He scanned the address with a chip implanted in his hand and then tilted his head to look down at his wrist as a map appeared. 

He chewed slowly on a wad of gum and blew a bubble, “Yeah I can get you there, can you pay.”

“Do you take credits?”

“Take anything as long as you meet the exchange value for dollars.”

She nodded, “I would like to be taken there then, please.”

The man nodded and touched his forehead helping her ut her suitcase in the back before opening the door for her. She climbed in, and h slid into the front seat pulling away and into traffic. Looking around she could see most of the vehicles didn’t touch the ground, though a few rolled on wheels. The high speeds at which they drove made her nervous and she clutched the harness holding her in place.

Below her she could see the city unfolding in a great sprawling vista. She stared, the architecture was so strange with sharp geometric lines mostly of steel and glass rising hundreds of feet into the air. They dropped lower into the city and eventually out to where lines and lines of similarly cut houses stood in sharp rows.

She had seen this in the memories of humans before but never thought shed see it.

They drove for a little longer until the houses gave way to sprawling fields and little tons until they pulled into a small place in comparison to the city, past a school and some other amenities before pulling in to another one of the subdivisions.

She recognized the house even though she had never seen it in person, and the Driver pulled to a stop.

She paid the man and stepped out of the car thanking him as he got her bag for her and then just drove off.

Eris was left standing alone on the quiet suburban  street under an earth sun. Though she was alone her mind was full of strange images, seen through the eyes of unusual creatures. It made her disoriented for a moment, but she quietly walked forward up the sidewalk and to the front door of the house.

She paused.

She could feel people inside, and knew that she was at the right palace, but she was nervous, how would they react to her. Would they even accept her existence?

What was she doing here?

It’s not like she was part of thor family, not by choice anyway.

She almost turned around but stopped and then raised a hand knocking softly on the door.

Eris held her breath and waited, footsteps approached the door, a man approaching thinking nothing more than one of his neighbors come to ask a question.

The door opened and Jim Vir looked down at her.

He was a tall intimidating man, one who had work hard all his life.

He tilted his head in that curious fashion humans had, “Can I help you?”

Nervously, Eris pushed back her hood and pulled off her sunglasses letting her long black hair roll down next to her face. The man’s eyes widened slightly in surprise, but the thought in his head was a little less than what she expected.

Another one

He frowned, “You’re…. Not a starborn ar you?”

Hedidn’t seem to think so recalling that Adam’s friend Conn couldn’t survive without a 0 gravity field.

She shuffled nervously, “No…. well yes…. I’m half starborn and half human.” 

Yep, another one.

To her surprise he smiled and opened the door, “You must be Eris then.”

She blinked, “You know about me/”

Dumb question as she could see Adam had told his parents about her. They even had a picture of the two of them together.

Despite hos scary he looked his thoughts and demeanor were pleasant as he opened the door to invite her in, “Guess this makes you my granddaughter in a way doesn’t it?”

“In the technical sense.” She said quietly smiling 

“Well Family is always welcome here.”

Isn’t that nice she thought.

She hoped it was going to work out

[doomonfilm]

Ranking : Gus Van Sant (1952-present)

I was somewhat familiar with Gus Van Sant prior into taking the deep dive through his catalog, but he was certainly a man that I thought I had a handle on.  I knew he had more than a few amazing films under his belt, but the recent years had not been kind to him (see the shot taken at him in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back).  I knew that he was from the Pacific Northwest (Oregon specifically), and his coming of age in an area that embraces weirdos and outsiders had an impact on him as a human and as a creator.  I knew that films like Milk and Good Will Hunting had taken Van Sant to the highest heights, while the collective panning of films like Psycho and Last Days served as valleys in a career full of glorious peaks.

What I came to discover, however, was a man with genuine creative integrity, and lots of it.  I found a director who understood his characters and actors on a human level, and shared them with viewers in ways that helped rich connections develop.  I saw a director who was not afraid to make those that society often considers outcasts the  emotionally rich and important centers of his narratives.  I watched Gus Van Sant present, explore, develop and refine his style over deeply independent and infamously studio-driven projects, giving all experiences as much care and attention as he was able.  I saw films I was familiar with find placement behind films I was new to, I discovered that his recent creative years have not been as kind to him as the first two-thirds of his career, and I can see that there still may be a bit of a smolder left in his creative fire.  

Ranking directors is a labor of love, but by no means do I consider myself the definitive professional on film canon.  I enjoyed all of the Gus Van Sant films I watched on some level, and as always, for those brave enough to interact, I’d be curious to see where you would make adjustments to the list.  But enough introduction talk, let’s get into what you folks came for!

17. Restless (2011) There are things about Restless that I want to love without judgement.  First and foremost, Mia Wasikowska is an absolute treasure who shines in this performance from the earlier portion of her career.  The portrayal of Hiroshi is one of the more subtle, substanced and interesting ways of using a ghost within the film framework.  As minor a thing as it may be to the casual moviegoer, some of this film’s technical aspects are astounding, specifically the costuming and the lighting choices.  Where the film distracts me, and therefore drops in these rankings, is where it takes the YA approach to the romantic drama, with a healthy dose of manic pixie dream girl energy thrown in for good measure.  When it comes to displaying romance on-screen, be it teenage or otherwise, there are no expectations, even for a director with a distinct style.  Where my issues arise are in the way that death is handled in this film… while I do understand that not every film has to be a distinct statement for a director (especially a film written by another individual), Gus Van Sant had already established a very mature approach to the subject of death, and the way that death and the manic pixie dream girl aspects are intertwined feels more on the amateur side than I am comfortable with for a Gus Van Sant film.  Maybe giving the impossibly troubled young man a muse with an expiration date as his way to find the best version of himself is a stroke of genius that provides a gateway for deep commentary on the concept of the manic pixie dream girl, but the film is so approachable and not the type to bare teeth (be it satirically or otherwise) that I doubt there is any subtext to its intention.  For that reason, this film finds itself on the bottom half of the Van Sant canon.

16. Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (2018) After the critical and box office disappointment that was The Sea of Trees, director Gus Van Sant had quite the hill to climb with his next film, and with his adaptation of Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, it seemed he was able to right those respective ships.  Strangely, the film failed to connect with me, and as far as I can tell, it seems to be the victim of an “all sizzle, no steak” scenario.  The film is certainly a showcase of a very diverse cast, and based on both the flashback-based and group therapy approach to the story, there are a wealth of opportunities to create memorable moments.  Unfortunately, and perhaps due to an oversight on my end, I failed to find enough substance during my viewing of the film to prop up the parade of moments.  What it felt like I was left with, sadly, was a Simple Jack-level approach to conveying a paraplegic-centered story, which undercut the fact that the film is actually telling the true story of cartoonist, artist and musician John Callahan.  That’s not to say that the film doesn’t have it’s positive aspects, such as the John Callahan illustrations and the animated versions of his work, but those positive aspects feel sparse in comparison to how much the film relishes in what feels like Oscar bait.  If nothing else, see this film for Jonah Hill, because it took me much longer than it should have to recognize him, partly due to his impressive weight loss and partly due to how dedicated he is to achieving the film’s period look.

15. The Sea of Trees (2015) Death is no stranger in the films of Gus Van Sant, but I don’t feel that it would be bold to state The Sea of Trees deals with death in the most direct manner.  For those that subscribe to grief having stages, this film accounts for all of them in some way, shape or form during the course of the narrative as we watch Arthur Brennan fall apart and rediscover himself in the wake of losing Joan Brennan, his wife.  Placing the film in Aokigahara (aka the "Japanese suicide forest") not only gives the film a sense of natural beauty, but a foreboding sense of dread and despair as well.  The core cast is as strong as any found in a Van Sant film, with Matthew McConaughey, Ken Watanabe and Naomi Watts all turning in solid performances.  Sadly, the film falters in one very core aspect : sympathy for the protagonist.  I found myself feeling very bad for Joan Brennan as I watched her arc, and despite knowing nothing about Watanabe’s character portrayal of Takumi Nakamura, I found myself sympathetic to him based solely on what he was emoting.  Arthur Brennan, however, is interesting in all the wrong ways… he is extremely cold and purposefully flat when introduced, the moments we share with the Brennans only seem to show Arthur finding joy at the expense of Joan’s pride, his view of the loss of his wife (and his world view in general) seem to be extremely self-centered, and when he does show heroic attributes they are rooted solely in self-preservation.  Perhaps if Van Sant had not already made such eloquent reflections on death via The Death Trilogy and Paranoid Park, The Sea of Trees could have been seen in a different light, but when you set such a high bar for your work, returning to stereotypical storytelling can feel flat and uninspired.

14. Last Days (2005) Last Days is a film with a weird energy and aura surrounding it… in some ways, it feels like the most performative film not only of the Death Trilogy, but out of the entire Gus Van Sant catalog.  At the risk of using too negative an adjective, it also feels the most exploitive, though neither of these observations are necessarily meant to be a knock against the film.  The Death Trilogy could not help but be exploitive at its root, as each film was inspired by an infamous death event, and with Michael Pitt’s Blake meant to be an avatar for Kurt Cobain, it would be simple to take the film at face value for some sort of glamourized and idealized fictional retelling of his tragic final moments, not to mention a few stylistic nods to iconic Cobain-related imagery.  What that viewer would be missing, in my opinion, is a film looking to make some familiar points on outsider culture (specifically alternative rock and roll counterculture and addict culture) minus all the glamour and shine.  While Blake’s house is grand, it’s decrepit and in a state of disrepair… despite it being isolated, expected and unexpected guests arrive constantly, not to mention an intrusive ringing phone that connects Blake to outworld obligations… Blake has a number of people living with him, but he almost never interacts with them.  Michael Pitt is done up to look so similar to Kurt Cobain that much of the narrative background is implied, and what we are left with is the Death Trilogy style implemented and fused onto a loose leaf narrative with just enough structure to let the supporting actors have isolated memorable moments while we watch Pitt’s Blake decay in the ways that many of us Cobain fans ruminated on in the wake of his sudden and tragic death at the height of his tortured popularity.

13. Gerry (2002) At the risk of sounding cliché, Gerry may be the most fascinating film in Gus Van Sant’s canon.  It marks a clear and definitive break in convention from a director that seemingly never cared too much for convention anyway.  Multiple aspects of this film make it extremely unique : both characters referring to one another by the same name (though Gerry eventually evolves into an all-purpose non-specific descriptor), a seemingly absent narrative, a shared goal between the characters literally referred to as “the thing” in order to purposely keep viewers in the dark and, perhaps most importantly, a deliberately methodical pacing that pushes even seasoned film lovers to the limits of their patience.  The film is beautiful, and that is a fact that cannot be denied… the painterly shot compositions of our characters in the isolated desert, the unfathomably long tracking shots that pull us deeper off the beaten path and the sonic stillness (due to a largely absent score that is replaced with the sounds of nature) either commit you fully to the experiment or come off as massively pretentious.  To view the film through that secondary lens, however, is to miss the point of it all.  Once it is understood that Gerry marked the entry point for Gus Van Sant’s Death Trilogy, you began to realize that Van Sant, in tandem with Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, are giving us an understanding of how we should view the trilogy, and how open-minded we should be in processing what is given to us, like some early high-concept version of what Quentin Dupieux would later go on to master in a more abstract manner.

12. Mala Noche (1985) It’s fitting that this was a feature-length debut from a driven and working director, as it has a very distinct look and feel to it that immediately lets you know you’re dealing with an innate storyteller and someone who has spent time observing the human condition.  In terms of visual and narrative balance, Gus Van Sant utilizes what feels like a mix of John Cassavetes and Jack Kerouac, respectively.  Van Sant’s use of titles in the film is striking, specifically in terms of the handwritten opening credits and the Dr. Pepper ad copy used to subtitle the Spanish language dialogue.  Focusing so heavily on immigration and homosexuality in 1985 is a bold choice, especially as neither group had yet to benefit (even if only minimally) from the onset of politically correct culture policing.  While the film was more than likely shot in black and white due to budgetary constraints, the infusion of somewhat modern elements (for the time) gives it a youthful and forward-thinking energy.  Having a film of this nature lean so heavily on multilingual and multicultural elements is refreshing, and even more impactful when examined under the boorish and (at times) tone deaf application that humanizes these elements.  For all of these aspects of the film, however, when examined at the pure narrative foundation, what we find is a story about how love can blind us from the reality we inhabit, and how we often choose to ignore the obvious when romance and romanticism enters the picture.

11. Psycho (1998) Of all the films in the Van Sant catalog, perhaps the bravest, boldest and most baffling entry is his nearly shot for shot remake of the iconic Alfred Hitchcock thriller and cinematic game changer Psycho.  Remakes were certainly not a new or unheard of practice at the time of the Van Sant Psycho release, but most directors opt to put significant twists or updates into their retelling of most remakes, and most films chosen do not hold the lofty stature and position that Psycho does when it comes to remakes.  Van Sant’s approach not only made viewers keenly aware of just how direct the homage was, but in some places, modern touches were added in very subtle ways to make the movie more palatable for modern audiences, including more salacious references to sexuality, sound design choices in both the diegetic and symbolic realm, and even an update or two to iconic scenes meant to make us much more uneasy with the Vince Vaughn portrayal of Norman Bates.  The actors cast were all famous and respected enough to keep the film’s timeless feeling in-tact, even if the remake could be taken as its own weird and warped project.  Personally, I’ve always loved this remake, and taken it as an experiment on the highest commercial level, and a signal to all that Van Sant (at the time) was done with the traditional approach to filmmaking and concepting.

10. Paranoid Park (2007) While many movies centered around skateboarding spend their time and design budget trying to make the outsider nature of the practice look “cool”, Paranoid Park spends its time making sure that the isolation, deep focus and rebellious attitude that come with skateboarding were more authentic than they were appealing.  High school is already a very taxing and polarizing section of juvenile development, and based on your perception at the time, the weight that the world unloads on you can feel wholly unbearable.  Perhaps this is what makes Paranoid Park such a tense film… that natural teenage angst is already imprinted into the film (and amplified due to the casting of relative unknowns), but Gus Van Sant’s signature use of alternative film stocks, obscure soundtrack and expressive, layered sound design but you square in Alex’s head from the opening moments.  As the narrative unfolds, we realize that Alex is not only dealing with standard-issue teen stress, but has unwillingly found himself involved in the type of events that change an individual’s world.  This film plays well as the first film post-Death Trilogy, as it deals with the gravity of mortality head-on much like the aforementioned three films, but does so from an adaptive stance rather than one based on true events.  If you’re a fan of skater flicks, movies with strong teen acting, or little-known Gus Van Sant gems, then Paranoid Park is a gem waiting for discovery.

9. Finding Forrester (2000) Gus Van Sant has always had a way with stories that dive below the surface of the human experience and condition, so it makes sense that his attempt at a New York-based movie about people living in “the hood” would cover an array of topics with masterful subtlety, specifically the topics of race relations, generational gaps and the blurry line between education and exploitation.  The casting on this film is extremely strong… then newcomer Rob Brown gives a riveting and dynamic lead performance, it’d be harder to cast a more perfect curmudgeon than Sean Connery, and appearances by F. Murray Abraham, Anna Paquin, Busta Rhymes and a Matt Damon cameo all stand out.  Speaking of Damon, Finding Forrester shares a similar energy to Good Will Hunting, but the proximity of release ultimately held Finding Forrester from finding its proper audience (no pun intended).  I wish I had more to say about this film outside of my personal feelings and connections to the story (which I will save for a dedicated deep dive in the future), but Finding Forrester is one of those films that has no trouble speaking for itself.

8. Promised Land (2012) As of the point that this blog post was created, this film stands as the last of the great Van Sant creations.  There is something about the Gus Van Sant approach to filmmaking that works best with “salt of the Earth” types, and with Promised Land being centered around the practice of fracking, much of that down-home nature is immediately baked into the story.  Speaking of the story, the film was co-written by the characters who ended up being the protagonist and antagonist of the picture, respectfully, which created an electric main dynamic that served as the spine for many other strong dynamics present in the film.  In terms of the cinematography, much of Van Sant’s bold approaches and stylistic shifts are absent, save for a few beautiful bird’s eye view perspective shots that give you a real idea of what rural America looks like.  Van Sant is no stranger to stacked casts, but he gets some truly top notch names to take part in this affair, and true to the clout behind these names, the performances are as stellar as they are believable and natural.  The film also touched a nerve with the actual oil industry due to some of its comments on fracking, despite it not having the reach or success of other Van Sant films.  While possibly an indicator that Van Sant would be making a stylistic shift, Promised Land still manages to capture what makes Van Sant his best self in terms of not only presenting real people, but topical and important situations.

7. Milk (2008) Gus Van Sant is clearly no stranger to having representation for the gay community in his films, so it makes sense that one of the hallmark films in his canon would center around gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk.  Much like JFK crystalized Oliver Stone, or Spike Lee was raised to another echelon by Malcolm X, Van Sant found a second round of Academy Award-level validation via this biopic while solidifying himself as a creative who could go back and forth effortlessly between big budget studio films and independent projects.  With Sean Penn giving one of his signature chameleon-like performances and leading the pack, this Van Sant production is filled with tons of burgeoning talent who have since gone on to make names for themselves in the industry, including the likes of Emile Hirsch, Diego Luna, James Franco, Alison Pill and others, plus a standout performance from Josh Brolin (who also depicted George W. Bush in the same year for the aforementioned Stone).  While it may not be the most technically marveling film of Van Sant’s career, it is clearly one of his most important, and the way that it handles the messages it intends to share is as confident as it is even-keeled, which is important for a film that could have easily become a soapbox for espousing personal beliefs and political agendas.

6. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993) This Gus Van Sant adaptation of the famed author Tom Robbins novel shares the same creative energy of films like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Natural Born Killers, Harold and Maude and so on in the sense that it is a very expressive film with a very specific idea it is looking to present.  Where the aforementioned films explored ideas of free love taken to the extreme, the toxicity of media, love without judgement and so on (respectively), Even Cowgirls Get the Blues puts femininity and identity outside of the male gaze squarely in its crosshairs.  Uma Thurman takes on the role of Sissy with wide-eyed zeal, floating through a series of hitchhiker-based adventures until her reluctant visit to the Rubber Road Ranch helps her find the missing piece of her puzzle.  Seeing a bizarre, star-studded tale of a woman finding her agency sounds like it would work on the surface, but from what I could find, the film failed to make a connection with audiences and is considered a commercial and critical failure (which is probably why it was the toughest film to track down on this list).  That being said, I’m a sucker for films that catch a bad rap, especially when the combination of such a unique director and visionary author are the foundation of it, because it makes me curious about why I find connection where others did not… who knows, maybe it was those extremely distracting rubber thumbs (the only real knock I can make on the film), or maybe the Tom Robbins style is tough to transfer from page to screen, but for my money’s worth, I can see the vision.

5. My Own Private Idaho (1991) Somewhere within the intersection of films like Midnight Cowboy and Fight Club lies My Own Private Idaho, an extremely personal and nuanced film that covers many topics with depth and an ease that comes with wisdom and experience.  For example, when it comes to views on identity, we get two rich narratives that could easily both be their own film : Mike (portrayed by River Phoenix) is going through a crisis of identity based on a sordid history with his mother and absentee father that makes his search for love transform into a life of hustling as a way to find momentary intimacy; meanwhile, Keanu Reeves (who plays Scott) is an entitled young man awaiting an inheritance that decides to spend the time until it happens “slumming” with those many would consider the outcasts of society, much like the “tourists” spoken of by Edward Norton’s narrator in Fight Club.  The struggle with masculinity in the face of homosexuality is all over this film, from its multiple male on male connections to the very toxic manner that the core group interacts with one another, when they are not grieving or putting their livelihood in danger via petty crimes.  In terms of Van Sant style, the film is one of his most innovative (outside of the film holding the top spot) in terms of looks, with its unique range of colorful title cards, the pinhole vision that Mike uses on his road, or even the standout magazine rack sequence.  The film is also a perfect follow-up to Drugstore Cowboy, and could easily double feature with it to this day.  As someone not wholly familiar with Shakespeare’s Henry plays, I did not catch that My Own Private Idaho was an adaptation, so I will not only have to revisit it with that familiarity in tow, but  I will have to take a look into James Franco’s re-cut, My Own Private River, as well.

4. Elephant (2003) Based solely on the nature and definition of a trilogy, a second film can make or break things.  Gerry and Last Days share similarities in how quiet and isolated they are, so it makes sense that Elephant, part two of Van Sant’s Death Trilogy, would in many ways be the meat of the trilogy sandwich in terms of style and thematic substance.  Elephant operates on several distinct levels based on Van Sant’s observations of the world going into the new millennium, as the film allowed him a foundation for both experimentation and examination by proxy.  While the long takes and vast amount of distance traveled during said takes was present in all three films of the trilogy, Van Sant made a concentrated effort to make the shots look and feel similar to that of video games like the later Grand Theft Auto entries, hence a number of the shots being positionally locked during travel (often times a few feet behind the character at the center of that moment’s focus).  There are ramp-downs of the frame rate to punctuate certain moments, and quite often the camera is thrown on a tripod and allowed to take in the array of high schoolers living their standard life.  It is this mundane world-building aspect that not only gives the viewer a rapid but deep look into a handful of character’s lives, but it gives you a sense of the school’s social hierarchy while forcing you to reflect on where you once stood within it.  Per the film’s clever title, the elephant in the room eventually appears in the form of Eric and Alex, the pair of school shooters meant to reflect the Columbine Massacre perpetrators.  While school shootings weren’t an unknown phenomenon going into the 2000’s, Elephant became prophetic in its vision by releasing right before the numbers started rising at an alarming rate on these incidents.  In that sense, Elephant holds the dual distinction of not only being one of Van Sant’s best films, but one of his most important.  I will soon be looking into the 1989 Elephant film as well.

3. Drugstore Cowboy (1989) The power of Drugstore Cowboy as a modern-day narrative tragedy about the epidemic of prescription drugs, the dark allure of crime and the oddball way that broken people find solace in one another is immediately evident to anyone who has had the pleasure to see Gus Van Sant’s studio directorial debut.  Where the film really stands out however, in my opinion, is the way that Van Sant is able to achieve his major studio look while deeply applying a very artistic and personal aesthetic to the cinematography and editing.  The traditional looks are interspersed with the use of different film stocks, subtle blends of animation and flashes of stylistic edits that were almost certainly an inspiration for Darren Aronofsky’s “hip-hop editing” style.  Add to this an incredibly intuitive and expressive core cast driven by the chemistry between Matt Dillon and Kelly Lynch (and a very early Heather Graham supporting appearance), plus a strong appearance by the always memorable Max Perlich, a fiery James Remar performance and an iconic cameo from William S. Burroughs.  The jazz-influenced score not only makes key scenes livelier, but it is a symbolic statement on the drug use depicted in the film, while simultaneously playing counter to the soundtrack choices.  Period, point-blank, Drugstore Cowboy is the kind of film that surely put the world on notice, and was a clear signal of the magnificent work that would follow.

2. Good Will Hunting (1997) If held up to the standards of what people consider to be good (or even classic) film, Good Will Hunting more than holds up to scrutiny.  Visually there are a small handful of flourishes, and having Elliot Smith’s music accompany Will’s painful but enlightening journey has only become more of a bittersweet sting as the years go by.  In terms of performances, everyone brought their A+ game to the table, be it the leading performances of Matt Damon, Robin Williams or Stellan Skarsgård, the supporting performances of Ben Affleck or Minnie Driver, or even the engaging nature of Cole Hauser and repeat scene stealer Casey Affleck.  After a flurry of dedicated fandom viewings in the years following this film’s release, a very long period away from the film where I had leagues of personal growth, and a revisitation for this set of rankings, what I have discovered is that Good Will Hunting presents a wish fulfillment fantasy that was nearly incapable of being a reality in the pre-internet age for anyone other than a character like Will : an undiscovered genius with a degree from the school of hard knocks.  In a world where people often wish they had the correct answer to every question, the looks and personality to be a social magnet, and the ability to back up any tough talk with stone hands, Will Hunting stood as an idealized example you wished you could peel off the screen and have some beers with.  As the internet has invaded our lives, however, most everyone has turned into a keyboard version of Will Hunting, looking for fights online when not having briefly intimate Google sessions to flex our supposed knowledge.  Much like Will, many people find that the knowledge minus the wisdom of worldly experience and vulnerability leaves you a shell of a person filled to the eyeballs with regret, and perhaps that is why this film only gets better as the years go by, and remains among the best of the Van Sant creations.

1. To Die For (1995) For the longest time, I avoided To Die For simply because I was not a fan of Nicole Kidman…  the vast majority of her roles held no interest to me prior to To Die For (it took Eyes Wide Shut for me to really start paying attention to her), and because she was so key to the film, there was never a sense of urgency about seeing it.  As time went by, however, I started to hear rumblings that To Die For may have been a bit ahead of its time, to the point that technology and social practices have caught up to some of the ideas presented in the film.  I finally watched it for this ranking set, and man, I really missed the boat on this one.  Plain and simple, this film is pure genius on every level.  The presentation starts off documentary-esque, which not only allows for expedited distribution of backstory information, but immediately gives you an idea for the personalities of our key characters.  Kidman’s portrayal of Suzanne stood as the textbook example for what has become commonly known as sociopathy, with her blind desire for fame and respect leading to a wake of human destruction.  In terms of narrative pacing, the film proceeds like a match dropped at the endpoint of a long gasoline trail, slowly drifting towards the eventually point that everything blows up and damage must be assessed while blame and accountability must be handled, resulting in a truly powerful ending more than deserving of the heavy lifting that precedes it.  The 24-hour news cycle was on the horizon in 1995, daytime talk shows and MTv’s The Real World had not shifted into the reality TV landscape that we know today, and while a few high profile cases such as the Menendez Brothers and Pamela Smart trial (the loose inspiration for this film) had happened, the bombshell and watershed trail that was the O.J. Simpson murder case was hot on the heels of To Die For’s release (the same month, actually).  Stylistically, the film also bears striking resemblance to an updated version of Sunset Boulevard, be it knowingly or not.  Long story short, the best films not only comment on the times in which they are created, but gain relevance as time passes, and To Die For handled both of these things phenomenally.

[tsu9live]

Before I start, this is in no offence to anyone else’s opinion. You are all valid and probably make more sense than me. This is a bit of a rant and then a short character study.

Warning: This got too long.

I tend to come online for manga updates and ended up reading through opinion posts because I am a curious cat. Most of the time I come across really well-thought out posts, really valid points. But then MHA is also a soap opera/family drama where the main character is not supposed to have any progress in his story unless its to bolster or move along the other favs . But then they shouldn’t be bolstering his story either because why is a story about Deku’s journey all about Deku?

But then there are people who are happy Deku is finally edgy and they want him to wipe the floor with his classmates who love him and are willing to fight him if only to get through to him. So there are both extremes and honestly there is validity in all these thoughts because despite the writer’s intentions, a reader brings the story to life.

I personally hate making my own predictions because most of the time I feel it ruins the experience of reading a work for me. I go in with different expectations and when the story goes a different way I don’t enjoy it as much but I feel its more my fault.

So I do understand and respect the difference of opinion because there is no fandom without discourse.

In my opinion though, this Deku solo arc was a long time coming and I think Horikoshi has handled it really weird. I’m still trying to understand what he wants us to think about.

A story about heroes and putting your life on the line for someone else is controversial, but, I thought it was a given. Recklessness had been part of Deku’s character but an overly-cautious character would do nothing. Deku’s lack of self-preservation wasn’t unnatural for a hero, he rushed in to save Bakugo from the slime-villain when Pros stood by putting himself at risk but it spurred AM to act. Katsuki experienced it as well during the war arc, when his body moved to save Deku.

Going to Kamino to save Bakugo was suicidal, reckless and potentially flawed but story-wise it made sense. How is hero-work anything than risky? Kirishima and Todoroki initiated it.

Disclaimer: Deku, Bakugo, Uraraka, Momo, Toga and Shigaraki are characters that are very dear to me because they have had me extremely invested since the beginning of the story. This is my personal opinion, flaws, rant... basically me working through my feelings about this manga I had been obsessed with recently.

1) There is an opinion where Bakugo had a right to be upset/angry/bully Deku because he wanted to be a hero but did nothing for it. Firstly, I don’t understand the need to justify his behaviour when he himself has expressed regret on it. People want others to move on from the “go jump off the roof comment” but won’t stop talking about how everything about Bully Bakugo was justified. Deku was weaker, but he had the same dreams, dreams that were the basis of their friendship earlier on. Regardless of how Deku wanted to achieve them, Bakugo had no right to keep trying to stop him from doing so. No, 5, 10, 14 year old Bakugo did not do so because he had the brilliant foresight that Deku would be self-sacrificial and it was for his sake, he was an angry kid and Deku was a timid, wannabe that confused him, intimidated him even. Taking out his anger was a way of working through those feelings. He was in Deku’s words “a punching bag”. In a world where the powerful reign, Bakugo couldn’t understand how a quirk less, weak little boy could think he could stand shoulder to shoulder with someone as gifted as Bakugo. Yeah, society is very much to blame. The change and maturity Bakugo goes through where he is humbled by a cast of amazing hero students who are just as gifted yet with inspiring personalities and then traumatic consequences of being kidnapped, watching his hero use the last of his powers to hold back a great evil, having that fight with Deku where he bared himself open, failing the licensing exam, training with todoroki, the internship... the war has changed him in a way that has brought out his full potential as a hero and a person. There is a lot to admire about him yet I see so many people fixate on headcanons that glorify his every action/word instead of praising the amazing person he has become/how well written his growth has been.

2) “Deku wanted to be a hero and he did nothing for it”. “He could have been a quirkless hero like Batman.” Listen, the story is about AFO vs OFA first and foremost. Hori has done a good job of worldbuilding and adding a cast of interesting characters that its easy to forget what the main plot point of the story is. But it really is about a weak/timid boy who was born with a sort of handicap who dared to dream to be someone strong enough to have others rely on him instead. A lot of the times people want to become something they feel they needed, someone who gave people hope just by existing. Its natural for someone who is ‘considered useless’ to want to be the most useful person ever. His mother didn’t believe he could do it, Bakugo told him repeatedly he shouldn’t even try, everyone else made fun of him, and his hero gave him a wake-up call, no... you can’t be a hero without a quirk. Deku studied heroes and quirks all his life, hoping he’d find something that could work for his advantage. Not every hero relies on physical strength, their bodies are adapted to the nature of their quirks. Deku’s analysis, quick-thinking and impulsive nature is what helped him progress even after getting the quirk because he didn’t gain control until really late. People act like he was handed power, seem to forget he has just learned to use it without consequences. His studies of quirks also made him the best candidate to get new quirks, quirks that he has learned to utilise as tools quickly and efficiently. He was doing what he thought was going to help him become a hero without guidance, without backing and constant discouragements. Its admirable and relatable. If you don’t relate to him that’s fine, your life was different.

Batman was loaded. Deku is not an inventor. The Editors shot that idea down because it would not have survived in a genre where power fantasies are the main hooks. Aizawa, sure he’s training Shinso because he sees his potential now but he would have either expelled Deku/moved him to General studies on that first day for scoring the least in that test. He changed his mind not because of Deku’s quirk but because of Deku’s ingenuity.

When Deku did find his guidance, he tried to do years of work/training in a short period of time. He acknowledges how far behind he is, that the rest are leagues above him and all he wants is to be able to stand side by side with those incredible people and he would go to all lengths to do so. DEKU has never said he wants to be the number one hero. He always says he wants to be one so reliable he saves people with a smile and later on, he wants to be a hero that can save without having other people worry about him. Bakugo works hard, he’s not just exceptional he works hard for it, all of 1A do but saying Deku does nothing when he is constantly shown, studying, training his body, understanding his shortcomings and working on it is just petty. You don’t like him because of his saviour complex, newsflash, that is a hero thing. Hero course is about that, Deku’s is just highlighted because of how often he gets hurt. How can you be a Todoroki stan and hate Deku (although to be fair its your right, I’m just making a point), the kid saw Shouto and decided that it was more important for Shouto to stop hurting and gave him a hell of a fight. I still remember Shouto’s smile, it gave me goose bumps.

Deku’s lack of self-preservation is a part of his programming so much that he hasn’t noticed it yet. Deku broke his bones, but he didn’t realise the permanent damage. When Deku got injured with Muscular, he was never intending to fight him alone. He wanted backup, his phone was broken and he wanted to get Kouta out and tried but Muscular gave him no opening. He was driven into a corner and fought his way out. Like Aizawa said, “He got that injured because he has no intention of dying.” Before rushing to find Bakugo, he informed his superior first, knowing she can spread the message.

The fight with Stain, he messaged his location to all his classmates, didn’t intend to fight Stain alone, just defend Iida long enough for help to come along. Fight with overhaul, he just wanted to get Eri away and when he understood Eri’s power, he gave her the opportunity to fight back against her oppressor by teaming up with him, keeping her secure with the cape made out of Lemillion’s hair. During the whole fight he was present-minded enough to take the fight away from civilians and managed to prevent damage and casualties. During Natsuo’s rescue he played support.

During the war arc, he realised with despair that Shigaraki was coming in all his destructive glory for him and tried to stop him before but he didn’t object to Bakugo joining him. In the movie Heroes Rising (the initially planned ending) he willingly gave OFA to Bakugo, because he trusts him with his life, and was willing to be quirkless again if that’s what it took to keep the kids safe, and himself and Bakugo alive. Its mostly been good decisions on his part.

Its the war arc that’s been his downfall. Watching his childhood friend/rival almost die, his best friend, his mentors almost die while he could barely hold Shigaraki back set off a fight or flight response in him. The seriousness of how Shigaraki came for him and left such death and destruction in his wake because he was not strong enough and AFO is a monster and the sight of Shigaraki and the reality of his situation pushed him down the current path. His solo arc started well because constantly training in the field has helped him master his quirk, and he had the backup of the vestiges who trained and guided him in learning to use it as a toolset instead of a one-punch solution. Then coming face to face with the flaws of hero society and the power, manipulative nature and destructive intentions of AFO has prepared him emotionally. He is not acting like AM, he hasn’t in a while. He is acting like NANA and i don’t blame him because she’s in his head. No adult stopped him from doing this, instead using him as bait to lure out the league.

When they started realising he’s spiralling out of control, that’s when they realised they messed up.

He’s running on adrenaline/fumes alone and I think he’s actually terrified.

“AFO is OFA’s responsibility” “Tell the world I am here” “You’re not as strong as me yet,” “You are not a worthy successor”

Deku isn’t self-centered and but I agree with the screw loose comment (its years of “you are useless, not good enough, not worthy and I bet a dozen or so concussions, bloodloss, dehydration lol). I know Bakugo means well and that’s how he talks. At the moment, he’s probably the only one whose sole goal is Deku’s survival. Deku’s like a wild animal, terrified, lost and as always backed into a corner. AFO has him where he wants him and I am curious to see how class 1 A are going to get through to him. I don’t want them to fight, all those fanarts of Bakugo reaching his hand out to Deku and then maybe punching him in the face would have been a lot better then the mocking (the slow clap was a little triggering for me) but again maybe it just bothers me and Deku needs it. I’ll just have to wait and see. Deku and his class together would be an unstopabble force and I am waiting for that to finally happen.

P.S. Class 1 A looks so mature, everyone going crazy about Bakugo and his tie and I’m here like, look at baby Kirishima and his roots <3

I’m sorry if I gave anyone a headache lol.

[cancerbiophd]

Hey! I’m sure this is a question you get asked a lot but how did you decide that a PhD was for you? I’m about to enter the last year of my undergrad and have really enjoyed the lab work I’ve done previously but it feels like a rather large commitment when I’m not 100% sure I’m going to end up in research at the end of it. I was just wondering how you knew it was what you wanted to do!

Hello!

I actually have never been asked that question before, which was surprising for me too. I get a lot of “how did you know lab research was right for you”, but never specifically about how I knew a PhD was right for me (or maybe I did and I just didn’t answer it well), so I’m really glad you asked!

As you said, it really does come down to answering yes to both these statements: 

The career path I want is best accomplished with a PhD

I am willing to commit to the challenging journey of 5-6 years of grad school (+1-3 years of being a post-doc, if applicable to your field)

So here are the reasons how I knew getting a PhD was the best past for me:

I loved research. And I loved research beyond just doing benchwork--I loved the brainstorming, the experimental design, the analyzing of results, the troubleshooting of the unexpected, the dissecting of both broad and fine details as you solve a puzzle, the moment when you realize you just discovered something no one else has ever seen before, and communicating those exciting results. I was infatuated. When I was working as a lab tech in a cancer research lab after undergrad there were nights where I couldn’t sleep because my brain just would not stop brainstorming new ideas and questions about my research. I told that to a current grad student in the lab at the time and he was like “You know what that means? You have the mind of a grad student.”

And I wanted to broaden my skillsets. I could do a few techniques really well, but I really wanted to learn more, and I also wanted to learn more about those techniques--why do this, and not an alternative? What would happen if we tried this? I wanted to explore more. 

Going off of that, I wanted to keep learning. And not just looking up wikipedia articles by myself; I wanted formal training (because I had no idea what I needed to learn). And I’ve always been good at learning in a classroom setting so I knew I would excel at that part in grad school. 

It would lead me to the career path I wanted, which was to work at a biotech company as a leader of a research team and then become a consultant. True, a PhD is not required for that in many cases, but a PhD would better prepare me for those roles

I enjoyed writing and orally communicating about my research. PhD’s do metric ton of writing (grants, papers, reports, etc) and oral presentations (conferences, meetings, collaborations, etc). And I really enjoyed (and was good at) all that. 

I wanted to be in a position where I could lead and mentor. As someone with the highest degree in the room, institutions look to the PhDs for direction. So PhDs will become leaders--whether it’s a lab of their own in academia, or a team in an industry setting, etc. Even grad students have undergrads, or have to TA. And I was ready for, and wanted, all that. 

I was good at wearing a lot of hats. PhDs don’t just do a singular task; during grad school we learn to be versatile (you have to be in an academic lab setting), and that versatility carries through later as we become excellent multitaskers and are good at adapting to new challenges. And as someone who has always successfully juggled school and work and multiple extracurriculars, and had experience being a rockin lab manager (in the lab I worked in after undergrad), I knew I was up to it. 

I loved working by myself but I also loved working as a team--and that’s a necessity for research in general, even for non-PhDs, but PhDs are more likely to have to excel at both. 

I was mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially ready for the challenges and commitment of 5-6 years of grad school (plus 1-3 years of being a post-doctoral fellow, if applicable). Grad school is tough as balls, and you have to be just as tough, or at least have the resources to help you. I took a gap year of 2.5 years after undergrad to a) figure out what the heck I wanted to do/get research experience and b) mature to the point where I could be ready for something like grad school. I feel that working as a full-time lab tech really allowed me to immerse myself into the closest setting of a grad student in my field as possible. Being there 40 hrs/week really is different than when you’re an undergrad researcher popping in for 2 hours/day. I also took a grad-level class to see if I could mentally balance class and research. I know that’s obviously not an option available to everyone (nor is it necessary), but that’s just how I knew that every part of me could handle the rigors of grad school. 

Going off of that, I had a lot of grit and discipline. Sometimes that’s all you have left to get you through the day in grad school when everything else feels depleted. Grad students do a lot of things they’re not motivated to do, but we gotta get it done anyway, and sometimes grit is all we have to make our limbs move. 

PhD holders and PhD students at the time were telling me I’d be great at pursuing one. They know better than anyone what it takes, and they knew I was ready. 

Also dang, I’d be lying if I said money didn’t play a role in it. I graduated college in 2011 during the grand ol recession, and the job market stunk. I saw that options for biology majors were slim to none (I was extremely lucky to have found my lab tech job), so I knew I had to either wait it out until the job market bounced back, or make myself a more attractive candidate for the workforce, or both! (Let’s not talk about the economy during Covid lol). Also, the thought of making over 100k with a PhD was attractive. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, but money does buy happiness, because money buys food and a roof over your head and warm clothes and healthcare and hobbies so uh, yeah, I did get the highest degree possible partially for the money. 

So why not a Masters? That’s a good question!! And the truth is: I didn’t know I could accomplish most of what I wanted with a Masters. And that was my fault for not doing my own research, but I think I was just.. surrounded by PhDs (both in my academic lab setting and in my family) and the thought of doing a Masters never really occurred to me. Also, idk, I knew in my heart and in my bones I wanted a PhD, so I’m not sure if I would be happy with a Masters. 

Lastly, because this list is personal to me, getting a PhD would get me off my mom’s shit-list and end her endless emotional abuse towards me being worthless, etc. Long story, but yeah, it did factor into it as kind of a bonus point. 

So thar’s my spiel.  

One last thing I want to add: though continuing research is the most common career path for PhD holders, it’s not the only one. Here’s what else is available for PhDs (from the book Career Opportunities in Biotechnology and Drug Development by Toby Freedman)

If the image is hard to see, there are 4-ish main branches, and then some sub-branches (and even more specialized sub-branches that aren’t labeled):

R&D: Discovery research, preclinical research, bio/pharmaceutical product development, project management, clinical development, regularly affairs, medical affairs

Services: Recruiting, law, venture capital & banking, management consulting

Operations: Bio IT, quality, operations

Commercial Operations: Business development, corporate communications, product support, sales, marketing

And that’s just in the industry sector--academia, government, and non-academia/non-govt research institutions are also obviously available as career choices, though those would focus more on R&D (and also teaching). 

You obviously don’t need to know the specifics of your career path before committing to grad school, but I think you should have a general idea that what you want to do would best be accomplished with a PhD. 

If you’re still on the fence, I would advise:

Talking to more grad students or degree holders--both PhD and Masters (our Gradblr Discord is great for that!)--to paint a bigger picture.

Informational interviews are also great, especially if you’re interested in learning more about those career paths above. 

You can also explore the field a bit more in-person by starting off with a Masters (less time commitment than a PhD, though more expensive), or an entry-level research job like I did. 

Best of luck! 

[shinneth]

Spill the tea on Stevinel (just because I saw one for conniverse) And yes, I'm not on Anonymous. Because I'm a proud stevinel shipper and no one's going to stop me from loving it, also your blog is cool

And you know what? That’s the right attitude to have! People should be free to express what they ship without shielding themselves with anonymity. I don’t blame the people that do these days - antis are fucking dangerous people - but goddamn, people. It’s fiction. 

So I commend you for shipping Stevinel openly and proudly! Hard to believe it’s actually considered a bold and brave move just to be open and honest about harmless preferences these days. 

That said, I’m sorry it took so long to get to this. I felt you deserved an epic, given how unexpectedly successful my tirade on why Connverse is a shit ship with an undeserved golden reputation was...

But the truth is, even though I’m very much a Stevinel shipper, it’s definitely not my OTP.

And it’s very tricky for me to figure out how to spill the tea on Stevinel in a way that’s distinct from me doing the same with Stevidot.

Because, well, let’s face it: these two ships, beyond being very similar in nature, have also endured identical hardships from the fandom.

All the death threats Stevinel fans get from the raging antis for daring to ship something so “problematic/immoral/wrong/not Connverse”? 

Stevidot fans have been treated that exact same way for years. And still are. For the exact same reasons.

Both Stevinel and Stevidot shippers are valid, but the fandom constantly turns a blind eye to Rebecca Sugar’s husband who also worked on the show outright saying gem x human ships are FAIR GAME.

And also turn a blind eye to the recent interview where Sugar herself stated that the gems are more like AI - a conclusion I and many others deduced ages ago just by how gems are portrayed in the show. 

But by god, they’ll hang on Matt Burnett’s word that “grown gems” are a thing even though canon itself explicitly states that GEMS DON’T GROW.

Just like how despite Maya Petersen outright admitting that Aroace!Peridot is just her headcanon, people treat it like the fucking gospel now.

(no offense to anyone who’s committed to that particular headcanon - I just don’t really see it with Peridot in particular and it’s really fucking stupid to claim it’s 100% canon when the source herself explicitly said it wasn’t)

Well, it’s canon that Spinel kissed Steven and he didn’t turn into dust. And Steven was already well on his way down the path of self-destruction at this point in time; he would’ve gone monster whether this happened or not. 

Also, how often does a character get the “heart eyes” expression for just a platonic love?

If there was ever a scene where Connie or Steven had heart eyes, no doubt most of the pricks would scream “YES!!!! UNDENIABLE PROOF THAT THEY’RE IN LOVE!!!”

But when it’s Spinel, suddenly it doesn’t count? Really?

How convenient.

There’s also the stupid idiots who saw the conceptual development of Spinel in that movie artbook and saw some vague color keys during a conceptual stage and claimed that Spinel was “family” to Steven - which of course must mean “related” and therefore must make Stevinel an incestuous relationship! 

Which is bull. Also shit. It’s already common knowledge that gems don’t work that way. She was the designated playmate for Steven’s mother. Nothing more.

Of course, most gems who come in Steven’s orbit end up being sort of a family to him. 

But everyone seems to have this impression that a gem being part of Steven’s family means they become additional surrogate mom figures.

And yeah no, that’s dumb and wrong. Garnet and Pearl are really the only ones I’d consider actual “mom figures”. Amethyst’s more of a big sister. Everyone else can vary depending on perspective, but I’ve never seen any of the other gems as anything close to a motherly figure for Steven. Any time I see shit about Lapis or Peridot being regarded as “gem moms” to Steven, I laugh my ass off. They are so not moms or any kind of authoritative figure for Steven. Bismuth at best is more of the fun-loving aunt.

There are more roles in a family than just a paternal/maternal substitute. In fact, I believe Steven has considered Connie to be part of his family well before they hooked up in canon.

(as a side-note, I love how people who are allegedly SO squicked out by age gap ships totally pardon Connverse - you guys realize Connie was 14 in Future, right? Possibly 15 depending on the time scale? There’s gonna be a point in the relative near future where Steven is 18 and Connie isn’t - why don’t I hear you assholes angst about that “atrocity”, huh?)

I honestly do consider the CG B-Team as part of Steven’s family, but more in a loose sense. But by that same token, I consider Connie as part of the family in a similar manner. 

Especially since Spinel was shoved off to live with the Diamonds after the movie - and the Diamonds themselves have a very fucked-up relationship among themselves to the point where I honestly hesitate to put a familial label on it at all - it’s extra stupid to try and paint Stevinel as something with incestuous overtones when it clearly doesn’t. 

Spinel does happen to be a perfect representative of how full of shit antis are about age gaps, though. 

While Peridot’s age has always been left vague, we know she can’t be 5K or older due to being an Era 2 gem. Due to her utter lack of knowledge of Era 1 events (or being completely sold on the Diamonds’ propaganda) and her general inexperience with her own equipment - as well as her ability to quickly adapt to Earth - I always headcanoned Peridot as being especially young. Like, younger-than-Steven young. 

Mostly because Peri’s attitude reeks of Gen Z - also because it’d be nice for a change to have a gem who isn’t thousands of years old like literally every other noteworthy gem in the show. We need a representative of gemkind who hasn’t been around for ages. 

Of course, Spinel’s backstory proves that even if they went the boring route and made Peridot thousands of years old just like everybody else, it wouldn’t really mean much of anything. She’d be no less of a valid romantic option for Steven regardless of age.

Spinel is several thousands of years old, and the movie explicitly shows us what exactly that amounts to for a gem.

As I mentioned earlier, Sugar sees the gems more like AI. Spinel remaining in one spot for several millennnia, not moving an inch, not speaking to anyone, not seeing anything other than a gradually-deteriorating garden... yeah, and somehow, despite all that, Spinel’s still very childlike per her design. She had literally no room to mature or accrue life experience: Pink Diamond basically hit the pause button on her entire life.

Even though she’s several thousands of years old, through no fault of her own, Spinel’s mindset remained unchanged. It wasn’t until Steven inadvertently came into her life that she became twisted - understandably so after finally realizing she’d been abandoned by Pink. 

But she still didn’t completely lose her true self. Spinel realized on her own that Steven didn’t deserve to suffer just because his mom was a negligent asshole. She also came to understand on her own that unlike Pink, Steven truly cared for her no matter what shit she threw his way. 

Steven could give Spinel the care and attention she always deserved; something Pink totally denied her while deceiving her into wasting away with her abandoned playground. He could be the one to give Spinel the love she always deserved but was either denied or manipulated into believing she got. 

Honestly, this is more than enough to warrant building something more between these two. 

The age gap is irrelevant. The two have chemistry. They aren’t related.

(and honestly, this is fiction - these details are largely irrelevant in fiction anyway. I’m only bringing it up because it doesn’t take much research to find that every label the antis put on Stevinel is complete inaccurate Diamond propaganda bullshit)

Stevinel is FINE. Let people ship it if they want to!

Um... is that good enough?

Honestly, I’m not gonna lie: Stevinel’s pretty goddamned popular; so much that I’m a bit jealous of it. I enjoy the ship a lot, but I’ve been keeping it at arms-length all this time. I’m looking forward to when I can write my own brand of Stevinel interaction when I get to introduce her in my series, but that’s still a while to go. 

Also, there’s almost zero Peridot/Spinel material, let alone my Peridot/Steven/Spinel OT3. And Stevidot material is still hard to come by; I’m noticing Stevinel’s still quite a bit easier to find by comparison. 

So in a way, I feel many other unpopular ships deserve some tea-spilling sooner than Stevinel because Stevinel at least still has a sizable fanbase. Same can’t really be said for a lot of similar ships here...

A lot of this can apply to other Steven x gem ships, honestly. 

But I guess I haven’t been showing Stevinel much proper love due to my devotion to my superior SU-AU. I can only hope I can soon reach a point where I can have GA Spinel react to Steven, since their dynamic will be significantly different.

(and then one day I’ll finally make the Peridot/Steven/Spinel OT3 fic!!)

Until then, I can only hope I did Stevinel some justice here!

[hmgfanfic]

Talk about all the Fillory worldbuilding in LQoF, please :)

THIS IS INEXCUSABLY LATE. I’m so sorry!

And I wish I could say it was just my scatterbrainedness, which is definitely a constant factor, but it was also that when you sent this, I was deeeeeeeep into writing the final few chapters of Little Quirks of Fate and I was kind of... in my head about it. It took a lot longer to finish than I had planned (a cardinal sin to my particular combo of severe ADHD and Type-A personality) and I was spending excessive amounts of time making sure I figured out a satisfying ending by my own exacting standards, so I just didn’t have the headspace to think through my early process yet. Very sorry about that :( But now that I’m finally done, I’m excited to look back! So if you’ll indulge me a very late answer, I’d be tickled. 💗

Long ramblings and major fic spoilers under the cut.

The truth is a lot the world building came down to character stuff foremost, followed closely by my preferences as a writer. I adapted the world to the story I wanted to tell, while using the little bits of information we’re given in canon as a baseline, rather than building the story around the world. And that was a lot more fulfilling for me, since I only really love worldbuilding through the lens of character, rather than as an exercise unto itself (though it’s super fun once you get rolling.)

To explain what I mean by that, you need to know that Little Quirks of Fate was originally going to be a oneshot. My plan was about 25-30k (lol) of a pure S2 retelling, only with Quentin in the role of Fen. It was also going to take a much more traditional enemies-to-lovers’ path—with Quentin as an active member of the FU Fighters—and the whole thing was going to be in his POV. Also, they weren’t even going to kiss until after the bank heist (which, yes, was going to be a thing here), but that got abandoned the fastest in favor of trying my hand at smut. But two things made me realize I needed to significantly shift course:

1) I was struggling to make Quentin actually feel like Quentin. I wrote this very atmospheric early scene at the FU Fighters encampment, with lots of description of the bonfires and the way their shirts dyed in Fillorian red looked like blood (you get it.) It took place in the black of night, shrouded in secrecy, and when Bayler questioned Quentin about his new husband, Quentin said something like, “He’s a drunk idiot, we have the advantage.” It was all very lush and dramatic, but it really, really, really didn’t feel like Q in any recognizable way to me. Now, I’m not someone who thinks Q needs to be a precious sweetheart all the time, but what I was writing didn’t have his idiosyncrasies or a motivation that felt true to who I feel he is.

2) The draft was DEFINITELY missing Eliot’s story and his perspective. I certainly don’t think Eliot’s POV is always necessary (sometimes not having his direct thoughts heightens tension in romance especially), but it felt really necessary here, to fill in the gaps of what Quentin was assuming and also—more importantly—because the events were just as impactful on him, but in a very different way. So I knew I was missing half the narrative, but that meant I would need to deal more explicitly with the Beast (i.e., Mike, the most devastating storyline to me, personally) and I really, really didn’t want to do that.

My first step in making a more recognizable Quentin was figuring out a way he could more or less use the same syntax that he does on the show. Voice is the first way I connect with a character, so while many writers in this fandom thrive at modifying speech patterns and keeping the heart of a character alive, keeping close to Quentin’s canon speech was an easy fix for me in a story I was excited to get rolling. Sort of like the old adage of uplifting your strengths before putting outsize energy into things you struggle with.

The easiest way I could think to give him the same syntax was to figure out a way Quentin spent some significant time on Earth during his formative years. And once I rewatched 2x06 and was reminded that Ess went to Phillips Exeter Academy for high school, I lost my damn mind. I started sketching out ways that Quentin could get there too and that’s how I built out the idea of Umber brokering a marriage deal with the actual landmass of Coldwater Cove, which included an education opportunity for the boys (in a nod to Fillory’s patriarchal nature), and also the reason why Umber did that, which was to take advantage of his brother’s orgy mistake with the first Children of Earth to usher in a more productive and orderly Fillory. So that created a whole new set of rules and essentially a whole new world for me to play with... all for the sake of Quentin getting to say “fuck.” It was that important to me. :p

And as I worked through all that, I realized I also wanted to give Q magic, since Quentin’s relationship with magic is something I’m interested in. But I had read on ye olde Tumblr that the reason Illario uses a wand in 2x06 is a nod to the books, where Fillorians specifically aren’t Magicians and that’s the rationale for the Children of Earth royalty. And while I generally see the books as interesting supplemental material with zero bearing on the television show canon, I still said to myself, “Self, wouldn’t it be kind of funny if Quentin was the only native born Fillorian who had magic and so the FU Fighters believe he’s the chosen true High King, but instead of it being because he’s ~special~, it’s because Umber made a clerical error? Lol! Hilarious!”

So while all my questions for how to explain all THAT spun out into more and more detail, at the same time...

I caved to the idea that this story was going to be a No Beast AU, just like my last two stories, mostly because I really couldn’t bring myself to deal with the Mike of it all, even tangentially. I could have just changed that single element, but I’m not a half-measure gal! But I still wanted to stick with the vague background theme of Fillory = adulthood from a questing perspective and I wanted Julia leading the charge this time, but without the sexual assault that occurs in canon. So obviously, the answer was avenging all of the murdered and cannibalized “grown-ups,” i.e., master Magicians, by seeking out help from the gods in a balanced Fillory free from the devastation of the Beast. Duh! ;)

So then, like anyone would do, I rewatched every episode up to 4x11 that makes a mention of Fillory and took about twenty pages of notes on the canon worldbuilding, along with an analysis of how much a particular piece of information would be impacted or not by balance in the realm. For instance, the existence of geraniums (per The Fillorian Candidate and Tick’s misunderstanding of “power plants”) and the lack of diamonds as a precious stone (per the River Watcher not knowing the value of Margo’s earrings in Knight of Crowns) struck me as static facts unaffected by Ember’s reign of chaos. But I shifted the overall feel of Fillory to one that’s more functional and a lot more bureaucratic, leaning on things like the existence of socialized health/vision/dental insurance (the idea of which is canonical, per a petition from the beavers requesting dental coverage from acting High King Josh in Ramifications), strict taxation plans, and an overall sense of thriving Ceremony to show Umber’s influence.

Basically, I wanted Eliot to inherit a much, much easier Fillory to rule��especially with the highly educated Quentin as a built-in and passionate advisor—mostly so it wouldn’t completely strain credulity when a lot of his energy goes toward his love life rather than the intricacies of ruling (though Margo would say he still favored his personal life more than he should have, and she wasn’t... wrong. He wants to be a husband more than a king!) But I specifically made it so most of the chaotic elements were played as whimsical (sorry) quirky shit or smaller hints of greater injustice (see: Ember getting rid of STDs, but still letting magic-poor citizens die of sepsis because that’s too boring to deal with), all while a cataclysmic danger lurked under the surface.

After that, I just filled in details as they worked with character stuff and plot stuff, and I tried to make sure they didn’t contradict each other in a way that couldn’t be chalked up to “chaos.” I basically lived with the Fillory map open all the time and also took screenshots of Benedict’s map of Loria, which gave me alternate ideas for the overall feel of the landmass rather than just the kingdom. And pretty much that’s the basic process I used to create the world! It was extremely fun, and I learned a lot, though I’m *definitely* focusing on some pure relationship kind of stuff for a while because... oof, sometimes it was a lot.

Annnnnnnd if you’re still with me, here’s some stray observations, for funsies:

I wanted Quentin and Eliot’s starting points to be more mature than in the show. Quentin when we’re introduced to him as an adult in LQoF is a lot more jaded and cautious than S1 Q, which is because in this world, his S1 mentality happened while he was on Earth and came to a head during the throes of his fucked up relationship with Bayler. Similarly, Eliot had already gone through a lot of shit too, and was much more self-actualized by the time he agreed to be High King here than in the show. It was still out of desperation for purpose, but not coming out of a direct trauma spiral. I think if they had been younger, both in age and mentality, the story wouldn’t have worked because they would’ve blown it up day two. They’re both still disasters, as we like to say, which is why the... everything happens, but they’re not disasters in the exact same way as in early canon. I thought of them as closer to their S3 selves, pre-Mosaic.

While I mostly kept Quentin’s syntax the same as on the show, I did change it up in some ways to reflect his Fillorian upbringing. The most obvious was replacing “goddamn” with “godsdamned” and “Jesus” with “Hades,” but I also made him slow on the Earth idiomatic uptake and slightly more likely to use passive voice and less likely to use contractions, especially early on and especially when speaking with Fen. He also said slightly out of date things even for someone who last remembered 1999, since Earth was still overwhelming despite his immersion. E.g.: In the epilogue, he asks Eliot if he can spend some time “Googling the World Wide Web” instead of watching Gossip Girl together, even though by 1999 most people were saying “on-line” or “the internet” by a pretty wide margin. But in my mind, the first term he learned was World Wide Web and he stuck to it like glue.

I originally had a full-blown coronation scene, where Quentin helped Eliot with the answers to the 90s questions via subtle charades, such as flapping his hands at his sides to give him the answer “Wings” (and Eliot was eventually going to Eliot-Logically use that moment to argue to Quentin that maybe Q really is the true High King since he was the one who actually answered the Knight’s questions, etc.), but I cut it and only showed bits and pieces in flashbacks because it didn’t really matter. They had to treat it seriously because it was An Event in this version of balanced/un-Beasted Fillory, with a full audience bearing witness, but the whole thrust of the external plot was about dismantling that moment and the concept of monarchy in general, so giving it too much weight outside of the Eliot and Julia friendship felt disingenuous to the story I was telling.

This is also why it was important to me that Margo hated the title High King Eliot the Kind, even though I only brought it up textually once or twice. But in my view, she fucking hated it and never came around to it. Which isn’t because she doesn’t think Eliot is kind, it’s that it felt like a simplification of all that he is, and the coronation ceremony in general felt similarly shallow. It wasn’t just the four of them working out their shit on the beach; it was true ceremony after a year of questing toil and a lot lingering uncertainty/resentments (especially regarding Julia), so it was too Big Shiny Happy Bow to her.

Yet on the same theme, my greatest regret was not being able to work in the fact that Margo’s title for Penny (King Penny the Persistent) was supposed to be half-sincere and half-sex joke. She did genuinely admire that he stuck it out even through his initial heartbreak because he gives a shit about his people underneath it all, but—and this is a very important headcanon to me—she admired his dedication to the art of the female orgasm even more.

I was originally also going to include the One Day More sequence with way more details—such as Umber taking the Javert lines, Ember taking the Thenardier lines, Bayler taking the Enjolras lines, and Penny taking the Marius lines, but... uh... writing a musical number is apparently not in my skill set. Also, honestly, the weirdness of the original is its whole charm and so I didn’t want to improve upon perfection. See also, in a more serious way: Eliot bowing to High King Margo on the Muntjac, the events of Plan B, and Quentin & Penny in the Flying Forest. Would not touch it!

My favorite Fillorian detail was either the guy who sent a citizen petition requesting a “smidgen” of Eliot’s earwax for an undisclosed purpose, or the use of the verb “to peg” to describe a Pegasus flock greeting an outsider with honor. They encapsulate the obscene yet pristine feel I always tried to give Fillory.

My favorite subtle(-ish?) ironic moment is Ess, the heir to a hereditary monarchy, taking Quentin to task for not honoring the anarchy patch on his high school backpack. In general, I don’t like everything being neatly resolved, including on an overarching world level. And I very strongly felt they had ZERO business meddling in Loria, so it left some fun-to-me unanswered questions. Will Ess usher in democracy for Loria based on his experiences on Earth? Maybe! Maybe not, since tradition’s a hell of a drug and Loria has its own history and complexities. Who knows?

I misread the town name Sutton as Sultan on the map the first time I referenced Bayler’s hometown (Sultan’s Ridge), but instead of going back to fix it, I just made it a sister town. Whatever!

I do not know how Quentin got a full bookshelf of Earth literature back to Fillory with him. Magic, I guess. (That’s the answer to anything I didn’t totally think through.)

I occasionally get asked whether Quentin and Fen were physically related. The answer is no, though it doesn’t totally matter. But I intended heart-cousins to be more like close family friends. (Though I actually originally had a joke where Eliot still wasn’t sure by the epilogue, but it didn’t land/feel realistic so I cut it.)

The details of the magic frequency poisoning were DEFINITELY what I thought through the least. My main goal was to have something catastrophic happen to Fillory based in part from the historical actions of the Children of Earth and Ember, patently ridiculously but with lasting consequences. Hence, god orgy that took away Fillorian human magic and sent out a slow poisoning of the overall magic “frequency.” It sounds all well and good, but it’s definitely something that would fall apart with even the lightest bit of prodding. It serves it’s purpose though, so I figured the gaps could be filled in or politely ignored. ;)

This question was way too much fun and a helpful retrospective for me! Thank you so much for indulging me, many moons ago. 💗

[infriga]

Well yeah but that was after seeing the gross monster that particular food made he was happy at the suggestion of ordering a pizza though in together breakfast. All that mattered to him was spending time together, it seemed like he had to BEG for it in early SU. And then of course in SUF, after all the effort earlier in his life, and time spent doing nothing felt like it was undeserved and it hurt to just try and spend time with people you love. They took too long to reciprocate.

My post about the together breakfast was mainly poking fun at how people had an existencial crisis over Steven not liking things that he used to like as if it made him a completely different person. In reality out of the three things they suggested that he supposedly used to like only one of them was something he was ever actually into beyond like one episode, if at all. He was never into Pupcopter during SU, he was into Dogcopter. Pupcopter is basically the version meant for extremely young children, and would be like asking a 16 year old to watch Paw Patrol with you. And he didn't even want to eat the Together Breakfast by the end of its titular episode. It only showed up one other time during one brief scene during the wedding as a call back, vanished before the ceremony started, and was otherwise never seen again as far as I can remember. Only the cheeseburger backpack was something he liked and used that he stopped using in Future, but he'd still kept it and still used a hot dog duffle bag, so it wasn't like he hated it or didn't still use food themed bags, he just didn't want to use a bag that was 4 years old, possibly because it's actually really annoying to use a bag with too many pockets when you're using it for something important like school. So I always felt like it was a bit of an overreaction. I don't mean the jokes and stuff people made, I'm sure many of them weren't serious and were just joking around about our little boy growing up, but I remember there were plenty of people taking it way too seriously. I specifically recall one person literally stating that Steven had become a "husk of his former self" after that episode which is patently ridiculous, and I got a bit peeved about it back then. I noticed the ending of Together Breakfast during a rewatch so I thought I'd make a sassy post about it. But I do want to address something you mentioned in this ask seriously, as well as some other things related to it that are on my mind regarding Future.

Edit: I’m putting the rest of this under a cut because I didn’t realize how long this got when I wrote it on my phone. TL;DR: I believe Snow Day is more about Steven’s imposter syndrome than about the gems taking too long to reciprocate his desire to spend time with them. Below is a bunch of my thoughts about Steven’s shift from seeing gem missions as adventures and a way to hang out with the gems to seeing them as a responsibility and something he was obligated to do for the greater good whether he wanted to or not.

You're right that in the beginning he got left alone a lot and often had to beg the gems to spend time with him, and he felt as if he had to be a crystal gem and be useful in order to go on missions with them, which he thought was his only way to hang out with them as shown in An Indirect Kiss. But later on things changed in that department. The gems did start spending more time with him outside of missions, the problem was that his desire to be useful and help with missions morphed into something else. Take The Test as an example. In the beginning of the episode the gems are playing a board game with Steven, spending time with him and having fun with something that wasn't related to missions. But then their time hanging out together is interrupted when Steven finds the statue from the moon spire and expresses guilt over leaving it behind, leading to the revelation that it was a test he failed. In a way that scene is the perfect analogy for the change in his views regarding missions, because that episode is when Steven's treatment of missions shifts from cool adventures to an obligation, and it's also when his priorities shift from himself and what he wants, to others and what they need. It stops being about his desires of being included, and starts being about putting his own problems aside to help others, and about him wanting to live up to the expectations others have of him. He was expected to pass an easy test and he failed, and because of that the spire was destroyed. The gems didn't know how to handle him, so he ignored his own hurt and feelings of inadequacy to make them feel better and boost their confidence. And from that point on, he mostly acted based on the greater good, and on not falling short of what others expected of him because he was afraid of the potentially destructive consequences of failure. You can really see the difference between how Steven saw missions during Cheeseburger backpack and how he saw them later on after the test when you go back to rewatch that episode. In Cheeseburger Backpack he saw it as a chance to do something fun and cool with the gems, to be a member of their exclusive group, which is a view he still has by An Indirect Kiss, though he's already started to see it as him having to live up to his mother's legacy, at that point he just sees that as his method of being able to hang out with them by being useful. After The Test he takes things much more seriously as a duty that he's obligated to do for the sake of the earth, and as something he sees as a responsibility. You can especially see this in Marble Madness just 6 episodes later, where Connie treats the events occurring as something cool and adventurous, while Steven treats it as an important issue that they've been dealing with, one that by the third interruption he's clearly not happy about. Sure, you could argue that it's because of what happens between those episodes causing him to take things more seriously, like Mirror/Ocean Gem or Warp Tour, but The Test has been noted by Rebecca and others as a turning point for Steven for a reason. Now I’m not saying Steven didn’t want to help people for the sake of helping people, he did because he’s a good kid who’s empathetic and kind, but he also clearly grew to view the missions and gem drama as more important than how he felt, even when they were something he didn’t want to do or resulted in him getting hurt and upset. He ended up thinking that helping people was more important than what he wanted or needed, and that came to a head in Future when his problems came back to bite him all at once and he couldn’t dismiss them anymore. The problem wasn’t that he wanted to help people, the problem was that he pushed his own needs aside to do it at any cost.

So I don't think the issue in Snow Day was that their reciprocation was too late, because they'd reciprocated before that point. I think the problem was that the way they reciprocated played into his feelings of inadequacy and his fear of falling short of the expectations of others. He grew up feeling like he couldn't live up to his mother's legacy, and even after he managed to break free of that he started feeling like he couldn't live up to his own legacy. He thought people didn't see him for who he really is now, and we learn in Everything's Fine that on top of his ptsd he has a really bad case of imposter syndrome. So when the gems want to spend time with him and they base it on the person he used to be years ago, it just further plays in to the idea that they haven't been paying attention to he is now, that he's still being seen as the 14 year old who saved the galaxy, and that's who they want him to be again. It would feel very isolating and alienating for the parents who say they miss you to act like they miss who you used to be rather than who you are currently.

That said, it was good that by the end of the episode he told them how he felt and they adjusted their behaviour. personally I do still think that episode had a happy ending all things considered, and I don't think it contributed much if at all to his issues down the line, it just wasn't enough to prevent them. I think it served more as a hint to some of his insecurities regarding how he felt like a fraud because he thought everyone saw him as something he wasn't.

I find it interesting how some people reacted to that episode and to Steven during Future in general. We the audience should know that he is a good person and not a monster, and that his mistakes don't define him, and that he should be allowed to change without being held up to an impossible standard, because that's what the show has always championed: the ability to grow. Yet a vocal section of the audience reacted in a way that bought into the kind of insecurities Steven had cultivated. They reacted as if a few minor changes were the end of the world, and that because he wasn't exactly the same kind of person he was in SU that meant he was somehow a worse person, a "husk of his former self" so to speak, even though he was still a kind person who wanted to help people. He wasn't refusing to hang out with the gems because he had become asocial and hated them, or because he was an edgy teenager, it was because their attempts at spending time with him were done in a way that made him unhappy. Once they adapted to something more comfortable for him he was perfectly happy to hang out and have fun with them.

The biggest difference between Steven then and now was that Steven issues had built up to a point where they couldn't be pushed aside or ignored anymore. The way he'd helped people in the past had proven to be unhealthy in the long run due to the fact that he always minimized his own needs and desires over those of others. So a chunk of the fandom had done exactly what Steven accused everyone of doing in Everything's Fine: they expected him to be the same kid from before who was perfect, mature, and always knew what to do. They thought of him as an angel who only helped people. In that episode he says "I'm not that kid anymore" but the thing is, he was never that kid. Much of that so-called maturity and decisiveness and perfection was actually just a traumatized child trying to live up to impossible expectations while utilizing unhealthy coping methods to push his own feelings aside in order to help others and save the world.

When Growing Pains aired, a lot of those people went suspiciously silent. No more people calling him edgy, no more people saying he was turning into White Diamond, no more people saying he was making the same mistakes as his mom, no more people accusing him of having developed an ego, and no more people saying Steven was going to be the "villain" of Future. Or at least there were way less people saying those things. That's why I think that episode was so important. It blatantly stated "this is the behaviour of a traumatized 16 year old who has experienced multiple traumatic childhood events. Trauma shapes our behaviours and our physical reactions and has a long lasting or even permanent effect on our body and mind." it made everyone take a long hard look at what Steven had been through through without the rose-tinted lenses of nostalgia. Obviously there were still some people with bad takes calling Steven an asshole, but there were way less of them than there were before the episode slapped us in the face with the reality that the show was taking this seriously and always had been. And I hope it caused a lot of people to take that same hard look at stuff in real life, so they could be aware of the effects of trauma on others instead of harshly judging trauma survivors for not being perfect and having difficulties and struggling, so that they can hopefully stop demonizing the less convenient and less pretty symptoms of trauma as character flaws that make someone evil, and so they can hopefully see things in less black and white or good and evil like the internet is prone to do. And maybe some people can even see those same issues in themselves and feel encouraged to actually seek help, and maybe they can feel like they're seen and heard even if it's just by a cartoon about dancing singing lesbian space rocks.

Sorry this got so long, I have a lot of thoughts about this and I wanted to just get them out there.

[terresdebrume]

The Witcher - Favorite reads masterpost

Like much of Tumblr, I have recently fallen down the delicious rabbit hole of the saga of Henry Cavill’s abs in form-fitting leather, aka the tv adaptation of The Witcher. As always, that means semi-obsessive fic reading which in turn means recs! So, here’s a non-exhaustive, always evolving list of my favorite Witcher fic.

As of right now it’s...well, almost exclusively geraskier, because shipping is my primary reason for reading fics and also the Witcher (TV) tag is one of the most uniformly slashy ones I’ve ever seen, but there will be other kind of fics too. Hope you’ll enjoy :)

Tagging @nyliekeo because I’ve been saying I’d give you a rec list for a while and I’m finally (beginning to) deliver. Other stories will be added as I catch up with my reading and/or discover new ones.

Now with a Volume 2

Last updated Feb. 20th 2020.

Non Geraskier fics

Nighttime Conversations - Starfleet_Command_Unite_Bi

Specs: 731 words - Eist/Calanthe - Teen & Up Summary: Eist and Calanthe have a mostly serious conversation. Set about a year after they get married.

what changed? - TheSoliloquy 

Specs: 1939 words - Eist/Calanthe - Teen & Up Summary: Eist is a man born to belief and faith. Skelligens put stock in destiny... Perhaps they shouldn't. Or: Eist and his relationship with the Lioness of Cintra and her cubs.

Three times (and a half) - karadeniz

Specs: 4 450 words - General Audiences - Happy family dynamics Summary: The annals of Cintra are not that interesting, so Eist and Ciri push the definition of a history lesson a little.

You know The Princess Bride movie? Yeah, it's a little bit like that.

Capable - periwinklepromise

Specs: 100 words - General Audiences - Drabble Summary: Renfri is capable of many things

Between Roaches - RabidRabbit

Specs: 1 522 words - Geralt & Roach - General audiences - Sad going to hopeful Summary: Witchers live far, far longer lives than their mounts. So how does one deal with having to find another Roach when the loss of the previous one left a great gaping hole in the heart many people didn't believe Geralt had?

A Quiet Night - 2spaces_lesbo1

Specs: 1 214 words - Geralt & Ciri - General audiences - Fluff Summary: They have a still moment together.

you’ll be alright (no one can hurt you now) - hopeless_hope

Specs: 1 347 words - Teen & Up audiences - Grief/Mourning, soft dad Geralt Summary: “Hey,” he says, making sure he has her full attention. Ciri looks at him, and the amount of hope in her eyes scares him, though he’d never admit it. He pitches his voice low and soothing yet firm. “No one is going to hurt you while I’m here. And I won’t be leaving you.” She gives him a twisted smile. “They all say that,” she says bitterly, and Geralt spares himself a second to remind himself of what Ciri has lost. Her parents. Her grandparents. Her home. Geralt is all she has left. - In which Ciri has a nightmare and Geralt does his best to comfort her.

Geraskier fics

Limpid As Dammit - Gigi_Sainclair

Specs: 3 100 words - Teen & Up Summary: "The first time, Jaskier does it out of kindness, to avoid hurt feelings."

Becoming a hero - charlock221

Specs: 4 181 words - Teen & Up - Graphic depiction of violence Summary: Jaskier found that being a damsel in distress was only fun when the peril was very, very mild.Being a damsel in distress was definitely not fun when the peril was four thugs threatening him and he hadn’t spoken to his usual rescuer in several months.He just wasn’t sure he had what it took to become the hero.

The Ballad of Pots and Pans - 6th_magnitude

Specs: 1 880 words - Mature - Friends to lovers Summary: Geralt knows Jaskier is a bard - but until now, he’s never properly listened to his songs.

Astra Inclinant - JustGettingBy

Specs: 11 790 words - Explicit - AU Summary: When Jaskier is seven, he first hears the myths of the Witchers--those foul, half-human beasts.When Jaskier is twenty-one, he meets Geralt.He falls in love with him not long after.

kamilica - yogurtgun

Specs: 3 295 words - Explicit - Service Top Jaskier Summary: Jaskier rubs chamomile oil on Geralt's lovely bottom.

your very best friend, in the whole wide world - sargarepa

Specs: 5 996 words - General audiences - Soft!Geraskier - Touch-starved!Geralt Summary: Geralt of Rivia has spent a strange amount of time feverishly obsessing over the way Jaskier can just casually touch him, like it's nothing, like he's not an aberration capable of breaking Jaskier in half with a sneeze. Jaskier saw Geralt slice through monsters like pudding, covered in guts and grime and his own sweat and blood, but there he was, leaning against him and tuning his lute. Geralt doesn't know how to classify the feeling gripping him every time it happens, but he knows he doesn't want it to stop.

the world will follow after - friendlyghost

Specs: 8 827 words - Explicit - Dopplers - Scent kink Summary: The thing about dopplers is that while they know their target’s mind, they aren’t all that skilled in actually impersonating them. It’s easy to look like the baker’s wife and to know that she’s having an affair with the laundress down the road. It’s much harder to know not to kiss the laundress in front of the baker.In which a doppler impersonates Jaskier, Geralt realizes some things, and then they (Geralt and the real Jaskier) have sex. In that order.

His Touch - Sevent

Specs: 6 203 words - Mature - Touch starved! Geralt Summary: Jaskier is an affectionate man. It drives Geralt mad, but in more ways than he knows how to put into words.

Masterwork - phnelt

Specs: 1 461 words - Teen & Up - Master Bard!Jaskier Summary: “Master Jaskier, please meet your apprentice. Valdemar, do try to contain yourself.” Master Juhani looked at Jaskier’s expression and coughed. “Surely you remember the duties of a Master, Jaskier.”

let us shake the abacus - Ark

Specs: 3 062 words - Explicit - Denial (of feelings) Summary: "This is a bad idea," says Geralt."Terrible idea," Jaskier agrees. He kisses up Geralt’s neck, his tongue wicked on Geralt’s ear. "Really bad."

What Pleases You - jesstiel (jseca)

Specs: 5 725 words - Not rated - Geralt & Jaskier do go to the coast. Summary: “Well, it’s just – we were on the brink of finding a dragon.   You had Yennefer in your grasp – or perhaps you in hers, it’s difficult to tell, sometimes.  Adventure, peril, romance!  And.. you walked away.”

“You asked me to,” Geralt says, like it's that easy.

--

Now With Chapter 2: They Actually Get To The Coast.

Companionship - ArliaDevi

Specs: 4 104 words - Teen & Up - Found family Summary: In which Ciri suspects but cannot confirm.

Or, Geralt and Jaskier get domestic. Well, as domestic as they can.

it steals all my reason - theredtailedhawkwithjewelsforeyes

Specs: 1 382 words - General Audiences - Pneumonia Summary: The worst thing, Geralt thinks, is the quiet. There is no singing, just the heavy labour of breaths hard-won.

Sinister as Silence - MountainRose

Specs: 1 783 words - Teen & Up - Monster of the week Summary: Jaskier goes quiet for one second, and it's enough for Geralt to have a heart attack.

When the Morning Light Shines In - QueenForADay

Specs: 2 760 words - General Audiences - Morning After, Lazy mornings Summary: Jaskier can’t think of any point in their travels together where he has woken up before the other man. In mornings where they were surrounded by trees, or half-way up a stupid, fucking mountain because of a stupid, fucking quest posed to them by some stupid, fucking man, he’ll always wake to the sound of Geralt moving around: whether it’s rolling up his own tent, or taking his blades to a whetstone, or fixing the last of Roach’s gear. He remembers Geralt telling him about not being able to sleep. Until then, he supposed, Witchers might not have needed it. Then again, until he met Geralt, he can’t say for certain that he knew exactly what a Witcher did and didn’t need. He can’t think of any point in their travels together where he has woken up before the other man – except for now.

The Knack of Acting Normal - KeriArentikai

Specs: 4 407 words - Teen & Up - Geralt is bad at feelings, but he gets better Summary: It's been almost two years since the last time he's seen him. Jaskier looks the same to Geralt. Maybe a little older, he supposes. Happier, certainly, than when he turned away on the rocks. [Geralt is sad. Jaskier is sad. And then after a while they are both happy.]

Weak, My Love, and I Am Wanting - TabbyCat33098

Specs: 2 443 words -Teen & Up - Getting together Summary: Jaskier has written a lot of ballads about some woman who has stolen his heart. The thing is, he's been on the road with Geralt for the past month. He hasn't had any time to court a woman, much less have his heart broken by her. So who is this woman? The answer may shock you. // “There’s no lady,” Geralt says. Jaskier trails off. “Well, of course not,” he says instead. “I imagine a woman would take grave offense to the frequency with which we give our patronage to brothels, not to mention your unseemly habit of bathing in monster blood and other revolting gunk.” He wrinkles his nose. “Perhaps I should write an ode to your masterful powers of observation next.” “But you were talking about a woman tonight,” Geralt continues, ignoring Jaskier entirely.

there’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met - theredtailedhawkwithjewelsforeyes

Specs: 2 469 words - Teen & Up - Not really a character death Summary: “I wonder,” says Dandelion, lounging under a tree- his lute is in his lap. Geralt is cleaning his sword and stealing glances at him every few moments. “I wonder why it is some people feel so familiar. I could swear I’d never met you, Geralt, but you’re- maybe it’s just from those old songs.” He strums a chord, and when he starts on Toss a Coin Geralt grits out a “stop it” before he can even think.

Where the Field Meets the Forest - karcheri

Specs: 782 words - General Audiences - Flowers meanings Summary: Jaskier has been putting flowers into Geralt's hair. He catches on.

Speechless - Silverynight

Specs: 1 371 words - Teen & Up - Emotional repression Summary: The first time Jaskier wakes up next to Geralt he tells himself it’s an accident, even though he knows it doesn’t make any sense. Of course he’s attracted to his friend (the witcher would never admit they’re friends because he’s an idiot, but they are friends) he’s been attracted to men before, however… He’s never actually slept with one before, only women. Perhaps that’s the reason why he hasn’t said anything since he woke up. He’s still trying to think about what happened. Not that he didn’t enjoy it, quite the opposite in fact, it’s just… Jaskier thought he’d never sleep with a man.

a broken pot can still hold water - MarionetteFtHJM

Specs: 28 742 words - Explicit - Jaskier makes Geralt grovel a bit. Summary: Despite what his outward code of conduct would have you thinking, Jaskier knows when he is not wanted. He allows himself the exact amount of three days of wallowing in that small town before he packs his meager possessions and hits the road like nothing happened. In those three days he sings and dances for his food and drink, fucks the pretty barmaid and sleeps off the hangover before heading out in the morning of the fourth day. He travels alone for the first time in a while but it’s alright. Now, if only people would stop telling him that the Witcher asks about him - that'd be swell.

Surprise, Surprise - Laylabinx

Specs: 1 732 words - Mature - Graphic depiction of violence Summary: Even in the dim light, he can see that Jaskier is absolutely covered in blood. His clothes are splattered with it, his face is streaked, there’s even blood in his hair. His arms are slick and saturated up to the elbow and the sharp, polished blade Geralt had given him before he went into the cave is still gripped tightly in one fist like he can’t let it go. His knees are drawn up to his chest like he’s trying to make himself very small and aside from his quiet, hitched breathing he doesn’t move at all.Jaskier blinks at him and his expression crumples just slightly as he stifles back a sob. “I killed them.” (Or Jaskier is forced to kill in self-defense and does not handle it well. Geralt helps him pick up the pieces.)

Opulence - QueenForADay

Specs: 7 237 words - Explicit - Praise kink, some plot. Summary: In private, and sheltered from the wandering eyes of stablehands, Jaskier presses a light kiss to Geralt’s neck. “Please?” he mumbles against the skin, smirking as he trails his nose along a tendon there. “For me?” Geralt turns, catching Jaskier’s lips in a kiss that, if he wasn’t completely aware of how discreet they have to be, would become so much more. Jaskier still doesn’t move his hands though; one on the small of Geralt’s back, and the other holding on to a forearm. When he pulls away, Jaskier tries to follow, but a barked order from one of the grooms to a nearby stableboy makes him pull away. “Siren,” Geralt sighs. He would follow Jaskier anywhere. The bard knows that. He’s abused that fact. But the city they’re heading to has a reputation; draped in gold with springs of silver in the main square, it’s opulence at its finest. And Geralt is pretty sure that, although he’ll appreciate the comfy bed and the nice food, he’s going to fucking hate the rest of it.

Here’s a safe place (to lay your heart down) - Some_Dead_Guy

Specs: 1 439 words - Teen & Up - Hurt/Comfort Summary: “My mother used to do this for me, when I got headaches.” Jaskier murmurs, his voice quiet and soft, “I was a bit clumsy as a child, still am now I’m sure you’d say.” Jaskier chuckles and Geralt can feel the puff of his breath against his face, “I hit my head a lot, and this would make me feel better. Not sure how well it works on Witchers but–” “Works just fine.” Geralt mumbles, and his head splitting headache has dulled to a barely there throb under Jaskier’s fingers. Or, Geralt has a headache and his bard comes to the rescue.

I spoke your name (out loud to the room) - objectlesson

Specs: 1 151 words - Mature - Unrequited love Summary: You wish Jaskier would leave you the fuck alone, but he clings to you like ash after flames have laid waste to a village, like clotted crimson after you have killed something with your bare hands. However, you can scrub blood out from under your nails. Jaskier, so far, has proven to be far more indelible.

To Sleep Perchance To - Sospes

Specs: 16 955 - Mature - Graphic depiction of violence, torture, PTSD Summary: Jaskier gets kidnapped and tortured. Geralt comes to rescue him. Except it's not quite that simple.

Scales and Songs - TeenyTinyTony

Specs: 4 640 words - Teen & Up - Siren!Jaskier AU Summary: Geralt had known from the moment Jaskier introduced himself that the bard wasn't human, but he had seemed harmless enough and Geralt wasn't one to chase something that wasn't hurting anyone. It was easier not to mention it.

Starving on Scraps of Kindness - penguistifical

Specs: 4 388 words - Explicit - Orgasm delay/denial, not entirely human!Jaskier Summary: "It seems obvious in retrospect, but Geralt didn’t realize Jaskier’s true nature until the two of them encountered a succubus."

Benefits - ShastaFirecracker

Specs: 3 319 words - Explicit - Friends with benefits, coming untouched Summary: Whenever Jaskier's mouth isn't occupied, he talks. Low, easily, about anything. Sounds to soothe. And the thing is – unlike all the rest of the time, Jaskier is pretty sure that when he talks while he's chasing Geralt's pleasure, Geralt listens. It's a heady drug. And yes, Jaskier is becoming addicted.

Sleepsong - QueenForADay

Specs: 1 643 words - General audiences - Geralt wakes up from a nightmare, Jaskier helps. Summary: Some part of him wishes that people could see this – the man that they all fear so much, the Witcher, a hunter of the supernatural and evil, placated by his bard’s voice, melting into his arms. All he’s missing is hearing Geralt purr like a housecat. Every so often, Jaskier’s ears prick at the sound of a murmur of a hum leaving the other man, particularly when Jaskier presses a kiss to the crown of Geralt’s head, or runs his foot along the length of Geralt’s bared leg.

And at the same time, he would gladly pick up a sword and kill anyone who even thought of intruding on a moment like this.

When sorrow sang - Ailendolin

Specs: 11 184 words - Teen & Up audiences - Regret, pining Summary:  Alone, with only his trusted lute as companion, Jaskier sat in front of a pitiful fire, strumming his instrument with almost absentminded fingers. His hands were trembling, something Geralt had never seen them do before, and that was startling enough to make him pause at the edge of the clearing, just out of sight. “I’m weak, my love, and I am wanting,” Jaskier sang softly, and his voice broke with so much sorrow Geralt could feel it in his very bones. After their fight it doesn't take long for Geralt to stumble upon Jaskier again. There's only one way down the mountain, after all. What he didn't expect was to catch him in an unguarded moment - one that changes everything for both of them.

Neither one prepared - Sevent

Specs: 10 050 words - Mature - Idiots who don’t know they’re in love, semi-slow burn Summary: Between the Djinn and the Dragon Hunt, Geralt and Jaskier share many encounters on the road. A collection of coincidences, through Jaskier's eyes.

look what you made me do - cicak

Specs: 6 569 words - Explicit - Farce with porn Summary: “Like that dandy has ever bedded a woman,” the woman at the next table scoffed. “All those sexy songs of his are about that Witcher.”

The Love of a Bard - SpaceSexual

Specs: 2 103 words - Teen & Up audiences Summary: "The pen is mightier than the sword - and so it would seem, is the lute." Jaskier's a bard, a truly exceptional model of his vocation. He writes songs that bring crowds to their feet and thinks his time spent with the Witcher has let him learn a step or two of his own. However, some dances require one step forward, and a few very rapid, fear-filled, paces back.

Priorities - Penguistifical

Specs: 2 590 words - Teen & Up - Geralt cares and so does Jaskier Summary: Geralt’s getting used to a certain bard's company, but he can’t help but notice that Jaskier takes better care of his lute than of himself.

Curiosities - Luddleston

Specs: 3 109 words - Teen & Up audiences - Banter, witcher biology Summary:  "Geralt, let me ask you a question." "No." "Oh, come now. It's nothing ridiculous." Jaskier does his research, Geralt is tired of all the questions, and the questions get more and more personal along the way.

Woodash and iron and leather - LokelaniRose

Specs: 9 874 words - Explicit - Mutual admiration - Mutual pining Summary: Jaskier is the only person Geralt's ever been around who doesn't smell of fear. Russian Translation here Korean Translation here

lay (not) your heart against him - theredtailedhawkwithjewelsforeyes

Specs: 1 368 words - Teen & Up audiences - Geralt of Rivia is bad at communicating, scenting Summary: He’s a brave man but the core of it is that he trusts Geralt to save him before anything ever gets too close. It’s- Well. Geralt thinks the last time someone trusted him as far as they could throw him was when he was still a child. Before Kaer Morhen, before anything. His world is a cruel, cutthroat one. He doesn’t know what to do with this unceasing, unspoken dedication. So he doesn’t mention it. Probably Jaskier doesn’t even realize what he’s doing. 

The Ballad of the Bard and the Moon - Ravenheart

Specs: 2 605 words - Mature - It’s all about the YEARNING Summary: If the moon allowed it, Jaskier would call himself a worshipper for as long as he lived. And that, he guessed, was the problem. Because the moon could keep you company, but it couldn't worship back. It might give you direction, and you might even be blessed with its protection, but it would go its own way, whether you followed or stayed behind. Stubbornly determined to walk the night at its own pace, painting its own path. (Alternatively: Jaskier spends over 2k trying to figure out that he's in love with Geralt, and then he does something about it)

in restless dreams i walked alone (the sound of silence) - august_embers

Specs: 16 136 words - Not rated - Mental health issues, suicidal thoughts (but no actual suicide attempt), Jaskier is not okay sometimes Summary: "Geralt is able to scent the guilt on a lying man from ten feet away, to catch sight of half a pawprint in the undergrowth in the dead of night, to know when to lean back before the coming blade can cut through his throat.  Much of it comes from his training at Kaer Morhen, where his instincts were honed and enhanced, but even more comes from his travels and experiences while walking the Path.  Geralt notices things, because not noticing means death. He does not notice the lack of singing." Something is very wrong with Jaskier.

front row praises - The_Watchers_Crown

Specs: 25 098 words - Explicit - Porn with feelings Summary: The girl rolls her eyes at him. “If you’re just going to stand here ogling the witcher, maybe go and do it out of the way.” “Ogling.” Jaskier scoffs. “Who’s ogling?” She looks unimpressed. “Have you told him you want him to fuck you?”

Inspiration - CobaltCephalopod

Specs: 1 131 words - General audiences - Magic, musical instruments Summary: Between all the half-hummed melodies and scratched out words to be had over the course of decades, Geralt knows how Jaskier’s songs work and how they are made. He’s the subject of them, more often than not, and he can’t count the number of hours spent falling asleep to Jaskier’s strumming while he huddles closer to the dying fire to read what he’d scribbled so far. Or: I figured Filavandrel's lute probably has some kind of magic in it.

a fool by profession - besselfcn

Specs: 967 words - General audiences - Jaskier tells his problems to a horse Summary: “Make sure my horse gets a bath,” Jaskier mumbles, in a poor imitation of Geralt’s distressingly low register. “Who does he think he is, honestly? Man has one bloody popular song written after him and he thinks I’ll attend to his beck and call, is that it?” He gives pause for Roach to weigh in, if she’s inclined. She snorts.

i’ve never been there bu i know the way - theredtailedhawkwithjewelsforeyes

Specs: 2 525 words - Mature - Basically jaskier starts being competent and Geralt is like. huh. Huh. Summary: On the left hand of the noble, however, is Jaskier. His charm is turned up to eleven, and Geralt could swear he’s batting his eyelashes, and his voice is all syrupy-sweet. He squints at his bard to no avail- Jaskier is very determinedly seducing this damn noble. And what’s worse is that it’s working. Somehow, improbably, Jaskier is charming him through shockingly well delivered compliments and subtle little flattering remarks. It’s such a far cry from the stuttering, irritating bard Geralt knows that he feels almost offended, like this has been purposefully hidden from him just to pull out at the most fucking inopportune time he could possibly find. 

Tinseltown - LaurytheLatrador

Specs: 16 545 words - Mature - Alternate Universe - Hollywood Summary: Back when Jaskier was a small town busker he hooked up with Geralt, an MMA fighter gaining renown. Now Jaskier's a musician struggling to keep his head above water in Los Angeles, while his ex is one of the most famous actors in the world. He never expected their paths to cross again, but there wouldn't be any stories if life went the way we expect.

Where there’s a Witcher - ghostinthelibrary

Specs: 61 278 words - Mature - Alternate Universe - Modern setting Summary: Jaskier is a twentysomething recently unemployed journalist and amateur musician looking for his big break. So when he’s saved from the jaws of a wyvern by the infamous Butcher of Blaviken, Geralt of Rivia, he comes up with a brilliant idea: he’ll follow the Witcher around and sing about their exploits. He’ll gain fame and fortune and Geralt will get a much needed image rehab. Everyone wins. Unless Jaskier goes and falls in love like an idiot.

The Witcher Wolf - im_fairly_witty

Specs: 11 448 words - Teen & Up audiences - Geralt accidentally becomes an emotional support animal Summary: It’s been two weeks since Geralt shouted Jaskier away from him on that mountain and Jaskier has been handling it like a champ by forlornly wandering alone in the wilderness with his lute. When he (literally) stumbles across an injured white wolf he decides to take a chance and see if he can help it, appreciating the irony of the situation but not quite realizing why it is that the wolf’s golden eyes look exactly like his Witcher’s... Inspired by @kayivy's lovely art on tumblr

home is nowhere, therefore you - Ark

Specs:  18 134 words - Explicit - Fairytales, love confessions Summary: "Right, well," Jaskier says, when he halts before Geralt. Up close, he looks much more nervous. There is sweat on his brow and his collar is damp with it, and his teeth keep catching on his lower lip. "True love's kiss. There's—ah—there's nothing to it." And he bends, the utter imbecile, and kisses Geralt full on the mouth.

Two Halves of a Whole - penguistifical

Specs: 3 450 words - Teen & Up audiences - Alternate Universe - Daemons Summary: Geralt doesn’t take much notice at first when the small brown bird alights on his table.

Second Refrain - Kenjiandco

Specs: 7 006 words - Explicit - Siren magic has unexpected effects on witchers Summary:  It’s been...Gods, it’s been more than a year since their paths last crossed. Since Geralt emphatically un-crossed them, one could say, outside another cave high up on a windy mountain top.  And here they are, trapped like a couple of treed cats in this little hole in a cliff face. No horse, no pack, no potions, no swords. Just a rapidly dwindling handful of dried meat, a useless hunting knife, a festering bite in his side that hurts much more than it should...and Jaskier, the surest omen that everything in his life is about completely stop making sense. Again. In which back-to-back encounters with a siren, a wyvern, and an old, old friend leave Geralt in need of a rescue. Just not the one he thought he needed.

is there a person more cherished - nowherebound

Specs: 629 words - General audiences - Just Geralt and Jaskier loving each other very much Summary: Geralt is the most fond of him. Fond, fond, fond… fond of his chestnut hair and sloped eyebrows, smoothed back by two gentle thumbs; honest eyes and sweet voice, bathing him in praise; slender waist and soft belly, perfect for resting his head on; petite hands, fingertips calloused from lute strings. How pretty, how divine, how lovely that Geralt is the one who gets to hold him, to love him. Yes, he is the most fond.

Food of love - tanktrilby

Specs: 22 485 words - Teen & Up audiences - Magical bard Jaskier, Renfri lives Summary: I brought a dead princess back to life through the power of song is the kind of thing that would have got an eyebrow raise even from the stone-faced Geralt of Rivia, so it's a good thing he and Geralt will probably never see each other again. (or: the one where Jaskier channels magic through his songs, and it almost never goes as expected.)

You Suffer Alone, Not Anymore - Sevent

Specs: 2 719 words - Teen & Up - Roach is an emotional support horse Summary: There's much Geralt is willing to put up with. The trials and tribulations of his witcher youth prepared him for a lifetime of cruelty and scorn. No one ever prepared him for kindness.

Guide - TenSpencerRiedPlease

Specs: 2 740 words - Not Rated - Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides, Protective Jaskier Summary: “Oh for the love of god Geralt, could you cooperate for like five minutes?” Jaskier asks as he pushes Geralt to sit on the ground. He doesn’t look impressed about it but if his ass wasn’t constantly going into some type of zone out or sensory overload this wouldn’t be an issue. They’ve already had to mute all the colors on the TV, it never plays very loud, he’s only just gotten used to sun light of all things and he can sit on the ground because Jaskier has long ago discovered that if he’s touching Geralt he doesn’t lose his focus in another sense so much. Geralt glares at him the whole way down but he does go.