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Horace: That's one of my biggest fears. If I, like, woke up as a donut...

Will: You would eat yourself.

Horace: I wouldn't even question it.

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Guess who figured out how to scroll through old posts from a certain year by typing “[fandom] year:[year]” in the main search bar?

This knowledge probably should’ve been kept from me

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“And then he blocked me”

-Will, sitting on top of the fridge, eating a tub of ice cream, venting to Horace, tears in his eyes after sending Halt too many memes

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Horace: can we get something special to eat?

Cassandra: how much money do you have?

Horace: 39 cents,

Cassandra: Ah, you know what that means-

Horace, in tears: I don’t have enough money for chicken nuggets

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Site: Choose your password

Will: Will

Site: Password too short

Will: *sigh* I know

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Despite my love of mathematics and my sarcasm, I’ll never be blond nor tall enough to be Thorn from the Pole. So I have decided that I’ll learn archery and become Halt. 

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Another Halt&Will&Horace adventure + the 3rd TEY book would fix me I think

Just want to say I would definitely like to read more books about Will's apprenticeship like how i would like to read more books about halt&will&horace trio in book 8 the first two books definitely have a distinct vibe and I like that a lot

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I know most people interpret Crowley and Halt's relationship as romantic but I think the platonic/brotherly interpretation of their relationship is very important too. when they meet, Halt has been betrayed by Ferris and has serious trust issues, so learning to see Crowley as a brother is a very healing arc for him. it also doubles as great segway into him warming up to the idea of family through the ranger corps and two eventual apprentices

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Sometimes you find a new story and getting into it is like "Oh! This is home! I can live here :)" and it becomes part of your comfort zone forever. Sometimes it's more like "This is a nice place to visit, but it's not quite my home. It's somebody else's," like when you're at a friend's or acquaintance's for a party. Sometimes it's more like a church, or a museum, or a library — "This is a beautiful space, and I can tell I'm welcome here, but I'm not quite equipped to treat it as home."

And sometimes finding a new story is like "This would be a terrible place to live, but that's a really nice chair..." Then you steal the furniture and take it home with you.

(*Note: this is about stories and not fandoms. Fandoms are more like cities or settlements, and finding homeliness in one of them is an entirely different proposition.)

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idk about you, but one of my favorite things about ranger's aprentice, specifically the earlier books is Gilan's relationship with Will. like he meets him and immediately becomes like a big brother to Will, feeling protective over him. he just accepts him into his little ranger family and becomes an emotional support person for him. it's actually so beautiful to me, i adore their friendship

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Jacin in Cress is just like:

Cress: can you help me?

Jacin: no ❤️

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Jacin: This guy? Yeah he’s probably gonna die

Cinder: don’t say that

Jacin: You’re probably gonna die too

Cinder: so why are you here with us?

Jacin: I figured I’d also die

-

Cinder: so what do you bring to the table?

Jacin: my greatest strength is that I’m no thoughts, head empty

Jacin: also I’m hot

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it’s been six years and i am still. STILL. not over jacin’s storyline. also this is my possibly my favourite post on tumblr (second only to the other part). i’ll never not read it front to back when i come across it

jacin clay in "cress" (2/2)

hi!!! welcome to part 2/2 of me just talking about jacin clay because i finished rereading cress and i love him a ridiculous amount

remember when i said the second part would be up "in a few days"? yeah me neither.

part 1 can be found here!

this post will cover his moments in cress from chapter 29 and on. enjoy<3

disclaimers:

this post might include spoilers for all of the lunar chronicles series, since i sometimes make links with moments from the other books!

it will also probably end up being long because i have the wonderful tendency to overanalyze everything

for a bit of context, cinder just found dr. erland in farafra and is staying with him with part of the crew. part of crew being iko (still body-less and working full-time as a ship at that point of the book), wolf (unconscious) and jacin (barely trustworthy snarky potential-maybe-hopefully ally). not exactly an ideal situation, socially, for cinder.

jacin is painting over the naked lady on the rampion ship to cover it — HE DOESN'T GET PAID ENOUGH FOR THIS

he actually isn't getting paid at all he seemingly dislikes working with them and at that point he shows no clear motive to why he's helping them. i can't imagine how confusing that must be for cinder.

and yet he still cooperates. sure he throws in a lot of snarky remarks here and there (read: every 4.7 minutes) but he's still cooperating. and yet he's very much expressionless and keeps his mind blank all the time, shows no effort to seem trustworthy to the others... very much giving "oh i like to keep people guessing"

"Hey, mongrels, try to stay in the lines!" — i had to look up what mongrel means and even after searching i'm a bit confused but all i can say is that please do not let jacin babysit kids alone ever he'd terrorize them

wait but no he wants to be a doctor i like to think that he secretly is good with kids or maybe he only realizes that post-winter (when did this post turn into a hc)

"I’ve taken enough orders in my life.” YOU GO JACIN

no but he's kinda right even if he was harsh with cinder? the kids' painting was adorable but it wouldn't exactly be discreet when the entire world is on the look out for the rampion...

when cinder says “You have a funny way of showing loyalty.” and he just chuckles in response — and let the ambiguous loyalty misunderstanding continue

he chuckled

also stop being cryptic jacin this is why no one likes you /j

i really need to share this entire interaction because i was laughing so hard

Jacin’s concern turned fast to annoyance. “Your ship has some messed-up priorities, you know that?”

“Iko. My name is Iko. If you don’t stop calling me the ‘ship,’ I am going to make sure you never have hot water during your showers again, do you understand me?”

“Yeah, hold that thought while I go disable the speaker system.”,

jacin: ship, can you stop talking

iko: but i'm iko, the literal reason you have warm water and functioning lights i could literally cut off your internet access right now and make sure you always get locked inside the bathroom i will—

jacin: ok iko, can you stop talking

like he's just so annoying but i can't even be mad because it's so funny. my guy is stuck with people who don't trust him, outnumber him and could easily take him down if needed and he insists on antagonizing them at any chance he gets just because he can.

i love that the others never hesitate to put him in his place though like yess rampion crew humble him make him develop those social skills

i promise he's my comfort character

Cinder punched him.

Jacin stumbled against the wall, already chuckling as his hand came up to his cheekbone. “Did I hit a nerve, or was it a wire that time? You have plenty of both, right?”

what can i say.. if he gets punched again after this that's on him

thing is, jacin's so hostile when cinder is talking about her plan because he thinks she's just insane like ?? what is this 16 year old outlaw doing trying to overthrow a tyrant

you have to remember he has NO idea she is princess selene and he definitely did not sign up for this

at least kai believes cinder is doing it because she found princess selene. jacin never even considered the possibility of selene being implicated he literally just can't figure out what's wrong with these people and why they even think they have a chance against levana

long-ish quotes because jacinter<33

"I’m here because I saw an opportunity to get away from that thaumaturge without getting killed, and—” He cut himself off.

“And what?”

His jaw flexed.

“And what?”

“And it’s what Her Highness would have wanted me to do, although now she’s probably going to die for it.”

!^*#*%*@*×&#&#,,HERE WE GO

first let's appreciate the fact that he flexes his jaw and stops himself from mentioning winter

it's just. the fact that every time he thinks or mentions her his entire demeanor changes and it's so painfully visible. he's trained his whole life to hide everything from his face but he can never control his reactions when it comes to winter.

the way he abruptly cut himself off isn't something he can just shrug off. everyone noticed it. everyone knows he was about to say something important or he wouldn't have reacted that way. he probably knows that avoiding the question again (which is about the reason he joined them) would just make him more suspicious so he continues what he was saying and mentions the princess, basically confirming that he's not working for levana in any way.

also in the last sentence, and in a later quote too, he implies that something might happen to winter... and we all know what jacin does at the end of cress right

and then the big reveal, the moment we've all been waiting for: “Princess Winter. Who do you think?”

like sorry but he has NO clue why everyone would ever question who "the princess" is or why they're surprised and it’s just so funny to me? just thinking how in his perspective the rampion crew probably seem like a bunch of weirdos (like, on top of it all, you don't seem like you know who THEEE princess winter is? do better.)

“I thought maybe the princess would be proud if she heard about me turning against Sybil. That she would approve of my decision. But who am I kidding? She’ll never even know.”

HE WNATED HER TO BE PROUD OF HIM SHUT UP??????

i'm sorry but i just. they . i always talk about how jacin kept being a lunar guard no matter how hard it was for him so he can protect winter & his family but can we also talk about how one of the main things winter has always wanted was for him to be able to escape this life? even if it meant she would have to stay alone?

jacin and winter depend on each other's presence to endure the lives they've been forced into. they give each other a reason to tolerate it no matter how bad things get. and yet, all they want is for the other to be able to improve their situation.

jacin would do anything for winter, that we know. and since she's in no position to ever leave her situation (unlike jacin who technically can try, but would risk too much) the best thing he can do to help her is stay by her side, even if it means sacrificing a lot.

meanwhile, the fact that winter encourages him to leave means that she is willing to let go of him if it means him living a better life. considering her situation, her condition & the fact that jacin is literally her only friend, it takes so much selflessness to put him first like that.

they just want the best for the other. they love each other so much.

and obviously, jacin never planned on leaving her for good here, but for once he's taking initiative. he doesn't want to follow orders anymore. he took a chance. and winter would be proud of him for that.

“Do you … do you love her?”

He glared at her, disgusted. “Don’t try to push your swoony psychodrama on me. I’m sworn to protect her. Can’t very well do that from down here, can I?”

jacin, baby, you're also "sworn to protect" levana, i don't think that excuse really works here...

and there he goes contradicting me right after i said they love each other so much. but he didn't deny it, did he?

“Protect her from what? Levana?”

“Among other things.”

Jacin peered at her like he couldn’t figure out why he was wasting his time with such an idiot.

that last line@^*$ he really has no idea why his loyalty to his "princess" (the only current lunar princess) would ever cause so much confusion.

now, a necessary compilation of jacin clay being an absolute menace

when they're all surrounded by authorities and cinder asks jacin if he can control any of the humans, and he goes "Yeah, right." — he doesn't even TRY ???? also this shows that he doesn't believe in his lunar gift skills at all oh wow

this thorne/jacin interaction:

"In that case, has anyone seen my gun?”

“I’ve got it,” said Jacin.

“Can I have it back?”

“Nope.”

a MENACE i tell u

but also good on u for not giving a blind man a gun, jacin

"When he did talk, he tended to say something rude or prickly." that's my boy

take a shot every time someone describes him as looking extremely bored

“Let’s say you manage to pull this off, not that I really think you will.” — WHAT HAPPENED TO BOOSTING TEAM MORALE

cinder giving him instructions and him repearing "I know." after each sentence (until thorne cuts her off and goes "Cinder, he knows." — he might have saved some lives here)

also i need more thorne/jacin interactions i can't wait to reread winter & stars above

AND...... jacin betrays them

i'm going to be honest there i haven't read the 4th book in so long so i forgot some things related to that — like i know he did it for winter's sake but the exact specific reason is just a vague memory so i can't say much about this part

but we do get this scene with him and levana and i feel like it's so important to point out the fact that the queen herself decides to confront some "lowly guard" and you can even tell through their conversation how much she's just looking for an excuse to have him be considered a traitor... and obviously she'd love that to make winter suffer

jacin claims that he infiltrated the rampion crew as a spy and that he betrayed them after gathering info, etc.

he says that he's the one who gave sybil the location (did he though? i forgot lol)

levana tries to test his mind for rebellion but his mind is blank as always — obviously she's disappointed to not find anything but can we just talk about how ???? like even levana who has an EXTREMELY strong gift and an insane amount of practice can't even get near his thoughts and oh he's able to do that

NO DOUBT YOUR EAGERNESS TO RETURN ENCOMPASSED A DESIRE TO SEE YOUR BELOVED PRINCESS AS WELL

and THERE the "tiniest ripple of emotion" before he goes all blank again

sorry i know i've said this before but even after years and years of practice and mastering that expressionless face it takes the MOST MINIMAL mention of winter for it to break in an instant my heart hurts she's his weakness and he doesn't even try to pretend otherwise

like. he goes on saying he serves the entire royal family — first of all, very careful wording because levana would be the type to find ANYTHING to use against him (like i can totally see her going "oh, so you don't protect my beloved stepdaughter? that's treason" if he hadn't)

but also it prevents him from telling a full lie about it. idk if this makes sense but something i've noticed is that jacin is ok with lying / hiding many things but when it comes to winter, he goes with half-truths.

is it because he knows he can't control his expression anyway and that his emotions would give him away?

is it because he knows they would force it out of him if he tried to? (since he's used to being controlled)

maybe it's that something in him prevents him from denying it, like even if it's a lie he just can't say it...

idk... but i do know that he didn't attempt to lie about it even with the rampion crew

no one, not even lunars with their gift, can figure out his thoughts so it actually seems fair that we rarely have any idea what goes through his mind either lmao

WHEN JACIN FINDS OUT THAT CINDER IS SELENE AND HE DOESN'T EVEN TRY TO HIDE HIS EXPRESSION

it's like. Oh. Oh.

suddenly everything starts to make sense to him and i have to say it had me grinning

actually, thinking about it, it's kinda good that jacin acted like an antagonistic jerk for 90% of cress (guys i promise i love him) because can you imagine if the rampion crew trusted him? if they had shared their secrets with him?

not only would hiding the plans he'd have known about from levana have been nearly impossible, but he also might not have had a properly shocked reaction at dr. erland saying that cinder is selene and hide the fact that he had known like...

levana would have gotten to them so easily.

in conclusion, jacin clay is the reason the lunar chronicles has a 4th book in the first place. his sarcasm single handedly extended the plot. everyone say thank you jacin.

this is technically the last moment jacin appears in cress BUT if you think i wasn't going to scream about winter talking about him to scarlet, then there is no way you have been actually reading this post because of course i'm going to scream about it

first things first, she is playing make-believe doctor/patient with scarlet

I REPEAT: doctor & patient

this isn't even directly related to jacinter but i don't care i'm making it about jacinter

when she talks about jacin going missing :(((( i'm so upset can you imagine how hard it must have been for her... her going "and I don’t know if he’ll ever come back" and nearly dropping everything

i just find it so interesting that while jacin never shows his emotions, you can feel winter's strongly. like she's so physically expressive, and not just in terms of facial expressions.

"But I asked the stars to send a sign that he was all right, and they sent me a shooting star across the sky."

despite scarlet not really looking like she's about to answer her / cooperate, she just keeps going and asks whether he's safe... she's so worried about him i'm actually sad

more about how expressive winter is:

when scarlet confirms she saw jacin: "Glee spread over the girl’s face."

the instant scarlet implies that jacin might have been killed: The smile vanished and the girl shriveled away, tying her arms around her waist. “You don’t mean that.”

it's just so interesting how marissa meyer made them complete opposite in that aspect. winter shows her emotions in such an open, unfiltered way, to the point you feel that emotion yourself, meanwhile jacin...

“Jacin Clay,” she whispered. “Sybil’s guard, with the blond hair and beautiful eyes and the rising sun in his smile. Please, tell me he’s all right.”

i love this quote a lot because first of all you can just feel how in love winter is oh god she loves him so much (also it's just so endearing coming from her)

second of all, it's just the huge contrast between the jacin we've seen up until now and winter's version of jacin (who is technically his real personality)

and obviously, as i'm rereading this i can immediately go "awww" but i can imagine that when reading it for the 1st time, when you don't know either of them that well, you'd go ?? who? is winter just blinded by her crush that she sees what she wants to see? or has jacin clay actually been nice to another living being before in his lifetime?

and scarlet mirrors that thought perfectly because she's like,, well i remember a blond guard but definitely not a rising sun in his smile. or a smile point blank. also he tried to murder us.

and then winter doesn't even react to the last part. him trying to kill other people. she's absolutely unconcerned.

and it's not in a "oh yeah he does that sometimes" type of unconcerned (which i've seen with different fictional characters for who killing is a 'normal' thing). but no really, her lack of concern about it is because she knows he would never do that willingly.

she knows he has had to do things he doesn't want to do as a guard. that fact doesn't change the image of jacin she has, since she's known him for so long, way before he became a guard.

and i just love that because all the other tlc ships meet during the story's timeline, right? so they all have their moments where they don't fully trust the others, or doubt each others' loyalties, etc. especially in the early stages of each relationship, you have several moments where a certain action one does or miscommunication causes some sort of conflict between them.

take wolf/scarlet, for example, wolf also gets forced into doing things unwillingly, and despite knowing that, scarlet still hesitates in trusting him.

not that it's a bad thing! if anything, it's realistic. completely normal. even when you really care about someone, if you don't know them enough, sometimes 1 wrong move (even if it turns out you just misinterpreted the situation) can make you mistrust them for a while.

but jacin & winter are way past that stage like there is nothing one of them could do that would make them immediately think the other might be a bad person after all or anything like that. they just know each other too much for that.

plus, she knows how ridiculously rational he is all the time so she knows that if he did a certain thing, he had his reason and it was probably his best option at the time.

have i mentioned how much i love them btw

so. that was something.

pleeaaaase leave your thoughts in replies and reblogs let's talk about jacin i want to talk about jacin

i'm also planning on rereading winter at some point, too, and i'm wondering if i should make a jacin post for that. will it end up being 6 parts long? perhaps. but i'm still considering it.

if you somehow made it to the end and don't yet want to block me for how ridiculously long this post is, then congratulations! you are now officially a citizen of the Jacin Clay Nation. we are proud to have you here with us.

part 1

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Now that I'm free of study (or well, as much as I can be) I finally have time to write again!

Feel free to send in some fanfic suggestions with character(s)

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I was talking to my friend Alex about the potential of Will and Halt (but mostly Will) and it evolved into deep character analysis so here are some highlights of the conversation:

"I think Halt had very absent parents so he doesn’t know what a good father is like, therefore when he acts fatherly towards Will that’s just instinct that he doesn’t have a name for. He’s scared to call himself a dad because he didn’t have a good example.

Will on the other hand literally never knew his parents and grew up in an orphanage his whole life. He has never had the experience of having parents so while he does feel safe around Halt in a familial way he doesn’t have a word for it because he doesn’t know how family feels."

"Flanny also didn’t take advantage of the possible misunderstandings that could arise from that undefined silent connection. One scene I imagine is in book 4 when Will is freshly traumatized and maybe he lashes out sometimes. When he learns that Halt got himself banished (because I think that he should’ve learned while still in Skandia because that would raise tension) he might actually get mad because Halt threw away something important for him, and he doesn’t see himself as important. He doesn’t understand how much Halt cares about him."

"I do feel like Will would have serious abandonment issues because of his parents. Like he knows its not their fault that they died, yet he would still blame himself. especially when he was in the orphanage his entire life and no one seemed to care."

"I think when he learned that Halt had been watching over him for years, and especially close to the choosing ceremony, he felt like he didn't deserve it. He was a little shocked that someone paid attention to him that much at all."

"It’s so interesting how they can come from such different social standings and yet share the same loneliness and disconnect from the concept of family."

"There's also something to say about how Will had an idealized version of his parents in his head for a long time so he couldn't recognize the family relationship he was forming with Halt. He thoughts parents were flawless and their presence would solve everything. His dynamic with Halt didn't look like the story books, so to him it didn't click until much later."

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A few weeks ago, @rangerfairy was sharing her thoughts about the nature of Will and Halt's relationship and why it took both of them so long to explicitly think of each other as family with me. She has a good in-depth post about it here. Her perspective on it is very nuanced and fits really well with canon, so definitely check it out, along with her other analysis posts.

It made me think about some themes I'd planted in my writing before regarding Halt, Will and Daniel — how Halt is somewhat haunted by both Daniel and his wife, but Daniel especially, even more so when Halt and Will's relationship begins to reflect that of a father and son.

I can imagine that Halt would feel out of place claiming Will as his own because, on some level, he blames himself for the fact that Will's parents are gone, especially with the added fact that they probably would've been good parents, too, based on the little we saw of them. Halt, who almost definitely didn't have that as a child himself, can't help but think he took that from Will. And not only that, but Halt would have trouble seeing how it wouldn’t be betraying Daniel’s memory to think of Will as his. Will's father who sacrificed himself for Halt — how could he let Will place him higher than Daniel?

And then there's Will. Will, who never experienced a normal family dynamic as a child, who only knows what it's like to be parentless, who for so long was attached to the idea of his father, the 'knight'. In a similar vein, Halt is attached to Daniel’s last moment and unable to move on from it — and perhaps neither are perceiving him entirely right. Daniel isn't there; unable to give Will that fatherly love as a child that might've set him on a different course. Daniel saw his life ending and entrusted his unborn son to the man he'd laid down his life for. Daniel's gone, but I sincerely believe he would've been satisfied had Halt raised Will and called him son from the start. But Halt doesn't see it that way.

And then there's the added layer of Halt having had really bad experiences with family in the past. The entire concept is tainted for him, as well as being entirely foreign to Will (Fairy's analysis). All this mixed with survivor's guilt and feelings of uncertainty about Daniel's place in Will's life could cause a bit of a rift between Halt and Will at a certain point.

I imagine that, when it eventually comes up between them, Will can't possibly conceive why Halt feels like he owes it to Daniel not to raise himself to that level with Will. Because although Daniel is a bit of an ideal in both their minds, Will has virtually no real attachment to his father and doesn’t really think of Daniel as family — largely because he doesn’t know him... at all. But Halt feels like he’s failing Daniel by not having Will think of him — Daniel — as his true family. It takes both of them a while to realize that they've been instinctively treating each other like family for a long time (Fairy's analysis). He may have come from Daniel, but in the end, he's truly Halt's son.