#'this will be fun break from all my other meta' <- WRONG

[purgemarchlockdown]

My Analysis of Animal has gone so off the rails that I don't think I can call it just a Analysis of Animal anymore-

[ao3cassandraic]

Kayfabe: A Good Omens meta

"Kayfabe," in wrestling, is the performance (including outside the wrestling ring) of whatever storyline is being woven around the wrestlers. Breaking kayfabe is Serious Business for a wrestler; the illusion is part of the event. If you ever wondered how John Cena could anchor an entire HBO miniseries brilliantly, kayfabe is a big part of the answer.

Because of their histories and how their respective Head Offices treat them, Crowley and Aziraphale approach their version of kayfabe -- their whole "I am an angel! You are a demon! We're hereditary enemies!" schtick, also their "we are good bad proper little footsoldiers, honest, Boss" schtick to their respective Head Offices -- very, very differently.

I promise there's a point to this. I PROMISE. But let me walk through it first.

Both of them know that one awkward question to Upstairs at the wrong moment and its Fallsville. Crowley, however, knows a couple of things that Aziraphale doesn't have to:

Punishment isn't just once; in some ways, the Fall is never over. Beelzebub or Hastur can throw you in the Dung Pits whenever, after all, or feed you to a Hellhound, or zap you like an Eric. Crowley's lot do not send rude notes. (s2: we do not know what happened to Crowley after Hell dragged him back at the end of the Resurrectionists 'sode, but I think it safe to say it was not great for Crowley. Litotes: your key to quality meta.)

Downstairs can and does check in -- or drag Crowley Downstairs for a chat and possibly a bit of idle torture -- whenever they feel like it. Downstairs seems pretty disorganized, especially its leadership, so I'd expect ad-hoc surprise inspections from them. Downstairs can invade Crowley's flat's TV, his Bentley's radio, and his very mind to perform those inspections. Crowley is never, ever safe from this. He can't relax. Ever.

Heaven, on the other hand, has 37 levels of scriveners and zero interest in Earth. Talk of "reprimands" and "miracle budgets" and Michael being a stickler and whatnot suggests a formal review process happening on a schedule, governed largely by the dreaded (but quite possibly fake-able or spinnable) "paperwork" rather than direct observation by Aziraphale's peers or superiors. Otherwise, Aziraphale is usually left to his own devices. Remember how startled he is when Gabriel shows up at the sushi restaurant in s1? This is unusual!

(We also know from Muriel that Heaven's records office doesn't seem to get consulted a whole lot. It's possible this just means that first-through-thirty-sixth-level scriveners handle everything, but in my experience of large bureaucracies, it's the folks at the bottom of the hierarchy who invariably get run off their feet first. Don't see why Heaven would be any different.)

Moreover, Heaven's punishments seem pretty light, on the whole? Our angel is so anxious and so sensitive to slights that I'm sure the reprimands aren't fun, and nobody likes a reduced miracle budget... but Heavenly "needs improvement" reviews don't seem to be a patch on the Dung Pits. The real threat is Falling, which is more than horrible enough to serve as deterrent; Heaven doesn't need to add torments.

Moreover moreover, Aziraphale is mostly aligned with his Head Office in a way that Crowley really, really isn't. I'm sure Aziraphale does a lot of his Heaven assignments with a song in his heart and a skip in his step -- it's mostly not smiting or the like. Crowley... probably spends a lot of his work time figuring out how to obey the letter of Hellish law while defying its spirit. Crowley's in far more danger of angering his bosses.

So Aziraphale doesn't have to keep up kayfabe a lot of the time, not even while interacting with Crowley. He can and does save it for the rare occasions Heaven takes a personal interest. Crowley, however, must keep up kayfabe always, whether Aziraphale's there or not. The courage it must have taken that snake to slither up the wall of Eden!

The way Crowley navigates his permanent need for kayfabe is twofold. First, his all but instinctive refusal to accept any positive word or compliment about himself or his actions from anyone ever -- "I'M NOT NICE!" If Hell were ever to hear someone characterizing Crowley that way... That's also why Crowley is a bit less exercised when Jimbriel calls him nice: "nobody'll ever believe you."

Second, a species of Orwellian doublethink: maintaining a running commentary in his head of how he's going to justify any unHellish actions to Hell, since he can never know exactly when he'll have to or what exactly they'll have a bug up their butt (sorry, Beez) about. Even high as a kite on laudanum in the Edinburgh cemetery, Crowley can explain his current justification (in a curiously sober voice -- is Crowley ever really high in that scene? or is it all kayfabe? I lean toward kayfabe) to Aziraphale, "Not kind! Off my head on laudanum, not responsible for my actions."

We can see the kayfabe mismatch play out a few times, and it does appear that Aziraphale gets more concerned for Crowley's safety and more aware of Crowley's need for kayfabe post-Arrangement. That doesn't mean he always remembers, of course -- he wouldn't, he just doesn't have that same desperate need. And, of course, the ineffable walnuts do not communicate, as s2 went to some lengths to point out. I do think kayfabe is part of that -- it's hard for Crowley to be sincere when he's constantly doublethinking, and Aziraphale's off-and-on involvement with kayfabe (and all his other tendencies toward lying) disincline him to achieve or even learn about honest communication.

One s1 scene I went back and rewatched while thinking about this was the Globe scene, which contains Aziraphale's Saint-Peter-esque three-time denial of Crowley. I find it easy now to read that as Aziraphale going "oh crap do I need to drop back into kayfabe now? I didn't break kayfabe, did I?" and Crowley grinning, at least partly as reassurance. (Partly, of course, because Aziraphale is cute and funny even when kayfabing -- and partly because Aziraphale's sudden drop into kayfabe is Aziraphale trying to protect Crowley, of course Crowley's pleased by that.)

The wall pin, now that I think about it, also gains a little nuance from this. Crowley's fear-laced ire is genuine, but how many times must Aziraphale have heard Crowley snarl at him not to break kayfabe in this way? No surprise he's a little unimpressed. (With Crowley's demand. He's clearly very impressed by Crowley.)

In the s2 Job minisode, Aziraphale hilariously drops kayfabe (and that epic whole-body halo, loved that, great job FX folks) almost immediately. Crowley allows it, because Crowley is on firm ground -- Hell will be just fine with Crowley wrapping the angel in a Chuck-Jones-cartoon amount of scroll parchment and flipping him off.

When angel and demon collude on the con later, of course, they observe kayfabe, improv-style -- Crowley helps Aziraphale deal with the Job's-children situation without giving either of them away to the watching angel posse. Interestingly, it's Aziraphale who de-gecko-izes the kids. That gives Crowley an out, sort of: "look, the mansion collapse missed them because they were in the cellar, I turned them into geckos, totally Hellish thing to do, they'd never survive in the wild, but then this bloody interfering angel went and changed them back!"

And how does Crowley console a distraught angel who thinks he's about to be dragged to Hell? Crowley explains kayfabe in the fewest and clearest words possible. "Well, yeah, you did, but... I'm not going to tell anybody. Are you?"

So yeah. That's kayfabe for the Ineffable Walnuts.

But I promised there was a point to this, didn't I? Yes, I have a point.

My point is...

my POINT is...

my point IS...

(not dolphins, not this time)

My point is, how much of s2's Final Fifteen Minutes is kayfabe?

That's my point.

[raayllum]

also cause I'm not there yet in my 5x08 liveblog but because even just a whiff of "Callum gave Finnegrin the spell" made the fandom troll come running into my inbox to say otherwise, just wanna clear up a few things for peace of mind before we get there

The first is that I know it was the fandom troll because of the timing & presentation, not necessarily because the now deleted/blocked ask had the "Callum purposefully gave Finnegrin the wrong spell" take. While that was an indication to me that this was probably the fandom troll since they seem to take issue with my characterization of Callum in particular, perfectly smart reasonable people have also proposed that possibility of the spell ingredients being not entirely accurate as purposeful; it's not exclusive to crappy people by any measure.

With all that in mind, I want to discuss how I view the scene (and indeed how I think it's meant to be interpreted per a casual viewer reading) as well as why I think Callum giving Finnegrin a not word-for-word accurate actually kind of makes his choice more morally questionable, not less

So let's begin

1) I don't think the scene's intended takeaway is that Callum gave Finnegrin the wrong spell

I think Callum panicked, and he folded, and he would've told Finnegrin anything the pirate had asked for in that moment to try and spare Rayla's life. While TDP is an immensely detailed show in many ways (hell I have a tag dedicated to just those details), every scene still has to ultimately work for a casual viewer. I don't think this scene is any exception. One of the first things in the series that we learn is that humans took down the King of the Dragons with dark magic and it's a repeated fact throughout most of the first season, and into the third when we see the events that transpired exactly.

So when Finnegrin mentions it, we're probably going to remember that was a thing that happened and it involved Harrow and Viren, but we're probably not going to remember the specific ingredients. Therefore, like Finnegrin, most audience members are going to take Callum at his word, especially since throughout most of his conversation with Finnegrin, Callum is arguably far more honest than he needs to be (fessing up that he did dark magic at all, mentioning that he studies all the primals, that he did the spell to save a friend at all - which is exactly why Finnegrin sets him the hand cutting test to try and break him, etc). The scene - again, for the audience's benefit - even as Callum clarify for those that wouldn't remember why he was spouting things about dying breaths and unicorn horns, because again, I do think this is the Intended Takeaway:

Part of the reason I think Callum panicked (other than Jack de Sena's wonderful voice acting and uneven breaths) is because, if Callum was thinking clearly enough to withhold information purposefully, he could've considered 1) that Finnegrin is bluffing about threatening Rayla (Callum cannot see her or any of the others, so that could be the case) and 2) Finnegrin would have limited means to know that Callum was lying if Callum said exclusively the wrong ingredients and sent him on a wild goose chase. To give as much as he did accurately was dangerous (but we'll talk more about that in a second).

We also know from instances in the previous seasons and just the prior episode that Callum doesn't have all sky spells (ones that he can do whenever he wants basically) memorized either, and that it's not out of the realm of possibility that Viren would've fudged a little to Harrow about some components of the spell (such as emphasizing love and hatred) because he was actively trying to convince - somewhat guilt-trip and manipulate - Harrow into doing something didn't really want to do, but ultimately couldn't say no to.

However, one of the things that's the most fun meta is reading into things deeply, looking at various character interpretations, and seeing what we can find below the surface level / casual viewership read. Just because something may not be the 'intended takeaway' (which can already be hard to define) doesn't mean it's not a real possibility, especially if enough dots connect, and doesn't mean it's not worthwhile and or without merit.

So let's look at the scene from the assumption that Callum is giving Finnegrin a not totally accurate spell On Purpose - what does he omit, what does that tell us, and where does that leave us from a character standpoint?

2) Haha, jk, unless...?

First things first, let's look at what Callum says vs what Viren says

No, no, wait! A dying breath. Blood filled with hatred. And a unicorn horn. That's the dark magic you want.

In her final moments, I captured something that I hoped we could use later. It contains her dying breath. [...] Claudia captured a unicorn and brought me its horn. The dying breath. The unicorn's pure horn. There's one last component I need. The undying hatred of one who loved the victim. Your blood.

Now, even Viren's stance and the circumstances of the spell isn't entirely clear. We don't know if any dying breath would do, or if it had to be Sarai's (and had to go her killer, as opposed to someone else). We don't know if the spell requires the unicorn's horn to be 'pure' (I'm assuming not already corrupted somehow with dark magic) or if it would work regardless. And we don't know whether the hatred or love is more important, or just one, or if they're equally important. It's quite a list, after all.

Which is why I think in some ways Callum's lack of specificity actually makes what Callum told Finnegrin more dangerous, whether you read the minor omissions as intentional or not.

Cause think of it this way, you're a pirate lord and you want to kill your enemy. You heard from this mage kid that any dying breath would do. What's your next move going to be? You're probably going to murder a random member of your crew and collect the breath because you were never told it had to be your loved one's final breath (which would make the spell impossible).

So that's one murder down, bare minimum. Then you're going to either send people out or word that you're looking for a unicorn horn at a port where people already canonically smuggle dark magic supplies (Chasing Shadows, TDP reflection). This will either lead to you hiring people to eliminate one of the - it appears to be - few remaining unicorns that still exist to bring you the horn, or if you've put out a reward, multiple dark mages / mercenaries may try their hand at killing one and bringing the horn to you. That's probably 1-5 unicorn murders as a result, if the mages are working not in communication with each other and all vying for the reward. This is also assuming that none of the mercenaries or mages come back empty handed and get harmed or killed because of Finnegrin's anger at their failures.

You also might torment and torture someone else to get them to hate you before you drain them of blood / take their blood for the spell, again not realizing that 'love' has to be a facet of it. At best, that would maybe be what you do to the crew member before you kill them for their final breath.

Then, once he has all the ingredients (and he'd need some sort of incantation, because dark magic is a lot of steps and processes) there's two main avenues.

Either these all work and he successfully has his weapon of vengeance needed to kill Domina Profundis, because what was given was enough. This would mean Callum's actions led to about 2-3 successful murders of mostly innocent people and possibly more political upheaval at the death of another archdragon (the ocean would certainly be out of whack, but it's not clear how much, if any, political power Domina still holds).

It doesn't work and Finnegrin, stubborn as he is about control and loathe to admit he can't commandeer something (magic and wills included), figures that something went wrong and tries again, having to collect the ingredients all over again. Depending on how many times he'd try (I feel like maybe 2-3 max), this could put those murders up to maybe nine innocent individuals, assuming Finnegrin's worsening temper over his failures doesn't increase the tally.

Rattling off the accurate spell ingredients could've actually minimized the damage, because any of the specifics might've stopped Finnegrin in his tracks. If Finnegrin just needed hatred of one who loved the victim, he could've fulfilled that on his own with some of his own blood ("I loved that crab" and her definitely hates Domina Profundis). The one that could've entirely halted his plan is if the dying breath had to come from the victim, in which case the chance to avenge his beloved crab is long gone. Finnegrin could've heard the list of very specific ingredients, deduced that he would not be capable of carrying out the spell, and been on his merry way to use Rayla as revenge fish bait.

But by giving Finnegrin an 'imperfect' list, Callum made the pirate captain more likely to engage in the violence required to get there, without an actual textual guarantee to the audience that what was given wouldn't have worked, either (aka we have two ingredients list and without a third to tip the scales, it'll always be a technical 50-50, maybe 60-40 read in favour of Viren).

So where does that leave us?

With these two readings in mind, you have two options:

Callum is willing to sacrifice Domina Profundis', and a few unnamed innocent lives/creatures, to save Rayla and thereby gave Finnegrin a dangerous in its own way, if not more dangerous because of potential increased collateral damage, list of spell ingredients, because he acted entirely out of emotionally fuelled panic where he wasn't totally thinking clearly

OR

Callum is willing to sacrifice unnamed innocent lives and creatures, but not Domina Profundis', in order save Rayla, because he decided on purpose to give Finnegrin a more achievable sounding list of ingredients that would increase collateral damage, but not let him kill the dragon, because he made a calculated decision on purpose that those lives were worth less than Rayla's and Domina's to him (for some reason, as she's a stranger to him)

To be clear, I would love the second option as an interpretation because I do think Callum can be calculating and I do think that's the far more Viren-like option - choosing what to sacrifice for other people in the mindset of harm mitigation ("A thousand men and women are prepared to fall protecting you tonight, but you won't let one sacrifice their lives for you?" / "If you must choose, choose the egg").

But again, given the framing of the scene I think the first reading is 1) more sympathetic and speaks to Callum's more compassionate emotional nature and 2) is the intended takeaway, but if people want to read it as Callum strategically deciding that certain lives - other than Rayla's - were worth sacrificing that so she and Domina Profundis wouldn't be killed, that is absolutely a valid prerogative.

It's just not mine

[laylawatermelon]

My Offering To You The 911 fandom to tide us over the break and beyond

My proposal: Two hastags for fan engagement

#911ThrowbackTuesday

And the most important one

#911ThursdayTakeover

I noticed we tend to dominate the trending sections every Thursday across social platforms (as we should) but it's usually after the episode comes out.

Which understandable.

I've had this idea rattling around since I started watching live on Twitter and have seen that we're taking over the trending tags🤣.

I want to start a fan hashtag/space.

So here's my proposal.

#911 ThrowbackTuesday (and what it entails.

I thought it'd be fun to have the og/older fans telling stories about the fandom, information we won't know, the best personal episode and other info for the influx of new fans. (And who doesn't love to reminisce about the good old days?)

For rewatches and comments

The popular theories of the past (and how wrong or right they were and how funny it was when it was our wasn't proven)

Older blog posts that relates to older episodes

Older Twitter accounts that were popular/were can see what it was like when it started airing.

Old cast photos (please we need them for pfps and other reasons...)

#911ThursdayTakeover

Legendary fan photos (aka tweets etc)

During rewatches acting like it's new info can be really funny too

Interacting with new fans about stuff that happened during the original airing.

I find it fun personally to hear stuff from the older fans and they get to share their excitement and new fans can get it because most of us didn't get the fun of the past seasons.

It's a way to bridge the gap (not that there's one really) and have all fans come together and be unhinged together.

It's a yap fest. 🤗 And what a beautiful one it will be...

And then there's,

ThursdayTakeover is the biggest one.

I have ideas for the drought we're having and we can keep it on trending at least, as it brings good attention and new fans (and subsequently more seasons yes it's all coming together).

There's two protocols I've cooked up.

The drought version (aka now)

This version is dedicated to the present and future of 911. The hastag can be used to post on any day but it's like a little notebook for all things unhinged before new episodes come out.

For when the shows not airing it'll be this:

Theories about future episodes

Meta (all the juicy meta your heart desires)

Current fan works based in the present or future episodes (this includes fanfics, fan art etc)

Spec fics/sneak peek of current work

Regular media sharing

I think this would be easy as I noticed it's a bit hard to navigate specific fan works and information during airing/older posts when using Tumblr due to it not having a specific date system.

This way it kind of lets you put it all in one beautiful hastag that you can scroll for hours and know what exactly is going to be going on.

I'd just like an archive or sorts as it is a bit hard to put together information as a new fan.

(is my audhd showing yet?)

For when it's airing it's a bit different.

It'll be from before the show starts business as at usual there's no need to really worry about trending as it'll do it regardless, but I'm the case is the hashtag if it's a takeover then we have to really takeover. Like all day.

This applies to the hours before we watch on airing days:

Theories/discussions about airing episodes (then after discussing whether or was right or wrong and clowning your theories/the unhingedness of it all)

Sneak peeks /media

Using the hastag to let everyone know what's up and the timeline WILL be flooded with our fruity family that we love and adore🥰

Then as it airs I suggest (it already happens but still)

Live blogging

Live Tweeting

Photos/reactions as it's airing so we can share it collective mind melting

Then afterwards it's business as usual.

Meltdowns

Unhinged posts

Disbelief

Tears

Joy

Recollection of what just happened?!

I only thought of this idea because I'm interested in promoting/helping out with the visibility and stuff (free marketing am i right?)

I haven't been able to fan girl about stuff in a while and feel really welcome and happy because of this show.

It really gives me something to look forward every week to see what the show creates and after the joy the fans share with each other.

You guys are the best! 🤗

Still this is my offering back because this show really changed my life as it gives me something to look forward to every week like an anchor.

So now that the gooey stuff is all done I'll ask once more...

Who's with me?!

[lurkingshan]

✨2023: A Summary✨

Post your most popular and/or favourite edit/gifset/analysis for each month (it’s okay to skip months!)

Tagged by @dribs-and-drabbles, thanks dribs! It's kind of fun to go back and see what I was on about at various points this year.

January

This blog was a mere bebe this time last year and I hadn't started posting anything substantial yet, so nothing of note here.

February

most popular — Making fun of Hira in Utsukushii Kare 2 (affectionately)

favorite — Praising Moonlight Chicken's character writing

March

most popular — The Glory does revenge right

favorite — Whining about people using the friends to lovers label wrong

April

most popular — Celebrating Queen Ae Ri from The Eighth Sense

favourite(s) — Making sure people understand Ji Hyun is a drama dork, helping to kick off the most batshit week of discourse in T8S fandom, and of course the first (of many) appreciation posts for Porsche's sweater

May

most popular — On Step By Step removing a scene critiquing BGP because of fan outcry

favorite(s) — 10 Things I Love About WDYEY and 10 Things I Love About Khun Chai (please watch them if you haven't yet people!)

June

most popular — Having a ball with King the Land

favorite(s) — Breaking down Pat's effect on Phupha in Our Skyy 2, the complexity of family trauma in Our Dining Table, and Jeng's reaction to his failed confession in Step by Step (ugh remember when this show was good). And of course this was the month that the La Plue meta round up was born.

July

most popular — Bitching about romance discourse (it was about King the Land at the time but it's quite widely applicable lol)

favourite(s) — Hysterical praise for La Pluie's conflict writing, kudos for Be My Favorite's character work for Kawi, breaking down where Step By Step went wrong

August

most popular — Ah the good times when we were still so amped about Only Friends

favorite(s) — Every moment of the My Ride rewatch, great moments in subtitlery from Laws of Attraction, and praise for Sing My Crush

September

most popular — That one time I actually liked a Mew thing in Only Friends

favorite(s) — Trying to get y'all to watch Love in Translation, comparing Someday or One Day and A Time Called You, clarifying the differences between Boston and Brian Kinney

October

most popular — Boston and Nick my beloveds (it would be shocking if they didn't make this list they are responsible for many of my most popular posts)

favorite(s) — A couple I Feel You Linger in the Air breakdowns: why the romance works despite being underwritten, and Fong Kaew's excellent character arc

November

most popular — Goofing on the unseriousness of Kiseki: Dear to Me

favorite(s) — Breaking down how the writing choices in Only Friends sent toxic messages and final thoughts on the IFYL finale

December

most popular — Japanese BL starter pack

favorite(s) — Simping over Mohk simping over Day in Last Twilight, yelling about Cherry Magic Thailand, kicking off bl superlatives 2023

--

In addition to all the people dribs tagged that I am double tagging because I want to see your answers (@wen-kexing-apologist @grapejuicegay @btwinlines @twig-tea @rocketturtle4 @waitmyturtles @telomeke and @respectthepetty) I am adding some other folks I know wrote/created a lot this year because I'm curious what stuck with you most: @bengiyo, @ranchthoughts, @jemmo, @chickenstrangers, @chicademartinica, @slayerkitty, @my-rose-tinted-glasses, @colourme-feral, @blmpff, @liyazaki, @wanderlust-in-my-soul, @troubled-mind, @benkaaoi.

[lunamond]

In light of my recent post about Acotar, I wanted to gush some about my favourite Beauty and Beast and Ballad of Tam Lin (and a sprinkle of Bluebeard) YA retelling.

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge ❤️

This is mostly going to be a gush fest and recommendation for anyone who was also excited by the idea of meshing Beauty and the Beast with Tam Lin and ended up utterly disappointed with Acotar.

Some very mild spoilers (mostly Worldbuilding)

Cruel Beauty is a fun and easy read: YA Fantasy Romance with plenty of popular tropes and archetypes, like the arranged marriage, forced proximity, enemies to lovers, etc

This book still manages to engage in such interesting ways with the original tales it's based on.

Instead of stealing the aesthetic of the Og fairytales and other folklore and mythology like in Acotar.

Any defining fae feature of Sjm's characters is immediately removed in the very beginning of Acotar (the lieing, the iron, etc), turning the characters in what amounts to hot magic people. Even their supposed long lifespans barely impact their behaviour or culture.

Cruel Beauty continuously builts on its roots, making them an intrinsic part of its narrative.

In Acotar outside of the very shallow narrative skeleton of the Beauty and the Beast tale, you could strip away the faerie and folklore elements, and you're left with the same story. The only changes you might need to make are to find a new name for Tamlin (while not that serious, I considered it quite offensive when I first read this series as a teenager that Sjm would take that name and then turn that character into an abuser).

In Cruel Beauty, however, both the defining elements of the Beauty and the Beast story and the Tam Lin story are crucial to the development and resolution of its plot.

The Beast of the story is cursed, as are the inhabitants of his castle. Nyx, our Beauty character, is offered in exchange for a mistake her father made. As she is unknowingly about to break the curse, the Beast lets her go back, but when she returns, it's too late to break the curse.

This is when the story morphes into the Ballad of Tam Lin, and Nyx has to win her lover back from the Faerie Queen in much the same manner as Janet did in the ballad, even saving him from a very similar fate.

The Bluebeard elements, which to me always seemed more like references than an actual retelling, are still really apparent and well integrated.

The representation of the fae is also great in this book. This is especially remarkable due to the fact that the actual words fae or faerie are never used once.

Instead, they are referred to as the Kindly Ones.

However, they are clearly trickster folk who make bargains with unwitting humans that always end up going wrong in cruel ways. They are fair, never directly lie, and always keep their end of the agreement. They place a lot of importance on names, are otherworldly, eerie, etc.

Basically, they actually seem Other, instead of talking and acting like frat bros from the 21st century.

This book differs from a lot of other Fae Fantasy, however, in the way it mixes Greco-Roman Myths with more Celtic Germanic Folklore. It creates a really fun interplay between these cultures, both in-world as well as on a meta level.

First of all, there are some other (in my opinion, more mediocre books) that do throw a lot of mythologies together. CB sets itself apart with the fact that it does so with a lot more purpose than others do.

In many people's minds, different cultures and mythos tend to be viewed as very separate. However, just looking at the Greek and Roman myths, it's already pretty clear that every time cultures clashed, so would their myths and stories.

This is a well studied phenomenon. The romans especially were well known to basically mash up their deities and myths with those of every new culture they interacted with.

And CB uses this brilliantly. The story is set in an alternate timeline, in which, after the fall of Rome, a kingdom known as Arcadia was created by former Roman generals/nobility. This mirrors actual history, during which many early medieval kingdoms would seek their legitimacy in their connections to the Roman Empire (see the Holy Roman Empire aka Germany).

But in CB, the fantastical elements are meshed up in this as well. This allows Rosamund Hodge to create an interesting interplay between the Greco-Roman Mythology imported by the elite in Arcadia and the more Celtic/Germanic Folklore elements native to the land and its population.

So, yeah. Go read Cruel Beauty, please.

[raepritewrites]

If Heather were ever to write a memoir about being a superhero, she was going to include an entire chapter about what to do when you get sucked into a portal, because it was a surprisingly frequent hazard of the job and was confusing as hell if you didn't know what you were doing.

Fortunately, she’d been through this song and dance a few times, so she started with gathering the basics. Who, what, where, how, and when?

First, who? Some c-lister villain who called himself Vibe. The team had been working on a case of break-ins where banks would be robbed through some sort of portal technology. In and out, easy as pie, with almost no trace left behind. The guy was slick she could give him that.

Nightwing had theorized the guy might have a teleport ray, judging by the tachyon readings they were getting. Further investigation, however, and a quick conversation with Flash had revealed that Vibe was a meta created from the particle accelerator explosion of Central City, which had given the speedster his own powers. It hadn't been too hard to track the guy down from there.

Second, what? Well, bad guy plus warehouse equals superhero fight. It had just been Nightwing, Superboy, and herself who went to track down and capture the meta. The rest of the squads had all been busy on other assignments, and really, how hard could it be to take this guy down with three of their heavy hitters on it?

Apparently, harder than they'd thought.

Vibe, it seemed, was just as slick at evading capture as burglary. The idea had been for Nightwing and Scarlet Spider to wear the guy out and keep him distracted until Superboy could get in a final hit. It had briefly worked, and then everything went wrong.

Scarlet probably shouldn't have antagonized Vibe so much, but it was fun winding bad guys up. She and Nightwing had come up with some good lines as they danced around the teleporter. She had so much experience fighting alongside Nightcrawler that she assumed she could guess this guy's next move without any trouble. He would zig, she would zag. She'd been... a little too confident. Her spider sense had warned her of the danger as she swung towards Vibe for one more kick to the gut, but her momentum had been too strong, and there was no avoiding the inevitable.

Vibe had realized the game they'd been playing with him and grabbed Superboy as he'd tried to sneak up from behind, flinging him over his shoulder and into her. They'd crashed into Nightwing in a pile of tangled limbs and curses.

By the time Scarlet Spider looked up, Vibe had a new portal open behind him. "As fun as this has been, I'll be taking my leave now. This earth has always been a little too hero-happy for my tastes," the man smirked and saluted them, stepping backwards into the swirl of blue and white light.

If Heather had a nickle for every time she made a very stupid last-minute decision, she and Bruce Wayne would be in the same tax bracket. This was just another five cents in her fictional bank account. She sent a webline to the ceiling, propelling her up and off of her teammates and into the portal, which promptly closed behind her.

Third question, where?

On the other side of the portal, it dawned on Heather very quickly how stupid she was as she found herself free-falling. High-rises and skyscrapers rushed past her in a blur as she struggled to orient herself.

Some part of her brain that sounded a lot like her step-father screamed at her to throw a webline, and after two desperate attempts failed to land on anything, her third try caught a gargoyle. Her arm wrenched in its socket from the abrupt change in trajectory, and she gritted her teeth to stifle the howl of agony that crawled up her throat. She looked around desperately and spotted a rooftop not far away that she could reach.

Her landing was less than ideal, tumbling head over heels before rolling to a painful stop on the tarmac. She lay for a moment to let the panic subside, panting heavily from the spasms radiating from her arm and down her torso. She stared up at a smog filled night sky and the glowing neon sign of an office building as her brain rebooted.

Once she could hear more than just her own heartbeat thundering in her ears, she took stock of her situation. While she'd torn a few muscles in her arm, the damage was minimal compared to being a smear on the sidewalk. She'd twisted her ankle when she'd landed, and it throbbed in a familiar way - not broken, but definitely sprained. Everything else seemed negligible; cuts, scrapes, and general bruises. She would deal.

She sat up slowly and frowned at the office building's sign, declaring it to be one of Wayne Enterprises' headquarters. Why Vibe had thought running to Gotham was a good idea was anyone's guess.

She checked her comm, but only received static in reply, no matter what frequency she tried. Maybe it had been damaged in the fall? Her phone worked, but had no signal at all, not even wifi. That was strange; WE had public wifi available at all there buildings. She needed to reach the team somehow to let them know her status, and that despite her best (very stupid) efforts their suspect was in the wind. She wasn't sure where the closest zeta beam was from here, but maybe she could reach Nightwing a different way.

Did Heather feel bad breaking into the department store? Yes, a little, but desperate times and all that.

She'd grabbed a pair of jeans, a belt (because of course the jeans didn't fit right, but she didn't have the luxury of time on her side to find a pair that did), and an oversized sweatshirt. She dropped a pre-paid credit card on the counter with the tags of the items she was stealing, hoping the owners wouldn't be too mad at her. She then made triple sure that all the cameras she'd covered in webbing were still technically functional -just ineffective for a few hours - and grabbed a shopping bag from the register to stuff her gear into it.

Outside the store, it had begun raining, because this was Gotham and she had Parker luck. It was only natural. After trudging through the rain for a few blocks, Heather finally hailed a cab in a more populated part of the city. The clock on the dash of the taxi read a little after four am, and the driver looked like he wasn't thrilled to have found a customer.

"I need to get to Bristol," Heather told him, trying to be short but polite.

The cabby raised an eyebrow at her, blowing smoke from his cigarette out his cracked window. "That's going to cost you, lady," he told her flatly. "If you hadn't noticed, this is the Diamond District, that's a long drive."

"If you can get me there quickly, I'll pay you double the fare in tip," Heather promised.

Both eyebrows went up at that. "You're the boss," he shrugged and pulled away from the curb.

Once they reached Bristol, Heather had the cab drop her off at the Drake Estate, a few miles from Wayne Manor. She didn't think the cab driver really cared about where this woman in ill-fitting clothes was going at the crack of dawn out in the most expensive neighborhood in Gotham. But just in case someone asked him about it later, she didn't want him saying he'd dropped the weird woman off at Brucie Wayne's mansion. Never could be too careful.

True to her word, Heather had tipped extra generously, and the cab had taken off as soon as she was out of the backseat.

She glanced down the Drake's long driveway to where their modern estate could be seen peaking out between the tall trees and frowned distastefully. Shaking off her feelings towards Tim's parents, she settled into a fast walk and headed towards Wayne Mansion in the thinning rain.

By the time she reached the front gates, the rain was just mist that was slowly being burned off by the morning sun, and she was soaked to the bone. Wiping water off her face, she buzzed the intercom and hoped Alfred wouldn't be mad at her for the early morning call.

"Wayne Residence, may I help you?" His British accent came through the intercom sounding slightly tinny.

"Good morning, I need to speak to Dick Grayson or Bruce Wayne. It's Heather Reilly."

There was a long pause, too long. "Do you have an appointment?"

Heather frowned. "No, not exactly. Listen, I know it's early, but I really need to talk to Dick or Mr. Wayne."

"Master Wayne is a very busy man, young lady," Alfred began, in a clearly dismissive voice.

"Wait, please! It's..." she frowned harder, brow furrowing as an uneasy feeling filled her gut. "It's Heather, Mr. Pennysworth. You know, Heather? Dick's friend? We've... I mean, don't you know who I am?"

"I'm afraid your name is not familiar to me, and young Master Dick no longer resides here at the manor. Good day, young lady." The intercom clicked off and Heather stood blinking at it for several seconds.

"What the actual fuck?" She finally muttered.

Alfred Pennyworth did not know who she was. He had dismissed her with the same polite but frosty way she'd seen him dismiss hopeful gold diggers who hung off of Bruce at parties. As her brain processed this information, something else occurred to her as well.

Vibe. He had said something just before he disappeared. That their earth was too hero-happy. Their earth. As if there was more than one.

"Well, shit," Heather sighed sharply, rubbing at a pounding headache that was beginning to build behind her eyes.

Apparently, Vibe wasn't just a teleporter like her fiance, and perhaps their assessment of him as a c-lister villain was a bit hasty. Because apparently the sucker could warp not just around the world, but also apparently around the freaking multiverse?! And Heather, dumbass extraordinaire, had followed him to a parallel universe. Which meant that the only way she was ever going to get home was to find the bastard again, and there was no way she'd be able to do that on her own.

Fourth question, how?

Heather felt significantly more guilty sneaking onto the Wayne Manor estate than she had breaking into the department store.

She hoped that her Dick and Bruce - if she ever saw them again - would understand that she hadn't meant to memorize the defenses around the estate. Really, it was more Bruce's fault than hers.

She'd spent so much time working for the man, digging through the batcomputer's files and doing the menial grunt work to help hone her skills, that of course at some point she'd gotten bored and started studying the layout of the grounds and where all the motion detectors were hidden. She was only human... well, kind of. Sort of. Not important right now.

She didn't know for certain that this version of Bruce Wayne would use the same layout for his home's defenses. Hell, she wasn't even certain that this version had even become Batman. Maybe the man actually was a clueless socialite in this universe. But Heather had a gut feeling that she couldn't shake.

Like, sure, maybe there were universes out there where that was true. But... could there really be a universe where Bruce Wayne had never become Batman, and yet he'd still taken in Dick, who then would coincidentally also have a falling out with the man and move to Bludhaven? The whole reason her Dick had moved to that awful city was to establish himself as Nightwing.

Heather knew she was holding onto a thin string of hope here. But if she was wrong, she might never make it back home, and that possibility was too terrifying to even consider.

Her universe had found multiple ways to kick her in the teeth and drag her down, over and over again. Yet, that universe was her home, and she was still standing. She'd gotten back up each time with the help of her family and friends. She would figure this out, and she would come home to them.

There wasn't an option for failure.

By the time she was standing in front of the massive doors of the manor, her shoulder and ankle were starting to throb in time with her heartbeat. The sun had burned off the remaining rain and she estimated it was closer to six or seven am now. Despite knowing she looked like a drowned rat, Heather attempted to have some dignity as she straightened her clothes, pushed back her slick hair, and reached up to knock.

"I'll get it, Alfred," She heard a young male voice on the other side of the door, and she had just enough time to think Tim when a seventeen year old boy with dark hair opened the door.

Heather blinked. This... was not her Tim. Her Tim was still thirteen and only recently reached her shoulder in height. Yet, the haircut, the blue eyes, the sharp features, all of it definitely screamed Tim Drake.

The boy frowned at her. "Can I help you?"

"Uh," Heather floundered for a second, unsure. She hadn't anticipated speaking to anyone other than Alfred, Dick or Bruce. "Yeah, I'm sorry. It's um, it's been a rough night. My name is Heather Reilly. You're Tim, right? I'm a friend of Dick Grayson's, and I really need his help."

"You again?" Alfred was suddenly behind Tim, wearing the most severe frown she'd ever seen on the man.

It immediately made her step back a half pace and her shoulders hunch. No one, not even her own parents, could make Heather feel like a small naughty child the way Mr. Pennyworth could. There was a reason even Batman deferred to him. "I was quite firm young lady. How did you manage to get past the front gate?"

Translation: How did you avoid all of Batman's security? Heather thought, but of course they wouldn't know that she knew about any of that.

"Please, Mr. Pennyworth, if you just let me explain the situation," Heather began, trying not to wither under his stony stare.

"How do you know Dick?" Tim interrupted. He looked just as suspicious as Alfred, but there was something else in his stare, curiosity or something like it. Tim, like Bruce, was a detective and Heather could tell she'd piqued his interest.

"Dick and I are old friends," She said quickly, latching onto Tim's interest like a lifeline. "We met when we were teenagers. We, uh, had a lot in common. Listen, if Dick isn't here could I at least use your phone? I lost mine, and if I can't talk to Dick, then I need to try and call another friend."

"Are you in trouble?" Alfred asked, looking a modicum less severe than before.

"Very much so, sir,'' Heather nodded, shifting her weight only to wince as she placed too much onto her bad ankle. "Shit," she hissed, unable to keep the curse in.

"What happened?" Tim asked, opening the door wider.

"I... fell," She said lamely, scratching the back of her neck. How could she explain that it was from a height of several stories? Oh, right, she couldn't. "Twisted my ankle. It's fine, I'm a fast healer."

Tim and Alfred exchanged a long look, and only years of working with the bats helped her parse out its full meaning. They didn't trust her, clearly. They thought she might even be lying, but they weren't going to leave someone soaking wet and obviously injured outside on their doorstep.

Alfred hummed, still displeased, "You may use the phone in the library, follow me. Master Tim, would you please bring me the first aid kit?"

"Sure, Alfie," Tim sent one more scrutinizing stare her way before disappearing into what she knew was a supply closet.

She followed the butler into the library, wincing as she dripped rainwater onto the expensive rugs. He led her to an antique secretary desk with a rotary phone on it, because apparently in every universe Bruce Wayne was that kind of old money rich, and insisted she sit down on the oak desk chair. Tim reappeared shortly, carrying both a first aid kit and a towel, the latter of which Heather took gratefully as she sat her plastic bag full of gear onto the floor.

Heather carefully squeezed water out of her hair, mindful of her shoulder as Alfred looked through the kit. "If you would remove your boot, Miss Reilly, I will check your ankle."

"Oh, I mean, you don't have to-" Heather began, the towel now draped over her shoulders.

"I insist," Alfred said firmly but not unkindly.

"You might as well let him look," Tim said with a chuckle. He was leaning against one of the many floor to ceiling bookcases. "He won't take no for an answer."

"Right, I knew that," Heather muttered, shaking her head. She missed the puzzled frowns Tim and Alfred shared as she reached down and started unlacing her combat boots.

Spider-Man and her father preferred their costumes with matching boots and gloves, the web design visible from top to bottom. But she'd long ago chosen steel toed black boots and fingerless black leather gloves for herself. She liked that it made the uniform her own, along with a modified version of her father's blue hoodie - cropped, slightly darker in hue, and made of a resilient Kevlar. The Scarlet Spider silhouette was still recognizable as the one Ben Reilly once wore, but she'd made it hers, and she knew her dad would have approved.

She got the boot off and peeled off her wet sock, hissing as the fabric stuck around the swollen ankle joint before finally coming free. Of course, it was the ankle she'd broken previously, that was just her luck.

"Okay, it's a little worse than I thought," she admitted quietly as Alfred examined the injury.

"You seemed pretty confident it was just a sprain," Tim observed casually.

Bruce hasn't taught him all his tricks yet, Heather thought as she considered how to answer Tim's obviously prying question. "Not the first time," she said as she watched Alfred pull out a roll of bandages. "I'm clumsy."

Before Tim could form his next question, a voice called out, "Drake? Pennyworth?" This was followed shortly by a boy, maybe fourteen years old, coming into the library. He was also dark haired, but much tanner than Tim and his eyes were brown. There was something oddly familiar about the kid that Heather couldn't put her finger on.

"Who is this?" The boy demanded.

"Manners, Master Damian," Alfred chided him as he finished wrapping Heather's ankle. "It's best you remove your other boot as well, Miss, to give them a chance to dry out."

Heather nodded, "right, thank you, Mr. Pennyworth."

"Damian, this is Heather. She says she's a friend of Dick's," Tim explained.

"Richard has never mentioned you," Damian said, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. He spoke with the slightest accent, something Middle Eastern that Heather couldn't pin down, and the more she looked at his face the more she was sure she knew him from somewhere.

"We're, uh, very old friends," Heather explained awkwardly. "We haven't seen each other in a long time." Or ever, in this universe's case.

"Tt," Damian scoffed, sharing glances with Alfred and Tim. He wasn't even attempting to hide how suspicious he thought she was. It was sort of refreshing. "Richard isn't home. He's running errands with Father."

Now Heather was narrowing her eyes, her head tilting to the side as a memory came to her. Of a painting that hung in her universe's version of Wayne Manor featuring Thomas and Martha Wayne posing with their young son. Bruce was solemn, even as a child, and Damian had the same set to his jaw.

"Oh my god," she breathed as it clicked, suddenly standing as she pointed at the boy. "You're Bruce's kid. Like, his bio kid, aren't you?"

The others gave her various confused reactions. Alfred raised one eyebrow, Tim frowned, and Damian crossed his arms haughtily.

"Of course, I am," the younger boy snapped, like he thought Heather was an idiot. Which was fair. She kind of was most days, even she could admit that. "How do you not know who I am?"

"I -" She dropped her arm and rubbed her neck. "Right, yeah, that's an excellent question." She sighed. "Okay, truthfully? I am friends with Dick, but... not your Dick?" They frowned at her, and she couldn't blame them.

"Look, I'm going to level with you. I'm not from this universe. I work with Dick on my earth with a team of heroes. We were fighting this guy - Vibe? I did something monumentally stupid, and I ended up here. I didn't realize until I was already talking with Alfred that I was even in the wrong universe because my Alfred has known me for years. I worked with Batman for a while when I was a teenager, back when Dick was still Robin, and-"

"What are you talking about?" Tim interrupted her nervous ramblings. "Why do you think we know anything about Batman?" He added angrily. Damian looked ready to commit murder, and Alfred had disappeared at some point.

Heather groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Look, let's just cut past the song and dance, okay? I know all about Bruce, I have for years. In my universe, he gave me almost full access to the batcomputer's files. I trained with Robin in the batcave. I know about the entrance behind the grandfather clock in Bruce's study-"

Heather realized a few beats too late that was probably not the best way to break the news.

Damian was suddenly in her face with a knife at her throat pulled from seemingly nowhere. She reacted instinctively, grabbing the boy's wrist, twisting it down until he dropped the dagger. She pushed him into Tim, who'd been pulling out his collapsible bo staff. She'd turned with the intention of escaping through the library's other exit, but only made it a few strides when the sound of a shotgun being loaded stopped her dead in her tracks.

Right, that would be Alfred, she thought numbly, lifting her hands up as high as her injured shoulder would allow before dropping to her knees.

"Do not move," Alfred ordered.

"Yes, sir," she said.

"How did you disarm me so easily?" Damian demanded, stomping around to glare at her.

Heather gave him a small smile, which only made him angrier. "You remind me of my sister," she said instead of answering.

"I don't know what your game is," Tim told her, "but we're not playing. What do want with Dick?"

"First, poor word choice," Heather smirked at him over her shoulder. He glared back at her flatly, and she rolled her eyes. "My Tim has a much better sense of humor. I already told you exactly why I'm here. I'm in the wrong universe, and I need Batman and Nightwing to help me get home."

"Why do you keep insisting my father is the Batman?" Damian asked.

Heather sighed. "Look, we could keep going around and around on this all day, but I don't have that kind of time. Either call up Dick and Bruce so we can discuss this like adults, or-"

"Or what?" Alfred asked, suddenly reminding her there was a very protective butler with a gun pointed at her.

Heather pursed her lips, considering. "Why don't you take me down to the cave? You guys probably have a holding cell like my Batman does. You can keep me under lock and key until I can convince you I'm telling the truth, or until you can get someone from the League to come down who can wipe my memory if I can't."

"Or we could take you to Arkham Aslyum now," Damian suggested.

Heather took a deep breath, trying to be patient. Not like it could hold me. "It's up to you," she finally said.

Damian walked behind her so the three could share a whispered conference. Heather tried very hard not to hear them by humming under her breath, but it was a lost cause. Damian was coming up with some very creative forms of interrogation tactics, but was ultimately overruled by Tim and Alfred.

"Alright, let's go," Tim finally sighed. "Hands behind your back, and just keep in mind Alfred is a very good shot." She saw him pulling a pair of handcuffs from the corner of her eye.

"You're going to want to use something stronger than that," she told them mildly as Tim grabbed her wrists and yanked them behind her back. Tim hesitated for a moment, before Damian handed him something she couldn't see. She bit back a hiss of pain as they used what felt like metal cording from a grappel gun to bind her hands, then used the remaining cord to wrap around her arms and chest.

Better, she thought as Tim and Damian pulled her to her feet, but still not enough. Ah well, I'll let them have this one.

They blindfolded her before taking her to the batcave, maybe so they could still have plausible deniability. Heather let the boys lead her to the elevator, her spider-sense keeping her aware of Alfred's shotgun aimed at her chest. When the elevator stopped, her bare feet were treading the rock of the cave's floor as the boys prodded her along, her injured ankle really resenting the cold seeping into her bones. She couldn't surpress a small shiver, suddenly aware of her still soaking wet stolen clothes that were clinging to her.

"Relax, we're not going to hurt you," Tim murmured, misinterpreting her shudder.

"Unless you give us a reason too," Damian added, less meanly than he could have.

Huh, maybe the kid wasn't as blood thirsty as he seemed. I wonder who his mom is? I don't think it's Selina. He doesn't look anything like her. Heather pondered this little mystery until she heard a metal cage door opening and she was gently pushed inside the holding cell. Someone pulled off the blindfold before they locked her in. She blinked her eyes to help them adjust to the new lighting, taking in the somewhat familiar landscape around her.

"Good to know the giant penny and t-rex are consistent in every universe," Heather observed. "Still ridiculous, but consistent."

"Master Bruce and Master Dick are on their way," Alfred said, lowering the gun slightly but not putting it away.

Heather nodded. "I figured. So... bio kid, huh?" She added, conversationally.

Damian narrowed his eyes at her, but didn't reply.

"I totally see it now," Heather admitted, taking a seat on the cot in the cage. She brought her legs up to fold beneath her, trying to get comfortable. "I thought at first that Bruce's adoption habit was worse in this universe."

"What makes you think I'm adopted?" Tim asked, taking a seat on a stool he'd brought over.

Heather blinked in surprise. "Oh, my mistake, sorry. My Tim Drake is, so I guess I assumed."

"What happened to your Tim's parents?" Tim frowned, but there was something in his expression that Heather couldn't read.

Heather pursed her lips, considering how to explain. "They were very neglectful. At first, Bruce just had emergency custody of Tim while the state investigated why he was being left alone for long periods of time with only a maid checking on him. When they realized how shitty the Drakes were, that's when he put in the paperwork."

"So they're... still alive?" Tim asked in a much quieter voice.

Heather's heart stuttered painfully. "Oh... I'm so sorry."

Tim shook his head. "Not your fault," he said it like it was something he told people a lot, which only made Heather feel worse.

"I really am sorry. This world is so different from my own," Heather said, mostly to keep the conversation moving. She'd always hated awkward silence. "My Tim is younger, and I've never even met him before." She tilted her head towards Damian. "I mean, he might exist on my earth. Who's your mom?"

Damian tutted again, which she was beginning to suspect was a habit. "Not that its any of your business, but my mother's name is Talia Al Ghul."

Heather blinked and sat forward. "I'm sorry - the daughter of the Demon's Head is your mom? One of the most dangerous women in the world, and the next leader of the League of Assasins?"

Damian gave her a haughty nod. "I see my mother's reputation precedes her even in another universe."

"Okay, mental note," Heather muttered. "Interrogate Bruce when I get home to make sure he actually knows how condoms work."

Tim let out an involuntary snort and Damian's pride disappated back into disdain as he muttered something in Arabic that she was sure was unflattering.

"Alrighty, anyway," She sighed. "I'm assuming you have questions you want me to answer?"

"I am not sure what we could ask you that could prove your worthiness," Damian snapped. "You are a stranger to us."

Tim nodded reluctantly. "I've never heard Dick mention anyone like you." He picked up the plastic bag they must have brought from upstairs that had her gear in it, pulling out her mask and frowning at it. "What's with the spider webs?"

"On my earth, I'm called the Scarlet Spider," Heather explained, waiting for any hint of recognition on his face, but nothing came. "You know, ally of Spider-Man? Friend of the Avengers?"

"Who?" Damian asked.

"Whoa, okay, I didn't think our earths were that different," Heather shook her head. "Wait, if Spider-Man and the Avengers don't exist in this world, does the Justice League exist?"

"Of course," Tim and Damian answered almost in unison, then glared at each other in annoyance.

"That's a relief. So the team must exist too," Heather said, only to receive another frown.

"You mean the Teen Titans?" Tim clarified.

"No...? I mean the team. We work for the Justice League? But, like, covertly. We handle missions that the League doesn't want a lot of attention on, but that still needs a lot of skill." Heather explained, "There's me, Nightwing, Superboy, Miss Martian, Robin, Batgirl, Bumblebee, Beast Boy-"

"I only recognize some of those names," Tim admitted.

"Weird," Heather muttered.

"This is a waste of time," Damian exclaimed, "She's clearly lying, Drake, we should take care of her before she can reveal our identities to anyone."

"Let's pump the breaks on the murder, alright Shortstack?" Heather couldn't help but snap. "Does your Batman actually kill? Because that's seriously messed up."

"He does not," Alfred confirmed, giving Damian a reprimanding glare.

Damian rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, muttering to himself. Tim and Alfred couldn't hear it, but Heather could perfectly. "This never would happen with Mother and Grandfather."

Tim's phone suddenly chimed at the same moment Heather heard tires crunching on the gravel outside the manor. "I'm guessing Bruce is here?" She asked Tim as he checked his phone.

"How did you-?"

"Lucky guess," Heather deflected.

Alfred finally lowered his gun and left, presumably to meet his employer and pseudo son at the door. Damian seemed to take this as an invitation to take out another dagger from some pocket and begin fiddling with it. Heather guessed this was his way of intimidating her, or it could have been a nervous habit. She didn't have the heart to tell him it was more cute than anything else.

The kid looked like he'd barely hit puberty. He reminded her of her own little brother and sister, which just made her homesick. She wanted to pull her phone out, just so she could see her photos and reassure herself that they were still out there, waiting for her, but she stopped herself from snapping her restraints. She needed this world's Batman to trust her, or she'd never get home.

"I'm assuming you're a meta human?" Tim asked her after he finished sending another text. He put his phone in his pocket so he could focus his attention on her fully.

"In a sense," Heather said reluctantly. "It's complicated."

"I have a friend who's the daughter of a demon, try me," Tim challenged.

"It's not that I'm refusing to answer the question, it's just seriously complicated," She explained. "Does this world have stable cloning technology?"

"Are you somebody's clone?"

"No- well, yes and no," She shook her head when he gave her an exasperated sigh. "Complicated! Ugh, okay, so my story starts way before I was born. On my earth there's a hero called Spider-Man. He was a regular guy who was bitten by a radioactive spider, giving him super powers."

"Usually when someone has a backstory like that, they turn to a life of crime, at least in my experience," Tim commented.

"Yeah, well, he didn't. I mean, he used his powers to win money in wrestling matches at first," Heather admitted, rolling her eyes. "He was young and dumb, don't worry about it - not important. The important thing is years later, Spider-Man gets a new rogue who called himself Jackal. The guy was crazy, but brilliant."

"We are familiar with the type," Damian commented quietly.

Heather snorted. "Trust me, I know, but unfortunately he was way less Nygma and his puzzles, and more like Crane with unethical experimentation. The guy manages to clone Spider-Man, except - plot twist - Spider-Man suddenly has a case of amnesia and he and the clone can't remember which of them is the real deal."

Tim whistled, "complicated."

"Oh trust me, tip of the iceberg," Heather complained, shaking her head. "I'll skip forward, or we'll be here for hours. The clone, he went by the name Scarlet Spider, eventually comes to a truce with Spider-Man and they become allies. In the meantime, Scarlet Spider and the woman who was once Spider-Man's fiance fall in love. Eventually, they have a kid." She shrugged as much as her restraints allowed her to.

"That was you," Damian guessed.

"Yep," Heather nodded. "Again, I'm going to skip forward for brevity's sake. I developed powers as I aged, but then suddenly one day my body freaks the fuck out. My DNA wasn't completely stable, being half human and half - er, clone slash radioactive meta slash freak lab accident." She sighed. Sometimes she couldn't believe this was her life. "My body mutated."

"It didn't kill you?" Tim asks, surprised.

"It almost did," she admits quietly. "Spider-Man saved my life. I was only nineteen."

"How old are you now?" Damian asked, almost politely.

"Almost twenty-four," Heather smiled. "My fiance, Kurt, is trying to plan a surprise party for me with my Dick Grayson's help. They're not succeeding, but it's adorable to watch so I'm letting it go for now."

"You weren't lying when you said you were close with him, were you?" Tim said, almost sounding like he was talking to himself.

"Robin was always one of my biggest heroes," Heather admitted. "When we finally met, he became one of my closest friends. He's practically my brother."

"That's why you were sure he would help you," Damian concluded.

"He's my best shot," Heather admitted as Bruce finally stepped into the cave, Dick right behind, followed by an Asian woman with short dark hair, and finally an African American teen about Tim's age.

Heather tilted her head at the woman and teen in confusion. The woman only smiled mildly and waved, while the teen mirrored her frown. Well, that's definitely new. Maybe this Bruce does have more of an adoption problem than mine.

"You got my message?" Tim asked.

"Yes. We've been watching the security cameras," Bruce muttered, eying Heather like she was one of the Riddler's newest puzzles. Which, ow.

"Hello," Heather said, giving a cheery smile despite the increase in suspicious eyes on her. "I'd get up to greet you, but..."

"Oh, this one has jokes," Dick said, coming to gently take Damian's dagger away. "That's refreshing. Last time we got someone from a parallel universe, they weren't any fun. Remember Bruce? The Stephanie doppelganger?"

"Dick," Bruce reprimanded before his eldest could go off on a tangent.

"Oh yeah, no, that one was no fun," Tim agreed, ignoring Bruce’s sigh. "This one says she's known you since you were Robin."

"Hey, I have!" Heather protested. "C'mon, we were all getting along so well. I mean, aside from the stabby child over there... but I have a feeling he's like that with most people?"

"We're trying to break him of the habit," Dick commented dryly.

"Did Damian stab her?" The black teen asked.

"Not quite," Tim shrugged. "She's fast."

"Aw, thanks Tim" Heather beamed. "That's like the nicest thing you've said to me all day. When I get home, I'll be sure to tell my Tim you were nice. Even if you do need to lighten up a little."

"What makes you think you're going anywhere?" Dick asked, but Heather couldn't hear any real threat in the words. She had a feeling this Dick had just as big of a heart as her world's.

"Look, obviously me being here is upsetting for multiple reasons. You guys love your privacy, and you hate having someone around who compromises that, I get it. Not to mention, it's probably not a good idea for someone from the wrong multiverse to stay here long term. I mean, I'm a biochemist not a theoretical physicist, but I'm assuming it's probably bad," Heather shrugged as much as her bonds allowed. "So, the way I see it is, you help me get back home, and we're all happy in the end. Right?"

"How can we trust that you're telling the truth?" Tim asked again, but she could tell Bruce was thinking it over.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Timmy," Heather told him honestly. "I mean, I could sit here all day telling you things that are true of my universe? Like, I know that Dick’s first pet was Zitka, the circus elephant. I know that my Tim basically blackmailed Batman into making him Robin. I know that my Alfred never uses cloves in his cooking because Bruce is allegic, which is why he never drinks the eggnog at the Justice League's Christmas party. Is any of that true in this universe? I don't have a clue. What I do know for certain is that you all are my only shot of getting home. If you won't help me..."

Heather swallowed, staring at nothing as the despair of that possibility hit her full force. "I'll never see my family again, and Kurt will never know what happened to me. Please, I'm begging here, help me get home."

Bruce crossed his arms and looked at the Asian woman that hadn't said a word so far. The woman looked to be in her early twenties, a little younger than this world's Dick. Heather had tried not to let it bother her, but the younger woman had been watching her intently the whole time they'd been talking. Heather couldn't help feeling like she was missing something as she watched the woman turn to Bruce and smile.

"Not lying. I trust her," She finally said.

The words were stilted in a way that normally Heather would associate with learning a new language, but the woman had a distinct Gotham accent. It almost reminded Heather of how her little sister used to talk when she'd started speech therapy, like the woman wasn't sure how to put her thoughts into spoken words.

"Okay, as much as I appreciate the vote of confidence, I have to ask - who are they?" Heather asked, unable to hide her curiosity.

"You don't have a Cassandra Cain or Duke Thomas in your world?" Dick asked.

Heather shook her head, "Doesn't ring a bell, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Like I was saying earlier, my timeline seems a little skewed from this one. My Tim is younger, and as far as I know, my Bruce doesn't have a bio kid. It's just Dick, Tim, Babs and me around."

"What about Jason Todd?" Bruce asked quietly, and if she hadn't known another version of this man so well she might not have heard his trepidation for the answer.

"That's... I mean..." Heather blew out a somber breath. "Jason was murdered by the Joker," she admitted reluctantly. Every face in the room fell, but there was an air of recognition to the grief. Clearly, the same fate had befallen their Jason as well.

Heather continued after a moment, "That was a few years ago. Recently, he, well... came back. Things are still a little delicate, so he's been staying with me and Kurt for the time being."

"Why isn't he home with us?" Dick asked.

Heather grimaced. "You have to understand, he wasn't in his right mind. He - well, he attacked our Tim and hurt him pretty badly. They're both doing better, but Jason hasn't forgiven himself and still has things to work through, and Tim needs time to recover mentally and emotionally. We're giving them both space until if and when they're ready to be in the same room."

"Wow, what a concept," Tim deadpanned, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. Bruce and Dick looked uncomfortable. Heather narrowed her eyes but decided not to ask. Not her circus, not her monkeys. She could only do so much for the Wayne family in her own universe; she couldn't possibly fix an entirely different one as well. Especially when she didn't have the complete picture.

"Ya know, I kind of wish we had a version of her," Duke spoke up. "That's like the most level headed decision I've heard from someone in this family in... no, scratch that, ever."

"Don't give me too much credit," Heather smiled, but it was self-derogatory. "I've had my fair share of screw ups, too. Sometimes, you just need an outside perspective." She sighed, wishing she could rub her eyes. "Look, I get that this is a lot to ask, but I have to track down Vibe before he disappears from this world, too. I can stay right here if it makes you all feel better, but I need help finding his tachyon signature so I can catch him and make him take us home. The batcomputer is my best chance."

"Quick question," Dick lifted a hand, frowning at her. "What do you mean by 'make us feel better'?"

Heather clicked her tongue and stood up, walking to the far wall of the cage, opposite the door. She flexed her muscles, snapping the metal grappeling cord like it was dental floss. As the cord fell into a pile on the floor, she reached forward and using two fingers on each hand, bent two of the steel bars towards each other into an 'x'. She stepped back from the cage wall and put her hands behind her back, shrugging sheepishly.

"You could escape at any time, couldn't you?" Duke guessed.

Heather nodded, chewing her cheek.

"You could have broken in here without alerting anyone, gotten what you wanted, and left without a trace," Tim added. "Just like how you got passed all of the security on the grounds."

"Well, I don't know about completely leaving without a trace," Heather hedged, rubbing the back of her neck. "I'm not Kurt, I can't teleport, and I don't have invisibility either."

"Hn, perhaps you could explain your powers to us in detail while we start searching for your missing rogue," Bruce said.

She didn't know this Bruce or what had happened in his life to alter it from the man she did know, but she could hear the world's greatest detective in his voice and it made the anxiety in her chest melt. They weren't going to abandon her, they were going to help.

The only question left, was when?

[heraldofcrow]

Ok, I need to say something and get it off my chest while I actually have some energy.

I know what I want to change for the new year…even though normally I don’t really care for the idea of resolutions because to me there is no guarantee that the turn of a year implies change. I just think everyone should grow at their own pace and transform when they are ready. But my current catharsis just happens to be taking place now, so I’ll make it a resolution. A resolution about creativity.

My energy as a fandom creative has been incredibly low this year, which is weird for me. I have been in quite a few fandoms over the years, but the ones I actively decided to participate in were always fun outlets for me to improve things like my writing and actually make room for my energy. I used to write absurdly long analyses and metas in other fandoms for my own enjoyment and get into in-depth discussions with people about lore, story, themes, or whatever else would come up because that’s where I thrived. I was always the essay spammer lol. I miss the energy that was fueling me then. Something happened to it, and I wonder if it’s because I changed from “writing for myself” to “writing for the fandom” at some point.

Don’t get me wrong, I always loved supportive communities that help you grow and develop in some arena of art. I need that as a person because as isolate and introverted as I can be about my interests, I do have this side that craves the thrill of sharing passion and excitement with others. I love when I create something and other people like it too…I mean, who doesn’t?

That’s a huge part of fandom and of course I am here for that support system, but I don’t want to make my goal to be about supplying content for a fandom.

Just about a year and a half ago I started messing around with drawing for the first time in my life. I had attempted to doodle and scribble as a kid, but it was stick figure stuff. I never was serious. But the urge to depict specific pictures in my head was overpowering. I had to buckle down and watch some tutorials to get anywhere, but I did get…somewhere.

I don’t draw even slightly near the level I want to yet, but I’m glad I practice and learn new little tricks every so often. I just need to break down walls, especially the walls I have been hitting recently. These walls stop me from getting better. They kill my interest in writing. I have trouble responding to people and their conversations with me in fandom…when people express interest in my opinions, I shut down and hide. I don’t put the effort I used to into analysis or research. I am stuck and it is smothering my creativity.

My drawing and writing won’t improve until I stop being scared about challenging myself or being willing to branch out.

That’s my resolution. I need to stop doing stuff for a fandom. I need to smack myself upside the head and genuinely draw whatever the fuck I want and not to create content like a YouTuber. The reason I used to write metas or get into long lore convos with people so confidently is because I was passionate about it and not because I was trying to put something on a platform.

It’s not necessarily that I have been doing this YouTuber thing all year, but I know for certain that the stupid fandom idea of “having a role” or “being The Guy for a certain character” has craftily snuck itself into my head. I adore Bloodborne, I love my Bloody Crow, but I also fucking love Dark Souls, I love Demon’s Souls, I love Elden Ring, I love LOTR, I love Arcane, I love FF7, I love dozens of other films, books, shows, stories…

…I love so much and I want to draw stuff for all of it, I want to write for all of it, I want to express my thoughts on it. I am a subtle participant in plenty of fandoms if they aren’t too toxic, but I have restricted myself to Bloodborne because I felt “safe” about “creating content” here. I also felt a necessity at times.

But truthfully? I am going to suffocate if I force myself to restrict my creativity to one fandom forever. No, I don’t intend to leave it, because I do love it here and I want to still enjoy the community. I also still want this blog to be Soulsborne oriented while my sideblogs are for other fandoms, but that’s just for the sake of my own interest in organization, not because I have to. That’s because I fucking love Soulsborne and its fandom and I want to stay here to share and create. Not because I have to.

I have been hanging around the Soulsborne community for over ten years now…it’s just an infinite vat of creativity and inspiration. I want to contribute because it’s fun. I need to stop limiting myself to the ONE game though. It’s killing the ability to improve my drawing because I don’t truly always want to draw everything from this game. Sometimes I just want to draw knights from Dark Souls.

Sometimes I want to practice drawing armor and not Bloodborne style get-ups. I just want room and space to explore. There is plenty of variety in Bloodborne yes, but it has to be variety I am passionate about or I will half-ass it. I need that option.

It’s the same with writing. My writer’s block has been horrible this year because once I actually started sharing my fan-fiction for the first time, I felt that pressure of having readers and I wanted to make sure everything I put out was perfect. This kills my motivation. It’s utterly deadly. I actually am fine with my writing normally and am very comfortable with improving it through practice, but whenever I succumbed to the likely nonexistent external pressure, I suddenly couldn’t finish editing to save my life.

I need to be free of this and be able to enjoy my fandoms. I need them. 2023 was one of the hardest years of my life. I was so miserable so often, and it’s during those times when I really want a safe space to run and create. It helps me “regenerate.” But if I’m polluting my own safe space with pressure and worry, then what do I have left?

And so yeah, that’s my goal for this next year and the years to come. I want my old energy and passion back, to use this little online outlet to grow and learn more about drawing, writing, and whatever else catches my fancy. I won’t pressure myself about this either, but I hope it comes naturally if I take it slow and try to unlock my brain from the narrow way of thinking.

No more playing into a role. I just need to be free and enjoy myself.

[aid-worker-sya]

Secrets of the Quality or the Schedule Release; or, Secrets of the Go Do Random Events; or, Secrets of The Commander's Really Weird Couple Of Months; or, Secrets of Is Peitha Still Hot Or Boring Now (or something like that)

hi i'm not too active in gw2 tumblr (i gotta fix that i just gotta follow more of you on main) but y'know i've been playing gw2 since beta with a few years-long breaks and this is the first time i was playing an expansion on launch so i thought i at least wanted to share my thoughts.

my tl;dr is that there was some good and some bad but i think i'd prefer an entire expansion up front or it in like two updates and then an epilogue like WLB was for Cantha despite my extraordinarily negative feelings feelings on Gyala Delve and that all of this should've been like Part 1 of a new Wizard Saga.

i don't think we'll ever have a very complete consensus, because GW2's fanbase has been historically divided on almost everything since launch. the dragons, Dragon's Watch, BRAHAM, almost everything on this game has been a love-or-hate since that fateful day back in 2012. and from what i've noticed throughout the years, tumblr is usually more positive of GW2's story updates more than other websites, so i'm pretty curious about what went right and also wrong too. so i really wanted to give as a long time player my feelings on all this, bc it was... interesting. both for good and bad.

and perhaps biggest of all: a common criticism countless GW2 players have had since: the idea the Commander is not really the main protagonist because they're always serving as the champion or second-in-command to someone else, something i've historically disagreed even before Traehearne's rewrite but now i'm a bit more "hmm" about. also why the fuck wasn't this like a Wizard Saga of like 2-3 expansions.

it was certainly a mixed bag, i don't agree with people saying it was the worst thing ever, as far as i'm concerned What Lies Beneath was this game's absolute fucking rock bottom in recent memory and SOTO was nowhere near as bad as that and i want to punch something every time any daily or weekly even mentions Gyala Delve (although i'm still going to appreciate WLB as an epilogue and talk about that later). think i'm gonna start with the good immediate thoughts first

i think the initial release was very good. the new maps and metas were fun, as were the maps being larger than most of the previous expansion maps to make up. the new characters were interesting: although there wasn't really enough time to develop them the same way Dragon's Watch had been for years. it was especially great seeing Zojja as a major character which is why i'm so sad she stopped being relevant after the initial release. i think it would've been better if they wanted this expansion to be like... idk, the Wizard Saga to be built up over a period of like three expansions. it would've been nice to see these characters actually build up over a period of time. make Eparch the final confrontation over a period of three years

like, at first, i fully expected this to be like this. they refer to everything before 2023 as the Dragon Saga. i thought this was going to be a shorter saga of like, 2-3 expansions with a much more concrete goal and narrative direction. we fight alongside the Wizards for a few expansions until Eparch's final defeat and then onto the next grand adventure that would take several years to complete

but ultimately, we just kinda accidentally fell into a big adventure bored out of our skulls after our crystal dragon jesus daughter went into hibernation. we stumbled into something, kicked some ass, and now it's over and we're probably getting another expansion in a couple of months. so i guess... that's the future of GW2. after the grand Dragon Saga, the Commander gets into all sorts of weird little shenanigans that determines Tyria's future and then fucks off to do the next thing no more sagas, just these like, weird singular adventures the Commander has.

the end result is that everyone is severely underdeveloped. there are some fun characters, and i've been joking with my gw2 friends "WE FINALLY HAVE AN INTERRACIAL RELATIONSHIP AFTER THEY BAILED ON BRAHAM AND ROX!!!" but like. i liked them. they were cool. i actually really like the Wizards. which is why i'm so bummed it's just over and the epilogue of SOTO it seems set up we're not really gonna do anything for it. i love Frode having a very complicated relationship with the Spirits and how Worm appears to be like... borderline actively malicious compared to most Spirits. i fucking love R'tchikk and Gladium's entire interaction and an unconventional relationship between species and really want to see more interactions. Dagda as one of the last Jotun that truly remember their glory days. so it's so sad to me that like, all these really interesting characters just have their story ended with this. i hope i'm wrong and i see them, but fuck. it's like. i started caring about them, then the next three updates came out and now it's over. dammit.

i also agree the demons are like. they're human society. they're just Regular People no different than Kryta specifically. now i love playing humans in games where you can play multiple races: but like, something that i love about gw2 is how each race has it's own feel, y'know? the humans are a traditional european-style monarchy. the asura are literally an entire race of mad scientists that have a Council so they don't just immediately nuke themselves in a science experiment and their society revolves around research. the charr are an outright stratocracy where the military and government is one and the same and this was explored in IBS where this allowed an insane fascist to rally immense power before IBS went to shit. and the sylvari are literally a new race figuring out WHAT their deal is and haven't quite nailed it down yet

i do not mind at all the kryptis are like not just a hive mind or blue and orange mentality. but i do agree that it is... disappointing that they don't have their own... let's say flavor of society. they're basically just humans but they look weird and live in a weird place. Nayos doesn't appear to be a realm literally made of dreams: it's just the name. the plot of this expansion was mostly like LWS3 but this time we're helping the guerilla rebels instead of fighting them.

idk how to feel about Peitha. it was really fun in the initial release when she was this weird voice in our head we weren't sure if we could trust her or not but she was the enemy of our enemy so she was our friend (for now). but like the demons, she wasn't... complex. she was a very normal stock character for this kind of story. maybe not as heroic or nice as most, but the true good ruler that things will be better if we put on the throne. she' snot bad, but like. she's a dime in a dozen character ultimately. she's the generic good guy we gotta put on the throne and eparch is the generic bad guy we gotta dethrone.

also it was really dicky of them to intentional try to sell the idea of expanded weapon proficiencies and the elite skill weapon unlock for all as like. being part of the base game. you know they worded it like it was part of the base game but you can't do it without SOTO. it's a little bit of a moot point, but it's frustrating.

and i don't know what to ultimately feel now that it's over. because it's over when it feels like it should be beginning. i feel like this episode should have ended with Eparch like... consuming the entirety of Nayos before fleeing deeper into the Mists and the beginning of the journey to find him and defeat him. the kingdom that Peitha wanted to save completely annihilated and the looming concern that much like Kralkatorrik he might become a multiverse destroying threat. i feel like The Midnight King shouldn't have ben the end of the conflict: it should have been the ending of Part 1 of the conflict. like...........

idk. if it was just meant to be this singular adventure: i think i would've liked the entire expansion up front and then an epilogue of WLB to put the final nails on the coffins, and also give time to flesh out everyone else in epilogue stuff and side stories too. but as much as i would've preferred that over this release schedule i feel like. this should have been Part 1. all of this should have been Part 1 of a Saga with this being our first battle against the Midnight King before we after a series of Wizard adventures, tracking him down, and growing stronger finally confront him.

you know there's always been, since GW2's launch, this complaint a lot of people have had with GW2. a lot of people feel like they're never really "the main character" like in GW1. i think at least part of this was rooted in how deeply unpopular Traehearne was in the initial release before they revoiced and rewrote like all of his dialogue. people felt like after the Order Arc that the Commander was kind of relegated to being the support for the actual protagonist. while i feel this opinion has died down since release, i've seen it a lot throughout the years too. a lot of people felt this way when we learned Aurene was basically crystal dragon jesus christ and we were her champion to set the world right. IBS was pretty clear from early on that this conflict would ultimately be resolved by Braham, the norn of prophecy: and it was. the Commander has a tendency to help other people reach their prophesized destinies while they themselves are a person born without particular grand destiny, just someone who was in the right place in the right time and went on to do truly spectacular things (there is a single dialogue in the Hall of Monuments that implies it might be possible the GW1 protagonist was reincarnated as the Commander, but this has never been touched on) and i've... actually come to like it. but this time.

i feel like this time was the only time i've felt it. like. we didn't need to be here. this could have even been Zojja's sidestory. Zojja's big chance to be the hero. we didn't really do that much beyond more of the heavy lifting. we barely did anything substantial beyond hitting things. hell, during the very last battle, we don't even get to speak to Eparch at all. Peitha does 100% of the talking. why was i here? i would've preferred watching like... a netflix cartoon special series about Zojja doing this. why was i here other than the fact i just sorta fell into it??? speaking of which, disappointed Zojja lost all relevance after the initial release. i really wish she was like, fighting by our side the entire time. maybe she doesn't become a Wizard until the very end after doubting it the whole time... like, she's an asura. she's an inventor and innovator. imagine her helping weaken Eparch using a groundbreaking new development in the Wizard's unchanging magic using asuran technology that destroys Eparch's seemingly invincible shield or something and opening the way for the Commander to finish him off.

idk.

i really felt like a side character this time. i didn't see a good reason the Commander is the one saving the day other than awkwardly falling into the plot, and i feel like it could've been resolved by others. and i feel like this could've been resolved by this being just the first part of a grand new adventure, and just like that fateful day over 12 years ago in-universe the Commander was just in the right place at the right time which lead to them saving the world once more. this time... idk. we didn't even get a chance to talk to Eparch. we're just called Wayfinder and Peitha's Champ and do some musclework. hell, we're not even really the Wizard's champion, they basically treat us as a glorified initiate.

idk... it's just. weird, y'know?

i had a lot of fun in the first release, not so much the rest. now i'm thinking of just... what could've been. anyone else feel the same?

(i was gonna go on a larger tangent but i'm tired so "do x events to advance the plot" fuck you fuck you fuck you i HATE this so much)

[slayerkitty]

2023 in Review: Meta Edition

So I got tagged to do a moth-by-month meta review by a few people - @chickenstrangers, @lurkingshan, and @ranchthoughts. I wasn't sure I had enough meta or posts, but then I remembered Only Friends...

So I figured, why not?

January/February

No meta from me yet - was still lurking/starting to poke my head out and interact a little.

March

My Favorite/Most Popular: Dome is Jesus! So I've long said that my first BL meta was for La Pluie, and that's true. However, my first meta since I started watching Thai dramas was for Midnight Museum (which is, technically, not a BL). Thus we have my Dome is Jesus meta. And I don't think I was wrong? But he was also way more than that, lol.

April

My Favorite/Most Popular: Dome is one of the four Horseman of the Apocalypse. Midnight Museum season 2 WHEN?

May

No meta this month.

June

My Favorite/Most Popular: Dream loves Nara. HAHA, my first La Pluie/BL meta and it's about the GL side couple. Dream wore that red 'N' right over her heart on that sweater and since I've been to the @respectthepetty school of color, I noticed it right away. AND I WAS RIGHT.

July

My Favorite/Most Popular: Turtle Tai. My La Pluie meta where I over identify with Tai for several paragraphs. I have no idea if it helped others who were struggling with Tai get a better understanding of where he was coming from emotionally, but writing it was cathartic and I'm so glad @lurkingshan poked at me and said I should write it.

August

Most Popular: Let's Talk About Trust, Baby. One of my first Only Friends metas from early on, when the show was absolutely eating my brain. I had a lot of fun breaking down the trust dynamics of the characters.

My Favorite: Baby, Let's Try. My breakdown of the Let's Try OST MV (and Only Friends BTS videos) analyzing the different framing devices and effects used and what it might be saying regarding our larger group discussions on ephemerality in regard to the show. When I watched this MV and realized what was happening, I had to drop everything and write out meta and that was so much fun.

September

Most Popular: Narrative Frameworks in Only Friends (post episode 4). I ended up doing this weekly and it was so fascinating... until the frameworks went away. Why, P'Jojo?

My Favorite: Working with @jenyifer to figure out the story of the Only Friends end cards for each episode. It finally put the mystery of those moments to rest and figuring out where they originated or where they fight in the chronology of the show really added some depth to certain moments.

October

My Favorite/Most Popular: With the dramatics and exhausting reveals of the Red Peafowl casting announcements, I loved my reaction: Let's Just Stan the Fucking Bird. @blmpff mentioned fan club memberships and the Featherheads were born.

November

My Favorite/Most Popular: (Stages of) Grief in Last Twilight. I wanted to explore where Day and Mhok were with the grieving process. My only Last Twilight meta (so far?).

December

My Favorite/Most Popular: Narrative Choices in For Him the series.

Honorable Mention: my most noted post of the year, lmao, but not a meta - my second Pit Babe is trending post.

Look at me, I got all wordy from July through November, LOL. Here's hoping for more meta and more brain rotting BLs in 2024.

Not tagging anyone, but if you see this and you wanna do it, consider yourself tagged!!

[metisket]

book recs request ❤🖤❤🖤 🙏🙏🙏 in this case, book recs that you feel have inspired your writing style, or inspired your fics somehow?

Hmmm...this is a fun one but a tough one, because I'm not sure I'm really self-aware enough to know the true answer here. But I'll try! A lot of books/authors I believe shaped my writing style did it when I was pretty young, so we're getting some YA over here.

Robin McKinley

I must have read The Outlaws of Sherwood a dozen times between ages 10 and 15. I love me a hero who literally doesn't want to be here and got conned into this by pushy, well-meaning friends. Marian was the most badass Marian I'd ever encountered. Random, complicated, weird side-characters, my beloved. Cecily somehow speaking directly to whatever was unhinged about my own childhood feelings about my gender. Flawless, 10/10, should really re-read to see if it holds up.

This is not to minimize the ridiculous number of times I read The Hero and The Crown, The Blue Sword, Beauty, and Deerskin, because I also read them So Many Times that they've probably become a part of my psyche. Literally none of her heroes want to be heroes. But they've been informed that they are. Apparently. Ugh. Love to hate that for them.

Lloyd Alexander

I also re-read The Chronicles of Prydain at least once a year for many years. It has almost certainly messed with my mind. I was especially unhinged about The Castle of Llyr, because Princess Eilonwy. The best, the worst, the angriest princess. Love and respect. Taran I could take or leave, particularly during his Taran Wanderer phase (I was less sympathetic to his growing pains than I was to Eilonwy's), but The High King was a fantastic payoff, loved everything, no notes.

...Damn, I need to reread this series, also.

Lois McMaster Bujold

I didn't read The Vorkosigan Saga until college, but it immediately hit my brain hard. Fantastic characterization. The way she writes trauma and recovery from trauma, amazing.

Miles. What a character. What a mess. What a problem. He is only a little guy, literally and figuratively, and he's going to do his best to convince you that he didn't mean to offend that guy, set that building on fire, or end that empire. You know. Like a liar.

Sarah Rees Brennan

My number one fanfic influence--her style of writing is so delightful that, particularly when writing Harry Potter fic, I'd sometimes find myself paraphrasing her. I had to Sarah Rees Brennan-proof my fic to make sure I wasn't being an accidentally plagiarist, because her turns of phrase would just go subliminal in my brain. This honestly may still be happening, and if it is, I'm so sorry, Sarah, it's not on purpose.

My favorite of her books is In Other Lands, the story of a boy who is whisked away to magic school in magic land and is extremely annoyed to find himself there. Like why. Why is the plumbing medieval. Why don't phones work. Why is this magical Sparta.

...He's not wrong, is the thing. But he won't bend and he won't break and he won't leave, so apparently he's just going to have to fix the world himself. God help everyone! Love him. Love his friends. Love the entire world and setup and every single side character.

Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

I have been informed that you can see the Pratchett and Gaiman influences in my writing. I think this is a lie people have told me to make me feel better, but you know, I Want To Believe. So I'll include them.

Pratchett: Love for virtually the entire Discworld series, with an especially fondness for the Watch books and Susan. Still obsessed with Vetinari after all these years. What if Machiavelli but chill, though.

Gaiman: Lost track of how many times I've reread Sandman. The characters, the coolness, the weirdness, the meta! Especially obsessed with Death. Just someone being very calm and collected in the face of all kinds of horrifying nonsense. I admire that. Love nearly all of his books, but my favorite is probably Anansi Boys. Bet your stupid family drama doesn't involve gods. Or at least. I hope it doesn't.

Erin Morgenstern

I'm cheating by including her, because she didn't actually influence my writing, I just WISH SHE HAD. She can't, sadly, because my outline game will never be that strong. I know my limits. But DAMN. ENVY.

Both of her books are without flaw, but I did love The Night Circus just that little bit more, probably because I am weak to a circus. I firmly recommend The Starless Sea also, though, because it features an Unhinged Library. The characters and settings and descriptions--delightful.

But the best part is the WAY the stories are told. They're not chronological--they're like little intricate puzzle-boxes, where you open one panel, and there's a story, and you open another panel, and there's a different story, and by the fifth panel, there's a story that connected to the first panel, but also a little to the third panel, and--

LOOK, I CAN'T EVEN DESCRIBE IT. It should be confusing, but it isn't. It's perfect. Just the right amount of information at the perfect time connecting to other pieces of information in a complex, interesting, deeply satisfying way. I would kill to be able to do this. Kill. I actually tried to do this in 'Mirror Image', and I had to give it up, because the level of incoherence was off the charts. ffffffffffff howwwww does she dooooo eeeeeet.

Anyway, I think those are the big ones. Special mentions to: Tom Holt, a deeply weird writer who strongly influenced one fic in particular (Some Confusion, DGM), Patricia C. Wrede, because Dealing with Dragons in general and Cimorene in particular got to me, and Dennis Lehane, because a) his historical fiction is inspiring, and b) I love his handling of The Unhinged Friend in the Patrick and Angie books. The best unhinged friend. He booby traps his own home. Love him. What is wrong with him? We'll never know.

[avidbeader]

So, I've been doing the Great Sheith Reblog for a while now, gradually reblogging almost everything I shared before that was tagged as Sheith. Lots of art, gifsets, fics and recs, old merch posts, and meta to go around with the occasional dash of salt because lord, dumbness about shipping brings out the salt sometimes. But most of the time it's a lovely nostalgia hit and a reminder of why I still love this ship with all my fandom heart. It's bittersweet sometimes, seeing the usernames that left with Tumblr's worst decision ever, the fellow fans who have moved on to other things, and yes, the hopes and dreams we had before Season 8.

Long blathering under the cut: musings about the persistence of anti-shippers and what queerbaiting actually means.

But occasionally what both amuses and frustrates me is how things line up because it's 2024 and we still have klantis/antis over on the former Twitter spreading the same lies about Shiro and Keith - about their ages, about how they met, about what their relationship is. Right now over there, arguing is happening again because someone put up a clout-chasing poll about which mlm ship was the most influential and included KL but not Sheith (KL beat Johnlock and then lost to Hualian, so I'm happy twice over). Side note - I think if we take "influence" as a completely neutral term, then yeah, KL has been a huge negative influence on fandoms as it was one of the places that allowed puriteen attitudes and anti behavior to grow unchecked for so long. That helped turn some ship fandoms into cults, in which you had to believe with utter certainty that your ship would be canon or you weren't a "true" fan of the ship. That put more emphasis on opposing a rival ship through wank and harassment instead of focusing on the joy and fun of creating for the ship you supposedly love.

And that poll prodded someone to create a Google Form for soliciting answers as to what the biggest examples of queerbaiting are in media. And of course people are saying KL and Adam/Shiro, among other things that are not at all queerbait. These are examples of people guessing wrong and getting mad about it. Queerbait requires that the producers/writers/etc. say outright that a ship is going to happen and then it doesn't, without any influences from the powers above them making changes. Not received fan "wisdom". Not marketing doing things without consulting the producers.

And I just reblogged someone's ask in which they said they felt queerbaited by Sheith solely because of the "brother" line in "The Black Paladins". The answer is excellent and worth a ready if you haven't seen it on my blog already.

Breaking it down:

KL is not queerbait. KL was never planned as a potential ship and LM/JDS said so multiple times. They said it never occurred to them as a possibility and by the time KL's popularity took off they were too far along in the writing to try and go back and make changes, because animators need time to draw. LM flat-out said she was surprised that it became a thing. If the producers are telling you over and over in no uncertain terms that a ship had never been on the table and couldn't be added to the table now, that's not a case of queerbait. And they spoke of Lance's love interests as female every single time. JDS/LM never said anything that would lead fans into thinking KL was a possibility without the deliberate and willful misinterpreting of their words.

Adam/Shiro is not queerbait. Adam is a minor character in a series with a large cast. He has two functions: to be evidence of Shiro's status as a queer man and to be a "face" for all the pilots that died in the first wave of Sendak's invasion. Some people try to claim that LM and JDS queerbaited with their answers at SDCC 2018, but they're wrong. The only thing LM said was that we would see more of Adam in S7. And we did. She did not promise we'd see more of him with Shiro. That was people inserting what they wanted to hear, just like them trying to elevate Adam's status to a fiancé when again, LM clearly stated that they were serious and considering getting engaged. Not engaged. Not married. Just a couple that was serious about each other but broke up.

I don't consider Sheith to be true queerbait. It might fall under the cryptoqueer situation explained at the end of the post linked above, but JDS and LM were mostly very careful to talk of Sheith in terms of deep friendship and devotion to one another, after the initial wave of support for fan content during S1, prior to the klanti movement taking off. The only thing that skirts the line for me is a quote, I think from JDS, saying that if Shiro had a new love interest it would be someone he has known a long time. Or maybe that was about the romances in general being developed over seasons and not Shiro-specific - I would need to research. (Yet more proof that the endcard "wedding" was not planned since we didn't see the unnamed groom until S7 and they never interacted.) And that was said before studio execs started meddling and caused the trainwreck of S8.

I do think we were supposed to have an open ending for Sheith. Klantis like to point out a storyboard artist claiming that "no one wins" this ship war as evidence that KL was supposed to happen and got changed, but that statement applies if Sheith is left open-ended and Allurance happens, even without the endcards.

When I have a chance, I'll try and dig up the links for the various quotes I mention above. Thank you for reading if you made it this far!

[gallavichthings]

Writer's Spotlight - Rita

This interview is long overdue and has been long in the making! I'm super pleased and excited to finally present a friend and my right arm on this blog, Rita aka @sickness-health-all-that-shit aka whatyouandihave on AO3, author of Lifeline, Possiblities, Short&sweet and several other fics, and some great gifs too!

R: I grew up in a small-ish town, dreaming about going to university, finding a job I loved, and living on my own with a cat as my companion. I'd say my 13-year-old self would be pretty happy with how my life turned out! I've always been into tv shows and films, plus languages and literature (that's what I mainly studied at uni) and I've managed to find a job that combines those things, which is the absolute dream! I translate and adapt lines into Italian so that dubbing actors can replace the original dialogues of movies, tv shows, documentaries and the like. Besides reading and writing and watching shows, I love travelling, enjoying good food and spending time with my family.

GT: Oh, that's a great job! It looks like you're living your dream, and I'm very happy for you! I assume you must watch all kinds of shows for your job, but what do you watch in your leisure time?

R: Yeah, for work I've had to watch plenty of children's cartoons, anime and lots of unscripted programs like reality television, cooking competitions and things like that. All stuff I would not watch in my spare time 😁 Some of my favourite shows are Btvs, Doctor Who, Breaking Bad, The Office, Outlander, Derry Girls, Peaky Blinders, Dexter and Shameless. I also watch a lot of British comedy panel shows (Taskmaster, QI, Big fat quiz of the year etc) and stand up comedy.

GT: Oh, some of my favorites on this list! Do you read/write fics for these other fandoms as well?

R: Nope! I actually came to fanfic pretty late, despite all the years spent lurking in fandom spaces. I only really started reading fics about 4 years ago, and that was after the Ian and Mickey prison reunion, having binged the first 8 seasons of Shameless a few months before that. I had read a couple fics for other fandoms over the years, but I honestly wasn't that interested. I was content with just rewatching the shows I loved and maybe making up my own headcanons, but nothing more. I guess you could say Ian and Mickey have made a fanfiction convert out of me!

GT: What was it about them that you think made you want to write your own fics, especially coming into the fandom late, as you said yourself, when there were already a lot of fics written.

R: Honestly, it just looked like so much fun to play around with them and all the themes you could explore through their story. When I first started reading fics, it opened so many avenues in my mind (I was so convinced I wouldn't be into AUs at first. Wrong!) and I was also reading tons of meta that had been posted on Tumblr over the years, which I had a lot of thoughts about. I think part of it was about needing a creative outlet at that point. I hadn't really written fiction before, and definitely not in English, but I think I'd always wanted to try and write stories. Building a world and creating characters from scratch would have been way too daunting, but playing around with my Ian and Mickey 'dolls' was instant, cathartic fun. There's just so much potential there, so much history and emotional depth to these characters and their love story that keep me coming back to them over and over.

GT: Do you tend to write more from Ian's or Mikey's pov?

R: I alternate a lot depending on the vibe of fic, but I guess maybe Ian's? The longest multichapter I have up is almost entirely written in Ian's pov, and one fic I'm writing at the moment that's gonna be longer than my usual is also from his pov. I have a lot of fun with Mickey's, but I really love exploring Ian's inner world in depth.

GT: What do you consider your forte when writing fic, the thing that comes to you more easily? And what do you struggle with sometimes?

R: I love writing dialogue the most, and I think I'm pretty good at making it sound in character for them and nailing their voice. I definitely struggle with descriptions and maybe pacing. I'd love to write a slow burn but I don't think they're for me. I get too impatient lol

GT: What kind of fics do you write the most? 

R: I mostly write one-shots, but hope to work on more multichapters in the future. I've also posted a series of short ficlets. Lots of fluff, some angst, though always with a happy or at least hopeful ending. Maybe someday I'll try my hand at some smut? Who knows. A lot of my fics tend to be either canon compliant fill-ins that expand on canon scenes or different first meeting AUs, especially meet-uglies. I also like including Mandy and exploring her friendship with Ian and sibling relationship with Mickey. I love writing banter and sprinkling in humour in my fics.

GT: I'm a huge sucker for meet-uglies! Which of your fics are you the proudest of?

R: Oh, the one I'm most proud of has got to be The stranger in my brother's bed. It was my first stab at a multi-chapter, my first AU and a chance to play around with different POVs and an unfolding plot. It's also still my most popular fic to date. It's very sweet and fluffy and warm. When it comes to one-shots my favourite I've written is probably Unexpected, a dialog-heavy meet-ugly with lots of banter and flirting. And then there's Caught me by surprise, my second attempt at a multi-chapter that's still currently a WIP. I do hope to finish those last two chapters someday, but I'm proud of it all the same. It's the longest thing I've written and I got to have fun with tropes like Fake dating, Secret relationship and Bed sharing.

GT: Are there any tropes or ideas you haven't had a chance to explore yet but you'd like to someday?

R: I'd like to write some fill-ins for the early seasons, especially exploring Mickey's pov. Of course a lot of amazing fics like that exist already, but it'd be a chance to expand on my headcanons and do some interesting character studies. Other than that, I have a few ideas for plot-heavy stories that sometimes I think might be too ambitious for me but also can't get out of my head. If I ever write them, they may feature tropes such as Childhood friends, Soulmate AU, Private investigator AU, and even a Genie AU, though fantasy is definitely not my go-to genre. I'd also love to write an angsty Enemies to lovers or a classic Roommates AU. And maybe some canon divergent stuff.

GT: Where do you get inspiration from?

R: Movies and tv shows I watch, stories I read or random posts I see on Tumblr are all potential sources of inspiration for me. Sometimes I'll get particularly obsessed with a line a character said in canon or a certain scene and a story just forms in my head around it. And when all else fails, I go looking for a prompt that speaks to me to get things going.

GT:What about motivation? Do you force yourself to take time to write or do you wait for motivation to strike randomly?

R: I'm still trying to find a balance that works when it comes to motivation, to be honest. I've gone many months waiting for motivation to strike, and getting more and more frustrated and disappointed the longer I waited in vain for it to come. Other times I'll try to force it, but end up convincing myself I have lost any ability to write I once had 😅 I definitely work better with some sort of deadline and 'peer pressure'. That's why I'm trying to participate in as many fandom events as I can at the moment. I struggle with anxiety, so I used to think it would be too stressful for me, but I need some structure in order to be productive. And sometimes it is a matter of getting yourself to write a little bit (almost) every day, just to move things along and keep the momentum going.

GT: What's your writing process like?

R: If it's something long or plot heavy I'll prepare a bit of an outline first, but I'm not generally big on outlines. When I go to write, I'm usually sitting on my bed or couch with my laptop. I tried having music on or ambient sounds, but honestly I work better in silence. I think of the scene I want to describe and the thoughts and feelings I want to convey and watch it as a film in my head, hearing the characters voice the dialogue. Then I put it all into words, if they behave that day and just come to me 😁 I first do a rough draft, trying not to edit too much as I go but just keeping going until I reach either the end of the story (in the case of a short-ish one-shot) or a good stopping point. Then once it's done I start editing, filling in details I left out, double checking things online and making various changes until I'm reasonably satisfied with it. At that point I'll send it over to my beta reader.

GT: Do you write about other characters or ships as well? If not, would you someday?

R: No, not really. Even if I include other Shameless characters, the focus is always on Ian and Mickey and their relationship. And I don't think I'll ever write about anyone else. I have a bit of a one-track mind when it comes to ships and fandoms. I can only really focus on one at a time, and even if I love lots of other shows and media, I don't feel the need to create for them, or be all that involved. I think that, beyond my fascination with Ian and Mickey as characters and as my all-time favourite ship, this fandom space and the community I share this passion with has a lot to do with my continued participation in it. I don't think I'd be still writing and posting fic if it wasn't for all the wonderful people that create and enjoy fanworks about Ian and Mickey alongside me. They're a huge part of what inspires me and motivates me to keep creating.

GT: Definitely. It's incredible to me how much the fandom has grown and changed, while still being welcoming.

What about OCs, do you have any? Do you create them based on real people or just whatever you need them for?

R: I only occasionally create OCs for specific purposes, though most often I try to cast other Shameless characters in the roles I need if possible. I had fun with Mr. Binckley in my most recent fic for GGE, The Ghost of Christmas Fuck You, and last year, again for GGE, I created two OC children for How I met your dad. I don't see myself using them for other fics in the future, though I really admire writers who can create fully fleshed out OCs and have them recur in more than one of their stories.

GT: What about reading fics, what makes you choose something to read (and what would make you give up on reading something)?

R: I usually trust authors I already know and love, and who tend to write the sort of fics I go for anyway. But I'll give any story a chance if the premise sounds intriguing. So a good summary will draw me in, for sure. I love any kind of meet-cute or meet-ugly, and enemies or friends-to-lovers. I'll read fluff, smut or angst depending on my mood, but always with a happy ending. I like any sort of AU, but I steer away from fantasy in general, and prefer things set in the present day (though I do enjoy science fiction as a genre so space, time travel, etc. might attract me to a fic). I don't read a/b/o, mpreg or mcd. I'll give up on reading something if it's just a wall of text or riddled (and I do mean riddled) with typos. Also if I feel that something is written way too out of character to the point where I barely recognise them as Ian and Mickey.

GT: Can you name some of those authors you already know and love?

R: Sure! @goodkwuestion, @beckyharvey29, @damnnmilkovich, @gallavichy, @jellovich, devovitsuasartes and @crazynadine are some of my all-time favourites.

GT: What about some favorite fics?

R: You can bite me by Shamelessquestions, all comes down to you by BeckyHarvey29, Bad Date by @thevioletjones, the Southside Forever series by proval, You make me feel human by Dragona, Two of your earth minutes by @the-rat-wins, So Sleeping fucking Beauty, right? by @cjmarlowe, sideways by @whaticameherefor, Maintenance by devovitsuasartes, Love is a ballfield by and_i_take_it. There are many others, but these are some of the ones that have really stayed with me.

GT: Do you ever reread fics?

R: Oh yeah, I've definitely reread some of the ones above. I've been in a reading slump for a long while now though, which is why the fics I've mentioned are almost all older ones, and a lot of those writers aren't active anymore. There are so many amazing new authors writing brilliant fics at the moment, but often I end up just reading snippets of their work or their drabbles on Tumblr, so that's why I haven't mentioned them here. I've got so many incredible fics to catch up on! But brains are weird like that, you know?

GT: Oh, I totally get that! What about your own, do you reread those?

R: Not often. I tend to publish something and then not look at it again, focusing on the next project instead. There's a little bit of a cringey feeling for me when I think about rereading my own fics, but then when I do happen to read a bit of one I'm like 'Hey. This is good, actually. I do not remember writing this, but wow. Good job, me.' 😆

GT: You make gifs too, right? Have you ever made a gifset for a fic, yours or someone else's?

R: Yep! I've made a single gif for my most recent fic, The Ghost of Christmas Fuck You, and also for an older one, Ready to do this. I really want to make gifs/graphics for my fics more often in the future, actually. And I once made a gifset inspired by a quote from Cooperative gameplay by grayola.

GT: Do you make moodboards or playlists when planning a fic?

R: Hmm not really. I sometimes look up images to help me visualise a particular scene, but it's not a regular habit of mine.

GT: Let's talk about Shameless. You said you binged the first 8 seasons? That must have been a wild ride.

R: Haha oh, yeah. I remember watching the first 5 seasons in just one week, then slowing down considerably for s6 and s7, and I think season 8 took me a full month to get through. At that point s9 was a couple of months away, and I alternated between a faint hope for some kind of reunion between Ian and Mickey and just bitter disappointment for the state of the show such as it was at that stage. I absolutely died when the prison reunion happened. I watched that scene on a loop for days, and when I came back up for air I went looking for all the fics I could find. Especially ones set in prison or detailing their life after prison, since I was so convinced they were off the show for good. But of course that's not how it went. What a wild ride indeed! Those days were so crazy for me lol

GT: How did it feel to come into such a large, albeit somewhat asleep at the time, fandom?

R: It was weird because I wasn't on Tumblr at the time. I'd had a blog before but then left for a few years and once I got into Shameless I didn't immediately come back to it. I looked up news about the show on Reddit of all places. Then around the time I started reading fic, I found a little blog called gallavichthings ❤️ where I caught up on all the meta that had been written over the years (and gifsets and art and everything else). I only made my new blog when s10 was about to start, right around the time I posted my first fic on AO3. And at that point the fandom was being revived by I&M being on the show again and by the news that they'd be getting married by the end of season 10. It was my first real experience of being active in a fandom like this, so it was pretty wild for me. It was definitely not as nice and chill as it is nowadays, that's for sure.

GT: Awn, I'm glad to be part of your Gallavich journey. 

Are you able to select a favorite season, seeing as you saw them kind of all together?

R: Oof the earlier seasons are all so special in their own ways. But when I got to season 4, the grip this show had on me had reached the highest levels. Despite Ian being gone for so much of it, or maybe because of it, since his absence was so deeply felt and instrumental for us to see sides of Mickey we hadn't seen before. I'm a sucker for some good pining. And then the second half of the season was such a rollercoaster of emotions... Ugh. Plus it was also an amazing season for the other characters (Fiona especially, who I love so much). So dark and intense, and it felt like a more 'adult' season than previous ones. It just hurt so good.

GT: What's your favorite episode overall?

R: It's hard to choose a favourite, but I think ep 4x11, Emily.

GT: Oh, that's a fantastic one! What about a favorite scene?

R: Maybe the s5 dugouts scene in 5x10. The way it's filmed, the lighting, the music, the rawness of the emotions... it hurts like hell to watch them hurt each other, but then there's that sense of release, and of new hope when they're finally on the same page again and happy... and then it gets taken away from them, because we can't have nice things. But that scene is such a little gem, and it never fails to make me feel all the feels.

GT: If you could go back and change only one thing about the show, what would you change?

R: The quality drop in the later seasons? lol. Honestly, as happy as I am that we got to see Ian and Mickey get married and be husbands, the show was just unrecognisable by the end. So I'd have it end sooner. Have the s7 finale be the final episode of the show, but with a happy ending for Ian and Mickey, obviously.

GT: Speaking of, what did you think of the ending?

R: I wish I could say I was satisfied with it, but yeah, no. It was way too open ended, I only liked where they left things for Ian and Mickey, and I should count myself lucky for that, really. The parallels they tried to do with the pilot and season 1 mostly fell flat for me, but then, like I said, the show was a shadow of its former self by that point. There was too little left to enjoy for me. I don't think I would've watched s10 and 11 at all if it wasn't for Ian and Mickey.

GT: How do you headcanon Ian and Mickey's life together after the ending?

R: I think they live in that apartment for a couple years, then get a house closer to where they grew up. They keep in touch with family and spend holidays with the other Gallaghers. They get a pet or two, and eventually adopt or foster kids, a few years down the line. Mickey takes over the security business, while Ian finds a way to use his medical training again to help the community. They'll be happy, safe and in love for the rest of their lives. ❤️

The happily ever after they deserve.

GT: Well, that's it from me. Thank you so much for your time! Now leave a message to those reading this.

R: This was great, thank you! And thanks to everyone in this little corner of the Internet. Whether you create or simply enjoy creations and support them, you are a vital part of something really special. Thank you for being on this ride with me, and here's to another year full of ideas, events, collaborations, and lots and lots of fun!

[i-try-to-write-stuff]

Entrapment

DubCon, NonCon - Read at your own risk. 18+

What happens when your fuck buddy Modern! Thomas Shelby wants more?

John’s words were echoing in Tommy’s head… “Every relationship has stages, Tommy, but kids they ground us.”

It just hit Tommy. All he needed to do was to knock you up. That would prove to you that he was serious about this relationship, serious about you. Tommy needed you, and you were his cocaine. He was addicted to you.

Tommy met you in Garrison, and he was spellbound when he saw you stand up for your friend. Nobody had looked Thomas Shelby the wrong way and lived to tell that tale. But then again, you were a living, breathing contradiction.

He asked you out on a date, but you turned him down. Tommy took it in stride, but the Shelby in him didn’t accept that answer. Tommy had his eyes on you, his peaky blinders protecting you, fuck, you were so damn oblivious. You were the smartest, kindest and extraordinary woman, but you literally were unaware of your surroundings. You had just moved to Birmingham and thus were unaware of the influence of the Shelby name or the peaky blinders. You knew nothing about him, and Tommy being the Shelby he was, didn’t tell you anything. After all, secrets were fun.

Thomas Shelby kept you in the dark about many things, his legal business, his illegal business, his gang. You assumed he was a working professional just like yourself, and he didn’t correct you. He fabricated run-ins with you like a teenage boy. It was fun. Your resolve broke down just enough for Tommy to slither in your bed.

“Look, I am new to this city and am not looking to date or be in a relationship yet. I just want to enjoy my time and leave it to the future.”, you told him unfailingly.

“We can hook up casually. But if we are hooking up, I won’t sleep with other men, and you wouldn’t fuck other women. You can go on dates, and I don’t mind that. If anything turns serious, we can end this arrangement.”

“Casual fucking, eh? And what man would be opposed to that?” Tommy smiled.

“It’s nice and dandy in the beginning, but men being men, they become controlling and possessive”, you added anxiously.

“I won’t control you, darling”, Tommy promised in his Brummie accent. A promise he would break, and your words were ringing true in his ears. He wanted you irrevocably and unquestionably.  

It was you who decided to limit the scope of your relationship. It was you who had forced Tommy’s hand. Thomas Shelby was enamoured from the first time you slept with him. He had slept soundly like a baby in your bed, your smell calming his mind, your presence driving away his nightmares, and for the first time in a very long time, he smiled uninhibitedly, something his family noticed.

Polly was relieved to find out the old Tommy wasn’t dead and Arthur, John, Ada, and Finn preferred this version of Tommy over the cold and calculated one.

Blinders were assigned for your protection, and they would report on your activities to Thomas Shelby, sending candid pictures of you enjoying coffee with colleagues, of a night out with your girlfriends, you in the park with your overly huge rescue dog, pictures that brightened up his day. Thomas Shelby decided to reduce his smoking when you complained about it, a noteworthy feat. He was changing and becoming a better man for you, whether he admitted it or not.

The frequency of your ‘fuck me texts’ declined, and he chalked it up to you being busy and overworked. But soon, those dreaded pictures started coming from his blinders, becoming his nightmares. He saw pictures of you out with another man, a man he envied because of your frequent dates. Thomas Shelby never claimed you publicly, partly due to fears for your safety and somewhat because he decided to keep his broken heart in a cage after Grace.

His world came crashing when Finn and Isaiah overheard you talking to your best friend, confessing about breaking it off with him to dive into a new serious relationship. Thomas Shelby’s heart jumped out of that metal cage. He may not have given particulars about your relationship to his family. Still, he had to fess up in the family meeting when Ada asked him point blank with the same derision their mother had when any of the Shelby kids were mischievous. Polly, Ada and Lizzie were disappointed in him, but so were Arthur, John, Finn and Isaiah. Michael was only the one who understood Tommy and his obsessive nature. Michael may have joined the Shelby family late, but he could see Tommy's subtlety and actions. His cousin had become unhinged, unencumbered and worst of all, fixated on the idea of owning you, which is what brought him here, standing outside of your door, swimming with whiskey with a rough plan in his mind to keep you by his side forever.

Somebody was incessantly knocking on your door and ringing the bell on top of that Storm, your beautifully dumb puppy, joined in on the chaos. You angrily opened up the door to see a drunk Thomas on your door.

“Thomas, what happened?” you asked carefully, looking at the fragile condition of the man. He just nodded, unwilling to say anything. You opened the door to let him in, asking him to make himself comfortable on the couch. You closed the door, taking a deep breath, preparing yourself before facing your fuck buddy.

“I do not know Y/N and do not know what to do. Everything is eating me alive. I am drowning in responsibilities and disappointments. Who would have thought, when I was in Afghanistan, I didn’t even know I would make it out alive, eh, and that was a war zone, but this real world is sucking up my blood.” Thomas opened up.

“Thomas, I don’t know what to say,” you answered honestly, not knowing what to say to the man.

“Don’t say anything, darling, just sit by me”, Tommy replied.

“Thomas, you need sleep.”

“No, I just need you.”

“Thomas… you are not in the right place, emotionally. Sex is not the answer to your existential crisis.”

“You are right,” Thomas sniffed.

“But you do need some sleep.”

“No, I just need to be with you”, Thomas confessed.

You pulled him up from the couch, guiding him to your bedroom, Storm following you inside.

You ask Thomas to change his clothes, handing him his pyjamas, one of the several clothing items he left to mark his territory over you like some animal.

You sat down, your mind reeling from the confession. For you, Thomas was an amazingly handsome and nice dude you fucked regularly, but you knew nothing about the man you shared your bed and body with. Ironically, you didn’t even ask for his last name. You were getting really good sex with no codependency, possessiveness and the emotional shit.

Sure, it was your personal choice because you didn’t have time or patience for a relationship then. Moving to Birmingham was stressful, and your new job took up the rest of your time. So, you just decided to have a casual relationship with a dude you met in a pub, mostly because he didn’t give off creepy vibes. Still, after eight months of settling in this city and finally having enough time, you decided to go out on dates. And thus, your casual relationship had dwindled. You knew you had to bite the bullet and break it off with Thomas, but after seeing his delicate emotional state, you decided to postpone ‘the talk’.

Thomas joined you in the bed, putting his head on your lap and sighing peacefully. You ran your fingers in his hair, lulling him to peaceful sleep. His outburst confirmed one thing, you had some feelings for him. Now all he needed was to build up on those feelings, to implant a part of him within you, and his seed would tie you to him evermore.

[thyandrawrites]

Blog update

Hi, everyone! I hope the holidays are treating you well. I'm doing okay. 

For those of you that missed my announcement, or didn't see my previous pinned post, I wanted to quickly clarify what's going on. You might have noticed that I didn't answer your ask. I'm sorry about that. 

I'm stepping down from writing meta and sharing my thoughts on recent manga events, on the fandom, on expectations/predictions for the series, and on any hot topic being discussed by other meta bloggers and doing the rounds in the villain standom. Basically, don't expect me to engage with much meta anymore. I'm taking a break for an indefinite amount of time because I find this fandom too hostile currently; since my anxiety is triggered by any tension, be it real or the product of my brain contemplating a fear and running with it, I have to disengage and just focus on myself. I hope you'll understand. 

What does this mean for this blog? 

Meta and asks are normally a huge portion of the contents of this blog. Most of you probably followed me for those. And let's be real, meta is my passion so it will likely resume at some point. Idk when that will be, tho. Maybe I'll wake up next week and be relaxed or uncaring enough to brave the thought of diving back into the disk horse pool, maybe it will be in a couple of months, maybe I will switch to another fandom entirely. I don't know yet. 

In the meantime, please know that I will most likely not respond to anything meta-related or any ask that expresses frustration, negativity, disappointment or anything in that vein, be it a comment on the series or a request to comment on the takes floating around the fandom. 

You're still welcome to drop by my askbox with anything else if you feel like it. I'm keeping it open because I do like chatting to people, and I'm too socially awkward for dms. I'm just trying to limit my chances of ending up being the target of someone writing an essay about why Take X or Y is wrong. There's been a lot of those lately, and they stress the fuck out of me. 

That being said, you're also free to unfollow me if you don't have fun here anymore. I don't mind. 

Oh, please also refrain from answering this announcement by showering me with support and positivity! While I do wholeheartedly appreciate the sentiment and feel very thankful for your kindness(💙), I don't really know how to answer it. Again, socially awkward! Just to put you at ease, I am aware that for every hostile take there's dozens of people who genuinely enjoy hearing my thoughts and talking to me. I do! I'm not looking for reassurance, I'm just trying to draw a boundary. Writing meta is my passion, and I normally have fun with it, but as of now it's not that fun anymore. That's all. I am taking care of myself and spending more of my time on my fics instead. 

Thank you all so much in advance for your understanding, and I hope you have a nice day/night! Take care 💕

[seeingteacupsindragons]

I've been reading so much meta, it's a little hard to keep track of who said what, so sorry if you have discussed this. Anyway, I saw a theory that William and Louis are twins, but because William stoke the identity of someone who is two years older, he's been lying about his age. Do you have any thoughts on this?

This is a very silly theory that doesn't make any sense. Let's break this apart.

The fact that William stole the identity of someone two years older than him is based on his extracanonical age of 24 (for the bulk of the series). This is the only reason we actually know this. OG William would have been 26 in the bulk of the series if he survived. This is discernable through simple math: he was turning 13 when he died, and the main series takes place 13 years later.

However, Louis's extracanonical age is only 23. Therefore, if William was lying about his extracanonical age (somehow???), he could just as easily be OG William's age, or Mycroft's age, or--you get the picture.

William's extracanonical age, to me, feels indisputable. Yes, his profile in the series is lying, or at least cribbing a few facts from OG William's biography (like his age and birthday, which are not William's own). But because his age even on this profile doesn't match up to OG William's biography, and because his height and weight are a perfect match to Sherlock's down to the centimeter and pound, the fact that they are exactly the same age despite this causing some weird timeline funniness, feels very concrete.

Yet, again, Louis's extracanonical age is only 23, and he has no reason to lie about that, especially extracanonically.

But here is my biggest reason this is incredibly silly to think of this idea as "meta" or a "theory": It doesn't help understand the story at all. It might be sort of fun to think about or have as a headcanon or write fanfiction about, but nothing in the series is weird in a way that would be less weird if they were twins.

Nothing in the series, even pre-adoption, indicates that they might in any way be twins. They are close siblings close in age who look similar....but OG William was only a bit over a year younger than Albert, and they also looked quite similar. Sometimes, this is a thing that happens. Mycroft and Sherlock could be mistaken for each other when Sherlock pulls his hair back. They're obviously not twins. They're just siblings who look like each other.

While YuuMori has some elements of unreliable narration, and while that is one of my favorite tropes I think should be used so much more often it should be universal, an unreliable narrator only works when the narration itself stops making sense until you realize someone's view, explanation, and narration of the situation is off.

For instance, in William's narrative, Sherlock was a detective who wouldn't kill, but would arrest/kill/end him, the Lord of Crime. Because William thought that, and because that's the typical story, readers were generally willing to buy it. But Sherlock had said already that he liked William, never said he was going to kill anyone, and very early on said the reason he wasn't going to kill Hope was because he didn't want someone to hand him answers--William wasn't actually tempting him with something he wanted anyway. Ergo, we can determine that William's narrative was unreliable. It doesn't actually match the facts presented to us.

Nothing at all in this series indicates anything about William or Louis's apparent birth being about a year apart is off, or unexplainable, or inexplicable, or just seems odd. In fact, it's never remarked on in canon at all. They have no real strangeness about them or their story that would make more sense if they were twins.

This is a theory that's trying to solve something that doesn't need to be solved. It's very much being pulled out of thin air.

And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with doing that. Please, I write original fiction: that's most of what I do. But it's ridiculous and inaccurate to call that meta or theory or analysis.