#(I mean like. not literally. but we DO get new canon content in two weeks and that will likely render all of my speculation on their

[musical-chick-13]

Ah yes. The age-old question of "Am I brave enough to put this fic on my account or should I just post it anonymously."

[torialefay]

Moon in Sagittarius 🚩🚩

toxic-ish!minho x fem!reader angst; (based on astrology) 🔞

✨ synopsis: your boyfriend minho doesn’t do well with being told no. he is objectively toxic, but eventually becomes less terrible.

✨ word count: ~2k

✨ 2nd part in my Minho as Your Boyfriend Astrology Series (check my masterlist for full series)! together, let’s take a look into minho’s natal chart to see what type of boyfriend he would be!

✨ i will give a brief synopsis of what each chart placement means throughout the series (for all my non-astrology friends out there <3) and how that would affect lee know in a relationship

✨ author’s notes:

(1) i do brief compatibility readings w/ skz members! if interested, send your natal chart to my inbox, as well as which member you’d like me to read for OR if i think there is one member best suited to you <3 (i am verrrrry much behind on these, but feel free to send them. may take a few weeks)

(2) the aspects in this reading are based solely on my opinions and interpretations! nothing about a person is set in stone simply because of astrology. please don’t use anything i say as canon :)

✨warnings: toxic minho, slightly suggestive at the end

Moon in Sagittarius:

• The Moon is the ruler of emotions. It is also who you could feel yourself to be, if all was stripped from you. Many people relate it to the “psyche” or the unconscious. It represents the parts of ourselves that are most fundamental, that we may not even understand. It also reflects our “baseline” energy that we radiate while sitting quietly, being content with our own company. It is the part of ourselves that we really want to be SEEN and understood, even if we do not see or understand it ourselves.

• Sagittarius is the mutable fire sign. They are passionate people who are deeply intrigued by the world around them. They are known for needing a sense of freedom and individuality. They do not like to be tied down. In the same regard, they value exploration, adventure, and meeting new people. They see others as unique individuals and can likely meet them wherever they are at emotionally. Sagittarius people are quick thinkers, witty, and fun-loving.

• Long story short: Moon in Sagittarius people can often have light-hearted, often shifting emotions. They do not like to feel like they are pinned down to any one place. They do not like being told what to do. They will, however, bring a fun element to any time of relationship- platonic or romantic. They are fiercely loyal and passionate about those they love. They do not always feel comfortable with their emotions, so they tend to be flighty and try to run away from this. This is not a great coping mechanism and can lead to a lot of problems in expressing themselves emotionally and what they need from someone else.

As your boyfriend:

• Minho takes you on the most fun, most elaborate dates ever. He’d always find cool new things to do. And of course, he’d want to take his favorite person with him.

• He loves going home with you to meet your parents and learn more about where you grew up. He may have a nature that doesn’t come across this way, but he would inherently love getting to understand you better and see new places.

• He wants to travel with you!!! He will take you literally anywhere you want to go. And when you do, it’s just your own little world. Just the two of you.

• You have the most intellectual conversations ever. He has a lot of abstract ideas about life, and he isn’t afraid to talk to you about them. He likes to know the way you think about it too.

• You have a core group of friends that you hang out with as a couple. It’s not too big of a group, but getting together with them and having a night to cut loose is super important to him. And he loves the fact that he gets to do it with you.

• Friday night, you started to get excited as you heard the keys jingle in the lock of your shared apartment with Minho.

• Today had been a really tough week at work, and all you wanted to do was have a nice relaxing weekend with your boyfriend to decompress.

• Well, if we’re being honest, you felt like you’d crumble away to nothing if you didn’t get it. The stress was that bad.

• “Hi jagi,” Minho greeted you as he came through the hallway to the living room where you were sitting.

• “Hey honey! Please come sit with me. I need to rant about my day,” you pouted.

• He pulled a wide smirk across his face. “Well now you sound like me,” he teased.

• He walked over to the couch and plopped down next to you, letting his hand rest on your thigh.

• “Okay, what’s going on?” he asked.

• “So you know how I told you about the girl I went to high school with who just started at work? The one that’s a bitch?”

• Minho laughed. “You think everyone you work with is a bitch.”

• “You do too,” you stared at him.

• “I do not! Jisung is alright,” he smirked again, knowing that one would get an eye roll out of you… And it did.

• “Anywayssss, that girl. I’m already overwhelmed with stuff I have to get done to meet my deadline at the end of this month, and then she strolls up asking if I can help her with all of her shit too. Knowing damn well how busy I am. I see her over there laughing her ass off on the phone all day long. If she’d stop, then maybe she’d get something done. And THEN, after I told her I couldn’t because I had a bunch to work through as well, apparently she went to one of the main managers and complained that I wasn’t a good co-worker. Saying that apparently I should ‘give her a hand since she’s new’… I mean who goes to a manager with that shit and doesn’t even do a damn thing all day? All she does is gossip and talk shit. So NOW, I have a meeting with our manager Monday morning to talk about it, AND she’s spreading this all around that ‘I’m so horrible to her.’ Like genuinely, the only thing keeping me sane right now was knowing that I was coming home to you.”

• “Aww honey, I’m sorry.” Minho took your hand in his and brought it up to his mouth to plant a kiss on the back of it. “I can cook or we can order some food in and have a good night together. Whatever you want to do tonight. Just let me know what you want.”

• “I don’t want you to have to cook. I really just want you here with me. Maybe we could order some take out and then do a movie? I’m just super drained. Maybe tomorrow we could do something more fun.”

• “Tomorrow? I have plans with the boys. Felix, Jeongin, and I planned a camping trip for the weekend. It sounded like fun. But whatever you want to do tonight, we’ll do.”

• You shot up off the back of the seat. Surely you heard him wrong.

• “You’re doing what tomorrow?”

• “Going camping with Felix and I.N…”

• “Well, it would have been nice if you’d talked to me about that sooner… Or, I don’t know, maybe have just asked?”

• “Asked what? Asked if it was okay?” Minho scoffed.

• “Well, yeah?” you replied, furrowing your brows in confusion and frustration. The fuck is he being like this?

• “Sorry, I didn’t know I needed to ask for your permission to hang out with my friends,” he said sarcastically.

• “It’s not ‘asking for my permission.’ I’m just asking you to check in with me first- to talk about it...- is that so awful?”

• “I mean I would say that telling me that I either am allowed or aren’t allowed to see my friends is pretty awful. I’m an adult, y/n. You’re not my fucking parent.”

• Your blood was boiling at this point. The last thing you wanted to do was to “parent” him. But goddamn, wouldn’t it be nice for him to just see if maybe you needed him for the weekend? Or maybe if there was something he forgot was going on? Or to just let you KNOW about it? Jesus fucking Christ, here we go again.

• “I’m not trying to ‘parent’ you. I’m not trying to tell you what to do. I’m just asking that you COMMUNICATE with me what you want to do so that I know in advance… And to be honest, I really don’t want you going.”

• “Here it is,” Minho rolled his eyes with an annoyed smile. “You always do this. The second I mention wanting to spend time with the boys, you’re suddenly all disapproving,” he let out a strained, sarcastic chuckle before clearing his throat. “I’m sorry if you ‘don’t want me going’, but you don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do.”

• Minho let out a deep breath before putting his hands on his knees and using the pressure to pull himself to standing. “I’m going tomorrow. Let me know I guess if you want to spend time with me tonight.” He looked down at you before walking away to the bedroom.

• And then, the house went quiet. For a long time.

• At that point, you’d decided to just give up. Your boyfriend was a conceited asshole and there was nothing you could do about it. You were upset, but you knew that crying wouldn’t help. After all of this shit, you just wanted to sleep.

• Problem: Minho was in the bedroom. You were too exhausted to fight anymore, now not even hungry to think about dinner. Instead, you just balled yourself up on the couch and went to sleep with a resentful heart.

• An hour later, Minho came creeping out of the bedroom to find you lying peacefully on the couch. He bent down next to you.

• “Jagi,” he whispered, brushing his hand along your shoulder.

• “Jagi,” he said again, a bit louder this time. You stirred a little bit.

• “Honey, please wake up. I need to talk to you,” he said as he saw your eyes slowly open, a confused look coming over your face.

• You took your time to sit upright. Another conversation about his little "boy’s trip" was the last thing you wanted right now.

• “What is it?” you mumbled grumpily.

• “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did earlier.”

• You didn’t say anything back. I mean, what could you say? It was the truth.

• “And I’m going to work on that. To work on talking to you about things better, I mean. Maybe I can have a hard time doing that sometimes.” He never would admit when he was wrong. But this was a start.

• You just looked at him, trying to give him a facial expression for him to go on. You weren’t satisfied yet.

• “And I decided I’m going to stay home with you instead. You need me more than the boys do.”

• “Okay, you don’t have to do that, Min. You can still go, but I just needed you to understand where I was coming from.”

• “And I do understand now. That’s why I’m staying with you. I made up my mind. That’s what I want to do,” he said with a proud smile.

• You let out a soft chuckle. “You’re always gonna do whatever you wanna do, huh?” you joked. You finally flashed him a smile. The first smile you’d had all night.

• He just looked at you with a grin, giving a little bit of side eye. “If that’s true, then what if I wanna do you?”

• You tried to tease him by pushing him away, giggling a little in the process.

• “You better cut it out,” he said, pulling himself back to you until he was hovering right in front of your face. “I get to do whatever I want, remember?” He smiled as he inched his lips closer, but stopped himself right before letting them touch yours. “I made my mind up. I’m gonna do you. Whatever I say goes, Jagi.”

———————————————————————

✨ author’s note: moon in sag has a lot of wonderful aspects as well, i just chose to write on the more angsty side of things :)

✨ if you enjoyed, please consider liking, commenting, and/or re-blogging <3

[syndxlla]

best friends don’t look at each other the way we do

A low stakes, high reward and self-indulgent Zelink fan fiction. Canon-compliant. Takes place between both and totk

Chapter Six: This is Home

Read chapter five here

My masterlist

Song: Run To You by Leah Michele

Summary: Link is brought on to investigate a new strange monster plaguing the farmers in Hateno. He is faced with a new type of post-traumatic experience he doesn’t expect to have.

Warnings: canon-typical violence, suspense and horror, PTSD, squint and theres very base-line sexual content, GRAPHIC descriptions of animal mutilations!

Word Count: 3.5k words

Authors Note: I didn’t update for two and a half months and said “lemme give you guys the best chapter yet” (imo). Thank you for being patient with me. I restarted school, closed one musical, opened and closed a 30 performance long run of another musical and literally fell in love with a man 16-years-older than me in that time lol. Also I wrote this in one sitting and I’m starting chapter 7 now 🫡. Its unedited be nice.

Also please do not make fun of me for using a Leah Michele song for this chapter its so good and it works really good so just shut up. Kloveyoubye

The summer starts to get hotter. A week passes and nothing changes, neither of them ever address the hand holding, Link is fixing the hole in the roof and Zelda is reteaching herself how to fix a clock, an activity she originally learned at the age of seven. Everything is so normal, the sun starts to set a little later, and the fireflies have started hatching.

Link never really thought he would end up in a position to do housework. He tried to get Bolson to fix the hole before Link bought it, but it would take a certain number of wood piles and when Link went out to get them he got a little distracted. And by distracted he means ending the sandstorm in the desert caused by the Divine Beast. It just got put on the back burner, and now here he is, using basic tools to hammer in new shingles. He wipes his brow, his shirt off again. He takes a look at the hammer in his hand, thinking about the savage Lynel sword that same hand has swung.

The passage of time is weird.

Maybe he does want to go back to work. Going from Demon slayer to roof repairman in two and a half weeks is a little jarring.

He hears a groan of frustration from inside the house, and makes his way inside, where it's much cooler.

“Everything alright?” He asks, looking at the girl who’s hunched over the kitchen table.

“No, this is absurd.” She slams the machine on the kitchen table. “I can’t remember how to do the most basic thing in engineering ever.” She frowns.

Link chuckles and places a dirty hand on her shoulder as he walks past her. He moves to the water basin and wets a cloth that he wraps around his neck. “I don’t know the first thing about that stuff, so you have me beat.” He shrugs. “Man, what I would give for an hour at Lurelin right now. Or better yet a weekend at Tabantha. I bet the weather there is a comfortable 60 degrees.” He sighs. Trying to slyly put the worm in Zelda’s ear about a possible trip.

Zelda groans, “I agree. I don’t remember it getting this hot.”

“This is just the beginning, wait until it’s the midsummer festival.”

“A festival?” Zelda’s face lights up.

Link nods, “It’s something they started about thirty years ago. It’s right here in Hateno. People from all parts of the kingdom will travel for it.” Link drinks some water, leading against the counter at the hip. Zelda makes special effort not to admire how his obliques curved. “There’s music and dancing, it’s quite fun. I was invited last year as a special guest. The “chosen hero” or something like that.” Link shrugs.

At that moment they hear a sharp knock on their door. It startles both of them. Link moves to answer it, setting the rag and cup down.

“Dantz, what is it?” Link says as he opens the door to a distressed farmer.

“Master Link, so good to see you,” His voice is shaky, “I didn’t know who else to go to.” Link listens more intently, Zelda even stands. “Two more of my cattle have been killed. When I heard you were back in town I knew you could help me. I don’t know who—or what—is killing them, but it's not a moblin. It’s something darker.” He’s speaking a mile a minute.

“Slow down,” Link stops him, “When did this happen?”

“In the night, I came here as soon as I could. They were covered in something… unnatural. Please, Link.”

Link turns back to look at Zelda. “Stay here.”

“What? No. I’ll come with you!” She moves to him and Link stops her. If this is anything like what Cado saw at the castle, he didn’t want her to be anywhere near it.

Link completely turns around and puts his hands on her shoulders, “Zelda, you cannot.” He stays sternly.

“Why? You don’t have to baby me. I can help you.”

“Zel-“

“I’m better! Please don’t leave me-“ Before she finishes the sentence she’s falling back down, like she was going to faint again. She had gotten herself worked up and now her heart was weary again. Link catches her before she falls, her knees knocking together.

“Oh, Goddess.” Dantz says. “Should I help?” He asks and Link snaps, telling him ‘no’ a little too forcefully.

“Zel, come on, let's get you to bed.” He wraps her arm around his shoulder. “Dantz, I’ll be there within the hour. I’m sorry.” Link says in a calmer tone.

“I understand, Link.” He nods and turns to leave.

Zelda can’t get up the stairs and Link picks her up, carrying her up to her room. He places her in bed as she starts to cry.

“Hey, hey it’s okay.” He brushes her hair out of her face. She takes his hand.

“No. It’s not.” She replies. “Stop telling me it’s okay.” She groans. “It’s ridiculous that I can’t do anything without this happening.” It was the second time this week.

“I have to go help them.” His hand is held back by her, but she eventually lets it go.

He turns to leave her, pulling his green tunic over his messy hair, and getting ready for combat. He isn’t even anticipating a fight, but he wants to be ready. He puts his gloves on, and straps both his sword and shield to his back. He even gets his bow ready because he has no idea what it might be. It sounds serious.

It’s the first time he’s been entirely suited-up since the castle. He forgot how natural it feels. He forgot how much he felt like himself.

Zelda has gotten up and stands at the railing of the loft. “Be careful.” She says in a weak voice.

Link looks up at her, he wants to stay here with her and hold her and let her know that it's going to be okay. “Please rest.”

He walks out the door.

The cattle are lying dead in the corner of the pasture. Flies buzz around them. Dantz and Link examine the scene, a pit in both their stomachs.

“What could it be?” Dantz asks.

Link crouches down, getting a closer look. The gunk is a deep maroon color, almost like malice but thinner, almost like a glossy serum as opposed to a thick slime. Link takes a risk and touches a bit of it that was strewn across the grass, rubbing it between his fingers. It didn’t seem to hurt him the way malice did. He sniffs it, it’s rotten and foul. He gags almost immediately. Link wipes his hand off in the grass.

“I’ve never seen anything like this.” He admits. “And I’ve seen a lot.” This was only confirming his worst fears.

“The other ones that were killed were left like this too.” Dantz explains, “There isn’t even any meat taken out of them, only their eyes are gouged out.” He points out.

“Whatever is killing them is doing it for sport.” Link stands back up and folds his arms. “This is bizarre, I must say.” It was starting to be late afternoon, he still had a few hours of sunlight. “What did you do with the other ones that were killed?” Link asks.

“We tried to clean them up and butcher them for food. But the meat inside was rotten, like it was poisoned under the skin.”

Link hears a giggle from behind them and turns around to see the two daughters of the rancher watching them from behind a post. When he catches them staring they both hide.

“How old are your girls?” He asks.

“Siva is eighteen and Catli is sixteen.” Dantz replies. “They are my pride and joy, I can’t let anything bad happen to them.”

Link advances towards them, “Girls.” He smiles, charming as ever. They both sneak out from behind the post, sheepish and giddy. The older steps forward.

“You’re the hero.” She puts her hands behind her back. Link nods.

“Can you girls show me the edge of your property?” He asks, wanting to test a theory. They both happily nod and start to lead him, he notices especially how Siva looks at him as she walks by. She was very agreeable: long, dark and curly hair and alluring eyes. He follows them. They take him past the fence and through the forest, the younger chatting and asking questions about his quests and whatnot. He just smiles and nods, answering with basic “yes’” or “no’s”.

Link’s theory starts to prove right, he sees a set of two acorns on the ground, then a pair of two foot tracks, and eventually, at the end of the property, where two songbirds lay dead at the bottom of a tree, both covered in the same strange goop. Whatever this is, it’s looking for things in pairs. Like two sisters.

Link would never imagine putting these girls in danger, and would send them home in about an hour or two when it started to get dark, he just wanted to lure out whatever was killing with a pair.

He sat down at the base of a tree, and listened as the girls talked themselves up, clearly competing with one another for who can be the most impressive to the hero. Link decides to let them have their fun, it’s not like he was getting this attention from Zelda.

Zelda.

She’s all he could think about. He listens to the girls for a full hour, but doesn’t comprehend a word they’re saying because all he can do is think about the woman he left at home. He wishes he hadn’t left her home, she’s probably sad and lonely. Or maybe she isn’t, perhaps she’s enjoying some alone time. He doubted it, though. He was sure she was fuming at him for just leaving her, for going in such a rush. Proximity can cause problems, maybe this was good for them.

Link must have zoned out because all of a sudden the younger sister was gone, and he was left alone with Siva. This was dangerous territory.

“Where did your sister go?” He asks, clearly uncomfortable.

“Oh! I told her to go get her tapestry to show you! Of course.” Siva says in a tone that was a little too flirty for Link’s liking. She sits next to him, facing him. Link knew the look on her face, and he knew he should stand up and put an end to whatever was about to happen. “Because you know… now we’re alone.” She sighs and leans in.

Stop. Stop. Stop. He tells himself but doesn’t move, he lets her place her lips on his.

Link is not an experienced kisser. He’s had a few drunken nights in the last three years where he ended up in a Gerudo’s bedchamber or a stable-workers hideout, and while those were all agreeable experiences, he’s never actively sought them out. It was always nice to get the tension from his journey off, though.

Link makes the mistake of kissing her back, and she’s sighing into his touch and he’s pulling her in. Being alone with a woman he’s been in love with for three years and not being able to touch her or talk to her the way he wants to has left him with a lot of pent up energy, it felt good to get it out.

Link puts his fingers through her hair, and starts to kiss down her jawline and neck and she’s letting out the prettiest little sounds.

And then he starts to think about Zelda. The sounds Zelda would make, the feeling of her hair intertwined in his fingers, how her lips would feel against his…

Zelda.

Zelda.

“Zelda.” He sighs, and then Savi is pulling away.

“Hm?” She asks, and Link is dazed and confused, thinking with anything other than his brain. He doesn’t know how long they were kissing because suddenly it's much darker outside, and if Dantz caught them like this, Link would be the one hunted down and killed, not whatever monster is out there.

Link immediately feels stupid, this was a rookie mistake. He shouldn’t have let it happen.

“What?” He responds to her, and then out of the corner of his eye, he sees something run behind the tree. “Shit.” He jumps up. “You need to go. Right now.” He pushes her back towards the house. It wasn’t far, she’d be okay. “Please don’t tell anyone about this.”

She nods, also remembering their reason for being out here. She runs back home and Link shakes his head, trying to refocus. He sees it again, it’s fast, moving from tree to tree, but further away. Link grunts and starts to slowly follow it. He isn’t sure if it saw him. It’s tall, and it’s dark. He would guess it’s a Moblin by its size but it's much too fast to be a moblin. Perhaps a wizzrobe? But he could hear its feet on the grass. Link starts the stalk, prowling towards it like a predator.

He doesn’t think it knows he’s following, because he’s able to follow it halfway up Madorna Mountain before he accidentally steps on a branch that snaps loudly. Again, a rookie mistake. Link was out of practice, rusty. He silently curses himself for that. The beast turns around to look at Link, but he’s able to hide behind an oak tree. It was still a little light out, and the lights from down were getting smaller and smaller as they worked their way up the mountain.

Link stayed vigilant. It’s been a long time since he’s had to fight a new enemy, and he wasn’t sure how powerful this was going to be. It gets quiet, he doesn’t hear it move. Even with Link’s impaired hearing, he had a knack for the details, but not today, not now. A cricket chirps but it’s silenced halfway through its sound. The wind goes still. A cloud covers the moon.

He girds up, and moves from behind the tree to keep following it, but he’s met with a horrific sight.

The creature is standing there, about six feet away from Link.

It startles him. He’s met with a feeling of dread.

It’s tall, probably seven feet. It’s hunched down, a humanoid-sort of beast that looks like a shadow covered in the same maroon gloop as the animals.

Link freezes up, he is paralyzed with fear because he knows exactly what it is.

He knows who it is.

It opens its eyes, those awful, yellow, glowing eyes. He chuckles at Link and it fills his skull. It wasn’t quite human, like it was a pile of goo that was regaining its strength and slowly rebuilding itself into a human. Into a phantom.

They stare at one another, his laughter taunts Link. Link can hear his heartbeat in his ears. His palms start to sweat. He is met with the images of three weeks ago. The battle, the castle, the evil.

Ganon.

Or at least some form of him.

He doesn’t move, he just laughs at Link. The boy swallows, and he wants to run, but he rolls his shoulders back.

“Courage and Bravery are two different things.” Zelda’s words ring in his memory.

He grabs his sword.

The Master Sword unsheathes with a light ring, and it glows in the darkness.

In an instant, the monster is screeching and howling like a Lynel and melting away from the light of the sword. The pure power of the holy blade made the beast slowly melt into the ground, like an ice cube in the desert. It covered its eyes, and screlted into the forest, echoing no doubt into town.

Link walked closer to it, waving the blade, spinning it in his hand until the creature was completely put away.

Whatever that was, it isn’t very strong. It will surely get stronger, though. Link had a feeling this was not the end of it. It left behind a puddle of goop. Link’s stomach dropped when he realized why it was killing for sport and in pairs of two. It was probably seeking Him and Zelda. Unable to differentiate what living things were hylian and what was cattle or animals. The stealing of the eyes surely had something to do with it regaining its strength, but what?

How did it know to come look in Hateno already?

After sheathing the sword and thanking the Goddess, Link took a moment to bury the secretment. He still felt sick to his stomach. Why did he freeze up like that?

Maybe that final battle had more of an effect on him than he thought.

He heads home, explaining to Dantz what had happened and what he saw, sugar-coating it a little and just saying it was a ghost. Link wasn’t sure how long it would stay away for, but hopefully long enough he could talk to Impa about it. Clearly the Master Sword was protecting him. He made a special effort to avoid Savi.

When he gets home, he drops his equipment off, pulling his gloves and boots off and leaving it all in his little corner downstairs. He pulls his shirt off. He would sleep out with Epona again tonight, he would need to to avoid the nightmares. His Mare had that effect on him. The feeling of safety and home.

Zelda was asleep, snoring lightly in her bed. He stayed quiet and went to sit at the table, grabbing a baked apple to silence his rumbling stomach. Guilt washed over him as he remembered what he did today. Savi came onto him, but he knows he shouldn’t have let that happen. He was ashamed of his conduct.

The laughter of the phantom rang in his ears. Flashes of its grin and glowing eyes projected in his mind. He felt ill.

Link disassociated. He sat at the table for three hours and it went by in minutes.

What snaps him out of it are the screams of terror he hears from upstairs.

His mind immediately jumps to the worst possible situation. He grabs the master sword and sprints upstairs. He sees nothing but a scared girl, crying from a nightmare.

“Zelda, what is it?” He asks, setting the sword town and running to her. He kneels by her bed and takes her hand. “I’m here, what’s wrong.” He whispers.

“You’re here?”

“I’m here.”

“B-but. The guardian, it got you. It killed-”

“It was just a nightmare, it wasn’t real.” Link reassures her. “I’m here, breathing, alive as ever.”

Zelda shakes her head, she’s clearly so traumatized that she cannot differentiate dream from reality anymore, she probably thinks him saying that is the dream.

“Here, feel.” He grabs her hand and places it against his chest where his heart is. “Feel that?” He asks, “Bum-bum. Bum-bum.” He whispers. “That’s my heart. Its pumping, it's beating.” Zelda sobs and he pulls her into his chest. “It’s okay, I got you. I’m here.”

He holds her for a moment and then stands up, “I’ll get the stool if it will help you sleep.” He turns to go.

“Stay with me.” She asks, tears wetting his collarbone.

“I’ll be right here, I’ll grab the stool.” He says.

“No, stay with me.” She says, and gestures to the bed.

“What?”

“Please. I cannot sleep without you by my side. I’m too afraid I’m going to lose you again.” She sniffles.

“Zelda I can’t-“

“Why?” She asks. “Because of decorum? Because I’m royal? Because you don't want to get caught?” She picks up her hands ‘None of that matters anymore’ she signs.

Link nods, “Are you sure?”

“Please.” She pleads.

Link moves back to her, trying to control his racing heart. Zelda scoots over to she’s closer to the wall, and Link carefully crawls into the covers of the bed. There wasn’t a ton of room, there would be no way for them to lay in the bed without being in full contact. “Is this okay?” He asks as he pulls the covers up.

She nods.

“Hold me?” She asks.

Link looks at her and it takes every ounce of his self-control not to kiss her. He nods and lays his head down, his chest facing up. He pulls her into his chest, wrapping his left arm around her shoulders and his right arm over his stomach to her waist. She tries to control her breathing, and it gets easier as their hearts begin to sync up.

Link wants to cry too, because this is the safest he has felt in a hundred and three years. This is the most at home he has ever been. He mentally-pinches himself because he’s sure he’s dreaming. But he doesn’t wake up, in fact, he starts to fall into the deepest sleep he’s ever had.

Every muscle in his body starts to relax, his eyes get heavy, and the scent of the girl on his chest fills his dreams with images of fairy forests and gentle ocean waves and the time of day when the sun moves into twilight.

This is home.

[copperbadge]

Hi! I hope this isn't too out of left field, but you're one of the fandom creators I've followed the longest (since SGA's heyday,) and one whose work I really enjoy/respect. It seems like fandom as community is kind of... dying? In favour of cash/influence motivated content creation? Do you have any tips on how to contribute to/preserve the community aspects (aside from the brigades/crusades against "insert problematic content here" that seems to band ppl together) of fandom? So much of it seems to just be throwing comments into the ether, and I'm not sure how to contribute.

I've been thinking about this ask for a while, but I don't think I'm any further along towards giving a good answer now than I was a week ago when you sent it.

There are so many aspects to answering this -- not just answering it but answering it as me. I will always be of fandom; I've spent roughly thirty of my forty-three years in fandom. But I haven't had a single specific fandom for a couple of years now. The last time I posted any fanfic of meaningful length was 2020; I've done shortfics since, but mainly for fundraisers and to prompts, and in the meantime worked on my own stuff. Generally, between about fourteen and thirty, I would find a specific canon, write for it for about two years, and then move on to a new canon. Marvel was an exception in that I think I was in it for about eight years, roughly 2012-2020; Good Omens was too in that I left the fandom and came back to it, something I've never done, but even then I wrote a couple of fics in 2020 and not really anything since.

Additionally, I'm, you know, here on Tumblr, I'm not really anywhere else. Fandom is so massive and our experience of it so subjective that it's difficult to say "where" fandom is; it was on livejournal and moved to tumblr but I think realistically since that move it has fractured significantly, to the point where it is spread across tumblr, twitter, tiktok, discord, and dreamwidth. I am on one of those. :D And nobody really knows what percentage of fandom is where. It goes back to the problem of how to define fandom and how to track a generally self-reporting, semi-closed community.

There is, I think, a growing movement to monetize hobbies in general, and separate from that to Create Content rather than just Post Shit. And social media platforms, for the most part, are designed to push specific content, so those capable of "gaming" the algorithm tend to rise to the top and be most visible, and that's a very homogenized set of data, generally speaking. It is the new Mainstream Culture.

But there are two problems with this new mainstream culture: first, it's insanely fragmented compared to ten or twenty years ago. It is possible to put your content out in front of literal millions of people on YouTube and still not be a cultural phenomenon in the way that a TV show with the same viewership would have been on network television in the 1990s, because you're just one of a million options. I knew who all six Friends were even when I didn't watch Friends, but I don't know who the top influencers on YouTube are, because there's like thirty thousand of them and they're all super niche and none of them appeal to my interests, and unlike in the 1990s when I had five TV channels, I have all of the internet I can look at instead.

I say this is a problem, but in many respects it's not -- at least it means alternate viewpoints that don't need to care about network executives or ad revenue are getting out there....somewhere. It's merely a problem in that we can no longer really establish a firm idea of where we are, culturally.

The second problem is more germane to us: fandom has always been a counterculture. Fandom is tightly engaged with disrupting the narrative of dominant culture, with telling the stories that dominant culture won't using the products of that culture to do so. Most countercultures eventually either die out or become mainstream, but fandom has proved slippery in that sense because it is always in reaction to established culture. When part of fandom becomes mainstream, the rest shrugs and moves on. The first time we've really seen that shift is in the monetization of things like gaming and nerd culture, which is a pretty recent phenomenon.

But I don't know what the extent is. I would imagine these days it's harder to find the real weird gritty countercultural stuff, because the "friendly" neutered nerd content gets pushed to the top, but I feel like once you've got an in, you can find the rest of it. So I don't know if it's that fandom is dying, it's just being split into two halves: the very visible dominant-culture-friendly stuff and the less marketable and thus harder-to-find countercultural stuff. And in any case I'm not super qualified to talk about that split because I don't honestly see it that often. I know it's there, but I'm at a remove from it because of my particular status in fandom as a long-term, well-known fan with a relatively large following. (Relative to the norm. Relative to like, anyone on tiktok, I'm nobody.) So my vision of fandom is eternally skewed by the fact that I'm the Spiders Georg of fandom.

So I don't really have any answers because I don't even properly have my arms around the problem. I'm not sure anyone does, or knows the size or severity of it, whether it's a non-issue or a major one. I'm not sure anyone can. Fandom is huge and weird and invisible and hard to predict. And that's okay; part of what makes us fandom is our ability to adapt and integrate and make things our own, so we just...keep doing that in the best way we're able, I think, and trust the rest will figure itself out and present itself to us as either a fun new opportunity or a problem to be solved.

[theforgottenmcrmy]

Vipers~ Part 2/3 (Ser Harwin Strong x Reader)

᯽ Please note that this is an overall part 14 of the series “Growing Strong”. The masterlist for the series and vipers part 1/3 can be found on the pinned post on my profile. Tumblr is being mean and not letting me link it here. :( ᯽

Pairing: Ser Harwin Strong x Tyrell! Female Reader

Warnings: GOT typical sexism, canon divergence, mentions of of previous death of characters, GOT typical stigmatized bastardy, hypocrisy, Daemon Targaryen is a menace, Larys Strong is a warning in and of himself, violence, blood, a man literally gets beheaded

Summary: With even just a little bit of the gods’ favor, that struggle would not come to war. But when any Targaryen ascended the throne amongst contention, how could fire not be the result?

A/N: Thank you all for the love on the first part🖤 I tried to take a different approach with Queen Alicent here, and I hope that translates alright. I hope you guys have had and continue to have a great week🖤 Part 3 will be up on Friday.

“Lady Tyrell.”

Queen Alicent folded her hands in front of herself as she looked you over. She looked much the same as you had seen her last, donning a modest grown of rich green, with long sleeves and a high collar. However, the large seven-pointed star hanging from her neck was a new addition.

You locked your knees and held your chin up, refusing to be intimidated by her scrutinous eyes. Your knuckles on the goblet in your hand likely began to turn white from the force of your grip around it. Even now, despite the two of you being well alone, one thing was expected of you.

You kept your facial expression plain as you offered her a curtsy.

“Do not trouble yourself with all of that,” Queen Alicent insisted politely. “It is I who has come calling upon you. Please forgive the lateness of the hour.”

“I am a guest in your home, Your Grace. You are entitled to come and go as you please.”

Queen Alicent’s eyes fell upon your goblet, and then flickered over to the bottle on the table. “Do you mind if I join you?”

“I suppose you are entitled to that as well.”

Thankfully, Queen Alicent spared you the humiliation of having to pour her a cup of wine. Instead, she walked over to the nearby table and filled a spare goblet for herself. You watched with furrowed brows as she took a sip of the Dornish red. Even as Queen Alicent’s stiff shoulders slumped and she exhaled a small contented sigh, you remained on edge.

“Is there something in particular that you wished to speak with me about, Your Grace?” you prompted her, quickly losing your patience. “I know it has been years since we last spoke, but I do not recall seeing you in the courtyard this morning to welcome me and my escort when we arrived. Surely any conversation you wish to have with me can wait ‘til the morrow, can it not?”

You expected Queen Alicent to capitalize on your momentary lapse of judgment and make you pay for your thinly veiled rudeness, but to your surprise, she did not. Instead, she smiled. But the gesture was not one of joy-it looked to be more of desperation and tiredness than anything else.

Queen Alicent looked to the balcony, and then back at you questioningly. “Shall we?”

The two of you, goblets in hand, wandered out of the room and out underneath the night sky. You placed your goblet upon the flat top of the barrier and rested your now open palms against it. The stone felt pleasantly warm, and it was very soothing.

You snuck a glance over at Queen Alicent. Unlike you, she looked ill at ease. One hand clutched the goblet, which never strayed far from her lips. Her other arm wrapped around herself. She did not notice your stare, for she looked out into the capital city with a foggy expression as if lost in some daze.

“What were you thinking about out here, before I came calling?”

“My daughter,” you answered truthfully. It was silent for a beat, as Queen Alicent waited for you to elaborate. “This will be the first time I have been apart from her for more than a few days’ time.”

Queen Alicent hummed understandingly, and took another sip of wine. “I can sympathize with you. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my Daeron, all the way in Oldtown.”

Prince Daeron. He was only a few weeks older than Prince Lucerys and Selwin, and yet, the boy had been in Oldtown for the majority of his life. He was the squire and cup bearer for the Queen’s cousin, Lord Ormund Hightower.

You couldn’t help the twinge of sympathy that came over you. The thought of sending any of your other children away, even to extended family, was a troubling one. To go months, years, without seeing them? Unfathomable.

You did not doubt the sincerity of Queen Alicent’s words, nor the pain she must have felt. But you also couldn’t help but wonder whose decision it was to send the young princeling away in the first place.

Before you were forced to think of what to say in response to the Queen’s somber musing, she spared you.

“What brings you King’s Landing, Lady Y/N? Business, or pleasure?”

“An envious brother means to call into question the legitimacy of Princess Rhaenyra’s son. I would imagine that should be the business of all the realm’s loyal subjects, if not at least of their concern.”

Queen Alicent smirked. Once again, it was joyless. “We are alone, Y/N. You need not keep up this facade with me. Let us speak plainly with one another that is the truth that we both know.”

Her words were an invitation to come to the table and negotiate. By her sudden lack of pretenses, you might have been swayed to believe Queen Alicent had genuine intentions. But your guard was still raised. Without a doubt, you had just begun to wander into very dangerous territory.

“And what is this truth you speak of, Your Grace?”

Queen Alicent tore her eyes away from the view. As her eyes raked over you once more, you willed yourself to remain still and unwavering. All of the sudden, her expression softened.

“Oh… You don’t believe it yourself, do you? … You don’t. I can see it in your eyes.”

You did not believe it, for there was nothing to believe. Harwin was not the father of Lucerys, or Jacaerys, or even Joffrey.

Queen Alicent breathed despondently into her goblet. “You poor, poor fool.”

But you would swallow your pride and allow Queen Alicent and countless others to believe what they might, as you always had. As you always would. It was better for them to think Harwin was the princes’ father then for anyone else to discover the real truth.

Still, you would not subject yourself to outright slander.

“Does defending the honor of my husband make me a fool? I fail to see how it could, as I know he would do the same for me, as he has always done.”

“Your loyalty to your husband and Princess Rhaenyra is admirable,” Queen Alicent praised genuinely. “I can only hope that your former mistress will never use it against you.”

“You think far too little of Princess Rhaenyra if you think her likely to turn on a faithful ally just for her own gain, Your Grace.”

“And perhaps you think of her far too kindly. Loyalties are fine and well, as long as they are only the means by which you protect yourself and those you care about.  When loyalties become one’s only purpose for being, you will be lost to the bigger cause. Your loved ones will soon be as good as dust, if they weren't already.”

The passionate way in which Queen Alicent spoke made you hesitate. Was there some truth hidden behind those misguided words? … Surely there was more to all of this madness than mere self-preservation?

“Tell me, Lady Y/N, just how long have you been blinded beyond all reason?”

Your brief moment of introspection fizzled. “What is it that you believe I refuse to see? Ser Laenor Velaryon was Prince Lucerys’ father.”

She sighed tiredly, waving away your comment with a dismissive hand. “Yes, yes. That is what we have all been told.”

“Vaemond Velaryon’s petition to upheave the succession of Driftmark is nothing but a vindictive plot. He seeks to capture power that is not and never has been his to possess.”

“And yet, the small council has deemed Ser Vaemond’s claim credible enough to warrant a hearing on the petition, Lady Y/N.”

“Which is nothing but an insult to Princess Rhaenyra’s honor and to the memory of her late husband. Is this truly what you felt was necessary to discuss with me at such a late hour? Do you revel in trying to disparage my image of my husband and Princess Rhaenyra? You may be the Queen, but you cannot command my own thoughts and opinions of those I hold dearest to me.”

Queen Alicent was silent for a few moments. When she spoke, her voice was soft, terribly so. “I used to envy you. Did you know that?”

You blinked, taken aback. The anger within you that had begun to boil quickly died down at the Queen’s sudden confession. “Why?”

“Girls like we once were, young women born to noble houses… Seldom do we ever find ourselves able to love the man our family weds us off to.”

You took a sip of your wine as you mentally braced yourself for the Queen’s next words.

“But love found you first,” Queen Alicent recalled, looking away from you and back towards the city. “And only after that did your father deem the man who had captured your affections to be worthy of your hand. I was not the only girl who envied your circumstances, I can promise you that.”

You acquiesced, “I was most fortunate in that regard, Your Grace.”

“I must admit that in the past, I have taken some small satisfaction from the fact that the seemingly perfect love between you and Ser Harwin might not have been so perfect after all.”

Patience, you reminded yourself.. Let her think what she will.

“But I do not indulge in satisfaction at others' expenses… not anymore,” Queen Alicent denounced. “Now, I only carry my own worries.”

“Is that what you’ve come to discuss then, your worries?”

“Yes.”

Her tone was so resolute, it gave you a moment’s pause.

“Perhaps our marriages are not what we once hoped they might be,” Queen Alicent conceded. 

“But I would do anything to protect my children and grandchildren.” A redeeming quality of hers, you had to admit.

She continued, “You have been in the Red Keep for just a day, although I am sure you have heard about King Vierys’s delicate health.”

And how your maesters are eager to supply him with milk of the poppy. “... Among other things, Your Grace.”

“A day may soon come where many of us will be forced to make a choice. I cannot say what my own decision may be, but I do know that I will choose the path that I feel endangers my own the least.”

You had not expected to hear such words from the Queen. You had always suspected the motivations of Queen Alicent and the rest of her faction she had crafted from her allies at Court to be far simpler in nature. Perhaps for some of them, namely, the Lord Hand Otto, they still were. Besmirching the name of Princess Rhaenya was the easiest way to discredit her in the eyes of all who still upheld the oaths they made to her father to support her as his heir. But with Princess Rhaenyra shamed into surrendering her inheritance, the path would be clear for Prince Aegon to take the throne, which is what you had suspected Queen Alicent had truly wanted all along.

But perhaps Queen Alicent’s motivations came from another place. When the fateful day came that King Viserys passed, and Princess Rhaenyra would rise to take her rightful place as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, you would support her in whatever way you could. But even you had never anticipated such a feat to be achieved without a bit of a struggle. With even just a little bit of the gods’ favor, that struggle would not come to war. But when any Targaryen ascended the throne amongst contention, how could fire not be the result?

Perhaps Queen Alicent had only ever wanted to keep her kin away from the flames.

“I will always strive to protect my own children as well, Your Grace.”

“Your youngest- how old is she?”

“Her third name day is in a few months.”

“Does she not deserve to grow in a land that knows nothing but peace?”

No such land existed anywhere. Where there were people, there would be power. And the supply of ambitious individuals who wished to grasp that power would be limitless. No sense in denying that, but that didn’t mean there was no opportunity for it to be molded to fit your own desires. You desired change for the world that had compelled your father to bring you to King’s Landing to be Princess Rhaenyra’s lady in waiting, all the while having a secondary motive of hoping you’d secure a worthy suitor. You desired change for the world that had compelled Queen Alicent to submit herself as a pawn in her father’s unrelenting ambition, and that which had forced her to marry the father of who was once her closest confidant.

“I would have my daughter grow up in a realm where she is valued just as highly as her brothers, Your Grace. I would have her seen as an equal in the eyes of those beyond my husband and myself,” you countered firmly. “I would have my daughter come of age in a kingdom ruled by a Queen, in the hopes that such a kingdom might treat her more kindly than her mother and forebears.”

Queen Alicent laughed humorlessly. “Mayhaps your ambitions are loftier than my own, My Lady.”

The conversation fell to nothing, as the mutual feeling of having reached an impasse settled between you.

“No such world will ever existed,” Queen Alicent declared darkly, finishing off her wine. “The sooner we accept it and stop trying to fight it, the better we will all be.”

When Harwin and the rest of your family arrived, he was relieved when Lord Rosby informed him that a message from a raven was already waiting for him.

But it was not until he was alone in the chambers Lord Rosby had graciously provided to him that Harwin had a spare moment to read your message.

…

You were fine. You were armed with the dagger he had gifted you. You and the escort had made it to the Red Keep without any issue. You had a moment to speak with Princess Rhaenyra, and even had the opportunity to share supper with her family. You were looking forward to the opportunity to spend more time with them over the coming days, which is all it would be until Vaemond Velaryon’s petition would be heard by Queen Alicent and the Lord Hand. With the gods’ blessing, Prince Lucerys would be reconfirmed as heir to the Driftmark throne. You would be able to rejoin Harwin and your children, and then you could all set sail for Dragonstone.

All was well.

….

So why in the Seven Hells was Harwin so worried?

His concern had been eating away at him for the past two days. Though he had suspected Derrik and Selwin of seeing past the brave face he put on, Harwin did not doubt they would soon come to see the cracks that threatened his calm composure. At least Luciya was too young to sense something was amiss with him, but as she slowly began to realize you were no longer traveling with the group, she would soon become upset of her own accord.

Silently watching you and the escort ride into the city and out of Harwin’s sight had been one of the hardest things he had ever had to do. But for many reasons, he had allowed it to happen.

Harwin was able to take some comfort in the fact that you would seldom be alone. The escorts, along with the fact that you were essentially a guest of Princess Rhaenyra’s, reassured him some. But most of all, he was glad that the Master of Whisperers was none other than his brother.

With Larys keeping an eye and ear to the ground of not only the Red Keep, but the entire realm, what could possibly befall you? Harwin did not doubt his brother’s will to keep you safe from those who would mean to harm you, so long as it was within Larys’s means to do so.

The fire in the chambers Lord Rosby had generously had prepared for the two of you had begun to simmer. Harwin had no intention of stoking it back to life.

As he thumbed the firefly pin in his palm pensively, the dying light still provided a faint enough glow for the gem affixed to it to gleam. His mind wandered…

A firefly.

They were bountiful in the Riverlands. He could still recall fond memories from his childhood when he, Larys, Lilyan, and Eyla would spend hours at night trying to catch as many of them as they could. It’d been a pastime he was all too eager to share with Derrik and Selwin the short time your family had called Harrenhal home.

Fireflies were a bit scarcer in the Reach, where the lands were dryer. But there’d been several occasions where Harwin swore he saw some faint twinkles in the distance, right near the Mander.

A firefly.

Such an odd choice for a personal sigil.

Whoever’s sigil this was, Harwin was willing to bet all his titles, holdings, and wealth that the individual knew exactly what had caused the fire in Harrenhal that fateful night.

Harwin could not recall seeing many fireflies whilst he lived in King’s Landing. But most of his nights there had been spent patrolling the streets in the heart of the city, so that did not mean much at all.

A firefly…

Was it possible that the individual who had chosen this sigil lived in King’s Landing? At least for a time? If said individual had orchestrated the fire at Harrenhal, as Harwin had always highly suspected, that would only make sense. If Harwin, his father, you, and your sons had truly been targeted that night, the person behind the plot would have actually had to know who you all were. They had to have known your doings. They would have had to have a motive, whether it was based on truth, or on false rumors.

Whoever it was, were they still in King’s Landing? Did they reside in the Red Keep? Would you pass them in the halls, completely unaware that they had once attempted to claim your life, that they were successful in claiming the life of Harwin’s father?

…

Gods help him, Harwin was not going to be able to sleep until you were with him once more.

It was a week before your Good Brother came to see you.

In the days that followed, it felt as though the Red Keep was at a standstill. The upcoming arrival of Ser Vaemond Verlaryon and his petition to be declared Lord Coryls’s successor, should the Sea Snake succumb to his injuries, was all anyone seemed to be able to whisper about. Once he finally arrived, you thought the walls of the Red Keep might have rumbled with all the excitement that ensued.

But you had other things weighing on your mind. The unusual conversation you had with Queen Alicent the night of your arrival left you feeling uneasy, and you spoke of it to no one. Despite the passing of a few days, you were unsure what to make of it. Your mind replayed almost every word she’d said as you tried to discern her motives. Were her words a warning? Were they some sort of offering of peace?

Only time would tell.

Vaemond Velaryon’s petition was to be heard on the morrow. But for today, as you had the majority of the past several, you busied yourself by spending your time with Princess Rhaenyra and her children. Once more, you had joined Princess Rhaenyra underneath a canopy in the gardens. But this time, you were not alone.

All of her children, including one of her stepdaughters, Lady Rhaena, were present, with the exception of Prince Jacaerys, who had cited the wish to study Valyrian as his excuse for his absence. Prince Daemon was also notably absent, and you could only hope he did not intend to poke the bear that was the tension amongst the Red Keep by making good on his threat to Ser Criston Cole. Lady Baela was undoubtedly with her grandmother, the Princess Rhaenys.

Despite the absences, the gathering in the gardens felt like a warm one, with all of the participants present seemingly finding genuine happiness in merely spending time with one another. It made you all the more aware of how much you had begun to miss your own family.

As you had believed, you scarcely recognized Prince Joffrey when Princess Rhaenyra had reintroduced you to him a few days before. But the third of Princess Rhaenyra’s sons was quite the charmer, and offered you a kind greeting nonetheless, citing the many times Princess Rhaenyra spoke fondly of you, Harwin, and your sons.

Prince Aegon the Younger and Prince Viserys were also joys. Despite the wariness you held about their father, you had little doubt they would grow to be good men under the guidance of their mother.

Princess Rhaenyra sat on a bench with an arm around Aegon, who had decided to seize the opportunity for a mid afternoon nap, and was slumped up against her. Meanwhile, you entertained Prince Viserys, who seemed to be in the age where anything he could get his hands on absolutely fascinated him.

As you allowed Prince Viserys to fumble with your golden rose hair pin, your attention drifted across the canopy, where Prince Lucerys and Lady Rhaena sat at a table reading. Every now and then, Prince Lucerys’s eyes would rise from the page before him, and wander aimlessly. You had noticed how the impending petition from Ser Vaemond had troubled him. With said petition being heard on the morrow, Prince Lucerys appeared to grow uncomfortable with each passing moment.

Princess Rhaenyra suddenly stretching from her seat with a small frown stole your attention right back to the present.

“Are you well, Princess?”

Princess Rhaenyra waved you off lightly, before running a soothing hand over Prince Aegon’s hair. “‘Tis nothing.”

You took her word for it, and dropped the subject. It would not do to cause a scene in front of the children, even if you were concerned.

Princess Rhaenyra immediately noted your slight dejection, and offered you a new subject to discuss instead. “I would not dare get my hopes up, but, from the way I am carrying, the maesters believe this child to be a girl.”

The thought of that made you smile. “Daughters are a blessing of their own, to be sure.”

You pitied all suitors who might try to win the hand of a young princess who had protectors of no less than five older brothers and her father, the Rogue Prince. But you still wished Princess Rhaenyra’s words to be true. You did not doubt that she loved her sons, but Princess Rhaenyra’s secret wish for a daughter was a poorly kept one at best.

“I have been most impatient to meet your daughter, Y/N,” Princess Rhaenyra said pointedly. “How old is she?”

“Her third name day is in a few months.”

“Ah,” Princess Rhaenyra remarked in a knowing tone. “So close in age to Aegon.”

You opted to politely ignore her less than subtle suggestion. You assured her, “I have told Luciya many tales about you, Your Grace. I am certain she will be just as thrilled to meet you.” Your eyes flickered once more over to Prince Lucerys, who had abandoned his reading to listen in on your conversation with his mother. “As I know Harwin and my sons are looking forward to seeing the Princes again.”

Prince Lucerys offered up a slight smile, which you considered to be a small victory.

“Prince Lucerys,” you directed then, smiling as well, “Perhaps you might be able to attest as to why my son Selwin spends more time writing to you than he does on his own studies? I asked him once what it was that he was writing to you about, and he informed me plainly that it was a subject best kept between the two of you and your elder brothers. Something about a mishap with a morningstar…?”

Princes Lucerys’s smile widened as he was reminded of something known only by himself and the aforementioned parties. At this, Lady Rhaena abandoned her own reading to look at him curiously, but kindly.

Princess Rhaenyra rolled her eyes fondly. Like you, she had given up on the temptation to learn of every little matter her sons got up to in their spare time.

“Pardon my interruption, Your Grace.”

Everyone’s attention turned to the tent’s entrance, where Master of Whisperers Larys Strong stood. Like Ser Criston, it appeared that time had changed very little of him physically. Unlike Ser Criston, you supposed that must have been a good thing.

“Lord Larys,” Princess Rhaenyra greeted him cordially. “It is good to see you. Would you care to join us?”

“As much as I appreciate your generous offer, Princess, I am afraid I must decline. I was hoping to have a word with my Good Sister, should she be spared for a moment?”

“Certainly, My Lord,” you agreed politely.

You rose to your feet, taking Prince Viserys with you. Once you returned him into Princess Rhaenyra’s awaiting arms, you followed your Good Brother from out underneath the canopy.

“I would offer to escort you on a stroll as we speak, but I fear that experience would not be very enjoyable for you,” Lord Larys told you sheepishly. He gripped the pommel of his gane tightly for emphasis.

“‘Tis no matter; I would not inconvenience you in such a way, Good Brother. The gods look like they’ve been kind to you. How do you fare?”

“The same could be said for you, My Lady. Rest assured, I have been well. Although, the duties of my new station require much time and effort from me. I hope you can forgive me for not calling upon you sooner.”

“There is nothing to forgive. Your brother and I are proud of your rise, as I am sure your lord father would be as well.”

At the mention of the late Lord Lyonel, Larys’s smile slipped for the briefest of moments. The pain of his loss must still weigh upon him, as it did to Harwin, you reasoned.

“The small council is to meet shortly,” Larys informed you then. “So I must be on my way. However, would you care to join me for supper in two days time? I am most curious about the wellbeing of the family, and I was hoping you could indulge me.”

“But of course, My Lord,” you agreed readily. “They are just as much your kin as they are mine. I would be happy to share a meal and answer any questions that you may have.”

Larys grinned. “Splendid. I shall have it arranged, and will send for you.”

“I look forward to it, Good Brother.”

You only hoped you would have cause to celebrate by then.

The following morning, every noble present within the Red Keep reported to the Great Hall in a timely manner. Not a single member of the Court dared to miss the rare phenomenon that was a petition requesting to entirely redirect the succession of a noble house.

As all the attending parties filed into the open room, two sides were silently amassed. Though there were a few outliers, it became apparent relatively quickly that a line had been wordlessly drawn.

On one side, you stood behind Princess Rhaenyra, Prince Lucerys, Prince Daemon, and the rest of her family. Known supporters and long time allies of the Princess filed in and surrounded you. You recognized many of them and made small talk whilst you waited for the proceedings to commence.

On the opposite side of the Great Hall, the Greens and their supporters grouped together. You recognized some of the faces towards the back of the room, but recognized more lingering towards the front.

There was the unmistakable mirror of his brother, Ser Tyland Lannister, now Master of Ships. 

Besides him were his great nieces, Lady Joanna Lannister and Lady Celesse Redwyne. Despite never having been formally introduced, you had needed no one to point out to you who they were. You told them as much a few days before, when you happened across them in a corridor by chance. Fortunately, the girls took after their mothers in appearance. Unfortunately, though they seemed courteous enough and were nothing less than kind to you, their fathers’ deeds made you wary. You had ended the conversation with a request that Lady Celesse give your best to her mother and grandmother on your behalf. You made no mention of her father, Lord Garrett Redwyne.

Your Good Brother Lord Larys stood in the middle of the crowd, near Ser Tyland and a few other members of the small council. You were surprised to find him on the opposite side of the room from you… But, on the other hand, his position as Master of Whisperers must have been a delicate one to balance. There would be little doubt that he would be removed from his post and replaced if the Lord Hand suspected Larys’s interest did not align with those he had for his own family, namely, his grandson Prince Aegon the Elder.

At the front of the room was Queen Alicent, flocked by her children. They were all poised, but some of them looked to be more present than others. Princess Helaena seemed to be lost in her own thoughts. The bored look on Prince Aegon’s face indicated he would rather be anywhere else at that moment. On the other hand, Queen Alicent looked about the room, offering tight lipped smiles and cordial nods to anyone whom she made eye contact with. Like his mother, Prince Aemond seemed attentive as well. His one eye that was unburdened with an eyepatch flitted about the room, surveying it and the people within it meticulously.

Ser Criston lingered behind the lot of them. … Was it just your imagination, or was he sneaking particularly prolonged glances at the Queen? Curious.

The Hand, Lord Otto Hightower, stood before the Iron Throne in King Viserys’s absence. Like Ser Criston and Lord Larys, time had treated him with gentle hands.

“Lady Tyrell, is that you?”

You turned around towards the voice that called out from behind. When your eyes fell upon the source, you genuinely smiled. “Lord Lyman.”

For all the lords of the Reach who had been opposed to your ascension to the Tyrell family seat, Lord Lyman Beesbury had never been one of them. As he finished making his way up through the crowd, you shuffled over to make room so that he could stand beside you.

“You look well, Lord Beesbury.”

“You flatter me, my dear. I turned six and seventy earlier this year, did you know?”

“Forgive my failed memory, My Lord. If it is any consolation, you do not look it.”

Lord Lyman gasped. “My goodness, Lady Y/N. You have a dark sense of humor, I shall grant you that. I suppose the gods would prefer it if I ‘book it’, wouldn’t they?”

Time had granted you leave to forget how hard of hearing Lord Lyman truly was. Louder and more clearly, you corrected, “No, My Lord. You do not look to be six and seventy. Look.”

“’Crook’?” Lord Lyman inquired bewilderedly. He looked about the room with a disapproving look upon his face. “... Yes, I am inclined to agree. These are the proceedings of a ‘crook’.”

In front of you, you could have sworn you heard Prince Jacaerys snicker as though he had overheard your conversation. But there was no doubt Prince Daemon had overheard, and found the conversation rather amusing- his shoulders bobbing with his silent laughter gave him away.

“Speaking of crooks, My Lady,” Lord Lyman continued without missing a beat, “I wish to discuss with you some of the taxes that have been imposed on House Beesbury’s honey exports as of late…”

You were grateful when the entrance of Princess Rhaenys inspired hushed whispers from those around you, effectively giving you an excuse to pause the conversation with Lord Lyman. Lady Baela was not far behind her grandmother.

When Ser Vaemond Velaryon finally entered the room, all eyes fell upon him.

Once everyone had settled in, the Lord Hand wasted no time in beginning the proceedings. “Though it is the great hope of this Court that Lord Corlys Velaryon survives his wounds, we gather here with the grim task of dealing with the succession of Driftmark. As Hand, I speak with the King’s voice on this and all other matters.”

As Lord Otto sat upon the Iron Throne, the hushed whispers amongst the crowd ceased.

“The crown will now hear the petitions. Ser Vaemond of House Velaryon?”

Ser Vaemond stepped forward, and began to plead his case.

You tried to listen to what were most assuredly impassioned words, but your mind refused to focus on anything else than the annoyance brewing within you. When had Ser Vaemond grown so bold? You would not have been surprised if Lord Corlys and Princess Rhaenys had also questioned the legitimacy of Princess Rhaenyra’s eldest sons. But the Sea Snake had never dared to defend the boys as though they were his own kin- which they were. In name.

Ser Vaemond had needlessly casted doubt upon Prince Lucerys’s parentage, and in turn, that of Prince Jacaerys and Prince Joffrey. He had endangered the lives of the Princess, her sons, and by extension, your husband Harwin, all for the sake of his own greed and ambition.

And you despised him for it.

As Ser Vaemond continued to speak, you grew more aware of the eyes of other members of the Court glancing at you. Queen Alicent’s words from the previous week echoed in your ears. You poor, poor fool. A good amount of your peers probably shared her sentiments. How could they not? The wife of a man who was suspected to father three of the Princess’s sons, offering silent support of their legitimacy? What a folly that would be… if it were true.

Once more, you found yourself being scrutinized by the Court who did not, and would never, know the whole truth.

Your hatred for Ser Vaemond burned stronger.

“... I am Lord Corlys’s closest kin, his own blood. The true unimpeachable blood of House Velaryon runs through my veins-”

“As it does in my son, the offspring of Laenor Velaryon,” Princess Rhaenyra interjected tiredly. “If you cared so much about your House’s blood, Ser Vaemond, you would not be so bold as to supplant its rightful heir. No, you only speak for yourself and for your own ambition-”

“You will have the chance to make your petition, Princess Rhaenyra,” Queen Alicent reminded her tactfully. “Do Ser Vaemond the courtesy of allowing his to be heard.”

You weren’t sure what spiked your own irritation more- the fact that the Queen had publicly chided Princess Rhaenyra, or the smug look that Ser Vaemond gave her in response.

“What do you know of Velaryon blood, Princess?” he posed to her. “I could cut my veins and show it to you, and you still wouldn’t recognize it. This is about the future and survival of my House, not yours.”

You had to admit, Ser Vaemond had the damndest way of dancing around something rather than saying it outright.

As Ser Vaemond continued, you looked about the Great Hall again. Many of those present were solely focused on Ser Vaemond, but for others, their attention drifted to Princess Rhaenyra, Prince Lucerys, and sometimes, even to you.

You found yourself suddenly wishing that Harwin was here. Would those around you be so bold with their judgemental glances if he was by your side? Perhaps, but you knew Hariwn would not have stood for it. One hard look from him and they’d likely find the floor beneath their feet far more interesting.

But you knew Harwin’s presence would have only made this moment worse for everyone involved. And you doubted your ability to restrain Harwin from laying his hands on Ser Vaemond if he had the gull to make any more direct implications about Prince Lucerys’s lack of Velaryon blood, and Harwin’s supposed role in it.

“... I humbly put myself before you as my brother’s successor, the Lord of Driftmark, the Lord of the Tides.”

Lord Otto looked impressed. “Thank you, Ser Vaemond.”

Whispered reactions to Ser Vaemond’s speech filled the silence that followed. Thankfully, Lord Beesbury seemed not to hear them, for he did not comment upon them or otherwise contribute.

“Princess Rhaenyra,” the Lord Hand said then, “You may now speak for your son, Lucerys Velaryon.”

Princess Rhaenyra stepped forward. As she looked around before beginning her address, you could tell her jaw was clenched tightly. It must have taken a great deal of strength to mind her tongue throughout the rest of Ser Vaemond’s self-righteous speech.

“If I am to grace this farce with some answer, I will start that reminding the Court that nearly twenty years ago, in this very room-”

A loud rumbling echoed throughout the room, halting the Princess in mid speech and commanding the attention of all those within the Great Hall. Everyone’s heads turned to see the grand doors being opened by the guards who were standing post there.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

A repetitious sound reverberated throughout the room next, but your attention was drawn to two members of the Kingsguard suddenly came into view. As they stepped forward under the entryway, one of them began his proclamation.

“King Viserys of House Targaryen, the First of His Name, King of the Andals, and the Rhoynar, and the First Men. Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.”

Tap. Tap. Tap.

That was when you laid eyes upon the King for the first time in almost seven years.

A small, hunched figure hobbled into the room. Beyond his physically feeble appearance, it was apparent by the shock silently felt throughout the room that the presence of the King was both unexpected and unprecedented.

Lord Otto rose from his seat upon the Iron Throne, and began to descend the stairs. All others in the room, including yourself, bowed respectfully as King Viserys fought to reclaim what was rightfully his.

Though King Viserys trudged slowly across the Great Hall, he was no less dignified for it. The King still commanded the attention and respect of everyone else in the room. He gripped his cane like a warrior gripped the handle of his blade. A golden mask upon his face covered what you could only assume to be maladies too great for the common eyes to bear witness to.

You thought back to your initial conversion with Princess Rhaenyra, when she confided just how ill the King was. There was no denying that King Viserys was not well, and he was indisputably past his prime. But there was a small comfort in the fact that the King Viserys before you could not possibly have consumed milk of the poppy as of late. Such a decision clearly caused him a great deal of pain, and yet, he had made it anyway. Perhaps he knew that doing so would be the only way he could defend his daughter and grandson.

You could no longer bring yourself to watch the King, despite the awe you felt. You could not bring yourself to look at Princess Rhaenyra either though, as an overwhelmingly emotional look washed over her face and threatened to leave you feeling similarly.

The room was still hushed over from the spectacle, so when King Viserys spoke to the Lord Hand, his words were as clear as a bell.

“I will sit the throne today.”

You bowed your head deeper to hide the smile that toyed upon your lips.

A sudden clangering compelled you to look up. The crown of the Old King had fallen from King Viserys’s head. You watched with bated breath to see if anyone would dare to go against the King’s adamant refusal for assistance.

To your complete shock, Prince Daemon stepped forward. No one dared to intervene between the Targaryen brothers as the younger assisted the elder up the remainder of the stairs. Once King Viserys was seated, Prince Daemon replaced the crown upon his head with great respect and reverence, before he retreated and to resume his place beside Prince Jacaerys once more.

Whether Prince Daemon’s display was genuine or a show for the audience present, you could not say. But you did know that it garnered a response from you. Perhaps you had been too quick to judge the Rogue Prince. Could such a violent and unpredictable man also be capable of genuine tenderness with those dearest to him? Was this the Prince Daemon that Princess Rhaenyra became besotted with?

Perhaps there was more to Prince Daemon than the majority of Westeros would ever get to see.

Maybe.

Now seated in his rightful place upon the Iron Throne, King Viserys took a few deep breaths to recover from his exertions. As he did so, he looked about the room thoroughly, making eye contact with each and every individual present.

“I must admit my confusion,” King Viserys confessed. “I do not understand why petitions are being heard over a settled succession.”

You silently thanked the gods for King Viserys’s staunch support of Prince Rhaenyra and her children. While he protected his own kin, he unwittingly protected Harwin and your own children.

You realized after a moment that the King was looking at you, and you went still. He said nothing, and he held your gaze for no longer than a moment, but it was enough for you to discern that he recalled who you were, and he most likely knew why you were here. You relaxed.

Perhaps King Viserys knew the inadvertent favor he was doing for you and your family after all.

“The only one present who might offer keener insight into Lord Corlys’s wishes is the Princess Rhaenys.”

Like everyone else, you turned to look at the woman in question.

Princess Rhaenys did not bat an eye. “Indeed, Your Grace.”

Princess Rhaenyrs stepped forward. When she did so, both she and Princess Rhaenyra’s sons were in your line of sight. The dark hair of the King’s cousin did not appear so different to the hair of Prince Jacaerys or Prince Lucerys. The visual reaffirmation both angered you and made you feel ill. How had the rumors about the Princes’ parentage taken on such monstrous lives of their own? Did no one, save King Viserys, want to believe that Princess Rhaenyra’s eldest sons were Ser Laenor’s?

Your focus returned to Queen Alicent. She was staring at Princess Rhaenys with dread, as if the elder woman was about to deliver a blow that would devastate her entire cause.

How could Queen Alicent preach to you about avoiding war for the sake of your own children, when she and her supporters had sentenced Princess Rhaenyra’s children to a certain death from the very days they were born? If she had not been responsible for the rumors of their dubious parentage, Queen Alicent had done little to quash them. She endangered the lives of three young boys in the name of a vendetta she had with their mother, and did so under the guise of piousness. She presented an image of love and forgiveness to the masses, and heartlessly condemned the defenseless out of the public’s eyes.

Princess Rhaenys folded her hands. Would she speak for or against Prince Lucerys as her Lord Husband’s successor? Princess Rhaenyra had not said much of Princess Rhaenys over the past few days, which had led you to suspect that the younger princess could not full heartedly count on the support of the elder.

Princess Rhaenys was not blind; you were certain she knew that Prince Lucerys was not of her own blood, other than what little they shared through Princess Rhaenyra. But did she truly wish for Ser Vaemond to inherit the legacy Lord Corlys had built throughout his life? What of her granddaughters? With the Sea Snake gone, would the beloved daughters of Lady Laena be at the mercy of their great uncle’s whims after Princess Rhaenys’s own passing?

“It was ever my husband’s will that Driftmark pass through Ser Laenor to his trueborn son, Lucerys Velaryon. His mind never changed, nor did my support of him.”

You silently exhaled a sigh of relief.

“As a matter of fact,” Princess Rhaenys continued, “the Princess Rhaenyra has just informed me of her desire to marry her sons Jace and Luke to Lord Corlys’s granddaughters, Baela and Rhaena… A proposal to which I heartily agree.”

That was an arrangement you did not know if. But, judging by the way Princess Rhaenyra reassuringly grabbed Prince Lucerys’s hand, it did not come as a surprise to her. She must have proposed it to Princess Rhaenys, or they had at least spoken of it prior. You had to give credit where credit was due- given the circumstances, those were politically smart matches for all four involved.

And terribly convenient, since they all were quite close.

“Well,” King Vierys said, his voice breaking through the audience’s whispers that had begun to echo throughout the Great Hall, “The matter is settled… again. I hereby reaffirm Prince Lucerys of House Velaryon as heir to Driftmark, the Driftwood throne, and the next Lord of the Tides.”

The room began to process the King’s declaration, and you let out an unstifled releaved sigh. Once more, disaster had been avoided. Maybe the rumors of the Princes’ legitimacy would finally cease, especially in light of King Viserys’s impressive showing of support. But you would not allow yourself to hope. Not yet.

You would never truly feel safe and reassured until Princess Rhaenyra sat the Iron Throne as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

“Thank the Seven Heavens,” Lord Lyman mumbled beside you.

Just as you were about to agree, Ser Vaemond, clearly unwilling to accept his defeat, stepped out of the crowd and before the Iron Throne once again. He would make himself heard.

To the King, he said, “You break law and centuries of tradition to install your daughter as heir. Yet you dare tell me who deserves to inherit the name Velaryon?... No. I will not allow it.”

King Viserys’s crossness at the accusation was visible from leagues away. His next words were spoken slowly, each one of them laced with threat. “‘Allow it’? Do not forget yourself, Vaemond.” 

You and most everyone in your vicinity flinched as Ser Vaemond abandoned courteous discussion for uncivilized shouting.

“That,” he roared, pointing a stiff finger at Prince Lucerys, “Is no true Velaryon, and certainly, no true nephew of mine.”

You did not know if it was possible to despise Ser Vaemond more than you already did. But it was.

Princess Rhaenyra whispered directions to her second son before facing Ser Vaemond. “You have said enough.”

“Lucerys is my trueborn grandson,” King Viesrys reminded Ser Vaemond and everyone else present, “And you are no more than the second son of Driftmark.”

Ser Vaemond trembled with rage. “You may run your House as you see fit, but you will not decide the future of mine. My house survived the doom! And a thousand tribulations besides!” He whirled his head to snarl at Princess Rhaenyra and her family. “And gods be damned, I will not see it ended on the account of this-”

You froze.

Surely Ser Vaemond was not so daft as to make such an atrocious accusation before the whole Court? He was enraged, but would he truly allow his anger to consume him to the point where he felt compelled to publicly insult the King’s daughter and grandson, before the very man himself?

You hair rose on the back of your neck and you locked your knees. For a moment, you forgot how to breathe.

It was obvious the Rogue Prince was taking far too much joy in Ser Vaemond’s momentarily lapse in judgment. Prince Daemon goaded him darkly, “Say it.”

But Ser Vaemond did not look at Prince Daemon. Instead, he looked back at Princess Rhaenyra. By the pained smile that slowly formed on his lips, you fooled yourself for the briefest of moments into thinking that Ser Vaemond would swallow his wounded pride and leave while he still had legs with which to walk.

Unfortunately for everyone, that was not to be.

“Her children… are BASTARDS!”

You gasped, though you were not the only one.

But Ser Vaemond’s egregious display was not finished. He looked back to King Viserys, and with all the wisdom of a young child, had the nerve to look unashamed. “And she is a whore.”

More gasps filled the air around you, but you were compelled to do more than just react. Technically speaking, Ser Vaemond’s first outcry was rooted in truth. But the second one was not. And you would be dead before you subjected yourself to endure slander of Princess Rhaenyra from men who were not fit to cobble her shoes.

“You cur!”

Apparently, Lord Beesbury’s hearing had miraculously returned. And, even more fortunately, he was of the same mind as you. “You knave!”

King Viserys rose from the Iron Throne and unsheathed the dagger you had seldom seen him without. To Ser Vaemond, he pointed the dagger and declared, “I shall have your tongue for that!”

The diplomatic hearing had descended into disarray.

But it was Prince Daemon who plunged it into chaos.

A sickening wet swoosh was heard, and when you looked towards the direction it had come from, you saw Prince Daemon with Dark Sister in hand. In front of him was the now headless corpse of what had once been Ser Vaemond Velaryon.

The crowd around you scrambled backwards, but you and several others closeby had not been so lucky as to avoid the splatters of blood. Splotches of red littered the bottom of your dress, and the sight of them made you feel faint.

Ser Vaemond’s corpse fell to the ground, and Prince Daemon looked down at his victim with a disturbingly calm look. Amusedly, he proposed, “He can keep his tongue.”

“Disarm him!” the Lord Hand barked, resulting in the unsheathing of many swords.

The commotion in the Great Hall escalated further when King Viserys let out a groan before collapsing back onto the Iron Throne.

“Call the maesters!” Queen Alicent cried out to any and all who could hear her, as she and Princess Rhaenyra rushed to the King’s aid.

Movement on the floor nearby stole your attention from King Viserys’s sudden distress. A mass of silver braided locks rolled and rolled until it came to a slow stop a few paces away from your feet.

The lifeless eyes of Ser Vaemond Velaryon stared up at you. You threw a hand over your mouth to fight off the retch that rose up your throat.

A/N: Thank you for reading!🖤 Feel free to let me know what you think. I love hearing from you. Part 3 will be up on Friday.🖤 Larys you better watch what’s coming your way bud--

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

Hi. I'm just curious. Maybe You can explain it or telle.how it works!? I have no idea...

There is a thing with new blogs or blogs that are not 100% arcana related that make really nice fan arts or headcanons or memes that are totally lacking in likes and reblogs and then some posts just randomly hit 200 hearts in one day. Does it have something to do withcreator past on Tumblr or there are some unwritten rules or it's just magic of followers and users not checking the arcana tag in main searching bar ? Because sometimes I see good content (or something that looks nice for me) and I don't know if I should like or reblog it because there moght be a secret thing a untold story of person x being problematic in past or something and no one tell others or it's just accidental lottery of what will be enjoyed by mass or what will stay in shadows? Please I'm sometimes literally afraid of liking something if main popular blogs don't attest it before me as nice or safe.

An Arcana Brainrot Essay

Hiya friend!

I get where you're coming from, and to be completely honest, this is something I struggle with a lot in fandom spaces too. I'm going to go ahead and write my little (700 word) essay response in hopes that you find something useful here. I don't have all the answers, but I do have a few tips that have helped me. :)

(You can skip straight to the bold part for my older sibling thoughts on toxic fandom spaces)

About the random posts blowing up, tumblr as a platform works differently from other social medias in that it doesn't really have an algorithm. You encounter new content mostly through what the blogs you follow post/reblog and through the tags you follow. Don't feel weird about checking the tags too often, I scroll through the Arcana's tag at least four times a day because I like to obsess like that. ^.^

Newer blogs also won't have their posts show up until they've been posting regularly for some time (I think it took mine two weeks), and then there's factors like blaze and different posting times to consider. It's not weird to engage with something that has very few likes. It most probably just means that other people haven't had the chance to see it.

About problematic creators and the toxic side of fandoms:

One of the special things about being part of a fandom is sharing an emotional investment in the same content with a whole group of people. Fictional characters, situations, and stories have a capacity to speak to us from inside our imaginations and emotions in a way that most real people can't. It's what fuels such a deep attachment to the content we enjoy together.

It's also why seeing content that you find problematic or maybe just don't vibe with can feel so upsetting. It's easy for creators to say "if you don't like it, scroll past," but that can be hard to do when it concerns a character you're deeply invested in. It takes a decent amount of emotional maturity to agree to disagree with someone's opinions or viewpoints when it's about something that's personally impactful.

The way people follow through on that really ranges. Some people like characters that make them feel safe or comforted, so they stick to the parts of the fandom that focus on canon-typical things and don't delve too much into personal opinions and interpretations. Other people really benefit from using characters and dynamics they relate to to unpack certain things, and that's where you'll find a lot more opinionated discourse. And where you find opinions, you'll find disagreement, and when that disagreement concerns emotionally charged subjects, things can get heated and hurtful.

My point is that different types of content engage different types of conversations. Feeling fear or anxiety around which conversations you find yourself in is completely valid, especially when you're not sure who you're listening or talking to. I have two pieces of advice for this:

First, choose wisdom over fear. Make wise choices. If you see something you really like, don't engage with it mindlessly. Think about what you're looking at and recognize what it means to you, and then any engagement that comes of that is a decision you can grow from. If someone asks you later, "why did you like this?" you'll have a good reason, even if it wasn't well informed.

Second, know what you're looking for. All fandoms have toxic and problematic sides, just like how all people have toxic and problematic sides. What makes a difference is what you choose to do with it.

When you want to know if something is good but you're not in a position to judge it, take a look at the space around it. Take a look at the effect it has on other people. Who would feel welcome on this page? Who wouldn't? Who would feel respected by this creator? Who wouldn't? Why is that?

This sounds like a lot of work to do when all you want is to enjoy something you love with other people who love it too. For what it's worth, it gets easier as your brain builds these thought habits. You'll find your space and your people in good time. That's what fandom is really all about in the first place!

If you can't find a logical reason but something or someone just gives you the ick, trust your gut.

Even when you see something that hurts your connection to a character or story you're invested in, learn how to step away.

If you find something new and you're not sure what to think, keep your mind open and engaged.

And finally, be ready to make mistakes. Be ready for the creators you admire to make mistakes. Learn how to forgive yourself, and you'll find that forgiving others comes a little bit more easily too.

Cheers friend, and may you find every good thing you're looking for!

- brainrot

[rogueshadeaux]

| ➳ Ao3 here | ➳ Quotev here |

InFAMOUS: Erosion Table of Contents

Hey guys! RogueShadeaux here, though that's an absolute mouthful, isn't it? Call me Rogue! She/Her, BIPOC, Mid-20's. I was a fanfiction writer for most of my youth (a cringe one, we aren't talking about it), and I've only just wanted to return after a long stint as a caretaker for my ill grandmother.

➳ What do you write?

This is my blog where I will be posting any art, drabbles or the like related to the inFAMOUS franchise from Sucker Punch Productions. It is also where I will post chapters (along with on my ao3) of my fanfiction inFAMOUS: Erosion, the first of a two book series taking place almost 18 years after the events of inFAMOUS: Second Son.

➳ When do you update?

What are you, a narc? All jokes aside, there will not be a surefire, regular posting schedule that I will promise, though I will aim to post a new chapter every other...Monday. Yeah, Monday, more than likely in the morning on Tumblr, as I’ll queue it, and evening for ao3. Something good to start off the week with, and hopefully, will be consistent.

I'm a weak minded fool with procrastination and perfectionist issues, though, so we'll see.

The first chapter will be dropped December 17th, 2022 — the day that inFAMOUS: Erosion in-story begins (although, another 14 years in the future). Until then, I will post little bits of the story, art, and general inFAMOUS content. Chapter 2 will start the (hopefully) regular Monday postings.

➳ What is inFamous: Erosion about?

I don't have a solid summary yet as I'm typing this, so here, have a blurb from the story so far, which has already accrued 68k words:

She hummed again. That’s all she seemed to do was hum, like it was how she processed words. “I became Delsin’s foster mother when he was your age. A little bit younger, actually — he had just turned 17.” She looked off to the horizon, cool steam lifting from the Sound and threatening to settle on it, freeze it over. “His mother and father were on the east coast when the — when Empire City happened. They caught the Ray Field Plague and…” she sighed. No need to elaborate on what happened to people who had that radiation poisoning. “He became mine when the state came for him. Tribe gets first choice when an Indian goes into foster care, after all. 

“Then those Conduits broke out, and…your father had smoke coming out of his hands.” She shook her head, somehow finding enough humor in the situation to laugh. “And you know what? He didn’t get time to play around with his powers, either. But you know what the difference is between his situation, and yours?” 

 “What?” 

 “You have him.”

Yeah I'm gonna be mean, that's literally all you get until I have a proper summary, which will be posted accordingly. Story was inspired by the Good Karma stencil art "When Toddlers Attack" (which can be found here under 1.8: Lantern District) while I was replaying Second Son with my 5 year old.

It'll follow Good Karmatic events of inFAMOUS and inFAMOUS 2, mostly Good Karmatic events of inFAMOUS: Second Son, lore from inFAMOUS: First Light, Paper Trails and Cole's Legacy, as well as incorporate the little bits of that extra stuff we got from the inFAMOUS DC comic run. This story will not deal with anything regarding inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood. I might make maybe one reference. But no vampires here.

NO SEXUAL THEMES appear in this story. There will be hard and possibly distressing topics mentioned and discussed, which I advise the reader to heed via trigger warnings I will place. Curation is your responsibility.

➳ Any content warnings?

Canon-typical violence, death, mild body horror, murder, racism but in a Conduit sense, racism in a racism sense, terrorism/mass shootings (typical American stuff :) we’re fine), possible ooc. Other triggers will be added with the specific chapter, as I'm still writing and will probably do some more dastardly things to these poor characters.

➳ Any related tags?

You can find all regarding this fanfiction under the #inFAMOUS Erosion tag.

That's it for now! I'm honestly suuuuuper excited to get back to writing fanfiction — it's been so goddamn long — and this story, I guarantee, will never be abandoned. Literally unless I die. I use this story as a warm-up while I write my own novel to get the brain moving, and since my other tale is a longer series of its own, I definitely won't find a reason to abandon it. So you get the surefire guarantee of a complete story! That's always fun. So sit back, relax, and get ready for a good dose of Sucker Punch's best.

[rottingsparrow]

Part 4! Of rereading Lore Olympus. Ep 31-40

Gotta be real I keep forgetting to post these even tho I'm reading them but it's fine. Obviously I won't finish before the end of the 2 week break (this Saturday) but after this I may start reviewing episodes as they come out, who knows. Last part:

Ep 31

Theres so many other reasons you shouldnt work together but ok

Also shes literally so smart right like thats canon

Artemis is cool hera,,,sometimes

Which two sons i wish i knew the lo family tree as opposed to the real one yknow

How do heras powers work she felt her pain but doesnt know who??

I would kill for a comprehensive list of family tree and powers, dont even have to spoil powers just please i get so confused

Ep 32

Train ur fuckin dogs hades i think ive said that before

He changed skin color again but like not just light vs dark thats a whole diff shade of blue

Hehe threaten low class workers so cute and quirky hades

Why is uh psyche/whatever her nymph name is wearing more traditional clothes while not in the mortal realm

Love the dog

Hades has a point, even tho it makes no sense for him to have said that

Ok also point out in the like future episode he wants persephone to call him Aidoneus but doesnt like when others do it why

Thats my same thing with him calling her Kore like i know in the future its like explained or whatever but idk

Aphrodite has a point it was a favor in a way

A dumb way but yknow

I remember everyone losing it over the “im only interested in the dead ones” panel but looking at it its so lame LMAO changed his entire face shape for a panel

Ep 33

HECATE HECATE WOOOO

Im but a simple man

Hades texts like an old man i know he is one but

Also i am dying to know how his business works including as the god of the underworld like. Give me something

Then again, maybe i am a lil dumb when it comes to this

I always thought he was giving the little elevator friend a sugarcube lmao

I like how minthes ears react to her emotions

Stop fighting at work omg this would be the worst place to work at

“Hey can u do ur job”

Ep 34

Why this subplot ugh

The crown floats yet is sideways after she hits him

Also haha hitting

Also their relationship does confuse me just a tad bit yknow

All the clues were there hades you dumbass

“Cancel all my meetings” DO YOUR JOB

“This doesnt affect you in the same way” cause hes a man or a king or both but also kings seemed to get treated the same by their subjects until they are dicks and excute their power

From what ive seen

Then again we havent seen poseidon do that but that brings me to the point of I wanna see poseidon realm

thats . so creepy hades ew

“Smth must be done about this” like fair legal action right?....right?

Who reads newspapers these days anyways wait a second

Ep 35

See the laptop having news makes more sense like sure we make newspapers but ppl dont use em as often

“Biochemistry Theory” fun fact I switched majors to specifically avoid taking chemistry

What are they typing he just started speaking

What type of nymph is thetis bc i know minthe is a river nymph but thetis has fancy ears

They are so mean to each other lmao

The financial situation and the fact that they both are like sleeping with the kings confuse me why do both of them do it.

Like retrospectively i understand it but when i first read it i was like “are nymphs supposed to be like hookers??” so i was lost for a bit

“Hades micromanages computer usage” oh what a shit boss

Also the meal ticket she has a job sure hades gave it to her but

Idk maybe im slow

What an awful way to do a heart shape i just tried it wtf

“Crying is for wives” damn

Yes body issues that dont get brought up again right? Like she all of a sudden gets bigger boobs and i dont think hades pays ppl enough for cosmetic surgery

You guys know this is a work setting

Has rachel ever had a job bc this feels like a comical trope seen on tv the workplace drama yknow

LMAO IN THE LAST PANEL RACHEL FORGOT TO GIVE HER NYMPH EARS

Like fully normal ears i know its a mistake but its funny

Ep 36

“Not my circus not my monkeys” queen

Hades is it not your circus how dont involve hecate in this

“Stop starin at me with them big ol eyes”

Oof that does not look good on you, i mean why didnt you give her the coat

“I thought you didnt get jealous” ok she may have said that but literally everything about her contradicts that

And i love this part bc he doesnt call her crazy and they talk, i mean he hides some of the truth which like fuck him, and then they try to talk about the party and

Ugh i know minthe is supposed to be an antagonist but rachel does this weird thing where she tries to flesh her out, then realizes it would be an easy set up for a redemption arc and screws her over again

I know the ppl in the mortal realm are generally frightened of hades but why are ppl in olympus

“I wouldnt expect anything less from a goddess” so we are going to bring in the racism/speciesism that occurs in this story right

Its the middle of the day isnt he supposed to be in the mortal realm moving the sun or some shit

Ep 37

“Last night” Rachel its ok to space things out sweetie

Ok ok so one thing i hate about her characterization of apollo is he goes from being delusional to knowing what he did was at least slightly wrong and i hate both are fine stories but pick one he either is so infatuated with persephone that he thinks that they had a great time or he wants her for her power

And! A transition from one to the other would be fine, but she goes back in forth in his characterization

Little red vines look cool

Hehe cerberus

How did he escape tho

I love that dog

Ep 38

Oh its the greenhouse again

But this time it represents the evil feeling?

Idk but i like eye symbolism im lame lol

Why was she sleeping in the chair

When did she get those clothes i dunno if eros would buy her business casual

Artemis really sees all the signs and then goes “meh”

Like points out the possible crush on persephone just connect the dots they are so close

Why is there not more than one door

Why is no one getting off

How does rachel think train stops work

Ep 39

Also not thatanos with an undercut lmao

Ope its thanatos i mixed it up

Also minthe you just actively arent doing a good job like lmao how are you not getting fired

Hades smoking a cigar is so old and gross tbh

What an awful boss

That man has a point dont stand infront of the door

She gave her a little flower nice

Minthe i know ur being spiteful, weird bc hades explained shes just the daughter of a friend( i know its a lie but still) but just do your job

“It says restricted access but that lady says it was fine” i would just wait until someone came out theres no reason to go inside

Ep 40

Why would they not have a lock on this place actually

Why wouldnt she just leave the way she came

When did hades put on his glasses

How is it hades fault what

So many questions yknow for such a short episode

Also does this place not have security cameras in places that are tartarus

[jigensass]

My 2022 Review: Section 3 - Vidja Games

In the last section, we ended off with a brief intro into what 'Obey Me! Shall we Date?' franchise entailed.

And I have, not so much a theory, just a correlation, that I will discuss after going into this gatcha franchise (more like 'water is wet' statement), as well as some discussion on mental health.

I've going to avoid all of the detailed stuff about it by linking this post I made earlier this year back when I was in the heat of playing the game and only having spent money to boost one card I liked, and maybe throw $20 here and there.

In summary: the plot has good premise, from parts Seasons 1 - 3 of the game {Season 1: Chapters 1 -20, Season 2: Chapters 21-40, etc.}. However, I have heard echoes from more well-versed fans of the series that Season 4: Chapters 61-80 were not great for multiple reasons in regards to the plot (I never made it this far into the game, I stopped around chapter 50), but the art and misc. content being put into the franchise is decent.

I've also seen a lot of people catch onto the....very questionable decisions that were picked up during dialogue. It's kind of dodgy and questionable, but they're the 7 princes of Hell, not some BTS crew who hasn't committed at least one war crime {this is a joke or assumption that all KPOP stars are precious little uwu angel boys because I know nothing about KPOP except the word BTS} (spoiler: all of the characters in Obey Me have committed at least war crime, yes even YOU the MC. Edit: probably the only character that has not committed a war crime and ironically is the only character you cannot date in the game and that is Luke)

(I mean, look at him, I don't have to explain why he's not datable.)

And ESPECIALLY stay away from playing the game IF YOU DON'T HAVE IMPULSE CONTROL.

Between the months of March, May, June, October, November, and into this month as well, my personal life has not been great and my mind has been in some bad places. And when so much stress and trauma seem to seep into my head, I tend to want to dissociate and forget that reality is a thing. Because literally two weeks after writing that article, a brand new event launched on the app and my investment on microtransactions to boost cards and get pulls that I wanted hit a four digit USD number. After Lucifer's birthday back in June, I had to stop playing or I was going to drain my bank account. I was that depressed and desperate for any kind of dopamine to hit my veins that I was willing to spend my life savings for happiness on fictional characters. I do regret the choice I made looking back, but in the moment I could have cared less.

The same thing happened to me when I played Mystic Messenger a few years back, but I knew where to draw the line sooner rather than later when I noticed the dent in my checking account.

Don't get me wrong, I still love the character designs and the characters themselves. I just don't want to get sucked into what is essentially, an addiction, like that, ever again.

PS I am making this not rebloggable so if you have any other hot takes on OB: SWD, please reply, send me a DM, or an ask in my inbox I would love to hear your thoughts. Conclusion: Don't play gatcha dating simulators when you're severely depressed.

Going to start off with the games I actually have finished.

Sherlock Holmes Chapter One

Okay, now that is out of the way, I can fully discuss the first game I played in full this year from the Ukranian Chads at Frogwares: Sherlock Holmes Chapter One.

This is kind of like a fanon prequel to the canon storyline where Sherlock grew up on this island known as Cordona, a melting pot of an island in the Mediterranean where you solve mysteries around the island, as well as into Sherlock's past of as to what actually happened in this re-imagined tale.

Warning: if you are very sensitive and get triggered from by-gone era culture, do not play this game. Even the game warns you up front what you are about to dive into, and even I, who has been getting less ruffled by triggering things over the years, had some 'yikes' moments when playing.

The reason I didn't give a full analysis the first time around playing is because I was a broken shell by playing the ending. Seriously, NO SPOILERS GO PLAY IT FOR YOURSELF.

okay maybe a few.

This is Sherlock, you can dress him up in multiple different outfits for funsies, and the writing is incredibly tongue and cheek.

If you are also interested in Lovecraftian horror, Frogwares is also remaking one of their older games where it a crossover of Lovecraft Horror and Holmes so, if that is your cup of tea.

Now only if we could get a remake of this....then my life would be complete.

I am currently playing through Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis and it's glorious, the Part 6 Lupin actually needed.

Disco Elysium

I blame Tumblr. Specifically that one gif of break dancing harry, this was the one that grabbed my attention to this weird little RPG.

I went in blind so I had little to no idea what to do, but loved how the game was set up all around D&D-style roll checks. I do want to play the game again to see what I missed the first time around, as well as mess around with builds to see what is most effective to getting what I want (note: I tried building Jigen and I think I softlocked myself out of progression because I couldn't pass any of my checks).

Funky Little Game that I enjoyed. 10/10.

Hades

I technically beat the game for the first time and now I'm on level 2 (I'm not good at rougelike it took me nearly 100 tries to get out the first time). But man do I love...everything about this game.

Favorite weapon is the spear. Favorite love interest is Miles Ed-I MEAN THANATOS.

And I can't wait to play the sequel when it releases.

The Great Ace Attorney 2: FINALLY FINISHED IT

I gave a lot of crap to this game duo set last year, especially to the last trial of the first game where it dragged and dragged, and dragged to nothing and everyone by the end of the trial, had admitted to committing one sort of crime or another.

But finally I got around to force myself to finish the second game right where I left off and....it was actually good? The plot twists (though I knew some of them, but not the two most important plot twists) had some logical thought put into them? And the ending case was excellent with how the game mechanics played out?

Why didn't we get this in the first game?

Powerwashing Simulator/House Flipper

It was annoying at times, and the plot (yes a simulator game had a PLOT) was bonkers, but I had a chill time with it. 8/10 for stimulation.

I've also been playing some more House Flipper lately to chill off which helped a bit.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales

I beat this game in a span of a couple of days, and I don't remember much about it, but I do remember having a good time for how short the campaign actually was.

8/10

Ghostwire Tokyo

My Diamond in the Rough of 2022 that was published by Bethesda. Japanese modern era horror? Sign me up! The atmosphere of the game is eerie, a contrast on what I was playing back in 2021.

8/10

Monster Prom, Monster Camp, & Monster Road Trip

I'm going to put these games all together since they're from the same series and I bought them in a set.

Note: These games are better with friends (I've...mostly been playing alone) and co-op is necessary when it comes to hitting the objectives in Road Trip so you can plan out your routes accordingly.

Overall, they're fun games to play if you have some down time.

Basically this trilogy of games is a visual novel dating simulator for monster fuckers. My favorite character? Milo Belladonna, hands down. They ooze aesthetic.

Side note: I have been planning to write this compilation review list for months now and the only thing that has been glued in my head to write down is this:

ICHIBAN IS THE WEED TREE!

Context: Magic Tree Mike is voiced by Kaiji Tang, aka Goro Yatagarasu from Lupin Parts 5-6 and KASUGA ICHIBAN FROM YAKUZA 7 (it's hilarious his running joke is telling characters that they're the chosen one)

Games I revisited/am currently playing now/games on hiatus that have not been mentioned

God of War aka Dad Simulator 2018

ProZd picking up a voice acting role in the sequel is what caused me to get into this 4 years later.

I'm not far into the game (I'm currently in Alfheim), and I'm enjoying it so far. The cutscenes are gorgeous and flow wonderfully together with the actual gameplay, which as it stands, is better than Yakuza. And I'm actually being presented a challenge when it comes to battling enemies. I've died a handful of times and I haven't gotten upset because they've all been my fault to just git gud. I'm hoping to enjoy this game to the end so I can get the sequel on the cheap side.

Dragon Quest XI S Echoes of an Elusive Age Definitive Edition

I started this game two years ago and picked it up again because I couldn't find something else to play and...so far it's nothing special, just your standard run of the mill JRPG. The only complaint I have so far is that the casino is entirely based on luck and requires no skill to play, unlike what I'm used to in Yakuza when playing Blackjack.

I just got all the party together and I'm off to fight a tentacle monster, but I hit another grind wall.

Stray

10/10 for cat.

8/10 for the very unsettling undertones of the overall plot. I'm probably not going to go back to it for the dystopian horror alone because it kind of makes me uncomfortable.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

I've already been slandered earlier this year for what I said about Blackbeard, the Gentlemen Pirate, and Our Flag Means Death.

It's Assassin's Creed with Pirates, what more could you ask for? Although, I have played a bit of Valhalla and I can see that this game was the one that started the beginning of 'less assassins, more random countries with assassins as the side plot' because the main character of this game does not care about the plot that Ezio was fighting for in his trilogy years before the plot of 4 happened.

Crafting system is no me gusta. 6/10.

The Wolf Among Us

I will get back to this....eventually. Story is pretty decent and I like Bigby. 9/10.

World of Final Fantasy

I don't know if I will plan to complete this game from beginning to end, but I'm committed since I'm already at the halfway point. This game is just Pokemon: Final Fantasy edition so I'm not that invested in the plot, but I am interested as to what happened to these two twins. Like, are they even real or is this a Pokemon Scarlet and Violet moment?

Even if I do quit at some point, there is only one character I must interact with if I don't decide to carry on and it was decided the last time I played, which was six months ago.

In case you don't understand, this is why

I had some cool transition into the next segment, but I really don't have one.

Something involving the current blorbos I've collected and how their current theme is

overworked

underpaid

best at what they do

always grumpy upfront

either wants the simplest things in life or has refined taste

deemed as 'dad'

internally depressed

actually a big softie on the inside

may or may not be straight

[callmearcturus]

How to Read Whomstve in 2021

Hey Arc, what are you doing?

I'm getting into this thing called Whomstve—

You mean you're back into Homest—

SSSSSSHHHHH don't say its name!

It's Complicated.

So if you don't know, here is the abbreviated version: I started reading Whomstve on the day it ended, the day of the final [S] Act 7 animation, because I watched it on a whim and said "man this music is fucking rad, I should finally try to read this," and then I did.

Then, a few years later, after the completion of the story, Hussie and their compatriots released The Home/stuck Epilogues, which were bad. They were very, very bad and in a specifically very hateful, vindictive way, and they essentially decimated the fandom. Many people left within a month. Most were gone in a year. And they were right to, in my opinion.

(You know how Game of Thrones was the cash cow Cultural Moment and then the finale happened and it fucking vanished from popular consciousness? It was like that, except imagine GOT had a decent ending and people kept enjoying it and then three years later they released a new ending that ruined the show. That's the Epilogues.)

Fast forward to about…. the end of September, 2021. A full 900 days after the Epilogues Happened, I was struck with a thought:

Man. I miss Jake English.

And now, three or four weeks later, I'm into Whomstve.

Okay why "whomstve" tho?

I think my friend Asherinn started this, it was our little way to bitch about the epilogues without winding up on the Tumblr search. Now, to me, Whomstve very specifically means "Home//stuck, before the (Not Actually) Post-Canon content." It's the story I loved.

What I found surprising is that… and this shocked me a lot, trust me: Whomstve is still good. I've done the relisten and it's good, actually. I'm stunned, actually.

When the Epilogues happened, one of the predominate emotions myself and others had was a sense of "were we wrong? was it always bad and we just didn't see it?"

Hi. I'm here. And no, it was good once. And that part still is.

Now you're gonna tell me how to get into """Whomstve"""" right?

Yeah, p much.

I have a few thoughts on this. I'll try to be concise—

Actually I'm impatient, just tell me what to do.

Fine, the short version:

Read Acts 1 through 3, either on the Home//stuck website or using the Unofficial Home//stuck Collection.

Switch to Lets Read Home//stuck starting with Act 4, and continue on from there.

Switch back to the website or UHSC when you run out of LRHS. It'll get you most of the way to the end.

Stop at [S] Act 7 or [S] Credits. Do not read the Epilogues.

Hit me up for fic recs.

Now, the long version.

ONE: Whomstve is best read and understood in archival format, and anyone who tells you differently is incorrect.

For clarity: the "live read" is having read the comic as it was updating. The "archive read" is having read it as a complete, finished story.

I am 1000% certain that being in the fandom during the live update cycle of the story was very cool and very specific and frankly an experience that will never be repeated. I know and respect that.

However, if you have heard shit about how HS is difficult to understand or even impossible or that it doesn't make sense— this is because the Live Read is vastly inferior to the Archive Read when it comes to your reading comprehension. Many of the complaints people have about the story are solved by experiencing it as a complete story, when you set the pace of your read, and you don't have literally months of downtime between updates in which people spin so much conjecture and theorycraft that their actual understanding of canon is hampered.

So. To appreciate the story, forget all the memes and shit, all the fandom history around it, and just read the fucking story, and it will be great. I promise.

TWO: Okay but should I skip to the trolls.

Act One and Two are not very interesting, compared to the rest of the story.

There, said it.

Unless you imprint on the first hero of the story, John Egbert, you can feel free to just fucking speedread the first two acts of the story. Here, I'll summarize what happens:

It's John Egbert's birthday. He has three best friends, Dave Strider, Rose Lalonde (you'll love her), and Jade Harley. They are destined to play a video game named SBURB that unbeknownst to them will end the world. (Kinda, don't worry about it.) By playing the game, they ascend into the game's world. Each of them have to join the game, and the circumstances around them doing so become increasingly complicated. Through Acts One and Two, John enters the game, then Rose enters the game, whilst we learn about each of the kids and start to learn hints about the greater mythology of SBURB.

It's reading through Acts 1 to 3, but like. Briskly. Act 4 is where shit pops tf off.

(Hell there is an in-canon recap I can link you if you REALLY wanna go fast.)

Wait wait you want me to read THREE FUCKING ACTS before it gets good?

No. It's good. It just doesn't get great until Act 4, imo. You know how The Magnus Archives was never a bad show but that fucker took tf off in season three and four? Yeah, that.

Oh and this is important to understand.

Yeah. Trust me, it'll go quick.

(oh and important to note: this isn't even accurate because pages have varying amounts of words. a page can be a 500 word conversation between characters, or it can be a two sentence joke, or it could be an animation. i looked for a word count chart and failed to find one. I strongly suspect Acts 1-3 are even smaller than this chart conveys. anyway.)

THREE: You mentioned that you "listen" to HS above.

I feel like this is extremely and useful, especially because I know a lot of my followers are into audio-media like podcasts.

I have properly read HS three times. I have listened to Lets Read Home//stuck probably about 7 times. It is my preferred way to experience the comic. I think starting with Act 4, you can and possibly should just put on LRHS and experience the story that way.

Why not Acts 1 thru 3? The production values and voice acting from Act 4 and onward are extremely fucking listenable, and occasionally they are even better than just reading the comic. There are no truly Bad performances, only about two I would call mediocre, and more than 15 I would call really goddamn fucking good, and about three I think deserve fucking acting accolades. Also the Hivebent Narrator's voice is hot, I'm sorry.

Isn't it a different experience than reading the comic on the site? Yes, but in a good way. A few years ago, HS as a property was acquired by Viz Media, and a lot of little things in the comic have been altered and lost due to this. Most of the comic was coded in specific languages, and to preserve them, Viz has uploaded a lot of shit to Youtube, which…. loses something very real to the story. So if you are gonna lose something, why not also gain something by listening to Lets Read Home//stuck?

(Hilarious aside: I just tried to run [S] Cascade on the official site to grab a screencap and the fucking embed crashed. GOOD JOB VIZ. God.)

Also if you have not experienced LRHS's Rose Lalonde from Act 4 onward, you are missing the fuck out bc that is an oscar-worthy performance of one of the best characters in the story. I'm not kidding.

But it's not complete! I would say LRHS has covered…… over 80% of the story. And they are still actively updating, actually. They fully plan on finishing the comic and I really believe they will do it someday.

Do you have another reason to use LRHS? Yes. The biggest reason:

The trolls.

The trolls are recurring characters. Several are major cast members. They all have Typing Quirks. Some are readable, like Karkat's:

CG: SO I GUESS TODAY IS FINALLY THE DAY YOU FUCK EVERYTHING UP.

Some are...

GC: R34LLY TH3R3S L1K3 TH1S WHOL3 CONSP1R4CY 4BOUT TH1S

I cannot read this shit. When I read HS for the first time, I installed browser extensions to literally remove the quirks. But with LRHS, it's fucking read to you, and by people who know what they're doing.

I cannot recommend LRHS enough. I even have ripped MP3s of the whole thing and its in an audiobook on my phone. Yeah. Yep. That's sure a thing I just admitted to. (If you want 'em lemme know.)

FOUR: I don't want to listen to Whomstve, I want to read it, and I'm upset it's not well preserved.

Someone has Done The Fucking Work of archiving the entirety of Home//stuck.

Two downloads, and you will have a self-contained browser on your computer that will let you read all of it. It's very neat and clean, it has helpful configs to change how the font looks if you have issues reading it (however nothing to remove quirks, sorry) and it maintains the multiple games and special animations in the story.

To use it, you DL the main file, then you DL the asset file. It's easy, it's safe, I have a copy on my computer.

FIVE: Stop with either [S] Act 7 or [S] Credits.

This is a matter of opinion, which ending you prefer. Just, whatever you do, do not:

Read the Epilogues

Play the visual novels

Touch literally anything that says "meat" or "candy"

And that's Whomstve! Hit me up for fic recs when you're done.

SIX: Things to know going in.

Like with all media that was made over a decade ago, some shit has not aged well. There is frequent use of the r-slur, until very suddenly it vanishes from the entire comic because presumably Hussie realized it wasn't a funny word. There are a few characters with uncomfortable racial coding, and one that is literally just an fucking Moonspeak Asian joke. She's a minor character really deep in Act 6, I can tell you how to fully avoid her, just hmu. There is one unfunny use of the term "f*g", but the context is a mitigating factor imo. There is also the trouble of Home//stuck trying hard to be "aracial" as in none of the kids have a canon ethnicity. It's as much of a cop-out as you expect, but its something that imo is heavily explored in the fandom. That doesn't excuse it in the canon though, obviously.

The Ultimate Riddle: Why do you care about Whomstve?

That's difficult to answer.

Let me explain one of my favorite things about it. Maybe that'll help.

In Act 5 Act 2 (yep) there is an animation called [S] Jade: Enter. It comes pretty deep in the story, and if you watched it without any context, it's impenetrable. What the fuck is that dog? What's that door? Why is there a meteor? What is fucking happening?

But if you have read Whomstve up to that point, you reach [S] Jade: Enter, and you are given a fucking clusterfuck of a story beat. There is a moment I fucking shrieked to myself because at that point, I understood the language of HS enough that the Thing that happened was simple, fast, thoughtless, but in that single instant explained everything that had gone wrong up to that point in the story. Suddenly I understood jack everything.

This is Whomstve's midterm exam. It's a story that slowly, lovingly, patiently teaches you an entire language of symbology and mythology and mechanics, all so it can show you a dog and a glowy thing, and it can make you shriek in terror because the ramifications are that. fucking. exquisite.

And then Act 5 ends with [S] Cascade, which is simultaneously your final exam and reward. You have been again slowly, patiently taught what feels like an entire language, and for your time and attention, the story gives you a spectacle that

I literally cannot even put into words for you. If I sat you down and showed you, the uninitiated, [S] Cascade, it would be just visual noise. (Honestly, wanna watch it? Go for it. You will not understand what is happening but the music fucks. Enjoy the spectacle.) But if you reached that point organically, it's a fucking present that genuinely, truly wants to reward you for your effort.

So my point is this: the time put into reading this fucking monstrosity of a story is rewarded in a way that no other piece of media has ever rewarded me. I have never so thoroughly felt like I was being given something by a story as thanks for my time.

Also its funny. Also the art can be incredible. Also the music is NOTHING BUT THE FUCKING HITS. Also the gay delight of Rose and Kanaya's conversations in Act 5 Act 2 is unprecedented. Also when you find out why Karkat is talking to John backwards you're going to die. Also Almost Everyone Is Queer and they are all really complex, deep characters, even many of the ones they tried to just make a joke. Also if you're a good person you deserve to experience [S] Synchronize/Unite. Also the slow slow slow slow fucking burn of the story of Dave Strider will fuck you up. Also Jake English is one of the greatest, most complicated, incredible characters ever rendered in fiction. Also you will want to know what your classpect is.

Also there's a lesbian vampire alien who uses a chainsaw that turns into lipstick when not in use. She hooks up with a snooty, hilarious know it all witch girl who's handle is literally tentacleTherapist. Come on.

Whomstve is good. Give it a shot. I'll have fic for you after you're done.

Wait wait a minute wait, wtf does [S] mean?

Oh. Sound. It means the page has sound. Usually it means there's an animation.

[thelemoncoffee]

The concept of Kokichi secretly being the bigest fucking nerd ever makes me so damn happy.

like, it's canon he's smart as shit. He was capable of designing machinery, psychologically cornering and manipulating people, and predicting other's actions to the point he was able to script out a whole trial's worth of lines for Kaito with poison coursing through his veins and likely making it difficult to concentrate. This dude is a fucking nuts type genius.

but like, also this comes with the concept of Kokichi knowing about this kind of stuff because he might simply enjoy it, and that brings about the inspo for my dorky nerd concept. I mean, his canon intrest in playing mindgames kinda is a lowkey desplay of him nerding out already, but i'm talking full blown nerding without him trying to cover it up with his whole "asshole who doesn't care" facade.

Imagine if you will, this little shit spending countless nights doing research just because he loves to, years of his life poured into learning about psychology and various maths because it simply interests him. His room has a bookshelf with like 3 out of 5 shelves filled with books on psychology, robotics, math, and maybe some law books too. The two remaining shelves are filled with detecive novels and mangas he enjoys, maybe also desplaying a few figures of the characters from said stories.

It's very Kokichi to be hypocritical so him calling the other's boiring and nerds for geeking out about their intrests, then turning around and spending a whole night binge reading his books is just so very on brand for him. He'll call Kiyo a boring folklore nerd but also spend literal days reading up on the history of math cause why not. Oh and then there's also infodumping.

like, he gets pretty comfy around Shuichi and begings to be more open by sharing his intrests kinda, Shuichi's use to him just kinda lazily showing him memes about series he likes and is content with the new step up into his honesty. But then one day Shuichi accidentally triggers something in Kokichi by saying some misconception involving one of his secrete nerd topics and gets blindsighted by the sudden onslaught of information being thrown at him. It just totally comes out of left feild and by the time Kokichi is finished there's this massive grin on his face that Shuichi has never seen before- it's just so giddy and full of joy and passion he momentarially can't process that it was Kokichi who was infront of him.

Kokichi of course denyes it ever happened afterwards for weeks till Shuichi dropped the topic as he was 100% embarrassed by the outburst and never wants to do something like that agian, but the spark Shuichi saw in him is just burrned into his mind. Shuichi ends up trying to test the waters of this new found secrete passion of Kokichi's and decides to buy him a recently released book on the topic to get a responce out of Kokichi.

Kokichi had acted like he didn't care about it, which Shuichi decided to tease him a bit by suggesting he just took it back and returned it. Kokichi of course refused to let him take the book back and insisted he'd take it despite "how boring it was" becuase he "didn't want to upset his beloved". Later that day though, Shuichi went into the school Library to check out a book he needed for class, and spotted Kokichi huddled in the back corner with his nose burried in the pages of the book he gave him.

i just like Kokichi being a little nerd, it's cute and wholesome and he should be allowed to get into nerdy fits cause he deserves to enjoy things.

he's such a big nerd, a dweeb, dork, geek, a whole poindexter. we stan Kokichi nerd in this house ya'hear?

[naynay5155]

C!Tommy’s Storyline With C!Dream Is A Very Concerning Depiction Of Abuse

Wild Title 

Okay, I’m sure that this probably isn’t too new information for anyone paying attention to the overall story of the DreamSMP, especially C!Tommy’s storyline, but I figured I’d give my two cents for this anyways. 

C!Tommy is an Abuse Victim who has gone through horrific stuff at the hands of C!Dream. This is not an arguable fact. regardless of if C!Dream had reasons for doing what he did, if C!Dream also later gets abused, or if ultimately the abuse portrayal could be considered in some ways flawed or unrealistic, that stuff doesn’t ultimately matter. Because we’ve seen what happened to C!Tommy during Exile, have seen the physical, emotional, and mental abuse he was put through. Just because they won’t call it Abuse doesn’t mean it isn’t Abuse.

Now, C!Tommy being an abuse victim is an interesting idea from a storytelling perspective. It has a lot of potential to lead to genuine character development, or to affect relationships and story beats in interesting ways. And it could be an interesting way to really say something about abuse and coping with it. 

And to an extent, an argument could be made that it has, though I’d argue the exact way those are handled in canon, but not the point. The point is, abuse is not just something that you get to gloss over. If you want to include themes of abuse in the story, a story you are making available to the public for millions to see, then there needs to be a clear and obvious message being portrayed with including abuse in the story. Preferably, that abuse is bad, and can have majorly negative effects on anyone, especially children. We don’t always get that lucky, but whatever. 

But, from my months of watching the story of the DreamSMP, and trust me I’ve been here a long while, I haven’t seen C!Tommy’s abuse being handled very... well. I could, of course, be wrong in some aspects, and maybe be misremembering stuff since this dumpster fire has been happening for a year now, and feel free to correct me or bring up more points if you know something I don’t. But, I still think that overall, I have a point of view that should be considered. 

So basically, C!Tommy is an abuse victim, right? this is easy to see, very obvious in the way he acts and behaves. Or... is it? 

Abuse is a complex topic and one that, in real life, presents itself in all sorts of forms. Many abuse victims were raised in unloving homes and ended up becoming more vulnerable to abuse later on in life as a result of that. Others never properly learned how to express emotions or turn people down and got taken advantage of. Others were abused from the start, and develop various ways of coping and dealing with that, even ways that they might not be fully conscious of themselves. Abuse is not a one-way street, it could hardly be considered a street at all given how diverse and differing the people who experience it end up developing into are. 

So I’m not saying that, if C!Tommy were a real person, that he isn’t “Being traumatized enough” or that “Why isn’t he more like what I expect him to be like?”. That is not what I’m saying at all.

What I am saying, is that C!Tommy is a fictional character who exists within a narrative, a story. And in a good story, consistency is half the battle. I, as the audience consuming the story, need to be able to look at C!Tommy and pick up on and understand the effects abuse has had on him. And these effects need to be consistent, otherwise, as an audience member, I’m going to get confused and start having questions about why he acts one way here but doesn’t somewhere else.

I also need to be able to clearly see and understand, by being given narrative stepping stones, if something is changing for his character.

As the saying goes, “Show don’t tell”. C!Tommy can’t just say he “Goes to Puffy for Therapy” offhandedly one time, as a means of handwaving away why he doesn’t really consistently act as traumatized as he used to even though it’s literally only been a few weeks, or months at most. To explain how he can jump back between being really sad and depressed about something, to joking about Women and Twitter. It seems weird if he’s able to just so seamlessly, so effortlessly, go back and forth. Almost as if he’s bouncing between OOC and IC, but that’s a whole other discussion. 

Sure, C!Tommy is representing real mental health issues, but he is, ultimately a Fictional Character existing in a story. I need to be given signs, proof, foreshadowing, to explain when he has certain reactions and behaviours in order to understand his character. And these need to be consistent, otherwise we get plotholes and general confusion.

I criticize the inconsistency and the offscreen handwaving because it’s generally not very good writing. It’s the same reason I disliked Eret’s basically off-screen-sort-of-redemption-arc. It’s the same reason people dislike it when Villains of previous seasons suddenly come back as fully reformed good guys for seemingly no reason. There is no arc, no development, no progress is shown to us. 

Because when you’re telling a story about a character having some major change or developing in some way, or having an important character trait, if I don’t see it on screen, then it didn’t happen. How am I supposed to root for C!Tommy’s progress, or understand what he’s doing to progress, if a never see his coping mechanisms? His therapy appointments? 

You can’t just say something, or inconsistently portray something, and expect me to jump through hoops to connect these nearly transparent dots that keep getting thrown around. 

Show don’t tell. Show me Tommy getting better, because otherwise you’re just telling me he made character development, and showing me this completely different character as proof. No, last I remembered C!Tommy was having panic attacks and yelling when C!Dream was even mentioned. You can’t tell me that a day later he can interact normally after days of being in the prison and a month of being dead.

Or, if you are gonna have him flip flop back and forth, don’t have it be so sudden and jarring, give an explanation. Is he faking being fine? Does he have memory issues? C!Tommy doesn’t read to me as the type who’s good at suppressing his emotions, he wears his heart on his sleeve. So you’re going to have to explain, clearly, in a way that isn’t ambiguous, what’s happening with C!Tommy here.

You’re not really saying anything about the abuse C!Tommy goes through, if all of that trauma is automatically wiped from the story when the writers get too lazy or too scared to keep it in. At best, you are showing abuse and trauma for the sole purpose of showing it, with no intention of properly dealing with and addressing it in the story. At worst, you are basically just doing torture porn. 

Pain, Hurt, Trauma for the sake of it. Not with any goal in mind. Just for the drama of it, or to hurt the audience. 

And then your audience is just supposed to take that content in uncritically, and they gain no true understanding of how abuse victims survive and cope after their traumatic treatment.

Exile Arc sure did a good job at making C!Tommy suffer. But as soon as that arc ended, a lot of the stuff that happened in it went completely glossed over and unaddressed for a long while. That might have been fine in the lead-up to Doomsday, since a lot of plot stuff had been going on and stopping to handle C!Tommy’s issues might (Might is heavily doubted cause it certainly isn’t impossible) mess with the pacing a bit. But then after Doomsday, there isn’t really any excuse to put it off. Because nothing was really happening for a good while, and nobody had anything to do plotwise. 

And this became even more true with C!Dream being locked in Prison. Nothing was really happening, so what was stopping the story from taking the time to properly discuss and deal with this stuff?

Well, nothing really. So, the Hotel Arc happened. And oh boy, was it a mess. 

So, C!Tommy being angry at C!Dream for the abuse and trauma he has suffered at Dream’s hand isn’t an issue. It’s an incredibly common thing for victims to feel angry at their abusers, and to even go so far as to wish for vengeance against them in some way. And that’s a totally valid and fine feeling. 

You’re hurting, you’re scared, you’re in pain. I get that. When we’re hurting, we don’t always act rationally or healthily.

But, ultimately, that rage, and hurt, and want for vengeance is not a healthy thing to hold onto. In many circumstances with an abuse victim wanting to inflict pain back on their abuser, we run into various problems. 

For one, getting vengeance on your abuser is quite frequently going to give you more emotional pain than it will fulfilment. Especially if you are young, or are letting this want for vengeance take over your entire livelihood. It does you no good ultimately, to attempt to bring pain to the person who hurt you, because not only will you often be unsuccessful, you frequently won’t find emotional healing and stability in that. 

(The only exception to this rule being if ignoring them or moving on from them isn’t an option for you right now.)

Actions have consequences, and if you invest more time in that person who hurt you, then you have no time to work on yourself or the relationships around you. You have no time to heal, and this can become self-destructive.

Spending time around an abuser, as a victim, is in all likelihood just going to upset you more. You’re retraumatizing yourself by spending time around them, and as you make attempts to give them their comeuppance, you could possibly end up internalizing the methods they used on you, and just end up perpetuating the cycle of abuse again. 

And even if you have no problem with doing that to this particular person, consider how fully internalizing these abusive behaviours could affect your friends or family. Frequently, even when they don’t mean to, abuse victims can internalize the things that they went through and then use those same behaviours against people in their life later on. Being shitty to your support system because of what you went through isn’t a good move, for you or them.

Basically just, an Abuse Victim has more to gain from working on themselves while finding ways to heal and overcome their trauma and abuse, than they do spending their time and energy on the abuser. Its frequently unhealthy, distressing, and self-destructive to indulge in that too much.

(Of course, I don’t speak for everyone, but from what iIve looked into and seen, this is the healthiest method of actually healing from your abuse. That doesn’t mean you just... leave your abuser alone and never address or talk about what they did, you don’t let them get away with it, of course not. It just means you don’t waste your mental well being and time obsessing over someone, especially someone who has hurt you so much.

You deserve better than that. You deserve to heal.)

Now, let’s get back to C!Tommy. 

C!Tommy, instead of finding a proper means of coping with his issues (proper therapy, diagnosis for his issues, forming and maintaining healthy support systems, focusing on things he loves, etc) is shown to repeatedly focus back on C!Dream. When he was making Big Innit Hotel, it did seem like he was to an extent finding ways to cope with his shit. He was still kinda shitty and his hotel was not exactly made and run by the most morally great standards, though I suppose I can’t expect too much when he is a very traumatized teen and doesn’t really know what he’s doing. 

But, ultimately, this all fell apart when he got locked in Pandora’s Vault with C!Dream. Arguably, it was already falling apart the moment he decided to keep pursuing C!Dream even when he was locked up.

See, the thing is, C!Tommy can never just… have trauma. Having trauma that he can healthily and methodically work through is something that for him as a Character, is basically impossible. His character is an angry one, one built on spite and childishness, and who holds the mantle, unfortunately, of “Spunky Male Protagonist In A YA Novel”. So, his mental health issues can never just be a struggle he has to cope with, especially not when the DreamSMP can never seem to have anything between “A lot is happening right now omg” or “Literally nothing is happening and nobody is playing on the server at all omg”.

Instead, his issues have to be seen as a battle, and they fuel the narrative of the story. Him having been abused by C!Dream cannot just exist as a thing that he as a person has to work through slowly with the help of others around him. It has to be seen as this Epic Triumph Against Evil, another battle of Tommyinnit VS Dream on the DreamSMP, a classic Villain versus Hero fight.

This, of course, isn’t too great. By C!Tommy’s abuse plotline being framed in this manner, it makes it so that C!Tommy is constantly obsessing over his abuser and recklessly throwing himself into dangerous and triggering situations is some attempt at an “Epic Battle With Evil”, rather than this being treated like the self-harm it actually is. And yes, it is self-harm, a form of it. 

C!Tommy uses his trauma and issues as fuel for the story, making it so that its impossible for him to truly progress and a character, and the moment he does start growing, he has to get retraumatized again so he goes right back to where he was.

C!Tommy does not become a better person when he’s around C!Dream, nor does he find any form of fulfilment in being around him. He gets shaky and panicky at just the sight of him. He regularly has violent and explosive outbursts at just the mention of him. When C!Dream talks to him, he gets nervous and basically can’t help but listen due to conditioning he still listens to. 

When C!Tommy went to go visit C!Dream the first time in Pandora’s Vault, he brought with him stacks of TnT. He did it because he wanted to mimic what C!Dream had done to him in Exile, where he would take all of C!Tommy’s newly gained items and blow them up underground for dramatic effect. 

C!Dream did this for control over C!Tommy, to manipulate him, for his suffering.

And C!Tommy wanted to do this to C!Dream, because he was feeling vindictive. 

When C!Tommy got into the prison, he mocked C!Dream, hit him repeatedly, and tried to boss him around. He made him write ridiculous books and verbally berated the man. He did this in a feeble attempt to gain some feeling of control over C!Dream. This, evidently, did not work. At best his success was momentary. And this sense of achievement he gained was gained through projecting his abuse trauma onto someone else.

He repeated the cycle. 

After he got brought back from the dead and let out of the prison, he was much much worse. C!Tommy was now paranoid, anxious, constantly thinking about C!Dream, and had his mindset solely on getting revenge on him, by killing him. 

It got so bad, he ended up doing lacklustre “Exposure Therapy” to help himself not panic when he went into Pandora’s Vault to kill C!Dream. It got so bad he dragged C!Tubbo and C!Ranboo into this, putting them in danger and putting more pressure on another two teenagers’ shoulders. 

It got so bad, that Ghostbur died, C!Sam closed off even more, and C!Wilbur came back. 

Objectively, C!Tommy leaving C!Dream alone would be the better thing for everyone. And yet he keeps repeating the cycle. Because C!Tommy is not meant to grow, learn and heal. He is made to suffer. 

The problem is not so much showing an unhealthy depiction of a mentally ill or traumatized person. Because trauma and mental illness and the effects of abuse are not always pretty, and they shouldn’t always have to be portrayed and pretty or sympathetic to be accurate. 

It becomes a problem when you get this depiction of C!Tommy’s coping being presented uncritically to an audience of a lot of underaged and young people. 

Nobody in canon, whether they be adults or fellow teens, has ever tried to question C!Tommy’s methods for coping. C!Ranboo and C!Tubbo just limply went along with his plans for Exposure Therapy with no consideration of if this was a good idea. No adults really offer to genuinely step in and help C!Tommy deal with his shit, and the ones that do leave him or get corrupted in some way, often leaving him with more trauma as they do. 

C!Puffy’s therapy methods are dubious at best, and the most we ever see of her actually helping C!Tommy is her humouring his toxic behaviours, and C!Tommy making offhanded mentions to vague therapists appointments we never see. 

C!Technoblade stopped giving a shit as soon as C!Tommy walked off the screen. C!Wilbur was dead, and now that he isn’t he certainly isn’t helping C!Tommy. C!Phil isn’t C!Tommy’s dad and has no obligation to do anything for him as a result. C!Ranboo has the backbone of a chocolate eclair. C!Tubbo is too busy repressing his own trauma to help C!Tommy with his. C!Sam is being ruled by the prison and C!Quackity. C!Quackity has become an Ancap. 

Nobody in this story is a reliable or trusted person to C!Tommy, who could properly tell him his methods are unhealthy and give him better alternatives. And as a result, nobody is able to tell the audience that C!Tommy is wrong 

Unreliable Narrators are only effective when the narrative in some way has their unreliableness pointed out or proven to the audience. If you go into a story with the assumption that everybody watching will be able to see past C!Tommy’s POV and not take him at face value, then you are naive. Especially when this fandom is made up of many teens and children. 

I only know C!Tommy’s methods are unhealthy because I care way too much and do my research. A vast majority of the world doesn’t have the same understanding and education on these topics, especially not children and teenagers. A good chunk of people, especially neurodivergent and mentally ill people, could very well take the story at face value and automatically assume that what Tommy’s doing is actually a good coping mechanism because they don’t know any better.

There is no clarification or safety net for preventing misinterpretation. And being of the opinion that “Well, they should know better than to trust a bunch of Minecraft Youtubers for this stuff” or “We can’t expect them to be psychologists! You expect too much” is just… not helping. 

Because I shouldn’t have to explain why children and teenagers, especially those that are using these people to cope, are not always going to make level-headed and common-sense decisions. They will be influenced by these Content Creators, whether we think it’s “Stupid” or not. 

And I can say with certainty that, while yes, this might be a bit much to expect from a bunch of British/American white guys who play Minecraft to handle, may I also point out that nobody fucking made them put this stuff in the story. There are ways to write a story without stepping outside of your realm of true understanding. Nobody begged these MCYTs to go and make torture porn for a 16 year old, nobody asked them to touch on topics they have no fucking clue about. 

They put that in themselves. And we have the right to point out the problems and flaws in it, and criticize them for not handling this stuff better. 

You don’t start applying for a job you don’t meet the requirements for. You don’t start an expensive project you can’t finish. 

You don’t include elements in a story you aren’t willing to fully go through with and address in a proper and sensitive way. 

[nojey]

unnoticed

quackity / alex x streamer!reader

genre: fluff -> angst pronouns: they / them word count: 2.1k warning(s): cursing, suggestive jokes

synopsis: you had known alex since you started streaming but none of your viewers knew. you started getting closer and eventually you started streaming together but your viewers didn’t like that.

“(y/n)!” alex screamed into his phone after you answered the facetime call.  “yes, my love?!” you screamed back. alex giggled and asked, “do you want to stream sometime soon? i mean like, we’ve known each other for a few months and we haven’t streamed together, i know you’re a fairly new streamer but i even asked dream if you could come onto the smp, and i have something planned- well karl and sapnap helped me plan it- but that’s not the point, the point is-” he rambled.  “alex? are you asking me on a minecraft date?” you asked. “no! well, maybe, okay yeah. i’m asking you on a minecraft date.” he confirmed.  “i’d love to go on a minecraft date with you, alex.” you said, blushing a bit. 

truth is, you’ve had a crush on alex for a few months. when he first slid into your dms you didn’t really expect it, but it turned out to start a beautiful friendship. you always flirted with alex in hopes that he’d notice, but it never seemed like he did. he never retaliated back but little did you know, he was just too shy to.

“uh- okay great! tomorrow, at 3pm your time, stream it. we’re going to have a lot of fun. wear pajamas, or you know- just be comfortable okay?” he rushed. you laughed a bit and said, “yes alex, of course. bye now,” then smiled and hung up. 

you immediately went tot twitter and started a thread: @(y/s/n): this weeks stream schedule (times are pst): @(y/s/n): tomorrow @ 3pm: minecraft date w/ someone i haven’t streamed with yet  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ↳ @ quackity: i wonder who this might be hmMmMMmm @(y/s/n): tuesday @ 1pm: i somehow got invited to an among us lobby w/ corpse, sykkuno, valkyrae, disguised toast, quarterjade, masayoshi, peterparktv, jacksepticeye, and ludwig  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ @(y/s/n): wednesday @ 1pm: if things don’t go well w/ person on monday- looking for a mc boyfriend! ↳ @ quackity: WELL THAT’S RUDE TO ASSUME THAT THINGS WONT GO WELL (Y/N) @(y/s/n): thursday @ 3pm: chitchat w/ nihachu !! @(y/s/n): friday @ 2pm: pummel party w/ ??

as soon as you tweeted all them out, you looked at replies and saw that quackity had replied to both monday and wednesday schedules. giggling to yourself, you replied back to him.

@(y/s/n): @ quackity way to make it obvious alex, if you wanna date me just say it (¬_¬) @(y/s/n): @ quackity how can you assume that it will go well alex (Ő-Ő) ↳ @ quackity: i just know (y/n)!!! truST ME!!!!

laughing once more, you plugged your phone into the charger and went to bed, excited for what alex had planned for you two tomorrow. 

getting ready for the minecraft date was very nerve wracking. the only thing you could think about was whether alex considered this a real date or not. deep inside you hoped that this was a real one. 

the ringing from your phone disrupted your thought. looking down on the screen you saw that the one person you were thinking of was calling you. 

“hello?” you answered. “hi, (y/n), are you ready?” alex asked. “uh, yeah, i just- i just need to start my stream and introduce what we’re doing.” “okay, um- i’m going to send you a link to the dream smp discord server. join it and join vc 4.” he replied.  “for sure, see you then.” you smiled. “see you.” he said and hung up.

“fuck,” you said and wiped your hands onto your pants. you definitely weren’t ready but still, joined the discord server and joined vc 4 then deafened. you set up your stream and hit go live.

“hey everyone! as you may know, if you follow my twitter, today i’m going on a minecraft date! uh no, no one knows who it is yet, but i have a feeling a LOT of you already know who it is.” you said, reading chat and wiggling your eyebrows.

“okay, i’m going to join the server and then share my screen when he’s standing in front of me.” you started playing some music so your viewers didn’t get bored while they waited for you to start. 

once you were logged into the smp you privately messaged alex and asked him where he was. before he could answer you turned around to look at the walls you were surrounded by and screamed out after seeing quackity’s naked body behind you. 

“chat, i’m okay, just got scared. um anyways, yeah.”  you said and showed your screen, revealing the man himself. “quackity!” you screamed into your mic. “jesus christ, (y/n) we can save screaming my name for later.” he said in a suggestive voice. you then started punching him and after each punch you said, “stop. saying. suggestive. comments. we haven’t even started the date yet!”  “okay, okay, okay! i’m literally going to die, (y/n) stop!!” he yelled out. you kept hitting him to see if he was lying but after the second punch quackity was slain by (y/mc/n) showed up in the chat. 

ranboo: i see that the date is going well

you started laughing uncontrollably while alex was silent. “(y/n),” he said in a more serious voice. you hummed as he continued his sentence. “why did you kill me?” “i wanted to know if you were lying. was that a canon life? i think that should be a canon life.” you laughed. “no it wasn’t a fucking canon life. (y/n) you’re not even an official member of the smp!” he said. “i could be,” you said wiggling your eyebrows and crouching up and down. “anyways. follow me, i’m bringing you to where we’re having our date.” so you followed him and when you reached your destination you were at party park with karl and sapnap standing in front of you. 

“hello boys. what are you doing here on our date. is this an amusement park date, quackity? i didn’t take you for that type of guy. it’s kind of cheesy.” you rambled. “no! this isn’t where our date is happening. jeez, have a little more faith in me (y/n).” he said, moving his minecraft character to look at you slowly and creepily. “well there wasn’t much to begin with,” you said, chuckling a bit. you heard karl and sapnap giggling to what you had said.  “hey! take that back!” quackity said, punching your minecraft character. you audibly gasped and turned to look at karl and sapnap again. “you guys saw that right? he just hit me.” you said, faking shock. they both quickly nodded their heads. “i can’t believe you would hit me on our first date.” you said, turning to look at him this time. “you literally killed me!” he yelled out.

so this went on for about 30 more minutes till quackity explained to you that your date would pretty much be a minecraft manhunt with quackity, sapnap, and karl hunting you but you had to find something instead of defeating the enderdragon. if they killed you and they won, you owed alex a real date. no stream, just them. 

“you’re going to hunt me for our first date?” you asked in disbelief. quackity then nodded his head up and down in a very fast motion. “mm cool,” you said as you punched him and ran away in a different direction.

it had been about 45 minutes and you killed karl and sapnap twice, but quackity had not been seen the whole time. but as you were running away from sapnap, quackity appeared in front of you and you faked trying to kill him, letting him just kill you because you wanted to go on that second date with him. 

(y/mc/n) was slain by quackity ranboo: date still going really well, looks like you guys are really hitting it off!

“awe man, looks like i have to go on another date with quackity!” you said. sarcastically faking the disappointment. reading your chat for the first time this stream, it wasn’t your usual happy messages. instead they were filled with negativity.

i don’t see why quackity wants to go on a date with them why did dream let them on the smp?? there are so many other content creators who deserve to be on the smp way more than they do they’re so fucking annoying begging for attention much?

so you grew quiet and just listened to quackity end off his stream while you ended yours without saying anything. but once he finished saying goodbye to his stream, you immediately said bye to him.

“i’m gonna go now alex, thank you for the minecraft date. text me the details for the next. bye.” you rushed.

alex found it really weird that you had just left like that, you guys almost always stayed on call after he finished streaming for at least 3 hours just talking. but he let it slide, hoping it wasn’t something he had done.

you went onto twitter to update about your streaming schedule. @(y/s/n): looks like my stream schedule may be moving around because i’m going on a second date with @ quackity!

alex quickly went to go reply to it but gazed over the replies to your tweet and wasn’t very happy with them. you don’t deserve to go on another date with him you’re literally just using him for clout what an attention whore leave him alone already!

knowing that you barely ever got hate, he quickly called you instead. thinking very hard about what he was about to do. looking at your phone you saw that alex was facetiming you, you wiped your face from the tears that had fallen and sniffled, hoping you didn’t sound too congested.

“hello?” you said. “hey um, i have to tell you something.” he replied. the serious tone of his voice got you very nervous. was he about to confirm everything your chat had told you or even the tweets you just read? “i really like you, (y/n).” he said. you looked at your phone in surprise and he continued. “and i really don’t know if you feel the same way about me but i read the replies to your tweet and i know that you’re a pretty new streamer and i just don’t want you to already be getting hate because of me, you don’t deserve that. you’re an amazing person and i just, i don’t want to be the reason you’re getting hate. so i think it’d be best if we just laid off talking to each other for now.” “i like you too, alex.” you whispered. “but i respect your decision. goodbye for now?” you said, offering a smile to the screen he was displayed on. it looked like he was just as shocked as you when he told you how he felt. “uh, yeah. goodbye for now. don’t be a stranger (y/n).” you smiled once more and hung up.

as soon as you hung up you started crying again. you really liked alex, but maybe you didn’t show that well enough, because if you did, maybe you guys would’ve been together at this point.

the next day, you streamed normally with a faked high energy that nobody seemed to notice, this time not paying attention to your chat. deep inside you really just wanted to curl into a ball and sleep all your stresses away. it really sucked to find out the guy you’ve had a crush on liked you back but he decided to end whatever you guys had going on.

but your chat couldn’t know so you kept a fake facade on, hoping no one asked about him.

though to alex, it looked like you were so unbothered by him pretty much ending your friendship. he started slightly believing the tweets that mentioned how you were just using him for clout. but after really thinking about it, he realized, why would you have been friends with him months before, without any of your fans knowing if you really were just using him. so he scolded himself and went about his day.

you were ending your stream with a big smile, as soon as you hit that end streaming button that smile was gone. you changed into a hoodie and curled into your bed. you just looked up at your ceiling and started crying, you pretty much lost the guy you really liked. your feelings being unnoticed by the public eye.

[hualian-blessing]

why mcyttwt does not think some (if not most) of the time when it comes to mcc

if i post this in twitter, i’d surely get hated upon but someones gotta have to say this one day. also this does not target to mcytblr!!! this rant is more of towards mcyttwt!!!

remember how mcyt was so chill before all of this shit? how we would watch our favorite minecraters when the community was so small? or how mcc was an event that both ccs and fans can have some fun and entertainment once per month? and that was only last year too. now look at the new generation of mcyt fans and see why some of the old fans dont really associate the new ones.

as a fan of the old gen mcytbers like DanTDM, SkyDoesMinecraft, Aphmau and CaptainSparklez. heck im a fan of pewds’ minecraft series before dream or tommy or ranboo or the new gen of mcyt ccs blew up (a year before them if im correct), and we dont see drama or bad shit all the time when it comes to their content.

now compare that to the new gen where every single fucking day, a bored fan or anti would post shit drama in twitter where some of the people from twitter moved to tumblr just to not get a headache from the batshit craziness mcyttwt brought forth. and it just snapped more when the mccp21 rolled in.

heres some of my takes about the mccp21 issue:

1) “there’s a lack of representation of lgbtq+ in the teams!!!”

heres something to tell yall about that. scott doesnt have a fucking choice. scott smajor has told time and time again, WEEKS before the announcement of teams, that there are certain requirements and limitations to mccp21 thus there will be difficulty in choosing whos entering or whos not. limitations and requirements such as it will be streamed on youtube or how streamers with twitch contracts aren’t allowed to stream or (god bless scott’s good heart) scott not allowing some of the lgbtq+ streamers in joining the special event due to wanting them to have a chance to stream and experience their first mcc (so to those who said that ranboo should have been in mccp21, shut up ‘cuz scott wanted genderman to have fun streaming his first mcc but cant due to ranboo being a well-known twitch streamer). to those who complained that ant and velvet should be in the mcc, stop being selfish and do some actual research on why scott didn’t include them. a simple question to those two’s fans would answer that they can’t make it due to them camping for a week which within those days is the mccp21. they’re having time to themselves, not wasting it on a minecraft championship. 

take in the consideration that, oh i dont know, not a lot of lgbtq+ ccs applied to the event? its not a free invite championship (in fact, mcc has always been like that), it’s an applied with the sufficient and correct requirements kind of event. the artist who created the icons from the previous mcc for the teams said that scott let in some of the new ccs in last minutes due to lack of applicants not meeting the requirements thus not having custom artworks for the teams if they want to announce the teams in time.

2.) “there’s no lesbians or trans in the teams >:(((”

sadly enough, there’s not much of the players from the lgbtq+ community but to say there’s no trans people in mccp21 is utterly false. by definition, trans mean  denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex. other genders such as non-binary, genderfluid, androgyne, bigender, gender expansive all fall under trans. you define yourself with the gender you personally chose and comfy with from you birth gender. so saying there’s no trans in the teams when there are players from the event like eret or sqaishey who are nb and genderfluid respectively are there to also represent not only the sexuality but also the gender identity of others??? like c’mon, please make sense mcyttwt. 

also, while its sad to not see lesbians, please know that lgbtq+ doesn’t strictly be defined by lesbians. ffs, lgbtq+ literally means Lesbians Gays Bisexuals Transgenders and Questioning (or Queer but im not too sure about that one) which means that there are still other representatives for the community in the event.

3) “technoblade is in the event?!!! WHAT THE FUCK, HES A HOMOPHOBE/LESBIPHOBE-”

utter clowns, toxic twitter users are. do you really think that scott smajor, an openly gay man, would let a supposed “homophobe/lesbiphobe” in an event that focuses in supporting the lgbtq+ community? do you hear yourself? do you even do research where the joke he made was when he was the same age as me and it was based on a historical article back in WW2? or how he passionately supports the community especially the lesbians because a lesbian couple complimented him to which kickstart his confidence? the man willingly went to this mcc event despite being flamed a lot in twitter because he (and everyone) knows that his chat, his fans and supporters, are literal millionaires. if you saw a stream from foolish where he auctioned canonical characters for funs, a techno fan donated thousand of dollars to get technoblade, and that’s only one fan, now imagine a hundreds of thousands of them.

like it or not, technoblade has always been open about his support to the community, especially that majority of his fanbase are from the same community that mcyttwt allegedly swore that technoblade hates.

4) “since this mccp21 is pointless because theres no dteam, quackity, punz or (insert cc name), let’s have a watch party of the previous mccs to spite mccp21!!!” “let’s hope (insert cc name) stream on the 26th so mccp21 doesnt have the same amount of viewership like before!!!” “where are (insert cc name)??? gosh, this mcc is so boring without them!!!”

shut up shut up shut up shut up shut the actual fuck up. are you really seriously hearing yourself? are you willing and proudly boycotting a once in a year special event that is seriously needed by the lgbtq+ community? are you that cruel and selfish to sacrifice a project that helped tons of people just for your sick entertainment and desires? are you that evil to stop others from enjoying and donating to the trevor project? are you that inconsiderate of other ccs that aren’t part of dsmp and calling them boring? and for what? because your favorite cishet streamer isn’t there? oh booofuckinghoo! you’re so fucking petty to even post about this kind of tweets in public.

(edit: did yall honestly thought that without your favorite streamers that the mcc is not worth watching because they aren't there? well let me tell you, im a ranboo fan. ive watched him when he first entered the dsmp and watched him spinning in his unicorn chair for 5 minutes. the boo community waited for so many months for genderman to join mcc yet we didn't even do that kind of disgusting action and behavior every time he isn't in mcc. 8 months. that's how long ive watched him. ive waited 8 months for him to be in the event yet i still watch other povs like tommy's, puffy's, wilbur's, and etc., because it's fun and entertaining to watch them despite the beloved not participating in the games.

if you're that spoiled to not even watch mcc because (insert cc whose not part of mccp21 name here) isn't part of the roster then you most likely have a one dimensional humor because there will always be someone more funny and entertaining than them. i like dsmp don't get me wrong, but i found parrot's school smp funnier than dsmp yet you don't see me insulting both series, do you? learn to keep yourself if you're calling ccs as boring or dull or not entertaining enough due to not having the same big platform as the dsmp members.)

you don’t deserve to call yourself a fan if you’re doing this kinds of actions. in fact, people like you should be kicked out from the mcyt community because your kind of people are the reason why we look so bad from the outside. your toxic and self-entitled to these content creators are the reason why famous ccs like sbi, purpled, tubbo and almost ranboo left twitter/implied strict rules to their subtwts. you drove out an entire friend group that tons of fans found comfort in from the platform and you still have the audacity to this kind of shit? honestly, just leave before you give me a headache.

what im sayin’ is that mcyttwt is one of the worst, if not THE worst, subtwts out of the other subtwts in twitter. having no actual research or evidences or spreading false information is common in twitter where you would have to take what they said with a micro size grain of salt. mcyttwt already ruined the fun and spirit of mcc during its comeback in mcc14 due to the glitch and beta testing shit (ey i still stand for the ranboo beta testing but i know that will be worthless since theres hints of him joining soon in mcc15). if you’re still in mcyttwt, i suggest to get out of there while you still can. we’ll never know if there’s a bigger shitstorm than this in the mcyttwt that may happen in the future.

edit! hi bella again, ive been told by a polite and cool user that not all people from mcyttwt are toxic and/or cruel. im going to clear something up here. ive written this during the heat of the announcement of mccp21 teams. so there's a lot of complains and/or entitled people in the app (you can even see it in my previous post too if you want evidences!) that gave off mostly negative vibes towards the event.

ive seen the cool ones who actually took the consideration for scott's side and the criticism of the lack of representation of other communities within the lgbtq+ umbrella (ive even share some parts of it above so im also a bit upset to the lack of numbers in the community). and some of them are correct about recruiting lgbtq+ creators in youtube but! like i said, it's an applied event and not invitational one, so its up to that content creator if they want to join or not. the amount of cishet in the roster are just those who want to support the cause and/or backups/stand-ins in case scott and noxcrew can't find enough ccs in time!

just wanna clear this up because mcyttwt these days are covered by really cringe fans (ive noticed a pattern of them mostly new ones but there are still awesome new fans (like my irl friend who just joined this year) within the community) that covered the good ones where they enjoy, have fun and share some neat ideas and thoughts to the community within the platform!

when i said to get out of the mcyttwt while you still can, i meant to get out of there to avoid drama (that is really small contrast those who really need to address the issue) and take a break from it. it's still your choice if you want to be surround by it or not or if you want to come back to the app. all im saying is to buckle up for the shitstorm cuz this is not the last time that the twitter side of mcyt will cause negativity to the community.

[addictedtostorytelling]

I’m so not ready to say goodbye 🥺 I didn’t realise how much I needed those two geeks in my life. It may be pathetic but they are literally what I think of when I hear the world ‘love’ and I know it’s not real but sometimes I really need to believe that it is goddammit

hi, anon!

with the reboot's renewal status still up in the air, we can't say for certain if we'll get to see a continuation of grissom and sara's (canonical) story play out on our screens in the future.

even so, what we can say with certainty is that regardless of what happens with the show, you don't have to say goodbye to these characters, to this ship, or to their love story.

the beautiful thing about fiction is that it is eternal.

i've been a fangirl for 25+ years now and have been in a lot of fandoms, including for some shows that have been off of the air for years, and i can tell you with surety that there will always be at least a handful of people making fanworks for the thing you love, even sometimes decades after the fact.

while the fandom will inevitably shrink after the series finale, and while there may be fewer people out there actively engaging with the source material and producing content, particularly as time goes on, characters and stories once loved are loved forever.

there will always be someone writing fanfiction. there will always be someone making gifs. there will always be someone producing meta. there will always be someone reliving what they've loved about the show or the pairing. there will always be someone discovering the story for the very first time and falling in love, just like you did.

there will also always be repositories, archives, and fossilized works left in the amber of the internet, particularly for a show like csi and a ship like gsr, where over twenty years of fanworks exist and are out there, just waiting to be discovered and enjoyed.

though of course getting new episodes and source material every week is what fans live for, there's also something to be said for the wonderful experience of engaging with characters and pairings from a "closed canon."

you know that concept "the death of the author"?

i like to think more about the (second) life of the text.

once a show goes off of the air, it takes on this whole kind of renewed existence, becoming something that belongs solely to the fans. we get to take it lovingly into our hands, fill in the gaps between the lines, edit the rough bits as we will, and dog-ear the best parts, building onto them as we wish.

each fan gets to decide what the story means to them and how they engage with it, and while some will eventually walk away, moving on to other stories and more active fandoms, those of us who remain will continue to find new ways to immerse ourselves in what's there, sometimes decades and decades after the last episode has aired.

if gsr is love to you, it doesn't stop being love just because the show ends.

i'm an english professor in my outside-of-the-internet life, and in english, when one is writing about literature (or paintings or film or television or any other kind of creative works), one uses what's called "the literary present tense," which means that when talking about things that take place within the work, one discusses them as if they are ever in a state of happening.

it's not "in homer, it took odysseus twenty years to return home to ithaka," even though the story is millennia old; rather, it's "in homer, it takes odysseus twenty years to return home to ithaka," with odysseus actively doing, perpetually returning home, as he has since before his song was ever written on a page.

stories are forever, anon.

grissom is always in love with sara.

sara is always in love with grissom.

they're always meeting at the forensic conference, falling for each other at first sight.

he's always noticing that she has a ponytail.

she's always stalling to ask him out to dinner.

he's always inviting her to join his team as his first official act as night shift supervisor.

she's always saying yes and packing up her whole life and moving to vegas on only two weeks' notice.

they're always learning how to navigate their love through their fear.

they’re always having near misses and close calls and hundreds of private little intimate moments.

they're always sitting at the ice rink, talking baseball and how he only started caring about beauty after he met her.

they're always in her apartment, with her confessing to him her secrets as she's never done with anyone else before and him just being there for her.

they're always getting engaged in beekeeper suits.

they're always getting married after a tearstained reunion in the jungle.

they're always finding each other again on a pier.

they're always sailing off into the sunset together.

he's always calling her "darlin'."

she's always promising she'll never leave him alone.

they’re always kissing on roller coasters.

they're always in love, anon.

always, always, always.

that's how the story goes, and it doesn't change, no matter what the powers that be at cbs decide.

you can keep enjoying grissom and sara's story for as long as you want. both it and the beautiful, transformative fanworks it inspires will always be there for you.

geek love is forever love.

[raymondebidochonlifechoices]

Are you confident Bughead will be endgame on this show? That’s literally the last strand I’ve been holding onto, but the thread is weakening. I really can’t believe that they would take this ship, their absolute most popular and loved one, and just end it like this forever. I am so angry with the writing!!

Hey there, anon! It is unbelievable, isn’t it?

What a tricky question you ask! confidence + prediction + the Riverdale writers ... As Jughead would say: yikes!

The thing with these writers is that they use a lot of words without knowing their meaning. “Endgame” is one of them. “New” is another. “Exciting”. “Darkness”™. “Adult stories”. “The message”…

Dangling the bughead “endgame” carrot at the end of one or two seasons of no bughead or -worse- of b*rchie and j*bitha f.e. is not an endgame. The general definition of endgame -outside of chess- is: the last stage of a process. If the process (i.e. the season’s content) isn’t about bughead, then bughead coming together at the very end is not an endgame, it's a peripeteia i.e. a sudden or unexpected reversal of circumstances.

In shipping, endgame is a couple that will inevitably end together (for ever and ever and ever). In order for something to be inevitable, you have to create that sentiment, you have to build the couple up.

There’s an article about the misappropriation of the word “endagame” that I find particularly funny, as it starts by mentioning Riverdale!

Anyway, this is a long-winded way to say that, yes, I do believe that the show will end with bughead and varchie as their main canon couples. It’s just that, like you, I’m so very tired with these story lines. There is satisfaction to be had at the notion of endgame but a seasonful of investigative bughead would be infinitely preferable. For me (and I can only speak of myself) the journey is more important than the destination -even if for the simple reason that -in TV show time- it lasts longer!

Why do I think bughead is still … that word? Everything’s under the cut, so as not to clutter your dash!

1. A lot of people have been theorising that what happened in 5x18 was not the original plot. I agree.

Let’s start with 5x18 varchie.

Their break up came completely out of left field. Its unexpectedness is reminiscent of 4x17. I make fun of how s5 is a reboot of s1+s2’s leftover ideas, so another copy-paste shouldn’t feel out of place, and yet … really? Another repetition? To what end? If the season’s goal was not varchie, b*rchie was already there waiting at the beginning of the time jump! Why abandon that plot? In terms of romantic varchie time, that was extremely limited, since after their kiss in 5x7, Veronica’s divorce kept them apart until 5x17 … Why have Archie being extremely jealous of Chad, Veronica getting involved in all of Archie’s schemes (firefighters, bulldogs), Archie getting involved in Ronnie’s (rescuing daddykins) or Veronica telling her father she chooses Archie over him in 5x17? Also, for those who remember, there was this by the-writer-who-shall-not-be-named.

The reason of the break up is as ludicrous as Veronica moving into Archie’s childhood bedroom (with its effing slanted roof!) on the premise that long term the Andrews’ residence has more room! (By the way, I don’t know what surprised me more: that Veronica thought that Archie and uncle Frank would know who Ina Garten is or that Jughead didn’t.) Why is Veronica astounded by Archie’s involvement in the same activities he has been involved in all through the season?! For f***’s sake, she’s the one that gifted him the fire truck!

Ok. Now let’s give 5x18 j*bitha a try.

For me, 5x18 could either have gone bugheadwards or j*bithawards. J*bitha had some heartfelt talks, a hand touch, a hallucination and a kiss. Bughead had one unfinished heartfelt talk (the only one in the whole season for Betty), two shoulder touches, two hallucinations and Jughead attempting to reconnect with Betty (without specifying what his intent was, it's true).

While I do think that j*bitha is a ship that has been adequately teased, the way they were explored in 5x18 was … not underwhelming exactly (after all, they’re not my ship, so I didn’t have any expectations about them) but … maybe lukewarm is the word? They had but minimal dialogue, only enough to establish that Tabitha’s parents were in town. Then a song where Tabitha initially rejects Jughead, although she had been supportive before. Then another song, where the lyrics were heavily altered and didn’t make much sense anyway (we hadn’t been properly introduced to the Tates) but where the original lyrics were very compatible with Bughead’s history and state of being as of 5x17. The kisses were ok, I have no problem with the actors’ chemistry. But -and this is strictly a personal opinion- Jughead’s flirting scenes (not the make-out ones, you perverts!) with Cora were better and so was the j*bitha kiss in 5x10. For the 5x18 j*bitha to flow, more dialogue and more flirting was necessary (always a persona opinion). So, no, I don’t think j*bitha were supposed to sing what they sang in 5x18.

Production for s5 wrapped up one week after the official announcement of the 5 special episodes for Riverdale and The Flash: “we expect it will take us until Fall 2022 to get back to a regular schedule” was the official quote. Re-organising the cw’s overall schedule didn’t happen overnight. Yes, more likely than not, the writers knew about the specifics of s6a before shooting 5x18-5x19 and had time to re-write them.

2. The couples spoilers for s6 do not make sense plot-wise.

If the end-goal for 5x19-6x1 had been b*rchie, j*bitha and v*ggie all along, these were pairs already happening (except from v*ggie) at the beginning of the time-jump. As for v*ggie, last time we saw them, Veronica pulled a face when she heard that he had had (still has?) an affair with Hermosa. And what about Nana Rose?! (ok, that was a joke! ... or was it? 👀)

The majority of both the fans and the general audience are bugvarchie shippers. Teasing b*rchie and j*bitha as a means of maintaining the viewers’ interest in a will they/won’t they way, only works if the audience finally gets what they want. In this season. Not the next one! There is so much trolling one can take after all. In the space of 1.5 year (4x17-5x19) b*rchie will have been teased ... THREE times (and still lacking build-up)!

I cannot myself see b*rchie, j*bitha and v*ggie as endgame couples. For the audience to invest in them after 4 years of bugvarchie, the writers have to a) give j*bitha an absolutely incredible development that will surpass bughead and the cinematography to go with it (good luck with that) and b) undo Archie’s character (highly unlikely) and/or give Betty a lobotomy (at which point a lot of people will quit en masse, because Archie as The One All The Girls Want just doesn't resonate with the majority).

I have no idea if s6a is an AU or not. But if it’s not, no one will be left to watch 6b.

Can I guarantee a bughead endgame? Of course not. I have no idea how the minds of the Riverdale writers work. But I do think that Jughead and Betty getting back together is more than wishful thinking.

Fervently shipping Jughead/Betty, Jughead/his book and Betty/therapy, sincerely yours, @raymondebidochonlifechoices

I hope you have fun with the Riverdale universe regardless, dear anon. Riverdale has given us one of the most beautiful getting-together stories in s1 and lots and lots of beautiful canon bughead afterwards. Here's to many more! Much love to you!