#(posts are probably going to get marginally more spoilery)

[artschoolglasses]

"They moved the moon ... That's not magic you can flight with a blade."

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

[bikananjarrus]

time for my thoughts on temptation of the force! (with a healthy dose of the eye of darkness thoughts, bc i forgot to do a wrap-up post for that book whoops).

spoilery thoughts under the cut:

To start with (maybe?) an unpopular opinion: as much as i loved this book (and i really did!) i think (PERSONALLY) i liked the eye of darkness just a bit more (if i'm just going to compare the phase 3 adult books).

this is definitely due to just my personal tastes; i love stories about grief. eye of darkness was so much about grief, and loneliness, and getting knocked down over and over, and struggling for every inch of ground to claw one's way back to the light, back to hope and home. eye of darkness was also (in a way) a ghost story. the ghost of stellan, the ghost of starlight, the ghost of the other jedi that were lost, the ghosts of the people missing across the stormwall, etc.

which that kind of love - the kind that creates grief, that creates these kinds of ghosts - that's one of my favorite things to explore in stories (and my own writing), which is probably why eye of darkness spoke to me a bit more. the more i think about it the more i realize how much i loved that book.

however!! i did still really love TOTF, and i like that it had a bit more positive tone as we gear up for the big finale next year. avar and elzar being reunited, being stronger together, figuring out the stormwall (mostly), actually getting some wins, things are going better. it was so well-done, and i really loved it. it just didn't floor me in quite the way i expected it to, but that's not a bad thing; it was impactful in a different way.

that said, let me talk about the things i loved about this book! starting with the non-firebrands/non-elzar+avar highlights:

burry pov!!! it was so wonderful getting burry's pov in this book. the way burry describes the Force and his empathetic connection to the people and world around him was such a treat to read. the scene in the beginning when he was on oanne and he touched the grandfather tree was an incredibly beautiful scene. additionally; him understanding why the oanne locals won't--can't--leave their home planet, bc wookiees have such a strong connection to kashyyyk too; him having empathy for the dying drengir bc it was dying alone, disconnected from the rest of its hive; him realizing at the end that the empty feeling of the blight is homesickness. i just loved the way all these things tied together, and it being burry to make these connections bc he understands it in a way the other jedi don't (which was a nice tie back to LOTJ with him being the only one to realize there were survivors on board pieces of the legacy run emerging from hyperspace)

also burry and bell's friendship means so so much to me. burry being able to defeat a nameless bc he felt bell's fear and refused to let bell die. bc bell saved him from the eiram ocean, and he couldn't let bell die afraid the way he almost had. i just....i love them a lot <3

i adore cair and xylan. xylan is such a fun character, who we know hides a lot of his true feelings behind ridiculously thick walls and a bunch of different masks and many layers of fancy silks, and it just makes me want to crack that man open like an oyster. i think cair feels the same lol. their relationship is just so interesting and that scene with xylan locking cair in his bunk to force him back across the stormwall was OOF. i can't wait to see where they go from here.

marchion was marginally more interesting for me in this book. the thing is, i like him as a villain! he's smart and i appreciate that he has a million back-up plans, and he's got an aesthetic and sticks to it! but i'm not really sure what to do with him so far in this phase. i feel a bit similarly with the nameless. i think marchion and the nameless were more interesting when they were such an unknown factor to the jedi.

the most interesting marchion part in this book for me was the chapter where he was envisioning ghirra and viess being consumed by the blight and just totally ignoring their bickering. i think it's a precarious line to walk with making villains stereotypically "crazy" or "mad", but i think the THR authors have done it well so far. and giving marchion this mysterious air with seeing visions and dead ancestors was really enjoyable.

(i know i will learn more about his ancestors and history of the nihil, nameless, etc. in phase 2, so maybe i will feel differently and understand his motivations more after that)

but right now, he's lost a bit of luster for me; but i trust charles soule will be able to bring it back for the finale.

now for my beloveds, elzar, avar, and the firebrands:

chapter 1 and 20. that's it, that's the bullet point. i live in those chapters now. they were absolutely my favorite parts of the whole book. after so much miscommunication and misunderstanding between elzar, avar, and stellan over the course of the adult books so far (really starting after LOTJ), getting to see elzar and avar just sit down and talk and reflect, and talk about stellan and everything they've been through, it meant a lot to me.

i adore elzar and avar on their own, but for me (personally) the real heart is the three of them. so for me, the elzar avar scenes where they talked about stellan were just a smidge more impactful for me than just the elzar avar scenes alone, which is why chap. 1 and 20 really hit for me.

that being said, i still loved all of elzar and avar's scenes A LOT. avar's love confession to elzar was so so beautifully written. and when she kissed him on naboo in front of everyone!!!!!! LOST my mind!!! elzar's "i don't think i've known you without wanting you"....... what an insane thing to say. what an insane thing to WRITE, tessa. and avar's "in my worst moments, i've loved you. in my greatest grief and failure, i still loved you, and it didn't turn me down the wrong path - it's what got me back on my feet...love is limitless." OOF. truly truly one of the most beautiful love confessions i've ever read.

i mean i could talk for five hours about avar's confession and her understanding of how she loves elzar, and in response, elzar's talk with yoda about love and attachment. that needs it's own post, honestly. but to sum up: tessa wrote love and attachment so fucking perfectly in this book. like tessa GETS IT.

the scene at the end, when avar lends her strength to elzar to fight off the nameless, and it being described as a star. stellan's strength right there alongside avar's, giving it to elzar so he can fight back. the song, the sea, and the star imagery will always make me feel so insane.

(but even with the star imagery at the end, my one, very nitpicky thing, which is also just personal preference again, is that i wish stellan's name had gotten mentioned one or two more times at the end. i don't think his name was mentioned at all in the last 50 pages or so, and there was a perfect opportunity to do so when avar had her brush with death. either she could've thought about joining stellan in the force, or elzar could've thought about already having lost stellan and he won't lose avar too. i get that the focus was very much on avar and elzar at the end there, but i think to really bring it full circle, there should've been one more mention of stellan)

i think elzar is going to play a huge part in defeating the nameless. it's been hinted at before, even back in LOTJ, the unique way he sees the force, and uses the force; the fact that he has touched the dark side of the force, and has a better understanding of the force and how it affects him; him being able to shut himself off from the force in such a way in the fallen star that for a while, he wasn't affected by the nameless on starlight as much as the others; and then here at the end of TOTF, with the way him and avar are now connected in the force, i think his understanding of the force is going to expand and he's definitely a key component, i think, to the eventual defeat of the nameless.

my last thought for now: about halfway through eye of darkness i was getting a strong feeling that, by the end of all this, elzar might die. i still think this is a possibility. but now, i think there is also a stronger possibility that if he dies, he and avar will die together. just based on how connected they are in the force alone, i think if one goes, the other will follow. (i also maintain that i don't think any of the adult-adult characters are super safe, bc there's been such a strong emphasis on the younger adult characters, and this future generation of jedi, that i wouldn't be surprised if they killed off more of the older adults to make room for the young knights).

overall, i really did love this book! but strangely enough, i think this is the one i need to sit with the most. the first half of the book was REALLY hitting for me, and then idk, by the end i was like "that was really good, but....that's it?" who knows, it could be that having read all these books back to back in such a short amount of time finally caught up to me haha, and my brain just shut off. i think i just need to sit with this one more, and reread at some point. but right now, in my honest opinion, i didn't like it as much as eye of darkness.

(as always, i'm happy to hear everyone else's thoughts, so feel free to send me asks/dms/replies on this post etc. i feel like me not liking this book as much is definitely not the general consensus, so i'm curious what everyone else thinks lol)

[highladyluck]

For the fic title meme: Lay Down Your Crown and Sword

So, I was thinking maybe this is about Aviendha's feelings about Rand when they're in the Aiel Waste... just kidding, I know what the people want from me.

Wheel of Time, Mat/Tuon, post-canon, ANGST. This is one take on a scenario where Mat attempts to achieve his stated relationship goal, which is convincing Tuon to abdicate and run away with him.

(This sucker is LONG and SPOILERY so I’m putting it under a cut.)

It's ~2 months after the Last Battle. There's growing danger to Tuon- an almost-successful assassination attempt (my money's on Moghedien) that scares Mat, Selucia, the Deathwatch, and maybe even Tuon herself, just a little. The sul'dam secret is leaking out and emboldening the faction that wants to kill her, there's worry it'll lead to local rebellion, plus there's still the Seanchan homeland power struggle. Mat uses all this to convince Tuon that she needs to lie low for a while. His idea is for her to fake her own death, install a puppet successor secretly loyal to her, and go hide out with him in a place no one will be able to find them for a few months.

She's not thrilled about it initially, but it's not like she hasn't faked her own death before (love that about her!) so she agrees to Mat's plan, which is 'hang out in a Portal Stone alternate timeline'. (Mat would not come up with this on his own, Mat does not like Portal Stones, but Min suggested it and he eventually agreed it would suit their needs.) Tuon would prefer something where she could keep an eye on political conditions more easily, but she feels safe with Mat & appreciates that this is definitely a secure option, and she's been out of contact with home base before for a while and been fine. Selucia stays in the palace, to keep an eye on things and do intrigue (and also give Mat and Tuon actual alone time- I am entertained by the grudging truce between Mat and Selucia, but her chaperone services are not needed this time around.)

They've got an official pickup scheduled in a few months, about a month before Tuon's due; Mat thought about waiting more time to go back but he'd rather have the option to call in trusted medical help for the birth and he wants to leave a wide margin of error for the actual due date. He intends to rope in Nyneave if it seems necessary, although he doubts he'll be lucky enough that Nyneave would help Tuon out of the goodness of her heart or even as a favor to him. More likely Nyneave's help would cost Tuon in political concessions, which he will have to either convince Tuon to accept- assuming she's in a position to make that kind of choice- or negotiate on her behalf, if she's in too much immediate danger. Either scenario keeps him up at night, but the alternative is worse. Also, he hasn't run this contingency plan by Tuon yet- likely because he isn't totally against the idea of extracting political concessions from Tuon, so there's guilt as well as fear of how she'd react. The other thing Tuon doesn't realize about this vacation plan is that Mat is hoping to convince her to move there forever- if it's nice- or at least to keep faking her death and start a new life with him somewhere in disguise in their reality.

The Portal Stone world is one that's relatively close to their world, so it has people and feels fairly familiar, but the apocalypse hasn't happened yet and doesn't appear to be doing so in the near future. (For fun let's say the obvious divergence is Damodred-related; maybe the non-asshole Damodred branch is in charge, so you don't get Laman's Sin and/or Tigrane is actually happy in her political marriage, so the Dragon hasn't been reborn yet.) Tuon's ok with the 'vacation' vibe at first, we get some cute romantic bonding moments between her and Mat as they do normal people things, they have some cute dates in taverns or whatever. But Tuon becomes increasingly bored and anxious and frustrated about not being able to keep tabs on what's happening- probably some residual trauma from the last time she went AWOL with Mat, and came back to find her homeland in shambles and her family dead. So that's a source of conflict, especially since she doesn't actually confide that in Mat. She also keeps wanting to hash out political/military plans for when they get back, but Mat keeps trying to distract her, or makes arguments she doesn't like (re: Seanchan policy reform). Maybe Mat brings up the Nyneave contingency plan because he got worried about her health, and Tuon's like 'uh how long have you been sitting on this idea, when the fuck were you going to run it past me, the person it most concerns?'

Their relationship has always had an element of conflict in it, but back then they were strangers, had rules of engagement constraining them, and a kind of shared purpose. Their conflict was a kind of game that they played together, and it drew them closer. Now they know how to get under each other's skin and aren't constrained by witnesses or promises, and they have a shared mission (keeping Tuon safe) but don't agree on who is in charge of it. What's holding them together still is their own compassion and affection for each other, but they're not great at communicating it with words and now they're using words as weapons sometimes, so most of the reconciling is with gestures/gifts/actions. In general, things are tense and there's not much going on outside of their own interactions to distract them; Tuon's temper is flaring, she's feeling powerless and like her personal integrity is being attacked sometimes; Mat's being propelled around by his gut reactions and he's scared of losing her (and the baby), in any number of ways, and mad that she doesn't want what he thinks is best.

Finally the scheduled transit date arrives and they pop back to their original universe and get caught up on the news (maybe from Min?) Over in Seanchan, possibly emboldened by news of Tuon's 'death', a warlord has consolidated most of the warring factions. Now they know who to go after, and a war in Seanchan would help unify the Seanchan in the westlands; the Seanchan military-industrial complex loves a good patriotic war. Things domestically are a little better than before they left. Selucia flushed out the network from the earlier assassination attempt and is generally keeping things running and the puppet ruler honest.

Tuon's relieved; she was really worried that everything was going to fall apart when she was gone and now she's kind of grateful for the break. She tries to tell Mat this without actually admitting that she's got trauma around it, because the Empress doesn't admit weakness and Tuon the person is extremely bad at talking about feelings anyway; she's like "Ah, that's much better news than I came back to last time you kidnapped me. I'm glad to be back to work again, let's get to it." Mat's irritable, not catching on that she was actually really worried about it based on her previous experience, and thinking she didn't appreciate the break, and also worried that his plans to convince her to leave with him aren't going to work. Tuon catches that he's cagey and unhappy and not getting her jokes, and she remembers that this was what he seemed like when she first saw him in the Tarasin Palace. Mat argues that they should at least wait until the baby comes, that the person she put in charge is doing well, they can certainly let them rule a while longer. He says he's not sure it's the right time to attack Seanchan, he'd need to check the troops out, sniff out local sentiment. He's not decisive or commanding or focused when he says these things- it's stalling, it's bravado covering panic. It dawns on her- oh shit, he's gonna run.

Tuon's spooked. She KNOWS Mat now, but that doesn't mean she knows what to do to hang on to him. She doesn't know how to deal with a loss of control in her personal life, so she turns to what she knows she can control- the empire, her role, her property. She takes refuge in past promises. She tells him they will discuss the disposition of the army and the prosecution of the war in Seanchan once her heir is born and she's officially 'off the hook'. Mat looks grim.

Tuon wanted to announce that she's back immediately, but she starts having contractions and Mat's like 'you are absolutely not going to return from the dead right this second, you're super vulnerable right now.' They stay in a relatively secret spot in Tuon's territory with a small coterie of loyal retainers until the baby is born; it goes fine. There is one (1) cute bonding moment between Tuon and the baby and Mat; then the baby vanishes. Mat was on guard along with the usual people you'd expect to be on guard (not Karede, Selucia, or Min though). Tuon FUCKING KNOWS Mat did it with Aes Sedai help, she's initially furious and betrayed, but Mat isn't admitting it and within the extremely tight circle of people who know about the vanished baby, he's doing a reasonably convincing job looking as freaked out and upset as everyone else, and she's still hoping she can resolve this privately without any drastic public actions.

She takes Mat to a private place and she tells him that she has always, always been able to trust him. She trusts him so much it terrifies her. She does not know if this is what love is, but it is what she feels for him. She asks him to honor that, to honor himself, and not to lie to her. She then asks him why he kidnapped their child. Mat staggers, and blurts out that he can't bear the thought of their children constantly at risk of assassination, from strangers or their own siblings. He has nightmares about their child beginning to channel, or being able to learn, and what that means for them in the Empire. Tuon's made her choice and he'll respect that, though he hates the risks to her, and what the Empire does to her and others. But their child deserves the choice Tuon didn't have. He loves Tuon, but he cannot love the Empire, and he will not fight in the Empire's wars, and he will not let the Empire own his children, whether that's as royalty, sul'dam, or damane. He says he trusts she'll come to the right decision about what to do with this information.

The next scene has Tuon in mourning white. It's neither Tuon's nor Mat's POV- probably Karede, or maybe Min. In front of the whole court Tuon, as Empress back from the dead, bestows the Bloodknives ring and blessing on Knotai, and orders him to take a few members of the Deathwatch (the ones on watch the night the baby vanished, our observer notes) and assassinate the warlord in Seanchan on her behalf. She says she trusts he will succeed. They stare inscrutably at each other. The court is shocked into silence at first, but the whispers rise behind Mat as he straightens from his extraordinarily polite leg and heads out of the chamber. It is left up to the reader to decide if this is an elaborate plan to fake Mat's death and set him free, or his execution.

--- You may notice this is suspiciously fleshed out for a prompt I received this afternoon. XD I've been kicking around some of this premise for a while, though this ask made me finally come up with the circumstances that get Tuon to actually agree to temporarily leave her job, as well as most of the details. The main emotional beats came from stringing together several Mountain Goats songs, because of course it did. The whole sequence is Twin Human Highway Flares, Riches and Wonders (Eliza Rickman cover), Alpha Incipiens, Fault Lines, New Britain, Family Happiness. I’m not sure if I’ll actually turn this into a finished story with description and dialogue and everything, but it’s possible. This is also not the only Mat/Tuon post-canon idea I have kicking around! It’s not my ideal scenario for them for sure, but it’s a lot easier to write a ‘bad ending’ for them than to work on my ‘good ending’, because I have a lot more emotional investment in the ‘good ending’... perfectionist problems. :/

[lovelylogans]

:o Please please rant about the 100 and Bellamy!! I was only marginally into it so I don't know much but I love to hear your meta on literally everything!!

all RIGHT. spoilers for the 100 past this point! also i’m gonna go ahead and preface this with a warning about racism, and also that a lot of this is based off stan twitter, but like. they aren’t Wrong.

oh, also, i’m gonna go ahead and drop my stan twitter: i rarely make original posts, but, ya know. it’s a jumble of content. feel free to follow if u want.

also! there’s this whole thread of hiatus drama, if you want a fuller picture than what i’m giving you.

so a quick, general sum-up of some plot that goes into this Whole situation: the sixth season of t100 took place on a different planet, after t100 spent ~5 seasons on earth, so this introduced new characters and also the concept of interplanetary travel. in the season six finale, hope (the daughter of a character, diyoza, who was still pregnant with hope, because ~time travel~) stepped through what’s called “the anomaly,” says “i’m sorry,” and stabs octavia, dissipating her into green mist. bellamy, octavia’s brother (who has had Issues and a Lot of storylines centering around octavia, which is a whole other topic of conversation (ft. bellamy’s storylines centering around white women (bob morley, who plays bellamy, is half-filipino) octavia’s treatment by fandom vs bellamy’s, and you can probably tell which side i’m on by how loudly i screamed “YEEEEEESSSSSSS” when bellamy said “you’re my sister, but you’re not my responsibility anymore” after SIX SEASON of—okay you see, i’m getting off topic) 

anyway, the season closer was that octavia went through the anomaly, which (this is important!) a fair amount of the main characters saw (gabriel, hope, echo, and bellamy, namely) bellamy, in that same season closer, was running through the woods alone, yelling for octavia. season ending. good hook!

and then.... nothing.

seriously. the hiatus between season six and season seven of the hundred (the LAST season of the show, EVER!) there was next to no promotional material. no bts pics, no tweets from cast/crew, nada. nothing. which stirred up quite a bit of complaint in the fandom—one, it’s the last season, can we not have some promotion, and two, it’s the last season, and there’s no promotion by cast/crew/the cw, why is this happening?

seriously. the season seven teaser clip that got aired between episodes on the cw was released before the trailer. it became a meme, how long we were waiting for the trailer. like it was... what, 19, 20 days before the season aired, and all we had was like a stitched-together character poster?

there was also some drama throughout the hiatus, ft. the fandom getting on the news for not getting content in the hiatus, jessica harmon (who plays a guest role, nylah, and whose brother plays murphy) getting snappy at fans on twitter for asking for promotion, and isaiah washington, who played thelonious jaha (a character that died in s5) telling a minor (and also going into their dms!) that he’d call the fbi on them, good times, the 100 fandom is a Disaster and i live a nightmare every day

and then. the trailer drops.

which starts “where is bellamy?” like. people. were SEARCHING for bellamy. people were trying to be optimistic, but rapidly people were also coming to, like, the worst conclusions. however as always t100 fandom did have some jokes, so like, ya know

people were looking forward to other promo: the poster, and also, there’s this tradition of countdown bts photos for the show, and since bob and eliza (who plays clarke, the female lead) just got married, people had high hopes! 

and then came the poster (which had no bellamy, or characters at all) and then the OFFICIAL poster (which had characters, but still no bellamy) which started the hashtag #whereisbellamyblake, because, seriously, he’s the male lead and it’s the last season. also bonus screengrab of this from jroth (the lead writer’s) mom’s twitter lmao

so people rightfully had questions: the excuse that was being given was that including bellamy would be “spoilery,” except, like, it’s a poster? and the only shot of him in the trailer was him being dragged along the ground despite the fact that he was the thumbnail for the trailer? like, okay, which led to some twitter meltdowns, and some more, and again people were fearing the worst, because like, see lexa, jason has a BAD track record when it comes to fan-favorite ships. people were HEATED, people were RANTING, it was a MESS

also. the edited posters were pretty funny, okay, then bob and eliza, bless them, dropped some a+ twitter content, and things calmed down a bit

and then, countdown days started. usually, the order goes bob on one more day, and eliza on show day. except this year? eliza was one more day. which. people were going nuts. because it was a tradition! and keeping BOB out of a behind the scenes where there weren’t any spoilers? it just seemed unprofessional—especially damning, given jason’s past history with ricky whittle, who played lincoln, and was bullied off the set. people were worried that, one, this was affecting bob’s storyline, and two, well. remember that thing about fan-favorite ships? here’s a whole thread of that, btw. and a video of ricky whittle, here.

it is a genuine fear of a lot of the fandom that jason will, in all his pettiness, not give in to bellarke. which is kind of nutty, given that it’s the core relationship of the show, and he himself had said that he’d been foreshadowing it. bellamy and clarke are literally “the head and the heart” of the show.

oh, yeah. so hard cut to the showday pic.

cast. crew. writers. everyone.

except? no bob.

people lost their gotdamn MINDS.

there’s a lot of subsequent drama; the fact that apparently they’re pushing through clarke/gaia (even though there was ??? no previous evidence of this??) still no bellamy for four episodes (seriously, it took clarke, like, two episodes to even cotton onto the fact that he was missing at all)  a lot of criticism of jason (he’s shamed shipping and also, lmao, is trying to push through a spinoff?) and just. Yeah. 

i’m really burnt out when it comes to the 100 fandom; i’ve unfollowed a lot of the t100-centric tumblrs i used to follow, once the show is over i’m gonna unfollow a lot of the twitters and just, yeah. i care about bob and eliza, and i care about bellarke, but the fandom wears me out and the unprofessionalism of a lot of what’s gone down has kind of just? made me lose interest? they’re recycling storylines (esp centering around octavia and bellamy) and continuity doesn’t seem to really be a priority. i just... yeah. i mostly care about bellarke and the fact that i bond a lot with one of my real-life friends through this show. if bellarke doesn’t happen, i’m gonna be like Really... disappointed, mad, irritated? like. imagine. it’s literally So Easy. the actors got married, ffs, you’ve gotten in trouble for ending two ships via very tragic death (in the same season, even!) like how is this Not Clicking

anyway that’s my (entirely too long) rant about t100!!!!

[neriad13]

💜🧨☀️ for the writing ask game:)

Post your favorite excerpt from your current WIP!

Hmm! I usually post my favorite not-terribly-spoilery bits as I go, but have an ominous introduction!

When he stepped inside, it was dim. But not the lonely dimness of his cell or the loud, sweaty dimness of the laundry room. It was more comforting, more...

Like stepping into a cocoon, came the thought, unbidden. Butterflies on the brain. That was what he had now. Great.

He closed the door behind him and the world outside went away.

“Mr. Delgado-Álvarez, is it?” the woman at the desk asked, offering him a thin-lipped smile. The light of the lone lamp glinted off her horn rimmed glasses.

She looked immaculate. Not a hair out of place. Not a wrinkle to be seen in her uniform. That couldn’t possibly be lipstick, could it?

“Er...just Delgado’s...fine.” he said, trying his best not to stare. “Should I…?”

He gestured vaguely at the empty chair in front of the desk.

“Please do.” she answered, returning his gesture. “That is what we’re here for, after all. Do make yourself comfortable.”

“Thanks.”

He dropped into the chair like a bag of rocks. Every thought that had been in his head prior to that moment exited at top speed. Why had he come here? What was he doing? How could he possibly tell this woman half of what he wanted to say? Part of him wanted to spill everything - every last gory detail. But the other part made his tongue heavy, advised him to keep his silence. Silence was safe. Silence was static. If he said nothing, nothing would have to change. If he didn’t speak it into being, nothing was wrong.

Mindlessly, he scratched the inside of his arm. 

“So…” she said, breaking the less than comfortable silence. “You may call me Dr. Lamb. Welcome to my office, such as it is.”

Tell me about your current antagonist!

I don’t really have one at the moment. In Constant Bearing, Decreasing Range, you could kind of argue that it’s Sullivan, Ryan, Navarro, Gelber, Marston, Alves, Gilbert, Fontaine, Lamb, the prison staff and the Worst Nurse Ever, but…

They’re all just cogs in a machine of systems, decisions and circumstances which have brought them to where they are and which eventually results in a situation in which every character is 100% in the right and yet, disaster happens anyway. My favorite kind of dilemma, TBH. >=3

But, since I feel like talking about some minor (both probably and definitely dead) antagonists, here we go!

Alves is based off the looks of Jessica Alves, pre-transition. I actually started writing this story before she transitioned and only learned that she had once I was almost at the end of it. I feel kind of bad about giving her name to a villain, but after racking my brains and my internet browser for days, I just couldn’t find another name that would stick to him. 

He was a performer who embezzled money from the wrong patron and so ended up in Persephone. What keeps him going is the (false) belief that he is not as powerless as the other people around him. Everything he does is in support of this fragile illusion. He cannot allow himself to be wrong, to be ridiculed or for anyone to be perceived as being marginally better than him. He is cool-headed (heh), calculating and good at what he does. The one thing he can’t handle is a person who isn’t like him.

Gelber is...an idiot. He’s terrible at his job. He frequently causes more trouble than he’s worth. He’s been on the verge of being fired for months and probably should have been, even before that. But the thing is, he’s just so dang gregarious. He has drinking buddies in every department. He knows the guys down at Persephone and has a personal relationship with a lot of employees working in Fort Frolic. He is forthright, open and honest with every person he considers to be his friend and expects them to behave in the same manner towards him. Trust and friendship are things he takes very seriously. 

So, it stands to reason that if he feels that his trust has been betrayed...he doesn’t react well. 

Marston, I think, is one of the most important characters in the story. He despises his partner with every fiber of his being. He’d be a much more competent officer if Gelber wasn’t constantly getting in the way or pushing him to the side. And yet, he’s still working with him. 

Money is part of the reason, definitely, but the other part is how he knows Gelber will react were he to “betray” him. He stays with him out of sheer terror. He does his dirty work in order to avoid becoming a piece of work himself. 

I went back and forth for literal months on whether to put the rape scene in or not. For a long time, I really didn’t want to and went on ahead without it until the final-final draft. But without it, there were beats of Devon and Delgado’s relationship that were missing. And Marston didn’t get to have his moment. 

The reason Marston is so important is because he is against the injustice his partner is trying to commit, but because he is too afraid to meaningfully resist, he instead perpetuates it. He would not call himself a cruel or conniving person. He’s an ordinary guy - just one face among many like it, doing what he thinks he has to, to get by. And yet, his actions mark him as being just as bad as his partner. His relatability renders him the most chilling of the three. How many people are like him, out in the real world? How much injustice exists merely because the ones perpetuating it are too cowardly to put their money where their mouth is?

Anyway, I have a headcanon that Gelber dragged him out to Cohen’s Final Frolic for a good time and as a result, both of them ended up as beautiful pieces of art in the venues they once frequented.

Do you prefer first person, second person, or third person?

In general, I tend to be most comfortable in third person and most likely to go with it, but I love mixing it up. Especially with second person, though there’s only a small handful of situations where it’s really appropriate to use.

[dontcallmecarrie]

Meme anon here, so I am stuck in being a perfectionist and trying to find the right meme/pic to use (with proper credit where it is due) or to make for myself so i am right now just going to send overall descriptions in 4 different asks if that is okay. Just to get the overall idea/theme of the memes (since they deal with Phase 3 and such. Here goes nothing... (1/5)

(2/5) HAL and Skynet memes. I'm actually working on MAKING them, OMG! It's kinda fun actually.

(3/5) The picture where Tony announces at the Press Conference (tm) that he was Iron Man. Then Text Post/meme. Or various pictures of Tony in the suit. THEN meme. (Sorry if any of these were not what you were/are expecting.)

(4/5) Use stuff inside your TWIFFON au, such as using the S.W.O.R.D. Logo that you have and make memes using that. (Just a thought.) Or pretend/fake images for the Fashion Week Fiasco or the Relay Race (if that was hypothetically photographed in your au.)

(5/5) And for the last meme ideas/descriptions: Pictures of the world/Earth with the initials of SI or the SWORD Logo ghostly photoshopped on top/behind it, with then the meme idea. Or just the planet with the meme (something ominous but funny). I got some HAL memes already made. They're not perfect but they're done. Still working on some of the others (not the SWORD logo, that I'm leaving alone) Please let me know your thoughts. Too far? Not quite what you're looking for? This has been fun!

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...oh boy. Friend, some of these memes are actually edging into spoiler territory, because of Reasons. 

Under the bolded part for those who don't want spoilers, because the more I think about it the more likely I am to ramble and the memes are actually a very important plot point in TWiFFON, no matter how ridiculous that sounds without context.

Also: in regards the memes you’ve mentioned, I get the feeling some of them would probably be SI-only. For instance, while the Fashion Week Fiasco made headlines, other incidents [cough cough, the Relay Race] are the sort of thing that stays in-house. Kinda like Legal’s jokes about world domination, now that I think about it. 

The spoilery territory comes with the memes that might involve the world, though, for multiple reasons.

See, after the Civil War arc, there’s going to be a few others to go: the fallout of Civil War, the Final Battle, and the Realization.

Specifically, after the Civil War arc, there’s going to be another timeskip as Tony acutely feels the crunch of ‘oh shit the Avengers aren’t an option to protect the planet anymore, it’s literally just me, oh fuck’.

When he feels this crunch, he’s not going to pull his punches intellectually— by which I mean he’s going to delve into morally dubious stuff, and the other side of the Merchant of Death takes center stage as he brainstorms potential defense after defense for Earth. Here’s the thing: when I say ‘morally dubious’, I mean ‘he’s going to wish he could afford to drink something stronger than coffee’ because he’s going to go over SHIELD’s shadier research, notes of the tech found after New York, everything JARVIS found via scouring the dark web, you name it. 

Even more specifically, remember that energy shield that protected the portal device in the first Avengers movie? Remember how it was borderline impossible for anyone to get past it? 

Yeah, Tony’s going to do something like that. But for the entire planet. 

An immense network of satellites and what-have-you, spanning the entire globe. 

[it’s not exactly original since I got the idea from both Star Wars and Doctor Who, but bear with me]

There’s more to it than that, but the energy shield is meant to be one of the last lines of defense. 

Here’s the thing: it’s not subtle. Kinda hard to be, with its size and the breathtaking amounts of energy it requires [good thing SI’s invested so heavily into green energy], and its name is what makes it prime meme fodder.

Because what everyone’s seeing is this bigass energy shield network in the sky, keeping out the vast armies that stretch as far as the eye can see. And Tony’s naming skills are only marginally better than a biologist’s, and the rest of humanity’s isn’t much better.

The energy shield’s official name is the Iron Dome [also because it’s got the same idea as the thing in real life], but the moment it went online, the internet renamed it Skynet, which, awkward. 

It only gets funnier after the Reveal, too.

...on another note, the main role the memes play ties in with Tony’s obliviousness. 

See, after the Civil War arc, Tony’s [understandably] hyperfocused on the whole ‘protecting the Earth’ schtick and doesn’t really have time for much else. He’s tangentially aware of other stuff going on, but he has so much to do he doesn’t really pay attention to it. 

When the first memes about world domination start to float around, he blinks but goes back to work, because again, turns out that when it comes to protecting the planet, if you want something done right you have do it yourself. Normally he’d have fun with the memes, would be over the moon and be laughing at them with everyone else— but he has Things To Do. 

The single meme I have in mind for the matter is Star Trek-based, and also later on serves as the basis for why the rest of the galaxy refers to them as the Terran Empire, btw.

The first meme desensitized him to the idea; by the time Pepper approaches him about it, he thinks she’s joking. When the Sorcerer Supreme shows up shooting him significant looks and talking about being responsible to take care of threats to the Earth, the implied threat flies right over Tony’s head and he just goes “great, welcome to the club! I haven’t accounted for magic yet, is there anything we could tweak in this project to bolster our defenses?”

This is why it takes a honest-to-goodness Destroyer of Worlds to break it to him that no, it’s not a joke, he genuinely did take over the world. Yeah, oops.

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...long story short, I really like the idea, but again, not sure how much screentime I’d be able to give the memes in the main fic. The sidefic would allow for more screen time, of course, but I’m not sure if that’s something you’d want to see?

edit: I’d put in a read-more, only apparently I can’t? Apologies to anyone who didn’t want spoilers or long posts.