#Her not knowing the full story of what John does to people... and then arguing that at least he doesn't tie anyone himself 😂😂😂

[inafieldofdaisies]

WIP Wednesday | Tagged by @socially-awkward-skeleton

This week we're circling back to the main WIP through a snippet featuring Cal, Sabrina and her defense of John. *oof* Leslie needs a hug too, for real.

"Drop the weapon and turn around, I won't ask twice." This voice… Sabrina complied, crouching down slowly, one hand discarding her weapon on the ground while the other used the opportunity to pull out her throwing knife out of its holster. "Now turn around.", the gun poked her between her shoulder blades again, and she willed her heart to slow down, refused to let panic overtake her with her life on the line. She stood back up and spun around, in one swift move the blade was at the neck of the man holding her at gunpoint, giving her a leverage after being snuck on. "Technically, you did ask twice, you mo-", the words died in her mouth the second her eyes registered who standing in front of her. "Gray?", Calahan muttered in disbelief as he reached out, removing her cap, "It's you. You… WHAT THE HELL?" "Kid.", Sabrina withdrew her hand, shock washing over her at the realization how close she had been to injuring him and before she could react he had her enveloped in a hug, "You're okay. Thank fuck." Hartley held her at an arm length, eyes full of concern as he examined her all over to confirm his words. "I'm fine, Cal. Seriously.", she let out a relieved laugh as she sheathed her knife and bent back down to pick up her gun, "I should be the one asking if you're okay, I almost stabbed you in your carotid." "Not gonna lie, that was kind of hot.", the remark was followed by one of his usual winks.

Low whimpers behind her paired with paws scratching against metal snapped her back to reality, erasing the smile off her face, "We have to get Boomer out." One carefully aimed shot was all it took for the lock to give way, and Boomer wasted no time, rushing at her and almost knocking her to the ground the second she raised up the door of the cage. "Hey, Boom.", Sabrina crouched down and stroked him on the head, "At least you made it… for once, not everything was in vain." "I can't believe you're here. That you're actually okay. Fuck.", the way his voice shook took her aback, and she couldn't help but send a worried look over her shoulder, finding him staring at her like she would vanish if he lets her out of his sight. Eyes ran over his his denim jacket that had seen better days with a couple of faded crimson stains seeped into the light material, making her hope none the blood was his. A sniper rifle was strapped to his back, his weapon of choice he had used to take out all the Peggies around them shortly before her arrival and save her the trouble of having to face John's men. Now freed, Boomer had quieted down, standing close to her and watching the younger Deputy in anticipation, tail wagging slightly. "Who's a good boy?", he bent down, taking his turn to greet Boomer, then he turned to Sabrina, "Let's go inside, I have so many questions and so much to catch you up on." She winced, "I doubt you'd like anything I would tell you…" Calahan was the first to cross into Rae-Rae's home, his features twisting into a deep frown at the bullet holes marring the walls and doors, and the way the Peggies had wasted no time rummaging through the woman's belongings, strewing anything they hadn't deemed of use to the Project all over the place.

"Ryan?", Sabrina hollered, rushing to search each room, checking underneath the beds and any hiding spot big enough to conceal Rae-Rae's boy. Cal shook his head, "I don't think he's in here, Gray. Haven't see anyone aside from the Peggies and you. When I got to my spot, Rae-Rae was already dead." "Fuck." "Yeah, things are bad, but now that you're here, there's hope. You were always the voice of reason, keeping me in check…", he furrowed his brows, "I thought John Seed had caught you, Gray, that it's just me from all us not in the Seeds' clutches." Sabrina took a seat on the couch, while Boomer rested his head against her knee, the heartbroken look in his dark eyes making her wonder if he was aware of his beloved owner's fate. Her chest felt heavy and she dreaded having to break the news to Calahan as he paced around the living room, almost wearing a trail in Rae-Rae's carpet. "Cal, I-" "I kept hoping you'd meet up with me that goddamned morning, so many times I looked back, telling myself I would see you emerge from the shadows", his voice choked up, and he blinked rapidly before taking a deep breath, "I thought I lost you, Gray. First I feared you haven't managed to get away, then everyone kept telling me you probably died to a trigger happy Peggie… But I knew better, I felt it."

"Calahan.", Sabrina stopped him, "I didn't escape. Not really… I made it out of the helicopter, managed to crawl away with my head spinning like crazy, then John was there, looming over me with this victorious smirk like he'd finally brought a game to an end…" Something about the way she had said his name, caused Hartley to pause his pacing, "That bastard." "I tried to shoot him, Cal, but only ended up passing out at his feet." "So it was you on that road with him. I received intel about a sighting of you, with John Seed. I couldn't wrap my head around it… why you'd be there." She nodded, "I woke up in an empty cell at his bunker, kid. Ended up being escorted to a torture room-" Calahan's eyes shone with fury, "Did he lay a hand on you? First Hudson, now you, I swear, I'm doing my own version of a Cleansing the moment I see him." "Joey? What's happened to her?" He remained silent, heading for Rae-Rae's TV and turning it on as he said, "It might be better to see it with your own eyes. He's taking matters beyond what you call 'tasteless advertisement', Gray." John's face appeared on the screen, his piercing blue gaze making her shiver through the recording the same way it did in person anytime he would aim it her way. But this was another side of John, before her was the man that was the face of the Project, his act carefully crafted to lure you in, fool into false pretense of security and acceptance. Staring at him was like going for a swim in a the calmest of waters, submerging fully only to encounter the shark that was lurking beneath the surface all along. She used to naively joke about his billboards, about how bizarre his old broadcasts were. All that now felt like it was thousand years away, belonging in a simpler times.

"Even the Father knows deeply of sin. It's a poison,", the outfit he wore was the same one he had on as she sat in his horror movie worthy room, his plane jacket that she had seen in his office bearing a familiar dark stain, her blood. Somewhere along the way before their confrontation where she had figured out his identity, he had taken his time to film a new broadcast, even more chilling than any of his previous ones. He spoke of the "Power of Yes" in the same matter-of-fact, cheery tone he used in his address that was blasting outside the house. Then Joey appeared on screen and Sabrina choked back a sob at her state: the duct tape stuck on her mouth, mascara covered cheeks, fresh injuries that didn't seem to be from the crash alone. "No.", her eyes brimmed with tears like Hudson's, pain shooting through her heart as she faced the ugliness of reality. "He's been playing this on a loop all over the region. Calls me daily, taunting me about Hudson, my impending 'Cleansing' and how I'd be joining her soon so he can save my soul.", Cal muttered, fidgeting with his zippo lighter. Sabrina knew the clicks of it brought him comfort, helped him to keep his anger in check anytime it would reach a dangerous point. "I'm so sorry." "I watched that damned broadcast so many times, looking for you, hoping I've missed you in the crowd, praying I didn't because of what it would mean. I suspected he must have you after the way he stared at you in Joseph's church." "Stared at me how?", she asked in confusion, her time at the Compound feeling like a blur, as if covered in a fine layer of mist she couldn't quite push through. "Like you were his next meal.", Hartley gritted out.

"Cal." "What happened, Gray? Because I'm so lost and I need you to tell me Mary May ain't right to worry you've turned or have been playing us all along, working for Joseph." "You think we're safe in here? There's a lot to cover, kid." "As safe as we'd be in Holland Valley while John Seed is still breathing." "I just need you to remain calm and listen, okay? Promise me you will." Calahan rubbed at the stubble covering his jaw, "I will do my best. Can't promise my fist won't go through any walls, I'm barely holding it together here." As if sensing her unease, Boomer raised his head to glance at her, offering her silent support, "One of his men tied me to a chair, there was a table full of tools, hinting torture was next on the menu. I grabbed a knife, cut myself free, but the damned door was locked, Cal." Sabrina shivered as she recalled the long wait until John had finally shown up, how she had imagined any possible outcome and never making it to her sister. "I waited what felt like hours until John appeared, I was planning on killing him, I truly did. He stood between me escaping that bunker and getting back to Savannah." Calahan's eyes shifted to hers in panic, making Sabrina add, "She's okay, kid." "Thank God. I avoided your cabin, knowing the trouble it would bring to her and Ms. Darcy. Why isn't he dead, Gray?"

She took a deep breath, mentally preparing herself for Hartley to look at her like she's lost it after her next words. The truth sets you free, right? It certainly had with John… she was freer than most people in the Valley, it seemed. Or safer at least. "I've been having visions since I can remember, Cal. Glimpses… of the future, oftentimes I wouldn't be able to even place them or they'd be useless as seeing someone have a stupid, mundane conversation. This is the part where you tell me it's impossible? That I'm certified.", she let out a humorless laugh. Calahan shook his head as he finally sat down next to her, "You saw something at the church, didn't you? It why you hesistated to arrest the fucker. You were so damn pale." "I got a vision of the crash, how they were taking away the others. I tried to help, but-" "We didn't listen. Fuck. I'm so sorry, Gray." "I'm used to it by now. It's more surprising when people believe me.", she gave him a sad smile, "So anyway, John comes in, starts talking about how much he knows about me, how I'd confess all my secrets to him. Turns out telling him he won't be getting shit from me is the wrong thing to say, he lost it and got all up in my face, and all I could picture was slashing his throat, leaving him to bleed out. But then I saw his tattoos…" Hartley had grown restless the more she spoke, flicking his lighter open and closed at an alarming rate, the sound echoing as her words died down. Sabrina reached out, stopping the haunted movement, palm covering his hand.

"Throughout the years, I've seen a lot of things, there was something that remained a constant, a man, I could never quite see his face, Cal, but his tattoos are practically embedded in my mind by now." "No way. Those ugly ass scribbles he has going on?" Sabrina nodded, "It was his tattoos I was seeing all this time and it stopped me, made me doubt if I'd succeed at killing him, if it won't make things worse for me." Calahan had a strange look on his face, "Why?" "Because none of the visions involving him had taken place yet, which meant he would live." "This is… Jesus.", he shoved his free hand in his jacket pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and lit one quickly, taking a deep pull before muttering, "Forgive me, Rae-Rae." "I know. He asked me what I've seen at the church, suspecting something had happened. I came up with a plan… to use his curiosity, his hubris to my advantage. I needed to 'confess'." "Gray, that shit means nothing, those damned broadcasts about confessing your sins, confessing doesn't get you-" "Not my 'sins', kid, but about my ability, that I could be of use to him. I couldn't try to be a hero, I had to get back to my sister alive. And it worked… eventually he brought me to his office, and we made a deal for him to bring me to Savannah in exchange of knowledge." "You joined them?", Calahan's voice was cold, distant. "I didn't join anything. I offered him my notebooks where I kept notes of my past visions, he could have them all for all I cared. He met Savannah and I-I managed to convince him to not bring us back to that hellhole. She's at his ranch right now, I sneaked out because I saw a vision of Rae-Rae, hoped I'd be able to warn her.", tears were threatening to escape, to spill out like her words had, "But I was too late."

"This is insane. A deal?", he pushed off the couch, returning to pacing, concern mixing with his anger as he swiveled to face her, "How can you trust him? He fucking had you tied to a chair!" Sabrina bit her lip, "I know how it sounds, trust me. But it's the only choice I had and still have." "We can get her, Gray. Right fucking now. Have Savannah in Fall's End before John knows what hit him." "And then hide or constantly be on the run with him pissed off because I've broken our deal and fled?" His blue eyes darkened as he took another drag of his cigarette, "I told you I'd kill him, now feels like the perfect time. Bet it would be hard for him seek revenge when he's dead." The thought of the man she had looked for all these years getting killed by another that had become like family to her threatened to split her heart in two, "He's just one head of the snake, Joseph is the one pulling all the strings." The edge to his words chilled her to the bone, "I will see how old Joe likes it when I personally deliver his brother's corpse at his church's doors, no hiding behind a warrant or upholding the peace this time around. I'm torching the whole place to the ground, like they did with the Sheriff's. What I should have done long time ago, really." Something darker, haunting, filled with regret lurked behind his last remark. "No."

Sabrina got up too, trying to keep panic out of her voice, knowing it won't do her any good in her attempt to make him see reason, to stop him from rushing headfirst into his own demise and taking someone she cared for down with him. "You can't kill him." His laugh was void of any humor, "Can't? Or you don't want me to? Because take one look outside and what Joseph turned us all into - killers." "We can use him, make him see.", she steeled her gaze, "He's not too far gone." Or at least she hoped it was true, holding onto every moment they had shared that told her as much. "The guy that ties people to chairs in his bunker and carves sins into them ain't too far gone?", Calahan seemed less than convinced as he searched for something he could put his cigarette out on, finally dropping it into a half-empty cup of coffee. The same one Rae-Rae probably hadn't gotten the chance to finish when John's men had stormed her property, set on seeing their mission through. Carving? What the fuck are you doing, John? She avoided asking what he meant by it, sensing a landmine in hiding. "He's not-" "He's not what?", there was a disbelief in his tone when he cut her off. "I know it makes no difference, but he's not tying people up himself." "Great, so he's entitled on top of being a violent psycho. Must be all that money… fucking attorneys."

"Cal.", Sabrina pinched the bridge of her nose, watching him open and close Rae-Rae's cabinets on another hunt for God knew what, "Can you please just sit down, you're making me jittery as hell." "There you are.", he exlaimed as he pulled out a liquor bottle out of one of the cupboards, downing a drink before pouring himself another and walking back to the couch with the glass clutched in his hand like a lifeline, "Don't look at me like that. It ain't early for a drink now. And even if it was… I'd say the circumstances excuse it." "I'm not-,", she shook her head, "I'm worried about you, kid. Have you eaten-" Calahan walked over and pulled her into his embrace with his free hand, the scent of smoke wrapping around her like his arm did, "You're something else, you now that? You're basically a hostage and worrying about me eating." He pulled back, offering her a small smile, "Back to the 'John can be redeemed' argument now that I've gotten my dose of liquor courage. And look, I haven't even punched anything yet." She lowered herself back onto the couch, gaze focuse on Rae-Rae's backyard through one of the living room windows when Hartley took his previous seat next to her. "He hasn't 'carved' anything into me." A groan ripped free from his chest, "Yet." "There's a different side to him, one I'm willing to fight for." "You mean different than that?", Calahan pointed at the now muted TV playing John's broadcast on a neverending loop. "Yeah."

"In what way?", curiosity shone in his blue eyes. "He helped me make breakfast. He was worried about me when I got hurt and kept us out of that bunker." Hartley whistled, making Boomer's ears perk up as he remained curled up by the couch, "Romantic. Leslie can also make breakfast, you know? And better yet, he's not part of a cult." Sabrina blinked at the sudden mention of her ex-partner, the squeak of the front door as it swung open, making both of them jump from their sitting position and point their guns at whoever had decided to try sneaking up on them. "Cal, you in here?" It was as if time stood still where she stared at the man that filled up the entryway of Rae-Rae's house. Where she told herself what she was witnessing was impossible. Then one simple word sprung her into action. "Rina?" Sabrina was rounding the couch the second her nickname rolled off his lips, and Leslie set off towards her too, meeting her halfway. An arm snaked around her waist, the other holding a shotgun while her hands clutched at his leather jacket. "What are you doing here?", the question was met with his laughter, and she couldn't help but blink back another wave of tears that wanted to escape. "What do you think?", she pulled out of his embrace, her eyes meeting his, "I came to see you."

A fake cough sounded behind them, "Just reminding you two I'm here in case a make-out session ensues…" Sabrina spun on her heel, "Why didn't you tell me, kid?" "You found her.", Leslie chimed in at the same time. "Sure, I will take the credit.", Calahan raised his glass and took a generous sip, "Now, sit down, chief. Gray was in the middle of telling me all about John Seed's 'sweet side'." Parish complied, perching himself on one of the armrests of the couch while she stared at the two of them, shock coursing through her system. "John? Sweet?", he frowned as he patted the empty space next to him, and Sabrina shuffled over reluctantly, "Why were you two talking about that fucker?" Calahan left his glass at the coffee table that was moved away from her usual spot by the couch and lit up another cigarette, "Well, well, well, fuck me, if things ain't about to get interesting. The next couple of minutes consisted of her catching Leslie up on the attempted escape, her short stay at the bunker and finally coming clean about her visions. "So this is how you knew Kim will be having a baby girl?", Parish asked as he accepted the drink Hartley had poured for him, "Why didn't you tell me, Rina?" "I was afraid…", she muttered slowly, gaze glued to the intricate pattern on the carpet below her feet, "that you would look at me differently or worse, not believe me at all."

His hand came to rest on top of hers, "You know me better than that." "I do." "And John… is the 'mystery man'? You two haven't met before you moved here." She nodded and offered him a sad smile. "You're certain it's him?" "I am." Leslie rubbed at his lip, a telltale sign he was deep in thought, whispering a quiet, "Fuck." Calahan was sitting down on the floor a few feet away from them, cross legged, stroking Boomer's head as the canine snuggled against his knee, "Speaking of Johnny… how are your breakfast making skills, chief?" Sabrina's eyes widened, "Don't start." A wicked grin was pointed her way, hinting at his intentions, "Can't do. Tell me, Gray, have you noticed perhaps that Leslie here looks like a certain someone?" It was Leslie's turn to send him a look of warning, "Cal. I do not." "He practically can be John's double, unfortunate fate considering the current state of the County." She crossed her arms over her chest, "Les looks nothing like John." The words won a grateful smile from Parish, "Thank you, Rina." "Tell that to all the folks I had to stop from killing him,", Calahan paused, "you're welcome by the way." Her face twisted in concern, "People have been threatening you?" "It's fine. Nothing I can't handle." "Wouldn't call it fine.", Calahan argued, "But my point is… you have a perfect John candidate, Sabrina, sitting right next to you."

Parish finally brought the glass he'd been holding up to his lips, "We're not going there." "Absolutely not going there.", Sabrina repeated for good measure. "You sure?", Hartley cocked his head to the side, "He's also taller than good old Johnny, has a voice that doesn't grate my ears, especially when he says 'Deputy'." She rolled her eyes, "I happen to like his voice, thank you very much." The moment the words left her mouth, she wanted to slap a hand over it, especially with how his lips twisted into a devilish smirk, "You sure about that? Check back with me when it turns out he chants 'Yes' over and over when he comes…", his voice pitched in an attempt to mimic John's, something she wished to unhear, "'Yes, Deputy. I'm so close. YES. YES. YES.'" By then Leslie's glass was empty, and she was tempted to pour herself a drink as well, "Cal." "What? You two think he doesn't? I'd go as far as to bet on it. Bastard sure loves the word." "I really don't want to visualize my best friend in bed with another man." Sabrina hitched her thumb towards him, "Exactly." Calahan chuckled darkly, "Though luck, chief. Your best friend has been seeing it for years." "Calahan!" "Look at me,", he pointed at his eyes, "and tell me you haven't, not once, seen a vision of Johnny in a compromising position. The noisy part of me wants to know, you know… but then when I think more about it, I feel like puking."

"I haven't.", she retorted quickly, cheeks heating up at the lie. "Liar." "Drop it, Calahan." "The more you deny it, the less I believe it's all innocent, Gray. How R-rated did it get, though?" All he got as reply was silence. "Fucking ew. That bad?", his first covered his mouth, before he muttered to himself, "Johnny must have some hidden moves." "Calahan." Leslie cleared his throat, running a hand over his face in exasperation, "Can we change the subject?" "Sure.", Calahan said with a nonchalant shrug, "I can just circle to it later. Now that I have you here, Leslie, maybe you could get it through her skull that she can't be staying with him at his ranch. Deal of protection and spicy visions be damned." "Where have you been staying, kid?", Sabrina uttered out. He scrunched his nose, "Mary May's couch, turns out my cabin has an cult infestation problem, thankfully Zorro held the fort until I arrived. Haven't slept that well with people getting snatched and killed left and right…" "Exactly. I can't risk Savannah's life. You know how they say, 'Better the devil I know, that the one I don't'? John's that. A safer alternative than the unknown." "How safe of an option is he really, Rina?"

Calahan chimed in, pulling out his lighter again, watching the small flame dancing before he extinguished it, "I just can't imagine you and Savannah under the same roof with that bastard." "He's actually different around her. It's kind of scary how easy he switches roles. From this,", she gestured to the TV, "to a man that carries me to bed because he refuses to let me sleep outside. 'Can't let a bear eat me.', he said." "Have you though even for a second he might be playing you. Trying to lure you in, so you join the fucking cult." "I won't. And I don't think he is…" Hartley rolled his eyes, sending a pleading look towards Leslie who remained awfully quiet, "For fuck's sake. Help me over here, Parish." "He hasn't told Joseph about me, Calahan. He's keeping it a secret, keeping my visions a secret." "Or he's lying, and they're both laughing at how trusting you are." "No." "How can you be sure?", he scoffed, "The bastard is a master manipulator, a sleazy lawyer that stole half the County's land for the goddamned Project and had Whitehorse shaking in his boots, and you… are next on his to-do list. Literally too, I guess." "That was something Joseph put him up to. Me… if he really knew about my visions, I'd be dead by now. Even John couldn't deny it." "Good old Joseph, oh, how he'd lose his mind if he learns 'God' has been showing visions of his brother fornicating to someone else, he'd probably die from the shock before I have the chance to kill him.", he narrowed his eyes, a look of disgust passing over his features again. "Can you please stop talking about me and him in that way?" Leslie spoke up for the first time in forever, "Dito."

"Sorry, Gray. But I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact you like the guy… with his weird fashion sense, questionable siblings and, I don't know, the giant knock-off of the Hollywood sign he had them Peggies built for him." "You're forgetting the billboards." "Thanks, chief. Billboard, broadcasts,", Calahan blew the flame of his lighter, watching it come to life again, "posters of his face all around his bunker, I'm being told by trusted sources. That true?" "Yeah. I saw a couple." His eyes lit up all of sudden, "Oakley bet me $50 a while back that he has a sex room in the ranch." "Are you for real?" "As serious as me promising I'd be setting his 'YES' sign on fire and taking selfies underneath it, perfect lighting and all that. So, does he?" "As far as I know… no?" "Not a definitive answer then?" Leslie got up without a word and walked out into the backyard, the two watching him as sat onto the picnic table there with his back to them. Calahan released a laugh, "I think he had enough of me." "You think?" "Now it's just us…", he lowered his voice, "Those visions… was Johnny that good, promise I won't tell a soul?" "Focus." "Yes or no?"

Tagging, @poisonedtruth @direwombat @adelaidedrubman @josephslittledeputy @josephseedismyfather @trench-rot @g0dspeeed @madparadoxum @purplehairsecretlair @aceghosts @shegetsburned @jillvalentinesday @nightbloodbix @wrathfulrook @florbelles @corvosattano @voidika @theelderhazelnut @chazz-anova @clicheantagonist @cassietrn @stacispratt @simplegenius042 @thesingularityseries @eclecticwildflowers @dumbassdep and anyone that would like to share a wip ❤️

[tragicbeauty1991]

So I know I’m extremely late to the party, but I FINALLY got around to watching Wish now that it’s up on Disney+ and…I genuinely don’t understand why it got so much hate?? Sure, maybe it wasn’t on par with things like The Lion King or Frozen in terms of the lasting effect it’ll have on pop culture but it was still a good, fun film with original characters and plot and catchy songs. While I can see where some of the complaints are coming from, I feel like ultimately most of them blow the issues out of proportion. As for my personal thoughts on the film…

- The songs were good overall. Maybe not as memorable as some of my favorite ‘90s Disney jams, but topping Phil Collins and Elton John is admittedly hard to do. Ariana DeBose and Chris Pine were great, though. I honestly had no idea Chris Pine could sing so well. “At All Costs” was by far my favorite song of the entire film. I would have loved to see it as a love duet rather than singing to the wishes but regardless, it’s beautiful. “This is the Thanks I Get” got a lot of flak, but honestly, I thought it was catchy and fun—rather reminiscent of Gaston’s pub song about himself.

- Speaking of Magnifico… More backstory, please! I would love for a sequel to do what they did with Frozen and explain all the things that were not fully developed in the first film. I want to know details on what happened to Magnifico’s family… But man, oh man… Was I EVER happy to get a “real villain” again with more of a classic Disney feel—dramatic, over the top, a little unhinged…and just FUN. I think the reason so many people seem to be having a problem with him is that they don’t quite know how to categorize him, though, before his ultimate downward spiral after being possessed by the book. (I think after that point, no one would argue about him being a villain.) But before…while he’s definitely narcissistic and has a temper…he’s not straight-up evil. There’s a big difference in being a bit of a jerk and being someone who makes you legitimately fear for your life. In fact, we have several heroic characters in the Disney canon who at least start out their story in a similar vein. Prince Naveen, Peter Pan, and Emperor Kuzco, for example, are all full of themselves and entitled…but they ultimately choose to do the right thing when it comes down to people they care about. That is to say, Magnifico’s less than ideal character traits we see early on in the film shouldn’t automatically qualify him as a villain. He could frankly go either way. And then when he does “go dark” it’s ONE stupid decision on his part (going for the book) that ruins any chance he had of being like the aforementioned characters. Personally, I like the complexity…and the tragedy of what it means for Queen Amaya. Which reminds me…

- Yes, a villain power couple would have been fun. But honestly, I think I like this better. Partly because of the angst potential here. For all his faults, Amaya DOES genuinely love him, and watching him slowly lose his mind and himself to the power-hungry monster he becomes has to be absolutely heartbreaking for her. Also…maybe it’s just because I identify with Amaya here. I have been in a bad relationship where I did truly love the other person and thought they loved me…but ultimately, they seemed to love themselves more. And I made excuse after excuse for his behavior for a long time because I couldn’t see what he was doing to me…didn’t want to see it…because I loved him. People say Amaya had to have known sooner that something rotten was going on but I don’t know that she ever allowed herself to think anything other than the best of him. Amaya has a good heart…and sometimes those people see the best in others even when it isn’t there. What I really would have loved is to have Amaya and Magnifico sing a short reprise of “At All Costs” in which Amaya is asking, “Really? You’ll hoard all these wishes for your own selfish reasons even at the cost of losing your people’s love? Of losing me?” And Magnifico is just…stoically resolute. That would have hurt but it would have been so good!

- Similarly, I don’t get the complaint about Star. I wouldn’t mind seeing Star Boy like he was in the concept art and having a romance with Asha. But also…Star is ADORABLE, okay?? He may not speak but he has so much personality. Makes me think of like…Pascal in Tangled or even Tinkerbell.

- I know a lot of people complained about there being too many references to other Disney films but this just seems like a silly argument to me. Disney has always liked to leave little Easter eggs in their films and have some fun with crossovers. I am thinking of the Genie imitating Pinocchio and pulling Sebastian out of nowhere in Aladdin. Hidden characters in the background of other films like Flynn and Rapunzel showing up in Arendelle. Hidden Mickeys. And of course shows that were all about a Disney multi-verse that sort of pokes fun at itself like Once Upon a Time, House of Mouse, and even Ralph Breaks the Internet. With this being a special anniversary film, of course we ought to expect more nods to other films and Disney animation history. I thought it was cute. Especially Magnifico’s jab at Asha’s little moving drawing. (“Is that a talent?”) Made me literally laugh out loud.

- I think the one complaint I do agree with at least in part is the, “But Magnifico was right, though??” Some dreams shouldn’t come true. Especially if it’s a wish you’re making when you’re 18. There are definitely things I wished for at 18 that I am glad I did not get in hindsight. Sometimes what we wish for isn’t what’s best for us or others. And while Asha’s wishes are selfless and for others…she seems to assume that everyone else will also have equally harmless, selfless wishes. It’s sweet but perhaps a bit naive. Also…Asha has good intentions but it is rather funny and frustrating as the adult to watch this teenager come in and try to upset the whole system thinking she knows better than the person who has been running the kingdom for years. That said… Asha isn’t totally wrong either. The wishes do ultimately belong to the people who made them and it’s better even if it’s painful to have a dream in your heart than to be lacking purpose. It may be easier to forget the wishes entirely but certainly not healthier. Ironically, if only these two could have worked together, they actually would have made a great team.

Overall, I liked the film. And I think if I was still a child myself, I would have enjoyed it even more.

[aifsaath]

I am continuously perplexed at how a show as objectively bad and problematic as hotd keeps inspiring outstanding fanfics like yours and @gwenllian-in-the-abbey’s. Truly it’s a mystery to me, especially considering that the books covering the dance are supposed to be quite mediocre as well from what I’ve perceived. Just so you know,with that trailer out now I’m gonna completely blend out the events of the show and consider our fathers clad in red canon

@gwenllian-in-the-abbey AAAAAAAAAAAAAA, I think George's gonna order a hit on us:D

I'm glad you like our slightly destructive approach to teh canon. I'm mostly fueled by spite and my dislike for George's and HBO's complete disregard for the historical context of the stuff they draw their inspiration from (you can't do the Matilda vs Stephen showdown and expect the same sense of injustice, when your main conflict is about Viserys' imbecilic approach to rules, Rhaenyra's weak-ass claim and papa/dragons being her go-to solution to all her problems, Daemon being a chaos gremlin, Corlys' malignant ambition and the Hightowers being the only ones who actually care about the rule of law.)

A lesbian romance doesn't automatically turn a story into a feminist manifesto, nor does a girlboss who's treated by the narrative as the second coming of Christ. Context matters and it's a mistake to view the Dance through the lens of modern ideals about egalitarianism.

GRRM's hubris when it comes to "Aragorn's tax policies" is just another thing that enrages me and Gwenllian, because the man completely misunderstands the medieval legal codes. Just because they were complex that doesn't mean they were fucking contradictory on their own; no one wanted civil wars breaking out each time a monarch died.

Problems happened when two countries with generational beefs worked on two different principles of succession, ie. England (male-preference primogeniture) vs France (male-only primogeniture), or if there was some dynastic fuckery that completely messed up the clear-cut succession lines with usurpations and cousin marriages (Yorks vs Lancasters).

Had Richard II (the son of the Black Prince) died peacefully without issue, the succession would have followed through the line of the Duke of Clarence, with Edmund the Earl of March eventually becoming the king (and he was Richard's heir, btw).

But that's not what happened. The son of John of Gaunt usurped the throne and it was then passed down through his line, because he was the crowned king. Now, you can argue whether or not he had any right to do the usurpation in the first place and whether or not he was the legitimate king and you bet people back then argued about that too. This ambiguity is how you create a proper narrative about actually conflicting claims. The only thing propping up Rhaenyra against her brother is the fact that Viserys is a moron.

How the fuck can I take F&B seriously and without the Dead Sea's worth of salt, when it pretty much blows Jaehaerys' posthumous dick about his wisdom when he "let" the council of 101 decide the succession (while politely ignoring the fact that Jaehaerys' own claim is legit only in the cases of either full salic or semi-salic succession, ie male-only), while never once it calls out Viserys out on his extremely dangerous decision. He gets to die venerated as the peaceful grandpa and all the blame for his incompetence is piled on Aegon II and Alicent.

Let's go through the possible succession systems, shall we?

If we follow male-preference primogeniture, the legitimate line of kings ends with Aerea because she was the eldest child of Aegon the Uncrowned, Maegor's eldest nephew. Only after she and her sister die without issue, Jaehaerys can become the king. Jaehaerys' canon ascension works only because Rhaena gave up her daughters' claims. The next in line would be Aemon and after him Rhaenys. But that's not what happened.

If we follow the salic law (male only), the legitimate line of the kings goes Aegon I -> Aenys I -> Aegon Uncrowned -> Jaehaerys I -> Viserys I -> Aegon II. This is probably what Jaehaerys wanted to ensure, since he challenged Maegor's kingship in the first place.

If a crowned king can choose his heir, then Jaehaerys was never a legitimate king and Aerea was the true queen, because Maegor, who had won his crown in the trial by combat, chose her as his heir.

What about the principle of seniority? Cognatic seniority where men and women have equal claims is out of the question since Aegon I was the crowned king, not Visenya. Male-only seniority would go Aegon I -> Aenys I -> Maegor I (uncontested!) -> Aegon Crowned This Time -> Viserys the Not Tortured to Death -> Jaehaerys I -> Aemon (only if his uncle Viserys has no issue) -> Baelon -> Vaegon -> Viserys I -> Daemon (EW).

Notice the distinct lack of Rhaenyra.

Team Black keeps mentioning the widow's law, but that's a bulk of nonsense. I suppose the misunderstanding originates from a (willful) misinterpretation of this passage. The book says:

Now, I highly doubt Jaehaerys intended for the law to mean that a daughter from the first marriage should come before the sons from the second. The wording is a bit unlucky, but I suppose the intention was to establish the legal position of the second wife and her children as united with the position of her step-children - she has the same duties towards them as if they were own, and the same goes the other way. Which would make sense. Because otherwise, no one would be desperate enough to marry a widower with daughters. Since we know that title and land ownerships have remained in the same families without changing hands once or twice since the implementation of the law, I really doubt the team black's literal interpretation of the passage was the one intended. Ffs, Viserys was pushed to marry again because he had only one daughter, meaning, this law wasn't viewed the way the Team Black wishes for. And I'm not even delving into the fact that this would be a female inheritance hack penned by Jaehaerys, if that was the case. Talk about ooc.

So, yeah, we're taking Gyldayne's interpretation of the past with so much salt our hearts are gonna fail.

[shizucheese]

Hey guys! It me, "The Magnus Institute is a part of not just the Eye but the Web" girl, here with some thoughts and a new theory for the consideration of the Red String Comity. Come step into a curated (for your safety and sanity) corner of my mind as I walk you through my thought process: First, some further evidence that the Web was tied to the Magnus Institute in TMA all along: in MAG193, it's mentioned that Elias doesn't remember ever sending his CV to the Magnus Institute. Web. In Mag056, when Martin confesses he lied on his CV, he mentions that "for some reason" his lie about parapsychology got him an interview with Elias. Now, I always assumed that this was because Elias/ Jonah knew his secret and the Eye likes secrets, but like...How did Martin know to apply there in the first place? Why was that the only place where he got an interview?

Now I'd like to bring your attention to the below sticker. I have this same sticker on my laptop because as someone on the Ace spectrum John and Martin's relationship is everything to me. For anyone who needs a refresher, the quote is something John says to Martin in S5. Obviously the teacup represents Martin. But let's talk about that thing coming out of the teacup, hm? The thing that's supposed to represent John? I've always tried to rationalize it as "lol it's just some kind if Eye creature, that's not a spider..." but guys....that's totally a spider, right?

Now here's why this is so huge: this isn't fanart someone turned into a sticker. This is a sticker from Rusty Quill's very own RedBubble shop.

It's official merch. Official merch "designed and sold by RustyQuill" represents John as a spider creature covered in eyes.

They've been telling us this the entire time guys! Now, I need to give @amanda-519 credit for setting my mind down this next path. These are the tags they used when they reblogged my previous post on this topic:

Now, this got me thinking about all of the Avatars we met in TMA and like....

We know from Mag 102 that the Corruption can manifest as unhealthy relationships, which I would argue would include infatuation and obsession.

And like....was Jude's infatuation with Agnes really all that different? It's what drew her into The Desolation in the first place, so could we not argue that she was a mix of the Desolation and the Corruption? (Like....the destructiveness of infatuation? Corruption leading to Desolation?) And like I've always assumed the reason why Oliver became an Avatar of the End is because of his association with Graham and what happened to him resulting in Oliver being touched by The End, but like...does that actually make sense? They were already broken up and he had 0 involvement with Graham being taken by the Not Them. But like Graham's circumstances are also kinda weblike, no? The Web includes the fear of being forced to do something against one's own will, and Graham went through some pretty extreme measures to try and escape his powers. And then his efforts to escape ultimately lead to the events that turned him into a full fledged Avatar. Was Graham also a part of the web? Or were the circumstances of him becoming an Avatar of the End basically the result of him being the Web's victim?

And the whole concept of the Unknowing is pretty weird, huh? Like...I can't be the only one that looks at what happens to people who get trapped in the Unknowing and thinks that it feels awfully "Spiral-like" right? (or, for that matter, that The Desolation has some elements of the Stranger to it).

John Amherst was an Avatar of The Corruption, but unlike Jane, whose main interest seemed to be spreading and expanding the Flesh Hive, Amherst's form of Corruption seemed awfully End-flavored. When we first meet him in TMA, it's at a Nursing home where his spread of infection results in the death of all of the residents. In Mag68, Tale of a Field Hospital, the accounts about Amherst are all about him dying and then showing up again; in the second story, the people who end up in the bed Amherst is supposed to be in keep dying; the statement giver who gave the book to the Institute dies a few days later after, having cut himself on the pages of the book. The illness he spreads in the town where he ultimately dies kills the victims horrifically. The bug he is most affiliated with are flies, which are known to flock to dead bodies and are therefore associated with death. Okay now after all of that word vomit, here's the epiphany that I had and the actual point of this post:

For some reason my mind kept straying back to Jude and her infatuation with Agnes and how that might have made her part of the Corruption, and the different ways the Corruption might have been involved in other ways, and then I remembered that theory going around that in TMP the Fears are becoming Obsessions. This theory never sat well with me because in TMA, all of the Avatars were obsessed with something. Most of them were obsessed with their Entity and bringing it into the world. Jude, as previously mentioned, was obsessed with Agnes. Simon was obsessed with the sky. Mike was obsessed with freeing himself of the Spiral manifestation that'd been tormenting him since childhood. Oliver was obsessed with running away from his powers and John was obsessed with finding out what the fuck was going on. There were also plenty of non-avatar characters that were obsessed; The guy in Mag90: Body Builder was obsessed with his body and making it look how he wanted to. The guy from Mag102 Nesting Instinct and his petite scarabée. I could go on.

And then it clicked: Obsession is a form of Corruption. We know that the Corruption can manifest as unhealthy love and companionship. But what is "unhealthy love" if not a form of obsession? Obsession sinks its teeth into you and takes over your life and can lead you to your own destruction. In other words, its corrupts you. Which is exactly what happens in pretty much all of the statements we've gotten so far in TMP. The Corruption is up to something. Idk what or why, but I think that in the same way the Web's influence was all over TMA if you know to look for it, the Corruption is all over TMP. Is it just a season 1 thing? Is it going to be the Big Player in the whole series? Are the Avatars (?) we've encountered so far--Ink5oul, The Merchant, Movie Theater Man-- part of the Corruption as well as the more obvious Entities they serve-- The Flesh, The End/ The Slaughter, The Eye--or are they only servants of those respective Entities and the Corruption is swooping in later and poisoning things?

[valle-de-sombra-de-muerte]

Homestuck Reread: Act 1

I'm gonna strap in and do a Homestuck reread. I first read the comic when I was 17, and now I'm gonna be 31 in a month. During that time, my opinions on it have varied heavily, so let's see if I can properly collate my thoughts about this comic that has dominated a good chunk of my life.

I actually did give it a reread back in 2021, but I never wrote down any notes about it. Time to correct that mistake.

Right away we're introduced to John Egbert, a character that I've also held differing opinions about during my time in the fandom. I've gone from thinking he's boring, to one of the strongest characters in the story, and back to boring again several times. I hope I can get a more coherent grasp on our ostensible protagonist.

Well, I think it's noteworthy that his introduction page doesn't mention pranks or comedy as one of his interests. Being a goofy prankster is one of his defining character traits, yet the closest thing to that is this mention that he aspires to be a magician.

John's "magic chest" is full of novelty items, so it's easy to see why this dream of being a magician was supplanted with a love of pranks so early on. Hussie conflates close-up magic with practical jokes, and while superficially similar, they're definitely not the same thing.

I think John's "passion for really terrible movies" is the one consistent trait he carries throughout the comic. (And yeah, Mac and Me, Con Air, and Deep Impact all suck shit. John really does have atrocious taste). I don't believe we see any further references to programming, paranormal stuff, magic, or games after this act. Both this and the love of pranks are what solidify John's enduring characteristic of being a light-hearted cornball.

The beauty of user-suggested commands leads to this funny juxtaposition. This also establishes early on that John is easily suggestible; even an absurd command like this is able to tempt him just a tiny bit. This trait (for better or for worse) is one I'd argue is also a key part of John's character, as we'll see later on.

A joke like this was only really possible during these initial months of Obama's presidency. It's funny how it retroactively dates this comic.

John (and I suppose the rest of the kids as well) only has three friends added on his chat client. That's depressing. I wasn't a very sociable kid myself at his age, but I definitely had more than three friends on MSN back in the day. All of whom I met online.

Dave is introduced in the very first pesterlog and already we can see that John is a very annoying person to talk to. Even though he opens the conversation by bringing up Little Monsters, he feels the need to name drop the movie a second time just in case Dave didn't get the reference the first time (which he obviously did, given his response). He's very eager to talk about his special interests, I guess.

This is the first time Rose (TT) is mentioned. Very interesting that the first thing we learn about her is that she apparently has been "mackin on" Dave and asking him to play Sburb with her. Even though Dave is likely embellishing for comedic effect, it tells us that they have a very close relationship, given that he's the first person she asks to play the game with. Also DaveRose Nation has been eating since Page 35 lol.

In the same pesterlog, we get this line where Dave mentions how impractical the strife specibus is, since people obviously aren't regularly engaging in combat. These video game mechanics that seemingly everyone abides by have no practical function in their everyday lives. Clearly world building was not Hussie's first priority when writing this comic.

Correct, John. It really doesn't matter what the characters select as their strife specibus, since combat becomes increasingly irrelevant going forward. Ironically prescient comment.

The GameBro article is hilarious. I love you Dennis, you huge useless tool. Did you know that Dennis from GameBro has his own tag on AO3? I encourage everyone to go read the handful of stories on there because they're all super good.

John has the audacity to call his dad a cornball for liking harlequins, all while he's standing there wearing Groucho Marx glasses and a wizard hat. It's telling of his lack of self-awareness and disdain for other forms of humor that don't align with his own (i.e. lowbrow) tastes.

Here Hussie take a Shakespeare quote and misattributes it to Mark Twain. It's kind of a whatever joke, not really that funny. But then he does it again.

And then again!

Is this gag really that funny that it warrants being done three times in the same act? I think it's fucking lame.

Rose's first pesterlog. From the context here, it seems she and Dave had an off-screen conversation where he told her about John's gift. Her incessant flirting with Dave is also so well known in their friend group that John feels the need to bring it up right away. Jeez DaveRosers can't stop winning.

Note that Rose says "John" here while in the earlier log, Dave refers to Rose as "TT". John also calls her "TT" in a later log. As we later find out, all the kids already know each other's names. The only reason they refer to each other by their screen names is because their intro pages had yet to be released and the audience doesn't know their names yet. I get it, but it does read a little silly in-universe.

Awesome advert. God bless you, GameBro Magazine. BROBLERONE

This page is funny if only because I doubt the majority of Homestuck readers realize that the last paragraph is basically describing a lazy black man. How many of them will read "tawny gent" and "listless octoroon" and think they're just nonsense words?

"Caret Cake" hah okay that's a good one.

Wouldn't it have been crazy if John's missing chunk of hair remained that way until he got a command to fix it or something? But I guess that would've been too much effort for Hussie.

After a bunch of sylladex shenanigans (which I haven't mentioned because I don't find them very amusing. They make up a huge chunk of this act too, which is annoying.) John has finally installed the Sburb Beta. We're not told anything about this game except what is told in the spotty GameBro review, which describes it as some kind of game similar to The Sims where you "play house." And yes, it does resemble The Sims build mode, but this video game affects real life! Rose sets about manipulating objects in John's room and even alters the dimensions of his own house.

John's reaction is... well...

He's not at all fazed that Rose is manipulating reality before his eyes? Are all video games in Homestuck's world like this? I mean, if every character has an inventory system with built-in combat mechanics, it might make sense? This is never properly conveyed though, and it comes across as rather off-putting.

I think this is where the flaws in John's character become really apparent. He's very... underwhelming. He's almost always in this weird neutral state and rarely expresses any strong emotions. When he's frustrated, it's more of a mild annoyance or a temporary freakout before springing back to this basic... I don't even want to call it a "positive outlook" it really does feel like he's in this perpetually neutral state of mind until an external stimulus forces him to act. No thoughts are going on in this boy's head.

Hell, even when he's excited about something, it's only sort of temporary before he moves on to the next thing. He comes across as very emotionally stunted and it's hard to connect with him.

Is there a reason Rose is fucking around with the bathtub? It's not in response to a command, she just does it. She doesn't explain what she was trying to do with it, and only apologizes for dropping it in the middle of the hall since she was intending to move it to the driveway before her connection was interrupted. (The driveway bit was actually a command, but initially clicking on the tub wasn't.)

This insanely out of pocket quote has to be a top 10 Rose moment for sure. John's uncomfortable reaction seals this exchange.

Here's where John calls Rose "TT" as I mentioned earlier. Also, no Dave, you did not tell him to steer clear of the game. In fact, you were the one who suggested he play it with Rose. So why are you acting all weird and telling him to avoid her altogether? My guy, are you jealous or something?

Planet Fucking Jupiter is a top 10 Dave moment for sure.

We get to properly meet Rose. The fact that she hides stuff from the reader and doesn't fully obey some commands tells us that she's definitely not as suggestible as John. It's also funny how she refuses to use her arms at all in response to "Retrieve arms," instead using her legs to hide the box.

Man what's up with this Sims-ass architecture? An outdoor walkway with no railing? And with the weather outside, it's a wonder she didn't slip and fall to her death.

The first "End of Act Flash" is okay. John is faced with the final seconds of the countdown while a suspenseful track by Mark Hadley plays in the background. It's okay, I don't have anything else to say about it.

Overall Act 1 is kinda dull. I know there are people who swear by it, who claim that this is "peak Homestuck," but it's not for me. There are funny moments to be sure, but I can only put up with sylladex shenanigans for so long before things go stale. The biggest issue is that John is not at all an engaging protagonist. He has no agency and feels more like a prop for both Rose and the reader to boss around.

I think this Act suffers from Hussie trying to re-implement the same kind of adventure game format and jokes he used in Problem Sleuth, but it doesn't really work in Homestuck. The characters in Homestuck have actual dialogue and are supposed to be more fleshed out, unlike the comparatively flat characters that comprise the roster of PS.

Don't get me wrong, I adore PS and I don't think the lack of character depth is a detriment. Rather, it helps to put more emphasis on the overarching plot and wacky puzzle solving. It's established that Problem Sleuth is "hard-boiled detective", Ace Dick is "dumb muscle", and Pickle Inspector is "meek and fragile" and the reader doesn't expect them to act outside of their tropes. They truly feel like video game characters that the reader is supposed to control, using their different strengths to progress through the story.

John's problem is that he is ostensibly supposed to read like a 13 year old boy with hobbies and aspirations, but his suggestible nature makes him read more like a robot that blindly follows orders. Homestuck Act 1 wants to have both the wacky adventure game story and more fleshed out characters, but the end result isn't nearly as impressive. Either commit to making another PS-style story where the characters are vessels for the reader's control, or a plot where the characters have actual agency. Taking half-measures like this only creates bad results.

Hoo man this reread is getting off on the wrong foot. Hopefully the next Act is able to salvage things!

Read the next post here.

[jurgan]

Slay the Princess and Process Theology

“You’re on a path in the woods. And at the end of that path is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is a princess. You’re here to slay her. If you don’t, it’ll be the end of the world.”

“Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” -Matthew 9:13

I recently listened to a sermon about “process theology,” a subject of which I know little. The shortest summary I can give is that it holds God is not absolutely constant but changes in response to actions of humans and the wider world. This idea has quite a bit of biblical support- both Moses and Abraham successfully argue God into changing his mind, and Jesus at one point appears racist, calling a foreign woman a “dog” before being argued out of it. The preacher kept apologizing for the subject being dry and esoteric, but I was on the edge of my seat. He stated that people often see the God they expect to see, and that got me thinking about Slay the Princess. StP is a game I have played through several times over the past few months. I don’t want to get overly specific in case anyone reading wants to give it a shot, and its meaning is vague enough that each player will see it their own way. It’s a pretty easy game to play; there’s no real challenge, it’s more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book where the story unfolds and frequently stops to give you a list of options for how it should proceed.* What is interesting is that the Princess acts in response to your actions even if she couldn’t know what they were. For instance, if you approach her with a knife in hand, she is suspicious and cold, whereas if you approach unarmed she is hopeful and warm. This is not because she sees what you are doing, but because your own expectations color how you see her.

Through multiple replays, it becomes clear that the Princess is not one thing, but that she shifts between different appearances based on your own choices. There is a give and take between Player and Princess where each affects the other and is affected in turn. The third actor is the mysterious Narrator who instructs you to slay the princess with the claim that doing so will “save the world.” While he can occasionally force you to act, for the most part he is limited to trying to talk you into seeing things his way, and the Princess conversely tries to talk you out of killing her. The power of “persuasion” is, to my understanding, a major part of Process Theology. Each time you play the game, the Princess will seem different. It becomes clear that she is not a mere person, but something greater that you can only see one aspect of at a time.

“We are oceans reduced to shallow creeks.”

Am I saying the Princess is God? Maybe? There are a lot of valid interpretations, but this one might track. You’d have to play the game to decide for yourself, but what it comes down to is that her existence is only meaningful in relation to the player. These contrasts fill our lives. In Genesis, God separates the water from the land, yet the two are never truly separate. The world is full of these contrasts that aren’t really in conflict. Matter and energy. Particles and waves. The holy and the broken. The philosopher Heraclitus (thought to be an inspiration for the Gospel of John) was taken by the idea of “unity of opposites.” The player and the Princess are constantly at odds, yet their conflict defines each other.

“There is no constant! There is no center! Everything that is exists only in relation to everything that isn’t!”

And the world around you both also changes depending on how your relationship develops. Sometimes she is powerful and godlike and the cabin becomes a temple, sometimes she is vicious and feral and it becomes a cave. Sometimes you close yourself off to her, sometimes you become so close as to be inseparable.

“Does it matter where one thing begins and another ends?”

There is in fact a sort of theology in the game, a conflict between the Shifting Mound and the Long Quiet. The former is dynamic and impermanent, the latter static and immortal. You have the option of choosing between the two at the end, and neither can be reduced to good or evil. The Quiet is the traditional Platonic view of God as “immortal, unchanging,” while the Mound is the relational God of Process Theology. But the Mound allows for change and growth, while the Quiet promises a sort of eternal dullness. And if God values relationships and growth, the same must be true of us.

*https://www.slaytheprincess.com/ for a trailer and information about how to play. It’s available on Steam now.

[kellyvela]

Someone is still mad about this post:

What happens with certain shippers (Jon/aunty & Jon/fave sister) and Justin Sweet's asoiaf artworks???

First they claimed that Justin Sweet's renditions of Joshua York & Jon Snow hanging next to each other in GRRM's home office confirms that Jon/aunty are true everlasting love; and now, apparently, Justin Sweet's renditions of "black haired" Stark women in the 2024 Asoiaf Calendar confirms that The Rose of Winterfell has nothing to do with Sansa Stark and her mother Catelyn. All because they are still mad that the The Rose of Winterfell is depicted as a redhead, very similar to Sansa and Catelyn in the A Clash of Kings Graphic Novel.

Fave sister stans now sound like cujo stans with the "l would like to remind you that these drawings were selected by GRRM." They all like too much to make up narratives to support their ships . . . .

Meanwhile GRRM & the artists involved in Asoiaf artwork:

"I have absolutely no control over the covers of my books"

[Source]

~~~

"That's cover art, not an actual Targaryen banner"

 [Source]

~~~

"I’m perfectly willing to let the artist do different interpretations"

Q: You have a very distinct idea of what the characters look like in your own head, because readers will always take their own? GRRM: I do have ideas of what the characters look like in my own head but I’m perfectly willing to let the artist do different interpretations… You know, let different artists present their different interpretations of it, I’m fine with that. It’s not photography, so I love the idea of, you know, letting people use their own creativity within limits of course, but I love some of the works, many of the works I’ve bought original is hanging on, you know, on my own walls so…   —In conversation: George R. R. Martin with John Hodgman FULL EVENT

~~~

"It's a suggestion-consultation process but by no means is it any type of approval"

—An Exclusive Interview with George R.R. Martin - A Game of Thrones Deluxe Limited Edition - Role-Playing Game and Resource Book [Source]

~~~

"For the most part, Gianni was free to render characters and scenes as he wished."

—Art of Gary Gianni for George R. R. Martin’s Seven Kingdoms [Source]

~~~

"The creative team behind it showed remarkable trust and creative freedom with me"

I’m hugely grateful for the opportunity. The creative team behind it showed remarkable trust and creative freedom with me, something that’s rarer than I’d like to admit in this industry. It’s been a huge level up amongst a year of extreme personal stresses. —Sam Hogg, 2021 ASoIF Calendar illustrator [Source]

~~~

So much for "l would like to remind you that these drawings were selected by GRRM"

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You can reed more about Asoiaf Artworks and Creative Freedom here:

~~~

And now you may argue that if the Book Covers, Book Illustrations and Calendar Illustrations are not canon, then the illustrations in the Graphic Novels are not canon either. Well, I covered that subject in this post:

Thanks for reading :)

UPDATE:

GRRM talking about Graphic Novels illustrations:

"I just carefully reviewed all the dialogues and drawings to make sure that no mistake or inaccuracy crept in anywhere."

A series of comics based on your story "The Hedge Knight" has recently been released. Are you satisfied with its implementation? Are there any plans to make comics based on your other works? The proposal to create a comic book based on The Hedge Knight did not come from me, but from the publisher. I was contacted, showed some preliminary sketches, which didn't impress me. But the guys were persistent and did not give up: they continued to search for a suitable artist until they settled on Michael S. Miller. In the end, he did his job just perfectly. Michael was very cool, in my opinion, was able to convey the inner essence of the characters through their appearance - that's exactly how I imagined them when I wrote the story. My participation in the project was minimal: I just carefully reviewed all the dialogues and drawings to make sure that no mistake or inaccuracy crept in anywhere. Now we are discussing the creation of a sequel based on the second part of the adventures of Dunk, published in the collection "Legends 2". It will most likely be made in the same six-comic series format as Knight of the Hedge. We also discussed the possibility of creating comics based on the Canto novels themselves. But given the size of my books, this would require a really massive series. I'm not sure that we are ready for such a grandiose project. —Mir Fantastiki - 2006 - Google translation from the source in Russian:

~~~

Told you!

[liesmyth]

This post started out as a tag ramble (& became longer than the actual post as per usual) after seeing @mayasaura‘s tags in this post about the origins of Kiriona Gaia’s name. Especially the part about Kiriona’s first name:

#also yeah kiriona is her given name spelled using the phonetics of Te Reo #which I'm mentioning bc which language it is specifically is somewhat important #given that it's the language of John's people #that he likely never learned to speak fluently due to the colonial governement's attempt to exterminate it #so thematically that's rather signifigant #she's the only other person he's allowing to share in the legacy of his lost home #(lost because he blew it to kingdom come but lets not bicker and argue over who killed who)

I think a lot about the implications of names in the Nine House following a very specific theme (ancient Greek, Latin, and Biblical first names, Latin-inspired arithmonic House names) but John gave his daughter the name Kiriona. This is very interesting to me, especially in light of what those tags say re: John being Māori but most likely not speaking the language of his people due to colonialism. We don’t have the full picture yet, but a lot of what we know points to John choosing to preserve some of the ~foundational mythology~ of western civilization when shaping his empire. A colonizing Empire, though we really don’t know if “space colonization” was John’s plan for the Houses all along or if he decided it later. (Also an Empire that’s in large % made up of descendants of historically colonized people so there’s that too). At the same time, John shares his own cultural heritage with his daughter – and his daughter only, as if it’s something to be kept between the two of them and better forgotten at large.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this and I’m sure a lot of the implications are going over my head, but I think the initial cultural mould of the Houses tells us something about John as a product of a society that valued one specific area of cultural history above all others, and John internalizing that to the extent that he reverted to those stories and those myths when he was looking for civilization building blocks. And then he went and turned to the language of his people when naming his newfound daughter. Maybe it’s a public vs. personal sphere thing, maybe he wants to wear a different hat as a long-lost father than he does as the God-Emperor, or maybe it’s just that by the time he finds out he has a daughter he’s over the whole ‘Classics names’ thing and sort of regretting those initial choices.

fwiw, John probably wasn’t very coherent in the early days (maybe early years?) so who knows if he actually put any planning into what he did. As a scientist he probably had a lot of Latin engraved in his brain so why not use that? Sounds very smart. But, also, the fact that our scientific classification is based on Latin is itself a product of western supremacy and so on so forth. It’s a tautology: I’m God now and I guess God likes ancient Greek and biblical themes as filtered down to us through the lenses of Western Christianity. Why? Because that’s what God does. I guess.

(Also: compare all of this with the Blood of Eden naming system where they chose random bits of human culture to preserve. Not those deemed worthwhile by the elites, just… random bits. Shakespeare but also an Eminem song and a verse of an anthem in an indigenous language. That last one especially is Curious and tbh it’s the only detail giving me pause from jumping 100% to the very obvious conclusion that BoE was founded by the descendants of the FTL ships just because of who was on those ships and what cultural resources they would’ve brought along. But that’s a whole different speculation.) 

[camnotes]

the cost of a full scholarship

Next door is a Turkish German girl, she told Thu about being a Muslim without wearing 'the scarf' and although not having sex with her boyfriend yet, they have done other things. They went to have breakfast together at at Turkish café next to Great Portland Street tube station. The waiter gave them some extra yogurt. The service is always nicer when you and the waiters have opposite sex, unless they're homosexual.  

Thu walked to the International Student House on Great Portland Street to ask about the room that she already booked for online as guided by the scholarship office but never got a reply. It turned out she could have moved in the day she arrived, they just did not let her know. So the second week starts by calling a taxi to go across the street because Thu didn't know how to get there and the university staff thought it would be easier with a taxi. 6 pounds, not too bad but she could have walked. The room is downstairs in the basement, it is a small room for two people, and one of the closets was outside in the hallway because there is no space inside. Roommate was also a full scholarship student from India who has moved in before. She was walking barefoot into the room, drying her feet with a cloth, complaining also the room is too small for too people. Thu was surprised to see the girl opening a laptop. Thu thought all full scholarship students must be from poor family like her who cannot afford a laptop. Thu bought a small netbook with most of her saving money before knowing the scholarship result, just so she can work in public libraries during the day - to avoid her parents' fight. The Indian girl said it is her dad's laptop.

They decided to walk to the student house and ask for a bigger room. They were then separated into two different twin rooms. Thu chose 355 on the third floor, dragged her suitcases in the room, the roommate was not there but there were photos, she looks white, probably European - Thu preferred to get to know the western culture more and thought this would be nice. It was an exchange student from the U.S. who is doing History. Thu asked the American girl if she was passionate about History. She said it is boring but was easy to get into. Thu had to choose Sociology & History instead because the university does not have Anthropology, as she wanted to do. In the last few years, Thu has been passionate about 'having a passion'. Thu had asked many people what their passions are. In Hanoi, the chances are people are not doing a course or a job they like, because their parents do not want them to follow their passions. Most Asian students who study abroad would do Business or Finance, same as what mum wanted Thu to do at university in Hanoi and Thu did, for one semester then dropped out to pursue her 'study abroad' dream.

Thu does not remember the American roommate's name now, only that there is the word 'kill' in part of her either first or surname. She seemed a bit depressed, often sleeps until noon. Thu wakes up early in the morning, earlier than in Vietnam, probably because of the time difference, have a shower before sleeping and sleep before midnight - just like in Vietnam. Though Thu went to John Lewis to buy a kettle to share with the roommate; it did not take too long until they had a big fight - on the night of Thu's birthday.

Timelines:

roommates:

indian - not dare to ask the scholarship office about things

American

scholarship student meeting - be careful with me, I'm the man with money and power, tears, worry, scare - Africans, Indians

3 americans, 1 agitated

single room Harrow, A, winter, SAD, depression

counsellor, change course, scholarship office staff - threaten

back to ISH, double room, thought master's student, indian girl again

food out of fridge, argue pointing fingers, bringing Thu's family stories out, sound from the underwear, Thu's 'cold war' - she moved out, just as Thu moved out before?

Pakistani girl, rich family, car pick up all the time, uncle congratulated 'brave' moving with a taxi from the other student house to this one across the street, direct phone, mobile, skype, pray five times a day, in the morning then sleep - good physical exercise, mentally? engaged, seen the fiancé one time, law families

summer, banhmi11 - not wash coriander, bossy, boring manual work, not much talking with customers, 60 pounds new stall, rained, grumpy boss, took the cooker, last day

Cambridge work - English prof - no entrance - arrogant attitude towards strangers & about her college, M, castle, yes and no and yes and end…3 times young boys

couchsurfing: T, skype C

single room, CS Russian couple and friend, vnmese food - summer rolls and noodle, Barclay, push game; C - English parents, small village, 1st, bunk bed room, invite and end - scary laughs in the middle of the night

ballet and French lessons, composer - aging

finding a guitarist to audition to sing in bar - a guy said yes then didn't introduce

BB: 3 months later, another one introduced - 1 month after, fb message replied

met up in piano room

got in his room with Vahan, sang Hallelujah, made fun of Carla Bruni

practised yoga, cooked pasta

9 month no rel google calendar commitment with Ly, B wanted to watch a movie together (texts), now it's been almost 2 yrs and a half.

fights: jealousy (most of the time), finance (one time - several small ones)

future: not sure, no stable jobs - both, career question - fanmails, female students

friends:

Q: talked behind the back instead of direct comment

Ly: peacemaker or people pleaser?

Z: ignore, distant, cold blood?

group, popularity friendship

Nina, Lung: male alike friendship and it stays

1 week Korean roommate, sentimental, tears when saying goodbye

summer german girlfriend, older sister, no buying because of sales, euro vision, birthday - cake, gifts, English poem about London from grandfather, Greenwich, Cambridge, nottinghill, started with Canterbury, shopping. she doesn't like London, ambulance, left before signing the contract

English and European classmates: guys intention, girls no interest, Chinese one - small province in south china - 3 kid family, sister mental...she likes cemetery, dark personality, probably depressed without knowing it - like most of vnmese and chinese who don’t know a way out?...even now when she has choices because she has a permanent residence visa

vnmese students in London: too expensive dinner - hotpot, Korean food, talked about shoes, clothes - once each…

ISH:

arrogant music students, no interest british ones

Andrei & Anne from Romania, Kasturi from India - roommate for a month, sleep late eat late, internet, computer, skyping with friends - one time I sang 'part of that world' to her close male friend, she turned into a jealous face;

Indians: Abisha - 35 first time to supermarket, Adytia

French: Alex, Jim, Joel, Gina, Benoit, Estelle - swimming, expensive breakfast, flirt guys

Ashjeen: strict and boring student resident assistant

Richa indian Canadian, Saniya - indian groups and drama

C Giang

Tibetans: Dhun, Dorjee, Galek (peed in bed), Thuley, Thupten,

Bhutan: Sonam

vnmese: Hao, Lan - domestic violence, Linh - awkward, c Hanh & c Tra, Thuy

Jia Rui: gave me concert ticket, crazy old woman roommate - she needs a guy? jumping up and down, far away from microwave - so?

Julia: german late teenage girl :D

Kevin: had wife and kids then turned gay, English boyfriend, dropping face pink cheek

Lam Nigeria: dance, sing when washing the dishes - SOAS?

Lydia: Malaysian, Christian biologist who believes in god more than 'evolution'

Pakistani: Taimur, girl who I thought was interested in B

Jamyang Buddhist Center

Switzerland volunteer

40sth looking like 60sth host, her heart is in the healing room, not the house

Angela

U.S. visa, Belfast - castle hill - stress released

California - vnmese americans - southern & northern vnmese

casino, san diego - dissert

L.A., classmate - married

San Fran - art, culture, health!

UC Berkeley -  Anthro pre class, Stanford, Mountain View - Google

Watford stay

vnmese housemates

English housemates, south London, garden - read, write, paint, yoga, love

Slovakia, zen wedding, Budapest, couch surfing - eastern European!

[nightkitchentarot]

Do Feel Free To Have An Unexpressed Thought

DO FEEL FREE TO HAVE AN UNEXPRESSED THOUGHT - The power of wow and silence -

by Patti Digh July 21, 2023

(Disclaimer: This essay may or may not have been written by my alter ego, Cranky Patti.)

I shared a photograph on Facebook last year that was meaningful to me. It showed our wooden bookshelves with all our beautiful old books and our reading chair beside them. My caption told the story of the poignant photo and what it meant to me. There were so many supportive and curious messages–about the books, about my story of them. And then this one: “Aren’t you embarrassed to show a photo that so clearly indicates how dusty your heat vents are?”

No, bitch. I have three dogs, three cats (at the time), a teenager, and two adults living here. Our floors get dirty. I don’t vacuum 24/7. And, by the way, thanks for being little Miss Judgy McJudgejudge.

Of course, I didn’t say any of that. I simply wrote one word after the comment: “Wow.”

This story has two points: 1) Why do we do this? Why do we look for ways to criticize other people or use every opportunity to bring them down rather than lift them when THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT STAKE, or, EVEN MORE RADICALLY, why don’t we remain silent; and 2) The use of “wow.”

Oh, sure, it starts innocently enough. Someone writes on social media that they love oysters. Rather than ask questions from a place of curiosity or express delight in their delight, the rants start: OH GOD, HOW DO YOU EAT THOSE THINGS? or YOU KNOW THEY ARE FULL OF MERCURY, DON’T YOU? or I WOULDN’T BE CAUGHT DEAD EATING AN OYSTER or SOMETHING ELSE THAT IS TERRIBLE ABOUT OYSTERS.

Or maybe they write that they love a particular poem that reminds them of their recently deceased mother. And someone takes that opportunity to announce that the poet is a horrible person who eats raw kangaroo meat, shoots moose in his backyard for sport, and steals money from an orphanage. That may be true, but is it essential to say that in response? And why does someone feel compelled to say it?

Shush.

Just shush.

Don’t harsh somebody else’s stoke. DO FEEL FREE TO HAVE AN UNEXPRESSED THOUGHT.

This happens a lot.

It’s connected to being right ABOUT INSIGNIFICANT THINGS, which is never a good look for people when it is at the expense of human decency and connection.

A relative of mine is known for speaking her mind. About everything. And especially about people’s weight, including mine. But she’s an equal opportunity offender, speaking her mind about every topic you could imagine. Her defense is this: “If I’m thinking it, I have to say it.”

“No, no, you actually don’t,” goes my inner dialogue. “See? This is how it’s done. You think things and never say them out loud like I’m doing right now!” I think to myself. “People successfully do this all the time!” And maybe, especially when they are around her, I realize.

But no, in The Internet Machine, we feel compelled to react immediately (not respond–that is more thoughtful). And so, if we see someone’s dusty heat vents, we feel we must note them even though they have nothing to do with the story being told. Or we argue about inconsequential things like the books someone loves: “OH MY GOD, THAT IS SUCH TRASH. HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY LIKE THAT BOOK?” What is our intention in doing this to others?

Now, you must know that I am all for raising objections when people disparage groups of people, make racist remarks, or tell sexist jokes and the like. And I am in favor of countering misinformation with facts. But I’m talking about personal pleasures, meaningful moments, and vulnerable shares that some people jump on, like starving wild animals on the savannah who have found their prey for the day.

When Emma was in the first grade, I picked her up from school at the beginning of the year, and we drove to John’s bookshop in Georgetown. When he came out to say hi, she excitedly told us she had taken her first test that day! Of course, our first question was, “How’d you do on the test?” Without any hesitation, she squealed, “I got 30%!”

The body language between me and John was undeniable. We both thought, “OH MY GOD, OUR CHILD IS AN IDIOT,” and “HOW HARD COULD A TEST BE IN THE FIRST GRADE?” I came very close to saying, “You must feel terrible about that grade,” but by some divine inspiration, I paused and said, “How does that make you feel?” She said something I will never forget: “I GOT SOME RIGHT!”

Thank god for the power of the pause. Let’s institute pausing as a national sport. We can host a Superbowl of Pausing, charge obscene amounts of money for ads, and use those funds to feed meals to the whole planet that they can follow with a nice cool drink of safe, clean water.

THE RESONANCE OF SILENCE

Believe it or not, it is possible to see something on Facebook or Twitter that you feel snarky about–like heating vents–and scroll on by. I do it all the time. TRUST ME ON THIS–YOU CAN DO THIS. Rather than respond to someone’s post about loving a movie you hate, move on. Rather than commenting on someone’s appearance (WHICH SHOULD NOT BE DONE AT ALL, EVER), let it go. Be silent. Cultivate unexpressed thoughts like they are gorgeous peonies you want to fertilize with self-restraint.

Silence is a powerful tool for self-discovery, mental well-being, and interpersonal communication. Embracing silence in appropriate moments can lead to a more fulfilling and balanced life. In various spiritual traditions, silence is valued for connecting individuals with their inner selves, a higher power, or the universe. DO THAT INSTEAD OF TALKING TRASH ABOUT SOMEONE’S CHILI RECIPE.

Feel free to have an unexpressed thought. It will fuel respect and empathy, which are in short supply.

JUDGE OR LEARN: YOU CAN'T DO BOTH AT THE SAME TIME

You have a choice at flashpoints, moments that feel hot for you. You can judge or learn, but you can’t do both simultaneously. What will it be?

Whenever we judge someone’s parenting, dust vents, book choices, paint colors, or anything else inconsistent with our own, we shut down any learning that might occur. And we have shown ourselves to be petty little bitches with nothing better to do than make fun of other people’s choices when we are NOT THEM and don’t have to live with their choices. Ever. So why do that?

The direction of our intention matters. If you intend to belittle someone, pause to rethink that life choice and motivation. If the intention is to express curiosity and learn, continue in that direction. If the intention is to demonstrate our moral, cultural, class, and personal superiority–is this the legacy we want to leave behind? And do we need to demonstrate that superiority at the expense of others? Tssk. Tssk.

THE POWER OF WOW

In a yoga class years ago, an instructor named Cindy taught me about the power of “wow.” It’s a simple word. When said without sarcasm, it is also a detachment word. It brings us back from the brink of drama every time.

Here’s the example she gave in class: If my dog attacks a squirrel in my yard and leaves the bloody carcass of the squirrel at the bottom of the stairs outside my back door, when I go out and see the squirrel, I can get all worked up about it, be disgusted by it, and hop around in terror about having to do something about it. Or I can look at the poor squirrel and simply say “wow.” Not a sarcastic or judgmental “wow,” but an unadorned “wow” without strings attached that helps me detach from whatever emotions are coming up for me, allowing me to deal with the situation without veering into drama. It provides for mental and emotional settling, and it helps me feel compassion for the squirrel.

I often use a quiet utterance of “wow” to honestly and sincerely suspend the fear- or anger-based narrative in my head. Because needing to exert my superiority about things that don’t matter is fear-based in some way. I use “wow” as a way to settle my nervous system. And I use “wow” to eliminate my need to be right or righteous. And then I scroll on.

You, too, can detach and scroll on. Remember: opinions are ego-based. We can live from a deeper place.

Do feel free to have an unexpressed thought more often. Invite others to do the same.

[kirain]

I started playing rdr2 but stopped because like idk but I can't seem to get over the fact that all the women are prostitutes and they don't really have any important roles. Like what's Abigail do? Ooh she's a mother who's always mad? What do the other women do? Oooh they sleep with the gang. What's Sadie do? Oooh she becomes a badly written femme fetale who suddenly becomes a flawless killer. The women are just so badly represented.

I get the feeling you didn't play the game naturally or see any random encounters, because none of what you said is true. There's a lot to unpack here, so let's start with the "all the women are prostitutes" comment.

First of all, none of the women are prostitutes, a fact that deeply irritates Micah. During a coach robbery where he rides with Arthur and Bill, he even says, “Why the hell do we need a gaggle of girls who won’t even fuck you if you put a gun to their head? Is it too much to ask considering they get a piece of every damn dollar I bring in?” Poor baby. He even tries to proposition all of the women (Grimshaw included), but they all insult him and send him running with his tail between his legs. It’s hilarious and I love it. Arthur also responds to Micah with, “Everyone does their share. I don’t see you lifting a finger around camp.”

Now a bit about the girls:

Mary-Beth was a skilled pickpocket, but she ended up being caught by a group of her victims. She mentions this during a conversation with Arthur, where she points out how hard it was for women who came from nothing, and the inequality of it all. RDR2 actually regularly highlights how difficult frontier/outlaw life was for women back then, often pulling zero punches. While fleeing her pursuers, Mary-Beth luckily ran into Hosea, who helped her escape and welcomed her to the gang. You can see Dutch lusting after her a few times, because he's an old pervert, but she always shuns his advances. She was never a prostitute and she was actually underage when she joined.

Tilly was a child outlaw and a member of the Forman gang from the age of twelve. She ended up killing the leader's cousin because he [as is heavily implied] tried to rape her. She was around sixteen at the time and tried to return to her mother after the ordeal, but she unfortunately passed away while Tilly was running with the Formans. Out of options, she eventually joined the van der Linde gang after Dutch saved her from some unspecified trouble. You can find most of this out during one of my favourite side missions, where she gets kidnapped by Anthony Foreman in retaliation for killing his cousin. With Grimshaw’s help, you can rescue Tilly and put an end to it once and for all. She was never a prostitute and was also underage when taken in.

Susan Grimshaw was one of the original members of the gang and one of Dutch's first lovers. They parted amicably and both fell in love with other people (Dutch with Annabelle, and Susan with a doctor who sadly ended up dying), but she stayed with the gang because of their mutual respect for each other. She later became the arbiter of the camp and a kind of surrogate mother to Arthur, John, and the other girls. She was never a prostitute, but rather a rough-and-tumble outlaw.

Karen is a little more complicated. Overall, she was a scam artist (Hosea even called her an “actress”) who sometimes lured men into brothels, then stole from them or picked their brains for leads. That doesn't necessarily mean she was a prostitute; however, it just means she used sex as a manipulation tactic. Out of all the women in the group, she was the freest and most unconventional. She also stood on guard duty and participated in heists. The only man she ever slept with in game was Sean, and his death absolutely devastated her. If you talk to her or observe her interactions, you also discover she’s a raging alcoholic suffering from some very deep-seated issues. She likely did have to do things she wasn’t proud of in order to survive, but in my opinion that makes her one of the most realistic members of the group. She was never described as a prostitute.

Molly was an aristocrat who left her family to be with Dutch. His abusive treatment eventually led her to suffer an identity crisis, where she ended up hysterical and heartbroken. Her story is sad, but she was never a prostitute. If anything, Molly is the best example we have that Dutch views people as items, not human beings.

Abigail is the only prostitute in the game, but by the events of RDR2 she's an ex-prostitute. To say she's nothing more than "a mother who's always mad", I feel, does her character a great disservice. First of all, she left that profession behind to raise her son, to give him a decent chance in life. Unlike John, she stepped up immediately to become a responsible adult. I don't think people realise how impressive that is because, one, she could've easily abandoned Jack at the roadside (which was common back then), two, she could've induced an abortion, and three, she was quite young when she had him; around nineteen years old.

You say the women are "poorly represented", but they're stronger, smarter, and more mature than most of the men. A few of them even become self-sufficient in the turn of the century, something dear old Dutch couldn't even do/accept. Abigail in particular helps Sadie mourn her husband and the two grow very close. Their interactions are both grounded and heartwarming, with Abigail telling Sadie she’ll suffer the loss of her husband, but that it’ll get better if she keeps on living. She takes care of her, and Sadie later returns that kindness. These women are so full of quirks and humour and personality, I don’t know how you missed it.

As for Sadie ... where do I even begin? Badly written? Femme fatale? Flawless killer? Sadie is one of the best written characters. She's not flawless, she's exceptionally flawed, temperamental, and traumatised. It's never expressly stated, but it's implied at several points throughout the game that she was repeatedly assaulted while the O'Driscolls kept her captive. At first, she's petrified and miserable, to the point that all she does is cry and express suicidal ideation. Then, she gets angry. Very angry. Having nothing left to live for, her home and husband torn from her grasp, she throws herself headfirst into danger, which almost gets her killed on a number of occasions.

She's not a "flawless killer", she's a messy killer. She's not an expert death-dealer, and that's made evident from the start -- but she was a hunter who shared the workload with her husband, so it's not as if her skills just magically appeared. You do see how much it weighs on her, however, near the end of chapter six. If you help her kill the rest of the O'Driscolls, she laments what she's become because she thinks her husband would be horrified. She’s extremely complex and struggles between mourning and moving on.

I also can't help but laugh at the "femme fatale" accusation, because Sadie actually defeminises herself, which is understandable considering the hell she’s suffered. She even wears men's clothing, which wasn't illegal [anymore] back then, but it was openly frowned upon. Femme fatales use their beauty and sexuality to their advantage, ensnaring men with their feminine wiles. Sadie never does that and fights side-by-side with the boys. Interestingly enough, that's partially why Calamity Jane, an actual historical figure, garnered so much attention, because of how she behaved/dressed. It’s pretty clear to me that Rockstar might’ve used her as inspiration for Sadie. This was a real woman who lived from 1852 to 1903.

In addition, Sadie plays one of the most important roles, yet she does so without falling into the category of a Mary-Sue. She saves the gang and moves them to a new location when the Pinkertons attack Shady Belle. She hatches the plan that frees John from prison. She helps Arthur rescue Abigail after she gets kidnapped. She tracks down Micah and puts an end to his reign of terror. But most of what she does she accomplishes with a partner--Arthur or John--both of whom she respects immensely. No one, not even Arthur, does everything alone, and when they do there’s usually negative consequences. It's the camaraderie and shared experiences that make these characters successful, and aside from Charles and Hosea, I’d even argue that the women are more well-rounded and fleshed out than the men.

I gather from for comments that you didn't finish the game, so I hate to spoil it, but I kind of have to if you walked away with this mindset. The women of RDR2 are a force to be reckoned with.

[testudoaubrei-blog]

Content note for discussions of eternal damnation, and all sorts of other shit that will trigger a lot of folks with religious trauma.

Before I get started I might as well explain where I’m coming from - unlike a lot of She-Ra fans, and a lot of queer people, I don’t have much religious trauma, or any, maybe (okay there were a number of years I was convinced I was going to hell, but that happens to everyone, right?). I was raised a liberal Christian by liberal Christian parents in the Episcopal Church, where most of my memories are overwhelmingly positive. Fuck, growing up in the 90’s, Chuch was probably the only place outside my home I didn’t have homophobia spewed at me. Because it was the 90’s and it was a fucking hellscape of bigotry where 5 year olds knew enough to taunt each other with homophobic slurs and the adults didn’t know enough to realize how fucked up that was. Anyway. This is my experience, but it is an atypical one, and I know it. Quite frankly I know that my experience of Christianity has very little at all to do with what most people experienced, or what people generally mean when they talk about Christianity as a cultural force in America today. So if you were raised Christian and you don’t recognize your theology here, congrats, neither do I, but these ideas and cultural forces are huge and powerful and dominant. And it’s this dominant Christian narrative that I’m referring to in this post. As well as, you know, a children’s cartoon about lesbian rainbow princesses. So here it goes. This is going to get batshit.

"All events whatsoever are governed by the secret counsel of God." - John Calvin

“We’re all just a bunch of wooly guys” - Noelle Stevenson

This is a post triggered by a single scene, and a single line. It’s one of the most fucked-up scenes in She-Ra, toward the end of Save the Cat. Catra, turned into a puppet by Prime, struggles with her chip, desperately trying to gain control of herself, so lost and scared and vulnerable that she flings aside her own death wish and her pride and tearfully begs Adora to rescue her. Adora reaches out , about to grab her, and then Prime takes control back, pronounces ‘disappointing’ and activates the kill switch that pitches Catra off the platform and to her death (and seriously, she dies here, guys - also Adora breaks both her legs in the fall). But before he does, he dismisses Catra with one of his most chilling lines. “Some creatures are meant only for destruction.”

And that’s when everyone watching probably had their heart broken a little bit, but some of the viewers raised in or around Christianity watching the same scene probably whispered ‘holy shit’ to themselves. Because Prime’s line - which works as a chilling and callous dismissal of Catra - is also an allusion to a passage from the Bible. In fact, it’s from one of the most fucked up passages in a book with more than its share of fucked up passages. It’s from Romans 9:22, and I’m going to quote several previous verses to give the context of the passage (if not the entire Epistle, which is more about who needs to abide by Jewish dietary restrictions but was used to construct a systematic theology in the centuries afterwards because people decided it was Eternal Truth).

19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?

20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

The context of the allusion supports the context in the show. Prime is dismissing Catra - serial betrayer, liar, failed conqueror, former bloody-handed warlord - as worthless, as having always been worthless and fit only to be destroyed. He is speaking from a divine and authoritative perspective (because he really does think he’s God, more of this in my TL/DR Horde Prime thing). Prime is echoing not only his own haughty dismissal of Catra, and Shadow Weaver’s view of her, but also perhaps the viewer’s harshest assessment of her, and her own worst fears about herself. Catra was bad from the start, doomed to destroy and to be destroyed. A malformed pot, cracked in firing, destined to be shattered against a wall and have her shards classified by some future archaeologist 2,000 years later. And all that’s bad enough.

But the full historical and theological context of this passage shows the real depth of Noelle Stevenson’s passion and thought and care when writing this show. Noelle was raised in Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christianity. To my knowledge, he has never specified what sect or denomination, but in interviews and her memoir Noelle has shown a particular concern for questions that this passage raises, and a particular loathing for the strains of Protestant theology that take this passage and run with it - that is to say, Calvinism. So while I’m not sure if Noelle was raised as a conservative, Calvinist Presbyterian, his preoccupation with these questions mean that it’s time to talk about Calvinism.

It would be unfair, perhaps, to say that Calvinism is a systematic theology built entirely upon the Epistles of Romans and Galatians, but only -just- (and here my Catholic readers in particular will chuckle to themselves and lovingly stroke their favorite passage of the Epistle of James). The core of Calvinist Doctrine is often expressed by the very Dutch acronym TULIP:

Total Depravity - people are wholly evil, and incapable of good action or even willing good thoughts or deeds

Unconditional Election - God chooses some people to save because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, not because they did anything to deserve, trigger or accept it

Limited Atonement - Jesus died only to save the people God chose to save, not the rest of us bastards

Irresistible Grace - God chooses some people to be saved - if you didn’t want to be saved, too bad, God said so.

Perseverance of the Saints - People often forget this one and assume it’s ‘predestination’ but it’s actually this - basically, once saved by God, always saved, and if it looks like someone falls out of grace, they were never saved to begin with. Well that’s all sealed up tight I guess.

Reading through these, predestination isn’t a single doctrine in Calvinism but the entire theological underpinnings of it together with humanity’s utter powerlessness before sin. Basically God has all agency, humanity has none. Calvinism (and a lot of early modern Protestantism) is obsessed with questions of how God saves people (grace alone, AKA Sola Fides) and who God saves (the people god elects and only the people God elects, and fuck everyone else).

It’s apparent that Noelle was really taken by these questions, and repelled by the answers he heard. He’s alluded to having a tattoo refuting the Gospel passage about Sheep and Goats being sorted at the end times, affirming instead that ‘we’re all just a bunch of wooly guys’ (you can see this goat tattoo in some of his self-portraits in comics, etc). He’s also mentioned that rejecting and subverting destiny is a huge part of everything he writes as a particular rejection of the idea that some individual people are 'chosen' by God or that God has a plan for any of us. You can see that -so clearly- in Adora’s arc, where Adora embraces and then rejects destiny time and again and finally learns to live life for herself.

But for Catra, we’re much more concerned about the most negative aspect of this - the idea that some people are vessels meant for destruction. And that’s something else that Noelle is preoccupied with. In her memoir in the section about leaving the church and becoming a humanistic atheist, there is a drawing of a pot and the question ‘Am I a vessel prepared for destruction?’ Obviously this was on Noelle’s mind (And this is before he came out to himself as queer!).

To look at how this question plays out in Catra’s entire arc, let’s first talk about how ideas of damnation and salvation actually play out in society. And for that I’m going to plug one of my favorite books, Gin Lun’s Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction (if you can tell by now, I am a fucking blast at parties). Lun tells the long and very interesting story about, how ideas of hell and who went there changed during the Early American Republic. One of the interesting developments that she talks about is how while at first people who were repelled by Calvinism started moving toward a doctrine of universal salvation (no on goes to hell, at least not forever*), eventually they decided that hell was fine as long as only the right kind of people went there. Mostly The Other - non-Christian foreigners, Catholics, Atheists, people who were sinners in ways that were not just bad but weird and violated Victorian ideas of respectability. Really, Hell became a way of othering people, and arguably that’s how it survives today, especially as a way to other queer people (but expanding this is slated for my Montero rant). Now while a lot of people were consciously rejecting Calvinist predestination, they were still drawing the distinction between the Elect (good, saved, worthwhile) and the everyone else (bad, damned, worthless). I would argue that secularized ideas of this survive to this day even among non-Christian spaces in our society - we like to draw lines between those who Elect, and those who aren’t.

And that’s what brings us back to Catra. Because Catra’s entire arc is a refutation of the idea that some people are worthless and irredeemable, either by nature, nurture or their own actions. Catra’s actions strain the conventions of who is sympathetic in a Kid’s cartoon - I’ve half joked that she’s Walter White as a cat girl, and it’s only half a joke. She’s cruel, self-deluded, she spends 4 seasons refusing to take responsibility for anything she does and until Season 5 she just about always chooses the thing that does the most damage to herself and others. As I mentioned in my Catra rant, the show goes out of its way to demonstrate that Catra is morally culpable in every step of her descent into evil (except maybe her break with reality just before she pulls the lever). The way that Catra personally betrays everyone around her, the way she strips herself of all of her better qualities and most of what makes her human, hell even her costume changes would signal in any other show that she’s irredeemable.

It’s tempting to see this as Noelle’s version of being edgy - pushing the boundaries of what a sympathetic character is, throwing out antiheroics in favor of just making the villain a protagonist. Noelle isn’t quite Alex ‘I am in the business of traumatizing children’ Hirsch, who seems to have viewed his job as pushing the bounds of what you could show on the Disney Channel (I saw Gravity Falls as an adult and a bunch of that shit lives rent free in my nightmares forever), but Noelle has his own dark side, mostly thematically. The show’s willingness to deal with abuse, and messed up religious themes, and volatile, passionate, not particularly healthy relationships feels pretty daring. I’m not joking when I gleefully recommend this show to friends as ‘a couple from a Mountain Goats Song fights for four seasons in a cartoon intended for 9 year olds’. Noelle is in his own way pushing the boundaries of what a kids show can do. If you read Noelle’s other works like Nimona, you see an argument for Noelle being at least a bit edgy. Nimona is also angry, gleefully destructive, violent and spiteful - not unlike Catra. Given that it was a 2010s webcomic and not a kids show, Nimona is a good deal worse than Catra in some ways - Catra doesn’t kill people on screen, while Nimona laughs about it (that was just like, a webcomic thing - one of the fan favorite characters in my personal favorite, Narbonic, was a fucking sociopath, and the heroes were all amoral mad scientists, except for the superintelligent gerbil**). But unlike Nimona, whose fate is left open ended, Catra is redeemed.

And that is weird. We’ve had redemption arcs, but generally not of characters with -so- much vile stuff in their history. Going back to the comparison between her and Azula, many other shows, like Avatar, would have made Catra a semi-sympathetic villain who has a sob-story in their origin but who is beyond redemption, and in so doing would articulate a kind of psychologized Calvinism where some people are too traumatized to ever be fully and truly human. I’d argue this is the problem with Azula as a character - she’s a fun villain, but she doesn’t have moral agency, and the ultimate message of her arc - that she’s a broken person destined only to hurt people - is actually pretty fucked up. And that’s the origin story of so many serial killers and psycopaths that populate so many TV shows and movies. Beyond ‘hurt people hurt people’ they have nothing to teach us except perhaps that trauma makes you a monster and that the only possible response to people doing bad things is to cut them out of your life and out of our society (and that’s why we have prisons, right?)

And so Catra’s redemption and the depths from which she claws herself back goes back to Noelle’s desire to prove that no person is a vessel ‘fitted for destruction.’ Catra goes about as far down the path of evil as we’ve ever seen a protagonist in a kids show go, and she still has the capacity for good. Importantly, she is not subject to total depravity - she is capable of a good act, if only one at first. Catra is the one who begins her own redemption (unlike in Calvinism, where grace is unearned and even unwelcomed) - because she wants something better than what she has, even if its too late, because she realizes that she never wanted any of this anyway, because she wants to do one good thing once in her life even if it kills her.

The very extremity of Catra’s descent into villainy serves to underline the point that Noelle is trying to make - that no one can be written off completely, that everyone is capable of change, and that no human being is garbage, no matter how twisted they’ve become. Meanwhile her ability to set her own redemption in motion is a powerful statement of human agency, and healing, and a refutation of Calvinism’s idea that we are powerless before sin or pop cultural tropes about us being powerful before the traumas of our upbringing. Catra’s arc, then, is a kind of anti-Calvinist theological statement - about the nature of people and the nature of goodness.

Now, there is a darker side to this that Noelle has only hinted at, but which is suggested by other characters on the show. Because while Catra’s redemption shows that people are capable of change, even when they’ve done horrible things, been fucked up and fucked themselves up, it also illustrates the things people do to themselves that make change hard. As I mentioned in my Catra rant, two of the most sinister parts of her descent into villainy are her self-dehumanization (crushing her own compassion and desire to do good) and her rewriting of her own history in her speech and memory to make her own actions seem justified (which we see with her insistence that Adora left her, eliding Adora’s offers to have Catra join her, or her even more clearly false insistence that Entrapta had betrayed them). In Catra, these processes keep her going down the path of evil, and allow her to nearly destroy herself and everyone else. But we can see the same processes at work in two much darker figures - Shadow Weaver and Horde Prime. These are both rants for another day, but the completeness of Shadow Weaver’s narcissistic self-justification and cultivated callousness and the even more complete narcissism of Prime’s god complex cut both characters off from everyone around them. Perhaps, in a theoretical sense, they are still redeemable, but for narrative purposes they might as well be damned.

This willingness to show a case where someone -isn’t- redeemed actually serves to make Catra’s redemption more believable, especially since Noelle and the writers draw the distinction between how Catra and SW/Prime can relate to reality and other people, not how broken they are by their trauma (unlike Zuko and Azula, who are differentiated by How Fucked Uolp They Are). Redemption is there, it’s an option, we can always do what is right, but someone people will choose not to, in part because doing the right thing involves opening ourselves to the world and others, and thus being vulnerable. Noelle mentions this offhandedly in an interview after Season 1 with the She-Ra Progressive of Power podcast - “I sometimes think that shades of grey, sympathetic villains are part of the escapist fantasy of shows like this.” Because in the real world, some people are just bastards, a point that was particularly clear in 2017. Prime and Shadow Weaver admit this reality, while Catra makes a philosophical point that even the bastards can change their ways (at least in theory).

*An idea first proposed in the second century by Origen, who’s a trip and a fucking half by himself, and an idea that becomes the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, which protestants vehemently denied!

**Speaking of favorite Noelle tropes

[wisteriasxx]

a/n: had this in the drafts since tfatws finished streaming and I forgot to post it but here haha

18+

Warnings: Weed, mentions of alcohol, mentions of sex

Smoke sesh with Marvel characters 🍃

this one is for all my stoner marvel fans💕 just my thoughts on what it would be like to smoke with some of our favs✨

———————————————————————

Steve

Well considering Steve is a super soldier, he can’t get drunk or high..........BUT for the sake of this let’s just pretend he can ;)

It would probably take loads of convincing for him to even try the stuff

If he decides to try it, he’s only taking one hit.

High Steve is definitely just super chill, and really cuddly, he’s gonna grab you and just hold you for the rest of the night.

When it comes time for munchies he will literally eat anything, but his favorite snack when the munchies hit is Mozzarella sticks.

He’ll start talking about how things were back in the 40’s, including how crazy the youth is today with this stuff you’ve just given him.

Tony

We all know that Tony is KNOWN for being a party animal, so he’s definitely down for a lil sesh with the avengers

Tony definitely likes to drink more then he would smoking, but he’ll still smoke.

Probably owns a dab pen with indica for for his anxiety

Prefers indica but will settle for a hybrid (sativa and indica)

Gets really giggly and even more sarcastic when he’s high

Will not move from his current place of rest, someone will have to bring him food when the munchies come or he will complain the entire time

Favorite munchies food is potato chips

High tony will definitely accidentally start spilling your secrets in front of people, you might have to physically shut him up somehow

Thor

Will give you a funny look when you hand him a joint or a pen or whatever it is that your using.

He’ll understand that you smoke it, but he’ll think it’s just tobacco or something

Before you can tell him what it actually is he’s already taken a couple of big hits

Once you tell him what it is that he’s smoking and what it does, the only response you’ll get is “this tastes funny and it will have no effect on me because I am mighty”

Fast forward to ten minutes later of Thor being loud and laughing at everything and just being an absolute goofball

Will eat and drink everything in sight once the munchies hit for him

“Where can I get more of this midgaurdian herb!??!!?!!” He’ll yell from the couch

Like Steve, he’ll get grabby and just wanna hold you the entire time. If you’re standing he’s gonna stand behind you with his arms wrapped around you and his chin resting on ur head. If you’re sitting he’s putting his arm around you and pulling you close.

Definitely ends with him passed out on the floor

Natasha

When she sees everyone playing “puff puff pass”, she’ll roll her eyes.

“What are you guys in high school or something?”

She will insist that she wants nothing to do with it, but after tony makes some remark about it, she decides to prove him wrong.

After a hit or two, Nat becomes more comfortable, she becomes less uptight.

Likes to shoot out more sarcastic one liners then usual

Becomes very flirty ;)

She gets smiley but in a tired way

In fact, She doesn’t stay awake very long after she’s had a hit or two in her system, she gets too tired and calls it a night

By “calls it a night” I mean she basically droops onto you and refuses to move, you’ll have to move her if you want to.

Doesn’t get the munchies because she’s asleep before she can

Clint

Clint will take a hit or two, just because why not? He could use the relaxation

He’s super chill when he’s high, he keeps to himself

He’s quiet when he’s high, but that’s just because he’s vibing, he’s taking in the music or just simply listening to the nearest conversation.

Wears sunglasses the whole time because he doesn’t want anyone to see his red eyes

He doesn’t really get munchies, he just chills the entire time

You can’t tell if he’s asleep or if he’s just vibing

Will only give one word answers if you ask him something

Not the most fun to smoke with but he’s just chilling and minding his own business so he’s welcome.

Loki

Will look at you with irritable confusion when you offer him a hit

When you tell him what it is and what it will do to him he’ll simply ask, “why would I want to do that?”

He won’t do it in front of anyone, that would mean letting his guard down and becoming vulnerable

He will definitely try it later in private though

When he’s high, he’ll want you to join him

He’s still basically loki when he’s high, he’s just more relaxed

“This is quite nice I must say.”

There will definitely be a conversation about how he can’t believe this is what mortals do for fun

He’ll become a little more open with you because he’s more relaxed

He’ll become confused when the munchies hit, but after you tell him it’s normal he’ll go with it

His favorite munchie food is definitely popcorn

I’m gonna flat out say it, high loki has a higher sex drive

Gets lost in the moment type of guy

In his opinion, the weed helps him block out everything else except for you, and that’s why he likes it

His mischief meter also skyrockets, you thought normal loki was good at pulling tricks? Just wait till you see how creative high loki can get

Bucky

Bucky is gonna look at you like your crazy

Then he’ll remember that he is also crazy, and figures the weed might help ease his mind a little.

Bucky becomes more relaxed when he’s high, his guard has dropped a little, but he’s still aware of his surroundings.

He’s funnier when he’s high 

Smiles more which makes you smile because you think he doesn’t smile enough

He still does the staring thing when he’s high, but it’s not as intimidating now, there’s a softer look in his eyes and a small smile on his face

Will open up a little more about his feelings towards you

After his first time trying weed, he’ll get some cbd gummies or something on a regular basis to help relax him

When the munchies hit for him, he’ll eat anything, but his favorite munchie food is anything Italian.

He just wants to cuddle man

Wanda

Wanda is surprisingly chill

She’s more open, more humorous, and even nicer.

her magic can resemble her current state of mind if she wants it to

So when she’s high, her magic becomes really pretty and elegant, like it’s in slow motion

In fact, she glows a little when she’s high

She’ll make her magic do pretty things for your entertainment

Due to her magic though, I feel that her high wouldn’t last very long

For her, smoking is just a quick little get away from her mind, something that just takes the edge off a little

Doesn’t get munchies

Prefers indica

Peter (quill)

He’s never had earth weed, but he’s definitely smoked and drank all kinds of substances through out the galaxy

Definitely likes sativa

He’s down for whatever, he likes to try new things

He’ll complain about the taste, but then love the way he’s feeling in 10 minutes

He becomes very stupid when he’s high

He’ll turn his favorite music on full volume and just start doing things, he won’t be able to sit still.

He’ll try to do things to keep himself entertained, but he’ll be bad at doing them because he’s high

When later or the next day comes when he’s sober, he’ll look at the evidence of him trying to do whatever it was he was trying to do and be totally confused, but not surprised

When the munchies hit, he’ll eat anything he can find on the ship that’s edible

It will end with him passed out in some weird spot on the ship or wherever he’s at

He once got high and woke up cuddling with Drax-

Gamora

Will not smoke

The designated driver

The “chaperone” of the night

Sam Wilson

When you offer him a hit, he’ll be unsure and say something like “man I haven’t done something this stupid since high school, I don’t know”

But he says “screw it” to himself and takes a couple of hits

Becomes really smiley when he’s high, like the dude won’t stop smiling. It irritates Bucky.

Definitely will start singing out of nowhere, even if there’s no music playing

He’s also gonna tell crazy stories about his past, things from high school stories to military stories

He livens up the session for sure, after a few hits in, he makes it his goal for the night to make everyone happy and vibing along with him

When the munchies hit for sam, he goes straight for pizza. This man absolutely loooovesss pizza when he’s inebriated

Dr.Strange

Is obviously familiar with the substance

Definitely used to do it all the time in college (helped with the stress of med school)

Will question if it’s the best choice for everyone to be making right now

Most likely will not do it, it wouldn’t look good if the sorcerer supreme was getting high

You’ll ask him if he knows some kind of spell that can sober you up

He’ll tell you “yes” and proceed to hand you a water bottle and roll his eyes

He’ll do the portal thing above you and a bunch of your favorite snacks will land on your lap when the munchies come

He’ll take care of you once you pass out, carrying you to your bed or your couch or whatever and setting a glass of water near you before he leaves you alone

Scott Lang

Oh yeah, he’s definitely taking a couple hits

Prefers bongs

Prefers hybrid blends (sativa and indica)

This man knows his kush okay? Would not be surprised if he had a plug, or if he was the plug

Weed makes him more productive, he’ll start doing things and multi tasking, he’ll do anything from messing around in the suit to playing rock band

Chinese take out is this mans go to munchie food, nothing brings him greater joy then inhaling wonton soup or lo mein when he’s high

He’s bringing his friends too, there’s no arguing

Like Sam, he livens the session up

Somehow become bolder, dumber and flirty at the same time when he’s high

When he comes down though, he comes down hard, and sometimes literally.

He’ll pass out or fall asleep in the weirdest places, but he’ll be enjoying it and wake up feeling well rested somehow

Bonus cuz i think it’s funny ++

John walker

Will be all cocky about taking a hit, thinking it won’t affect him or that it’ll make him cooler or something dumb

Gets scared and paranoid

Starts literally tweaking and saying stuff like “they’re coming for me”

Freaks out because he can’t handle the kush in his system

Definitely locks himself in the bathroom and cries, calls Lamar to come pick him up

Ends up becoming a hazard for everyone, so Bucky has to knock him out cold

Will probably snitch on everyone for smoking just because he had a bad time with it and he’s just jealous that he can’t vibe correctly

[whatgaviiformes]

Fic: All Hands Code Verde

Summary: “The hell did you do to that cactus?!”

Characters: Tracy Family, with a focus on Scott, Virgil, and Gordon.

Genre: General - Maybe threads of humor? It sounds funny, but I am not really a funny person soooo. Twinges of h/c and angst.

Words: 4.6K

Completed, One-shot

A/N: I am not the first person to write about plants for Thunderbirds, and I am certain I won’t be the last, but I got obsessive one day over the number of plants on Tracy Island in TAG - and then one of them looked cactus-like to me. So then this became the result. And I was dared to write it. So here we are.

Edit: I forgot to do thank yous! @the-original-sineater for the cactus help and for the glochids in the skin idea and @gumnut-logic for the nudge.

Read in Full over @ Ao3 | FF

~*~

Mission reports were always the worst when there was a casualty list. The events at the Global Seed Vault in the North Pole had been quick and sudden – one second Kayo had a lead on the Chaos Crew based on GDF intel, and the next John had also taken it upon himself to put himself in danger, and then both of them were fleeing toxic gas by the end.

It didn’t escape Scott that the casualty list could have been much longer with his siblings’ names on it, but there was still a list.

Gladys Tedford, Geranium

Age unknown

Cause of death – poisonous gas

Next of kin – Ned Tedford

“John! Really?” Scott asked, tabbing through the mission report on his data pad. “Ned’s flower was just a plant. Hardly warrants listing as a casualty.”

He heard a loud crunch from behind him as Gordon flung himself on the couch next to Scott, chewing messily on a celery crunch bar.  “Excuse me!” he argued, followed by a few chaotic, unintelligible syllables mumbled through his chewing.

“Ugh, you’re spewing celery crunch. Try that one more time when you’ve swallowed your food.” Scott flicked a crumb off his shirt. He hoped it was from the packaging and not from Gordon’s mouth.

“I said Gladys was not ‘just a plant’,” he answered after a moment. “She was a survivor. And this latest adventure was her last. She was Ned’s friend.”

“It was a tragic loss, Scott,” John agreed. Scott glared at the hologram of his brother above the lounge table. He expected the sass from Gordon, but John was a different story. And his space-bound brother thought he had no sense of humor.

Yet, there were no traces of that awkward John half-smile.

“I even wrote a lament,” Gordon mourned, before jumping right into his  dramatic recitation, using his half eaten crunch bar as his microphone:

There once was a plant named Gladys

who had in her not one lick of malice

She escaped the deep sea

and the dangers of space

But she couldn’t outrun poison’s embrace.

“That’s – not a lament,” John frowned. “It’s just about how she died.”

“It’s barely a limerick, Gords.”

“It’s not actually that either, you know.”

Gordon scowled. “Both of you shut it. Ned liked it and that’s what matters. It’s for Gladys. Not for you.”

Scott rolled his eyes and went back to reading the report on his tablet. “Still don’t you think this was still a relatively successful mission, John? Why mar it with a casualty list?”

“Because it’s the truth,” John advised, his lips tight. It was typical of Scott to review the minutes after debriefing, but he’d never so severely questioned John’s statements before. “It’s my report and I’m standing by it.”

“It was a plant!”

“She was a geranium,” Gordon snapped as he jumped up from his seat to face Scott, his hands on his hips and with an angry fire in his eyes.

“Seriously! What gives? Why does this matter so much to you two? We save people.” John was hardheaded when he felt he was right, but John and Gordon together were an utterly immovable duo. Little brothers. 100% infuriating.

“We know that.”  

“Look, Scott, Gordon’s mission to save Ned at the bottom of the ocean – that wasn’t just about Ned and Gladys. If that toxic waste had gotten into the water, it would’ve affected the entire ecosystem. That has downstream effects; it would’ve been a global catastrophe.”

“How is this at all similar?”

“Ugh!” Gordon growled, throwing his hands in the air. “Give it up, John. Trying to convince him is like trying to convince a wall. Dammit, Scott, we only have one Earth,” he shouted, “and you don’t even seem to care.”

“What?! I care.”

“Puh-lease. You are so plant blind you haven’t even noticed you keep elbowing the bromeliads.”

Sure enough he felt the pointed edges of the leaves jabbing into his arm, and he shifted his positioning on the couch to create more space between himself and the plant box that decorated the space in the lounge. “God. There. Better?”

Even though he’d listened, the question was a jab laced with mockery. And Gordon knew it. He stomped off, as Scott again glanced back down at the report with blatant dismissal of the conversation.

“I can’t with you.”

“What do you want me to say? It’s one plant. I still don’t get the big deal.”

“The deal is: what we do matters,” John scolded. “No one is arguing what constitutes life or death, Scott, but we can still be mindful of our impact and recognize when we could’ve done better.”

Through his peripheral vision, he saw John give a shake of his head before he clicked off.

Scott’s vision blurred, his mind wandering back to John’s intense eyes and Gordon’s frustrated retreat, as he tried to finish up the rest of the report.

He left the casualty list as John had written it and wondered if, before he closed comms, his brother had still been talking about plants.

That night, Scott looked up plant blindness.

Read More @ Ao3 | FF

[zaritarazi]

Amazing of stargirl to handle how heroes deal with necessary killing with such nuance but also it is a metaphor for being gay. I'm pretty sure that Yolanda's mom and her priest just think she's gay not that she killed someone, why else would her mom say court corrupted her??? checkmate DC it's gay

like to repeat here what i said on twitter i have really never seen a piece of specifically cape media talk about the concept we as consumers of said media are very aware of which is like, in order for heroes to remain these bright beacons of hope and truth there are people like a john constantine or a frank castle, just the examples that came to my mind when tweeting, who have to do horrible things to horrible people.

and it's not that they're doing it because they're being asked to per se i mean we could argue that just based on how heroism works on a societal level they're technically being "asked" to but like. they literally do it because they love people so much that they don't want them to even think about asking. they want to keep that reality hidden. like how much and how deeply do you love that you will take that kind of shit because seeing someone like a superman as much as you grumble and complain about you does, truly, make you happy

and also i'm jewish so while i'm aware that sometimes these can lean into being Jesus Metaphors that's also not really a lens i view fiction with bc i didn't grow up with ANY bible stories whatsoever and also, i will say in fiction characters that are supposed to be christ-like are actually always the really really good and pure characters where if you look at christ as a jewish person simply as a rabbi that's not true to his character at all but that's where i'm coming from

and so what becomes frustrating for me here is like, we might get confirmation from the actresses that they played courtney and yolanda in this episode romantically and that would be fantastic and we can obviously read it as such but because of the way cape media still is we as gay people are not going to be entitled to that same level of connection with a character, specifically yolanda's struggle is not just the sin of murder but also the sin of homosexuality and henry, specifically, works perfectly to taunt yolanda as a way to emphasize both those points.

like in the split second when it came down to in in the house of the catholic god yolanda picked courtney. immediately. she picked a woman over her god. and how the fuck are we supposed to read that as ONLY being about murder when we know how restrictive and terrible yolanda's parents are? when eclipso-generated brainwave talks to her about how much she hates herself? these are things that i would argue are MEANT to pique the attention of gay viewers.

and no that doesn't make it queerbaiting that's not how the force works etc but what it does do is basically take every step of creating a gay narrative and then not take the final step and again, that's not to bait people, there's a lot of reasons behind the scenes that this could happen, maybe we even have a maisie situation where they're actively trying to make something happen and are getting shot down, but this is geoff johns show so i kind of doubt it.

that being said geoff if you want to prove me wrong tim drake is bi now anything is possible please feel free to go full gay and then i will look like such a big dummy isn't that what you want. isn't that what you need? do it. do it. do it coward

[maybankiara]

TELL ME, IS IT WORTH IT?

pairing: JJ Maybank x Pope Heyward

summary: Pope proposes, JJ panics, and now he’s trying to explain why he said no (and why he shouldn’t have done it.)

w/c: 3.7k

a/n: angst with a happy ending, ignore all the typos bc this is entirely unedited (i might edit in the future)

masterlist | tag list

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It’s really unfair that when someone’s life falls apart, the world itself doesn’t. JJ thinks it should. It should be raining knives, hailing bullets, volcanoes should be exploding and the ground shaking shouldn’t be just his personal experience of reality. 

But it’s not even a moderately hot day. It’s breezy, it’s perfect, and it’s one of the nicest days of the fucking whole year. 

JJ hates it. 

The Chateau has only got John B and Kiara under its roof when he barges in, teeth gripping on the cap of a beer bottle. ‘Don’t ask,’ he states, then drops in the empty space between the two on the couch. His legs find their home on the coffee table and he nearly downs the bottle. Burps. Sighs, dramatically. 

He knows they’re exchanging glances, but he chooses to ignore it. 

Kie’s consoling hand lands on his shoulder. ‘What ha—’

‘Pope asked me to marry him,’ he says, ‘and I said no. And I also said I think it’s never going to happen.’

John B should’ve made a dumb comment. Kie should’ve made a sarcastic remark. But they didn’t, and they won’t, because JJ feels the gravity of the situation weighting down his lungs. (It feels like being torn up inside out, like his heart is chewing on itself out of anger, or sadness, or betrayal. It feels like the moment when your heart skips a beat and you think this is it, this is how I die, except you don’t; except you’re stuck in that moment forever.)

JJ burps. It chips at the silence, but it doesn’t break it. Kie’s hand on his shoulder is frozen and the distance between him and John B seems like an ocean. 

‘Yeah,’ says JJ. ‘I don’t think that was what he expected.’

A sigh comes from Kie, but he doesn’t look. ‘When was this?’

‘About twenty minutes ago. I drove straight here.’

‘Drunk?’ asks John B. 

‘Does it matter? I’m here now. Safe and sound.’ He lets out a dry chuckle before he can stop himself, and shakes his head. ‘Physically, anyway.’

‘You’re not drunk,’ says Kie. It sounds a little like a scoff, so JJ looks at her, but he can’t figure out what her face is saying. Tight lips scream anger, but her eyes are soft as ever, maybe a little concerned. She glances between him and John B with one of her eyebrows slightly raised. ‘He’s a heartbroken idiot, but not drunk.’

‘Ah. Understandable. Should I—’

‘You know what being a heartbroken idiot means.’ Kie pushes herself off the couch and when JJ glances at his other friend, John B’s just as confused as he is. ‘I know a thing or two about getting your heart broken for a dumb reason. You two sort that out, and I’ll make sure Pope’s okay. Let me know when you’ve knocked some sense into him.’

Before either of the boys manage to comprehend her words, she’s out the door. The Kie-shaped void on JJ’s left side feels a little odd, so he pushes himself into that side of the couch. The beer is bitter at the back of his throat; he wishes some music would be playing. 

John B calls his name, so JJ looks at him. He’s giving him the puppy eyes, trying to get him to talk, and it’s because neither of them really know how to start. (Their affection is physical, not verbal. Kie’s the one who’s good at that. Pope is—)

‘Did you panic?’ asks John B. 

JJ shakes his head. ‘Don’t think so. Not until after I’ve said it, anyway.’

‘So what happened?’

There’s a pause, JJ feels his brow furrow, and then: ‘I don’t know.’

‘…you don’t know?’

‘No.’

‘So you panicked.’

‘No, I didn’t, it’s—’ With a sigh, JJ accepts the momentary defeat. He glances over and sees John B’s signature stare full of indecipherable intent, but nothing less than pure kindness. They’ve had their bumps, but they always came out on top. It’s the pogue way. Even if John B wears that stupid bandanna around his neck well into his married life of his late twenties. ‘I knew the answer was no.’

It’s John B’s turn to frown. ‘You’ve thought about it?’

‘No, I just knew. Like you know the ocean is salty.’

‘You know that because you’ve tasted it before,’ counters John B. ‘I doubt you’ve been proposed to before.’

‘I could’ve been!’ 

All John B offers is a long stare yet that is enough. He’s older by only a few months, but he’s also married and didn’t say no to the proposal (granted, it was him proposing to Sarah, but still) and kind of has got his life together. He’s still JJ’s dumb older brother, but he knows something JJ doesn’t. 

‘How did you know you wanted to marry Sarah?’ 

‘Are you reconsidering your answer?’

‘No, I just—’ JJ sighs again and tries to wish another bottle into appearing in his hand. Doesn’t work. Probably for the better. He just leans his head back on the couch and stares at the ceiling, connecting the dots in his mind. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. I just want you to tell me how you knew.’

He hears shuffling, and then feels John B’s feet in his lap. (He’s not going to comment on the boat shoes. There’s been enough deflecting. He’s got to listen, because Pope is threatening to burst into the forefront of his mind any second now.)

John B gives out the deep, heavy sigh that only comes with a slight aah whenever he’s about to tell a story. ‘When we were young, she made everything come alive. Everything looked brighter and clearer, and it was like I could finally breathe with the entirety of my lungs.’

JJ closes his eyes, trying not to gag. ‘Bro. I’m not listening to that.’

‘But that’s how I knew!’ He could just hear the grouch in his friend’s voice and now he’s threading the fine line between laughing and gagging. ‘Seriously, JJ, you asked. I don’t— I don’t know what to say. I don’t think you’re taking this seriously enough.’

‘I am.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re deflecting.’

‘Big word.’

‘See?’ John B scrunches his nose, shaking his head. His thumb and index finger grip the bridge of his nose. ‘I know you’re confused. And scared. I know you panicked when Pope asked, but I don’t think you understand how horrible is the thing you’ve done.’

‘It’s not like I broke his heart,’ scoffs JJ, but the words are flat and his heart skips another beat. He doesn’t need to look at John B to knows he’s got his head in his hands. ‘C’mon, it’s Pope. He’s tougher than he looks.’

‘Yes, but he proposed, JJ. He asked to spend the rest of his life with you and you said no!’

‘I didn’t say no to that!’ JJ flings himself off the couch and now he’s pacing around the living room of the Chateau, marching circles around the coffee table. His forehead is pulsating; he’s probably having a heart attack. That’d explain a lot. ‘I said no to getting married.’

‘That’s the same thing.’

‘It isn’t.’

‘It is.’

‘It really isn’t, John B,’ he spits out. Christ, he’s getting hot. Is that his blood boiling? ‘Marriage is… It’s taxes. It’s prenups. It’s joint bank accounts, it’s added tension, it’s fucked up. Half of the marriages don’t even last.’

(Pope’s always talked about getting married. When gay marriage was legalised, before they were together, before they were out of the closet, even then he was openly delighted about it. He’s been talking about the two of them getting married for a while now, or at least hinting at it. 

He should’ve expected it. It didn’t come out of the blue. He saw the signs, just ignored them, because… because…)

‘If you’re scared marriage is going to ruin your relationship, JJ, I’ll have you know you’ve already done that yourself.’ 

This is about the point where everything just… It comes crashing down. The world does end the way JJ wanted it to. 

He feels himself growing very, very still, like when he was younger and his father raised a hand. He feels his breath halting in his throat and ears tuning out all sound, repeating John B’s words over and over until the echo became the echo of itself. He could feel the ground opening beneath him despite not moving an inch. 

When gravity drags you down to earth, your rose-tinted glasses shatter like porcelain. 

He sees Pope’s face of shock, then laughter, then embarrassment and betrayal at once, once he’s realised JJ isn’t joking. He sees him get up from his knees, hands shaking as JJ fumbles over his words, unable to find an explanation or an excuse. He feels cold sweat breaking out on his forehead, blood turning to ice in his hands. He sees his mum leaving, his dad’s hand raised; he sees people arguing and JJ wants to cover his ears. He sees himself, alone, alone, alone. 

And he sees Pope turning his back to him. Quietly. He doesn’t even argue back. Just takes the no and i’m sorry, i can’t do this, it’s never going to happen, not like this and doesn’t say a word. Just walks away. 

It’d be easier if he screamed at JJ. At least he’d know how to deal with that. 

Pope’s heartbreak is the quiet kind, the one that doesn’t ask for attention, just the opposite. Usually JJ’s there to hold his hand, to sit by his side until Pope’s ready to talk about it, or be somewhere around, far enough so that Pope deals with things himself, but close enough so that he’s there if he’s needed. He’s never been the reason for the quiet. 

Fire replaces the ice. JJ feels like the sun itself is tearing him open. 

‘Shit,’ he says. ‘Fuck.’ Then raises his eyes until he meets John B’s, blurry and barely visible. ‘I fucked up.’

He doesn’t realise he’s shaking until his knees buckle under his weight and he stumbles to find his footing. John B shoots from the couch and pulls him into a hug, wrapping his arms around him so tight JJ couldn’t have escaped if he wanted to. He didn’t. He wanted to be held, even if by a friend. 

He doesn’t sob because the sob gets caught in his throat, too, but he lets out a cough that says all the same. ‘It would’ve been easier if you yelled at me.’

‘I know.’ John B pats his back, letting JJ rest his weight unto him. ‘Pope will understand. That’s why Kie went to talk to him. As long as you realise you’re hurting everyone by being an idiot, you can make it better.’

‘I thought—’ He stops, because his words get fumbled again, and now he’s pressing his eyes into his friend’s shoulder like he’s all he’s got. ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone again.’

‘You’re not going to, okay? Just… Marriage is not all taxes, and you gotta understand that. It’s about knowing that if they get hurt, you’ll be allowed to see them. That you can get a house together, that you can look after each other if something goes wrong. That what you have is there to stay. Think of it as a promise.’

JJ snorts, but he doesn’t let go. ‘I don’t do well with people promising things to me.’

‘Then promise it to yourself,’ counters John B. The way he puts it makes it sound it’s as easy as breathing – JJ wishes he could feel the same. ‘Promise to stay with him. Promise to be around if something bad happens, but if something good happens, too. That’s what marriage is.’

‘I already promised that,’ he says. ‘His future and mine are the same.’

‘Then what’s the problem? Marriage is just making it legal. Making it formal. When what you have is honest and true, it doesn’t change anything. It just makes things better.’

JJ pulls out, feeling confident he can stand on his own two feet. He still feels a little lightheaded, but the thought of Pope possibly thinking that spending the rest of their lives together is the last thing JJ would want… That is the last thing JJ would want. Pope hurting because of him. 

JJ can’t afford to be scared anymore; living a life half-way ready to run is not living. 

He checks his phone; it must’ve chimed at some point because there’s texts from Kie, telling him where she is with Pope. His heart skips another beat, and at this point he thinks he could have enough heartbeats for a whole new person just from the ones he missed. 

He’s not dying today. He’s not dying before he gets to live the future he’s almost ripped out of his own hands. 

When he looks up at John B, he feels the hint of a weary smile on his lips. ‘I think I’ve got a promise to make.’

—

It shouldn’t be a surprise JJ finds them at the Boneyard, yet it’s still quite odd to see the scenario he’s seen a million times – Kie sitting next to the sea with her feet dipped into water as her fingers splash at the waves just about reaching her, and Pope… Pope sitting on the half-dunked log that’s been here forever, with his feet bare but not quite touching the water. His head is hung low and JJ can see the strain in his shoulders even from halfway across the beach; the cap is sitting on his lap, unused, despite the sun high above their heads. 

The sight tugs at his heart and he falters in his step, but John B’s firm hand on his back encourages him forward. JJ gives a slight nod; he’s not giving up on the courage. 

It’s Pope who notices them first and he stiffens even more; JJ sees Kie pat his knee before turning around and waving at them, then saying something to Pope. JJ wishes the wind would carry her words to him – is it encouragement or telling Pope he’s better off without someone who panics and refuses the one thing they’ve always longed for?

‘Don’t.’ John B pats him on the back. ‘I see you doing your dumb thought thing.’

JJ opens his mouth to say something, but whatever it was that he meant to say, it’s gone forever. All he can do is try and keep his shoulders from slumping and hands from forming fists; he can’t allow himself to be angry at the world, or himself. 

The sand creaks underneath his feet. He hates it in this moment, because it makes him aware of every step he’s got to take to get to Pope, and the steps drag into eternity. 

Pope locks their eyes. JJ tries figuring him out, but he’s too far, and Pope’s too guarded. 

(Not against me, Pope. Please. Not against me.)

When they get there, JJ feels like fainting, but he sets his foot firmly on the ground. He’s not escaping. 

‘Hey,’ greets Kie, and John B returns the greeting. The feuded lovers stay silent, just taking each other in. 

(JJ always wished he could paint. The lines of Pope’s face are shaped as if they were meant to withstand centuries instead of being washed away with age. He wishes he could offer to Pope more than just… himself.

He’s talked about this with Pope before, though. Feeling inferior to his boyfriend was always going to be JJ’s Achilles’ heel, yet he didn’t think it would come to this. He made another promise, ages ago – to try to see himself the way Pope sees him. The way other people see him. 

To believe in himself the way he believes in other people, for once.)

The silence is heavy, but JJ forces himself to not see it that way. Instead, he looks over to Kie, to John B, and says: ‘Can you guys give us a second?’

There’s nods and then they’re off, with nothing between the couple aside from waves crashing into the shore. Pope’s head is hung and shoulders slumped, and he’s sitting on this log with one foot pulled up and resting on it, the other hanging in the water now. JJ’s fingers ache to reach across for his, but he tells himself it’s not the time. 

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘Marriage scares me. I don’t know one that worked out, aside from John B and Sarah. I was raised to be on my own. Marriage means not being alone and that scared me, until I realised that… I haven’t been alone for a while now. The pogues, you… Nobody’s going anywhere. And if marriage is just a way to promise to you that I’m not going anywhere, either, and if it means so much to you, then I say let’s do it. I got scared, but never for a second did a life without you cross my mind. It’s — That’s my nightmare, Pope. Your future and mine are the same. Where you go, I follow. That’s the way things are.’

For a long time, it was JJ trying to come to terms with loving Pope – then it was Pope coming to terms with loving JJ. They’ve always loved each other, in a way, without quite saying it. It has never been the kind of love that is shouted from the rooftops – it’s the helping hand, the whispers of i got this, or you’re not alone in this, or i wish you could see yourself the way i see you. It’s the kind of love that’s etched into the air around them, existing as a part of themselves rather than something external. They’ve grown into it, shaped their lives around it.

It’s always been the beach for them. Their first kiss when they were seventeen, their first fight, their first promise to stick together through thick and thin. Every time something happened, something that mattered, etched itself into the back of JJ’s mind like the sound of his mother’s voice, it was always accompanied by the sound of waves on the shore; by the wind howling over the bay. It was always people chatting in the distance, or some music playing from a half-working speaker. It was always them, in the midst of other people’s lives. 

Pope proposed in their flat. 

When JJ drops to his knees, he doesn’t do his dumb thought thing. He doesn’t even think about it – for once, his gut isn’t telling him to run, but stay. ‘Pope Heyward.’

‘JJ—’

‘Can you let me do this?’ asks JJ. He laughs a little, shakes his head, and tries not to think about how ridiculous this looks. ‘I know I already had a monologue, but I don’t think I got my point across.’

Pope shakes his head, too; he isn’t smiling, but his eyes aren’t as strained anymore. ‘It’s okay, you don’t have to—’

‘I want to. I want this, okay? I want you to hear it.’

He can see Pope’s Adam’s apple bob, and he can see his shoulders slump in a relaxed way. The lines around his eyes soften and his lips nearly turn upwards, just a little bit. A little twitch is enough to shoot electricity to JJ’s heart. 

‘Pope, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life saying it to you. You’re my best friend, my boyfriend, and my fiancee, if you’ll have me after the shit I pulled today. Husband, then. Father of your children, because I know it’s what you’ve always wanted, and I want it, too. Whatever you’ll be, I’ll be by your side. It’s all I want. No matter what our status is, we’re always Pope and JJ. We’re always just us. And I really haven’t thought out what I’d say next because—’

Pope’s lips crash into JJ’s, his hands grasping at JJ’s face, and world pulls itself together again. When they part their foreheads lean against one another, and he can feel Pope’s breath on his lips, and he feels his hands burning on the small of Pope’s back, and he can breathe and breathe and breathe like his lungs have never worked properly before. 

(He understands John B now. Not like he’d ever admit it to him.)

He lets out a chuckle, and then he’s kissing Pope again – a small, chaste kiss, just to feel the softness of the touch. His fingers grip the back of Pope’s flannel and he’s laughing into the kiss. 

‘You’re an idiot,’ says Pope. ‘I should break up with you.’

‘Can’t. I’m too irresistible.’

‘Shut up. You’re cheesy. That entire speech would put John B to shame.’ 

JJ shakes his head again and then his thumb is tracing the line of Pope’s jaw, eyes transfixed by his lips. He almost lost this. He almost gave up everything out of fear after promising to never doing it again. (He’s making a vow, this time. It holds more weight.) ‘You loved that speech.’

Pope rolls his eyes, in the way that tells JJ he’s right. ‘Kie told me you were freaking out at the Chateau.’

‘I was,’ admits JJ. What’s the point of holding back the truth? ‘I was freaked out of my mind. I thought I’d ruined everything.’

‘You forget how well I know you, JJ. I was hurt, but I knew you would come back. Old you would run, but Kie came and said you’re at the Chateau, and you wouldn’t have gone there if you meant to run.’

‘I couldn’t ever run from you.’

‘You better.’

JJ rolls his eyes at the teasing tone in Pope’s voice, then pulls him in for a hug. It’s not long until Pope buries his face in JJ’s shoulder, and JJ kisses the side of his head. ‘I do want to marry you, if you’ll have me.’

There’s a pause and JJ feels Pope chuckle against his neck, shivering a little. ‘What is it that you said? My future and yours are the same? That better be in your vows, John B.’

‘Shut up.’ JJ feels himself burning, neck up this time, and tries to laugh it off. ‘I get to be cheesy once.’

‘Just save it for the wedding. I’d like to hear it again.’

JJ angles his body so there’s some space between them; he doesn’t hesitate before planting another kiss on Pope’s lips, reveling in the ease of movement. This is what coming home feels like, and if this is what future has in store for him, who is he to complain?