#I value ships where when the characters get together things just. fall into place naturally and they give that vibe

[astrxlfinale]

HC; Relationship Ladder (In and outside of ships!)

A good talk I've had with a mutual lately really made me take a deeper dive into how Caelus operates. In particular, the way he fashions relationships, and often, how they're pretty clear cut for a mass majority of time despite the lack of the said element of time.

By nature he's a Trailblazer, a wanderer of the stars, someone who often is going to have experiences richer in essence for emotional value. This introduces a more aggregated variable upon the chart, as it's not how much time has been spent being on amiable terms that truly counts for him. Rather, it's the intensity of those moments, the richness, and how it translates to how much he actively invests into said people.

There's a more likely affinity he'll build his style of authentic relationships with those he actively shares journeys with. In many social fields he's naturally far removed (ironically enough in more normalized peace settings). That carries, it holds weight, and it shows in how much there's little hesitation to just invest if the feeling is right.

Caelus from his recreation is someone who doesn't have the backlog growth of younger years, teenage years and all of that in his active memory. He has firm knowledge that situates him as an adult, and at that point he simply takes it from there. A lot of what he's building is new and the decisions carved both by a greater design, and the natural line of resolve he has plays a good part.

So if I were to lay it out? He has the capacity to build those worthwhile bonds quicker, given the right circumstances. Intimate relationships, deep camaraderie, you name it. Time holds a more feeble hand whereas it wouldn't need a pack of years or too prolonged of a time to get things going, the value he places on that time shared reshapes the definition of Time itself.

This can play as to how you can easily confuse many the bonds he has likely lasting for years, but a good deal of things are a lot more recent than one would think. Caelus's character has the luxury/curse (depends on how you see it) of arriving at these thresholds thanks wholly to these opportunities.

So in kind, that means what's situated together is felt significantly deeper from his perspective too. This is where his certainly truly steps up to the plate when he's invested in someone.

Tl;DR: Slow-burn relationships are actually pretty hard to get active with him. They'd either pick up rarely, but in most normal angles of interaction, they're easily prone to falling off depending on the experience.

[whovianwatchingstartrek]

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 105 - Deep Cover In An Alternate Dimension

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 1 Episode 10 - Despite Yourself

I return from my brief day of rest, for the continuation of Star Trek Discovery.

Picking up from where we left off, with the bridge trying to figure out where we are. They are at the right co-ordinates, but nothing else is where it should be. We run across a Vulcan cruiser, who respond to Discovery's hails by immediately opening fire.

According to another Federation ship, the Cooper, these Vulcans are rebels, and after a bit of good old technobabble, our crew comes to the conclusion that we're in a parallel universe, and the ready room discussion last episode set up.

I'm interested to see exactly how this universe differs from the main, I have a lot of questions, not least of which is why is starfleet fighting against Vulcan Rebels?

Well, after the intro, it's up for our crew to get a lay of the land, as Paul is still very much out of commission with whatever he has going on at the moment. I'm liking the writing going on between Lorca and Dr Culber, and the clash between Lorca's more cold objective outlook and Culber's relationship with Paul.

Discovery sends out Ash to survey the wreckage field to get information about this universe, but her starts having flashbacks behind the wheel. While these ships are klingon, there are also Vulcans and Andorians inside among the dead, and it's not just a stolen ship either, the data chips in the ship are Vulcan components.

Ash returns to Discovery, and tires to convince the Torturer to explain what happened to him, but she activates his sleeper agent programming. He manages to snap out of it however, and puts her back in her cell.

I love how the episode slowly builds the pieces on this new universe, and how I'm left to put the pieces together with the crew, and every new piece of information has me eager to see how it all fits in place, until around halfway through when Michael and Tilly manage to crack into the data from the Klingon-Vulcan ship

Apparently, the Federation doesn't exist here, and in it's place is human centric government called the Terran Empire. The dead Klingons, Vulcans and Andorians we encountered form an inter-species rebellion against this Empire. Additionally, Saru concludes that this Universe's discovery has made it's way into the main universe, and apparently Sylvia is it's captain.

The Cooper tries to hail discovery, so Sylvia has to push through her anxieties to pretend to be a Fascistic captain, and the scene is hilarious. Sylvia is just literally me, she is precious and I love her. Also I'm Scottish, so hearing Lorca jump to a Scottish Accent when told to conceal his voice just filled me with glee!

Lorca decides to prepare to train Discovery and her crew to blend in with this new Universe, so they can survive until they find a way home. Federation badges and uniforms are switched out for Empire ones, and everyone . I'm actually really interested to see where this plotline goes. Deep cover mission like this absolutely effect people, and I'm really excited to see our crew's morality put to the test in a universe that just doesn't have the same moral compass and values are our crew.

I'm also really curious to know more about this Terran Empire universe. The whole Evil-Parallel universe is a really common thing when stories go the multiverse route, and rightfully so, there are a lot of ways you can the concept of an evil parallel universe. Doctor Who, my main Sci-Fi fandom, did it in a 1970 Third Doctor Serial called Inferno, which is a really interesting study of Nature vs Nurture, and my favourite part of Inferno is that the Inferno-Earth characters are deep down the same people as their original N-Space counterparts, just buried deep under and twisted by shitty fascist upbringings. I'm really curious to see where Star Trek's take on the evil-parallel universe falls on a similar nature vs nurture spectrum.

Apparently, Michael's counterpart is dead, and Lorca's counterpart murdered her. Apparently, Lorca's counterpart also led a coup against the Emperor, which really caught my attention. I really want to know more about Lorca's counterpart. Was he leading a coup for his own gain in a similar way to how Sylvia's counterpart gained the captaincy after murdering the previous captain, or was he genuinely trying to overthrow this facist empire? I want to know more! Point is, Lorca's Counterpart is still out there in this universe, as he's a fugitive and wouldn't be on the other-Discovery, which if the principle of Chekov's Gun applies, mean we're probably gonna run into him, and I'm excited for that!

Also, one more thing, while searching through the data core, Lorca finds that Discovery isn't the first ship to make it's way to this universe. A ship called the USS Defiant, apparently will, at some point in the Federation Universe's future, will end up in the Empire Universe's past. Wibbly Wobbly, Timey Wimey. And Lorca believes that this information could be the Discovery's path back home. The Plan is to sneak onto the ISS Shenzhou to retrieve information on the Defiant.

Michael's prep speech to tilly about how the Terran Empire's strength as all a smokescreen to hide their constant fear of both the outside and within was great, and after the prep Mary Wiseman really got to show off her acting chops here, switching from our lovable normal tilly to the projection of the evil captain tilly was fantastic.

Meanwhile in medbay, Ash's status as a sleeper is detected by the Doctor, and in response, he cracks, then snaps the doctor's neck. Michael, Ash and Lorca beam over to the ISS Shenzhou, and their cover mission is played perfectly, and the insights we get into Terran society are fantastic. I loved the fight in the elevator, and Michael having to mask her near breakdown over killing someone who has the face of someone knows. Unfortunately, Michael is unable to get the information on the Defiant because the entire crew is either trying to kill her, like Connor, or is playing up a entirely Sycophantic angle to catch her favour.

I'm really excited to see where this arc goes. I've kinda already covered all the stuff I would normally put in my conclusion, but I'm hoping we get some deconstruction on the Terran Empire's Fascism, we kind of already did with the aforementioned prep speech between Michael and Sylvia, but I want more of that. It's all to common for fictional evil empires to use the aesthetic of Fascism without really doing anything to deconstruct it or show it's failings (Cough, Star Wars, Cough). On the whole I am optomistic for this though, it's definitely falling more in line with the kind of Multiverse story that I like, and fingers crossed it stays that way.

[turianmailman]

Ok so I just looked through all you kogkag art and I am in love! You draw Koga so well and it's nice to find someone else who ships kogkag. Out of curiosity, do you ship anything else in Inuyasha?

This is so out of left field, but — Sango x Inuyasha — literally because of that one time he prevented her from killing herself and Kohaku

They’re also just. Extremely normal around each other and I love that for them as opposed to their very canon, very unsavory relationships they end up in.

[lady-ye]

Willow by Taylor Swift is totally a stydia anthem!

I was buying groceries 'cause life sucks and I heard willow by Taylor Swift playing and boy, does that song describe Lydia and Stiles so perfectly! Like listen to me, I am definitely not reaching or shit faced (maybe a little?) here. I don't even listen to pop music but these lyrics literally fits stydia feels head on.

I'm like the water when your ship rolled in that night Rough on the surface but you cut through like a knife : You cannot tell me that our favourite dorks didn't do this until they got their shit together. Lydia was the guarded cold ship to Stile's tropical sea till the end of season 2 and then Stiles became the the ship moving away from Lydia's ever warming sea of emotions that he opened the gates to.

I never would've known from that look on your face Lost in your current like a priceless wine: Lydia who though Stiles was just another boy who took her for the face value and she did the same. She perceived him as just another loser who was not worth her attention. She ignored him him in the pilot episode but as the season progressed she came to know him and he became one of her best friends. By season three she was a goner. Lydia who acknowledged she did not feel love like what Allison felt for Scott in the earlier seasons was willing to throw her life for him multiple times. Everything that Allison described came a full circle for Lydia .

The more that you say The less I know- Literally Stiles musing on how Lydia feels for him. Stiles could never gauge if his feeling were reciprocated in the same way. Annnd then when Stiles and Malia get together, Lydia did the same wondering if Stiles still felt anything for her. Wherever you stray I follow I'm begging for you to take my hand Wreck my plans: Like c'mon, do I need to even elaborate this? Like really this exactly defines Stydia until season six part B rolled down. Life was a willow and it bent right to your wind Head on the pillow, I could feel you sneaking in As if you were a mythical thing Like you were a trophy or a champion ring And there was one prize I'd cheat to win: Ahem. Lydia's actual progression towards falling in love with the boy who made a plan to get her fall in love with him. The winter formal and Peter biting Lydia which triggered her banshee nature were a domino reaction which changed her life forever and Stiles was one of the most important catalyst in the subsequent chain of reaction. Stiles sneaked into her defenses, he chipped her armor of ice and indifference little by little. Lydia who is an actual mythical creature in a world full of mythical creatures such as fox spirits, werewolves, hunters and druids seems more surprised by Stiles's unfiltered humanity. She who was once a queen bee, the girl who dated the jocks no matter how horribly they treated her realised her actual worth along with what really mattered. Stiles was always infatuated with Lydia, putting her on a pedestal but as he got to know her, she became so much more than just a romantic interest. His adoration turned to love and it was reciprocated even if he had no clue. Both of them never gave up on each other and were willing to do everything to make sure the other was safe no matter what.

Show me the places where the others gave you scars: I think this is what Stiles did that endeared him the most. He was the only one who actually saw Lydia for who she really was and soothed her insecurities that she had gathered over the years. He peeled back the layers and took in the damage others had left on her. He allowed Lydia to be herself and encouraged her to stop hiding her brilliance and heart from others. He loved every imperfection of her. You know that my train could take you home Anywhere else is hollow: I think Stydia really like really became endgame during season three. Both Lydia and Stiles's character went through a brilliant phase of discovering themselves. Lydia became confident enough in her own skin and started putting her real self out there and Stiles started growing up. He was not longer the Robin to Scott's Batman but the main character in his own story. They tried dating others and trying to make it work but imo Stiles always knew and when he rescued Lydia from Eichen house, even she knew that it was useless to resist the pull. I think Stiles's relationship with Malia put things into perspective for the viewers since Lydia never loved Jackson or Aiden and the whole Parish thing went nowhere and was honestly creepy. Stiles and Malia were cute together but while they were good on paper, Stiles's actual feelings showed whenever Lydia was involved. I think he tried filling the gap by letting Malia in especially since they started getting tanged really after the nogitsune debacle but soon realised that while he loved Malia he wasn't in love with her. They were each others tether and boy, her love for him opened a rift to another plane of existence to bring him back home(the train station scene guys!).

[xo-alie-xo]

PORTWELL LONG GAME OR RINA SLOWBURN.

You can only choose one poison.🍷

Listen up my Wildcats.🐱

We all ship each character with happiness. No matter how much you love to hate them, a majority of us simply adores the characters and want the best for them. Then comes relationships and it's okay to ship our favorites.⛴

I'm a diehard Rina shipper and I know in my heart that they are series endgame. The set up, the natural chemistry, their mutual understanding, the surprises and angst literally put me on chokehold. So I'm 100% a Rina shipper till the end. I'm here for the slowburn and their development rather than one shots. They are worth the pain. 😭❤

Let me start with Ricky Bowen now.

Ricky shouldn't to be with Gina because he's hurting her mentality. He's not insensitive on purpose. Like when he tried to stop Big Red from telling her his message to Nina because he KNOWS it'll hurt her.

If you think, that Ricky didn't understand clearly when Gina confessed, think again. He shushed her. Kept their thing a secret from everyone. He knows he feels some type of way and she feels something too. But this boy is so used to safeguarding his childhood norms and has very little adaptability. Hence, he pretended to ignore everything between them because his home stability was falling apart and he clinged on to Nina, his constant childhood love.

He's a traumatised 16-17 year old boy that needs to heal and grow. This episode was heartbreaking because he had to accept that he had to let Nina go because their once upon a time fairytale had become toxic.

People change. I'm not the same person I was when I was 16 lmao. Being together as childhood lovers means growing together and accepting each other's growth. Which Ricky couldn't. He clutched to the idea of Nini. Even his love confession. It was sooo sweet but all he did was focus on their history.

This boy needs time to heal and maybe seek professional therapy. It would be so DAMN HISTORIC if Disney decides to take psychological issues seriously and show how he's dealing with his anxiety, pills and psychotherapy. He needs to breathe before he can be with any girl for that matter. He's hurting and isn't trying to hurt anyone on purpose. Including Gina.

Him asking her for advice on Nini was a dumb, insensitive move. But he's trying to find a way to build some supportive friendship that they shared in early season one.

As for now, this boy needs to get his own grip on life and heal.

As for our Queen Gina

In Gina's confession, she focuses on their future. She basically said, "I wouldn't quit on a possible future of us being together despite obstacles. Because I never quit. But moving away isn't in my control." Ricky deep down knows this, encouraged her to say it, teary eyed, despite right after getting back together with Nini. Gina is his future. She went to his new house. And I also have this feeling that when she was given a chance to stay, she stayed partly because of Ricky. She left a chance to be with her mom because she prioritised their relationship. Because she never quits. 💪🏼

But she came back and found out Ricky has gotten back together with Nini.😭 What she doesn't know is Ricky got together with Nina before her confession, and after Gina kept dodging his messages. She's hurt and questions why she returned because she isn't particularly close to anyone. Hence, she was so silent at the after party. She thinks it'll be fine, "she'll live", and finds other reasons to find permanence. Her arc this season has been settling down in East High, despite the pain of losing and being 'betrayed' by Ricky, she finds other reasons to stay. 🏡

This kind of contrasts her with Nina. Nina left her dream school and came to Salt Lake because she missed her established home, and not just because of Ricky. Nina returned and was loved and embraced by Ricky Bowen.💕 Gina came back to a semi new place called Salt Lake because of her promise of a future to Ricky. But she got stabbed and she bled. 💔🗡

Think about her situation. She feels confused, alone, heartbroken, out of place and seperated from her mom. She's broken and hurting too. And she doesn't need more from Ricky's accidental or intentional 'sick burns'. That's the one line where he was such a jerk and I can't defend him here. 😠

Here comes the Caswells.

Her second family. A place of healthy stability. A home that accepted her. Ashlyn, her roomie and her confidante. EJ, the misunderstood boy who saw her value and bought her plane ticket.

Let's get to EJ.

At first, I wasn't too keen on seeing Portwell's development. But then that video chat where they talk about the possibility of her staying and him convincing her. Had me sold for a solid brother-sister relationship. Few episodes later, when Gina's pain seemed to be oblivious to everyone, he was the only one who asked her how she was, and saw her glow. The comfort she must've felt.

Not that she needs a man's validation, but she must be feeling like a second choice and feeling a little insecure because of Ricky. But EJ lifts her up and I genuinely saw her smile. This boy has her back whenever. The man she can lean on and truly sees how special she is. She no longer feels alone now that she has his entire fam and other friends. She genuinely feels a place of belonging and happiness when she's the apple of his eye. Notice how happy she is? How happy this boy is? She's going through her own issues and she has found ground with EJ.

I was very doubtful when they started hinting at a romantic direction. Because EJ would be used as plot device again for a girl to get to Ricky.😤 This man doesn't deserve to be second best to anyone, just like Gina.😑 That's why I'm still hesitant on shipping them at least temporarily. EJ needs to be something even more special to Gina. They need to show each other how special and treasured they are to each other despite feeling like rejects. They are each other's source of comfort.

I'm sure they can keep EJ at East High for the next season. Whether it's the drama club, or the AV club or going to a local college. So he will be there for Gina. I don't know how they can work out a relationship with much distance as Rini's fell out when she moved away. So, if EJ leaves again, it'll again shake up Gina. Her being worried whether he'll date college girls, second thoughts, etc. I don't want them to go through that. And if they do move on to romantic Portwell, make sure it's not plot device for Rina. So you can either have Portwell endgame or Rina Endgame.

Basically I want Gina to be treated so right that she understands she doesn't need Ricky. And when he does ask her out, and he makes her feel like a second choice or a rebound, she says NO. Because EJ has helped regain her self assurance. Eventually I want Gina to confide in EJ about her and Ricky. EJ is jealous but also angry about how Ricky has been hurting her. And becomes damn protective of his 'babe'. Ricky gets jealous of their relationship, restarting Ricky and EJ's old rivalry. But this time, it's not because Gina is his girlfriend, but because she's EJ's best friend who he has a crush on and wants what's best for her.

If it's meant to be Rina endgame

EJ- RICKY, YOU IDIOT! You have no clue how to treat her right. You don't put her first. You mislead her. Get the hell away from her! She's too powerful and beautiful, she doesn't deserve your scraps. I know how she feels for you. I wish I were you. I would treat her like a queen. I don't mind even waiting years till she's ready. She deserves that. You're so lucky you have even a small chance that I may never have. So get your act together, prove you're worth it to win her over. All I want is for her to be happy. Even if it's with someone else. And maybe then I'll stop threatening you to stay away from her.😠

Ricky- .....I don't know what I'm more scared of. Change, or losing the girl I fell for or YOU. Okay, losing her but you're a close second.😬

If it's Portwell endgame.

Ricky- I messed up. Make sure you don't mess up with her. You'll regret it forever.

EJ- I'd rather get hit by thousand basketballs than ever hurt her. I'll be her plus one and her best friend until she's ready to be with me. I know she's ready now too. But I want her to know I'm willing to wait till she graduates before we make it official. I'm in it for the long game.

As for their age gap. I'm 100% sure Portwell won't kiss this season. If they do, it'll be next when Sofia turns 18. They are professional actors who are cast because they are the perfect fit for the role and are expected to carry out the storyline. But I suppose fearing some outbursts, they might delay Sofia kissing anyone till next season. It's so weird because Olivia was maybe 17 when Matt was 21-22 when they kissed in season one. But no one had a problem with that. But for this, they do. Remember, they are professional actors. They are acting! Sometimes, actors are over 10 years apart (but above 18) and act as romantic partners.

As for their characters, they are only two years apart. That's hardly any difference once you're over the age of 18. Age of consent is 16. But adults above 18 are only allowed to have sex with adults above 18. So, age isn't a problem here because EJ is a gentleman and is genuinely interested in her and isn't trying to get in her pants. So age isn't the issue when it comes to dating. It's the maturity. Gina is very mature and gives very sound advice. But I can see EJ being patient enough till she turns 18 just to kiss her because he loves her. 😚

As for the Ashlyn remark, "You look like a kid to me rn". He was JOKING.😂 Don't take things out of context. I tell my cousin sister that all the time. But she's three years younger than me and a grown adult. I don't see her as a kid but it's just a cousin teasing her younger cousin that's she's a little immature. I'm Matt's age and I'm very mature for my age and since I was a teenager, I always matched up with boys a little older than me. Now that I'm in my early 20s, I've dated boys even close to 30. So age is just a number.

EJ dating Gina and giving her quick kisses is fine. But to have a strong sexual element in their relationship (including making out), he'll have to wait till she's 18+. And I'm sure for that he'll wait till she's ready even past her early 20s. Age is really just a number and we can't help who we fall in love with. Trust me, I've been there.😂 So I can see EJ feeling conflicted about his feelings that are clear at this point.

They might not be a perfect fit, but they make each other sooo happy. They deserve a lot more than a short lived fling.😟 They are either endgame or Rina is. You can't have both as a Rina unless you're an EJ hater who wants him to exist as plot device. Nope! He's sooo much more precious than that.

But Jack on the other hand....I'm okay if he's the one to make Ricky or EJ jealous. Because he's just been introduced and it's okay if a character is used, but only once, for someone else to realize their feelings. 💁🏽‍♀️

In short.

Ricky needs help and needs to be on his own. No girlfriends allowed.🙅🏽‍♀️🚫

Needs to give both Gina and Nina space for them to grow on their own too.🌳

Ricky needs to understand the core of his problems and become more adaptable via therapy. Maybe the psychologist will point out his unresolved feelings for Gina, or he will conclude it himself. And in comes Ricky-pining-for-Gina season three.

Ricky needs to fully get over Nina before he moves on to anyone. Same for Gina if Portwell were to happen. No one deserves to be second choice.

Gina isn't Ricky's cushion. She's a living person with strong feelings for him and shouldn't be subjected to share his pain. She already struggles with her own issues.

Ricky needs to stay single till he wins back Gina and prove he's worth it. He needs to show even if another girl wants him, he'll never quit on Gina ever again. Even if he has to watch her be with someone else. *cough parallels*.

It's either romantic Rina then Portwell endgame OR Portwell flirty besties but Rina endgame. You and I can choose only one because my boy EJ shouldn't be used as plot device for a girl to leave for Ricky ever again.

Portwell's age difference can be practically solved and isn't much of an issue unless they get hot and heavy before Gina turns 18 which is impossible considering this is Disney. 🤣🤣

Jack and Gina will be plot device material and purely so sentimental to us OG Andi Mack fans. More than any ship, this is what I'm looking for. Sort of an Andi Mack crack ship for season 3a. It's gonna be soooo funny. 😍😂

I respect everyone's ship. I see what you're seeing. And I'm not going to invalidate your ship. But unless it's done right, I won't jump from the Rina ship. I liked Rini. I like Portwell. I like AU Juffy crackship haha.😂 But as for me, I'm still holding on to Rina slowburn.

Preparing myself for the pain. 😭🔥

(But if I had to pair two characters without Disney getting in the way, it would be Gini. The power duo. Undeniable chemistry. They can be written so well because of their layered relationship and contrasting personalities.🤩 The classic rivals to friends to lovers. But that's a talk for another day lmao.)

Thanks for reading my opinion, Wildcat!🐱❤

[sixteenthshen]

post-finale stuff

Possible spoilers. Beware

Last night, I happened to check the scriptwriter's Weibo and saw that she had liked this fan's post. It's the only non-work related Weibo post that she had liked, so of course, I went to read it. 

The fact that this is the only fan post she's given her approval to must mean that it is on point and she agrees with the characterisation. I thought it's pretty good, so I've gone ahead to translate it here. I own 0 rights to this. I just thought it's a good perspective that may help others like me who struggled with the ending. 

I think I've mostly made my peace with it now, and to sum it up:

Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they don't love you with all that they are. 

A-Xu never once blamed Lao Wen for how things turned out because he understood that. And he’s clearly a better person than I am (lol).

Let me be clear about my stand - the real victim of how the drama unfolded in the last six episodes is WKX. When we feel our hearts ache for ZZS, it's because the show let down WKX (the character). If your heart is only hurting for WKX during episodes 33-34, you should try to ship WKX with someone else, ok? If you think the last six episodes were great and that WKX was very romantic (and only romantic), then I honestly don't know what to say. 

I ship wenzhou. That means I like both Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu. I want them to love each other, be good to each other and live happily ever after. And I want them not to be OOC. 

The rest behind the cut. Spoilers for the whole drama. 

------- 

First, the source. Here is a link to that Weibo post, by 爱吐槽的栗小姐. I will delete this if requested by the OP - because this is really in a grey area imo. But I think the intention of a public post is for it to be shared? (especially something like this, which argues a point) 

Secondly, the poster does try to be fair in her post, but as the problem here is WKX's ruined characterisation, ZZS's character is analysed primarily concerning this issue only. There's quite a bit left to ZZS's character and backstory that isn't relevant. I believe that's why the post doesn't elaborate on it, or so I hope.

-------

Ever since WKX faked his death, I received three to four waves of fellow sister fans' mournful wails: "Lao Wen actually faked his death; does he have a heart?" "They were supposed to be of the same heart and treat each other with honesty. How did they regress?" "What happened to their innate soulmate-ness?" "Why does A-Xu always say to face things together, yet Lao Wen always keeps his plans from him?" "A-Xu loves Lao Wen, yet Lao Wen only loves himself"…….

Wait. What have you guys misunderstood about the meaning of soulmates? 

Soulmates are about values, but a person's behaviour… that's methodology FFS! 

(Do they no longer teach this in political affairs class in high school anymore?) 

Wenzhou, these soulmates, are incomparably compatible and mesh well in terms of values. According to the scriptwriter, the entire jianghu wants and tries to get the pieces of Glazed Armour, save the two of them. Not only do they not care for the peerless martial arts, immense power, nor the massive wealth that the Glazed Armour represents, they don't even care for the power they hold in their hands –Ghost Valley and the Window of Heaven. Both of them willing to give it up without a second thought. 

Before they met each other, they were so tired of (ZZS) and so angry at (WKX) this earthly world that they didn't even want to live on anymore. 

After they met each other, they gradually began to feel the warmth in this world again. How nice it would be if they could live in seclusion, hand in hand and just bask in the sun. 

In this world, where everyone else is fighting for power or wealth, they are true soulmates. To intelligent people like them, whether or not they're honest about their identities or secrets is merely a matter of formality. They had already determined their attraction to the other's soul early on and have never doubted it. 

There may be some here who would criticise loudly at this point, "Then can't you be more considerate for your soulmate (the actual phrased used is "spiritual companion")? A-Xu has said many times, let's face everything together, I'll bet that you will be honest with me. If you really love him, then why can't you care for his feelings?" 

----- You guys, you've never been married. 

If two souls meeting can naturally resolve all behavioural conflicts and disagreements, then the theory of "breaking in" * would not exist. 

Let us take a look at what kind of a person WKX and ZZS each are.

Wen Kexing, he's a lone wolf. 

After his parents' death and his entering the Ghost Valley, his smooth sailing life suddenly fell off a cliff. Ever since then, the only person he could rely on was himself. That deep-seated hatred is carved into his bones, yet he can't speak of it to anyone else. He isn't the same type of person as the rest of the ghosts in the Ghost Valley; he isn't the same type of person as A-Xiang, who he raised. If we talk about the world and everyone who lives in it, he doesn't have any fetters or feels any (positive) emotions. 

His supposed craziness is a form of indifference. He's indifferent to others' lives, nor his own, because he just doesn't care. (T/N: I think he does care for his own life, but only for revenge, after that, he's indifferent. Indifferent isn't suicidal. I don't know why some fans seem to be confusing the two. Although he didn't plan to, if he somehow manages to stay alive after getting his revenge, WKX will continue to live on, even if it's only to keep A-Xiang happy because he is indifferent.)

Growing up like this, being solitary became his style. He's used to doing everything alone, used to making his own decisions, used to digesting all his emotions himself. 

Every time he argues with A-Xu, he digests his emotions himself. The next day, he faces A-Xu with a smile again. 

This is how he loves, to take it upon himself to face danger, difficulty and pain alone. It's how he had supported A-Xiang all these years in the Ghost Valley and what he's used to. 

While Zhou Zishu, he's a lead horse (of a herd). ** 

Since a very young age, he's taught to take responsibility. He's used to bearing everything on his shoulders, be it the responsibility of his family or the responsibility for the Four Seasons Manor, even the responsibility for saving commoners from disasters. 

Unlike the lone wolf, the lead horse is ultimately a social animal. 

Regardless of his identity as the Manor Lord of the Four Seasons Manor or the Leader of the Window of Heaven, he's always the one to lead the herd and rarely fights alone. So, A-Xu not only has leadership ability but more than that, he also knows how to be tolerant and accepting of the differences of his team members. You can see the various ways he managed to influence Lao Wen along the road; he's firm when he needs to be and soft the other times. It's absolutely textbook in managing your lover workplace management. 

Zhou Zishu believes in communication whenever there's a problem, that they should be open and honest. So, teamwork is what he's used to. 

Does it mean that when a horse and lone wolf fall in love, that there won't be a breaking in period? 

Obviously not. 

I guess this is where some may say again, "isn't this part of a character's arc/development? The two of them quarrel time and time again. Did WKX not grow at all from it?" 

Of course, after meeting each other, they both grew and saved each other.

When he first left Window of Heaven, A-Xu was lonely with regret. Unlike the lone wolf who's used to doing everything alone, a lead horse without the last of his herd has no way to bear the bone-deep loneliness and merciless self-recrimination.

ZZS wandered around this world aimlessly until Lao Wen started pestering him, until he picked up Zhang Chengling, right up until he felt he hadn't singlehandedly destroyed the Four Seasons Manor. This lead horse finally regained a goal in life. He gained a partner and a lover. Lao Wen sticks to him, Chengling relies on him, and the abandoned Four Seasons Manor became like-new in his hands. He finally reconciles with himself. 

When he first came out of the valley, Lao Wen carried a rage strong enough to burn the world down. But when he met A-Xu, he also met the beauty of the world. 

When the Four Sages of Anji died, WKX understood how he caused innocent suffering. When Gao Chong walked to his death knowingly, he understood that although some may desire power, they could still be righteous and upstanding people. When he learned of everything Long Que sacrificed to protect his family***, he finally relaxed his guard. 

There were so many types of good people and things that he saw along this journey that he hadn't seen in the Ghost Valley. When A-Xu told him he was a good person as they basked in the sun, he genuinely wanted to return to the human (vs ghost) realm and be a good man. 

Along their journey, A-Xu made up for the morals and values that WKX lost in the Ghost Valley and showed him a new world outlook. He appeased Lao Wen's anger, tempered his extremism. The process wasn't easy, but not that difficult either, because, in the end, Lao Wen is kind at heart. 

But in the end, being a lone wolf is how he survived and succeeded in a place like the Ghost Valley. When A-Xu was so heavily injured and needed a lot of rest (for Wu Xi) to save his life, Lao Wen suddenly recalled his enemies and how such an excellent opportunity to take revenge just fell into his lap. Everything was in place, and all he needed to do was hide it from A-Xu; he could leave for a short while and have it settled quickly. Upon returning, he could then live happily ever after with his wife. To a crazy lone wolf, why would he not take a gamble? 

What he couldn't predict was the news would've been leaked (to A-Xu), and he didn't know that by doing so, he would've forever lost his love. 

Both of them were using their own methods to love the other person. Zhou Zishu is more forgiving and accepting because being forgiving is in his blood. While what WKX learned in his years in the Ghost Valley is -- love needs to be protected, like how he has A-Xiang, who he considers a sister, call himself master (to protect her). 

Only when faced with painful consequences can a person's deep-rooted habits and approach to things change. So I don't think faking his death ruined the characterisation of Wen Kexing, but I regret that the last two episodes did not have a scene to show us Lao Wen's heartbreak when he learns the truth. 

Until I know what it feels like to have lost you, I will only love you in my own way. 

T/N: 

*I can't think of the correct phrase for this as I don't read all that much about relationships >< please let me know if you know of it. Here, I'm referring to the process of wearing something new (like shoes) that will hurt at the start until it becomes soft and comfortable. 

** I did some side-reading, and omg, A-Xu is TOTALLY the lead mare. Although he's not the stallion and weak/dying for most of the show, he's the head of their little family, and he expects "to be obeyed", aka, I'm not going to learn how to cook. Call me for dinner. Kthxbye. 

From Rutgers' website: A herd of wild horses consists of one or two stallions, a group of mares, and their foals. The leader of the herd is usually an older mare (the "alpha mare"), even though one stallion owns the herd. She maintains her dominant role even though she may be physically weaker than the others. The older mare has had more experiences, more close encounters, and survived more threats than any other horse in the herd. The requirement of the lead horse is not strength or size; if this were so, then humans could never dominate a horse. Dominance is established not only through aggression but also through attitudes that let the other horses know she expects to be obeyed.

***I think this is important here because WKX wasn't crying for his loss. I think a big part of him was realising not everyone in the world was callous and turned their backs on his parents, that he could've gone his whole life without ever discovering what sacrifices some people have made. Good people suffer quietly and in silence. It's a big moment to realise he was wrong about many things that he had let hatred blind himself to the world. Because although he was sad about the Four Sages and somewhat shocked by Gao Chong's death, he hadn't truly faced up to his actions until now. 

(screenshot of the scriptwriter liking the above post) 

------

To add: 

I'm not sure how many of you read my "opinion" posts, but I've been struggling to find a way to accept the last six episodes of Word of Honor.  I first tried looking at open forum postings, comments, and Tumblr posts. None of it worked because it was just arguing and emotions and no one made points good enough for me to accept things. 

So I gave up and went back to reading Chinese sites. I found many posts discussing the plot. Some I liked, some I didn't, but none satisfied my need for a reasonable explanation. I felt they had biases (both ways), or else it lacked logic. After a time, I realised that I should be looking for WKX-stans (or pro-WKX fans) because they would be more motivated to explain his side, but also because well-written posts by wenzhou-fans & ZZS-stans made me super sad.

I'm sorry, but those who keep trying to explain why the ending was good completely missed that episodes 32-34 are the real problem to those who don't like it and only focused on 36. I can understand if people don't think those episodes are a problem, but no one could provide an articulate and sensible reason. There are just too few well-reasoned plot-focused posts in English (sorry). I've seen too many examples of WKX-fans arguing with people who are upset about the ending, backed by nothing more than "look how much WKX suffers, woe is him. And how romantic is this????" *dies* 

Lastly, if you spot anything inaccurate, let me know & I will correct it.

[honkster]

Why the Dream SMP’s way of storytelling is IMPOSSIBLE to recreate in any other medium.

This has been in the back of my mind for the longest time. I think I finally got it.

People have talked about this before, and they’ve put forward some good points, and good for them – most of them are correct. It’s the way the ccs interact with each other, it’s how plot is mixed in with banter, that’s all good! I wanna put more out there.

So you know how you open a book to read, you start a new show, you sit down to watch a movie – that’s all produced by some sort of company, someone who made it specifically for you to enjoy. You expect a certain dramatic flair to it, certain cinematic choices, certain ways of writing, certain camera angles, certain reactions to things. That’s just ingrained expectations of things now.

The DSMP? Doesn’t have that.

The low expectations work very much in its favor. It’s a Minecraft role-playing server with a bunch of famous youtubers/streamers, who are all good friends and have great dynamics with each other. So when you expect “just another Minecraft video” but in stream form, or you watch the videos because there are certain people in them, you don’t expect to be dropped into extreme lore and sensitive topics, realistic situations proposed in game form, a combination of serious stuff and just fun times with friends goofing around – and you’re pleasantly surprised.

We, the fandom, are used to it a bit more now. How excellently they manage to make a serious story in such a “ridiculous” medium, how much it affects us all and gets our creative juices flowing. But even the ccs can’t predict some of the things that happen. And that’s fun.

The whole election ending the way it has? That was on us. And it made some of the most angsty content there has been in the DSMP. People still theorize about the arc and make connections to now – that’s pog!

Fundy being adopted by Eret – that sparked the whole “Fundy just wants a dad – let’s get him some love” thing that made FundyWasTaken and other Fundy+someone ships happen. I see a different person paired with Fundy every week, and somehow, I agree with all of them. I really got into Fundy because of that stream where Eret “slept through the adoption” and Fundy confronted his real dad and spent time with his granddad. That little stream gave us more insight into Fundy’s whole character (Nevermind Fundy showing off his acting skills – you go you funky little fox), but also justifies some of his actions now. DryWaters? Wanting to kill Technoblade? Fucked up reasons, but we still love him.

Phil being broken out of house arrest ahead of time – still made a great stream and Phil agreeing with Techno’s want for revenge – that made us all very happy. The SBI!!! The AE! And that’s also a thing!

That even if we do know or have predicted what’s going to happen, begged it out of the ccs basically, it is still incredibly fun to watch. Where some books/shows/movies fall short and reveal too much and end up being “too predictable”, they’re not fun anymore. I read this somewhere before, that sometimes holding back EVERYTHING from the reader, and relying on shock value to make a good story is just bad. Whereas if you progress the story naturally and let the reader make some predictions of their own and then they end up being right – that’s a lot of serotonin right there. It’s the re-readability that makes it slightly better the second time.

The DSMP takes this concept and fucking yeets with it. Letting fans engage in the story, letting them theorize and then be right, even acknowledging the fanart that was made, just engaging with the community that their roleplay created – that makes it so much more fun. I bet that even if the whole script was revealed to the fandom we would still watch every plot stream. Even if we knew vaguely what happens in the stream, we would tune in and enjoy every second of it. Because the ccs are just that good, we love them that much, we love this plot that much.

Oh and the unpredictability helps too. Tommy in exile was the vague concept of a lot of the streams – it’s taken that and ran with it in a lot of different directions. All quite enjoyable.

Having said all of that… The fact that this type of telling a story is impossible to recreate in any other medium is… kinda saddening? It is incredibly unique, and I’d say has things that not a lot of the people that produce mainstream media would even consider. “Just friends hanging out” – how would that make the script progress? “Engagement with the fandom, even considering their wishes for the characters” – but we’re telling a story here!

The only thing I can think of that would come close to the vibe, would be just a bunch of writer friends coming together, thinking up a universe and general plot, and then each deciding to write a few of their own characters in that universe. When one author focuses on their main characters, the side ones can feel left in the dust, or not fleshed out. The DSMP is just “every character can write their own story”, which takes a lot of the strain from the “main writers”. But the general thing of “just friends hanging out” would be taken away from it. We’re being serious here, why would we change the tone so quick?

With all of that in mind… I kinda wanna make some predictions? And I don’t know if they’re correct, but it’s fun to theorize. See?

1. L’manburg will die.

And not just because Techno has 54 withers. The country is cursed – it definitely is. There is little sentimental value that can be felt for a few flimsy stilts built on top of a crater. It might go out in a blaze of glory, with the withers (Is history repeating itself an interesting enough plot point to recycle a whole arc?), but it might just be forgotten. Yeah there have been some angsty headcanons about how “no one cares about L’manburg anymore, save for two people” and it just gets abandoned, but how about it just becoming irrelevant?

This all comes back to Dream, it always does! His want, need for the server to be “one happy family again”, it just means one thing. He wants the server to return to the peaceful anarchy that it was before L’manburg. No rulers, no factions, no nothing.

That’s never going to happen.

Try as he might, Dream cannot affect that change that L’manburg did to the server. The introduction of a faction, one that can exist without the interference of a higher power – why do you think so many factions have sprouted up since? And it’s not even serious factions a lot of the time, it’s just a few friends deciding to build their bases on a plot of land that they claim is a nation now. L’manburg has changed the mindset of these people, now an alliance with somebody is a political move. An alliance doesn’t exist if it doesn’t have a faction, and that faction can remain neutral for only so long.

Basically, L’manburg introduced the factions mod into the server.

And the fact that every faction now has enough relevance to hold weight in a war also means that every nation on the server is doomed to follow the downfall of L’manburg. Eventually, they will get into a fight they can’t win, go up against the wrong people, anger someone they shouldn’t have. All factions will either be destroyed, or lose relevance, until their creators, residents and such just… move on.

(And really you can go into meta and talk about real governments and compare them, but it’s far more simple than that. The server isn’t built for peace, it isn’t meant to be a relaxing place where you can just vibe, it may have been made for a few friends to play Minecraft together, but it has turned into An Author’s Curse. The curse that follows any kind of story being told – the fact that peace is boring. People watched the first streams of the DSMP because they liked the ccs, and that’s valid. But how many more people tuned in to watch the war streams because there was PLOT and there was CHAOS and there WASN’T CALM PEACE ANYMORE – that’s the curse of every writer. That you can write about someone just living their life drama-free, you can make interesting peace with characters or circumstances, but it’s always leading to one inevitable conclusion – war, drama, because people read that. And at this point, it’s just a predictable outcome. No matter how much you say that you are retired, that you’re done with violence (Technoblade), something will happen that will prove to you that you believed in people too much. No matter how “neutral” you may be in the matter, no matter how much you claim that you have no allegiance (Philza), you will be forced to pick one, because out of all the bad things, you pick the least worst one, the most appealing to you, the one that can benefit your want of revenge.

And I can go on, but this is far too deep for one simple reason – The Author’s Curse is so prevalent here because THERE ARE ABSOLUTELY NO STAKES. It’s a video game – you die? You respawn. Something gets destroyed? You can just rebuild. Sure, you’ll want to kill the person who did wrong to you, but whatever they did wrong can just be replaced, remade, recreated. So why not have wars? Why not cause massive amounts of destruction “for the plot”?

It’s literally a playground. How all authors have their little playground with their characters that they meticulously plan out, the DSMP is that playground for all of these people.

And it’s fun! Sure! I like it! I’m just really skeptical whenever someone in character says that they “just want peace”, “are retired”, “swear off violence”, “are building just a little city for themselves”. Because you can do that, nothing wrong. But eventually, no matter how much you distance yourself from all of the chaos happening, all of the wars, you will return.

Because it is just much more fun.

It’s the curse. A cursed cycle.

And everyone is in it.)

2. The prison.

I don’t have anything on the prison because I don’t have anything on the book. Yeah I’ve done a whole post where I overanalyze what it could be, but it doesn’t make it any clearer. Whatever it is, it’s made out to be a huge plot point, something that can only be revealed when the prison is finished.

Cursed. The prison’s reason for being constructed is the book, but the book is only relevant when the prison is finished. We can only wait, and theorize, as we do.

(My only theory is that the book is information about another op on the server. Or at least something related to op or creative mode. Dream only fears one thing on this server, and that’s Technoblade, so if his one fear is the most skilled player on the server, what else could give him existential fear?)

3. The SBI.

Again, I don’t have anything! Yeah the reunion seems to be going smoothly, one member at a time, but there is already conflict in their beliefs among each other. And all that’s happened is a vague “maybe one day we’ll strike”.

Is history repeating itself an interesting enough plot point to recycle a whole arc?

Is L’manburg’s destruction AGAIN really necessary to hammer home the idea that no one likes that place anymore?

I don’t know. Whatever happens, no one’s in the right. No one’s in the wrong either. They’re all not good people and that’s that on that.

4. The Clingy Duo.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

That’s all.

(Okay seriously? All of these arcs are connected. You know what happens when everything seems to be connected to one another?

A giant, dramatic final showdown between the two opposing sides.

Cause it’s just Chaos vs L’manburg. Those are the sides. People that want L’manburg to exist and people that want it gone. There are no other sides, there isn’t someone who’s like “Well maybe it can exist if we do this and this” cause no one wants to put in anymore effort into this cursed country. The only people were the clingy duo and now they’re separated and everyone is just leaving and Tommy is on the Chaos side like at this point he doesn’t care about L’manburg he just cares about Tubbo but he has to convince Tubbo to leave L’manburg but will Tubbo be convinced but will Tommy even consider leaving L’manburg and breaking free from its curse AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

Goddamit.)

5. The Egg?

Dunno shit about it. Like the prison – it seems important, but we’re just not being given enough information. Is it a coincidence that the moment Dream commissioned the prison the Egg popped up? Or are the two directly related?

I don’t know. But as long as someone is finding ways to fight the Egg, that’s fantastic. Bad juju indeed.

6. Oh the Butcher Army want to kill Dream!

Hah.

Okay I’ve seen people make the case that the Army is just a bunch of people with trauma repeating the cycle of ab*se that they went through and yes.

Just yes.

And the fact that no one is actually looking at it that way and no one is there to like.. help them or even help them understand that what they are doing is just irrational, even though their reason for doing it and the result they hope to achieve is YES and the only thing that a lot of the people of the server who want peace should try to go for as well, they cannot stand up to Dream on their own. They just can’t, they will get punted into exile. They need allies, and they need powerful ones, people that have also been wronged by Dream and want him gone.

But the cycle continues, and no one knows where it ends.

(Okay but from a writing perspective? Getting rid of Dream is the end goal. It is the be all end all of all conflict, well… most of it, at least most that’s related to the supposed “good side”, or “the side that’s been most victimized”. But from the same perspective, that side is just… no longer. It has proven that is just as bad, if not worse than the final boss. I have to agree that Techno has to pay for his crimes, even though I like him a lot, but Techno did in fact cause insane damage. Yeah L’manburg rebuilt, yeah Wilbur probably caused more – still he isn’t completely free.

But that’s a discussion on morality more than laws.

L’manburg is doomed to die. Dream is doomed to be fought, and probably won against (simply because he has won far too many times already, you know how everyone seems to hate OP characters…). But the Butcher Army is doomed to fail against Dream. So how does that work?

Welp.

Is history repeating itself and interesting enough plot point to recycle a whole arc?

The answer is no.

I’ve repeated that question three times now, and the answer to it is no. No it is not. L’manburg can be destroyed again, and it can be rebuilt again, but the sentimentality that people feel for it will not remain. The cycle of history ends somewhere, and it’s not too far a fetch that it ends here.

So what happens when Technoblade, Philza and Tommy roll up to L’manburg with withers and a destruction wish, only to be met with a bunch of traumatized children with axes and a death wish?

Well, I’ll spare the details, but from a purely writing standpoint…

The two sides team up.

Think about it – The Butcher Army doesn’t care about Technoblade anymore. They’ve seen that Dream is the one pulling the strings, they know that even if they do care about trying to eliminate Technoblade again, they have to get rid of his strongest ally – Dream. But through their anger, they’ve lost their fear. You should fear Dream, he’s a fuckin op. Techno is correct in not wanting to go against him.

But after Tommy? After seeing the Butcher Army at their lowest, screeching about Dream being the villain?

Will Techno finally go past his thinking of “government is evil, always government is source of problem” and realize that Dream has the most evil government in mind for his rule?

I’m still kinda sad that Techno isn’t making the conclusions he should about Dream. But he’s starting to – and really, the SBI-Butcher Army team up is the most logical thing that could happen.

Watch me be completely wrong or miss something and I’ve got ALL of it wrong. I would love that.)

(Also it’s very funny to me that Dream is literally simping for Techno while he’s just here like “Listen bud I would stab you on sight if you didn’t have creative mode”. Dream KNOWS that Techno can and will kill him given the opportunity. Techno knows that that opportunity may never arise.

It’s a weird type of stalemate, to be sure. But goddamn is it interesting.)

Anyway... if you read through all of this... I could bake you a cookie? Thank you! I like to ramble.

[moons-and-stars-and-shit]

hihi congrats for 300! :) can I get a star matchup? my zodiac sign is taurus + my self ship is with kuroo, tysm <3

@banxtan

𝕊𝕥𝕒𝕣 𝕄𝕒𝕥𝕔𝕙𝕦𝕡 𝕎𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕂𝕦𝕣𝕠𝕠 ♉︎♏︎

𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑡𝑠 🪐

Taurus is ruled by Venus (Love and Money)

Scorpio is ruled by Mars (Passion) and Pluto (Power).

This combination is very intense, thanks to Pluto’s influence, but it’s an excellent balance of masculine and feminine energy.

Scorpio and Taurus together form the basis of all love relationships — love and passion.

Venus and Mars go well together

Venus is about the beauty of romance, and Mars is about the passion of romance. Scorpio is smoldering and intense and Taurus, a sensual and tireless lover, is attracted to this intensity.

In turn, Scorpio enjoys the devotion inherent in Venus-ruled Taurus.

𝐸𝑙𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 🔥💧🍃🌬

Taurus is an Earth Sign and Scorpio is a Water Sign.

Scorpio tends to be very deep — like an ocean, too much upset will cause a tidal wave!

When Scorpio feels crossed by a lover, watch out for that Scorpion’s tail, which can whip out and sting their lover without warning!

It’s a good thing that these two Signs are so strongly loyal to each other.

But while Taurus is open, with everything laid bare on the surface, Scorpio is more secretive and inscrutable.

They can both teach one another about their opposite views of life (direct versus complex).

Another factor adding a tantalizing dimension to this union is the two Signs’ mutual tendency toward jealousy.

Taurus loves it when Scorpio displays their jealous — it means Taurus is adored and appreciated!

𝑇𝑟𝑢𝑠𝑡 🤞

Scorpio rarely trusts anyone but themselves unconditionally and in a relationship with Taurus they need to build the sense of security.

We wouldn’t exactly say that Scorpio is insecure, but their deep emotional nature makes them question everyone’s motives in caution not to get hurt.

There is a fine line between two possibilities in a relationship of Taurus and Scorpio.

The first possibility would be the one in which Taurus partner is really closed up, unreachable and too quiet.

This could wake the suspicious nature of Scorpio and their obsessive interrogations will damage their mutual trust even more then they lacked it in the first place.

The second option would be for Taurus partner to be open just enough to share what Scorpio needs to hear.

If they manage to find this fine balance, they shouldn’t have a problem.

As they get more and more intimate, Taurus will feel secure enough to share everything Scorpio wants to know and Scorpio will realize that their stable and unchangeable Taurus won’t disappoint them.

𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 🤝

As all opposing signs, they seem completely different and as if they have nothing in common.

Still, we should keep in mind that opposing signs complement each other perfectly and their communication should be exciting, challenging and something to enjoy if they are both confident enough.

While Scorpio would go in depth about all those things Taurus doesn’t seem to care about, they could be very surprised to find that behind the tender and alive nature of Taurus, there is a deep understanding of everything natural going on, however dark it might seem.

In return, Scorpio will show Taurus the value of life from their perspective.

Taurus will find it incredible how Scorpio as a sign of death and destruction, can understand the depth of life and emotion better than any other sign in the zodiac.

𝐸𝑚𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 😠😔😊

This emotional connection is really something to deserve.

Not only do these two represent the axis of Moon’s special dignities, exalted in Taurus and fallen in Scorpio, but they also have Venus as a ruler on one hand and the intense element of Water on the other.

When they fall in love, they become an image of eternal love. There is no better personification of Hades, the god of the underworld in ancient Greece, and Persephone – an idea of immortal love that can never die.

𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒𝑠 🤲

They value life and love in a way that no other sign understands.

The depth of their belief system goes as far as planet Earth’s core and if they begin their relationship on the same page, this could be what binds them for years.

Although their perspectives differ when it comes to material and emotional values, their core is the same and everything else can be adjusted.

𝑆ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝐴𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑦𝑠 💪

Although Scorpio is a sign of change, this doesn’t mean they are not very slow in their everyday routine.

As a fixed sign, they are, as much as Taurus, static and inert.

There is a lot of energy to Scorpio, nuclear energy lies within their sign, but when it comes to everyday life, they tend to repeat patterns and blend in what mostly other people find “normal”.

They do however need new, exciting and breathtaking experiences from time to time, but they would be ok having them alone if their Taurus partner wasn’t interested.

𝑆𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑦 💕

Taurus and Scorpio are both signs of deepest physical pleasure, each in their own way.

This has to be the focus of their relationship, for they can’t seem to understand platonic and imaginative relationships when they get together.

There is no such thing as a platonic experience of romance, when the whole point of romance is to get physical.

It is very possible that they will build their sexual life to the point where no other partner could ever satisfy their needs.

This could lead to a possessive relationship with no way out, although they probably wouldn’t want to get out even if they could.

The entire experience can be too dark for the Taurus partner, especially if their practical sense is challenged by Scorpio’s character.

In case they are both independent and ready to blend with someone else, they could be the perfect connection between sexual and emotional, the one that we all wish for.

[clayandstuff]

Becho Musings Part 2

Some more musings about Becho while simultaneously addressing unfounded blorke takes that make my blood boil and have no basis in reality. Focusing on S5 and on since I’ve already covered Becho’s relationship before they got together, this will look at them specifically as a couple. Posting this for posterity on my blog.

TL;DR

Not to accidentally validate any of these blorke claims by talking about them or giving them attention, but they’re so easily debunked by canon I can’t help myself... 

Garbage take #1

Echo is just following Bellamy, she doesn’t love him, he is her King, they have a spy/king dynamic (lmao this isn’t even a real thing like wtf does this mean? You can tell blorkes are pressed about the knight/princess racist trope their ship falls into but you can’t just make things up! What a sad, misguided attempt to create a false equivalence between bellarke and Becho. A spy/king dynamic is literally not a thing - and unsurprisingly, it doesn’t accurately represent the relationship between Bellamy and Echo at all - but nice try I guess), Echo is only looking for someone to follow and take orders from, etc. 

There’s so much to break down in this hot garbage take:

Before I get into absolutely destroying this hot garbage, let’s quickly address how the subtle framing of these “arguments” purposefully doesn’t acknowledge Bellamy’s feelings for Echo. Attempting to discredit Becho by designating Echo as a follower deliberately disregards Bellamy’s active role in his relationship and his feelings for her. Bellamy loves Echo and that’s clear throughout the show, but it’s wonderfully vocalized on screen multiple times in S5. Bellamy considers Echo his family (5x01 “we’re family and nothing can change that”) and it’s explicitly verbalized in 5x07 (”Our friends are there. People we love”) and once again in 5x12, from Clarke herself, when she told Echo “Bellamy loved you”. So, ya know, Bellamy loves Echo. That’s not debatable.

So first off, Echo’s relationship with Bellamy is not at all like her relationship to the Azgeda royal family (who she was in servitude of and essentially employed by). This is one of the worst takes I’ve ever seen and I’m not sure how anyone can logically come to that conclusion? (Which is mainly due to the fact that this claim is made in bad faith and isn’t actually based on logic or what we’ve seen in canon, but I digress). Not to mention Echo refers to Roan and Nia with honorifics and obviously does NOT do that with Bellamy, seriously wtf show are blorkes watching... Being loyal or devoted to someone does not mean the same thing for every relationship. Context matters. People can be loyal to each other for a variety or reasons, family/survival/clan/duty/temporary alliance/self-preservation/etc. Echo's never even hugged Roan, that already contextually makes her relationship with Bellamy very different from her relationship with Roan. Being devoted to someone because it's your job to protect the royal family (as a member of the Queen's guard and spy for the Ice Nation) is not the same as being devoted to someone because you are in love with them, in a romantic relationship with them, and want to keep them safe because they’re precious to you. Hello?? 

The other glaring inaccuracy with this garbage take is that Echo is not someone who just follows people or orders. That’s never been her character. She is a soldier, like Bellamy - but even when she was loyal to Azgeda she was never just a good little follower. She singlehandedly took control of Polis for Azgeda and commanded the entire Azgeda army in Roan’s absence. She doesn’t sit around waiting for people to give her orders or tell her what to do next. That’s simply contradictory to what we’ve actually been shown on the show. Mischaracterizing her as such is nothing more than a blorke ploy to minimize (and outright ignore) her strengths and agency as a character, intentionally erasing the fact that she is a brilliant strategist, skilled warrior, and a trusted political confidant. 

Also, did blorkes forget that she’s literally a goddamn spy?! Being a spy is not the job for a follower who can’t think for themselves and needs someone to take orders from. A spy is given a mission and it’s up to them alone to make it happen. There’s actually an enormous amount of freedom and trust given to a spy. No one gives you step-by-step instructions to achieve your goal. You are literally on your own, often in enemy territory, having to think on your feet, adapt, and come up with a plan to get the job done. Oops embarrassing they forgot she’s a spy (it’s laughable to watch S7 and think she would ever actually betray her friends. She. Is. A. Spy. Infiltration is her job - we even saw her successfully infiltrate Diyoza’s camp in S5 and Diyoza herself actually admits she “got played” by Echo - CMON. Loyalty is her defining characteristic. PAY ATTENTION)

Calling her a follower is such a gross mischaracterization. Just look at her relationship with Roan (her actual King). She constantly argues with him, gives him push back, and even insinuates that he’s weak (to his face) on more than one occasion (in 4x01 when she flat out tells him “we can’t afford for our people to think you’re weak” and he gets offended enough to call her out on it, and then again when she’s sparring with him in 4x02 and offers to take his place once she knocks him on his ass). She doesn't even follow orders all that well if we're being honest (bless her little panda heart). She's the one who tells Roan to "send me to Arkadia" when she thinks Skaikru isn't being honest. She's the one telling Roan, the king, what to do! Not only does he let her talk to him like that, he actually values what she has to say. 

Furthermore, the one time we see Roan actually give her a direct order (to bring Octavia back alive) Echo ends up NOT doing that (lol). She isn’t afraid to speak her mind or make her own decisions. One of her biggest character defining moments (that gets her banished from her clan) is when she decides to act of her own volition and go directly behind Roan’s back, to cheat in the conclave. No one ordered her to do that, it was all her. And there’s also all of the S7 Bardo Disciples plot which further proves that Echo isn’t just some mindless follower (cough cough Bellamy with the Shepard cough cough and Pike...). She’s always been her own person who thinks for herself and does what she believes is best for her people. (Even as far back as her introduction in S2 when she realizes Bellamy is Skaikru but still decides to trust and work with him in Mt. Weather. She also silences all those grounders in the cages with a single command and they ALL shut up and obey her, but sure yeah she’s just a follower 🙄🙄🙄)

So now that we’ve established how she interacts with Roan, let’s look at how she interacts with Bellamy. I’ve already detailed their attitude towards each other before they get together here, but now let’s look at how they act as a couple. 

In S5, we see in their first scene together that they are very affectionate towards one another (so much kissing, arm rubbing, smiling, and forehead touching) as they mutually comfort each other. Echo is apprehensive about things changing on the ground because of Octavia and the fact that she’s still banished, but Bellamy makes an effort to get her to smile (even going so far as to joke about her “almost killing” his sister and him being more stubborn than Octavia. He gets her to laugh with him and even exclaims “good!” once she finally relaxes and smiles). He also tells her “we’re family and nothing can change that” - very different from her relationship with Nia (who Echo bowed down to when in her presence) who used Echo as spy/weapon of war, and Roan, who cast her out after using her political knowhow to effectively lead. Then on the Eligius ship in 5x03 they get their battle couple on by working together and fighting side-by-side to take out the prisoner who woke up. Later in that same episode, they jointly come up with a plan to deal with the cryo-sleeping prisoners that isn’t just murdering them (ultimately utilizing Echo’s plan to use them as leverage since Bellamy doesn’t want to kill them and Echo knows that it’s a strategic mistake to leave their enemy with reinforcements if they can stop it). When they don’t agree on something, they always talk it through and compromise (a sign of a healthy and mature relationship, where both people are regarded as equals and their input is valued). 

Also, Echo was the one who came up with the plan to counter McCreary’s forces when he’d stolen Diyoza’s battle plans. Echo and Bellamy share a voiceover as they both relay the plan simultaneously to their separate groups. Once Bellamy finishes explaining, Octavia says to him “tell Echo I said well done”, giving Echo credit and acknowledging the fact that this is indeed Echo’s idea. Can someone kindly point me to where Echo is being a follower waiting patiently to be given her orders from her “King”?? Because as far as I can tell that never actually happens...

Side note, anyone else remember how blorkes were irate that Echo was the one leading Spacekru at the end of s5. They complained that it didn’t make sense for Echo to be in charge because “Raven was smarter” and Echo was being “so bossy”. Let’s just take a moment to acknowledge the contradictory nature of the arguments “Echo is so bossy and leading Spacekru” but also “she’s just a follower with a spy/king dynamic to Bellamy”. She can’t be both 🤣 stick to a story please. (Also, I LOVE Raven so this is in no way me shading Raven, she’s amazing and brilliant). Bonus: when the show runner is sick of your garbage takes and calls you out

To reiterate, the contradictory claims and clear disregard for facts and the truth of the show just further proves that their “complaints” are made entirely in bad faith. They are rejecting reality and demonstrate no comprehension of canon - their garbage takes should not hold any weight and are merely a form of lashing out because they’re upset their fanon ship never happened.

Getting back on topic...

So, S5 is where Becho are canonically established as a romantic relationship and the audience gets to see, for the first time, how they interact after 6 years in space and falling love. (Can I just point out that the entire purpose of a time jump is to have our characters change and be in emotionally new and different places - it’s a storytelling device to change the status quo and shake things up - it’s perfectly acceptable to have Becho get together during it given their history with one another. I address this in more detail later so we’ll put a pin in this for now)

Once they get down to the ground, Bellamy fights for Echo (both figuratively and literally) with Octavia and at every turn he doubles down on his love for Echo. To summarize, Echo won’t turn in the defectors and is willing to be banished for it, leaving Bellamy to stay in Polis with Octavia so he can still have a relationship with his sister. However, Bellamy won’t let Echo do that. He doesn’t want her to leave and he doesn’t want to be apart from her. He offers to defect with her! He would chose to give up his relationship with Octavia and Clarke (who he just found out was alive and reunited with) to be with Echo. Echo doesn’t like that plan because she doesn’t want Bellamy to be in harm’s way. She even tells him “we’ve been through this. You’re not going with me” to which he responds “like hell I’m not!” and she tells him “you are not dying for me”. Bellamy seems inconsolable at the thought of her leaving and can’t even look Echo in the eye when he’s telling her that he’ll be in the rover and it’ll only take him a few days to get to her, and once again Echo comforts and reassures him. 

While Echo is at Diyoza’s camp trying to take down the eye, Bellamy has been staring at the monitor nonstop for 8 hours waiting for any change or sign that Echo made it there safely. Harper has to come in and tell him "you've been staring at that all night" and to “go, get some sleep”, knowing that if left on his own he would emotionally exhaust himself worrying about Echo and her safety indefinitely. Bellamy responds that the eye should be down by now and even says that he "wishes it was me over there". (This line reminds me of when he took her place in Mt. Weather to get bled in the harvest chamber. He is always willing to put himself in her place if it means getting her out of danger - he loves her and would do whatever it takes to keep her out of harm’s way). 

Eventually Bellamy marches through the desert and carries Echo’s sword for her. He even sits by the fire and holds onto her sword because he can’t reach out and hold Echo (meanwhile Echo is being comforted by Emori that she’ll be together with Bellamy soon - I love a good yearning parallel!). When they reunite at the end of the season, they hug, grip each other tightly, and stay pressed together just being in each other’s embrace (again, this is NOT how she acted with Roan or Nia... this is a romantic relationship, and it's obviously played out on screen very differently. Echo never received a singe bit of comfort - physical or otherwise - from anyone in Azgeda). 

Before they get out of the rover after rescuing Octavia, the minute Echo and Bellamy are reunited, Bellamy reaches out for Echo's hand and holds it (a callback to earlier in the season when he was reaching out for and grabbing onto her sword in her absence). Then they battle-couple-it-up again and take out the gunners making it possible for Wonkru to march through the gorge. They are equals (and partners) on and off the battle field.

S5 ends with Bellamy staring at Echo in cryosleep, yearning for her once again. And in S6 right off the bat they compromise with each other to get things done. The planet is dangerous and Bellamy doesn’t want to take fighters but Echo counters that it might be a mistake not to bring their to best fighters (Echo vouches for Octavia here) and Bellamy doesn’t want Octavia to come so instead he agrees to wake up Miller - another compromise where they make decisions together and work as a team. In S6 we also see in real-time Echo opening up to Bellamy and trusting him enough to let him in to her traumatic past, strengthening their relationship (directly in front of the audience) as Bellamy promises “from now on, we look forward not back” and comforts her with a loving forehead touch and a kiss. 

Bellamy and Echo both come up with the plan to rescue Clarke from Josephine (Echo directly gives Bellamy the go ahead to “go save Clarke” while she stays back and saves the rest of their friends after they set off the EMP taking down the radiation shield). While Bellamy is in the forest, he expresses regret and worry for Echo explicitly two separate times (Bellamy asks Clarke “what about the people I left behind” and Clarke assures him his actions helped to keep Echo specifically (as well as Madi) safe. He has another separate conversation with Octavia about Echo where Octavia reassures him that “Echo’s strong” and “she’ll be okay”). Bellamy also gets more reassurance from Murphy, who informs him that “Echo is in trouble” but he’ll “do what [he] can for her”. He tries to console Bellamy because Bellamy is currently captured and can’t get to her to help. Once Bellamy returns from his mission in the forest, he sees Echo smiling right at him and he sprints into her arms, hugging her desperately and smiling into her shoulder with his eyes closed. Becho is a loving, healthy, mature relationship filled with trust and mutual respect, where both people are treated as equals.

So yeah, no follower spy king dynamic BS. Equal partners in love.

Garbage take #2 

Becho is toxic because he got mad at her and called her a spy, etc.

 Blorkes love to incorrectly imply that Bellamy’s little outburst in 6x04 at the party means that “Becho is toxic”. Well, if you actually watch the rest of the episode you’d see that there was a loving resolution to this “fight” 🙄

As Echo is walking away from Bellamy at the party, Bellamy instantly hangs his head in regret. He then immediately goes to find her and apologizes. He tells her “I’m a jerk. I was taking my feelings about Octavia out on you” and “I’m sorry”. Then we see Echo open up to him about her past and would you look at that! Their romantic relationship is being explicitly developed on screen! The trust! The love! The tears in Bellamy’s eyes as he listens (it hurts him just to hear what she’s been through)! The way he gets up on his bad leg (thanks Clarke) and goes to comfort her, kisses her head before he even sits down and tells her “Everything we’ve been through has brought us here. From now on, we look forward, not back”, fully committed to her and reaffirming that they’re in this together. Then Bellamy touches his forehead to Echo’s, but that’s not close enough so they kiss to be together. Their love is so palpable. 

Show me where this is toxic??? Because it’s not and you can’t just say things. Words have meaning. I don’t understand how anyone can deny that lovingly resolving a misunderstanding only strengthens Becho. Getting in disagreements/arguments is part of every relationship. Becho having one (one-sided) “fight” doesn’t make them toxic. Especially when Bellamy immediately goes to apologize, knows that what he did was wrong and wasn’t fair, and they talk about their feelings and work through it together. That’s like the exact opposite of being toxic.

It's fine not to ship them, but there's no need to be willfully obtuse about canon or what the show presents. Their romantic relationship is not toxic and is arguably the healthiest one on the show.

Garbage take #3

Becho’s development happened off screen, Becho has no development, etc.

In season 5 Bellamy and Echo are revealed to be in a romantic relationship. I’ve already addressed how the ‘no development’ claim is just a blatant lie, so I won’t repeat myself here (you can just read about it in my other post which was previously linked). But let’s talk about why this “argument” is also pretty garbage and is once again made in bad faith.

S5 is THE definitive Becho season (and it absolutely slaps). Blorkes couldn’t accept that Becho were a couple because they intentionally chose to ignore all of their previous development and then had the nerve to (falsely) claim that it all happened off screen. (Which is blatantly untrue, but even if it was true - quick reminder that “lack of development” doesn’t seem to be an issue for Marper - it’s just a problem for Becho 🙄 even though most of S4 was explicitly focused on developing Bellamy and Echo’s relationship while Harper and Monty had sex once and then were instantly a couple...hypocrites 🤷). It’s the flagrant refusal to accept what’s being shown on screen that bothers me. You don’t need to make up lies and spread asinine comments about the characters - you can just acknowledge that the show is going down a route you don’t personally like. You don’t need to twist yourselves into a pretzel to justify your preferred ship. Just be honest about what’s really upsetting you.

I’ll admit that it’s fair to say you wished we could have seen more of their development becoming explicitly romantic, but the ground work is absolutely there and to say there’s NO development and that it all happened off screen (ala Gina the walking plot device who didn’t exist as a character until she showed up as Bellamy’s gf for all of 5 mins before getting killed off) is just simply untrue. And while I’m addressing genuine criticism/complaints, it’s definitely frustrating that we never got to see any flashbacks of the Ring during S5 despite getting to see both Clarke and the Bunker during the 6 year jump. Thankfully, we did eventually get to see Becho’s first kiss flashback (swoon 🥰) in S7 but even without explicitly seeing Spacekru flashbacks during S5, all of Becho and Spacekru’s interactions throughout the season made it perfectly clear how much they all loved each other and were a family. The writing and character interactions easily convey to the audience Spacekru’s closeness and tightknit bond and it was a joy to watch. Because Octavia becomes Blodreina, you need to see at least some of how that happened, so we get bunker flashbacks. And Madi is an entirely new character, so we have to see how she met Clarke. But it’s actually not that big of a leap to get to romantic Becho since it was clearly set up (we also don’t see Memori break up, but again it’s not a big leap to understand why they would given the explanation we got), so Spacekru flashbacks aren’t actually necessary although they would have been greatly appreciated.

Garbage take #4

Bellamy doesn’t care about Echo and abandoned her for Clarke

This is somehow the narrative blorkes like to perpetuate about S6, but again this is completely factually incorrect. If what they are referring to is Bellamy going to get Josephine out of Clarke’s body while Echo stays back and looks after everyone else, it still makes no sense. There is no reading of the show in which this garbage claim has any basis. Bellamy would never willingly leave Echo behind (splitting up to take care of something they previously established they were going to do is not abandoning her 🙄x50).

Here’s what is actually happening in that scene: Echo is the one who tells Bellamy that she will stay and “keep the others safe”, and that he should “go save Clarke”. (keep in mind that saving Clarke actually isn’t the end goal of what they are trying to do here anyway. They are trying to get Josephine’s mind drive to use as leverage with Russell so that their people can have a place to live). Echo told him to go because the alarms were going off and they needed to get Josephine to Gabriel instead of waiting for Jackson to get to them and take out the mind drive. Context fucking matters. Blorkes just love to twist anything onscreen to fit their agenda and it just ends up making them look delusional.

As for “Bellamy not caring about Echo”, show me where????? S6 gave us one of their softest and sweetest scenes (as well as a fireside cuddle) that begs to differ. All of S5 begs to differ. Hell, all of S4 begs to differ too. In fact, the entire goddam show begs to differ. Bellamy “sprint into the arms of my girlfriend Echo” Blake begs to differ. This garbage take has no basis in canon. It’s once again just another bad faith claim by blorkes who are hardcore projecting. Because guess what? Not caring about the other person is exactly the way Clarke feels (or more accurately doesn’t) about Bellamy. Clarke left Bellamy to die in Polis in S5. Clarke physically slapped him in his face. This is canon. That’s THEIR ship, that’s not how Bellamy feels about Echo.

Blorkes like to say Becho don’t have any scenes together, but they’re really just so tilted that Echo gets her own plotlines every season, has relevance to the story, and actually isn’t solely defined by her relationship with Bellamy. She can’t be “just Bellamy’s girlfriend” while blorkes claim that “Becho doesn’t even have any scenes together“. Those are two contradictory statements guys... again, stick to a story please. So we have Schrödinger’s Echo, who is somehow both “just Bellamy’s girlfriend” and also “doesn’t have any scenes with him”. Give me a break. Neither of these statements are true and they’re honestly just dumb. It makes blorkes furious that Echo gets narrative focus each season, so they decide to twist that into “she and Bellamy don’t share any scenes”. But guess what? Queen gets both 👑. She can cuddle by the fire with her little spoon boyfriend and also spread the seeds of revolution while sniping at Russel with her bow and arrow during an execution to save her family and friends.  

Also to the people who think S6 was so good for bellarke

Why didn’t Bellamy actually realize that Clarke wasn’t Clarke. Josephine reveals herself to him, he didn’t figure it out 🥴 (Echo was able to piece it together though, so Clecho Endgame I guess)

At the naming day lantern thing, Clarke tells Bellamy that she “lost sight” of him (supposedly) being important to her. She tells him that he is her family too (which he doesn’t verbalize back oop) and she won’t forget it. How nice that that’s something Clarke COULD forget and that she said that to his face 🥴

Bellamy is oblivious that Josephine is impersonating Clarke, so much so that when he hears her say “chill out” to Gaia, he repeats back “chill out? Happiness looks good on you”. He can’t even tell that’s not Clarke and he actually thinks she looks happy 🥴

Why was Bellamy completely unfazed, not jealous at all, and totally cool with Clarke having sex with Cillian. He even says “I take it you had fun with the doctor?” and Josephine!Clarke says back “let’s just say it’ll be a while until he recovers” and Bellamy couldn’t care less that “Clarke” is talking to him about her sexcapades with other people. There’s no angst or jealousy or longing looks or sadness lsdjsdkf. He’s genuinely happy for her. Then he makes an “ugh TMI” face and turns away. As if the thought of Clarke having sex in general is uncomfortable. Great blarke content, much romance  🥴

When Josephine has control of Clarke’s body she flirts with Murphy (and not Bellamy... a huge L in the metastory)

When Josephine is in Clarke’s mind and has access to all of her innermost thoughts and feelings - there’s no mention of any hidden or repressed romantic feelings for Bellamy (but we do get Josephine taunting Clarke about an actual love interest - “it’s why you cry when you think of Lexa”). Where was all this good blarke content guys?? 😩

The crumbs were extra stale in S6 if you ask me... almost as if the story between Bellamy and Clarke is, in fact, not a romance  🥴 🥴 🥴

ANYWAY

Becho as a couple are emotionally supportive of one another, unshakably stable, communicative, open, and loving. They support each other, they fight for each other, and they absolutely cherish each other. Whoops looks like I accidently wrote a thesis paper (and I’m sure I still managed to leave a bunch of stuff out). Thankfully, the show is the show. And it will always be about canon romantic Becho. And blorkes can die mad about it while we rewatch and enjoy the show to our heart’s content 😊

[iamanartichoke]

1, 9-10, 13, 24, 27, 30 (sorry if that’s a lot)

No such thing as too many! 

1. How did you first discover Loki?

Answered here.

9. Do you have a Loki songlist?

Kinda; I have a Loki playlist on Spotify, but at some point it merged with a "general MCU" playlist, and so all the songs on it aren't necessarily related to Loki. I also have separate ship playlists (Thorki, Valki).

10. Do you see Loki as a hero, villain, or antihero? And why? 

Honestly, none of them. 

Loki is very much not the hero. Which is a complicated statement to make bc Loki does have a lot of the qualities that make a traditional hero (such as bravery, courage, etc), which make it all the more frustrating how many people dismiss him as just being evil. He's not evil, but he's not motivated by a noble need to do the right thing, either. 

He's a sympathetic character, in that he's not malicious or cruel. He doesn't do bad things for the sake of it, but he still does do bad things. He's very intrinsically motivated, which gives a deeper context to his misdeeds but also colors his good deeds, too. He usually isn't doing the good deed for pure, noble reasons. I think that Loki's nature doesn't really allow him to have too many of those "I just have an urge to do the right thing" moments; the way his mind works, I feel like he's constantly weighing every angle and may often be acting from a place of "how can I make this work for me" even when he's doing something that is, objectively, heroic. 

But Loki is not a villain, either, and I don't think I have to get too far into an explanation of why. He just isn't. 

I feel like, then, there's a tendency to say, okay, well Loki isn't the hero but he's not a villain either so he must be an antihero, but to be honest, I'm not entirely sure that's accurate. The prefix "anti" literally means being opposed or against something; in order to be an antihero, one must be opposed to and in objection of the things that make one a hero (such as bravery, selflessness, a strong moral compass). Loki is not opposed to those heroic traits; he possesses a lot of them himself, in fact. 

That said, a lot of arguably good characters are the antiheroes because they're doing their shitty things for the greater good. They're willing to cross boundaries and may tend to be morally gray. The villain has no qualms about doing awful things, bc they're often cruelly motivated; they either start out as morally bankrupt or get twisted that way somewhere during the journey. 

The antihero, on the other hand, has qualms about doing awful things but will do them anyway bc the ends justify the means; to them, if they need to get their hands dirty on the way to accomplishing some larger goal, then they will. I think in this sense, Loki's actions in Thor 1 - in letting the Jotuns into Asgard to prevent Thor's coronation - are the actions of an antihero, but I think he generally shifts away from that "the ends justify the means" mentality after he falls. If that makes sense. 

So I think that, like the hero, Loki embodies some antihero traits but isn't actually an antihero character.

I think that the best way I can frame Loki is simply that of a foil to Thor. This is part of why their relationship is such an important part of their character developments - they're foils to one another, really. They're literally night and day:

Thor does things for the noble reason, out of the need to do the right thing; Loki does things for any number of reasons, and rarely are they particularly noble.

Thor outwardly and loudly embodies everything that an Asgardian warrior should be; Loki's ferocity as a warrior is much more subtle, graceful, and fluid.

Thor  is very idealistic, whereas Loki tends to be more cynical.

Similarly, Thor is optimistic and pretty naive, whereas Loki is pessimistic and untrusting. While Thor kinda takes things as face value and accepts the narratives he's handed (Odin as a hero, Asgard as the protector of realms, etc) Loki's general inquizitive nature in addition to often being distrusted himself lends itself to a natural tendency to dig deeper and ask questions.

In my opinion, neither of them is better than the other; Thor's qualities aren't inherently "good" any more than Loki's qualities are inherently "bad." They're just opposites and it's why they work so well together. 

Unfortunately, in a hero vs. villain story, the nuances of the foil relationship are sacrificed for a much more black-and-white view, and that's where we are where we are in regards to Loki.

I don't know if I'm explaining this particularly well bc I rewrote it like 5 times and I'm trying to keep it short (she said like 10 paragraphs later but in my defense at one point I was writing about the Incredibles and I couldn't even begin to tell you how I got there, sooo) but yeah; to me, Loki is neither a hero nor a villain nor an antihero, he's basically Thor's foil but he's also just Loki.

13. What's your silly headcanon about Loki?

Answered here.

24. Best Loki outfit?

Answered here. I do also really like his Asgardian dungeon outfit, though. (Those little slippers!)

27. Have you ever met the actor (Tom Hiddleston) of Loki?

*crying* No. I went to Betrayal and stood at the stage door like everyone else, and there was a moment when I could have sidled up to him and gotten a picture - he was right there and there was an empty spot against the guardrail and everything - but I froze and he continued on by without acknowledging my existence. 

But I can, at the very least, say that I have both been in the same room as him and also stood a mere three feet or so away from him and he is beautiful in every sense of the word, even moreso than what comes across on camera. Not just in looks; he's just got this glow about him that makes you want to be close to him and just kinda bask in the ambiance of it.

30. Team #greeneye or #blueeye Loki?

#greeneye til I die. It's canon as far as I'm concerned. Whenever I read Loki described as having blue eyes in fic, it jars me a little bit. Like an off-key note.

Thank you for the ask!

MCU Loki Questions. 

[tigerseye46]

tell us about ur new oc!

Thanks for giving me an excuse to talk about her! I have a lot.

I’ve actually mentioned her before but before I figured everything out. I rp her in a server with my friends.

Her name is Huáng Xiàróng (煌 夏荣 Brilliant Summer Glory)! Her name used to be Yuán but I changed it. I’ve created one design for her, I don’t draw often so it’s not the best but I tried. I’ll post her demon form and picrew of her human form at the end.

Originally she was supposed to be a motherly figure. That… uhh did not exactly go as planned. I kinda made her feral instead- also she used to be a straight up villain.

She’s a rabbit/bunny demon. Specifically a Manchurian hare. She has a mix of black, brown and gray fur with three spots on the side of her face which are replaced by freckles in human form. She has a notch on her ear and some spots there too. She has slight wavy hair with braids in the back.

Her hair is black with green strands, kinda like Mei which was completely unintentional and I only realized that now. Her eyes are green but they change to red when angered and brown when annoyed. She has a frilly dress. She has a tattoo on her back, 戰士 meaning warrior. Her height is 6 feet and 2 inches. She’s around 3000, maybe a bit younger and physically looks 35 - 40.

Small tw here, she has scars from years of fighting.

Abilities:

She can shapeshift to various things including a normal bunny form and a bigger, more terrifying version of herself.

Like most rabbits, she’s extremely fast (super speed).

She has the ability to control and manipulate fire.

She can jump high.

Super strength

And friend suggested the ability to possibly summon and ride a cloud.

Backstory: (I’m just going to copy and paste her backstory that I used for smth)

Xiàróng was born in the Qin Dynasty to two rabbit demons. Her parents were fierce demon lords that loved to mess with humans with their army. Her parents trained her in the hopes that she would follow in their footsteps and she did. She became a fierce warrior with a strong love of fighting and battling.

She led her armies into villages, messing with humans and demanding offerings. She loved the absolute terror that popped up on their faces as her army swept in. She enjoyed the amusement she felt every time they thought they could defeat her along with the absolute adrenaline that came with fighting.

Her parents were extremely proud of her and at times, fought with her but they mostly stayed regulated to their hideout. One day, they passed away in the field of battle, she rose and took their place. Xiàróng became better known as a fierce rabbit demon lord and grew her armies, even allying at points with some other demons.

She became renowned as her parents always hoped she would be. She loved her army and always made sure their efforts were rewarded. She treated them as a second family to her and they shared a deep bond.

One of Xiàróng’s generals told her about a monk journeying west to get scriptures and if she eats him, she can become immortal. While initially excited at this prospect, she declined when she found out that the person guarding him was the Great Sage. She then made sure her army never crossed paths with Sun Wukong and the rest of the pilgrims.

She continued onward and she thought the whole thing could last forever.

But obviously, nothing lasts forever. Humans started advancing and her demon army started falling, either passing away in battle, getting tired of fighting or deciding that they wanted to move on and pass off as humans to live normal lives, sometimes a mixture of the last two.

Xiàróng never stopped fighting and refused to quit until she faced a fierce opponent in battle that caused her spirits to wane. She eventually realized that with humanity’s advancements she longer had the edge that she used to. She decided to sadly give up fighting about 500-1000 years prior to modern day. In her current identity, she works at a boring office job to survive all while longing for the good old days. 

The group finds her when they need her to face an opponent she had previously faced, possibly the same one that caused her spirits to wane.

(She also had might or might not have had a kid at one point when she was still a warrior. Mildly debating on the kid thing but I’m probably going with it.)

Likes and Dislikes:

She absolutely loves fighting, she loves the thrill that comes with it. She values hard workers as she had to work hard to get to where is. She loves to reminisce about the good old days when she was feared and respected. She likes the summer season. Her favorite colors are red and green. She likes drinking tea. She adores the outdoors. She likes (also dislikes) being alone. She likes people who value their family. She is a big fan of action movies. She likes exercising. She likes organization and plans. She loves her motorcycle and weapons. She loves being the leader of projects as it gives her a sense of power. She loves fire and is often entranced by it. She likes using her jumping abilities. She likes exploring nature.

She dislikes the modern advancements humans have made as she believes it puts her as a disadvantage and is part of the reason she is no longer feared. She dislikes mundane office work as she believes it to be below her skill level but does it to survive. She dislikes people who desert others as some of her army left because they were tired of fighting and wanted to move on. She hates being called cute. She hates slackers. She hates people who underestimate her. She dislikes interacting unless she has to.

Strengths and Weaknesses:

Strengths:

Xiàróng is extremely proud of her abilities. She is extremely brave and will gladly take action when need be. She is rather confident. She is observant because of her years as a demon lord. She is a strategic individual since she spent so much time with her generals planning out attacks. She is also rather smart from her years of teaching from her parents about different subjects. She will give her honest opinion if someone asks her. She is hard working. She is tidy and always makes sure to keep both her workspace and house clean. She actually has a motherly side to her and is rather gentle when interacting with children and is capable of being gentle when others are having a bad day, although this depends on who they are. She is agile.

Weaknesses:

Her belief in her abilities cause her to have excessive pride in them. Her bravery leads her to take reckless actions. Her longing to reclaim the past and become once again known as a fierce demon blinds her to the possibilities that come with the future. She holds on too much to the past and practically clings to it. She has a short temper and can snap easily. Her honesty leads to bluntness and people not liking her because of her opinion. She can also be rather dishonest sometimes. She acts as if she knows better than others since she’s been alive a long time and has a wide array of knowledge.

General Personality:

Xiàróng is not a sociable person, although she used to be back in the old days when she had her demon army. She can be quite dramatic especially when she’s explaining her past to people. She has a loud personality that appears when she’s explaining her history. This is a subtle and desperate attempt to reclaim what she used to have. Although, other than that, she is rather quiet and prefers not to interact unless absolutely necessary. 

She prefers to keep to herself a lot of the time despite rabbits being social creatures. She feels out of place and longs for a world where she can go back to fighting and a time where her army was all together, laughing and smiling. Fighting is all she’s known for the longest time and believes that’s what she’s mostly good at. 

Since some of her army has either passed away or left to find better lives, she is not a big fan of letting people close especially in a world of humans since these were people she once used to attack and mess with. She does rarely encounter some of the demons that used to be her army. She’s short tempered and aggressive. She appears cold due to her isolation and circumstances. Under her cold personality, there is a loud, bright and caring personality waiting to get out if she lets someone get close, maybe if she did, she could go back to the way she used to be.

She doesn’t care about the group at first until they keep dragging her along. She is terrified of Sun Wukong because of his reputation and is kinda wary of his successor but helps him out. She purposefully annoys Pigsy and has debates with Tang. Also I kinda ship her with Sandy but we’ll see how that goes-

Trivia:

Talents: Foraging, cooking, singing, Can expertly play pipa (Chinese lute) and piano, gardening, great medical knowledge, wrestling, sword fighting and spear fighting, stealth, hand to hand combat, whittling, excellent leadership skills, making strategies.

She has a motorcycle that she takes good care of.-Romance movies are a guilty pleasure of hers.

She is ambidextrous.

She’s bi.

She has a tattoo with the characters 戰士 meaning warrior on her back.

She has a small house in the woods near a mountain range outside the city.

She was around when the Journey to the West was happening but avoided the pilgrims since she didn’t want to risk angering Sun Wukong if she tried something.

Hobbies: poetry, training with her qiang and jian, exercising, running, singing, gardening, cooking, playing the pipa and piano, foraging, whittling/wood carving, origami, watching television

Her surname Huáng meaning brilliant refers to the family’s cleverness along with wanting to shine. Xià means summer, summer represents something in China such as the direction south, the color red, the sound of laughter, the heart, fire and a creature called the red phoenix. Red, in turn, symbolizes happiness, vitality, good luck, good fortune, energy and passion. Róng meaning glory is because her parents were hoping she’d be renowned by people all over.

Picture:

Link to the picrew I used for human form: https://picrew.me/image_maker/332600

Human form:

[greycappedjester]

Hi I'm so sorry I'm just too shy to ask this on ao3 but I was wondering: how is Slade's relationship with Dick? I don't mind them as a ship in general but in the story sometimes I feel like Slade gets too close to Dick and I thought if there was something platonic on his side? I'm sure you wouldn't do that in the story that's why I'm asking if it's only on Slade's side. Sorry if this is a stupid question lol. Maybe it's just because I've read sl/adedick fics before. ^^D

Nah, I’ve actually been waiting for someone to ask about that. So....it’s complicated and will take awhile to explain so I’m putting it under a Read More before I get too long winded with my character headcanons:

This is going to get soooooo long, lol, so feel free to skim. Warning for Gotham in general and Gotham being naturally a bad place for kid vigilantes to grow up in. Also because this explanation gets somewhat dark in character interpretation....

Bonus short story at the end after a really long post.

-------

Alright, so first, I feel like I should mention again that I never watched the Teen Titans animated show past maybe the first two episodes and the movie my friends wanted me to watch that I don’t really remember. (I meant to watch that show, just never got around to it). I say this because I heard that the Teen Titans TV show portrayed the Dick and Deathstroke relationship much differently in a way that’s cool and fine but not something I can see myself really wanting to write about. I know their relationship more from comics where Dick was already an adult (albeit a young adult) when he first met Slade. 

So. Back to my After the Fall of Olympus universe and yeah, I’m slowly getting to my answer. The thing is....the story is entirely in Dick’s POV right now.

And Dick’s absolutely terrible at reading and picking up any form of affection others have for him. He understands it abstractly (he knows people care) but when assessing, he critically underestimates it if he remembers to account for it at all. This goes even worse with people he’s closer to--which is why it took him forever to realize why Jason actually did want to stay with him at the manor and why he still has no idea Barbara is in love with him. Even Kory who was really, really direct about liking him, it took him years to fully emotionally process and respond to that. He’s getting better...but remembering his own value (in others eyes) isn’t something he’s overwhelming good at doing.

My headcanon, he is abnormally good at reading people and picking up basic sexual attraction. He’s good at telling when he’s being flirted with or when people are attracted to him and, honestly, Dick’s charismatic and instinctively a flirt, too.With that, partly from growing up in Gotham with its weird and supremely dark villains, I think Dick very much divorces the two concepts of romantic attraction and sexual flirting in his mind--he’s aware they can go together, obviously with Kory--but he doesn’t naturally pair them as other people probably would. It’s also part of why he just doesn’t get the level of concern Tim has about Catalina.

Okay, back to my point.

The way I write Slade and Dick’s relationship is actually mostly done off screen. But, I think Slade started with approval of Dick’s skills and potential in a clinical/objective view, growing respect and interest (personal but not at all romantic) in him as a person, and much more recently in the story (as in that last conversation he had in Ch. 18), I think Slade realized he has some legitimate attraction and cares a lot about Dick in a way that’s probably romantic.

Slade also is very, very aware immediately that he’s not going to do anything with that and, in a way, doesn’t want to because Dick ever responding to that would be jeopardizing his relationship with his family, his team, his view of his morals (which are so integral to Dick) in a way that would be exceptionally out of character and concerning coming from Dick. In other words, something happening would be a lot more terrifying than nothing happening and Slade cares.

For Dick, it’s a lot more simple. He does not have any romantic feelings there. He does in a somewhat analytical, unconscious way recognize that Slade’s probably attracted to him (probably before Slade noticed honestly) but he’s....well, kind of used to that at some level. More so, Dick doesn’t connect it to emotional care and--like with everyone else--vastly underestimates that Slade does care about him in a way that’s actually pretty selfless for a mercenary. For a romance, your guess is absolutely right, it’s not going to go anywhere in this series but I wanted the undertones and implications to be there in the final third of the story

....But, that’s also more of a later/recent development in that relationship. For most of the story that’s posted so far, Slade sees his relationship with Dick as a lot of respect and even care but not as romantic in any way. I can promise no romantic undertones at all until Dick was already in his 20s because I really, really am not interested in writing underage. (for those curious about Slade’s age in the story, I think of him as mid-20s in his introduction in Year 3 and pretty early 30s here to Dick’s early 20s)

Above everything, they respect each other and would be almost friends if that were possible.

The team and his family doesn’t know any of this.

Anyway, that was long, so here’s a bonus short story from Slade’s view. I write a lot of After the Fall of Olympus short stories in other charcter’s views that I’m not planning on posting until After the Fall of Olympus.

This one’s between Year 5 and 6 and is titled “October 7th”:

-------

It’s October 7th, almost two in the morning, and Slade’s camped out in a somehow still standing bombed out apartment in a no-name village in the middle of a war-torn country.

He’s not exactly expecting visitors.

There’s a knock on the apartment door.

Slade cocks his gun and puts two rounds in the door before, for good measure, adding matching ones on either side of the frame.

He has two seconds to let himself pretend that’s the end of it before the door knob turns to the unmistakable sound of a skilled lock pick. 

Fuck, he’s too tired for this shit today. 

“Geeze, Slade, what if I’d been an innocent civilian?”

Slade’s hand stills on the gun in surprise then consideration before slowly slipping it back into the holster. 

“Kid,” he greets. “There’s no innocent civilians left around here. ‘Specially ones that can make it to my door without me hearing any footsteps.”

“I’ve been working on that.” Dick says, walking into the apartment. He isn’t even wearing his uniform, just plain black military style clothes with the lower half of his face covered by a piece of cloth. He pushes it down and smiles as he presses the door shut behind him. “You did tell me to get better, after all.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have,” he mutters without much heat. “You getting better almost left me out of a job.”

Dick rolls his eyes. “Please, as if both of us don’t know Luthor could’ve gotten out of those charges in months. If the Light didn’t erase them for him, anyway.”

Slade shrugs. Maybe another time, he’d find the energy to banter back. But not today. Never today.

“Why are you here, Dick? How’d you find me?”

The smile slides off of Dick’s face, leaving behind those far too heavy eyes to belong to an eighteen year old.

“You know I have your file, Slade.” Dick clears his throat. “I know what day it is.”

….Fuck.

It’s not like he expected anything else. Not since the moment he saw the kid. But, still...he doesn’t want to deal with this. Doesn’t want to deal with anything. Today, he just wants to crawl back into the worst, most deserted corner of the world he can find until the hours creep passed and he can find the energy to move.

Instead, he glares. “Good for you. Now get the fuck out, kid.”

Dick grimaces but shakes his head. “Not until you answer a question for me.”

Slade groans and, for a handful of seconds, honestly contemplates just killing him, considers it in a way that he hasn’t since before he even met the kid, back when he was first handed a file by a practically no name organization called H.I.V.E.

He’d regret it later. Sure. He has too much he wants to see out of the kid to kill him in a shitty, dusty apartment. But, that regret would come later. Later, once this day had finally passed.

That alone is almost enough to have him reaching for his gun. Almost

“Grayson,” he finally grounds out, “if you know what day it is, you know I’m not exactly inclined to play our game of hero and villain right now. You want information, find someone else.”

“Good, I’m not here to play either. Only problem is I can’t ask anyone else, you're the only one who knows the answer.” Dick lowers himself to sit on the floor across from him, like a particularly stupid mouse in front of a viper.

And then, he looks up and his eyes are too steady to belong to prey.

“Here’s the question: Do you really want to be alone today, Slade?”

The breath catches in Slade’s`lungs, harsher than if the kid had just punched him.

He pushes the reaction down, already knowing it’s too late, and says in the steadiest voice he can manage, “Yes.”

Dick stares at him, unmoving. “I don’t believe you.”

The air around them is too tight, too burning, and Slade’s being pushed down under it to suffocate. 

He can’t fight it, so he takes it and pushes it back into anger. “The fuck, kid! What do you know?  You said you have my file, yeah? How long have you had it? Because I’m betting you’ve had it since we first met!” He lunges forward. “So, why are you here now, Dick? What makes this year so special? What’s made you decide to pretend to care now? Because whatever it is, kid, I can promise you, I’m not worth it. So, leave!”

By the end, he’s gripping Dick’s shirt, pulling it tighter until the collar has to be digging painfully into his neck. 

Dick doesn’t look away. “No.”

Slade doesn’t look away either. “You know I really think I might kill you right now.”

“You won’t.”

 One of Slade’s hands moves until it’s pressing into the kid’s neck. A single sharp twist and he could snap it. “So sure?”

Dick nods.

“And why’s that?”

“Because I brought your favorite whiskey.”

A brown bag is pressed into Slade’s ribs and the man feels something rising in his chest that could possibly be laughter if it was some other time.

He drops the kid.

He takes the bag.

“Pretty sure heroes aren’t supposed to be contributing to alcoholism, kid.” He gestures to a half empty bottle of much cheaper stuff beside him.

Dick coughs, rubbing at his throat. “Please. With your metahuman metabolism, I bet you can barely feel it for an hour.”

“Depends how much I drink,” Slade counters, eyeing the bottle. “How’d you know my favorite?”

Dick shrugs. “Gotta keep some secrets to myself.”

He fishes out a spare shot glass from somewhere in the black folds of his outfit and pours a small glass for himself. 

Slade raises an eyebrow. “Last time I checked, you’re still 18, kid.”

Dick gives him an incredulous look in return. “Last time I checked, this place doesn’t have a drinking age...or a government, actually.”

Slade hums, amused, using a larger glass for himself. “True, but thought you’d be following the laws of your own birth city a little closer, hero. Gotham’s still at 21...on the record at least.”

“Technically, Gotham’s not my birth city.” Dick snorts and takes the shot. 

Slade tilts his head. “Where were you born?”

Dick pauses, thinking, before offering a sheepish smile. “You know….I actually have no idea. Somewhere in Europe, probably? I came early, the circus was still on tour. One of the lion tamers helped deliver me, used to be a doctor.”

“Always a surprise, kid,” Slade shakes his head, draining his glass. Tasting it in his mouth and pretending it’s enough to wash away the ash.

The next words come before he can stop them.  “...Adeline always wanted two kids.”

Dick goes quiet.

“Of course,” Slade says to his glass and fuck it, just fuck it,  “turns out we didn’t even get the one. Turns out I didn’t get either my wife or my son.”

Fuck, he hates October 7th.

He reaches for the whiskey, ignoring how his hand shakes. “Addy was a soldier, you know? A good one. Of all the stupid fucking ways she could go, I never thought it’d be childbirth. Maybe I should have. Always knew I’d kill her somehow.”

“You didn’t kill her, Slade,” Dick says softly.

“Sure. Whatever,” he agrees, too tired to argue. It’s not as if he hasn’t heard every variation sometime or another. It’s just right now, he can’t quite bring himself to debate about the cause when the end of it’s always going to be the same.

Dick drops the subject and the relief that Slade feels  is immense enough that it’s close to gratitude.

“What was your son’s name?”

“Grant. We were going to name him Grant.” He takes another sip. “If we had another one, we were going to name him Joseph. Or Rose for a girl.”

“Those are good names.”

He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.”

Slade doesn’t answer, looking up to eye the kid over his drink. Dick sees it, holding up his own glass in acknowledgement before knocking it back.

“Why are you here, kid,” Slade asks again. “We’re not friends, pretty far fucking from it last time I checked.”

“I’ve got my reasons,” he answers calmly.

“If you’re here to make your usual sales pitch about the virtues of heroism, I really will kill you. Whiskey or not.”

Dick shakes his head. “....is it so hard to believe I just didn’t think you should be alone?”

Slade thinks his skepticism is loud enough without him needing the words.

The look Dick gives him is steady in return. “Think what you want to, Slade, I know what grief feels like. It’s a poison. It’ll kill you unless you find a way to drain it.” 

Dick looks down at his own glass and Slade gets the feeling the kid’s no longer talking about just Slade. It’s still a tossup whether he means himself or the Bat.

Either way, Slade makes sure his next smirk is particularly pointed. “And, look at you. Tracking me all the way down here to try and save my tortured soul. Such a hero.”

“Oh, shut up,” Dick says with an eye roll, pouring himself another drink

Slade cocks his head. “Speaking of, don’t all the good little heroes have school right about now.”

Dick looks up, almost sheepish. “I’m ditching my classes. Don’t tell my brothers, I’m still trying to be a good influence.”

Slade snorts and takes a particularly long swig.

A good influence. As if a single one of his stupid, fucking team doesn’t think the fricking sun shines out of the kid’s ass.

Fuck. What is Slade even doing? Sitting in a run down apartment in the middle of a warzone drinking whiskey with a too trusting kid a decade younger and that he probably should have killed years ago.

But, then, it’s always been exceedingly difficult for him to do what he should---what’s the sane and logical thing--when it comes to Dick Grayson. And, one day--when he doesn’t have the burn of booze sitting in his gut and his chest doesn’t ache like he’s been shot--Slade’s going to take a hard look at why that is.

For now, he’ll just leave it like he usually does. The kid’s too interesting to die yet. 

Dick eyes his shot glass, contemplatively. “This whiskey’s way too overpriced, Slade. It’s practically aged vodka.”

Slade finishes his off steadily. “Shows you have little taste, Grayson.”

Dick laughs and slides the bottle over. “I brought another one anyway.”

....Far, far too interesting.

[panharmonium]

Hey, do you ship merthur? I have conflicted feelings about it because Merlin does love Arthur but also their relationship is kinda shitty.

short answer: i do not

longer answer: i might not be the right person to ask about this, because i don’t really “ship” anything?  it’s not how i engage with fandom.  (disclaimer: this is not a value judgment of folks who do engage with fandom that way.  just an explanation of how my own brain works.)

extra long answer: under the cut, because i suppose it was only a matter of time before someone asked me about merlin/arthur, and i might as well put my entire response in one place so that next time, i can just link to it.

questions like this are a little tough for me to answer, because i am completely uninterested in romance as a premise.  if it’s not there, i don’t care.  if it is there, i often wish it weren’t, because it’s almost never developed in a way that lives up to my standards.  i don’t always mind if something contains romantic relationships (provided they’re written well), but i don’t want them to be the point of a story.  i honestly cannot think of anything less interesting to me than a story that has as its main plotline “x character falls in love with y character.”  for me, in my brain, it’s like, “okay...that’s it?  do you have anything else to say?”  there is literally nothing about that that i care about.

this can be a little difficult to navigate in fandom, because one of the oft-heard commendations of “fandom” is ‘gosh, fandom is so wonderful, we can watch the same two characters fall in love again and again and again in a million different scenarios!’  which is true, for the people who care about that sort of thing, but that’s not actually ‘fandom.’  that’s shipping.  and there’s nothing wrong with shipping, but shipping and fandom are not the same thing, and they’ve become so conflated that it can be very difficult to engage in the latter without being absolutely swamped by the former.

many times, for me, fandom can feel synonymous with shipping.  there was a post i reblogged recently whose tags described shipping as often feeling like a prerequisite to engaging with fandom, and that is often what it feels like to me, particularly in fandoms where one ship is so ubiquitous that any and all other material is utterly dwarfed by it in scale.  (for me, my last two major fandoms have been merlin and teen wolf, so - i’m sure you see my dilemma, heh.)

all of that said, in terms of arthur and merlin specifically...

disclaimer: everything i say here is relevant to me only.  these are my own feelings.  i am making this post on my own blog, in my own space, in response to a question about my own thoughts.  i do not want, expect, or need anyone else to share these thoughts.  any commentary i make about fandom trends is not equivalent to condemnations of individual people’s opinions or shipping habits.  i do not mind or take issue with folks who ship these two characters.  i am glad you are having fun.  please do not @ me about something you disagree with.  i promise you it is not necessary.

okay.  with that out of the way.  

part of me is reluctant to expound further on this question, because my personal philosophy is that merlin and arthur as a ship have had more than enough time and space devoted to them in this fandom (way more than their share, frankly) and i generally prefer to focus on merlin and the other people in his life, as a deliberate counter to that.  but, since you asked, and because i have been experiencing the “i’m tired of romance” bug more strongly lately, here is the long-form version.

the number one reason why i don’t ship arthur and merlin is what i already outlined above: i don’t really “ship” anything.  i have never looked at two characters who were not already together/on an obvious potential path to being together and said “i want them to fall in love.”  that has just never happened to me.  (again - it’s not a BAD thing to have this happen, it’s just not something that’s ever happened to me.  i can’t relate to the experience.)

therefore, when i do appreciate a romantic relationship, it’s pretty much always because canon has shown me something romantic (or clearly pre-romantic) that i find to be well-written and compelling.  (it’s rare - as i outlined before, i would usually rather not deal with romance at all - but it happens.)  

arthur and merlin, then, never had that effect on me, because arthur and merlin, as depicted in the canon, are not in love.

[to anybody reading this who just snatched up their keyboard and started furiously typing, i beg you - please go back and re-read my disclaimer.]

they’re not in love.  the truth about these two is that if i had watched this show without having grown up in fandom as a culture (and without knowing exactly what kind of ships fandom immediately sees EVERYWHERE) the idea of anybody shipping these two together would never have even entered my mind.

(and like.  because i DID grow up in fandom, and i DO know exactly what kind of ships fandom sees everywhere, i knew before i even started this show that arthur/merlin was going to be an inescapable thing.  but that would not have been the case, if i had watched the series in a world where i didn’t know what fandom was.)

arthur and merlin, in canon, are not in love.  the show never does anything to give me an inkling that either of them are harboring romantic feelings for each other.  that is never what is happening onscreen.  literally the last thing on merlin’s agenda is romantic attachment, ever, and arthur is never, ever shown to be in love with anyone who isn’t gwen.  the show, onscreen, never tricks me, teases me, or leads me on.  i was never under the impression that merlin and arthur were in love with each other, because they weren’t.

but that DOES NOT MEAN their relationship matters less.  just because they aren’t IN love with each other doesn’t mean they don’t love each other, and one of those things is not bigger or better or more powerful than the other.

i struggle a lot in fandom (all fandom, not just merlin) with the persistent idea that romantic attachment is the peak, the natural endpoint on a scale of “how deep is your love?”  i am constantly running up against posts where the commonly accepted structure is to cite a moment of devotion or caring or some instance of basic connection between two characters, and then add a caption or tag saying ‘because they are JUST FRIENDS, right?’ or ‘^^totally platonic interaction between characters who are not at all in love, sure jan.’  

and honestly?  i hate that.  that is one of my least favorite things about fandom.  it makes me so tired.  

i am completely disconnected from this idea that there are like...things you can do that are too caring to count as friendship.  like - that there is too much devotion you can show, and if you go over the limit, then it’s laughable that you would do those things for “just” a friend.  that’s so unpleasant to me.

(and i do think [when it comes to non-canon queer ships, anyway - straight ships unfortunately have no excuse, sorry y’all] that part of this probably has its roots in pushback at the tendency of people who try to “gal pal” actual queer ships (or literal real life relationships), so this, at least, is something i can understand.  i’m queer myself; i get that.  and that is why i will never like - attach myself to someone’s post and start complaining.  people can vent however they want.)

it doesn’t change my own feelings, though.  i hate seeing every meaningful friendship i’ve ever been invested in talked about like it’s just a romance in disguise.

other things: i am uninterested in romance as a motivator.  

truly, from the bottom of my heart, i don’t care.

we are, at least in my corner of the world, oversaturated with romance, to the point where any piece of media that doesn’t include it in some fashion is shockingly bizarre.  it is EVERYWHERE.  it is in EVERYTHING.  i cannot pick up a book without running into a romantic plotline.  i cannot watch a movie or a tv show without being forced into multiple romances that i don’t care about.  (rare exceptions apply, as always, but i’m speaking generally.)

this oversaturation, for me, means that romance as a storyline no longer holds any meaning for me.  i see it EVERYWHERE.  it is in literally EVERYTHING.  making merlin into a “love story,” for me, makes the show so much less interesting, because there are billions of love stories out there.  love stories are practically the only kind of story our media remembers how to tell!  why would i take a story that is so unique in its exploration of deep friendship (that isn’t even quite friendship, because it’s not real, but merlin wants it to be real, but making it real would also destroy it) and loyalty (that isn’t necessarily deserved, but is still offered, but is damaging to the person offering it) and love (that exists in spite of arthur’s position as the oppressor, but still cannot erase merlin’s oppression, and is patently not a magical fix for the very real problems merlin is facing), and then want to water it down to “and then they fell in love”???

merlin bbc has so much to say about the transformative, redemptive power of love (not just romance), and the bonds we form with each other despite the fact that we don’t always deserve each other, and what we can do to make ourselves better, and how do we make amends for the ways in which we hurt the people we care about, and it is so complicated and there is so much beauty there and i adore it specifically because it is one of the rare pieces of media out there that doesn’t prop up romantic love as the most important and powerful force in the universe.  romantic love is not what moves the story.  merlin’s love for the people around him is based on compassion.  it’s bigger than the familiar and overused ‘i am desperately in love with this one individual person and that’s what drives my actions,” which is a premise all of us know has been done to death.  merlin’s love is not about romantic attachment.  it’s a deep, abiding love for humanity.  it’s based on hope, and faith, and the inherent belief that everybody matters, even in their worst moments.

condensing that kind of story into “and then they fell in love” erases its meaning for me.  it makes it trite.  uninteresting.  i have seen “and then they fell in love” fully sixty thousand times.  “and then they fell in love” has been done so often that it is utterly devoid of power for me.  boring.   i literally do not care.

other people might feel differently, and find a romantic love story compelling.  i don’t.  

i’m guessing the message that prompted this essay is asking me to evaluate how i feel about the “goodness” of the merlin/arthur ship, aka whether it’s worthwhile to ship it or not based on how healthy/unhealthy it is, which i definitely can’t answer, because i don’t think whether it’s “good” or not really matters.  i am definitely too old to be riding the newer wave of, uh...idk, purity culture type stuff that is so oft-debated on here, lately.

but you’re absolutely right, anon - merlin and arthur’s relationship IS kinda shitty!  it 100% is.  it doesn’t mean you can’t ship them, though, if you want; otherwise i wouldn’t be invested in any aspect of their friendship, either.  

the fact that merlin and arthur’s relationship is kinda shitty is an essential element of the show; it’s the microcosmic representation of the macrocosmic problem merlin is trying to solve, and even with that being the case, we can see clearly that this also doesn’t preclude them from having real moments of connection and care and love.  this is the contradiction i have to keep in mind whenever i engage with them in the friendship sense - merlin has been wronged by arthur in so many ways, and yet he still loves him and believes arthur can do better, and yet his dedication to arthur really does destroy his life piece by piece, and you really have to walk a line between those extremes and be thinking: in what ways was this a noble, honorable path for merlin to take and in what ways was this damaging, and was it all worth it in the end?

we probably wouldn’t still be watching this show if we didn’t ultimately think the answer to that last question was yes.  but there are also equally valid ways in which the answer is, truthfully, no, and i think really the only important thing when dealing with merlin and arthur’s relationship (in whatever capacity you prefer) is to keep that dissonance in mind.

so, to more directly address your question, when it comes to my interaction with the source material, i don’t ship merlin and arthur romantically because i don’t see romance when they interact in canon, and i don’t think their relationship could be improved or made more interesting/more meaningful by adding extra-canonical romance into the mix.  that’s really it.

but the other side of things is this: even if i were granted someone else’s ship-goggles to somehow see romance between these two (eg, once, in the distant past i read a harry potter fic that was so well-constructed it sold me on a relationship i didn’t [and still don’t] actually see in canon), i still wouldn’t choose to ship merlin and arthur, and it’s not because they’re a “bad” ship (no such thing, folks - tag your stuff and let people live their lives, thank you), it’s because this fandom has already been swallowed by them and i cannot bring myself to make that imbalance worse.

trying to be in the merlin fandom without shipping merlin and arthur is just...a little bit difficult sometimes.  i think probably even people who do ship merlin/arthur are aware of that.  sometimes it can feel like merlin/arthur is a given in this fandom, not one of many options - as if you’re not in the merlin fandom, but rather the merthur fandom, and you know you really, really do not belong there.

and it’s not even a canonical ship!  it’s not even real.  and yet if you like this show, and you want to engage in the fandom, your experience is, without exception, going to be chock full of merlin/arthur content by default.

essentially, my struggle with the merlin/arthur dynamic in fandom is two-fold:

1) the strikingly imbalanced content distribution

the merlin fandom, in terms of content distribution, is a pretty accurate mirror of merlin’s own existence, to be honest, in that pretty much every aspect of it is eventually taken over by arthur pendragon, and in that there’s a reasonable debate to be had about whether or not that’s a good thing.

(spoiler alert: it’s not.)

even so, it is what it is, and as i said before, me commenting on fandom trends is not meant as a condemnation of individual preferences.  people like what they like!  that’s just how things are.  shipping arthur and merlin isn’t a Bad thing to do, by any means, and the fact that so many people do is just, you know, bad luck for me, lol.  but at the same time, the wildly unbalanced distribution of content does make it more difficult for folks who don’t ship merlin/arthur to engage in fandom with quite the same level of ease, and even though it’s nobody’s fault, it is still perfectly reasonable for people who don’t ship merlin/arthur to be frustrated about that.

fanfic is a pretty good case study for how this plays out.  i saw a post a while back that was titled something like ‘merlin bbc gothic,’ and the first bullet point was “canon ships are rarepairs,” and HOO BOY, that is true.  stats-wise, merlin/arthur makes up ⅔ of the merlin fic on AO3.  ~25,000 fics.  the next most popular tag after merlin/arthur is arthur/gwen, but arthur/gwen have ~2,900 fics in their tag.  and when you remember to exclude any instance of merlin/arthur from the arthur/gwen tag, that number drops by another thousand, to ~1,940.

that’s buckwild.  come on.  merlin/arthur has twenty-three THOUSAND more fics than the next most popular (and CANONICAL, i might add) ship?  and every other ship’s numbers are even lower than that?*

and if you don’t want to read shippy stuff in the first place, like me - the merlin “gen” tag has less than 8000 fics in it, by comparison, and then you STILL have to filter merlin/arthur out of the gen fics, leaving you with about 6300 - which number has to be filtered down further to remove OTHER ships that still make it past the gen filter.

in comparison to 25,000.

like.  i’ve been in fandom long enough that i’m not surprised - mean, i came into merlin directly off a teen wolf phase, and boy, that’s a whole other bowl of noodles right there, with added squick factors that are irrelevant here - but i’m still just...man. 

it still makes my head spin.  and it is still frustrating, every time.

*(there is a lot more to be said about how gwen fits into all of this, and i know it has been discussed more thoroughly in other places, but yes, another reason i am leery of arthur/merlin as a thing is that i’m just...not super comfortable with what that implies for gwen and her position in the story.  even if i personally am slightly more compelled by gwen/lancelot, technically - i still don’t quite feel comfortable taking gwen out of her canonical place.  she belongs at the top.  she deserves to be the love interest and she deserves to be the queen.  and like - people can say that her relationship with arthur isn’t “developed” or “convincing” enough to warrant retaining in fic, and i get it, the show really did fail gwen in S5 - but i still don’t buy that argument.  people literally INVENTED a romantic relationship for themselves and put 25,000 fics worth of effort into building it up; there is no reason why an “underdeveloped” canon romance couldn’t have gotten the same treatment.  except, of course, for the fact that one [Black, female] character was being shoved aside to make way for yet another two white dudes.)

(and i’m not saying that everyone is doing this deliberately or maliciously.  but we all know this is a cross-fandom trend.  there is literally no reason for the gap in content to be THAT wide.  a canon relationship with twenty-three thousand fewer fics than an invented ship?  just...that is a stat that bears thinking about.  it doesn’t mean that merlin/arthur is a “bad” ship, or that you can’t prefer lancelot/gwen, but it IS still important to recognize these patterns where they occur, across fandoms, and to really think about what they mean.)

2) the arthur-goggles

my second struggle with merlin/arthur in fandom is the ubiquitousness of the arthur-goggles, aka: the tendency in fandom, as in canon, to make everything in merlin’s life about arthur, and everything in the show about merthur.

this one specifically really gets to me.  i am very committed to the idea that merlin is a complete individual, whether arthur is there or not.  i write a LOT of meta about merlin being a whole person, specifically pushing back on the idea that merlin was “born” for arthur’s benefit - my motto is basically that “merlin’s life does not revolve around arthur pendragon,” and the way his life begins to revolve around arthur pendragon in later seasons is not in fact touching or romantic or beautiful; it’s a tragedy.  merlin does not exist only in the context of his relationship with arthur; he possesses worth outside of his mission to save the prince of camelot, and he was already a complete person before he ever met the prince of camelot, and one of the many issues we have to think about when dealing with arthur and merlin in any capacity is how merlin is told from the get-go that he is supposed to devote his whole life to arthur, but arthur is never given any such reciprocal responsibility.  

merlin and arthur’s relationship, just like the distribution of content in this fandom, is wildly imbalanced.  merlin spends all of his spare time thinking about arthur’s life; he ties himself in knots trying to help arthur develop as a person.  he is constantly working to keep arthur safe and happy.  but arthur, at the end of a long day, doesn’t spend his nights agonizing over how he can improve merlin’s life.  he just goes home and goes to bed.  he never once thinks, ‘my purpose on this earth is to serve and support my friend merlin.’  he is never told his life isn’t his own, that he is supposed to be one half of some two-sided coin.  only merlin is told that his entire existence is earmarked for someone else, that his life’s purpose is to be someone else’s better half.  only merlin is expected to devote his entire being to someone else’s betterment.  only merlin is expected to say demeaning, self-abnegating things like “i was born to serve you.”  

arthur, by contrast, is allowed to have a life of his own.  he is allowed to exist on his own terms.  he is never told that his worth is dependent on how well he can prop someone else up.  and while fic might like to imagine merlin being the most important thing in arthur’s life, in canon that is just not the case.  

merlin exists on his own merits, and the idea that he does everything he does just because “he’s in love with arthur” will never sit right with me, because it’s simply not true.  merlin and arthur’s relationship is important to both of them, yes, and of course it is undergirded by deep love and care, but it is also way more complicated than that.  merlin’s investment in arthur’s life - and his grief at arthur’s death - are NOT solely driven by his love for arthur as an individual; they are inextricably bound up with a sense of obligation and duty and self-worth and, eventually, failure, because he’s been told that protecting arthur is a) the only thing that matters about his own life and b) the only way to free his people and save an entire kingdom.  and i think ignoring this very real complexity in favor of “merlin does what he does and feels what he feels because he’s in love with arthur” cheapens the depth of the story and flattens merlin’s character.

arthur-goggles automatically make everything about merlin/arthur, though.  so the difficulty, for me, with merlin/arthur as a ship, is that it can be hard to make/find things about merlin that people don’t instantly, always try to link back to arthur in some way.  merlin is not allowed to have things that are just his, and he can’t exist in a state where arthur doesn’t somehow factor in - no matter how unrelated to arthur something is, or how non-shippy it’s meant to be - there’s someone out there who’s going to loop it back to merthur in some way.

just like - scattered examples of things I’ve encountered:

all of merlin’s non-arthur love interests on AO3 having massive chunks of their ship tags actually being merthur fics, with the non-arthur ship serving solely as a stepping stone on the way to getting merlin and arthur together

readers, on fics that are specifically designated as focusing on merlin+someone else and in which arthur does not appear, leaving comments asking “so how long until arthur shows up,” “can’t wait to see arthur,” etc

meta about how ‘merlin’s time in camelot was actually really bad for him as a person’ being reblogged and modified by someone else with an addition like “but merlin doesn’t regret a second of it because he wouldn’t have known arthur if he were anywhere else,” and the OP having to reblog their own post and explain that this is literally the exact problem they were trying to critique

in fic, merlin’s friends being utilized only as vessels with whom he can have discussions about his developing relationship with arthur

etc etc

it’s not always huge egregious things, but wearing arthur-goggles means EVERYTHING comes back to merthur in some way, which for me is just...really insulting to other characters, and really limiting in terms of story analysis.  

so, for example - this is a VERY specific example that few will relate to, because i am probably the only person on here who has ever tried to search the tag for merlin’s friend will from ealdor (a niche fave of mine) - but with him, especially, it is very hard to avoid bumping into a lot of people wearing arthur-goggles, because everybody seems to imagine him as merlin’s ex, who is only upset about what’s going on in 1.10 because he’s jealous about arthur appearing alongside merlin, never mind that will and merlin have known each other since birth and have a relationship that LITERALLY predates arthur by two decades.

so with him, as an example - the other day, i saw some post in the tag that was like “will gets teary when arthur makes his inspirational speech in ealdor because he finally understands what merlin sees in arthur and he can’t be mad anymore”

and that is just patently untrue.  it is not even remotely close to a legitimate interpretation of what is happening in that scene.  will hasn’t come around to arthur’s way of thinking yet; he literally still packs his things and leaves after this happens, and he is - i mean, first of all, he’s not crying, lol, and he stalks out of that scene weary, angry, and fed up, because he thinks the village is delusional and all of his neighbors are going to get killed in the morning.  his arc - his dissatisfaction with what is going on, his anger at the ignorance arthur wields as a nobleman with all of that wealth and privilege, his resistance to the big “let’s fight kanen’s men with sticks” plan - that is about him and his history and who he is.  it is not about an (imaginary) merlin/arthur love story.  

but when the arthur-goggles are on, all roads lead to merthur.  even when the other characters in question (*coughWILLIAMcough*) would be beyond mortified to have merthur, of all things, assigned as their motivation.

SO.  now that i’ve gone over both the canon and fandom aspects of my reasoning, the succinct summary in response to your question is just that no, i don’t personally ship merlin/arthur.  because:

a) i don’t see it b) the fandom is already trying to drown me with it and i choose to center other characters out of spite c) i just think merlin deserves better lol

however, as i said in my disclaimer - that doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t ship and enjoy it!   merlin/arthur is very much not my cup of tea, but that’s no reason why other folks can’t have fun with it.  i think the best portrayals of it, probably, will be those that keep in mind exactly what you said - that merlin and arthur’s relationship is “kinda shitty” - but this is fandom, so if what folks really want to write is just lots of happy AU’s with no issues, then they should go for it!  the point of fandom is to have fun connecting with people over a shared love of something, so i am happy to let others have fun doing their thing, and i will just be over here doing mine. 🙂

[vermiculus-incipiens]

OOC INFORMATION:

What’s your name? Nat

Preferred pronouns: She/her/hers

Timezone: EST

IC INFORMATION:

Character Name: Lucius Malfoy

What’s a hobby or pastime that your character enjoys? Quidditch. Out of practice now but he still has the occasional habit of flying for fun. His second through fifth year of school was spent playing as a chaser. Unfortunately, the hobby was given up the summer after his fifth year. His father took one look at the captain pin he received and told him to send it back, declaring that his son did not have the making of a quidditch player and needed to focus on his academics (the expectation of his heir securing a Ministry position upon graduating) instead of wasting time on something he wasn���t good at.

Do you have any preferred ships or anti-ships? Ships: Lucius/Narcissa Lucius/Severus Lucius/Narcissa/Severus (either a poly sort of deal or a powerful friendship because oh my goodness, do I love how the Malfoys made Severus one of their own) Anti-ships: Anything forced. I headcanon Lucius as demisexual - valuing emotional connections before looks - but he would claim he is straight if asked since that term definitely is not something that exists in the group’s time period.

What do you think your character’s Boggart would be? If their greatest fear isn’t something that could easily take a solid form, what is it? Why? His wife and son are dead. Pre-Draco’s birth had him focused on keeping himself alive long enough to welcome his child. Now the plan is to keep the whole family intact, hoping that they will be given a moment of peace once the dust settles. He has enough faith in Narcissa to know she would be able to manage if anything ever resorted in his death but things seeming to drag out has him certain the war won’t leave his son without one or both of his parents. As for why - Although self-centered, Lucius cares deeply about his loved ones. He is in the habit of referring to Draco as his son, not his heir. The need to produce an heir is a topic his father cares deeply about. Lucius would have been happy with a little girl and trying again or even just having one child, given the amount of struggling it took to bring their first kid into the world.

What’s your character’s biggest pet peeve? People that stand in the middle of the lift when he and they are the only people in the one at the Ministry. Especially if they don’t move to step aside. Arthur Weasley - there’s just something about the man’s very existence that gets on his nerves.

What would you consider to be an eccentricity of your character? His morning routine. Looking good takes a lot of time, money, and effort. The routine involves thoroughly cleaning himself before work, tossing on moisturizer, and making sure his hair is presentable enough to venture into the Ministry. The Malfoy name alone is powerful enough to not need to worry about looks, but Lucius likes accentuating that power with good looks and confidence.

What is/was your character’s favorite subject in school? Why? Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts. Lucius excelled in those classes and took his education very seriously, to a point of earning top marks, a head boy position, and a non-entry level position at the Ministry during his seventh year.

What time of day is your character’s favorite? What time of year? Sunset. There is something blissful about looking over the garden, spotting the silhouette of the peacocks, and watching the sun go down over his property. Summer. Cold weather makes Lucius miserable. He got sent to the hospital wing during a quidditch incident in his fifth year and is still doubting his knee fully recovered from the bludger that hit it — snow and rain bring the aches and pains out.

What’s your character’s Patronus? If they can’t conjure one, what would it be if they could? Why? A peahen. No reason outside of admitting it seems fitting for him.

What is your character’s biggest vice (bad habit or immoral craving)? Cigarettes. They serve as something to keep his hands busy if his anxiety spikes.

Is your character an introvert or extrovert? How well do they handle social situations? Extroverted introvert. Lucius doesn’t mind having eyes on him but would happily pick curling up on a chaise lounge with a book in one hand and a glass of wine in the other over having to deal with people. People are exhausting. He’s never particularly liked crowds but can navigate them without issue. His upbringing involved his father forcing him into social situations and sternly making sure his heir knew how to behave when out in public. Protesting about not wanting to be the center of attention was not an option.

What is your character’s diet like? What’s his or her favorite food? Lucius prefers the best food money can buy. Main preference for greens — he takes his salads seriously. Does wine count as food?? No? *sighs* Alright, well I guess that makes four-layer caviar dip his favorite food. Has to be the recipe his mom preferred or he won’t touch it.

How do you think your character’s psychological issues have manifested and changed your character up to this point? Snob - Very aristocratic. Focused on appearances. Does not associate with those he believes are lesser than him. Do not ask him about his son since he will more than likely go off about how thankful he is for his wife for bringing their child into the world and insist on talking about Draco’s coos and smiles being cuter than anyone else’s kid. Draco being brought up is truthfully the easiest way to crack through the confident mask he usually uses — the kid has him wrapped around his fingers and isn’t even a year old yet Confidence - Lucius naturally oozes confidence and seems calm and collected when in public. However, he is using it to mask the feelings of anxiety and paranoia that are beginning to grate his thoughts. The birth of his son made him aware that he intends to stick around and start doting on his family. He has an underlying fear of doing something that further jeopardizes his family’s safety. Love - Obsessed with his reflection, Lucius has been spending a lot of time focusing on himself and his family. Certainly, he loves every perfect aspect about himself and his wife. The addition of their little bundle of joy has left him realizing he has more love to give than anticipated. Most of which is no longer dedicated to himself. Loving himself proved to counteract the feelings of disappointment and loss that accompanied the physical and emotional distance his father used while raising him (and still uses). He has a decent self-care routine down because of this Proper - Everything has its place in the manor. Appearances must be kept up and things must be clean. Anything remotely out of place can cause him to feel anxious. Lucius seldom wears the same outfit more than twice. He keeps up with fashion and is one of the first to obtain new looks from the top lines Head over heels for his perfect life, wife, and son — definition of the proper pureblood family Mock - snobbish tendencies have left him quick to mock others. At this point, he barely needs to think before a rude comment or scoff passes his lips. Devastating - “It is often said of the Malfoy family that you will never find one at the scene of the crime, though their fingerprints might be all over the guilty wand.” Lucius has a vast knowledge of poisons and no shame in paying others to do the dirty work for him. His ranking at the Ministry has him more in the know about what’s going on than others in the cause. Lucius is also fairly experienced in using lies to undermine coworkers, having an eloquent and confident enough way of speaking to get others to believe what he says Power. Influence - The two practically go hand-in-hand for Lucius. He can pull a lot of influence from the confidence and better-than-everyone facade he typically hides behind. The power comes from having a liar’s tongue, the ability to speak confidently even though he may not truly support what he says, and his having more money than he knows what to do with Close Calls - The near misses have left Lucius anxious about permanently losing his wife. The raid on the manor should have been something he was prepared for. Not feeling prepared followed by his wife getting sent away left him truly believing the love of his life would be gone for good Less Important - as a high-ranking Ministry official and liking to think he’s been fairly dedicated to the cause, Lucius is above menial tasks. He’s not liking being sent on mission after mission and is reading too far into it, truthfully wary that he did something that may have caused the Dark Lord’s feelings toward him and his abilities to shift. Tired - a general way of describing Lucius. Things have hit the point of feeling monotonous. He feels as though he’s just going through the motions when it comes to working and the cause, wanting nothing more for things to settle down so he can shift his focus to his wife, son, and nothing else. Loyal - Once earned, Lucius’s loyalty is unwavering. It is beginning to crack a little in regards to the cause but he is doing his best to keep that to just himself, knowing things will go poorly if he does anything to hint at his being discontent about not being able to focus on family Fear - With the family line secured by having produced an heir, Lucius’s fear of losing his wife all together has slowly begun to dissipate. He is incredibly fearful of doing something to jeopardize the little family they have started and will do whatever it takes to ensure his wife and son are kept safe. This has left him shifting his focus on the cause to ensure he doesn’t do something to fall from where he is currently ranked with the death eaters. One wrong move could prove disastrous.

Give us a headcanon for your character. Anything is acceptable. Lucius’s father is incredibly controlling. The first decade of his son’s life involved strict instruction and proving he was worthy of being the Malfoy heir. Likely took things as far as claiming he could replace Lucius with a better son as a means of controlling his behavior. Abraxas was not opposed to laying a hand (wand in extreme cases) on his son if the situation called for it. He micromanaged Lucius’s life while he was at school, often requiring the head of house to serve as his eyes and ears. Lucius does not like using contractions when he speaks. He tries to avoid words like “can’t,” “don’t,” and “won’t” and prefers sticking to using the full word(s) instead. The only agreement he and his father shared when he was little goes out to him thinking contractions are a lazy way of speaking Lucius is fluent in English, French, Latin, and Italian. Lucius does not like getting his hands dirty. The thought of another’s blood getting on him makes him feel sick to his stomach. He prefers a more behind the scenes approach when it comes to the cause: researching poisons, flowers, etc. and ways of doing damage that doesn’t involve the more sadistic ways of the other death eaters; paying outside sources to go in for the kill; spreading rumors at work to bring down other ministry employees; planning large scale attacks but not usually placing himself in as a main part of the plan; Let the new recruits tackle that and give him something interesting to do He’s hit the point of getting tired of menial tasks and wanting to retire at home with his wife and son

[bcrtonarrcws]

Meta: Claire's relationship with Barney

              HELLO, HI, YOU HAVE JUST UNLOCKED AN ESSAY THAT IS PROBABLY JUST A LITTLE TOO LONG, if I do say so myself and given that I wrote it, I would say you should listen.

 Anyway, the Bartons are actually my favorite comic siblings to ever exist – probably actually my two favorite comic characters ever ever. Their relationship is so dysfunctional and a little broken, yet held together by shitty guardians and a rough childhood. It’s kinda beautiful, how after everything that happened to each other, they’re still close?? Like they trust each other, tease each other, they have each other’s back?? The relationship between Clint and Barney is truly one of my favorite representations of a pair of siblings who didn’t have the easiest life, mainly because, like without the superhero nonsense, their relationship is actually very similar to my own relationship with my siblings – a severely messed up ride or die that might end with one of us killing each other.

Yet, this question is what does Barney’s and Claire’s relationship look like, not Barney’s and Clint, which despite how little it would change, does change some things. To figure out what it changes though, I’d like to head to what their relationship is like, in canon, for me. I know that the fandom has it’s own view of Barney Barton – I don’t agree with it nor particularly like it, so it’s probably best if I explain how I look at their relationship.

So Barney Barton, born Charles Bernard Barton, is the eldest of the two – no ages because this is the comics and characters can’t have canon ages ?? I guess it’ll break the suspension of disbelief but like shrugs – and he showed up in the comics in 1969, before this, he never existed. Of course this is during the age of the 60’s so most superheros didn’t really like have a life outside of the comics they were in so it’s not that big of a deal, but like still, Marvel just creates this character to be Clint’s brother, tells us he’s a racketeer that’s been on the Avenger’s radar for a while, and then kills him in the same issue, only revealing at the end that he was an undercover FBI agent.

(yeah, they gave Clint a family and then killed said family right away, sounds so similar, y’know kinda like the movie-verse which gave clint a family with very little characterization and then snapped them – no wonder I love Laura so much)

Anyway, later issues of Clint’s will explain that their parents were abusive, they died and Clint and Barney ran away from the orphanage they were in when they were like teenagers – this would be retconned to young teenagers, then implied to be younger as of the Hawkeye (2012) series, which puts Clint sleeping under the tents at age 9 (src), which could or could not imply them being their already - it’s whatever, like it’s just gonna get retconned again. Running away to the circus always puts strain on their relationship no matter what age they are though, mainly due to Clint receiving training from their mutual “father figure” Jacques DuQuesne and Barney becoming jealous; a completely and natural thing according to all child psych I’ve read, it creates an environment that allows one kid to be the “golden child” and the other to be the “scapegoat” – now of course, we don’t know much about the dynamics of their full childhood, Marvel hates sharing any information like that, but we can extrapolate a fair amount.

(also, just so everyone knows, this jealousy did not pave the way for their relationship in later comics, namely Blindspot. In that it’s very clearly stated that Barney was found by Egghead to still be slightly alive. He was then held onto, for nefarious reasons, in a healing chamber, until he was found by Baron Zemo years later who then manipulated Barney against his brother so that Baron Zemo could get his revenge against Clint Barton. I’ll say it again, Barney was used against his own brother by an evil guy who hated Clint because Clint slept with Zemo’s wife; that is where the “Cain and Abel” dynamic comes from – not childhood)

Back on the tangentially related topic I was writing about. This jealousy grows until Jacques DuQuesne leaves after Clint finds out about his illegal dealings ( though the all new hawkeye actually kinda, maybe, a little, I’m unsure, retcons this with Clint finding out about it much earlier, when he finds out about Jacques having Barney stealing from people and places and finds the hidden cache of a gun, money and some other things under Jacques’ bed??? I don’t know, I’m now a little confused if Jacques still fucks off thanks to that comic ) - of course, this is after Jacques chases Clint through the circus, cutting the high wire Clint tried to hide on. Barney tells Clint, while his brother is in the hospital (and in literally a comic that got retconned basically) that he should’ve kept his mouth shut and stuck by Jacques no matter what (can we say that that sounds like trauma?? because guess what, psych 101 says that that’s kinda sounding like trauma since Jacques was trash to these kids, like literally, fuck Jacques DuQuesne – all my friends hate him – he’s an interesting villain but fuck the whitewashing of his bullshit).

This doesn’t sour their relationship at all – no seriously, it doesn’t which uh shows that neither of them really take each other at face value anymore – and they go back to the circus, Clint heals up, starts working with Buck (a man currently being written out of the comics world which is a shame because he’s kinda important but kinda not) and then Barney decides he wants out. With Barney in the army, Clint continues down the crime street and well, now that we’ve got a bit of background (over 800 words of background), let’s get onto what their relationship is really like for Claire and Barney.

Simply put, like in the comic relationship with Clint and Barney, Barney is a protective older brother, he taught Claire how to fight and aim, how to patch up simple bruises and cuts, taught her to drink her first shot (at like age fourteen, but like what do you expect when that boy was drinking much younger???). He was her first teacher, her best teacher – yes their relationship got complicated; it’s Claire when isn’t her relationships complicated – but at the end of the day, he helped shape her into who she was.

Less simply put…

He is her everything—in all the P L A T O N I C (I’m emphasizing platonic because please don’t take this in the romantic sense, they’re fucked up but not like that; I am not Marvel, I don’t ship siblings and pretend that shit is fine.) sense of the word—he was her guardian when all the guardians around her failed to properly take care of her; he was her brother who teased her and made fun of her; he was her best friend who understood what she went through, the only other person who did; he taught her as much schooling as she would sit down and listen to, he taught her how to cook herself some basic food.

He was a father, a mother, a brother, a best friend, a moral compass – which is why when he went off to the Army, Claire found it a betrayal. She hated him for the time that he was gone, though she forgave him not long before she first shot him because she could understand that to him  (the little purple box in the third panel: Carnival of Death, of course this is how Barney would remember things) the circus was never a home, just another temporary place to stay. 

(btw this is “shooting barney” thing that is part of my main verse, is canon. Clint shot his brother, who was working undercover as a bodyguard, while Clint was breaking into a mansion with the aforementioned soon-to-be-retconned-I’m-sure-of-it Buck Chisholm, which led to Buck shooting Clint in the shoulder when he refused to leave his brother’s body and pinning him to a tree – I don’t quite recall how Clint got out of getting arrested, I’m pretty sure it never explained, but I’m rusty and not really up for pulling out some old comics to read up on) 

(I lied, here’s the comic strip: 1. 2. Clint “somehow” managed to get free, take his brother to the hospital and then leave??? yeah sure. )

Anyway, let’s get on with it. So if that was their relationship when they were younger, what is it like now?? Now that Claire has found a place – a sturdy, yet unsteady, comfortable, yet spartan, to call her own –

( and yes, this sounds angsty, but Clint has issues accepting that he is where he wants to be – Clint is always running, even when standing completely still. It’s a trauma response to his shitty childhood where they never stayed in one place for too long; even when their parents were alive, they moved from above the family butcher shop to the Barton farm. Barney had it too, but apparently a relationship helped with that (and okay, look I love Simone and Barney, but that part in All New Hawkeye rubbed me wrong as a fellow wandering child turned rootless adult; the guy needs therapy, not just a relationship – but then again, Barney Barton does not get agency or a personality outside of Clint Barton; his life must revolve around Clint Barton, even when he was on the Dark Avengers, it was about Clint – and yeah, they’re brothers, “two sides of the same coin”, and all that jazz but like I’ve got three sisters and a brother, I’m my own person at the end of the day – something Barney Barton cannot say, which means ending his story on the note of retirement and falling in love is just the best thing so they don’t have to keep finding a reason to try to remember that Clint has a brother   I’ll stop with the rant, I’m sorry.) )

   where does a man who no longer has to be a father, mother, brother, best friend, and moral compass stand when his sister has all that? Well, for the most part, he stands next to her – in my main verse at least. After he has come back wrong (Buffy much?), he finds his place standing beside his sister, no longer solely protecting her from the world (as he had always done because the world is not kind to lost little girls or boys), because he’s learned that she can, for the most part, protect herself, and Claire finds herself less on a lower standing (less of a burden in her eyes, less of a child in need of comfort) with her brother, but more like an equal, something that’s a bit of a new situation for the both of them.

In truth, Claire’s relationship with Barney is complicated and messy but it’s hers, and when you have something that’s complicated and messy, you have to figure it out, and that’s what, in my canon, she’s doing. Sure Barney isn’t around a lot - he’s got his own shit to figure out - but he’s her brother, and she loves him, and he loves her and they’re trying to get to a place where they don’t accidentally poke the trauma they’ve got and ruin a good thing. 

......

Okay, so like did any of this make sense??? I don’t know. I guess, to sum it up really quick, in my main verse - and most of my canon - I’d say Claire’s relationship with Barney is slightly yet not really awkward – it’s awkward because once upon a time, it was simple. Yet at the same time, it’s a really important relationship because Claire was shaped by her brother (and of course all those shitty adults because there are no good mentors in the Marvel world, not for kids at least).

Idk, this is really just me rambling. Like I should just state that tis is just Mun taking all the retcons that Marvel stuck her babies through and trying to make sense of them along with a healthy dose of a smattering of psychology shoved all about because unlike Marvel, I have no desire to ignore the C-PTSD/PTSD that seems to follow both boys around thanks to their childhood – of course this crazy amount of words actually kinda ignores all the trauma they have as adults, but that’s a whole nother post for some other day

I also know that I carry some ~controversial ~ barney barton views - ie. he’s not a villain and that him and clint share a close relationship, that he isn’t dumb muscle (bitch got a 1350 SAT score with like minimal schooling, i’d like to see you do that) and that he wasn’t a shit older brother when they were kids - i’m not apologizing for them. not at all. i will never apologize for them. characters are more than one dimensional and if i gotta be the one to wade through all this vague ass bullshit to get those other two dimensions then i’m going to do just that, which i have done. 

plus it doesn’t even matter because through all the retcons clint and barney has gone through, this is what their relationship is; a fucked up dysfunctional sibling relationship gone off the rails when Barney was brought back from the dead and manipulated/brainwashed into hating his brother. it eventually got better, how? we’ve got none of that, but it did and and at the end of the day, as clint said:

[moons-and-stars-and-shit]

Hi, I just found your blog. And I actually haven’t read anything yet but I saw that you do crystal and star match ups and that is so niche and cool I haven’t come across that ever so I thought it warrants support.

I’m really excited to your works! I am actually interested to get a star match up if that’s possible for a new follower.

I’d like to ship myself with Kuroo as of lately that guy is the only guy I can’t get out of my head lol.

I read that the big three make up your personality but inner placements and planets: (Sun, Moon, Rising, Mercury, Venus, and Mars) have a bigger impact on your personality than the outer planets so I figured I’d offer that too.

My sun sign is Aquarius

Moon sign is Sagittarius

My ascending/rising sign is Libra

Mercury sign Pisces

Venus sign is Aquarius

And Mars sign is Aquarius.

𝕊𝕥𝕒𝕣 𝕄𝕒𝕥𝕔𝕙𝕦𝕡 𝕎𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕂𝕦𝕣𝕠𝕠

𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑡𝑠 🪐

The Planets Mars and Pluto rule Scorpio, and the Planets Saturn and Uranus rule Aquarius.

Mars is a revolutionary, aggressive and spirited masculine energy, and Pluto enlightens these impulses and adds a rebirthing, cyclical quality.

Saturn is a cool, contained energy, and Uranus is about all things different and unusual.

Mars is emotional, reacting without thinking things through; such is the nature of Scorpio.

Saturn demands of Aquarius much hard work and discipline, while Uranus gives them that forward thinking mind.

A gentle Scorpio lover, careful not to tether an Aquarius in too tightly can teach their mate about a life based on emotional intuition, one that quiets the intellect sometimes in favor of physical sensation.

Understanding Aquarians can teach their serious Scorpio mates to calm down, to detach themselves from uncontrollable situations and to reevaluate their goals if they get off course.

𝐸𝑙𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 🔥💧🍃🌬

Scorpio is a Water Sign, and Aquarius is an Air Sign.Air is about the intellect, so Aquarius tackles life as one chance to grow and explore after another, while Scorpio is more analytical.

Scorpio looks for purpose, and Aquarius seeks stimulation.

These love mates have trouble understanding one another’s origin of thought.

Confrontations arise is Scorpio’s possessiveness gets the better of them or if Aquarius seems too cool and flippant and denies Scorpio emotional reassurance.

Both need to learn that they view the world in different ways and they should celebrate and laugh at their differences.

𝑇𝑟𝑢𝑠𝑡 🤞

How on Earth is it possible for two honest and straightforward individuals such as Scorpio and Aquarius to have such a problem to trust each other?

The problem here shows its face when they get too close.

As soon as Scorpio starts to assume that Aquarius should be tamer and belong to them in a loving relationship, it will result in a forceful rebellion and the counterattack of their partner.

Things could really get out of control if any sort of manipulation takes place, and unspoken tendencies might tear them apart in a matter of minutes.

𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 🤝

For as long as they don’t give in to their stubborn, unmovable modes, these partners could have great conversations about all strange topics they can imagine.

None of them will want to have small talk or discuss their day at work. It is futile from their perspective, and although Scorpio likes to be in control of everything their partner does, it will be refreshing to talk to someone who says unusual things.

The biggest quality of their relationship is an incredible connection of depth and width in only one couple.

They will both have trouble understanding our society as it is, and have certain similar perspectives on anything out of the ordinary.

Scorpio exalts Aquarius’ ruler and this is why their relationship is the possibility for both of them to grow.

Not only will Scorpio adore the intellectual strength of their partner, but they will also help them understand the way their ideas might be realized through a feeling of ultimate possibility.

The weakest link in their relationship is their respect for each other, combined with their static natures.

We would think that both of these signs are in connection to change and they couldn’t possibly be static, but in fact, they are static in their way of change, and their biggest challenge is to stop for a minute and treasure what they’ve found in each other.

𝐸𝑚𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 😠😔😊

If love happens between them, the most typical scenario is for Scorpio to fall into an obsessive mess of feelings towards their uninterested Aquarius partner.

It takes a lot of work and commitment to reach the emotional core of Aquarius, and it is impossible to get there without spontaneity and trust.

Scorpio can be spontaneous in situations that are free of emotions, but will rarely let their love for someone be a part of a maybe-yes-maybe-no swing controlled by their partner.

Aquarius will rarely tolerate or be with someone who tries to make them be more stable and down to earth, or anyone who quenches their desire to be free.

As soon as they feel obligated to do anything, they will start pulling away and any emotion that might have been developing will suddenly be covered by the fear of commitment and the rut of everyday life.

If they want to reach emotional balance, Scorpio has to be untied, realize that their partner will never belong to them and that they are free to leave anytime.

They will have to understand that this relationship might end tomorrow and there is nothing they can do about it but accept it.

On the other hand, Aquarius will have to confront their emotional depth and be ready to make certain changes in their approach to romantic relationships, so they can steadily feel understand Scorpio’s emotional nature.

𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒𝑠 🤲

They will both value excitement and change and this will be a strong meeting point for their characters.

Unfortunately, most of the other things they would value in their partner are completely different.

While Aquarius values free spirit, communication and independence, Scorpio values commitment and deep emotional connection.

𝑆ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝐴𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑦𝑠 💪

For as long as they stay out of their ego battle, they could find many things to do together.

They will both like to take risks of any kind and their best date could be anything from parachute jumping to a night out in a casino.

The best way for them to spend some quality time together is in some sort of intellectual activities and competitions, because this would allow them to manifest their possible hostility in a healthy way.

𝑆𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑦 💕

When Scorpio and Aquarius make a love match, it is a fusion of two very different life philosophies and many very different needs.

There is much chance for friction here.

Where Scorpio faces their inner emotional world directly and with an intense energy, thinking deeply about the more hidden undercurrents of life

Aquarius takes that same sort of energy and turns it outward.

With their unusual, idealistic and, above all else, very social outlook on life, Aquarius seems an odd choice for the more introverted Scorpio.

Aquarius needs a crowd to feel stimulated, and they’re always looking around the room for the next interesting person to get to know.

Scorpio, on the other hand, desires engaging, probing and very intimate time with their romantic mates.

This pair may seem to have very little in common, but they both have such strong wills that, when focused on their relationship, can get them what they need and want.

Both Scorpio and Aquarius can be uncooperative and opinionated: They like things to go their way, no questions asked!

For this love match, though, ‘their ways’ are very dissimilar. Scorpio is inquisitive, digging deeply into the hidden meaning of things, always asking questions and wanting to know where things are going and why.

Aquarius is progressive and affable yet does not enjoy detail. Scorpio may be enticed by their differences, as Aquarius shows them new, exterior worlds but may end up frustrated trying to get answers from this eccentric enigma.

Aquarius does not welcome possessiveness, either, preferring to belong to the world rather than one single person.

But a stinging Scorpion can be fiercely possessive, and they require more attention than an Aquarian might be able to give.

If Aquarius slows down and pays attention, they may find the devotion Scorpio provides to be a great support.