#Not that things need to be canon compliant

[thefinalwitness]

in general if your response to a certain type of character, especially any form of minority, is literally any variation whatsoever of "that doesn't exist/wouldn't be allowed in this setting" you're being a bigoted piece of shit. just to be super clear. and because my adderall is in full effect rn i will even do you the favor of going over some reasons why your reasoning is not only flawed and inaccurate to begin with, but extremely harmful to entire groups of people you claim to care about.

"that doesn't exist" first of all, who fucking cares if a piece of media has never depicted a lesbian or a nonbinary person or a black person in xyz region/world? just because the creators didn't do it doesn't make it Canonical Law. also, regardless of how fantastical and fictional a setting is, its audience will ALWAYS be from planet earth where lesbians and nonbinary people and black people exist, and those people's feelings and their deservingness to see and put themselves in their favorite stories IS, in fact, more important than some white-ass cishet make believe world.

"it wouldn't be allowed" subtler issue, but an issue nonetheless. just because the setting is hostile TO certain groups of people does not mean those people do not exist there. ask yourself, what is so important to you about certain kinds of people either not existing period, or having to be miserable (closet themselves, conceal certain features, etc), in a given setting. why is that so important to you. why do you think these people can only exist if they hate themselves and/or live their lives suffocated by the world around them. why is it so "lore incompliant" or "immersion breaking" to you. why are you so concerned with upholding real or perceived prejudices in a fictional society if you claim to care about the real people who these prejudices affect. "realism"? see point one.

NONE of the reasons you make up to justify your reinforcement of real world bigotry in a pretend world are even reasons that would ACTUALLY bar xyz group of people from existing in said world. ishgard only shut its gates to the rest of the world for 15 years before ARR. old sharlayan accepted people from tural into its closed society. the ancients could literally conjure up whatever the fuck they wanted inside and outside their bodies. fantasias are a canonical item in the game, as per the quest that literally talks about them and then gives you one. there are HUNDREDS of perfectly lore compliant ways any given type of person could be in any given setting. but more importantly, people shouldn't need to justify why things like sexuality or skin color CAN exist in a given setting, because if you're not harboring some very bigoted ideas about how minorities are allowed to or "supposed" to exist, you don't fucking care about shit like this. it's stupid, inaccurate, and most of all, just plain cruel to the very real people behind these characters.

racism, transphobia, etc already exist in staggering abundance in the real world; you do not need to enforce that cruelty in a random fucking video game unless you have some very fucked up feelings about those groups of people festering in your brain. if you're not a member of those groups, shame on you, do better to support your fellow human beings. if you ARE a member of those groups, i am so fucking sorry the world has rotted your sense of self so deeply as to make you believe you can only exist in misery. i really, sincerely hope you're able to work through that and know that your existence is an inherently joyful, beautiful thing, and people like you deserve to get to exist peacefully, everywhere in the real world and in any and all fictional settings. i know finding worth in ourselves is too often an extremely difficult process, so i ask instead that you start with others like you. be kind to them, support them, find things about them that you admire, and try to see yourself in them. you deserve to get to heal from the insidious, evil things this world has poisoned your heart with.

[strawwritesfic]

Joel x Female!Amputee!Reader: (Don't) Hold Your Breath [Ch. 11]

Summary: You’ve made a lot of monumental mistakes in your life. Cutting your arm off isn’t even at the top of the list. Now you’re about to learn a lot of life lessons at the hands of your savior and her brute of a guardian–and they’re not about to let you learn them the easy way either.

Challenge: "#32 in His Rulebook" by Edible Heart Monster on Lunaescence Archives

Rating/Warnings/Tags: M (post-The Last of Us; excessive swearing; sexual references; violence against children; infected children; references to abortion; references to cannibalism; references to starvation; references to riots; implied domestic abuse; implied grooming; implied sexual relationship between an adult and a minor; death of a parent; violence; gore; blood; gun use; ableism; amputee!Reader; enemies to lovers; not canon compliant)

Pairings/Relationships: Joel/Female!Reader; Tommy/Maria; Reader/Male!OC; Ellie & Reader; Ellie & Joel; Ellie & Maria & Tommy

Tag List: @imaginesfire

Master List (with important note!)

Rule #11: If you get badly burned, let me put some ice on it for God's sake.

It took another day and a half to get out of the quarantine zone, and another week after that to lose the gang tracking you. By the time Ellie popped a bullet through the last man’s eye, you were well and truly lost. Joel and Ellie might have known how to get back to Jackson, but you didn’t, and they were in no hurry to share with you. Aching and stinking, you had no choice but to trudge after them day after day, watching the sky turn pink night after night.

The lack of pursuit did improve the trek somewhat. At last, your pack, having been emptied by your previous travel buddies, had been filled. A gas mask hung from one strap. That had come in handy just earlier that day. Less importantly, but perhaps better on the added cheer front, you were allowed a fire.

Not that Joel was happy about it. Fires meant people, animals, and related things could find you. But snow remained in purple-white piles against the trees from the fall that morning and a hard freeze linger in the air. Sometimes you had to pick your poison.

Heat didn’t seem like much of an antidote at somewhere around five in the morning anyway. Huddled as you might close to the flames, poke as you did at the tinder with the rusted remains of a coat hanger, you shivered violently underneath your worn coat. You supposed you should have just been grateful one of those hunters had even had a coat your size to steal. Somehow, you were not.

It might have been several days since you bashed that man’s head in, but your muscles hadn’t forgotten. Long gone was the body used to cross-country running for the track team, to carrying a broken ten-year-old for miles every day. The adrenaline drained quickly away and left your remaining arm near-useless. The day after, you hadn’t been able to move it at all. Even now, you had to concentrate not to grimace simply stirring the instant coffee in your camping pot.

“Shit,” you whispered as the dented spoon slipped from your fingers again. For a moment, you didn’t bother to pick it up. Instead, you wrapped what limbs you had left around your torso and scowled up at the sky. You didn’t know what was worse at that point: the phantom pain in your lost arm, or the real pain in the one you still had.

The coffee would probably taste like piss, which only served to disappoint you farther. Sure, you’d snapped at Ellie about not needing a machine to make coffee, but fuck if you yourself knew how to do it otherwise. Back in the day, you went to a Starbucks for your caffeine fix. No one ever asked you to do it yourself. Still, even you could figure out that hot water and coffee grounds did not a beverage make.

Another annoyance of the cordyceps apocalypse: You could no longer tell time, not precisely. The watch you’d taken with you to the California zone had long since died. Before that, it hadn’t taken long for cell phones to become useless. At night in a forest, you couldn’t see the moon. Not that telling time was a particularly important survival skill, but your inability to do so rankled even more in your current condition.

It must have been nearing dawn, though, because you heard something move. You stiffened for only a moment before you saw Joel sitting up. His face was difficult to read, dark as your surroundings were and with your eyes filled with the light from the fire. It could not be Ellie, though; the shadow was too large. It didn’t move right to be non-human either. The realization that you knew the thing moving did not cause the tension in your shoulders to lessen.

Maybe he sensed that, although for the life of you, you couldn’t figure out why the hell your feelings would matter. His walk to the fire was uncharacteristically slow and steady—like he was sneaking up on a clicker, not coming to talk to one of his traveling companions.

When he got close enough for you to see his face, Joel paused. You caught a flash of pink tongue against the corner of his lips before he nodded at your pot of mud-like substance. “Making some coffee?” You blinked. His shoulders lifted and fell. “Smells good.”

“Thought I wasn’t supposed to take it,” you said, keeping your voice as low as Joel did. Ellie remained asleep after all. You didn’t need to get him riled up by waking her.

Joel shrugged as he sat down across from you. He watched you, for some reason, before looking away. “You weren’t, but,” he turned back, and for a split-second, you thought he might have been smiling, “I might not complain as much if you let me have some.”

You snorted as you took up your spoon again. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Worth a shot.” He didn’t seem too bothered, and the next moment he lifted a hand and rubbed at his beard. You tried your best to ignore him and focus on your stirring. Burnt coffee was the last thing that you wanted, especially with Joel watching. Unfortunately, your arm still hurt too much to get away with nonchalance. “You want me to do that for you?”

“No,” you said flatly.

Why was Joel even talking to you? His watch shift was over, and he was likely to get cranky in the afternoon if he didn’t get his beauty rest. When you briefly looked up at him, you caught him roll his eyes. The next time he moved, you did not hear him until he had wrested the spoon from your fingers and shoved you over.

“What the fuck?”

“I’m not gonna steal your damn coffee, so don’t even start,” he said shortly.

You clamped your mouth shut over your stillborn protest. If you’d blurted it out, Joel might have spilled the water out, leaving you without coffee or fire. It was probably best to just let him do whatever it was he wanted. He was going to anyway.

Sullenly, you rubbed your stump to distract yourself from the silence. That was another thing the not-so-new world had. No more iTunes or internet radio. Just you and the great outdoors, and maybe the occasional tagalong you didn’t even want.

“So why didn’t you keep the plank?”

“Huh?” you asked. Caught off guard, you forgot to try to sound intelligent.

Joel was looking right at you; one corner of his mouth crinkled at your confusion. “That plank you used to kill that guy. Why didn’t you keep it?”

“Why would I keep it?”

“Well, you can’t shoot worth shit so—”

“I shot that other guy in the head!”

“Lucky shot. You deny it?” As usual, Joel saw straight through you. God, but that pissed you off, enough that you looked back down at your shoes to avoid seeing him look smug. “I’m just saying, if you can’t shoot ‘em, may as well beat ‘em. Make you less useless at least.”

“I still can barely move my arm, asshole,” you snapped. “And somehow that translates to less useless to you?”

“Look, you killed three men that night—”

“Because Ellie took out so many looking for you!”

you,” you muttered, but didn’t go farther than that. Even that, though, must have made you look like you were throwing a temper tantrum, because Joel waited a good long while before he asked:

“Ya done?”

“Just finish your fucking compliment.”

“Well, like I was saying,” he said, and there again was that thing that might have been a smile but no way in hell could have been, “you killed three men that night. On your own.”

“And?”

“And?” Joel snorted. “Why’s there gotta be an ‘and’? I was just sayin’, I recognize that you did a little better back there. Guess you’re trying. Can I have some coffee now?”

“Why would I give you my coffee after that?”

It was getting difficult to keep your voice low enough to let Ellie sleep. Judging by the lightening of the sky through the easternmost branches, she wouldn’t get to stay that way much longer anyway. You knew waking her up would piss off Joel—though it was perfectly clear that Joel didn’t care if he pissed you off. Even with your full glower directed at him, he just stared at you over the dying fire.

“Ellie said you’d share with me if I was nice.”

“Well, you aren’t fucking nice!” you snarled.

You expected more of a fight after that. Maybe that was why you said it. After so many years of traipsing the country side trying not to die, you appreciated routine. Arguing with Joel was about as routine as your life got those days, and those familiar altercations had been lacking while you fled the quarantine zone gang. But you did not get a fight. Instead, to your very great surprise, Joel doubled over with laughter.

Your mouth popped open. Was he going insane? Not the scary fungus kind of insane, but regular run-of-the-mill insane? Then after a minute or so, he sat up, wiped a tear from his eye, and appeared entirely normal.

“What the fuck was that about?” you asked after another moment of silence.

Joel just shook his head, still smiling. You are, without doubt, the most angry and predictable woman I have ever met.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re doin’ it again.” You scowled at him, and his smile widened. “I was teasin’, [Name]. All I meant was you made sure Ellie got out of there alive. ‘Spose I owe you a thank you for that.”

Somehow, the gratitude seemed genuine. You glanced to the left to see Ellie still in an exhausted heap on the frozen ground. She’d scraped away the worst of the ice and now lay underneath her spare jacket—and Joel’s, you suddenly noticed.

“Yeah, well,” you sighed, “she’s a good kid. I guess it wouldn’t benefit me at all to get her murdered at this point.”

“And I told you you’d regret it if you let her die.”

“I remember that. Distinctly.”

“Good. ‘Cause that’s still true. We’re not home yet.”

You stared blearily into the red embers of the fire and did not answer, maybe because you didn’t have an answer, maybe because you didn’t have the energy. “You’re right, though. She is a good kid. Maybe too good sometimes.”

Suddenly, you fixed your eyes on Joel’s face. Again, it struck you how odd they were together. Joel didn’t seem the type to knock some lady up and then spend the rest of his life looking after the baby. Besides, he kept a pretty constant refrain of “You’re not my daughter; you’re not their niece,” when in all other respects he certainly acted like she was.

“Where’d you find her anyway?” you asked.

“I—” Joel shut his mouth, shooting you another death glare. “None of your goddamn business.”

“God, okay. I was just curious.”

“Keep it to yourself,” he said, and lifted your pot from the fire before you could retort.

“Don’t you dare—Fuck!”

You had attempted to snatch the coffee from him. In the process, you pressed your palm straight to the hot metal. What choice did you have but to hold your hand there until you could slowly lower the pot to the ground? None, if you didn’t want to lose your precious cargo! A few mouthfuls still sloshed out into the snow, but you hardly had time to lament what with your skin blistering in front of your tearing eyes.

“What the hell are you doing?” Joel got to his feet, watching as you danced about the campsite.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” you whispered, as though that could somehow dull the pain. A scream clawed at your throat. When Joel appeared quite suddenly in front of you to grab your wrist, that scream died away.

“What,” he said again, “are you doing?”

“You were going to toss my coffee out, you fucker!” you said, and that time your voice cracked the approved volume level. “I couldn’t just let you—”

“I was going to ask you if you had a mug or something. Don’t blame me for your idiocy.”

“I’m not stupid!”

“Did I tell you to stick your hand on the pot?”

“Just shut up! God, I hate you!”

“Would you hold still? I want to put some ice on it.”

“Don’t you fucking touch me!”

He tugged you closer to him, close enough that you shut up. “I said hold still,” he growled.

Up that close and person, you couldn’t deny how large Joel was. You swallowed and held still. With one hand still clamped around your wrist and his eyes still fixed on your face, he very slowly bent, scooped up a handful of snow, and pressed it into your palm. While he held it there with his own hand, Joel stared at you. You stared back, at a loss for words.

“You guys gonna stand there all day holding hands, or can I go back to sleep?”

You looked over to see Ellie half-risen from her cocoon, one fist pressing into an eye. Heat rushed to your face; you tried to tear away, but Joel’s grip on your hand was too strong. If you attempted escape, it would only hurt you worse.

“Go back to sleep, baby girl,” Joel said. When you looked back at him, he had a smile on his face. “We’re just gonna rest today. Save up energy for the trip tomorrow.”

Ellie watched him for a moment, allowing her eyes to drift once or twice to you. Very slowly, she smirked. You didn’t know why, but that look on her face made you want to hit her. Joel’s fingers tightened around yours as though he somehow read your mind.

“You two kids don’t have too much fun,” said Ellie. Then she rolled over and snuggled back into the jackets on top of her. Joel didn’t move, for how long, you couldn’t say. All you could think of as the sky above you turned robin’s egg blue was that your coffee would be stone-cold by the time you go to it.

[two-reflections]

From people claiming that Salamanders sire children to others claiming that them having families is all memes and no lore, I've seen a lot of hot takes about Salamander's families over the years. I was pretty sure that they maintained connections with families that might be related to but were not descended from them, but I couldn't remember where I read that. Earlier today, I set about trying to find an actual reference. I cracked open my old copy of Deathwatch First Founding... And there it was. (Also, a lovely bit about them taking in apprentices!)

For a more nuanced discussion of this and other information about the Salamanders' lives on Nocturne, feel free to check out the longer and more thoughtful post I wrote on r/40klore:

[paradimeart]

Would kup have gotten roped into having to watch one of the little orbbies? Like little rodimus? Or did he just get to sit back and laugh at ratchet and his rambunctious little guy.

ratchets on standby for training accidents (part of his agreement to be allowed to stay with omega) so he's met orbimus once or twice but has no idea what he's looking at. ratchet would rather explode than let anyone else alone with that thang

even before the war it wasn't really very common knowledge what protoforms actually looked like since they were so heavily guarded. and they still are. so no kup wouldn't babysit

[of-purple-silks]

CROWN SHENANIGANS CANON FUCK YEAH

[crownedwille]

.

[tenwhiteandalusians]

so no one was going to tell me if i got literally one episode further tenax drops that he’s the one who saved scorpus from his mom’s pimp AND that he’s intimately familiar with scorpus’ dick when he was younger. guys. guys.

[raayllum]

I think it was reading @numptypylon's fic that helped cinch it for me, metaphor wise (which kudos for nailing the path metaphor emphasis like seasons ahead) in regards to like Callum and Rayla's devotion?

Because they've always felt equally devoted to me, but with two kind of caveats between both thought process and manifestation

When it comes to how that devotion manifests, we see repeatedly that for Rayla it doesn't always equal the same kind of prioritization that Callum offers (she tends to just have the Most Faith in her loved ones ever??) which makes sense given the way she knew her parents + Runaan loved her but she didn't always feel like their priority, and that they'd do things that were for her yes but also for the common good lumped in together. Whereas with Callum if he's devoted to you, you will be his #1 priority at least 75% to 99% of the time when it comes down to it, because that is how he shows devotion/love through consistency and persistence / general Togetherness

But the other one in terms of thought process / operation is where the paths metaphor Numpty uses I think is really useful and apt, and kind of perfectly illustrates how I & many others see them, because it's like...

Like Callum, Rayla will walk down every path she sees as an option to keep her loved one(s) safe, but unlike Callum, she just fundamentally doesn't see certain paths.

It's not that she sees them as options and doesn't pick 'em, it's that they don't even occur to her as concepts (i.e. she knew Claudia and her bag of dark magic ingredients were there in 2x07 and that there was a chain breaking spell, but it's very clear Rayla never would've considered that as a option given how she does approach freeing the dragon).

Meanwhile Callum, due to his immense intelligence and creative thinking, does see well - creative solutions. He does see those paths (like in 2x07) and because he sees them, because they are presented as options, he can and and will and has gone down those roads. Like Rayla, he'll take every path he sees - he just sees more of them than she does

and Idk, I think it's a very nice piece of not only description but very strong characterization

[fyeahbachisagi]

Can somebody rec me some angsty canon compliant fics of BachiSagi having an argument in which Isagi ends up saying something hurtful but then regrets it

[christnarr]

marriage counselors HATE THEM!

[becauseplot]

thinking about archivists again. below the cut: obscene amounts of brainrot in the form of a long-winded relationship study and oddly specific references to canon that may or may not be accurate

im trying to come up with some sort of au for them (writer's block and creative burnout is a BITCH it's okay though we stay silly) and there's just something about how qphil and qcellbit don't (or didn't) really wind up in each other's circles often. sure they were friendly with each other in passing, and they definitely had some nice little interactions earlier on: cellbit briefly interviewing phil on one of his first days on the island over a cup of coffee and solidifying phil's view of cellbit as the Dedicated Investigator; phil asking cellbit to babysit chayanne and tallulah while he's away on a trip and cellbit being more than happy to; phil briefly checking in with cellbit --- who was in the process of tumbling into his regret arc, cutting off ties with loved ones and making himself a martyr --- and asking if he was okay when phil spotted him hanging alone in the back of the group; chatting about the upcoming wedding and phil advising cellbit that he and roier should probably introduce some sort of dress code (lmao); cellbit watching phil and missa meet up for the first time in months on the way to the federation's people-freezers and all of the pieces rapidly falling into place (the name of phil's waystone, phil's skull backpack, phil's elusive "husband," ohhhhhhh...). they've always been in each other's peripheral, but never directly involved in each other's personal lives.

until the happy pills.

see the thing about archivists is that they're not drawn together by a pre-existing friendship; they're more friendly acquaintances at this point, perhaps almost-friends, though they're certainly not close. but then forever's life is under threat, and god, they both love forever immensely. with direct help from bad and indirect help from others (qpac you LEGEND), they're eventually able to formulate a plan that successfully drag forever out from under the haze of drugs, pull him to the surface. they sit next to each other as they sit at the bedside of their mutual friend, watch him breathing, and try to breathe themselves.

and from that moment on it's solidified: they know they can depend on each other, when shit hits the fan. they have their respective strengths, and they balance out each other nicely. i wish i had gotten more of a chance to watch their dynamic during purgatory 1 (unfortunately i have a life sadge) but from what i saw, they turned out to be some pretty good co-leaders, and an interesting dynamic at that: phil acting more as a support role (moral support, resource support, combat support, ALL the support) and stepping up into a leader-like role when needed, but ultimately letting cellbit take the helm a lot of the time since he's a strategist with more practice managing large groups of people (i wont get into it here, and i want to watch more vods so i can more properly analyze them but HOUGHH i have THOUGHTS!! SO MANY!!!)

what im trying to get at is that they were initially in the peripheral in each others lives but were eventually drawn together out of necessity, due to circumstances. the mutual respect followed, which was then followed by trust, and then collaboration, and then friendship. i've also made this post talking about their dynamic, how they both understand each other's need to focus on the here and now and understand that they don't need to know every little thing about each other to still trust each other. and this is so integral to their relationship. it's what makes archivists archivists.

so now all that's left for me to do is try to come up with some sort of au i can chuck them in, incorporating this idea of "friendship of necessity" as a core feature of the plot. i have scattered ideas but none are particularly appealing or solid enough. i will try though!! if u have any suggestions/thoughts/ideas feel free to leave a comment or say in tags (pspsppsps come brainrot with meeee)

[wof-reworked]

I’ve been thinking, and I think I’m going to change the way I talk about my headcanons and wof writing to something like a rewrite/reworking. I love wof but it’s become really apparent that the way I engage with it is really more as a world to expand and work in vs a book series I’m analyzing as-is. I think it’ll give me the freedom to actually post the stuff I’m thinking and working on bc I don’t have to keep chaining myself to making it work with all the confusing and contradictory canon tidbits that Tui barely remembers she established. Thoughts?

[daily-whistlepaw]

daily whistlepaw until ca becomes PoV day 1185

[lucem-stellarum]

Spoilers for the Summit pt 3, and under the cut for length

Damn, and I was so convinced it was actually Alexis too.

William, this was not the time or method to let Vincent learn about the murkier parts of your morality. You could have explained it when you told him he had to run the Summit alone. You were just worried that Vincent wouldn't play along if he knew, and you know what? You'd have been right. Everyone makes mistakes when parenting, but I love-hate to see it here. I love the repeated emphasis that William does love Vincent, because that makes it hurt even worse. There's a specific kind of pain with the growth and realization that your parents are people, with real flaws and that make real mistakes.

I'm not saying that Vincent is perfect, either. Porter was right that he was sheltered about it, but Vincent let himself be sheltered as well. Sam, Fred, and Bright Eyes (yes their storyline was scrubbed from the official canon, but then why does Sam get to make it personal about Quinn's actions on Halloween in their little extrajudicial confrontation? I'm getting off topic. Anyway) all had terrible experiences with other vamps, Adam was in the same clan and we all know how messed up he was. Vincent himself experienced how easy it is to push humans to a sort of second class citizen where it didn't matter if he hurt them or overrode their boundaries since he could just wipe memories and it was for his own survival. Why wouldn't other vamps develop that same sort of moral numbness to other people's pain and suffering? It only takes one remorseless vampire monarch for every single one of them to have to resort to those tactics to protect their own regardless of their own personal feelings about violence. Sort of the "carry a bigger stick" mentality that's ridiculously difficult to deescalate (and that's with the benefit of having human generational divides. with immortal vampires everything is personal).

I do wish that Lovely got to interject a little bit more about all of this. The Bennetts were mainly killed for their part in the Inversion. The Inversion which, just so it's stated for the official record, had a pretty big impact on our vampire listener character. Porter says to ask the Shaw pack if the Bennetts deserved to die, but Lovely was right there. I'm hoping there's a follow up with them and Vincent afterwards where they get to say their piece to him, and maybe it will help Vincent understand why William decided that they had to die. They might have better luck once the shock has worn off a bit, had time to settle in. In universe it's only been, what, 2-3 hours since the start of the Summit? I'm giving Vincent a lot of grief, but as a character he's a lot closer to the stress of it all both physically and temporally. The Summit is his duty, therefore (if William has taught him anything about taking responsibility) the Bennett's deaths are also his fault because it happened under his supervision when (in his mind) he was supposed to make everyone "play nicely together" for the evening. He didn't stop it, therefore it's his fault, and he's made it very clear how he feels about causing violence/death.

Speaking of Lovely being oddly quiet, there wasn't a whole lot about Sam being mentioned either. Alexis got brought up, because obviously she would when talking about the amoral and bloodthirsty side of the clan. I think Sam's going to be more pragmatic than Vincent is with all of this, but I can't decide how far he's willing to go about it. Thoughts?

Was anyone else inspired or intrigued by Porter saying that "William always does the right thing"? I was listening (with headphones) out in public before driving home, so the exact wording might be different, but that sounds like there's an interesting story there.

I don't want to have the reputation of someone who just hates on Porter, because damn it I ought to like him more. His character hits so many notes that I like to see. Vincent calling him William's weapon and attack dog? I love watching that kind of relationship and devotion. I've shipped it before, and I will again (though I have to say, that would make Porter's relationship with Vincent so much worse. I kinda want to see the trainwreck of the evil step father). His gray morality, his intelligence, his quick wit, his deft manipulation of people? I can enjoy and envy all of it. But damn his hypocrisy, inconsistency, and that fight is just infuriating. "I can't hold it against you that you act sheltered because you've been sheltered your whole afterlife". Bullshit, Porter, you absolutely did blame Vincent for being sheltered and that's one of the reasons you got in that fight with Vincent in the first place. Porter might not be actively lying to us here, but he's certainly not being truthful. I've already gone through and found quotes to prove it before here. Adding on to the linked post, the way Vincent and Porter are talking to discuss Porter's joining of the clan and how William treated him sounds a whole heck of a lot like Porter joined the Solaires before Vincent did, which only further supports my points there. Ughhh I was in the middle of researching for a different analysis post for other characters; I don't want to be distracted by writing up what I think their fight should have been about. It's almost worse that I don't like him because I keep thinking about how much I should like him and what it would take for me to support him wholeheartedly, flaws and all.

To cap it all off, this subplot has been wonderful so far. I'm happy that someone spelled out all the dirty little secrets for Vincent/Lovely/Us, because my head was starting to spin keeping everything straight and digging up the tiniest insinuations and turning into the Pepe Silvia meme. I know it's not over yet, but I think the evening is starting to wind down for the characters and I'm so glad that it is because the stress and intensity of it all is killing me. I know that this is probably the starting point for more developments later (what is Sweetheart gonna do after all of this in their official department capacity? is any of this going to put David in a rough spot politically? though Sam and Darlin ran into Alexis they didn't really get the chance to weigh in on the whole, y'know, state-sanctioned double murder? where are we going with that little teaser about Quinn having friends in high places? where's Treasure in all of this? Porter's ominous words about Close Knit planning another Inversion-level event??) I'm hoping there's gonna be a bit of a breather. Kudos Mr. Redacted, and thank you.

[superfluouskeys]

forget me not

Stray Gods || Grace/Persephone

She can’t bear to face anyone since she dropped out of college.  She had to talk to her parents, obviously, but it’s been almost a year since they spoke.  She was expecting them to yell at her, tell her she was wasting her life, tell her she’d never get anywhere without a college degree, that she was almost done, so why couldn’t she just wait it out another couple of years and then at least she’d have finished something? But they didn’t yell.  They both just seemed…sad.  Tired.  And that was so much worse. It was like they had given up on her. Grace doesn’t know how to explain.  She still hasn’t quite managed to explain it even to herself.  Would anyone understand?  Freddie never demanded an explanation—she loved Grace no matter what—but Grace was sure she wouldn’t get it.  Freddie was passionate about so many things.  Freddie was the sort of person who would probably go on to get a Master’s and a Doctorate or maybe two or three, because she just couldn’t decide what she loved the most. And Grace? Grace barely even felt like a person in college.  She tried to do all kinds of things, join clubs, meet people, take classes she thought might be interesting.  She tried to distance herself from Freddie, even, and she was not gentle.  She tried to destroy herself over and over again, and make something entirely new.  She tried to forge herself into someone interesting, someone worthwhile. But in the end, the truth always came crashing back to her.  She can’t escape herself.  She can’t escape how utterly unremarkable she is.

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[lunacornfan2k24]

Minor spoilers for ieytd3

Broke: The handlers name is Reginald Crane

Woke: The Handlers name is Reginald Mason Crane

Bespoke: The handler is one of those Englishmen with like 10 names so every name he has used in fanfic is canon