#also me: but what if i could make jon even more miserable

[its-all-papaya]

landoscar with 24 pls

kiss prompt fills are back bby!! and this one got rlly out of hand!!

send me a ship and a number and i will write a kiss

24. as a reward | landoscar | 1.8k (but like. i rounded down. a lot.)

“Therapy,” Oscar says, apropos of nothing, on the first Thursday of summer break.

Lando looks up from his fridge, where he’s been poking around looking for breakfast, and knits his eyebrows together over his shoulder. Oscar is right where Lando had left him at the kitchen table, sweat from their run drying his shirt to his skin. He looks pleasant enough with his elbow propped on the table and his water bottle wedged between his thighs. Not like he’s just ambushed Lando about anything, least of all that fucking word again.

“Been talking to Jon?” Lando bites out. He turns back to the collection of containers and picks something at random. He’s got a feeling he’s not going to be hungry in a few minutes anyway.

Oscar’s fingers are tapping absently on the tabletop and it’s making Lando’s skin crawl. It goes like this every time anybody brings it up, like his body can’t physically bear the thought of the conversation.

“Not any more than normal,” Oscar says, which isn’t even a real answer.

Lando stares at him, deadpan, for a handful of seconds. Then he pries the lid off the container and sets about preparing the contents.

“Do you want anything to eat?” He asks Oscar.

“That’s alright,” Oscar responds, still unbothered. “Have you thought about it?”

“About eating?” Lando asks, incredulous.

“No,” Oscar says. The other thing, then.

“Yeah,” Lando says after a beat. He places the container in the microwave and sets the timer. It’s not even a lie - Oscar would know if it was; he’s scary good at figuring those things out when it comes to Lando. Also, Lando knows one word isn’t going to cut it in this conversation, but if Oscar wants to discuss this stupid subject, Lando’s going to at least going to make it difficult.

“What about it?” Oscar asks, tone exactly the same as it’s been all morning. Like they’re discussing the weather, or what route to take on their way back to Lando’s.

“That I don’t think it’s that big of a deal,” Lando says. His eyes stay locked on the microwave plate, turning slowly behind the tinted glass, “All my…” he raises a hand and waves it half-heartedly, knowing Oscar will understand. He always does, somehow.

“It doesn’t have to be a big deal,” Oscar says. The microwave timer ticks down. “But I think it’s getting kind of close to one.”

Lando clenches his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. “Yeah?” It sounds a bit mean, even to him.

“You’re not sleeping well,” Oscar says. Lando’s fingers tighten on the edge of the countertop. He’s going to run out of muscles to tense if Oscar keeps going. Oscar does, though, still measured when he says, “Might help you relax if you have someone to help sort through everything up there.”

“I don’t need to relax,” Lando says, “I need to drive better. A therapist isn’t going to fix that, I just have to get my shit together.”

The microwave timer goes off. Lando could slam the door closed if he wanted to, Oscar probably wouldn’t even react to it, but what he’s feeling isn’t even really anger. He’s not a child. The annoying thing is, he has thought through it all. He thinks through it every fucking Sunday, when he’s miserable in the shower after handing over another P2 trophy to the team and kicking himself about losing, kicking himself about not being happier about it. It’s not new, it’s just more, and it’ll all go away if he just starts performing. He doesn’t need a therapist to tell him that.

“It’s not about fixing things,” Oscar says as Lando carefully moves the container to the countertop. It’s hot still. He licks the tips of his fingertips where they’ve gone red from the heat.

Oscar keeps talking. “It’s like… you see Jon when you’ve got a backache, right? Or for a massage. Or it’s like the cold tub. They don’t change your driving, but you can drive better when your body feels better.”

“You have been talking to Jon,” Lando looks up at Oscar with something next to a glare – a little less hostile, though – as he locates a fork from his silverware drawer.

Oscar shrugs, “When we run into each other.” Lando’s eyes go back to him, and he at least has the sense to look a little apologetic, “You’re the main thing we have in common. It comes up.”

Lando had originally had plans to eat at the table, but the distance between himself and Oscar feels safer at the moment, so he stays put. “My brain?” he asks around his first bite.

“Sure,” Oscar says, “and how you love to deflect.”

Lando stops chewing to make this glare more effective. “Stop meddling.”

“I’m not meddling, Lando,” Oscar sets the water bottle aside and crosses the kitchen easily, leaning on the island opposite Lando like he knows abandoning the separation completely might send him over the edge. “I love you,” he says then, “and I want you to feel your best. I know you want to get better on track, but it’s not one or the other.” Lando’s about to protest, to say that’s not what I even said, but when he thinks about it for a second, it sort of is. Not this argument, maybe, other than kind of abstractly, but definitely in other arguments with Jon. Maybe even one with Oscar in the past – Lando loses track of who’s said what with how closely their arguments clearly overlap lately. And more than he’s said to either of them out loud, Lando knows that dichotomy is buried at the bitter end to every circle he runs in his own mind in those post-race showers and the long, long nights after. If he stops telling himself that what he’s done isn’t good enough, what if he starts believing it is?

He sets his fork down. His shoulders are still drawn, cheek still caught between his teeth, but he’s stopped adding new tensions to that list.

“What if it is one or the other?” he asks. His microwave beeps behind him. He’d forgotten to shut the door at all.

“What if learning how to be a little nicer to yourself makes you worse on track?” Oscar asks.

It’s not a good-faith question, but Lando doesn’t have the voice to unpack it. It’s close enough, anyway, so he just nods.

“Then you stop.” Oscar says.

Lando looks up. Oscar’s hand is laying in the middle of his countertop, palm up, and his eyes are set on Lando’s face.

“Really?” Lando moves his hand towards the center of the island, fingers splayed on the cool marble.

“Yeah,” Oscar says, “I mean, I can’t control what you do anyway. Obviously. But if something doesn’t work, don’t do it. Clearly nobody can force you, and you’ve got a lot of practice deciding what does and doesn’t help you. It’s like upgrades. Dev can talk them up, but we don’t know until we’re on the sim and in the car. They might be kind of shitty, but you won’t know until you actually drive with them.”

Lando presses his lips together to keep from smiling. Stubborn. Leave it to Oscar to come up with a fucking car metaphor for his broken fucking brain, though. God.

“But,” Oscar continues, “most of the time the upgrades work. Because the team knows what they’re doing. And the test drivers know what they’re doing, too. They see our data and they know our cars and they take our feedback and they know what to do with all that.”

Lando’s getting a little lost in the parallels Oscar’s trying to draw, but Oscar can clearly tell, because he closes the last of the gap until their fingertips brush together and says, “Just like Jon, babe. He knows you really well. He’s good at seeing where there’s a little room for improvements.”

Lando taps his fingers one by one against the counter. Oscar taps back, the pads of his fingers drumming against Lando’s nailbeds.

“Can I think about it?” Lando asks. The first thing he’s said in a long while.

“You can,” Oscar says back. His hand is completely covering Lando’s now, thumb rubbing up and down the side of Lando’s forefinger, “but can you text Jon and tell him you’re thinking about it?”

Lando’s eyes narrow, but Oscar’s already moving around the side of the island and flipping Lando’s phone over so it’s face-up on the counter. “Please?” Oscar says.

Lando concedes. Oscar’s hand rests low on his back while Lando taps into his messages and finds his trainer’s thread. He starts and deletes half a dozen different texts, but Oscar’s eyes feel heavy over his shoulder.

“I don’t know what to say,” he admits eventually.

Oscar’s arm slides fully around his waist, and Lando is surprised when his own body melts easily into Oscar’s side. As soon as they’re pressed together, Oscar shifts his grip up until he’s squeezing some tension out of Lando’s shoulder with firm fingers.

“You could just ask him to schedule the appointment,” Oscar says. Lando knows if he had the nerve to look at Oscar’s face, it’d be that self-satisfied grin on his lips.

“This doesn’t feel ethical of you,” Lando says.

“I’m not forcing you to do anything,” Oscar’s voice is light, amused, “but I can tell you to do it, if that would make this easier.”

Lando elbows him in the side, just gently, and Oscar tightens his grip on the side of Lando’s neck for a moment.

“Okay,” Lando says.

“Okay,” Oscar says back, “just ask him if he’ll set something up for you in the next week. That way if it sucks, you can forget about it before Zandvoort.”

“Okay,” Lando says again.

“Okay,” Oscar says back.

Lando types out the text while Oscar watches, thumb rubbing soothing little circles into the skin of Lando’s shoulder the whole while. When it’s finished and delivered, he tosses his phone back onto the counter and turns fully into Oscar’s arms, buries his face in Oscar’s chest to counteract the overwhelmed tremor he can feel starting in his muscles. It helps. Oscar presses kisses and shhh’s into his hair until Lando feels a little normal again. It smells like sweat and still a little bit like Lando’s body wash from the night before, there against Oscar’s shoulder. They’re going to need another shower. If Lando asks nicely, he wonders if Oscar might wash his hair, since he’s so worried about what goes on with Lando’s head.

Eventually, Oscar tips Lando’s chin up with a hand under his jaw and kisses him for a long, long moment. He nips at Lando’s lip and licks over it after, just the way Lando likes.

“Is this a bribe?” Lando asks when they part.

It makes Oscar smile and earns Lando another short kiss on the mouth. “You’ve already made the call, love. I can’t bribe you to do something you already did.”

“A reward, then.” Lando tries again.

Oscar’s smile goes sticky soft, “You don’t have to earn anything from me.”

“But?” Lando lifts an eyebrow.

“But.” Oscar says, hands on Lando’s waist, “I’m proud of you.”

[solsticewytch]

Okay, I had a crackpot idea, not even a theory (it is by the end of this post btw) just an idea, that I need to put out in the ether.

So, I recently came across a post from @vertigala who theorized that RedCanary might be the new host for Protocolverse!Jonah Magnus. And I thought, if they were to ever show up in person it sure would be fun horrible if RedCanary was someone we know from TMA. So... I'm trying to work out who would make more sense be absolutely gut-wrenching when it hits me. What if, just IF, because the likelihood of this is, like, zero, I'm sure, but JUST WHAT IF... RedCanary is Protocolverse!Jonathan Sims?

I mean just think about the potential in that. The moment we first hear this universe's Jon talking in TMAGP, sounding "awfully happy" or something, bringing a fleeting sense of joy, knowing that at least in one universe he's not so devastatingly miserable, but it slowly dawns on us, and on Jon if he's the one/one of who's listening, that it's not him, that that bastard wins again, that utter, truly next-level defeat, that heartache! And then for however long Jonah would be an active threat in TMAGP we'd have to hear him through Jon's own voice, see him in his body, all the while TMA!Jon, trapped in the 'puters (with TMA!Jonah nonetheless), using the last remnants of his own agency, all of his remaining consciousness, is actively trying to stop him (and/or this world's horrors), as the only people being vaguely aware of him are a paranoid IT guy who is actively conspiring againts him and a woman from his own world who has every reason not just to never trust Jon but also (imo) wanting to work againts him given the chance.

On top of all of this there's the several layers deep irony to all of it. Jon being the one who reads out that case, either out of his own choice or being forced to do so, the implication of him specifically chosing this case to deter Sam from or leading him directly towards the Magnus Institue, or someone else using Jon for that. Then there's the idea of this universe's Jon willingly seeking out spooky abandoned locations for fun and then meeting a gory demise from exploring the burned down ruins of the Magnus Institute, becoming a mistery known only to the mostly oblivious staff of an organization that specifically looks for these eldritch monsters to recruit, reducing his experience to little more than random numbers in a database that nobody uses anymore.

Even though RedCanary doesn't particularly strike me as a likely candidate for Protocolverse!Jon based on the wording of their comments alone, plus they also suggest they're from Manchester and their dad is still alive, I still think it would make some weird, karmic sense for them to be this universe's Jon. By not growing up in Bournemouth or, more importantly, not being raised by his grandmother, who'd carelessly buy any random cheap book on clearance for him to read, he could have avoided making any significant connection to the supernatural in childhood and therefore avoiding geting on the radar of the Magnus Institute prior to their destruction in '99, despite now being much closer to it. This being Jon, I think he would still have that Eye-aligned thirst for knowledge, secrets, uncaring for the dangers he'd be exposed to while looking for them, so with the Institute gone he finds another way to satiate that thirst and developes a liking for exploring abadoned places. Which then leads him back to the Magnus Institute, striking his interest, publically at least, with it being "cleared", "explored to death", holding no more secrets, yet not having any pictures to show it, not having any concrete information on it. So he goes to explore, not being deterred by the state of the building, being careless, expects piles of papers, the renmants of the knowledge that place once held, having the sense of doors shutting behind him, seeing grafiti on the wall and wanting to know more about it, trying to document all of it and failing to do so due to photographic distortions, having to resort to older technology, taking something they're weren't supposed to, not just in a supernatural sense, but the place they're discussing all of this is also against it, the rising paranoia that leads to the brutal mutalation of their eyes, the sight of which makes the forum freak out and remove the only photo that found its way to the internet, the only real evidence of what happened to them. All of it is there, narratively speaking, for the audience of TMA entering this new world, this new story, serving as a red thread from one world to another, basically summarising the entirity of TMA without spoilers. But how thematically fitting it would be that after being welcomed in this new world by the remnants of Martin, who's pained sob was the last thing the tapes supposedly recorded before entering the Protocolverse, telling us a tale reminisent of his own feelings and his, Jon's and Jonah's state of being at the moment ("Some of him") the person who then basically introduces us not just to this world's Magnus Institute and the danger it still holds but also theslightly changed rules of the Fears, warning us not to / beckoning us to investigate further, to be this world's Jon, appearing only through a thematically fitting username in a tale told to us by the remnants of the original world's Jon. Once used by Jonah to be the vessel through which all the fears entered the world, now possessed entirely by Jonah, allowing him to enter the world even after being defeated and do as he pleases.

(...Okay, I know it all started as a sleep deprived mind's musing on a bittersweet scene that was likely never to happen but I'm lowkey totally sold on this idea now.)

[horizon-verizon]

Aegon III and Jaehaera “healing together” would be like:

Jaehaera: I miss my father.

Aegon III, having a PTSD trigger: Well, I miss my mother! AND YOU KNOW WHO GRUESOMELY KILLED MY MOTHER WHILE I WAS WATCHING ?!

Jaehaera: And I miss my twin brother! AND YOU KNOW WHO SEND THE MEN WHO BEHEADED HIM IN FRONT OF ME & MY MOM ?!

Aegon III: Nothing would have happened if your grandmother didn’t usurped my mother and your uncle didn’t ruthlessly murdered my brother.

Their marriage would have been SOOO INCREDIBLY UGLY, BITTER, MISERABLE AND HOPELESS. That union never stood a chance. Aegon III spent about 3 years married to her and never made any attempt to befriend her and had more interactions with Unwin Peake’s daughter than her. They wouldn’t have any children, he’d abdicate in favor of Viserys if he didn’t marry Daenaera and then locked himself in a tower.

Yeah, I agree. I understand that the real English War of the Roses that war/sub-battles ended with a happier and successful marriage between the two warring houses of York and Lancaster so it seems that Aegon III and Jaehaera could have also had a great marriage--or at least a civil one with a lot of kids/heirs. However, though yes we had the structure of "one child of the two warring families marry for peace" of the War of Roses, the Dance was modeled and takes inspiration from the Anarchy, where Empress Matilda fought against her male cousin, Stephen of Blois, for the English throne. Where the conflict was strictly about who deserves the throne: the female declared heir or the eldest male relative? And who will obtain it, who fights for them, who suffers, etc.

Plus Henry VII of the Plantagenet branch of Tudor (through Jon of Gaunt) & Elizabeth of the house of York--the people who married each other while from the opposing houses after the Battle of Bosworth Field--were both relatively healthy adults AND Henry actually won the throne through his own leadership in battle after killing Richard II (her paternal uncle). The same uncle whose mainly held responsible for Elizabeth's younger brothers' disappearances. So Henry & Elizabeth had a way better beginning than Aegon III & Jaehaera.

Even with the Anarchy, GRRM doesn't transfer all of the events or major ones/results into his fiction. The conclusion of the anarchy was still a woman being passed over: Stephen won and got to rule but Empress Matilda's son--Henry Plantagenet-- was designated as the next to rule in the Treaty of Wallingford. But she wasn't brutally murdered in front of said son like Rhaenyra; yet despite Stephen's efforts his own sons never sat the throne like Aegon; yet the war ravaged England as the Dance did Westeros enough that in both the lords/barons sought peace above all AND Matilda lost the throne.

GRRM seemed to want to capture the sense of futility of the war's destruction (not its cause though, not absolutely) with how it should have never happened to begin with from a place of usurping a woman. There was no happy-dappy marriage or even an attempt at one in the real thing.

Jaehaera was made totally disadvantaged for a reason:

a) making her and Aegon both children in the aftermath of the war, controlled by ambitious adults still who do not have their best interests at heart makes to highlight theie vulnerability and the cause being misogyny and classism leading those in power to declare such wars

b) their parents fighting and destroying each other to the bitter end instead of what occurred in the actual Anarchy

c) the greens pushed for war under the principle of "men only" at the cost of its female members' mental and physical health or putting those in danger (mainly Helaena and Jaehaera) for the sake of power. Jaehaera could have grown up happier and for longer if her own father hadn't decided to calm down and not try to go after several of Rhaenyra's supporters in the way that he was planning to, nor should he have usurped his older sister. He shouldn't have celebrated Lucerys' murder at the feast he threw that was almost certainly part of the inspiration for Blood & Cheese whereby his oldest male heir was killed. His other male heir was put into danger when he, again, usurped Rhaenyra and led armies against her when she had been already declared and ACCEPTED as Viserys heir for years. All he had left was his daughter, but bc the whole point of his claim was "males only" AND he was himself an asshole, he decided to marry again to get another male heir. It was also Alicent who tried to intimidate or persuade her granddaughter to kill Aegon as if the child wasn't already scarred from war and mentally fragile from her disabilities so that she, Alicent, could get revenge against the already dead Rhaenyra. The greens, not the blacks or Rhaenyra, are the main ones at fault for Jaehaera's demise--her death is on their hands since every which way, they chose power over her.

[bookwormlover10]

I need a fan fic ( or au) were Wayne family adventures Bruce decides to adopt old Dcau Bruce

You with me on this...ok so This is my pitch how it would go.

So it starts with wfa Bruce somehow ( maybe is the justice league or something else you decide) gets transported to the Dcau universe but in the beyond era. The man is obviously very confused it could be the taller and bigger Gotham or it could be the teenager with attitude calling himself batman.

Eneway he runs into the tomorrow knight and after some light confrontation Terry takes him to the bat cave were he meets the eder Bruce Wayne. After confirming things old Bruce dismissed Terry for the night

While things settle down wfa Bruce noticed that this old Bruce is lonely. This Bruce is all alone For the most part.( With expectations of course. The dog and this Terry fellow) The House looks hunted with romes are empty and dark. Alfred seems to be dead. It seems that he didn't have much sidekicks( sorry that the only way to explain the bat heros ) judging by the display case. He's pretty sure the doesn't have a Damian either. The kicker thought is when he shows a picture of his family to the older Bruce gave him a sad smile and said " that lovely but do me a favor don't mess up like I did."

Some how there is a way home with it with the beyond era justice league or the wfa Batfamily you decide. While going though the way home wfa Bruce decided 'you know what I'm taking this sad Old man with me' and surprises adoption to old Bruce. he just assumed that Terry well be fine. Yes Ace will run after his owner.

As expected old man Bruce doesn't take to kindly to the batnaping. His is pissed. His like " I'm supposed to be a warning! That wasn't a aboption call !" And like " Terry needs me! " He scolded wfa Bruce like an angry father.

I bet your wondering what the wfa Batfamily thing about this. Well one their Bruce explain his reasoning there like... Ok.... Then go along with it. They get a new grand-bat

The bat kid are ok with having a new grand-bat. But as time Bass they noticed that their new grand-bat is why more grouchy than their Bruce and some how More traumatized. I mean the old man said that dangling somebody off a roof was too soft. He looked at Alfred like hes a ghost ( maybe to him he is ) Every time Old man Bruce sees Dick and tim he always gives them a sad look with regrets and avoid them at all cost. Tim more so. Like Tim is his greatest failure.

Tim : why is he looking at me like that.

Jason: yea so

Tim: that the thing he's looking at me like...( Comes to the realization) .. like Bruce looks at you

Jason: huh !

Dick: ( is crying in a corner) at least he doesn't look at you like you hate him!

Old Bruce does try to escape and go home. Like there a Terry that needs him at home. Hes escape atemts fall though it comes to a pont stop thing " what would a Bruce do" to " what would a Terry do." And starts to make their life miserable. He starts to hack into the bat computer making their equipment act weird and pulls brakes on them. Thought he doesn't do it when he thinks that their a ligiment threat. They might have kidnapped him but he still has his morals after all these years.

Damien likes Old Bruce hes like the grandfather that Damien always wanted. He's tuff and experienced but not to mean ( still mean but not as much as he was when he first met Terry. thanks you Terry for softening the old bat up) . He gives him compliments when needed but well scold you when you do something stupid. He gives him head pats sometimes. He even has that mysterious old people candy that Jon was telling him. About. Not to mention he's has great taste in pets. ( Damien likes Ace very much.) Damien came to know this this Bruce never had a him. That fact made Damien a little sad. He always thought that there was a him with his father in every universe. He also thinks that his mother isn't with them in his universe cause every time he asks about his mother in his universe he always gives a sad smile and says " your mother was a very beautiful woman. With a good heart." The key word was was. Meaning that she was dead. He doesn't dare ask about his grandfather. The old bat does try to convince Damian to stop being Robin cause how kind get hurt. ( Cause you know trama ) Damien them mention this Terry fellow.Damian then decided that they need to keep the old man.

Old Bruce then release that these kids are traumatized and he became a little soft on the wfa Batfamily. He's everything started to open up to them. He starts telling them stories about his batman and justice league days. The bat kids are all surprise that welly West was a founding member of the justice league in his universe. He also gave wfa Bruce creeks and help him be a better batman. ( With all of the Batfamily to he honest) Tim and Jason eventually asked him to what happened to his Tim Drake. So old Bruce explained his Tim backstory and the joker jr situation. The bat boys than made the concussion that his Tim Drake is was more of a Jason Todd a Timmy todd if you will. When Tim and Jason explain both of their backstory to the old bat.

Wfa Bruce ( and Batfamily to an extent) does eventually feel gently about surprises adopting old man Bruce especially with how much he mentions Terry. Wfa Batfamily can tell that they have a father and son relationship. He said how he proud of him. He mentioned his grate battles or what Terry did for him . That wfa Batfamily can tell how much Terry means to the old bat. They know that he wasn't comply alone

Then eventually there's a knocking on the door of Wayne maner only to reveal a pisst of Dcau Tim going full Jason Todd on there ass. ( He has a gun and he's not afraid to use it ) an angry Terry mcginnis and Dcau Wally West is there cause I like him. You can also have Dcau dick Grayson there to.

See he has people who do care about him.

Then old man Bruce got to go home but the wfa Batfamily can still visit there grand bat in neo-Gotham

I also have a similar Idea but we're Damien kidnapped Timmy todd and Dcau dick is on the journey. Let me know if you want to here that to.

[rise-my-angel]

hi! i wanted to get your opinion because i admire the way you write these characters and you're so knowledgeable of the lore.

do you think robert actually loved lyanna or do you think she was just something he felt he was owed? like a prize that was taken away from him by someone else rather than her being her own person.

keep in mind i've only ever seen the show but his behaviour always struck me as obsessive rather than a man truly mourning "the love of his life."

i also don't see lyanna liking robert as 1) he was much older than her right? and 2) arya was a lot like her right? so she was a free spirit and wanted to learn and fight and not be a lady and robert doesn't strike me as someone ok with that in a wife. 3) robert's always been a whore so even if he did "love" lyanna he wouldn't be faithful regardless.

i know ned loved robert but he too saw the type of person robert was (and became after the war) and i don't see ned being truly comfortable with him being with his sister.

anyway i just have a lot of feelings about lyanna even tho i don't know much about her (i've just started the first book!) and i feel for her because girls are never allowed to just be girls. men always ruin everything with their wars and their egos and it's always the women who suffer, especially in game of thrones.

i think often of what it would be like if she lived and how horrid her future would be because of men in her life especially if she still gave birth to jon. she didn't deserve to die but maybe death was a kinder fate.

So interestingly enough, Robert in the show actually provides a lot more interesting perspective on this. Robert in the books is a lot more blatantly dislikable and unsympathetic, but the show provides us a new version of Robert that is actually as tragic as he is pathetic.

The simple fact of the matter is Robert didn't really know her. Robert liked the idea of Lyanna, but because she was gone so early before he could know her, he doesn't actually have a memory of her that is solid and concrete. He only has the memory of the idea of her, and he can only mourn that. So as the years go on, by the time we meet him, he has really nothing left but those scraps of a girl he hardly knew.

It's more explained in the books, but Lyanna did not like Robert. She didn't like he got around so much he had bastards yet was betrothed to her, she didn't like the fact that she knew he would be unfaithful, and clearly did not wish to marry him. Now Ned did try and tell her otherwise because partially yes Robert is his friend, but also because Ned knows he has no control over that marriage and would rather try to make his sister feel better and say maybe it will get better then just tell her what a miserable life shes in store for. Ned wanted to give her hope rather then give her literally nothing.

But Robert in the show is much more interesting, because he in the show, knows exactly what he's turned into. Robert in the show is smart, we see in the way he senses war coming, the way he understands what would happen should the Dothraki invade and in reterospective he was right about getting rid of the Targaryean threat early on before they slaughtered the people of Westeros. We struggle to see he's right though because both what we know about Jon and how that influences Neds responce to all this, and also his passion for his own hatred is off putting, but he's right, he's smart and he knows he is washed up from his own hand.

But Robert too, knows hes pathetic. He knows he has given himself no life to value now, so all he has is the past to cling onto. It's why he cannot give up Lyannas memory. She died before he had the chance to know her as a person and thus his memory of her loss is shrouded in the falsehoods he painted about her.

There's this scene he has with Cersei discussing her, and it's why I think Robert both does and doesn't love Lyanna, it's also one of the most emotionally honest scenes in season 1 from Robert of all people:

"You want to know the horrible truth? I can't even remember what she looked like. All I know is she was the one thing I ever wanted. Someone took her away from me, and Seven Kingdoms couldn't fill the hole she left behind."

Robert is trapped at Lyannas loss. He has never moved on, and he still mourns her as if right in that fresh memory. But he also knows he has so little of Lyanna that he barley has her image in his head, all he has is the memory of loss. It's pathetic and he knows he's pathetic because he laments with shame to Cersei just after this that he never could've loved her in Lyannas place.

He loves the memory of Lyanna rather then her, but Robert in the show is more sympathetic about it. Him saying Seven Kingdoms couldn't fill the hole she left behind is such a good line. He's saying being King did not fufill that loss and thus nothing at this point ever will. He's admitting being King was not a solution to trauma but he knows no other way anymore.

Now would she have been happy with Robert? No. I don't think Lyanna wanted to marry at all, or at least at that age she held no interest in marriage. She was wild and fun and passionate about her people, her brothers, her friends. She wanted to be a girl who still had time to live her passions and maybe pursue something more to her duties as a highborn girl later in life.

Now, some people think Ned would never have stepped in on Lyannas behalf with Robert, but no. Ned hid Lyannas son from Robert, which considering who the father was, that act by Ned could've been considered treason for Jons whole life. Ned does not value Roberts friendship or his loyalty to Robert over Lyanna. And some people equating how Ned handles Cersei to how he'd handle Lyanna is wrong.

Ned KNOWS Cersei is the enemy. Ned KNOWS Cersei would rather see him dead then what she's built up dismantled. Ned feels for her abuse at Roberts hands but will not step in because Cersei has given him no reason to be loyal to her more then his oldest friend.

But Ned cared more about Lyanna then Cersei and more about Lyanna then Robert.

Some people think Ned wouldn't have intervened if Lyanna suffered with Robert but thats not true. Ned hid the biggest secret Robert would've killed for, from him even beyond Roberts death. If Ned wouldn't have stepped in for Lyanna against Robert, he wouldn't have taken Lyannas son in as his own and hidden him from Robert his whole life.

Ned also DOES push back against him. Talks him out of stupid ideas, tells him off, quits being Hand of the King (which too is actually about Neds own fear about Robert learning the truth of Lyanna and Jon, its actually not about Dany at all). Ned clearly does not put Robert ahead of his family until he is given no choice but to stay and serve him. Robert all but orders him to stay in Kings Landing, which even then, Neds plan is to still send his children home even when he couldn't go with them.

I can't say for sure if Robert would've treated Lyanna the way he did Cersei, but I don't think it would be like that. He'd still be unfaithful and hostile, but he hates Cersei partially because he was forced to marry a woman soon after losing Lyanna. He resents Cersei for not being her.

If he married Lyanna I don't think he'd mistreat her the way he blatantly does Cersei but no, it wouldn't have been a happy marriage. But I don't think the degree of abuse and marital rape would have occurred the way people think it would've.

Robert and Ned both do not value Cersei's life the way they both valued Lyannas, and thus the way she'd be treated or protected would be vastly different then how both of them separately handled Cersei.

Robert in the show is more tragic then he is hateable. He didn't know Lyanna and cannot move past the trauma of how she left this world. But in the show, he knows that and he knows he's pathetic for it. Now, what would've happened if Lyanna still gave birth to Jon but lived?

Thats a harder thing to hide. I think Ned still would've done the same thing, still lie and claim Jon as his own son, but would've done everything he could to ensure Lyanna does not marry Robert so she could stay in Winterfell with her son.

The question comes down to, would Robert treat Lyanna and Jon the way he tried to do with Dany when learning she was pregnant. And I don't think I can say conclusively one way or another. Clearly Ned is terrified that the answer is yes, and thats why he quits and desperatly tries to leave the captiol with his daughters. He's terrified of this reaction not for Danys sake but because hes realizing that Roberts love for Lyanna STILL would not protect Jon. He tries to leave the captiol because hes terrified that his best friend would murder Jon if he learned the truth even now, and is living in a trauma asking himself if he'd have killed Lyanna too.

But how Robert would handle Lyanna if she lived, objectively, I do not know.

Robert would try to kill Jon, but would he really harm Lyanna? It's impossible to say. But Lyanna should've lived no matter what. Rhaegar kidnapping her and she survived childbirth, or if that scenario never happened, I fully believe Ned and his brothers would've stepped in if Lyanna was mistreated by Robert. Brandon literally rode to Kings Landing to confront Rhaegar to resuce his sister, had he lived, at the least, Brandon absolutely would've stepped in on Lyannas behalf since he has no emotional attachment to Robert. And I fail to see why Ned would put his friend over the sister he literally risked everything for.

The Starks protect each other. If Ned wasn't willing to side against Robert on his sisters behalf, he never would've hidden Jon from Robert in the first place. He protected Jon because it was his final way of protecting Lyanna.

In the books, I think theres more of an argument to say Robert would've mistreated her, but in the show? I cannot say yes or no, Robert Baratheon in the show is a completely different version of this character.

And I think show Robert is a lot more sympathetic then haters of book Robert will give him credit for. Which I can say, because I, a fan of show Robert actually fucking hate Robert in the books. Get away from Cersei you abuser, I know she's crazy and evil but hiss hiss bite bite.

But really that one line I quoted earlier tells me that he has always had a soft spot for Lyanna, and he knows that being King didn't actually help him move on. In his own way he loves Lyanna, but the way he loves her is just different then the people who are Lyannas actual blood. The same is true for Robert, Ned, and even without realizing so directly, Jon too.

Seven Kingdoms couldn't fill the hole she left behind.

[bellysoupset]

popping in with a prompt/suggestion for vince cause i love me a lactose intolerant boy with lil tummy and his gf is also very hot so it’s a win win :) i was thinking it’d be fun if they were staying in a hotel for the weekend (maybe for a medical convention that wendy is going to?) and so they go to an unfamiliar coffee shop and the barista makes vince’s drink with regular milk. as the hours tick by and the convention draws closer, he’s miserable because his tummy is getting more and more upset and he doesn’t know why. he doesn’t want to disappoint wendy but he really doesn’t want to go because he’ll just end up spending the whole evening locked in a bathroom stall :(

Alright, this spiraled out of control. Anon, have some Vince and Wendy in NYC, him meeting her parents, having a lactose intolerance episode in the most inopportune moment and learning more about Wendy's past.

TW: discussions of transphobia and mental health issues, but nothing actually happens in the fic.

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Vince wasn't a heavy sleeper, he had never been. He was an insistent sleeper, meaning he refused to open his eyes at every little noise that woke him up.

Like the thunders that shook the structure of the building or Wendy's little rushed whispers. He rolled on the bed and let out a happy noise when his cheek met her thigh. Vince snuggled closer, wrapping an arm around her waist and felt her gentle fingers stroke over his cheek, then start playing with his hair.

He wasn't paying any attention to what Wendy's whispered conversation on the phone, so he was genuinely lost when she leaned in and planted a kiss on his forehead, saying just a little louder, "what do you think?"

"Uhm?" Vince forced his eyes open and then opened a smile when he met her face leaning over his, "hi..."

"Hi," she smiled, leaning back against the pillows, "what do you think?"

"About?" Vince yawned, rolling around so he could bury his face on Wendy's stomach. She giggled, starting to scratch his naked back instead of his scalp.

"Going to NYC this weekend," Wendy answered, "there's a medical convention on neurology and Jon's got tickets, but he doesn't want them anymore."

"Sounds boring," Vince scoffed, giving up on sleep and sitting up, rubbing his eyes.

"Well, duh, but it's only going to be one evening... We could go to the Broadway, you like theater..." Wendy said, her voice gaining that whiny consistency that worked so well on him.

Vince rolled his eyes, he knew how to pick his battles and this was not even a parking lot fight. She'd get whatever she wanted, no matter how boring the convention sounded... "Wait," he interrupted his own thoughts and Wendy raised her eyebrows, almost as shocked as him that he hadn't folded immediately.

"Yeah?"

"Aren't you from NYC?" Vince frowned, "am I meeting your folks?"

She blushed, shrugging and avoiding his eyes, "if you want to meet them, sure..."

"Do you want me to?" he grabbed her chin, forcing their eyes to meet and Wendy shrugged again.

"I guess...? I don't know, I want you to meet them, but they also... They're not a good time, Vin," she bit her lip, seeming torn, so Vince made the executive decision for both of them.

"I don't care," he said, pushing a strand of messy hair away from her eyes, "I wanna meet them, alright? It can be just a dinner."

"Just a dinner sounds fine," Wendy agreed eagerly, cheeks turning even redder, "it kinda sucks that your parents are just... So amazing. They make mine suck by simple comparison."

Vince rolled his eyes, shutting her up with a kiss, "they're not that awful, I'm sure. Besides, I don't care even if they are... It's about getting to know you better, not them."

"Uhmmm," Wendy mumbled, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him back, "so NYC this weekend?"

"Sure, sure, sure," Vince said barely paying attention, pushing her back against the pillows.

----------

"You look fine, stop fiddling with your blouse," He said, wrapping an arm around Wendy's shoulders and tugging her to him. His girlfriend let out an unhappy noise, once more pulling on the front cords of her top.

It was rare he got to see Wendy be this out of sorts, normally she was so sure of herself. Not today. She had been on a manic state since morning, despite the flight between Maine and New York only taking an hour and the convention starting at midday, they had left to the airport at 7 AM. She had picked his clothes, she packed and then re-packed at least twice and no amount of flirty banter had won Vince more than a lukewarm smile.

"Hey," he sighed, pressing his lips to the top of her head, "it's going to be fine, honey. I'm great with parents."

"You are not the one I'm worried about," Wendy groaned, sinking in his embrace, "I'm sorry, I just... I just don't want them to scare you away, that's all."

"They couldn't even if they tried," Vince squeezed her against him as they approached the convention center where the event was being hosted, "I'll meet your back here in five hours?"

"Are you sure you don't wanna stick around?" Wendy sounded all hopeful, but as much as Vince loved her, a neurology convention was not his idea of a good day. He shook his head.

"I love you, but absolutely not. Google Maps says we're close to the Cloisters, so I have my plans laid out for me," Vince said, pecking Wendy's pout, "honey, I'd be a cardboard cut out in a neurology convention."

"I know," Wendy sighed, nodding, "don't cheat and visit the Met without me."

"I wouldn't even know how to get there," Vince lied cheekily and she rolled her eyes, tip toeing to kiss him again.

"I'll see you in five hours. Text me if something happens or you get lost."

"I'm not gonna get lost," he huffed, biting her bottom lip and pulling back with a wink, "have fun looking at brains, weirdo."

"Have fun looking at old bricks, nerd," she answered, smiling as Vince turned around and left her.

The Cloisters were more than just old bricks, although it had its fair share of those too. It was the US' only museum dedicated to Middle Ages art and architecture and Vince was almost bouncing on his feet as he got to indulge his nerdy side.

He was a sucker for medieval history and Vince was completely sucked in as he followed the tour guide around, enjoying the role reversal of him being the visitor instead of the one talking endlessly.

The building had a Romanesque section that had him almost vibrating with excitement and snapping a million pictures, bombarding their friend's group chat. The Early Gothic Hall had him tripping over himself to catch up with the tour guide, as Vince got lost gazing at the mosaics.

Finally, after a two hours and a half long tour, he hit the gift shops and cafe.

He ordered a croissant and a latte, then happily went to inspect the overpriced gifts the museum offered. Vince wasn't much of a gift giving person, but he knew Wendy loved all sorts of trinkets, so he bought her a Tudor decorated fountain pen and a silk neckerchief with a Degas painting printed on it.

Deciding he'd buy other trinkets for their friends once the trip was over, Vince happily took his order from the cafe and started walking back to the subway station.

By the time he reached the convention center, he had long finished his food and was starting to not feel so hot. He wasn't sure if it was motion sickness from the thirty minutes long journey from uptown to midtown or if the cafe food hadn't been good, but regardless his stomach was feeling iffy.

He grimaced as a cramp hit him just as he entered the convention center, showing his ticket and ID to the lady at the entrance. It was a big place, with three different floors and Vince let out a sigh of relief as he felt the freezing A/C cool him down.

Maybe it was just some weird motion sickness, he sure as hell wasn't used to subways back in their town.

He fished out his phone, shooting Wendy a text and then wandering around, trying to find a water fountain. There wasn't one, of course, but there was a vending machine, so he bought a can of tonic water, which he was still sipping when he spotted Wendy's dark head among the crowd that was just leaving one of the lecture rooms.

Vince let out a sigh of relief, power walking in her direction, ready to ask if they could cut the trip 30 mins shorter so he could go to their hotel and just rest a bit before dinner with her parents, when he realized Wendy had company.

She spotted him the minute he stopped walking, opening a big smile and gesturing as she exclaimed, "Vince!"

He knew exactly who her companions were, before even being introduced.

Wendy's mom had wavy honey colored hair reaching the middle of her back, with dark eyebrows and lashes, so he knew she wasn't a natural blonde. She was shorter than her daughter, but not by much, and she was pale, wearing impeccable make up, with the same heart shaped face as Wendy.

Next to her, Wendy's father was completely bald, with his daughter's striking green eyes. He also had Wendy's bright smile and looked friendly as he zeroed in Vince.

"You must be Vincenzo," he presumed, raising a hand for Vin to shake, as if Wendy hadn't just said Vince's name, "I'm Sheldon, this is my wife Lydia. We're Wendy's parents."

"Nice to meet you, sir," Vince shook the man's hand, noticing just how tiny it felt in his. Both her parents were shorter than Vince by a lot and he felt all the more out of his element, the stumbling giant compared to these tiny, polite doctors.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance," Lydia said, stepping forward so Vince could shake her hand too.

There was a brief, awkward pause, that Vince quickly ended by asking, "I thought we were meant to meet you for dinner?"

"I just ran into them!" Wendy answered, moving away from her mom so she could take Vince's hand in hers, "I should've guessed you'd come to the convention."

"You'd have known if you had asked," Lydia answered and although she didn't seem to be antagonizing Wendy, her voice had none of the warmth either. Vince opened an uneasy smile.

"I thought it was a neurology convention? Wendy told me you're a dermatologist, ma'am. And you're an... Anesthesia doctor, right, sir?"

"Anesthesiologist," Sheldon nodded, seeming amused, "not half as glamorous as a dermatologist."

"But any hospital would come to a halt without one," Vince said, winning a genuine smile. Lydia crisped her lips.

"Yes, but some of our family friends were lecturing today," she explained, "we had to congratulate them."

Wendy squeezed Vince's fingers tightly between hers, "alright, uhmm... Mother, did you pick where we're having dinner?"

Lydia frowned, light brown eyes turning into little beads as she squinted, "pardon me? We're having dinner at home, of course."

Vince caught Wendy's grimace before she quickly covered it up with a polite smile, "I thought you said you were craving french food..."

"Yes, one of Michel's specialties," Lydia rolled her eyes, "besides, your boyfriend's never been to our place, it's only polite."

Vince wasn't so sure about polite. If he could take a hunch, he'd go with intimidating. As Sheldon led the way and Wendy squeezed his arm, looking vastly uncomfortable, he knew there was no way he could take a detour at the hotel. He'd just have to suck up his stomachache and gobble up whatever fancy food her parents put in front of him.

Instead of getting the subway again, they got into an SUV and Vince grimaced as he slid in alongside Wendy. Despite the spacious car, he could never sit in a backseat, since he was too much of a giant. He felt even more trapped, his knees up to his chest and Wendy muffled a chuckle, planting a small kiss on his bicep.

"I'm sorry," she whispered and he shook his head, smiling at her, but keeping his eyes in the horizon. The last thing he wanted was to get carsick on top of the already uneasy ache in his belly.

Wendy's place, or rather, her parent's place wasn't that far from the conventions center. Only twenty minutes, painful twenty minutes where Vince was acutely aware of the car's heavy silence and the fact his guts were being very vocal. He wasn't sure if he was the only one hearing the noises or not, but to him they were very clear.

It was so weird the fact these people didn't talk.

Their place, a parisian style townhouse in Carnegie Hill, was simultaneously underwhelming and overwhelming. Vince wasn't sure what to do with the information that this house that was upper middle class for sure, was probably worth up to millions because of its location alone. To him, it seemed like a regular 4 rooms house, if a little fancy.

"C'mon," Wendy tugged on his arm, circling the car. He tried to imagine her living there, walking to school... A much younger version of herself. He couldn't.

Lydia walked ahead of them, dropping off her coat with a maid who rushed to open the door and Vince cringed. Even in Italy, where he was aware they had been at a very expensive place, he hadn't seen any staff. Be it because Luke's house was abandoned or not, Vince preferred it that way.

He wasn't sure what to do with himself, if he should hang his jacket or hand it to the poor girl who was looking at him with a puzzled frown. Wendy solved it by grabbing the jacket with a yank and handing it to the girl, all the while smiling, "Hi Mary! How are you? How are the kids?"

Vince studied her, feeling like he was watching a movie. It was Wendy all right, friendly and extroverted, but... More quiet. Her gestures not as dramatic, as if she was holding herself back.

He turned away, while her parents disappeared inside the house. There were only art pieces in the foye, no pictures, so he had to pretend he was very interested in the messy red painting and not dividing his attention between overhearing Wen's conversation and focusing on his upset stomach.

A gurgle ran down his tummy and he pressed his eyes closed, gulping down. It was starting to cramp.

"I'd hate to interrupt your art nerd moment," Wendy whispered, bumping her arm against his, clearly reading right through his pretense, "but do you wanna maybe take a look around the place? I can show you my old room."

"Please," Vince said, relieved. Standing still was just making him hyperaware of how awful he felt.

Wendy grabbed his hand, pulling him forward. He couldn't pay attention. Vaguely Vince heard "this is the reading nook" and "mother's office" and "dining room", but all he could think about was the fact that sweat was starting to run down his back.

She pulled him up the stairs, bouncing on her feet, "and here to the right is my old room, unless they converted it into a dance studio," Wendy said with an eyeroll, before pushing the door open.

It was nothing like her.

Vince would know, he was well versed on her decor tastes by now. Instead the whole room was in shades of beige and cream, with wooden details. It was delicate, but there was no pink, no lilac, no flowers or busy wallpaper or anything that remotely reminded him of his girlfriend.

"Are you sure we're in the right room?" Vince frowned, following her in and looking around. It was a really nice, spacious room, with a small walk in closet and a suite. Still... "Where's the color?"

Wendy snorted, fiddling with the books in the shelves near her big bed, "my parents would have a stroke if I had a bubblegum pink bedroom... What would our relatives think?" she rolled her eyes and Vince frowned.

Back at his parents home, his room was still the same. Messy, with his three motorcycle posters up in the walls, his pile of books and all the nerdy shit he had collected over the years. Wendy's room felt like it was ready to have its picture taken for some decoration magazine.

"Have your parents been to your place yet?" He asked, moving around. She had almost no books, the few he could see were about high school biology or chemistry...

"Could you imagine them there?" Wendy snickered, hugging him by the middle, "my mother would implo- Aww honey, you must be starving."

Vince grimaced, sure she had felt the upset rumbling of his stomach. He made a noncommittal noise, still hellbent on pretending it was fine. It was fine, even if he was feeling more than a little nauseous and shaky with all the cramping.

"Oh look at you..." Vince cooed, instead of addressing what she said, reaching forward to grab a pictured frame. He could easily identify Wendy between two other girls, even if she was different. She was much skinnier in the picture, the dress hung awkwardly on her and there were no boobs, her brown hair twice as long and draping on her front, with heavy bangs, "Joni Mitchell herself."

"Oh shut up!" Wendy squealed, her whole face ablaze. She bit her lip nervously, "I look terrible..."

"No, you don't," Vince rolled his eyes, studying the little Wendy in the picture, "alright, where are the baby pictures?"

Wendy rolled her eyes, turning around in the half hug so she could press her cheek to his chest and Vince winced when that pushed a queasy burp one, that he swallowed back down. He pressed his eyes closed, forcing down a moan over how disgusting his mouth felt, the latte from before creeping up his throat.

"I'm glad you're here with me," Wen whispered, blissfully unaware of his conundrum. Vince grimaced, running a hand up her back and feeling a twinge of self loathing. He hated that his belly was acting up in such an important moment for her.

He knew by now that surely the food at the museum had been bad, his best guess being the barista had used whole milk in his latte and not oat milk.

Unable to answer her, Vince opted for kissing the top of her head and then they peeled apart.

Dinner was hellish. He didn't expect it to be remotely enjoyable, but he didn't expect it to suck so badly. Wendy had warned her parents he was lactose intolerant, so there were plenty of options for him to eat from, much to Vince's absolute horror.

He almost gagged at the creamy sauce that was planted in front of him, his stomach churning and intestines squeezing as he kept a painful smile on and tried to listen to her parents weird overly polite conversation.

The Marshalls were weird people, Vince thought bitterly. Wendy's mother barely spoke, only made little disdainful noises and wrinkled her nose at every single answer Vin gave to Sheldon's questions.

What's your major? What do you work with? Where is your family from?

"Oh you're an immigrant?" Was the first thing she said after at least thirty minutes of painfully awkward silence and Vince silently praying for his death. He hated the silence above all, because he was sure everyone could hear the upset gurgles in his tummy.

He jammed his fork through the fish he had been pushing around his plate for the past half hour, fingers squeezing the metal and forced his voice to remain steady as he said, "yeah, we moved here when I was ten."

"Legally?" Lydia raised an eyebrow and Vince glared at her, the fork sliding on the plate with how much force he was applying and almost sending his fish flying.

"Yes, legally, ma'am," he answered through his teeth, letting the fork clank back down on the porcelain plate and deciding that there was no way he could pretend to be feeling fine, not with these questions, not when it felt like his body was trying to explode on him, "excuse me."

He pushed back from the table, avoiding Wendy's worried gaze and hearing her exclaim "mother! What the fuck was that question!?" and her father scoff "oh great, he's bulimic too," as Vince sped down the hall.

He didn't remember the bathrooms downstairs from Wen's tour, but he did remember her room was a suite, so Vince all but sprinted up the stairs, as fast as he could on shaky legs.

A fierce cramp went through his intestines just as he burst in her room and he clutched his tummy, folding forward and letting out a choked noise as vomit flooded his mouth, dangerous gurgles warning him he had even more pressing issues than that though.

Vince barely had time to shove the bathroom door locked, before collapsing on the seat, pants pooling around his knees, frantically looking for the trashbin as he couldn't manage to swallow the foul liquid in his mouth.

Why didn't rich people ever have visible waste baskets!?

He couldn't find it and another gag made his spine roll, his stomach squeezing again - He reached forward and grabbed a towel, holding it like a cocoon on his lap and finally opening his mouth.

It was humiliating and painful. His intestines were cramping like hell, it felt like there was an iron hand squeezing his insides like a squeak toy. His stomach churned as more of the dinner he had forced down came up, barely digested, staining Wendy's fluffy white towel.

Vince coughed and whimpered, unable to keep the tears at bay. He felt horrible and horrified he'd have to face the Marshalls after this... Vince groaned out loud, struggling to breath, bent in half over the mess, unable to close his mouth with how queasy he felt.

His belly let out a sad whine, cramping and churning, but also feeling hollow and raw. Vince spluttered for air, dry heaving for another handful of minutes before he managed to get his stomach on check.

There was a little knock on the door and then Wendy's voice traveled through, "Vin, can I come in?"

Fuck no.

"No," he answered roughly, glaring at the mess on his lap and folding the ends of the towel, the movement causing him to feel just how sore his middle was. It felt like he had done a million abdominals... The mere act of moving making him pause and breathe through it.

There was another timid knock, "okay... Can I call the car to get us back to the hotel? Or do you need more time?"

He wasn't sure. Vince wanted to get the hell out of this house, preferably before her parents saw the mess, but he also wasn't sure if he trusted his belly to stay in check. He leaned over the towel again, bringing up a small, wet burp and gulping down the bile with a shudder.

"Vin?"

"Just give me a minute!" Vince snapped, before promptly sniffling, swallowing the knot in his throat. He didn't want to yell at her or be sitting on the toilet with a puddle of his own vomit or to be in her parents fucking house where he was so out of place. He didn't want to be there.

Crying — or trying his best not to cry — was not a good added strain on his belly and soon he found himself heaving over the towel again, trying to cough up his stomach lining. His lower belly was still gurgling bloody murder, even though he felt wrung dry, fruitlessly trying to get rid of anything else.

Vince straightened up as best as he could, spitting a pathetic amount of frothy saliva and unsure of what to do with himself. He wiped at his face, brushing away the tears and the drool still clinging to his lips, clearing his throat twice before croaking a pathetic, "Wendy?"

"Yes?" it sounded like she was glued to the door, which was both heartwarming and mortifying. Vince's shoulders fell in defeat.

"Can you help me?" He needed to clean up, but he was afraid of moving with the soiled towel on his lap and cause an even bigger mess. If he dripped vomit on the ground or her ridiculously fancy bathmat, Vince decided he'd jump out of a window.

"Of course," she pushed the door open and Vince looked away immediately. He didn't want to see a disgusted frown or her gagging on instinct because of the smell and the visuals.

Instead her cold hands came to cup his cheek, thumbs rubbing in circles before she dropped her hands to his shoulder, pushing him back slightly, "aw, my darling..."

"I'm so sorry-" Vince groaned, his eyes stinging, "I swear I tried not to make a mess, I just- I don't know where the trash is and I was feeling so horr-"

"Honey, I don't care about the towel," Wendy scoffed, planting a kiss on the top of his head, "you poor thing..." she rubbed his back up and down and Vince leaned forward, hiding his face against her stomach and trying not to break down crying.

"I wanna go home," he groaned and yeah, he meant home, but the hotel was good enough. Wendy let out another sympathetic coo.

"I already called the car," she undid his loose manbun on the base of his neck, pulling his curls up and tying them back again, "lean back, let me handle this..."

Carefully she grabbed the ends of the ruined towel, balling it up and quickly moving it to the sink. Vince heard another loud growl coming from his stomach and cursed, hugging his middle.

"Wendy... I need you to get out. Please, get out-"

She opened her mouth to complain, but it was already far too late. With another loud whine, his intestines finished emptying in the bowl, all the while Vince's blushed cheeks turned white to match the rest of his face and he gagged against his hand.

"Here, here, I got you," Wendy hurried, leaving the towel inside the sink and opening the cabinet. Instead of it opening to the side, it opened forward, concealing a bin shutter. One she promptly grabbed out of it's placement and held under his chin to catch a little dribble of vomit and a load more of empty heaves.

"Shhhh," she held his forehead with one hand, the other one supporting the bin, "honey, you need to breathe..." Vince was a trembling mess under her hand, tears leaking from the corner of his eye.

He let out a pitiful moan, head handing and now openly crying, "this is so gross and humiliating and- I'm s-sorry..."

"It's not your fault, Vin," Wendy scoffed, running her free hand under the tap and pressing it back to his forehead, hand wet and cool, "are you done?"

"I think so... I need to clean up, can you step outside?"

"Yeah," she put the bin back in place, stepping back, "don't worry about the towel, I'll get it to laundr-"

"No, your parents-"

"I don't care about my that, just focus on cleaning up so we can get back to the hotel, alright?" Wendy rolled her eyes, grabbing the ruined towel and rushing out of the room.

Vince met her back in the bedroom a handful of minutes later, face milky white and hunched onto himself, one arm wrapped around his stomach as if to protect it.

"Where are your parents...?"

"Upstairs," Wendy rolled her eyes, wrapping an arm around his back, "sulking. They'll get over it," she guided him to the first floor, "really Vin, I swear it's all fine... I'm the one who's sorry."

"Whatever for?" His voice sounded like he had gargled with glass shards and Vince winced, massaging his throat and following Wendy out of the house, breathing out in relief at the cool air.

"I didn't realize you weren't feeling well, if I had known I would've come up with an excuse so we didn't stay for dinner..." Wendy held the backseat door open for him and he slipped inside the car, relaxing against the leather seats, mumbling a small "good evening" to the driver.

"That's not on you," Vince groaned, pressing his forehead to the cool glass and muffling a small belch as the car started back up, the driver checking the address with Wendy, "it's my fault for not speaking up."

Wendy sighed, leaning in so she could rub his arm and planting a kiss to his shoulder, "you wanted to impress them and me, I don't hold it against you either..." she moved her hand to his belly and Vince let out a groan, leaning back on the seat and closing his eyes and she rubbed small, discreet circles on his tummy.

He must've dozed off, because next he opened his eyes, they were parking before the hotel and Wendy was ushering him out of the car. She didn't say anything as he hugged her closer, like a teddy bear, during the entire elevator trip and not even when he beelined to the bathroom and locked the door.

Vince came out almost an hour later, face flushed from the hot water, with a towel wrapped around his hip, wet hair dangling on either side of his face. He sat down on the bed with a sigh, with no energy to dress himself and Wendy crawled on the bed, draping herself on his back.

"Penny for your thoughts?" she whispered, pressing a kiss to his cheek. He leaned back, opening a little smile as he felt her fingers untangling his hair.

"Your dad said something," he said slowly, almost melting under the hair pets, "when I left the dining room."

"My dad said a lot of things," Wendy teased, but her voice was suddenly tense. Vince rolled his eyes, collapsing back, so he was half lying down, head on her lap.

He played with her hand, giving her time, "he said something about me being another bulimic."

Wendy's hand froze in his and Vince winced, knowing he had heard that right and assumed it correctly. He intertwined their fingers, "Wen?"

She shrugged, looking away as if his knee was suddenly the most interesting part of the room, "it was a long time ago, my parents just seem to think I'm eternally sixteen."

"Can you tell me?"

She hesitated, seeming to think about it, before carefully saying, "before I transitioned, before I even realized I was trans, things were... Weird. Well, bad. I knew something was different and I knew something was different with me. I wasn't like the other boys... My parents definitely could tell I was different, they sent me to an all boys school, probably hoping it would stop me from being gay."

"Sounds counterintuitive," Vince said lightly and she chuckled, moving on the bed so his head was resting on her thigh, but she could drape herself down and look him in the eye.

"I know, right? So they just started to cut all of my interests and hope they could fix me, which obviously they couldn't because there was nothing broken to begin with. Eventually mom even came to terms with I was possibly gay. Except I wasn't," Wendy rolled her eyes, "when I realized I was trans, I told them."

"And they weren't cool about it," Vince guessed and she shook her head, playing with one of his curls.

"Not in the least. So I spiraled... I spiraled bad. It was one thing to know something was different about me, it was another to know what I needed in order to be happy and have it denied and them calling me crazy. I hated my body and I hated my life and it snowballed... Bulimia, self harming, my journals were... Well, much worse than teenage drama. I was hopping from therapist to therapist, because my parents still thought I was straight up delusional, I was dropping weight like crazy, I was drinking..."

Vince frowned, looking at her, "and how did it stop?"

"...I downed one of my mom's bottle of pills, on my sixteenth birthday," Wendy said with a grimace, watching Vince's eyes widen in horror.

"Wendy..."

"I know," she sighed, "so that gave them quite the scare and they stopped being fucking assholes... I got therapy, real therapy, not conversion therapy. I got on antidepressants and had a nutritionist and all that... And then I left for college and I got gender affirming surgery, that helped like a fuckload, and I got to legally change my name and change universities... And things got better."

"I'm so so sorry your folks are such asses and that you went through all this, honey," Vince pouted, tugging her closer, "thank you for telling me, though... For trusting me."

Wendy opened a teary smile, looking away to get herself in check, before she scooted even closer. She traced a hand up and down his naked chest, biting her lip, "I was scared of telling you."

"Why-"

"No, not this," she shrugged, "before, when we first started flirting. I was sooo scared of telling you I was trans and you ruining things. I mean, you're a football player, Vince, I was expecting to get hate crimed."

He flinched, while she rolled her eyes, causing Vince to pout.

"I'd never-"

"I know," Wendy smoothed a curly chest hair back down, straightening it under her fingers, "but you can't blame a girl for looking out for herself."

Vince let out an unhappy noise, before squinting, "is that why you kept vanishing whenever we sexted...? And then texting back the next day?"

Wendy's whole face turned red and she pinched his side, causing him to squirm, opening a smug smile at her reaction.

"I thought you promised to never mention that again!"

"I'm just wondering!" Vince giggled, grabbing at her wrist and pulling her closer, "viene qui — viene qui, amore mio," he scoffed, forcing Wendy to close the space between them and kissing her, "you're amazing and I love you."

"Yeah?" she bumped her nose with his, "e ti amo... too?"

His face lit up at the broken Italian, "close enough," Vince sighed with a big smile, pulling her back in for a kiss.

[karuvapatta]

Untitled Jonelias Magic AU continues!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

***

There were perks to being Bouchard’s apprentice. These included nearly unlimited access to the Research Department’s library, laboratory, and archives, as well as a modest stipend, private training arena whenever he wanted, and more. But there were also disadvantages. Bouchard was easily the most intelligent, knowledgeable person Jon had ever met; he was also the most irritating.

Well, no. He wasn’t being fair to his master. But getting a straight answer out of him bordered on impossible, and Jon was reaching the limits of his own patience.

“What am I doing wrong?” he asked, once the light he had tried to conjure pulsated, changed colours at a dizzying speed, flickered, and finally disappeared.

“You tell me,” Bouchard said.

He was sitting on a bench, the ankle of one leg resting on the other knee, hands folded loosely together. His briefcase laid next to him, untouched; he should have been grading student papers, but was apparently willing to put that on hold and devote his full attention to Jon’s miserable attempts at magic. Yet he offered no words of advice, or encouragement, or even criticism. At this point Jon would welcome any feedback whatsoever, but none was forthcoming.

You tell me. Ass.

“How should I know?” Jon muttered darkly.

He snapped his fingers; a spark ignited in the air. It fizzled out almost immediately, despite Jon’s efforts to keep it in place.

At first he had felt self-conscious about wasting his master’s time. But, well, it was Bouchard’s choice to show up and maintain this silent vigil. Perhaps he wanted to make sure Jon wouldn’t injure himself any more than he already had; it was honestly pointless to speculate about his goals.

Jon sighed and lowered his hand. His head was already pounding; he had hoped it would ease over time, but instead the headaches would just get worse the longer he practiced. He took to carrying a box of painkillers on his person at all times, but something told him Bouchard would not approve, so he didn’t want to reach for it right now.

He needed a break. He didn’t want to ask for one.

No, he needed to try another approach. But he had followed the textbooks so closely, and the instructions were so straightforward, that he struggled to see what it was he could have been doing differently.

“Master,” he began, and took a few hesitant steps towards the man. Asking questions seldom worked, but asking for a demonstration might. “Can you show me how you do it?”

Bouchard smiled. His eyes flashed, nearly imperceptible; Jon only noticed because he had been prepared for it, and watching closely. And then there was light all around them, bathing the arena in a warm, golden glow.

It was—pleasant. Whenever Jon managed to conjure light it was always too harsh, too bright, constantly flickering, good for nothing except exacerbating his headache. Bouchard had the entire space evenly illuminated, in a way that wouldn’t strain anyone’s eyesight.

“Thank you,” he said, with only a touch of sarcasm bleeding into his voice.

Yes. It was beautiful, but not exactly helpful. Gestures and spoken words weren’t usually necessary for casting spells, they just made it easier, particularly for such demonstrations; but of course Bouchard wouldn’t want to make anything easy.

Jon returned to his position in the middle of the arena and raised his hand once more, to give it another try. Something made him pause though. He hadn’t noticed it before and even now he couldn’t quite describe the feeling, but the light felt… strange, whenever it touched his skin. Warm, yes, but slightly more tangible than light ought to be, like the faintest brush of someone’s finger, or an exhaled breath…

“What did you do, Master?” he asked, fascinated. Now that he looked closely he thought he could see individual particles of the light, swirling above the palm of his hand; or waves of it, perhaps, pulsing rhythmically in the air.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Bouchard said.

Jon turned around. The visible light had no apparent source, but he saw something connecting it to the man in front of him, some change in the way it bent and refracted… and Bouchard was a few yards away but it simultaneously felt like he was standing right in front of Jon, surrounding and enveloping him…

Jon staggered backwards; the light disappeared. Bouchard did not move but there was something very pointed in the way he cleared his throat and dropped his gaze, away from Jon’s face.

“You are certainly… sensitive,” Bouchard said after a while. “I will give you that.”

“What?”

Bouchard looked up at the sky. “You know that all magic leaves traces,” he said.

“Of course I do,” Jon said.

“And it can often be traced back to its source,” Bouchard continued. “Although it usually takes skill and experience.” Of which Jon had neither, he did not add.

“I know,” Jon said. “But isn’t the main difficulty in isolating one particular spell from the background noise? And since the barrier separates us from the outside world, well—that leaves only one potential source of it. It is not that difficult to trace.”

“Two sources, technically speaking,” Bouchard said. “But you are correct otherwise.” He chuckled beneath his breath. “We will have to revisit this conversation at a later date, Mr Sims. I think you could use a break.”

“I don’t need a—”

“That wasn’t a suggestion,” Bouchard said mildly.

Jon sighed. “Yes, Master.”

[arunneronthird]

Ok, but now I'm imagining the comedic possibilities of Jon crushing on Tim because it would piss off Damian AND Kon!

Damian would be upset because "you're my best friend, you're supposed to think my brother is gross too!"

And Kon would be upset because "you can't like him, he's my best friend, that's a betrayal of the highest sort!"

And if they ever did hook up and tried to tell their best friend or brother about the experience, it would just be "lalala! I can't hear you!" 🤮

But wait, there's more! (Slaps hand on ship "this baby can hold so much angst")

What if Damian and Kon ALSO were both desperately in love with Jon and Tim and they're miserable now because they missed out due to both being terrified of rejection and now their both weighed down by "what if". Then because of the awkwardness, slowly everyone loses their best friend and brother. They all feel isolated but Jon and Tim have no idea why.

(I'm a DamiJon shipper, so this hurt to write. Hopefully my fandom don't come for me 🤣 ...I could ask this anonymously but momma didn't raise no b****.)

in my head theres literally nothing funnier than making jon have a crush on random people cause he is a bi disaster in my heart, but dami and kon having A Moment is somehow even better

damian would actively try to push tim off a window and probably succeed, kon would have an identity crisis and go back to outer space for whatever kon does in outer space every time he has a tim crisis

thanks for bringing angst to the table too i am here for it and always here for it, honestly dami would probably not even know what was annoying him, the guy cant understand love to save his life, kon is... actually reasonably canonly in a weird place with tim already, which i find fascinating

[esther-dot]

White savior anon again lol. So I go back and forth on the J/D romance. On one hand, the show going thru with it and Martin's fixation on incest makes me think there will be some type of romance. That being said, it's not going to end well because all their foreshadowing is negative lol and speaks of betrayal. Also, Martin intends to complete the story in two books, which is not realistic since he gardended himself into hundreds of interconnected main characters and plotlines - he needs to set the chess pieces in place for the climax in the last book in Winds but he literally cannot do all that in one book. So, how exactly he intends to write some sweeping, dynamic romance when Dani won't even step foot in Westeros until the last leg of the book is well, lol....good luck with that one. That's why the show romance was ass, it's hard for audiences to buy a romance between two people who met and conversed for approximately 20 minutes across 8 episodes - no development or investment. I just don't see how Martin has the page space or time to do all he needs to do with the other 9768 characters and plotlines while developing this supposed grand love story between J and D. He's a talented writer, but deeply inefficient and made some key mistakes - the ages of the characters, wasting so much time having characters walk around the riverlands, braavos, etc. while internally contemplating their shitty lives for chapter after chapter, like ok you're miserable we get it but this could have taken half the chapters - so now he's screwed himself as a result lol.

IDK about Jonsa, I believe Sansa is the girl in grey, and I do think per the show (I think a lot more big plot points were taken from Martin than readers want to believe tbh) Jon and Sansa will have a significant relationship in Winds, platonic or not, or at least he intended that to be the case, but idk if he is willing to Go There with that pairing. He let way too much time pass between books and social mores have changed quit a bit. The faux sibling almost incest trope was pretty big back in the 90s and early 2000s, but now? Not so much.

Jon and the Targ line ending with him. Sure there are people will targ blood still around like Brienne and the Baratheons. But none of them are the direct descendent/son of Targ prince who plunged the realm into a civil war over said Targ's birth lol. Sure it's not fair, but thematically it makes sense and I do think this is what was intended back in the 90s. Now? IDK lol.

(continuation of this convo)

Oh yes, I've seen a lot of fans criticize how he allows himself to write so much of his favs (*cough* Tyrion *cough*) rather than streamlining. I can't figure out how he can bring all these characters and carry out the plots in two books either. I know he said they're big books, but there are so many things that have to happen and they characters are all still so scattered...I really don't know how he'll manage. Like, Sansa has to go North, reunite with Jon, reclaim Winterfell, be reunited with other Starks/handle succession, they have to deal with the Others and then there is Dany. It's a lot.

I don't think there could be a genuine romance with J/D at all. Jon's experienced the whole Ygritte situation, then he was assassinated, it doesn't make sense to me that he'd fall for an enemy so soon or trust one either, not with the guilt/betrayal he'll be feeling. I do think Dany is vulnerable with her belief that she needs another dragon rider/that will be a person she can trust and her romantic nature, so I think she could convince herself she can trust Jon and then he betrays her. That could be a fairly short-lived interlude though, since she's primed for it. There is also Euron and Aegon too though, and I had assumed that would be before she met up with Jon and if that's the case, Jon is not gonna have kind thoughts (if she kills Aegon), and Dany will be even less trusting (if she's dealt with Euron), so Idk. I don’t want anything to happen between J/D, but imo, there has to be some kind of relationship or trust to make it an awful scene when Jon stabbity stabs. Dany will have burned KL, if anyone else assassinates her, it’s badass, but I think Martin's way too anti war/anti violence to do that. I really think he's gonna want it to be painful.

Also, I’ve recently been wondering if instead of some past events being foreshadowing, they’re meant to work as explanation, justification for the end of the story. As in, I thought the mess of the war in canon and Robert’s Rebellion were meant to convince us that the moral thing would be to avoid war to spare life and that Jon would be KitN and kneel a la the king who knelt. The show’s bizarrely written inclusion of him kneeling seemed to support such an idea. Except, look at what the Targs became as rulers, where that ended for Westeros, and Dany has dragons and will have do her little KL bbq, so the moral thing in this instance isn’t submission, but neither is it all out war. I think that's the grounding for why it has to be faux submission then assassination.

I really don't think Martin would change his endgame now because of fan outrage or social norms, but imo, the foreshadowing isn't conclusive, or, I guess I should say, I see problems with every potential endgame, but particularly with Jon ending up at the Wall because of how it seems to answer problems Martin seemed interested in addressing. So, I think there's room for a nicer ending for him, if Martin wants it.

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

And Eat it, Too: Chapter Fourteen: Lonely

In which Jon gets closer to monsterdom, destroys the dark sun, and is nearly poached by Peter Lukas....

>>> NOW ON AO3!

Lonely-typical content. LOADS of psychological torment in this one.

The Lonely always felt like depression to me, and Jon lands in it head-first.

(Masterpost including playlist)

*

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Of course, if no one is here at this time of year, it’s unlikely he’ll find a working phone.

There is a sort of docking area. Maybe he can find a ship. Or flag one, or… something.

“So many other avatars get some sort of flight, or... fast travel ability, but do I get some?” he grouses to Book Michael. “No. I get to talk to people.” He pats the book in his shirt. “Still think I’m powerful?”

The book does not answer.

There are no lights in the research facility, unsurprisingly; Jon doubts they even left any of the bulbs intact—

Though he can hear generators, creating power. Even the People's Church of the Divine Host need heat.

But that means they’re here.

He pauses.

And hears the cock of a gun. “Nice and easy, there, pal. Raise your hands.”

American. Jon doesn’t know this voice, but knows this is Christopher Lorne’s younger brother, Ennis.

Jon raises his hands. The Beholding thrums through him, because Ennis has a story to tell.

Ennis also has a gun. Jon isn’t eager to be shot.

His captor speaks into a walkie-talkie. “You were right. He’s here.”

Manuela’s voice comes through, all static and bitterness. “Bring him. If he tries to talk to you, knock him out.”Jon preemptively winces. He’s not sure how long he can avoid asking questions.

Especially since he’s still feeling weirdly giddy, which definitely makes him unwise.

What the hell are you doing to me? He thinks at the Eye, and gets no answer.

And then they’re marching, faster than Jon likes, through landscape he can sense more than see, while Lorne is clearly utterly comfortable in the dark, and seems relieved when they step inside, away from the aurora, and into complete and artificial night.

#

But it’s not the Dark. Jon doesn’t give a fuck, after what he’s been through today.

He knows where they are, like heat vision, in the room—four utterly miserable humans, laced through with the Dark’s power, but ragged—not as ragged as he, but not that far off, either.

He wants to ask what happened so badly.

Needs to.

Isn’t going to be able to hold it back much longer.

Manuela is the one to approach him; he feels her, knows she is in a bad, bad place—a place beyond hope, which makes her completely without boundaries or reason. “So you’re the one who replaced Gertrude.”

“How did you—” He stops himself, and it hurts, like all his insides just jammed themselves in his throat.

“I was visited,” Manuela whispers with a sort of sour desperation. “We waited here, for so long, waiting for his word that never came… and finally, he speaks to us… just because of you.” Her bitterness is terrible, as if she blames Jon for her god’s apparent silence. “Mister Pitch wants you back, Jonathan Sims, and we’re going to give you to him.”

He should be afraid of that.

For some reason, he’s not.

“Maybe it’ll be enough,” someone whispers (Arnold McKirby, Jon’s brain supplies, English, a member of the Church for seven years, father to—)

“It won’t,” says Manuela. “It’ll be three hundred years until we can pull that much power again—but it’ll make me feel better.”

Lorne handcuffs Jon’s wrists behind his back—which seems very silly; his hands don’t do much—and, patting him down, finds the book.

“Don’t touch it,” says Manuela. “There’s weird power.”

“Then shouldn’t we… take it?” says another (John Ascot, English, formerly nightwatch at the museum of—)

“No,” says Manuela. “Could be a trap.”

They know better than to mess with potential Leitners, too.

She grabs his arm, presses her gun to his side, and begins walking him down the hall.

He wonders at his own calm. It wouldn’t be the first time he thought he’d run out of fear, but that isn’t it.

The stories here. The Eye wants what they know, through Jon’s eyes.

That need, that hunger, is eclipsing (see what he did there) everything else.

He tries, he struggles, he really doesn’t want to do this, but the question slips through, pops out, no more his choice than the beating of his heart. “Where are you taking me?”

Oh.

It came out… different.

He’s never compelled like this—smooth and natural, like exhaling, easy and gentle like a stream, power but so sweet and clear that for the very first time ever, no one in the room seems to realize what he’s done.

Manuela has gone still.

No one moves.

“I’m throwing you into the pits,” she says. “Into the brackish water, blessed with Its stillness.”

And now that it’s happening, he has to keep going, like he has to keep breathing (does he?). “What happened when your ritual failed?”

And suddenly, they’re all talking at once.

“We had hundreds of sacrifices prepared and ready, plunged into darkness and terror for days on end—”

“Maxwell was here, ready for our moment of triumph, to begin our seven-day feast—”

“Plunged its claws into his chest, freeing the darkness within him—”

Jon sways and gasps, inundated, trembling, drinking their memories like wine from their minds, and their words are clear and even and almost unfeeling, and their fear is new and old and laced with pain.

He drinks it, drinks it in, the tiny part of him that is horrified at himself unable to make a fuss.

And that’s how he learns how the ritual failed, about Hither Green’s congregation blowing up, about their arrogance in believing that Darkness is the only real thing, about their heartless sacrifices of innocents they’d gathered to fuel this rite.

He grows angry as he hears what McKirby did to his children, because the ritual was failing and they didn’t know why, because they’d tasted the incarnation of their god (and all admitted to the deep, draining fear that gripped them, even as they celebrated) and then panicked as Mister Pitch pulled away.

He is riveted to learn the dark sun is definitely still here, in another room. Waiting.

He needs to see it.

That’s mad. It is dangerous. It is something that should not exist. It could do such damage to him.

He has to see it.

And then they’re done, all four of them are done, and panting, and realizing what he did to them.

Jon feels dizzy with power, buzzing, strong. “Take me to your dark sun.” That tiny, horrified part of him demands, What are you DOING?

Manuela laughs, still gasping. “It’ll destroy you. Only Maxwell and I could ever even come near it.”

“What happened?” whispers McKirby. “How did he—”

“Fuck this guy,” says Lorne, and moves.

“No! He’s for the Dark!” snaps Manuela, and there is a tussle.

Jon can’t look. He feels the dark sun. He begins walking.

McKirby gets in his way.

It is a bad idea to get in Jon’s way.

“You fuck,” says McKirby. “How dare you bring that back to me, how dare you make me feel our worst failure—”

“That wasn’t your worst failure, though, was it?” says Jon in a voice he hardly knows, smooth and low and without a single imperfection. “Your children. You heard them scream, and you threw them in anyway. Maybe you should feel what they felt instead, staring at your face, believing to the last second that you would save them, and then you… did… not.”

And McKirby is screaming, McKirby is on the floor, and Jon sways on his feet, that little voice telling him he is doing something monstrous, that he needs to stop, that there’s no going back on this path.

“Stop it!” Ascot shouts. “We have to do this! Mister Pitch will feed!”

“I’m not going through that again!” shouts Lorne, and the gun goes off.

Jon is walking.

Vaguely, he’s aware he shattered what little stability they had left, aware he dragged them through the worst night of their lives and turned them on each other, but he doesn’t know how he did it, and it doesn’t matter.

He has to see the dark sun.

It is eager for him.

He arrives at the door he knows it’s behind, and pauses, because it’s sealed with a wheel lock like something on a submarine, and his hands are cuffed.

A childlike frustration rises in him; he needs to get in there. He needs to see.

So very verbal, he whines at the door.

Another gunshot goes off behind his back, then silence, and he feels Manuela approaching.

She is gasping. Laughing softly at nothing, dragging her foot. “Destroy everything, don’t you?” she breathes, shoving him aside and turning the lock. “Gertrude, now you. You’re worse than the Desolation.”

Jon isn’t in control of his tongue right now. “How does Mister Pitch talk to you?”

“Dreams. There’s no other way now, with Maxwell gone.”

The door is opening, creaky and terrible as if not opened for years. Something… pushes through, like radiation, warping the air, ringing in his ears.

“Have fun,” she says. “I hope it hurts.” And she limps away, and Jon knows she is thinking terrible things.

He needs to care about this. He needs to stop her. He—

Needs to see the dark sun.

His steps are unsteady as he walks inside, fighting himself, twitching with a war of desires, but then he sees it, and nothing else matters.

It’s like harmonics in the wind, mournful like old metal left to rust on a hill, and static is building, a frying in the air, and it is piercing and terrible and strong.

“It’s beautiful,” Jon whispers, nearly crying with it, overwhelmed, seeing a thing that cannot be seen and would not be seen if he were not who he was.

He feels it trying to unmake him, reaching for his eyes, his power.

Yet he sees.

“So beautiful,” he whispers, and the impossible sun of darkness and void begins to flake away.

Somewhere behind him, Manuela screams. He cannot turn.

Faster, it’s dying, this connection to darkness and fear turning to ash, and still, it tries to unmake him, and still, it fails, weakening power sliding along his skin and falling away.

Too soon, it is gone. Too soon, it is not there to see any more.

And suddenly, Jon is released.

He staggers, horror filling the emptiness in his gut, and feels she’s going to—

Jon turns and runs down the hall as fast as he can, trying to find that place inside him with power, trying to find that smooth and beautiful pull. “Stop! Stop!” It won’t be enough. Frantic, he tries something else. “Tell me about your parents!”

And Manuela, her gun pointed at one who was once her friend, stops—shaking with grief and resignation, she has to start talking.

She’s still talking as Jon slams into her, trying to knock her down, to stop her doing this, to do… something of any good at all.

His hands are bound, and he doesn’t land well.

Someone tries to stomp on his head, and he rolls.

There is another gunshot.

Jon curls around himself, crying out, suddenly aware how loud it is, how painful, unsure how the hell he didn’t even notice before—

Something punches into his side so hard that it winds him, and then whoever did that gets pulled away, and he tries to roll under a table for cover.

Half of him knows what’s happening (Lorne kicked him) and the other is in confusion, half-blind and dazed with overstimulation.

There is a horrible thump, a whistling exhale, and silence.

Only one person is still alive now—Manuela herself. She pants, holding the knife, and Jon knows she is not surprised that she had to murder her former catechists, her fellow failures of the Dark. It had to be. He isn’t sure why she put it off. She isn’t, either—but she is not surprised.

Manuela sinks to the floor, hands over her face, and sobs.

Jon tries to sit up. Without one’s hands, it’s quite difficult. “Are you… right, no, of course you’re not okay.” He hesitates. “After all the lives you ruined, you shouldn’t be, either. But I… I know it’s not that simple.”

The horror of what he’s done here today is still growing, and he has nowhere to put it, no boxes large enough. He tries to pretend it is not there. “Manuela?”

“Just go. I don’t care anymore. I don’t think it’d even… matter if I fed you to him. He’s abandoned us. He’s abandoned us. He’s abandoned us.” And she sobs.

Compassion wars with disgust.

Common sense raises a point. “Please let me go, Manuela.”

And he didn’t compel her, didn’t do anything but ask—yet she does, fishing out the key and undoing his handcuffs.

He rubs his wrists. Memory of that smooth and perfect power has already faded; he has no idea how he accessed it, where it is, what it cost. The Beholding, giving him a little treat because it wanted to see the sun. “What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know.” She is small, seated, holding her legs.

“You don’t… you could turn it around. You don’t… have to stay here, to—”

“Don’t.” She’s disgusted. “Why would I want to do that? You think I have regrets about anything I’ve done?”

Well, there goes Jon’s empathy.

“No,” she says. “My only regret is we failed. Get out of here. Go. Before I change my mind and just shoot you in those stupid glowing eyes.”

Glowing eyes?

Jon blinks, looks down, tries to see if they’re lighting his cheeks, or something.

Not as far as he can tell. Maybe she’s seeing something that isn’t… literal.

Is it safe to leave her here? (He has no idea what he’d do if it isn’t.)

What he sees when he tries to know is a frightening thing: her faith in the Dark is shattered, and it doesn’t want her anymore.

He can see it, see the tendrils of lightless fear coming from nowhere and reaching in her direction but stopping just short—as if they find her distasteful.

She may cause some trouble down the road, but it won’t be through apocalypse.

Jon tries to think of something to say, anything—some wise thing, or comfort, or condemnation.

“Good luck,” is all he can think to do, and—feeling like an idiot—he makes his way back out.

#

He’s not sure where he’s going. The People's Church of the Divine Host took over this island, cut it off from communication. He’s not even sure how Manuela is going to leave.

If she leaves.

The docks make sense. There might be a way to communicate, or at least somewhere he can wait to be rescued.

Though it would be far too late to stop the Stranger.

The docks, he tells himself, trying to ignore the rising certainty that he just doomed the world to save a monster.

A monster he can’t even be sure is there.

“I’m an idiot,” he tells Book Michael.

There is no reply.

It is cold. He isn’t as protected as he was an hour ago, and he doesn’t know why.

Every step takes effort, breaking through the icy crust, into increasingly uncomfortable snow. His shoes and socks are soaked.

He swallows, fearing blackened frostbite, fearing scarred, healed feet without any toes left, because that’s how the damned Beholding would do it.

Things don’t grow back. They just scar.

He tries to hurry.

What’s the point? he thinks, and stops. There isn’t a ship there. There may not even be a way to call home.

And even if there were, what of it? Elias can’t travel instantly, like Michael. Salesa could have another toy, but he’s also in hiding.

Jon could try the book—but if he messes it up, he could destroy Michael, or doubly trap himself.

“And I don’t even know if you’d help me, do I?” he says, trying to be fair, trying to be honest with himself, because they had not parted on good terms and Michael is a monster.

The Distortion still wants revenge. Jon knows that. Well, leaving Jon here would do that, wouldn’t it?

Of course he’d leave you here. Everyone leaves.

Jon is puffing, trying to breathe around the enormous fist of pain in his chest.

Nobody NEEDS you.

No, they… they don’t, do they? They have the explosives, and…

All Jon does is show up on fire and expect everyone to put him out.

He wipes at his face, is a little frightened to discover his tears are freezing.

A very tiny, reasonable part of him points out that he just got out of the Dark, and he’s fragile, and his emotions are not trustworthy right now.

The rest of him grieves.

I bet they’d be relieved if you don’t show up again. If you just quietly went away—not even a body to dispose of.

He tries to take a step. Goes to his knees instead.

Safer without you there. All of them. Couldn’t even properly help Basira and Melanie and Daisy, and they asked.

Jon looks up. The dock is barely visible through the blinding snow, the wind having picked up—he hadn’t noticed.

He shakes his head. Something isn’t right.

The something not right is YOU.

No, he’s… not arguing that.

He thinks there might be a ship there. Possibly. There is a dark shape, and—

Mist, fog, something, is obscuring his vision. It’s wrapping the world, wrapping him in cotton, keeping him away from all the things he might break.

And what if there is a ship? You’ll go on board, make everyone there relive their worst trauma, then dream it all night long?

Oh.

That hurts.

His chest is heavy, physically heavy, despair winding its way through his fingers and into his mouth with sour realization.

Let them go.

Let them move on.

You can give them that much, can’t you?

“The Unknowing,” he breathes, and takes out the book to stare at it. “Don’t they need me for… for… something?”

The book doesn’t answer.

Why would they? They have Elias. Anything you can do, he can do far better.

That isn’t… is that right?

No one needs you.

Oh…

No one wants you.

Oh.

Let them all go and do the first unselfish thing in your whole waste of a life.

Jon curls down around himself, dropping the book, too heavy to rise.

He’s gripped. Cannot think. Ringing with this broad, empty pain.

It’s true. Even his grandmother—after his parents died, she… did her best, but… even as a child, he knew he was a burden.

It’s true.

“I should give you to Elias, but I don’t think I will,” says a familiar voice, and Jon remembers the man in Elias’ office (Peter Lukas, he’s a Lukas, that means the Lonely, that means…)

Means what? What does it matter? You can’t hurt anyone here.

That’s true.

Jon stays down.

“The way I see it,” murmurs Peter Lukas, who has not bothered to come closer because he does not hit with fists, “it doesn’t matter who you do the ritual for, if you’re marked deeply enough. You see what I mean?”

Tears, falling and freezing. Every beat of his heart hits him with pain, like some crazy gong. Alone is better for everyone.

“True enough. Don’t worry, Archivist… I’ll keep you plenty fed. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some preparations to make.”

And suddenly the prospect of being truly alone and isolated shocks Jon, and he gasps, and barely manages a whisper: “Don’t go.”

Lukas is gone.

Jon makes a high, drawn-out sound—

And then a man comes stumbling out of the fog as if he’s been thrown, and he has trauma, he has a story, and Jon is reaching for him without any plan to do so, and without any way to stop.

#

He is sick, afterward.

There is a pinch of clarity, granted by this thievery of fear from this poor man, Brian, who went to the Institute to talk about spiders and ended up being swallowed by the Lonely.

Which is where Jon is now. He knows.

Peter Lukas had been tracking him, though he does not know why, nor does he understand what the man was talking about.

Preparations? What ritual? Marked deeply enough? What?

It’s hidden from him, hidden by some massive, unassailable thing, blocking him from knowing what the hell is going on.

He feels awful for eating Brian’s fear. He didn’t try to. He was wounded, and it just happened.

And now Brian will be in his dreams every night, trapped in the Lonely when awake and stared at in silence when asleep.

I’m dangerous, he thinks, not fighting it now, because it’s true and he should say it. I can’t be trusted around anyone. No one is safe near me.

If he goes back, what will he take next? Whom will he assault?

Tim?

Daisy?

Martin?

So it’s better to be alone.

Jon cries, wishing he’d never gotten close to them at all.

The cold penetrates him gently, almost tenderly; it isn’t like the Dark, isn’t cruel and punishing, but it is deeper, a weight of numb sorrow that threatens to drag him down.

If he goes down, he won’t feel things anymore.

He knows this. That’s what it wants—a dubious blessing, but maybe the only one he deserves for what he’s done and will do.

How am I any better than any of them? he thinks, and knows he’s not.

The Lonely feels like depression, comes next. And it’s related to the Dark, after that.

And that is important, because… because…

Something. Just out of reach.

His mind goes silent for a while.

Breeze picks up, cold and stone-scented; this is a place that feels like it’s never known warm blood apart from his.

Vaguely, he is aware that there is no snow beneath him now. It’s dead grass, old soil, and nothing. Nothing. This is the Lonely—its own separate reality. No one can find him now.

And that’s good.

Isn’t it?

Jon exhales, rubs his face. Tries to think.

Fog fills the world, inside and out. Everything is vague, but he understands one thing. All those… horrible, hurtful things… maybe they are true. They landed because on some level, Jon believes them. And it hurts.

But if he stays here, Lukas is going to do some sort of ritual with him.

Jon can’t imagine what; Lukas’ last one failed.

Spectacularly.

Thanks to Gertrude.

Really, who could’ve imagined a well-placed tip to a newspaper would undo Lukas’ incredible, stuffed-full apartment block of lonely, isolated people, unwillingly worshiping Lukas’s god?

And then Gertrude’s tip engendered all kinds of attention, and community outreach, and Lukas’ ritual died in newsprint and pity.

It’s funny, if Jon lets himself feel it.

So Lukas wants to do some new ritual, and Jon is part of it.

He frowns.

It is true that no one may miss him; it is true that he may have been nothing but a burden to everyone, all his life. (His grandmother’s weary face slides past, but he tries not to think about that. Tries.)

That doesn’t mean he actually wants to hurt anyone.

Jon feels alone, unworthy of love, isolated for the best, horrifyingly unhappy.

But he still cares.

“So I’m selfish,” Jon says, agreeing with the wicked little thoughts. “At least I know I am.”

It’s so odd, how just… facing these thoughts takes away some of their power. He still feels awful, numb, but no longer paralyzed.

He will not stay here and be used. If he’s going to become a weird Eye Hermit, he’s going to do it on his own damn terms.

He exhales slowly, and looks.

The Lonely is powerful; small, creepy shapes from the graves the Lukases have dug here for generations are visible, and not much else.

Jon looks harder.

And sees a way out.

Jon takes the book and walks, clinging to it like a teddy bear.

Every step costs him. Every single one is a new choice to push against the desire to just lie down, stay here, be forever alone.

“It’s funny,” Jon tells Book Michael. “If he hadn’t said something about a ritual, he’d have had me. He mostly still does, to be honest. But I… wouldn’t see any reason to fight. Funny, right?”

Book Michael does not reply.

And suddenly, Jon is in snow again, and he’s free.

It’s so anticlimactic. He’s just out.

And… exhausted.

Even with all the statements he’s taken today (literally taken and that feels so horrid), it took all his strength to walk out of the Lonely’s domain.

Jon is gasping. He falls to his knees.

Soaked.

And very, very, cold.

Breathing hurts. How much power does it take to disintegrate a fake sun and then walk out of the Lonely? he thinks, hysterical. More than I have!

He tries to rise, cannot. Falls onto his knees in the snow.

Too cold.

Too… stiff.

Weak.

He’s not going to make it to the dock or anywhere else.

Panic makes him try, scramble, stumble—

And somehow, he trips on Michael’s book.

He’d dropped it, somehow, and now he’s torn it, the cover half off, pages ripped, and he falls beside it onto his knees and sobs, because it’s for sure over now, because he’s destroyed Michael now, because he damns everything and everyone he touches, and if he had gone to Wales with a cat and some cows, they’d all be dead because of him—

“Oh, Archivist,” comes softly in his ear, and long arms lift him from the snow, fingers sharp and irritating, and long, spiraling hair falls into his face, ticklish and annoying, and Michael holds him close, real and living, and Jon cannot parse this fact in his current mental state.

The Distortion shudders, because it would, because whatever is happening in Jon’s head, true or false, it is twisted. “Delicious,” it whispers, “but I think that will do. You need a door—even if you don’t think you deserve it.”

And it carries him through, and the rush of reality and warmth and people so many people in the WORLD and the wildness of the Corridors and surreality of up and down is too much, and Jon gratefully, eagerly, passes right the fuck out.

part fifteen

[blazernot]

Magnus Archives Final Season Thoughts

Okay. Statement begins

Normally I started with ranting about how much I love Jon, but I'll save him for last this time. This season was a lot. Quite a lot. Some of the statements were really cool and dreamy but this season was a wild frickin ride.

Martin my beloved. He has to deal with so much, like he is literally dating the man that caused all this. It's so funny because he is just some guy, he is so normal compared to Jon. But he is also very silly. He was so annoyed that Jon wouldn't kill the people he wanted dead. Like Oliver and Simon were just allowed to vibe. He was so confused the whole time and I don't blame him. His mental health is through the drain yet he's the sunshine one because someone has to in this miserable place.

Daisy my beloved. I know she was a violent cop but she's my meow meow. Jon saying he never forgave her for the forest was something alright and I was so sad when she died. Like I know why she had to but DAISYYYYYYYY.

Bashira was also there. Don't have a whole lot to say about her tbh. I like Bashira but she didn't do a whole lot that made me feel insane except kill Daisy.

Okay so Georgie and Melanie accidentally becoming cult leaders was something I did not expect at all. I assumed that they would be fineish due to their fearlessness and blindness but I wasn't expecting accidental cult leaders. I'm glad the colonel was okay and just vibing as an avatar.

Seeing a lot of the avatars was super fun. Not!Sasha's death was very satisfying and the rest were terrifying. Like I'm glad they're dead but I didn't like that Jon could just do that. Like good for him but this man should not have God like abilities I do not trust him with those. I'm so sad Helen had to die I really liked her and I was still recovering from Daisy's death so I was very upset. Rest in peace queen

I'm gonna be honest with y'all, I don't really get the web? Like I never really clicked with Annabelle. I probably would've if we had seen more of her since I'm easy to please but where it stands she's fine but I don't think the series did enough with her.

Honestly I'm not quite sure how much I love the ending. Like I'm not angry about it or disappointed or anything like that, like I don't mind it. Idk what I was expecting but I think I was just really caught off guard by Jon tricking(? I don't really know how to describe it) the group and doing his own thing. At first I just though he was distracting Jonah so Martin could sneak attack or something but no. I understand why Jon did it, he didn't want to spread the fears and have the others feel guilt, "I don't want anyone to feel this" from the previous episode type beat. But this man had the guts to lie to everyone and then try to mercy kill the world.

Okay Jon my beloved time! He was so good this season. The romance were the bright spots in a very bleak season. Idk how to even describe my thoughts on Jon besides that his actions were very tasty

I feel so bad for him! It's like he did cause this whole mess, but he was also tricked! His! Whole! Life! He was a tool! Elias said that he made choices but his fate was sealed when he was eight!! Like this man had never not been used in his life! What choices could he have made differently! Probably if I sat down and thought about it I could come up with a list, but with his headspace I just don't blame him for everything. Yes he was a jerk in the first few seasons but his story is so tragic. He's so ridden with guilt and trauma and makes bad choices! So I think him becoming the eye the only way things could've ended for him.

Then Martin busts in with the power of love and they decide to stay together. Their I love yous destroy me more then anything and of course I get one at the ending. Martin's daydream about the end was kinda right? They did kiss and there was an explosion but there was no button just him having to stab his boyfriend :D! And then they're just gone. They could be dead, or they could be on a beach somewhere. Idk

There's apparently a sequel in the works or something so we'll probably find out there idk I haven't looked into this at all since I'm not very interested in it atm. I need time to process this one

Jon and Martin my beloveds they will always be famous

I hope the three girls stay friends. maybe they could go find Jordon or Oliver and vibe with them

Bashira's closing remarks are so simple but, so so good. I love you queen Bashira you will always be famous. Georgie and Melanie will also always be famous as well.

Statement ends, thank you for these past two weeks tma

[soul-dwelling]

I think, with you mentioning watchmen, Horikoshi is more like Zach Snyder - kinda getting that "there is some deep problem" and wanting to do a dark story about the socio economic problems behind the glitz and glamour of hero worship - yet in the end, like Snyder, just ending up reinforcing it, enhanced by the comic book hype

Cause in the end its simmilar how Snyder missed the point and gave all the "heroes" cool action scenes and epic badass moments, so did Hori at the end not realise that maybe the whole commercialization of what is basically super cops isnt cool...

But maybe Im just screaming at clouds lol, guess just allways thought comic books just aesthetically was corny

Question received August 2, 2024, answered August 4, 2024--the official publication date of the last My Hero Academia chapter. 

I think Horikoshi is more like the worst parts of Jon Favreau’s work on the first Iron Man film: this insistence that things have to be grounded in reality, the refusal to allow for any fairy tale logic or supernatural details or extraterrestrials or magic--just an insistence that this is just a story about a guy who makes a mech suit with the tiniest bit of sci-fi. That movie is so fucking boring to me. 

(And, as a friend reminded me, the first Iron Man is also super transphobic: that just makes it all the more annoying getting Downey back but as Doom, because why cast a Romani actor in the role?) 

To steal from Bob Chipman, Snyder is someone who thinks superheroes would be awful, miserable, hopeless people who exist just to disappoint us. 

(Spoilers and triggering content below.)

I can appreciate how My Hero Academia wants to show us such a problem with Endeavor--but I kind of wish we showed it with more than just him. It gets tiresome making Endeavor all that is wrong with superhero work in this setting: desperate to get to number one, wife beater, potentially forcing her to have sex and more children and all the actual rape or rape-like coding that includes, physically and emotionally abusive to his kids and failing to understand how to help them with, in Touya’s case, a disability in which his superpower can kill him, got people killed in his hero work (see Vigilantes), irresponsible, hot-headed, does not cooperate well with others (until after the Rescue Bakugo arc says, just kidding, his sidekicks totally love him, this is in no way a bad retcon). 

I know it would get tiresome to give us an assault of just hero after hero who is just awful. But I also want heroes who are awful in different ways. We got a bit of that during the Stain arc. Sure, Uwabami is concerned about looks and popularity--but we saw she is a good tracker and a committed rescuer. Fourth Kind was evidently supposed to be fixated on just the image of his sidekicks--but he does trash pick-up, that is good work regardless whether you treat it as noble in itself or just part of the job. Mt Lady improves throughout the series as a more self-sacrificing hero, and we got to see in the gag strips and from her actions in the main manga that her size means she causes as much damage as she tries to stop, trapping her in a vicious circle of having to make more money to pay off the damage from the good work she did that did save people and property but still caused damage. 

Even Gran Torino has his flaws. I don’t just mean letting Nana do something so stupid as sending her child away to strangers and not making sure he didn’t keep his real last name to make it easy for All For One to find him--Torino could not have predicted all of that. But he is abusive, he doesn’t say things directly, he doesn’t speak in Yoda koans so much as just play dumb and hope his student understands in between beating the shit out of them. He doesn’t see hero work as about saving someone but potentially having to kill them. He didn’t even do much with his hero license that we can see beyond teaching All Might because Nana asked him to. 

Chapter 430 pisses me off so much that the same old Pro Hero system persists without more obvious, if unrealistic but potentially still believable swift changes to make things better. Give me the happy ending, no matter how much you have to rush how the characters get to that happy ending at improving society. Show me Ochaco training kids in school with their Quirks; show what Shoji actually did to foster anti-bigotry, even if you have to pull from real-life examples (just be tasteful about it, not repeating the same mistake Horikoshi made when coming up with Garaki’s name). 

That last two-page panel is very much the problem of “epic badass moments”: I didn’t want my last memory of the main manga to be the characters in off-putting seemingly off-model adult designs leaping into action on a street named after Star Wars, I wanted the last image to be how these characters did something that made the world better, and we’re just lectured at and told that, not shown that. 

I love comics; I love the camp and corniness. My first introduction to superhero stories was the Adam West Batman--that is unfortunately the standard that I judge most superhero stories, whether they can be fun and trying to affirm some lesson while being tongue-in-cheek, queer, over-the-top, campy, colorful, and silly. That was some of the initial appeal to My Hero Academia: we begin with All Might puking up blood--that is so over-the-top gross while also comedic and reaffirming that this is a story about the serious dangers that come with putting your life at risk…and then everyone just survives this fight, and society pretty much stays the same even after a major war. That is disappointing. 

[rise-my-angel]

The funniest thing about hating Rhaegar is his stans assuming we love Robert and then they begin arguing how he was an abuser and a pos as if we don't know lol. Hating Rhaegar and Robert is not mutually exclusive. It reminds me of takes like if you love Jon, how can you love Catelyn? 🤦🤦 People need to stop living through characters I beg. Liking/disliking certain characters based on who your favorite character likes/dislikes is NOT normal behaviour.

The amount of Rhaegar stans who jump on you like OH YOU LOVE ROBERT HUH like okay lets take it back friends and show me where we said that.

Now, I am a bit biased because I do rather like the Baratheons in general but I am the first to pick those grown ass men up by the scruff of their necks and hold them up over a cliffs edge telling them that they're asses are gonna get dropped into the sea unless they smarten up.

Like yes Rhaegar stans, Robert is a piece of shit. But the reasons Lyanna did not want to marry him was because he was a womanizer whom already had bastards and she knew he was not a man who would be faithful or respectful to her. (My personal headcanon is that Lyanna was not interested in marriage at all but thats only my personal speculation).

Robert didn't even mistreat her, because he did not know her. She didn't want to marry him because she knew, she as a wife, was in for a life of a husband prone to massive infidelity, something any reasonable 14-15 year old girl would object to. And we have no way of knowing if he would have mistreated her the way he does Cersei. How he treats Cersei is absoutely horrible and abusive, but the circumstances of their marriage DO play a part in the manner which they mutually mistreat each other in different ways. Theres no real evidence that Robert would treat Lyanna as horribly, we can only say for sure, he would have been insultingly unfaithful and Lyanna would have at the least still been miserable.

So their assumption that Lyannas life with Robert would've looked just like Cersei's is wrong. Cersei's life also is played due in part that most of her family do not care about her well being. She was mistreated and miserable and no one cared. Lyannas family all cared about her deeply. The Starks are all very close and protective, so the idea that Ned would stand by and allow Robert to treat his SISTER that way is to say Ned views Cersei exactly in the same level of respect he does his little sister, which is wrong.

In Lyanna vs Robert in Neds eyes, Lyanna wins. We know this. He keeps Lyannas secret from Robert half their lives which could be a secret considered treason. Ned chooses Lyanna, and would not actualy let her be treated by Robert the way he sees Robert treat Cersei. Also by the time Ned sees the extent of his marriage to Cersei it is far too late to intervene meaningfully and thus he does nothing because by this point there is nothing he can do.

In fact, Ned while still going to tell Robert the truth, extends mercy to Cersei and all but begs her to take her children and run as far away from Robert as they can. Ned defies Robert by telling Cersei to spare her and her childrens lives by running before it's too late. Something which again, could be considered treason once Robert knows the truth.

Robert has MANY problems, and ironically, the show is actually the version of the story that handles this better. Robert in the show is still not a good person, but he has so much more layers and nuance to make him less black and white unlikable. This version of Robert you can actually understand what about him does Ned like and why other people still care about him. Its a rare example of an adaptation improving something from the books.

But Book Robert just sucks. We all know that. He sucks. No one likes Book Robert not even Baratheon fans like me.

But because Rhaegar stans depend on Rhaeyla for their characterization of Lyanna, they can ONLY imagine an opposite where it is Robert and Lyanna because their views of her depend on her in a romance. They don't see her as an individual character who probably wanted nothing to do with either Robert or Rhaegar.

In my personal opinion, Lyanna did not want to marry any man, and probably hadn't even considered if she wanted children. Since the earliest we know anything substantial of her is the Knight of the Laughing Tree, which is a story that tells me shes still just an adventurous girl who wants to see what the more exciting parts of life can offer her. And while dreading one marriage, she was kidnapped and forced into an even worse scenario with an even worse man and died because of it.

Like, at the very least, Roberts side of the war was partially fighting to save her life. Rhaegar fought the side of the war that led her trapped on the other side of the country, almost dying alone in a bed of her own blood.

There no nuance here with these people. They don't see Lyanna outside of Rhaelya and thus they are obsessed with proving that Robert was worse then him even though most discussions about Lyanna have nothing to do with Robert in the first place.

But to be clear, Rhaegar is worse then Robert. They both suck, but Rhaegar is still worse because at least Robert never kidnapped and raped a 15 year old girl which started a war and ended in her death.

The only reason its easier to dunk on Robert is because he was still alive when we met him at the start of the series. A lot easier to shit on a character when we directly followed their actions before they died.

[bellysoupset]

SOUP‼️‼️ RAHHH THIS FIC THO😭😭😭 i cannot explain to you how excited i was about this one AND GOSH IT WAS SO FREAKING AMAZING AS ALWAYSSSS 😩 you’re so freaking talented bro the POWER your writing and your OCs have over me is INSANE i think i’m hyperfixated on them bc i’ve been rereading so many of your old fics but i’ve also been daydreaming about your OCs like everyday when i walk to class djcvnfdvndfjvnsfjv sorry if thats weird gosh i just love them so much ahhhh <3333

wen’s parents are so awful ugh but also in such a particular way?? like the way they were just so emotionally distant and then managed to bombard poor vin w so many awkward questions while remaining kinda respectful? but they were also so passive aggressive the whole time?? like i started side eyeing them from the start when they were introducing themselves😤 but also this passive aggressiveness + the distant (too) formal vibes they gave off is so fitting given the backstory you gave for wendy a while ago!!! like it made so much sense!! OH and omg the AUDACITY to ask vince about immigration and then saying “legally?” like MA’AM???????? and AGH the way he kept trying to ignore how bad he was feeling and the way he kept trying to impress them and omfg how upset he was when he was in the bathroom like the TEARS goshhhh i can’t 😭 he was so miserable and omg THE TOWEL and then wen being so careful and respectful and SWEET like baby girl is so freaking PRECIOUS i love her sm 😭😭😭😭

and then vince bringing up the ED and wen just telling him everything 😩🫶🏽 even the attempt omfg SOB i wanna hug little wen and tell her she’s so loved and nothing’s wrong w her bc baby was HURTING 🥺 PLS AND THEN THE “you’re a football player, Vince, i was expecting to get hate crimed” SHE WAS SO REAL FOR THAT KANCJSJSJDJWJWB 💀 and AYEEE the end was ADORABLEEEEE

ALSO going back to the parents, i was SO curious as to how you were gonna approach her relationship with them!! like i didn’t know if you were gonna make her be super “submissive” i guess or more outspoken and i honestly LOVED the way you wrote her in this context‼️ like clearly quieter and less outspoken/goofy/bubbly than she normally is, but still very much herself. like it didn’t seem like she was letting the comments get to her too much? and the way she called her mom out whenever she asked that insane question!!!!! and not caring about her parent’s reactions/thoughts after what happened and literally just worried/concerned about vin!!! just focusing on calling the car and getting the fuck outta there!!!!! like YAS that’s my girl and ESPECIALLY given all her backstory i’m SO PROUD OF HER and her growth and how much healing she’s done to get to where she is now😭🫶🏽

THANKS FOR MAKING ME FEEL SO MANY FEELINGS WITH YOUR WRITING❤️‍🩹 you’re insanely talented and i will never stop saying it‼️🫶🏽

🦦

Otter, I can never answer to your comments except for just staring at them in awe. Please never change, these gotta be half the reason I write nowadays.

I know Wendy is your girl and I was sooo nervous about the backstory fic, so I'm happy all the emotional beats came through!

I like to imagine Wendy's parents don't see themselves as bad people and, worst of all, they really wouldn't come across as bad people on paper! Which made Wendy sound very "complaining just to complain" during her teen years, because what do you mean your parents suck?

I really enjoyed working through their mundane shade of being sucky people. And man, pooor Vince!! He's such a stronghold, I broke my own heart making him cry.

And LOL at the "hate crimed" comment, I had that line written since I decided I was gonna pair up Wendy/Vin. I think I wrote and rewrote a fic multiple times where she worried about him being a transphobe or not, but eventually I scrapped it all. Glad I could save the line! I imagine it took some prodding from Jonah, vouching for Vince, to actually get them together. Not that Jon will ever own up to it.

!! Finally, eternally happy to have you commenting on these fics, you caught up on all of Wendy's little tells, on how she's outgrown her parents and she's like "over them". I feel so blessed to have people so invested in these characters 😭

Have THE best day Otter!

[the-firebird69]

That sounds way up on our helmets and we designed them fairly well and the cycling wouldn't have rises and more and we have one that's like what our son has bought and it's because of the reason he said you don't get real protection there's a cycling helmet you just have these holes so it's miserable if you fall over for real you can all sorts of stuff in your head. It's all someone on the picture with a stick-throughs in his skull cuz you're going fast and we wanted to have real protection up on the bridge and other things where it could hit that pole. It's a huge deal in Utah's getting tons of attention and it makes sense and tomorrow morning is probably package actually and tonight will probably drop it down there cuz of this helmet it's dark helmet

Thor Freya

You're talking the whole time and he said the last part and you're putting his name what is that okay so I see that's very nice and I have colors for me and that's what I was happy about it it's probably Ellie now I know it's hard cuz I was helping and yeah there's a mauve one and you said I think it's on hold now you can order. Busy it's crowd of people trying to buy it and this giant numbers of orders and he can't fill them he can feel them in about a week which isn't bad and is adding machines now though and it's going to increase production tons of the cycling one that has holes cuz it's too hot the other one they said even in white but my son my husband he's Jesus, ok, he said it's winter coming up in about a week it's going to be cool and probably very cold it'll probably drop down here during the day to 50 and you want to have that fleece liner and on occasion and colder and at night very cool if he has to go somewhere maybe he has like real business to do and we can put the liner in the air things in his jacket and regular pants and long underwear he'd be fine and a lot of people don't think of that but a motorcycle helmets hot but this won't be that bad it's vented and take it out of this you know it's got some holes in it doesn't have tons but there's another point is that his head is getting hot from the Sun so you paint it out and take it off and stop going to be a little warmer but it's going to be actual protection and that's that's the trade off it will be cooler here shortly and a lot cooler that's something to keep in mind he knows about the abyss. It's much more pleasant being protected his current helmet sucks.

I'm pleased you got one and it also works there's a method and wow that's a lot of John Gallagher Dying. Huge piles of them and it's not really figuring it out also they said wait a minute we use a lot of bicycles can't you see I said we've been Emily blunt is doing it and it's because it's bullet resistant and they go what the hell and knife resistant and you know that guy Trump around you need both. Less holes. Also says it looks a little bit like a rebel helmet helmet and if you look at it close it looks like his helmet is he by so many. They added something outside of it.

Hera Zues

This is some idiot s*** don't use me having the damn movie I guess you can't help it

Jon

And Chris says Merry Christmas John

Ellie

Good

Jon

[hrker]

a wild concept but ......... vampire AU jon.