#also we were talking about marriage and kids etc because she feels like she could be ready and sometimes at times like this I kinda feel

[born-to-lose]

I love being the always single person in my family, mad respect to my sister for constantly dating guys for the last 8 years, I would have shot myself

[the-winds-of-destiny-xxx]

.

[ttlurking]

While I keep working on the design for the Cipher twins AU here's some more things i thought to add!

They both have Ford's 6 fingers hands, since they're mostly made of his genetic material it was a high probsbilty that it'd be passed down.

I'm not sure about Canon but in this au the twins are partially responsible for their parents divorce, not for a fault of their own but because their parents think they're too freaky and contributed greatly to the cracks already existing in their marriage. So they've been sent to who they think is their actual father/creator, not knowing its Stanley.

They have shared dreams/dreamscape (this is actually inspired by real life because when me and my brother slept in the same room as kids we'd sometimes have conjoined dreams? It's a story for another time anyways) plus the fact that Bill is technically on of their fathers means they can always lucid dream and have a pretty good control on their dreams. They have their own separate dream areas, almost like they "split" their rooms, especially as they grew. This is to give eachother privacy in their dreams and also because their tastes in dreams are vastly different.

They can talk telepathically, being linked through the dreamscape has their consciousnesses closely linked. They keep it as radio sort of situation, as neither is keen to look in the other's thoughts. It could be a completely open channel. It used to be when they were younger, which greatly contributed to their freakishness as they used to talk together, as if they were one being.

Dipper and Mabel have personalities that stick pretty close to canon, with Dipper taking more after Ford and Mabel after Stan. Tho as they're Ford's kids I'd say they've both inherited his genius in different ways, Dipper is smart and logical, a bit too calculating and probably on the spectrum. He likes to study things because he wants to know more and likes feeling in control. He has a quick mind, good for puzzles, equations and observation. Very fast learner. Mabel is creative and a tinkerer, while she still loves to make sweaters (and bedazzled eyepatches) her inventiveness is cranked up. She's made some pretty complex sweaters, some that could light up, so it's not even too much of a reach. She likes to make useful machines to help around the house, and while they do work, they're usually weird looking and usually made for unnecessary tasks: like glitter dispensers, disco toilets, rainbow colored shower water etc.. although she's good at making things on request, like Stan's beloved automatic backscratcher.

Stan started wearing the eyepatch as his Man of Mystery persona to make the kids feel more welcomed. He says that it's so they can sell the while "Mystery Family" deal and make more money but he always thinks of his brother and how it was for him as a child to be a "freak"

Dipper's constellation glows when he's sleeping.

The twins don't know they're not completely human. They just think they've inherited the "Family weirdness" that they've heard about.

They still think Stan is their Grunkle. Things start to click after they first meet Bill. They have an easier time in this Au, since they're used to their own dreamscape, they're much more of a threat to Bill, who retreats after he realises just what the twins are.

Their realisation about Bill is complex, along the lines of "We're connected but I don't know how."

They have heavily suspected that the author is related to them since the first season because what are the chances of a 6 fingers handprint on a diary.

When they meet Ford they're like "oh ok- Stan has a twin? So we have two great uncles, makes sense, we must have the 6 fingers mutation in our genetic makeup, a family thing. He's our dad. He's our dad???"

Granda and Candy are still awesome best friends and they never make Mabel feel bad for being different. To them, she's just as weird as they are.

Dipper doesn't have a crush on Wendy. He thinks he does, because he has no experience with this sort of things, but it's actually a mix of admiration and envy, he'd like to be more like her.

And that's it for now cause I'm really sleepy, sorry for the rant~

[demeterdefence]

been thinking a lot about how lore olympus really just could not fathom the concept of found family, it absolutely HAD to have a traditional blood-related family for the ending which is just ... so rachel honestly lmao we really should have known.

there were a lot of instances in the series where it almost seemed like rachel went out of her way to paint biological families as inherently dysfunctional, or at least not all they're cracked up to be - aphrodite is disdained by ares' family, zeus and hera are constantly arguing / zeus is constantly unfaithful, rhea and ouranos are an abusive marriage that begets three wildly traumatized sons, etc and so forth. that's not to say all families were bad or flawed (whether that was a choice or rachel spent so little time on them it just didn't come up) but the end result is that there were a lot of broken biological families in the series.

i think rachel wanted to demonstrate that you do not have to stick with an abusive family if they hurt you - that blood is not the defining aspect of family and bonds, that you can make your own and build your own family. i think rachel thought she was writing that, with how hades hates his dad and how persephone distances herself from demeter (who did nothing wrong but anyways.) the problem is, she absolutely does not follow through with it. at the end of the day, rachel is going to prioritize blood bonds and biological children over found family, because to her, that's the only family that counts.

like, hades raised thanatos from childhood and abuses the fuck out of him, completely traumatizes the god of death to the point thanatos is genuinely afraid of hades. thanatos is mocked, derided, scorned, and scoffed at by hades, constantly. thanatos did not have a CHOICE in who raised him, his mother abandoned him into hades' care. and hades does not for a single moment let up on how resentful he is about it. when thanatos finally admits that he only had hades as a parental figure (or ANY kind of family, tbh), hades turns it into how that affects him, how it makes him feel. after, we get two jokes about how hades is thanatos' dad now, and the last scene we ever get of thanatos is that "sometimes hades talks to him." thanatos never shows up in hades' daydreams of a family, he never shows up as a person who is important to hades. for centuries, hades was in charge of raising thanatos, not once does he ever appear in any of hades' dreams or wants regarding family. not biological family, so fuck off.

more to the point, the narrative makes it explicit to us that hades can't have children - it's brought up three times specifically, to drive the point home that hades wants children, he's definitely tried to have children, and it just won't happen. melinoe was seen as a way around that, and i won't lie, compared to rachel's usual hamfisted approaches, it wasn't the worst idea to have. but by the end of the series, it's shown that oh, nope, hades can have children (only with persephone though) and also they look like him, because biological bonds are everything. you know who doesn't count? dionysus, who was kidnapped from his dad and raised as a pet project for persephone. the kid helps her conquer winter or whatever the fuck that plot point was, but because he's not their biological child, hades and persephone ditch him after the final battle and throw him his old mom back to get rid of him.

biological children aren't a bad thing and it's not a bad thing to want or have them, but it's so fucking telling that hades and persephone have multiple people in their lives who should be considered family, and are picked up and discarded summarily once their use is over. dionysus was their proxy kid, and we literally do not see hades interact with him except maybe twice. thanatos gets absolutely trounced and i'll never not be angry about that. i don't even know what's going on with persephone's half brother, but he shows up for a single panel in the finale and then disappears.

wouldn't it have been so powerful if hades, an abuse victim, decided to be the father thanatos deserved? wouldn't it have been more in line with the supposed message of the story if hades and persephone opened their homes to people who once felt like them, abandoned and unwanted? at the very least, couldn't they have shown love to the people in their lives who sacrificed so much and put up with so much from them? what exactly is the measure of a family in lore olympus? we can't control who births us, but we can control the hurt we ourselves give, and the love we share, and that would have been an infinitely better ending for the two most selfish characters to show their growth. another disappointing pin in an already massively disappointing ending.

[itefi-n-ferlet]

💙 About Jellal's Father ❤️

After the Jellal's past revelation, I have being thinking some theories/headcanons about his father, childhood & etc so, I made this thread:

Seeing how sad they were at his tomb, Im totally sure he was a great father & they were a lovely family, but seeing how harsh Jellal is with himself, I think his dad was a serious, very strict man with high moral values & high discipline, probably religious too.

His dad probably was a well respected but solitary man & only showed his soft face to his family & Jellal learned to be a gentleman because he saw how his dad treated his mom, his dad also was a "protector type" that's why Jellal wanted to become the new protector of the family and a protector to his friends ans people in general.

I think they raised Jellal to meditated of every one of his actions and steps in life, in this panel you can see how his mom guides him with questions, but allows him to think by himself and find a solution/path to fullfill his wishes by himself. That' why he has leadership qualities.

My headcanon is that his dad came from a distant country with quite a different culture and probably Jellal's tattoo is part of a tradition of his dad's culture, that's why not even his mom & neither anyone on his town had a face tattoo besides Jellal.

Other headcanon is that Jellal's dad had a tattoo in his face, a mark that it was costumary to pass to their children, some villagers were scare of him for that, that's why even if they respected him, they didnt like to be very close to him.

There were rumors that it was a "curse mark". Jellal's mom worried about those rumors because she didnt want her husband to feel bad about them, but when he heard them, he just laughed and said: "Ignorance is the real curse, this tattoo is a legacy of pride and love of who we are and who we love"

His father didnt talk a lot about his past, but by breves conversations Jellal secretly overheard from his parents, the country were his dad came from suffered from a magic related "disaster" and wiped out almost the entirely of their people.

Jellal loved his dad's tattoo, he always wanted one bc he wanted to be as cool as his dad, it wasnt painful either, it was made with magic, a really ancient ritual magic only know for the ones like his father.

I think his father knew how to use magic & was a skillful mage (even so he probably prefered to keep that as a secret), that's why Jellal first thought after his dead was that; in order to protect his mom, he had to learn magic & go to a magic school, because his role model was his dad.

I have this other headcanon that the slavers didnt went for that village before because some years before they tried, but were secretly stopped by Jellal's dad, but then he died and they came again.

His dad had some ancient magic books that Jellal wanted to read as a kid, but he didnt understand the language, later, as the "fake Sieg" he learned it, that's why as member of the council he collected & read a lot of books, unconsciously, he was trying to find those books.

Could the books still exist? Maybe. His father have them in a secret place on his house, my headcanon is that Jellal will find them when he finally decides to go again to that devasted village alongside with Erza, of course.

He wants to go & make a tomb for his mom alongside the one of his father, but he really dont want to go alone, so, Erza will go with him, bc she wants to supports Jellal & she wants to give her respects to the parents  of the gentle & amazing man she loves so much.

Jellal and Erza also want to ask them for their blessing for their incoming marriage and then later, for blessings for their child(ren). 💙❤️💜

💙 F I N ❤️

.

[just-some-random-blogger]

Hi! Can you write a Morpheus x reader where they have a big family (like five kids, with one on the way) and have been married for like 12+ years with their oldest kid being born a year into their marriage and it’s just Morpheus being a dad and him and the reader being a family with their kids (oh! Like a scene where their kids interrupt him during his serious work wanting to hang out with their dad)

Papa! Papa!

Dream of the Endless x Reader

Summary: Just a normal average day in the Dreaming with 1 mom, 1 dad, 5 kids and 1 on the way [sips tea] [butterfly fluttering] [dumpster fire] [caveman music].

Word Count: 2k+

Warnings: fem!reader, wife!reader, mom!reader, mentions of pregnancy/pregnancy symptoms/pregnancy struggles, 💀children💀, soft dad!dream, my ideal husband!dream, fluff, typos, etc.

A/N: I LOVE SOFT!DAD FICS (so much so i got carried away T_T) IM SO EXCITED I CAN FINALLY WRITE THIS. also, holyeaglefanlawyer since you made another req with a similar prompt, i might make that a p2 but lol it's at the very end of my req list so lskfha;sfsah so. also i had to think of 5 NAMES ASHFAHSF:LASFHAS: DEAD T_T i hope yall like em please names are so hard. i put so much thought into their names gosh ALSO ALSO i describe the features of the kids, but they all register this way mostly because of dream's mystical-ness ya feel, not so much because of yn ok? ok good night im dead now Tagging: @pinksirensong @aralezinspace @deniixlovezelda @shadow-pancake9 @sloanexx

My eyes rip open at the ear breaking screech that rings through the whole of the Dreaming. I am certain my eyes are blood shot in exhaustion, and yet I power through. I huff as I place a hand on my round belly. I slowly maneuver up on the bed I laid for a nap.

Ah. Naps. Ironic I could not find slumber in the dwelling of the Dream Lord.

I suck in a breath as I internally debate which child busted their lung out in protest of goodness-knows-what this time.

I put on my fuzzy slippers when I get to the side of the bed. I push myself up and sigh as I get to my feet, slowly making my out of my bedroom, my final place of refuge.

Farewell peace, or whatever semblance of it I had.

The moment I exit, there are a chorus of screams, groans, and giggles.

I make it to the entrance of the throne room. Immediately, I see the scattered toys and hundreds of children sprawling the area. Literally. There were a hundred plus children sprawling the area, all copies of my son-

"Noor, please," I shake my head, placing my hand on the child's tiny shoulder, "we talked about materializing copies of yourself."

"Mama!" he says in excitement, dropping the toy horse in his hand, coming up to me, sealing his arms around my legs.

I smile down at him, my little Noor. I brush his golden hair back, bright like the stars, much like what his name meant, light.

"Gadiel and I are playing armies though," the fourth born pouts, pointing across the hall where about a same hundred copies of his older brother, Gadiel, was stationed. He turns to me, gripping me tightly, "I don't want to lose to him again. He- aw!" he cuts himself off, turning to his left, "Hey! THAT HURT!"

I watch as Gadiel and Noor begin to struggle against each other from across the hall, pulling at each other's clothes, smacking each other's face.

Well, I didn't know what I was expecting, but this looked about right.

"BOYS!" I call out sternly.

The copies of my sons all turn to me as my voice echos in the hall.

"Mumma?" a whisper sounds by my ears, undoubtedly my youngest making herself known to me, though she was nowhere near me, and was lost in the sea of her brothers.

All at once, Gadiel and Noor's copies begin to disappear until it is only the Noor by my thigh, pressing his face into me while tears fled his eyes, and Gadiel, a good few feet across the hall, who was quickly making his way over.

Now that the ocean of boys were gone, I spot in the corner, on a carpet, littered with stuffed toys, my daughter, Isra, who was already looking at me, grinning from ear to ear, "Mumma!"

I watch her stand on her tiny legs, her shiny, dark hair, bouncing with every step she took. Journey of the night, the little girl's name meant. I gasp at her journey towards me when she nearly falls.

Gadiel notices my reaction then turns to where I was looking, spotting his little sister. He stops in his tracks, making a u-turn for her, helping her come to me.

I let out a breath at the sight, "good boy."

Upon hearing the praise, Noor looks out at his younger and older siblings, brows furrowing, "mama, he hit me!"

I turn down to Noor, who pulls away from me to point accusingly at his brother again, "he hit me," he repeats then begins to point at his body, "here, here, here-"

"NOT AT THE SAME BODY!" Gadiel cries out, as he holds Isra's tiny hands up while she walks in front of him. "Mama!" he calls, "he hit me too!"

"Mumma!" Isra babbles breaking into a giggle.

I meet my little girl halfway, breathing in deeply before carrying her in my arms. I grunt at the weight of it all, but I push past the heaviness when my daughter giggles and grabs my face, affectionately nuzzling into me.

"Mama look!" Noor complains, pointing to his face, "I think I have a black eye!"

I raise my brows as I look at the boy's spotless face. Gadiel then follows suit, twisting his arm around, pointing arduously at his elbow, "LOOK! HE INJURED ME!"

"THAT'S YOUR BIRTHMARK!" Noor angrily growls.

"AND YOU RUINED IT!" Gadiel bites back.

I sigh, blinking slowly in exasperation. I am calmed when Isra begins to speak nothings to me in her high pitched voice, full of splendor. I swoon at her baby talk.

I smile and nod, "yes, my girl, Gadiel and Noor have been naughty."

The boys do not even hear me when I say this.

God is my fortune, that is what my third born's name means. I must remember that--I have to remember that. God is my fortune. God is my fortune. God is my fortune. God is m-

"Silence."

The two boys jolt in their spots upon hearing the echoing sound of the deep voice of their king.

The next moment, Irsa is taken from my arm. I turn to my right, finding a kiss placed upon my cheek, "my queen, I told you that-"

"PAPA! GADIEL HURT ME!" Noor shrieks, running up to his papa's legs.

"HE HURT ME TOO!" Gadiel runs towards the man he got his blue eyes from.

"Silence!" Dream calls, looking down at his sons, who were now swatting each other. It does not work the second time around.

I release a breath, intervening, "boys."

Still nothing.

"ENOUGH!" Dream says, pushing between the boys, looking down at both of them. Isra, blissfully unaware of it all, begins to aimlessly pat her father's face, just as he begins chastising the two, "it's bad enough you woke your mother-" he stops a moment when the toddler's finger finds its way into his mouth. Dream pulls her arm back, wiping her hand on his collar, "I will not have you show such disrespect by quarrelling before the both of us."

"But papa," the two say weakly in unison.

"No rebuttals," Dream calls, "now-" Isra cuts him off when her hands flails over to his eyes, poking them unintentionally.

Noor slaps a hand on his mouth. Gadiel's cheeks expand as he holds back his laughter.

"Papa," I call, "let me-"

"It's ok, mama," Dream turns to me, raising a hand as he readjusts the child in his arm. I watch as he turns to the boys, who were now hunched over closely to each other, muttering and giggling amongst themselves, surely making fun of their father over what their sister did to him.

"Now," Dream starts, "apologize to each other."

The two let out hushed chuckles as they separate. The seven-year-old presses his lips, "we already did," crossing his arms.

The five-year-old nods his head, struggling to cross his arms, but succeeding eventually.

"Well, I did not hear it," the ???-year-old says to his boys, shaking his head. The three-year-old in his arms rubs her cheek on his shoulder. I coo at the sight of it.

Noor and Gadiel turn to each other, muttering sorry once, turning back to papa after.

"Good enough," papa says, "very well then, begone," he shoos them with a hand.

The two perk up, now off the hook. Noor runs away first, giggling about playing in Fiddler's Green. Gadiel raises a hand, gesturing that Noor should wait. Gadiel turns to his papa, motioning to his jaw, "papa, you have drool on your chin," then runs away with his brother.

I inspect Dream's face, but the man wipes his chin of any evidence before I could spot it.

"I am uncertain if I enjoy how quickly they turn into friends and foes," Lord Morpheus orates as her daughter yawns and begins to nuzzle in the crook of his neck.

I rub her back then caress his cheek, "does it matter if you enjoy it? It's not like it would change the fact."

"I am Shaper of Forms, am I not?" he says, stepping closer, hand coming up to my side.

"Ahhh," I sound, "just like how you said you'd make the twins go to sleep, only to find your powers don't work on them."

Dream turns away, brows raising at the memory, "it's not that my power does not work, it's because their own power that-"

"PAPA, I DID IT!"

The two of us turn our sights to the lanky eleven-year-old boy, waving his hands victoriously as he stands on the throne.

Dream grumbles then points, "off."

The boy drops his hands, jumping off the throne. His twin sister's mocking chuckles are faint in the air.

Dream turns to me, muttering softly, "children."

I snort as my husband leads us to his desecrated chair. I take his free hand and lean into him, continuing his words, "you wanted."

He narrows his eyes , "I am offended by the lone notion."

I break into a laugh. I tilt my head and correct myself, "we wanted."

Dream grabs my hand, placing a kiss at the back of it. He then brushes his hand on my protruding belly amorously, "yes. Every single one."

"Papa!" our eldest calls, meeting us halfway as he excitedly jogs over, "I did it! I got us back here using my own sand!"

"I helped him though!" our second-born calls, one leg thrown on the armrest of her father's throne, "he nearly got us stuck in a vacuum."

Orion rolls his eyes, "did not."

"Did too!" Aurora stomps both her feet on the ground.

"DID NOT!"

"DID T-"

"Silence," Dream mutters under his breath, as not to awaken the napping child in his arms. It is effective to the older children though.

Dream takes the boy's face into his large hand, rubbing his thumb on his cheek, "very good, my son, you have done me proud."

Orion beams, the stardust freckles on his skin shine like the very constellations of his being.

Aurora rolls her eyes, lips curling as she pushes her legs up to her chest and wraps her arms around herself, "I did it first though!"

"You did, indeed, my daughter," Dream turns to her, making his way to his throne. The chair widens as to make room for the both of them, "I am proud of you for it," the king sits next to his princess, "and for the assistance you gave our prince."

Aurora turns to her papa. With Isra in one arm, Dream throws the other arm over Aurora's shoulders, pulling her close. His older daughter's hair flutters with a halo like the borealis as she leans into him lovingly.

"Orion, can you make me a cushioned chair with two pillows?" I huff, leaning on my son's shoulders, feeling exhaustion creep up on me.

Dream and Aurora turn to Orion, who then says, "I'll make them the softest, mummy!"

"Moron!" Aurora quips, "she doesn't like super soft pillows."

"Language," I call to my daughter as my son turns to me.

He verifies, "how soft do you want your pillows, mama?"

Aurora pulls away from Dream, walking over to us with a grunt, "let me do it."

"No! She asked me!"

"But you don't even know how-"

The two are silenced when a sofa chair manifests to my side.

"Oh, thank goodness," I sigh, walking over it to sit myself down, "my feet are killing me."

The twins shoot a look of daggers to the man on the throne, exclaiming both at once, "PAPA!"

Dream shrugs, "I know my queen's preferences better all of you combined."

Aurora makes a face, placing a hand on her hip, "psssh, you forgot it was her birthday last time!"

"Yeah," Orion agrees, "and you only thought of giving her a gift because you saw Gadiel and I making decorations!"

"And then you decorated the whole castle yourself!" Aurora exclaims.

"Not cool," Orion ends.

Dream purses his lips at the memory, "I made sure to keep the throne room empty for you to hang your crafts."

"Papa!" she cries, "that's not the point!"

"You shouldn't have manifested decorations," Orion mumbles, "you should have made some with us!"

Dream, in all his power, was nary a match to his twins when they ganged up on him. He rubs Isra's back, pouting in thought, "you know I'm not good at crafts."

Aurora rolls her eyes as Orion shakes his head. "We can help you, papa," they say at the same time.

"You're the one who keeps telling us to practice," Orion calls.

Dream- 0.

He sighs, "I am defeated."

"Yeah," Aurora says, as though it is the most obvious thing in the world.

"Well," Dream says, turning his gaze from the twins, "I do hope you enjoy..." he trails off upon seeing the blissful form on the chair.

"Mama fell asleep," Aurora pouts.

Orion, catching this as well, rubs his hands together, "I can bring mama to her bed-"

"No!" Dream calls, waving his hand, doing the deed himself, "you must not attempt to do such a thing! Do you understand?!"

The twins turn to their papa, alarmed by his grave tone, "your mother is pregnant and you both are just barely capable of bringing yourselves back and forth to the Dreaming."

Orion frowns, as does his sister, "but you said you were proud of us, papa."

"I am," he says, standing from his throne as Isra sighs in his arms, "but mama is not like us, remember? She could get hurt, and your baby sibling could get hurt too."

The girl remembers something because of that. "Oh, papa!" Aurora calls, "we have something to tell you."

Dream knits his brows, "what is it?"

Aurora turns to her twin, nudging him. Orion has no clue what she is talking about. She waits a moment, makes a face, then grunts in annoyance. She decides to tell him herself, "we think mama is pregnant with twins!"

"What?!"

Orion suddenly remembers, "oh. OH! Yeah, yeah! We saw a vision about it."

Dream gulps, clutching the babe in his arms.

"Oooooooh!" Aurora calls excitedly, "I hope they're both girls!"

"NO!" Orion complains, "one of them at least has to be a boy."

"Ew no! There are enough yucky boys in this family."

"You're yucky!"

"YOU'RE YUCKY!"

"YOU'RE LITERALLY A BUGGER!"

"EW!" Aurora shoves Orion, "YOU'RE PEE!"

Orion cringes, "WELL YOU'RE POOP!"

Dream rubs his face, internally planning the best way to break the whole 'carrying twins news'. He releases a breath.

"Children," the king calls, "are you sure of your vision or is it just twin propaganda?"

[starlit-dreaming]

[idea] the spiteful fake dating au

inspo from this post [click here]

obligatory tag (im an attention whore and therefore i summon thee): @lithi @hwang-lucas

tl;dr if you dont wanna click on the link:

"i know we could half-ass it, but i would never fake mistreat my fake husband, how dare you" which reads like athy to me

and

"my baby cousins are probably screwed when it comes to their chances of turning out normal, but I’d like them to have one healthy example in their life" which can pass as a caring uncle lucas

.

the setting and my Vision:

modern au, lucathy are probably mid-20s or early 30s im thinking??? maybe kinda like the ons/fwb au where athy's like. 28 and lucas is gonna be 30

so as the lines i've quoted state, lucas is gonna be a caring uncle whose brothers have shit show marriages. a train wreck and not gonna be healthy at all (oldest has a falling apart 15 year marriage and kids were their solution of slapping tape on the problems; youngest has a hateful wife and is a doormat probably; i need a reminder on whether or not lucas is the youngest but im gonna treat him as the middle bro atm cause its the Vibes).

and yeah, he wants Nothing^tm to do with his family, but his nieces and nephews deserve to see a healthy relationship to have as an example and damn does he hate his in-laws more than his actual family

so he asks athy to be his fake wife

(i feel like it'd be funny if they signed a marriage certificate just in case lucas deals with paranoid family (when really he's just paranoid and athy's an overthinker who HELPED him get paranoid at the thought), then they got drunk, and accidentally submitted the paperwork and just straight up forgot

"wdym you guys ACTUALLY filed the paperwork?????????" -- helena probs

"oh shit does that mean we got married fr???" -- athy, before the panic settles in

it becomes an inside joke among their friends after the panic of it wears off because now they're pretty much committed to the bit for the sake of lucas' nieces and nephews so now there are jokes about "where's your wife/husband" and "" etc etc)

athy's gonna constantly overthink it (and desperately trying to avoid ever mentioning it to her parents because her mom would be so disappointed that there wasnt a wedding and claude might kill lucas if he makes athy cry)

plus she's 100% gonna be ready to fite lucas's shitty relatives if they say something bad about him

side note: diana 100% thinks that lucas is athy's long-time bf so she's always joking with claude that lucas is finally gonna drop down on one knee any day now and claude, being a super big grump, is just "at least its not that alpheus kid"

little do they know that lucas became a legit in-law (although they still invite him for family dinners, and when its mentioned that athy's parents treat him as family, lucas's parents and grandparents take that as a CHALLENGE)

athy being petty by having a sickeningly sweet relationship and talking about how wonderful lucas is as a husband and partner because of how much she just straight up hates one of the sister in-laws

i'm self-indulgent, so i'm gonna have the classic "my sister in-law tried to sleep with my husband" stories

also idk if its just me but when it comes to fake dating aus (which i'm a SUCKER for) i think its a++++++++ when one of them casually goes "yknow if we were actually doing this for realsies, we'd probably be making out in a closet rn" and the other person sweating cause that sounds infinitely better than what they're doing rn

ALSO

the casual "oh yeah athy's crazy about that kinda shit" or "lucas would absolutely hate that lmao" and just FLEXING on everyone about how good of a partner they are to the other

and lucas, who originally suggested that they don't have to do any lovey-dovey stuff and that they can just be the same as always, ends up getting a fuming athy who more or less goes "my REPUTATION would be at stake if people found out that we broke up just because i wasn't being a loving and caring partner, so hell no!!!!!"

aksulifdfhbjdkshf i'm running on like,,,,,,, 5 hours of sleep and havent slept in like,,,,, 17 hours now

so i'm just gonna leave this unedited all-over-the-place mess here

[trivalentlinks]

🔥 - i'd like to order an unpopular opinion on leverage, please!

Sorry for the very, very late answer, but to make up for it, have two unpopular opinions:

The first one's a bit of a cop-out. I think it's the less popular opinion, but probably because most don't care that much either way:

I head-canon that Damien Moreau is actually a banker/financier, ie, his primary source of income is actually derivatives investments and market prediction, and all the buying countries, arms deals and other such clandestine activities is just to give markets slight pushes in the direction he wants. (I've previous talked about this here (my last reblog addition))

This opinion seems "unpopular" in that the more common reading is that he's a mob boss who just calls himself a 'banker' to make himself sound cooler than he actually is. Which I think is a totally valid reading, consistent with what we are shown in canon! Like, he's all about image, and it's totally believable that the entire financier/banker persona is just that.

One reason I prefer the actually-a-banker reading is, as I described in the other post, because I like the parallel with team leverage and their "alternative revenue stream". This is also why I like to head-canon that when Eliot and Moreau were starting out (after Eliot met Toby and left the PMCs with his newfound conscience), before things got bad, they actually did good--only destabilizing horrible, abusive dictatorships, using their alternative revenue stream to help people. The parallels are just so compelling to me this way.

Another reason I prefer the actually-a-banker reading is that it's more relatable to me. I know people who work as financiers (hedge fund/high frequency trading/crypto firm founders or high-level quants etc).

None of them (that I know of) would actually do illegal things to manipulate prices, but it sometimes seems like if they were a little less risk-averse, a little less ethical, who knows? And when they tell me about the people they know, people they describe as "if you took a person's stats and dialled 'ethics' all the way down to zero"... These friends think anyone too stupid to see through a cryptocurrency white paper deserves to lose their life's savings. So when they say someone has ethics dialled to zero, well. You don't wanna know.

On the other hand, I don't know anyone who's anywhere close to being a mob boss.

-

Here's a more genuinely unpopular opinion, in that I think most people believe the opposite, and actually do care:

I really like Jimmy Ford. I find the character very relatable and very compelling. I feel like a lot of people in the fandom just write him off as a bad father, but I don't think that's fair.

I talked a lot about this here (skip past the "..." paragraph; above that were my old early thoughts about Moreau, before I reformulated them to be my current thoughts)

As I mentioned there, I see in Jimmy Ford every parent who didn't understand their kid, but loved them, and as Jimmy said to Nate, that's more important.

Every parent who grew up at a different time, in another country, in a harder, less forgiving world, who wants to ensure their kid can survive that old environment, without realizing that that isn't the kid's world anymore, that their kid is actually thriving in this new world, the one their parents sacrificed to raise them in

Every parent who flipped out when their son decided to major in sociology instead of computer engineering, because they could never have made a living with a degree like that

(but he's going to do more than make a living with that degree; he's going to make a difference)

Every parent who constantly monitors their daughter to ensure she waits for marriage, because in the old country she would have been shunned or worse if she didn't

(but she's not there right? her parents worked and sacrificed and bled to bring her up in this more forgiving world)

Every parent who sits next to their kid for hours a day until they get their daily hour of piano practice done (and yells at them until they do every day, disturbing their neighbour, who's just trying to focus on doing her research and grading her students' papers, not that this is personal or anything), because the parent managed to survive and to move to this country by working relentlessly at everything they did and can't imagine a world where a 7-year-old is allowed to play and to find their own interests

(but they will, maybe not then, but one day, years down the line, they may even end up liking music)

Maybe it's that I'm a kid of immigrants who knows a lot of kids of immigrants, but I think I'm more forgiving of people who raised their children in a culture different from their own and struggled to adjust to that.

[eddiegettingshot]

can you talk more about your thoughts on shannon? i don't how to feel about the way they're kind of rewriting history a bit and mythologizing her and eddie's relationship in s6 and s7. i also really don't like acting like eddie "abandoning" them (i.e. offering financial support, health insurance, and remaining in contact while at war) and shannon abandoning them (basically no contact for years from what we know, no financial or any other kind of support, only re-entered the picture after eddie reached out) are equivalent; ik a lot of that comes from eddie who i can understand feeling that way (esp bc of how he felt about his father) but the show doesn't really challenge that view in any way. also the divorce conversation seemed a bit ambiguous on whether she actually planned on staying in chris' life but maybe i'm misremembering.

i have pretty much zero sympathy for shannon because i don't think there's any excuse for abandoning your child without a word, especially not because his disability made you feel Guilty and everything was just too hard to deal with and it was just too hard to come back. her actions made sense given the situation, but i don't think any of it was justifiable. the divorce discussion was weird - i took it to mean that she was planning on taking things slow with her reentry into chris's life, instead of the three of them jumping into being a family? working out some kind of custody agreement after divorcing, etc? i know there are less generous readings that suggest she was just going to run again, but i'm not sure the conversation itself necessarily supports that.

and yeah, it actually is really strange to me to act like eddie's service and shannon's leaving were remotely the same thing, and it's also really strange to act like eddie was obligated to leave texas three months after returning from war, where he had been GRIEVOUSLY injured. there was obviously a solution here but she ran before they could even attempt to figure it out. and then when she came back, she was judgmental and honestly pretty manipulative. whatever their marriage was before, i don't think she was treating eddie right when she came back.

i'm not sitting here trying to be like, eddie did nothing wrong - he was a bad husband. he made assumptions about what shannon wanted from him, didn't make any effort to communicate, made broad decisions about what was best for them, etc. they were absolutely not on the same page and i don't think he was making any effort to get on the same page. even when they were "together" again you see that he's not really talking to her about important stuff, like their finances (in oceans 9-1-1 when she asks about the surfing lessons he just tells her not to worry about it).

their marriage was bad because of the circumstances surrounding it: they were too young to have a kid or be married, eddie went to war presumably because (he felt) that was his only option to provide for his family, going to war just fucking sucks for everyone because war sucks and the military fucking sucks, it fucking sucks to navigate medical care in the u.s., etc. etc. i don't think shannon was at fault for finding any of this difficult. but the solution was... not whatever she actually did, and i do think that she turned a lot of the blame and frustration she was feeling onto eddie in a way that was unfair, if a somewhat understandable impulse.

but. literally nothing makes up for the fact that she left her, what, five year old son? because shit was just too hard. that's not how that works! and eddie has internalized everything that happened here to the extent that i don't think he even recognizes it as a trauma. it's just a part of him. he sees himself as shannon saw him. he's spent the last five years trying to make amends to a ghost. and i think that acting like they were both equally culpable is just taking eddie at his word, when his word is famously Not Reality.

[drbtinglecannon]

for the character ask: genshin asogi? 👀

Everything during canon happened because of the professor case... Heh, could say London really felt Genshin's Impact 🥁

How I feel about this character

Sorry Kazuma I have a lot of unholy thoughts about your dad

Haha but really I have a lot of conflicting hcs for him, like I imagine he was very serious and focused, but I also like imagining he was snarky and comedically strict about his opinions like Kazuma is (like why he wore the hackimaki in the first place or the over the top manner he talks about Karuma, etc). It's bittersweet when a character is soooo bare bones in canon, because sure I can imagine anything and it'll never be contradicted in canon! But also I want information!!! Tell me about them!!!!!

Anyway regardless of other traits I'm munching over, I always stick with he and Klint were genuinely extremely close, like Herlock&Yujin level, and they shared a joking mean humor in private like calling each other a twat over any little inconvenience

All the people I ship romantically with this character

His own wife haha, Klint, and Klint & Lady B

Kazuma has enough issues so his parents not really caring about each other doesn't do it for me. Legit tho it isn't compelling to me to think they were a loveless marriage, the only point to it I can remember being was she wasn't mentioned in his final letter, but there's bittersweetness to explaining that away as out of a sense of paranoia that it would be wishing ill on them so he had to stay quiet until he made his escape, which..we know how that went. I think them having a loving marriage also kinda ties up the original study students, with Genshin having a wife and child he's leaving, Yujin losing his wife but gaining a newborn he has to leave behind, and Jigoku not having a spouse or kids, and it mirroring each Londoner they attached to (Klint has a wife and a baby on the way by the end but loses both, Herlock loses Yujin but gains a newborn, and Stronghart never takes a family). Genshin can almost relate to Yujin too, their wives are no longer around and they have young kids back home, but he still was expected to be able to return to her one day, and his fate is so similar to Klint's, they both lose their wives and their kids end up losing their connection to the family & being taken in by someone else (iirc Kazuma is kind of cut off from the Asougi clan after they learn his dad died and was outted as "a killer"), those parallels work better if Genshin and his wife were mutual love.

Genklint had an insane unhinged yaoi ending like the homoeroticism of a duel to the death for the honor of your friend that fell so far but you still cared about him too much to leave him like that... when it would've been way smarter for them to team up and kill Stronghart then Genshin tell Klint "no more killing or istfg >:(" and that's that. I also love the mutual suffering that is Barok & Kazuma going back to the prosecutor's office after 2-5 and just staring into the room with the deepest eyebags and deadest expressions like "they definitely fucked in here"

Genklintville is just the ultimate version of genklint haha. It makes it all so much hotter AND tragic! And what more could we ask for from their canon endings

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Genshin & Yujin is a fun relationship I think about a lot. I wonder if they were both jealous of their respective British bestie for being able to get so much closer than they ever were with each other? Was Genshin the shoulder Yujin cried on during the boat trip to London and during the time before he met Herlock? Yujin went above and beyond to help Genshin when he was arrested, and maybe if Genshin listened to him on getting extradited he would've survived, but also Yujin cared so much for him to not only go to Lady B at his request but take Kazuma in once all the dust settled. Idk, I'm not sure I'd call them an OTP but they're a favorite non romantic dynamic for both characters

My unpopular opinion about this character

Ok so there was a post from a blog I love that used pixels from the games to determine character heights and deemed that Genshin was 6' tall based on that information, and I've seen a number of fics describe Genshin as very tall, and I vehemently disagree. Genshin was at most 5'10, taller than average and a tiny bit taller than Kazuma, but still noticeably shorter than Klint & Barok. I will die on this hill

One thing I wish would happen/ had happened with this character in canon

Lived haha but really I can't think of anything that wouldn't drastically change canon (him living, them killing Stronghart, him actually escaping, etc) that like is actually impactful for his role in the story. Not that I don't love AUs but I like leaving this all as my sandbox and not canon. I guess I wanna know his height so I can be correct that it's not 6' tall haha!

[horizon-verizon]

I mean... Of course, Cersei hates Robert, he routinely rapes and beat her. It wouldn’t be a problem if Robert was only a cheater, he’s a wife-beater and rapist.

*EDITED POST* (3/3/24)

I assume that you are talking about this recent REBLOG I just put up about Rhaegar, Elia, Lyanna, and Tywin.

The entire point(s) of that post was to:

point out how Rhaegar's cheating was not the cause of Elia and their kids' death.

argue against the idea he was entirely or mostly responsible and also want to say that the entire dynasty's collapse was only caused by his infidelity. That such a thing could be caused by such.

argue some people have conflated Victorian (a hyperbole) family values of fidelity or their own personal past with a bigger, interconnected political condition that was a maelstrom in Rhaegar's case. While ignoring his concerted attempts to even get rid of his own father before.

argue that some people think that somehow, just staying with Elia would have prevented her death, or that it was easy to ascertain that Aerys and Tywin and everyone else would act as they did if we were him -> as I already listed in that post.

And this is what I said about Cersei:

The text never once explains or indicates how Elia herself feels about Rhaegar or Lyanna, but we have people claiming that she was emotionally wracked by this? Maybe upset for her reputation or shocked, but we still don't know who this woman was by personality, this all the guesswork based on her heritage, her health and the arrangedness of the marriage itself. One also cannot claim that she was something like Cersei was/would be, feeling totally humiliated, jilted of a perfect and glorious life, hating Rhaegar, etc. Nothing in the text gives strong evidence of that.

She is not only hateful towards Robert because he beats and rapes her (completely justified); she hates him for treating her as second place to someone she sees as inferior to herself and someone who "stole" Rhaegar from her. BUT she is hateful toward Robert & compares him to Rhaegar specifically bc for years she has wondered what life would have been like for her if she married Rhaegar instead of this man who she thought would at least appreciate her for the qualities she's told to have/be the best for a woman...but instead gets an abusive, self-deluded man who lusts for a girl who never even liked him AND was not the idea of a "perfect" woman to Cersei, but is still her competition for male favor (a woman's political key to access to power).

(*I must bring a more nuanced point about this, though and note that aside from Robert whispering some other girl's name on their wedding night, Cersei also has had an issue with not "measuring" up to the masculinized standards of competent personhood, so Robert's revealing that he wants and continues to want Lyanna over her pokes at Cersei's deepest insecurity.

GameofThronesHistorian on TikTok notes how Cersei expected to marry Rhaegar after Tywin dumbly got her hopes up and she spent a lot of her time fantasizing about being with him and being Queen but he marries Elia, Aerys basically insults the entire house along with Tywin, and her hopes are dashed along with a bit of her pride ostensibly (nobles get a lot of their pride from their house identity). She finally gets to be Queen (the position dangled in front of her like a prize since childhood, snatched away, and now she "has" it back), but she discovers that the queenship doesn't make up for Robert's clear preference for the same girl "her" Rhaegar got himself supposedly killed for.

When Cersei married Robert she expected to finally overcome the haunting legacy both girls left behind her own insecurities & ruined hopes. When she actually gets to be Queen, she discovers that this thing she thought would "fix" everything, assure her longlasting dignity and power. and that was been long promised to her cannot make up for the slight Robert gives her and thus traps her in a marriage that quickly becomes abusive.

For someone like Cersei, who grew up hearing that she is the most beautiful person around while having almost nothing for herself other than that and later being queen as Tywin always promised to her name [bc her patriarchal society affords way less in terms of prestige, value, and recognized respect to women as it does men & boys AND makes physical features comparatively final measure of worth for girls and women], it's not that hard to see that Cersei's feelings are not baseless or totally irrational. Her already existing insecurities mushroomed into a plague that also sharpened her need to be "perfect" and counteract the feeling of never measuring up. Therefore, her classist-generated need to self-empower evolves into her stomping on others to get power and the self-satisfaction always distant from her.*)

Neither her feelings nor Catelyn's for Robert/Ned cheating on them are things one could automatically guess are the exact same as Elia's toward Rhaegar being with Lyanna. Even without the beating/raping, because they are unlikely to be similar women w/exactly the same experiences.

I say this to point out that Cersei, while definitely being a victim of domestic abuse, still has a specific personality, history before him, and expectations of herself from her class position and gender. From those expectations, an idea--and the need to constantly reaffirm that idea bc of how little room it leaves one for developing a constant sense of self apart from it--of her exceptionality. Cersei is a NLOG and very much by a social-inspired inner compulsion.

What we know about Elia apart from her having kids and being married to Rhaegar comes from Oberyn and her Martell family members. And we get barely much from there (compared to other characters) aside from how she had had her own mind (her voicing her desire against a potential match by his farting). We have her in her early/mid-teens at the Lannisters wanting to see baby Tyrion and thinking/acting like she thinks him cute and witnessing child Cersei pinch baby Tyrion's penis (which already shows us a deep resentment against male privilege at such a young age and how it turned to who her father blamed for the absence of her mother). We don't have a PoV from Oberyn, so we get a few sentences of his feelings towards her in dialogue and dialogue is not as rich as the direct inner thoughts of characters. He does not have a reflective view of who Elia was as much as current/adult Ned Stark for Lyanna (who had PoVs) because he's focused on revenge. Even Ned could have thought more about other things that showcased Lyanna's personality independent of her engagement to Robert, but Oberyn seemed much more aware of who Elia was than Ned with Lyanna.

We don't know who adult Elia really is like we do Cersei, just her position, she was sick most of the time, and that she was Dornish. We do not get her life with Rhaegar, we do not get details nor suggestions in-text of her dynamic with Rhaegar as much as we get with him & Lyanna.

In a Con, GRRM has reportedly gone on to state that Elia and Rhaegar's relationship was "complex". Does this mean that there was affection but a mutual understanding that there was no deeper romance? Does this mean that if Elia were healthier, she would want to develop one with him? Either way, would she want it to be monogamous or not? Again, she's from Dorne, she's more likely to be more okay with it being an "open" marriage AND it being known Rhaegar has a side lover as she has enjoyed more body autonomy and a stronger sense of her own political autonomy from childhood.

But while she is Dornish, after she married Rhaegar she had to live in a nonDornish court in a nonDornish region while raising children, knowing that a man versus a woman having extramarital lovers are treated very differently. [a fuller explanation by dwellordream HERE]. For her own image and social standing, would she want him to be discrete even more than if they were just minor nobles? Or is she secure in the knowledge that her kids will always inherit before any of Lyanna's bastards (would she be, how likely is this) and de-prioritize how bad Rhaegar's cheating makes her look for her own safety (she nearly died the last time she gave birth)? We simply don't know for sure, even though I believe that Elia knew about Rhaegar and Lyanna bastard and wasn't against it.

this is essentially just a reception, so you could scroll past if you need. I basically free-write these things.

The answers to all these questions for Cersei are too obvious. We have Cersei's PoVs and her interactions with multiple people with both PoVs and with none--either dead or still alive by the last published book. And we get her own PoVs to draw her motivations and psychological processes and make better, credible conclusions.

Cersei's Lannister self-defensive-exceptionalist mindset feeds into her believing herself to be the paragon of any living woman, especially paramours, and mistresses. That PLUS her own need to have something close to or the same authority and power a man could have in her world, which she buys through sex, giving up some of her agency during some sexual encounters, and making herself NLOG to (mistakenly) gain men's loyalty or at least obedience to her commands. All of which is always in flux and depends on the person. To repeat myself, she very much cares about and is emotionally dependent on her nobility, her titles, her rank, her Lannister name, etc to accrue power for herself to her own detriment and to the abuse of others, which worsens or gains justification under Robert's abuse.

On the other hand, Cersei, her whole life, has been externally defined through a sexual lens. Yes, even in childhood. Sex and reproduction. She isn't a "whore" or a "slut" for then using what people used to objectify her into a weapon or device for her own intentions when she has learned that that is a direct way of accruing others' interest in her own and her kids' advancement. Cersei, while loyal & protective to her children, also--from her own experiences with powerlessnes from her gendered value in her family and society--tends to be less patient with them and be less able to address their emotional distresses. She seems abusive towards at least Tommen. And yes, in a feudal world, one can gain much political power & resources through their kids' claims and/or positions of power -> Tommen or Joffrey were kings and she could be Queen Dowager/Mother, the highest female rank a noblewoman could have...at least how GRRM wrote Westerosi society.

This is the crux of her motives: she learned that power-as-masculine AND power = male sexual dominance. Unlike the Tyrells, who have a better grasp of using both actual soft power and hard power (mostly yhr first) to maintain social dominance, Tywin is more the silent, golden rock that intimidates you into following him. Power, she learned from her father, is less diplomatic and more forceful and fear-inspired, violent, physical, and from Robert, sexual. All traditional qualified as masculine and assigned to men, who are given the privilege to hold/lead armies and wield weapons in battles:

In medieval times a woman could not bear arms; therefore a woman could not take on a role which, even symbolically, required her to carry arms. In medieval times a woman who took on an overt military role was an aberration. Lyon, A. (2006). "The place of women in European royal succession in the middle ages."

From childhood, she absorbed this ideology and "decided" to essentially prove she was "not like the other girls." And the loss of her mother to childbirth, how her father never truly coped, would have had her rush to gain his love, and when that didn't work, to gain his respect. But she is female, so Tywin never will. She learned that being anything "feminine" is inherently "weak", and so she tried her entire life to differentiate herself from the "weak" women around her. Cersei is the ultimate NLOGs.

She gave up her sexual agency for her children (yes, the same ones who she abused at one point) to shore up defenses for their/her own position and safety, as she wouldn't in a hundred years have sex with some people willingly if it did not come with the expectation of their support, resources, etc. Class/masculinity-perceived-through-hypersexuality is to her, strength even as it puts her at a disadvantage as a woman, as she's that much more open to scandal if the odds go out of her favor and the Lannisters lose much of their power and the others' fear of them.

She imagines herself as Robert/in the male/"dominant" position (she herself imagines that position as male, the place of power she internalized as prime her whole life) when she's sexually rubbing and fingering Taena of Myr. She continues to finger her painfully despite Taena protesting in pain, thus herself becoming a sexual abuser so she can feel the power and defy Robert/men. Power that she learns directly resides in using sexual ties or performing sexual abuses. Taena also, as Cersei's "spy" on Margarey, and as one far beneath her rank, is also a person who acts as socially lower than Cersei herself, which feeds into Cersei's ego. So Cersei banks much of herself and self-worth on her class to a dangerous fault.

She has basically felt compelled to buy into that exceptionalism at full speed to compensate for her lack of power and feelings of inferiority from that lack. Cersei is rather a pretty complicated woman, while also being very simple. Her class position as aristocratic and Queen Dowager/Mother and her desire for power in the aristocratic space are directly related and inspired by her long sexual objectification. This is where gender and class intersect. Her hatred of Robert is obviously justified and comes from her long struggle to gain and keep autonomous power from men; that doesn't mean that she also doesn't eventually use her class and internalize female inferiority as her final crutch.

Cersei's personality and her abuse from others and against others are two related and unique things informing each other from her young childhood, especially evidenced by her thoughts and actions of her youth before she married Robert, how her father & those others around her treated her, and her observations of the events before Robert rebelled concerning women's abilities. Elia is, by contrast, a silent victim so it's easier to project a lot onto her the way it isn't for Cersei. Or Catelyn.

Even with the societal setup of misogyny put up against her since birth and her trying to collect power for herself, the consequences of how she does it, the carelessness of it, and the losing control of her impulses are going to be reasons for her downfall anyway.

[allamericansbitch]

I think they think it's a dig to Joe, because of the whole pain and trauma bit as in he didn't wanna marry her, she was dying inside because of it and the relationship not going well so rumours of them being married caused her all that pain. It's not new information by any means but it just makes swifties enraged because he didn't wanna marry her and who wouldn't etc etc. Not gonna lie to you, seeing everything that happened since April and how Taylor herself has been handling it herself I would have doubts myself and if anything I don't think he regrets his decision at all. Imagine how much of a nightmare it would be if kids were involved? Would we have a Joe Jonas and Sophie media war kind of thing?

It's sad for me to say this but Taylor and her friends are in mid thirties right now and it's expected you have grown out of some high school like behaviours. Liking tiktoks and posts and trying to shade your ex is like...at this point one would know better to do the shit talk in private. There's also a big power inbalance here, Taylor and her friends are not regular people, they are celebrities so all these things don't have an audience of 10 people. Even if Joe said something, he has even less power in the public eye than Calvin so everyone would destroy him. He knows that for certain, Taylor knows too and is so incredibly shitty she's putting him in that position. It sucks that he hurt you, but he's also a human being with family and friends who hurt for him. His family also just suffered a family member's death last month so I think they are also not 100% mentally ok right now. You're putting him in a worse position than the one you once were in. Is that like some kind of joke to re-enact reputation but this time she's the one starting a hate wave towards the person she credited so much for helping her ride hers?

you know what's also interesting? Travis ex implied he was with her and strung her along with the marriage thing too. But swifties response is/was that he wasn't sure because she wasn't the one for him like Taylor is. And sure that could be true, but makes you think he did the same thing or similar to what they think Joe did or didn't do and in this case because it's Taylor and they don't think he can get anyone better than her you don't see anyone saying well maybe he didn't wanna marry her, because he was also not sure she was the one

the fact that they do not see taylor as a human and admit that she might have flaws that dont make her a perfect partner and joe committed the cardinal sin of not forcing himself into a marriage is insane to me, and its also insane that literally anyone cares about this. like move on. but sadly it's almost impossible to move on because taylor keeps reminding us lol. and she knows he cant say anything, she knows shes got an army of millions who are so brainwashed they cant even think for themselves at this point.

and their extreme bias toward travis is insane. they turn a blind eye to everything he does because they think hes a god or something now. if it was discovered joe was excited to meet trump, made fatphobic tweets, called women breeders, played for a racist team that vocally supported Israel, etc..... i have a weird feeling it wouldnt get brushed over like it is for travis.

[galactic-pirates]

for the ship ask, since I didn't go with them: B'elanna and Seven?

I have to be honest I hadn't really thought about them too much until I saw some B7 posts. They interact so rarely :(

But the more I thought about them, and the more posts I read - I'm sorry I know I should link them but I'm not sure I reblogged them (I know, I'm mad at myself too) so they are long lost and tumblr search is garbage. Anyway, it just seemed to make sense.

They are outsiders - half Klingon, half Borg. Both struggle with that dual nature and that they don't fit. For B'elanna she's too human to be Klingon, but too Klingon to be human. I wonder sometimes how much of her famous "klingon temper" is performative, and more out of frustration than anything. One of the amazing metas I read talked about klingon courting, and how B'elanna was a poet (which is the role males take in klingon society).

As someone who has internalised a lot of societal bullshit, I feel like B'elanna doesn't accept herself. It's hard to say given when Voyager aired whether it was so heteronormative due to the time period, or if those attitudes do still have hold of parts of the Federation. Given how different B'elanna feels because of her heritage, I wonder if she didn't do any sort of self-analysis, and pushed away anything that didn't fit the very traditional mould, as she wants to be 'normal' (in her eyes) in one area. Hence clinging to her relationship with Tom even though it doesn't seem to make her happy. Like she doesn't think relationships should be happy.

Contrast this with Seven who as Borg I'd argue had no real concept of gender or sexuality - they were Borg and that's all that mattered. But her guide to all things 'human' was the Doctor who was very cis hetero in what he pushed on her. I'd say she tried to adapt, thinking what the Doctor said was the way, only to learn later she had some stuff to unlearn. That the world wasn't that rigid and she could make her own choices. That they weren't wrong - that there is no wrong, only preference.

I would love to explore a concept of how B'elanna and Seven could have worked while still on Voyager. They definitely had their moments. I love how B'elanna respected Seven enough to be honest. There was that exchange where B'elanna told Seven she was rude but it was without judgement. Or when they talked about going back to Earth and B'elanna pointed out as a Marquis she wouldn't be welcome either, aligning herself with Seven.

However, I feel that anything more than friendship with them is most likely to evolve post-return. We don't know I think for sure (possibly novels covered it, but I don't know how 'canon' they are?) what happened to B'elanna. I personally headcanon that she didn't rejoin StarFleet but that Tom did. Instead B'elanna moved into some kind of R&D engineering because she is brilliant. At the same time we know that Seven started drifting and ended up with the Fenris Rangers. I feel like B'elanna and Tom's marriage wouldn't survive the long-distance, the pressure from Tom's family, their different career goals etc. I think it's possible they had a second "let's stay together" child, and then realised they worked better as co-parents/friends.

Also I feel like B'elanna, away from Voyager, and faced with bringing up another part-klingon (or two), and as all good parents do wanting better for her kids, finally had the space and the inclination to do a little soul-searching. I think the Voyager crew maintained some sporadic contact. We know Harry gave Seven a model of Voyager. So B'elanna hearing Seven is in the sector and going "hey want to get drinks" is perfectly plausible. Not as a date, just as friends catching up, but then they talk (and drink) and they do have a lot in common. Going back to what I said at the start about not fitting in this world, not being any one thing, and so a foot in both camps and at home in none.

I can't see them as a "happy ever after" type romance. I feel it would be more like "sometimes girlfriends" as everytime they are on the same ship/planet they'd hook up. Not serious, and not exclusive, but over time it becomes perhaps one of the more stable and long-term relationships that either of them ever have. They don't live together, but if anything happens they know they can call, and the other will be there no questions asked.

So yeah I ship them.

Send me a ship

[papatundespainknife]

was reminded again about how much i HATE the shows names for the mikaelsons bc they DON’T MAKE FUCKING SENSE FOR 10TH CENTURY NORSEMEN. So i’m gonna throw out here the names i used for them on my very short lived klaus and elijah blogs (burn out is real lol). the idea here was that these were their names they were given/born with which they later change around to the ones we know them by to you know, keep up with the times a lil better.

first off the last names are now MíMISSON and MÍMISDÓTTIR because tHaT’s HoW nOrSe LaSt NaMeS wOrK.

Mímir = Mikael Mímir is a famous character in Scandinavian myth. He was a wise man and advisor to Odin who was decapitated in the Æsir–Vanir War. Odin did some witchcraft to preserve his head and now keeps it in the well at the bottom of Yggdrasil and asks him shit. It just feels like the kinda thing parents would name their kid with optimism he’d grow up Wise and favored by Odin but then he turns out Like That. Picks Mikael later on because he would be the time to associate himself with a divine messenger warrior angel who 1v1′d Satan. The prick.

Eistla = Esther Frankly the one I’m least likely to actually USE the canon name for outside of meta and general fandom talking and only for clarity reasons. Since she died in the 10th century and isn’t around again until the 21st century for a hot minute there’s really no need to figure out a new name for her. Derived from “Eist/Oast” which means like “Pyre/Embers/Fire/Etc” also the name of Jotunn.

Freya = Freya No notes for obvious reasons. Fun fact tho, Freya is just the feminine form of Freyr which means “Lord/Master” or “Fertile” which tracks with how both Freya and Freyr are associated with fertility. Freya is the Vanir goddess oflove, beauty, fertility, sex, war, gold, and seiðr (magic for seeing and influencing the future) so I mean, she’s very accurately named lol.

Finnbjǫrn = Finn Honestly again another dude who didn’t really change his name because he was in a box for 900 years but also lucked out that Finn’s both a nickname for his own name and like, A Normal Ass Name to this day. Finn usually refers to Finland/Lapland and björn/bjǫrn means “bear/warrior”. Which like honestly, yes so real, such vibes for my specialest boy.

Eylaugr = Elijah Eylaugr is the male form of Eylaug and is built from “Ey” which means “island” or “floodplain” and Laug which in old germanic means “to celebrate marriage/to swear a holy oath/to be dedicated” and is likely related to the old Norse “Laug/Log” which means “bath (in connection with religious worship)”. Likely picked Elijah due to the auditory similarity to help with like, fucking remembering it and responding to it (honestly a major factor for all of them lbr) but also keeps the holy vibes aesthetic since Elijah is a prophet and miracle worker and I think he’d appreciate that through line of like, aesthetic continuity.

Næskunungr = Nikalus Combination of “Nes” (ness/spit of land) and “Konung” (king). Old Norse neskonungr = 'ness-king', 'small-king'; one who has no more than a ness over which to rule. Which like, god SUCH A BURN EVEN FROM YOUTH. I’d just been looking for something that sounded reasonably close to “Niklaus” on an auditory level but then I saw the breakdown of the parts and was like “oh yeah, that’s Klaus”. Like you could see it as parents being like “aw little king baby :)” or “look at this napeleon complex motherfucker even before napeleon complexes are a THING” and I think that’s beautiful. Goes with Niklaus later because again, reasonably close to Næskunungr in sound and also means “Victor of the people” and I mean...... Yeah.... He’d do that.....

Ragrifridr/Ragnfríðr = Rebekah Built from “regin” (advise/decision/might/power (of the gods) ) and “fríðr” (beautiful/beloved/good/alive/peaceful/safe). She absolutely picked it for the sound and vibes and nothing else but it does mean “Moderator, To Tie, Noose, To Bind, Captivating, Strong Combatant, Hearty”. Which does feel very good for her so like, 10/10 on that front

Kolr = Kol Again another one who gets no notes. Stunning, perfect, flawless. Kol/Kolr in old Norse just means “coal” so like, lol okay I see we gave up around here I guess.

Heðinn = Henrik Heðinn means “jacket of fur or skin” in Old Norse. I’ve already given some leeway in places like Finn’s name which is more finnish than it is norwegian but I gotta draw the line somewhere and I’m doing it at Henrik’s german ass name. Again another one who would’ve never used their canon name because he’s Fuckin’ Dead. Tried to pick something was from the right rough area and sounded similar enough and then I saw the meaning of this name and was like “oh that’s some nice foreshadowing if I’ve ever seen it”.

BONUS ROUND--

Since I’m the boss now and say that Sage is from the same time period here’s a more timeline appropriate name for her too

Sannhild = Sage Built of the Old Norse: sannr (true/truthful) and “hildr” (battle/fight). Mainly picked for the auditory closeness to Sage and vibes.

[stancyler]

thanks to some twt jancies i've recently discovered something else in favour for stancy.

so they brag about jonathan and nancy having similar/matching career goals and use it as endgame proof for their ship.

truth is, we've already seen them work together as journalists/photo journalist in season three. and that didn't end really well for them. let's dig this subject. nancy and jonathan both start working for the post office, one of the first things we see is how nancy's the lunch lady for the bosses (she prepares coffee, gives them food, etc.) and jonathan works his photography in a dark room. from the beginning it's shown to the audience nancy isn't happy working for those people, this doesn't have to do with jonathan yet except he could've said something against the sexist comments. she felt like not being good enough to be a reporter until she found out a new case (the old lady one with the rats).

nancy wants to investigate the case to demonstrate she's worthy of working there as a journalist, not to be preparing sandwiches or coffee for those men. jonathan's on board at first - that's until the men make fun of nancy for trying to investigate the story and tell her to drop it because they didn't believe her - and guess who else didn't really believe in nancy's story? correct! jonathan. he also told her to drop the story, to just do what the misogynistic men told her to do. what the hell? shouldn't you support your partner? being afraid of getting fired is not a good excuse. it was only a summer job, there were more future opportunities. he decided to go with her because he felt pressured to do so. he never believed in her story.

then (if i remember correctly) the police finds them at discroll's house and they separate paths. nancy goes to the hospital to visit the lady while jonathan goes home. he doesn't care. not until nancy calls him and asks to talk with his brother, will. his interest suddenly grows when will's name is mentioned. then they reunite with will, mike, etc., and will asks jonathan "you weren't there?" to which he responds with "well i'm here now, aren't i?" and nancy adds: hallelujah.

notice how this implies jonathan wasn't really there until will was involved in the story. we know jonathan is a family guy who cares about joyce and will the most. the writers spell it out for us in every season. nancy didn't feel the support she needed from his boyfriend.

they both get fired. jonathan blames nancy for getting him involved in the story. they fight and nancy says the famous line "we just don't understand each other anymore". that's how their working as journalists together ends.

does this sound like a perfect future for either of them? would nancy want a partner in the future who doesn't support the stories she believes in and investigates? nancy deserves a partner who trusts her, one who believes in the stories she investigates and doesn't hesitate to defend her if she's getting sexist comments or any other kind of bad comments.

jonathan can't do that. we've seen it on screen. them working together don't function correctly. jonathan didn't care about the misogynistic comments, nor nancy's story. never. he even told her to deal with it. he didn't help her until he discovered will could be in danger.

THEN, in season four we see jonathan acknowledging his future with nancy would be full of resentment and they would end up in a loveless marriage, their kids would even hate him.

what else do you need to understand jonathan is not endgame material for nancy. she doesn't need to go through all of that again.

[all-at-once-you-are-the-one]

Idk if this is a hot take or not, but IMO loml is one of the most straightforward songs on the album and it actually tells a story in chronological order. Let’s examine:

Who's gonna stop us from waltzing

Back into rekindled flames?

If we know the steps anyway

We embroidered the memories

Of the time I was away

Stitching, "We were just kids, babe"

Yes, I know this very much sounds like it’s about a certain someone but I actually think here she is referring to the breaks between her and Joe that she’s previously alluded to in Hits Different & That’s When TV. She also often describes this relationship as making her feel like a kid in other songs like CIWYW, INTHAF etc.

I said, "I don't mind, it takes time"

I thought I was better safe than starry-eyed

This was the line that really sparked my curiosity. What does she not mind? It seems like she’s changing her mind on something and resigning herself to being stable and settled rather than leaving to find something better. This is the period when we got songs like Lavender Haze. He said he needed more time before marriage and she was like you know what yeah, why do women have to get married anyway?? Can’t we just be together?? Both of them were denying that it was what she truly wanted and he just didn’t.

You and I go from one kiss to gettin married

Still alive, killing time at the cemetery

Never quite buried

In your suit and tie, in the nick of time

You lowdown boy, you stand up guy

Holy Ghost, you told me I'm

The love of your life

You said I'm the love of your life

About a million times

She’s waiting and waiting and waiting for the marriage thing to happen and he just keeps placating her by saying she’s the love of his life. (I can totally just picture him saying “but you’re the love of my life and we’re happy, isn’t that enough?”). She has faith in him because he’s such a good guy with integrity, surely he wouldn’t just lie to her and lead her on. Surely he’ll show up in the nick of time to marry her like he said he would.

Who's gonna tell me the truth

When you blew in with the winds of fate

And told me I reformed you

Here’s what’s his name making his grand entrance!

And all at once, the ink bleeds

He promised her all the same things and then took it away so quickly which released the stopper on all her pent up feelings about being let down in this way. The rest of this verse is pretty clear cut

You talked me under the table

Talking rings and talking cradles

I wish I could un-recall

How we almost had it all

Now it’s about them both! She’s going into detail about the way in which they let her down

Dancing phantoms on the terrace

Are they second-hand embarrassed

That I can't get out of bed?

Cause something counterfeit's dead

It was legendary

It was momentary

It was unnecessary

Should've let it stay buried

This is the saddest part!!! This is also about both of them! What’s his name is obvious, but it’s also about her and Joe. She knew they had issues! She knew he didn’t want what she wanted! That’s why they had their break! Now she feels that when they resumed their relationship it wasn’t real, he just started lying to her and she was also lying to herself, and they should have just broken up for good the first time.

Oh, what a valiant roar

What a bland goodbye

The coward claimed he was a lion

I'm combing through the braids of lies

Again, what’s his name is very obvious here. She’s also upset about her breakup with Joe: she broke up with him remotely! And maybe he just let her! She thought he was brave, that he had integrity, but he lied to her over and over and over again, every time he promised they would have the things she wanted for her future. He was just delaying the inevitable and wasting her time.

If you can get past the Matty of it all and accept the story she’s telling here at face value there is SO MUCH she’s sharing with us here.