#and I know there's trauma and ignoring that he can literally resurrect he still goes ahead and confronts an abuser

[catflowerqueen]

I think today’s LAES episode really highlights how little Earth—and, to a lesser extent, New Moon—actually do know about Old Moon. Which makes sense, but is also really, really sad.

(possibly controversial rant/analysis below)

I don’t agree with Earth’s assertion that Sun should talk with Old Moon, especially after hearing what New Moon said about what Old Moon might face as a consequence of that conversation… but a lot of that comes down to the fact that we, as the audience, know exactly how much trauma and outright mental torture Old Moon would be facing if he were more consciously aware day to day what was going on. Being bodiless again, with no autonomy? That was at least half, if not more, of why the first October takeover was so terrifying. That entire experience before he and Sun separated goes a long way to explaining why he acted the way he did, in addition to the fact that he had a killcode impairing his rationality.

It doesn’t excuse the trauma he caused Sun, no, nor does it excuse a lot of his more questionable actions after separating… but I don’t think it is right to force whatever still exists of Old Moon into a situation that has a high possibility of lighting that trauma right back up again—both for his own sake, and because of the consequences it might have on New Moon. Like, possibly, reigniting some remnant of a killcode and making him go insane. The same way Old Moon was starting to before KC asserted himself as his own individual AI.

And on the note of KC… That entire bit of the discussion was just piling more undeserved blame for the current situation on Old Moon’s shoulders. Old Moon was not in any way responsible for the creation of Bloodmoon or KC. Eclipse made Bloodmoon—and Lunar!—and KC just evolved from bits of coding the same way Eclipse did by combing the killcode left in Sun with Sun’s own code. If anything, Lunar is more to blame for the Bloodmoon situation since they are the ones who convinced Monty to build them that first body to replace the much weaker one, and then did nothing to curb or help their antics in the lead up to that first Eclipse confrontation. And KC having Moon and his own changing morality as an example is likely a big part of why KC was able to reform.

Not to mention the fact that at one time Golden Freddy was considering asking Moon to take over more of a protective role for their universe akin to what he does when Regular Freddy admitted to not wanting to take over for his dad.

As to the current situation… so many things about it are due to extra-dimensional people and occurrences that have nothing to do with our dimension’s interference beyond the fact that they rebuilt the portal after it exploded the first time and happen to live in a world in which a Creator also exists. It seemed to me, after all, that Ruin basically just picked their world at random to make his headquarters, since I’m pretty sure that neither New nor Old Moon had his dimension on their radars until he literally showed up one day and punched New Moon in the face before fleeing. And they all admitted that Stitchwraith’s entire existence had nothing to do with the Daycare group as a whole—Old Moon included—aside from the fact that most of them happened to be made by the same Creator.

There is also the fact that they are basically ignoring the villains’ own autonomy and ability to make decisions and bad choices. Like. Solar is proof that Eclipses are actually perfectly capable of being rational and even kind. Sure, it might come down a bit to exact ratios and timing as far as killcode involvement goes… but even in our own universe, Moon immediately offered to help Eclipse once he was aware of his existence, and Eclipse turned him down. And then kept turning down subsequent offers. And then kept choosing revenge when he managed to resurrect himself. (Beyond what is happening with the current Eclipse’s situation, since that is a whole different can of worms and involves a lot of outside influence and machinations)

And, like… I get why New Moon pushes off blame like this, since he definitely inherited Old Moon’s self-loathing tendencies, and I get why Earth is saying the things she is because, again, she admits to not having known Old Moon personally and only has stories to go off of… but those stories don’t really have the chance for her to view them objectively given that all the storytellers involved all have trauma relating to the subject at hand—namely, Old Moon himself.

…On the note of New Moon thinking it is strange Old Moon knew about Earth’s existence, part of might just be, as he said, that Old Moon has access to current events via New Moon’s mind while they are more connected and talking, but I think New Moon might also forget/simply not be aware of the fact that the Creator actually did inform Sun—who immediately told Old Moon—about her existence and then she basically just got lost in a flower field and didn’t actually show up until the whole KC and Old Moon getting trapped in his mind and having to choose to sacrifice himself thing was in the middle of going down.

It just… makes me sad. I get it, but… I just wish they would take more nuance into account. That they wouldn’t just reject all the good things Old Moon did in favor of the bad. That they don’t have other morally questionable characters—namely Monty and Lunar—give him more of a defense.

Lunar literally lived in his head and admitted he wasn’t as bad as he’d originally thought and, at one point, offered to stay with him and be his “happy” to help him… and yet never brings that up. Never admits that Moon was the first of their siblings to really accept them and genuinely call them “brother” and give them a home. And maybe that’s just out of their own grief—their guilt at running away and never getting to say goodbye, their possible anger at being “left behind,” their own trauma from dying at pretty much the same time—but it still… it still hurts.

…And its still extremely unclear to me if anyone outside the Daycare has even noticed Old Moon is gone. (Beyond whatever situation Roxanne had/has going on where her memory got messed with and at least partially reset, that is. That at least would make sense if she didn’t know or had otherwise forgotten the particulars of Moon’s situation).

Anyways. On a happier note, Jack’s shenanigans today were fun. It was nice to see him mess around and get to just play happily and enjoy himself the way he was.

[cyberspacechris]

So since my last post about master chiefs characterization did pretty well I felt it wouldn’t hurt to make a follow up just to further emphasize and appreciate the character. The point that maybe I didn’t express well enough last time is that chief is definitely a character where “less is more” with all of his backstory being established, it makes too much for sense for his character to be quiet and emotionally stunted, he was raised in an environment where he wasn’t given much freedom to speak and where any emotional turmoil he was experiencing would not be catered or supported(at least not substantially) Also despite being heavily sheltered and only being told what the UNSC wants him to know, he is by no means ignorant, he still knows about life outside of being a soldier, and he’s aware of himself well enough to know just how much being a soldier has dominated his life, enough to joke about it and acknowledge it. “thought I’d try shooting my way out, mix it up a little”, “asking is not my strong suit” When the pilot asks him why he continues to do what he does despite not having much to care about, he replies “it’s all I know” the man is aware of how limited his skillset is, but also how gifted it is too. When Cortana or the weapon tells him the deathly odds of facing whatever baddie he’s going up against he always shows unshakable conviction that he’s going to come out on top, in a completely unbragging way like it’s just a matter of fact, another symptom of his carefully constructed upbringing. Things like pessimism and doubt would be hinderances to his battlefield performance so he was trained to not give into those concepts, also his confidence is undoubtedly a side affect of his incredible history, defying odds and succeeding in places where no other soldier could (also being told by the librarian that he was basically engineered over the course of thousands of years to be perfect probably helped too lol) so the man really believes in himself, not to mention, his allies. He believes in himself just as much as the people around him, he believes in Cortana undoubtedly, half of the things he’s lived through would’ve ended differently if not for her, and also by the end of halo 3, he trusts arbiter to the point that they’re in sync with each other as they’re escaping the ark. Also I know I briefly touched on this already but he has a good sense of humor, and one that seems to be most present whenever he’s around Cortana which I love. literally the first thing he ever says to her in halo ce is a joke at her expense, and so many of their interactions are brimming with friendly banter (which again I think 343 did well with in halo 4) which just goes to highlight that chief clearly trusted Cortana the most and felt the most comfortable around her. And that gets us to his grief, something that’s present throughout all the halo games is chief’s deeps sense of regret and loss, even towards marines and Spartans he probably hardly knew, in his body language he is so visibly distraught, you can see this when he inspects private Jenkins helmet in halo ce, to when he sees dead Spartans in halo infinite. Also the fact that when sgt johnson died Cortana felt the need to console him because she knew him well enough to know that Johnson meant a lot to him :’) Every life that chief loses weighs on him so heavily, and what hurts him most is that he feels he could’ve easily saved everyone he lost if he had just done something different, it’s clearly how he felt about Cortana’s death (and subsequent resurrection and all that shit lol don’t get me started) Taking that all into account it’s again so easy to see why this guy is the way he is, you have what was intended to be just your run of the mill video game protagonist become this haunting tale of man with decades of trauma behind him, whose few sources of solace and comfort were taken away from him, yet in spite of all his suffering has the most truly indomitable and unyielding spirit of anyone, because to keep going is not just the best, but the ONLY thing he knows how to do.

the man I just described is not present in halo the series, he’s simply been replaced with someone who was deemed more fit for television audiences, and if you like his character and the show in general, absolutely no hate here, power to you, but its one of the reasons why most halo fans just don’t connect with this show.

also again he fucking had sex like what

[worstloki]

infinity war and endgame: *presents near 6 hours of superhero content filled with various characters and storylines and a timeskip*

loki fans, as they should: *focus on the collective less-than-5-minutes of time Loki was on-screen or mentioned*

[algumaideia]

SJM treatment of Tamlin and why it is wrong

You know, she treated Tamlin so bad that only because of that I became his stan. That is literally the only reason why I am pro Tamlin. Just that. 

First, Tamlin did abused Feyre and Lucien in the second book. This is a fact. So don’t say that I’m here trying to appologize an abuser because I’m not. Actually the story that I wanted for Tamlin is that Feyre kicks him and go do whatever because I don’t care about her, Tamlin feels sad then goes after her, she says how bad he was and etc, Tamlin feels depressed because he realizes she is right, Lucien brings the Tamlin out of his depressive state through the power of friendship, Tamlin tries to be a better person, Tamlin becomes Tarquin’s friend, they both rebuild their court together. You see, my character arc for him has a part where he acknowledge he was being abusive(something that Rhys never did cof cof).

Anyway let’s start with why SJM treatment of Tamlin was wrong. 

I don’t know if my post needs it, but just in case. TW: abuse, ptsd, trauma, depression, sjm bad writing.

Ptsd, trauma and abuse

You know, at the same time that I know Tamlin’s abuse was wrong and horrible I also want to ignore it because, besides the negligence, it was just bad writing. What do you mean by bad writing? Well, let’s compare Tamlin’s ptsd with Kaz and one of my main characters. Why am I going to compare ptsd when I am talking about abuse? I am going to do so because Tamlin’s abuse is caused by his ptsd. Other point, I know it is imature, but I’m very insecure about my writing and compare SJM writing with mine makes me feel better. I’m sorry about that.

Kaz passed through a horrible experience and because of that he has extreme touch aversion. But the trauma and ptsd didn’t change his personality, they weren’t responsables to make a good kid become a rough boy that is the leader of a gang. The circunstances did it (I haven’t read the second book yet, no spoleirs). Of course that the trauma changed the way he interacted with people but what made him change was the fact that he was a lonely child with a heart full of hatred and desire for vengence living in a place full of thieves and gangs. Now Jafari, my main character, also lived a traumatic experience. He has nightmares, triggers and intrusive thoughts. However, the “basis” of his ptsd is that he ignores and avoids his emotions, his grief and his trauma. He doesn’t like conflicts, he is passive, he doesn’t deal with things, he just let things solve themselves. And that’s why his ptsd is based on him avoiding dealing with what happened and trying to process what happened. 

Tamlin’s abuse and ptsd is based on three things: anger, neglect and being controlling. To be fair the neglect and controlling part makes sense, but I still have problems with them. Now the anger is so weird. I don’t remember Acotar pretty well but during all the time Tamlin was UTM he had control over his actions and feelings. Amarantha wanted to hurt him by hurting his love and his friends, she was also problaby sexually assalting him. Tamlin saw Feyre being tortured, suffering and being sexually abused and he never showed any reaction because he knew if he did that Amarantha would make everything worse for her. Considering that how his ptsd and abuse is he having no control towards his anger? It makes no sense. 

In the first book Lucien insults and makes fun of  Tamlin all the time and Tamlin has no problem with it. Not only that but his court has no ranks, not like Rhys’ court cof cof. But now Lucien can’t give him even a suggestion that he is almost killing his only friend who survived during Aramanthas reign? Sigh That’s my problem with Tamlln being a control freak. And I aslo have the feeling that SJM only put it so then Rhys could say it is your choice all the time. 

About the neglect, Tamlin was trying to rebuilt his court, was dealing with his trauma and there was also the fact that Feyre wasn’t safe since other High Lords would be mad with her for having their powers. Tamlin neglecting Feyre is logical. But people forget that Feyre was also neglecting Tamlin. As I said I don’t remember Acotar pretty well but I think that Tamlin asked how Feyre was at some point, but Feyre never did that. She was all: ohhh Tamlin knows that I am throwing up and having nightmares why he does nothing? Tamlin isn’t sleeping well too, but he never asks me how am I doing. You want to blame Tamlin for his negligence towards Feyre? Good, do it, you are right. But Feyre did the same thing. She NEVER EVER even thought to ask if Tamlin was okay, or acknowlegded that he was also suffering. 

At least Tamlin tried to communicate with her, Feyre never did that. For example he gave her paints so then she could start painting again. And this was good, Feyre was depressed and that is why she didn’t painted. One thing that depressed people do sometimes is to avoid doing things they know will make them happy. Feyre was doing that. And this was also Tamlin trying to communicate with Feyre and she just ignored it and then was angry because he didn’t know that she couldn’t stand the color red, but Rhys knew. This is so wrong.

1. Rhys only knew that because he invaded her mind and discovered something she wasn’t confortable talking with anyone.

2. She never told about her problem with the color red with Tamlin. She never talked with him. How was he supposed to know?

3. This was the perfect opportunity to talk about that with him, but she didn’t.

Tamlin's ptsd was ignored through the whole series, he was treated as the worst person ever when Rhys who did the same things was treated as the best person in Earth and his logical actions were treated as stupid.

Tamlin’s “illogical” actions

You know, there is a lot of memes that say how Tamlin was stupid to think that Feyre would like to come back to him after spending sometime with Rhys. Yeah, how dumb! Why he would think that he love of his life would like to come back to him after being kidnapped by the guy who sexually abused her for months, the guy who joined Amarantha for no reason, the guy who has been known for torturing people and having a court full of miserable fae. Hahaha so dumb!! She even sent him a letter saying she didn’t want anything with him, and he was stupid to go after her anyway. I mean, the guy known for being a psycho that kidnapped her was also able to control minds so why wouldn’t he believe in the letter? Hahahaha. *Sigh*

A lot of people criticize Tamlin for colecting taxes in Acomaf, like how could he? People first, where do you think all Rhys money came from? His work? Second, it was the first time he did it in 50 years and he postponed it a month. He was trying to get everything back to normal. Besides taxes are an important part of a governament, it is from them that the governament can make things, like hospitals, better streets(at least they were supposed to do so). SJM didn’t make it clear what a HIgh Lord job is. She said that Tamlin job is to protect the Spring Court, but in every other moment it is implied that High Lord are likes kings so I don’t know. Anyway this makes perfect sense, congratulations to Tamln.

Then he allies with Hybern and people act like he did that to take Feyre back form Rhysand. How dumb! Hahaha. He did that to save his people. The Spring Court was in a delicated position, he lost a lot of his friends during Amarantha reign and they were problaby responsable to protect the Spring Court. The agreement would protect this people, got Feyre back and made him able to spy Hybern. And this is more than Rhys did. He only tortured people to protect a hidden city, nothing more. 

In the war meeting he had the all the right to be angry, but it wasn’t nice to say that about Feyre. I won’t say anything more because I could write a whole post about how wrong this meeting was. 

And finally he helped to resurrected Rhysand and it was put as an amazing thing. But it was nonsense. Why he helped the guy who kidnapped his love and manipulated her? Why he helped the guy who sent his love to destroy his court? Why he helped the guy who allied with Amarantha for no reason? Why he helped the guy who is known for being a monster for years? Specialy condering that this guy could get his powers. And after that Rhys decieded to visit Tamlin and make him more miserable than he already us. But that’s ok because Rhys is the best male. Not only that but Rhys now is visiting Tamlin oftenly in Acofs apparently. This makes me so ANGRY. 

This was my messy post.

Best regards, 

Me.

Ps. Sorry for writing makes sense and its variations too much, but that is because I don’t know English that well so my knowledge is very limited.

[lloydskywalkers]

let me just start out by saying i love ever single one of your stories!!! i’m pretty new to the show and your works just add so much more feeling to everything and it’s sooo good!!! i don’t know if you ever do requests or not, so don’t bother with this if you’re busy!! but if you ever get a chance could you write smthg abt Jay and Kai? their friendship is so underrated but so good and i live for the moments in the show when Kai’s big brother instinct(tm) kicks in for him as well as Nya and Lloyd

aH thank you so much!! i’m so glad to hear that :D and this isn’t...exactly what you asked for, but Kai and Jay have this fun of dynamic that reminds me a lot of me and my brother, and i’ve been tossing around little bits of interaction between them for a while now, so i tried to make something coherent out of those :’D

Jay likes to think he’s pretty good at the whole compartmentalizing thing, for the most part. Mainly because he actually knows what it means, and it is not, for instance, locking your team up in a literal compartment while rushing off to fight the other compartment that is your resurrected homicidal father into submission.

“That was one time,” Lloyd will grumble, as if he’s only almost-died once. And then Jay will flinch, because that’s where his compartments come into play.

(Nadakhan gets one, Unagami gets another, the whole fun-times adoption reveal another, and everything else can get stuffed into the metaphorical attic since they won’t pay rent.)

Unfortunately, the attic is where the bad stuff lives.

Metaphorically.

If Jay had a nickel for every time he almost lost all of his friends, he’d have two nickels, plus another nickel for Cole falling into the fog, and another for Lloyd getting crushed by a roof, and another for Zane blowing up, and another for Nya in that awful dress with paling skin as her breathing stutters and the light in her eyes draining and —

And Jay is way, way too familiar with how it looks when his family dies, and all the nickels in the world won’t help that.

So while Jay likes to think he’s pretty good at compartmentalizing, he also thinks he’s got a valid excuse for the way he reacts when Lloyd goes down in the fight that afternoon. Sure, some vague part of his mind remembers that they’ve got a plan they’re running, and Lloyd should easily be able to handle a tiny little stumble — but Jay’s mind is stuck in glaring oranges and health bars, the unsteady gasping noise Lloyd had made before he went down, dissolving into digitized cubes just like everyone else, and Jay—

Jay can’t handle that, compartments or not, so he clears the space between them in a heartbeat just in time to take the bullet that comes hurtling Lloyd’s way.

It’d probably be a very noble and touching scene, if one) Jay didn’t make a hideous squeaking noise when it hit because bullets hurt, and two) the bullet would have missed Lloyd by a good two feet anyways.

Ah well, he thinks, as everything devolves into panicked yelling. It’s the thought that counts.

Except thoughts do not count when Kai is involved, apparently. Or any of the rest of the team, for that matter.

“What is wrong with you?” Kai hisses right in his face, eyes wild and sparking. “I was covering Lloyd, what were you doing?”

“Filling in for you, obviously,” Jay retorts. He has an excellent followup to that, real snappy and all, except that’s the moment Kai’s hand clamps down on the bullet wound in his arm to stop the bleeding, and Jay ends up stifling a shriek instead.

Great, he thinks, fighting back stinging tears of pain as he tries not to take Kai’s apparent wrath too personally. At least Cole looks worried, along the the rest of the team, who are dutifully concerned for his wellbeing like proper teammates should be.

“He’s going to need the hospital,” Zane informs them, his voice a lot steadier and calmer than his words make Jay feel. Zane’s eyebrows furrow as he studies his arm. “Stitches, probably.”

Jay swallows, trying not to curse. There’s a sharp scream as Nya finishes taking out another attacker just beyond them, and Jay figures that’s good enough.

“Okay,” Lloyd says, squeezing Jay’s wrist briefly. Either in comfort about the stitches or thanks for trying to cover him, Jay’s not sure. It’s a nice gesture, nonetheless. “Kai, Cole, can you get him there while we finish up? Sooner the better.”

Cole gives a sharp nod, and offers to take Jay from where Kai’s got him in a death grip. Kai shakes his head, and Jay’s stomach sinks. Sure enough, as soon as they’re clear of the scene, Kai starts going off.

“What did you mean, ‘filling in for me’,” he grinds through his teeth, clearly not about to let this go.

Jay bristles in response at his tone. “I meant,” he bites out, through a hot flare of pain in his arm. Kai’s always merciless with the bandages, even when he’s not in a mood. “That you weren’t there. So I covered.”

He should leave it at that, but Jay’s in a foul enough mood to finish with a condescending, “You’re welcome.”

Kai’s expression grows thunderous. “You didn’t need to. I was right there, you shouldn’t have — you weren’t needed, you should’ve held back.”

Jay feels his chest go tight. His head is clouding with anger, and the pain in his arm isn’t helping, but — ‘you weren’t needed’? Kai really didn’t skimp on the jerk juice this morning, did he.

“Oh, like you could’ve done so much better,” Jay glares. “Lloyd would’ve been toast by the time you got to him.”

“I could’ve made it!”

“Yeah right—”

“I would have, and I wouldn’t have gotten hit!” Kai snarls back. Something in Jay snaps. Or maybe it’s just the steadily increasing blood loss, but of all the nerve—

“Well you didn’t, ‘cause you weren’t there!” he snaps back. “You were too slow, which is real funny since your brain is too!”

It’s not his best comeback, he’ll admit, but Kai looks as if he’s about to light him on fire, if he weren’t stuck carrying Jay like the cover of some awful romance novel, blood getting all over his uniform as they both scream at each other. Maybe Jay will get lucky, and Kai will combust, and they’ll both go up in flames before they can remember that Cole is right there watching them.

“Cut it out, now!”

Oops, too late. For all the incensed authority in Cole’s voice, there’s still a traitorous falter that lets them both know they’ve screwed up. They fall silent, the atmosphere heavy with the lingering tension and new sense of guilt.

And the disgusting sound of Jay’s blood leaking through the makeshift bandage and hitting the ground, truly revolting, he hates blood.

“Just…no more. Please, shut up until we’re at the hospital.” Cole marches forward, snatches Jay from Kai’s arms, and proceeds to beat the fastest route to the hospital at a militant pace.

Jay still looks like some helpless romance cover heroine, dangling from Cole’s arms like he is. It occurs to him that he doesn’t even need to be carried — it’s his arm that’s hurt, he can still walk—

But any protests die rapidly at the look on Cole’s face. And at least this way, Jay thinks sullenly, he can fixedly ignore Kai.

Then again, Kai’s got a killer glare, and Jay’s always been garbage at ignoring people when his feelings are hurt.

* * * * * * * *

Despite the fuss everyone makes, Jay’s arm really isn’t that bad. They hook him up with some pretty sweet meds so he remembers zero of the actual arm-fixing, and he wakes up just in time to complain about being held in the hospital for ‘observation’ or whatever.

“It’s to make sure there’s no infection, or that you don’t rip your stitches out,” Nya tells him pointedly. Jay cringes under the look she gives him at that last part. Geez. You get kicked in the stitches one time after sneaking out early and suddenly no one’s got any faith in you. Typical.

“Why couldn’t we have just gone to medbay,” Jay grumbles. “Pixal gives way better stitches than this, anyways.”

“Gun wounds get hospitals,” Nya reminds him. “And it’s not fair to put that kind of pressure on Pix when we can avoid it.”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

Nya glares at him. “It most certainly was that bad.”

“Oh, so when you get your arm crushed by a car, it’s fine,” Jay glares back. “But when I get a tiny little bullet nick, it’s that bad.”

Nya rolls her eyes, ignoring him. “Just think of it this way,” she says. “Now you have a little more time before Lloyd starts weeping apologies all over you.”

“Aw, no,” Jay groans, leaning back in the hospital bed. “Tell me he’s not blaming himself, Nya.”

“I think we had a promise about not lying to each other, or something,” Nya says, sympathetically. She winces. “Pretty sure he made the connection, too.”

Jay frowns. “What connection?”

Nya shifts, her eyes darting from side to side. “The, uh, the whole…Prime Empire, thing.”

Jay stares at her for a beat, trying to reconcile his blatant shock with the roiling nausea at the mention in his stomach. Nya looking at him all kind and sympathetically isn’t helping, either, because she might have made it down to the final two, but she was never all alone, and the reminder that she’d have been fine if Jay hadn’t gotten her killed twice is—

Bad. Real bad, not good, zero out of ten stars. Maybe he can take a bullet for Nya, next, and that’ll — that’ll help things, maybe. Equivalent exchange? Restitution? Some kind of fancy word that means Jay swears he’s gonna make it up.

In the meantime, he smothers the rising sickness in his throat and sinks lower into the bed, sulking. “It’s too easy to recognize trauma in this team.”

“I hear you,” Nya sighs, wearily. She nudges his shoulder, rising from her seat near the bed. “Speaking of. Someone’s got something they want to say to you.”

It takes Jay a second, but his eyes widen as Nya heads for the door. “Wait, wait wait wait, don’t you dare—”

“Love you,” Nya says cheekily, before taking her merry leave of the room. There’s a brief scuffle from outside, and the sound of Kai yelping, before Nya shoves him through the door, slamming it shut behind him with a damning click.

For a second, Jay’s tempted to hit the ‘call nurse’ button as hard as he can, in some desperate attempt to escape. Then he gets a good look at Kai, who’s turned a pale, queasy color that frankly looks awful on him, which is saying a lot ‘cause there isn’t much that doesn’t look good on Kai, but the expression he has on now—

Aw, man, now Jay’s feeling guilty and it isn’t even his fault. Stupid moral conscience center, he curses himself.

“So, uh…” he begins, because far be it from him to let this kind of awkward silence stretch on any longer. “Nice, ah, weather we’re having?”

Kai doesn’t respond, staring fixedly at the floor, and Jay sizes up the ‘call nurse’ button again. Just for the both of their sakes, of course.

But then Kai takes a deep breath, blows it out, and rocks back on his heels, fiddling with his hands. “I, um. I’m sorry.”

Jay’s jaw drops open. Which is probably an overdramatic move, all things considered, but unless he’s suddenly lost the ability to understand words, Kai just apologized to him.

Kai apologized. To him.

It’s not that Kai apologizing is some great big deal — Kai might have his pride, but he’s also an intuitive and good-hearted person who knows when he’s messed up. But to him?

Jay knows how he and Kai work. Kai knows how he and Jay work, and he’s breaking the rules. Because Kai and Jay don’t apologize to each other. Unless it’s some awkward expression of sympathy, they’ve never needed to. They fight dirty, aim for each other’s kneecaps, swear eternal vengeance and hatred at each other before storming off, then an hour later Jay’s bounding into Kai’s room to show him dumb meme videos and neither of them even remember what they were fighting about.

Acknowledging said fight with something as gushy as apologizing is not only useless since they both forget what they’re apologizing for anyways, but also useless because it’ll take too much time, and counterproductive on top, because it’ll most likely end in another fight about who apologized better. So for Kai to walk in and say sorry—

“Oh no, who did you kill?” Jay says, paling.

Kai spears him with a look, but it’s so pathetically watered-down and miserable that Jay forgets to glare back.

“Sorry, sorry,” Jay mutters. “I just—”

“No, no, I’m the one who’s sorry,” Kai interrupts. He hesitates, then sighs. “But that’s fair. I — I was unfair. To you, back there. Like, really unfair, in a bad way, ‘cause you were shot and I know you meant well, but you—”

Kai gestures wildly with his hands, his stream of words cutting off. Jay is left to stare open-mouthed at him again. Babbling like this is Jay’s thing. Kai is breaking all the rules today, huh.

“I just…” Kai trails off, ducking his head. “I don’t like watching you guys get hurt. I don’t — I don’t like watching you get hurt. And I get scared, but it comes out angry, and then I make a mess of things so I’m — sorry. Really sorry, for biting your head off.”

He exhales, a little shaky, fingers balled up in tight fists as his head hangs low, refusing to meet Jay’s eyes. Something softens in Jay’s chest, like gooey melting butter or something else equally pathetic. But it’s rare that Kai vocalizes this stuff, despite the fact that Jay knows he cares, and it’s nice to hear it, so he figures he’s entitled to all the butter he wants.

Jay’s own gaze falters, and the something starts to twist. He bites his lip, tugging half-heartedly at the bandages around his arm.

“Well,” he pauses, thinking of the way his brain had shifted to autopilot when he’d watched Lloyd falter, the razor-sharp shard of terror that always splinters through him when any of their teammates come too close to the awful images of death left in his head. He swallows. “I guess I don’t really have any room to talk,” he murmurs. “Be pretty dumb if I blamed you for that.”

He’s preparing to sink back into his own well of self-pity and loathing, resigned to spending the next few hours until they check him out of the hospital replaying bad memories in his head, when Kai’s next to him all of the sudden, shoving him over on the hospital bed.

“Hey, hey, what’s the big idea—”

“Move, c’mon. You don’t need that much room, you’re a stick,” Kai grumbles, before grinning brightly in success as Jay makes him space. The contrast in expression is enough to startle Jay into silence, and Kai takes advantage. “I know that look. But you already got shot, so you gotta cheer up now.”

“So you’re forcing me into cheerfulness by stealing my hospital bed,” Jay scowls, but the sting is lost in the sudden surge of affection as Kai elbows his way on the bed with him, a steady warmth by his side.

“I’m gifting you my presence, you should be celebrating,” Kai huffs, as he pulls his phone out. “Now stop looking so sad and watch this video I got of a bunch’a geese chasing Zane at the park the other day.”

“You’re such a jerk,” Jay says, but he’s already snickering as he leans his head against Kai’s shoulder to get a better look.

He’s forgotten to tell Kai he forgives him, but like most things between them — Jay doesn’t really need to say it out loud.

[sapphicwhump]

Deception of Luna

Fandoms: Destiny, Destiny 2 Tropes: F/M, trauma recovery, heavy angst, light fluff, creepy whumper, cosmic horror elements, whumpee/caretaker intimacy TWs: flashback, explicit noncon, implied death of loved ones, implied misogyny

Read on AO3

        Lich-5 considers herself to be quite lucky. At least with her assignments on Luna; not so much with her loot. She speeds across the lunar surface on her Sparrow towards Archer’s Line, having just received a bounty to clear out the Fallen there. There are three of the usual crimson phantoms en route this time; each one cowers and screams in terror as her Sparrow plows by. To her, these nightmares are just nameless red silhouettes that occasionally make creepy noises; none of them are the slightest bit recognizable. The larger ones, the ones that appear as long-dead enemies rather than Guardians, have names she can recognize from her historical studies, but nothing more than that. Despite her own experience, Lich knows that most of her fellows don’t see them that way.

        The Pyramid of Luna is a nasty piece of work, to say the least. She would call it sadistic, but it would be improper of her to anthropomorphize such an alien being. The nightmares it spawns are drawn directly from the Guardians’ most painful losses; vanquished nemeses, outlived mentors, lost loves, and a myriad of others now walk again on Luna. In every case, their passing had left wounds on the people they left behind, and now the Pyramid has made those wounds fresh again.

        The worst part, Lich thinks, is that doing so offers it no tactical advantage. The Pyramid doesn’t need to crush Guardians’ morale; it could crush them all very literally if it so chose. This thing’s kind had caused the Great Collapse of humanity’s golden age; surely the Last City of today would be no trouble for it to exterminate. The only thing keeping them all alive is this Pyramid’s continued desire to bide its time. And in that time, it’s chosen to reopen their old wounds because it’s fun.

        The reason Lich-5 considers herself lucky is because she doesn’t have many wounds that can be reopened. She'd been resurrected just after the Red War, into a world struggling to recuperate, to make some amount of sense out of the tremendous loss. Her roommate Windy isn’t a particularly old Guardian by any means, only a few years her senior, but that still puts his resurrection date solidly before the War. She doesn’t pry him about it, but she’s aware that the majority of people he knew had been permanently Returned To Light by the forces of Dominus Ghaul. Windy avoids assignments on Luna like the plague, as do many of her elder acquaintances. She’s met Guardians who were resurrected in the Dark Age, now hundreds of years old, who have pushed on through every defeat humanity has ever faced since the Collapse. Lich herself recently turned three.

        Will she live to be hundreds of years old? If she does, how much will she lose in that time?

        She’s coming up on Archer’s Line now. There’s already some Guardian activity here; in the distance, she can pick out the dull gray bulk of a male Titan’s armor against the background of lunar dust. Ignoring his presence, she drives into the old K1 Logistics facility and gets to work.

        Clearing the facility takes under ten minutes. She emerges from the front entrance with her armored Warlock’s robe dotted with scuffs and splattered with Fallen Ether. Her bounty objectives aren’t quite complete yet; there are still a few Fallen skittering around the Lunar surface that’ll have to be dealt with. She’d think that life-or-death combat would be too stressful to become boring, but when that death isn’t much more than a temporary (if painful) setback, the repetitiveness of it can get a bit dull.

        Just gotta get it done, then I can relax. The rewards from these last few bounties should be just enough to afford that fancy new armor set she’s been working towards, and then she won’t have much to do until the next big crisis inevitably hits the Sol system. She’s already thinking of a few new science projects she could start work on during her extended down time; monotonous work like this does little to satiate her burning curiosity.

        The Titan she saw earlier seems to be approaching the K1 facility now. He’s welcome to loot the place if he wants; she only went in to get her bounties done. It’s nice to see another Guardian out here; the presence of an ally makes her feel slightly less alone in this gray hellscape, even if they don’t interact.

        The boxy silhouette of his armor strikes her as oddly familiar. It’s possible that she’s seen him somewhere else before; there aren’t an unlimited number of Guardians in Sol, and Lich has met quite a lot of them.

        Wait a minute—

        Recognition shoots through her neural network like arc lightning. Instantly, her every piston is tense, all sensors on high alert. It’s him. Why does he have to be here?

        She takes it back. Having another Guardian here isn’t nice at all, not when it’s him in particular . Lich quickly ducks back into the empty facility, taking cover from the imminent danger behind one of the large storage containers strewn about. She needs to be in a place where he isn’t in her line of sight.

        Maybe she isn’t so lucky. Of course the phantoms wouldn’t reopen old wounds, only for another Guardian to do it instead. Taking stock of her emotional state, she abruptly realizes how much she’s shaking. She forcibly steels herself, struggling to regain her composure while cursing her own weakness. Simply seeing a Titan, even if it’s him, should not frighten her to the point where she’s struggling to even function.

        Lich is ashamed to admit to herself how much sway he still holds over her mental state. His existence is a disgusting muck polluting the back of her mind; just being reminded of him feels like wading through a stagnant pit of human sewage, from which she can never truly escape because it’s in her head. Thinking about it more only makes it worse, causes her to sink deeper. She can forget him, at least temporarily, but then eventually something random always jogs her memory and she'll be back, trapped again in that pit of sewage.

        She considers abandoning her objectives and transmatting back to her jumpship, still safely parked at the landing zone. But it’s this part of Luna that needs to be cleared of Fallen, and that fancy new armor set won’t be on sale forever, and she really shouldn’t be so pathetically weak to let this get to her. No, she’ll stay, to earn her extended down time if nothing else. She just needs to calm down and wait here until he—

        “Oh hey, Lich. Long time no see.”

        If Lich had a heart, it would have stopped beating at that exact second. His voice, just his fucking voice, almost throws her back there all by itself. He’s so insufferably casual with his greeting, like she’s just any other acquaintance to him.

        “Hey. You mind leaving me alone?”

        “Woah, relax. I’m just finishing up these bounties.” Condescension drips off of his words like spoiled milk.

        “Yeah, well, please stay away from me while you do that.”

        His tone sours, sounding almost disappointed. “Well you’re being awfully frigid.”

        “Of course I fucking am!” Lich fumes, rage momentarily cutting through her fear. “What did you expect, that I’d be nice to you!?”

        The Titan pauses. “Well… yeah, kinda. I at least didn’t expect to be jilted like this.”

        For a brief moment, Lich sees red. Her trembling has elevated to a truly intolerable level, and she’s currently about five seconds away from drawing her Dawnblade on this man. She knows that getting violent with him would almost certainly end poorly for her, though. With great effort, she puts together a facade of something resembling calmness.

        “Look… I think I’ve got a pretty good reason for not wanting to see you. Please leave, and never try to interact with me again. I know I’m never gonna get justice, so I just want to move past this and get back as close to normal as possible. You’re making it rather difficult to do that right now.”

        “Justice?"  He cocks his helmet to the side in what looks like disbelief. As if he has any right to act surprised by any of this. She can practically feel him rolling his eyes at her underneath his blank faceplate, and it makes her synthetic stomach turn. “Fine, fine. If you wanna be like that, it’s not my problem.”

        He proceeds deeper into the K1 halls, finally giving Lich a reprieve from his vile presence. She turns to leave in the opposite direction, but stops short when she catches the Titan muttering a final insult under his breath.

        “Fuckin’ melodramatic bitch.”

        She whirls on him. “Fuck you, asshole!” she spits over her shoulder, still heading for the facility’s exit. “If I ever see you again, it’ll be too soon!”

        The Titan is mercifully quiet. Lich is almost at the door; just a few more Fallen slain, and she’ll be able to go home and do her best to forget that she ever saw him again.

        “No, fuck you.”

        Lich barely registers the Titan’s words in her audio receptors, and she doesn’t notice the suppressor grenade roll between her legs until it’s too late.

————————————

        Windy’s day has been restful, to say the least. He lays sprawled out on the couch of his and Lich’s shared apartment, his usual combat armor doffed in favor of boxers and a tank top, lackadaisically swiping through the datapad in his hand. On one tab is the sidearm section of Omolon’s digital storefront; on another is a gallery of images displaying a nude Awoken. He lifts his can of alcoholic liquid from the coffee table and pours the last of it down his throat, sighing in satisfaction. It’s kinda nice to stay home for once while Lich goes out to grind away at bounties.

        Fuck, he needed a day like this. He’s been seeing less than his fair share of action recently, but continuously dodging Vanguard assignments on Luna has been anxiety-inducing enough on its own. After his first visit, he vowed to make every effort he possibly could to never return. The Vanguard had assigned him a strike against the Hive on Luna today, and so he had to call in one of his favors for a friend to take his place in the fireteam, hence his current position at home while Lich is out and about.

        An Incoming Communication notification buzzes at the top of his screen, and he quickly closes the pornography tab before answering. It’s from Phylactery. That’s odd; Lich’s Ghost hardly ever lets themself be seen, and speaks even less. If Lich had a message for him, she’d give it herself.

        “Hey, how’s it going?”

        The Ghost doesn’t waste any time on pleasantries. “Lich needs immediate evac from K1 Logistics on Luna.”

        Windy instantly bolts up from his slouched position. “Wait, what’s going on? Can she transmat out?”

        Phylactery is doing their best to keep their tone clipped and curt as usual, but Windy still picks up on the desperate way they hurry over their words. “No, she’s currently catatonic. We’re stuck here until someone can provide an evac.”

        “Catatonic?"  Windy balks. “What the hell happened down there?”

        The Ghost’s distress is evident. “I’m not quite sure. Lich saw something; I think we were attacked, but she still isn’t cognizant enough to give me the details. I felt something suppress our Light. I was knocked unconscious, and Lich… she’s not recovering. We need you here as soon as possible.”

        Fear grips Windy’s gut. Suppressed Light means that an RTL is on the table. He’s got enough dead friends walking around on Luna without Lich joining that long list.

        “It’ll take me awhile to get there; can you call any nearby Guardians for backup?”

        Windy can detect a wince in Phylactery’s tone. “No, this… isn’t the kind of thing that a random stranger would be able to help with. Might make matters worse, even.” the Ghost quietly speculates to themself. “What she really needs right now is someone she trusts.”

        Well that’s cryptic. He knows he’s not getting the full picture of events, and stumbling blindly into danger has always been more of Lich’s thing than his. He doesn’t exactly have time to press the Ghost further, though.

        “Already on my way. Just gimme like twenty minutes to get there.”

        “Right, thank you.” Phylactery seems relieved to no longer be discussing it.

        Windy is already in motion as he hangs up the call. He drops the datapad on the cushion beside him, then vaults over the back of the couch in his usual manner. He doesn’t bother taking the time to change out of his boxers and tank top before exiting the apartment; he’ll don his armor in his jumpship. The residents of this housing block have seen far weirder things than his underwear, anyways.

        Fuck. On Luna. Guess I won’t be able to avoid it after all. Dread constricts around his gut like a snake as he approaches the Tower’s hangar, a sensation that he knows won’t dissipate until he and Lich are safely back on Earth. For now, he tries to shove it down as best he can. His current priority is making sure that his roommate doesn’t get RTL’d; once she’s safe, he can go drown his worries at the nearest bar and put this all behind him. He distracts himself by planning out the route he’ll take there, what drinks he’ll order, who he might meet up with...

        As he’s exiting the Earth’s atmosphere, Windy briefly speculates that maybe finding a therapist would be a better use of his time than just getting drunk again, before he blasts off at near-light speed for Luna.

  ————————————

        Lich-5 awakens to the sensation of an immense weight on top of her, as if she’s trapped underneath a boulder. She’s laying stomach-down on the couch where she fell asleep, being pressed down into the cushions by the heavy object above her. She’s in an apartment typical of one of the Last City’s massive housing blocks, although not the one she shares with Windy. Night has long since fallen outside, casting the living room in darkness. What little illumination remains bathes everything in an odd vermillion.

        The Titan’s apartment is small, but his couch provided an adequate place to crash for the night after a particularly wild bar crawl. Lich can’t get drunk, but flying her jumpship home while exhausted would be just as dangerous. When she proposed the idea of crashing at a nearby friend’s place, one particular Titan was eager to offer. He’s new to her group of drinking buddies, and so it struck Lich as unusual that he would so readily invite her over. Once at his apartment, she figured out his reason pretty quickly.

        Tucked away in her backpack at the foot of the couch, Phylactery sleeps soundly, enjoying a well-earned rest after a long day’s grind. Lich is currently not being afforded that same rest. The weight on top of her shifts around erratically, fiddling with something, trying to get it open. She’s nearly driven to panic, but her fear keeps her frozen in place. Just pretend you’re still asleep, her mind unhelpfully provides. Play dead, and soon the predator will go away.

        The predator does not go away. She feels a sudden spike of pain, and the irregular shifting of the weight quickly becomes paced and rhythmic.

        Lich can’t pinpoint when or how her view shifts, but at some point she finds that she’s above herself—literally. She’s watching the scene unfold from a third-person perspective, her disembodied consciousness hanging a meter in the air over her incapacitated frame. She can’t compel herself to move a single piston or servo, her physical form refusing to comply with her immobilized will.

        Long ago, in a time before she could remember, Lich had had nightmares in which she was pursued by an extreme danger, only to find her limbs paralyzed and unresponsive to her attempts to flee. This is a lot like that, only it’s not a nightmare; this is real life and the danger is directly on top of her. There is no chance to flee; she’s already been caught.

        The Titan’s head, now free of its helmet, rests on the couch next to hers. Despite the warmth of his breath, a chill runs through Lich’s system. She can feel his wet lips graze against her artificial skull as he begins to speak.

        “The Light does not hold its wielders to any standard of morality.” he whispers into the side of her head, where the ear would be if she were human. There’s a horrible wrongness in his tone, like multiple beings trying to speak through one mouth. “In the Dark Age, the Warlords inflicted terrible violence upon the innocent, just as he inflicted violence upon you.”

        The motion gradually escalates in speed and magnitude, pressing Lich further down into the couch cushions with an oscillating rhythm. Her pain briefly increases as the pace picks up, but it quickly turns dull, and a sensation of warmth grows in its place as her own body turns against her. He’s speaking again, those wet lips and warm breath directly on her audio receptor. He doesn’t pause for air as he produces the words, regardless of his physical exertion.

        “In Light, there is only pain.”

        There’s a groan from above her, and the weight slumps, ceasing its rhythm. Lich silently breathes a sigh of relief, although she’s still far too overwhelmed with disgust to really be relieved by any of this. She knows on some level that it’s only been minutes, but her dilated sense of time has stretched the ordeal into what felt like hours.

        The floorboards creak next to her, and the Titan exits the small living room, although Lich still remains effectively paralyzed. A heavy exhaustion has seeped into her chassis, now even worse than the one she was trying to cure by crashing here. Still unable to will herself to move, it isn’t long before unconsciousness claims her again.

  ————————————

        Windy summons his Sparrow within the second he touches down on Luna. His stomach churns as he exits his jumpship, doing his best to keep his eyes on the ground and away from the lifeless red Guardians hanging motionless over the landing zone. The Pyramid must know this is a center of Guardian activity, and so the nightmares swarm here like some kind of macabre flock.

        He passes three more of the crimson phantoms on his way to the dot Phylactery marked on his heads-up display. He gives each of them as wide of a berth as he reasonably can, trying to keep them in his periphery while still steering the vehicle on course. If he looks at one too closely, there's a decent chance he’ll recognize it. He fails to give the third one enough room, and winces under his helmet as it wails at him for help in a voice he’s pretty sure he can put a name to.

        Phylactery’s coordinates lead him to the K1 facility at the far end of Archer’s Line. A short distance in, he finds his roommate’s distinctive hive-bone helmet lying discarded to one side. It’s not until he proceeds down a hallway and searches behind a storage container that he finds the Warlock it belongs to. She doesn’t appear to be in any immediate physical danger, although he wouldn’t think it purely by her posture; she’s curled up in a fetal position on the floor, trembling violently, the shutters over her optics squeezed as tight as they’ll go.

        One of the red phantoms looms over her cowering form. This one is clearly a Titan, and Windy can’t restrain his relieved exhale when he fails to recognize it. It does not turn to acknowledge him as he enters, keeping its blank gaze fixed on the ball of a Warlock curled behind the box.

        It takes Windy a moment to realize that Lich is crying. Her digital optics don’t feature tear ducts, but the anguish in her soft vocalizations is unmistakable. It’s a sound that he doesn’t hear often, but still far more than he’d like.

        Windy steps straight through the phantom towards his friend, passing through it as if it’s not even there. The spectral Titan’s body offers no resistance and induces no sensation. The thing recoils in a mimicry of pain, then disperses into maroon wisps as if it were mist. The instant it vanishes completely, her optics fly open.

        The first thing that Lich sees is Windy leaned over her, right where he had stood, offering her a hand.

        "W-windy?" She accepts the hand graciously, allowing him to pull her to her feet. “What are you doing here?”

        “Phylactery told me you needed an evac.” The somber concern in his tone catches her by surprise, and she briefly feels a pang of guilt for causing him to worry this much.

        Lich emits a single humorless laugh, barely holding in a sob behind it. “Yeah. You could say that.” She’ll have to thank her Ghost for their forethought later. She takes a moment to collect herself, brushing the lunar dust off her robes and trying in vain to suppress her shivering.

        “You didn’t have to come for me.” she tells him frankly, refusing to meet his sympathetic gaze. “I know how much you hate this place.”

        “Lich, it’s fine. There is nothing in all of Sol that could make me leave you behind.”

        For a moment, Lich looks like she’s about to cry again, before she closes the distance between their bodies and embraces Windy in a tight hug. He tentatively returns the gesture, protectively wrapping his arms around her back, and her hold on his torso quickly turns into a death grip. She’s no longer crying, but he takes careful note of the way she still shivers and shakes in his embrace.

        Lich buries her face in the crook of his neck, hiding away from the world in the rough fabric of his Hunter cloak. Her chemical receptors flood with the particles that cling to the garment; it smells like his shampoo and sweat and the dust of a hundred worlds, all composing into a unique odor that is very distinctly Windy. His smell is grounding, bringing her attention back to the here and now.

        “So, did the nightmares get to you?” he asks, tracing his fingers over the top of her fiberglass cranium in the way he knows she likes. He immediately withdraws his hand when she unexpectedly flinches away from the gentle contact. “I thought you hadn’t lost anyone.”

        Lich shakes her head gently against his cloak. “I, uh… I saw him again.”

        Windy’s blood freezes. Then the phantom Titan was—

        “Oh shit, Lich, I’m so sorry.” He suddenly feels very conscious of the way he’s holding her.

        Windy can’t forget the morning that Lich had nearly collapsed into their apartment, utterly disheveled after a long night out, and he had to delicately explain to her that sex is not a required payment for a male friend lending you his couch to crash on. Working through that day had been a painful experience for them both, although Windy has no illusions about which of them had it worse. Despite his seniority as a Guardian, dealing with this particular type of violence was entirely outside of his expertise. To his knowledge, aside from him and Phylactery, she’s never told another soul of what happened that night.

        “This fucking Pyramid.” he spits out venomously, staring out at the lunar expanse beyond the facility. That fucking Titan. Hate festers within his ribcage like rot. At the time, he’d had half a mind to bust down the Titan’s front door with his Golden Gun in hand, ready to vaporize both him and his Ghost. But Lich needed him more than that Titan needed a bullet, and so the obligation to support her had stayed his hand.

        With the Pyramid, though, it’s so much worse. Even though he couldn’t act on his impulse against the Titan, at least there had been some degree of hope there. With how utterly infinitesimal he is compared to the Pyramid’s world-ending might, he doesn’t even get the luxury of a revenge fantasy.

        "It was like—" Lich begins to speak, but stops short as her chassis is taken by a violent shiver. Windy can almost feel the intensity of the chill that runs through her. "Like being there all over again."

        His attention snaps back to her, and all the hate goes cold. His rage is not what Lich needs right now. Staying angry is impossible when she’s still so visibly distressed. He mentally reminds himself that this is her pain, not his; she’s the one who gets to have the revenge fantasy, if she so chooses.

        “Yeah. I... get what that’s like. It sucks, but the suck is ultimately temporary. You’ll get through this.”

        The pair are silent for a moment as Lich’s mind swims. She really wishes she could take his words to heart, but the memory of him freshly burned into her mind is all she can focus on. She tries to clear her thoughts by concentrating on the steady rise and fall of Windy’s chest, while her own remains eternally still. She reminds herself of what’s real: he’s here, holding her in his arms, and soon they’ll be home safe. The danger has long since passed, and was never even here in the first place.

        “I feel disgusting.” Lich voices the thought aloud, her gaze remaining firmly downcast. “I’ve felt disgusting since that night. I don’t know if it’s ever gonna go away.”

        Windy winces, sucking in a quiet breath through his teeth. "That… I lack experience with. But, from the experience I do have, I can tell you that it’s not true." Now he’s the one to strengthen the embrace. Through the heavy weave of her robes, he soothingly runs a hand up and down her mechanical spine, and is relieved when she relaxes into the touch rather than flinching away. "You’re smart, and beautiful, and brave, and you can be really really annoying when you want to be, but I still care about you. You’re the furthest thing from disgusting that I can imagine. What he did doesn’t make you any lesser as a person; you’re still the same Lich I’ve always known.”

        Lich tries to form a response, but words fail her, immediately getting caught in the knot that’s formed behind her speakers. She settles for simply holding Windy close, savoring the feeling of their arms wrapped around each other. Some part of her is still trapped in that sewage pit, but it’s further away now, distanced from her by the closeness to him. For the briefest moment, she believes with absolute certainty that everything he said is true, and almost manages to clamber her way out.

        “Y’know, if Guardians really are amoral, you’re a pretty good counterexample.”

        “Hm?” He turns his head towards hers with a raised brow.

        “Ah, nevermind. Symmetrist ramblings.” Windy can’t help but notice another chill run through her.

        It’s a long while before Lich feels stable enough on her own to leave his arms. When she finally begins to move away, he retracts his protective embrace, allowing her to separate from him without resistance.

        "You ready to head home now? I'll ride with you to the landing zone and fly us back to Earth. We can pick up your jumpship later."

        Lich releases an extended sigh, exhaling her residual tension into the thin lunar atmosphere. “Sure. Thanks for all this, by the way. I… needed to hear that.”

        He gives her a warm, relieved smile. “Don’t mention it.”

        Lich finally escapes from K1 Logistics with her hand firmly in Windy’s. While the Sparrow is intended to be a single-occupancy vehicle, that’s never stopped particularly affectionate Guardians from riding them two at a time. Lich and Windy share the single seat, with her clinging to his back, holding on with her arms wrapped around his midsection.

        The ride back to the landing zone is short, but both Guardians savor it. The red phantoms don’t cause either of them much distress on their return trip. Holding each other close, the nightmares seem just a little bit fainter.

[samclownchester]

The day is June 15 2020

The time is 3 am

The situation is that the world has fallen into a pandemic of Covid-19, and my job closed down in March, leaving me with lots of time on my hands. Despite my doubts, I fell back into Supernatural, deep into it, and I am now rewatching it. I thought it would be fun to try and see how much I could remember from earlier seasons before I watch them all

I have watched up to 1x14 at this point, so those episodes are fresh in my mind, but lets see what else I remember

Season 1

“Dad’s on a hunting trip, and he hasn’t been home in a few days”

“Saving people, hunting things, the family business”

Sam’s girlfriend dies just like his mom did

Their dad is the point of the season but is only actually in like 3 episodes

Sam and Dean break up but get back together

Sam has VISIONS and moves things with his MIND

Meg is a demon, Sam has a bit of a crush on her

They find their dad, but don’t kill the demon

colt

Season 2

Dean dies in a car crash, John sells his soul for him and dies

Bobby Singer is best dad

Ellen and Jo and Ash exist

Purple Nurple

Gordon?

Lots of psychics! Sam can make friends??

Jk, it’s the hunger games

Sam gets stabbed in the back

Dean sells his soul for him

They kill Azazel I think??

“I have … demon blood in me?”

Season 3

Saving Dean from his demon deal

Groundhog day episode where Dean dies everyday

Gabriel?? (trickster)

Blonde Ruby (let’s hear it for Laurel Lance!)

Very short because there was a writers’ strike that year

Hell hounds

Season 4

Dean was “gripped tight and raised from perdition” by Castiel

Sam has a new gf! (Surprise, it’s Ruby in a new body! :o)

Why does she pretend to not know Dean when he first shows up? Is she lying to Sam about who she is this whole time?? Hmmm I wish I remembered

Time travel?? (Sam doesn’t get to come ☹ )

Demon blood

Demon blood detox ☹

Let’s kill Lilith

“Because it had to be you Sam”

“The boy with the demon blood”

Season 5

Dean is the Michael sword

Sam is messed up, trying to quit demon blood

Cas rebelled, and he did it, all of it, for Dean

Adam Winchester is a person who exists

Also I think this is the season with Jesse the antichrist who never shows up again it’s fine.

He only existed so they could have important conversations about nature vs nurture which honestly they should’ve just saved from when Jack was born but they didn’t know that was gonna happen

More time travel??

Future

Cas likes drugs

Team Free Will

Samifer

Fall into the cage

Dean goes to live with Lisa and Ben

The end?

Season 6

Cas is working with Crowley and spying on Dean but not talking to him like the pining idiot that he is

Dean can’t help but inspect monster happenings in town

Soulless!Sam

Dean finds Soulless Sam

Hanging out with some old dude?

Get Sam’s soul back

Meet Death?

Find out Cas is working with Crowley

 O: Ultimate betrayal

???

Season 7

Leviathans

Godstiel?? Why?? Idr

Hallucifer

Please give Sam therapy

Sam goes to an asylum

Cas takes Sam’s trauma??    

More leviathans

Dick?

Charlie!

Kevin!

Garth? Did we know him before. Idk, we know him now

Dean and Cas go to purgatory!

When does Cas die and walk into the lake? That’s before they go to Purgatory, right? Hmmmm but how does he come back

 Cas is Emmanuel and has a wife? Is that in this season?

Season 8

Dean gets out of purgatory!

But no Cas

Sam had a girlfriend and a dog! Nice!

Not nice, he ignored Kevin and didn’t look for Dean

Like they agreed on, but whatever ok sue him for trying to be happy

Dean has a vampire boyfriend

Not so high and mighty about killing every monster are we now, huh Dean?

Right? I don’t remember, this is a conversation that happens though

He does end up killing Benny though, doesn’t he? huh

Cas is back from Purgatory! But he’s got Secrets ™

“I’m gonna become a hunter”

Then he stays in the old folks home and next time we see him he’s all wacky and likes to watch the bees?

Megstiel

You’re just playing sorry

Am I right?? I don’t remember, but all of this happens at some point

Who even is the big bad? What are we fighting? Idk

Oh we have to save Kevin from Crowley and he reads the demon tablet. Only eats hotdogs, doesn’t shave. I love him please keep him safe.

Spoilers, they don’t

Right! The trials, Sam does the trials, they “purify” him

The angels fall, but Sam doesn’t complete the trials and almost dies.

Season 9

Sam almost dies, Dean is like “right, nonconsensual possession is clearly the best answer for this”

Human!Cas, he drinks lots of water. Steve.

§  “you can’t stay here” :o

Abaddon I think?? What was the point

Crowley is sort of our friend now and I think we meet Rowena? Idr

Kevin dies ☹

“What is the upside to me being alive” – Sam

§  Maybe in this season, maybe not. Who knows?

Cas is a cannibal (eats grace) and becomes and angel again at some point

§  Hannah exists

We all hate Metatron

Cain??

Metatron stabs Dean and Sam puts his dead body on the bed

Demon!Dean

Season 10

Demon!Dean and Crowley are living it up!

Sam and Cas try to cure Dean

Charlie and Rowena interact a lot I think

Book of the Damned

When did they find the bunker? Men of Letters? All that? Idr, anyway they have it at this point

Dean kills lots of people

Charlie dies ☹

Dean blames Sam which is unfair and I hate it

They get the mark off and The DarknessTM is release

Season 11

The Baby episode exists

Really weird sexual tension between Dean and Amara while she’s still kind of a child, no one knows why. Please stop.

Cas gets called expendable and then makes poor life decisions

Lbr, though, Misha is the only other one who can play Lucifer with the same spirit as Mark Pellegrino. Sorry Jared, it’s the truth.

Eileen!! <3

Chuck is God :o

Let’s kill Amara!

Except we don’t kill her, she just needs to bond with her bro.

Here, have your mom back

Season 12

Mom????

British Men of Letters

Lucifer F*cks

Boy I didn’t think this would turn into what it did, let me tell you

Winchesters escape from Federal Prison

Cas says “I love you”

But like, the plural you. No homo.

Sam admits he lost his drive to lead, then finds it again and leads hunters against the dang brits! Hooray!

Oh shoot Lucifer wants custody of his kid!

FIGHT

Fatality – Castiel

Fatality – Mary

Oh no wait she didn’t die she’s just trapped.

Season 13

Jack jack jack jack jack

3 dads, all at various levels of dadding

Actually 2 excellent dads, one dad who is too emotionally damaged to dad but he tries sometimes

Yeah Cas pisses of a cosmic entity. That won’t come back to bite him

Jack just wants to be good

Wayward sisters was not picked up which sucks

Apocalypse world

Rowena is our friend now

Custody Battle!!! Who wins? Not Lucifer

We saved the day! And a ton of people

Literally they made a whole deal of the people being like “We won’t leave our home or our cause” and then they got back to Sam and Dean’s world, didn’t have archangel grace and were just like “meh, actually this place is cool. We don’t have to worry about going back”

Psych! We’re not done yet! Luci wants his kid

And Michael wants his planet

Season 14

Michael! Dean

Jack dies

But it’s ok, we fixed you, just don’t use your powers

Oh shoot he used his power

Nick is somehow alive

In love with Lucifer

Burn his ass!!

Oh Mary disapproves

RIP Mary

RIP Dean being a father, now he’s gonna murder

Hi Chuck, nice of you to show up

Oh no.

Season 15

Chuck sucks

Dean and Cas break up ☹

Sam has visions again

But he’s not psychic, it’s just the piece of his soul inside Chuck

Resurrect your girlfriend! Yeah!!

Jack is eating hearts, but it’s ok, Death told him to do it.

Garden of Eden?

Get your soul back boy!

 And cry

Honorable mentions (Aka these happened but idr when)

Sam falls in love with a werewolf and then has to kill her and MAN Jared really brought the tears

AU where Supernatural is a TV show

Finding out Supernatural is a book series and the author is Chuck!

Crowley becomes helpful mostly

Crowley has a son??

 Meet grandpa

Ellen, Jo, and Ash die

Bobby dies

literally everybody dies

Kill Hitler

They meet that Jewish guy with the Golem who pretended to flirt with Dean at some point.

Jimmy Novak was a devout man who deserved a lot better than he got

Claire Novak is so cool

She moves in with Jody

When do we meet Jody? She’s just always kinda been there?

Gabriel, I don’t remember anything about Gabriel

The council of the Gods’ happens and then I think Gabriel dies in that episode?? Idr

The Four Horsemen

Death, Pestilence, War, Famine

“You’re not hungry Dean”

 I literally do not remember what was happening with these guys

Also, they killed Death, killed a reaper, that reaper became the new Death. I remember when all that happened I just didn’t feel like putting it in the timeline.

[asgardianhammer]

*

(( Some Marvel Wank: An Essay by Mir, or, How And What Shall Be Ignored 5Ever Regarding Endgame. ( SPOILER HEAVY BEYOND THE CUT YOU DON’T EVEN UNDERSTAND, SO MUCH SPOILER )

To be honest, I am rewatching both Infinity War and Endgame this weekend, but for now I need to pour some salt truths and thoughts out about mostly Endgame. Very frankly speaking, Infinity War was mostly acceptable but also sort of forgettable in a weird ‘ I like it but I kinda don’t ‘ sort of way. It’s hard to explain, I might actually better liveblog into 1 post when I watch it again so I don’t miss any... thoughts on what happened.

----

Where do I actually even begin with it? As someone who has watched Marvel start with Thor’s story, and abandon any sense and reason when it comes to his character development, I feel Endgame was honestly just a final nail in the coffin of an already deteriorated version of an otherwise glorious character. The final noose around his neck, the falling chop of the guillotine if you will. The weirdest thing is that they sort of did other characters dirty by doing Thor dirty, which is something I didn’t expect but oh well... ( sans Steve, per usual <3 )

New Asgard: I love the idea of it. I had envisioned the remaining Asgardians would be allowed to settle somewhere, and it makes sense it would be by a shore but also with mountains. Even though they would thrive in woodlands and mountains I feel the connection to the Vikings of old would give them this opportunity, and the location is fitting. Do I suspect they will resurrect Asgard properly at some point? Absolutely. They would want to rebuild much of their former home, and I feel that would be only possible off-Earth, possibly hovering above it.

Vakyrie: It warmed my heart to see her thrive, and seemingly happy. I don’t like it when trauma and PTSD, ( and gods know what else ) is glossed over by movies, but it’s understandable they couldn’t focus in depth on her character, or the Asgardians for that matter. That still doesn’t mean my greedy ass didn’t want it, or means that all is well and good, emotionally and mentally, for her ( or any of them ).

Thor: - cracks knuckles - Listen, my bias for him as a character should be clear and well known at this point. Everything about him, about the setup, intro, continuation and the overall approach was a joke, literally... 

I find it acceptable he wouldn’t be in a palace anymore, their main priority is getting their people back into the swing of normal life, coping with said life and this new world, and supporting each other. Nobody cares about glitter and gold at this point, and Thor def wouldn’t. He would NOT however live away from them. Post Infinity War, post everything, his people is what matters most to him right now, and getting revenge on Thanos. Showing him as a recluse makes no sense, and he would never, period.

Continuing on from that idea, let me make one thing very clear. I’m NOT against the loss of his physique, or whatever the hell that means, I’m not against the notion that he suffers from (suvivors) guilt, depression, and that various other issues would haunt and plague him to no end. Including poor coping mechanisms that goes with that. But painting him as someone who would wallow in self-pity, after everything he has experienced and been through, after everything he has lost? Not in a million fucking years.

These tantrums, and whining, and staying hung up on mistakes and a lost battle of all things, is going against everything he has learned over the years ( and considering both Taika and the Russo bros shat on all previous movies and everything they displayed, I shouldn’t have been surprised). Thor has grown and evolved from that brash, foolhearted boy, CHILD he was, with every step he has taken since being dropkicked in New Mexico, and with every loss and grief he had to endure since then. He was raised by a father who demanded loyalty and bravery from him since the day he was born, and raised by a mother who taught him compassion and seeing the good in others. He had friends ( AND LET’S NOT FRICKEN FORGET SIF IS STILL OUT THERE SOMEWHERE TYVM, don’t even get me started ) that have taught him how to persevere, that have encouraged him and brought him down a peg each time his head got too big. He is a MAN now, someone who doesn’t hide or run from his responsibilities, and definitely someone who will NEVER allow the woe is me to take his focus of his purpose. And speaking of purpose....

Not A King: Thor has always been reluctant to take the throne, this has been a red thread through his arc in the MCU, with waxing and waning intensity towards the issue. But judging by the comments ( mostly of the casual fans, but def some of the die hards as well ) people seem to believe he doesn’t want to be king at all. Honestly, I disagree so hard it makes my body itch. Thor is not Odin, and Thor has rarely understood, let alone agreed with how his father ruled. He didn’t want to be a king LIKE HIM. He didn’t want to be caged on a throne, and ( seemingly ) rule without a heart, without ACTIVELY doing something. That’s what he didn’t want. He is tempest made flesh, he has compassion and a heart, and he needs to DO SOMETHING. And he didn’t feel, for a very long time he was capable to be and act as a king without Loki, without someone by his side to do the ‘ hard stuff ‘, he thought he was incapable of doing what was necessary. He has believed himself unworthy often, of both his hammer and definitely of the throne, and after all this he will not cower and hide, and play Fortnite ( he would be an Overwatch or Skyrim dude anyway tyvm). This is why this... characterization if you may call it that, this story of self-pity and loss of confidence, is outright bullshit. It implies, once again, that he doesn’t learn from the past, and it’s regressing his character so much it’s painful. He would never ever run from his responsibilities, at this point in his life, and that’s why I cannot accept his renouncing of the throne, in whatever form that may be.

The Running Gag And Why It’s Gross For All Involved: I understand that contrast is funny by default, and that extremes, in characters, can be hysterical at times. I didn’t appreciate the Thor Is Fat jokes running through the movie, constantly. It made everyone participating looking like a douche in the process ( Rhodey for example, was so utterly disappointing I legit gasped...). Rocket is a character I expected cheap things from, but the OG 6 ( sans Steve, bless ) participating in it was so OOC for them it was cringe. They were there during the battle in Infinity War... they KNOW what he feels, they understand the guilt. And they would NOT act this way towards Thor.

A Moment Of Brightness: I’m happy with the closure he received with Frigga, fricken finally, but of course it had to be ruined by the ‘ eat a salad ‘ bit. Frigga would not give a rat’s ass about her child being fat, ffs. Steve wielding Mjolnir was magnificent and complies with my headcanons from years and years it makes my heart sing. Steve in general was a jewel in a sea of shit. The throwbacks to other movies were ingenious.

What We Needed But Never Received: A moment between Loki and Thor, at the very least, to offer some closure there as well. T’challa and his people being more than just canon fodder. Captain Marvel being used properly. Multiple characters just... being more than just screen filler.

In Conclusion: This topped my very disliked Ragnarok and that’s saying something. A proper synopsis will follow of course, and updates on the verses page per movie. As it stands I’ll probably be like 80 - 90 % canon divergent since the AoU era, and that’s frankly a-okay with me. 

[estelofimladris]

Queerness and Death in The Magicians by SE Fleenor (The Removed Syfy Article)

[ NOTE: This article is being reposted in its entirety because it was removed by the Syfy website where it was originally posted. I (estelofimladris) did not write it, but still had it open after its removal. Please read and enjoy - send the writer, S.E. Fleenor, some love if you can. ]

by S.E. Fleenor

SPOILERS FOR THE MAGICIANS SEASON 4 FINALE!

By now you already know that The Magicians’ Quentin Coldwater died in the Season 4 finale. Yes, D-E-D, dead. There’s no resurrection in the works and no trick of astral projection or Niffin state of higher being can bring sweet, depressed, narcissistic Quentin back.

The decision to kill off a major character — the major character, if the Lev Grossman novels still mean anything (they don’t) — is almost always controversial. But we live in the day and age of Game of Thronesand The Walking Dead and Thanos snapping half of the Avengers (and the universe) into nothingness. Any character could die at any moment (and sometimes all of the characters could die at any moment) and that’s the brave, new, kill-happy world our media is made in.

So, why does it matter that Quentin is dead?

Well, my friends, let’s revisit a little trope we like to call Bury Your Gays. Throughout media representations of queer folks, reaching back to 19th-century Victorian novels, the formula has been about the same: An LGBTQ+ character is introduced, they reveal their sexuality or an attraction to a specific person, and then they die, die, die, often horrifically. This trope is also called Dead Lesbian Syndrome due to the overwhelming number of queer women who have been slaughtered onscreen — not exactly the representation queer women have been begging for.

Back when archaic censorship laws ruled the page and the screen, writing about queer characters was taboo and the only way queer writers, or folks who wanted to create queer characters, could include LGBTQ+ characters was by portraying them unfavorably. Queer characters could exist, but only as a warning of what a “perverted” life would bring you. So, in order to get some kind of representation, LGBTQ+ characters had to suffer.

Sounds a little rough, huh? Like who would really bury their gays? Oh, just Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood, The 100, The Walking Dead, The Expanse, Jessica Jones, Xena, Smallville, Battlestar Galactica, Hex, Torchwood, Hemlock Grove, Teen Wolf, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Dracula, The Vampire Diaries, Arrow, Salem, American Horror Story, Ascension, Lost Girl, Scream, The Shannara Chronicles, The Exorcist, Van Helsing, Doctor Who, Gotham, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Purge, and last but not least (and not for the first time): The Magicians.

Let it be noted that I have only included science fiction, fantasy, and horror TV shows on this list and only those that I know about. The list is much, much longer when you include non-genre TV shows and film. (Autostraddle has a very complete list of queer women on TV who have been killed off, for those of you who feel like being sad.)

Oh, did you recognize a bunch of queer-friendly shows in that list? Does that somehow feel like a violation of the promise made when a series goes out of its damn way to present itself as queer and feminist?

EXACTLY. And, that, my sweet babies, is why people are pissed about the death of Quentin Coldwater, generally speaking. We’re sick of seeing queer characters die over and over again. But, what specifically about the death of Quentin is so frustrating? I’m so glad you asked.

Full disclosure: I'm not going to get into the creators' rationale for killing off Quentin. I've read all the interviews with the creators and with Jason Ralph, who plays Quentin, and they all read like a whole lot of familiar BS. (At least Hale Appelman, who plays Eliot, gets it.)

In the first season of The Magicians, Quentin, Eliot, and Margot have a threesome. It’s the first time Quentin has sex with a man, as far as we know, and it’s the first time we see him start to confront his queerness. In Season 3’s “A Life in the Day,” Quentin and Eliot end up in a different Fillory, from before they were born, where they must solve an unsolvable puzzle. As they spend a lifetime working on the mosaic, they fall in love, raise a child, and make their queer family work. Upon returning to the main timeline, barely a word is spoken about their encounter, and queer folks everywhere braced ourselves for that experience to be treated as an anomaly from another timeline. (Another weird queer trope where characters get to be LGBTQ+, but only elsewhere or else when or, or, or…)

Season 4 brought unexpected twists and turns, such as Eliot being trapped inside his own mind by the Monster. With that, many a fan prepared to let Queliot rest. And, then “Escape from the Happy Place,” took us into Eliot’s mind and — after exploring a lot of deep trauma that has a particularly queer flavor to it — back to the day Eliot and Quentin came back from their lifetime in Fillory. As they sit on the steps of the throne room, Memory Quentin and Memory Eliot talk about what happened between them. Memory Quentin asks Memory Eliot why they shouldn’t try to be together, saying “Who gets proof of concept like that?”

Eliot kisses Memory Quentin hard on the mouth and then walks through the door that will allow him to take control of his body for a moment. In the real world, face to face with Quentin, Eliot gets a signal out that he’s still alive. He looks at Quentin and repeats the question Quentin had asked him, following it with, “Peaches and plums, motherf*cker.” When he realizes who he’s looking at, Quentin hesitates, a look of surprise and longing washing over his face.

This deeply emotional and compelling storyline appeared at the same time that Quentin finally officially rebuffed Alice’s advances, telling her he no longer wanted to be together, that he could never see her the same way again.

Then, after all that work, after all the maturation the characters undergo, the series undoes everything, shoehorning in a last-minute declaration of love between Quentin and Alice and killing off Quentin when he uses magic in the Mirror Realm, without ever seeing Eliot again. Quentin then goes to the Underworld branch of the library and meets with Penny 40 while reminiscing over his life and pondering over whether or not he died by suicide. (The treatment of suicide in the episode is problematic and deeply offensive.)

There are probably as many critiques of this ending as there are people who watched it, but I’m going to focus on the main issues that stood out to me.

The series has gone out of its way to confirm Quentin as queer and tease the possibility of a queer love story.

Queer viewers are used to surviving off subtext and tend to be fairly generous in what we’ll accept. Seriously, many a queer considers Thor: Ragnarok to be part of the queer canon when it’s not even implied onscreen that anyone is queer, and have you seen people shipping Carol and Maria in Captain Marvel? Maybe it’s because we’re used to being served scraps that the Bury Your Gays trope feels so pointed. Oh, you’re not happy with the almosts and the could-haves and the alternate timelines of queerness? Well, then we’ll make your characters queer and just murder ‘em right up.

After Season 3, The Magicians could have never acknowledged the relationship between Quentin and Eliot that takes place in another timeline or they could have shrugged and been like, “Must have been the opium in the air!” They’d already done as much with the threesome in Season 1 and all but ignoring Quentin's queerness in the episodes that follow. The series didn’t have to confirm that Quentin wanted to follow his attraction to Eliot and give being together a try. But, The Magiciansdid. The series took the time onscreen to show Eliot and Quentin kissing again, to show Eliot declaring his love for Quentin in their own code, and to show Quentin dedicate his time to helping Eliot get free.

Furthermore, how messed up is it that the series spends a significant amount of time dredging up the trauma of Eliot’s queer youth only to make him realize his biggest regret is how he treated Quentin, just for Quentin to be forced back into the closet? An episode that was deeply evocative and affirming of queerness smacks of voyeurism when taken in the context of the finale.

At the last minute, after confirming his queerness, the series forces a relationship between Quentin and Alice.

It’s hard not to see the last ditch shoving of Quentin and Alice together as an attempt to shove Quentin himself back in the closet. Season 4 shows Quentin rejecting and wanting to be apart from Alice, only for him to decide that he loves her and wants to give their relationship another try because? Honestly, I’m not sure what rationale he uses because it MAKES NO SENSE. And, what the hell does he think of imprisoned-in-his-own-body Eliot while making this decision? To judge from the series, not a whole hell of a lot.

It’s totally cool if queer or bisexual characters date people of different genders — that’s not the issue. The issue is that without a moment of hesitation, Quentin whiplashes from his lover who he knows is trapped by the Monster and cannot see, hear, or reach him to his ex-girlfriend who he has distanced himself from due to her selfish behavior.

In the context of his death, I like to call this particularly messed up turn of events “Bury Your Gays and Stomp On Their Graves” because all the work that had been done to show Quentin’s coming to terms with his own sexuality is undone shortly before he dies.

There are other ways to write a character off a series.

A lot of people fall back on bad faith arguments like: what is a show supposed to do when an actor no longer wishes to appear in the series?

The answer, of course, is: ANYTHING ELSE. They could have done literally anything else to write Quentin out of the show and release Jason Ralph from his commitment. The Magicians takes place in a world WHERE MAGIC EXISTS, where characters leave the main story to go on their own adventures, and where average human beings can become gods. There’s no excuse for falling into lazy storytelling and reifying a trope that has been well-documented and mourned for a long time.

In the novels, Quentin gets kicked out of Fillory and decides to use his discipline, minor mendings, to build a new world for himself and Alice. He essentially walks through a door and never comes back. THAT WOULD HAVE WORKED and it wouldn’t do the work of retraumatizing queer audiences.

It comes down to this: To ignore the wider implications of making a character specifically queer, having him return to his prior unhealthy relationship with a woman, and then killing him off is a disservice to queer people everywhere. It is, at once, a declaration of the meaninglessness of the queer experience and an unforgivable reminder of the expendability of queer lives.

Series like The Magicians (and before it, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) trade on their reputations as queer and feminist shows. We watch them for their powerful women and their kickass queer characters and their storylines that affirm the power of survival. And what do they give us in return? They bury their gays.

Does that mean that all LGBTQ+ characters should be immortal? The rational response would be: of course not. Up until today I may have agreed with that argument, but right now I’m feeling a little less generous. It’s 20-f*cking-19 and there is no excuse for Bury Your Gays to pop up in a progressive TV show. Maybe until series and creators who make their money off queer characters and queer fandom take responsibility for how they use the lives and bodies of queer people, maybe until then, all LGBTQ+ characters should be immortal.

I’m pretty damn sick of watching every character who loves like me, who looks like me, who explores the bounds of their sexuality like me, die. I’m sick of watching characters bust down the doors of the closets that held them back only to have their queerness erased or elided through their deaths. I’m sick of watching relationships between men and women blossom onscreen only to see queer relationships torn apart by death.

Queer people deserve happy endings. We deserve them in real life and we deserve to see them onscreen and we deserve them now.

Until that’s the norm, you better damn well consider any queer character you create immortal. Because if you don’t, we queers will f*cking haunt your basic ass.

[mattholicguilt]

jessica’s x-men spotify playlists (part 2)

Pairings & Relationships:

scott and jean but it’s bad - uhh that’s pretty much it. arctic monkeys, the mountain goats, the front bottoms

mr. and mrs. x - rogue and remy are married let’s have a party but also can these two co-exist without self-destructing?? lindsay mendez, demi lovato, kacey muscgraves

welcome back to the world - this is one of literally six different emma/sean mixes but this is the most recent one and it’s about emma having just lost scott and sean being very freshly resurrected. florence, lesley gore, sara bareilles

jeanwarren - in my defense this ship has literally existed since xmen 1 so. i just want them to find solace in each other yaknow? yeah yeah yeahs, kerli, adele

hank/scott - here’s another ship that’s existed since xmen 1. dodie, troye sivan, champaign

ric and tabby - rowdy best friends. culture club, zendaya, paramore

emma/jean - just.... just date each other. how much nicer would x-men comics be if jean and emma just dated. hayley kiyoko, tegan and sara, nicki

lorna/jean - i started thinking about how jean was lorna’s best friend and she could’ve comforted lorna after alex left her at the altar and they should’ve bonded over the summers bros screwing them over and also they should’ve kissed. julia nunes, la roux, rilo kiley

Characters:

ro munroe - ororo should be leading any team she is on. janelle monae, eurythmics, alabama shakes

you’re the train that crashed my heart - laura kinney angst but also fight songs. bat for lashes, fob, kid cudi

man out of time - i love bishop. he’s from the future but he’s hangin out here now. fall out boy, modest mouse, kanye

remy lebeautiful - i love gambit he’s such a dweeb. wilco, front bottoms, ajj

gabby kinney - my sweet child whomst i love. she’ll knock you out though. hailee steinfeld, hayley kiyoko, carly rae jepsen

the wail of the banshee - sean’s back and i’m so happy he’s alive. there’s a lot of like. irish sea shanty-ish music on here because ya know. also the avett brothers and giles’ song from the buffy musical episode. 

illyana - when you’re lowkey queen of a demon realm but you also wanna go get froyo with your girlfriend. cults, lily allen, lindsay mendez

magik - another illyana playlist but this is primarily songs from 1983. journey, culture club. basically what she might have listened to while chilling with the new mutants and trying to ignore all her trauma. 

emma frost - emma gets treated like crap, especially now that she’s just lost the man she loved. lily allen, marina, alanis

kitty pryde - let her come out marvel. demi, kesha, alanis

jubilation - jubilee isn’t a vampire anymore but she’s still a mutant single mom and she’s like. 20??? she might be 24 who knows. anyway i love her. ariana, st. vincent, joni mitchell 

madrox - jamie can’t make a fucken decision to save his life. oingo boingo, front bottoms, tmbg

kid omega - obligatory quentin quire playlist. i have them for a bunch of young x-kids but his is the most complete rn. i’ll probably make a post with all of them eventually. this has ajj, against me!, panic!

warren worthington iii - SAD archangel playlist. it’s got “back pack” by ajj on there. also crywank and hozier. 

stars and $#%^&*@ garters - hank mix that’s kind of silly. oingo boingo, tmbg, the song “man or muppet” from the muppet movie. 

yana - don’t ask me why i have 3 illyana playlists idk why. this one, like the quentin one, goes with a whole set for the new mutants but no one else is complete yet. dead man’s bones, sufjan, brandi carlile

sina grace’s iceman - i really loved how sina grace managed to explore both bobby’s gayness and bobby’s depression without letting one overshadow the other. this is a playlist dedicated to that. ajj, front bottoms, nana grizol

tabby smith - explodey girl. sabrina carpenter, the runaways, madonna. this is more geared toward tabby in the 80s/early 90s x-factor v1 era

rictor - shakey boy!!! fun fact- my image of rictor is half 15-y.o. shaky boy from x-factor v1 and half x-factor investigations depressed depowered ric with a big blank spot where i haven’t read x-force yet. the turtles, the guess who, the front bottoms

Situational/Team:

Dark Phoenix Saga - these are songs i imagine could’ve been playing on the radio while they’re on the butte, while they’re fighting jason wyngarde and the hellfire club, and like. when they’re on the moon. pink floyd, fleetwood mac, the police

generation x disbanded - sad mix about emma, sean, monet, jubes, paige and jono recovering after everett’s death and angelo’s death, and all of them learning to go on with their lives now that the team is gone. samia, mumford & sons, kt tunstall

mama’s home - jean’s back!!!!! shania twain, ariana, janelle monae

there goes the pryde - songs for kitty after she leaves petey boy at the altar. dixie chicks, fleetwood mac, crazy ex girlfriend soundtrack

dig up charles xavier and shoot him again - i hate. that man. garfunkel and oates, tmbg, 3OH!3

uncanny - i am excited about uncanny x-men coming back and i’m excited about the writers. abba, drake, styx.

eXtermination - anybody reading eXtermination? it’s exciting. mainly i am just ready to be done with the young o5. gotye, mgmt, owl city. 

astonishing x-men - i’m fcking living for matt rosenberg’s astonishing run right now it’s so funny and messed up. also i hope u appreciate the cover art on this one because i think it’s hilarious. weezer, bear hands, huey lewis

scott at the orphanage - sad mix about scottie growing up. crywank, soft cell, ajj

x-terminators - this is for the o5 x-factor’s young wards. messing stuff up, bein teens. this is music that tabby would play on the boom box while she and rictor are antagonizing skids and rusty is making sandwiches for artie and leech. 

[ginskywalkermcduck]

I promise you, you got the LOK and Sequel trilogy columns mixed up. The ST never retconned anything from the originals. LOK screwed up the existing characters more than the ST ever came close to. Just because LOK had a new situation does not mean it was a good one (in fact it was pretty lame in comparison). The only disconnect in the ST came about in Rise of Skywalker, which came from spineless backpaddling. REY IS NOT A MERY SUE. The LOK villains are boring. See point 2. You're 0/7.

In my opinion, it's so obviously that all the ST movies (not only the Ep. IX) retconned the Lucas Hexalogy, with the Force for example: in the Prequel Trilogy told us that not everyone can be sensitive to the Force or use it, you can do it if you have a certain number of Midi Chlrorians. It explain why characters like Han, Padmé, Lando, ecc. can't use the Force, while characters like Luke, Anakin, Yoda, Obi Wan. ecc. can use it. Instead the ST not only totally ignore the Midi Chlrorians, but they suggest to you that everyone, EVERYONE, no one is excluded, can use the Force and can become a jedi. And even teachs you that you have to born knowing if you want be someone, be good without undertake any training. If you are not born knowing, sorry, dear, you never will be someone and you never will have success in life. And the Force is too OP, especially the Light Side, you can even resurrect the people from death with it, and all without corrupting your soul or any dark paths, when it was suggested that controlling the life and the death was a Sith's prerogative, it was intended to be a dark, forbidden power, a thing who goes against the will of the Force, and one of the greatest rules of the Jedi Order was to respect the will of the Force. The Jedi are Jesus Christ, now!! So stupid! And that make so stupid and belittling Anakin's stoy and arc in the Hexalogy. And if the Jedi can do that, why, WHY, none of them in the six episodes use that power to save someone? Why Obi Wan didn't use it for saving Qui-Gon's life? Why Anakin didn't use it for saving her mother's and Padmé's life? Huh? It's clearly came out of nowhere, it's obviously a plot hole.

LOK ruined the original characters more than the ST did? Really?

When LOK ever showed us Aang, Katara, Zuko, Sokka and Toph as total failures who all their work has been nullified? Aang teached to his only airbender son, Tenzin, the Air Nomads' culture to preserve it, saved Republic City from Yakone. Katara trained Korra since she was four years, also she helped her when she had to learn again to walk and with her trauma, she's still a great waterbender and a great healer and she is respected for this (instead of Luke with Rey). Zuko was a great Fire Lord who did not repeat his predecessors' mistakes (again, instead of Luke) and even if he's not the current Fire Lord anymore, he remained to lead her daughter. We don't know much about Sokka, but they suggest that he was a great and wise chief of the Southern Water Tribe, he helped Aang and Toph to sentence Yakone and saved Korra from the Red Lotus, when they tried to kdnap her the first time. Toph founded the Republic City Police and Zaofu city, she teached the metalbending and helped Korra with the poison and with her trauma.

All their work had not been nullified, like how happened to Luke, Han and Leia in the ST, and you know why? Because LOK does not propose again the same identical situation of the original story, thus returning to the starting point. I mean, Ozai never returned again, he never magically regained his power and the Fire Nation wasn't again a menace. Thank goodness, I dare to say! It would have been horrible and senseless, just like how happened in the ST.

It doesn't seem to me that they are ruined. I think you're getting confused with the Luke, Han and Leia from the ST.

Yes, I'm sorry but Rey is totally a Mary Sue: she can use immediately the Force without any hard work or any training, she's literally born knowing, she's perfect, she's the only righteous and powerful Jedi that ever existed, the only who really deserve to rebuild the Jedi Order instead of the imperfect and weak Luke, she took away all of Luke, Han and Leia's work and merits, the original characters were ruined for valorised her (which I call it "bad writing"), she's loved from everyone, everyone trust immediately in her, even Leia, who hardly knew her, and even Yoda, YODA! The same character that never trusted in Anakin and in Luke because they were too old and they had attachments, he totally trusted in her (who have the same things)... because... I don't know, because she's the female protagonist and they have to show themselves at all cost feminists. And also she's the bad copy of Anakin and Luke.

Korra had to work hard for bending the four elements (in particular the airbending), not everyone trusted in her and she's not valorised by ruining the original characters like Rey. And she's not the bad copy of Aang.

The LOK villains are boring for you? Ok, they are personal tastes.

I honestly think they are good written and more interesting than the bad copy of Palpatine (Snoke), the bad copy of Tarkin (Hux) and the bad copy of Vader (Kylo). I prefer them than the ST villains. But again, they are personal tastes.

Again, LOK isn't perfect as sequel and as show, but it's good than Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. And I explained the reasons why I think so.

[sulietsexual]

You did a similar thing with Charmed, so what would you say is the most traumatic thing each of the scoobies went through? (Within btvs universe)

Okay, so I’mjust going to go with the Core Four Scoobies (Buffy, Giles, Willow and Xander)otherwise we’ll be here forever, given the rotation of characters on Buffy. So,here we go.

Buffy

So, for me,Buffy’s biggest trauma is somewhat complicated, because what I believe to her biggest trauma and whatthe show presents as her biggesttrauma are completely different. So I’m going to list both, and explain myreasoning behind both.

Narrativelyand within the context of the show and the character and the way the seriestook her characterisation, I would list Buffy’s resurrection as her biggesttrauma. While Buffy undergoes numerous traumas over the series and we have seenher previously suffer PTSD in the Season 2 opener When She Was Bad, herresurrection at the beginning of Season 6 seems to have traumatised her onseveral deeper levels, and it  takes hernearly the entire season to recover from the after-effects.

Not only isBuffy’s trauma linked to being violently pulled out of Heaven, she is furthertraumatised by the fact that she is resurrected in her own grave, effectivelyexperiencing what it is like to be buried alive which, thanks to the Season 1episode Nightmares, we know is one of Buffy’s biggest fears. The entireexperience, coupled with the depression she was already suffering from Season 5, combines to cause so much trauma to Buffy that she literally shuts down andcloses off from human emotions in order to cope.

That beingsaid, I personally believe that thebiggest trauma Buffy suffers is the abuse Spike puts her through. She spends allof Season 6 being victimised by Spike, emotionally and sexually. What we watchunfold over Season 6 is a classic example of an abusive relationship, and whileBuffy is trained/used to dealing with supernatural threats and living inconstant danger, she is not used to apartner who emotionally manipulates and abuses her, pushes her sexualboundaries, sexually assaults her and then attempts to rape her. Buffy might bethe Slayer but she is also human, and abusive relationships have devastating effects on the victims,often leaving them with trauma and PTSD for years afterwards.

Of coursethe show completely ignores this in favour of having Buffy prop up, coddle andcomfort her abuser, and so the trauma and PTSD she would definitely have suffered as a result of the relationship is neitheracknowledged or explored.

Giles

I would saythat Giles’ biggest trauma was losing Jenny and being the one to find her body,especially considering the manner in which he found her body.

As aWatcher, Giles is somewhat used to death and he mentions that he has lostpeople before, but Jenny seems to be the first death of someone truly close tohim, someone he loved. And while he does lose Buffy down the track, as aWatcher, he was always prepared for the day when he would lose his Slayer.Jenny’s death, however, came completely out of the blue and just as he was acknowledging hisfeelings for her again and moving towards a reconciliation, so the trauma andpain of her death cuts through him sharper and deeper than any other loss he’shad, up till that point and after.

As I pointedout, there’s also the way in whichGiles discovered Jenny’s body, which would definitely have added to his overalltrauma, as Angelus set everything up to provide maximum horror and trauma, withthe implied romantic evening, candles, roses, all leading to Giles findingJenny’s corpse in his bed, her eyes wide and dead and seemingly looking at him,a final message that he couldn’t save her. Giles’ breakdown after her death andthe way in which he recklessly goes after Angelus really shows how deep thetrauma went, as Giles is usually quite adept at keeping his emotions in check.The visceral reaction to Jenny’s death has me convinced that it was and remainsGiles’ greatest trauma.

Willow

I think theentire fandom can agree that Willow’s greatest trauma was Tara’s violent andabrupt death. As with Giles, losing a partner in such an unexpected andgruesome manner severely impacts Willow, and her subsequent rage and griefdrive her magical roaring rampage of revenge.

It’s nothard to pin down why this death traumatised Willow so much, as we know frompast experience that Willow does not handle grief or people leaving her well.When Oz cheated on her, her reaction was to cast a vengeance spell, and when heleft for good, her grief caused her to spiral so badly that she lost control ofher magic and power and put her friends in danger. So it’s no wonder thatlosing Tara in such a violent way – and actually having Tara die in her arms –had such a deep and traumatic effect on her, and given Willow’s previouscharacterisation and unhealthy coping mechanisms, it’s easy to understand whyshe went off the deep end following Tara’s untimely demise. I wish Season 7 hadexplored this grief and trauma better, instead of hurriedly shoving her into anew relationship, as the show never really allowed her to grieve properly forTara, nor work through the trauma that was so clearly still with her.

Xander

As withBuffy, I believe Xander has two traumas that vie for top billing, and evenworse than with Buffy, the show tends to gloss over both in favour of keeping Xander as the comic relief character, asopposed to trying to explore the effects of these traumas.

The firstone is somewhat of an ongoing trauma in Xander’s life, and that is his abusivehome life. Xander’s home situation and the abuse and neglect he suffers throughis alluded to numerous times throughout the show and many hints indicate that the abuse is not only emotional butphysical too, with the episode Restless all but confirming this. This ongoing abusehas an extremely detrimental effect on Xander and we clearly see this in hisday-to-day behaviour, his attitude towards women and his fears in the laterseasons of becoming an abuser, just like his father. A childhood filled withthis kind of emotional and physical abuse would have and very obviously didhave a deep and lasting impact on Xander.

The secondtrauma, and this is the one that the show completely ignores, is losing hisbest friend in such an abrupt and violent way, and being given no grieving timebefore he is instructed to kill Jesse if he gets the chance. I have spoken numerous times about the effect thistrauma had on Xander and how it is clearly shown in his attitude towardsvampires and his reaction to the Angelus period. Without re-hashing old points,Jesse’s death was traumatic enough to Xander that he was never able toreconcile Buffy allowing not one, but twovampires to survive and thrive next to the Scoobies, and he never fullylets go of his distrust towards the undead.

[ooc-but-stylish]

👀 👀 👀 👀 👀 👀 👀

someone explain to me why XV is the only story in the recent mainline Final Fantasy games that pretends that its main protagonist dying with absolutely no say in the matter nor any other options is absolutely the most good and heroic thing to do for everyone else, “coincidentally” when the protagonist also happened to be physically disabled in some capacity, and completely ignore his mental issues in favor of characterizing him (via other’s reactions) as selfish and spoiled?

I mean, I played FF7. Cloud lived. Cloud is also super-abled, and was only in a wheelchair briefly until his consciousness was pulled back together. He probably has PTSD but that didn’t stop him from being super-abled and leaping tall buildings in single bounds and engaging in sword fights wielding a weapon no normal human can carry. And he’s alive.

I played FF8. Squall lived. And he got Rinoa. He’s also super physically abled, enough to apparently survive a right-to-the-chest stab wound with no marks to show for it (seriously.... how????). He probably has PTSD too because of childhood trauma and eventual memory loss. Still, he’s alive.

I played FF9. Zidane was the most outgoing protag I’d ever seen in a while. Suffered an identity crisis, got over it with the Power of Friendship. Presumed dead while trying to get his bro. Dead, right? Nope! Still alive.

I played FF10. Tidus disappeared but he got resurrected by the Fayth. It’s not even a FF10-2 exclusive thing where 10 would have otherwise had him dead as a doornail. If anyone sat through until the end of the credits, Tidus is literally seen waking up in the water as if he took a long nap, and swimming up to the surface. 10-2 just expands on it, but his resurrection was canon. Even within 10, a post-game conversation with Shiva’s fayth reveals that they would create a new dream and “We will make a sea for you to swim”, and Yojimbo advises Tidus to “Run and go beyond the Dreaming”. They intended on him coming back.

I played FF12. The cast of that lives. Even Vaan, who apparently nobody liked.

I played through the whole 13 trilogy. Three guesses what happens there.

11 and 14 were/are online games, so, not mentioning those.

But 15 comes along. Noctis has a bad leg thanks to a childhood incident, is Depressed, is doomed to die an early death which contributes to his Depression, is roped into a shitty exploitative relationship with his “fate” thrown onto him since the age of at least 8 or so, loses his entire kingdom, suffers from PTSD as if he hadn’t already, and at every turn is either disrespected, treated like a “spoiled brat”, robbed of his agency, lied to by people including his betrothed and his father, gets ten years of his life stolen from him and the world goes to complete shit which he couldn’t do anything to stop and is promptly guilted over, and to top it off, he’s convinced (read: blackmailed, pressured, forced) to kill himself as if he doesn’t have a life of his own, a kingdom he was initially told he would reclaim, nor any conceivable goal beyond what a bunch of useless gods want for him.

And some idiot writers decided that this guy who only got to live for 20 years was the perfect candidate for a story about martyrdom and suicide to “serve the greater good”.

👀 👀 👀 👀 👀 👀 👀

hmmmmmmm someone tell me why that is

I mean did the main protag(s) of FFs 1-6 die and I don’t know it, or...????

[marketingadvisorvietnam]

LGBT parents create safe spaces to share painful stories

Marketing Advisor đã viết bài trên http://www.ticvietnam.vn/lgbt-parents-create-safe-spaces-to-share-painful-stories/

LGBT parents create safe spaces to share painful stories

There is a popular perception, justified to an extent, that parents and families are the main stumbling blocks for members of the LGBTQI community in terms of their coming out and finding acceptance in mainstream society.

An attempt to change this is being made by Vietnamese parents who’ve confronted their own demons in dealing with their children’s different sexual orientations.

At a public talk show last month, such parents shared some real life stories of LGBTQI+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, and intersex) people, highlighting social prejudices that affect all stakeholders.

One of the main organizers of the event was PFLAG, the first community of its kind in Vietnam. PFLAG stands for “Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays”.

It was not a crowded gathering, but the stories it elicited were overwhelmingly touching.

Mother Chau, a prominent figure in PFLAG community, who has a gay son, was the first to share the story of a lesbian she met at a restaurant she used to work.

PFLAG member Chau shares an LGBT case she helped with. Sititng next to her is another PFLAG member, Thang (left). Thang and Chau are both familiar parent faces in the LGBT community. Photo by Sen

Family honor and marriages of convenience

Because of her sexual orientation, the woman no longer lived with her family. The problem wasn’t her parents – it was her grandmother who would reprimand her harshly. The grandmother’s last words, just before she died, set the tone for the rest of this woman’s life: “She has to get a husband.”

To appease her relatives and maintain the “family honor,” the young woman returned home for a wedding with a paid groom, who was told of the situation. He was fully compensated for his participation in the face-saving marriage, but it did not stop him from getting drunk and raping his lesbian wife one day.

The rape not only traumatized the woman to the extent of requiring prolonged medication, it also made her pregnant. She gave birth to a “slow child” as a result of all the medicines she’d taken to deal with her mental trauma.

Chau was almost in tears as she narrated the story.

“This is a wake-up call for parents out there,” she said. A healthy woman gave up her way of life and true self to fulfill a death wish, with tragic results.

“Is this the price one must pay for family honor?” Chau asked all listeners.

“Because the pregnancy was helping the woman recover her mental health, abortion was not recommended. Now she is doing much better and is no longer heavily dependent on medication. Her child now goes to school,” Chau added.

The accidental father claimed that the contractual nature of their “marriage” meant he had no responsibility towards his victim and child. The family did not press charges.

It might have been love that motivated the family to coerce the woman into the accepted mold of gender norms, but that love was a recipe for disasters, Chau said.

“Now we see love resurrected with healing power in this story, as the rape victim and her child are now living in the caring, affectionate arms of a woman.”

No sex life

Mother Yen Ly, president of PFLAG Vietnam, shared another story of suffering and healing.

A man in his late 30s, a resident of the central Thanh Hoa Province where traditional prejudices against gay people still hold strong, was married and had a teenage daughter, but his life was hell.

The couple had no sex life because he was gay.

“Every night I would try to find work somewhere to do and only come back home when my wife is asleep. It was a glimpse of hell every time I crossed our bed,” he told Ly.

He finally decided to put everything on the table, literally, with a letter of confession to his wife. This is not something any heterosexual married woman expects to experience. She was heartbroken, and his parents were furious. Coming out of the closet created an immense distance between him and his family.

Following Ly’s advice, the man invited his parents to different workshops organized by PFLAG for parents of LGBT children. Gradually they came out of their hate and prejudice to welcome their son for who he was.

The man is now happily divorced and his daughter visits him frequently.

Unheard of

Huynh Minh Thao, aka Sas Ri, director of communications and services of ICS – the first LGBT rights organization in Vietnam, said “loveless marriages benefit neither our society nor the relationship.”

He reckoned that the root cause for this happening was Vietnamese parents’ fear that their LGBT children were destined to live a tough life without a life partner that could bear them children.

“Getting married, bearing offspring and being taken care of by them is the most favored normal way of living. The idea of LGBT individuals having a healthy, happy life outside of this model is unheard of, for a lot of parents,” Thao said.

Still a man’s world

A panel guest – a media expert who requested anonymity, said gender disparity was another problem that rears its ugly head in LGBT issues, and that the victim was not always the person with a different sexual orientation.

He shared the story of a highly respected teacher in a small city, who is also a government official in the local educational department.

Everything about the teacher’s life goes according to the book – a Vietnamese middle-aged man, secure career, dedicated wife and kids.

There is just one caveat: he likes men.

Unlike the previous story, this man has not bothered to keep his orientation from his immediate family. He has built a private room in his house where only he and his lovers are allowed. “The room is fully equipped and super romantic,” said the expert.

However, this does not mean his wife and children are free from living a lie because they cannot utter a word to anyone, given the status he has in society. For the same reason, divorce is out of the question.

Outwardly, the wife is going through the life of a normal, traditional Vietnamese woman – devoted to her husband, whose happiness comes before hers. But her real life suffering has no outlet.

In this case, it was the straight spouse, the wife and a mother, who has been victimized and needed help, the guest noted.

Teddy, a guest advises others on coming out successfully. Sitting next to him is his mother, Dinh Thi Yen Ly, president of PFLAG. It took Ly five years to accept her son’s sexual identity and mend their relationship. Sitting across them are another mother-LGBT son pair who’ve also been through their own journey towards understanding one another. Photo by Sen

A strategic coming out

One of the most asked questions in the LGBT community is: “How do I come out safely?”

And it was raised again at the event.

Teddy, a university lecturer at the Ho Chi Minh University of Technology, recommended a strategic approach.

He said: “You need to calculate all the risks. If you want your parents to understand you, make sure you are also willing to understand them.

ICS director Thao elaborated on this. She said there was no blanket solution that fits every family, but the some steps can be useful.

“First of all, know thyself. LGBT members need to know who they are, what they need, and essentially equip themselves with relevant LGBT knowledge.

“The second step involves finding an ally in the family, who has an open and receptive mind. Last, but not the least, team up with that person to find other family members who can sympathize with your situation.”

Thao advised: “Every family is different, but having an ally means you will be protected to an extent, especially when that person has a big influence in the family.”

Everyone attending the event agreed that more time and effort was needed to raise understanding and empathy so that the sad stories narrated would, in the future, become an anomaly in the country.

That is the mission that ICS and PFLAG Vietnam have set for themselves. While ICS works towards LGBTI+ community empowerment, social change, and law advocacy, as well as providing consultation and legal aid, PFLAG devotes its resources to similar initiatives and organizes safe platforms for LGBT discussions.

Parents are scared, too

A key aspect of the LGBT experience highlighted at the talk show was the parents’ plight.

Chau said that it is always difficult for parents to keep up with their children, who shift from one milestone of growth to another.

In the case of different sexual orientation, “you should help your parents confront the naysayers and enrich their LGBT knowledge,” she told a teenager.

She said it was fear and ignorance that made some parents strive hard to protect family honor for the sake of outsiders while “attacking their own children.”

The event’s host said he felt parents of LGBTQI+ chide their children not because they do not love them, but because they are deeply offended by outsiders’ mocking of their loved ones for their unorthodox sexual orientations. They want to change that, “but sometimes they direct their anger at the wrong person – their own children.

“Even you need time to accept and welcome yourself, how can parents instantly accept you” an event organizer asked.

“When you are becoming more cognizant of the fact that you are different, think about your parents. Have you ever considered your parents’ perspective? That they are scared too because they are different for having a gay child?”

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[marketingadvisorvietnam]

LGBT parents create safe spaces to share painful stories

Marketing Advisor đã viết bài trên http://www.ticvietnam.vn/lgbt-parents-create-safe-spaces-to-share-painful-stories/

LGBT parents create safe spaces to share painful stories

There is a popular perception, justified to an extent, that parents and families are the main stumbling blocks for members of the LGBTQI community in terms of their coming out and finding acceptance in mainstream society.

An attempt to change this is being made by Vietnamese parents who’ve confronted their own demons in dealing with their children’s different sexual orientations.

At a public talk show last month, such parents shared some real life stories of LGBTQI+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, and intersex) people, highlighting social prejudices that affect all stakeholders.

One of the main organizers of the event was PFLAG, the first community of its kind in Vietnam. PFLAG stands for “Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays”.

It was not a crowded gathering, but the stories it elicited were overwhelmingly touching.

Mother Chau, a prominent figure in PFLAG community, who has a gay son, was the first to share the story of a lesbian she met at a restaurant she used to work.

PFLAG member Chau shares an LGBT case she helped with. Sititng next to her is another PFLAG member, Thang (left). Thang and Chau are both familiar parent faces in the LGBT community. Photo by Sen

Family honor and marriages of convenience

Because of her sexual orientation, the woman no longer lived with her family. The problem wasn’t her parents – it was her grandmother who would reprimand her harshly. The grandmother’s last words, just before she died, set the tone for the rest of this woman’s life: “She has to get a husband.”

To appease her relatives and maintain the “family honor,” the young woman returned home for a wedding with a paid groom, who was told of the situation. He was fully compensated for his participation in the face-saving marriage, but it did not stop him from getting drunk and raping his lesbian wife one day.

The rape not only traumatized the woman to the extent of requiring prolonged medication, it also made her pregnant. She gave birth to a “slow child” as a result of all the medicines she’d taken to deal with her mental trauma.

Chau was almost in tears as she narrated the story.

“This is a wake-up call for parents out there,” she said. A healthy woman gave up her way of life and true self to fulfill a death wish, with tragic results.

“Is this the price one must pay for family honor?” Chau asked all listeners.

“Because the pregnancy was helping the woman recover her mental health, abortion was not recommended. Now she is doing much better and is no longer heavily dependent on medication. Her child now goes to school,” Chau added.

The accidental father claimed that the contractual nature of their “marriage” meant he had no responsibility towards his victim and child. The family did not press charges.

It might have been love that motivated the family to coerce the woman into the accepted mold of gender norms, but that love was a recipe for disasters, Chau said.

“Now we see love resurrected with healing power in this story, as the rape victim and her child are now living in the caring, affectionate arms of a woman.”

No sex life

Mother Yen Ly, president of PFLAG Vietnam, shared another story of suffering and healing.

A man in his late 30s, a resident of the central Thanh Hoa Province where traditional prejudices against gay people still hold strong, was married and had a teenage daughter, but his life was hell.

The couple had no sex life because he was gay.

“Every night I would try to find work somewhere to do and only come back home when my wife is asleep. It was a glimpse of hell every time I crossed our bed,” he told Ly.

He finally decided to put everything on the table, literally, with a letter of confession to his wife. This is not something any heterosexual married woman expects to experience. She was heartbroken, and his parents were furious. Coming out of the closet created an immense distance between him and his family.

Following Ly’s advice, the man invited his parents to different workshops organized by PFLAG for parents of LGBT children. Gradually they came out of their hate and prejudice to welcome their son for who he was.

The man is now happily divorced and his daughter visits him frequently.

Unheard of

Huynh Minh Thao, aka Sas Ri, director of communications and services of ICS – the first LGBT rights organization in Vietnam, said “loveless marriages benefit neither our society nor the relationship.”

He reckoned that the root cause for this happening was Vietnamese parents’ fear that their LGBT children were destined to live a tough life without a life partner that could bear them children.

“Getting married, bearing offspring and being taken care of by them is the most favored normal way of living. The idea of LGBT individuals having a healthy, happy life outside of this model is unheard of, for a lot of parents,” Thao said.

Still a man’s world

A panel guest – a media expert who requested anonymity, said gender disparity was another problem that rears its ugly head in LGBT issues, and that the victim was not always the person with a different sexual orientation.

He shared the story of a highly respected teacher in a small city, who is also a government official in the local educational department.

Everything about the teacher’s life goes according to the book – a Vietnamese middle-aged man, secure career, dedicated wife and kids.

There is just one caveat: he likes men.

Unlike the previous story, this man has not bothered to keep his orientation from his immediate family. He has built a private room in his house where only he and his lovers are allowed. “The room is fully equipped and super romantic,” said the expert.

However, this does not mean his wife and children are free from living a lie because they cannot utter a word to anyone, given the status he has in society. For the same reason, divorce is out of the question.

Outwardly, the wife is going through the life of a normal, traditional Vietnamese woman – devoted to her husband, whose happiness comes before hers. But her real life suffering has no outlet.

In this case, it was the straight spouse, the wife and a mother, who has been victimized and needed help, the guest noted.

Teddy, a guest advises others on coming out successfully. Sitting next to him is his mother, Dinh Thi Yen Ly, president of PFLAG. It took Ly five years to accept her son’s sexual identity and mend their relationship. Sitting across them are another mother-LGBT son pair who’ve also been through their own journey towards understanding one another. Photo by Sen

A strategic coming out

One of the most asked questions in the LGBT community is: “How do I come out safely?”

And it was raised again at the event.

Teddy, a university lecturer at the Ho Chi Minh University of Technology, recommended a strategic approach.

He said: “You need to calculate all the risks. If you want your parents to understand you, make sure you are also willing to understand them.

ICS director Thao elaborated on this. She said there was no blanket solution that fits every family, but the some steps can be useful.

“First of all, know thyself. LGBT members need to know who they are, what they need, and essentially equip themselves with relevant LGBT knowledge.

“The second step involves finding an ally in the family, who has an open and receptive mind. Last, but not the least, team up with that person to find other family members who can sympathize with your situation.”

Thao advised: “Every family is different, but having an ally means you will be protected to an extent, especially when that person has a big influence in the family.”

Everyone attending the event agreed that more time and effort was needed to raise understanding and empathy so that the sad stories narrated would, in the future, become an anomaly in the country.

That is the mission that ICS and PFLAG Vietnam have set for themselves. While ICS works towards LGBTI+ community empowerment, social change, and law advocacy, as well as providing consultation and legal aid, PFLAG devotes its resources to similar initiatives and organizes safe platforms for LGBT discussions.

Parents are scared, too

A key aspect of the LGBT experience highlighted at the talk show was the parents’ plight.

Chau said that it is always difficult for parents to keep up with their children, who shift from one milestone of growth to another.

In the case of different sexual orientation, “you should help your parents confront the naysayers and enrich their LGBT knowledge,” she told a teenager.

She said it was fear and ignorance that made some parents strive hard to protect family honor for the sake of outsiders while “attacking their own children.”

The event’s host said he felt parents of LGBTQI+ chide their children not because they do not love them, but because they are deeply offended by outsiders’ mocking of their loved ones for their unorthodox sexual orientations. They want to change that, “but sometimes they direct their anger at the wrong person – their own children.

“Even you need time to accept and welcome yourself, how can parents instantly accept you” an event organizer asked.

“When you are becoming more cognizant of the fact that you are different, think about your parents. Have you ever considered your parents’ perspective? That they are scared too because they are different for having a gay child?”

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[marketingadvisorvietnam]

LGBT parents create safe spaces to share painful stories

Marketing Advisor đã viết bài trên http://www.ticvietnam.vn/lgbt-parents-create-safe-spaces-to-share-painful-stories/

LGBT parents create safe spaces to share painful stories

There is a popular perception, justified to an extent, that parents and families are the main stumbling blocks for members of the LGBTQI community in terms of their coming out and finding acceptance in mainstream society.

An attempt to change this is being made by Vietnamese parents who’ve confronted their own demons in dealing with their children’s different sexual orientations.

At a public talk show last month, such parents shared some real life stories of LGBTQI+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, and intersex) people, highlighting social prejudices that affect all stakeholders.

One of the main organizers of the event was PFLAG, the first community of its kind in Vietnam. PFLAG stands for “Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays”.

It was not a crowded gathering, but the stories it elicited were overwhelmingly touching.

Mother Chau, a prominent figure in PFLAG community, who has a gay son, was the first to share the story of a lesbian she met at a restaurant she used to work.

PFLAG member Chau shares an LGBT case she helped with. Sititng next to her is another PFLAG member, Thang (left). Thang and Chau are both familiar parent faces in the LGBT community. Photo by Sen

Family honor and marriages of convenience

Because of her sexual orientation, the woman no longer lived with her family. The problem wasn’t her parents – it was her grandmother who would reprimand her harshly. The grandmother’s last words, just before she died, set the tone for the rest of this woman’s life: “She has to get a husband.”

To appease her relatives and maintain the “family honor,” the young woman returned home for a wedding with a paid groom, who was told of the situation. He was fully compensated for his participation in the face-saving marriage, but it did not stop him from getting drunk and raping his lesbian wife one day.

The rape not only traumatized the woman to the extent of requiring prolonged medication, it also made her pregnant. She gave birth to a “slow child” as a result of all the medicines she’d taken to deal with her mental trauma.

Chau was almost in tears as she narrated the story.

“This is a wake-up call for parents out there,” she said. A healthy woman gave up her way of life and true self to fulfill a death wish, with tragic results.

“Is this the price one must pay for family honor?” Chau asked all listeners.

“Because the pregnancy was helping the woman recover her mental health, abortion was not recommended. Now she is doing much better and is no longer heavily dependent on medication. Her child now goes to school,” Chau added.

The accidental father claimed that the contractual nature of their “marriage” meant he had no responsibility towards his victim and child. The family did not press charges.

It might have been love that motivated the family to coerce the woman into the accepted mold of gender norms, but that love was a recipe for disasters, Chau said.

“Now we see love resurrected with healing power in this story, as the rape victim and her child are now living in the caring, affectionate arms of a woman.”

No sex life

Mother Yen Ly, president of PFLAG Vietnam, shared another story of suffering and healing.

A man in his late 30s, a resident of the central Thanh Hoa Province where traditional prejudices against gay people still hold strong, was married and had a teenage daughter, but his life was hell.

The couple had no sex life because he was gay.

“Every night I would try to find work somewhere to do and only come back home when my wife is asleep. It was a glimpse of hell every time I crossed our bed,” he told Ly.

He finally decided to put everything on the table, literally, with a letter of confession to his wife. This is not something any heterosexual married woman expects to experience. She was heartbroken, and his parents were furious. Coming out of the closet created an immense distance between him and his family.

Following Ly’s advice, the man invited his parents to different workshops organized by PFLAG for parents of LGBT children. Gradually they came out of their hate and prejudice to welcome their son for who he was.

The man is now happily divorced and his daughter visits him frequently.

Unheard of

Huynh Minh Thao, aka Sas Ri, director of communications and services of ICS – the first LGBT rights organization in Vietnam, said “loveless marriages benefit neither our society nor the relationship.”

He reckoned that the root cause for this happening was Vietnamese parents’ fear that their LGBT children were destined to live a tough life without a life partner that could bear them children.

“Getting married, bearing offspring and being taken care of by them is the most favored normal way of living. The idea of LGBT individuals having a healthy, happy life outside of this model is unheard of, for a lot of parents,” Thao said.

Still a man’s world

A panel guest – a media expert who requested anonymity, said gender disparity was another problem that rears its ugly head in LGBT issues, and that the victim was not always the person with a different sexual orientation.

He shared the story of a highly respected teacher in a small city, who is also a government official in the local educational department.

Everything about the teacher’s life goes according to the book – a Vietnamese middle-aged man, secure career, dedicated wife and kids.

There is just one caveat: he likes men.

Unlike the previous story, this man has not bothered to keep his orientation from his immediate family. He has built a private room in his house where only he and his lovers are allowed. “The room is fully equipped and super romantic,” said the expert.

However, this does not mean his wife and children are free from living a lie because they cannot utter a word to anyone, given the status he has in society. For the same reason, divorce is out of the question.

Outwardly, the wife is going through the life of a normal, traditional Vietnamese woman – devoted to her husband, whose happiness comes before hers. But her real life suffering has no outlet.

In this case, it was the straight spouse, the wife and a mother, who has been victimized and needed help, the guest noted.

Teddy, a guest advises others on coming out successfully. Sitting next to him is his mother, Dinh Thi Yen Ly, president of PFLAG. It took Ly five years to accept her son’s sexual identity and mend their relationship. Sitting across them are another mother-LGBT son pair who’ve also been through their own journey towards understanding one another. Photo by Sen

A strategic coming out

One of the most asked questions in the LGBT community is: “How do I come out safely?”

And it was raised again at the event.

Teddy, a university lecturer at the Ho Chi Minh University of Technology, recommended a strategic approach.

He said: “You need to calculate all the risks. If you want your parents to understand you, make sure you are also willing to understand them.

ICS director Thao elaborated on this. She said there was no blanket solution that fits every family, but the some steps can be useful.

“First of all, know thyself. LGBT members need to know who they are, what they need, and essentially equip themselves with relevant LGBT knowledge.

“The second step involves finding an ally in the family, who has an open and receptive mind. Last, but not the least, team up with that person to find other family members who can sympathize with your situation.”

Thao advised: “Every family is different, but having an ally means you will be protected to an extent, especially when that person has a big influence in the family.”

Everyone attending the event agreed that more time and effort was needed to raise understanding and empathy so that the sad stories narrated would, in the future, become an anomaly in the country.

That is the mission that ICS and PFLAG Vietnam have set for themselves. While ICS works towards LGBTI+ community empowerment, social change, and law advocacy, as well as providing consultation and legal aid, PFLAG devotes its resources to similar initiatives and organizes safe platforms for LGBT discussions.

Parents are scared, too

A key aspect of the LGBT experience highlighted at the talk show was the parents’ plight.

Chau said that it is always difficult for parents to keep up with their children, who shift from one milestone of growth to another.

In the case of different sexual orientation, “you should help your parents confront the naysayers and enrich their LGBT knowledge,” she told a teenager.

She said it was fear and ignorance that made some parents strive hard to protect family honor for the sake of outsiders while “attacking their own children.”

The event’s host said he felt parents of LGBTQI+ chide their children not because they do not love them, but because they are deeply offended by outsiders’ mocking of their loved ones for their unorthodox sexual orientations. They want to change that, “but sometimes they direct their anger at the wrong person – their own children.

“Even you need time to accept and welcome yourself, how can parents instantly accept you” an event organizer asked.

“When you are becoming more cognizant of the fact that you are different, think about your parents. Have you ever considered your parents’ perspective? That they are scared too because they are different for having a gay child?”

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