#and their story is essentially them trying to cope with the aftermath

[allthepandasintheworld]

good omens reference and also, halsin is HUGE ok, in game, rene literally only comes up to his shoulder

im assuming body type 2 for drow are around 6ft but i dont think(?) they are(?) HOWEVER. elves are canonically on average 6ft tall, and halsin is considered abnormally tall for an elf, which can only mean he's 7ft at least, in this essay i--

[dreamcaught]

There have been so many of these posts, and what looks like an entire website pretty much dedicated to this topic, but nevertheless here I am adding to the mix.

Thoughts on Buffy Season 6, Sex and Seeing Red

This is long and only kind of edited. Content warning below.

CW: Discussions of abuse, addiction, and rape.

Let me just start out by saying: Spike is my favourite character in Buffy. I love him completely. He is contrary and interesting and if there is anything I would do to improve the show it would be to add more scenes with Spike. But, unlike a lot of Spike girlies – and especially many of my favourite fanon creators – I don’t think Spike is out-of-character in Seeing Red. There are some serious problems with it, but I think it’s an important scene.

My reason for saying this comes from the claim that Buffy and Willow are the main villains this season. Well, no, to be fair: in season 6, the main villains of the show are the internal villains within the characters, specifically Buffy and Willow, expressed through their actions of addiction and abuse. The Trio is a red herring Big Bad; they’re pretty much just there to provide laughs and move plot. They’re not like the Master, or Angelus, or Adam, or Glory – there isn’t ever a “gather the troops, we’ve got an apocalypse on our hands” attitude toward defeating them… because they’re just human people, making human mistakes and causing human havoc. (Much like how Buffy and Willow would be if they weren’t already saturated in the supernatural.)

Buffy and Willow’s stories run parallel in this season. They are both dealing with the aftermath of Buffy’s resurrection: Buffy is majorly depressed to the point that she feels essentially soulless, whereas Willow is guilty to such degree that the only way she knows how to cope with herself is through control and the overuse of magic.

Tangent about Sex Because That’s How I Roll:

Before we go further to discuss this, just, briefly, let’s take note that this show does not do justice to sex. In both cases, Buffy and Willow’s “addiction” is to, essentially, use sex like a drug to (sort of) feel, but more accurately numb themselves. Buffy’s use of Spike is blatant, but we must remember that Willow and Tara’s first prominent romantic/sexual connections were initially all linked to their use of magic.

It’s made clear that this idea of magic = sex between the two is continued even in season 6, as exemplified in the Once More with Feeling song Under Your Spell lines: “You make me complete,” which are cut off at the most deliciously appropriate time – and if you haven’t noticed that until I’ve pointed it out here, then well done, you!

Here there is a bit of a problem I have with the show’s messaging because it’s essentially saying that sex is bad. Tara asks Willow to stop using magic (yikes, imagine asking your lover to please stop sexing so much, babe, it’s bad for you) – and at the same time, in the parallel story, Buffy feels the need to hide her sexual tryst with Spike because it’s wrong to want to feel good.

I think it’s important to note that Buffy isn’t really upset about it being Spike, specifically. She makes a big deal of saying that he’s “everything she’s supposed to hate” and “soulless” and “evil,” but Buffy had every opportunity to have this affair with literally anyone else – in fact, she could have very easily gotten her rocks off with a different, random person every night, but chooses to use Spike. And here we can move back to the main points –

Miscommunication

Buffy and Spike’s relationship is abusive, but hardly for the reasons they make it appear on the show. At this point, Spike is a soulless demon. That he doesn’t just kill her as soon as he realizes that he can hurt her is a testament to how much he loves her, despite this. But, because he is a soulless demon, he does try to take advantage of Buffy’s attention to him by trying to convince her that she should be with him. He plays on her fears of being soulless/evil/demonic. Other than trying to persuade her to stay with him, this is the full extent of Spike’s abuse of Buffy.

At no point in their physical relationship does Spike ever abuse Buffy’s consent.

Between Spike and Buffy is a travesty of miscommunication. Need I say again: Spike is a soulless demon. From the moment he realizes his feelings toward Buffy, he is constantly trying to figure out what she needs from him, because he simply does not understand. (“What’s it take?”) He actively tries to learn what Buffy wants and how to respond to her desires. From their passionate kiss in Once More with Feeling: “The day you suss out what you do want, there'll probably be a parade,” to literally his last lines of the show, “No, you don’t,” Buffy and Spike’s communication is the worst!

And this is all Buffy’s fault, by the way! She absolutely, stubbornly, resolutely refuses to talk – to most people! It’s practically a miracle that Spike understands Buffy at all – and to that end, I truly, fully, completely believe that Spike is the best partner for Buffy, simply because he’s the only one who does.

Their first time together, Buffy is verbally telling him it’s never going to happen while at the same time ripping off his clothes. At nearly every encounter between them during their affair, Buffy says it will never happen again, it will be the last time, it was the worst thing ever. These are outright lies, and Spike learns through conditioning to see right through them. When she says “Stop,” he doesn’t have to stop – because that is not what she means. He learns through the complicated, complex, contrary Buffy Talk what she actually wants and then proceeds to give it to her.

Up to Seeing Red, Buffy’s consent has always sounded like: “No.”

Buffy the Villain

Buffy has chosen Spike as her lover because he already loves her. He is emotionally invested in their relationship. He takes care of her. (“I can get money.”) She can be herself with him. (“I can be alone with you here.”) She is safe with him. (“Dawn is safe with Spike, so I can stay as long as you need.”)

During their affair, Buffy takes everything that she’s feeling about herself out on Spike. She calls him soulless, she calls him nothing, she says he’s empty; she beats him up, she kicks him out, she refuses his affection and forces him to hide his own. Spike takes it because he is loyal and in love with her, and this is the extent that Buffy abuses him. She conditions him to think that she can’t love him, she conditions him to think that saying “No” means “Yes,” she conditions him to think that her abuse of him is kinky and will lead to sex.

Buffy’s goal is only to feel something. She wants Spike to take advantage because it makes things a lot easier for her to deal with. If she says “No,” that means that she’s tried to stop him, despite it not being what she really wants or expects of him.

Because of this abuse, in a very real way, Buffy is the one who destroys the safety that Spike represented. Her abuse of him corrodes their trust, but she doesn’t know that. Buffy, despite denying it or acknowledging it, still believes in Spike’s loyalty. And not only that – by this point, Buffy has fallen in love with him. The bathroom scene in Seeing Red happens, in part, because she’s pushed Spike too far – and she’s not ready to admit to anything, because she refuses to acknowledge that she was an abuser.

The events of Seeing Red are the culmination of Buffy’s actions with the complete absence of honest communication. It is because she tells Spike to move on that he sleeps with Anya. It is because she expected his loyalty that Dawn talks to Spike. It’s because she trained Spike to do the opposite of what she says that he tries to connect with her physically to make her happy.

It is because she refuses to acknowledge not only her abuse of him, but also her love for him, that he chooses to show her instead. Because Buffy doesn’t talk – she only acts, and that’s what Spike tries to do, in the way that she taught him – from the start of their affair to the explicit events in Gone, all the way to this scene, Buffy has told Spike that sex is how to get close to her.

The Bathroom Scene

A lot of people have been traumatized by this scene. It is very difficult to watch, since we’ve got these two beautifully complicated people trying so hard to communicate and failing so badly at it. Buffy, finally, is saying what she means, but Spike can’t hear it. Spike is, as he’s been taught to do, servicing her to show her his devotion. These two people are in love with each other but are deeply hurt. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Buffy is hurt by Spike’s actions while he’s hurt by her words, since these are the languages they understand.

If done well, this scene could have been healing. They could have finally come together in grief of their broken relationship and tried to fix it to something healthier. But instead, they were using the scene to push Spike into getting a soul, so he had to go too far, and she had to say too much.

I don’t think that Spike is out of character. I think that both Spike and Buffy act exactly within their character consistencies. Spike would totally seek Buffy out if he thought she was hurting – especially if he had any hope at all that he was the cause of her hurt. Buffy would completely deny, deny, deny any emotional attachment to Spike and take no responsibility for having hurt him. She’s still stuck, here, projecting her own numbness onto Spike with the false idea that he can’t love because he’s soulless.

Because of the constant, completely screwed up ideologies within this show about sex (that sex is bad, that too much sex is bad, that kinky sex is wrong, etc.) and because of the cumulative events that arise from their abusive sex=closeness relationship, the only way they could think of to make it even worse was to escalate to rape.

I know why they did it, because it makes sense within the story of their physical affair. It’s The Worst Thing you can do to someone else. We have to remember that Buffy doesn’t care about being killed, because she sort of wants to die. Also, Spike would never want to kill her. The only other thing he might want to do is turn her, but, to Buffy, that’s the same thing as being killed. Since her belief is that a demon takes over the human host, she might even welcome being turned as much as she would welcome death.

But importantly: there is the significant and completely intentional reverse of their villainousness actions here. In this scene, Buffy can’t be the villain anymore. It doesn’t matter how much she’s abused Spike, it doesn’t matter that their relationship was murky and confusing. Because it is rape, the only villain is the person committing the act of rape.

Spike must be made the villain here because anything else is victim blaming. It was the only action the writers could take to give the title of villain back to Spike away from Buffy. Spike has to end this season being the Big Bad because he must absorb all the hurt, the pain and the soullessness that was entangled with Buffy and incorporate it into himself (“You think I like having you in here? Destroying everything that was me, until all that's left is you, in a dead shell. You say you hate it, but you won't leave.”)

He takes Buffy’s pain and heals them both by – after these events – getting his soul.

The Problem

The writing staff knew their characters (for the most part). They knew that Spike was soulless and needed something drastic to instigate his search of a soul. Hurting Buffy this way did make the most sense in the framework of their affair and in the framework of making sex akin to drugs. But attempted rape was too, too far for the viewers. Talking about sex is already difficult for society, especially at the time this show was made. Talking about and explicitly showing attempted rape caused trauma to viewers and made a lot of people turn away from the otherwise very beautifully complicated relationship between Buffy and Spike.

People against Spuffy use this scene as the ultimate fodder against Spike, but doing so is disrespectful to the story, the lore and the characters. Spike loved Buffy enough soulless, but she was only strong enough to accept that once he went out and got one. In addition to that – Buffy forgives Spike for what he did that day. She admits to her side of the abuse, acknowledges that what they had was real, and doesn’t blame Spike for his actions. This conversation exists in bits-and-pieces in the Buffy comics – it would have been incredible to see it on screen in season 7, but I guess by that point the writers didn’t want to bring it up again and had way too many other things to deal with (which is another topic altogether).

I like the bathroom scene in Seeing Red. I think it’s horrible, and raw, and terribly authentic. The portrayal of hurt and betrayal by both actors is one of the strongest scenes in the show. I do wish, though, that they hadn’t taken it quite so far.

My Problem

Season 6 of Buffy is my favourite season. It is powerful and painful. But, if I could change it, I would have changed the messaging that sex is bad, because it isn’t, and both Spike/Buffy and Willow/Tara deserved something better.

[floofanflurr]

I really loved “Heart on the Table”

Especially since it is actually addressing the fact that being a kid and getting attacked and hunted down absolutely sucks. Most of the stories I see are either at least partially including a genocide route or the aftermath of it.

Do you know any other stories/comics with this?

Hiya!!!! Thanks so, SO much! It’s honestly one of the reasons I wrote Heart on the Table is that it’s SO hard to find fics along those lines. I know they exist but they are much harder to spot than soulless pacifist fics or other geno route fics.

But like!!! That poor kid, HOLY CRAP? Even in a pacifist run, they are being hunted down by countless people, and they have the plus side of actually being able to experience the pain and trauma of dying. People get PTSD from a single near death event.

I don’t even want to think how I would cope after being hunted down like an animal, and then essentially tortured from all the low HP, then heal, then get beaten with an inch of your life again, then heal, then maybe actually die, then rinse and repeat… with only very brief breaks when you get to a town.

And even then those towns are filled with people cheering for your death.

And in a pacifist run, this kid is now befriending the people that hurt them so badly. Hellloooo internal conflict and moral quandaries!

As for recs! I’m sorry but I don’t have many. I know they’re out there, and I think after UTY came out I saw more of a surge of fics along those lines (thanks for nailing in how fucked up the situation is UTY!/gen) but I haven’t been able to find many… and my ao3 bookmarks are a mess, so even ones I have read in the past I wasn’t able to find again…

I actually asked @undertale-fic-librarby (highly recommend the blog! It’s a great place to go to get fic recs or if you are trying to find that one specific fic you remember)

They weren’t able to find any more fics after searching, but here’s my ask to them with a couple fics recs other than HotT that I found.

I hope that helps at least a bit!

[one-abuse-survivor]

Hello, hope you are doing well!

I was wondering if you have any tips on dealing with long-term dehumanization?

Growing up, my mother had a lot of mood swings (sometimes she was somewhat caring and I could talk to her, sometimes she's lock herself in her room and stay there, but most of the time she spent telling me about her various beliefs and (what probably) is delusions).

Long story short, I was punished if I didn't behave as expected, and was heavily isolated with the only other people in my life treating me similarly or worse, so I never knew it was weird.

It's to the level that a few months ago my mother told her friends that I'm spiritually an escapee alien from a horrible far-off planet that ran to earth in hopes of escaping it all, and therefor I'm not a real person and stuff.

Like I had multiple adults come to me and say things like "you did [insert blank] when you were younger, I should have known that you weren't actually human! no real human would do something like that".

I've always had to try and prove my humaness and the fact I exist as another person, but my mother (usually, her moods change.) refuses to understand that and gets mad at me if I'm not her perfect emotionless spreader-of-her-words and helper/worker.

I was stuck nearly 3 years in isolation with her and that treatment from anyone in my life (moved super long away so no contact with the few people I knew outside of them) and I was able to get out but I really do not understand how to function and how to exist without expecting to behave the same (which... didn't work because the person that's been letting me stay wants me out in a few weeks now because I don't act like a real person, essentially.)

Sorry about the rant/vent, I just.. I don't really know what to do and my support network is really small and turns out some people I thought I could trust knew about stuff that should have gotten me removed and they didn't do anything and akerjgnkaejrng.,

Thank you a ton for any advice/tips/input you share!! Hope you have a good day/evening/night/week

Hi, nonnie! Sorry it took me so long to reply. What your mother did to you sounds like psychological torture, and I'm so sorry it's been so hard to deal with it even in the aftermath.

I'm afraid I don't know nearly enough about dehumanisation to be of help here. I really hope you found things and people that helped you cope, as well as a safe place to live in. It sounds like therapy might be helpful if that's something that's available for you.

Sending all my support your way ❤️

[lucidpiner]

He need some milk soundbyte

and as you know, states are different, the unemployment numbers are different state to state. this is partly because hundreds of flights were canceled in the wake of hurricane ida's devastating flooding.Īren't going to reopen or if they're concerned about unemployment running out, myself and secretary yellen sent a letter to the states letting them know that they have the ability to use the american rescue plan money to extend the benefits if they'd like in each state. each expected to fly about two million people over the long weekend. let's zoom in to what united and delta are reporting. it is, though, still fewer holiday weekend flights than before the pandemic. that is more than twice as many than last year. the tsa is reporting that more than 3.5 million travelers passed through airports on friday and saturday alone. let's look at some of the newest data, some of the fresh numbers we have for you this morning. but the travel industry in general is struggling to get back on to its feet. on your celebration note, you're right, some of us watched ucla beat lsu over the weekend. erroll barnett is at reagan national airport outside washington. that's the highest monthly total since january. in august alone, we recorded more than four million infections. is averaging more thanġ50,000 new cases a day according to the cdc. all of us have dealing with the threat from the delta variant of covid. others have celebrating the new college football season. millions of americans are traveling far from home over the holiday weekend. meanwhile, cbs news has reached out to bob dean jr., the nursing home owner for comment, he has not responded to our request. > reporter: the louisiana department of health reports trying to inspect this facility after hurricane ida. they are human beings, and they deserve good treatment. > reporter: meanwhile, henderson says after speaking out she's been told she'll never be hired back if the nursing homes reopen, but she hopes doing so will ensure nothing like what she witnessed will ever happen again. > any place the lord blesses us to go out of this heat, where we're able to get some food, get a hot bath, and, you know, just some comfort. They're leaving the state until the power returns. in new orleans the heat index yesterday was 102 degrees, and many communities still don't have enough food, water, and other essential supplies. more than half a million people are without power more than a week after the storm. welcome to "cbs this morning." let's begin here with the unfolding crisis in louisiana where many people are still struggling to cope with the aftermath of hurricane ida. > with these numbers you wonder are we going to go back. you realize how much you missed them when you saw the real crowds. > i guess touchdowns you just travels - > i'll say this - it was good to see fans back at games. > this morning's "eye opener" is presented by progressive - making it easy to bundle insurance. but - > the luck of the irish? he does! the irish win it in a thriller in tallahassee. Sign up below to be added to our Daily Health Stories distribution list.Cruising - > florida state down 18 points in the fourth quarter came back to send the game to overtime. These parents deserve support as well, since they may feel guilty or even go through a grieving period. Szugye knows not everyone is able to breastfeed. And so we want to make sure that our practices and policies are set up to support moms that choose to breastfeed.”ĭr. “The policy is really more a call to action to everyone and that includes hospitals. The updated guidelines also call for more support for moms to help them meet these new recommendations. Szugye said breastfeeding has been linked to a decreased risk for type two diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and breast cancer. It can also help protect against ear infections, respiratory infections, different GI illnesses and autoimmune diseases.Īs for the mother, Dr. She also notes there are many health benefits to continued breastfeeding.įor example, breast milk can help reduce maternal and infant mortality and morbidity. Szugye said the recommendations were made to ensure moms who do choose to breastfeed beyond a year don’t feel ashamed, judged or alienated. It’s just the duration now that has changed, and that guideline really aligns with what the World Health Organization and UNICEF had always recommended,” explained Heidi Szugye, MD, Medical Director of Breastfeeding Medicine Clinic and Center for Cleveland Clinic Children’s.ĭr. “They have always recommended breastfeeding exclusively for the first six months. CLEVELAND – The American Academy of Pediatrics recently issued new breastfeeding recommendations, which include continuing to breastfeed a child, if possible, until they’re at least two years old.

[thesecursedsails]

.

[ninyard]

Could you write something with a Nicky & Kevin friendship or just supporting each other, set at any point during the series

you know what anon I don’t think I’ve ever genuinely thought about Nicky n Kevin’s friendship before ?? But! What a fantastic friendship it is!!!! I think there’s a pretty pivotal moment in the series of their relationship, but obligatory CW for The Raven King Chapter 11 (the thanksgiving dinner) before we get into it

First of all I think when Kevin first arrived in PSU, and when he was staying with Abby, still healing his broken hand, Nicky was the only fox except for Andrew who visited him regularly? Even Andrew didn’t really “visit” at that point, but Nicky was the only one who pro-actively wanted to see how Kevin was doing, instead of asking Wymack or Abby or gossiping between the team. It was probably in part because Nicky LOVES breaking a good story, but mostly it was because of the fact Nicky is such a genuinely kind person? He knew how alone Kevin must’ve felt after being essentially banished from his “family”, with no future in sight or a will to live, really. So Nicky showed up. He always brought a gift, and even though Kevin didn’t really speak much and really seemed to hate Nickys fast, drama-filled way of speaking, he never told Nicky to leave.

When Andrew came along and took Kevin under his wing, that kind of drove a wedge in between any semblance of relationship they could’ve had. It was Andrew And Kevin, and that was it. Andrew didn’t see a point in leaving room for Nicky in that. But Kevin never forgot what Nicky did for him, and even though they’re practically opposite types of people, Kevin and Nicky never had beef, like literally ever. Nicky tried flirting seriously with him once, but Kevin scrunched up his nose and shook his head and for the first time Nicky didn’t persist. They really just had this unspoken respect for each other, but their relationship was never really much more than that. Whereas Kevin’s relationship with Andrew was a joined-by-the-hip kind of deal, Kevin and Nicky more so looked out for each other in the smallest ways. When Nicky sprained his wrist during practice the end of freshman year, Kevin was there for him to show him the best ways to move it to build his strength back up and to take care of it so it could heal properly. When Nicky was struggling with some type of homework on the bus to a game, Kevin would peek over his shoulder and nonchalantly point out the answers. When Kevin was starting to play again, Nicky always offered to play defence to help him regain his strength against an opponent.

But you know, as soon as you mention Nicky and Kevin my head INSTANTLY goes to the aftermath of Chapter 11 in TRK. Like, Kevin had to go downstairs after finding that situation, and presumably Nicky had no real idea. So Nicky looks in the Kitchen window, while talking to his mom about nothing, and he sees Neil and Aaron head out of the kitchen. He watches Kevin follow. It’s not long before Luther is back outside with a look on his face that says nothing good, and then Nicky sees Kevin. He’s on the phone, chewing at his fingernails, face white like he’d seen a ghost. He leaves the table, overhearing Kevin reciting his parents’ address and they lock eyes when he enters the room. Kevin’s eyebrows are knitted together like he’s about to cry. He puts a hand out when Nicky tries to push past him. It takes him a minute to hang up, and suddenly Nicky’s heart is racing and he’s desperate to go upstairs. Kevin can’t find the words.

“Andrew’s hurt.” The words don’t do it justice. It feels like a lie coming out his mouth. “Nicky,” he tries to push past again. “I don’t know if you should go up there.” Nicky turns back to see his mom and dad watching them. They look like they’re about to follow. Nicky asks if he called the police or an ambulance. Kevin says both.

“Who hurt him?” Nicky doesn’t know what to say. He can hear the mumble of voices upstairs.

“I don’t know.” Kevin’s voice is almost a whisper. “There’s so much blood.” And then Nicky shoves him out of the way and suddenly Kevin’s following him up the stairs and Nicky’s reaching out to hold Andrew’s face, Neil holding a blanket around his presumably naked bottom half. Kevin nearly got sick at the sight again. He’d seen enough blood in the nest, he’d seen enough rapes and tortures and beatings and dead bodies, but this was so much worse. This was messy, this was family, this was Andrew’s abuser killed at the hands of his brother, blood on the wall of Nicky’s childhood bedroom.

So Andrew and Neil leave in the ambulance, Kevin and Nicky left to take a taxi to the police station, waiting for Aaron who left in cuffs, waiting to give their statement. They don’t say much, but Kevin puts a hand on Nicky’s shoulder when he finally cries, and leaves his own shoulder free as a place to cry on. They’re told to leave without Aaron and they’re left alone again in Columbia, waiting for David to bring Andrew home safe. Neither of them have much of an appetite to eat, and it’s a while before either of them speak.

“Did you see it happen?” Nicky is staring at a wall, hands wringing around the end of a pillowcase. “Did you watch him die?”

“No,” Kevin fought off another panic attack that crept up his throat. “Did you know who he was?”

They skirted around the topic, afraid that if they said what really happened, it would be real, it would be unfixable. But Kevin knew Nicky needed him, until somebody else came back. Can you even imagine how much Nicky must’ve been in shock? I don’t think he even called Erik until the next day, you know. The only person he spoke about it with was Kevin, and when Betsy arrived he cried with her for ten minutes before a car was pulling up and he knew it was Andrew. Kevin and Nicky had never spent so much to me alone, but there was a strange comfort in the air. Kevin was the rock that Nicky needed, and Nicky was the distraction Kevin needed. Kevin wasn’t a hugger, really, but when Nicky asked to be held, he pulled him into his chest and didn’t let go until he was ready. They both comforted each other that night, but they never spoke about it again. Nobody else had to know that they’d practically broken down in each other arms, half in shock, half processing the trauma they’d just witnessed. Nicky had never been exposed to something like that before; Kevin knew it was a life-changing event for him. Nicky didn’t have any sort of ideas of superiority about his relationship to Andrew, either. He knew how much Andrew meant to Kevin, how he had walked in to see his protector so vulnerable, so hurt. He knew Kevin had to say that word down the phone to the operator, and how he had to say it to Coach, too. And he had to say it again and again and again to the cops in the station.

I know it’s an extreme example of their friendship, but I think a lot of it goes unspoken. That night was the night where their respect for each other became physical, and visible. It became more than just nods across a court or a pat on the shoulder after a good game. They were all they had that night. Just Kevin and Nicky, alone for god knows how long, just waiting, trying to keep it together. They each took a shot of whatever spirit they could find before Betsy arrived, and nobody had to know about that either. They coped in their own ways after that, but it really solidified how much they cared about each other, I think. Kevin texted Nicky for the first time that week, a couple different times, just to see if he was okay, how he was doing, if he needed anything. And oh man, did that mean the absolute world to him. Kevin and Nicky’s relationship is probably one of the more unexpectedly close relationships in the series, when I think about it. They didn’t experience what happened that night in the way Andrew or Neil or Aaron did, but the way they looked out for each other when both their worlds came screeching to a halt in the upstairs bedroom in a house that was no longer home? Unmatched.

There’s definitely softer/“fluffier”/funnier instances of them being friends but my mind couldn’t NOT let me write about this cos it was all I could think about SORRYYYY

[secret-rendezvous1d]

“i need a hug”

hello, hi!

i definitely don’t think this is a one-off thing anymore and this blog may be on the way to merging into a harry styles + matthew gray gubler blog so i’d like to think that that is a new exciting venture people will . i’m really enjoying writing about a new scene, a new character and a new life to plan out and write about. the stories don’t essentially follow each other so they can be read anyhow and in any way but i’d like to think they all follow the same storyline/timeline so they link in that way.

like, reblog and give me some feedback. it’s greatly appreciated and it helps me work out what you want to see and what you are after. 

thank you. enjoy.

-

“i need a hug” spencer reid x female reader (reader insert imagine) word count; 1.7k.

summary; eventually, the emotions of working a case gets to yn and she needs an escape after a briefing in the form of her boyfriend, spencer.

-

There are moments in YN’s job as a secondary communications liaison that she loves.

She got to work alongside a team of agents who were funny and smart and trusting and kept her safe in situations out in the field and they brightened her mood whenever she felt a little down in the dumps from a long day, especially a case that was vigorous and vicious in its attacks; she got to work with a woman, who was a mother to the sweetest little boy she’d ever graced and held and loved in her life, who shared the same emotions as her when they read through case file after case file and took in some of the most heart-wrenching information from an unsub’s killing; she got to work in an office with her boyfriend, sitting opposite him as he worked on his reports or involuntarily played a game of Chess with whoever walked passed and saw a potential move, sharing secret glances and meeting in the kitchenette for a cuddle before work and Hotch had them back to their desks in a rush.

She loved her job and she loved what she did in the field.

Knowing she was saving lives and saving a town from a sadistic killer, protecting people from another unsolicited attack on the vulnerable and the innocent, putting someone behind bars because they deserved it. Feeling the sense of euphoria washing over her every time she managed to catch a killer, hairs raising when they finally admitted to what they’d done for years without ever getting caught, ending someone’s narcissistic trait because they could no longer show the ego they’d been growing by thinking they were subtle enough to hide from their crimes. The looks on the faces of the known unsub, when she bashed out fact after fact that they’d worked out by not only fishing on his background but by the evidence and the profile they gave to themselves with how and who they killed, made her feel proud to catch them; they could no longer do what they long to achieve.

But there were some moments of her job that she hated.

Having to read about the brutal killings of women her age or women who were tortured before they died was enough to have her head reeling in all kinds of situations and possibilities of it still happening somewhere in the world because they’d yet to find another serial killer to arrest, because these women had no safety in their death and they were tortured long before the incessant torturing came to an end; having to read over and see crime-scene pictures of innocent children and teenagers who had died in the crossfire of a criminal’s poor psychological behaviour, where they never thought about the consequences, and never had an inch of remorse or sympathy running through their veins because they were never given the love and the compassion from a parent as they grew older; having to read such heartbreaking backstories on why someone had turned from the purest of children to such a evil person who forced a vendetta upon anyone that passed them or did them wrong and learning that broken families weren’t always so well worked out.

“You can show emotion on the job, you know? You don’t have to hide behind a coffee cup,” Spencer suggested, standing beside YN as she leaned against the kitchenette counter, a warm mug of steaming coffee in her hands and held to her lips as if she were taking a lengthy sip. Partly so the rim could cover her eyes, because she was sure tears would escape any given minute, and partly so she could keep her hands warm on the chilly day it was outside. He followed her as soon as she left the briefing room, a wave of concern swallowing him as he watched her rush down the stairs and disappear, a finger swiping her cheek that she assumed went ignored. “You don’t think I’ve seen any of the team shed a tear over something brutal?”

“Rule number one, Spence; no crying on the job. Hotch’s suggestion,” she hummed, looking in the direction of the briefing room and seeing everyone packing up their belongings from the table and carrying their own case files under their arms as they walked back to their desks to prep for whenever the wheels were due up on the jet, “it never gets any easier, no matter how many times I give those briefings and read the notes and see the photos.”

By it, he assumed, was coming into a room full of people who were waiting for what next dreadful thing had come their way and having to speak about a murder that she had to think about, in depth, in order to gain some understanding as to what direction she needed to take the briefing into, so she could explain exactly what they were expecting to do upon their arrival to the scene, reliving the killings in her head like it was something she saw with her own eyes. That, alone, was enough to drive someone off a job that they loved if it was something they had to speak about on a daily basis, thinking about death as soon as they stepped foot out of their front door in the morning.

“Kids, Spencer. I can just about cope with the cases on murdered prostitutes and the drug addicts and the sex workers but kids,” she sighed in diselief and looked at him with forlorn eyes and felt her bottom lip quiver behind the white ceramic resting against her mouth, “there are children going missing every day and there’s someone doing that to them. A grown adult. Someone walks the street with the purpose of taking children from their families like they could treat them any better.”

Spencer ignored all protocol of ‘romance in the workplace’ and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close to his side and nuzzling his nose into her hairline, the baby hairs growing beneath her fringe tickling her nostrils but the smell of her shampoo made it all the much better; strawberry-scented and sweet and it smelt like home. Home was the smell of strawberry, the presence of his girlfriend and a bubble that only they were in. His palm resting on the curve of her shoulder, fingers rubbing up and down on the bare skin of her upper arm showing from the short-sleeved blouse she wore to work that day, lips pressed against her temple in a reassuring manner. He could feel the eyes of Prentiss and JJ watching them, no doubt cooing and guffawing over the sweet sight they rarely saw, but he chose to ignore them and instead let his cheeks flush a hot pink. Let them stare; he felt content and that’s all that mattered in the moment.

“Working a case and having a good outcome is great. To see that child when we solve the case, albeit seeing them beaten and dirty and naivety, it feels amazing to know they’re reunited with those who vow to keep them safe from that moment on and who never stopped looking for them, not an inch of hope given up,” YN sighed, tilting her head to the touch of his lips and closing her eyes, content with the bubble they’d blown around themselves in that moment, his eyes soft and scanning her features, “I don’t know how you throw yourself into it and not struggle with the aftermath or the before of it all.”

The silence lingered in the kitchenette and, even though there was a sense of being watched, neither of them cared. One day or another, Spencer knew there would be a specific case that tore his girlfriend to the ground and made her show her true feelings towards something she was expected to work on, a case that made her struggle to contain her emotions and that one day had come, much quicker than he expected but he knew it was . All he needed to do was reassure her that, no matter what happens, they’d do the best they can in situations that should have them panicked.

“I question that myself sometimes,” he admitted. Inhaling deeply, he got a proper scent of the coffee wafting from the cup still held into her hands, before he breathed out a sigh and felt a little weight lift from his shoulders. “You’ll be okay. You help us out more than you think you do in cases that mean a lot more to you.”

“Do I?”

“Of course,” he craned his body away from her so he could look down and give her the sweetest, warmest smile he could muster up, “I always feel so proud of you when you give us a huge lead over something we missed. Especially the leads that take us to the right place. They call me the genius but you,” he tapped her on the nose with his index finger and grinned, “you can be the genius better than me sometimes.”

She blushed and looked down at the milky contents of her coffee, the steam hitting her face and adding the heat of her face, a sheepish smile permanent on her lips that she tried to hide as she took a sip and swallowed the hot liquid and allowed it to burn her throat. Burning in a warming way rather than just to hurt herself.

“C’mon, wheels for the jet go up in thirty. I need to pack my desk up and you need to grab your go-bag,” he reminded her, pulling away from her and removing his arm from around her shoulders, taking a step towards the doorway and turning his back to her, “try not to let the briefing bother you until we touch ground. We’re not there yet so we can’t base any confirmations for anything on anything.”

He could hear her chug the rest of the coffee from her mug, shaking his head in disbelief because now she was bound to be bouncing off the walls in a tight-spaced jet for over an hour, making a mental note to keep her off the coffee on the plane and to have her drinking water. His hand touched the door handle and, as he pushed his weight down to open the door, she spoke up and gathered his attention.

“I need a hug,” she said before he left the room, Spencer spinning around on his heels to look at her, a coffee-stained mustache clinging to her upper lip that her tongue peeked out to collect and a bright spark behind her eyes, “before we get plunged into work and we can’t show romance or anything, I just- I need a hug.”

[aaetherius]

Get To Know The Writer!

———  BASICS! ♡

(PEN)NAME: Noise

PRONOUNS: They / Them 

ZODIAC SIGN: Virg.o

TAKEN OR SINGLE: I am a single parent to a gremlin cat. I also have a dog and another cat, but when do I ever talk about them sorry my fur children I should not have a favorite, but I do.

———  THREE  FACTS! ♡

I am fairly/decently tattooed (verging on heavily tattooed, I think most would argue)? I think that’s something most people don’t know or assume about me (unless you’ve seen me, then, of course, it’s the first thing everyone notices). I have a lot of tattoos so I won’t describe/go over all of them (most of them are nerdy though). But the most obvious/largest one I have is my full sleeve (entire left arm), and that one is of Ok.ami! My favorite one, though, is on my thigh because I’m biased, and it’s a decently sized heart with a scene from K.iki’s Delivery service in it/things that reference it, but Lily and Jiji (the cats from Kiki’s) are colored/drawn as my two cats instead (their names are Elise and Bella and I love them very much gfheudhg)! And my most recent one is a pretty large Sailor Moo.n (Luna) inspired one on my calf (I got it done, unintentionally, like the day before we went into lockdown here and I still think about how that’s the last time I left my house other than to walk the dog and for the essentials, obviously dshjgjfy).  

A lot of you know this already, but I sew/know how to sew (largely self taught)! I mainly do cosplay stuff for myself now, and sometimes make cosplays for friends (if I love them enough ghufdihrudk). But there was a period of my life where I was doing it professionally/as a job. I had my own business, and used to make and sell plushies (mainly at conventions, and would do several conventions in a year. Free fun fact from that, but my best con was actually in Canada, of which I am not from nor do I live in, but because of that I have a business license/Tax number in Canada. Used to get invites to events in Canada all of the time and I had to tell them I don’t live there gfudrkugfgrfdr)! 

This is so very difficult. I’m out of facts and trying to come up with things you guys don’t already know ifdshliuf. Uhhhhh, on the more personal side/less fun side I guess, but I was on a learning plan (I honestly forget the actual term for it - basically it’s for when you struggle with a certain subject and have to take extra classes for it or are given accommodations for it because it’s difficult for you) throughout most of school/prior to college for - writing, actually (believe it or not gifdljhgkgrt)! I was often told how terrible I was at it/that I would never get better at it because the school system can be awful, but I enjoyed it, and was a very stubborn child so I kept at it anyway! Eventually I was taken off of it in high school entirely because of my own efforts. So, I just want to say: never let people tell you that you’re incapable of something/can’t do something/don’t let people bring you down! If you love something, and get enjoyment out of it, you should do it regardless of what others think/believe! And be kind/supportive to creatives (including yourself - so very much including yourself, you’re wonderful and deserving of respect and praise for doing what you do). It can take so much courage to write or draw or sew or sculpt a single thing (and you should be proud of that thing, even if it doesn’t live up to what you wanted, because what really matters is that you had the courage to do it at all)! There’s often so much going on behind the scenes that you’re not aware of, and you never know where, when, or how someone started off in something (so even if something seems easy for someone now, it likely wasn’t when they started and still might not be)!  

———  EXPERIENCE! ♡

I can’t recall when I started role-playing exactly (I’ve been writing, in general, since I could hold a pen). It’s been years, but I started with OCs on forums and with friends (in high school I had a group of friends that I would trade around a physical notebook with where we would write replies - one time, for a friend’s birthday, I had owed them a reply for a really long time, so we wrapped it up and them put it in five or so boxes, all of which were also wrapped, and gave it to them. It was a good time haha. Gosh I’m so old). Before eventually moving to tumblr. Most of my older/oldest OCs are still around on my general multi (August being the oldest, but a decent chunk of the OCs on that blog are pretty old). The first canon character I wrote was, I believe, Steven St.one from P.okemon. As far as Lucifer is concerned, I’m a few days away from this blog being seven months old!

———  MUSE  PREFERENCE! ♡

I’m not quite certain what my preference is to be honest! I enjoy writing both OCs and canon characters. I tend to favor characters I’m more emotionally invested in since I tend to be on the shy/more withdrawn side of things so it’s easier for me to interact with others/reach out to others when I’m more invested in a muse! A lot of it can depend on my mood as well, certain characters are easier for me to write depending on how I’m feeling ( but there are muses I find easy to write regardless of how I’m doing). And how comfortable I feel with/on my dash also plays a fairly decent role in my preference, as well! And I enjoy running both single and multi-muse blogs, though most of my blogs are multis (but having a single muse blog is so nice). As far as archetypes go, I think I don’t favor one as much as I used to, but I still write a lot of white-haired muses haha. As far as gender goes, I tend to write male identifying muses most often.        

———  FLUFF / ANGST / SMUT! ♡    

FLUFF: I love and adore all things soft. Obviously it’s easier with certain muses than others (Lucifer lends himself well to fluff, but I have muses, like L.ucilius, who do not). I’m always down to write fluffy things, and very much enjoy it! I like and favor happy/soft content! I like seeing muses get closer, and living their lives and I’m always excited to see characters happy/finding out what they enjoy/spending time with others and learning about them/letting characters live their lives (especially in Lucifer’s case because, well, you know haha. If Cy.games won’t let him be happy I will simply have to do it myself).

ANGST: I like angst to a certain extent. I’m not into super heavy angst that has a bad/unhappy outcome, and doesn’t serve much of a purpose beyond being angsty. But angst that allows characters to develop is wonderful, and expected. And I love the recovery period. Writing muses addressing and living with their actions or learning how to cope with them - how their past or how what’s happened impacts their day to day lives and how they think/what bothers them/their actions/how it becomes a part of them, and what it takes for them to grow. Or how it deepens their relationship with another, and the comfort that comes with it. I enjoy angst that has a happy/meaningful ending. 

SMUT: It tends to be very case-by-case by with me. I may write it with certain muses (of mine) and not with others. I may be open to writing it with certain ship partners, and not with others, as well. I will/can write it, but it depends on my comfort level (and it is by no means a deal breaker if you chose to write or not write it). Generally speaking, it largely depends on how comfortable I am with the mun I’m writing with, and with my own muse that’s involved. So I might write it from time to time/it could come up, and there might be other times where I’m not comfortable/confident (and fading to black/time skipping is also a-okay with me, especially if you’re interested in exploring the aftermath/comfort that follows it, but not actually writing the smut part of that out). Though, keep in mind, when it comes to actually writing it out on my end, I’m more invested and interested in the emotional aspect that intimacy tends to bring with it/how it impacts the relationship (before, during, and after), and that does tend to be what I focus on when I write it (because I just find that part of it interesting to explore because my favorite things to write are character and relationship development). So, long story short, I’m selective with it.

PLOT / MEMES: Both are good! You’re always welcome to turn an ask or meme into a thread, and I find that it’s easier to start threads through asks/memes than it is through starters/a starter call so I very much enjoy them! But plotting is also nice, and I enjoy it! Sometimes, though, I have a million ideas, and it goes super well, and other times my head is completely empty and I have no thoughts whatsoever. But plotting also tends to make writing a starter/interacting easier, and also leads to interesting threads! So, I’m open to both!

tagged by: @cirocchio (thank you)!

tagging ( if you want to do this, but no pressure if you don’t! ): @cxffexngel, @anamnaesis, @hartblooms, @shymaidxn, @unladylikc, @whisperonn, @dcpraved, @synnthos, @caelumsaltator, @againthemartyr, @eternalwhite!

[aceofwhump]

I recently started watching leverage and am almost done, my friend told me that you're the person to ask for good whump fic recs so if you maybe have any that be great. Thank you

Hi there!! Ah that’s so exciting!! Leverage is so good! And yes I most certainly do have fic recs for you!! Although I hope you enjoy Eliot whump cause that’s all I read lol. 

Here’s a very long list of all my favorite Eliot whump fics. Enjoy!

by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so by prionsa

Summary: Even brave and true Eliot Spencer can’t compress his emotions forever. This is a snapshot, of a dam breaking.

The Safe and Sound Job by flutterflap

Summary: Eliot Spencer doesn’t do hospitals

Stay on the Ride (It’s Gonna Take You Somewhere) by hannasus

Summary: As he dangled over the edge of the ravine, forty feet above the ground below, Eliot wondered when, exactly, everything had gone so completely to shit.

Wake Up Exhausted by jendavis

Summary: “Written for comment_fic prompt: ”“Leverage, Eliot (/Hardison)+ team, they thought waking him up on the morning of his birthday with firecrackers would be a good idea.”“ Takes place in between “The Studio Job” and “The Gone Fishin’ Job.”

Broken by meils121

Summary: No sane person would ever reach out and touch Eliot’s arm just then, so maybe it’s a good thing that Parker isn’t sane.

Watching His Back by Telaryn

Summary: Following the events of The Experimental Job, Hardison checks up on Eliot and find that the hitter isn’t recovering as well as they’d hoped.

In The Darkness by ScoutLover

Summary: Eliot’s locked in another dungeon, but this one is … different

Rise by Our Falls by jesterlady

Summary: ”Eliot, why don’t you take the rest of the job off?”

Just One Step by Bacardivodka

Summary: All he had to do was take just one step, then another, then another. Easy, right?

The One Crutch Job by JBMcDragon

Summary: “It had been the simplest of plans, the easiest of heists, and a fantastic coincidence that all three of them were in Paris at the same time. It was practically set up for them.

Then everything went wrong. With Eliot captured and the rest of the team on the way, a rescue is the first priority. Getting him to a hospital is second. Taking down the bad guy comes a distant third. For once, none of them mind coming in third.”

Letting Go by ScoutLover

Summary: Eliot doesn’t want them to see the price he pays for keeping them safe. They’re not concerned about what he wants.

Damages by ScoutLover

Summary: Eliot’s never really known when to just lie down and die

Trust for Christmas by Soquilii9

Summary: Based on Leverage: The Toy Job

Falling Into by whimseyrhodes

Summary: They handle him with kit gloves when he’s injured and for a wonder, he lets them.

The Influenza Job by james

Summary: In the middle of a job, Eliot gets the flu. He copes about as well as you’d expect.

Crash Landing by Orockthro

Summary: “Set after the Mile High Job in Season 1. "You’re not fine,” the grifter protested, putting a hand on his shoulder and purposefully invading his space. “You fainted.”

Taking Care of Eliot by waterbird13

Summary: After the Tap Out Job, Parker and Hardison are understandably a little worried about their man. They just want to take care of him.

Crimson Regret by whimseyrhodes

Summary: When Eliot is captured for an illegal fight club, will the others get to him in time, or will he die in the ring?

Sacrifices We Make by whimseyrhodes

Summary: Eliot takes a bullet for a teammate.

The place to call home by thosepreciouswalls

Summary: Tomorrow. Eliot will be home tomorrow. The job ain’t done yet. He just needs to keep it together ‘til he gets home. (What happens after the ending of The Rundown Job)

The 3 Times Eliot and the 1 Time He Didn't By: Lunawolf5

Summary: Eliot falls asleep around the team three times and than the one time where he cant sleep anymore.

Last Dance By: jibber59

Summary: My take on what should have happened at the end of the Reunion Job. Yes - once again I have to mess with then ending of one of the stories. What can I say - I want my boy to get more attention!

Beige Feather By: Patska

Summary: During the next con not everything went flawlessly and now Eliot suffers from his injuries. Nate, Sophie, Hardison and Parker immediately came to help, despite his protests. Everything happens somewhere during Season 1, when Eliot was not get used to get help from team members.

The San Lorenzo Job REDUX By: Ginipig

Summary: The San Lorenzo Job from Eliot’s point of view. After the events of The Big Bang Job, Eliot wonders if he should move on from Leverage Consulting. As he returns to San Lorenzo for the first time in years, he remembers why he left Moreau and the one and a half times he saved General Flores, all while trying to keep the team alive and defeat Moreau once and for all. 

Awake and Unafraid, Asleep or Dead By: Avid Reider

Summary: Eliot’s been missing for a month. When the team finds him, they realize it’ll take more than a few playful pokes and light-hearted jokes to get him through his ordeal. They finally learn what he’s willing to do for them. 

A Vulnerable Hitter By: VisibleThunder

Summary: Eliot is their hitter. He is strong, and he does his job well. He protects his team- his family, whatever the cost. But he is still just a man. He can still be…vulnerable. 

Hollow Inside By: akblake

Summary: What really happened after the end of The Big Bang Job… Eliot may seem fine in time for the next episode, but that’s only because Parker helped him through that night.

A Place to Stand By: Sunbird Riding Shotgun

Summary: Post 4x11. He made it through the job okay but in the aftermath Eliot suffers a flashback.

The Chicken and Stars Job By: Aoitori

Summary: Essentially a fluffy, H/C-tastic, multi-part tag to the season opener- the Long Way Down Job. Somehow, I just couldn't resist.

Feed By: wildwordwomyn

Summary: Alec receives an email containing a link. This is what happens when he opens it.

Who I Am By: No Illusions

Summary: “You’re not that man anymore,” Sophie had told him. The next day, Eliot Spencer had killed a dozen people. Tag to the Big Bang Job.  

The Question Mark Job By: Mousme

Summary: Eliot gets the flu during a job.

Angels Bending Near By: whimseyrhodes

Summary: Trying to escape his nightmares, Eliot is plunged into another one, one that can happen to any of us.

At Arm’s Length By: whimseyrhodes

Summary: Tag and Missing Scene s for The Boost Job.

What’s in a Name? By: zippy zany

Summary: After a con gone wrong the team takes care of Eliot however during the night they are given a surprising piece of information.

Guilty Heart By: deanangst

Summary: Actions speak louder than words when it comes to trust.

Take the Punishment By: pdljmpr6

Summary: Post Tap Out Job. Eliot is used to taking a pounding and keeping right on going. The team isn’t quite so used to letting him. Eliot!whump and team fluffy goodness.

Getting Here By: Sunbird Riding Shotgun

Summary: Eliot is sick, Hardison and Parker are calling Nate Dad, and they’ve all ended up someplace they never expected to be.

Recovery By: Sunbird Riding Shotgun

Summary:  Four days ago Eliot sacraficed himself so the others could escape. It took four days to rescue him. A lot can be done to a man in four days.

[bigskydreaming]

how do you think the batfam might react if they find out about Mirage and Tarantula?

Tbh, I’m kinda all plum tuckered out on the Batfam finding out about Mirage and Tarantula against Dick’s most fervent wishes that nobody ever find out about that ever. I’ve talked about this a little in the past, but a survivor having the chance to CONTROL when and where they disclose about what happened to them and to whom, is like......soooo much more important for a lot of us than fic about this stuff tends to like....allow it to be. Its one of the most pivotal and powerful ways many survivors even just START to actually recover and come to terms with what happened, by choosing when and how people find out on THEIR terms, taking back control of their own life and their own agency one major choice at a time. And having that choice taken away from Dick too, with him usually not only having ZERO say in who finds out and when but with it more often than not happening in direct opposition to what he wants in that regard....

So like.....personally, I would just really like to see some more variety here. Some more narratives where people finding out happens because Dick’s READY to tell people, because he’s already done a good deal of healing on his own, been to therapy or like....he’s the one who survived this, so let him SURVIVE it and like.....give him a chance to be viewed as a SURVIVOR by his family and not just a victim when they do ultimately find out. Because he doesn’t need them to save him or patch him up, all he really truly needs is them to support him, and they can do that just as well if he’s already made inroads towards his own recovery by the time they find out or he tells them, rather than it just be like...what we so often end up seeing in fic. Where its like treated as matter-of-fact and a given that Dick’s just flat out self-destructing from this no matter how long its been since it happened, and he’s just refused to deal with it or even try to and he’s been running away from facing it ever since it happened, until....enter the family in fic, as they’re like, no, you gotta face it, and you haven’t been able to do that on your own and that’s why its a good thing we found out even though you really didn’t want us to or not yet or not like this, because you’re not handling it, you’re not coping, so you need people like us to like.....show/tell you how to do it right.

You know what I mean? I don’t think its intentional, but there’s a looooot of tendency in fic to like......just take it for granted that despite the fact that Dick has survived so many traumas and been one of the key figures in helping so many other people survive and process their own traumas as well, there’s just this kinda default assumption that in regards to this he’s just flat out broken and always will be....at least so long as he’s just trying (and failing) to handle it on his own, and that’s where the family comes in, even if Dick would really rather they didn’t, or at least not yet anyway.

And its not that Dick can’t benefit from his family and friends finding out so that they can support him and push back against the things he’s come to believe about himself as a result of internalizing his feelings that those situations were really his fault, etc.....its that there’s only so much he can benefit from their support when he only gets it because of...essentially, another kinda violation that compounds the pre-existing ones, as he’s denied the opportunity and the control/agency to be the one to decide who finds out about this and when and why. 

Like, there’s never gonna be an “Ideal Way” for it to go down, but the one thing that IMO is guaranteed to never be ideal and yet so often seems the only way we ever see this happening in fic is like....Dick yet again having no real say or decision in how his life is upended yet again, since this reveal would inevitably change so much about his dynamics with his family one way or another. 

And the thing is, at the end of the day, nothing about this narrative or how it plays out in fic is set in stone or an inevitability or like...the one true or right way for it to happen.....and yet....it only EVER seems to happen that one specific way: aka, against Dick’s expressed desire to have them find out while he’s still actively either trying to repress it/deny it ever happened or just he’s not denying it happened but he’s not remotely ready to face other people KNOWING.

Because like.....he’s not a real person. He’s a fictional character. And just like every other narrative he’s written into or the ways he’s depicted in both canon and fanfic....no matter how much we talk about characters being in character or mischaracterized, at the end of the day, the reality is there is no Core/Immutable TRUE choice that Dick would make in any given narrative or situation....

Because like every other character, he will only ever make the choices or behave in the ways that like....a writer chooses to write him.

So like much of my complaints/criticisms/whines-in-need-of-some-complementary-cheese about trends around and about him in stories.....

The problem I have isn’t with any one single specific way people choose to write him behaving or reacting in regards to this or any other narrative situation....

It lies more in just......how often there seems to ONLY be ONE way, singular, in which he’s ever shown reacting to this or behaving in regards to this, just like is true of the only like ‘one dynamic/backstory’ we tend to see in regards to Dick and Jason’s relationship in the early years before Jason’s death. Or the ONE way people seem to view the aftermath of the Forever Evil and Spyral situation, or the ONE way that people focus on the Tim and Damian and Robin/Red Robin situation playing out.

Its not that like, there’s NO room for any of these takes or narratives surrounding Dick’s side of things.....

Its that there only ever really seems to be ONE take on any of these extremely complicated and messy events and points in his stories and life, and like....one ONLY. And that’s it. That’s all there is to it, everything for the most part tends to be just a hundred, a thousand minutely diverging variations of what amounts to the one big “True Dick Grayson Reaction/Choice” where its just taken as a given that this is how it would happen here, when it comes to each and every one of these major story arcs/plot points. Fics mostly just seem to differ in execution while the core decisions or behavior driving the story action or acting as a catalyst for the confrontation/conversation a fic seems aimed at showcasing.....like, there’s this underlying sameness to so many of them. Where its treated like a given that There Can Only Be One when it comes to ways Dick might react or behave in regards to a certain event or choice.....that his characterization is so formulaic, so like....rigid and allowing for little to no flexibility in how he’s written because in the eyes of so many in fandom his true characterization is so immutable, so....predetermined that there just isn’t ROOM in his character concept for him to end up making any other choices than the ones its taken for granted he’d make.

So I guess ultimately, much like with every other similarly framed point or event in Dick’s life and stories, my ideal preference here is just more VARIETY. Writers actually flexing their creative muscles and stretching to EXPLORE new ways of Dick reacting to various things and new ways of other characters reacting to Dick. Mixing up dynamics more, subverting the expectations that are SO expected in so many things pertaining to him that like, we often can predict exactly where Dick’s character is going to go next in a fic or what his next move or words are going to be, and there’s a certain point at which something crosses the line from someone’s characterization being spot-on and someone’s characterization being......limited. Confining.

Personally, and this is 100% at the root of my frequent criticisms of Dick in fanon and why I won’t just let it go, lol, is that I’m never remotely surprised to hear fans of other characters say that they find Dick’s character dull or one-note or two-dimensional or just not as compelling as the other characters, not as......packed with potential to be taken in a hundred different directions or to react to things in surprising yet surprisingly-still-fitting ways that readers don’t see coming but don’t feel is like, out of left field when viewed in hindsight either.

Why should it surprise people that so many readers and fans view Dick this way when......he’s so often WRITTEN this way, only ever falling into extremely predictable patterns and sticking to a lane that’s clearly defined as not just HIS lane but like....the ONLY lane most people can - or at least are willing to - imagine for him.

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. People find fanon Dick to be dull and uninspired because like.....he’s pretty much oftentimes written TO be those things, particularly in comparison to his more ‘vibrant’ fandom favored brothers. Nobody’s ever going to find themselves pleasantly surprised by a depiction of Dick Grayson when Dick Grayson’s depictions are so frequently limited to being just exactly what most people expect and not a single thing besides that.

So to bring this back around to your initial ask, I think the Batfam’s reaction to finding out, much like is true of any situation if tackled creatively enough.....can be literally anything a writer wants it to be. I would hope most of us would want that reaction to be supportive, lol, but even more than that just in general, for me, personally, I would love to see more where they’re supportive, yes, but that support is expressed not by them taking CHARGE of the situation, but by them, y’know....SUPPORTING. Standing back, waiting for DICK to tell them what he actually needs from them, wants their support to look like or take shape as, because he is in fact a grown man who is extremely capable in his own right and prides himself on being tremendously self-sufficient, and personally, I wish writers would just STOP TAKING THAT TRAIT AWAY FROM HIM. Or worse yet, like....punishing him for it.

It honestly does seem to me like there’s this unspoken undercurrent in so many fandom posts and fanfics where you can kinda just FEEL an author or poster like.....wanting so badly to just come out and say that in their opinion, Dick’s precious autonomy is actually his own worst enemy, and if he’d just stop being so stubborn and insisting on doing things his way or on his own all the time, he probably wouldn’t end up enduring half as much of the traumatic shit he does.

Which, I mean.....kinda inevitably leads directly into the victim-blaming we SO, SO often see with his character, where fans and other characters are both equally in a hurry to blame himself for anything and everything from Having Amnesia Wrong to being tortured, killed and then emotionally and physically browbeaten into making a Bad Decision He Should Feel Badly About but also Totally Responsible For Cuz No One MADE Him Do It, etc, etc. 

It all spills forth from and feeds back into this endlessly repeating loop that people have kinda penned him into with intent, because what better way to imply that Dick should always just do what his friends and family want him to do and tell him to do instead of like, kicking up a fuss and making a conflict out of it.......than by showing without telling that "see what happens when Dick DOESN’T just let his family tell him what to do and go along with their ‘suggestions’/what they want gracefully?” This. This is what happens. Poor guy ends up traumatized YET AGAIN because he insists on making his own choices and those choices as we can all clearly see are so often the wrong choices, so really, stepping back from the driver’s seat of his own life and letting his family take the wheel is only in Dick’s best interests as much as anyone else’s.

After all, whether its Bruce firing Dick or Dick ‘staying away for years’ or not being the best/ideal brother for Jason right there on the page in no uncertain terms or giving Jason carte blanche to do whatever he wants upon his return or making Damian Robin without asking Tim first and not believing Tim when he said he was sure Bruce was still alive or not just refusing to go along with Bruce’s plan to keep everyone believing he was dead after Forever Evil but at the same time also not just caving to Bruce’s wishes and instead fighting Bruce on that so hard that poor Bruce HAD to get physically violent with him to get Dick to do what was right until it wasn’t right later when everyone else hated him for it, as well as not just deciding he was instantly and fully 100% on board with believing these total strangers when they told him, as Ric Grayson, just who he was now and what his life as a superhero was like and how he should have no problem just seamlessly stepping back into the roles and shoes he according to their claims usually fills effortlessly and thus has no reason to object to now, despite having literally no memories or internalized awareness of the decade and a half of life experiences that serve as the foundation all of that was built upon.....

I mean, when you think about it, 100% of Dick’s conflicts with his family (and coincidentally, also 100% of the source of most other fans’ gripes about him) come from one thing only: him making up his own mind about what to do or feel or think instead of just automatically prioritizing whatever one of his family wants him to do or feel or think about any given situation.

So wouldn’t everyone just be so much happier and pleasant if he would just stop being a silly goose and give up making such a big deal about his vaunted independence and personal agency?

BUT I DIGRESS.

LOL, no, but you get what I mean. So going back to topic for the second time, hopefully with a bit more staying power this time.....I think there’s absolutely no reason whatsoever that the Batfam can’t be realistically and believably written as being every bit as supportive of Dick when they find out about Tarantula and Mirage as Dick is supportive of them at other times and in other ways.

So really, its just a matter of WANT, and personal prioritizations of what that support might or should look like.

And for me, personally, on this topic and pretty much every other potential Dick Grayson-centric story topic, but ESPECIALLY on this topic......I personally would just like to see more of the Batfam being supportive of Dick while he’s dealing with a trauma, but with that support taking the form of them stepping BACK and like....waiting and listening for him to tell them what HE needs from them, what HE wants from them, what form their support can take that will be of most use to him according to HIS wants, aims and attempts at recovery. Instead of them - as they so often seem written as - stepping invasively INTO his space without so much as pausing to see if they’re welcome, or like, if they’re just making things worse or potentially just retraumatizing him by barging in all bull in a china shop even while still having only the vaguest clue what the situation even is at this point, which makes their certainty they have a better idea of what Dick needs and should be doing right now than he does himself, like.....pure, unbridled arrogance and nothing else. Hubris.

(Y’know, kinda like how I make a big deal about Jason punching Dick upon his return from Spyral, because its almost like its not even just that Punching Your Family Is Bad And People Should Stop Making Jason Do It, but there’s also the pesky little implications of how Dick might perceive that no matter how calmly he took it......given that like.....he was literally beaten by his father into doing the thing that pissed off and hurt the rest of his family just as Dick had always expected it would.....and now here he was literally getting beaten by his brother for......caving to doing the thing Dick always knew would piss off and hurt the rest of them and thus he only submitted to doing after being physically and emotionally beaten into it by his father. Of course I harp on Jason punching Dick there, it was him punishing Dick for doing not what Dick wanted, but what he had to be essentially punished by Bruce into agreeing to do it in the first place. It wasn’t just gross as fuck victim blaming and heaping further physical violence on a guy who’s been decked by four out of five family members as is, it was literal on the page proof that Dick simply can not win where either the other characters or most of their fans are concerned, because he was literally damned if he did, damned if he didn’t in that situation, and sure enough, he managed to end up damned by everyone around and still without so much as a single “how are YOU doing btw, given everything you’ve been through, are you okay?”)

So just....my plea, my wishlist, my Big-Asks-R-Us inventory manifesto:

Can we get even just a few more fics where Dick’s insistence on his own independence is viewed not as a character FLAW to be excised or failing that, punished for at any possible opportunity, but as something UNDERSTANDABLE, something VALIDATED by his family for Dick even wanting it in the first place, let alone NEEDING it as much as he does, not because he doesn’t love his family or want to be around them, but because wanting to be his own person at the same time is in no way actually in opposition to that and it never was.

And in that vein and in light of that, I would happily give away my non-existent imaginary kingdom and crown for even just a few fics where the Batfam only end up called upon or tasked with supporting Dick about Mirage or Tarantula because he voluntarily GOES to them and says hey, there’s something that happened a long time ago that I never told anyone because I wasn’t ready to, but I feel like I am now, I need to and its time. 

Or like, fics where maybe he’s still not quite ready to tell them voluntarily yet,  reely and of his own volition, but then on a case they come across a rape survivor in considerable distress and empathizing with them and what they’re feeling, opening up about his own past experiences and offering his own story as a talisman for this victim to cling to as a sign it’ll get better for them eventually too, they can heal from this and one day call themselves a survivor instead of just a victim the same as he does......like, that’s still the most natural thing in the world to Dick, the most Him thing he could possibly do in a situation where the tool most relevant to the task before him is pulled straight out of his own treasure chest of trauma, it not even fazing him in the slightest that his family is there with them right now too and that means they’re going to know now, it won’t be a secret anymore......because Dick Grayson does things he’s not happy about all the time, things he doesn’t necessarily like, that aren’t ideal or his first choice, but when it comes down to Do The Thing and thus maybe help someone, or Don’t Do The Thing and instead turn around and consign himself to a thousand years of solitary confinement in the world’s stankest oubliette cuz its what he deserves, says his Brain all Judgingly.....like. I’m just saying. When the choice is clear, so is the resulting Dick Grayson decision: He does the thing, consequences be damned, and just deals with whatever those may be later. Which in this case would be oh crap, my family all knows now, ugh, they’re gonna want to TALK about it now, booooooooooooooo. But also, oh well. I had to Do The Thing.

And like, the thing there is, it might not be his FIRST choice, but unlike scenarios where he just flat out gets no choice in the matter whatsover as his agency is just reviolated all over again by Tarantula or Slade or someone else taking the choice away from him and just telling people what happened to further fuck with his head and retraumatize him.....

THIS STILL LETS HIM HAVE A CHOICE.

And like. There’s just so, SO many ways you can play with that or places you can take that because the more you ALLOW characters to have a choice, to MAKE choices that are beyond just the one singular most obvious or expected choice, the one so predictable there’s barely an actual choice to be made at all when steering a character like Dick towards that....

MORE choices equals MORE avenues of exploration you open up in your story. More roads less traveled, more surprise reveals or unexpected epiphanies, more new ground to unearth and feelings to uncover rather than just more of the same already extensively traveled plot of land and story and reactions/aftermath already so done to death even Jason Todd would consider them low-hanging fruit not worth making a “but I died” jojke about.

Just....MORE. In general. Across the board. In every possible permutation. New. Different. As yet unexplored. Still capable of surprising. Stretch. Reach. Dig deeper. Find the story direction that makes you laugh nervously and say wtf self, where did that even come from, am I Wild One for even daring to contemplate that such a thing could be written? 

And then go, why yes, YES THE FUCK I AM THAT WILD ONE, and plot twist, I LIKE IT!

Or, y’know. Alternatively, people can continue to write how once upon a time, there was this guy named Dick, and he was kinda a dick, see, so this one time when bad things happened to him it was like, do we even care, or should we just like....cut to his family and see how this is affecting them and therein just maybe we might find an actual story worth telling? Ahh yes, good, that’s the ticket. So anyway, once upon a time, there were these guys named Jason and Tim and you will never believe what happened to them on the day their walking dildo of an older brother tripped and skinned his knee. Now buckle up, cuz THIS is quite the story!

[dorminchu]

re: Mr. Robot’s twist, part 2

Part 1 can be found here. Spoiler warning for Elliot’s character and backstory still applies.

Note: Once again, I’m not a psychological expert, this is just a discussion of plot beats involving heavy subject matter. My argument consists primarily of headcanon through inference. Still love this show to bits.

So if we are to go off the assumption that Elliot's father did not molest him, but someone else did, what should be done with this storyline? It could've gone a couple ways:

A. Someone at or around school, not necessarily a staff member, that befriends Elliot because he doesn’t have many friends at school, and no one will miss him. Plays out much like the story about Darlene's abduction. No need to dwell on explicit details, just the aftermath. Ties neatly into Elliot's damning statement from 4x07: "I told you, he was my friend. He was my only friend" but needs some work to be convincing.

B. A colleague of the dad's at work; could be from the power plant or some other higher-up once the dad relocates to the shop. Too high up to be held accountable, which ties back nicely into the “1% of the 1%” stigma despite being on a smaller scale. Also instills a possible fear in the whole family; perhaps the father’s job is dependent on how little trouble he stirs up, given his own reputation as a “petty thief”.

C. Angela's stepfather. Seems kind of cheap, but it does work manageably if the script is disciplined enough to fit everything together in a cohesive narrative.

Either way you slice it, Elliot's probably rattled, and afraid that this abuser will do something to him or Darlene if he tells his parents -- well, parent, because the mom won't give a shit about him unless it involves costing the family money. She’s cold but not stupid, just pragmatic to a very cruel degree. Meant to be understood without the chance for sympathy. She's also religious? (2x01: "God says there are no accidents!") Could work that angle, it's interesting.

But Elliot can count on his dad. The father, at this point, is busy with trying to keep a job/run the shop with what little money they have, and between the stress of this situation, home life, and Elliot giving him what’s essentially more bad news, he kinda gets snappy with his son, which kicks off the rift in their relationship. It’s not that he doesn’t care, but (especially in the case of option B) there is only so much he can do (or can’t) to protect him and, well, how do you explain THAT to a kid?

It’s a lot crueler this way, and still gets the audience on the side of Elliot without sacrificing any integrity or rushing to a conclusion.

The "secret" Mr. Robot talks about in 1x09 was never Edward Alderson's but Mr. Robot's, and by extension, Elliot's. It's also why Mr. Robot looks so much like his father at that specific point in time -- he's the protector Elliot wished he had as a kid. Also perhaps sheds some light on why their relationship is so turbulent at points -- subconsciously, Elliot knows better?

This anger towards Mr. Robot is mostly directed towards the dead father, but also Elliot himself. The father didn't protect Elliot when it mattered most and cannot be forgiven, but perhaps Elliot wishes he had tried to say something back then and blames himself, despite being a bright but overall powerless eight year-old.

Imply the father was more of a friend than a parent, but did try more overall than the mother. That wasn't enough to stop from breaking Elliot's arm, though.

Change nothing about Elliot's reaction TO the reveal in 4x07. In 4x08 we do not see Mr. Robot for the whole episode, and perhaps he stays out for a little while. Instead we see the little boy and/or the "mother". Perhaps it could be implied all three of these are different aspects of Mr. Robot, and we get to see the mother in action, berate him for not listening to Mr. Robot, or Elliot having to be his own protector with this kid. It could easily get too surreal for TV, but I dunno, I personally love this idea and think there’s a lot that could be explored.

(On the other hand, I didn’t want anything from 4x11 explained in 4x12, save for when Elliot meets his double; it kills the idea of letting the audience try to discern what is wrong. 4x13 was fine because it illuminated Elliot’s own purpose in the narrative more clearly. Also wish the key had not come back until 4x13, but I digress.)

As an aside: Not sure how the Lolita allusions tie into the story of Mr. Robot as a whole (Dolores Haze being Darlene’s screenname and the book by Nabokov on the table, during Angela’s encounter with Whiterose) but the fact that Elliot “forgot” about Darlene in arguably a similar way he forgot his own traumatic experience(s) on top of these allusions being fairly prevalent, would seem to suggest something more sinister. 

I wouldn’t go as far to say Angela or Darlene were similarly abused because I don’t have enough information to nail down anything concrete, but I don’t think that is the case here. Perhaps they each knew about the abuse Elliot suffered, but were too young to comprehend it in Darlene’s case, or only saw the aftermath of how it affected Elliot. The latter could apply to both of them, but I think this would be more fitting for Angela’s connection with Elliot, since he idealizes her throughout the series. A coping mechanism, perhaps? 

[adventures-in-a-world-of-fiction]

Skip-to-the-end character development

One thing that annoys me about Endgame is the way it handles character development. If you look back at the older MCU films (or the recent, good ones) then characters grow and change.

- Iron Man was all about Tony's personal journey. He started out cocky and irresponsible. He realised the consequences of his past actions and changes the direction of his company as well as creating a way for him to directly intervene to help the people he had put in danger. The Tony Stark standing up at the end and honestly admitting to being Iron Man is not the same Tony Stark who was shrugging off a stage appearance he'd promised his friend he would be at.

- Captain America: The First Avenger is about Steve striving to be allowed to fight, being forced into a caricature of being a hero, and then becoming more than the costume. The character growth isn't as pronounced as Iron Man, but it's there.

- Thor is basically a movie about Thor learning to be a better person and a better leader. He was kicked out for being unworthy and learned (over a ridiculously short span of time - seriously, this story would have felt more honest if he had spent a few weeks on Earth not a few days) to be worthy again.

- Winter Soldier has Steve start off purposeless, not sure what makes him happy, not sure what he wants to do with his life. At the end, he knows his purpose and he will fight anyone who stands in his way.

- Even Iron Man 3 has Tony learning that what makes him special and what makes him Iron Man has never been the suit.

In terms of the recent, good ones:

- Black Panther has T'Challa learning about his father's mistakes and deciding to correct them, growing out of his father's shadow.

- Captain Marvel is all about Carol's growth. She learns who she really is and stops defining herself in terms of limitations set by other people. She starts off desperate to prove herself and by the end knows that she has nothing to prove.

- Thor Ragnarok has Thor learning that his power isn't defined by his hammer and shows Loki moving from doing everything for personal gain to risking everything to save Thor and his people.

In all these films, people change and grow. That's character development. We see it unfold on the screen. Character development isn't essential for a film to be good, but it sure as hell helps.

So what about the character development in Endgame? Why did that annoy me so much? Because it all happens off-screen. Characters change dramatically - but it all happens during that five year time skip. The world has changed and people change too, but we don't get to see any of it. It's a skip-to-the-end approach to character development.

- Bruce in Infinity War is at war with himself, the two sides of his personality in conflict. In Endgame, he's merged them, getting the best of the strength and the brains. But how? How did he manage to get the two sides to communicate? How did that progress, because it presumably took time and effort. I would have liked to see that.

- Hawkeye's fall into darkness would have made a fascinating movie. He is a happy family man who watches his family disappear before his eyes. How did he cope immediately after? What made him decide to kill his first victim? How did he start on his vendetta against the evil criminals who were spared by Thanos' randomness? There is so much in there that could have been a really interesting story. Instead, we get one fight scene to show that he's dark now. This could have been an opportunity to learn about his past too, what he was doing before SHIELD recruited him. So many questions that the MCU never even asked could have been answered.

- Thor's slide into depression and despair could have been poignant and meaningful. We could have seen his emotional journey, instead of it being treated as a hugely offensive and unfunny fat joke.

- Tony finds peace. After all the trauma he's suffered, he manages to settle into a life of quiet domesticity. I can understand why this wouldn't make the cut of a big, action film, but some character moments of him adjusting would have been nice to see. The fact that he's willing to look past all his dad's lousy parenting rings false, but it could have been the result of interesting growth as he experiences parenthood himself. But it just feels grating because we don't see any of that. We could have seen him come to understand how difficult being a parent is and see why his dad left the raising of him to other people. We could see him trying to be a better father than Howard but in the process learning more about why his dad was so distant, or recalling moments when his dad did actually so kindness, so that when he says that all he remembers is the good stuff, it doesn't feel so out of nowhere.

- Even Steve and Nat show changes. It would have been interesting to see Steve try to take on Sam's role as a counselor, to see why he decided to do that. We could have seen Nat realising that Fury is gone and stepping up to try and fill his shoes, struggling with the responsibility but desperate to try.

- We could have see Okoye dealing with the fact that the king and Shuri are both dead, having to assume a mantel of leadership beyond that of a warrior.

Instead, we get nothing. The characters are one way at the start of the film and another way after the time jump. This particular movie is the most blatant example of character development that happens off-screen, but there have been other examples of characters having all their development between movies. Bucky is the perfect example of this. At the end of Winter Soldier, he pulls Steve out of the river and is seen in the post-credits clip looking at his memorial in the museum. Jump to Civil War and he's living on his own, in hiding, stable enough to go out and buy supplies for himself like a regular member of society, and he's regained enough of his memories to know who Steve is and what they mean to each other. At the end of Civil War, he goes into the ice because he doesn't doesn't trust his own mind, but by the Black Panther post-credits scene, he's awake and living peacefully and being teased by kids.

All his healing and recovery of his autonomy happens in those moments between films. If you follow me on AO3, you know I love Winter Soldier recovery fics, because there is so much interesting potential in how someone comes back from that trauma, how someone can learn to be a person again after being treated as an asset. It's a fascinating concept that is at the core of Bucky as a character - and the movies just skip over it. He's well enough now for Steve to abandon him and go back into the past. How did he get well enough? Who cares?

Me! I care!

Marvel seem to think that they can ignore all the interesting character development in favour of more quips and battle scenes.

I know Endgame was already a long movie, but think about what it could have been like to have a film in between IW and E. We could have had Avengers: Aftermath dealing with the immediate fallout. We could have had the first part of the movie with the death of Thanos, and then had the rest of the film be about them dealing, with some growing from it (Tony and Bruce), some barely holding themselves together (Steve and Nat), and some falling into despair (Clint and Thor). There would have been time to actually give Carol some semblance of personality too. The film could end with the Avengers scattered, and Steve going through Scott's things for some reason, activating the machine to bring Scott out of the quantum realm (because the rat is just a stupid deus ex machina if they weren't going to have it turn out to be an actual deus i.e. Loki). The very final part of the film could be Scott thinking that the quantum realm could be the answer, giving them hope for the next part.

I just think that by missing that middle chunk out, the whole thing feels hollow and empty and cheapens the payoff. Yes, we can fill the gap with fanfic, but you shouldn't end up with the situation where fanfic is having to do the entire legwork of the character building because the canon just couldn't be bothered with that.

Explosions and big battles are all well and good, but you've got to care about the characters for those big action scenes to matter, and people care about the characters because of character development. At least that's how I think it ought to work.

[laylainalaska]

Torchwood 1x01-1x08

Since I’ve been posting Torchwood rewatch episode reactions over on DW, I may as well post them here too!

Cut with a readmore because long and also spoilery. No specific S2 spoilers except set off in its own section.

----

1x01: Everything Changes, aka Torchwood is the worst-kept secret in the greater Cardiff metropolitan area. The episode with the infamous date rape via alien aphrodisiac. I have made the deliberate choice to compartmentalize this/pretend it never happened due to TV writers being notoriously terrible with recognizing the real-world implications of fantasy aphrodisiacs and sex magic (there was just a scene like this in The Witcher in 20-fucking-20), and treat it as what it is clearly supposed to be in context -- unethical but basically harmless misuse of an alien artifact -- instead of what it really is. But I recognize that this is a personal choice and I also hate this writing decision and wish they'd picked literally any other way of making this particular point, for the record. Anyway ... the rest of this episode other than the fucking date rape was a lot of fun, though. Torchwood is the worst secret quasi-governmental agency at being secret. THE ACTUAL WORST. I love the team trying to keep straight faces and then giggling when Gwen enters their secret base, and the entire base set is just so fantastically bonkers; I really really love it a lot. There's literally a fountain in the middle of it and, like, random water everywhere?! And a pterodactyl. And the invisible lift, with Gwen's wry comment about how there's nothing to stop random pedestrians from falling down it. It's possibly the most utterly bonkers secret spy base outside of kids' cartoons and I love it. 1x02: Day One, aka Murder By Orgasm. In which the show classes things up with an alien who kills people (men only!) via orgasm. Choices were definitely made in this episode. Many choices. For sure. Owen continues to be a total sleaze because the writers think it's funny. Also, his survival when the sex alien targets him makes absolutely no sense at all. He's literally the only person she left alive, and she's in the throes of sex-energy withdrawal at the time. In short, this was an episode that happened. There were a few cute team bits but really not enough to redeem it. 1x03: Ghost Machine, aka Burn Gorman Is Very Pretty. Not that I am biased. He is so pretty in this episode. SO PRETTY. Also, for a refreshing change, Owen manages not to be creepy and sexist at all in this episode. He's just prickly and kind of sweet. I like this Owen. I want to keep him. This episode overall was really a lot of fun, aside from (or perhaps also including) the most unintentionally hilarious death of a redshirt ever, in which he goes to hug Gwen and she accidentally stabs him with the knife she's holding. But overall it's so great! The Owen arc was my favorite - I love how affected he is by the memory device (the scene where he's clearly having a panic attack and trying to keep control!) and how determined he is to get justice for the murdered girl, only to be essentially brought down by his basic decent nature and inability to kill an old man in cold blood. Owen trying to save the guy's life when he was holding a knife on him thirty seconds earlier breaks me a little bit. Lots of fun team scenes in this one, too. The Splott conversation! ("Estate agents call it Sploe.") 1x04: Cyberwoman, aka CYBERBIKINI! Here again, Choices Were Made, most of them by the costuming department with a side of deeply uncomfortable racial implications on the part of whoever cast the episode. To be fair, maybe they just couldn't afford enough tinfoil to cover CyberLisa entirely, since the budget for this episode was clearly three shoestrings and a potato. I don't know if my favorite part of the low-budget f/x is the way they're clearly splicing in Doctor Who clips for the cyberization process, or the fall of Torchwood One, a giant battle involving hundreds of participants that is represented by Ianto screaming while surrounded by plastic sheeting. Honestly, I really love this episode. It is not good by any stretch of the imagination, but there is something incredibly charming about its sheer commitment to utter batshittery and OTT sobbing over emotional team betrayals, and parts of it were incredibly tense. It has the general feel of a horror film shot by college theater majors. Also someone getting doused in barbecue sauce and fed to a pterodactyl is literally a plot point, and the team basketball game at the beginning is one of my favorite little team moments; it's so cute. Cyberbikini aside and with expectations properly lowered, this was terrific fun. 1x05: Small Worlds, aka Death By Hanahaki Disease. On the whole this episode was not terrible nor was it memorably unpleasant; it was just kind of there. In going back to write about the episodes, I really had trouble remembering what even happened in this one. The concept is really interesting, but the fairies stopped being nearly so creepy once you actually see them in all their low-budget-CGI glory; I think the episode would actually have been better if they'd stayed invisible. The flower petal deaths were really gross. I hadn't realized that, while Gwen (unlike the rest of his team) knows that Jack can die and come back, she didn't actually know before this episode that he's much older than he looks. 1x06: Countrycide, aka Don't Split The Party. WELSH MURDER VILLAGE. I loved this episode. This is the ridonkulous teamy sci-fi horror shenanigans that I'm here for. I mean, I was there with bells on for TEAM CAMPING TRIP and then it just got better and better. Ianto gets to go out in the field for the first time and nearly gets eaten by cannibals! Poor Ianto. His life is the worst. I sort of vaguely knew because of season two that there was Owen/Gwen in the first season, but what really caught me off guard is how much I enjoyed it. I was expecting meaningless sex with a side of skeeve, and I do really hate that she's cheating on her boyfriend and how pushy about it Owen is at first, not to mention outing their kiss to the whole team. But the crazy thing about it is, by the midpoint of the episode they're actually, genuinely very sweet, and by the end of the episode you can see what they're both getting out of the relationship and get the feeling that it's a positive human connection for both of them. Also, the near-kiss and teamwork in the woods was incredibly hot. I really loved (and was also surprised by) how loyal and protective Owen is toward his teammates. We saw it a little bit in the previous episode with his "Don't you touch her!" re: Gwen, but it's abundantly on display here, from Owen repeatedly insisting that they need to go after Tosh and Ianto, to his fury at the guy threatening Tosh, to his captor having to restrain him when they pull the hood off Ianto's head near the end. Love Jack's big-damn-hero entrance to the Murder House, and everyone running around screaming and getting separated and hurt, which is always a good time. Basically I just loved this episode. It needed more hurt/comforty aftermath, though. I might have to write some. 1x07: Greeks Bearing Gifts, aka Tosh Has An Alien Girlfriend. I really loved this episode, on the whole, but it is Made Of Ouch. As well as Tosh's isolation and hurt, there's also that bit where she hears Ianto's thoughts and it's just endless painpainpainpain. I like to think that after this episode, she started getting together with him for drinks occasionally and talking about things. They both need friends so badly. (I do not love Jack's random transphobic comment near the end. From JACK of all people. WHY.) And seeing Tosh's delight and squee when she gets to just geek out about things is so lovely. Tosh is absolutely a person who leaves her teammates notes with little hearts on them. I love her. ♥ (Also, as much as I love Owen personally, I really wish that so much of Tosh's storyline didn't revolve around her hopeless crush on Owen. Toshiko deserved better, in all ways, than what this show gave her.) It's too bad that Gwen and Owen's affair is, on the whole, a rather destructive thing, because they're really happy! They're like the only happy people in Torchwood at this point. It's not a grand love story or anything, but I felt like the sheer joy of that initial rush of infatuation was well conveyed and sweet. Owen's relationship with Tosh in season one is completely baffling to me. He's not only staggeringly oblivious to Tosh being into him, but she's literally the only woman at Torchwood that he doesn't hit on. And yet, it's not that he doesn't like her! He clearly does like her in a friend kind of way and enjoys hanging out with her. The card that Mary was looking at in Tosh's apartment looked handmade to me, so he literally made her a handmade birthday card! And yet, he is blindingly oblivious to her interest and rejects her every time she makes overtures. ... I mean, the meta-reason is probably just that the writers thought it would be funny if the character who always sleeps around doesn't notice the one person who really wants him. But I can't help wondering if the basic issue is that Owen has somehow, without really intending to, classified his relationship with her as basically a sibling-type one. We know from the flashbacks in season two that they both joined Torchwood at about the same time and were both in a very emotionally fragile place when they did, and Jack also has a very quasi-parental sort of vibe with both of them. It makes me wonder if Owen either tried to initiate something early on and was rebuffed because Tosh wasn't really coping well either, or if he met her at a point in his life when he was really not interested in having relationships with anyone and simply classified her mentally in a sort of little-sister category. This actually does fit very well with the sometimes bullying, sometimes playful and sweet, generally sexless way that he relates to her this season, and the way that he clearly does care about her and in fact is very protective at times; he just doesn't view her as a target of romantic interest. Anyway, Tosh was very beautiful this episode, and her alien girlfriend was also quite hot, and I really enjoyed it. 1x08: They Keep Killing Suzie, aka I don't think anything I could come up with is better than the actual title. The scene in which they've accidentally locked themselves in their secret underground base and have to call the cops to let them out is possibly my favorite scene in this entire show. That was GOLD. I also wish the cop lady from this episode had come back. She was great, and her rapport with Jack was really neat. Part of what I want to say about this episode contains massive season two spoilers, so that's set off in a spoiler section at the end. This was a highly entertaining episode with a plot that was total nonsense that falls apart within 0.2 seconds of actually thinking about it. Good emotional stuff, yes! Plot? BONKERS. I mean, Suzie's plan was something like this: 1. Drive someone insane by feeding them Retcon for two years. 2. Kill yourself. 3. ???? 4. Profit! I am just going to headcanon that the team are actually wrong about Suzie planning all of this, and it's mostly an accidental set of circumstances that she took advantage of. I did love the twist of Suzie wanting a deathbed reunion with her dad not because of love, but because she wanted to watch him die because he's terrible. (However, this does completely undermine what was previously given as part of her motivation for getting addicted to the glove, which was trying to save her dad. See above re: plot nonsense.) But the team stuff was fun! Love everyone scrambling to save Gwen, and Owen holding her at the end -- I'm still seeing them through a lens of mostly-platonic more than romantic. The general vibe with the team pulling together vs. Suzie having basically no one in Torchwood to talk to is really interesting; it's hard to say how much of that is the team having gotten closer over the course of the season, and how much of it is just Suzie not really ever bonding with her co-workers the way they bonded with each other. I mean, I do get more of a co-workery vibe off them early on, as opposed to the chosen-family feeling later on, but the closeness is there under the surface; I'm just not really sure if they've realized it yet. But with Suzie, it's hard to say if the closeness ever really was there. They're all damaged in their various ways, but I feel like Suzie might be damaged in a way that simply precluded her ever really being able to let people in, as the others are learning to. Ianto's visible depression at this point in the show is mostly down to Gareth David-Lloyd's acting, but it's so well done -- his flat affect and thousand-yard stare, especially contrasted against his dry, sarcastic humor when he's not miserable (mostly in season two). The other Ianto-related thing I noticed is that the warmer, more bantery rapport between Ianto and Owen in season two is actually present in this episode to some extent, for perhaps the first time ever. In particular, Owen makes him smile at one point by teasing him (the only time Ianto smiles in the last few episodes, I think, up until he's with Jack at the very end), and offers him the first shot at naming the knife in spite of Ianto's artifact names being genuinely terrible - like, trying to include him a little bit, in a way I haven't seen Owen doing with him before. There's a general feeling throughout this episode that Owen has warmed up to him a bit and is actually reaching out a little. And Ianto and Jack are sleeping together now! I don't know when that happened and I wish we'd seen more of the beginnings of it. It's nice to see Ianto smile, though. Season two 1x08-related spoilers: 

Watching this episode after having seen Owen's resurrection glove arc in season two was FASCINATING, especially for the compare/contrast of the way the team reacted to resurrected!Suzie vs. resurrected!Owen; I mean, the fact that she died in the process of betraying them after becoming a serial killer is obviously a large factor here, and they were somewhat wary of Owen too, but there's just so much more ambivalence in how they deal with Suzie, vs. the way that Owen's death and resurrection actually brought the team closer together, and brought Owen closer to all of them.

But the most interesting contrast to me is how Owen and Suzie, as characters, both reacted to the whole idea of having to survive by killing people, with Jack trying (unsuccessfully) to argue Suzie out of allowing Gwen to die, whereas Owen's immediate reaction to finding out that his survival might be killing people (just random people too, not teammates) was to try to sacrifice himself, not just once but multiple times, starting with a fundamentally horrible euthanasia-type death and continuing on to destroy the resurrection glove himself even though it was likely to re-kill him. Why yes, I can turn any episode discussion into an Owen discussion, even an episode he wasn't especially prominent in.

[popcultureoverdosed]

Big Order. Big Trainwreck

Being made from the creator of the utter monstrosity that is future diary, big order was bound to fail from the start. It's hard to find a writer who fails so hard at telling a story without any form of self-awareness. It's even more badly written than future diary but thankfully less annoying. The anime adaptation only expands on the flaws by adding new scenes that are even worse than what happened in the manga. This is what happens when you hire the creator of Boku no Pico( I'm dead serious) to write the script.

To be fair, the series did have the potential to be good. Eiji accidentally caused the apocalypse ( through a dumbly worded wish) and he has to cope with it as well as having to take care of his sister. Could've been a nice character-driven drama but nope The first episode/chapter was strong but things just go downhill from there.

The story lets the audience know early on that this is a post-apocalyptic setting but it barely plays a factor here. Characters still go to school and use their phones without any problem. Apparently, there's still enough resources to maintain government building and internet service. You'd only know that the city went through a disaster because of the generic scenery of destroyed buildings. Our protagonist is Eiji Hoshimiya, a sullen teen who's riddled with the guilt of causing the great disaster while having to look after his ill sister. How did he cause this great disaster? Some random mystical little girl called daisy appeared before him and granted his wish to save the world, which she somehow interpreted as destroying it.

He lives the normal high school life until he meets a transfer student named character named Rin. She invites herself to his apartment and kidnaps Sena as revenge for her dead parents. While her wanting to get revenge on Eiji after her parents died in the apocalypse is an interesting goal that's her all there is to her character. She acts angry and homicidal towards Eiji whenever she's not having forced as hell ship tease moments with him.  Their fight introduces the concept of orders, a blatant copy of the stand abilities form JoJo that represents the user's inner desires. Rin can use flames to heal from anything and Eiji can manipulate anything within a given radius. The aftermath of the battle results in Eiji accidentally ordering Rin to marry him and him getting drafted in a mysterious political organization called the group of ten.

What follows is a half baked story of political warfare as the group of ten use Eiji to gain dominance over Japan. Your manga is off to a great start when the main characters of nationalistic terrorists.

Nothing about the story or characters stood out. Things just happen and the audience is given no reason to care. How is it even possible to make a cast of superpowered individuals as boring as a brick wall? At least the cast of future diary could envoke emotion in me even if it was mostly annoyance. The only names here I remember are Eiji, Rin, and Sena and none of them are interesting at all. These people are just archetypes and tools used to move the garbage plot forward. There's a character called Daisy who's essentially a goddess but nobody questions her existence and her purpose is very poorly defined. Another character is Iyo who gets pregnant when Eiji touches her ears and tries to rape him in the anime cause she fell in love with his basic bland unseasoned chicken personality in a heartbeat. Said attempted rape never gets mentioned again after it happens. Not only is it offensively bad but if the genders were reversed, I'm sure male Iyo would be portrayed as a villain so seeing her get off scot-free is annoying. The creator's sexism resulted in writing females who only exist to pine after the basic male lead.

                                        Is this shit for real?

The anime also thought it was a good idea to add disgusting incest subtext that wasn't in the manga. Eiji and Sena have an implied sex scene and the show wants viewers to think they're in love. This was nothing more than the director and scriptwriter pleasuring themselves seeing as how said incest does absolutely nothing to develop the two and is never referenced again. Again, the lack of self-awareness and sexism is crazy.

Readers aren't given good explanations on character motivation at all. I read the manga and watched the anime but I still don't understand the reasoning behind most of these characters. A few people wanna take over the world and that's about it. Why has no one made a wish to undo the great destruction? Daisy grants wishes to random people and not one of them at least thought of restoring the world? When nobody has any solid motives or decent personalities, the plot will bomb. The story wouldn't have been this bad if the writer didn't try to make it complex. I would much rather have read a JoJo Esque battle shonen than this poor excuse of a story. At least then it would've been popcorn entertainment.

The most positive thing about the series was the stands er- I mean -orders. Many people complained that the powers were too op( they're not) and were confusing. One person even called Eiji one of the strongest characters in fiction which honestly made me laugh. Op powers are good when handled well but everything is shit here. There's also the music composed by Call Evan. It made wonderful use of jazz and "Dominate", Eiji's theme song is far too good for what this show deserves.

Eiji can control the environment and people around his perimeter with little restrictions yet he always gets his ass kicked. There are hundreds of ways he can win any given battle and he fails to use any of them. He can condense the air to make a shield but rarely uses that ability and never uses it to suffocate his enemies. He never commands enemies to attack themselves. To make it even worse, his power is a weakened form of his maximum potential and in the manga, he can fuse with other orders to get even stronger. Even then he still gets his ass handed to him😶😑🙄. The sheer lack of creativity from both the creator and character is just marvelous. How is it even possible to be this incompetent?

The other characters are no better. The leader guy of the has a rip-off order of kumagawa misogi's all fiction from medaka box. Fact from fiction ( even the names are similar) lets him negate events from reality. Unlike kumagawa who marvelously screws over the main cast from his manga with his ability, the leader guy doesn't advance the plot at all and does not have any noteworthy battles. You also have a guy who can atomize anything, a girl who shoots lasers, a man who can brainwash others and a terrorist who controls rocks. Besides the terrorist chick, none of these people use their abilities in innovative ways. The writer could've taken lessons from JoJo, one-piece and even law of Ueki( so underrated) when it comes to writing superpowers.

The endings of both anime and manga are around just as bad but the manga might be even worse. The anime has an inconclusive ending where the world no longer hates Eiji and he just goes to school. That's it. The climactic battle was him using the full power of his order to manipulate abstract concepts to create a world where Sena can be happy. I'm sure the writers didn't intend for Eiji's last order to be as op as I just described but it Is. He wishes for something abstract and it comes true which implies he would be able to manipulate other concepts. And yet, he doesn't do anything about the run-down world he lives in. For a post-apocalyptic setting, the apocalyptic event barely had any influence on the characters or plot.

The manga comes up with a dumbass plot twist that Sena was the one who caused the great destruction and Eiji was just covering up for her. She turns evil and tries to destroy the world cause she's evil. Eiji refuses to let anyone kill the potential mass murderer and constantly protects her. Did I mention Rin and Eiji and kinda low key dating at this point? Eiji faces sena in an anticlimactic battle followed by a 1-year time skip where their current fate is unknown. And people thought Naruto had a bad ending..... With how abrupt and lazily put together the ending was, I can't tell if the manga was canceled or the creator lost interest. Both options seem highly likely.

                             That’s his sister by the way. Cause incest was exactly what this show needed

With its bland characters, a nonsensical plot and poorly thought out powers, big order is a  clusterfuck of a show that continues to fade into obscurity. Even having a big name creator wasn't enough to keep it within the public eye. I was hoping for a so bad it's a good experience but this was just hot garbage. I give it a 4/10 for its bland character, muddy plot and terribly written romance. It only gets a four because the music and powers were pretty cool.

[malenkayacherepakha]

2020 Writing Goals

I’ve finally come up with my writing plan for the year, and I thought I’d share my goals here in the hope that it makes me actually follow through on them! 

One of my main goals this year is to do fewer fests. This is sort of going well - I've only signed up for @hpkinkfest so far, and I always knew I was going to do that fest. But apart from Kinkfest (and maybe Jeddy fest as I do want to support rare pair fests) I'm not going to let myself do anymore. This is going to be a big challenge for me, so if you see me wavering at any point, remind me of this and tell me not to even look at the prompts! I'm not doing fests this year because I have three larger projects I want to work on, and my main goal for the year is to at least make a start on all three of them (and ideally finish them, but let's be realistic!). In the hopes that it helps me to actually write and publish the fics, I'm going to start sharing more about the ideas and the process, so to start with, here are the basic premises of each. I'll stick it under a cut to spare your dash.

1) A Harry/Draco fic inspired by @magpiefngrl;s answer to my ask. I'm trying out a new tactic of not outlining, and the fic has already taken on a life of its own but, following Magpie's prompt, so far the basic plot is: Harry is sad and grieving after the war, and starts walking to fill the lonely evenings. He then ends up in various pubs, where (to all of our great shock) he bumps into Draco one evening. At some point they sleep together, but Draco has to go back to Paris where he is studying at the magical Sorbonne. There's plenty of pining, and letters, and post-war healing, and they end up in a long distance relationship, with trips to Paris and plenty of smut before somehow the plot all resolves itself and they end up happy and together. The plot is likely to change as I write, but I'm super excited about this one - I did long distance while I lived in Paris so I'm looking forward to revisiting that time in my life in this fic. Massive thanks to Magpie for letting me write this idea. 2) A fic dealing with Harry and Ginny's divorce and its aftermath. I've already discussed this a bit on Dreamwidth, but my general plan for this fic is to write both from Harry and James's POV, focusing on Harry rebuilding his life post-Ginny and post-Auror career and also on how James copes with his parents' divorce. Harry's arc is going to revolve around him setting up his new life (I have plans for him to essentially renovate a house by hand which I'm excited about) and I think he'll end up with Draco, but I still need to figure out what James's arc will be. This is a real 'write for yourself/write to process' story, and I think it's going to be really hard to write (I fully expect to cry while writing) but it's been rattling around my brain for a while and I'm looking forward to finally getting it on paper. 3) A Harry x Ginny fic, where they split up soon after the war. The fic is set ~10 years later, when Harry returns to the UK and they see each other again, starting up a casual friends with benefits relationship which quickly gets more complicated than they expected. I've not written a long H/G fic before so I think I'm most nervous about this one, but still keen to write it. On top of those three fics I'll also be doing my @hpdailydeviant fills, so it's looking like a busy year!