i do kind of reject the idea that jon and martin never would have gotten together in other universes because the only reason they found each other in tma was their specific shared trauma.
relistening to s1 and it's pretty clear to me that martin already has a bit of a crush on jon before the jane prentiss stuff starts happening. Not to mention he says in a fear domain in s5 that "he's met someone" who "doesn't like" him. Indicating that he had interest in jon maybe even before s1 started.
Jon is an ass to martin at the beginning, but after the initial jane prentiss stuff, he quickly softens on martin a hell of a lot. Giving him a place to stay in the archives and going to Elias to ask for more security.
Listening to s1 and you can already hear these two, once jon stops and actually talks to him, have an incredible chemistry/dynamic. Their connection is not just because of Horror trauma. Sure, that's what gets them together in the end, but as characters, if gertrude hadn't been murdered leading to jon becoming extremely paranoid in s2, or jon not going into a coma at the end of s3, i think they actually would have gotten together sooner.
so much of their slow burn hinges on them not actually being in each other's space for much longer than an episode at a time until s5.
if they met in a completely separate universe where they just have to get over the initial hump of jon being a rude bastard, then i think those other versions would be home free in regards to getting together.
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i stand by that a better, more sensible, and more intriguing plot for TSATS would have been, instead of retconning literally everything:
Bob is dead (because he was very explicitly absorbed/killed by Tartarus Himself in House of Hades, alongside Damasen), and nobody is going into Tartarus to save him. He made his sacrifice and is gone. However. Remember how the Titans, including Bob, were just kind of kicking around for several years? Particularly. On a cruise ship full of mortals. And Bob happened to be kicking around in general for an extra year versus all the other Titans. And he mythologically sometimes has a mortal demigod son who partook in the Calydonian Boar Hunt (Dryas of Calydon). Yeah.
So turns out, Bob/Iapetus leaves behind a demigod (demititan?) child. And because Nico was pretty much his only friend, he named Nico his child's godfather. And while he's not being left in charge of the child, as a son of Hades and godfather to this kid, Nico is duty-bound to fulfill Bob's last will and go find this like 2 year old to make sure they're safe. So Nico has to undertake this very unusual quest (that raises many questions, such as "demititans are a thing?" and "DOES THIS MEAN THERE'S POTENTIALLY MORE-?!" and "SHOULD WE BE CONCERNED ABOUT THIS?") and is kind of freaking out because. He's the son of Hades! He's notoriously bad with living things, and animals, and definitely small children! Even if he does find this kid and assure they're safe, he is the last person who should be undergoing any kind of quest involving even potentially having to babysit. Fortunately, his boyfriend is the human embodiment of sunshine and calmness and good vibes, and also once helped a nymph give birth, so he feels Marginally More Confident in theoretical demititan babysitting and offers to come along on this Epic Journey of Figuring Out What In Hades' Name Is Up With This Demititan Baby Business.
Proceed with wholesome epic shenanigans quest of Nico and Will scurrying around trying to locate this random OP baby while Nico has an existential crisis about the nature of his powers because he doesn't want to let Bob down! Both for Hades Kid Honor Reasons and because Bob was his friend! But what if he's destined to fail this quest just because of who he is? Because he's simply not built for hanging out with the living/mortals? And Will reassuring him that He Will Probably Not Traumatize The Weird OP Titan Baby And It'll Be Fine, and simultaneously getting a peek into the weird other life Nico leads hanging out with immortals much more than the average demigod, which Nico considers his norm. Bonus shenanigans of both of them getting caught off-guard and culture shocked from where each other's respective worlds (Nico's mostly-immortal versus Will's mostly-mortal) cross over and learning to navigate those for each other - Nico finally starting to make some mortal connections and get glimpses at modern mortal American life, and Will trying not to get his brain literally incinerated while Nico's happily casually catching up with some of his old friends who happen to be literal gods.
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You know, I've been thinking about it, and it is absolutely essential to the narrative that Jiang Cheng is a dick and a trash fire. (Affectionate.)
Like, first of all, if he was a sainted little angel of a shidi the way Jiang Yanli is a shijie, Wei Wuxian's choices would become obvious, sort of impersonal, and boring.
Sure, lots of people wouldn't tear themselves apart for such a person in such a scenario, but they're not the protagonists of novels, are they; in a book you have to justify not doing that. So white lotus Jiang Cheng is off the table.
Jiang Cheng who isn't fragile-and-insecure but also stubborn-as-hell and violently reactive also won't wash.
If he wasn't the kind of person who sincerely tries to die under these circumstances, Wei Wuxian would have had the option of loyally supporting him in a less self-destructive way; if he was someone who could be trusted to handle the revelation without suffering a ruinous fracture of identity, Wei Wuxian wouldn't have been forced to distance himself after the war, because he could have come clean.
If Jiang Cheng wasn't the kind of person who centers on his own pride and hurt feelings and lashes out about it, it would be very hard to set up the lategame scenario where they're 'enemies' in a real, meaningful way, despite still loving each other and Wei Wuxian never wishing Jiang Cheng any ill. Even with Jiang Yanli's death.
And I mean, you could get most of the plot without doing this interesting thematic examination of the classic 'bond between martial brothers severed by one going to the dark side' trope, but I'd argue you'd lose an enormous chunk of the story.
And without Jiang Cheng's weaknesses, Wei Wuxian's motives don't cohere. His weaknesses form the foundation of at least two of the backstory's major turning points.
There's the tantalizing possibility that Wei Wuxian wouldn't have done it, if Jiang Cheng hadn't strangled him while blaming him for everything.
Probably he would have, all else being equal! But neither we nor Jiang Cheng can be sure.
Jiang Cheng sucking a lot, and knowing his own flaws perfectly well without that granting him the ability to do much about them, is heavily load-bearing. Which gives him such a fantastic implied point of view!
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watching the valeria interrogation again and when alejandro says, “you disgrace the army”, rudy steps forward but when alejandro looks over his shoulder at him and says, “and your brothers, no?” he steps back again, almost like he’s trying to pull himself out of the conversation
alejandro leans in close to her and rudy reacts like he wants to pull him away, to protect him from her and from her words, but when he brings up that valeria hurt him too, betrayed him too, rudy retreats like he doesn't want to be reminded of it
it's alejandro who keeps valeria talking about the past, who prompts her to say more when simply saying she's ex-military would've been enough. they bait each other, valeria far more successfully than alejandro; she’s essentially running the interrogation
this speaks volumes of rudy’s interjection of, “he (the son of la areña) was supposed to go to prison”. he’s getting short; cutting off valeria and her excuses, not to redirect them back to the point of the interrogation but bc he’s done with her. rudy’s terser with her, more obviously angry, than he is with an actual terrorist
alejandro can't get past their history; let's himself get pulled off track and compromised but not be he's more upset than rudy. rudy has just repressed the hell out of it; if he doesn't think about it then it didn't happen
but now, he's suddenly being confronted with it head on
"you disgrace the army," is generalised; valeria didn't just hurt rudy, she hurt all of them. it's easier to take
"and your brothers," calls rudy out directly for his pain; pain alejandro wants retribution for and he doesn't want to face it, doesn't want to admit to it bc he doesn’t want to have to feel it
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I was reading the Orphic Argonautica last night and the author has mentioned the various methods of divination Apollo knows and guess what? One of them is prophesying by studying the entrails of organisms. As soon as I read that I was reminded of your headcanon of Apollo being into hepatoscopy for divination and I giggled.
Awww 😳😳It's so nice of you to think of me!
Hehe, so fun fact, the overall practice of divination by studying the entrails of animals (including blood, lungs, intestines and so forth) is extispicy while hepatoscopy is specifically using the liver in prophecy and divination readings.
If, like magic in old text exactly like the sort Medea is described as using, the types of divination spoken about in the texts are reflections of the popular divination cultures of the time, I much rather prefer ascribing those to Apollo than I do some vague, somewhat mysterious power which he uses to see the will of the fates, especially since it's mentioned a few times that he'll teach his sons the language of the birds and how to read their signs and so on and so forth.
In short: HEPATOSCOPY APOLLO IS COOL!! HE'S SO NEAT!! Apollo at the altar who predicts the coming droughts and famines from the entrails of his flock!! It's just such a neat little image (to me)!
Also the Orphic Argonautica bangs, genuinely I hope you enjoy it! Orpheus is an insane man and I do not think him along with the collective subspecies of mythical man known as 'sons of Apollo' get enough credit for how truly unhinged they are at any given point in time.
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my hypster magazine finally came in the mail lmao and man the special feature talking about how the world is coping without mics is very interesting??? like:
crime as a whole is at an all time high
within ikebukuro, the police are doing fck all about it so the bb have volunteered their services to making the civilians feel safe
ichiro’s been a mediator within more casual disputes, expressing his desire to talk things thru if possible, jiro’s got his whole high school as a neighbourhood watch and saburo’s set up a huge surveillance system to keep watch
in yokohama, the sea port has been particularly targeted and the report says the police and yakuza have teamed up to protect the flow of commerce. katengumi has stepped up to protect the territory and rio is keeping watch via satellite images and drones
in shibuya, dice complains of disruptions in gambling dens and the lack of real gambling has dulled his senses lol. he’s trying to compensate by making his own gambling game lol and he hasn’t been able to pay his phone bill due to lack of funds so he hasn’t been able to talk to ramuda or gentaro
curiously, neither of those two were mentioned in the article, save for dice using the section to try to reach out to them
in shinjuku, the day is desolate and the night scene is busier than ever. doppo’s company has been particularly hit by logistics nightmares as they’re haemorrhaging money due to lost medical equipment. (doppo’s boss has been accusing him of stealing funds and doppo claps back asking what exactly has he been managing currently lol)
shinjuku central hospital has been at full capacity with patients due to the inability to fend off armed criminals. fragrance has seen a significant uptick in patrons
in osaka, businesses have taken a sharp turn towards maliciousness, with scams at an all time high. sasara and rosho advise not to go out at night alone, and rosho, as a teacher, further explains that adults have a duty to protect minors, especially as a person who has been affected by scams in the past. neither sasara nor rosho have heard from rei in a long while, stating dh is on hiatus because of it
in nagoya, petty crimes are up because there seems to be a restlessness amongst them without the mics giving the populace the power to stand out. hitoya himself watched a dude climb up nagoya castle literally for the memes. the court of law has been barren as of late so nobody is being tried for crimes but he believes justice will prevail in due time
kuukou and jyushi have taken up patrolling nagoya in order to persuade others into not doing crimes and all three of them still practice rap battling together
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Eddie hates his hair. It never does what his mom tries to get it to do, when she’s out of the stupor of drugs long enough to notice the state it’s in. Either way, it’s always breakin the teeth of the cheap combs his dad buys him when Eddie’d starts to complain of it getting all gross.
There are only so many times his hair can get wadded into a pile on the top of his head or have a brush torn through it again and again before he starts to shy away, to dread anyone touching his hair at all.
His dad threatens a razor. Eddie might hate his hair, but he hates the idea of his dad getting close to him with his shaving razor even more.
Things have been…ok, for a while. Eddie can feel it though. The inevitable is coming soon, and the longer the good sticks around, the harder it becomes to believe in it. What way the bad will come, Eddie can’t tell, can never really tell, but he tries his best to ready himself for it. This school in Indianapolis has been one of the better ones he’s been switching around to since they came to Indy a couple years ago from Kentucky.
Kentucky feels like a dream.
Kentucky was the best part of his life he can remember. In Kentucky, he’d had a group of friends, all kinda like him, all scrappy trailer park kids, and he’d drifted between all of their trailers. Back then, they’d come to his trailer too, before his mom had sunk down all the way, before his dad had turned out to be an angry drunk. They’d all sleep sprawled out on the floor of each other’s bedrooms, making room for the siblings when they were there. Eddie was only hungry about half the time, and he had never really been scared of much back then.
He knows better now.
They’re in Indianapolis, in a tiny apartment that Eddie tries not to think about how his dad got. There’s no way they can afford it with his real job, even though it’s a shithole. But Eddie’s twelve now. He’s not stupid. So he keeps his mouth shut around his dad and takes care of his mom when he’s not at school.
His hair sits under a hat more often than not. He tries to run his fingers through it, the comb, anything. One night he sneaks some margarine from the fridge and tries to get the knots to slip and slide out from each other. It only makes him look dirtier. A couple weeks pass and it’s not getting any better. A rainy day comes. Eddie has a purple bruise on his gaunt cheek that his mom smears the thinnest layer of foundation over, just enough to hide it and not enough for his dad to notice the makeup on his son’s face.
Annie is sitting in the library during lunch, in front of the window they always eat at. It’s a muggy day for April, but she still wears long sleeves.
Annie’s eleven, a year younger than Eddie but just as smart, probably smarter. All the kids make fun of her hair, which rests in fraying braids across her shoulders. She’d told him once, one of the first times they’d both taken refuge in the library, that her mom didn’t have the time to do her and all her sibling’s hair. As the oldest, Annie helped all the others, but it was hard for her to do her own. It just fell by the wayside. Not all the time, but enough. Eddie and her were the same, she’d said once, no matter that everyone thought they couldn’t be because she was Black and he was trailer trash.
Her dad hit her too. She always told him it was better her than her little siblings.
“Hey Annie.”
“Hey Eddie.”
Annie smiles as he sits down, goes back to her book. Eddie sits across from her on the sill, grabbing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for her out of his lunch sack. Wordlessly, he sets it to her right. Nudges her foot with his. She doesn’t pick it up for a minute, and Eddie smirks to himself as he sees her mouthing the words as she finishes her page.
They’re both left behind, but in these moments, the space between them and what they kn ow they lack is smaller.
“Hey Annie?”
Eddie can’t look her in the eye, instead picking apart his sandwich. Annie hums, taking a bite of her PB&J.
“Could you maybe…could you maybe help me? With, with my hair.”
Still not looking up from his sandwich, Eddie pulls off his hat.
“Jesus H. Christ.”
Eddie can’t help butler out a bark of laughter.
“...Yeah, I know.”
Eddie glances up at her, and she’s just looking at him. Calculating, like she gets with books that her teachers say are too old for her. Thinking of the best way to tackle it.
“Meet me in the theater dressing rooms tomorrow after dismissal.”
Tomorrow can’t come quick enough.
Eddie goes home and makes dinner for him and his mom, writes his book report, and sneaks beside his mom in her bed to read The Two Towers after she’d been asleep for a couple hours already. He’s just finished The Fellowship of the Ring and he can’t put it down. When he gets tired he sets his book down on the nightstand his dad never uses and presses his face into his mom’s back, feeling the rise and fall of each of heI r breaths as he slowly slips into sleep and dreams of his hair long and glossy, falling around his shoulders just like his mom’s.
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