#but I’m so glad that sometimes people are empowered to come out as they figure themselves out!!

[freddieandersen]

I keep out of the blue remembering that the I’m in me mums car broom broom kid is trans. good for him. keep it up

[fantoccia]

Okay just not even rewatching it again just going off what I remember.

Women are often seen as commodities and things to be ultimately pursued and eventually conquered and consumed. This often times leads to violence- all in the sake of what the man might think is love. Many times women in these situations don’t survive without a close support system or else sometimes they lash out in return and wind up killing the man who wronged them. Along the same vein, women who survive and escape abusive situations are more likely to find themselves in similar situations again, plus they may suffer from all sorts of mental problems after. They may become distrustful of men, some feel they need to be constantly on the lookout for the man who hurt them, some may feel they’re being watched or stalked by various men if not the specific one that hurt her. Some may even start to feel guilty for these feelings as well- not all men, after all. Give this guy a chance, he’s different from the other ones! 

I feel this is a story of survival and turning the tables on an abusive situation. In the beginning the women are stalked by that masked being, giving that constant feeling of being watched and pursued by some sinister force. There’s scenes of them dancing in a whole room full of masked people with such distant expressions on their own faces, feeling as though they’re detached and unable to partake in the festivities or like perhaps all these people are metaphorically wearing masks as well- surely all these people can’t be so happy and having fun while she’s the one that feels in such a way even in such a place. There’s scenes of her body withering, decaying, again representing her own feelings perhaps, how she feels about herself after dealing with such a thing. 

Then of course she is attacked and she can’t stand up to it, only asking why again and again and finally having the strength to say that love shouldn’t be violent. Her friend is the one that finally stands up for her and helps her get out of the situation- she found the support that she needs in somebody she can actually trust and it’s no surprise that it’s another woman, perhaps a woman who has seen all the previous events transpire or else had been in a similar situation herself. Women need to help and look out for other women, so on and so forth. 

THEN there’s everything else that happens after finally putting the man down. What better way to turn the tables on being something metaphorically consumed like some sort of product than to actually literally consume in return? Not to mention that it’s a perfect way to get rid of evidence. This all becomes an empowering event for the women, the part where the masked man pops up just one last time... only to disappear when she turns to face him. Perfect. The whole act of killing and eating the abuser is relieving, empowering, and just even pleasurable- there’s a part where the women are sitting naked together smoking cigarettes, usually a sort of cartoonish way of symbolizing when someone has just finished sleeping together right? You could argue sitting and smoking cigarettes can be a symbol of just pure exhaustion and simply being glad something is over with- which may also be the case of course- but if that were simply all it was then I’d think leaving them in bloodstained clothes would’ve conveyed that more accurately right? There’s something sensual in the moment there as well... or at least this can be seen as a moment between the two that may be the closest and most intimate they’d be together figuratively- they’re sharing in a murder after all. They’ve committed a hidden act together.

I know I’m going on about that little specific bit but I guess it kinda sticks with me in a way. The whole film just feels like not only a story of surviving such a horrible event but a film about two friends realizing how close they are, how close they can be, how there is someone in your life that you can really trust even when the worst comes to pass. That you can really break down and bare yourself completely with a friend like this and be accepted.

There’s sooooo much going on tho lmao.

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E138 & 139 (May 25, 2021)

Hello, you lovely people! It’s Tuesday and it’s time again for TM! Tonight’s guests: Marisha Ray & Liam O’Brien! The first picture that pops up when you google his name to check the spelling for the thousandth time is him with a shaved head, which is a wild look.

Ah! According to Dani, this is likely the last Zoom Talks! I’m so happy to hear this! They complain about Laura’s internet freezing constantly whenever she was about to say something exciting.

This episode is sponsored by The Elder Scrolls Online. As I’ve recently resumed my Skyrim run, this makes me crave it all over again.

Liam talks about having to drop everything to start the Zoom call, then having 27 minutes of technical difficulties before they could even begin recording. Augh, same hat.

Beau navigating the Astral Sea & Cognouza was empowering and unsettling. “This is the coolest! Uh oh.” It’s like seeing a new piece of RL tech come out and thinking about how it will change everything, then immediately thinking about how it’ll be abused, like deepfakes.

The first interactions with the Somnovem was overwhelming. They started fighting gnolls in a medieval towns and are now fighting interstellar beings. For Beau, it felt like talking to a really drunk friend. I actually love how she phrases this. “To me, it definitely felt like when you talk to one of your friends when they’re really drunk, and you’re like, ‘oh, I see what version of this person I have right now.’ And then you catch another version of that person on a shit day, and you’re like, ‘ah, I get it, you’re having a shit day.’ But then you catch them when they’re all put together and holding it down, and you’re like, ‘okay, you only hate yourself on the fringes.’ I get that. I found the Somnovem relatable.” Dani: “I too am just a collection of different emotions just barely hanging on by a thread.”

Marisha was able to put the pieces together of the ninefold emotions pretty quickly.

They do a whole tape-review bit after Brian mispronounces Yussa that is amazing. Aside from that, the M9 are glad they got him out of the city. It felt like a die-in-the-Matrix situation for him.

Liam kind of always suspected Matt would dangle the time-travel carrot in front of him. He honestly doesn’t know which way he’d go now. “For a long time, Caleb was like, ‘this doesn’t exist, so it doesn’t matter.’” It’ll probably be a mental coin flip if it comes down to an in-game decision.

"The dice are a CW producer,” when it comes to Beau & Yasha fighting each other.

They can’t remember another prolonged encounter bleeding into another encounter directly since Thordak/Raishan & Kevdak/the herd.

Cosplay of the Week: cattheterrible on Twitter with a beautiful Yasha.

Liam thinks Matt did a great job making it feel like a pressure cooker in terms of balancing their approaches between Lucien’s party & Cree. They’re also both very pleased that their plan with the threshold crests worked - it’s one of the few plans they’ve had across two campaigns that worked. (Honorable mentions they pull: intuit charges, Gelidon, Yenk/Vorugal from C1. “Will Friedle was a better [tactician] than all of us that entire campaign.”)

As far as the nine eyes on everyone go, “we’re all just one metaphysical garbage disposal.” Omar starts barking and they joke the dog will be SAG-eligible before Dani. Ha!

Just the idea of Aeor as a relic of history is massively important. They might die at any point, but if they live, Caleb thinks it’s so important to preserve that history Indiana-Jones-style, especially since it was obviously more advanced as a civilization.

Marisha wonders if they can bring forward the piece of Lucien that is Molly. “It’s a fractal. It’s that full molecular crystalline structure that’s repeating and recurring, and even if it’s several times removed, it still feels like part of the same thing. But maybe a different version, a different timeline of what Lucien is was more or less Molly, and can we Spiderverse the fuck out of this? Can we somehow recall that programming from whatever’s buried? [...] It’s like how moving things to your Recycling Bin doesn’t really clear them from your hard drive.”

Fanart of the Week: mellifera38 with a beautiful Lucien pre-tentacles. The card award shenanigans come complete with massive fireworks green screen display, a rainbow unicorn, a cease and desist letter, eagle wings, lasers, and a PHYSICAL CARD in his hand oh my gosh, to celebrate the final Zoom Talks.

Liam is glad Essek was there to help out with the dunamantic elements of their fights. He’s doing a lot to redeem himself. Liam is also thinking a lot about endgame, long-term repercussions of how this would affect the kingdoms.

Marisha finds the weasel being Artagan adorably traumatic and hilariously tragic. Not only was this poor weasel getting dragged to hell and back, sometimes his personality gets shoved to the side to allow Artagan in. Poor thing, ha! Liam talks about one aspect of the game is that you learn things about your character as ago and then apply it backwards; “We ragged on this weasel so hard, that Matt was like ‘fuck you guys, he’s alive because there’s a fey prince inside him’ and made it retroactive through time.” He’d noticed it for a while, but because there was no downtime in Aeor, there was never a chance to casually bring it up. Beau’s confirmation of seeing something weird about the weasel was a relief that he wasn’t crazy.

It’s a lot of pressure to be the “face” of the party, especially considering Beau’s CHA stat is low. Now it feels like siblings deliberately pushing Lucien’s buttons, except with the full recognition you’re poking a nuclear bomb. It’s honestly been fun, though - she loves being a smartass to people she should ABSOLUTELY not be saying things to. In Caleb’s mind, Beau is the closest thing the group has to a responsible hero. Cad is a great sage, but Beau does what she thinks is the right thing that needs to be done.

They both laugh at this being Matt’s love letter to FF games. They should have been ready for the transformation and the amazing spectacle of the whole thing.

And that is that is that! Brian thanks the guests, Dani, and the crew. “We did it! We did Zoom. Thank you Marisha especially, and our amazing production team for figuring out a way for us to be able to do this from home and make all the artwork and everything so awesome. Thank you to everyone who has touched the show in some way and helped us do it from home.”

Is it Thursday yet?

[iamnotawomanimagod]

If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power - A Reluctant Ranking of Every Track

Disclaimer: This entire album is incredible, truly no skips, and I also think it’s an album that is hard to separate into individual tracks, because it all goes so well together. But I still wanted to try! This is just my personal opinion, and it’s subject to change. (Also I surprised myself. And I bet I’ll change my mind by tonight.)

Please feel free to do your own and tag me in it!! I wanna see!!

13. Girl is a Gun

It’s not that I dislike this song, it’s just a sound that I didn’t expect on this album. I think it would’ve fit in better on Manic. I don’t love how it kind of just repeats over and over again, especially on an album so full of complex, intricate lyrics. But it’s a really upbeat, sexy song and I bet it’s going to be so fun live.

Favorite lyric: 

Time is a blessin', to me, it's a lesson And I can't be stressin' to give you attention 'Cause, oh, it's never enough, so I'm givin' you up And you'll be better with a nice girl, darlin'

12. Lilith

Similar to “Girl is a Gun,” I simply wasn’t expecting this kind of sound on this album - could’ve seen it on Hopeless Fountain Kingdom though! The bass is amazing and I love the rhythm.

Favorite lyric:

You know I get too caught up in a moment I can't call it love if I show it I just fuck things up, if you noticed Have you noticed? Tell me have you noticed?

11. Darling

This song is so sweet and charming, especially if you compare it to “More,” which I think it acts as a sort of sequel to. Something about the melody hits me just a little wrong. When they start singing, I can’t help but hear the verses of “Hopeless.” That might’ve been intentional, but I can’t get past it to hear this song as its own thing.

Favorite lyric:

Never knew the feeling of a stable home Been a couple years of living on the road Couldn't really tell you where they'd leave a stone To visit me when I am dead and gone

10. The Tradition

I love the haunting piano and vocals. It feels like a song that was written for the film specifically. (Was it even in the film, lol?) I really love the sound of it, but the lyrics don’t do very much for me.

Favorite lyric:

And I hope what's left will last all summer long And they said that, "Boys were boys", but they were wrong

9. The Lighthouse

This song reminds me the most of a Nine Inch Nails song - fitting that Trent Reznor provides backing vocals on the final verse. I love the grimy guitars, and and discordant beat, and the way it builds up. The melody is cool and liquid. The final verse really feels like waves crashing. It’s a well-written song that really shows off Halsey’s alternative side.

Favorite lyric:

Well, that should teach a man to mess with me He was never seen again And I'm still wandering the beach And I'm glad I met the devil 'Cause he showed me I was weak And a little piece of him is in a little piece of me

8.  Ya’aburnee

This song makes me really emotional. It makes me think of all the people I love the most and it makes me want to cherish my time with them even more. That’s an incredible feeling for an artist to create. It’s such a bittersweet song. I wanna cry but it also makes me smile.

Favorite lyric:

But what's worse? Telling you my feelings or to die without revealing That you crawled inside my head and set a fire there, instead Letting all my insecurity Devour me with certainty

7. honey

If you’ve ever felt this way for someone, this song stings in the best way possible. I love the rhythm and the drums and the guitars - this is peak pop punk and Halsey fits right in. I love the honey imagery, especially that she included some imagery about bees and the way honey clings.

Favorite lyric:

And now she's impatient and I'm complacent With just a little taste of wasting time Looking for honey But she stings like she means it She's mean and she's mine

6. 1121

Now this is the sound I expected from this album. Cinematic, dark, dramatic. The piano is so haunting and so beautiful. It evokes so much imagery through sound alone, even with the lyrics being relatively simple. And their voice is so incredible. The song overall reminds me a lot of Evanescence, which is high praise. And I really appreciate the “self-loathing in love” theme, I can relate to it a lot. I’ve already been singing the chorus at the top of my lungs whenever I play this song.

Favorite lyric:

Take one in the temple My tongue is a vessel I try to be careful with The thing inside my chest You shoot for the memory So you can forget me I'd leave if you let me, oh

5. Bells in Santa Fe

Ever since we heard a snippet of this song in the first film trailer, I’ve been desperate to hear the rest of it. It didn’t disappoint. I love her lower register vocals, the tinkling piano and the frantic rhythm. And I relate too much to the message of the song - loving someone so much but refusing to accept that they want forever with you, insisting that they’re better off without you, warning them that you could slip away at any moment. It hits me where I live.

Favorite lyric:

Jesus needed a three day weekend To sort out all his bullshit, figure out the treason I've been searching for a fortified defense Four to five reasons But, Jesus, you've got better lips than Judas I could keep your bed warm, otherwise I'm useless I don't really mean it, 'cause who the fuck would choose this?

4. I am not a woman, I’m a god

This song fucks. Claiming their power to create life - recognizing that as godly and divine, while also insisting this is not a power that makes them a woman. I can’t wait for it to become a smash hit and for people to be singing about a nonbinary/trans experience without even knowing it. I honestly have trouble even articulating why this song is so awesome, it just is. I’m pumped every time I hear it.

Favorite lyric:

Oh, I just wanna feel something, tell me where to go 'Cause everybody knows something I don't wanna know So I'll stay right here cause I'm better all alone Yeah, I'm better all alone

3. You asked for this

I really like the 90s alternative sound of this one, it reminds me of Alanis Morrissette and certain No Doubt songs. I think it’s a very realistic depiction of how settling down in life can be very bittersweet, and the things that we ask for are sometimes not what they seem to be. But we also come to realize that settling is a part of growing up. Still, Halsey sings about wanting everything, knowing there are contradictions in that. The chorus is fun and easy to sing to, and the final verse is so amazing.

Favorite lyric:

I want a beautiful boy's despondent laughter I want to ruin all my plans I want a fist around my throat I want to cry so hard I choke I want everything I asked for

2. Whispers

This one hits hard, but god, it’s so good. The way they whisper certain phrases. The simple piano under the first verse, the way it becomes more complex, the way the beat comes in. You want to dance and cry at the same time. The lyrics - I know so many of us can relate to them. The themes of self-sabotage and self-loathing are so strong in this album, which definitely hits me right in the chest.

Favorite lyric:

I've got a monster inside me That eats personality types She is constantly changing her mind on the daily Think that she hates me I'm feeling it lately Might have to trick her and treat her To 70 capsules or fly to a castle So at least we could say that we died being traveled

1. Easier than Lying

I’ve had this one on repeat since the album came out, and that surprised me at first, but god, this song is addictive. The crunchy guitar at the beginning, the driving rhythm, the way her voice contrasts with that. The scream-singing on the chorus. It’s the kind of song you want to drive way too fast to. The bridge!! Aaah! It’s just so badass and listening to it now gets me too hyped!! Also the way it can kind of be seen as a sequel to “Lie,” - the growth of going “if you don’t love me no more, then lie” to “losing you is easier than lying to myself” is so meaningful and so empowering.

My heart is massive but it's empty A permanent part of me, that innocent artery Is gasping for some real attention Some undivided hypertension I tell it "quiet down, you're being loud" But it beats harder every time you come around But do you love the sound?

I’m gonna tag some mutuals, just to share, and also to see if anyone else wants to do this! Also you don’t need to go as in-depth as I did if that’s intimidating or too much, I’m just wordy.

@demonzplay @easiersthanlying @ttpane @yoursalwaysleo @anarkyandmadness @feelingsiwontforget @tolerateit @tommyhardyx @elysiems @imacreepygirl @finallybeautifulstranger @inthenameofloveforthesakeofpower and I know I’m forgetting some folks, I’m sorry! Please feel free to steal this and also tag me in yours!

[cosplayinamerica]

Princess Daisy : pencils_and_pincushions // photo: that_fedora_photographer

I’m a Canadian cosplayer who has been cosplaying since 2007. I’ve had a love for Victorian fashion since I very young age (my little kid brain basically made the connection that Victorian dresses = women dressing like Disney princesses IRL), but the thing that kickstarted my desire to learn sewing was going to a fabric store with my mother when I was in my senior year of high school and seeing a Butterick pattern catalogue that had Victorian-inspired costumes. Almost instantly I had a lightbulb moment that if I learned to sew, I could actually wear those big fancy gowns I loved.   

I entered university and, over the next few years, spent my free time reading and learning everything I could about sewing. In 2007, my best friend invited me to Anime North - she was going as a gothic lolita-inspired version of the Queen of Hearts, so I decided I would make a Mad Hatter to accompany her.

I was so excited that I jumped in completely head-first, and it ended up being my first foray into both sewing and pattern drafting. In hindsight it was wildly ambitious for a first project (and I’m still a little surprised that I actually pulled it off!), but I’m so glad that my enthusiasm made me persevere and psh through the challenges, because I learned a ton from that experience and ended up with a cosplay I was thrilled with.

I remember seeing myself in the mirror the first time and being so happy when I realized I’d been able to bring something to life from my imagination. When my friend and I got to the con, things only got better from there - the atmosphere was so energetic and colourful thanks to all the amazing cosplays, and it was filled with so many fun, enthusiastic, and friendly people. From that day I was officially hooked on cosplay.

I’m part of the Toronto Steampunk Society and, each year at Fan Expo Canada, we hold an Annual Costume Challenge where we pick a theme and encourage people to make a costume based on the theme. A couple of years ago, the theme was ‘steampunk video game characters’ and one of my friends in the TSS, Modern Myths Cosplay, thought it would be cute to do Princess Peach and Princess Daisy.

I loved the idea and, after more discussion, we decided to do a steampunk twist on the Super Smash Bros Brawl version since it was fancier and seemed to lend itself well to a steampunk interpretation. Though Daisy isn’t officially in Brawl, my friend was fortunately able to dig up some fan edits of Peach in Daisy’s colours, so with that we were set.

I usually make my outfits myself, but since my friend and I wanted to ensure our cosplays matched, we decided to work collaboratively and divide things: I would create the bodices and accessories for both gowns, and she would create the skirts and crinolines.

I started off by drafting the base bodice patterns. Since I draft all my costumes, I used my existing bodice block/master patterns for myself and drafted a bodice block from scratch for my friend based on her measurements. One neat thing about working this way was that it basically turned into a girls’ weekend where I was able to teach my friend more about pattern drafting, which ended up making the process unexpectedly fun and memorable.

After I finished fitting my friend’s bodice block, I got to work drafting our bodice patterns based on the reference pics we had collected. Being able to tackle both bodices ended up working well since it enabled me to draft them in a way that made them visually match identical while taking our respective body shapes into account.

A couple of mockups and fittings later, we had an idea of how much fabric we needed, so we went fabric shopping. My friend suggested that we go with richer, more regal-looking tones instead of strictly game-accurate colours, so when we found a place selling gorgeous peau de soie and sparkle organza, I was instantly sold on a gold and burnt orange colour scheme.

We split the fabric based on our respective portions and worked on them separately. I cut and sewed the bodices, which was fairly straight forward but time-consuming! The part that sticks in my mind the most was the center front panel because it had so many pieces and layers - two types of satin, two types of organza (including one that had to be ruched to the base panel in multiple places), five rows of lace, interfacing...and that doesn’t even include the lining!

I also created our jewelry and crowns. The brooches and earrings were made from filigree settings that I painted, glued gems, and attached pin backs and earring hooks to, and the crowns are made from craft foam painted in gold acrylic, with embellishments assembled from painted filigree stampings and gems.

My friend created our cage skirts from 1/4 PEX pipe and brown grosgrain ribbon, which ended up being the perfect hoop skirt material since it was cheap, lightweight, and strong enough to support the huge, heavy skirts. She cut and sewed our skirts (including attaching meters and meters of trim that I’d painted white to better match the game colours) and she also made our bloomers.

The gowns were a huge undertaking and, thanks to work and general real life eating up time, we did end up engaging in the dreaded con crunch, but fortunately in the end we were able to get them to a state where they were pretty and wearable!

The response at the convention was absolutely amazing - I don’t think I’ve ever had a costume elicit the reactions that Princess Daisy did. We figured that, since we were cosplaying the princesses from Mario, there was a good chance we might be recognized, but the thing I wasn’t prepared for was how genuinely happy and excited people were, especially when they saw us together. We literally had kids waving at us from across the street when they spotted us.

Even grown-ups loved it - we were frequently stopped for pictures, and even a couple of the folks in the dealer’s room who were running booths would break into huge smiles and ask for pictures. Plus, people loved the steampunk twist and were delighted when they realized how much our costumes matched.

The best, most heartwarming response to my Princess Daisy cosplay happened when I met up with some other friends and one tapped me on the shoulder, pointed behind me and said, “I think she wants a picture with the princess.” I turned around and, standing a few feet away, was this adorable, super shy little black girl who was staring in my direction. My heart instantly melted and I went over to her and had a little chat and took a picture with her.

As a black cosplayer who has run several panels on BIPOC cosplay and spoken about the importance of diversity and representation in cosplay, being able to show that sweet little girl that someone who looks like her can be a princess - and showing kids of other races that Princess Daisy can be black - was a vivid reminder that representation does matter.

Since I got into the hobby, cosplay has been a big part of my life and has positively impacted me in so many ways. It has been an incredible creative outlet that has given me the chance to express myself, and it has allowed me to meet so many wonderful people - many of whom are now among my closest friends. However, I think one of the most rewarding things about cosplay has been how it has allowed me to provide BIPOC cosplay representation and visibility within my local cosplay community. I often do Afro-steampunk cosplay, and one of the most unexpectedly moving things I’ve experienced has been other BIPOC saying to me that seeing my outfits make them feel like they can cosplay.

It has been humbling and has motivated me to get more involved in the cons I attend. For the past several years I’ve run panels on diversity in cosplay/steampunk as well as sewing and cosplay construction, which has enabled me to share the knowledge and skills I’ve learned. I also lead the steampunk section of the Anime North Fashion Show, and I’ve made a point to recruit as diverse a roster of models as possible. I’m happy that we’ve been able to showcase steampunk looks inspired by various cultures including Chinese, Indian, and Morrocan.

Another plus is that the sewing skills I’ve learned from cosplay have come in handy in other areas of my life. It has been fun - and surprisingly empowering - to be at a point where I can use my sewing ability to create one-of-a-kind outfits for formal work events (like office holiday parties) that make me feel pretty and confident.

Something I’ve frequently mentioned during my BIPOC cosplay/steampunk panels is that the simple act of showing up to a con or event in cosplay can have an impact because you never know how much that visibility can inspire other BIPOC to get into the hobby, so my advice to anyone wanting to get into cosplay is to do it! Overall I have found it to be a fun, creative, energizing experience.

While I’ve been extremely fortunate to have had overwhelmingly positive experiences while cosplaying, I recognize that, unfortunately, BIPOC do sometimes face harassment and outright racist comments (especially online) that can make getting into the hobby seem scary. Finding welcoming, supportive spaces in person and online can be a big help (the POC Cosplay group on Facebook is great for this) - plus, thanks to things like #28DaysOfBlackCosplay, there is more visibility and inspiration out there than ever before.

The other thing I’d add is to treat each cosplay as a learning experience. Being able to work so closely with my friend on creating a cosplay was a completely different creation process than I’m used to, and it was really cool to be able to learn from each other’s different working styles and experience. It was great to teach her pattern drafting and see how happy she was to learn skills she could apply to future cosplays, and I was so excited when she showed me her PEX pipe hoop skirt method. Looking back on my Princess Daisy cosplay makes me smile because it’s almost like a physical representation of the fun we have cosplaying together.

[uglymanchronicles]

Ugly Man Chronicles Reignition Book 2 Chapter 2: My Breakfast With Evan

Just a couple dudes getting to know each other.

“If you must know,” Evan sighed, spearing a glistening sausage on the end of a flimsy plastic fork, “my jackass older sister thought it would be hilarious to give me a cupcake she'd baked with about a dozen powdered viagra for my fifteenth birthday. I wound up passing out eventually. Burst a lot of blood vessels. Damaged the erectile tissue beyond usefulness.”

Titus froze mid-coffee-sip. “Seriously? What a bitch!”

“Buddy, you don't know the half of it.”

“So... no signs of life down there?”

“Nothing for twelve years.”

“I think I would literally kill myself.”

“It's not so bad, I guess. At least I don't have to drain the blood out of it any more.”

“Eugh! Fuck! Did not need to hear that!”

“Well, maybe you shouldn't ask questions you don't want the answer to.”

“Do you get, like, blue balls all the time, then?”

“That's basically my ground state of being.”

Titus whistled flatly, avoiding looking Evan in the eye. He settled for staring at the table. There wasn't a lot of Evan's face that he felt comfortable looking at; every part seemed to at least be adjacent to some unpleasantry or another. About the only safe area was his right eye, which, as luck would have it, was directly opposite Titus's 'good' eye. Titus rallied and met Evan's gaze again. “Alright, your turn.”

They'd agreed on a sort of mutual interview process, taking turns asking questions to suss out what the other was capable or if he was worth having around. Evan took a bite out of the sausage and chewed thoughtfully for a moment.

“Who's Moreno?”

Titus hissed through his teeth. “A real piece of shit.”

“I'm going to need more than that.”

“I'm getting to it. He's basically, like... a freelance henchman? Like, sort of a mercenary criminal. Sells his services to the highest bidder.”

“And why's he matter?”

“That's another question.”

“No, it is not,” Evan said, quiet and serious. “Do not argue with me in bad faith, Titus. I have very little patience for it in the best of times.”

Titus regarded him for a long moment. The man across from him was wider than the table they sat at. His muscles were so pronounced in some points that Titus could tell when he was about to move by the way they bulged and contracted. Yet he gave the impression that he was constantly trying to pull himself inward, to make himself smaller. He spoke quietly and with a simple formality, but only hours before Titus had watched him single-handedly beat down some of the nastiest people he'd met in the past month.

Hmm.

“Fine. Moreno matters because I'm after the guy he's working for. You see, Moreno isn't just a normal scumbag. He works for people who need nasty things done. Not like regular nasty, either. How much do you actually know about magic?”

“I've got some... notes. So far I'm not able to find a lot of coherent rules. It mostly seems like it relies on things that nobody would normally do.”

Titus snapped his fingers and pointed at Evan. “Hit it right on the head. Rituals, reagents, that kind of thing... the reason—well, one of the reasons—magic doesn't just happen all the time by accident is that it's all weird little things. A lot of the more heavy magic relies on some pretty elaborate and obtuse shit to get it going.”

Evan momentarily thought back to the Book of Fate and his ritual in the woods. “So Moreno does these things for people?”

“Yeah. Thing is, though...” Titus stopped raising a forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth and set it down again, as if he'd momentarily lost his appetite. “The people who use his services generally practice some pretty vile magic. Real depraved shit. And to empower depraved magic, you need depraved rituals. Moreno is the guy you go to when...”

“I think I get it,” Evan interjected, since Titus seemed to be struggling with deciding whether to continue. “Your turn.”

Titus tapped his fingers on the table for a moment, then looked Evan in the eye. “How smart are you?”

The scars on Evan's face squirmed around as he actually smirked. “What kind of question is that?”

“Hey, we agreed no 'whys'.”

“Alright, alright. Well, there's really no objective metric for it, but... I have Master's degrees in computer science and theoretical physics, Bachelor's in those in addition to mathematics and electrical engineering, and associate's degrees and certificates in everything from EMT training to ballet. I should have my doctorate in physics, but...” he said, with a bitterness that Titus made a note of, then changed gears. “Oh, and I also speak Mandarin, Spanish, Japanese, French, and Arabic pretty fluently. I also know ASL. I can get by in German and Russian, too. I don't know if any of that is what you meant but--”

“Jesus, I get it,” Titus muttered, rubbing the side of his head. “How the fuck do you make money?”

“Software consulting, mostly. I specialize in security and processing efficiency. People pay me to break into their systems and then patch the holes, or to make their code run quicker or make their programs smaller. I've got a few patents I've licensed that bring in most of my income nowadays, though.”

“Anything I would have heard of?”

“If you've used a computer made in the last four years it probably has something I wrote integrated somewhere into it. I also helped develop a protein-sequencing program that helped develop a vaccine for this nasty SARS variant that broke out in China last year. They say if they hadn’t nipped it in the bud it could’ve spread worldwide and we’d be looking at millions of deaths by now.”

Titus scrunched up his face. “Oh yeah, just say that like it’s no big deal.”

“I’m just glad it turned out not to be one. What I'd really like to do is get my compression algorithm out there, but if I do that, somebody's going to try to hoard it all for themselves.”

“Are you talking to yourself or me?”

“Look, I... a few years ago I figured out a way to compress memory down by a exponential factor of six with zero loss. All it takes is a couple software plugins that don't take up much room themselves. Essentially, I could make a gigabyte fit in a kilobyte with very little trouble, now that the math's figured out.”

“Holy fuck, that's insane! Why haven't I heard anything about this?”

“Mainly because I don't tell people. If I put it up on the market, some ISP would buy it and bury it. If you make information smaller, you make it faster. Can you imagine what it'd do to internet access if dial-up and barebones cellular networks suddenly had the bandwidth of fiber optics? It would... maybe not revolutionize our society, but it would level a lot of playing fields. Bring a lot of underdeveloped areas of the world—hell, this country—up to modern levels with no extra cost. The telecomms would crash and burn so hard. But I don't have the means to get it out there without going through someone else. Yet,” Evan added. “So I basically work watered-down versions of the compressor into the software I make. Nothing that can be duplicated, and nowhere near its full potential, but enough to get me hailed as some kind of genius and pay the bills.”

“So why aren't you on your own private island or something somewhere instead of puttering around God's Ashtray in a shitty old Bug?”

“Hey, the Beetle is not shitty,” Evan said, defensively. “And I'm just waiting for the AC in my RV to get fixed or I'd be driving that.”

“Oh hot damn! Now that's the way to live!”

“Not the one I'd choose voluntarily, but it could be worse.”

“How come you're doing it, then?”

“I think it's my turn to ask,” Evan said, mildly.

“Fine,” Titus said grumpily, crossing his arms.

“How do you make money?”

“That's easy. I'm basically a freelance bailbondsman. I just roam around, drop my advertising around bars and courthouses.”

“You get many clients that way?” Evan asked, cocking his remaining eyebrow.

“Oh, you'd be amazed how desperate people can get,” Titus said, shrugging. “Of course, they're usually not the most responsible people, so when they bounce, I track 'em down myself, drag ‘em back to jail, get the money back. My eye usually makes it super easy. Sometimes they don't even see me before I get the cuffs on 'em.”

“Why did you feel the need to rob a bunch of drug dealers, then? The thrill of it?”

“I had a pressing need for a large amount of cash that my normal work doesn't bring in. That got me enough to hold it off for a while. My turn.”

Evan waved down a waitress for a refill of his coffee, trying not to take it personally when she gasped upon seeing his face. “Go ahead…”

“No, no, hang on.” Titus waved a hand dismissively. “I want to try something. Take your hair out of the ponytail.”

“What? Why?”

“Humor me.”

Evan groaned and reached back, removing his hair tie. After shaking his head, his hair fell over his face, obscuring everything but his nose and mouth. Titus pursed his lips and regarded him seriously for a moment.

“Can you see?”

“Yeah, I guess. Well enough to not walk into things, I think, and I could probably read if I had to.”

Titus snapped his fingers. “Good. Go with that from now on.”

“Why?”

“Because now you don’t look like God’s mistake. Now you look like a big, dumb-but-lovable goon. Like Jack Black would voice you in a cartoon.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“Do you like seeing people contemplating their own mortality and the general cruel absurdity of the tragic farce that is human existence when they get a glimpse of your face?”

Evan felt his cheeks burn and was actually grateful his hair was covering most of his face. “…not particularly, no.”

“Then there you go. You’re welcome. Okay, question time. Uh… how did you get your powers?”

“Which one?”

“Oh, now who’s arguing in bad faith? Fucking all of them, you thick-lipped gargoyle.”

Evan had the feeling he hit a sore spot. Titus's easy-going, jocular tone had bled away from him, leaving behind the hard-edged razor-blade of a man that had ambushed him the night before. He decided not to belabor the point.

“I don't know why I can rege—why I heal so quickly. No, I'm serious, as far as I know, it just started happening sometime in the past few months. I can't remember. Don't look at me like that, I'll get to that in a minute. When I was younger I recovered from a lot of injuries a lot quicker than the doctors thought I would, so maybe it's something I was born with and it just got stronger recently for some reason.”

Evan took a sip of coffee, mainly to buy a few seconds to think of how much to explain for the next part.

“The ability to shut off powers... that's part of, well, I guess you'd call it a magic ritual, because I don't know what else to call it. I found a weird old book that said it contained the key to making someone an instrument of universal justice, or something of the sort. Since then I can see... I guess they're souls? Maybe? I can sort of move mine and when I run it into someone else's it seems like I can shut off their powers. Or... take them entirely, if they're dying.”

“Horseshit!” Titus scoffed. “That's... that's like meta-magic. I don't even know if that's real.”

“No, seriously! I don't think it's just magic powers, I think it... 'normalizes' things.” He briefly recounted his encounter with the pain monster.

“Are you kidding me? That...” Titus took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair, exhaling slowly and loudly. “Look, I don't know much, but the fact that you even ran into something like that, let alone survived... those odds are astronomical. And you say you negated not just its powers, but its whole form?”

“Yeah. Once I... reached into it, like I did with you—oh don't make that face. Grow up—I kind of disrupted what made it... different, I guess? Like I cut it off from its special qualities. Like it was...”

“Disjuncted,” Titus cut in.

“Yeah, that's a good word for it. Like the old Mordenkainen spell?”

“Fucking nerd.”

“Eat my ass. Anyway, after I killed it, I was able to reach into its... soul? Animating force? Aura? I don't know what to call it. I was able to grab something and pull it out and it just got pulled into me.”

“Not aura.”

“What?”

“Aura's a different thing,” Titus said, dismissively. “So what did you get from doing that?”

“I.. I feel pain differently. I don't flinch or get adrenaline rushes from injuries that don't actually impede my ability to function. I think I have a better sense of what is actually dangerous to my body now. It still hurts, but I don't react to pain like people normally do. It's like...hmm.” Evan drummed his fingers on the table. “Do you know anything about video games? Fighting games, specifically?”

“I used to fuck around on an old Alpha 3rd Strike cabinet when I was a kid. Why?”

“Do you know what 'super armor' is?”

“Isn't that where a move can't get stopped by being hit when you're doing it?”

“Right. I'm kind of like that now. Pain doesn't interrupt me.”

“Fucking nerd.”

Evan's fist involuntarily clenched. “I'm trying to put this in terms you can understand, you stupid reprobate. My experience with your judgment thus far hasn't given me much faith in your intellect.”

Titus burst out laughing. “So he does know how to banter! I thought you might be one of those Rainman types.”

“Oh sure, call it 'banter' to try to excuse the fact that you've been insulting me for the past half hour. Do you say you're ‘just joking’ when people get mad at you for saying stupid shit, too?”

“C'mon, lighten up! We're partners now! Tell me more about this soul thing. I still think you're full of shit.”

Evan sighed through his nose, then held up his left hand, forming his fingers into a circle and peering through them.

“Yours is... a sort of cross between a sea green and an oil slick. The tendrils of it keep reaching out and snapping back, going all over the place. It seems to keep expanding and contracting. It's almost flickering, like... it's indecisive. Very chaotic. The tendrils that aren't snapping around seem to be kept pretty close to your body, wrapping around you like... I can't tell if it's protective or restrictive.”

Titus's expression slowly became serious. “What does that mean?”

“I don't know. I have a lot of theories, but nothing solid to go on. I'm not sure if it's allegorical or a literal representation of a person's... power, maybe? Yours definitely looks a lot different than most people's.”

“I don't believe this for a second. Let me see.”

“How would I do tha—hey!”

Titus grabbed Evan's wrist and held his hand up to his eye. “Ho-lee...”

He pulled back from Evan's hand, staring at him. Then he looked around the room, mouth slack as he took in the diner's other occupants.

“Huh. Did you know it keeps working until you blink?” He said after a moment, a faraway tone to his voice.

“I didn't even know other people could do it,” Evan said, awe in his voice. “Hey, wow, you're right!”

“Jesus, yours is, like, really blue. It looks like... a bunch of steel cables. It's weird, I felt like I both could and couldn't see the edges of it...”

“I can kind of move it, but I'm not sure if I can do anything with it beyond interfering with people's powers. It's like learning to use a muscle you didn't know you had.”

“Huh.” Titus was again silent for a long moment. “Your turn.”

“Can you do anything else supernatural? Besides your time-eye?”

“Don't call it that, it sounds stupid. And... sorta. I seem to have whatever innate talent you need to actually do magic, but it's not like it's easy to find instructions. Most of the people I know who can use it just dabble with half-broken magic items—wands, amulets, charms,” he pulled the silence charm out from under his coat and bounced it at the end of its chain. “I guess I'm sort of a dabbler. I know a few tricks, I can use a lot of magic tools, I can sense magic pretty well, I can dowse... Most of the time I really never have to use anything besides the eye, though.”

“Is the eye all-or-nothing?”

“Yeah. It's not nearly as useful as you'd think, but any edge is an edge.”

“When I turned off your power and it was coming back, though, you started speeding up—or, I guess, everything else was slowing down? You were moving faster, one way or the other. You were able to touch me, and those punches hurt.”

“Huh, yeah, you're right.”

“Do you think there's a way you could learn to only partially activate it?”

“That'd be great, wouldn't it? Thing is, just using it is a huge strain, and that time spend outside of time adds up. Going by normal calendar time I'm only 26.”

“Fuck, I'm 27!” Evan laughed.

“Yeah, well, I'd rather be prematurely gray than what you've got going on. My turn. Uh... huh, I can't really think of anything else. Uh... are you gay?”

“Are you fucking serious?”

“No, but the question still counts.”

“I'm bi,” Evan mumbled, crossing his arms across his prodigious chest. “Not that it matters. And before you ask, no, you are not my type. We're done talking about this.”

“Huh. You ever sucked--”

“We. Are. Done. Talking about this.”

“Fine, God. Go.”

Evan mentally circled back to an earlier question he felt hadn't been properly answered. “Why are you after Moreno?”

To Evan's surprise, Titus didn't hesitate. “I'm actually after his current boss. He's just the best lead I have to go on.” He took a deep breath, then started talking with a rushed, deadpan pace, as if he was eager to get the words out as quickly as possible so they wouldn't be in his mouth very long.

“Moreno is working for a guy only known as the Soultaker. He has an innate supernatural ability to pull a person's soul out of their body. When that happens, the person just... shuts down, usually. No motive force behind them. Eventually they just die of dehydration, usually. I've seen some people so set in routine that they keep going without a soul, but... it's not really life.

“It seems like the extraction process takes a while, so he can't just walk past you on the street and pickpocket your entire essence. So he needs people rounded up for him, held until he can do his nasty juju. So that's where a degenerate like Moreno comes in.

“So when he pulls out a soul, it, well, it looks like this.”

Titus pulled a battered, faded Crown Royale bag out of his jacket. It bulged strangely and made a quiet clacking when he set it on the table. He pulled out what looked like a large marble, or maybe a dull pearl, and handed it to Evan.

Evan brushed his hair out of his eyes and peered into the milky depths of the sphere. After a few moments of staring, the murky clouds inside the thing seemed to clear and a face floated to the surface. A black man, maybe in his late 40s, going thin on top. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be sleeping, but his expression had a look of discomfort to it, as if he was having a bad dream.

“Jesus Christ,” Evan whispered, “I've seen this guy... Martell Calloway? I saw some news article about how his family found him tied up in his apartment and completely comatose! But he didn't have any injuries beyond being a black eye... so he's dead?”

“Life support,” Titus said, taking Mr. Calloway's soul back from Evan's unresisting fingers, “technically, he's one of the lucky ones. They found his body before it wasted away to nothing, and I was able to intercept his soul before it got to a buyer.”

“Why would someone buy something like this? What use is it? Can you fix him?”

“A human soul is a damn near exhaustible arcane battery,” Titus said gravely. In the split second between sentences, Evan noticed something—after he'd put the bag back into his jacket, Titus surreptitiously touched a pocket on the other side of his jacket, as if he was making sure something was still there.

“If you know what you're doing, you can power a lot of magic using a soul. And you can reuse them as long as you don't overdo it. If you know what you're doing, you can wring all but the last drops of essence out of a soul and let it heal or recover or whatever, and it'll eventually be back to full strength. Very resilient things,” Titus continued. “I don't think they're conscious in there, but... anyway, it's supposed to be really hard to extract a soul. But this guy was born with or spontaneously developed or somehow figured out a shortcut to the whole process. So the market is getting flooded with torture-batteries and ECUs are getting flooded with vegetables. And families are winding up with loved ones who are as good as dead, without having any idea why this happened to them. Dozens of them have been taken off life support in the past few months. Half these souls have no body to return to. And no, I can't fix it. At least not yet,” he sighed again. “I was hoping once I found him, I could somehow get the secret out of him or force him to put them back, or... maybe I thought if I killed him it'd reverse the effect. He needs killing, either way.”

Titus's eye widened as a thought struck him and he looked Evan in the eye for the first time since he'd started the story. Evan realized what he was thinking and looked down at the tattoo on his left arm, flexing his fingers.

“If you can take people's powers after they die...”

“...then we can save these people.”

Titus put a hand over his mouth and for a moment Evan thought he saw his eye well up.

“I'm in,” Evan said, a sense of righteous purpose welling in his heart. “I don't really know what the universe wants, but I doubt... I know it's not this. We'll find him, we'll stop him, and we'll save as many of these people as we can.”

“...thanks,” Titus mumbled behind his hand. He swallowed hard, then seemed to come back to himself. “We're back to square one, though.”

“You said you could dowse? Like, for real?”

“Yes, for real. I can find things and people with the pendulum method. It's handy for tracking down bounties.”

“Why don't you dowse Moreno?”

“Why didn't I think of that?!” Titus said incredulously, smacking his forehead. “Because he's warded. He's not magic himself, but he's collected enough gear through his career that my normal methods don't work.”

Evan rubbed his chin. “What if we used an abnormal method?”

-------------------

An hour later, they were in the RV. Titus was poring over the collection of Evan's notes and the strange papers he'd bought from Delmann's shop. Evan was very carefully slicing a strip of skin from his own ankle up all the way up his leg. The Guiding Light—the Finder's Follysat on the table between them, filled with fresh blood.

“Even if this works, he's going to know we're coming,” Titus muttered, engrossed in the pages. “Remember what I said?”

“That's why we're not going to look for him,” Evan said, adjusting his grip on the potato peeler. “I don't know how we'd even write his name. Can you read that, by the way?”

“Kind of. This is... most of this is written in, like, arcane pidgin. Who compiled these notes?”

“I did, I think.”

“You think?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot to clarify on that. Apparently a couple months ago, before the ritual, I drilled a hole in my own brain to erase some kind of very dangerous memory.”

“You what.”

“That's not a metaphor or anything. Really did it. I could show you the video.”

“I'll pass. So you don't remember where this came from?” Titus shook the Book of Fate at him.

“Nope.”

“Jesus shit, do you have any idea--”

“How reckless that was? Yeah, yeah, I'm still here and I'm the answer to your fuckin' prayers, aren't I?” Evan gave a whoop as the peeling skin reached his thigh. “Got it this time!” he said cheerfully, snipping the flesh-ribbon off with scissors.

“God, that's so fucking gross. Anyway, you haven't explained how we're going to use that thing to find Moreno.”

“We don't set it to look for him. We look for somewhere he's been. Maybe the last place he slept. Do you think you can describe him well enough in that language for it to work?”

Titus looked like he might actually be impressed, but he hid it well. “Yeah, probably.”

“Good. I've got a dictionary I've put together on that tablet next to you, but I'm not sure how accurate it is. Maybe it'll help?”

---------------------

Two hours later, they had it.

Find where a man born between the 27th and 28th north parallels during a new moon under the sign of capricorn with black hair and green eyes who has killed at least 10 people slept in the past week.

They really had to squeeze the letters in, but when Evan put a flame to the wick, it sprung to life, wavered for a moment, and then pointed east. Both men cheered. Evan threw Titus the keys.

“Drive! Drive north until I tell you otherwise!”

While Titus started the engine, Evan spread a map of the United States on the table in front of the lamp, then produced a protractor and a notebook from a drawer. “Okay, you bastard... let's see where you've been hiding...”

It took three days—one spent driving north, one spent driving back to where they'd started, and one spent driving south. While Titus drove, Evan made meticulous notes of the flame's direction, marking angles on the map. Finally he threw the pencil down triumphantly.

“He's in Salt Lake City.”

“Well, that narrows it down a little, I guess. So what, do we just go there and hope this thing points us in the right direction?”

“Too slow,” Evan called, stepping back into what used to be his bedroom and sitting at his computer. “Now I work my magic.”

After parking, Titus walked back to look over Evan's shoulder. The half-dozen monitors on the wall were flickering between rapidly-changing pictures of faces and what appeared to be CCTV footage.

“What is this?”

“This,” Evan said with dramatic pride, “is Blaccat. Facial recognition algorithms that the CIA wishesit had. I actually started working on it years ago before I thought about the implications of it, but I shelved it. I figured since I may be needing to, uh...”

“Be Batman?”

“...yeah...that I should get back to work on it. Right now it's comparing faces to the description you gave me and cycling through every damn security camera in the city looking for it.”

“How illegal is this?”

“Soooooo illegal.”

“Oh, hey, can you get into police department records?”

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?”

“See if you can get into the Las Vegas mugshots from... February 2019. Run your face-recognition thingy there.”

“Alright.... and... is that our boy?”

A handsome Latino man in his early 30s with shoulder-length jet-black hair and piercing green eyes stared at them from over a booking clipboard.

“That's him,” Titus breathed.

“Perfect! Now I just have to feed that into... wow.” Evan made a gesture and a black and white video popped up on the biggest monitor. The man in the mugshot was walking along the street, flanked by a short stocky man in bandanna and a lanky man with the ugliest white-boy dreads Evan had ever seen.

“That's him! Where is that? When is that?”

Evan grinned up at Titus. “That's live. I can track him and put us at the nearest intersection.”

Titus smiled, eye overbright, and began breathing heavily through his nose. “We got him.”

Evan met his eye and nodded. “Let's get him.”

[emsylcatac]

We were beautiful

So I saw this post around about fics prompts according to your birthday & shared it with friends because some results were very lovesquare oriented.

Mine was “Hurt/Comfort with getting back together” so I went ‘👀OH? Interesting...’ And here it is!

Thank you Lisa for beta-reading ♥

Read it on AO3

* * * * *

“It’s been a year.”

Chat Noir heard her voice before he could sense her presence. She sat next to him on the edge of the roof.

The tiny coffee shop down in the street in front of him was very interesting to look at. Waiters wove through the packed premises, sometimes stopping to joke with customers, exaggerating their actions, playing a role of sort accented by the white apron over the classy dark suits and bow ties they wore. The clientele varied between groups of friends, business partners, or people who sat alone, like that old man on the right reading his daily journal.

Chat Noir’s eyes followed one of the waiters as he interrupted a couple in the middle of what seemed to be a passionate discussion. He wondered what they must have been talking about, how long they had been together and whether they had plans for their future.

How in love with each other they were.

In love...

“A year since what?”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Ladybug turning her head towards him. Studying him.

A few seconds passed. “You really don’t want to talk about it, do you?”

“A lot of things happened a year ago,” he replied.

He knew that he was being stubborn. He knew precisely what she was referring to.

She sighed. “It’s been a year since we broke up. Today. It’s been exactly a year.”

We broke up. She was nice; she could have said that he broke up with her.

The waiter he was watching turned around and disappeared inside, leaving the couple on the terrace picking their conversation back up to where they had left it at. Chat Noir idly wondered what they had ordered.

What he would have ordered if he had been the one sitting at this very table, with Ladybug facing him. What she would have taken.

Probably a hot chocolate with chantilly cream on top of it, and a strawberry ice-cream.

Like she used to when they were together.

Which they weren’t anymore.

“I know,” he said, voice barely above a whisper.

It was probably not the answer she was looking for, but he felt so clumsy navigating through this discussion when he knew that he was the guilty one. Not knowing what she felt now.

“It was a weird time,” she went on. “We discovered who Hawkmoth was, a few days later we were breaking up… And I think four months or so after that, we took him down. And then the interminable weeks of trial and...”

He kept silent, not daring to interrupt her and not knowing where she wanted to lead the talk.

“It’s been hard,” her voice quivered. “It’s been…it’s been very hard.”

“I know,” he repeated, lower than before.

“You haven’t been the same since. We haven’t been the same. I’m glad that we’re still friends, but…”

But…

It wasn’t the same as before. There was something missing. They were missing something. Something a bit like—

“I miss you,” she whispered.

He bit his lip. “Yeah...me too,” he finally admitted, just as quietly.

Ladybug slowly intertwined the tips of her fingers with his, as if not daring to touch him completely and not knowing if she was overstepping a boundary or not. When he didn’t retract his hand, she squeezed the tips of his fingers shyly, a soft touch he barely felt but that still sent shivers in his arm up to his neck.

“I haven’t seen anyone after you.”

He bit back a relieved sigh. “Um. Me neither.”

He felt one of her fingers so very softly caressing his. He didn’t dare to reciprocate the gesture just yet.

The couple in the café was standing up now, ready to leave. He must have missed when the server came back with their drink and their bill later on, though he was sure that he had been keeping his gaze down there, still avoiding Ladybug’s. He must have lost focus at some point.

They continued to keep quiet, swinging their feet above the edge. Enjoying the sound of chatters down the café, the cooing of pigeons and the noises of a too loud motorbike passing in a street nearby. Or fearing each other and what they would say if they decided to break the silence.

Between the two of them, Chat Noir had always been the most vocal about his feelings and how to express them. Yet, it’s Ladybug who was determined to break down the wall this time.

“You never told me why. I thought...one day, we were fine, and then...I don’t…” she sighed. “I don’t know what happened. The more I try to think about it, the less I understand what went wrong. We were beautiful. We were…” she trailed off.

“It was getting dangerous. With us knowing who Hawkmoth was.”

She chuckled without humour. “Since when did you become the careful one between the two of us?”

He took a deep breath. “You wouldn’t have let me do it if I had told you why.”

He felt her eyeing him. “No, probably not. I’m stubborn like that.”

He smiled. Yes, he knew that very well. And he loved that about her.

The waiter was cleaning the now empty table.

“Why are you...why are you telling me and asking me about all of this? Not that I mind, but…it’s been a year. It’s plenty of time to move on, or…”

Chat Noir wondered if crying without being seen was an option or not. Sadly, it had never been, and even less so with her. He wanted just as much to know if she had moved on as much as he would rather keep having no idea about it.

Ladybug snorted next to him. “It took me a long time to fall in love with you, Chat Noir. A ridiculously long time, all things considered. But once I was...” he finally dared to turn his head and look her back in the eyes, because she deserved that much—and was struck by the intensity of her gaze, empowered by the shining tears that she must be fighting so hard to hold back, just like he was. “Once I was, there was no going back,” she breathed the last few words.

It was rare for Ladybug to bare her feelings in such a raw and open way. He could feel his lips quivering, and knew it wouldn’t be long until he would lose control of his tears.

He realised that he had been squeezing her fingers hard when he felt hers grip his tightly, too.

“There was no going back,” she repeated. “You make it hard too—you have that kind of power on me.”

He nodded numbly—to signify that he had understood her words, or that he knew the feeling because she also had that power on him, he didn’t know.

“I see,” he said, and then turned his gaze up to the sky and brought his unoccupied hand to wipe the treacherous tears that he couldn’t suppress.

He exhaled a puff of air, shook his head and looked back down on the café. A new couple had taken the place of the previous one, much younger this time.

With how shy and awkward they were acting, Chat Noir guessed that they must have been on their first date. He wished them luck.

He wished that he was back on his first date with Ladybug, too.

Wished they could maybe, just maybe, go on a new first date, one day.

Ladybug must have followed his gaze. “They look happy,” she commented.

“Yeah.”

She sniffed. “We were happy, too.”

He chuckled, but it sounded more like a sob to his ears. “Yeah.”

“Then why—”

“Because he was...he...he was…” Chat Noir squeezed his eyes shut. Took a deep breath, and another, and another, and grit his teeth tighter, and another breath, and another again, and suddenly let out a loud shattered whine.

He brought his hands to hide his face as sobs after sobs started to shake his body.

A gentle hand settled on his back and slowly caressed it up and down.

Even when she was the one to be hurting, even when he was the reason, Ladybug was always putting her feelings aside to help him if he was in need. It was unfair how wonderful she was.

“Breathe,” she said softly. “Slowly. Breathe with me.”

He did as he was told. Following the rhythm of her breath and the one of her soothing hands on his back.

Gently, her hand moved to his head. She let her fingers run through his hair, squeezing at times, at all the spots she knew he liked.

He knew she had picked that up from when they were together. He hadn’t felt her hand on his head moving this intimately in a year. It felt good.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed when he had calmed down. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

Chat Noir sighed. “No, it’s not. It’s not.” He took another breath, slower this time. “I broke up with you last year after I...after we figured out who Hawkmoth was,” he started, and he knew that there would be no going back to what he was about to say, “because he was...he was my father.”

He felt her hand pause in its ministration and heard her suck in a deep breath. But she didn’t interrupt him.

“There was... such a risk for him to figure me out… such a risk for him to use you against me… And we were so close, I didn’t want to risk you getting closer and saying something you shouldn’t because if he were to know who I was and spy on me or… I don’t know…”

He felt her arms wrap themselves around his waist and her head coming to rest on his shoulder. He put his hands above hers and rubbed circles on her fingers.

“I don’t know what you would have done in my place but…that’s the toughest and worst decision I ever had to take.”

“I’m sorry that you had to go through that, Chaton,” she whispered in his ear. “I can’t even imagine how hard it must have been. And while I want to tell you it was stupid, because it was, I can’t even blame you. Because I know that I would have done the same.”

The waiter down the coffee shop had come to take the young couple’s order. By the looks of it, they were asking for the exact same thing.

Such a first date thing to do.

“I’m the one who’s sorry. I never wanted to believe you back in the days, when you said that superheroes couldn’t date.”

He felt Ladybug smile. “And yet you were right. We did date, after all.”

He chuckled, snuggling a bit deeper into her embrace. “That we did. And it was nice.”

She repositioned them so her hands were above his this time. “It was wonderful. We were wonderful.”

Chat Noir hummed in agreement.

“Do you remember our first date?” Ladybug asked quietly.

He closed his eyes, letting the memories flow back to him. “Yeah,” he chuckled. “You kept getting ice-cream on your nose and I wiped it off each time.”

She laughed softly in his ears and he felt her body shaking along his. “I was so embarrassed. But you always made me feel like it was the most natural thing to happen.”

“It was cute.”

She hugged him tighter. “We were cute. You remember our first kiss?”

Chat Noir let a smile pull at his lips. “Hard to forget… I was so nervous that at first I kissed your nose instead,” she giggled, “and then my teeth kept chattering so I accidentally bit your lip.”

She was fully laughing now. “It was adorable! It was a great first kiss.”

He snorted. “Sure.”

“It was,” she insisted. “It was…”

They let the next few minutes pass in silence, shifting their attention to the café, where the young couple’s eyes widened at the sight of what appeared to be a pair of enormous ice creams, and they seemed to make shy comments about it, probably not knowing what else to talk about or too nervous to engage in a different conversation.

They smiled, feeling like they were the secret witnesses of new love blossoming in front of their very eyes.

“Chat Noir,” Ladybug finally called to him softly. She untangled herself from him so she could face him instead, but kept her face close to his. “Do you love me?”

“My Lady,” he whispered. “I’ve never stopped.”

“Then show me,” she breathed.

So he met her expecting lips and kissed her—like they had never kissed before.

[free-boundsoul]

Oh, really? I’ve never heard of that before. What kind of stuff do unempowered people do to appear supernatural? I guess I could imagine some cosmetic changes. Is wearing fake horns to look like a daemon a trend? Or… what about wearing implants to make you look like you have vampire fangs? That’s probably pretty easy to do. Yeah, I guess a sorcerer would be sort of close to a freelancer’s many abilities. Everything’s so mixed up, sometimes it’s hard for me to keep track. I bet if that empowered movie we watched last night were accidentally shown in an unempowered theatre, everyone would hate it because it was too “unrealistic.”

I imagine Hux to have pretty thick skin, especially if we're talking about a cat's claws. I think I’ll call Lasko tonight and tell him our idea. Actually, maybe he should get two cats, so they aren’t lonely.

No, no they’re not too cold, Freelancer. They’re… well, excuse the pun, but they feel like magic. I’ve never… Oh, God, yeah, can you just keep, yeah, yeah right there. I’ve never felt someone get into the muscles that deep before. Yes, yes, my back is yours.

Well, I was a pretty straight-laced kid, so maybe I would’ve kept you out of trouble. Running into people repeatedly doesn’t necessarily mean you strike up a friendship. There are lots of people on D.A.M.N.’s team I haven’t even spoken to, just because we don’t share events or practice together. Face it, Freelancer. You’re the glue that holds together our little magical family.

Happy to help. Oh, that sounds delicious. Here, I think we have everything we need for that. Chicken breasts, ham off the bone, swiss… Great. What kind of vegetables should we make? No no no, this is your show. For once, you’re the one calling the shots.

Oh, I’m ‘getting heated.’ That’s rich, Freelancer. Did you pop a brain cell coming up with that little jibe? Careful what you ask for. As an incubus, Gavin’s more than a little equipped to handle a few burns. Think you can say the same?

Oh, there's a ton of stuff, I think some people just like the look of some things though. Like getting implants in their ears to make them pointy. Or getting special molds on their teeth to give them fangs. I've seen people in demon cosplays wearing horns and such.

You're probably right, the movie we saw would get a lot of flack from the unempowered community because it would be seen as trying to introduce a new spin on magic than they're used to. But I still bet there'd still be a following! Haha it's so cute that you're thinking of Lasko, you're right that two cats would a good idea!

Haha, you're really good with those puns, Damien. I can keep going for as long you like. I'm glad I haven't lost my touch at this.

You would have tried, at least. It would have been fun to run around the woods with you, figuring out all the different kinds of animals that were there. And if any of the other kids gave you shit, well, I wasn't afraid to stand up to bullies.

Awwww Damie you called us a family! I'm so putting that in the group chat. Oh maybe I should change the name of it too. Make it more family oriented.

I was thinking carrots and green beans? Or would salad be better? I usually like to sear the veggies a bit since I like the taste of that better but I don't know if anyone else would like that. Oh, we could do some peppers if anyone would like it spicier?

Haha, funny thing is, I do those puns completely on accident. So now brain cells were popped. You know, maybe except for yours. Maybe that's more a blood vessel? Be careful what you offer, Damie. I'm not afraid of a little fire.

[raavenb2619]

so I'm slowly getting more comfortable with identifying as nonbinary, and I've changed my name and pronouns online/with my friends. (I know changing those things aren't a requirement of being nb but using them makes me much happier. gender euphoria or just being happy that people are listening to me and accepting me? idk. anyways.)

but I'm still finding it really difficult to actually determine what my gender is. i like very specific labels and I feel like if I have one, I'll be less scared of realising I was wrong and I'm just a cis girl who's fairly disconnected from femininity. I'm scared of what my friends will think if I "go back" to my old identity. but it all just feels very nebulous and I'm just like,,,,,,,"girl? but maybe not? both?? aaaa"

(also this is kind of a change of topic but i guess it kind of connects to the feeling of being afraid to go back.) I want to buy a binder but I'm worried that I won't like wearing it and I'll have wasted my money. should I just get one?

I can definitely relate. When I was figuring out my gender, I wanted to find specific labels that described exactly how I felt. I did eventually find some (agenderflux demigirl), and I’m glad that I have them, but I wouldn’t have predicted how exactly I’d end up using them. See, specific labels are great for finding other people who can relate to your niche experiences, but they can often require a lot of explaining on your part when you’re coming out to people or introducing yourself to people. I’m not trying to say that you shouldn’t look for specific labels (after all, they were empowering for me and very well could be for you), but just keep in mind that you might also end up using umbrella terms like nonbinary, trans, genderqueer, etc. 

I can’t tell you what specific label or labels to use, because that’s your decision, but I might be able to steer you in the right direction. Have you heard of demigender/demigirl? I use it to describe my complex relationship to femininity. I’m...sort of adjacent to being a girl, not exactly a girl, but also not exactly not a girl? (Things are even more complicated for me because the intensity of my gender changes, so sometimes I’m agender. If that matches with your experiences, you might find the term genderflux helpful.) As another resource, you might find a huge list like this helpful, but it can also be a little overwhelming by how many terms there are, so don’t spend too long on any term at first, and just see if it kind of “resonates” with you. 

Getting a binder is a fairly personal decision. If you’re not comfortable buying a binder, one option is to try wearing looser/baggier clothing to see if you like how that looks. I’m not a medical professional, so I’m not particularly qualified to give medical advice about binding, but there are things you can do to minimize the risks of binding; for example, one of the posts in my #binding tag says that it’s okay to bind with a sports bra that’s one size too small as long as you remember to take regular breaks, but that you should avoid anything smaller than that. 

If you do decide to bind, I recommend you read what different sources (this is a good place to start) have to say about safe binding practices. Binding safety is really important because the risk and harm that comes from unsafe binding can be long-term effects and take a while to appear, so it’s not always immediately obvious that what you might be doing is unsafe. However, your own mental health and wellness is important too, so you may reasonably decide that the benefits outweigh the risks of (safely) binding. 

Hope that helps, as always feel free to ask for clarification/any follow up questions. 

[spitalofatalo]

May I ask, if Afterimage ever became canon, and got his own episode, how would that go?

this is such a cool question, thank you!! i'm SO glad there's interest in him

i don't have a full script, but i have several key points in mind for how an episode with him would go! it got very long, so i'm putting it under a read more

i'm imagining it as another halloween special, only more lighthearted in nature because of who the villain is. highlights include a scooby doo-esque chase through krei tech. please enjoy

i imagine his intro ep taking place about a week before halloween. the team would catch a glimpse of a strange figure during night patrol on a foggy, spooky evening - but he seems to disappear before they can get a good look! but there WAS definitely something there, right?

fred is convinced they just saw a ghost; hiro of course is skeptical and looks for answers. based on the footage they have, the most baymax and/or basemax can come up with are a bunch of strange blurry "ghost images" that people have taken all over the city recently. hiro figures it's some sort of viral halloween prank, but the team decides to keep an eye out just in case

hardlight has also recently escaped, so they've got bigger things to worry about, anyway

one night during a battle with hardlight, bh6 manages to knock his glove several feet away from him but then it starts... floating? moving on its own? and somehow tosses ITSELF back to hardlight, in a series of motions that leaves the team very confused. they're even more confused when things start hitting them out of nowhere - gogo is tripped on something invisible and crashes into fred, wasabi's hit with lasers from thin air, honey's suddenly ensared by a net. hardlight gets away, for the time being, and the team is left wondering about all these new tricks he's got up his sleeve...

“could it be GHOSTS?” “we know for a fact hardlight is not a ghost” “but DO WE?”

the next day, bh6 receives a report from alistair krei that there's been a strange figure showing up outside krei tech for the past few nights. nothing's been stolen - yet - but it's worth looking into. plus, a rumor's been spreading that krei tech is HAUNTED, and that's not good for publicity!

using security cam footage, they recognize the figure as the "ghost image" that's been popping up around san fransokyo. they're also able to determine that the subject is wearing some kind of robotic armor, which they recognize as the buddy guard technology - and it's confirmed even more when the figure disappears on tape! everyone wonders what this "ghost’s” goal could be, and why they'd be using the decommissioned tech. bh6 asks for a list of everyone who worked on developing the buddy guards, which krei gives them (mel meyer, notably, is NOT on that list).

in the next days, people begin to report sightings of afterimage more frequently, usually with blurry distorted photo evidence if they catch him mid-vanish. he tends to show up at big gatherings and events and sabotage them, usually by cutting the power and sending everyone into a state of confused panic. strangely, it seems to affect personal devices too, and happens too often to just be a coincidence...

big hero 6 makes note of the fact that afterimage's appearances seem to line up with hardlight's - they tend to strike on the same day, sometimes even the same place. the same is true for the photos people have been reporting; they line up with hardlight sightings. however, hardlight hasn’t been near krei tech, so that seems to be the outlier

so the next time they face hardlight, the team are prepared to confront afterimage as well. luckily for them, hardlight's on the same page. there's a line like "allow me to introduce... my player two!!!" and afterimage makes himself seen, in a dramatic, but silent, flourish. he and hardlight do a cool pose together, and there's probably some fun sparkle effects

wasabi would say something like "...does he not talk?" and hardlight would reply that the two of them agreed it was more mysterious and threatening that way

and so the battle continues. with afterimage switching in and out of visibility so fast, hardlight's menagerie of light weapons, and the two of them protecting each other, it's difficult to get a hit on either of them! and the duo escape again, much to the frustration of the team

the heroes probably do a little pondering on how the two of them can be so in-sync. even if we don't see them react to it, i'm assuming bh6 knows that hardlight = ian, so they start looking for potential connections of his. they'd probably check out retired villain dark volt (who i headcanon as ian's father), olivia (who i hc as his half-sister), and even judy (under the assumption that them being co-workers means they might have co-conspired), but of course those are all dead ends

soon enough, it's halloween eve, and bh6 figures something big is likely to go down the next night, so they try reaching out to krei again for any more information. but they can't get through to him. uh-oh... the power seems to have been cut at krei tech!!

they rush over to check on krei, and find the building encased in one of hardlight's force fields. hardlight tells them that afterimage has been in tutorial mode, and now he's on his first big solo quest - the one he's been gathering XP for all this time!! and hardlight's NOT gonna let them sabotage it, so he'll just have to dominate them in single-player >:]

so of course they have to take hardlight down first. which they do, because all they have to do is get his glove and i can't think of a cool detailed way that they do that right now

with the light shields gone, they get into krei tech and - since baymax is scan-jammed - they have to search for krei and afterimage in the dark facility. on the way, they run into a few employees who have been trapped in the building, many believing the intruder is an actual ghost! hiro is still patiently trying to convince people it's not, but the others, to his frustration, seem to be getting more open to the idea

they finally reach krei's office and find him pleading with this mysterious invisible force to leave his company, and his face, alone. he doesn't deserve to have his company haunted, he says! is this a vengeful spirit come to throw his past mistakes at him, in the form of his own obsolete decommissioned tech?? :’(

a modulated voice finally speaks, to everyone's surprise. "oh, like you decommissioned ME??" afterimage is now visible, in the moonlight coming through the large window

"i thought you weren't speaking," gogo quips, to which afterimage stammers and replies something like "ugh, i totally messed that up. but anyway-"

he proceeds to let his lasers do the talking and battles it out with big hero 6 once again!! until honey lemon jams his blaster with a chem ball. and he realizes that while he may still be able to disappear, he doesn't have the advantage of open space in krei's office. so, amidst the chaos, he manages to slip out the door

the team proceeds to chase him down the halls of krei tech, each taking different paths (this part could be a little haunted house montage where they run in and out of different doors, if you wanted a little comic relief) and fred beats him to the door. as afterimage runs toward the exit, fred finally decides on the most effective way to fight invisible with invisible, and simply sticks out his tail to trip him

AND HE TRIPS!!

the team catches up as afterimage tries to collect himself. fred and wasabi quickly grab him. hiro, excited at the opportunity to prove once and for all this is not a ghost, removes his helmet, exposing him as none other than.....

former krei tech employee mel meyer!!!! cue GASPS from everyone. "sur...prise," he manages, still a little dizzy from all that

krei is, of course, extremely upset (and pretty embarrassed and trying to brush off having ever been afraid), and demands to know what's been going on

mel explains that ever since A Certain Someone convinced him that sometimes villainy is empowering and lets one do the things they can’t as a civilian, he'd been wanting to teach krei a lesson about how he treats people. you can't keep getting away with using others!! and that's why he became the ghostly apparation, because the REAL monster looming over san fransokyo is YOU, alistair krei!!! and he would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for these meddling kids and their robot!!! >:[

“you really think THIS is what would have stopped him? trust us, he’s seen worse.” krei stubbornly nods

and, frankly, mel's a little hurt that krei never even suspected it was him. to which krei responds that he forgot about mel entirely after getting him arrested, and so did everyone else, probably. big hero 6 nods sheepishly

...well, not everyone. cut to hardlight, who is Still standing outside, long after being subdued by bh6 - he’d had the opportunity to escape when they raced off to save krei, but clearly didn’t. he calls mel's name (and would be waving if he weren't handcuffed and surrounded by the SFPD at that very moment). mel is pleasantly surprised, and a little confused. "wait, you stayed and kept watch for my WHOLE mission? you didn't even try to get away?" he asks

to which ian replies, "of course not! i wasn't gonna let anyone break up our co-op, and i wanted to make sure you got out alright. after all, you're my... player two :)" they smile at each other, seemingly unaffected by the fact that they failed and are both getting arrested again, and it's a nice moment

cut back to krei and the gang. everyone is quite confused

so, the double damage duo is in custody (for now), and it's still the night before halloween. cue some jokey banter amongst the team about what they should do to celebrate - DEFINITELY no haunted houses, and no movies about ghosts. fred accuses hiro of being disappointed that it wasn't a real ghost, and by now the whole team is in on that joke, so he begrudgingly admits that, yes, maybe it WOULD have been cool if ghosts had been real this whole time :/ so there.

The End!

(but hopefully not the end of hardlight and afterimage - ideally there'd be more in store for them, even if they just got cameos!!! 😌)

[themattress]

OUAT AND ME: SEASON 6

Story - Season 6 returns to the single-season story arc structure, with its story being the Savior's Fate Saga. The story deals with Emma reaching the point that all Saviors eventually reach: burnout in the lead-up to their Final Battle. And Emma's Final Battle comes courtesy of the Black Fairy, the creator of the Dark Curse who wishes to extinguish all light magic.

And yes, that is the core story of this arc. The problem is that it only constitutes about 25% of it; the rest is dedicated to subplots upon subplots: all the people who were brought in from the Land of Untold Stories, the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Evil Queen split from Regina, Regina and Zelena's sibling rivalry reigniting, Belle and Rumple's relationship growing more toxic then ever before, Aladdin the Savior of Agrabah and the Princess Jasmine who is looking for him, a new curse befalling Snow and Charming, the mystery behind how Charming's father died, a new realm being created by a genie's power which brings about the "return" of Robin Hood, a multi-realm quest undertaken by Hook, and flashbacks that have jack shit to do with anything....this season is so packed, it's insane!

If the core story was particularly strong, maybe this wouldn't matter so much. But it's not, since it relies upon yet another bullshit redefining of what it means to be "the Savior"; all of a sudden it's an ancient position that has spanned across all of time and through every realm, like a fairy tale version of the Slayer concept from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And anything empowering about being the Savior is totally gone with this new definition, as now it's a requisite that all Saviors get worn out and die in their Final Battles, doomed to never obtain their happy endings. What a cheap, lazy, miserable way for the writers to raise tension after realizing that all of the epic, mythological stakes raised last season would be hard to top.

Not helping is that in a pretentious way of subverting expectations, they have the majority of the Final Battle...not actually be a battle. Instead, it's a ham-fisted "full-circle to Season 1" situation for Emma and Henry, while everyone else is getting to do more exciting things in the Enchanted Forest. Even the actual battle part of it ends up being underwhelming. Everything does still get wrapped up in a pretty suitable ending, but it's undermined by both the infernal status quo the show's been stuck in since 3B and an intrusive sequel hook into the ill-conceived "reboot" that is Season 7 which never should have been allowed to happen.

Tl;dr: this story arc sucks.

Characters - It's the lowest point for so many of them...

* Emma is a little better in Season 6 than she was in Season 5. She's still generally treated terribly due to the very nature of the arc and has some horrifically shitty things done to her, but she is also able to catch a break every now and then rather than the misery being an uninterrupted stream. She also marries Hook by the end and even plays a decent role in the finale showing how far she's come since Season 1. It was as good a note to go out on as she was going to get, and Jennifer Morrison made the right call to make this the end of her story.

* Snow and Charming...what is there to even say about them at this point? I guess I can say that not only have Goodwin and Dallas' performances largely flatlined and not only are they still written as more parental toward Regina than to their own goddamn daughter who Regina separated them from for 28 years, but they now have retcons applied to them that are ludicrous at best, character assassinating worse than Season 4's eggnapping subplot at worst.  No wonder that Goodwin and Dallas were all too glad to call it quits after this trash!

* Henry, despite all odds, is still one of the better characters in this season! Jared Gilmore continues to prove what a better actor he's become and bring a likability to Henry that sometimes is even enough to counteract less-than-ideal written material. Also, getting to see him more invested in Emma again after being hogged by Regina for so long is great.

* The Savior's Fate Saga is a tale of two Reginas. The Regina Mills of Storybrooke is still as insufferably written a Mary Sue as ever, but now we also have the Evil Queen, the dark side of her personality that split from her. With the exception of one episode, the Evil Queen is played excessively campy by Lana Parilla. Adam and Eddy's claims that this "purely evil" Evil Queen would be even worse than the previous one are laughable when we end up seeing what's actually on screen; the Evil Queen from the first two seasons was a legitimately frightening and formidable villain, whereas this Evil Queen is a clown. Sometimes she's an entertaining clown, while other times she's a cringe-inducing clown. But what she most certainly is not is a worthy adversary to the heroes, especially this late into the show.

And then there's the irony in her ultimate fate: rather than destroy her, Regina mixes her heart with hers so that they are both equal and both redeemed. On the one hand, this is a mind-boggling new level of Creator's Pet for Regina to reach, as you would think that the whole point of the Evil Queen is for Regina to suffer the karmic fatal punishment that she deserves for all her years of atrocities without actually having to kill Regina off. And yet in the end Adam and Eddy couldn't bring themselves to kill off any version of Regina, even after they gleefully killed off alternate versions of Snow and Charming a few episodes earlier. But on the other hand, the redeemed Evil Queen is honestly more likable than the redeemed Regina, actually apologizing to Snow for everything, temporarily sacrificing herself for the greater good of everyone in the finale, and getting to have a happily ever after with an alternate version of Robin Hood following a romance closer to what that relationship should have been from the very beginning. In the end, though, I'm just left wishing that the writers had done a far better job redeeming Regina so that this split Evil Queen wasn't necessary. Who knows, we might have had a better season if so many of it wasn't wasted on her.

* Rumple is awful in this season. Just...the absolute worst. After resolving the plotline that the Season 5 finale left him on in the premiere episode, he cuts his hair short and takes his Darkest Dark One shtick to a whole new level of unpleasant and abusive. He stalks and harasses Belle, attempts to take her baby away, makes out with the Evil Queen, and continues to casually threaten Storybrooke without any remorse or any repercussions. And once his new son Gideon and his mother the Black Fairy enter the picture, he dicks around in nonsensically written plotlines in both the past and the present, while Belle essentially takes him back yet again despite the horrific abuse he inflicted upon her. It's painful to watch, especially when Robert Carlyle has completely given up and is phoning it in like mad, with his regular delivery of lines being in a sleepy tone of voice that actually gets grating to listen to.

Much like in Season 5, Rumple improves in the last five episodes of the season, with Robert Carlyle regaining some energy as he declares war on the mother who abandoned him (if you know Carlyle's life story, you can understand exactly why this is) before learning the shocking truth that he was born as a Savior with his mother being his fated enemy, and that she was banished after she cut him off from that fate. Finally exhausted with it all - light, darkness, heroism, villainy, everything - after the emotions of this revelation hits him, Rumple lays his last cards down on the table, joining his mother's side for the Final Battle but with a magical contingency in case she betrays him (which she does). He then kills his mother, chooses to do the right thing for Belle and Gideon's sake even against the temptation of his dark side, and is rewarded for this one good deed by getting a do-over with the two of them as a family and even being accepted at the table with the other heroes. To quote Rumple back when his character was of the exact opposite quality as it is now: "Well, that was a bit of a letdown!"

Now, the "Rumple was born as a Savior" twist is out-of-nowhere nonsense, but it might have worked if Season 6 had been the final season. Not only would it had made him an effective foil for Emma, but it would also add more dramatic weight to his ultimate fate: his death. Yes, Rumple was in fact all set to die if either the show hadn't gotten renewed for another season or if it was and Robert Carlyle turned down returning for it as he actually was very close to doing, sacrificing his own heart in order to break the spell on Gideon's, conquering his dark side once and for all. A very similar scenario ends up being utilized for Season 7's finale, but it lacks the punch it would have had here, where it's the would-be Savior who, after having reached burnout, dies in his Final Battle, rather than the actual Savior who is able to survive thanks in part to his sacrifice. Of course, I still would have preferred Rumple's death after him being the sole Big Bad of a two-part series finale at the end of Season 5, but I digress. Bottom line: Rumple was a complete mess this season and it's sad how far he’s fallen.  

* Hook starts off well enough in this season, being Emma's stalwart emotional support who accepts her offer to move in with her (a pay-off that we should have had in the Season 5 finale if it only wasn't so crappy), bonding further with Belle and Henry, resolving the hanging plot thread of his younger half-brother while gaining a new father figure, and eventually making plans to propose to Emma. But then...it happens. It's revealed to both him and us that in the most contrived situation possible, Hook was the one who killed Charming's father. This derails his entire character for most of the remaining season, initially torn between telling Emma about this and covering it up before having a break with her which causes him to go mope and dope for a while before being forcibly sent off on a multi-realm misadventure by Gideon and, once he's finally gotten back to Storybrooke, has his transgression easily forgiven by Charming and his marriage proposal re-accepted by Emma, making this entire stretch of time absolutely pointless! Hook has some good moments in both the musical episode where he and Emma's wedding happen and the finale, but they aren't enough to salvage this from being his weakest showing in any season. Dark Hook was better than this!

* Belle...nope, not even gonna talk about her. Like I said before, she's done as a character.

* Zelena is this season's screwed over regular, and in comparison to Archie, Ruby, Neal, Will Scarlet and Robin Hood, she's got it easy. Her problems have less to do with her character, which is one of the better ones in the core cast at this point, but with her material. First, she and Regina have a sudden falling out because Regina...blames her for Robin's death. OK, all of that talk about how far Regina's come for not going evil over the loss of her romantic partner in the Season 5 finale isn't really worth much anymore when she's still resorting to blaming other people who aren't the actual murderer for that loss! Zelena then goes back to living at her isolated farm house, entering an alliance with the Evil Queen where she'll help her out in small ways but also not commit to fully teaming up with her as a villainess since she has a baby to take care of, plus she rightly doesn't entirely trust her alternate sister.

After the Evil Queen betrays Zelena but Regina still doesn't forgive her for what she blames her for, Zelena is absent or in minor roles for several episodes before she ends up joining the heroes' side out of altruism and the desire to become a good example for her daughter, eventually sacrificing her magic powers to aid the cause, which finally gets Regina to forgive her (probably because it's a sacrifice she's never been able to make). And that's about it.

Oh, but she does get to hit the Black Fairy with a car. That was awesome.

* The Black Fairy / Fiona is the Big Bad of the Savior's Fate Saga. Jamie Murray does a great job portraying her, being whimsically evil like you'd expect a dark fairy to be, and the Black Fairy being the person who created the Dark Curse actually makes a lot of sense when you go back and rewatch Season 3's "Going Home", a Dark Curse-heavy episode that first talks about her, or the Blue Fairy's knowing, worried expression upon Rumple's mention of a curse back in Season 1's "The Return". Unfortunately, that's all the praise I can afford her.

The core problem with Fiona as a character is a simple one: she is too derivative of previous, better Big Bads...especially Regina and Peter Pan. Like Regina, she is a powerful, larger-than-life villainess that Emma has always been destined to face as the Savior, and who ultimately casts the Dark Curse which makes herself mayor of Storybrooke, Henry's adopted mother, and a foe that Emma can only defeat if she believes in magic. And like Peter Pan, she is a parent of Rumple who also chose power over love and abandoned him, becoming the all-powerful ruler of a dark realm who occasionally went out and kidnapped children to bring there, and who is positioned as the story's Ultimate Evil who makes her last stand casting the Dark Curse in Storybrooke and being killed by her own son. This is especially bad when we already have an evil version of Regina to contend with this season and when it's following off of Hades, who was a better successor to Peter Pan's style of villainy (ruler of a dark realm that the heroes venture into to save someone) while still being unique.

She did improve somewhat in the last few episodes, where we see that she at least has sincerely loving Rumple as a differentiator from her ex-husband, has a warped belief that eliminating light magic and wiping out all realms but one is actually the right thing to do, and plays her role in the finale well. But it's too little too late for her to be considered as belonging among the great OUAT villains, let alone the Ultimate Evil that she's billed as. She needed a lot more originality and a lot more truly heinous deeds if that was ever to work.

* There are tons of new side characters in this season, usually either well-handled or not.

Well-handled side characters include the Tremaine family (particularly Lady Tremaine) who make Cinderella's life miserable in both the past and present, Captain Nemo who serves as a father figure for Hook and his half-brother Liam II, Gabriel the Woodcutter who makes an entertaining villain in an otherwise dumb flashback, Robert the father of Charming who is well-depicted in spite of how he dies, and Roderick, Gideon's brave but ill-fated friend.

Poorly-handled side characters include the Oracle who is a plot device character if there ever was one, Edmond Dantes (the Count of Montre Cristo in name only) and his lover Charlotte, Beowulf (another in name only character), Stanum the Tin Man who is pointlessly shoved into Zelena's backstory, Tiger Lily who is an exact carbon copy of Tinker Bell, and almost all of the Wish Realm characters because, as I will discuss later, the Wish Realm episodes are awful.

Then there are the in-between side characters, the ones that are handled...well-ish.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde carry over from the Season 5 finale at the start, then are both taken out of the picture in the 4th episode. Their backstory is well written, they are both well acted, and their death contributes to the ongoing Evil Queen plotline. However, it can't help but feel disappointing - we'd only just gotten a working relationship going between Dr. Jekyll and Dr. Whale in the previous episode, and now that's rendered pointless. And Sam Witwer is such an entertaining presence as Mr. Hyde, so it's sad to see him cut down so soon.

Robin of Locksley, the Wish Realm version of Robin Hood who crosses into Storybrooke, is cool in that we get Sean Maguire back and he is allowed to play something slightly different, since this version of Robin is a selfish, sarcastic asshole instead of a noble, chivalrous hero. However, it also reinforces how badly handled Robin Hood in general has been. Much like with what I said about Regina, I would have rather him and his romance with Regina been written well from the beginning so that this "do-over version' wouldn't be necessary.

After much hyping by the network, Aladdin and Jasmine kind of suck. Aladdin has an inexplicable cockney accent that is really distracting, he's written more selfishly and immaturely than his animated counterpart, and making him a Savior in order to tie him to the main plot is stupid. Jasmine fares better, especially when she receives some development in the 15th episode that largely focuses on her, but before that she was just kind of there and didn't possess the same strength of character she was so known for in the animated film.

Jafar, the Big Bad of Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, is featured too. He is now played by Oded Fehr, and while Naveen Andrews is missed, Oded is one of the best replacements possible and does a stellar job. But while he's great whenever he's on screen, that's the problem - he isn't on screen very much at all. He also doesn't accomplish anything relevant to anyone beyond Aladdin and Jasmine in the time he has - even when he is released from his bottle in the present day, all he does is have a confrontation with Jasmine before BOOM! He gets turned into a wooden staff by magic dust thrown into his face and that's it for him. This was yet another sad waste of a great character with a great actor, but then again, Jafar returning in any medium tends to elicit diminishing results compared to his initial outings.

Finally, we have Gideon, Rumple and Belle's son and Emma's direct opponent in the Final Battle. The problem with Gideon is that the writers keep changing his character on a whim. First he's a projection of Rumple and Belle's future son from within Belle's womb, who masquerades as Morpheus in order to put Rumple through a test which he fails miserably. Then, after being kidnapped by the Black Fairy and taken to the Dark Realm, he shows up as angry, Kylo Ren-esque villain who claims that he wants to kill Emma so that he can somehow absorb her power, become the Savior and defeat the Black Fairy. But then it turns out that this was an act he was forced to play - after having been raised to be a villain by Fiona, Gideon rebelled, so she ripped his heart out and has been using it to control his actions so that he could free her from the Dark Realm for good. So he's a pure innocent, then. But then, in the Final Battle, he is rewritten by Fiona's curse into a stingy, spiteful businessman before reverting back to his innocent but controlled self...and then reverting back into a baby. Gideon, you've come full circle....and I still have no idea just who the Hell you are.  

Returning characters include Violet, Ashley / Cinderella, Dr. Whale / Victor Frankenstein, the Dragon, August Booth / Pinocchio, King George / Albert Spencer, Baelfire, Tinker Bell, Ariel, Blackbeard, Malcolm, and Isaac Heller. Some of these returns are successful (I always love to see Ariel, and Isaac receiving some closure as a character was fantastic to see), others not so much (Tink's cameo was contradictory and pointless, and there was no excuse bringing back Baelfire in a flashback - for God's sake, Dylan Schmid is as tall as Robert Carlyle now!)

Atmosphere - There really isn't much of one anymore for the majority of the season. There is nothing remotely special about Storybrooke or the Enchanted Forest at this point, new places like the Dark Realm are woefully underexplored, and there aren't any locations like Camelot, the Underworld, or the Land of Untold Stories from last season that make a big impact.

However, there is certainly atmosphere in the two-part season finale, "The Final Battle". Unfortunately, instead of being an epic atmosphere like you would expect, it's dark and miserable and claustrophobic up until the happy ending. Kind of sums up the show now!

Episode Quality - A few episodes in this season are so bad that they're downright unwatchable, and I was able to watch the worst of late Season 2. "Changelings" is all about Rumple taking his abuse of Belle to a new level all while the episode tries to use the Evil Queen and the Black Fairy as scapegoats so that you can feel bad for him. "Ill-Boding Patterns" continues the whitewashing of Rumple at the direct expense of his sons, completely butchering Beowulf in the process. "Page 23" is an exercise with boredom in both the flashback and present day stories and comes to a truly awful conclusion for Regina's character that doesn't even make sense for her. And "Awake" has the ugliest-looking, most ill-conceived flashback story ever: Snow and Charming actually woke up during the Dark Curse and then woke up Rumple so that he could take them to Emma, only to then choose to abandon her so that she can achieve her destiny as the Savior before everyone goes back to sleep (quite literally in Charming's case, how the fuck does that work!?) The only reason this exists is so that Adam and Eddy can say "See? Snow and Charming totally DID abandon their daughter!" whenever anyone says it's Regina's fault Emma grew up without parents.

Perhaps most insidiously, we have the two-part midseason finale, "Wish You Were Here" and "Tougher Than the Rest". Aladdin is turned into a genie and the Evil Queen takes advantage of a passing statement Emma made about sometimes wishing she wasn't the Savior by making a wish that Emma's desire was granted. Thus the Wish Realm, an alternate world where the Dark Curse was never cast, is created. And the insults just keep piling up from there: the depiction of Emma as a wimpy princess if she had been raised by her parents, Regina trying to prove to Emma that "none of this is real" by crushing Wish Snow and Wish Charming's hearts (I can vividly envision Adam and Eddy having an orgasm over this scene), Emma snapping out of it when Wish Henry tries to kill Regina and that's "everything Emma never wanted him to be" (a fucking hero who will bring down the monster who slaughtered his grandparents!?), Charming similarly being considered "dark" for trying to kill the Evil Queen, the explicitly stated notion that Emma owes Regina for ruining her life because that's what made her strong, the appearance of Wish August who is so much more boring than the real August, the appearance of Wish Hook as a fat old drunk, and Rumple and Belle getting back together due to what's going on with Gideon, with Belle asking "What have we done to each other?" (NO. There is ZERO moral equivalence between Belle and Rumple here.)

"The Savior", "A Bitter Draught", "Street Rats", "I'll Be Your Mirror", "Mother's Little Helper", "Where Bluebirds Fly" and "The Black Fairy" are all watchable, if not particularly good.

All the other episodes have their strong points. "The Other Shoe" is a fun breather episode the likes of which this show desperately needed more of. "Strange Case" features a great take on the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. "Dark Waters" has Hook and Henry at their best and introduces Captain Nemo played by the great Faran Tahir. "Heartless" is the only episode in the season where Lana Parilla plays the Evil Queen with old-school menace, with the curse she ends up placing on Snow and Charming being legitimately ingenious and diabolical. "Murder Most Foul", until its literal last minute twist, is a highly engaging story and features a (rare at this point and thus even more appreciated) explosively emotional performance from Josh Dallas in its climax. "A Wondrous Place", if you ignore the awful Storybrooke scenes, is a weird and wacky crossover between characters of various stories that reminds you why you liked this show to begin with, and features Oded Fehr's last and best performance as Jafar where he is finally able to match Naveen Andrews in raw intensity.

Then there's the musical episode, "The Song In Your Heart". This is the textbook definition of an episode that is really good and enjoyable in a bubble, but is utter nonsense when applied in context. The flashback is a total filler story about a musical curse being cast by the Blue Fairy so that its result can be used by Emma in the present, and it’s only being used by Emma in the present because the Black Fairy suddenly decides "forget casting the Dark Curse and having the Final Battle, I'll take the Savior out now!", and when she fails it's right back to casting the Dark Curse and having the Final Battle as if nothing ever happened! And Emma and Hook having their rooftop wedding where the whole town starts singing and dancing about "a Happy Beginning" despite knowing damn well that the Dark Curse's arrival is imminent is hysterical- all logic dictates this should have been saved for after the crisis is over, not before it's even begun! It's dumb as Hell, but the songs and dance moves are fun (except for the Snow and Charming vs. Regina one, that was just cringy) so it gets a pass.

Lastly, there's "The Final Battle". For all of its many, many faults, it is better than Season 5's two-part finale (and also better than Season 7's, as we'll get to in the next post), and the areas where there could have been improvement are so blatantly obvious that what could have been is easy to imagine (ex: Rumple dying, a few questionable shots from the final happy ending montage cut, and the entirety of the dumbass Season 7 lead-in framing device removed entirely). It's the closest to a decent series finale we have, even if in terms of satisfaction it pales in comparison to the likes of "A Land Without Magic", "Going Home", "There's No Place Like Home", and Once Upon a Time in Wonderland's "And They Lived..."

Overall - I need to issue a formal retraction about the statement I made in this long-ago post. Not about how Season 5 would have been better with an even stronger connection between its two arcs; I still believe that. But returning to a full-season story arc format was a terrible idea, because with Season 6 we see that Season 1 was lightning in a bottle that's never getting recaptured. Every other time Adam and Eddy are given a full-season story arc, their ADHD style of storytelling won't let them stay focused and they'll end up throwing everything but the kitchen sink into it, resulting in a disjointed, convoluted, borderline incoherent mess. This is especially bad at a point where the vast majority of their most talented scriptwriters have long since departed from the writing team. Season 6 isn't the worst season (that comes up next), but it's probably the most miserable and depressing one, especially considering the fact that it was enough to make several main cast members quit. Back in Season 3, I'd have been ecstatic if you told me that this show would be getting 3 more seasons. Now, when actually at Season 6, I was horrified when I was told that it was getting 1 more season. 

[fakecrfan]

:DDD my friend I’m so glad you reblogged this I would love your director’s commentary on Domain of the Unseen, as that fic has living in my head since I read it.

(Domain of the Unseen for the Director’s commentary ask!)

Ohhhh this fic! This one was fun to write. The whole reason this fic became a thing was because I was in the RQ discord server at the time it was revealed that Martin had his own domain. I went “hey!! Probably not possible but wouldn’t it be cool if JON was in Martin’s domain? :DDD”

“Wow what a cool idea tell us more!” said absolutely nobody.

So, thus starved for people to talk about angst with, I had to run off and write fic about it.

She’s in both places at once,’’ Martin finishes. “Both in the burning building, and being eaten alive by insects. Wonderful.’’

“Bi-location isn’t any trouble in this world,’’ Jon says, and there is a bit of a grimace to it. “Not if it means the Eye can squeeze more terror out of you.’’

I had to come up with an excuse to have Jon both be walking the world, empowered, while also being tormented forever in Martin’s domain. Luckily for me, s5 canon runs on nightmare logic, (aka “whatever hurts the most is true”) so I decided that bi-location was a reasonable enough thing to happen in the apocalypse.

“If the Eye can extract terror from you, it will. As you should know,’’ he says. “You have your own domain too, Martin, but you also are—you still suffered in that Lonely realm.’’ (emphasis added after the fact.)

Next is my quick justification for that logic. This world wants to extract more suffering from people. So no one gets out of it completely. 

And then, of course, I imply that this applies to Martin as well. That part of him will always be in the Lonely, suffering. He’s just blocked it out, for a time. :)

But wait! If people can bi-locate, and avatars can be trapped in domains, and that probably applies to Martin, then does it...?

“Wait.’’ Martin knows it’s going to hurt, but he feels like it’s his responsibility to know who he’s hurting. “’Who are they?’’

Who indeed, Martin? Who is someone who you’ve hurt? :D

Martin looks to the figure’s hand. They are holding a tape recorder.

“Jon?’’ Martin asks, afraid.

:)

And then, of course, Jon can’t help but reveal his own unseen hurt.

He thought that he’d wake up to some kind of welcome. Stupid. As though anyone would care. As though he would deserve their care. He wishes they’d go back to yelling at him. He wishes they’d look at him, at least, instead of turning their eyes away.

So, obviously, this is Jon’s... fear of social exclusion based on his experiences waking up from the coma. Now, the thing is--this is the apocalypse. Do I think it’s true that none of the Archives crew cared about him and that he deserves that?

No, and no.

Everyone is cold and sometimes cruel to Jon after he wakes up from the coma, yes. But that’s not the sum total of their actions to him, and it doesn’t mean they totally hate him as much as he fears.

Basira, in canon, brings him coffee, makes sure he eats and drinks, and gets him new, better clothes. Georgie tells Martin that it’s not that she thinks Jon doesn’t deserve saving, just that she’s going to get hurt and exhausted if she tries and she doesn’t believe anything she does will make a difference to him, anyway. Daisy, who clearly isn’t used to being soft, reaches out and makes sure he has emotional support.

All of them care about him. But also? All of them are--emotionally-- at the equivalent of where Jon was in s2. Their allies have died in an explosion. They’re tired. They’re paranoid. They’ve just fought off a siege from a monster who tried to kill them all. They can’t leave the Institute because they get attacked, so they’re trapped living there. And they can’t be any more sure Jon is really Jon than Jon could be sure Tim wasn’t a murderer.

Just like Jon couldn’t be there for Tim and Martin in the midst of his breakdown, Melanie, Basira, Martin, and Georgie can’t be there for Jon in the midst of theirs. It’s just--a sad reality of people, that they have limits and fail each other in the midst of massive stress.

But Jon just--can’t see that?

Jon is still in a bad place and he catastrophizes like a motherfucker. So he sees all of this and he can’t step back and go “Okay, everyone’s really been through it. It’s not entirely about me.” No, instead he goes: “Everyone 100% HATES me, and also it’s my fault! I did ALL of this! I deserve anything bad that happens to me, any pain I feel.”

And of course, the apocalypse latches onto that subjective fear and turns it into its own reality. 

But for all he puts on his kindest, nicest voice, the One He Loves turns away.

And Martin! Of all the rejections that Jon received in s4, Martin’s hurt the worst (or at least, so I posit in this fic.) Because Martin was the closest, because he loved Martin, because he was used to receiving emotional support from Martin and then it was abruptly withdrawn. Of course that is going to sting like nothing else.

But we know, objectively, that everything Martin did at this point was for Jon. That Martin didn’t stop loving him at all! That he was willing to give everything for Jon, even to a suicidal degree.

But even though that’s the truth, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that for a moment, Jon believed that he was entirely unloved, forgotten, his pain unseen--and he deserved it.

“It’s not true,’’ Martin says.“I know,’’

Jon manages. “Subjective reality, and all that.”

Jon is wiser now, honestly. He has a lot more knowledge and perspective, so he knows that his fears about Martin abandoning him aren’t true. But again--the the apocalypse makes it so that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Jon fears it. It can turn that fear into very real pain, and make him feel that pain at all times.

That’s what it’s like to deal with insecurities IRL too.

Part of Jonathan Sims will always be here. Knowing this has happened before. Knowing it can happen in the ever uncertain future. Fearing what series of mistakes he might make that could cause him to be abandoned again.

Psychological pain, fear, can hound you at all moments, even over things that are done or aren’t entirely true. It’s true that it is quite possible that Jon will lose more people’s love in the future! It’s possible that Martin will get pissed off and leave him, or that Jon himself will fuck up in a way that ruins everything. These are all real possibilities that can happen to anyone.

And as long as you know it’s possible, your mind can use that possibility to torment you.

That’s what I was using the apocalypse/the fearscapes here to represent, actually. The... continuity of psychological pain. How some fears, even ones that seem fairly normal like “what if my partner leaves me” or “what if all my friends hate me” can live with us every moment for all of our lives, unseen and unknown to those around us.

But the whole thing is making Martin upset, and so instead of saying all of that, Jon puts on his softest smile. It hurts on his face, a pain that sears down into his chest.

“I love you too, Martin.’‘

I’m a bit torn on this. Is it a failure of the relationship, that Jon doesn’t feel like he can be honest with Martin here? Perhaps. But I personally don’t think so.

If Jon told Martin here that he’s afraid of him, that he will always be afraid of him, that loving Martin means that Martin will always give Martin the unique ability to hurt him--would that help? Would it take Jon’s pain away? Or would it just put more stress on Maritn.

So Jon bites his tongue on this one. It’s not Martin’s fault, of course. Martin is doing his best to comfort him here, saying all the right things.

Some things really do have to be dealt with alone. Some pains really do have to remain unseen. Or at least, that’s the conclusion Jon comes to here.

[qqueenofhades]

I'm listening to the History on Fire podcast by Daniele Bolelli which is FANTASTIC for many reasons, but especially notable for me as an American is listening to American history as taught by a European who doesn't flinch from calling a spade a spade or Woodrow Wilson a white supremacist. It's startling and refreshing to not have that texas schoolboard whitewashed veneer applied to some of the Really Bad Shit done by Americans in our history.

Okay but like.... Woodrow Wilson was a white supremacist, we know this, right?

Princeton University has now taken his name off their school of international affairs, which frankly I was not expecting them to do, because when this issue first arose in 2015, they did the usual hemming and hawing about how he had contributed to the nation, etc. But as noted when this protest first arose, Woodrow Wilson was super racist you guys. Aside from admiringly screening the KKK propaganda film Birth of a Nation in the White House in 1915, he was actually quoted in it (as noted in the link above). He resegregated the US civil service and threw civil rights leader Marcus Trotter out of the White House because “[Trotter’s] tone offends me.” He had managed to win the black vote in 1912 with vague promises to make things better, and then.... did not do that. His administration was also heavily staffed with white supremacists.

Wilson admittedly did try to enact economic protections for working-class Americans against large corporations, and he has a luster as a progressive international statesman because of WWI, but while his racial legacy abroad (and particularly in the context of colonialism) is complex, it’s still... well, extremely racist. The period between 1877 (the end of Reconstruction) and 1923 (after the end of the Wilson presidency) has sometimes been called the nadir of American race relations, as all the gains from Reconstruction were rolled back, violent incidents including lynching became the norm (as well as the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921 that we all just heard about thanks to the Orange One), and the Klan was politically empowered across America (not least by Wilson himself).

I think it’s important to note these things because Wilson would probably not come up on most people’s lists of racist or objectionable political figures, because a) as you note, Americans aren’t taught about this in the first place, and b) we like the idea that only the egregious George Wallace-esque types are or were actually racist, rather than examining it in the context of otherwise admired statesmen, as Wilson’s general legacy still is. I would also like to note that Abraham Lincoln, who is practically a figure of hero worship in American politics, remained far more concerned about the political Union than he ever was about black people, and used the Emancipation Proclamation to put pressure on the Confederacy, not because he was an anti-racist. He expressed opposition to slavery as an institution and by the time of his death was coming around to the idea of black citizenship, but he also said that “if I could save the Union without freeing one slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do that.” In other words, Lincoln’s attitudes on slavery and race also need closer study and awareness, and he is, after all, pretty much as uncontroversially saintlike as American presidents come.

The fact is that white Americans have been so coddled and pampered and shielded from reality that even discovering these very basic facts has come as a shock. You’d really think that in 2020 this wouldn’t be so goddamn controversial, but if nothing else, the sheer depths of this historical (mis)-education are now being brutally exposed, and everyone gets to see for themselves how a country full of “me-firsters” are now responsible for the dubious honor of the worst coronavirus response in the world/highest caseload. These two things really are connected. Ideology has almost completely replaced history, and while Trump has obviously accelerated and exposed that effort, America’s departure from reality has been going on for a long time. I’d like to say that will actually change now, but.... mmm.

Anyway, I’m glad that this podcast has been useful and enlightening to you. As you may know, I’m sitting over here as a historian watching all this happen with a mix of incredulity and despair about the way this country has simply not dealt with any of its shit because “we’re number one!” In general, Americans need to hear more about America from people outside it, because.... yeah. Yikes.

[flying-elliska]

Ellie I’m so sorry you’re going through this but I actually want to say thank you for posting so openly about your diagnoses and struggles because I am going through something very similar, and it’s actually helped me reach out for help with my mental health. I’m 32 and after my moms death last year I am discovering that not only am I fairly certain that I have ADHD but, I’m starting to realize that I have spent my whole life dealing with Emotional Incest from my mother and that’s something I do not know how to even approach.

I have literally felt like I’ve been going crazy and functioning in the world is becoming harder and harder each day. I feel like I don’t have a handle on anything and I am constantly overwhelmed to a point where I don’t know how to cope but seeing you dealing with this is giving me some hope. I know I’m probably not the only person you’ve helped indirectly so please know that you’re not only helping yourself but you’re encouraging me and probably others to do the same. I really hope you find some peace and happiness today.

Anon 💖💖💖 thanks for reaching out, it means so much. I actually had a good (but exhausting) day - I confronted an acquaintance about him being a clueless asshole to some of my other friends, which I don't think I would have had the guts to do in the past. So maybe not peace and happiness, but definitely some satisfaction.

First of all I am very proud of you for reaching out and I am glad I could help in whatever small way I could. I am also sorry for what you went through and still have to deal with. I know it sucks. I am right there too rn in feeling how much it sucks. I think it's an important step to recognize that. IT FUCKING SUCKS. Because personally for a loooong time I was just pretending everything was fine, making excuses for the people who hurt me, but I was just running myself ragged and feeling so hollow and splintered and just.... And coming to a point where i'm finally looking these things in the face, and all that buried crap resurfaces...it's honestly one of the hardest things I have ever had to do, just putting some of these things to paper, trying to do this all month, it's so ughhhhhhh fuck man. It's ugly work, I hate it, but at the same time, sometimes, it feels empowering too and like I am returning to myself and picking up all these shattered pieces and recognizing that part of me that suffered and deserved better that I tried so hard to deny and deaden. Reclaiming my ability to control my own narrative.

So honestly from what you're describing, I think it's very logical that you are having a hard time and feel overwhelmed. Hell, they say during recovery at the beginning it generally gets worse for a while before it gets better. So...even tho it sucks, in a sense, it might be a good thing ? I know it is for me. Much better than previous numbness and dissociation. The pain of truth is purifying - it's so different from the pain of secrets and shame festering in silence. Am I coping very well right now ? No, but I'm learning, and I'm also having these occasional moments of inner reconciliation and mending that feel miraculous ; like that scared, confused inner little girl I used to be feels increasingly less alone and trampled over.

Anyway the good news is that when it comes to ADHD, treatment has a high chance to have a radical positive impact, it's one of the diagnoses where finding the right combo of therapy/meds/lifestyle changes leads to some of the highest rates of positive change. So I really hope you get there.

The rest is...yeah I don't know how to deal with that either, I'm still figuring it out. My relationship with my mother was for so long such a fucking clusterfuck of layers of manipulation, unaddressed generational trauma, repressed grief, good intentions, petty cruelty, inappropriate behavior, unfortunate circumstances and neglect, over projection and blind devotion and gaslighting, enmeshment and lack of boundaries, abuse done for "your own good" with a smile and a reasonable explanation - it made me feel insane for so long, like I couldn't trust my own feelings or perceptions. And every time I felt like I had addressed one layer I hit on something else, to the point where I started to feel like I would never be free of it. I haven't seen her or properly talked to her in like, seven years and still all this time I was struggling with it - it was necessary to cut contact tho, to assert that boundary. And then to keep building boundaries from there, slowly, frustratingly, to keep digging and asking myself questions. I got stuck and lost so many times, but I feel like I'm finally reaching the end of the tunnel, because knowledge is one of the most powerful things in the world.

Real talk, the emotional incest thing ? I think my mother had a similar dynamic with her own father. And she tried to do better, but because she was unwilling to look at the true ugliness of the situation, instead choosing to wallpaper over it with magical thinking, everything-will-be-fine-if-i-convince-myself-it-is, and an obsession with moral purity, she ended up doing a massive amount of damage of her own. And I am not doing that.

There is a radical power that comes with facing the ugliness head on that I am claiming for myself, and it seems that you are embarking on a similar journey. It's a big thing so we can't do it all at once. I think doing sth like this you have to pace yrself, to chew off little piece by piece, to digest bit by bit, to let some things rot and dissolve, to go through many cycles of doubt and indignity and revelation, to hunt for the truth on pure Instinct and desperate need, to claw off a path from the dark and the impossible, to consider incompatible and paradoxical truths, to let every new bit of knowledge work its way through you and make you stronger and stranger and more yourself. To let yrself be a little bit crazy and seething and deranged, to shake loose the confines of what you thought was reasonable, to find gifts and allies in unlikely places. To expose, to open up, little by little, to find scraps of words that turn into full sentences, to take back power by finding the right name of things. And then, one day, we'll give birth to ourselves this time and we'll find the sun-bleached bones of this horror and make it into jewelry. Or something.

You don't have a handle on things ? Good ! It's probable you have had a handle on things for way too long. Your handle is probably completely broken. So I don't know you, but maybe this is good, in all its harsh inconvenient terrifying way. I know I had to throw away the handle I had first to build a new one. And flying loose for a moment which yeah ! Fucking scary. But also kind of badass, in that private way maybe nobody will ever know but you and so it's extra important you give yourself that credit.

Anyway I'm rambling but I do hope some of this gives you some extra validation. I'm here if you want to talk more, including by message. I know it's helped me so much to read abt other people's experiences, so. It's like a chain of courage, and you can be part of that too.

Also books have helped me so much - some fiction, but especially of late 'Tiny Beautiful Things' by Cheryl Strayed - she's an advice columnist who writes about some super gnarly stuff in such a direct, humane, powerful way, it gave me a lot of strength.

Power and solace to you, anon. 🌸💪🌸💪

[theredhairedmonkey]

Thunderfall and the Narrative of Love

I’ll admit, I still have trouble watching Thunderfall, and in particular the scene where Avizandum is turned to stone.

Even during rewatches, I pause to do a quick gut-check and see if I’m up for viewing this particular moment again.

What can I say? This show sometimes isn’t for the faint of heart (of which I am).

But the focus of this episode is actually on King Harrow.

In the classical sense of heroes and tragedies, Harrow is the epitome of a tragic hero.

A hero is simply one who does great deeds, the sort of feats ordinary people could scarcely dream of doing.

But his story is also a tragedy. We tend to think of tragedies as stories with a sad ending, and that’s half right. But in the original definition, what made a sad story a tragedy is that the hero falls due to a “tragic flaw.”

So, for instance, when people read or watch the movie “The Death of Superman,” where we see Kal-El die after his fight with Doomsday, we conclude this is a tragedy because of its sad ending. But while we see Superman die, we never see him fall; he remains true to form, a paragon of virtue and heroism to the very end.

But in Greek tragedies, heroes have flaws that lead to their downfall. Achilles was a courageous warrior and had the strength of a god, but was stubborn and proud, which led to a series of events—him sitting out the Trojan war for a time, the sacking of Troy, his battle with Hector—which led to his demise at the hands of Paris.

Oedipus, probably the most famous tragic hero in history, had what Greeks held to be the ultimate flaw—hubris, or the belief that one could possibly oppose fate and the gods. His hubris led to Oedipus blinding himself and going into self-imposed exile.

In each of these, the tragic component comes not from how the hero dies, but how the hero’s flaws lead to their fall.

And that’s what Thunderfall is really about. It’s the story of Avizandum’s death, but it’s actually about Harrow’s fall.

He was truly a good king, putting the interests of his people ahead of himself.

Viren: “King Harrow worked tirelessly. He told me he thought of himself as a servant of all the people of Katolis. A servant King.”

Fighting to create a just world, one that treats everyone, rich and poor alike, with the fairness and kindness they deserve.

Harrow: Sarai, my father told me that above all, I must be a just king. The night he died, Lady Justice came to me in a dream…She said to me that justice was more than fair decisions and fair consequences. True justice was a fair system. Then she laid before me her scales, her sword, and her blindfold and told me to choose.

Sarai: You chose the blindfold.

Harrow: I did. She said the blindfold gives us a way to test the system.That I should use it to imagine I had not been born yet, and that I did not know if I would be born rich or poor, what color my skin would be, what culture or practices my family would have. That a fair system should be fair no matter the accident of my birth. That the rights, and laws, and opportunities within the system should stand to protect and empower everyone.

But Harrow was only a man. He found the love of his life, and she was taken from him not long after.

And for years he struggled to move past his loss. To be the better person. To look toward the present and the future.

But in the end, he couldn’t let go of his hate. He succumbed to it and let it consume him.

And this one moment of weakness set in motion everything that was to follow—Avizandum’s death and stealing the Dragon Egg; the Dragonguard’s betrayal; the Dragon Queen’s revenge; and the quest to return Zym home.

This all led to the moment when Callum found himself standing on the same field where Harrow once stood, wrestling with the same feelings and temptations that Harrow once wrestled with.

At this moment, Callum struggles to contain his hatred. Even Rayla looks somewhat shocked.

He’s feeling such a wave of emotion—pain, sadness, anger. Maybe even a little gladness that the creature who took his mother is gone.

But this all fades away to sadness and regret: “I feel so sorry that this all happened.”

Why?

That was the moment Callum saw beyond himself. His pain was personal, but it was never only his. Because even for Avizandum, the object of Callum’s hatred, there was someone who mourned his loss.

And someone who’s life was now emptier without him.

They were all bound together now, by both Avizandum’s life and his death.

Just like Callum, Ezran, and Rayla are.

Because of that, rather than succumbing to it like Harrow did, Callum decides to let go of his hate. He instead chooses to have faith that love—his love— could be enough to finally fix what was broken and set right what once went wrong so long ago.

One of the things I really like about Callum isn’t that he’s a strong character who is also vulnerable, emotional, and loving. Even though that’s not as common for male characters as I’d like it to be, it’s still not that rare. Some of the most iconic heroic figures—Superman, Luke Skywalker, Avatar Aang—are powerful characters who allow themselves to be vulnerable and sensitive.

But what’s different from Callum is that he’s not merely both strong and vulnerable, but that his strength comes from his vulnerability. He’s become a powerful mage in a matter of weeks because of his love—he’s always learned new forms of magic in response to a need; his love, and his desire to protect it, helps provide that need, and pushes him to break past the limits to his strength again and again.

He’s able to face so much adversity in his life because he’s not afraid to face his emotions and even his darker impulses—to learn from them and then let them go. And this is the lesson that Harrow passed on to his son; that strength means he no longer has to hold on to his hatred and his pain but look beyond to find something meaningful, something worth fighting for and protecting.

And that something might end up saving their world.

[gatesofember]

you make some good points!! i guess i’d just phrase it this way: if you’re not a a transman, then i’m not sure it’s your place to write about a topic like that (i don’t mean for this to sound rude i just don’t know how else to say it!!). i am trans, and the idea of carrying a baby gives me extreme dysphoria. many transmen i know would agree. but, that’s not to say it’s something that can’t happen! it’s fine for transmen to have babies if that’s what they want!! it’s their body and their choice! and you’re right, dysphoria is not a requirement to be trans. (1/2)

however, if you’re not a transman and you’re choosing to write about a transman being pregnant... why are you choosing that route? is it because you believe that they should still be expected to bear children because of their biology? is it because you’re still somehow seeing them differently than you see a cis man?

trans man in real life wants to have a baby? great! good for him! i support that.

author who isn’t a transman wants to write about a character (who isn’t canonically trans) in an au where the character is trans and gets pregnant? not exactly the same.

(thank you so much for listening and responding, i really appreciate it. i hope i don’t come across as mean, that’s truly not my intention!) *also sorry if i sent this twice, my internet is being awful (2/2)

@the-ghost-king asked:

Yeah kind of going to disagree with anon on that bit about trans men having kids... As a trans guy I find the idea of having my own kid super empowering, yet I can also recognize why someone else would find it extremely dysphoria inducing. So I'm glad you also took the time to acknowledge it, and understand different people have different wants and interests in regards to aspects of their life in relation to gender

I think the best way to look at is to think about the character "how does Will feel dysphoria? What is he most dysphoric about?" and to go from there... You could always blend ideas as well, maybe Will chooses to have a baby but they end up adopting a runaway kid as well or something..

Of course though your own personal well-being is important too, so if you think writing about a trans character being pregnant would make you uncomfortable, then please take care of yourself first and foremost.

Lots of love and support! As always, I can't wait to see where you take this idea! <3

Thank you for responding! Anon, I don’t mean to attack you or put words in your mouth and I hope this doesn’t come across that way, but honestly, when you say that I’m not a trans man, it sounds to me like what you actually mean is “you’re not trans.” And while I understand the apprehension, that’s just not true. But also, I realize that I could absolutely be 100% wrong to equate my experiences as a nb person with the experiences of a trans man so I apologize if that’s the case. I’m very new to this and I’m still learning. I started questioning my gender years ago, but I only decided “yes I am definitely non-binary” within the last year or two, and for a while, I sort of thought of myself as not really trans, but sort of trans-adjacent? Thinking of myself as trans is even more new for me. Actually, writing a trans character is what made me finally start to realize it (it’s kind of embarrassing but I have a history of accidentally figuring things out about myself through Will). But my point is, I’m afab and I do not identify as a woman, so therefore I am trans, and that’s a new thought process for me. I’ve always felt extreme discomfort that I’ve only recently started to realize is bottom dysphoria, and I have been told, over and over since I was a kid, that one day I will change my mind about having children because it’s a natural part of life. I am NOT a man, but I think in this case, what matters is that we are afab and trans and it would be extremely hypocritical of me to think that trans men should/must have children. (Just to be clear, I also absolutely do not mean to imply that cis women should/must have children either! This conversation is just about trans people.)

Basically, anon, your problem with this primarily seems to be my possible intentions and the fact that I’m not a trans man, but I don’t think you have to worry about that with me. Writing Will has been as much an exploration of myself and experimentation with my own gender as it has been an exploration of him. Will is very different from me—I have bottom dysphoria, he has top dysphoria; I’m nb and he’s a man. But exploring someone different from me has also been a way for me to learn about myself and why I feel the way I do, why other people feel differently, and just what it means to be trans in general. That’s my intention.

However with regards to it not being my place, that’s something I can absolutely understand and there have been multiple times when I have decided not to write about something because of that reason. That logic can also be problematic if taken to an extreme, but I can certainly respect that I should sometimes take a back seat and let people who are directly impacted lead instead, and maybe this is one of those cases.

Anyway I appreciate both of your perspectives and I’m glad you responded to me! I will keep what you said in mind. I’m not actually planning to write a story about this, I just wanted to talk about it here. But for future reference, is there a tag I should use here or on ao3 so that people who do experience severe dysphoria can avoid posts/fics including trans pregnancy or dysphoria?