#but I'm also just speaking Loaded Implications

[descendant-of-truth]

This was presented with a very whimsical tone and I enjoyed it for that but also. it's such a specific side effect that I can't not analyze it

Like, on principle it makes perfect sense. Give an already fast and energetic character who talks to himself all the time a boost to his abilities, and he becomes twice as chatty to compensate.

But his external monologue has never taken the form of a conversation between two people before, and in a show that's all about having alternate versions of the same character, that's worth taking note of. Especially since this started after he was given energy from the Paradox Prism, the thing that presumably made all of those alternate versions to begin with.

(And even more especially since the show already played around with the idea of there being two Sonics only a few episodes ago with the existence of Chaos Sonic)

So, the other oddity regarding this whole thing is how one side is consistently just. uncharacteristically mean and deadpan towards the other?? I showed one example earlier, but there's two more, and that accounts for almost every instance of Sonic talking to himself in this form

Sonic's never really talked to anyone like this before, not even himself. It almost comes across like an emulation of Shadow more than anything else, which is just. so bizarre?? Especially when Shadow's literally right next to him in the last scene, and thus he has no need to substitute his presence.

In fact, he seems to catch himself and stops doing the self-banter thing entirely as soon as Shadow acknowledges him doing it

And he looks surprised when Shadow speaks, too, like he already forgot that other people can hear him. It really comes off like he's in his own little world, and again, this is a show about multiple worlds, so it's pretty fitting.

I'm not letting Shadow's phrasing off the hook, either - "a Sonic," hm? As if there's more than one?

Even Sonic gets confused about how many of him there are, which has quite the loaded implication for how short of a moment it is; something that could describe everything about this form, honestly.

It all gives me this impression that we're not quite done with this concept of there being multiple Sonics, or at least not done with this form being used in general. There's a lot of potential in what they've already set up for it, and I'd love to see it explored further.

Plus, this one frame of Sonic after he first gets it still gives me the impression that there's something... off about it

And I want to know what that something is

[ctrl-alt-vibeshift]

in defense of the brat album art

my feed stopped when charli xcx dropped the album art for her upcoming sixth studio album "brat" a few weeks ago. like many angels, i was confused at first, as the image staggered out of the code on her merch site unannounced through a vinyl preorder link that originally had no image to go with it (and yes i ordered one before seeing any visuals...). even after she tweeted it, and the creative team posted about their contributions to it, questions were left unanswered. was it real? was it just a placeholder? was it an alternative cover for the brat_360 exclusive vinyl? this is not the album cover right? one angel dared ask our god in her twitter replies.

even before i got official confirmation that this was indeed the official cover, which i think came from charli's interview with vogue after the release of lead single von dutch, i was obsessed. the green: neon, but not tacky like the overdone highlighter trend already claimed by k-pop boy group nct, rather a muted, dull lime, catching your eye but not blinding you. the font: a simple sans serif, slightly condensed and elongated, nothing over-the-top or borderline illegible like the custom fonts artists usually commission. and the blur, the pixelization, the resolution, the quality (or lack thereof)—this is what really does it for me.

they're barely there, the rough, blurred edges of each letter, but once you see them you can't unsee them. the design evokes the feeling of waiting for an image to load in full quality on instagram, a youtube video playing in less than 1080p while buffering, a hi-res photo downloading from the cloud, a show or movie lagging its way into clarity on streaming services. or as oomf (@_alienmelissa) using a fan edit of von dutch lyrics put it:

(trans: lyric videos around 2008 all had fonts and backgrounds like this..........)

while thinking about the many implications of the low quality text on the cover, i read the essay "in defense of the poor image" written by hito steyerl in e-flux journal back in 2009, which perfectly put into words what i had been ruminating on:

[The poor image] mocks the promises of digital technology. Not only is it often degraded to the point of being just a hurried blur, one even doubts whether it could be called an image at all. Only digital technology could produce such a dilapidated image in the first place.

"one even doubts whether it could be called an image album cover at all," as many have due to the "poorness" of the brat art. better yet, steyerl goes on to proclaim "resolution was fetishized as if its lack amounted to castration of the author," also predicting the mass ridicule of charli for choosing and releasing such a "hurried blur" of an album art design.

regardless of what you compare it to, the low-res, early internet digital aesthetic it speaks to is something i haven't seen spoken much about. many twitter gays are up in arms about the lack of an image of charli on it, breaking her faceful cover streak (although she does hide it a bit on pop 2), and not giving them a new image to set their profile pictures to. charli has acknowledged this in the vogue interview: “I mean, as a female pop artist, what’s more bratty than not being on your album cover? Especially when there is so much pressure for women within the pop sphere to do exactly that," as well as in a tweet posted right before i started writing this:

which grimes replied to while i was writing this:

grimes scratches at what i'm getting at, but is more focused on the shock value that comes with its loud simplicity. this sentiment of breaking the feed, cutting through the visual muck and endless faces with a bold monotone color and by refusing to show face, is something i also admire. yet i think why i feel so passionately about the aesthetic value of this cover is that it offers me a respite from the overflow of high-res images mediated through the internet and onto my phone screen.

i'm so sick of the flood of iphone/digital photography, its quality increasing with each new device release. these images try too hard to replicate what they're representing, and create a false reality that many (myself included) get trapped in. we've sunken into the uncanny valley, and it's about time we claw ourselves out. i don't want to experience the physical through the digital anymore. i'd rather see all your pores when you're inches from my face than through the insane number of pixels resting in my palm. i want the images on the internet to be so obviously contained within it that there's no mistaking them for something material. i think this is why i'm such a fan of camcorder style photography and videos: like the chunky pixels surrounding "brat," they whisper i'm not real, i'm flawed technology, i will never replace the resolution of your retinas.

lucky for me, brat isn't the first artwork to do so, as there seems to be a shift back towards the materiality of the offline and the rougher edges of early internet interfaces within the broader art and design world as well. kat kitay describes this as "technoromanticism" in her essay "what's after post-internet art?" for spike magazine:

Exposed circuitry departs from the post-internet gloss typified by DIS Magazine, which shined up or hid away the ugly parts of technology. Hardware is made visible, laying bare the flow of power and information, at the same time transfiguring electronics into sacred objects. 

replace DIS magazine with PC music (its audio equivalent imo) and you'll get an analogy more relevant to charli's own aesthetic journey here. the super slick black lamborghini on the cover of the vroom vroom ep has driven off, her impossibly iridescent skin on the cover of pop 2 has shed its shine, and the skyscraper she's perched on for the cover of xcx world (RIP) has long been toppled, leaving nicki minaj's gag city in its ashes. the brat cover is the antithesis to these eras.

while ecco2k croons all i wanna see is 1080p / but reality keep me on 240 on "hold me down like gravity," maybe it's time to embody the "240" of reality again. with charli teasing this record as her clubbiest to date, tapping back into her party girl roots attending uk raves in her tweens, brat offers us a chance, both visually and sonically, to embrace the blur, the sweat, the adrenaline, the tears, and of course, the poppers fumes, of a low-res life.

[load-theloading-artist]

Hello hello everybody,

It is i, load.

Who is currently dealing with stuff related to that of art, where it is a being a bish.

to compensate, I'm making text posts instead, Hallelujah.

ANYWAY, i have some thoughts

about Mirage...

I feel so bad for Mirage. There was actually a lot of potential for her that wasn't used. 😞

She really could've been used in the story, theres plenty of ways of how. And interactions and scenarios she could've brought. She's a magical cat for crying out loud! An entity known as a spirit by the Daemos! AND APPARENTLY A RARE TYPE OF SPIRIT TOO! Leif said so!

And yet she does nothing. She doesn't even get double digits of screentime, i don't believe.

She ends up serving no purpose to the story. And I consider it a writing crime that the only purpose she had was for MARKETING.

She was used for being turned into a marketable plushie 😭😭😭

--

Additional info that confuses me:

In episode one, where Lady Grandma is the only one left and before the portal closes, She orders Mirage to protect the group, and Mirage goes through the portal.

But this scene implies that Mirage is Lady Grandmas familiar. Or Guardian.

And in episode four, where asch is about to use his fire magic on ava after she provoked him, rhys yells out to him to stop, and wittle bwack cwoud with fwoating eyes knocks the two away from eachother and then stares at them in a corner stwikeing fear into their hwearts...

Oh look its a really gorgeous kitty! (i LOVE Cloud Kitties' design gosh shes beautiful.)

But. The part that then confuses me:

Is neither Asch nor Rhys RECOGNIZE HER.

(I personally dont see it, Asch knowing her, because it seemed he was more embarrassed of showing he thought she was cute, rather than actually knowing her. Idk if it's me not getting social cues, though. Perhaps he was embarrassed to know her? Im not sure why he would be embarrassed, though... this also kinda disproves Her being his familiar that Lady Grandma ordered Instead. theres also additional interactions that are missing to prove this is the case. But back to our scheduled program; )

???

What? What do you mean they don't???

We have implications that she's Lady Grandma's familiar!

And perhaps Asch doesn't know his grandmother very well or isn't as close to her until more recently.

But RHYS OF ALL PEOPLE, her MOST TRUSTED student/disciple, should recognize Mirage!

And yet he doesn't! So Lady Grandma kept mirage a secret from rhys??

Why??

These spirits that tend to become Guardians seem to be general information. It wouldn't be suspicious to have a familiar?

Instead, perhaps a sign of respect, as they seem to respect spirits in general! (This would've been cool worldbuilding, a familiar binding to you being a sign you are someone to respect because they respect you.)

Unless she intended Mirage to be an ace up her sleeve? that not even Rhys could know??

*sigh* Sorry, my logical side of my brain is spiraling.

--

--

Mirage deserved better, and an actual purpose to the story!

Actually, heres some ideas;

SHES the only way Rhys and Lady Grandma could actual communicate. Rather than... that uh.. bathroom scene.. with the mirror.. and..

I uh get the reference to the mirror, alike "oh a mirror is a connection to a different dimension"

But perhaps Mirage could've acted alike the eyes and ears on earth for Lady Grandma, though maybe it leaves Lady Grandma back on daemos in a vulnerable state, so she must do this sparingly (ignoring the whole magic is going extinct bit...)

Perhaps Mirage could've translated Lady Grandma's words to Rhys via something like telepathy. ... basically, Mirage being used as a phone but with video and extra steps.

Additionally, she could've been used to letting Rhys know something has happened to Lady Grandma. That would be a fun scene.

Rhys talking to Mirage or just hanging out with her until the music stops, it goes silent for out of the blue mirage telepathecally speaks her own audible words;

"Danger. Lady Grandma's (life) is in danger."

Hahaha...

Though i like the idea Mirage does not have the ability to speak. But can communicate in something akin to like sandman or sandy from rise of the guardians. (It's a good movie, has some flaws, but it's a good watch.)

Maybe she can, but it's more like audio clippings from things she's heard to communicate.

Or even, with her dreamscape esque design...

She can communicate through dreams. Perhaps Rhys is asleep, but he dreams of Lady Grandma being in danger. Thanks to Mirage!

--

Actually. I would love for her to USE some abilities herself. Ya know?

Maybe she can make people fall asleep.

And so maybe Asch gets too violent at some point, and she just kinda.. knocks him out. With her tail like a baseball ba-(im jk)

Perhaps she can lay on someone and purr, and her purr magically heals people~

Maybe she can create illusions. Who knows!

But please, she deserved to be a proper character apart of the story instead of a tension breaker or marketable plushie... *sigh*

Anyway, apologies for my rambling. I just... i have SO many thoughts related to My Inner Demons. And i plan to one day speak about it in full (but possibly still in parts) when i am able to.

[eastgaysian]

curious if u have more thoughts on the 'durge as a metanarrative' thing

i have a vague sense that i saw someone mention this idea in a post or article, thought the idea was super interesting, and have been rolling it around my head ever since. however i don't remember who wrote that or if i just imagined it so if anyone else has seen this pls link me...

so broadly speaking, when it comes to giving players freedom of choice in an rpg, i think the most difficult player behavior for a developer to work with is npc killing. if you let the player kill every npc they run across, that's probably going to fuck up your design in some way, if not create a full softlock. those npcs provide information, serve mechanical purposes as merchants/healers/gatekeepers or openers, give out quests and then powerful or story-significant rewards for those quests, etc, etc. allowing players to kill everyone they meet while making sure that doesn't break the game requires a lot of work put into contingencies that most players won't see. but if you don't let players kill npcs/make certain important npcs unkillable, you limit player freedom and break immersion. todd howard what do you mean i can't kill the guy who introduced me to windhelm by being racist in the middle of the city. what greater narrative purpose does he serve

on the player's side, though, someone who's going around killing the story-essential npcs probably isn't playing the game 'as intended,' which is to say having fun by immersing themselves in the world of the game and making choices based on the character they're roleplaying. someone who's going around killing every npc possible is almost definitely playing against the game, just doing it to see what happens and find out if the game has a breaking point - and they're probably not even really having fun with it, because they're not only cutting themself off from the game's content, but going through the time and labor-intensive slog of killing hundreds of npcs spread across the entirety of the game world.

i think the dark urge as a concept offers some fun potential to play with both the developer and player side of npc killing. it's a fully intended, deliberately designed way of experiencing bg3 that hinges upon you as player and as character being encouraged to murder people, and it gets kicked off by an npc getting killed without your input - an npc that can have a presence throughout the entire game as well as offer you an extremely powerful quest reward. after that, though, every kill is up to the player. sceleritas fel urges you along and promises rewards, but there's one (1) dc 14 check between you and a murderless durge playthrough.

so the dark urge provides a story template where it becomes immersive and in-character for you to kill everyone possible, unlocking new story beats and rewards by killing npcs and losing out on their content, but it's also completely possible to interpret you, the player, as the irresistible dark urge making your in-game character kill as many people as possible for the hell of it. the moment in dak-wai's playthrough that got stuck in my brain forever was when i killed isobel, just to see what would happen (i saved before with the full intent of loading it back up and doing a Good Run), and realized that this hadn't broken their paladin oath. i'm still uncertain if this is an intended aspect of a dark urge playthrough or just a quirk of the flags surrounding isobel's death/kidnapping, but combined with the dialogue options that allow durge to insist that they kill as a result of compulsions against their will, the implications fascinate me.

in a durge playthrough, the game allows you to fully separate the decision you the player made from the decision the character you're playing would have made, and it makes sense in the story. that's cool as hell! i would've loved if larian leaned into this a little more. not necessarily in a way that fully breaks the fourth wall, but more 'evil run' content that is exclusive to a game where you've killed the good guys would add a lot of depth to this idea, as well as more exploration of the extent to which The Urge can be separated from your character, and just straight up more scenes where the player gets to fully choose whether to lean into or resist the urge. in-universe, it's bhaal's fault, but out of universe, that's all You babey. you, the player doing a kill all npcs run for your youtube channel, are the murder god who spawned a child designed to cause as many deaths as possible. don't you think that's neat? i think that's neat

[madeofvoid]

Prefacing this by saying I'm not an antisemite, I'm just a troll.

If anti-zionism is (BY THE RECENT HOUSE RULING) antisemitism, and antisemitism is the "crime" being "punished" so to speak. The operative term here becomes "semite." Which refers to any people who speak a semitic language-- i.e. Jews and Arabs¹

This isn't the first time the federal government has used vague language as a catch all, or that presumably specific terms have been made vague. The 2nd amendment famously allows the public (a "well regulated" militia) to keep and bear arms as necessary to the security of the free state². Which, by common conception, implies the right to use the same weaponry as the military. Or at least the same weaponry as the military at the time of writing. (hence the numerous greentexts about deffending one's home with smoothbore pistols and cannons loaded with grapeshot, "As the founding fathers intended.")

This is, while played for comedy and usually unserious, an example of malicious compliance. Doing something that is technically within the rules that, by all means, defeats the purpose of having them and/or breaks the system that upholds them. It's a valid form of protest for the most part. Famously, the sit-ins of the civil rights era were used as a form of non-violent protest against racial segregation and the Jim Crow laws that allowed it. The sit-ins were the very definition of malicious compliance, and it worked.

Of course, those who make the rules are then forced to pick one of two options that end the same way. Governing bodies can very easily tighten the rules to prevent malicious compliance, thus starting down a slippery slope of freedom restrictions until the rule breaks the system or the system breaks the rule. The other option is to repeal the rule to preserve the system. This is the best way to prevent the sort of Buggs Bunny escalation that Americans are known for.

As a survivor of the new-millennium interwebs, I pass a warning to ye young'uns, troublemakers, and governing bodies alike: A Troll's favorite food is vague language.

If you've read this far and followed along, I thank you kindly. Chances are some of you have already connected the dots, and I thank those of you who have once more. You are shining examples of reading comprehension of which the internet is always in short supply.

For the sake of those doomscrolling at 3am or perhaps those that lack the required history to understand the implications, do not fret, here's my point:

In the opening of this post, I speculated that antisemitism is the operative term of the House's recently infamous provision. They can't outlaw anti-zionism outright, it adds clarity to a situation that the powers that be wish to keep muddy. I also defined antisemitism. At its core, its a bias against people and groups thereof who speak semitic languages. In short, Jews and Arabs.

By definition, antisemitism is bias against those who speak/write arabic! Can you guess who does a whole lot of both? That's right! Palestinians! Can you guess what vague language acts as the lynchpin for the new provision, and as such has become more potent? That's right! Antisemitism!

Therefore by the powers that be, the same rules that prevent anti-zionist rhetoric also prevent anti-hamas and anti-gazan rhetoric. Because it's all antisemitic

That means that sure, while you can't protest against zionism without being prosecuted, you also can't be prosecuted for protesting for palestine.

For the trolls, this little loophole can be stretched to the moon and back again if you'd like. Name an arabic-speaking figure, group, organization, or country. I'm not saying you should, but you can, you know. Just a little trolling.

References:

1) Oxford Language.

2) 2nd Amendment, The United States Constitution.

[transingthoseformers]

Quintesson anon again, but considering the weighty prospects of the Quintessons being a major antagonistic force in either season 2 or season whatever of Earthspark, especially considering how they've been portrayed in earlier media and what that means for the Transformers in the series. My theory is that the Quints have not only conquered and enslaved the Transformers left on Cybertron, but have been moving forth to conquer any other Transformer species out there. In addition, someone actually mentioned that the Autobots might have known that the Quintessons existed out there given that Mandroid claims he found some kind of information within the Autobot files within the GHOST computer network that he used for the Space Bridge. However, this brings up the rather interesting aspect of the Transformers hiding things from the humans, ie the T-Cog and the Matrix. I can see this being somewhat lampshaded with Dot asking why they would hide the fact that there's a race of judgemental squid aliens out there. Slightly off topic, but I'm also convinced we're going to see more of the other relics and not just the ones that usually hog the spotlight (like all of Vector Prime's swords).

You're so right so far yes yes, it tracks considering what we've seen of the Quintessons (it would be super interesting to see more non Cybertronian alien races in Earthspark, especially considering the somewhat rescue bots influences we do see some in rescue bots and RBA!), especially with the idea of them possibly working with our protagonists??? Yes please?????

Logistically speaking, I see potential for the Quintessons for being an old horror of transformer history coming back, with vague legends / frayed historical accounts of Quintessons available. BUT THE ALLURE OF SOMEONE HAVING BEEN WORKING WITH THE QUINTESSONS BEHIND EVERYONE'S BACKS AND DR MERIDIAN GETTING A HOLD OF THAT INFORMATION

I adore the idea of yes there are things they've been hiding from the humans (after all, they tried to hide that Bumblebee was still alive from GHOST, didn't they?), and that chances are we're gonna end up seeing more of the less famous artifacts from the Thirteen (I see cool uses of the Chimera Stone, Micronus's artifact!)

Judgemental squid aliens

Sdfyu. Yeah. I'm thinking that chances are most cybertronians think the Quintessons are extinct. But I'm remembering the one Fermi Paradox explanation (the dark forest explanation? I'm loading up a kurzgesagt video now to try and gain the words to better explain it). The idea that if humans know about the Quintessons, somehow the Quintessons will know about them and they will come to earth. Which would have terrifying implications.

I also see the possiblity of the initial Quintesson war being something the mecha Do Not Like To Talk About™️ because it was that devastating and horrific and okay coping mechanisms have changed since those times. The "they all forgot about it because it was That Traumatic" explanation of aligned makes me wonder more about this being an orchestrated memory wipe situation which has implications.

[stargazer-sims]

Rant / Info Post incoming...

I'm still angry, but I'm calmed down today at least, so...

Yesterday I was really angry and upset because a number of people felt the need to take it upon themselves to educate me about what's "wrong" with Caroline, simply because I mentioned one time that she has albinism. First of all, I am blind, not stupid. I've done my research. Also, as a member of the low vision community, I have personally known a lot of unrelated people who have albinism, including my boss at a former job, and my friend who I was in a band with in the 90s. If you are not blind, and ESPECIALLY if you do not have albinism yourself or don't at least personally know someone who has it, maybe do a bit of fact-checking before you come for me, yeah?

Honestly, I was literally so upset and angry that I'd nearly decided to scrap the entire story idea I had. I just could not envision myself having the mental stamina to deal with all the ignorance and the ableist bullshit, particularly because I've already been cyber-bullied and attacked online in the past due to speaking out and advocating about disability in general and blindness in particular. But, you know what? If you want to persist in your ignorance and tell me I'm wrong about something you actually know nothing about, then go for it. I know what the block button is for. I blocked people yesterday, and I deleted anon messages, and can do it again.

If you're genuinely curious about something you don't know about, ask. I can't speak for everyone, but I'm more than happy to answer questions about blindness or about anything else I have lived experience with. I'd rather have an honest conversation with somebody who wants to learn than to engage in a pointless argument with somebody who's convinced they're right based solely on their own assumptions and isn't willing to accept even the possibility that they aren't (hence the blocking).

Additionally, I should not have to "content warn" about posts that have depictions of disabled people simply existing. If you feel upset by seeing disabled people or hearing mentions of disability, then please ask yourself why that is. Asking for content warnings for posts that just have disabled people living their normal lives is offensive, and I hope you wouldn't ask people from other equity-seeking groups to content warn you just because a member of that group is depicted in a post doing something totally ordinary.

Representation is important, and sighted people have portrayed us with their weird and harmful stereotypes for way too long. I've also seen loads of hurtful stuff about people with albinism from people who don't have it. Although I also do not have albinism, I've done my research in addition to knowing and interacting with people with the condition in real life. The only people with any right to challenge and educate me on albinism are people actually living with it; only them (or their guardians/parents), and not some random white knights or even their friends, because the only true expert is the person with the lived experience. I'm open to learning and happy to expand my understanding about a lot of things, but I prefer to learn from people who know what they're talking about through personal experience and knowledge, and who aren't disseminating misinformation based on prejudice and stereotypes.

I won't lie... telling a story about a blind child isn't going to be easy for me, because I was also a blind child once. Because people (and particularly children) can be horrible creatures, my childhood was a living nightmare at times. I'm a survivor of childhood psychological and physical violence at the hands of my peers as well as the people who were meant to be protecting me, and that sort of trauma stays with a person. Plus, it's really hard to navigate a world that was not made for you, especially when you're a child and don't yet fully realize that the world was not made for you, and why that is, and what the implications of it are.

For a lot of reasons, this story (or the idea of it, at the very least) is important because I'd get to share something real through the relatively safe medium of a fictional character, and maybe with Caroline I'll get to right some of the wrongs that were done to me in real life. And just maybe somebody else will learn something.

But in the meantime, although it is 100% not my job to educate you, here you go:

Resource 1 - Resource 2 - Resource 3 - Resource 4 - Resource 5 - Resource 6

The correct term for people with albinism is "people with albinism". The term "albino" is controversial, and although there are some people with albinism who have reclaimed this word for themselves and use it in a self-empowering way (similarly to people in the LGBT+ community reclaiming "queer"), there are others who find it offensive, particularly when used by people who do not have albinism.

Albinism occurs in all ethnic and racial groups throughout the world (so yes... there are Japanese people with albinism too)

People with albinism do not have pink/red eyes. The majority of people with albinism have blue eyes, although they can have hazel or brown eyes in some cases (depending on the type of albinism). Some blue-eyed people with albinism may appear to have pinkish or violet eyes in certain lighting conditions, due to the fact that the lack of pigment can make blood vessels much more visible.

Many people with albinism also have low vision that usually can't be fully corrected. Level of vision varies, depending on the type of albinism.

People with albinism can go outside in the sun, but because of the lack of pigment in the skin and eyes, they need to wear sun protection like sunscreen, hats, sunglasses and UV-protective clothing

People with albinism are not sterile (unless they have a co-existing medical condition that causes sterility). They can produce children. Their children may or may not also have albinism, depending on the genetics of themselves and their partner.

------

Canadian National Institute for the Blind - What Is Blindness?

Canadian National Institute for the Blind - Blindness Myths & Facts

Canadian Organization for the Blind & Deafblind - True or False?

Royal National Institute for the Blind - Eye Conditions

More Blindness Myths & Facts

[coffeeblend108]

So just finished ruin dlc. As someone who actually like security breach despite how ass it's design was this dlc is amazing. I have much thoughts. (spoilers ahead)

Glitchtrap is an excellent replacement for the staff bot system. Security Breach really had like 7 animatronics including Vanny and both her and moon disappear at 6 am so the game basically had to spread 5 animatronics across the huge pizzaplex so the staff bots basically act as a buffer so they don't blow their load and use all of them too early. Glitch trap basically fulfils this role by adding some much more complexity to steal. While in Vanny vision (most) animatronics can't see you so him acting as a deterrent from using that mechanic works really well and allows for more small scale cramped levels.

I liked playing as Cassie a lot more than Gregory, part of that is defo by bias towards playing as a girl but she also feels more like a person because she has no wtf is going on and (most of the time) emotes accordingly. I didn't really realise how much Gregory being cryptic kinda ruined the vibe. The random lines of dialog that kinda just exist for lore relevance and the very obvious lack of recording new dialog when the plot changed kinda made him less interesting to me, Freddy really carried the main game for me. Over-all the voice acting in this game feels a lot more well directed.

Also deactivating Roxy and then having Cassie cry actually made get emotional, especially after Roxy basically all but admitted Cassie was her fav customer. I really wish the game didn't end so abruptly and we could've seen more of their dynamic because it seemed very sweet. Literally never read fluff before but once the fanfiction starts rolling in on ao3 i think I'm going to need a fix.

Speaking of the ending this is one of the things I have mixed opinions on, the endings are really fucking lame from a game perspective. They're all kinda just cliff hangers (assuming the 3 that I've been told exist are all of them) and hold a lot more lore implications while very clearly setting up for the next game. It felt to me like discovering it wasn't Gregory but the mimic (literally who didn't see that coming lmao) felt like the end of the 2nd act and there'd be a 3rd act where Roxy and Cassie escape together, possibly unintentionally setting the mimic free or something. I'm going to enjoy the theory videos and what not and I'm sure theres a lot of lore I've missed but as a whole the endings kinda leave me feeling meh at the end.

I am glad the game is short tho. This was a much tighter gameplay experience than security breach, I felt like security breach should have cut out half the story content and spent the rest of their production polishing the rest. This game does benefit from the fact that it is more linear, fnaf has always been great at linear games, but the metroidvania style level design of the base game definitely had potential and I hope that they don't drop it, or another indie dev picks it up and works it up. I think steelwool made the right choice making a solid short and sweet game and it doesn't feel like any of the segments carry on for too long.

I also love the ambience of this game, a lot of the textures are low rez and chunky but that didn't really bother me cus the environments have some really excellent ambience to them. The areas and levels feel more distinct and memorable and the vanni vision adds a lot to the environment.

Over all I rate security breach ruin a pretty good lil experience

[bluewinnerangel]

just wondering - do you also think they're working on communication lately? i've been thinking about this because of the songs on harry's house? the implications from satellite, late night talking, and daylight give me those vibes. but also i feel like they still struggle, especially since harry recently talked about how bad he is at talking about difficult things.

I personally don't think Harry has communication issues with their SO, if that's what you mean, when listening to all his lyrics about how there's a lack of speaking (and it's not a tiny thing either, there is a heavyass emphasis on it throughout his discography for sure). I think a lot of these mentions refer to how he can't say out loud in public, in interviews, in his music, what's on his mind exactly. How he can't come forward with what happened in 1D times exactly, can't be open about a lot of things. Maybe can't is a too strong word here, maybe not. But I think what's changed is that he's no longer bothered by it the way he was before. That now he feels OK setting his boundaries and dividing his public and personal life, views his situation differently. I'm not saying he's now fine being closeted and under a bigass load of stunt and image bullshit because fuck that, I'm saying he's found some peace among the circus he hasn't before, perhaps. Or at the very least it's not something he focuses on like he did before.

Sure there are lyrics that you, and he, can interpret as being about his personal relationships, I think if his songs didn't have that ability he'd lose something extremely valuable I think he very well knows he has (which is writing songs he loves, singing about things he cares about, real true things close to his heart, the ability to interpret things differently when he want to), I just ..don't think that's the main/initial thought behind these themes. His songs are far from literal, and even when it seems to obviously be about a love interest I think it's just written to fit that concept because it's what most listeners can easily identify with (or its both to him, go for both).

And yeah communication issues in a relationship are there too, we're all flawed and he does seem like a stubborn shit affectionately, but I just don't think that's ever been the driver of this ongoing.. communication theme, if that makes sense.

[bandofchimeras]

hey dude, sorry not trying to be an ass w this but I saw u had a post where in the tags you used delusional and narcissist as pretty derogatory insults towards the govt. Bashing the government is good and great but using terms that we (at least currently) need to describe mental illness (and definitely associate with it!)... in ways like that... its ableist and dehumanizing and leads to more abuse, even if it feels innocent, because if everyone who's a narc or who's delusional is dangerous....that's everyone w/ npd, or a schizospec disorder, or any other things.

Sorry this is long, and again, not trying to be rude! Just wanted to inform you and ask that you maybe be a little more careful with word choice in the future :)

hey anon, yeah thanks for your concern. I do understand the movement to change language usage around mental illness and destigmatize. And it is well intentioned.

Unfortunately, narcissistic and delusional are still pretty generally derogatory words. A person with NPD may not cause harm simply by virtue of having the diagnosis but we all agree narcissism itself isn't a fun cool trait to have. Delusions are obscurations of reality.

We still say manic, depressed, obsessive, etc in both outright negative ways and descriptive but not morally loaded ways. to me it's just part of language, and the ethics of most derogatory language does depend on who's using it.

I'm absolutely behind not calling everyone who sucks a narcissist. and would like people to stop saying "I'm being OCD" or "that's so bipolar," "he's a schizo" and so on. The "delulu" trend online is weird and fetishizes mentally ill people.

For context: I am a person with a narcissistic tendency, due to my childhood. My life has been a long train of psych symptoms... delusions of grandeur, maladaptive daydreaming, hallucinations, psychosis, derealization, depersonalization, dissociative identity states. psychology is one of my longest hyperfixations simply because I needed to understand my experience. it's been helpful and unhelpful in different ways. Pathologization is a phenomen that can't be understood separately from language, culture, history, and violence.

And yet I don't really have a problem with calling things crazy, insane, or batshit. in fact I find power in redefining and playing with these terms. I've been called crazy in a demeaning, invalidating way. And yeah, I'm a lil crizazy, a bit unhinged one might say. But if a motherfucker calls me crazy to invaldiate my argument, I instantly know they've lost. They're being weak, and abusive. It will also piss me the fuck off. I may want to show them what "crazy" looks like. The better angels of my nature will whisper "keep your head."

With the movement to neutralize mental health terms, what's always confused me is the understanding of language itself. I experience words autistically - they have multiple overlapping meanings all the time. Words are like composite images composed of billions of instances of use, fluttering and evolving as they are spoken and written. Vernacular is messy, sputtering and ever changing. Therefore words carry a multitude of connotations. When different people say them in different contexts you can see and hear different implications.

So, I really don't care if a dude at work says "that's fuckin insane bro" ...to a gnarly kickflip. Or a devastating news article. Insane delineates the magnitude of his emotion. It's out of bounds. Something normies and straights would try to contain, institutionalize, label. Christ, that's juicy. It's why I adore skater boy lingo and teen slang. It's careless and crunchy.

English itself, especially corporate and institutional English, can be a strict, bland, and often abusive language. My fellow autistic homies tend to enjoy a rousing jaunt down into the annals of historical parlance for our everyday linguistic transactions because it's fucking boring, the clinical way we are expected to speak here and now.

So therefore: thanks for your message calling attention to my words and their impact.

There are deeper better more poetic words to call the government and frankly I believe the best ones might be found in other languages.

All in all, you're right that "narcissistic" and "delusional" are not the most accurate, potent words to describe the US government. How to convey the twisted, detached from reality, spirit of that entity best in language, though, I need to expand the lexicon. Maybe using these words is cheap. Maybe it covers over the intentionality and corruption at play.

So I'm going to open this up to some language play - and ask you, anon, and anyone else what words can we find to convey the negative meaning of delusional (detached from truth) and narcissistic (inverted and self concerned to the point of dysfunction), in English? or in another language?

I hope you can take this in good faith not as a deflection but really engaging with your ask.

Being language corrected can trigger my harshest defenses. I can feel in my body all the times someone has punished, invalidated, dismissed something I've said because of using "uncivil" or foul or imperfect language. In general, trying to conform to correct ideological forms of language is like, major wretched, dude.

Hell my dorky ass disingenuous nerd of a brother yesterday called a message I sent the family group chat about Palestine "blasphemous" because I said " my god" and used it as an excuse to delete every impassioned exchange we had so the "children wouldn't see," - him be racist, cough. can't make this shit up.

But that's my background. Catholicism is a mental illness. (Sorry in advance to all mental illness havers for associating you with Catholics)

[goldkirk]

I have not volunteered a single fact about my past and my new therapist has not asked a single thing about my past and it’s weird but I’m interested to see if trying therapy THIS way helps.

We talk about my symptoms, we talk about my perspective and thoughts about symptoms and events, and that’s IT. I keep waiting for her to ask about something or ask why I think xyz way or whatever and she doesn’t, and I thought it’d be best to start therapy by giving the best summary I could to therapists but I keep running away from them eventually and so this time I was like “what if I just don’t” and we’re three sessions in and she just asks lots and lots of questions. Like, questions I can ANSWER, about daily life stuff or what I think about xyz. I knew you could do it like this, just going in to get help with symptoms and not actually talking about anything, but I didn’t think that meant ME

[lostandsearching]

Benny's Bar

Parings: Natasha Romanoff x fem!Reader

Word count: 8.4K+ Big one...my bad

Summary: Natasha's life was never the same after the battle with Thanos, she lost her best friend Clint on Vormir and this sent her spiraling into misery. So what happens when she meets the bartender Y/N? Will fate be kind to her just this once or take her unawares, wrenching her heart in the process?

Warning: Mentions of alcohol abuse, blackouts, blood, implications of death, implies sex, mentions sterilization (just in case) if there's anything you think I should add please let me know

A/N: So not sure what came over writing this and I honestly did try to make it a short one but I clearly failed. Please heed the warnings if any such content triggers you, please avoid reading. I don't want it upsetting anyone. Also try to squint with the time line and the hospital stuff, I'm obviously not versed in doc speak. Hope you enjoy it and I'll always welcome feedback and reblogs :)

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. This was not meant to be Natasha’s life. Tears streamed down her face as she gazed at your exhausted expression, laying on the hospital bed. How did she get here?

//

Years ago

Natasha had been frequenting this particular bar, having had enough of Wanda constantly hovering around her. Why isn’t she allowed a drink? She’s a fully grown woman and retired now. The Avengers have long since been disbanded. The loss of three original Avengers and Vision, plus two leaving was a hole that could not be filled, similar to the Widow’s heart.

So here she was again, eyes cast down to a glass of vodka and sitting on a ridiculously uncomfortable stool. Everyone in there knew who she was but they didn’t dare interrupt her nightly sessions, not since the first time somebody tried.

“You know, you won’t get the answers you need in a bar right? You tease lightly

Natasha drags her unfocused vision towards the sound of the voice until it somewhat lands on Y/E/C. “I wasn’t aware I asked for your opinion” Natasha retorts back with a huff. Had it been another night, had you said something else, Natasha would have thought you beautiful and taken you home, but not tonight. Tonight the only company she needed was the cold glass in her hands.

“I’d be surprised if you are aware of much at all” you quip back playfully, no hint of menace in your tone. Before Natasha can retort, you turn your back and serve another customer. Once again Natasha is left to the company of the burning clear liquid, pulling her closer and closer to oblivion’s embrace.

/

She wakes on tear stained pillows, huddled in a ball under her sheets. The ex-spy doesn’t know how she got home or when she got home but then again, she never does anymore. She turns her head to see the tall glass of water and Advil on her bedside table, Wanda’s doing as usual. She makes quick work of taking the pills and swallowing down the liquid, part of her wishing it was something else.

She begins her day much like every other. She tries to remove the remnants of the night before and goes through the intel that Bucky and Sam have sent her. She may no longer be an Avenger but that doesn’t mean she can’t help and those boys need all the help they can get. Sitting in her small office, nursing a hot cup of coffee, she hears the tell-tale footsteps of another argument approaching.

“Please not today Wanda. Bucky has sent me the flimsiest rumour of some vague drug cartel that I need to decipher because he still hasn’t figured out how to add an attachment” Natasha grumbles out, eyes never leaving the screen. She doesn’t need to see the disappointment on her friend’s face.

“Please come with me to the grief group. It’s helping me with Vision, I know it will help you too if you try” Wanda says gently. She knows if she pushes too hard, it will only trigger the older woman to start drinking earlier.

“I don’t need a group of strangers to help me through anything. I’m fine” the frustration growing in Natasha’s tone. With a loaded sigh, Wanda trudges away defeated. Natasha leans back in her chair and closes her eyes, heart already full of lead. Everyday Wanda tries and everyday Nat pushes her away but the Widow can’t let the woman in, she lost Clint and it’s destroying her. She doesn’t deserve Wanda’s care or love. It should have been her.

She opens a drawer on her desk and pulls the bottle and glass out. She has her first drink.

/

Natasha doesn’t know when she got there or how long she’s been there but the sound of your voice brings her back to momentary clarity.

“So are you going to give me the silent treatment tonight?” you question with mock annoyance.

“Wah?” Natasha slurs out full of confusion as her green eyes look up at you.

“I said...you should really go home now, you were drunk when you came in here so god only knows how bad it is now after all those drinks” you chuckle out.

Even in a drunken stupor, Natasha’s training is ever present and she can hear the concern hidden underneath the layer of joviality. “M fine” is all she can muster out.

“I really need to ban that word” you say plainly, causing the red head to furrow her eyes in confusion. You can’t help but think she looks adorable. “The word fine, you say it every night” you explain.

“S’cuz I am…Fine”

“Ok sweetheart, if you say so” you reply lightly before once again walking away to go about your work.

Natasha’s stomach flips at the endearing pet name. She’s not sure why, but for a moment she lets her eyes try to focus on your frame as you lean over the bar counter to hear a patron’s order. You are certainly beautiful and in that fleeting moment, she wonders what it would be like for you to be draped in her arms.

She turns her thoughts away from you, she doesn’t deserve anybody’s warmth. It should have been her. She takes another swig and lets the burning sensation tear her thoughts away. She falls into oblivion.

/

She wakes up in bed once more, clueless on the events of the night before. Once again, she sees that Wanda has left her a glass of water and some Advil. She silently thanks the witch for these small graces.

She begins her day like every other, but today, Wanda has had enough.

“When are you going to stop drinking yourself to death” her Sokovian accent is heavy in her words.

“You couldn’t wait for me to at least have a cup of coffee first?” Nat retorts angrily. She doesn’t like being cornered first thing in the morning.

“I can’t watch you keep doing this Nat, I lost them too” Wanda says with a shaky voice

“THEN DON’T! LEAVE! YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE HERE! I’M FINE ON MY OWN” Natasha screams out, she can’t hold back her anger and she watches the younger woman flinch at her outburst. That causes a painful knot in her heart. She takes calming breaths and pinches the bridge of her nose to stave of the growing headache.

“I’m fine Wanda. I get myself home safely every night so you don’t have to worry about me” she tries to say calmly. She looks at friend to see Wanda’s face knotted with confusion. “What?” Natasha asks

“What do you mean you get yourself home?” Wanda asks carefully, still trying to piece together what Natasha remembers.

This has Natasha rolling her eyes and huffing with impatience. “I wake up in bed every morning so clearly I get myself home just fine” Natasha grits out.

“Nat…Y/N brings you home every night and tucks you in. You’re too drunk to do anything”

“Who the hell is Y/N?”

Now it’s Nat’s turn to be lost in confusion. She doesn’t know a Y/N much less how this Y/N knows where she lives.

Wanda’s face softens at this with a hidden pang of pity in her heart for you. All this time, Natasha never knew how much you did for her and clearly you never told her. She was going to set it right.

Wanda told Natasha of all the early mornings that you would have Natasha draped against you as you tried to manoeuvre the assassin into bed. You would always take her home after your shift at Benny’s, Natasha being in no state to do so. You would keep a watchful eye on her as you worked the bar to make sure no-one took advantage of the red head’s vulnerable state. Occasionally, you would hold her in bed as sobs wracked her body, you would hold her until sleep took hold of her instead. You would always leave a glass of water and Advil on her bedside table before you departed.

Wanda held back the moments she shared with the Y/H/C woman. Those moments were for her. In all the months of caring for Natasha, you had also cared for the witch, fast becoming friends. Natasha may not have known to appreciate you then but Wanda made sure she did, always sending you away with a portion of her cooking and a new recipe to try.

When Wanda finishes her explanation, Natasha is nothing but still, face devoid of any emotion at the revelation. Even if Wanda wasn’t a mind reader, she knew Natasha well enough to know that she was in inner turmoil. Gently she reaches out to her friend, her sister, and places a calming hand on Natasha’s shoulder.

“Why don’t you start by saying thank you. Y/N works the evening shift” Wanda says warmly, a gentle smile on her face.

“Yeah…”

/

Natasha is nervous, she doesn’t know how to approach you much less thank you, maybe she should have had that drink first. She steps out of her car and looks up at the flashing neon light claiming the place to be Benny’s Bar. She takes a deep breath and pushes against the bar door to enter the confines of the place, sober for the first time.

Her senses are instantly assaulted with the smells of sticky sweat, variations of body sprays and perfumes, and stale alcohol that has seeped into the wood floors, spilled by its drunken patrons. Her ears vibrate uncomfortably with the obnoxious music booming from the jukebox in the corner, some inebriated man leaning against it trying to pick out a song. Natasha takes the bar in, it’s not a dive but it’s definitely not for the refined either. It’s small enough to not attract too many customers but large enough to be easily lost in the crowd.

She keeps scanning the room until her green eyes finally land on your form exiting the kitchen doors to make your way behind the bar, rag in hand. Natasha takes measured strides towards you, hiding her unease with the situation. You aren’t aware of Natasha’s silent approach as you wipe down the bar, cleaning it down only for it to be covered in alcohol again later.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Natasha asks you pointedly

Her steadfast voice garners your attention and you look away from your work towards the fiery redhead. For a moment, you say nothing, only taking in the beautiful woman before you. You note the steadiness in her forest green eyes as they regard you and the straightness of her spine as she stands there, waiting for a reply. She’s sober.

“I didn’t see the point, you never seemed to remember me the next night anyway” you say with a smile hoping to convey that you didn’t take it bitterly.

“If I didn’t remember, why did you keep doing it then?” Natasha can’t help but ask. She was just supposed to thank you but she couldn’t hold back the questioning thoughts.

“Do I need you to remember to do the right thing?” you quip back plainly.

“They are thankless actions. What’s the point in helping some drunk woman that can’t remember to appreciate it?” Natasha responds, eyes furrowed in confusion. Why would anyone go through that for nothing, much less for her?

“So was being an Avenger, but you did it anyway because it was the right thing to do” you say, hand on your hip challenging the assassin to come up with an argument.

“That’s different, I did a lot of terrible things in my past, I was just…wiping the red away” Natasha replies, her jaw clenching at the growing discomfort with the turn of the conversation.

“We’ve all done terrible things sweetheart but I don’t think that’s what’s bothering you.” You say gently. Natasha’s stomach flips at the endearing name, she’s felt this in the past but before she is too lost in thought, you continue talking.

“I think you believe you don’t deserve to be taken care of. I don’t think you would question what I did, if I did it for someone else but…for you…it’s inconceivable. But you’re wrong, no matter what bad things you’ve done or think you have done, you still deserve to be taken care of” giving Natasha a small smile when you finish speaking.

The assassin is trained to expose and extract every lie from a person just by looking at them. She searches your face, your stance, she keeps searching but finds nothing but truth in your words. She cannot explain why but your words touch a part of Natasha’s soul that has long been devoid and unreachable. She feels warm and her heart beats a little faster.

“Thank you, for everything” Natasha finally says, with some vulnerability in her voice.

“You’re very welcome. Seeing as you’ll remember this time, my name is Y/N, Y/N Y/L/N” you say smiling brightly at the red head, hand extended out in greeting.

“Natasha, Natasha Romanoff” she replies, taking your hand in her strong ones, squeezing gently. Your heart flutters at the contact and you can’t fight the rising blush on your cheeks. It only worsens when you note how her cheeks are tinted with the faintest hue of pink. Eventually you both pull away, already missing the feeling of her cold hands in your warm ones.

“So what can I get you Natasha?” you say playfully and you are rewarded with a small smile from her.

Natasha takes a moment and taps her slender finger against her chin in mock thought. She already knows what she wants to drink. She knew the moment she felt electricity coursing through her veins when your hand was wrapped in hers.

“You have any fruit smoothies?” she asks, eyebrow quirked and lip upturned in challenge. You can’t help biting your bottom lip at her cocky demeanour.

“For you…I’m sure I can make something work” you say teasingly before throwing her a wink and begin making her drink.

Natasha watches you with an odd fondness and familiarity. Her mind might have forgotten you but she’s sure her body and her heart never did, holding onto those moments as you gripped her tightly, never letting her truly fall into the abyss. Natasha doesn’t drink again.

//

Present

Natasha doesn’t understand what she could have done to deserve this. She can hear Wanda’s attempt at silently crying in the corner but she can’t tear her gaze away from your drooping eyes. She reaches out gently caressing your cheek and even in your drained state, you lean into her touch.

“It’s ok moya lyubov (my love), you can rest now” she chokes out. You smile gently at this and finally let your eyes close.

//

A few years ago

After the battle with Thanos, Natasha’s life had been turned upside down and she believed it would never be righted again. How wrong she was. All it took was a kind bartender and a shake of warm hands against cold ones.

Natasha never touched a drop of alcohol again after your first sober interaction. She went as far as having Wanda help her purge their little apartment together of any and all alcoholic beverages. Natasha took steps to heal the pain that she was going through. She joined Wanda in the grief group, much to the younger witch’s joy. Natasha didn’t speak much but she was always attentive, mulling over not only her friend’s words but the other group members shared experiences. It helped her understand her own feelings a little more.

Yes the grief group was helpful, just like Wanda said it would be, but nothing was more helpful to Natasha’s healing than you. She had taken to picking you up from Benny’s after your shift as a form of thanks for everything you had done for her, it was an excuse to spend time with you.

Short conversations in car rides home turned into longer conversations over morning coffee. You actively listened to Natasha, not only about her Avenger days but about her in general. She would note how your eyes would light up like the sun whenever she shared a piece of information about herself. She remembers a time where you practically leapt from your chair with excitement, begging Natasha to show you a dance when she shared that she loved to do ballet.

Whenever Natasha was having a bad day, you would notice with one look. The first time it had happened you gave her directions to a dance studio, one belonging to a friend’s mother, and told her to collect her gear from her apartment, the journey was spent wordlessly. You understood that Natasha needed to dance away her pain and worries. When exhaustion would finally force her to stop, she would fall apart and you would wrap your arms around the broken woman, accepting her pain and sharing in her burdens. When she was calmer, she’d pull away from the embrace whispering her thanks. Your heart would ache but you let go anyway.

It eventually became routine for Natasha to pick you up from work and take you for friendly coffee, sometimes to the studio where she would crumble and eventually pull away from your calming hold. The pattern never deviated until that one day. Natasha picked you up as usual but her hard demeanour and the darkness in her eyes told you she was struggling today.

“Studio?” you ask. She simply responded with a nod of her head before driving away. It went as it always did, you unlocked the studio, preparing the lights and the music as Natasha got changed and ready. You would sit patiently on the floor off to the side as she danced with all the emotion she was being ladened with.

You could see the strength and grace radiating from her with each pirouette and contortion of her athletic body. You also saw the pain and the loss she suffered etched on her face become more visible as her dance progressed. She would dance and dance until the flood gates holding back her sorrow would burst. You would rush to her side once again and hold her surely in your arms, letting her express her pain, accepting it all until she inevitably pulled away.

Once her heart-breaking sobs dwindle down to whimpers, you steel your heart in preparation for her disentanglement from you. You’re caught by surprise when she lifts her head from your tear soaked chest and places her cold hand on your cheek. You can’t stop yourself from melting into her touch. Y/E/C stare into her forest green ones, red and puffy from crying yet her eyes are still a vision of endless beauty to you, her pain just a part of her humanity. You are so lost in Natasha’s eyes that you don’t register her leaning in and tilting her head giving you time to pull away. When you make no move, she connects her soft red lips against yours in a chaste kiss.

Your mind explodes with realisation at what is happening before you place your hands on her hips to pull her closer into you. At that moment, the world falls away and there is only Natasha. The feel of her full lips moving against yours in perfect harmony was as if you had done this in every lifetime and your souls already knew how to dance to the tune of your love. The taste of lingering salty tears melded beautifully with sweetness that was purely her. Every nerve in your body vibrated with the love you felt for the red head and you wordlessly conveyed this through your connected lips. You were first to pull away, leaning your forehead against Natasha’s, trying to catch your breath. For a while, you both sit there silently, eyes shut, her hands on your cheeks, yours on her hips, basking in each other’s silent profession of love. Natasha never pulls away from your embrace.

/

A couple of years rolled by like the perfect imperfect romance, Natasha was still after all the Black Widow. You had to learn when to wade in and charge at her built up walls or when you merely needed to fall back, patiently waiting for her to bring them down herself. The first year was a tentative dance as you learnt the intricacies of each other but even when the fear of love would take hold of the Widow, causing her to pull away from you, the red string of fate refused to snap and she would be in your arms once more.

It wasn’t long before the ebb and flow of your relationship steadied itself into a comforting life of domesticity. Wanda eventually moved out of the apartment shared with Natasha, quoting the annoyingly thin walls as a reason, and you had moved in. Your life with Natasha was turbulent at times but she never drank a drop and you never left her side. The joy and love you had for each other would always outshine the darkness that threatened to creep into Natasha’s heart.

/

A few years would pass before the time arrived that things needed to change. The way life was in that moment, was no longer enough for Natasha. She needed more, she wanted more, she was unsatisfied. You noticed the strange behaviour almost immediately, Natasha might have been a world class spy but you were her girlfriend and you knew her like the back of your hand.

Fear started to niggle at you when Natasha would disappear early in the mornings, leaving you alone in bed with her side cold from her departure. Asking her where she went would only provide you one of two responses, a lie or outright annoyance at your inquisition. You wouldn’t ask again.

The sinking feeling in your heart only grew worse when Natasha would quickly disengage from your hold at the sound of her phone ringing, rushing away to answer it in another room. At times her face would look overjoyed after the call and other times, she looked like the Black Widow, ready to murder the next person that crossed her. You wanted to ask, but you thought otherwise, you trusted Natasha, right?

The final nail in the coffin was when Natasha would leave and not return. You would try to stay awake on the couch, waiting for her return, only to wake the next morning in the same spot, bed sheets still made. Your heart was being torn apart by the woman you love and you couldn’t take it anymore. You were going to confront her.

“What is going on with you?” you ask her as soon as Natasha enters the room, throwing her keys in the bowl.

“Nothing, I don’t know what you’re talking about” She replies nonchalantly. Her quick dismissal has your blood boiling.

“Do you think I’m stupid Romanoff?” you spit out.

This has Natasha’s attention now, you never call her by her name much less her last name. She loved that quirk about you. You would always opt to call her baby, or hun but her favourite would always be when you called her sweetheart.

“I…of course not moya lyubov. Why would you think that?” Natasha's eyes look into your pained ones and she instinctively reaches out to you but you move out of her reach. This twists her heart in two as she lets her hands fall back to her sides.

“First you disappear in the mornings and when I ask, you snap at me, then you suddenly become very secretive with your phone calls and now…NOW YOU DON’T EVEN COME HOME!” you shout out, letting out all the building pain and frustration out of its confines.

Natasha’s eyes grow wide with shock, in all the time you've spent together, even when you were frustrated with her, you had never once raised your voice to her. You were the picture of patience and temperance.

“Are you tired of being with me? Do I not make you happy anymore?” you meekly question, fighting back the tears building in your eyes at the thought that Natasha might confirm your worst fears.

The sight of you hugging yourself, so broken and vulnerable, forces Natasha out of her daze and rushing to sweep you into a crushing embrace. You don’t pull away this time, believing that you should etch the feeling of her arms wrapped around you in case this is the last time you felt them. She gently holds your chin in her hand and pulls it up so you lock gazes.

Natasha wants you to look straight into her eyes so you know the depth of her sincerity when she speaks.

“Y/N, I love you more than anything in this world, more than anyone in this world. You saw the broken pieces of me and glued me back together with your love. I would NEVER tire of being with you, because I could never be without you” She says vehemently, hoping you believe her.

You look into her forest green orbs and all you see is honesty and her all-encompassing love for you. You trust she means what she says.

“Then what is it sweetheart? I need you to talk to me” you whisper out to her, gripping onto her shirt, your entrenched fear still not abating.

“You’re right, there is more and it’s been frustrating me. I’m sorry I’ve been taking it out on the one person I shouldn’t have” Natasha apologizes before pressing a lingering kiss on your forehead. “I want more Y/N, I want more than this” She whispers out to you unsteadily.

You feel your heart break at her words but the look in Natasha’s eyes roots you in place, you don’t pull away from her grasp.

“I don’t want you to just be my girlfriend, I want you to be my wife. I don’t just want this apartment, I want a house. I’ve been trying to find the perfect ring and the perfect home so we can start our perfect life because Y/N…I already found the perfect woman to spend the rest of it with”. Her admission was steady and pouring with all the emotion she normally caged in.

Tears fall freely down your face and your heart explodes with overwhelming joy. You are so engrossed in your happiness, it doesn’t register that Natasha is pulling away from you only to get on one knee. You can’t comprehend when the small velvet box appeared in her hands and it isn’t until the glint from the simple diamond ring shines in your eyes that you come back to yourself.

“Y/N, will…” Natasha begins but before she can finish the question you launch yourself at the assassin.

“YES!” you shout through your tears.

This is not how Natasha wanted to propose but the pure exhilaration on your face has her heart melting. She couldn’t hold back the few tears that escaped her eyes as she gently slid the silver banded ring on your finger. You shared a passionate kiss, full of hopes and of promises for your future together.

/

You were married the following summer, a simple reception with close family only. The remaining Avengers made an appearance with Natasha’s mother, Melina, walking her down the aisle and Yelena by her side as maid of honour. Benny walked you down the aisle towards Natasha, you considered the bar owner as your own father, the one you wished you had. Wanda was overjoyed to be your maid of honour and to help you plan for this auspicious day.

The day was a blur of teary vows, full of love, expressed to one another and endless dancing and joy. You weren’t too impressed with Bruce’s linger stares at your wife but her green orbs never left you, not for a second. She held you close until the music died down and the guests trickled away. She held you closer when you were a mass of tangled limbs underneath cool sheets, spending your first night together as wives in your new home. She held you impossibly close, her breasts pressed against your back, arms wrapped around your waist as you welcomed slumber together.

//

Present

Natasha’s feet clack through the hospital halls as they make steady progress towards their destination. Wanda, ever the supportive friend, gripped Natasha’s hand tightly as they weaved the maze of halls, the silent tears now dry on her face.

Natasha isn’t sure she is ready to see, it’s all too much. The ex-spy knows that once her green gaze lands on the scene she so sorely yearns for, she won’t be able to let go. It’s too soon, she won’t be able to leave.

//

One Year Ago

All those couples that would complain that marriage was the first step towards misery were clearly never married to Natasha, lucky you. Your marriage was excruciatingly blissful. Natasha had opened up to you in ways she never did until she was called Natasha L/N-Romanoff. She became fully open with her affections and those long standing walls were non-existent to you. Your wife gifted you the key to her soul and you cherished it.

The years full of romantic anniversaries, countless spontaneous adventures and endless nights huddled together lovingly still could not fill the one hole left in your wife’s heart. You knew Natasha wanted a child and you wanted it too, you just wanted it to be hers.

After many long excited conversations in the day and fear induced tears in the night, you and Natasha finally decided to make an appointment with the best fertility clinic in New York. Natasha’s connections with Pepper Stark allowed you both to waive the year long waiting list and were seen the next day.

Natasha wracked with nerves could just about hold her false display of confidence, face masked with casual indifference, much less speak. You had taken to speaking for the both of you, telling the clinic doctor about Natasha’s sterilization and your own wishes to have her child. The doctor would go on to explain that there is a possibility that the sterilization did not destroy Natasha’s eggs therefore your wish could be possible, however, considering the unknown methods of sterilization it cannot be guaranteed.

“But there is a chance?” This was the first time Natasha spoke and to anyone but you, the tremble in her voice was expertly hidden.

“Yes” the doctor replied kindly. Natasha turns to you and you can see the fear in her eyes that the latter might be true but within the fear a hope shines brightly through.

“We have a chance” she whispers to you as if there was no-one but you in that moment.

“Yes sweetheart, we have a chance” your tone mirroring your wife’s. For a second you simply look into each other’s eyes, having a silent conversation on whether this was a door you wanted to open together. With a soft stroke of Natasha’s cheek and a quick kiss planted on her lips, Natasha hears your wordless confirmation.

“Do whatever tests you need to do” Natasha directs at the doctor and with that, he sets to work on booking in future appointments.

/

It doesn’t take long for the tests to be held and for you and Natasha to be once again sitting in the same office, waiting for the doctor to return. Natasha is still as a statue and to untrained eyes, she was the calmer of the two of you. What those untrained eyes would fail to see was the iron grip the assassin held your thigh with, you knew it would bruise but you didn’t stop her. They would also fail to notice the tightness in her jaw as her unfocused gaze looked out the window. You would give her vice-like grip on you a gentle squeeze to bring her back from whatever dark thoughts were ruminating in her mind.

The tense atmosphere only heightened when the doctor finally entered and sat at his desk, pouring over the file in his hands wordlessly. You can feel Natasha’s hackles begin to rise at the lack of an answer so you opt to intervene, afraid your wife might literally rip his head off.

“What news do you have for us doctor” you ask while gently squeezing Natasha’s thigh to soothe her growing annoyance. You feel her slowly relax under your touch.

Finally the doctor looks up from the file to address you, annoyingly slow even for you. “Good news, ladies. Natasha has plenty of perfectly healthy and viable eggs that can be implanted in you Mrs. L/N-Romanoff and from the tests you undertook, your womb is perfectly healthy as well. You need only pick a donor and we can begin” he explains. He goes on to provide you with the necessary access to their database of donors with their in-depth profiling. You know Natasha will dig further.

You thank the doctor calmly but you can already feel the storm of emotions brewing within your wife, so you make quick work in getting the red head home. It isn’t until you are within the safety of your home and she hears the front door shut followed by a clink of your keys being thrown in a bowl that she falls apart. You rush to her side much like you had all those years ago in the studio and wrap your steady arms around the beautiful woman.

Natasha believed that there was never any hope for her. The red-room made her believe she had no-one, no family, then she got the Avengers, she got her mama and Yelena back. The red-room taught her that love was for children, for the weak and then she met you, loved you and it made her stronger. The red-room convinced her that she was never going to have children of her own, she may not be able to carry, but they were wrong there too. She was going to have a child with the woman she loves. She was slowly becoming whole.

When the red head finally calmed down she gripped your face in her hands and crashed her full lips against yours in a breath-taking kiss but as fast as it began, it quickly ended, leaving your head spinning. Natasha is quickly on her feet pulling you up with her and leading you to the bedroom. You spent countless hours that night, at Natasha’s mercy as she poured all her pain, her joy and her love into you. You accepted everything the red head gave you with silent screams of her name slipping from your lips.

/

Natasha newly reinvigorated, with you a little sorer for it, poured her new found energy into finding the perfect donor. She would spend days with you as you would mull over the profiles together, choosing donors you both agreed on, and evenings, while you cooked, accessing the re-established S.H.I.E.L.D. database to find every single detail about the short listed donors. Was it legal, probably not but this was Natasha you were talking about. The Black Widow took no half measures in anything.

/

It wasn’t long before the perfect donor was found and it seemed time only propelled forward. It was a haze of appointments, doctors and cold hands wrapped around warm ones that lead you to this moment, sitting on your bed, eyes trained on the pregnancy test waiting for the second line as Natasha nervously paced up and down the room.

“Sweetheart, I love you but if you don’t stop walking a hole in my floor, I will kill you” you say with endearment. You take your eyes away from the test for a moment to look at your wife, her face stricken with worry. You can see all the endless questions of what if’s swimming around in her green eyes. Before you can say anything to reassure her, you watch as her eyes widen comically, staring at the test beside.

“The line…there’s two” she whispers out, never taking her attention off the test.

Finally you pull your gaze away and turn your attention to the test, picking it up and examining it clearly. There were indeed two clear lines. It worked, you were pregnant with Natasha’s baby. You weren’t sure when it started but it wasn’t until Natasha was crouched in front of you, wiping away at your cheeks, that you realised you were crying.

“We’re going to have a baby” you mutter out, tears still streaming down your face slowly.

“Yes moya lyubov, we’re going to have a baby” Natasha says softly. Her tone breaks the damn and your gentle stream of tears becomes wracked sobs. Natasha wraps her strong arms around you as cry into the crook of her neck. She rubs soothing shapes on any part of your exposed skin that her cold fingers made contact with.

She held you unquestioningly until your sobs withered away into whimpers, only then did she step away and run you a bath. Natasha knew you weren’t one for crying but when emotions became too much for you, the aching sobs would leave you emotionally and physically exhausted. She would help you out of your clothes and ease you into the warm bath, playing soothing music in the background before giving you space. She accepted that you needed time to collect yourself once more. That night Natasha worshipped you in every way possible. Each stroke of her fingers, kiss of lips or exploration of her tongue was slow and sensual. She took her time in loving every inch of you as she whispered your name, full of devotion

/

To say that your wife was a worrier was an understatement. Natasha had taken to spending endless days researching everything there is to know about new parenthood. You thought it was adorable if not somewhat frustrating. Frustrating because now you couldn’t get into the top snack cupboard, not quite having worked out the baby-proofing gadget Natasha has attached to everything. You also can’t get into the cupboard that contained the toilet rolls.

“Why is the toilet roll cupboard baby-proofed?” you asked with slight indignation, hormones already playing with your normally calm moods.

“What if our baby gets in there and suffocates in all those rolls?” she replies with a serious tone, concern evident on her face.

You can’t help but soften at her expression and the weight of worry on her shoulders. You move towards her and wrap your arms around her neck as her hands instinctively rests around your waist pulling you closer.

“How about we move the tissue rolls in the top cupboard way out of reach, without a baby lock? Would that be better hun?” you ask sweetly, no hint of criticism in your words.

Natasha relaxes with your words and into your arms as she snuggles her face into the crook of your neck before replying.

“Yeah…”

/

The first trimester was a breeze and you foolishly thought the next two would be just as easy. How wrong you were. Natasha was the picture perfect wife to your ever hormonal and temperamental moods. You would quickly go from extremely loving, bordering on needy, to snappy at the tiniest inconvenience and worst of all, you would cry at the drop of a hat.

Natasha knew you were having a hard day today, you’re very active bundle of joy hadn’t relented in kicking every single one of your organs and your bladder on far too many occasions. You were tired, in pain, and your feet were uncomfortably swollen. She thought your favourite Pixar movie, Wall-E, would cheer you up. It’s all very cute and nobody dies. Bad move.

She’s rubbing your feet absentmindedly, eyes trained on the screen showing the fat space residents hovering around from place to place before your quiet sobs draws the red head’s attention. Worry courses through her.

“Y/N, what’s wrong? Is something hurting love?” She rumbles out quickly

“The….they’re…so fat. It made me think…if I was that fat…you wouldn’t love me anymore…but look at me…I am FAT.” You choke out past your sobs. This was ridiculous and you knew it, damn these hormones.

“You aren’t fat detka, you’re beautiful and you’re carrying our baby. I couldn’t love you more now even if I tried” Natasha tries, squeezing your foot gently in reassurance. She can feel you relax beside her slowly. “Do you want to go to bed?”

“Yes please” you squeak out, already having had enough of the day, all you want to do is sleep in your wife’s arms.

Natasha doesn’t hesitate and simply begins turning off the TV and helping you onto your feet, hand resting supportively on your back as you make your way to the bedroom together. You go about your nightly routine before finally settling under thin sheets, sleeping in just your underwear. Natasha’s front is pressed against your back as her arm is draped against your every growing bump, drawing lazy circles on the exposed skin.

“Thank you for being so patient with me, I love you” you whisper in the dark

“Always moya lyubov. I love you too” she whispers back, nuzzling into the back of your neck as you both gently welcome slumber.

//

Present

Natasha finally reaches the room, her cold hands pull away from Wanda’s and press against the clear glass in front of her. She pushes hard against the smooth surface, her palms going white, in efforts to get as close as she can. Tears pour down her face unhindered.

‘She’s beautiful’ Natasha thinks to herself. Our daughter is beautiful.

//

Hours Ago

Things were progressing well with your pregnancy and everything was ready in your home for your new arrival, Natasha wanted to be fully prepared. You still didn’t know the sex of your child, both of you wanting to wait until the big day only two and half months away.

You were casually lounging on the sofa, heavily engrossed in reading Catching Fire while Natasha attempts to cook you pancakes when a fleeting stab of pain in your abdomen catches you off guard. You press your hand instinctively against your belly even as the pain disappears. Your heart quickens with worry but you try not to panic. This is normal right? You ignore the twittering voices in your head telling you it’s not.

It happened again, more painful and more prolonged this time while you and Natasha were laughing about something on the TV, causing you to audibly groan in discomfort, eyes shutting and hands resting protectively on your belly.

“Y/N what’s wrong baby?” Natasha was quick to rush to your side, one hand on your cheek and one on your bump. Fear courses through the assassin’s veins that something was wrong. The pained look on your face was different to all the other times.

You lean into her cold hand, letting it soothe the pain faintly lingering behind. When you open your eyes, they meet her fearful green orbs. You reach out to her and smooth the wrinkles creased in between her furrowed brows before pulling her face towards you gently to kiss away any last remnants left behind.

“I’m ok sweetheart, it was nothing. I’m sure it’s just Braxton Hicks. The doctor said it might happen at this stage” you whisper, trying to ease your wife’s worrying. In the back of your mind, the niggling thoughts buzz annoyingly, you ignore them again.

Natasha is an expert spy, she can spot a lie a mile away. A part of her sees the lie but she wants to so badly believe everything is fine that she believes your lie as truth. She doesn’t push and her body relaxes while the back of her mind screams. The one time you needed the no nonsense Black Widow, she was nowhere to be found, it was a mistake.

The next time it happened the pain exploded within you and refused to abate. The empty plate you were carrying towards the sink falls unceremoniously from your grasp, shattering loudly on the wooden floors with you crumbling beside it next.

Natasha was working in the nursery, creating the last touches when her ears perked at the smashing sound, you were a bit clumsy lately so she didn’t immediately react but her heart hammered loudly against her chest, something was wrong.

“NATASHA!” you screamed fearfully

The assassin flew into action and rushed towards your call, faster than her limbs have ever moved her. Her head was screaming and her heart more closely resembled a pounding drum against her rib cage. Nothing she felt compared to the white noise that greeted her at the sight of your crumpled form on the floor, sitting in a pool of blood.

“Something is very wrong Nat” you choke out with a sob. Your voice yanks Natasha out of her fearful stupor and she moves purposefully towards you. It has been long since Natasha has been in the field but her ingrained training forced her to continue her rigorous exercise diligently. She effortlessly sweeps you into her arms and carries you bridal style, grabbing the keys from the bowl, and making a quick exit towards your car. Not bothering to lock the door.

She gently places you onto the passenger side with a quick kiss on your sweat soaked forehead. Natasha’s fear is renewed by the taste of your salty perspiration on her lips. She runs to the driver seat, throwing the car into gear before flying towards the clinic at record breaking speeds. All the while she listens to your grunts and tears of pain as you cradle your bump, trying to protect your unborn child.

You aren’t sure when you got there, or how long you had been there for but Natasha’s fearful and angry shouts brings you back to momentary clarity. Your shaky hand reaches out and rests on your wife’s cheek in effort to garner her attention. Her green orbs quickly snap to you, her attention undivided.

“Anya” you hoarsely whisper through the pain. You watch as her face contorts in utter confusion.

“Her name is Anya, she’ll be strong like her mama, like you” you weakly clarify. Natasha doesn’t understand, neither of you know the sex but the look of surety on your pain ridden face has her not questioning it, simply nodding in confirmation.

“Her before me” your words are becoming more laboured and it takes a few seconds for the ex-spy to comprehend the meaning of your words.

“No…Don’t…” she mutters out through trembling lips, eyes blurring with pooling tears.

You run your thumb gently against her cheek trying to convey every ounce of love you feel with the small action.

“It’s ok. Let me go sweetheart. Her before me” you say with as much strength as you can muster. You are suddenly ripped away from Natasha’s arms and placed on a gurney to be rushed to the E.R.

The red head is left standing there, arms limp by her side, covered in your blood as she watches the nurses wheel you away from her. When you are out of sight, she finally lets the tears free fall before whispering to you, hoping her feelings will carry what her words cannot express.

“Yeah…”

//

Present

“Thank you for being here Wanda” Natasha says never taking her eyes off her daughter.

“You know I always will be” the other woman replies gently. At some point in the evening, Natasha had mindlessly called the younger woman as she relayed confused explanations of what the doctors had told her. All Wanda understood was chord, distress and haemorrhage as she gathered her belongings with extra sets of clothes for Natasha, heading straight to the hospital.

Natasha pulls her loving gaze away from her new-born daughter in the incubator. The doctors had reassured her that for a preterm birth, Anya was strong and would safely pull through. She turned her gaze to the woman by her side, two different shades of green meeting with silent understanding of where Natasha needs to go now, alone. With a reassuring squeeze of Natasha’s hand, Wanda turns her attention back to her niece.

Once again, the clacks of her feet echo in the quiet halls of the hospital. This was the good thing about such a private and expensive clinic, she didn’t need to deal with the hustle and bustle of general hospitals that were over capacity with dozens of doctors and nurses rushing about.

The walk to her destination seemed like a floating haze, as if she was in one moment with Wanda only to be in this moment, standing beside you. Her green eyes scan over your emotionless, grey features with your eyes shut, shielding Y/E/C from her view. She looks at the scratchy white sheet draped over you and she wonders if they couldn’t have got something better.

“She’s beautiful moya lyubov. Anya is beautiful. She already has red fuzz on the top of her head and she’s so little but the doctors said she’s strong, you were right” Natasha whispers as a few tears escape their confines. She gently caresses your cool cheek, ever so lovingly.

For once, since your first touch at Benny’s Bar, cold hands meet cool skin and this breaks the red head’s heart. But eventually you stir from your slumber, the pressure of her hand on your skin, drawing you from your dreamless sleep.

Finally her forest green eyes can land on Y/E/C as you try to blink the sleep away.

“I’m always right” you sigh out, having caught the last of your wife’s words.

“Not always” Natasha remarks plainly, happiness slowly returning to her face as she hears your melodic voice regaining its strength slowly. She thanked modern science and blood transfusion for these large graces.

“When was I ever wrong?” You squint at her with mild indignation

“You once said I wouldn’t get the answers I need in a bar. You were wrong. I got you and you were the answer to everything” Natasha replies softly as she grabs your slowly warming hand to cup them in her cold ones. You radiate with love at her admission having thought that she had no recollection of any of your conversations on those fateful nights.

No, this was not supposed to be Natasha’s life, it was supposed to be her not him...but this is her life and it was him. She silently thanks her friend, her brother for the beautiful life she gets to live, with you, with Anya.

Taglist: @vancityfire13 @mindofwesley

[comicaurora]

What's your process for creating side characters (the the Junior Archivist, the Arenamaster, etc)?

It's initially a matter of determining what's important about these characters and how that would inform their designs and the potential implications thereof. Then it's about working around the potential Unfortunate Implications of different design choices to settle on something chill. With really minor/background characters these considerations are brief, but with speaking characters I usually mull them over at least a little.

For the junior archivist, since she's a positively-framed and generally decent person, there weren't really many considerations. Because of Zuurith's established worldbuilding, making her human made sense, as that's the largest regional population. I also wanted to avoid the worldbuilding pitfall of "sure I have black people in my world, they're way over there and if I ever show them they'll be slaves or barbarians or something" because Fucking Yikes, so I designed her accordingly. (Anecdote, years back I lamented to a friend of mine that I was worried my worldbuilding was too limited and that I wasn't addressing any of the nuances of the demographics I didn't belong to, and he said "do you have black people in your world who aren't slaves or slave-adjacent?" and I said "of course" and he said something to the effect of "game of thrones doesn't. the bar is really low. I just want a world I could imagine existing peacefully in. you're fine")

The arenamaster was actually a bit trickier, because he's a villain. There are a lot of villain and evil-prisonmaster-specific visual design tropes I wanted to avoid, because I'm of the opinion that nobody should be able to tell who's good or evil just by looking at them. I briefly considered loading him with jewelry to contrast the spartan poverty of the gladiators, but unfortunately "effeminate male villain enslaving people" is one of those weird and probably homophobic holdovers from classic fantasy (ref cit how they designed Xerxes in 300) I wanted to avoid. I also considered making him larger-built, either well-fed or very buff, but I wanted to highlight that his authority had no connection with physical power or strength, but instead relied on a social system that artificially empowered him and rendered others artificially powerless. It seemed like a better idea to make him slender and unimposing, almost a dark reflection of Erin - or who Erin could've been if he were less moral - to highlight the parallel that neither hold power because of their physical ability. And while this world doesn't have the same kind of colorism or sexism as ours does, I thought it'd be most communicative to make him pale and male, because, as mentioned, his character is heavily themed about abusing systemic privilege and that coding is more recognizable to a real-world audience than many others, a la Del Toro's "pale man" from Pan's Labyrinth. Then I gave him the skunk stripe hairdo because his design was kinda boring.

Caveat that all of this thinking-through was a pretty quick process. I wasn't exactly agonizing over this, it was mostly just a quick red-flag check before I finalized the designs. It was more like "I could-? Nah, that's iffy. Maybe this? Ooh, yeah, okay."

[seyaryminamoto]

my school works are piled up this past few weeks (graduating tingz) and i just started reading the deadlock novel it feels like i'm reading a sokkla fic every time Mcashe has a scene because they just give off the vibes skskskskksksks. BTW, what's your top5 fav scenes from the novel? PS: I'm smiling like an idiot while reading the novel ughh i hate myself

I KNOW, RIIIIIGHT?! *-* and don't hate yourself, my anon friend, I spent the whole novel smiling and laughing and losing my goddamn mind because I was having the time of my life xD enjoy this beautiful content as best you can!

I mean, frankly, Reunion already had all the Sokkla vibes I could've wanted/needed to ship these two like FedEx and I always knew I wasn't getting off this ride anytime soon. But gosh, this book... it gave me everything I wanted and MORE! Their dynamics are soooo similar to Sokkla team-up dynamics, two power couples kicking ass and taking names... oh, I just love it so much. I probably will end up reading the book a third time soon x'D

As for my favorite scenes, damn, this is tricky xD

KEYCHAIN! HE MADE HER KEYCHAIN!! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!! God, it's just amazing how the book explains the "vintage" look for Ashe's hoverbike the way it does, and that they literally built it together *screams!!!*, but then he gives her that keychain for her birthday present, and the implications!! THE IMPLICATIONS!!! He gave her a keychain she's held onto for TWENTY YEARS?!?!?! Ships in the OW fandom have sailed far and wide with less than breadcrumbs: we literally have been granted a boon from the GODS with all this extra context for the little things in Reunion xD

Ashe going to hell and back to save her kidnapped BFF-for-whom-she-totally-doesn't-have-feelings-yeah-yeah-sure-Jan. I love the fact that McCree is, in a way, Ashe's damsel in distress and not the other way around xD Of course, it's what you'd expect from an Ashe-centric story, but it's still an amazing sequence, all around. Gotta highlight how she loves the way he smiles like a madman when they have that shootout at the end, and how he worries so much over Ashe's injury when he took an even worse one than she did (the Sokkla vibes in that particular situation were SO STRONG! I SWEAR!).

"Jesse McCree, are you trying to make me say you're handsome?" "Am I?" ... do I need to say more. That FLIRTING. These two were on fire already and they'd only known each other for like... weeks, at this point? x'D He has no sense of moderation, he's soooo into her and doesn't hide it at all. Ashe is so busy trying to plot all the crime and Jesse's practically like a shojo heroine, "oh I can feel it, this is how my love story begins!", basically xD

Finally I pick a not-McAshe scene... to bring up the one where Ashe picks up the Viper on her last moment in Lead Rose Manor. That moment was just... POWERFUL. The feeling of epicness in that scene just overwhelmed me when I was reading it xD

The ending of the book :'D the fully formed Deadlock Gang ready for business, down to the explanation for the Est. 1976 in the logo... *sobs* the fact that so much about the character design choices in these two characters is a shoutout to the past they share is just... *gross sobbing* oh, I just love it to pieces, I'm not even sorry.

Ashe's bike race to save B.O.B. x'D that whole situation was bonkers but I looooved how fierce she was about protecting her one and only buddy while growing up (AND THAT JESSE BLUSHED WHEN SHE TAUNTED HIM WAS JUST THE CHERRY ON TOP!). I appreciated learning more about the Omnic War and its consequences, how Ashe reflects on having escaped it practically untouched in virtue of her money and societal privilege while her new friends all faced many hardships to survive. But I can't help but also love that, however uneasy others could have been about the Best Omnic Butler, Ashe was so fiercely loyal to B.O.B. that she nearly broke Julian's nose herself over his ridiculousness x'D That's HER big omnic buddy and she's not about to lose him to anyone, not her shitty parents, not a bet in a race, NOTHING! (and it's so cute that B.O.B. is just as loyal to her, too *sobs*)

Ashe grabbing McCree's arm to explain things to him on their first heist and him being all "you gonna leave that there?" and only then does she realize her hand's still on him x'D what a McCree line, and he was absolutely enjoying the attention, he doesn't even pretend otherwise.

Everything poetic McCree says or does... meanwhile Ashe's like "um yeah I don't care about poetry I want money", right until his poet soul totally smashes her square in the heart with the KEYCHAIN!!! But damn, I swear I thought McCree would hold back a lot more, and yet there he was, saying things like Calamity was brilliant and mysterious... you could practically hear B.O.B., Julian and Frankie going "I can see what's happening..." in the background xD

The conversation about what they wanted to do once they were loaded with all the cash they could possibly want. That one was a real number on my heartstrings. It ties up to what I said earlier with Ashe finally being in touch with people who are completely removed from the ridiculous social circles of her parents and her school, people who really lost a lot in the war. But where Julian and Frankie seem to look at the past a lot, I loved that Jesse is basically just thinking about the future. The fact that he says he wants to chill out in a farm and that this is what he wants in life... many, MANY, shippy wheels have turned in my head since I read that <.< maaaany...

WHEN JESSE NEARLY FALLS AND ASHE CATCHES HIM!!! UNDERRRATED AS HECK!!! The fact that he's taunting her about fear of heights, then he nearly plummets to his death because ironies are beautiful xD and Ashe pulls him back to safety only to say that she's not afraid of heights but afraid of ~FALLING~??? I mean, okay, sure, maybe I'm reading too much into that line... or maybe I'm not <.< either way, the truth is I just love how absolutely broad of interpretation that scene and that DIALOGUE are :> ehehehe.

Oh, their first encounter. The fact that it's so cute and fun, and that it's this low in the list tells you how GOOD this book was x'D "You've got an awful lot of grit for a rich girl," first words he spoke to the love of his life xD then how they talked and laughed together about the crazy stories he shared (she was crying of laughter for the first time in her life! precious girl!), and then how she sat in the car thinking about the strange feeling she was left with after meeting him... they seriously had a meetcute in prison, how can a ship get any better? xD

WHEN HE COMES BACK TO HER WHEN THEIR FIRST HEIST GOES WRONG!!! That Ashe expects him to just leave after she falls off their getaway vehicle, but Jesse saves her and goes "pfft that's just not my style", basically... *sobs* without realizing it she ends up picking up that particular philosophy of his, saving her friends no matter the cost...! Honestly, though, the fact that every time something like this happens it hits Ashe like a truck racing downhill with no brakes because she's NEVER been cared about by anyone but B.O.B. and she's completely new to friendships and bonding with people... and in the mean time, Jesse immediately is "ride or die" with her because that's how he rolls... beautiful relationship dynamics between characters who influence each other for the better are just beautiful :')

A silly one here: Jesse enjoying the good life in Lead Rose. That description of him looking like a marshmallow in the CHAISE LOUNGEEEEE!!! (the one he references in their in-game interactions *CRYING SO MANY TEARS*), was just too cute to bear x'D Ashe just jumping back into work mode... while he was just thrilled to be a marshmallow in a towel xD

... So, um, I went overboard because I love this book a little too much for my own good :> what can I say? When things I love are good, I go wild xD There's probably more scenes I loved, but these... thirteen? XD are the ones that came to mind.

I think one of my favorite things now is reexamining Reunion with all this extra context in mind. The first time I watched that cinematic I, of course, fell in love with these two outlaws because how could I not? But while subsequent rewatches revealed a lot of things I didn't pay enough attention to the first time around, the book has done even more than I could imagine possible for a short that was already as shippy as could be xD

Ooookay so, shippy ramblings about Reunion, coming up! (simply because I have to put these down SOMEWHERE XD and your ask was a good idea for that, anon!)

First off, Jesse very much staged the whole rodeo in Reunion. He sent the tip to Ashe, he wanted Echo's crate specifically. He thought they could work together, basically, despite knowing it was entirely possible that those hopes wouldn't pay off. This train, according to the wikia, was a government train, so Jesse is very much telling Ashe to give a finger to the government for all he cares, all he wants is one (1) crate.

Ergo, Jesse, for all his "nice guy bountyhunter" deal, doesn't disapprove of Deadlock's actions. If anything, he counts on them to be exactly what he needs in order to get what he wants. He practically trusts Ashe to pull off the train heist disaster perfectly and only steps up when it's time to collect Echo.

Then the wacky shoot-out happens, it's veeeery charged (the UST is so thick, I swear...), and Jesse wins. He ties up Ashe, floats her off on the payload with the rest of the gang, and he sets Echo free. He's helping her out very nicely and everything, but the context in question is... he received the recall notification thingy XD Winston called him back to Overwatch, and Jesse...

... Jesse doesn't want to go back.

Jesse says "they want me", and the displeased tone of his voice, paired with the look on his face when he says that line, speak for themselves.

That, in my humble opinion, isn't the sequence of expressions you'd expect from someone who intends to return to the group where he thrived, had the time of his life and found his true calling. To me, he actually looks irritated about the recall (the sequence of expressions during that line is much better when you watch the full thing x'D), as though he REALLY doesn't want to return. He's not against Overwatch, I'm not quite saying that, otherwise he wouldn't have set Echo free and told her to go back at all... but this isn't remorse. It's not "Oh, I'm not good enough for Overwatch anymore". Nope... this is "My time with them is over and I don't plan on going back unless I have no choice", as far as I can tell.

If OW2 does bring him back into the fold and he's a perfectly chill and happy guy about it, I'll seriously be surprised. I mean, he could have set Echo free and, once his business is over, returned to Overwatch with her, he could have been in the Paris cinematic if he'd done that...

But he's not there.

Which outright says he didn't do that :> oops.

Basically, I think Jesse's reaction in Retribution (where he's markedly the most morally correct one of the bunch, and he's the former outlaw :'D) tells you his displeasure with Overwatch ran very, very deep. And someone can very easily say he felt the same way about Deadlock and that's why he left them for Overwatch... but that's conjecture. His displeasure with Blackwatch (and, in consequence, Overwatch), however, is FACT. And the previous conjecture falls flat pretty quickly considering he's perfectly fine with Ashe's train heist, even sets it up himself, from what the story suggests, so... how ~appalled~ was he over her choices and actions? Not appalled at all, if you ask me, and after you read Deadlock Rebels, you actually understand why: Jesse trusts Ashe.

From the first moment she enters the same prison block he's in, he's drawn to her. He wants to impress her, he absolutely enjoys her company and making her laugh (just as much as she enjoyed laughing at his wacky stories), and he's plain thrilled that she comes back for him when she does. Ashe manages the gang with inexperience but she's always willing to improve, and you see Jesse sticking with her through thick and thin, supporting her at the best and worst times alike, always putting his faith on her and constantly watching out for her (he protected and shielded her from attacks with his own body sooooo many times *sobs*). Ashe starts out intending to keep most profits for herself, and Jesse doesn't care much at first... but then she starts to share profit equally between their team. She works on her own bike herself, her own ride, and she plans and solves problems as best she can, to a point of even going overboard with planning too much. She's wild, reckless and takes insane risks... and this guy loves every second of it. The matter of morality regarding the actions of a criminal gang is, of course, something to think about... but as far as the book goes, Ashe mainly targets her own family, their specific brand of bullshit, and in the process she ends up helping lots of people and even saving lives that might not have been saved otherwise. I'm not going to put my hand on the fire here and say Deadlock never ever did anything absolutely wrong to people who didn't deserve it... but for a criminal gang? They're honestly the most wholesome one the OW team could have come up with, if you ask me.

So where you see Jesse is very much antagonistic with Reaper/Reyes, where he loses his temper with the guy's choices, he doesn't ever do that with Ashe. Overwatch ARE supposed to be the good guys... so how weird that Jesse McCree, reformed outlaw, ends up so disappointed with these guys when he was actually thrilled with Ashe's managing of their gang, as far as we saw. So much so that, when it came down to it, Jesse McCree, 20 years later, still counts on Ashe to give him a hand (without her full awareness) with a little operation to help out an old friend of his. Also worth pointing out: he doesn't want to fight at all, while Ashe, of course, does. Deadlock for life, is what Jesse said... and he's not Deadlock anymore, hasn't been for who knows how long. Worse yet... his tattooed arm is gone. It's like all his ties to Deadlock have been severed.

And even so, he came to Ashe and hoped she wouldn't want a shootout with him. Even when he knows she might be beyond unforgiving because of the betrayal (he has seen directly how outraged she was about a certain someone betraying her in the book...), Jesse goes back anyway and hopes it won't come to this.

THE IMPLICATIONS, MAN!!!

Carrying on: Echo is surprised that Jesse shows no intentions of going back to Overwatch. She asks him what he's going to do... and what does Jesse say?

He puts his cowboy hat back on (the symbolism in this short, I swear...), and when she asks him what he's going to do, he tells her "I've got some business to attend to."

THE MUSIC PICKS UP.

AND THEN HE CLIMBS ON THE BIKE HE BUILT WITH ASHE.

YOU GET A DELIBERATE CLOSE-UP TO THE KEYCHAIN.

THEN THE CAMERA PANS UP TO FOCUS ON THE PICTURE, TORN AND TAPED BACK TOGETHER, THAT ASHE CARRIES ON THIS BIKE, A BIKE WHICH, LET'S BE REAL, IS BASICALLY A MCASHE BABY CHOPPER/HOVERBIKE HYBRID, AND AS SHE PUTS IT LATER, IS...

HER

BIKE!!!

When Jesse says he has business to attend to, he could pick up any bike he wants (since it'd stand to reason that the other guys Ashe came in with would have bikes of their own). He could escape on horseback for all we know xD so there are lots of options... but no. He takes HERS. Right after saying he has "business to attend to".

Look, I could be wrong. I could be dead wrong. I can absolutely be digging around and going INSANE because nothing I ship EVER gets this much content.

But we literally get a guy saying he has "business" to take care of, and the cinematic focuses exclusively on elements that, even BEFORE Deadlock Rebels, all point towards Ashe?! You could easily say that taking her bike is just the final nail on the coffin, his last trolling idea to mess with his one true love... but that picture is right there. That picture, with them in their youth. The picture, btw, was bigger than just them: B.O.B.'s hand is there. The top of the picture is uneven, suggesting Ashe probably tore it to shreds in a fit of rage... and then specifically put together THEIR PART. And then she taped that to her bike's dashboard. Meaning, she carries the goddamn memory of Jesse with her EVERYWHERE SHE GOES. And she does it WILLINGLY.

Which, in turn, answers why Jesse expects MAYBE Ashe wouldn't go full-on hostile when they meet: this trolling cowboy knows exactly what he means to Ashe. He's not surprised when he sees that picture on the bike. He doesn't toss it away, which he could have, if he were saying "we are history now, forget it gurl" (and let's be honest, what a dick move that would have been @_@), he doesn't flinch after noticing and then goes "yeah, no, I'm picking another bike".

NOPE. The familiarity with which they talk, the way he hopes she'll just let him walk away, the fact that she DIDN'T change the keychain and bike in all those years and he's not even SURPRISED...

Jesse knows how much she loves him, point-blank. He's completely aware of it... and he's very much okay with it.

So much so... that I'm something of a 90% sure that the business he intends to deal with is ASHE HERSELF.

And no, I don't mean he's going to go on another shootout with her... I mean, evidently, that Jesse wants to come home. That he's tried the life of Overwatch, and he's decided to leave it behind. He's turned bountyhunter now, vigilante, pretty much... but he comes back to Ashe all the same. He's come back for the first time in who knows how long (going by Ashe's expressions and sarcasm with the "you promised you'd write" line, it miiiiiiight be they haven't seen each other since he got recruited into Blackwatch), and he expected a peaceful encounter, no less.

A good question to ask here is... what did Jesse hope would happen, if the encounter HAD been peaceful? He would've released Echo, sent her away to her business, and stayed behind anyway because he had business to deal with. Which business? :'D why... the business that would've been standing right in front of him.

There's no other, logical reason why this cinematic would put Ashe and McCree's picture into focus right when McCree says what he does to Echo. There's no other reasonable choice why McCree would turn his back on Overwatch quite so firmly. We know he had two important ties in his life: Overwatch and Deadlock. And Overwatch stole him away from Deadlock for a VERY long time. Well over half the time Deadlock has been in operations, as far as I can tell. He picked Overwatch over Deadlock once before... and now, it seems he's picking Deadlock over Overwatch instead :')

The follow-up short, Roadtrip, doesn't do anything to change my mind. The trolling jerk, Jesse McCree, hovers past Ashe's payload, where she's just... complaining, as she hovers xD going by what I know of the game and that map, the payload may just be en route to the gang's hideout, so that, I'd say, could explain why she hasn't climbed off it or escaped in any way (which she reasonably would have, if Jesse was trying to, I don't know, send her and her people to the authorities).

My point here is, however, that Jesse is headed the same way the payload is. If his destination is the same one, he'll beat it there for sure. Maybe, yes, he'll go away and drive well past the hideout... but maybe that's exactly where he intended to go.

Maybe, in the end, Reunion is about a man who's finally coming home :D

In addition, goes without saying, Ashe's rant about how everyone falls to pieces over Jesse showing his "stupid mug" (uh-huh, stupid, ANGELIC mug, we know what you really think, girl xD) ends with her saying she should have "put a bullet in him the minute he showed up".

Which begs the question of why didn't she.

Then, of course, she says she hates McCree when he drives past her while listening to some really ridiculous honky-tonky-sounding music x'D I cannot even help but imagine him deliberately picking that radio station or whatever it was just to annoy Ashe when he drove beside her, and so that she can get extra pissed when she retrieves her beloved bike, turns on the music and it's just more honky-tonky stuff x'D but anyway, the thing is she shouts after him, tells him that's her bike and says she hates him. B.O.B. wordlessly speaks for us McAshe shippers by giving Ashe the most "sure, Jan" side-eye in the history of side-eyes, and Ashe notices and is outraged enough to knock B.O.B.'s little hat right off his head again.

Again... this is renowned outlaw Elizabeth Caledonia "Calamity" Ashe, sitting on a payload, groaning about the guy she once very much had feelings for (and that doesn't even begin to cut it, if you ask me x'D) and for whom she tooooootally doesn't anymore, that picture on her bike doesn't MEAN that, OBVIOUSLYYYY!!, and so, she sits up, complains and doesn't do much of anything to get out of her current situation, right? :>

So, summing up my current understanding of EVERYTHING, thanks to Deadlock Rebels and my obsessive rewatches of Reunion + Roadtrip:

Jesse deliberately sought out Ashe so she would indirectly, unknowingly, help him set Echo free from the government's clutches.

Jesse hoped for a peaceful encounter despite knowing he might not get one.

Jesse has no intentions of returning to Overwatch but was willing to perform one final act of service for them by releasing Echo so she'd go give Winston and co. a hand.

Jesse is NOT surprised to see that Ashe: 1. Didn't change bikes at some point in the twenty years since they built it. 2. Didn't swap the ignition key for a button, the way she says she thought to do it in the novel until he gives her the keychain. 3. KEPT THE POETIC AF KEYCHAIN, despite resenting Jesse for his betrayal. 4. KEEPS A PICTURE OF THEM IN THEIR YOUNGER YEARS PASTED ON HER BIKE'S DASHBOARD.

Jesse claims he has business to deal with: he doesn't clarify said business verbally, but every shot after he says those words focuses on elements related to Ashe... and then, along with the novel's context, it's elements related to their BOND. Everything in that shot, EVERYTHING, is connected to the two of them. Elements that weren't shown before or during their shootout, and that are only introduced in that final moment when McCree is off to deal with his "business".

Ashe doesn't climb off the payload or stops it (which, going by how McCree simply pressed a button, and Ashe isn't immobilized in the least, she easily could have done it too if she had wanted to). Suggesting that, wherever the payload is heading, it isn't anywhere dangerous for Ashe and her crew, ergo, she is 100% sure McCree isn't trying to screw her over by turning her in to the authorities or so (or, at worst, she's completely confident that, even if he is going to do this, she'll be able to get out of it easily).

Jesse drives in the same direction the payload is headed. Another hint that suggests he might intend to head to the Deadlock hideout and that, whatever business he has left to deal with, it involves them.

If his intent ISN'T to go to the hideout... Jesse is still guaranteeing that Ashe will come after him by stealing her bike, the 18th birthday gift he gave her, and the picture she keeps of them. That he takes that very bike practically serves as painting a target on his back for her to hunt down, and he KNOWS IT.

In short: Jesse will have plenty of business with the Deadlock Gang in his future, and going by how pleased he seems to be when riding the bike, he's perfectly happy to handle that business on his terms, whenever he wants to handle it.

Extra tidbit: there's nothing in Deadlock Rebels about Jesse's smoking habit, something he definitely did pick up at some point while in the gang because, hahaha, he IS smoking in the picture Ashe keeps of him :> Which makes me wonder why, of all pictures Ashe chooses to keep on her bike's dashboard, she picks one where he's smoking.

Then, it makes me wonder about the fact that Jesse deliberately starts smoking when he's standing right in front of her (and then he winks at her!). He tosses that cigar after things get kind of dangerous for him because B.O.B. does something, and then... then he goes back to smoking.

RIGHT WHEN HE'S CLIMBING ON THE BIKE.

Like... seriously...

*unintelligible fangirl screaming*

I could be looking too deeply into this. I know I could be. Maybe Blizzard just wants me to go CRAZY with little symbolism and hints charged with SO MUCH MEANING that maybe don't have as much meaning as I thought it did...

... But man, I've sailed into the depths of the shippiest oceans for many ships that have gotten actual breadcrumbs from canon. I've gone wild over ships that have zero opportunity to become a thing in canon continuity. I've written a nearly 3M words story based on a ship that is just UNEXPLORED AMAZING POTENTIAL and ngl, I love exploring it myself, so I don't even begrudge canon that much for not giving it to me anymore.

But the fact is, no ship in OW, as far as I've seen, has remotely as much content, hints and strong ties as McAshe does -- at least, no ships between heroes. We had a cinematic that was CHARGED with significance, with little gestures, with even the smallest facial expressions that carried soooo much more meaning than whole episodes or even seasons in TV shows. And then? We got a novel. A full novel depicting their origins and exploring their dynamics, how tight their friendship was, and how some strong feelings were certainly brewing there, even if neither one was ready to act on them yet (as far as we saw...).

Finally... I'll say I did start working on a Sokkla Western AU ages ago because the idea I had for one was pretty amusing. Then Reunion dropped, and I said "Why would I need to finish that story anymore when the Sokkla Western AU is RIGHT HERE?!"

And that's it, I will stop rambling now because this got insanely long x'D but thank you very very much for giving me this chance to go WILD on everything I can see, within all those canon hints, with these two *-*

[lizzybeth1986]

I love the code name, and I'll hopefully remember to sign my messages with it from now on. I'm actually quite flattered that I've earned one, so ty for that. I somehow came up with 2 more questions, most likely to turn into essays, for you. 1 should be more lighthearted than the other, so I'm gonna start heavy if ya don't mind xD. You've touched briefly on how families affect the courtly ladies, so I wanted to see your take on how families have shaped the people at court. Have fun!-CL anon :D

You come up with such amazing questions, CL anon! How do you do it! 😁

So...hmm...how families shape the people in court. That's a pretty loaded question! And I mean "loaded" in the sense that when we're talking about "family" in an environment like this, we're also talking about the larger society they inhabit and what values from that society these parents were busy instilling in these children.

Sometimes the struggle I have with theorizing on these things, is that Book 1 starts out with very different ideas of what modern Cordonian society is supposed to be like, but by Book 3 or Book 4 they have developed other ideas that contradict it...or that you have to really work around to make sense of. For instance, the entire idea of open relationships being accepted in Cordonia that crops up conveniently in Book 2 just so the MC can sleep with whoever she wants after she's gotten engaged...yet the same society has such a strong disapproval of PDA that you can lose points with the general public for even joking about being intimate with someone (can these two things happen in the same space? Of course!! But that point from Book 2 does make the overall stuffy atmosphere in Book 1 about displaying affection look a little confusing, you have to admit). So...making sense of these things with the way the books have changed over the series is challenging, but doable.

The one thing that gets clearer and clearer as the story progresses...is that most noble children seem to grow into an awareness from a younger age itself that their public life should not reflect their private ones. Another is that, in the political climate of the time - they may not understand everything that is going on...but their parents have inadvertently taught them to grow up in fear (a legitimate fear, considering the threats at the time). I'll start with the palace, then move to the duchies. (I won't include Drake and Hana much in this, as Drake's family seemed to operate very differently - and honestly we know way more about his American roots than his Cordonian ones - and Hana grew up in another country...though there will be a short paragraph about her towards the end).

--

Liam

Liam grew up in the palace, the second son and younger brother to the royal heir, but you can tell there were things he had to learn pretty early on in his childhood. Things like compromise. Things like weighing what was more important to the country at a time when many children should be caring about their own needs.

It's not a very easy life, Liam's. His mother was murdered when he was still a young boy. His father often neglected him (remember the Eiffel Tower sequence where he justifies Constantine breaking a promise to visit the landmark with him, by recognizing that his father had bigger responsibilities as King?) and expected a great deal from him even at an early age (I mean...forcing an eight year old into hours of diplomacy meetings for three whole weeks??). And while race is never really mentioned in the books, the subtext is there that Eleanor and Liam possibly might have had to work harder for approval from the court than, say, Leo.

Added to this is the entry of Regina later on, after Eleanor's death. I feel like some aspects of her are based on Queen Elizabeth II - especially the way she advocates for stoicism in Book 1 (which is why she is so hard on herself after Constantine's death, in Book 3). Every move of hers is consciously planned and measured so that only certain aspects of herself will be visible to the general public, and I do think Liam draws a little bit on that with his own public image as well. This can be advantageous, because that means someone like Regina (and Liam) will be in control of their image. Only what they want to show, is shown. But it does mean that they have to weigh anything and everything they do with particular care.

In the "wedding advice" scene in Book 3, Liam speaks of how - even if they did have a conflict - Constantine and Regina would always show a publicly united front (and we see elements of that in the aftermath of the MC's scandal. Regina doesn't openly disagree with Constantine's actions, but she does adopt countermeasures because she sees a bigger picture that Constantine isn't willing to see). The family as a whole seems to be very image conscious (and they would be! The royals will be subject to way more scrutiny from the press and the public than most children, so parents will do whatever they can to protect those children from the worst aspects of it) and have to keep in mind that even their slightest reactions in public could have consequences. You see this pretty clearly in the way Liam handles the chaos at the Coronation Ball. He does what he has to, to calm the court down even though he is personally in turmoil - and we see how much turmoil he is in right after he has made his way to the MC's room.

This might be more extensive than most of the other characters, most coz he is an LI and some of his arc was supposed to revolve around being a different man from his father (they...dropped the ball on that one in Book 3).

Maxwell

To me, at least in the beginning, the Beaumonts were supposed to represent two extremes in one House. Propriety is extremely important, and you see this clearly in the way Bertrand speaks and acts and even thinks. But at the same time, their space is also a space for the nobility to let loose and go wild, as one can see from their Beaumont Bashes. These two extremes are represented pretty accurately in both Bertrand and Maxwell, and in a limited way in their parents as well.

Barthelemy expects a great deal out of his sons (even though he isn't exactly the best at meeting expectations himself. In that way he reminds me a little of Sebastian Delacroix's father from The Junior) and requires that they keep the honour of Beaumont House first. But the mother...even though we never actually meet her or even know her name (a pity)...we do know that she made people relaxed and comfortable around her, and wanted her younger boy to be happy with who he was. In Maxwell's wedding advice, he speaks of the importance of laughter - how his mother made his serious-looking father laugh and that was the most enduring image he had of their relationship.

But it's not like the family wasn't prey to the tense political climate that was there in the country when the boys were younger. For instance, Maxwell's fear of carousels is deeply rooted in his own family's fears of their children getting targeted - because he tells us "I was only three, I had no idea what was going on...And because our parents had spent so much time trying to warn us about dangers, I thought I was going to get murdered". I mean...imagine being three and having those thoughts!! I think that kind of insight should give us pause, because it does direct us to how an unstable political climate can bleed its way into the personal life or people, of their families and children.

I do wonder what implications and impact the discussions between Bartie Sr and Godfrey have on the family, though. Because if most of the fandom is right about what those two were planning, I see Bertrand and Madeleine as the people who will correct the wrongs of their parents in their support of the Crown, much in the way Olivia was last book.

Kiara

Kiki's family is actually my favourite of the lot, and we can see how she developed her skills in an environment that was supportive, and vibrant with challenges and creative stimulation. It's clear that she is one of the few people who really thrived in her family environment. Nothing was really forced on her: learning languages, and mock-treaties, and diplomacy were all things she had an aptitude for, so she went for them. And I'm guessing given the speed at which the book had Hakim and Joelle accept Zeke's decision (which could be retconning for all we know, but I do think it doesn't jar with their characterization until that point)...had Zeke opened up to them earlier, they would have figured out a way without the MC or Penelope having to convince him to open up in the first place.

One thing that I loved about Kiara's family arc was that if the MC tried to sass her about whether "everything in your family is a negotiation", or tried to cast Kiara and her family into this bland, staid stereotype of "negotiators who have no personal connection as a family", Kiki would shut that nonsense down. Every single time. She would establish that these are things important and personal to the family, and make it clear that the MC is no one to judge how they interact as a family.

Hakim and Joelle are my favourite older couple in the series, honestly. We're told they met and fell in love in college, and that their political views align more with Liam's than they do with Constantine's. In fact Liam at one point even tells us that Joelle was "the kind of person King Fabian would have approved of", and she speaks the same language about how it isn't merely enough for the country to be safe - it needs to thrive as well.

Hakim and Joelle are very different people, and in her wedding advice Kiara tells us they "delight in their differences". This is especially apparent in a fail play, where Hakim plans to go to the wedding, and Joelle winds up going to Switzerland. There's plenty of banter between them beforehand about their different ways of thinking, but expressing the same delight.

If there is only one flaw, it's in the writers - because in their mad rush to make Kiara's trauma look like it didn't matter in Castelserraillian, everyone was made to look as if they didn't care...including her parents. Which is bizarre coz the entire reason Hakim was going to leave in the first place was the fact that his daughter suffered in that attack! They never let Joelle mention anything about what Kiara went through, up until the end where she asks us if we took care of Kiara during the tour (and we are the fucking lowlifes here who didn't put the effort to, so Kiara ends up having to lie through her teeth that we "had my back").

I do see Kiara having a particular idea of "strength" that she holds everyone up to, including herself. The whole reason she even agrees with us when we manipulate/emotionally blackmail her into coming for the wedding, is because she's ashamed of herself. She wants to handle her trauma the way she handled everything else, and finds it impossible. I don't see anything that proves this is something she picked up from her family, because even while diplomatic, Hakim is open about his feelings when upset (eg. Constantine) and Joelle is expressive as well. It probably might be more of something she has imbibed in court, and in the overall culture of Cordonia itself. But the fact that the writers made sure she had support from no one, not even her family, up until readers raised questions....that is bizarre, and pretty disgusting.

But other than that, the family is interesting for their political views, and their openmindedness, which is rare in the noble family dynamics we have seen so far.

Olivia

Besides her love for knives and weapons, Olivia's determination to make the Nevrakis name one to look up to...is her entire story arc. Her story revolves around doing the exact opposite of what her parents did, of what her aunt and Anton Severus wanted to do.

Olivia is the rare person in the books who is shown without her family at all, and that is because she lost hers at the age of five. Her aunt (great-aunt in Book 1, but they made Lucretia her mother's sister in Book 3) left her and hid in the French Riviera, insisting that "the Nevrakis heir shouldn't have needed me to hold her hand and wipe away her little tears". This is something Olivia is angry about, but accepts because she has equally high standards of her own resilience.

There is plenty in the culture of Lythikos that contributes to Olivia's character as well. These people pride in their ability to survive, their determination to power through the most challenging, exacting situations. They're a militaristic society, and Olivia takes to that mindset like a fish to water. She believes in self-reliance because it's a hard bitter lesson she has had to grow up with (though one must not discount the value of Liam as a support) and because it's part of her culture, and it's become so much a part of her thinking that when the MC insists to Lucretia that relying on friends and allies is not weakness, just common sense - Olivia is equal parts grateful and shocked by the logic of that statement. It has literally never occurred to her that she can voluntarily reach out for help!

Olivia grew up in circumstances no child should have to grow up in, and manages to embody the best of her culture in contrast to her family. She adopts her father's moniker "if you can breathe you can stand, if you can stand you can fight", but reinterprets it to mean she can fight for her beliefs, fight for more than just her family and duchy. She adopts all the good in the Nevrakis clan while working to obliterate the parts that can place her loved ones in danger.

Penelope

I've actually mentioned this before, but one of the best examples of "winging it" you can see from the books, is Penelope. The writing for her just bounces from one gaffe to another so that when you look at her overall story, nothing adds up. You have to literally stretch logic to connect the dots in her story! (I know, because I've tried).

In Book 1 she suffers from seasickness, but somehow in Book 3 she has grown up by the seaside and there is practically no mention of aforementioned seasickness. In Book 2 her family insist that she not return to court without a suitor (both her parents!) yet somehow in Book 3 when we actually meet her family you'd wonder how Landon would have allowed such things to be said to his daughter. There's a no-pets-allowed rule among the royals that Liam somehow changed when he became King, so how the hell did Penelope's parents think she was going to manage court without her emotional support animals? That too a social season and an entire world tour after that?? A lot about the writing for this family doesn't even make sense, and in some ways you can tell that the writers realized they hit a goldmine with the arc about Penelope's anxiety only when they published it, and then milked it for all it was worth (I know that sounds awful, and it is. But if they'd really, genuinely planned this properly, Penelope wouldn't appear so poorly developed as a character).

Landon and Emmeline are meant to serve as an inspiration to Drake, for their commitment to their people is something he wants to emulate (either as a Duke, or as someone who will do...something in court, I guess). The writing splits the major concerns between them: Emmeline is the Duchess who inherited this estate, and who will work through any condition or situation she is in to do her best for them. Emmeline particularly, seems to have a similar drive to power through - as Olivia, Regina and Madeleine show - the worst situations in the name of "stand up for Portavira".

Landon on the other hand, is more concerned about Penelope's well-being (not that Emmeline isn't, it's more like she doesn't fully understand how difficult it all is for Penelope), and reluctant to place her in situations where she is not comfortable (which is why the hints about them in Book 2 sound so jarring on rereads).

What stands out to me, especially in Penelope's characterization is how much coddling she has come to expect, from everyone. There is very little effort - or even inclination - to right her wrongs. Part of this is the writers seriously retconning the narrative on what Penelope did to the MC, so that NO ONE ever brings it up again. But it's partly also because, as I said, they were fully ready to commit to her story in a way they didn't for Kiara. Often I wonder what it would be like if Landon and Emmeline did get to know about Penelope's involvement. I think they'd focus their anger on the Crown for placing her in that situation in the first place, and going by this characterization they may also make Penelope out to be the victim in this situation (which isn't too far off the mark - but we also mustn't ignore how coddled Penelope is most of the time and how entitled she often sounds). But even this wouldn't be so bad if we saw Penelope take responsibility for her actions, which she never does in Book 3.

One thing I do remember from her "wedding advice" was how she spoke a lot about the need to relax in their relationship, and how in-tune they are as a couple. So in a lot of ways their success with their duchy lies in how they balance their work and family (which apparently Landon seems more comfortable doing? Because he doesn't keep as much pressure on himself for Portavira in the way Emmeline does).

Penelope's family honestly...is a mixed bag. But I can say that for the most part they're supposed to represent a supportive family that deals with a child's diagnosis of their mental health by providing support, and a couple that is dedicated to their people.

Madeleine

The characterization for Madeleine also bounces from one concept to another, tbh. They started out with writing her as merely power-hungry, manipulative, duplicitous....before retconning completely and putting all of this under the label "patriotic". There is a huge, huge disconnect between the Madeleine that rejoiced in almost breaking her lady-in-waiting, and the one who places too much pressure on herself "for the sake of Cordonia". A North Pole to South Pole sized gap, really.

If it weren't for the fact that they wrote her family storyline only because they were really that desperate to make us sympathize with Madeleine, I would have found it interesting. The seeds of it begin in the second half of Book 2, when we notice Adeleide worrying about the pressure becoming Queen is going to place on Madeleine.

In Book 3, we're faced with her father who constantly dubs her a failure and doesn't see her as worthy of attention unless he can benefit from it. And with her mother, who wants to show her support, but can't in a way her daughter is comfortable with. There is a constant emphasis in Madeleine's storyline on expectations, dealing with constant failure, and resilience. She doesn't have the kind of support system she wants from either of her parents, so she has to find her own way to make lemonade out of those lemons. So each time she has to convince herself that each failure is only another step towards the biggest success possible (marrying into the royal family), and when she is robbed of that, twice, she is left having nothing else to muster up the motivation for. Which is why, then, they promote the Cordonia angle so aggressively.

Only problem is, you don't exactly get this impression from Book 2. A person with Book 3 Madeleine's bent of mind, whose main aim was to do her best for Cordonia and who spoke of the importance of an entourage...wouldn't be so short sighted as to think that just because she was engaged she won everything, esp when her last fiancé fell in love and broke off his engagement to her as well. She wouldn't be so careless in her treatment of her own ladies-in-waiting, all of whom (except Hana, and even her family has immense influence even though her mother is from a minor noble house) are from powerful Houses and families, whose support she would need in the future.

Even if one brushes off her bullying of Hana and Penelope as no big deal (as I'm very sure some of her fans do), the fact remains that at the very least such behaviour is short-sighted and in a better story would reveal that she doesn't exactly have Cordonia's best interests in mind after all, if she jumps at the slightest excuse to burn bridges with these powerful families before she even becomes Queen.

In any case...Madeleine's family ranks as one of the messiest of the lot - her father is uninterested/feigns disinterest in the country unless it involves being involved in some elaborate plot against the monarchy, and her mother shows disinterest in her duchy overall, but is clearly invested in what makes her daughter happy. Her mother is supportive, just not in the way Madeleine wants support.

Regina also hails from Krona, and Madeleine is in some ways a reflection of her values and beliefs - which is why the two get along so well. So even though Adeleide is the Duchess of Krona, I'm pretty sure she's an anomaly in a family full of women who practice stoicism and diplomacy in their regular lives.

Hana

This note is going to be small, because as I explained earlier she was brought up in a completely different environment. Hana was brought up in a manner meant to make her flexible to whichever family she would marry into - so she learns different styles of horse riding, learns diplomacy over a toy tea set, is expected to know all the 26 important dance varieties in Cordonia by the time she is an adult, grows up learning about the countries neighbouring Cordonia as well. I have a whole other essay that speaks about her upbringing alone, so I won't speak much about that here, but you definitely get the feeling that her parents spent so much time trying to cultivate an asset for themselves that they rarely ever stopped to think about her as a person.

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The overall impression I do get from modern Cordonian nobility in the books (not just from these guys, but also interactions with other nobles like Rashad and Neville, and palace staff like Bastien) is that Cordonia is a culturally diverse place, and people in different estates have different dynamics that are influenced by their family situation and by the culture they were born into, but overall there is more of an inclination to show resilience and power, than to confess to weakness. Which makes sense, because many of them are public figures under immense scrutiny, who are aware of the kind of message they could send if they show the slightest signs of weakness. That's my overall impression of this.

I hope you enjoyed that, CL anon! Now I'm curious about what the next question is 😀

[writcraft]

I don't know if you've posted an answer before, so I'm sorry if I'm asking you to repeat it, but given you're so open about bi stuff I thought I'd ask so as I can support people in the community better and stand up for them. I've never got the difference between bi and pan and I know you said it's not just about gender, so could you enlighten me please? Or link me to your answer if you've already done so? Thanks! You definitely make a different so honest and open. Don't doubt yourself ❤️

Hi Anon, thank you for the question. This is actually a pretty loaded question that can incite significant debate/upset so I hope my answer can remain relatively conflict free. There are certain misconceptions about around the ‘bi’ prefix - literally meaning ‘two’ - as relating to gender. That is incorrect. Like homosexuality and heterosexuality, bisexuality has its roots in science, studies of ‘sexual pathology’, where bisexuality was used to describe people who had sex with men and women. The ‘bi’ relates to both same sex and other sex attraction, just as homosexual means same sex attraction and heterosexual means opposite sex attraction. The word bisexual - as originally formulated - was the bridging of the two binary ends of the sexual orientation spectrum, and it encapsulates all fluid orientations which is why bisexuality sometimes functions as an ‘umbrella term’ within which many different identity labels fall, those labels appealing to different people for different reasons, which are typically very personal. 

The word pansexual (‘pan’ meaning ‘all’) is sometimes differentiated from bisexuality on the grounds that for pansexual people, gender is irrelevant, which can sometimes (depending on how such explanations of pansexuality are framed) suggest by implication that bisexual people don’t experience multifaceted attractions to people of different genders, that bisexuality is linguistically rooted in an adherence to binary gender and is, by extension, a transphobic failure to recognise gender beyond cis male and cis female, on account of the implications of ‘twoness’ within the word itself. Not only does bisexuality not originate from that kind of nuanced understanding of gender, but placing such limitations on the definition of bisexuality rewrites recent history. Bisexual literature such as the 1990s manifesto produced by the Bay Area Bisexual Network (x) suggests that bisexuality as a sexual orientation has never demanded a strict adherence to either a 50/50 weighting of attraction or to gender binaries: “Do not assume that bisexuality is binary or duogamous in nature: that we have “two” sides or that we must be involved simultaneously with both genders to be fulfilled human beings. In fact, don’t assume that there are only two genders.”

Many bisexual people feel the label is as fluid and inclusive as the pansexual label and the two are frequently used interchangeably. Some people use one, some people use both, some may use neither. I myself use ‘bisexual’ and ‘queer’, the latter speaking to the ‘queerness’ of my non-binary gender identity in a way that, for me, reflects that no specific label currently feels right for me in that regard. Labels - for those who find them useful - are intimate and personal choices and I have no issues whatsoever with people adopting whatever labels suit them best or using no labels at all. Sexuality is fluid and people may find themselves more aligned with a particular identity at a different point in their lives and that too is equally valid. What I do take issue with is when labels are described in a way which misunderstands identities where people already feel erased, misunderstood and invalid, or where definitions get repurposed in a way that marginalises other groups that ostensibly should feel part of broader LGBTQ+ communities. Examples would include if somebody might say ‘I identify as pansexual because bisexual is transphobic’ which not only grossly misunderstands bisexuality, but also demonstrates an ignorance of how many transgender people actually identify as bisexual themselves, or ‘I was bisexual but now I identify as gay and therefore bisexuality is a stepping stone’, or ‘pansexuals are by definition anti bisexual’. How you choose to identify is your choice, but harm can occur when in seeking to explain ones own identity in a way that invalidates or misrepresents another or which purports to speak on behalf of those with identities which are not our own.