#does ANYONE have raws of s1

[tsukiqumi]

[bamboozledbird]

IGNITE: A Teen Wolf S1 AU // Chapter 1 (reader version)

Characters: Stiles Stilinski, Sheriff Stilinski, Reader (You) Pairing: Eventual Stiles x Reader, but man are we talking slow burn Word Count: 4.8k Warnings: Canon typical gore/violence, parental death (rip to your fake mom), descriptions of burning, depictions of depression (apathy, dissociation, 'numb little bug' vibes) Tags: Canon has been lovingly scrapped for parts, author is a chaotic bi and it shows, prolific overuse of the em dash, the slowest of burns i fear

Summary: You can always smell ash long after the fire is gone. Perhaps, that’s why you still can’t breathe without choking on the past. It’s been four years since your mom died. Four years since she burned alive. For years since you didn’t. You survived, but they must have buried your heart with her because you feel like something halfway between a ghost and a lamb for slaughter. 

You can’t wash the smell of hospital out of clothes, not really. Maybe, that’s why death and disease follows Stiles wherever he goes now. It’s been eight years since his mom died. Eight years since he didn’t. Eight years since he decided that he wouldn’t let anyone he loved die ever again. He survived, but Scott’s new-found abilities and the murky world they’ve been dragged into is making it pretty damn hard to keep his promise. 

Time never stops turning. The grief never dissipates. Children soldier on—but in a town where all the monsters under the bed are real and old family skeletons rattle in every closet, how long can two fragile, breakable humans survive? 

Maybe, the real question is how long will they want to? Chapter Summary: After your annual interrogation with Sheriff Stilinski, you meet his son who turns out to be very handy with jumper cables and incoherent babbling.

A/N: Does this look familiar? It should lmao. I gave into the peer pressure. All the messages and requests were too powerful. Here is a reader version of my ofc season 1 fic. Obviously some things have been removed to get rid of specific names/descriptions, so you want to read the full thing you can read the og version and check me out on ao3 (dork_knight)! For the sake of not clogging tags, I'll probably just do my reader version on tumblr and the full oc lore version on ao3 from now on. xx

Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire.

Before your mother’s death, you would have picked fire. Every single time. 

You never liked the cold; never really had to get used to it growing up in central California—but the crux of your argument, the twisted logic behind it all, was that most burn victims died from suffocation before they felt the flames. A small mercy, really, in the face of unspeakable tragedy. 

In the end, however, statistics were just numbers, your mother didn't die from smoke inhalation, and there was no mercy in burying a parent before you were old enough to have children of your own. Nothing ever ended poetically off the page. Death was just death, and it was always ugly. Someone should really tell that to Robert Frost, you mused, biting at a raw hangnail.

The medical examiner said the actual cause of death was pulmonary edema; at least, that was his best guess based on the state of the body. He didn’t say that she felt everything, her skin peeling back into her flesh, her flesh liquefying into fuel, her joints flexing into contorted pleas until the fire incinerated her last nerve ending. He didn’t have to; you connected those dots all on your own. You’d been twelve at the time, not an imbecile. 

“I’m sorry to drag you through this all again.”

You flitted your eyes away from the flickering lightbulb above Sheriff Stilinski’s head and met his gaze; it was nauseatingly sympathetic. Your responding shrug was a small, little thing—more like a twitch in practice, “Not your fault.” 

Your yearly visits to Sheriff Stilinski’s office were solely your father’s doing, even if no one wanted to admit it to your face. Most mayors would use their political power to get their child out of a police station, not into it, but perhaps he stopped being your dad somewhere between the funeral and now. 

“If you could start—”

“From the beginning,” you smoothed your thumb in small circles over the armrest of your chair, attentively tracing patterns into the polished wood, “I know.” This was, after all, the fourth anniversary of your first interrogation. You’d become somewhat of an expert at being a useless witness. You picked at your uneven cuticles before continuing, “Mom put me to bed around 10:00—which was kind of late for a school night, honestly, but she let me stay up to finish another chapter anyway.” The right corner of your mouth twitched for a brief moment, “Nancy Drew: Password to Larkspur Lane. I told her that forcing someone to go to sleep in the middle of a mystery was specifically forbidden in Geneva Protocol II.” Your mom had been far too indulgent of your lip on most occasions, but that night she didn’t smile at your snarky aside. She let you finish the chapter because she was too tired to argue; you could tell. At the time, you saw it as a victory. Now, it kept you up at night, the drooping lines of your mother’s mouth spilling over the pages of whatever book you were trying to read.

You bit down on your tongue when a stray splinter snagged against the soft pad of your thumb, “Dad was out of town, so it was just the two of us. Mom always put me to bed when Dad was gone; said it was the only way she could get to sleep. Had to make sure my window was locked.” You paused for a long moment: everything went dark after this. Your mother kissed the top of your head, murmured, ‘Love you,’ turned out the light, and then that was it. You woke up in the hospital, and your mom was dead. 

A bead of sweat dripped onto your top lip. The air in the Beacon Hills police station was, without fail, sticky with heat and body odor—and it wasn’t just the oppressive Californian sun. Even in the winter, a person could choke on the stifling warmth. Idly, you wondered if it was a matter of interrogatory tactics or budgetary constraints. 

“And then,” Sheriff Stilinski prompted gently, though you both knew how the story went from here. You had told it to him and a dozen other officials at least a hundred times in the last four years. 

You bit down on your thumbnail and winced when your teeth snagged on the tender nail bed, “And then nothing. I opened my eyes, and a nurse said that you found me on the front lawn.” 

“You don’t remember how you got outside?” 

You shook your head, staring past the Sheriff's shoulder. Large pieces of dust floated through the air, highlighted by the slivers of light trickling through the blinds. Suddenly, you had a newfound appreciation for the lack of fans in the room. 

Sheriff Stilinski cleared his throat and rubbed his hand over his jaw, “You don’t remember saying it was an angel?”

Blinking slowly, you looked at the grim line of the Sheriff’s mouth and gripped your knees tightly, digging your fingers into fragile skin until your wrist cracked, “I should, right? I was twelve. I should remember something—that’s what everyone thinks. That’s what my dad thinks.” Your eyelids fluttered to a tight close, and your voice went so quiet you could barely be heard over the hum of the copier outside the door, “He thinks it was me. That’s why he makes you question me every year.” Copper flooded your mouth as the soft lining of your cheek split under the brunt of your teeth, “He thinks you’ll finally figure out how I did it.” 

You were scared to open your eyes as the silence stretched between the two of you. You’d danced around the subject before, hinted and spun around the heart of it, but you’d never truly discussed how it looked from the outside. Sheriff Stilinski had been kind enough to give you a few different excuses over the years: trauma, head injury, oxygen deprivation, just plain ol’ grief—but whatever caused your temporary amnesia wasn’t so conveniently explained. In fact, currently, you had no explanation at all. When you finally peeked through your lashes, clumped together with frustrated tears, you couldn’t quite figure out what expression the Sheriff was making. He leaned back in his desk chair and frowned, “I’m sure he doesn’t—”

“He does,” you cut him off. Your eyes went flinty, irises darkening to something far more ashen with the resolve of your anger. You never had any trouble reading your father’s face; the disgust was thinly-veiled between the flickers of fear. 

Sheriff Stilinksi leaned forward so that you had no choice but to look him in the eyes. They were kind—more tired than usual, but still kind. They always were. That was one thing you remembered from that day, waking up in the hospital to Sheriff Stilinski’s kind, watery blue eyes, just before the entire world fell apart. His voice was gentle, but firm, when he finally spoke, “I don’t.” 

You nodded numbly and pulled at a fraying string on the hem of your denim skirt until the thread snapped. 

“I mean it, kid. They couldn’t identify the source of the fire. They couldn’t even find an origin point; no twelve-year-old could pull that off.”

You chewed on your bottom lip, “Could anyone?”

Sheriff Stilinski’s brow furrowed, and his mouth screwed up into a crooked line, like he was chewing on his words and deciding if he should swallow them or spit them out. “I wish I had all the answers for you. I really do. Not knowing, it’s worse than any truth.”

You blinked up at him for a moment, once again taken aback by his raw sincerity, and swallowed hard. He wasn’t the one who was supposed to have the answers; he was the one who was supposed to ask the questions. There was one failure in his muggy office, and it wasn’t the Sheriff. “It’s okay,” you said quietly. “Not your fault.”

He looked like he wanted to argue the point, but whatever he wanted to say was interrupted by the sharp ringing of the phone on his desk. “I have to take this, but if you remember something, or if you just need to talk—”

“My dad spends a small fortune on a psychiatrist and a behavioral therapist for that,” you stood up quickly, shouldering your bag. You forced the corners of your mouth into a small smile, tight at the edges like a sheet that had been stretched too thin, “But thank you. For everything.” 

The Sheriff’s gaze darted to a framed photo on his desk. You had seen it before, on one of your many visits to his office. It was of a boy—his son, you assumed—he looked like he was around five or six at the time. He was grinning, wide enough to show off his missing incisors, and his fingers and wrist were stained cotton-candy blue from a melting popsicle. You must’ve been that happy once, right? In the beginning, everyone was unencumbered by the weight of imminent mortality. Maybe that’s what Sheriff Stilinski was thinking, too. He looked away from the photo and gave you a small smile, “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

You gave a half-hearted wave before wrapping your fingers around the strap of your backpack and walking to the parking lot. 

Outside, the sky was grim, a mocking reflection of the dour expression on your face. The spite in your eyes hardened when big, fat raindrops splattered against the apples of your cheeks. For a moment, you just stood there, glaring at the rain and cursing the cosmos for their utterly unamusing sense of humor.

A jeep pulled into the parking lot, and the squealing engine startled you back into reality. The search for your car keys was, of course, a considerable endeavor. Nothing could be easy. Not here. Not today. Not ever, you thought. A bit melodramatic maybe, but the weather was certainly ripe for a bit of self-pity.

You stacked your textbooks and binders onto the hood of your sedan, haphazardly throwing your jacket on top of the pile to protect your painstakingly penned Kafka essay from the rain. By the time your fingertips brushed against the cool metal of your car keys, your hair was damp and curling at the ends. 

The momentary relief was short-lived when you pressed the unlock button five times and the accompanying beep didn’t sound, not even once. For an absurdly long minute, all you could do was rest your forehead against the driver’s side window, breathing heavily until condensation gathered next to your mouth and the drizzle speckled dots onto the sleeves of your thin cotton shirt.

“If you’re trying to charge the battery through osmosis, it’d probably be more effective to smash your head against the hood.”

You jumped, and then flinched again when your keys clattered against the ground. You caught a glimpse of the phantom speaker in the side-view mirror; bizarrely, he looked just as surprised as you felt. You turned around, trepidatiously—objects may be closer than they appear n’all—and tried to swallow your rapidly rising heart. 

“Sorry,” the boy pulled the hood of his sweatshirt down and had the decency to look contrite, “big mouth.” He rubbed a hand over his chapped lips. “It’s a real problem. It’s so big, actually, that my foot just slides right in there like…all the time,” he gestured animatedly with a flat hand, a quick sliding motion, like a fish through water.

You blinked at him, slowly, and bent down to reach for your keys, “Might wanna see someone about that. Sounds unsanitary.”

“Eh, it’s hardly the worst thing I’ve put in my mouth,” he said, eyes widening into horrified round circles the second he stopped talking. A faint flush creeped up his neck to his ears, and your heart dropped back into your chest. Slashers and ax murderers didn’t blush. Probably. You hadn’t ever met one, but it seemed like sound logic.

“Choking hazard,” you hummed, leaning back against your car. Your fingers traced a small dent in the door, the cause long forgotten, “It’s definitely still a choking hazard.”

The boy grinned before fixing his expression into something on the cusp of severity, “I’m about 95.7% sure that anything bigger than a fist is completely mouth-safe.” He held up his fist and nodded sharply, “Make that 98.3% sure.”

“98.3?” your brow arched.

“Maybe even 98.9.” 

The buzz of a lamp post hummed above your heads as you stared at each other with little smirks until the quiet made you sink your teeth into your bottom lip and big-mouth drum his fingers against his forearm. 

“So,” his sneakers squeaked against the slick asphalt as he shifted his weight, “you need a jump?”

You pursed your lips and ran your eyes over the front of your car, “I might give osmosis another shot. 30 seconds is hardly a fair trial.”

“Of course,” he hummed, “you gotta be fair.”

“We are in front of a police station.”

“Well,” he scratched his cheek, “it’s not a courthouse.”

“Technicality.” You were slightly horrified when you finally noticed that you were smiling. The sensation felt like it had escaped straight out of the uncanny valley and latched onto your face like a parasite in need of a host. It only took two weeks for muscles to atrophy; years must have completely decimated the fibers in your cheeks. “I guess I could use a jump. If your offer was an offer and not a hypothetical.” 

“Smart choice.” The boy rapped his knuckles against the hood of your car and said, “Steel’s probably pretty low on the permeability scale.”

“As opposed to a skull.”

He snorted and then nodded towards the large lump of books and papers covered by your freshly dampened jean jacket, “You should probably move your stuff. Y’know, ‘cause of the very un-permeable battery.”

“There’s that,” you sighed and started stuffing your things back into your backpack, shaking it violently until your notebook finally slid past your chemistry textbook, “and flunking English isn’t high on my list of things to do this weekend.”

His gaze flickered back and forth, rapidly cataloging every corner and crevice of your face. You tilted your head, brows pinched, and stared back at him with your arms crossed tightly over your chest. His eyes, you noticed, became a peculiar shade of brown in the yellow glow of the setting sun and the fluorescent light of the lamppost. More like honey, you realized, more like honey than irises. Something finally clicked behind them. "You,” he pointed aggressively, “you go to Beacon Hills.”

You pushed his finger away from your face with your own, “Safe bet, considering there’s exactly one option for the next 2,000 square miles.”

“You’re kind of a smartass, you know that,” he muttered. He struggled with the trunk of the jeep parked next to your car, cursing under his breath until he finally wrenched it open with an almost guttural grunt.

Your lips parted briefly, and then you grinned drolly. It was refreshing, not being treated like some fragile little creature who would buckle in the knees—or possibly set something on fire—at the slightest confrontation. “Kind of?”

“Total.” He nodded decisively before sticking his head and torso into the depths of his trunk. “Completely, entirely, and wholly a smartass.” There were various clanging sounds until he re-emerged with a pair of jumper cables, “Never noticed that in class. You don’t really…say anything.”

You bit back the snark poised on the tip of your tongue. When people looked at you, the only thing they saw was the worst thing that had ever happened to you. You were the daughter of the woman who burned to death on Cedar Street; your mom died, and you were there. It seemed like that was all you would ever be in Beacon Hills. 

In the grand scheme of things, it was better to be no one. 

High school had been your chance to slip into social obscurity—more kids, more drama, less discussion of homicide by arson—so you took it, wholeheartedly. You kept to the corners of classrooms, away from extracurriculars, and your mouth resolutely shut. 

“I try to exclusively bring the smart and leave the ass at home,” you finally replied.

The boy’s eyes drifted downwards for a moment, and his voice did a funny, squeaky thing when he said, “I should give that a go sometime.”

“10/10 would recommend. No one bugs you—and teachers never throw erasers at your face.”

“So you do remember me,” he grinned a little and rolled up the sleeves of his sweatshirt before unlatching the jeep’s hood and propping it open.

Slanting your head, you watched his profile. There were moles scattered across his cheek and neck, and his angular jaw clenched as he struggled with the knotted cords in his willowy fingers. “Vaguely,” you said faintly. It was coming back to you in pieces. That was life after twelve for you: bits and pieces. Everything was made up of the disquieting moments when you surfaced from the haze and into the present. It should’ve felt like a lungful of air, but it didn’t. It always felt like choking. 

He wiped his grease-smudged hand on his jeans and then extended it towards you, “Stiles.”

You took his hand, despite the strange formality, and shook it—mainly because of the black streaks staining his pants. “Y/N.”

His fingers twitched a few times when he connected the clamp to the coordinating battery terminal, and your eyes widened. You held your breath in your sternum until you registered that he hadn’t been electrocuted. He was just naturally tweaky, you concluded. It was either that, or he had jumped one-too-many engines in the last 24 hours…unless it was hidden option C, and he was actually tweaking. Unlikely, given he was on his way into a building teeming with cops, but far stranger things had happened in Beacon Hills.  

You sighed a little as you listened to the rain patter against the asphalt and the roof of your car, rubbing your palms over your arms until the goosebumps prickling along your biceps receded into your skin. Stiles looked back at you again, and his mouth wormed its way into a little frown. His head disappeared into his trunk, and after a moment a lumpy maroon mass hurtled towards your face. You caught it before it could smack into your nose, and you clutched at the soft material until you realized that the projectile missile was actually just a sweatshirt. 

Stiles was staring at you when you looked up from your hands. A small, unsure…something squirmed over his face, and you felt a little stupid, just standing there, hoodie limp in your arms. It happened a lot—more than it should after so many years. The invisible quicksand materialized in the strangest, most insignificant moments. You blinked, completely brainless, at simple questions, stared aimlessly into your closet until your second alarm startled you into snatching the first shirt you came across—clasped at a stranger’s hoodie until the rainwater pooled on your lashes dripped into your eyes.

Robotically, you thrust your arms through the sleeves and tugged it over your head, “Thanks.” The sweet scent of grass clung to the fabric, and there was something earthier underneath it, something like evergreen. You smiled slightly, combing your baby hairs behind your ears, “I guess I forgive you for attempting to blind me in the process.”

Stiles’s shoulders unwound as he scoffed, “That was an excellent throw. First-line material, honestly.”

You looked at him and tilted your head, eyebrows crawling towards your hairline, and Stiles sighed loudly, “Okay, so I’m not an ‘athlete’ or whatever—but I’m working on it. You’ll see—you’ll all see.”

You hummed softly, unconvinced but grateful enough to not comment further. Another bout of silence fell between you, but it wasn’t so restless this time—even after Stiles torpedoed his body through his passenger seat. He fought with his keys for a while until the correct one slid into the ignition. 

The jeep’s engine hummed pleasantly in the background as you let out a soft sigh, dropping your head back against your car window. The rain had stopped somewhere between trying to unlock your car and now, but you couldn’t quite recall when. The chill wasn’t so bad, you realized, without your foul mood casting a shadow over your head.

Stiles landed back on his feet and leaned against the jeep. You could feel his gaze on you again. A tickling sensation trailed down your spine as you fiddled with your keychain. You took a step backwards and bit your bottom lip, “I should probably try start my car…y’know, before you throw something else at my face.’”

He nodded, taking a step towards his jeep, “Solid plan. A tire iron was next.”

You slid into your car and stared at the steering wheel, forgetting to laugh at his joke. You wrapped your fingers around 10 and 2 and silently called upon every deity you’d ever heard of to end your suffering. Stiles seemed nice enough, but you seriously doubted your smalltalk capabilities were up-to ‘ride home’ standards. Perhaps, you should revisit your resounding dedication to atheism, you thought, as the engine sputtered in protest a few times and then came back to life. 

Stiles flashed two thumbs up through the window. The smile on his face was positively goofy, but his dismount from the jeep was somehow even goofier. He stumbled over his large feet a few times before regaining stability. You bit back a smile when he shot you another thumbs up, this time through the dash as he removed the jumper cables from your car’s battery.

He wiped his hands off on his jeans again; at this point, you were convinced that they were beyond saving, but Stiles didn’t seem concerned. He tapped against your window before stepping around the open door, “You should probably let it run for a while. Take the scenic route home; enjoy all the Beacon Hills hotspots open past 8:00 pm on a weeknight. I personally recommend the Rite Aid or Walmart.”

You snorted, “Maybe I’ll swing by the Preserve. I hear the woods are especially beautiful in the foreboding darkness.”

“Don’t.” Serious was an odd look on Stiles’s face. You decided that you much preferred the goofy grin. “Don’t go anywhere near the Preserve. It’s officially cordoned off—totally locked down, quarantine-zone-central. Something about flesh-eating, parasitic plant life.”

“As completely real and unobtrusive as that sounds,” you drawled, “don’t worry about it. Literally every single person in town knows about the body they found in the woods.” It was bound to happen, small town and all—and ‘woman dies in deadly animal attack’ was the most interesting thing that had happened in Beacon Hills since the intersection got a Target two years ago. “I’ve seen every installment of Friday the 13th and The Blair Witch Project. If I’m going to be murdered, I refuse to also be humiliated by a cliché C.O.D.” 

The manic expression on his face softened to a relieved smile and then again to a little smirk, “So what’s a certified fresh murder, then? Not that I doubt the depths of human depravity, but I think society killed off originality a few centuries ago.”

You thought back to a house fire with no origin, accelerant, or discernible cause. Apparently, not. “You know what they say,” you sighed, “life finds a way.”

Stiles tilted his head, “And death.”

“And death,” you agreed, staring at a small chip in your windshield. The cracks had just begun to spiderweb out from the pit. 

Stiles looked like he wanted to say something, and he looked so much like the Sheriff with his face twisted around thoughtful contemplation that you couldn’t believe it had taken you this long to make the connection. The boy in the photo had grown up. How unfortunate for him. Stiles swallowed whatever it was that was lingering on his tongue and shut your door. He leaned his elbow against the window frame and cocked his hand in a stiff little wave, “Seeya at school. I’ll bring something fun for target practice—maybe grapes. You like grapes? Don’t answer that—I’ll surprise you.”

You put your car in drive once Stiles was safely a few feet from the wheels and gave him a dry smile, “The anticipation is killing me.”

What a scary place to be, you thought as you watched Stiles disappear in your rearview mirror. Anticipation. Hope. Life. You were chronically good at surviving; cockroached your way out of every horrible thing life squashed you with. Lately, all you could do was cling to your heartbeat and the warmth of your skin, until you were barely more than roadkill. A walking carcass was a far cry from living, but death would not stop for you, so you stopped looking for him. You kept treading water, took your pills, stopped existing—you were a lot like Schrödinger’s cat that way: too stubborn to live, too stubborn to die. You didn’t know what to do if someone unsealed the box and forced you to choose. That was the trouble with possibility; it required far too much uncertainty.

Your dad’s SUV was parked in the garage when you finally pulled into your circle driveway. It was a rare sight; your dead battery had disrupted your usual routine. You were supposed to be safely tucked away in your room after an early dinner—take-out usually, sometimes a quesadilla if you were feeling exceptionally inspired—by the time your dad got home from work. It was dysfunctional in every sense of the word, but it was the only way you could function in the same space. 

He used to stare at you from the other end of the dinner table: not eating, not speaking. The only way you knew he was alive was the slow rise and fall of his chest. After a while, he moved dinner to his office. ‘Working dinner,’ he’d say in passing, ‘budgets are due.’ Eventually, he stopped coming home altogether. It was better that way, you thought. You loved each other better from afar, where the power of nostalgia could cloud all the present unpleasantries. You wondered what he saw when he looked at you now. You wondered, and you desperately didn’t want to find out.  

You shouldered your backpack and made sure your car lights were off twice before quietly creeping into the mudroom. You could hear the buzz of the microwave as you toed off your sneakers and tried to discern the smell emanating from the kitchen. Something with garlic and tomato. Bona Vita, probably. Your dad loved their al pomodoro. 

You tried to make yourself as small as possible as you skulked into the kitchen, shoulders hunched to your ears and grip tight around the strap of your backpack. Your dad’s back was to you; you could see the wrinkles in his collar from where he tugged at it when he was agitated. He stopped stirring his pasta once you reached the island. 

“Did…” your dad trailed off for a moment, still facing the kitchen counter, “did everything go alright with the Sheriff?” 

You shrugged even though he couldn’t see you, “I guess.”

“It’s just,” he rubbed at his jaw and looked down towards the oven, “it’s almost eight. I was wondering…worrying.”

He still wasn’t looking at you. You stared at the back of his head and sucked your bottom lip between your teeth. Look at me. Your brows pinched, and your back molars ground together. Look at me. 

“I called him. Sheriff Stilinski. He said that you didn’t speak for long.”

“Didn’t have anything new to say,” you shoved your hands into hoodie pockets, realizing belatedly that you forgot to give Stiles his sweatshirt back. Another problem for another time. 

“That’s not what I—” your dad grasped the lip of the counter and hung his head like it suddenly weighed too much for his spine, “I was wondering what happened to you.” 

“Oh,” you shifted your weight onto your other foot, “dead battery. I think it was the door light.”

Your dad nodded a little, “Do you need someone to pick up your car?”

“Got a jump from a friend.” Not a friend, not really, but you supposed it was the closest you’d come to one in the last four years. That was just a little too sad to say out loud. 

“Good.” He nodded again, “Good.” 

You nodded because it seemed like the only thing to do and slipped towards the hallway. You’d taken no less than five steps out of the kitchen when your dad said, “You could call me. Next time, you could call me.”

Maybe. Maybe you could if he would look at you.

[suffersinfandom]

So there’s a lot of debate over who’s responsible for Ed’s turn to the Kraken (or, as I like to call it, “the Krakening”), and I think that’s partly because no one person can be blamed. Ed is a deeply hurt and traumatized individual thanks to his life pre-canon, and that hurt can be attributed to a lot of things -- his father, Hornigold, the society he grew up in, the culture of piracy, toxic masculinity.

But there are three key events that we actually see happen between the dock and Ed pushing Lucius overboard, and these three events in combination are the lead-up to the Krakening:

Event one: Stede running away. Stede doesn’t show up at the dock and Ed, convinced that he’s unlovable and of course Stede wouldn’t come for him, accepts abandonment and heartbreak.

Event two: Izzy. “I should’ve let the English kill you.” “This, whatever it is that you’ve become, is a fate worse than death.” “This! This is Blackbeard, not some namby pamby in a silk gown pining for his boyfriend!” “I serve Blackbeard, not Edward. Edward better watch his fucking step.”

Event three: the crew’s chanting. After Izzy leaves, Ed faintly hears the crew laughing and asking for another song. This is the last time we see Ed before he pushes Lucius overboard.

Okay.

After Stede panics and runs and Ed returns to the Revenge alone, he cries and eats marmalade in a blanket fort. He’s heartbroken and sad, not smearing on the eyeliner and hitting the rhino horn. Lucius gets through to Ed with “maybe life just begins again,” Ed sings his little song in front of the crew, and then he starts cleaning up. 

I’ve seen this scene in S1 compared to the scene in S2 where Ed is tidying his cabin up on the day he’s decided to die. While we should absolutely read these scenes as parallels, I think it’s a mistake to say that they’re the same thing -- that is, scenes of Ed cleaning his depression mess, cheered up by what he thinks is his impending death. 

In fact, I think that the S2 scene is sadder when we have these two contrasting Eds. Ed in S1 is newly hopeful. He’s still sad, but he has a community that cares about him and the hope that he can be different. He doesn’t have to be the dread pirate Blackbeard; he can just be Ed in the space that Stede created, even if Stede himself is gone. Ed doesn’t have the same dark energy in S1 that he has in S2 after he has firmly rejected hope for change and anything beyond Blackbeard. S1 is life beginning again; S2 is life coming to an end. 

See above: S1 Ed (bright-eyed, a little manic, open, hopeful that life can begin again)

See below: S2 Ed (dull-eyed, very manic, vaguely menacing, only hope is death)

So event one -- Stede leaving -- isn’t responsible for the Krakening. We can’t know what might have happened if Izzy had, say, been tossed overboard in a mutiny, but it wouldn’t have been the season two we got. In my opinion, every indication points to Ed recovering in the company of the crew. 

Next we have the confrontation with Izzy. This, I think, is the real turn. 

Izzy is cruel here. He hates Ed being soft so much that he tells Ed he’d be better off dead. His wording is an implication that Ed is alive at Izzy’s pleasure (“I should have let the English kill you”) as well as a warning that Izzy’s loyalty to Blackbeard does not extend to Edward. 

I don’t think that Ed interprets Izzy as a direct threat, but Izzy is -- as always -- acting as a manifestation of toxic masculinity. This scene is the world saying that Ed can’t be soft and gentle if he wants to survive. He can’t mourn lost love. He doesn’t have the luxury of healing in a community.

Ed, still raw and sad, is being reminded that he’s not allowed to be just Ed. Just Ed has been told his entire life that he’s not meant for fine things, and whenever he reaches for a fine thing -- friendship, love, community -- he’s told that pirates don’t have friends, he’s unlovable, and he’d better watch his fucking step. Just Ed wasn’t enough for Stede, so how can he be enough for anyone else? For the crew? For Izzy and everyone else in a world that seems to want Blackbeard?

After event two, Ed is on the precipice. He’s unbalanced and uncertain. He isn’t sure that life can begin again after all. And then he hears the crew.

Offscreen and far away, the crew asks “Eddie” for another song. We know that there’s no maliciousness in that because the crew likes the Ed they’ve seen, but Ed is vulnerable. He doesn’t hear friends; he’s not used to having friends. He’s used to Jack and Izzy, who both betrayed him. He’s used to the people on the party boat who pretended to like him and then turned on him. If Ed isn’t valuable, lovable, or even worth liking, then why would the crew genuinely want him to come back? They must be mocking him. 

Lucius gave Ed hope that he could have fine things. Izzy yanked that hope away and, in this moment of doubt, Ed can only hear further confirmation that he was wrong to want better than the violence of Blackbeard.

It’s not a coincidence that the first things Ed purges are his red silk and Lucius. The silk is now a warning against reaching for fine things, and Lucius is the one who encouraged him to be soft and vulnerable in front of the crew -- something that he thinks the crew rejected. Ed moves to protect himself by abandoning all hope for things that he has been told aren’t for people like him.

In conclusion: a lot of things contributed to the Krakening and the main villain here, as it often is in this show, is toxic masculinity and patriarchy.

[kiirotoao]

Can we talk about Mileven for a minute. Another reason I don't buy their romantic relationship is the fact that most of their one on ones as a romantic couple (S3) are comedic and not very serious. Where are the deep conversations and when are we ever shown how much they understand each other... post (S2). It's almost like once they started dating they became a joke? Yes they have a few sweet moments but it's also scripted to be laughable. (S4) never showed them having a honest deep convo resolving issues and growing romantically. It could happen in (S5) but at this point I don't see the emotional romantic draw.

And then there is Byler to compare it to, where most of their one on ones are much much more serious, deep, heartfelt, with actual evidence of understanding and talks involving their feelings (which Mike seems to not have an issue with unlike his plot in S4 with El). This, mind you, happens to some degree in every season with Will. If Mike just sees Will as his best friend, why is he so serious about Will especially alone together. Even best friends are more casual then this.

Also a side note. The (S3) Mileven straight stereotype of the 'lazy, lying, clueless boy' dating the 'girl who is playing hard to get to teach her boyfriend a lesson' troupe is icky and makes me want El to find her power solo and Mike to remember that the old Mike (who has a special will voice) is a much better person and boyfriend. Thoughts?

Damn! Well said, dear anon!! I couldn’t agree more.

To anyone who says anything along the lines of ‘oh, Mleven can’t be broken up, they’ve been building up this whole time!’ Or ‘here’s the slow burn everyone wanted,’ or ‘Mike and El have grown so much even after fighting,’ I really don’t understand how any of that is founded. I totally agree and I feel like their relationship has been rather unserious. Even in the most serious love-centered topics of support (s1), connection (s2), breakups (s3), and expression (s4), it’s really interesting to me how their relationship has consistently lacked depth.

Despite dealing with some of the most important aspects of strong relationships, they aren’t close enough to showing, providing, or proving to have one. Mike supports El in season 1 as she does him, protecting and aiding each other with their strengths. But… so does everyone in that season to each other? The only difference is that Mike sheltered El which is very sweet, but not inherently romantic.

Then there’s season 2, which I must confess - I think that their reunion scene at the end of the season remains one of the sweetest moments on the show. Ever. It’s raw and emotional, and this was the closest thing we got to something romantic. But what shoots it down is the fact that their emotion was due to forced separation and Mike’s very real complex grief which gets completely glossed over in the show. So, I don’t know. It’s tricky. So are they romantic yet? They get virtually no time together. It’s a no for me.

And oh yeah, season 3 was the peak of unserious-ness. I also don’t enjoy that trope of ‘the boy chasing the girl who just doesn’t get it yet and she snubs him until the very end’ kind of energy. I swear that that stuff is littered in family-friendly movies usually as comedic relief, and Mike and El just barely made that trope more serious at the very least. Their breakup is dramatized and humorous, and the way that it’s mended still makes me chuckle. Mike offers her M&Ms, compliments her looks, they smile at each other, and suddenly they’re all good again? Yeah, that’s not very clear romance to me. All season long, they keep resisting each other. Mike lashes out to everyone and declares that he loves El but can’t say it to her face, and El has Max’s words tattooed on her heart that she keeps asserting that she deserves trust. The two just don’t quite reach each other that season. The second that I heard Hopper say that they’ve only been kissing all Summer long without complaining about them talking, I knew that I was not going to be invested in their relationship this season.

And so season 4 was truly the nail in the coffin, the final turning point. They’re not only shallow in making up, they’re shallow in being together. El isn’t honest with Mike about her time in Lenora, how she’s spent it, the people she’s met, the fun she’s truly having. Mike snaps about Will being disinterested, so it’s pretty clear that he was dishonest about his true feelings that day, too. And the most telling part is that he’s not mad at El. He’s mad at Will.

I think that what the writers have done is craft something so deeply intricate and hidden with Mike and Will to the point of confusion in much of the audience today. Will has always been a buffer of affection for Mike. In season 1 he’s the one they’re searching for. In season 2, he’s the one that Mike protects. In season 3, he’s the true breakup that Mike fights for. In season 4, he’s the listening ear and bleeding heart that Mike relies on. Their love only gets stronger and stronger whereas Mike and El are simply loving under the guise of physical closeness. I seriously think that that’s all that they have for each other.

That hug sequence at the end of season 4 really shocked me, because when I saw Mike and El hugging (not to mention that shot with Will right between them) I thought that it was sweet, but then suddenly Will and El are hugging, the siblings who are absolutely platonic, and it felt more emotional than Mike and El’s embrace. So not only are Mike and El visually equated to a platonic relationship, but their bond doesn’t even hold the same weight as the sibling-hood of Will and El.

It’s just wild to me that people don’t see it. I think that Byler is made abundantly clear for us to root for. The crazy together scene did it for me the first time I saw it. It was and still is one of my favorite scenes ever because it’s the total package. Closeness? Check. Honesty? Check. Hurt/comfort? Check. Matching, nerdy Halloween outfits? Check. The lack of anyone or anything else to distract them? Check. The crazy together scene is a marker of their relationship, and it never, ever dies.

Even though they fight, where are they years later? They’ve gone through supernatural and personal troubles together, and they’re still by each other’s side. “Friends. Best friends.” The same at heart. They promise to support each other, they reconnect, they come back from every breakup, and they readily express things on their minds and hearts. They’re there for each other and tell each other things that no other boys in the party have told each other.

Mike and El try to understand each other, they do, and sometimes it’s just trying that’s enough, but on a truly intimate level, that’s bullshit. Mike and Will have everything that they need and want for each other, and there’s no going through hoops to get it besides internalized homophobia. Which I very well think can be reasonably addressed next season.

So yep. Byler is endgame.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s1 episode 12 thoughts

another episode that had me. STRESSED. OUT.

first of all... the episode being about an irish guy who sets the british aristocracy on fire... the insensitivity there is fascinating. the 90's really were a time, huh?

second of all this phoebe is very pretty and very bold to kiss mulder right in front of scully. i was shocked. and it kept getting more and more shocking! (shoutout to scully for averting her gaze when they kissed. a respectful coworker!)

and the whispered "she hates me" from phoebe and tiny waves goodbye while otherwise entirely ignoring scully's presence... yeah this is sick psychological torment

! MULDER LORE REVEAL ! he's terrified of fire! and this ex wants to get him involved on an arson case! what could go wrong? (seriously though why does he want to do this. why wasn't there another person who could take this case. i'm seeing no appeal to getting involved)

AND he leaves scully to go attend to this nonsense. betrayal.

! FURTHER MULDER LORE REVEAL ! the two broke up because she cheated on him which is revealed in the same breath as the fact that they hooked up on arthur conan doyle's grave. i will be doing my best to not psychoanalyze that and then failing. how can i look him in the eye with this knowledge.

(i think they're going for a sherlock-irene parallel here but counterpoint: i don't like it)

<3 <3 <3 scully in glasses... think my heart skipped a beat <3 <3 <3

this whole thing was soooo sick and twisted. when phoebe said "i've booked a hotel for the night" (cut to mulder in deep distress) that was evil

(also scully calling and saying she had something important and he completely blew her off... only for her to show up anyway... queen shit she literally said idgaf i'll solve ur case for you dumbass)

i'd actually like to copy out what i wrote in my notes verbatim for this next part:

"Mulder in a suit Phoebe in a backless dress. Tension is palpable oh they're dancing. SCULLY WALKED IN ON YHAT WJAT THEBHELL OH THEYREKISSING WHAT THE HELL OH SHW'S ROLLING HER EYESAT THIS OH SHE JUMPED IN"

i think that speaks for itself

but in case it DOESN'T: scully pacing outside watching them dance and kiss was distressing to me. i will reblog many gifs of this when i find them eventually. free her from this situation y'all she did NOT deserve it. luckily a fire provided an excuse to make her presence known.

when mulder was scared to go into the fire and then he passed out and then he pushed scully's hand away while she was shifting into Doctor Mode... nearly screamed. he resists the tenderness offered to him.

and then cutscene to him waking up in bed shirtless and she's there offering him water! phoebe brings him into this fire- his worst fear- and the symbolism of scully bringing him WATER!

and YET the first thing he does is: ASK FOR PHOEBE! MULDER I CANNOT KEEP MAKING EXCUSES FOR YOU (phoebe once again entirely ignores scully beyond a quick goodbye the commitment to pettiness is remarkable)

then he shows up to save the family from being lit on fire and phoebe is kissing the dad. muldershockedpikachuface.jpg (was anyone surprised. raise ur hand if u saw this coming)

but he jumped into the fire to go save the children!!! because he needs to be a hero and conquer his fears!!

i think scully had a very raw end of the deal this episode and when she knocked on his door pretending to be phoebe and asked in a british accent if he was going to buy her lunch. well. she had a good spirit about the whole thing. it's important for her to be mean to him sometimes.

during this episode i fell victim to exactly what i knew the screenwriters were doing, purposefully provoking anger in the viewer through an outrageous ex that also served as character exposition in revealing mulder's background. but once again this episode proves that dana scully deserves the world for putting up with this nonsense and somehow still choosing to have a positive attitude. give her a raise and a vacation.

[thesherrinfordfacility]

another batshit theory for the ages...

though tbh it's just a summary that interweaves a variety of them. it's long and rambly im sorry

so @booksandmate added this increíble addition to what was honestly meant as a half-hearted shitpost, and then allowed me to pepe-silvia at them in their DMs, but it's been spinning in my head ever since - because if we consider if crowley had managed to reach ten before the lightning strike, and managed to control his temper... well, what would have happened?

but that's not necessarily what im looking at here, specifically. i am however gonna start with ep1 and the lightning strike, because im somewhat dogged by nina's words in ep6 that now suddenly feel like a healthy helping of foreshadowing:

that everything started with the locked-in-the-coffeeshop-incident, which of course was precipitated by crowley losing his rag, summoning (?) lightning, and it bouncing off the café.

noting a couple of things: the lightning definitely appears to originate from crowley, right? it may well be calling like-to-like, but either way the lightning starts in him, and we suddenly then have either a) a bolt summoned from the heavens, channeled through him, and hitting the café, or b) two bolts, one of which relays back and forth from the heavens, and a further bolt rebounded on the café.

but what... is the point? im relatively on the team that it could just be building crowley-lore, playing into the "crowley is a very powerful demon 💅" characterisation, and it has the ultimate byproduct of kick-starting the events of the s2 plot; like @booksandmate said, without crowley counting to ten and controlling his anger, we wouldn't have the above, wouldn't have nina and maggie locked in the café, etc etc. but.

this locking-in business could easily, i hubristically presume (albeit less exciting, admittedly), have been written as caused by something else, or not occurred altogether (and maggie would still have shared with aziraphale that she thinks she's in love with nina, gave her the LP etc)... so why specifically did it require crowley, and such a raw display of 'demonic' power?

with that in mind, do we assume it serves a different purpose, or at least has another layer? well, we collectively seem to be surmising the latter, given god's words in the job minisode:

do you know the rules of the heavens? did you set the constellations in the sky? can you send lightning bolts and get them to report back to you?

obviously the last two now, in retrospect, seem very significant in the context of what we find out about crowley in both s1 and s2; he created nebulae and hung stars and planets, and now can seem to summon lightning. i originally wondered if it were simply a message to crowley or at least the audience that god was still watching, and had not forsaken crowley at all, but i do now ponder if its something more.

the first one is iffy, but actually... well, it definitely seems that crowley has the better measure of heaven than aziraphale or indeed anyone else has - what its motivations and limitations are, to say the least. even his line about the bees; in this respect, he is deeply perceptive of the intragroup dynamic of heaven in a way that the angels are not. and then, if we hypothesise about crowley in a pre- to post-fall context, that he Only Asked Questions, an action that may turn out to have precipitated the Big Bad, then yeah - maybe crowley does in fact know the rules of the heavens, and learnt it the hard way.

and this doesn't even take into account the whole general parallel between job and crowley in receiving undue punishment "and not even to know why". whilst i do still hold that the minisode flashbacks may well be crowley's POV, that is largely irrelevant; we know crowley displaces his emotions surrounding the fall/god onto his plants in modern day, and we are immediately introduced to the minisode with the display of him doing the same to job's goats.

either way, i think that we can be reasonably certain that whilst maybe unintentional at the time, god's words were a direct mirror to events unfolding/character history revealed for crowley at the very least in s2. even if we step outside taking god's action/inaction literally in job, and see it as a parable, it's a lesson that sometimes suffering occurs for no reason, that the universe is not always explainable and certainly not always good, but trust in god and god's power. icky to think about, at least for me, but the same passage (job 41, god's answers) then brings me to my next thought: the matchbox.

i wrote a follow up to a fab post looking at where i feel the matchbox might come into play (specifically, job 41:19 that is inscribed on the side of it), but here is the précis of sorts:

given that the matchbox features the quote before being dropped in heaven, it was potentially placed there in the pub as a long-standing direction for gabriel 'for when the time came', a mark of omniscience

the passage itself may refer to the leviathan as per job, but imagery-wise refers to the heaven trial in s1, where crowley-as-aziraphale spits out fire at the archangels

it's the last thing gabriel reads before he heads down to earth. he still thinks it's aziraphale (ie. heaven is presumably not aware of the body-swap at that point), and so heads to where he knows aziraphale will be - the bookshop - to seek... protection?

if the message however was put there by god, who is omniscient (and the narrator of s1), they would have been directing gabriel towards crowley, not aziraphale... crowley who is homeless living in his car, but whose own last sanctuary is that same bookshop

and lastly, it seems that it's only crowley that is able to unlock gabriel's memories... we know that crowley definitely has some kind of hypnotic, trance-like power, and this might be key... especially as gabriel then starts recounting memories (and prophecies...?) that he wasn't present for - only god, job, aziraphale and crowley.

(tbh, i then wonder how far the 'signs from the almighty' might extend to buddy holly playing in that bar, for beelzebub to introduce the concept of music to gabriel, 'information in a tuneful way'.)

i also want to pay some attention to the 25-lazarii miracle, because im still obsessed by the idea that the miracle didn't quite work as intended, or at least not in the way crowley ends up describing in ep6. summary:

gabriel took his gabrielness and put it in the fly, and the fly followed him into the bookshop and continued to chill there quite happily for all of s2

michael and shax seem to be able to sense gabriel to varying degrees - michael in ep2, and shax in ep3 - where i think it's possible they're sensing the consciousness of gabriel stored in the fly. in any case, they are all able to perceive and acknowledge jim as a inconsequential human, which in any case goes directly against 'not noticing' him in that form

when aziraphale and crowley do the miracle, they hold hands with jim - where gabriel definitively isn't - and attempt to hide gabriel. but if gabriel isn't in there, and it didn't work on jim, and yet a miracle still registers up in heaven, what did the miracle actually do? did it hide someone else?

if god is somehow channelling themself through jim, as we see in ep2 and ep3, did the boys - in fact - hide god?

but then, now that im thinking about, would a miracle of that magnitude only take 25 lazarii? what if instead it's the son of god, who has the power of words to give eternal life? the power, when he returns, to grant humanity eternal salvation, or eternal punishment? john 6:68 (yes, the verse number struck me dumb for a minute):

hold that thought (sorry) for a minute though, because the lightning strike came before hiding anything... so, does the lightning serve a different purpose, in the wider narrative? well, let's consult matthew 24 and break it down:

lighting strike? ✅* (more on this later on)

carcass around which eagles (or vultures depending on the version) gather? im gonna hazard a ✅

or considering the more metaphorical:

sun shall be darkened, moon will not give her light? bit of a stretch, but darkness fell pretty quick in ep5, certainly more rapid than would be warranted for 6.30pm, and lasted that way, presumably, until the demons had all been eviscerated... so, tentative ✅ (though given the green lighting... it could have all just been the demons, sure)

stars from heaven, and powers of heaven will be shaken? not too sure on the stars, unless you potentially count it in with the above darkness thing, but the metatron making a surprise appearance would suggest that the powers definitely be shooketh ✅

if we look at verse 30, this suggests that this hasn't happened just yet; that whilst we may be gearing up towards the second coming, it hasn't actually happened*, and this is where we'll lead into s3.

but if we continue matthew 24 (discussed in this post and this post too by @paperbunny):

days of noah: okay so yeah this could well be a literal flood, and tbh i still think (i wear glasses, so full disclosure ok) that that little snippet behind aziraphale in the first link looks like an optical illusion of a flood, but the chapter continues to clarify a little more about what was happening before the great flood, that humanity will exist in a similar bliss until the second coming arrives... so, a tentative ✅

eating and drinking ✅ there is a lot of eating and drinking imagery in s2, no doubt, but i feel like the coffee and eccles cakes in ep1, before the lightning, play a potentially major part here* (again, more on this later on)

marrying and giving in marriage ✅ if you take into account the whole maggie/nina subplot, gabriel/beelzebub subplot, and then The Big One that is crowley's marriage proposal in ep6

one shall be taken, the other left ✅ 💀 i don't need to explain this surely

two women grinding at the mill, one shall be taken, the other left ✅ ...ish. grinding maybe as a reference to how maggie and nina end up in the café together, working together, then visit crowley and end up Not Getting Together for Good Reason, but where crowley leaves them is that maggie is back in the record store, asleep (and waiting for nina to heal)

but where i come back to the *s is twofold:

nina says eccles cakes would calm someone down. aziraphale seems to consider it, and believe her. he takes the eccles cakes with him, deliberately hands them off to crowley so he can open the door, and the last interior shot before crowley loses his mind is the cakes, untouched, on the table. we know aziraphale seems to have a knack for unconscious miracles/reality manipulation, so what if by believing the eccles cakes would in fact calm crowley down, they actually magically take on the attribute that they would calm him down? im calling this diversion-from-matthew-24 #1

and then the lightning strike itself; crowley fails to rein in his temper, and the lightning shenanigans happen... but matthew describes that it cometh from the east, and shineth unto the west... but in crowley's case, the lightning strikes the bookshop, which lies to the east (going by the compass in aziraphale's bookshop) (actually technically north-east i guess)... diversion-from-matthew-24 #2.

this where im wondering a few things, as a culmination of all of the above...

did god foresee a good portion of all of this, and the events that follow, and warn gabriel ahead of time to seek out aziraphale and crowley via the medium of the matchbox?

does crowley, having not eaten the cakes, summon lighting because he did not Calm Down, constituting as the first sign of the second coming - and was just a wee bit ahead of schedule?

and did he botch it, à la s1 baby swap, by it hitting the coffeeshop instead of the bookshop (going to the east, not the west)? and is the lightning reaching upwards towards the heavens significant?

did crowley's lightning summon jesus, yank his... spirit? soul? out of heaven, and bring it earthside, and it attached itself to jim, currently a vacant vessel?

aziraphale and crowley hide said jesus spirit inadvertently with the 25 lazarii miracle, expecting to hide gabriel?

when jim goes all purple-eyed-mystic-meg, is that jesus speaking? speaking as an omniscient being with his mother's voice, and prophesying the rest of the second coming with "a tempest... great storms"?

and yet, despite this, all the signs of the second coming continue throughout s2, and possibly even kick-start the last judgement, with the various mentions of people going missing? hell being understaffed?

if you've made it this far, kudos

[butterflydm]

wot rewatch 1x7: the dark along the ways

spoilers for s1 of WoT and through Knife of Dreams in the books; minor spoilers for one of the s2 character blurbs

Aaaaah, my angel Tigraine is here to kick ass and have a baby. This cold open floored when when I first saw it and it still floors me. It's amazing. I'm looking forward to more Maiden action in s2 so much. Not just the fighting here, but the emotion -- how frustrated she is that they won't just let her have her baby in peace, how she finally has a moment to herself and then this new potential threat shows up and we hang in that moment. Fantastic episode opener and it really makes me excited about what we might get in s2 for the cold opens.

So... given that she left Andor to chase a prophecy to save the world and has found herself on Dragonmount about to give birth... Tigraine could probably guess who her kid was going to be at this point, I feel like? She was very well educated, first in Andor and then in the White Tower, so I'm sure she would have known the Prophecies (maybe she even figured out when she learned that the female warrior society of the Aiel was called the Maidens of the Spear?)

The Emond's Field people want to get Mat but Moiraine must refuse because he's literally in recasting limbo right now. I love how Rand just instantly lost all trust in Moiraine the second she refuses to open the Waygate. She won him to her side by helping Mat, then immediately lost him once she stopped. Rand (and Nynaeve) are so protective & defensive over Mat in this episode and I really love it.

Of course, Rand is now probably also about, like 75% sure that he's actually the Dragon and so there's no need to worry about Mat anyway. But Moiraine is absolutely not sure who the Dragon is and it very well could be Mat (imo if she wasn't worried that Mat was a potential channeler, it would be pointless to send the Red Ajah after him).

Rand's little despairing looks back at the closed Waygate and his instant defense of Mat against anyone who says a word against him (even Egwene): catnip to a newly-minted Cauthor shipper.

Yeah, Mat is 100% Moiraine's least favorite child -- she 'knows' what choice he would make, she says (the wrong one). So, there are actually two different ways that the show could go with Mat -- Moiraine could be either right or wrong that Mat would make the wrong/evil choice and it depends on how they've decided to handle the Seanchan. Because if they follow the same storyline that the books did, Mat does essentially choose to embrace evil along that path (even if Jordan never admits it) when he decides that he's okay being married to an unremorseful and unwilling-to-change slaver. If Tuon stays the same way that she is in the books, then Moiraine was right about Mat. If Mat and Tuon's storyline gets changed/updated to be less... awful, then Moiraine will have been wrong about Mat.

Lan tries to tease Nynaeve to cheer her up but fails, so he tries to reassure her instead, telling her that Mat is safer where they left him. It's a sweet little moment.

Both Egwene and Rand are more open in this moment than they were in episode 2 and are able to share a snuggle as they sleep (but Egwene also checks in with Rand first this time and waits for him to essentially nonverbally give her a 'yes' before snuggling in). Rand is also a lot less raw about the breakup and they're hovering in a weird 'maybe we're not broken up after all' space.

People's worst fears clawing at them is a lot more informative kind of existential terror than just gore-whispers.

Honestly, given how on-edge everyone is put by the Black Wind, it would more surprising if it didn't lead to tensions and arguments. That was a rough experience for them all.

Lots of Lan backstory in this episode! His title, people from his past, etc.

Poor Moiraine looks so exhausted. Pretty much now until the end of the season. This is also when Moiraine has the message sent to the Red Ajah about Mat, which Lan is not around to hear, I note.

Perrin engages in some Fainspotting!

Oh, I notice that when Min serves drinks to the ta'veren, she keeps her eyes down. To avoid seeing all the viewings maybe? And I'm pleased to say that show!Min remains likable on rewatch, despite my bad experience with book!Min in my reread! She actually is a world-weary and well-traveled woman who has been through Too Much and is Tired instead of feeling like a tweenager cosplaying as one. And Moiraine literally has to blackmail her into sharing her viewings about the EF5.

And reading the new s2 summary about Min also tells us why Moiraine threatening her with exposure is enough to make her crack -- she was forced to be a carnival act! Yikes, Min's aunts!

Also that does look like the same baby from Rand's vision in the next episode, at least to me, so I think that's what she was seeing.

The EF5 all confronting Moiraine. I do wonder if it was the whispers of the Ways that made her decide to open up to them about how the non-Dragons will die when the Dragon faces the Dark One. And though the group does fracture into an argument after this discussion, they do present a united front against Moiraine here.

This argument also does a good job in laying down Egwene's philosophy and her reasons for wanting to do this. And we get another passionate defense of Mat from Rand.

It's fascinating how quickly Nynaeve jumps the conclusion that Rand and Perrin are 'fighting over' Egwene (something that both Rand and Egwene find initially baffling). I wonder how long Nynaeve has been expecting this to come up as an issue between them, that she goes there so quickly. Back in ep1, she sends Perrin away from Egwene's celebration to spend time with his wife and then in this episode, she notices Perrin noticing Egwene and Rand snuggling together. She is on "Perrin->Egwene HIGH ALERT" at all times and it's just kinda fascinating. If she'd just let them argue, I sincerely doubt that Perrin would ever have let anything slip.

Perrin's staring at Rand's mouth while saying "only woman I ever loved was my wife" moment. With a single shot, Perrin comes across as infinitely less heterosexual than his book counterpart.

We get some more good Lan content in his scenes with Moiraine and then Nynaeve. It's nice to get to see a piece of Lan's culture and for him to share it with Nynaeve. All the scenes that he has with both of them in this episode are really good. Lan comparing his devotion to Moiraine to Nynaeve's protectiveness over the Two Rivers' kids; I like it.

And this scene with Egwene and Rand is his last stab at denial. He wants to pretend that he can still be Egwene's husband/Warder. But if he doesn't give up on his denial, he might be condemning Egwene, Perrin, & Nynaeve to a painful death. What Egwene says here (that she will stand by Rand if he's the Dragon) is also related to why he goes off on his own and pretends to be dead imo -- he knows his friends wouldn't abandon him and so he has to abandon them for their safety.

And we reach the point where everything is at a crisis point and Rand can't keep denying every strange thing that's been building up since the night the Trollocs attacked.

This scene with Rand and Min is very good. Again, show!Min is doing a lot better than book!Min. Also, Min, I'm holding you to that "three beautiful women" viewing.

Aah, the kindness of how the show did Rand's birth really gets to me. The story is so much... colder in the books. That show!Tigraine gets to have a last moment of connection before she dies, and gets some assurance that her kid will be taken care of. It was an incredibly compassionate change to make.

lol, the poor awkwardness of the three Emond's Fielders (before they realize that Rand has disappeared with Moiraine).

Moiraine's thoughts, probably: "shit, it's one of the boys. Well... at least it's not Mat".

[myfairstarlight]

Empty Spaces

AO3 Link.

Rated: G Length: 2k

Canon compliant, if you only count s1, that is. Summary:

“It… looks like Heaven,” whispers Aziraphale. Crowley pauses at the doorstep, tilts his head back. “Huh, funny that,” says he, refusing to look the angel in the eyes. Refusing to acknowledge what that would even mean. Or. The first time Aziraphale sees Crowley's flat, and the complicated feelings confined in the large, empty space.

⋆ ✩₊˚ ʚ♡ɞ ˚₊✩⋆

In the two hundred or so odd years since he's forced Hell to rent him a flat — he could have miracled enough money to buy it himself, but what's the fun in that if he can't send the bills right to Beelzebub’s office doors every month? He had to prove inventing rent was truly devilish after all — Crowley has never invited Aziraphale inside of it.

After all, when they do meet up for a drink, they do so within the safe walls of the bookshop and never once has Aziraphale suggested going somewhere else. Crowley also never quite considered the flat as a home of some sort, just a base of operation, near where head offices decided, for some reason, to reside, and where he could lie down and do nothing for months without anyone badgering him about it.

However, in the aftermath of a failed Armageddon and a bookshop burned to a crisp, there is no other option.

“You could stay at my place,” says the demon, voice turned into a mere whisper, in a tone one would consider soft, not that he would ever admit it.

His eyes meet Aziraphale who ponders quietly at the suggestion. There is a glimmer in that familiar gaze, a mix of sorrow and curiosity shining ever so brightly in the darkness of the night. Crowley almost looks away at the rawness of the emotions displayed on the angel's face, he who usually keeps his feelings tightly guarded.

The agreement is unspoken, and when the angel’s hand slides oh so naturally into Crowley’s as they board the bus, something settles within him.

If this must be the end, then… he will not cross the gates with empty hands.

As they reach his apartment building, however, a new kind of worry starts to bloom within his soul. He remembers, with a start, the remains of what once was a demon, now a pile of goo still stinking the entryway. Aziraphale slows his pace, turning around to look at him quizzingly as Crowley hovers a foot outside the bus.

“Well?” asks the angel. “Do you need me to hold your hand again?”

“I killed Ligur,” comes the unexpected answer, and yet, the hand does not falter.

“It was you or him,” points out Aziraphale. “Do you regret it?”

Crowley ponders over the question but does not utter an answer. Slowly, he lowers his foot and takes hold of the soft hand offered to him. The bus drives away quietly as an angel pulls a demon towards a slick Mayfair building.

On the elevator, Crowley gets antsy once more, clinging to his angel as if at any moment, the elevator could plummet into Hell. He feels the weight of Aziraphale’s gaze on the side although the angel does not say anything. He simply leans back and brings their joined hands to his chest. Crowley inhales softly, fingers twitching against his angel’s old waistcoat, seeking his warmth and the gentle rhythm of an ethereal heart.

On a whim, Crowley finds himself reaching with his free hand for the angel’s cheek, whose breath finally falters, the demon feels his heart skip a beat under his fingertips. A bit abruptly perhaps, he pushes Aziraphale against the back of the elevator, breathes in the sweet tint of his cologne and finally tips forward, breaching the invisible gap they have always kept between them.

The kiss barely lasts for a second, a gentle peck contrasted with the violence of the day they just had and Crowley’s lips tingle as he pulls away. He almost gives in to further temptation and leans in for another taste when he catches Aziraphale’s gaze instead. The angel’s baby blues have completely vanished, whole galaxies now swirling in those eyes.

“Alright, angel?”

There is a quiet buzzing in the air that Crowley can’t quite place. Aziraphale doesn’t answer and simply stares at him with wide eyes and parted lips, glowing ever so slightly, overshadowing the elevator’s stale lighting.

“Aziraphale,” calls Crowley, in an unbearably soft voice he would never think of using with anyone else. “Still with me?”

Eventually, the galaxies fade away to make way for the angel’s usual irises, just as bright nonetheless. Crowley smiles.

“C’mon, we’re hogging the elevator.”

Aziraphale nods mutely and they make their way towards Crowley’s apartment. The angel recoils as the scent of still-burning sulphur hits him, the demon only grimaces, too used to the smell of it.

“Reckon there’s still Holy Water in that?” he asks, nodding at the pile of goo blocking their way that seems to want to become a permanent fixture.

“I can take care of it, just in case,” Aziraphale answers and with one quick flourish of his hand, Ligur’s remains disappear.

Then, the angel gently pushes the door open all the way, Crowley closely behind. One, two, three steps. Crowley watches. Curiosity surrounds Aziraphale as he looks around, wide eyes, then sorrow and worry taint his sweet aura. The demon wants to reach out, wondering if the reality of their situation is finally sinking in and he is about to witness a meltdown of some sort but then the angel turns around.

Vibrant blue eyes, enhanced by the setting sun shining behind them, look at him, a carefully neutral expression on his face.

“It… looks like Heaven,” whispers Aziraphale.

Crowley pauses at the doorstep, tilts his head back.

“Huh, funny that,” says he, refusing to look the angel in the eyes. Refusing to acknowledge what that would even mean.

“Crowley…”

“I know, can’t rival your bookshop, can it?” Crowley straightens up, feigning nonchalance. “Pretty empty, save for…”

“A few pieces of art. Like Heaven.”

“Right, no need to say it like that. And no, I don't want to talk about it.”

A few beats of silence. Aziraphale nods.

“Alright.”

Somehow, Crowley isn't satisfied with that response but he swallows his groan and starts walking towards the kitchen. The similarly very empty kitchen, he remembers, when he slings the door of the refrigerator open to stare at a bleak, white light. He checks the cabinets next only to get dust thrown into his face at the sudden motion the furniture is not used to.

“It’s alright, I do not feel hungry,” Aziraphale says behind him.

“Doesn’t sound like you.”

“It has been a peculiar day.”

Crowley grunts in response. Aziraphale keeps looking around, that small frown on his eyes until he catches a glimpse of something green around a corner and immediately makes his way to it.

“Ah,” whispers the demon as he follows promptly to find the angel already marvelling at his plants. He seems to positively glow, a warm source of light in the middle of the luxuriant yet sombre plants whose leaves seem to reach out towards the angel.

“Your own Eden?” ventures Aziraphale with a sheepish smile.

Crowley stares for a couple of moments, takes the words and scenery in. Then.

“Now that you're here, perhaps.”

The angel grins wide, almost blindingly so. Crowley looks away behind his shades but a smile still tugs at his lips.

Then, the smile dims. Aziraphale brings a gentle hand to the leaf of one of his plants and caresses it as if it were one of his precious books.

“Do you miss it?” asks the angel, although he doesn’t look in his direction.

“Eden?”

“Heaven.”

Crowley sighs. “Angel—”

“It’s just— I have a plan, but I do not wish to make you uncomfortable.”

That intrigues the demon, all his discomfort about Heaven gone as he gazes upon Aziraphale’s determined and yet concerned look.

“We need a drink, then.”

⋆ ✩₊˚ ʚ♡ɞ ˚₊✩⋆

Aziraphale explains as they lounge on Crowley’s ridiculously long sofa, bottles of wine discarded by their feet. The angel slips the prophecy into his hand, fingers lingering for longer than necessary, but Crowley doesn’t call him out on it.

Choose thy faces wisely.

“You reckon she’s in Hell right now? Agnes, I mean,” Crowley wonders.

“Heaven doesn’t like witches.”

“Heaven doesn’t like a lot of things.”

Aziraphale grimaces but doesn’t refute the statement.

“So do you? Miss Heaven? It is eerie how alike your flat is to it.”

“Not a conscious choice on my part, let me tell you that much,” Crowley sighs. “Spent more time at your bookshop anyway.”

“Mm. So will you be okay, seeing it again?” Aziraphale asks.

“Still on the fence about letting you go to Hell.”

“I should have Fallen long ago, it is about time I see that place,” the angel says nonchalantly as if the mere thought does not encapsulate Crowley's deepest fears.

“Angel.”

“Do not use that tone, you know it is true. You have been cast out for far less than I’ve done.”

“I questioned Her, disrespected Her basically to Her face.”

“And you remained good right to your core despite it all. You did not let bitterness take over your heart, that alone is a testament that you had no place in Hell.”

“You speak as if I managed that on my own. Angel, you’re the one who made me better. You’re the one who gave me hope.”

Frustratingly enough, Aziraphale seems unresponsive to the praise, a distant look in his eyes.

“Look, if it goes wrong, I want you to know—” Crowley starts, only to be interrupted by wine-tasting lips.

“I know,” Aziraphale whispers. “Don’t say it now, dear. Not when it feels forced by fear.”

Crowley has a rebuttal at the tip of his lips but they tingle, still reeling from the kiss. Aziraphale nonchalantly leans back and so he will remain none the wiser of the way Crowley wishes he could admit that the very few things in this Godforsaken flat he always kept were all pieces of art that reminded him of a fair-skinned and blonde-haired ethereal being.

“Why does it feel like our last confession before Judgement, though?” the angel asks, being the one to voice it for once. He swirls the wine in his glass, watching it create tiny waves. He laughs quietly. “Remember when humans started making such a fuss about it? Only for Her to not judge their souls when they die.”

Crowley lifts his eyes again. “I do.” Silly humans, always worrying about something grander than they can ever be rather than worry about the one life they are granted with. “And it is our Judgement. Except we know what the verdict will be.”

Drowned into Holy Water and burned in Hellfire.

Crowley downs the remaining wine from his glass and then lets it fall carelessly to the ground. It shatters into pieces but Aziraphale doesn’t react to the sound, merely looks at the mess then slowly finishes his own glass. Once he is done, Crowley takes it from him but gently lowers it on the coffee table.

“Well then,” the demon says, extending his hand. “Time to face Judgement.”

“Together,” Aziraphale adds as he slips his fingers into his.

“Together.”

And thus they choose their faces wisely.

[aengelren]

I’ve gotten this asked a couple of times, so I’ll pin it as an answer to why I love Eren so much.

Happy birthday, Eren

Pinned

A few years ago, I tried to convince my brother to watch Brooklyn nine nine. He told me he’d watch one episode in exchange of me watching an episode of Attack on titan. Reluctantly, I gave in, and the rest is history. The ups, downs, tears, laughter I’ve experienced with this story is beyond what I expected that night. But the thing I’ll hold most precious, is finding Eren: my favorite character of all time.

He’s so full of emotions and he expresses them so vividly, it made it hard not to feel for him. I was immediately beholden by him. From that very first episode. In shock over his strong morality, the questions he had about the world. About his existential view of it. “Life has no meaning? I’ll create my own.” How he felt so strongly about his rights, about being caged, but mostly, how he acted upon those thoughts. It was simply inspiring. Not the actions itself, but how he went through hell and back for his goals. With his will alone. He wasn’t made that way, or taught that was. It’s his very nature. “I’ve always been me…”

Does freedom have morality? I saw an Aot analysis asking this great question. Is Eren not free because his freedom doesn’t align with your definition of it? It doesn’t matter that I disagree with his view, it’s his. And his blatant pursuit for it makes him free. He’s never been held back by authority, fear. While other people run from titans, Eren hurls himself towards them. Whereas a “normal” human usually has to fight to keep going, Eren always fights to hold back. He’s in a constant state of wanting to go all out, a maximalist. He learns to control his urges, to embrace his destructive nature and go after his desires. Even though he KNOWS they are wrong. But they feel right for him, so he’ll do it. He cries for his victims, yet he still kills them. He never denies being a monster, like Levi said in s1, “he can’t be caged. He will never submit to anyone.” Imagine being so free that no amount of destruction or judgment can change the path you want to follow. Having thousands of years worth of pain impose your brain in form of memories, messes you up. But even with all that, he kept moving forward. Making his limited time alive account for something instead of sitting back, accepting fate. Following the battle of Eren vs himself, exploring his hypocritical, contradicting, sympathetic mind, has been an absolute pleasure. I don’t think you can learn enough.

You know how you wish you didn’t care about what people thought of you? Or social norms? He never did. Even from a young age. The way his mind works and how he never shy’s away from his beliefs. There are many parts of Eren I look up to. Like how he’s always a raw version of himself. There are also many traits of his that I relate to. His anger, grief, his self hatred. The part I can’t relate to is the sheer willpower he has. Eren is a literal physical manifestation of pursuing his will. Not naturally intelligent like Armin, not physically strong like Mikasa. He moves forward, alone, only through the strength of his mind. He grew up in a loving home, yet killed ruthlessly as a kid. It’s the ultimate discussion about Nature vs nurture. I know he helped a lot of people like he did with me, the level of nuances are insane and there’s tons to discuss. But I just wanted to talk a bit about why i love him so much, even if it’s just for myself. One thing that i know many of us can relate to is how lonely Eren felt through his hardest times. Yes, he was surrounded by people but no one ever asked him what was wrong, even though he had visibly changed. And even though being alone is “what he wanted, we all know he wouldn’t mind a shoulder to cry on. Everyone has a limit. (My love for him is limitless.) There’s nothing I don’t appreciate about his character. Happy birthday, Eren ♡

[derrygirlstrash]

Fic Prompt: AU where to get her off his back one of David or John Paul’s friends gives Erin the wrong number and that number ends up being James’s number, and Erin is mad she got tricked and into phoning an English boy no less but James comforts this mental stranger over the phone because she seems really upset and has a cute accent and he wants to be kind since someone was clearly unkind to her and they start developing a long distance friendship and then a long distance relationship through phone calls.

Some assorted thoughts:

- James either hasn’t moved or hasn’t moved yet. I imagine this occurring maybe after the party, so late S1 or early S2.

- Imagine you’re James and this cute voice with a strange accent just starts trying to awkwardly flirt with you and then a few words out of your mouth and suddenly she’s furious and emotional and it’s just like you have NO clue what’s happening but you kinda now feel obligated to help if you can it’s not every day a stranger yells and cries over the phone to you. James trying his best to understand a Derry accent over the phone clearly he’s a smitten kitten if he’s trying to understand her.

- Erin just calling James to talk because she can’t admit this stuff to her ACTUAL friends that would be embarrassing except sometimes she’s also calling to tell him all about stuff in her day, and her poetry, and whatnot because he’s a really good listener she kinda just assumed English loved the sound of their own voices but he listens and doesn’t seem impatient or irritated with her like sometimes other people do she can just relax and be herself, maybe they’re becoming friends. Secret friends. Even his accent, that she started out uncomfortable with becomes kind of… cute?

- Erin eventually wonders how he can always be around for her calls so much, like, isn’t his Ma or Da on his back about how much he uses the phone. She has to sneak to call when and where she can, but he doesn’t seem to have that problem. He is surprisingly casual about what sounds to Erin like a raw deal. Maybe she’ll let him talk more in these calls. She kinda wants to know more about him. Erin’s special little secret boy. Even if he is English.

- Accidentally saying something you shouldn’t over the phone, the kinds of ways one can translate their gradual shift in personal space into phone calls. A bit of harmless banter, maybe. Taking longer to hang up and slipping some things into the conversation. They’re both starting to really feel that chemistry.

- Still gets stood up for Prom and calls James, and he comforts her like he always does, and admits that if he could, he would have taken her to prom… Erin feels things. Lots of things.

- Erin and James could trade addresses to send each other gifts for Christmas or something and Erin has to try and get her gift before her family gets to the post so that she doesn’t have to answer uncomfortable questions about her mystery parcel.

- Erin trying to hide her friendship with James but occasionally slips up by mentioning James and has to lie her way out of those mentions before anyone finds out she may like some boy she met over a phone

- If James ends up moving to Derry he would probably end up there in the gap between S2 and S3 and Michelle is ranting and raving about her dickhead English cousin that honestly Erin is already head over heels for. He’s her best secret friend and his voice makes her flutter and it turns out he might be a wee bit handsome. Luckily for her he was already halfway in love, spends his first day in Derry with Michelle and her friends and managed to fall in love with her fully by the end of it.

[tuiyla]

on bela: i don't even know how to feel, i'm so conflicted, right, cause in s1 she was my favorite (i couldn't even tell you why, she's not even really the kind of character i usually gravitate towards but smth about her was so charming, i was obsessed with her) and now.. i am just sad. don't get me wrong i still love her sm and i actually appreciate that she's making so many shitty mistakes bc, that's life, and that's part of growing up and learning to become a good person, but GOD i am sad -dan

Oh I feel that, you have every reason to be sad. I was hoping we might have hit rock bottom with Bela already and would start on a positive arc but nope, there was more!

The one reason I'm still... well happy isn't the right word but content with Bela's stuff is because I genuinely believe hers was the best written. Did it hurt, god yeah and she really tested my "support women's wrongs" stance. Girl did soooo many things wrong this season and these last two stunts with the Foxy and Georgia didn't help. But I do feel like the puzzle pieces all fit together and we have been leading up to this. During her last scene at first I thought she'd try and go back to the Catullan, but I suppose wanting to essentially run away is similar, in a sense.

Also in that last scene we saw the self-awareness she's been lacking all season, and that was reassurance that she does feel it, it's just too terrifying to face. And in that not only is Bela's story the most well-written but the most emotionally poignant. It sucks right now because she's in such a bad place and her future up in the air, but I this last scene made me have hope for the future. And, tbh, turned her into a much more interesting ch for me. This is how Bela has really arrived for me, with her broken admission that all she's ever wanted was to be liked and she messed it all up. Like, I just find it satisfying, despite feeling for her, how everything piled up to land her here. I especially appreciated that we acknowledged her 1.8 GPA and general lackluster academics because she more than anyone has been ignoring that and it should matter.

I feel like such an ass for saying her misery is by far the best storyline lmao but it's clear to me that most care was put into Bela's arc. And sure, that arc has been a downfall pretty much all season and those are inherently not fun to watch with chs we like and root for but at least I have something to root for, you know? No other character has made me feel so much for them this season than Bela did in that one scene. That was just so raw, you know? Like damn girl yeah you really have messed up, now let's put you back together. I'm really excited for Bela in season 3; I mean the only way from here is up surely lol.

There was also her throwaway line about being treated worse at the Catullan than she did Georgia and ashkjjs I'm so unwell about that, someone get this girl help.

[mostly-vo1d]

https://eusuntgratie.tumblr.com/post/646596071305396224/my-laundry-game-was-off-on-monday-so-please-enjoy

https://liliaeth.tumblr.com/post/646621914149847040/my-laundry-game-was-off-on-monday-so-please-enjoy

---

okay, wow. do I have options on... a lot of that.

yes, I agree that it's very in character for Stiles who expects someone who should know basic gun safety to not throw a fucking gun at him.

as much as I love most of the adults, Stiles had no real reason (ie lack of trust) or time to ask them and actually train. (and they — the majority of whom have known for more than literally a few months — didn't offer either.)

Derek or Scott biting Stiles just does not make sense to me in canon. at all. I started rambling about this on another submission before tumblr ate it (what else is new?) but the tl,dr is, Stiles was there for/knows about most of what lead up to the you're not my real alpha moment. he has reasonable issues with loss of control (both from his mom and Peter controlling Scott, later the nogitsune and the dread doctors). asking for the bite from Derek would drive a wedge between Stiles and Scott. Stiles has seen Scott's reaction to people who wanted the bite for 'good' reasons. (good in quotation marks because if Scott went all 'then he's an idiot' at the boy who didn't want to be abused anymore, I doubt he'd agree to bite Stiles just because he wanted it/"to be useful") (also tw and choice in general but that's—)

point is, Stiles already is dangerous. not because he's a hunter/werewolf or has magic. his skills are more in knowledge and using others to get that knowledge or manipulating them with it.

it's not that he doesn't want skills in case he becomes dangerous, it's that, in his experience, everyone in the position to teach/give him those skills has used that position to reach their own goals, something that usually ends up hurting Stiles and/or his friends/family.

[ckerouac]

Jamie says in S1 that when he was growing up he had a poster of Roy on his wall. Makes sense, a lot of kids would have posters of football superstar Roy Kent on their walls. I bet seven-year-old Jamie Tartt would look at that poster every night and imagine he was playing with Roy, playing against Roy, Roy passing the ball so Jamie could score the winning goal, telling everyone he was good but Jamie was great.

And with an abusive prick of a dad in real life, it’s not hard to imagine seven-year-old Jamie believing that football superstar Roy Kent wouldn’t slap him around if he missed a pass, or yell at him in front of the team if he didn’t score the winning goal, or telling him he’s only worth anything if he’s the best. Roy Kent wouldn’t treat him like that. Roy Kent on his poster and in his imagination would care.

And Jamie grew up, and discovered he was himself a superstar and didn’t need validation because he really was the best. Not that that stopped his dad from treating him like shit no matter how many games he won. It wasn’t enough. He didn’t need anyone, and certainly didn’t need validation from Roy Kent, now at the end of his career and no where near as good as Jamie is now. Jamie Tartt doesn’t need validation from anyone.

But everyone has a breaking point, and in the locker room after that gutting loss Jamie finds his. His father’s respect was always conditional, and a bully like him can’t help but slap around his son to diminish Jamie in front of his team. Jamie’s only worth something if he’s winning. That horrible lesson seven year old Jamie internalized. And so, adult Jamie struck his father, standing up for the scared seven-year-old boy still inside him against this prick who caused him a lifetime of pain and disappointment.

And when his dad is removed, and he’s standing there emotionally naked in front of his team, raw to the idea that maybe his father was right, what does he find out?

He finds out seven-year-old Jamie Tartt was right all along - Roy Kent cares.

[littlespoonevan]

I need your help please or anyone that can explain to me how does buck love or like Eddie I don’t see it I see it with Eddie how he feels about buck he likes him and has feelings for him but I only see buck liking Eddie as a friend

oof okay, where do I start?

I think it's fair to say over the last season and a bit Eddie's love for Buck can sometimes seem more obvious. We all know the fond faces got ramped up to 100 during season 4 (bless) and typically between the two of them, Eddie is the one who's made more vocal declarations of his feelings about Buck/Buck's importance to him. ("You act like you're expendable but you're wrong" etc. etc.)

Having said all that, I honestly don't know how you couldn't see that Buck loves Eddie.

Maybe you might not see it romantically - which y'know, fair enough, who's to say we're even supposed to see it romantically? But regardless, Buck absolutely loves Eddie and it's not something I've ever questioned.

The most damning example for me has always been the scene in Eddie Begins when the well collapses. Because Buck is...Buck just completely loses it????

He tries to dig through 40 feet of mud with his bare hands, he screams Eddie's name raw, he sobs in Bobby's lap and is utterly and completely inconsolable. And like, okay yes, Eddie's his best friend. Yes, it's traumatic no matter who it would be but we've never seen Buck act like that before. The closest examples I can think of are when he loses Chris in the tsunami and running to Maddie after she's been kidnapped by Doug. But again, those are two of the other people in Buck's life he loves the most.

We don't see him react like that when Bobby gets caught in the radiation fire or when Chim is stabbed or when the helicopter goes down with Hen in it. It's just because it's Eddie. Also even before this when he asks to go down to help Eddie instead of Chim Hen's immediate response is, "Why, so we can have two cut lines?" which only further proves the whole team knows Buck would sacrifice himself to save Eddie and would literally die with him if he couldn't.

Like that level of devotion is just unfathomable to me???????

We obviously see an entire repeat of this when Eddie gets shot and the entire sequence of getting him to the hospital. And yeah, once again, it's traumatic regardless but Buck's reaction is what it is because it's Eddie. He's borderline catatonic after the shooting, is barely holding himself together, and completely breaks when he finds out Eddie's okay.

I couldn't find a gif of the actual moment after he reads the texts but I've never seen Buck cry like that before???? Like you can just feel the relief and the devastation and every single emotion that's flooding through him and idk how to say that isn't love???

(Another very brief example before I move on: Buck runs into gunfire in 5x06 when he thinks Eddie's been hurt without even a second to think about what kind of danger it might put himself in)

The other thing that I think highlights Buck's feelings is the way he reacts to the things Eddie says to him?? Like I made a post yesterday about the significant things Eddie has told Buck in the past and Buck's face is always just this combination of awe and disbelief and salvation. And I personally feel like Eddie is the one who's always able to get through to him specifically because he believes in Eddie so much.

I also think it's quite telling that Buck generally isn't good with his words when it comes to Eddie??? Like normally Buck's pretty good at communication and confrontation but he really seems to struggle when it comes to defining Eddie's importance to him or saying how he feels, almost like it's too overwhelming to put into words. (In contrast to Eddie who normally struggles with words but always seems to find what to say when it's Buck)

But to move onto some happier examples askjdhf I think the way Buck supports Eddie unconditionally says a lot. Buck has a whole dilemma in s1 where he doesn't know if he's prepared for the complications that comes with dating Abby while she's taking care of her mother and Bobby tells him Abby needs someone who won't fix everything for her but will step inside the mess with her and keep her company and that's...exactly what Buck does with Eddie.

Literally from 2x02 he's there for Eddie in every way he can think without Eddie ever having to ask. He takes him to pick up Chris after the earthquake, he takes him to the hospital when his abuela breaks her hip, he clears it with Bobby so Eddie can take Chris to work with him, he introduces Eddie to Carla, he listens to Eddie when he's worrying about parenting decisions and never criticises him - only does his best to reassure him and be there for him.

And maybe in a way it's not as demonstrative as some of the things Eddie has said in the past but it's definitely Loud. We know Buck loves Chris independent of Eddie. Eddie knows it too. But it doesn't change the fact that part of the reason Buck loves Chris so much is because he's also part of Eddie.

Finally, I think he loves him just because he does. Because he's his best friend and they have fun together and he trusts Eddie so implicitly and he defers to Eddie always and because he refused to miss his firefighter ceremony even though he'd just had his crush injury because "this is more important", because when Taylor kissed him and ran away he ran to Eddie instead of chasing after her, because he watches Eddie and Chris like he's looking at his future, because he can tell when something's wrong with Eddie when no one else can. Because Eddie said "no one will ever fight for my son as hard as you" but that also meant "no one will ever fight for me as hard as you" and I believe that.

Idk I think in the end I just feel like if Buck was asked, "Who's your favourite person?" the answer would be Eddie, y'know?

[razmerry]

Drawtectives: Orc Lore

So in honor of S1 of Drawtectives almost being over, I decided to rewatch all the episodes and compile all the “orc lore” Jacob spills, because it is delightful. I know people have suggested doing this but I haven’t seen anyone actually compile it all, so I’m sorry if you already have and I missed it. Also there were some things I left out because they felt more like just a joke, or weren’t important enough, or too non-specific. Some of the lore is contradictory but it’s so impressive for improv worldbuilding. Anyways! Enough of that. Read on: 

Part 2

Episode 1:

- York is orc on his father’s side, human on his mother’s

- His father is the tribe’s leader

- “Humans are kind of like pets to me”

- “I don’t know anything either, but I’m basically unkillable” - just a good York summary

- Has a case he keeps bones in

- Murder is a normal thing at orc parties

- The bone economy is introduced

Episode 2:

- York cannot write (does not understand the process of writing?)

- Orcs heal sickness by violently shaking the afflicted

- York is pretty good at mental math

Episode 3:

- Common misconception; York can read, just in the “orc runes”, not English

- Does not know what dollars are

- The bone economy is expanded upon; dragon bones are very valuable

- In orc culture you are polite to people who can kill you; rudeness is reserved for those you feel comfortable around

- York only learned about “motives” recently

- York is unaware of what jokes are

- He has never cried before?

- Food is eaten raw and possibly still alive

- In the bone economy, “candle bones” are worth 5 turtle bones, turtle bones are worth 5 rat bones, and a rat bone is worth 5 bug bones (bug bones are being phased out as a currency)

- Northern bugs do have bones

- Things that are the best to eat are the hardest to kill

- York’s hairstyle is popular, because he forced others to adopt it

Episode 4:

- “I’m about to humor your boy out the window” is just a very good quote

- York has trained warhounds before

- Wild trains live in wild train country. They cannot be slain or tamed, and are incredibly fast. It is the only thing York is terrified of 

- Orcs cannot refuse an invitation; half-orcs must give a tentative maybe

- Wild trains are a serious threat to York’s tribe

- York has “bad blood” with the Wild Lands

- Bikes are used to escape wild trains

Episode 5:

- Only one channel on TV is received in the Northern Tribes; orcish soap operas are most common - “Tusks of Our Lives”, “Maul My Children”, “One Fight to Live” (which has 37 seasons)

- Only one band in the Northern Tribes; Birds of Prey

- York is unaware bands other than that one existed

- York does not know what a camera is 

- Also does not know how TV works (”little people inside the box”)

- Cannot recognize his own face in a photo 

- Only lemons grow/are sold in the Northern Tribes

- York had a “yellow-slick toad” named Tammy as a child; previous crying point disproven as he cried at least 15 minutes when it died

- Wild trains are also called “ground planes” sometimes

- York has murdered his brother in an “unrightful claim to the throne” and “blood feud”

- He is apparently an orc prince; this does line up with the lore about him being the tribe leader’s son

- (Non-orc worldbuilding: boker, billiards, Grendan Fury, Go Bish)

Episode 6: (the piss episode)

- Orcs… do both at once, as it were

- He doesn’t wipe………

- “Pee is compliment, blood is insult”

- Class discourse is an important discussion in orcish culture

- Mirrors do not exist in the Northern Tribes

- Northern cats are apparently eight feet long and eight feet tall, roughly cuboid, and kept as battle cats

- “Northern hill squirrel”

Episode 7:

- Orcs are strongly anti-tobacco; instead they do mushrooms

- YORKY SNACKS

- York once held onto an antelope for two weeks

- “It takes five pickles to hold a potata” - common orcish childhood quote

- Fuzzy potatoes are a crop in the Northern Tribes; they are hard to perceive, and if you don’t put on your “pickle glove” before you hold one things will get real weird

- York does possess the ability to write both “eat my butt” and “wow now thatsa potata”

Episode 8:

- Orcs have two stomachs, requiring more food to fill them; they don’t need to eat for two days after the stomachs are full

- He “empties both stomachs at once”

- York has been in many knife fights

- Expansion on wild trains: they can be killed, evidently, but only if you sneak up and attack their engine compartment while they’re sleeping, if confronted you must lure them into a false sense of security. Wild trains do know when they are being depicted in art and can sense it, will attack (?)

- Whatever leg wrestling is about

- Apparently once York killed a rhino by fanning his hand but I’m not sure if that was real or just to push Emery’s buttons

- “Is he doin slammer on me” - I just really like that

- Orcs are only babies for a couple hours

- YORK FEET PICS

- Possibly non-canonical but Jacob said York is on his Rumspringa and that is very funny

Episode 9:

- Non-orc actors and programs are being shown on orc TV?

- Orcs do not have dimples

- Old actors are called “road dogs” in the Northern Tribes

Episode 10:

- Ghosts exist in this world, but not in the Northern Tribes (“when people die, they die hard”)

- Reconfirmed: York is good at math

- Spilled milk is cried over in the North (it will make York cry)

- Has no pockets

(Updating:)

Episode 11:

- Not much but it’s a big one: 

Orcish elders have knowledge of Julia (and her artistic decisions)

One-Shot Stream:

- Orcs “feel time differently” - described as being like dog years (1 day feel like 3 days)

- Semi-related: orcs believe that people are never coming back when they leave and are surprised when they do

- York believed only murder was a crime

- Dogs love York

- York does not know what his birthday is

- After a birth in the Northern tribes, people “take a stick and scratch in the mud” the words ‘He was born’ so others know

- He doesn’t know what glass is? 

- “Faster than you can shake a leaf at a twig”

[thekatebridgerton]

Is it bad that I don't want Sophie Beckett to be a POC? It's because putting a POC in a Cinderella story (which Sophie and Benedict's story is), opens up to the dangerous white savior trope with the rich white man saving the oppressed POC working woman. I cannot think of any way to carefully handle that and still stay loyal to the books. But that doesn't mean Sophie has to be an english actress. If the show makes Sophie Irish, the show can still address the same issues about working women in Regency England with added historical accuracy - as we all know the British were beyond horrid d*cks to the Irish for centuries. And that's an understatement.

I’d like to point out that Nicola Coughlan is Irish. And that I do love the implication of the Featheringtons might Irish roots. Hopefully her Irish heritage will get brought up in the show next season. Your question does makes me wonder how well Nicola would have played Sophie if she’d been casted opposite Luke Thompson tho. 

Now put on your seatbelt anon you're about to hear a rant.

First of all let's get this out of the way, I am in no way opposed to seeing a black Cinderella on Bridgerton. One of the best Cinderella's in cinematic history was a black woman, which was Brandi in Roger and Hammerstein's. And Brandi's Cinderella is so great, beautiful, flawless in the way she played it that surpassing her has been the challenge of every Cinderella that came after including Lily James.

If someone like Brandi played Sophie, Bridgerton would rise so high, because there's something about a black woman not putting up with oppression any longer and quite literally giving Benedict the dressing down he deserves, that would be so cathartic for me. You wouldn't even notice the white savior trope because she would kick it out of the way with the force of her performance. The way the actress plays the role has a lot of power into how the character is perceived. Take Gugu Mbatha-Raw in any role ever. Most notably in 'Belle'. when she's on screen, the depth she gives to her performance makes white people look like they're not even trying. 

If Bridgerton did cast a black actress as Sophie, unless the actress was anything short of spectacular, her performance would be compared to Brandi. Because Brandi set the standard for POC Cinderella scenes.

Now let's leave aside that Benedict is a classist duck to Sophie for a moment. And focus on the fact that Sophie Beckett has arguably the most tragic backstory out of the four Bridgerton wives. Kate, Penelope and Lucy at least had families who gave a thought to their happiness. Sophie didn’t. Her backstory is going to hurt regardless of who plays the role, it’s literally written that way. 

Which brings us to my rant, if you examine the amount of times the Cinderella trope has been used in a movie or tv and cross reference that with the amount of times a non-white actress played the role, you start to see a disturbing trend. Which is this: when not performed by a white actress, Cinderella is performed by an actress of South American/Latino descent. Most recently Selena Gomez, Sofia Carson and Camilla Cabello. And Dania Ramirez in that season of OUAT I didn’t watch.

As a Latina myself if you think the slavery implication in the white savior trope is bad when Cinderella is played by a black actress then it's just as bad when it's performed by a Latina. People don't talk about it that much because Latina skin can pass for white under a certain tan booth light. But make no mistake, the implication is there. 

Hot take: Actresses with South American/Latino heritage, aren't all born to play the role of maids or any other type of oppressed citizens. Despite what Jlo made Hollywood think in Maid in Manhattan. In fact neither are black women. Bridgerton at least got that right when they cast a POC as Queen Charlotte.

If you cross reference the amount of times Cinderella has been played by a black woman in movie/tv and you get 1, which is Brandi, the Cinderella who set the bar really high. 2 if you decide to count Rags where Keke Palmer plays the prince (which I don’t count) but it’s worth mentioning. 

Rant ended back to Sophie and Benedict.

Now, with the exception of the casting of Daphne, ( which I think could have gone better, because Phoebe’s performance was lackluster compared to costars like Nicola Coughlan, Ruby Barker and Sabrina Bartlett) Bridgerton casting has always been really successful. I personally love who they picked as Kate and Edwina. From what I can see in the recent clips, Simone Ashley can give a lot of depth and nuance to Kate. 

I hope that they do the same for the casting of Sophie and bring in an actress who can portray Sophie as someone who refuses to be the victim and has never lost hope. Which is the beauty of Sophie’s character. Personally I’ve never seen an Asian Cinderella in western tv, if they cast an actress with Asian, Pacific or Caribbean heritage, they would actually BE breaking ground and doing something that hasn’t been done before. Even another Desi actress would do well in that role.

 I’m the first to raise my hand in favor of more Asian representation in Bridgerton because we didn’t get any in S1 and for a show that’s supposedly so diverse that kinda bummed me out. And it would also have less racist connotations because at that historical point in time, the British (in my limited understanding) had a less oppressive relationship with Asians. At least compared to other cultures that they were actively suppressing, enslaving or destroying. 

I still trust that Sophie’s actress will be spectacular, and hopefully she might make me feel something beyond boredom towards Benedict and redeem him in my eyes. Because out of all the Bridgertons I care about his manpain the least in An Offer From A Gentleman. And I still cared about his manpain the least in Bridgerton S1 (regardless of how well Luke Thompson played the character.). 

Ps: pardon if I used racial terms that offended anyone here. In my culture calling a person Black, White or Latina, isn’t seen as an insult. So if any of you got offended, it was completely unintentional.