#does this make any sense lmao

[the-apology-dance]

Something I Realized….

There are so many holes in the last 15 minutes of S2E6 that it may as well be Swiss cheese, but a few things really bothered me.

1) Crowley and Metatron’s quotes contradicting each other

2) Aziraphale’s smile in the elevator

SO BEAR WITH ME.

Crowley and Metatron both comment on the name of the coffee shop, “Give Me Coffee Or Give Me Death”. Crowley says in his statement that “[Aziraphale] is unpredictable…”

Metatron says “so predictable”, about people ever asking for death.

Crowley and Metatron are clashing here. Which brings me into Aziraphale’s smile in the elevator to Heaven and Hell. It's a bit odd. However, it does closely resemble one point where it is matches.

During Crowley’s execution. When he scrunched up his nose in the Holy water bath. Now this could be a coincidence, but it is almost as if he knows something the Metatron doesn't and is hiding it.

Crowley does say he is an angel “who goes along with Heaven as far as he can”. That is EXACTLY what he is doing. Going along with Heaven as far as he can, until he DOESN’T.

Aziraphale has been shown to be very unpredictable over time, and when he is kind, it shows on his face. However, when he isn't happy, it also shows.

He is already at his breaking point when it comes to Heaven and Hell, and now he is going to hear the plans they have for the Second Coming.

Is this all just a front Aziraphale is putting on? Staying in line, not showing his true feelings to save Crowley? He isn't stupid. He is a clever Angel. Almost to a dangerous extent.

He seems to know what is going on and perhaps that pan over to Crowley before he stepped into the elevator meant more than one thing.

‘I have to do this. Even if it means I’m doing it alone. I have to try.’

[sunsickjune]

aaron : don’t come crying to me when your big dreams fall apart !!

andrew : don’t fucking hold your breath

aaron: pull up your goddamn pants you LOSER !!!

[suguwu]

Can you elaborate on aven soulmate au?

i think the idea of a soulmate—someone you're irrevocably bonded too, who might understand you, who might fit into all the wounds you didn't even realize you had like a poultice—would terrify him. the idea of an innate understanding goes against everything he's built himself into. he doesn't want to be known.

for me, a lot of the horror of soulmates comes from the idea that you're immediately connected to them, that you already have a base of feelings, whether you want them or not. that there's no choice. you're tied together. and for someone like aventurine, i think there's true horror there. he can't break the bond. he can push you away, can keep himself at a distance, but the bond will always be there. he has no control. and he has fought so hard for any type of control over his own life.

(a small part of him is hungry for it. he wants happiness too, or at least wonders why he can't be happy, but he strikes me as the type to self-sabotage. he'd rather keep control.)

anyway i just think that to him, a soulmate is a haunting. your relationship is already over before it begins, but it lingers in him anyway.

[uncxntrxllable]

LIL UPDATE on my slow ass

anyways, what I am trying to do is write as many drafts as possible before I start posting so that maybe I can try to keep up a bit more decently as I get new responses.

that way I can shift my focus to writing the new things as they come VS new things flooding in and I still have a bunch of old things to write for.

[girls-againstgod]

does anyone ever think about the ending of good omens 2 and how if either of them actually went with the other, they wouldn't be themselves anymore?

hear me out...

if aziraphale actually ran off with crowley to some other place where they wouldn't be found by heaven or hell, he would feel like he was giving up on/ignoring humanity and he wouldn't be able to forgive himself. he would literally be giving up the thing that he lives for and loves (aside from crowley of course). and if he and crowley went off together, he would 100% feel like that part of himself was missing.

if crowley went to heaven with aziraphale, he would be ignoring everything he knew to be true, i.e. that heaven is not good and great and truthful like aziraphale believes it to be, but rather that it is evil just like hell but in a more secretive and manipulative way. if he went, he would be an angel again, he would be reverting back to an old version of himself, and he wouldn't be who he is now. to him, it seems like aziraphale is saying "i love you as you were" and not "i love you as you are".

the saddest thing is that they both wanted to be together, they just didn't feel like they could be what the other person wanted them to be. they still weren't able to actually completely talk to each other. and both of their decisions were in character and damn is that good writing. it was all so true and human and heartbreaking.

[quietwingsinthesky]

not to think seriously about the samelia arc but idk something interesting there through the lens of aromantic dean coming back and just. not getting it.

One of the first things he asks Sam about what happened while he was gone is “was there a girl?” and when told there was, he’s very upset by that. There was a girl, and in Dean’s mind, Sam chose her over Dean. And wants to continue choosing her! Wants to go back to her, says as much about wanting to go back to that life and almost does after the text message debacle!

And looking at this from Dean’s POV, Dean who tried to have that same kind of Normal Heterosexual Romance Life with lisa, and who it didn’t work for. could never quite make himself fit into place, couldn’t give her things he wasn’t even aware he couldn’t feel. who, as soon as he knew Sam was alive, made it a priority to stick close to his brother even at the expense of that relationship with Lisa. Like. Of course Dean doesn’t get what Sam wants with Amelia. He tried it! He lived it! For him, it felt wrong!

His life with Sam, for all that it’s a fucked up one, is more fulfilling to him than “being in love” with Lisa, and so even beyond the fact that he’s always going to need to choose Sam because that’s been his job since he was a kid, he’s always going to want to choose Sam.

and the idea that there’s some hierarchy of relationships for Sam where Dean isn’t the one he wants to spend his life with? That’s terrifying and confusing to him (if completely untrue, since Sam also proves time and time again that in the end he’ll always choose Dean.) Dean’s got no idea what being aromantic actually is, he’s Dean. Meaning to him, what he had with Lisa is either what everyone gets out of a romantic relationship or he’s broken in ways other people aren’t, depending on how much he hates himself that day. Neither of which are true, but you can see how, with that assumption, the idea that Sam wants to leave this life with him for a woman he met less than a year ago is kind of hard for him to process.

[jasongraceenthusiast]

i also (lmao) came up with another idea cause yeah <3

here me out : feral jason valgrace! au — where like leo finds the little wolfy guy in the woods

[fellhellion]

Akio is a guy who’s chained himself to top of a panopticon while boasting about how he’s escaped prison

[the-void-has-questions]

Unfortunately I seem to have my best thoughts when I’m desperately trying to sleep.

Anyways, y’all know the sign in Hell “clean up after yourselves, your mother doesn’t work here. You don’t have a mother.” ? Right, of course. Now, this could be a one off joke thing. But when you consider that God (I think??) is referred to with she/her pronouns, and as such would be considered the mother of not only the humans, but also the angels, and as such, the former angels. Aka the demons. Mommy issues, the lot of them

[guqslvr]

guys i love tumblr idk it feels like some silly mystical place bc no one talks about it anywhere else yk like other platforms are mentioned on each other but tumblr is just a little silly place idk

[god-of-a-thousand-demons]

I feel like the action economy in p3 is much more based on a multiplying approach to statics like “if X, Y is Tx more likely to occur” vs at times p4 and 5 both felt more like percentages like “if X, Y is P% chance of occurrence” like mudo for example I never used in p4 and 5 bc it felt like it worked 50% or the time with a lean on negative meaning it’s almost always gonna miss vs in p3 if I use insta kill skills I feel like it’s more likely to work on the next turn it’s a “always yes or no” vs probability difference and I like the probability much more for battle bc it’s more rewarding and varried I find p3’s combat much more active and engaging bc of the way it’s combat was constructed

[mcrblr]

once again a funny thing (but yes i think this is the right way to go about it) to me is that white people will generally not say anything about my ethnicity bc they’re scared of being wrong which yes i do think is kind of funny like lol what am i??? that’s a question they will likely never get the answer to.

meanwhile people of colour talking to me will be like oh where r u from?? and when i say “i’m from here” (australia) their face is like 😳 but then i clarify my mum is vietnamese and they’re like ohhhhhh 🥰 so true 🤝

[lokh]

so ive been thinking so hard about that transfem butch zoro au.

i feel like at the Very beginning (after kuinas death) she does try to present real feminine like but it doesnt feel like Her and eventually she stops doing it (and in any case its not like kuina was super feminine so why would she try to be like that??)

on the other hand she HAS to make sure everyone knows shes a woman when she beats their ass and becomes the worlds greatest swordsman. so sports bras (or equivalent whatever) and open shirts are a staple

i think she would do hrt (or equivalent Whatever) because again she wants to prove that kuina could have done it. unfortunately i do also think this means she trains about 1 million times as hard

trans sanji............. coming to the realisation that maybe she Wants to be taken care of by a hot butch........................ as a pretty femme

[wielderofmysteries]

A Vorthos Defense of Lukka

Sorry this response turned into a small essay (~1400 words) that doesn't really answer your question, but my Hot Take™ is that I don't think Lukka needs to be fixed.

I believe the problem doesn't lie in Lukka himself, but in the way both the narrative and the fandom treated him extremely unfairly. I'm not asking anyone to like Lukka. Personally, I don't even think anything about him is particularly likable. But I think as a character he deserves a lot more respect than he gets, and I'm tired of seeing other people hate on him without actually engaging with his story or understanding what his character is about.

Here's the thing: Lukka is basically the homeless veteran of planeswalkers.

He started his story in Sundered Bond (Ikoria ebook by Django Wexler) already successful in his military career, engaged to be married to Jirina, and having General Kudro's favor. He was a model citizen and his life was great. One day, a flying-hyper-murder-tiger killed Lukka's entire squad and people discovered Lukka was a monster Bonder because the tiger spared him. The rumors got to General Kudro, whose decision upon hearing Lukka might be a bonder was to have Lukka immediately executed.

Lukka didn't betray Drannith. Drannith betrayed Lukka.

Lukka escaped his execution and was rescued in the wilderness by Vivien, who traveled with him to the Ozolith, where a mysterious evil voice caused Lukka to unlock the full power of his monster bonding abilities. Through it all, Lukka still tried to hang onto his old life. His allegiance hadn't changed. At first, Lukka wanted to use the monsters he controlled to fight for Drannith, not against it. Lukka was convinced that the offer of a loyal monster army would be enough for the city to take him back, but he was no longer welcome in Drannith.

Lukka became increasingly unstable and spiraled into insanity because he had his life unexpectedly, completely ruined and wanted nothing more than to return home to his old life, but that wasn't possible because he now belonged to a class of people who were extremely stigmatized in Drannith's society. He had become an undesirable. Once the city's shining star, he was now the lowest of the low. He lost his loyalty and turned against the city when he realized Drannith didn't care about people, Drannith cared about keeping people in their places.

In Sundered Bond, Lukka loses literally everything. He loses his job. He loses all his friends. He loses his fiance. He loses his home. Everything. He even loses the cat. This all happens to him within like, a week.

Lukka experiences the same hostility in his second appearance, Strixhaven. At this point, he's still a new planeswalker, and he's been planeswalking blindly trying to find civilization again. He arrives on Arcavios thirsty and starving and tired and injured. When he finally finds a town, he visits an inn and asks only for food. But they don't give him any food! They won't allow him to wash up or to rest! This is a man who has nothing and has done nothing, and the townspeople are suspicious of Lukka and want to call the Dragonsguard –Strixhaven's magical cops– on him because he committed the crime of... existing near them while visibly having basic needs that are unmet.

=========

"Looking for something, stranger?" said the innkeeper, a round man with a head of robust curls.

"A hot meal," said Lukka. The innkeeper hesitated as though about to say something, then nodded and moved toward the kitchen.

"Haven't seen clothes like that before," came a voice behind Lukka. "You're not from around here, I imagine."

He turned. A tall man in the same rough clothing as the rest of the townsfolk had stood up from his table and was walking over.

[…]

He heard the man suck his teeth. The innkeeper still hadn't returned from the kitchen. Lukka was starting to doubt he ever would.

"Okay, Oriq, I think I've heard enough. We don't take kindly to meddlers in this town, or those who seek to disturb the peace. If we were a proper city, we'd get the closest, least busy Dragonsguard to sort you out. But we're just a small farming village—so we've learned to deal with strangers ourselves."

[Episode 2: Lessons - Adana Washington]

=========

Fans like to point at Lukka and make "ACAB" ("All Cops Are Bastards") jokes about him, but they don't understand that he's explicitly an anti-cop character. Lukka was formerly a cop, but he quit and fully turned his back on the entire concept of policing when he realized that the reason cops exist is not to protect people, but to rid society of undesirables like him.

=========

"These dragons," Lukka said, his voice a growl. "Those Dragonsguard. They've held power over these people for too long. They've made them fearful of every shadow, every unfamiliar face. What happens when it's not just the Oriq they're hunting down—when it's anyone who practices magic in a way they don't like?"

[Episode 3: Extracurriculars - Adana Washington]

=========

I know what many of you will say: "How can Lukka have such a based take when he's such a terrible person?" It's true– he is not a good person. He's an asshole and he's harmed / killed innocent people and animals. But he's been both a cop and a homeless man, and he knows that cops are far more dangerous. You don't need to be a "good" person to deserve food and shelter. It's cops who promote the idea that you can deny the basic rights of the people you think are "bad".

So on Arcavios, he's again forced out of civilization and back into the wilderness. His suffering seriously never ends. The way he was treated, it's no wonder he accepted when the Oriq kidnapped him and asked him to help attack Strixhaven. Why should he give a damn about society if they don't care about him? If their society is so fearful of others that they are unwilling to practice compassion, unwilling to provide for people's most basic needs even when they haven't done anything wrong, then doing wrong doesn't matter. They will share his pain. He will watch it all burn to the ground.

Lukka is an example of what happens when someone's basic humanity is repeatedly denied to the point that they can no longer feel anything but anger.

This line from the story Survival of the Fittest, by Roy Graham, expresses it perfectly:

=========

He had been a cruel man by the end, a villain in so many ways. But perhaps in his position, there was no way to become anything else."

=========

Lukka reaches out for stability and support and never truly finds it. He's a character who keeps getting punished over and over for having bad things happen *to* him, not because he *does* bad things. Most of the bad stuff he actually does is in response to others treating him like shit for no reason.

Despite everything, Vivien still cared for Lukka and wanted to help him get back on his feet. She thought Lukka's military expertise would be useful to the strike team against New Phyrexia, and she encouraged him to join. They both saw it as an opportunity for Lukka to regain some of his dignity and protect his home once more. How does the narrative reward him for his effort? By corrupting him, humiliating him, and having him be put down like an animal by the only person who showed him any compassion through all this.

What could Lukka have become if he survived to be rehabilitated? I guess we'll never know.

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no hope for a character who mistreats animals. Most fans will never ever get past that, and there's a part of me that honestly believes Lukka just got phyrexianized and killed off because the Magic narrative team realized they couldn't salvage his reputation and didn't know what to do with him. The fandom's overwhelming negative response to Lukka had irreparably damaged him as a character.

As my bespoke friend @xantchaslegacy said, "The only meaningful difference about Lukka and Gideon's cop-to-planeswalker journey is that the narrative let Gideon live long enough for other people to make him a better person. And Lukka got shanked before it could happen."

Again, I don't need people to like Lukka. I just want people to understand. I wish people were more willing to actually engage with the story and see the value in characters they dislike. There's no reason Lukka should've been treated like a punching bag the way he was. He was trapped in a cycle of being dunked on by the story and then dunked on by the fans, again and again. And people continue to push an understanding of Lukka that is just false.

The fandom reacted to Lukka the same way the strangers on Arcavios did: He'll never get a second chance because they wouldn't even give him a first chance.

[midnightsslut]

thinking about how the desperate attempt to cling to her childhood with speak now elicited mixed responses (scott telling her she couldn’t have a fairytale-inspired title like enchanted, romantic relationships with older men who took advantage of her inexperience vs the need to be america’s sweetheart), which led to a pivot to try to slowly grow up (hence a noticeable aesthetic change, more mature themes and sounds in her music, etc), only for that to be confronted with even more criticism (sit-downs over leaving the cursive fonts of her early albums behind, constraints to her sonic experimentation, scott generally doubling down on his control of her music because, in her own words, her success in pop with IKYWT/WANEGBT made him see her as a woman which felt threatening, a global slut-shaming campaign, the paula of it all). no wonder it led to the feeling that she had to double down on her maturation arc with 1989 to truly feel in control for the first time, which, in turn, tainted her memory of her previous two albums because they both felt constraining and slightly embarrassing compared to her newfound sense of liberation.