#even if those crumbs are a doomed narrative

[seriouslycalamitous]

Madagio said “don’t make attachments” at the same time as the cinematic was hovering over a field of roses so HAH HIDEDUO

SUCK IT FACELESS ENTITY, I WILL ALWAYS FIND A WAY TO WIN.

[bestworstcase]

What characters do you think are bigger than their stories? Like, their original stories act almost like a prison, stopping them from reaching their true potential?

scream laughs in the Entire Cast of TTS 💀

which. it’s a disney princess cartoon, of course the character writing isn’t good—except, in a lot of individual episodes in s1-2, the character writing is actually really fucking good, and even in s3 when the narrative finally cratered in on itself there are traces, fingerprints, pottery shards of a story that could have been incredible if it were not doomed from the start by the fact of it being a disney cartoon.

like.

the writing team behind tts looked at rapunzel. looked at tangled. this disney princess story about a girl who grew up alone in a tower with nobody but a lizard and her viciously cruel, manipulative, abusive kidnapper, this girl who in the film is portrayed as a pure, sweet, innocent ray of sunshine. right.

and they went: the ray of sunshine is a shield she does not know how to put down, and this girl learned ALL of her social skills from an emotionally abusive manipulator, and now she’s a princess and a myth and a miracle and there is only one person in this story who can meaningfully tell her no.

and then they went: let’s give her a best friend who’s a little bit older, ambitious, hard-working, socially deft, and common. let’s make that best friend her lady-in-waiting on top of being a maid, and miserable in both those roles because all she wants is to be a guard like her dad. and let’s really lean into how she cannot say no to the princess, who learned 100% of her social skills from mother fucking gothel.

the core conflict of every single keyframe episode in this show is about the slow and painful death of that friendship, by rapunzel’s hand, until cassandra goes fuck this and literally! LITERALLY! steals rapunzel’s destiny, steals her structural role as the protagonist of the story, and throws herself into the arms of an Actual Demon because the demon is the first!!! person she’s ever!!! met who treats cassandra like she’s worth anything outside of being an appendage of the lost princess. and it tailspins from there, but like—HELLO!?

rapunzel the disney princess of all time. she barbecues her best friend’s hand with a rotting curse by accident and then has a whole episode about aggressively Not Apologizing. cassandra ends up apologizing to HER! for lashing out after HOURS! of rapunzel trying to corner her into talking about it. (note, not in a protagonist-centered-morality way: the episode begins with putting the reality that cass is disabled now because of rapunzel front-and-center, portrays rapunzel’s anger at cass as irrational and unfair, and makes a point of having cass say she’s still angry at the end; all of this is meant to be the death knell of the friendship and the next thing that happens is the arc where the Actual Demon befriends cass by being nice to her.) it’s fucking GREAT.

honorable mentions to: eugene “afterthought” fitzherbert, lance “he’s the funny black guy so him getting gruesomely almost murdered is about eugene’s romantic woes actually” strongbow, varian “convenient plot device” lastname, queen “the only alive mom in the series, we’ll throw her a crumb of characterization once every other season” arianna, adira “couldn’t figure out what to do with her in s3 so we wrote her out and then turned her into a mind controlled mook” lastname, and zhan tiri “all the depth and complexity of soggy cardboard” the ancient evil demon who nonetheless managed to be THEE best part of season three. and the separatists of saporia. and sugracha (best disciple). and tromus. and lady “we cast laura fucking benanti as a pirate anti-monarchist revolutionarybut we’re not going to let her sing, or appear in more than three episodes” caine.

[katoninetailswrites]

how do you manage to finish a story?(I read You Made Me A Believer and I loved it so much!) Do you plan out the chapters or go with the flow?

Omg, I forgot the Askbox is something that exists. 😂

And, uhhhhh... I am the WORST possible person to ask this because I have never finished a story in my LIFE (barring really short stories). Anything longform has been doomed to fester in my WIP folder, fed only a few crumbs when inspiration strikes. YMAB is one of those things, with the next chapter stuck somewhere at half-finished because my attention span wandered off into a new fandom. Sorry! 😅

As for actual writing, I usually don't even dare to commit to writing a story at all unless I have at least a vague sense of outline, because otherwise the cause-and-effect of the narrative turns into mush and the whole thing becomes unreadable. So yeah, outline, even a short bullet-point checklist is good but I NEED the outline. There's actually tiny vague outlines to sequels to YMAB, but then Minna ended SSSS so badly and abruptly parts of the fandom imploded and the whole thing ended up shoved in the WIP folder.

But YMAB is 90% done, so I still have hopes of actually finishing it when I get a strong enough flash of nostalgia. Eventually. Hopefully.

[sharoscylla]

I wish I could stop seeing untagged posts of people being weirdly asinine and mean about something, especially when it looks pretty solidly like they're willfully misreading the canon because it doesn't align with their personal HCs

like I guess I get it you wanted to feel a crumb of outside moral Validation for liking and relating to a villainous character but the story spent time, over and over, demonstrating that his actions were his choice, not a simple lashing-out in a moment of passion/pain or coercion, and that it was his choices + his decision to refuse even a crumb of self reflection or moral culpability for the literal piles and piles of corpses he personally killed or the suffering of thousands/millions that he knowingly and purposefully caused that ultimately doomed him in the narrative

similarly this thing has spent its entire run demonstrating that the protagonist choosing to be open-minded and kind were a series of choices and that seeing/experiencing the positive effects of those choices is how most of the protag's friends and allies decided to believe IN the protagonist

and, idk, maybe some of these people being weird online don't have the experience of having been abused as a kid or otherwise, but like, it's pretty good actually that the story didn't hoist the moral responsibility of redeeming/reforming/caretaking the shitty abuser character on the characters who were pretty solidly abused, some horrifically so, by the villain. like if you don't understand why a story that concludes with "actually, you don't have to forgive someone who has abused you or the people you love" would be valuable or good writing or even just rare in general, idk, maybe reflect on what you projected onto the character vs what was actually canon

[lesbiansforboromir]

ALRIGHT! Since it’s all settled out a bit more and we have some actual information about the RoP show, here is a list of my concerns for it;

- At the moment, my biggest worry is now about the dwarves. We’ve had recent confirmation that Durin IV and Durin III will both be extant at the same time, so Durin III will be receiving the ring from Sauron as canon states. It also states that Durin III is some kind of ‘bad father’ or something along those lines and I just... So first off, how can two people be alive whilst sharing the same soul? Are we just going to discard dwarven culture and religion entirely as false? In a world where elves are biologically catholic, dwarves are directly related to jewish history and culture and Gimli ‘converts’ to catholicism... we’re going to just say that the ‘jewish race’ has a made up religion but the elven gods are real and WILL destroy continents with their bare hands? And are we also saying that one of the reincarnated messiahs of dwarven culture, the father to their whole race in both a symbolic and fervently emotional way is... bad? An abusive father? Like... we don’t need to do this. No one has ever even tried to delve into the intimate concepts of this whole system of reincarnation in a broad media space (except lotro) like we JUST get this whole aspect shown on screen and we immediately have to subvert it somehow? It will make me genuinely sad if this is the case and I suspect I will have to reactively stan Durin III just to cope. 

- As we are right now, it seems the furthest the show will go into elven culpability is just ‘Gil Galad was kinda naive and thought everything would be okay now’. Galadriel seems to be entirely main charactered, with I doubt any discussion of her usurpsing of Lindórinand or her lack of care for humanity in general. Indeed she seems to be fully tied into both the hunt for Sauron and the human storylines which.. I suppose is fine. But with this pervasive sense that Galadriel is untouchable in her morality, it makes me worry for the narratives of human frustration with the elves. Not that I was particularly hopeful for a nuanced philosophical walk through of all Numenor’s points of view and their abandonment by the Valar. But still... a crumb? A crumb of nuance? 

- And yet on the other hand I have seen a suspicious lack of anything to do with Numenorean colonisation. All the possible indigenous characters have turned out to be either hobbits or elves so far. And if the antler horn fellows are all we’re getting for representation of the truly vast number of human tribes living all throughout Middle Earth then well... it’s a little worrying. Not that I would trust them to do Numenor the coloniser in any kind of thoughtful way but I’m also in no way comfortable with just brushing it entirely under the rug and pretending that everything’s fine even as Isildur curses a whole population to 3 millenia of undeath, doom and torment because they didn’t come to fight for him when he asked them too. 

- What the hell are they gonna do with Corine... Like okay yes more female characters of importance but also this is... the family with two sons who very notably share power and then divide the Kingdoms between them, from the country that is the only canonical human civilisation to have Queens. The show seems to be surging forward with this ‘there is no misogyny in tolkien’ angle which is never the way I like to deal with the misogyny in tolkien’s writing but it THAT is the case then... how are we gonna explain Corine? Apparently Anarion is a child at the moment. IDK IT’S JUST... ODD? Couldn’t Corine have been Isildur’s good friend or something. Confusing!!

- Whilst I have no real investment in elves as usual, I am disappointed by the first few looks at Lindon. This kind of complete copy paste lorien aesthetic is so dull and unimaginative and pandery to the lotr films when Lindon was a Noldo built country and city. Are elves only elves when they’re in trees? Do they worry fans just wouldn’t be able to tell they were elves unless they were surrounded by golden leaves? There’s no real majesty or newness to the construction. And it’s pretty non-canon to boot, Gil Galad doesnt have his ring yet, there is no way to temporally preserve his lands in this between summer and autumn situation with all the gold leaves everywhere. 

- Another bit of one of the vanity fair articles talked about how Arondir comes from the ‘southlands’ which... I mean if he’s the one who comes and tells everybody about the massive fuck all army Sauron’s amassing out there then that’s a pretty excellent OC creation but on the other hand do we have to... explain... why someone is brown? You know black people aren’t just white people who’ve been under the sun a bit long right? Like come on. 

Other than those things, I currently have no major other bugbears. Hair colours and appearances I’m so accustomed to everyone getting wrong it barely bothers me, and as for Elrond’s apparent change of personality, I can see them wanting to say that this is how Elrond BECOMES all wise and calm and unambitious just for character arc reasons. I’m fine with Disa not having much of a beard just because there is a lick of misogynoir in putting a beard on a black woman, and she looks gorgeous anyway. Not-Gandalf-but-is-definitely-gandalf is just... it’s too much, I cant care about it. And I want Halbrand to be Sauron. There it is. 

[sidecarghost]

Kripke: Family (as a source of trauma)

Sam and Dean’s brotherhood and the dichotomy of loving your brother while also disagreeing with him on almost everything at a fundamental level.

Azazel fostering a group of special children to serve in his holy war, and John raising Sam and Dean as soldiers for his holy war.

Filial piety taken to the extreme where any agency is given up. Meg’s blind faith in Azazel and then Lucifer, and Michael’s blind faith in following through with God’s plan for the end.

John Winchester’s legacy of hate and revenge being passed down to his children, Sam and Dean.

Dean, Cas, and Micheal and the consequences of absentee fathers and their sons hopelessly trying to gain approval from them.

Found family that helps emotionally support each other with team free will Sam, Dean, Bobby, and Cas vs the toxicity of the family you are born to. Similar parallel to fate vs free will.

Gamble: Identity (roles we assume vs our authentic self)

Souls as the fundamental particle that establishes our internal compass, but also capable of being lost or weaponized.

Assuming a role at the cost of being authentic:

Dean and Lisa where Dean tries to be a better father to Ben than John was to him

Cas as God where Cas tries to be a better God than the father he never met

Sam as soulless where Sam tries to be a better hunter than John, Dean, or the Campbells ever had been

And Leviathan becoming better capitalists than humans (authentic chameleons that live their best life by assuming whatever form let’s them be the most effective predator)

Carver: Oppression (being a hero to some makes you a villain to everyone else & the only force strong enough to cure oppression is love or total annihilation of the oppressors)

Abuse of power at all levels: Hell, Heaven, Earth

Monsters are shown to be morally complex and an oppressed population

The MoL is a defunct organization of humans that oppressed monsters.

Sam and Dean as the inheritors of the MoL legacy of oppression. They are never redeemed and carry on killing monsters until the end of the series.

Cain saves his brother Abel from damnation, but the cost doomed millions. His only escape was conquering the mark because of the love of one woman.

Naomi overriding the free will of angels by reprogramming them to keep them kowtowed to her agenda for heaven. Cas is able to conquer Naomi’s reprogramming because of the love of one man.

Metatron ejects the angels of Heaven forcing them to live among the people heaven has oppressed in the name of God. The show frames Metatron as a hero and a villain because good and evil can be subjective.

Rowena as the narcissistic mother that sees Crowley as a failure because of her own failings, and attempts to emotionally manipulate and influence his role as king of hell. Eventually Rowena is redeemed by developing genuine love for her son and team free will.

Styne family as a dynasty of white supremacists trying to make a race of superior humans. Their reign of oppression ends with their annihilation by Dean.

Sam clings to faith and hope in a righteous God even though he has suffered his whole life. Sam’s relationship to faith is never resolved through the end of the series.

Light oppressing the Darkness. God’s only sister was kept entombed by her only brother. Love for each other was the only force strong enough to stop their suffering.

Dabb: Fuck if I know???? (Cw: racism, suicide ideation, rape, incest) Dabb era is the most racist era of a very racist show. Other eras were problematic, but at least they attempted to tell a story based on an interesting theme. I cannot, for the life of me, come up with a theme for Dabb that the season wide plots feed into (calling it plot is a misnomer because there really is none in s12-s15, that shit cannot be consumed serially).

Destiel is shamelessly queerbaited, because Dabb has found that the queer and queer ally portion of fandom responds favorably to these crumbs.

BMoL as oppressive but now also British, and a new bunch of white people are added to the cast, because in the Spn universe Britain is solely populated by white people.

Lucifer keeps appearing to antagonize the protagonists, even though his relevance as a legitimate antagonist ended 7+ seasons ago.

Lucifer rapes a woman by posing as her lover. This results in the birth of the Messiah and death of the woman. No one ever seeks justice for Kelly, instead they endlessly obsess over her fetus.

The actor cast as Jack, the Messiah, is yet another white person in a cast full of white people.

Alternate universes are found that are like the main universe but way more boring.

Crowley is killed because Dabb is out of ideas for the character.

Sam and Dean are only interested in finding a way back to the apocalypse universe because their mom got stuck there. They express no desire to find a way back to help the universe where humans are being exterminated. They have completely given up on altruism and are living it up as privileged white people in their bunker mansion.

Black archangel Michael is villainized and loses any of the moral complexity that white archangel Michael exhibits.

Kevin Tran (one of the few recurring PoC), reappears in the Apocalypse universe just to blow himself up as a suicide bomber.

Archangel Gabriel was being kept imprisoned by Colonel Sanders who moonlights as a prince of hell. Does any of this mini arc impact the overall narrative? No. Just more white men added to the story because Dabb can’t figure out where to take the franchise.

Mary Winchester is fridged, yet again, by another yellow eyed supernatural being, so a singular family member can go into a vindictive rage about it.

Canon bisexual God is villainized. I would say for plot reasons, but I have yet to discover anything in s15 resembling a plot.

Main universe Kevin Tran (who sacrificed everything to devote his short life to helping Sam and Dean) reveals that God sent him to Hell all those years ago. Kevin is then doomed to wander Earth as a ghost until he goes insane. At which point, white guy Sam is probably going to kill him sending him back to suffer for eternity in Hell.

Billie, a black woman, becomes Death, a primordial entity and a stronger force than God (will reap God in the end). She is villainized and killed by white men for being committed to keeping the universe in balance and adhering to the natural order. No one seeks justice for her.

W*ncest is shamelessly baited because Dabb has found the portion of fandom that prefers bros as soulmates responds favorably to these crumbs.

Romanticizing suicide in a meta attempt to inform viewers that this show has lived past its useful shelf life and keeping it alive is a punishment to be endured.

Spn Prequel: ??? Not to jinx the prequel but at least it should not be worse than Dabb era.

[flying-elliska]

Okay, I'm reading Chap18, and I really hope this comment won't hurt your feelings because I love your fic and I really just want to understand why you wrote it this way, but I have to tell you that for the first time I've been disapointed with Diamants AU. I already felt it was going this way with Daphné, Arthur, Vallès, Emma and Alexia being LGBT, but I kind of felt betrayed with the Yann/Alex thing, and now I'm sensing Manon and Daphné will be together at some point too and ...(1)

...I don't understand why you made all your characters LGBT. I get that they are under-represented in most of the books and shows, but with Diamants I'm kind of feeling like being staight is a bad thing, like it's either boring or you're juste an asshole. I've always loved Skam because it shows that very different people can be friends and help each other no matter their religion, sexuality... and this kind of felt like the only reason they stand together is they're all LGBT (2) and I guess this comes from personal experience but that would have been so much more powerful to have straight people being as much invested in this war as the others. Honestly I don't see the point of Yann, Alex, Emma, Manon or Arthur not being straight, for me it doesn't bring more to who they are. This really feels like they would be nothing if they were straight. So I juste wanted to ask you why you decided this? Again, really hope this won't hurt you... (3/3)

hey anon. So, I’m going to assume this comes from a place of good faith and a sincere desire to understand, and explain my choices. That said, I do have to say that even though it didn’t really hurt me (it mostly made me laugh), it did make me a little angry too, because there are a lot of harmful implications in your messages.

1) First of all, about you “not seeing the point” of making certain characters LGBT. This functions under the assumption that there needs to be a reason for people to be gay, bi, trans, etc - and that straight people are the default. That is...really not great. People are gay in real life, for no reason whatsoever. If you don’t go to writers asking why they made their characters straight if there is no reason in the story, you shouldn’t do this either. Characters can be queer without it being a big part of the story - it’s just a part of them, and the idea that they have to ‘deserve a place’ in the narrative through their gayness (often through a deeply tragic arc full of suffering to Educate Straight people) is deeply heteronormative, and fucked up. LGBT people are not in a story to make a point, they’re there because they exist. Yes, some of my characters have arcs that are deeply entangled with their sexuality and struggles with it. Some are not. When it comes to Yann and Alex, I didn’t think too much about it, I thought it would be funny and unexpected and give some good shenanigans. Sometimes that’s all you need.

2) As for turning a majority of the canon straight characters LGBT : listen, in the end, this is my fic, and I do it because I want to. I’m bi and my life is full of queer people. This is my normal, this is what comes naturally to me, and what I find interesting to write about. I set out to write a James Bond parody with some deep character exploration, it’s meant to be a very transformative fic. I have no obligation to stick to any Skam ‘guidelines’. I am also not aiming to write a particularly realistic story, if the secret mobster conspiracy didn’t tick you off already. The ethos of fic is to make canon your playground and to let your imagination go wild. That said, this trope you’re probably used to, of having one or maybe two queer characters and not more in any given story, I would say is the less realistic one. In real life, LGBT people often tend to cluster together, often before they even realize their sexuality, especially as they get older. But a lot of mainstream media is afraid of that because they don’t want to alienate their straight audience, so they don’t show it. I have no such compunctions. Your message seems to imply that there is a limit to how many gay people there should be in a story and I find that deeply offensive. There is incredible relief, peace and power to be found in community, especially after being struggling so much with your sexuality, like Lucas did for instance. I wanted to show that joy in this chapter, and how it plays a part in him slowly letting his walls down.

3) I notice you don’t mention Imane. She’s straight, she’s super invested in this war, she’s neither boring or an asshole, in fact she’s probably the most important character in the fic after Lucas and Eliott. She’s badass and amazing and complex and if you don’t feel she counts as ‘good straight representation’ I find that slightly odd. Is she too ‘other’ for you that you would dismiss her like that ? Also, Basile is straight lmao. There’s plenty of straight people in this fic. And plenty of people who have incredibly different life experiences ; sexuality not being the main one doesn’t change that.

4) I do find it sort of silly that you reduce the characters’ reasons for fighting to being LGBT after I spent like 400k words proving otherwise. Like - Lucas wants to avenge his mother, Eliott wants to take down his father, Imane wants to avenge her father, Daphné wants to steal jewels, Alex and Emma are bored, Alexia’s a good friend (and also bored lol), they’re trying to stop horrible people from doing horrible things, their trajectories are layered and complex and if you tell me that can all be boiled down to ‘they’re gay’ I kind of wonder if you’ve paid attention to what you’ve read at all.

5) All that said, a majority of my characters being LGBT does have a symbolic point. It’s an opposition to the world of the Shadow, which is deeply sexist, heteronormative, homophobic, and macho. It represents how questioning your sexuality can be deeply liberating and often put you at odds with the general structures of power and oppression in society and lead you to question a lot more and find people who want to fight with you. Being LGBT can (but not always) make you more politically conscious and that’s a beautiful thing that deserves to be celebrated. And in general, being a minority makes you more aware of inequality because it’s simply your daily life. So it makes perfect sense that most of these characters who fight against symbols of horrible systemic oppression would be marginalized in some way or other. Straight/cis/white/rich/abled/etc people simply have less reasons to question the status quo. I have sat through so many action movies where all-straight heroes save the day ; I’m sure you can sit through the opposite for once. If you can’t, maybe it’s a failure of empathy or imagination on your part.

6) Imagine growing up and never seeing, around you or on TV or in books or movies, someone who shares your sexuality. Or if you ever see somebody like you, they will be a joke, a punchline, deluded, instable, doomed, or worse, a predator. Imagine the sort of damage that does. Imagine that when you finally find some correct representation, you have to make do with crumbs for years. Imagine it gets slowly better, but it’s still overwhelmingly tragic, or incorrect, or stereotypes, or only told after the story is over, or you’re always the best friend, always the minority, the point of interest there to educate, always there to struggle, never the epic breathtaking romance, never centered, never allowed community and to see yourself as the norm. In the best of cases, your identity is more or less ignored. In the rare cases where you find good representation, shows get cancelled prematurely, or your faves never get as much screen time as the straight ones, or storylines get botched because somehow writers think showing queer characters happy has no value. Imagine then you decide to take matters in your own hands and write the sort of queer utopia that makes you truly happy - the one where you’re surrounded with people like you and you don’t have to constantly feel isolated and otherized and you’re badass and don’t have to take any shit and your love story is the epic one that gets centered and you have friends who understand and share your experience. And then imagine someone, instead of taking a deep breath and going back to like, 99% of all media ever made, randomly comes to you and tells you they feel ‘betrayed’ because in this one paltry little fic you wrote, their mainstream experience is not centered like usual. Tell me, how would that feel ?

Again, I don’t bear you any ill will, but your message comes across as ignorant and very entitled. I am open to feedback and criticism but writing a story full of LGBT people is one thing I will never feel sorry for. There are a shit ton of fics out of there where those characters are straight, not to mention canon. If you feel ‘betrayed’ by the amount of queer characters in my fic, then I’d say you have some biases you need to examine. It reminds me of all the times I’ve heard people say that they ‘like gay people but only if they’re not too in your face’ (lol that was my sister, so fun) - this implication that queer people should know their place, never show their difference too openly, accept being a minority in all spaces, need to ‘deserve’ their spot, center straight people’s needs, etc etc...is deeply harmful and toxic.

If you can’t understand all this, then my writing is probably not for you.

[laufire]

Supernatural s5

I finished it a little while ago, but I haven’t had the time to make an involved post about it -or watch that much of s6 yet; I’m trying to be Resposible and the time I have has been spent in advancing fics a little bit or answering short asks lol.

-I have really enjoyed this season for the most part, but there’s something I need to get of my chest LOL: all through it, the song “Too Many Dicks (On The Dance Floor)” played in my head xDD. Like, listen, I knew what I was signing up for with this show!! I didn’t expect NOT to find it offensive or regressive on multiple occasions!! But I guess s3-4 must have spoiled me lmao. I’m not saying those seasons are the height of feminism, but if you removed its most important female characters, ESPECIALLY Ruby, the plot of the season would fall apart. That’s not something you can say for s5 and preventing the Apocalypse, just sayin’.

It wouldn’t’ve been that hard to expand Meg’s, Anna’s or the Harvelle’s part (they had good material to go there -Meg as the faithful possibly opening her eyes, Anna as the betrayed and the juror jury and executioner, the Harvelles as normal hunters fighting something way too big for them-, but barely any time and like I said, no incidence in the actual plot of the season). Hell, I’m biased but bringing back Ruby would’ve at least taken care of the problem lol. Or if the show had indulged me and kept Bellamy Young as Lucifer, at least. But everyone with a real say in the plot is a dude, or at least wearing one as a vessel (angel’s conception of gender is clearly different from humans, but in terms of ~~representation the results are the same lbr).

-My constant frustrations with Supernatural’s bigotry-related stuff lol, like I said, I really enjoyed the season (that combination is one of the most frustrating things about the show lmao). Especially Castiel’s plot. The guy has reached Potential Hall of Faves status and that’s hum. A Problem xD

But seriously, he was breaking my heart in all the best ways. His search for God (the Absent Father that the show specifically compared to John añsldkfjasf. This show ISTG!!), his disappointment and sense of betrayal at being let down (he called God Himself “son of a bitch”!!!). I was especially fascinated by his Endverse version -that AU will have its own section lol-, although it resulted in making me reaaaally nervous whenever he was close to an addictive substance :). Like yes, those scenes were lowkey humourous and adorable (like when he drinks shots with the Harvelles and Ellen is fascinated and Jo delighted -... lowkey shipping this too btw. Lowkey shipping Castiel with lots of people-, or his combo with Sam when he got drunk), but also, you know, WORRYING xD

Some of my favourite scenes of his were, predictably, his interactions with Meg or Lucifer in 5x10. The Megstiel scene was SUPER HOT (both their voices are very unf-y lol), I can’t wait to edit it. And having Lucifer call Castiel “a peculiar thing” sure was something xD (although lbr, this Lucifer isn’t keeping with his rebel angel reputation, Castiel is carrying that all by himself smh).

Another scene I couldn’t get out of my head if I wanted to is when he uhhhh... completely LOSES IT and starts beating the crap out of Dean when he was ready to give it up to Michael. “I gave everything for you, and this is what you give me?!?” ooooooof. It was hard to watch, and fascinating and intense. I shamelessly loved it lmfao.

Though my favourite moment of his is one that can only be appreciated when you know certain things about s6. It’s the scene where, unlike everyone else, he shows appreciation for Sam’s plan of sacrificing himself to get rid of Lucifer. Because yes, at this point it’s the only thing that can save the world. But Castiel isn’t saying, “Sam’s life is a small price to pay in comparison”, because he will go into s6 and snatch Sam out of the cage immediately. s5 established Sam got out, so with that in mind, he didn’t bring it up because he didn’t want to create false hope in case he failed, but he backed the plan with the intention of saving Sam anyway. I love that. I love him.

-The entire season was Missing Ruby Hours for me lmfao. Like I said, some of the problems in the season wrt female characters would’ve been at the very least lessened if she’d gotten to be here wrecking havoc. But generally I just miss her and What Could Have Been with her here. I enjoyed some of the crumbs (Sam using the witchcraft skillz he learned from her! Sam immediately knowing Meg isn’t Ruby, unlike Dean! Her knife! The ARCHANGEL GABRIEL referencing her as “the demon Sam chose over his brother”!! The callbacks with Crowley or Brady!!), but I would’ve wanted her here, dammit xD.

-Aaaaand we’re finally getting to Sam, who is without a doubt the star of the season, if you ask me. His plan at the end, to let Lucifer possess him in the hopes he can fight back for just long enough to overpower him and throw them both into the cage, with no hopes for himself? This is the kind of Big Damn Hero stunt I’m a sucker for, I won’t lie. And I love that the show felt the need to confirm he was still alive at the end of the season hehe.

He really Went Through It this season and he held on lmfao. On top of everything (the apocalypse, the guilt of being its final trigger, the addiction recovery, etc.), he also had to deal with Dean’s usual bullshit, which is no small feat xDD. Like, sure, from an audience stand-point all those things are interesting (some fave/the fuck moments are when Dean is obviously peeved that Bobby still supports Sam because he wanted Bobby in HIS corner, or when he has the nerve to say he wants to say yes to Michael because he doesn’t trust SAM not to say yes to Lucifer lmfaoooo), BUT IT’S STILL A FEAT XD

One note: for all the talk about bi!Dean, bi!Sam is so SEEN this season xDD. AFAIC he totally hooked up with that bartender Paul (RIP Paul. At least in your last moments you enjoyed Sam, who’s clearly an energetic, attentive lover 😔). And Crowley refers to Brady as Sam’s demon ex-boyfriend and nobody bats and eye lmfao (that story is so angsty... the parallels to Ruby, how he ingratiated himself with Sam by pretending to have fallen off the wagon... ouch).

-I have mixed feelings on Crowley. On his own, I fell absolutely in love with the guy on his first appearance. A demon that DOUBTS Lucifer and doesn’t kiss his ass?? That wants to get rid of him and do his own thing?? And clearly enjoys ~earthly pleasures to the fullest (his complains about how the other demons ate his tailor had me rolling laksjdfa)? The way he turned the tables on Brady? OFC I love him. OTOH boy, does it annoy me knowing that fandom GLADLY embraced him when they condemned characters like Bela or Ruby for similar things. It’s not his fault so I still like him (he’s like Gabriel in that sense), but it’s annoying!

It also annoys me how Dean Must Be Right All The Time syndrome interacts with him lol. This season Dean decides they can trust Crowley (despite Crowley killing two humans in front of him and getting him beat up by Brady lol), so they can. Next season he decides they can’t, so Castiel will be WrongTM because Dean Says So. Ugggggh xD

-To be fair, however, this season has my fave Dean so far LOL. In the love/hate scale, this one has been almost solely in camp love, barring some of those moments of irksome hypocrisy that he’s so prone to xD.

But there was something about how this season’s plot chipped away at him, you know? For all the traits he has that drive me up the wall or unsettle me, I appreciate a lot of his personality because it makes him a unique and interesting character driving the narrative -his irreverence, his ability to think on the fly and get out of shitty situations, his disbelief. Seeing all of those things under siege this season made me hurt for him in a way I hadn’t anticipated LOL. By the time he was ready to give in to Michael (and I love that what made him step away from that choice was Sam showing a trust in him he patently didn’t deserve lbr), sometimes I felt terribly for the guy.

I also wonder if this season kind of marked like... the beginning of the end for him, narrative-wise? Making him Michael’s vessel (his angel condom) is the kind of thing that turns him from subject into object, and that can doom characters ime. The fact that he ~resigns himself to Sam’s death when his identity as a character came with being His Brother’s Keeper is another slight.

-I continue having mixed feelings about Destiel too LMAO. I’ve decided I’m just going to try to enjoy the good and interesting parts while I can, while trying not to think of future developments that’ll likely sour the ship for me lol.

Because in truth, yeah, I enjoy their interactions a lot here! The Endverse was particularly enjoyable for me (back to that in a moment), but the entire season had a lot of gems. That moment in the finale, when Dean is wounded on his knees after Sam sacrifices himself, and Castiel resurrects and heals him with a touch? And Dean is staring in awe and asks him if he’s become God?? Like wtf am I supposed to do with that. WHO SAYS THAT. XDD

-The Endverse. Omgggggggg. The Endverse. I doubt I can say anything about it that hasn’t been said a thousand times, but seriously. I loooove it, all of it. My favourite was endverse!Castiel, ofc. The way he was in No Man’s Land, not an angel and not quite a human, his ways of trying to cope with that, how burned he was... I uncomfortably related to some of it too lmfao, but let’s not get into that xD.

Seeing both Deans interact was gr10 too. They really couldn’t stand each other lmfao (do you understand me now Dean?? They actually reminded me of two OCs in an original WIP of mine that are in a similar situation -in this case it’s the future version purposefully traveling to the past though-, which made me even fonder of the AU). And the Destiel? *chef’s kiss*. The bitterness, like when Castiel laughs when present!Dean berates endverse!Dean about the tortures and then purposefully says “I like past you” to hurt him asñldkfjasf. Or those looks when Dean returns to the past and tells Castiel to “never change” d’aw.

I loved Lucifer!Sam in this episode too (and personally, I think in the finale Lucifer -and Michael- should’ve changed his outfit too. Sam’s clothes just don’t get to The Devil’s levels, but that white suit was perfect). He was terrifying xD.

BTW: I’ve decided that, since we never see endverse!Castiel die, well. He didn’t xD. I could see Lucifer keeping him alive and captive out of a sense of nostalgia, as Castiel is the only other thing close to a fellow angel left. Might even decide to return his powers with time, or to ~entice him with such an offer lol. And ofc I headcanon Sam is still inside, occasionally trying to fight. Cue in all the Castiel/Lucifer and Castiel/Sam fic ideas too (I have waaaaay too many of those for this mini-verse. It’s very inspiring).

-I’m still on the fence at Lucifer’s motivations but I can’t question how the family issues fit so, so well into this ‘verse. “Family is hell” is the show’s thesis, after all xD. IMO the angels in general don’t feel like a family, they’re a military body/cult lol, but the Archangels are another matter. I guess is the whole “only four angels have seen God-slash-Dad” thing, the rest were... well, the help, apparently.

But Lucifer, Michael, and Gabriel do feel like brothers when they interact (I’m guessing here Gabriel is the Adam: discarded by the other two like nothing :)))). Raphael too, but since he doesn’t interact with them... does he get to later? Or is he the odd one out? Did the others avoid him because he kept quoting Nietzsche at dinner?? LOL.

-There are no words to explain how terribly I feel for Adam. JFC that poor KID. Who was kind and helpful and intuitive, and only wanted his mother back and to help stop the end of the world. And that Sam and Dean will leave rotting in Hell for a millennia :))). It’s kiiiiiiiiind of hard to do for your show’s “heroes” when they do shit like that lmfao. It’d be different if they never tried to make him feel he’s family, but Sam tried to convince him with the bs “because we’re blood” and they did a half-baked attempt at saving him from Zacharias, and then... yeah. At least he had Michael in the cage, but still.

-I was already spoiled of this, but the reveal that cupids made John and Mary fall in love is so chilling (good on Dean for punching that cupid asshole, btw). It puts what Mary says about John in flashbacks, about how much she loves him and how perfect he is, in such a terrifying light. And I’m under the impression that the show didn’t bother to deal with this properly when they resurrected Mary and just... I hate that tbh. It’s a narrative choice that should have a huuuge impact, dammit.

-I kind of loved how bitter and angry Bobby was about (temporarily, thanks to Crowley, his new demon bf -watch out Rufus) ending up in a wheelchair. That there were no platitudes or false sentimentality and it just... was.

-The Harvelles’ had a good send off. I can respect Kripke for wanting his faves to go on his terms lol. Having Jo refuse Dean’s offer of a fuck on their possible last night on Earth with “I rather spent it with a little thing I have self-respect”? Not because she doesn’t have feelings for him, but because she thinks she deserves better from him? I love it. This guy knows his pettiness xD

-The fact that this fandom seems to have ignored Gabriel x Kali is one of the reasons I’m never going to vibe with it, sns. Immortal exes? Check. She tricked him and killed him... but then it turns out HE tricked and he’s alive? Check. BUT THEN HE STILL GOES BACK AND SAVES HER, DYING BY HIS BROTHER’S HAND?? CHECK CHECK CHECK. Ugh, why can’t they come back to me. I know, I know, Kali is a WoC and those are only allowed one (1) appearance before they’re killed off, apparently. So it might be a good thing that she doesn’t return xD. But gosh, they were gr10.

-Death the Horseman’s intro cleared my skin. I love him. I love how utterly terrifying he is and how chilling his and Dean’s scene was. And I yearn to find a picture of the guy a little younger and with a goatee, because he’s the most perfect Discworld’s Vetinari fancast I’ve ever found xDD

-I’ve seen tons of commentary over the years, and especially lately for obvious reasons, about how this season finale would’ve been a much better ending for the show. I’m not there yet, and it does sound like the finale was a mess and this one’s was a very well constructed episode (and, ofc, the Final Love Interest was NOT blurry!!). But even if by the end I come to loathe the finale, there’s one reason I already know won’t let me agree on the s5 ending being perfect: God xDD

The episode makes Chuck come across as a ~benevolent figure and no, fuck that, do NOT want, take it away from me!! Give me God as the Big Bad Wolf, the last evil to conquer any day. It’s like Dumbledore all over again: I enjoy the character a lot more if I feel canon and I are on the same page wrt his shadiness xDD

[mearcatsreturns]

From Illusion to Reality, or Luka in ER’s Seasons 10-12

A couple days ago, I got a lovely anon who wanted me to talk about Luka’s journey from season 11 to 12. I may have gone overboard and expanded it. If you’re not interested in the whole, hella long post, I’ll summarize it in a couple pictures:

to

I’ll put it under a cut, because of how long it is, but I’d love comments and dialogue!

To talk about Luka’s trajectory from season 11 to season 12, I think it’s very important to consider season 10 Luka. His “coming back from the dead” served as a sort of topical soft reset on his character--at least to him. That is, while it undoubtedly deeply affected him and those around him and does seem to have led him to important realizations, it didn’t actually change his personality or his desires and loves.

Firstly, when Luka comes back from Africa, sick and with another woman, it’s still readily apparent that his love for Abby hasn’t gone anywhere. He might be able to deal with it better and not self-destruct to the same extent, but at least initially, what was Gillian (and later Sam, but that was more involved)? He’s the same Luka at work, too, though the outward trappings seem different. He still cares about caring for his patients, though he’s still in crisis mode. He has the same disregard for bureaucracy, though it’s about treating as many patients as quickly as he can to help the largest number of them instead of spending all his time with his patients, etc. 

It’s so interesting, because for the first half of season 10, Luka is torn between wanting to go back to Africa--where he even said things seemed simpler--and moving forward, probably with Abby. He legit lights up around her and is looking out for her constantly, and the only reasons they didn’t get together then were fear, some small misunderstandings, and a misguided sense of propriety. Then you can see it happening again--Luka backs off from Abby because he seems to think she’s hung up on Carter and because she’s his student. It’s not as hopeless as before, so he doesn’t spiral out of control, but he legitimately does the same thing he did in season 9 on a smaller scale. Sam thinks Luka is hot, he’s good with Alex, so she makes a pass at him, and Luka passively goes along with her making a move. Sound familiar? Yeah. The biggest difference is that Luka has realized that he was deeply unhappy with non-monogamy, so even though he falls back into sleeping with Gillian pretty quickly (after he forgot about her visit, lmao), when Sam is willing to grant him the opportunity for even a little bit of commitment, he takes it. 

Relatedly, Alex is a huge part of his journey in season 10 and 11. Or rather, Luka’s continuing longing for family and fatherhood. We’ve seen that from pretty much the beginning, and the only time it didn’t seem to be a huge driving force for him was with Abby. When he can’t have Abby and his love for her is thwarted, it’s like he looks for that kind of fulfillment from this idealized notion of family and being a dad again (see: Nicole, Sam). It’s not surprising to me that as Luka thinks Abby is unavailable and uninterested in him, he gets close to child...who has a single mother who thinks he’s good-looking.

It’s not a good fit. Abby describes hers and Carter’s relationship as doomed from the start, and you can easily talk about Luka and Sam the same way.  I could do a more Doylist explanation, but there’s plenty of in-universe material to say this--they and their relationship are plagued by problems from the very beginning. They’re never on the same page, any of them--not Sam, Alex, or Luka. Luka has a hard time articulating what he really does want from them, probably because he doesn’t want to fully examine that for himself. After all, if he has a good woman who cares about him and child he can be a father figure to--though not a father--why would he not be happy? Sam seems to want stability and sex, and Alex...Alex wants a friend. So yes, while there are a lot of external issues that come up, the primary impediment to Luka’s happiness with Sam and Alex (and for them as well!) is internal.            

As we go into season 11, we see, strangely enough, that Luka can’t be around Abby anymore while he’s with Sam. Like, @somekindofflowergirl  and I were looking and thinking about it, and we’re not sure he’s capable of talking to Abby when Sam is around until season 12 (not for more than a few sentences about whatever case they’re working on, at any rate). He starts brushing her off more and more, culminating in him all but dismissing her in 11.02 (shockingly, right after he tells Sam he loves her. Almost like there’s a correlation there, hmmmm). Instead, he focuses on his friendship with Carter and his relationships with Sam and Alex.

As the season goes on, Luka gets more miserable. Carter gets caught up in his own issues, Kerry and Susan are too busy to be there for him, and he’s busy pushing Abby away. But the tension is creeping into his home life, too. Alex lets him know in no uncertain terms that he will never view him as a father. Sam at first drags her feet about moving in with Luka, and then it seems like they have maybe a month or two of living before it sours and never recovers. He just...flounders again. Not as severely or apparently as in season 9, but he’s clearly looking for something again by the end of season 11.

Luka and Sam are on the precipice of breaking up at the end of season 11, but they prolong it for a variety of reasons. On the surface, it’s for Alex’s sake. In reality, it’s because they both want things from their lives that they get all the trappings of together, even if neither of them is happy with it. I mean, it gets to the point where  they can hardly talk at work or home, and Sam even says she doesn’t think they should be together. Then the situation with Steve, Alex’s birth father, blows up and worsens things, and Alex runs away. 

When they’re in the middle of nowhere in this crisis, Luka and Sam actually have to confront how poorly their relationship is going. Well, Sam does, though Luka is still feeling that fear of not having anything left if he loses Sam and Alex completely. But Sam says it eventually--they’ve been pretending for a long time. The truth is out, even when Alex is back. 

Luka, for all his many good qualities, does not handle life deviating from his plan or idea very well. He just straight up goes into denial (again, a recurring theme with him). 

BUT he also does something very right. He lets Abby back in. In season 12, a year after he blows her off, she tentatively reaches out again, just wanting to know if he’s okay after a case. She fully expects him to brush her off again, and you can see the surprise, delight, and relief when he opens up to her. And it’s interesting, because he tells her that he doesn’t want to talk about it with Sam, and that’s probably why Sam is moving out. 

Luka tries to talk to Sam in lockup, though he doesn’t offer any changes, which is fairly telling. And he says something even more telling: “I don’t want this to be one more thing I messed up.” He’s not so afraid of losing Sam herself or Alex, he just doesn’t want to have messed up at love (Abby) and family (his kids and even Danijela) again. He wants to be husband and dad because he remembers being happy in those roles, and even though Sam and Alex didn’t give him that, they gave him a lesser version of it. And since our Catholic boy loves rolling in that guilt and self-blame, he seems to think he should just take what he can get since he’s not worthy of more. When Sam and Alex can’t and won’t even give him crumbs anymore, he...I don’t know. He doesn’t really fall apart, because his heart isn’t really in it. It hasn’t been for a long time, if it ever was in more than a performative way (and Luka, for better or for worse, is not a fake-it-til-you-make-it kind of person). 

Once again, though, Abby is there at a moment where he’s willing to be vulnerable. And he says something so honest about what he wants: to be seen (12.03, “if it were me...would anyone know who I am?”). Abby’s yes, combined with her just being there for him unasked, seems to immediately grant him peace in that regard. He is seen and he is cared for. 

Luka never shows any signs of having feelings for Sam again, though he still looks out for her and Alex if they seem to be in trouble, but it’s no more than he’s done for friends and even strangers. In fact, they’re so back to friendly and professional by the next episode that it’s annoying and counter-productive when Eve tries scheduling them for different shifts.

Something else seems to have happened: Luka doesn’t rush off into an ill-advised romance or series of hookups. He isn’t pining, but he’s not frantically searching for family and fatherhood again, either. Given that each episode has them having a nice scene together that emphasizes their growing closeness and comfort together, it isn’t unreasonable to think that Abby is part of this. He isn’t pushing for more, but that’s not who he is with her, not after their first relationship. If friendship is all she can offer, that seems to be enough for him. In reality, it’s Abby being enough for him, but we’ll get to that later.

At that same time, one of Luka’s foils, Victor Clemente, arrives. Clemente exists narratively to be a catalyst for action in Luka’s life (which is why his role is such a mess once he’s accomplished that, but I digress) and it works like a charm. They butt heads from the start, and it’s the prospect of Clemente running the ER that goads Luka into applying for the position of chief. Kerry was right, it’s not his style at all, but also? A way for him to be everyone’s dad. (And yes, he’s better at it than Clemente would have been.) It gives him another marker of professional success, even if his personal life isn’t where he wanted it to be. As Luka’s foil, Clemente is also perceptive while Luka is oblivious. As such, he seems to see right through Luka and Abby to their connection, and he needles both, seemingly to get at Luka. It works, and as Abby says in 12.07 after their child patient dies, Abby ends up in the middle of it. 

Then, at the end of The Human Shield, Abby goes to Luka. This time she isn’t reaching out to him and going to him to support him, but to justifiably yell at him for putting her in the middle of a conflict between him and Clemente. But more importantly, Abby went to him and told him how she felt. She was vulnerable with him. And that...that was something he’d rarely seen, and not in a long time. Finally, that having woken him up to hope once again, he did something he hadn’t done in a long time: he took action. And that was something he didn’t do much, mostly with Abby, and he starts exploring it more throughout season 12.

I’m not going to turn this into a Luby meta (though I could also do that if anyone wanted, ahahaha), but 12.07-12.10 is Luka stepping forward and making choices. For love of Abby. He doesn’t push her for more so much as very obviously hope for it and ask, in his way, if she’s as in as he is. 

This extends to his professional life too! He (very sexily and pettily at the same time) takes charge of his new position and fires someone his first shift as chief. It was the right thing to do and he did it, but it wasn’t a passive reaction to something happening to him. 

Then at the end of 12.10, Abby drops the bombshell that she’s pregnant. Once he recovers from the shock of that, he does seem to spring into action, but...reserved action? He isn’t as proactive as he’s been so far, but he is also scared out of his mind that he’s going to lose Abby. Here he is, seemingly with everything he’s wanted for YEARS within reach. Not just a family, but Abby. And not just Abby, but a baby with her. But he also has years of experience with Abby, and he knows her fears, and he doesn’t want to lose her by scaring her off or pushing her for something she doesn’t want or that would make her miserable. 

So Luka lets Abby know what he wants but leaves it up to her, while also making one big mistake: he’s not clear about how much he loves her. He showed her with the compass, with gestures and moments, but he doesn’t seem to realize how much Abby needs the words. This is also typical Luka.

I love If Not Now (12.11) as part of his journey, because it’s when you finally see Luka realize, if he didn’t before, what matters most to him. He goes to Abby and tells her in no uncertain terms that it’s not about the baby, that he wants her no matter what. And that’s HUGE. Family and fatherhood have been a motivator for him for at least 4 or 5 of his 6 years on the show so far, so for him to say “yes, that would be nice, but Abby is the important one to me” represents a big shift. It gets swept over a bit in the subsequent and also life-changing news that she wants them to have the baby together and hasn’t had an abortion.

Most of the back half is solidifying what’s come before for Luka. We see him become more assertive professionally. He dotes on Abby and shows his commitment to her over and over, though it is interesting that in spite of how obviously in loved and devoted he (they, really) is, he doesn’t explicitly state it. I kind of think he’s worried that pushing for that, for everything that he wants, is asking too much of the universe. After all, he has the woman he loves and they’re having a baby together. 

You also see his compassion, not just with the patients, but in how he breaks his and Abby’s news to Sam. I don’t know that it was better for him to have told her, but it was a kind impulse borne out of a desire to do the right thing, and she knew that. 

Things get interesting again in Strange Bedfellows (12.18), when Luka tells Abby he’s thinking about going to Darfur to help Carter. We also find out Luka hasn’t told Carter about him and Abby or the baby. It seems a little odd of a choice for him, honestly. Not the keeping Abby and him and the baby a secret--I think that’s more compassion when he seems to have picked up on Carter and Kem maybe not doing so well and their continued mourning of Joshua--but the idea of going to Darfur. He’s new enough in his position as chief that it wouldn’t have been allowed, for starters, so I don’t think he’d have been able to go. And maybe that’s it--it was something he could do to help and make the world a better place for his baby (shoutout to @somekindofflowergirl again for this theory), and he wanted to try to go but probably knew he wouldn’t be able to. Also, he’s kind of an idiot sometimes, and one who sometimes loses track of the details when looking at the big picture. Which he did big time. 

But Abby, as she often does, grounds him and lifts him up at the same time. She makes it clear that he can go, but that she wants him there and wants everything with him. And that’s it for Luka. He’s already made it so he could stay, but you can see the light of “oh, maybe I can have everything I’ve yearned for” go off. The next couple of episodes show them settling into their commitment even more. 

Then the finale of season 12 comes (though I’m going to carry this through 13.02, as that feels like the real end of the season to me), and they’re clearly domestic and cute. For all Abby saying they don’t live together/hinting broadly for more clarification, they clearly have built a home together. I think Luka is trying to get her to realize she lives with him without saying it, which is a strategy, if not the best one. The second Abby voices her uncertainty, though, Besotted Idiot Luka jumps straight to saying they should get married, instead of, you know, telling Abby he loves her and wants to move forward with her. 

I think his reaction is another example of him poorly handling...it’s not rejection, it’s just they’re coming to the same thing from different perspectives. They do affirm their love, and it’s clear they would have dealt with things had they not been interrupted by everything that ensued. 

But interrupted they were. Abby’s abruption, Joe’s birth, Abby’s hysterectomy, Joe’s close call...what an interruption.Luka makes it so clear throughout that he’s there for Abby, that she’s his family. He obviously loves Joe and is devastated that he might be in danger and that they won’t be able to have a bigger family (though not as devastated as Abby, interestingly). That said, he renews his proposal to her and is CERTAIN of their love, even with the strain and uncertainty of Joe’s life.

Within a couple of years, he’s moved from trying so hard to look like he had everything together and trying to force it to having everything he’s wanted and more, even with the thorns and pain. It’s so much more than he could have hoped for, and he is more hopeful and settled.

[loplins]

Half-Life thoughts

I feel like this series for me is inextricably tied with the year of 2015 with MGSV and PT disappointment. PT being cancelled sucker punched me, and being an active Half-Life fan involved so much licking bread crumbs off the floor that I just couldn’t be bothered anymore. In 2017 I wrote my own sort of speculative conclusion, and a week later Epistle 3 came out. Again, I was wracked with bitterness and disappointment, mainly to see an “angry black woman who goes too far” trope yet again. I remember expressing my criticism to Laidlaw and he liked it. It’s just one of those unintentional things that just so happen.

It took me around 24 hrs after the HLVR trailer and the Ludens Fan interview for me to feel tentative excitement instead of bitterness and resentment. Hearing devs openly acknowledging HL3, and being excited to create new single player experiences and push game design warmed my heart. 

The thing is, this whole hellish waiting-in-silence game isn’t even new. HL2 was delayed for over a year without a word from Valve, the silence only broken when the source code from the beta was hacked. In a way, I believe the episodes are a double-edged sword. HL2 perfectly follows the monomyth, and stands on its own. That being said, I am happy we got the episodes that expanded on gameplay and characters I love dearly. Valve thinking they could push out games quickly when the original was delayed and went through years of refinement regarding gameplay and narrative is just-- you have to laugh I guess? 

I just reread Epistle 3, and after a few years to cool off I don’t hate it anymore. It makes sense for the episode’s arc to end in a similar manner of HL1 and HL2, where endings are supposed to be inconclusive and vague. You are a pawn, and the game ends when the King is taken. I have no idea if after the success of Portal and Portal 2 especially, that Valve will decide to follow this episode outline or instead weave a stronger crossover with a more forthright conclusion. I think I would be fine with either outcome, but having a surefire ending to the entire series is probably the best bet. Namely, because Gordon is silent. Nowadays, it’s a bit archaic. Characters are either voiced, or have dialogue choices. In Portal, Doom, and HL1 there isn’t much reason to speak, but it feels like Half-Life 2’s narrative demands it. After all, HL:A is going to feature Alyx as a speaking protagonist. And of course if there’s is a HL3, we’ll have to go back to silence, and it’s probably gonna be a pain in the ass to design around.

So I guess what I’m saying is, it’s nice to be able to love this series again, warts and all.

[rtcessays]

essay 2

Its only a paper moon Tick Tick Time there is love in your body (you can't hold it in) The sun no longer shines (on your side) Q’s for Lise

How did you find writing Tony Stark? Remarkably enough, for a character I often find myself frustrated by, I really enjoy writing Tony. He’s fun - his glib way of talking, often using more words than necessary to talk around whatever he’s trying to get at, and at the same time terrifically blunt - is in a weird way kind of adjacent to Loki. They both tend to circumlocute, but in very different ways.At this point in the series it’s especially fun - developing Tony’s relationship with the idea of Steve/Loki from here to...where it is at the current point was something I enjoyed doing, even if it largely happened “off screen.”But this iteration of Tony has a better sense of what’s going on (in some ways) than Steve does, because from an outside perspective he’s not dealing with the level of denial that Steve feels.  What was your motivation for the ending of The sun no longer shines (on your side)? At this point I was coming to (what I planned to be) the end of the main series. I’d been having Loki and Steve circle each other, Loki moving in and out as he pleased and walking a fine line without ever committing to anything, even as he and Steve get more and more tangled together. I actually knew that once I introduced Doom in “Tick Tick Time” that I was going to use him for...this, basically. When Loki is scared - when Loki is freaking out especially about the prospect of emotions - he tends to run in the other direction. If I wanted to get them somewhere, I needed to force Loki to stop running.In retrospect, there’s a kind of neatness to the fact that Loki and Steve’s relationship started with Loki crash landing in the Tower, and here it comes to a crossroads in the same way. Why I chose to end the fic there - I think it had to do with the fact that this fic was a specific arc and I knew that I had a whole other arc that it was moving onto. “The sun no longer shines (on your side)” was about bringing them together and forcing both of them to confront that this Thing they’ve been doing isn’t just a passing fad. The next fic (that I wrote, not chronologically), “with an untrained voice” (and here I am looking ahead), was about closing the circle. I do this a lot throughout the series - writing a specific story and then, rather than adding another chapter, having a separate fic that deals with the aftermath and repercussions. For some reason, I feel a need to separate those things. - Here at the beginning of ‘its only a paper moon’, we find ourselves with a face full of Tony Stark; how else can one describe the man? Tony’s...Tony-ness is often difficult to pin down but the author has enough of his cadence and flavor for succinct verbosity that you can hear Downey’s voice when you actively read the first scene of ‘its only a paper moon’. A treat, to be sure, and its Tony who asks the questions that’s been on the readers’ minds, namely, “What’s the deal with you and Loki?”. Its something of a thesis statement. “He raised a hand and crooked a finger, beckoning Steve. He didn’t really think about taking a step forward, but he took two toward Loki before he stopped, maybe a foot between them. He laughed, a little nervously.” 

Loki’s bordering on erotic pear eating might be on Steve’s mind, calling back to the first time he thought of Loki in a romantic light. Here, the tension ramps up despite Steve’s nerves. Loki offers his hand, and Steve takes it, marking the beginning of whatever the hell its is that Steve and Loki become at this point, at least in Steve’s mind.

“He pushed the rest of the way down, smashing his lips to Loki’s with enthusiasm if not skill, and it felt right.” 

Here’s Steve’s instincts again, which he’s relied on heavily in regards to his interactions with Loki up to this point. Tony discerned it before it happened, but now there is no turning back. He kisses Loki and is ensnared, whether he likes it or not. “Dangerous, whispered a faint voice at the back of Steve’s mind, but most of him thrilled to it, his heart pounding against his ribs.” Steve’s mind is full of what Loki can be, can do, his fantasies of a trust in him that Steve’s instincts nearly begged for. Of course, everything isn’t as it seems. “He reached down, fingers wrapping around Steve’s cock, and squeezed so Steve arched up with a shout-And lurched into consciousness with his cock rock hard and his pulse pounding, for a moment still groping after a dream before he registered what was going on. Dreaming. He’d been dreaming, but it’d been so vivid-” Not a truth, then, just a fiction. A dream. But what an incredible way to set up Steve’s attractions, to make clear just what it is his mind and body wants with Loki. Writing it off as a product of Tony’s words, Steve gives in anyways, surely thinking of Loki the whole way through his release.Tick Tick Time is the longest installment thus far, clocking in at almost 12k words. We get straight to it; the team has found out about Loki. This dates back to the installment before ‘its only a paper moon’, which was ‘the fog won’t lift in your town’. We find ourselves in the middle of an Avengers meeting, which definitely doesn’t go great, but could certainly be worse, at least from Steve’s point of view. Someone like Clint, on the other hand, might think this is more disastrous than any other present.   Onto Steve, alone in his room, pondering over everything from Loki’s nature, to his likeness spilled out over his sketching paper. He’s turned around by Loki having saved him. The implication of the thing trails into his dreams...or is Loki truly visiting him in his dreams? The reader wonders, and hopes. Loki is getting under Steve’s skin in such a way that he is left fretting over where Loki might be, if he is alright. For a month, this happens, and even someone of peak physical and mental stability (though the latter could be argued) might be driven in circles worrying. Of course, Loki appears again. Steve immediately asks where he’s been. The previous month of mixed up emotions has clearly gotten to him, and Loki, in his way, is surprised. The slow burn continues. Each sentence leaves little bread crumbs, little markers of subtle increases of care and concern they have for one another. The characters themselves are completely oblivious, but a well minded reader who’s in it for the romance will certainly pick up on it. Again, however, the conversation comes back around to whether or not Loki might change his ways, change his modus operandi and make up for his ill made decisions. It's a common theme, to be sure, but in this context it is electric: ‘“They didn’t like it,” he said, “But yes, they accepted it.” He took a deep breath and then added, slowly, “If you gave them a chance to…” “To what,” Loki said, unmistakably amused. “To glimpse my better nature?” Steve pressed his lips together, feeling a prickle of frustration at the note in Loki’s voice. “You don’t need to make it sound as though the idea is so absurd. You’ve proven to me-” “What have I proven to you?” Loki’s voice was suddenly quite sharp and he sat straight up. “What, other than my ability to carry on a civilized conversation? You attribute too much to a whim born of simple boredom.” “Why are you so quick to tell me that I’m wrong?” Steve asked, the twinge of irritation becoming more definite. “It’s like you want me to assume the worst.” Loki’s laugh was bright and sharp. “Hardly! I merely have little interest in hearing you grasp at straws to maintain your absurd hope that I will someday realize my sins and repent, casting myself on the mercy of such heroes as yourself.”’

The topic dies down, but the heat doesn’t. It’s becoming more clear that there is an underlying thread here. ‘Loki raised his eyebrows and cocked his head to the side. “You don’t like me turning up in your bed unannounced?”Steve had spent enough time with Tony to catch that one, and refused to acknowledge the warm flush he could feel spreading on his face.’ They set up a coffee date, and the ensuing conversation to get Loki to stay is met with that epithet again, ‘my good captain’. Steve seems somewhat taken with it, but he seems somewhat taken with Loki in general, so no surprise there. Loki proposes a half an hour, where Steve can ask what he wishes and he’ll get an answer. Its a kind of trope that’s found throughout literature. And, it’s a means to maybe suss out some things about Loki. It goes on not quite as expected, as Steve asks more mundane questions than exciting ones, at least in Loki’s estimation. Natasha is the chosen envoy, or seems to be, the next day. The Avengers will tolerate Loki’s interactions with Steve “for now”. As Steve and Loki meet for their coffee ‘date’, the nuances of their responses to one another are clear in the narrative. And, all the more intriguing. Loki was present, again, at another Avengers battle and while Steve is initially irritated, Loki points out what a disaster it would be had Loki revealed himself. Steve’s preoccupation with...well, rehabilitating Loki is as endearing as it is maddening. Likely, Loki would agree. Nevertheless, it is a hope Steve can’t help but hold out for, at least at this stage in the game. Remember, the series at this point was meant to be winding down. Such a huge shift in characterization would require more time, and so this joint coffee excursion halts Steve’s thoughts of turning Loki at least less morally questionable.The trust has built up enough to allow Steve to be more comfortable opening up. He admits he wants to talk to Loki, and goes on to talk about himself in pre-serum terms. Loki makes it about himself, missing the fact (or choosing to ignore, maybe) that Steve was not proselytizing and talks entirely too much about how is is what he is. It’s almost a tell, this penchant for driving home the base opinion of him.

A story for a story, Loki says, and offers one of retribution, again going back to what a terrible creature he must be. Is he pushing Steve’s buttons? Is he genuinely trying to make a point, here? The sympathetic reader might feel their heart twist in their chest, but ultimately its likely a test. How long until the good captain breaks character and gives up on him?Steve is awfully upset by the story, but he sidesteps his initial reactions to ask himself a very important question; Why tell me this? Steve sees through Loki straight away, seems to know Loki must’ve been baiting him. After a silence, Loki clearly marvels at Steve, and not for the first time either. It’s a wistful thought for him, the idea that Steve may have done some good on Asgard had he been Aesir, and Steve is understandably thoughtful at the notion. Our final scene in Tick Tick Time cuts right to the chase. Loki has come to warn Steve of literal impending Doom. The argument that follows is a back and forth and ups the ante emotionally. Steve, being Steve, can’t understand why Loki would take up with Doom, come to tell him of Doom’s plans, and still not think of himself positively. In short order the argument provides us with some glimpses into what Loki has been doing, which will start to further unfold for us soon. Steve is left with a sense of failure, and we are left to wonder where this twist will take us next.

The next stop is an interlude, a look into Loki’s side of things. The summary for this installment is succinct; “Loki needs to get rid of this inconvenient Captain America Problem”. Loki picks up a man named William at a bar of some sort who has passing similarity to Steve. It’s not an uncommon scene in fanfiction, but it is infused with Loki’s internal ponderings which the audience has been hopeful for. Even in this simple way, we can see where Loki is emotionally fraying around the edges. “He will exorcise this need from himself, Loki thinks. This mad obsession.” Note this quotation says ‘exorcise’, a darker, deeper mindset than the alternative you might initially misread, ‘exercise’. This is a big step for Loki. It ends in his belated realization that Steve is in his bones, now, and there’s nothing for it. Perhaps his plan backfired, or maybe it simply revealed a truth, but it is a satisfying read. We know where Loki’s head is, where his heart is, and everything else. This is more than just a curiosity for him, this is more than a game. In this temporary moment, Loki’s hunger for Steve is established. Now that that is settled, we continue forward in ‘The sun no longer shines (on your side)’ with the backdrop of Doom’s attack. After the fact, Loki shows up unexpectedly, as he is wont to do, and Steve is somewhat exasperated. Lise’s ability to keep the same premise (Loki’s popping in and out of Steve’s life) in nearly every installment fresh is impressive, and part of what makes the read so good. With every meeting, there is another underlying layer of basically every tension between them, and with every meeting, we are hooked again and again to see what might be uncovered or divulged. The theme is generally the same; Loki’s sneakiness, his trickery, to Steve’s nobleness and stoutheartedness. One expects them to hate each other before the end of it but on the contrary, they seem even more drawn to one another. Their philosophical see-sawing gives way to Loki asking if he’s seeing anyone. Given the segment before this particular fic, your heart breaks for Loki. Why would he ask such a thing? Steve’s sure confused by it. He asks if this is a test, which implies a certain kind of paranoia. He wants to trust Loki, but he can’t quite get there. And honestly, who can blame him? “He found himself almost glad of that, that he got to have this private, special (bizarre) thing, whatever it was.” Steve’s affection for Loki is clear later on. His thoughts are constantly turning towards Loki, and it appears maybe Loki isn’t the only one with a fascination here. When he makes his appearance, Loki seems lighthearted to Steve, perhaps just in contrast. Quickly the reason for his visit is revealed; he asks Steve to dinner. Visibly anxious when Steve goes on the defense, your heart breaks for the Loki we saw in the previous installment. Steve agrees, and Loki suggests that it was a hard won dinner, an important nugget for later on.Tony shows up, apparently still working on figuring his way through how Loki’s magic works. It’s a nice segue into Steve asking after a classier outfit, and Tony noodles out what’s really going on. A date, it seems, and the scene turns to Steve waiting for Loki. The lead in is perfect. One gets the sense that Loki is obviously up to something, but experiencing it from Steve’s bashful confusion makes the scene. ““Never fear.” Loki’s eyes glittered slightly in the dim light. “I shall look after you with the most tender of care.” A bizarre, tingly feeling trailed down his spine as Steve blinked.” It’s another one of those pear moments, Steve responding to something Loki has done or said with pleasure.The ‘date’ seems to go well, except for the whole topic of Doom of course. At a later point, Loki reappears and nearly gets a skillet to the face for his trouble. The banter is familiar, until Loki remarks on how honestly good Steve is. Where he expected a certain corruptible center, Loki has found the opposite with Steve. ““I told myself it was but curiosity,” Loki said, and took a strangely prowling step in Steve’s direction, and then another. “What strangeness, after all. Surely beneath your shining exterior was a rotten core that I could bring to the surface. Why not? There always is.”” Loki sees Steve for who and what he is, beyond just the visage of Captain America, and its someone he craves. ““I would have you,” Loki said, his voice lower still. “And seldom do I fail in getting what I want.”” They kiss, at long last, and it’s a natural thing. The build up is minimal, you see it coming, presumably so the thing stays natural. It is a heated few minutes, cut short by...something. What, precisely, we don’t know, and Steve is left uncomfortably aroused. Loki promises to return and pick up where he left off, steals another kiss, and is gone. This time, it was real. The kisses were real, Loki’s intentions seem to be pure as he insists he’s not meaning to toy with Steve.Weeks pass, and the next that Steve hears from Loki is via JARVIS. Loki’s in the tower, unconscious. The team doesn’t argue (that much), and Steve is greeted to a gruesome sight and scent; blood. Excessive amounts of blood. Loki wakes and there’s some relief in the fact that he is himself, spiteful and full of sardonic laughter. Steve races to help, and we’re left with a cliffhanger of uncomfortable proportions.

[clonerightsagenda]

I was looking at old tj posts trying to decide which to move to ao3 (a project I will deal with later) and like, the old ones had multiple scenes and some gesture at a narrative arc. Then the semester showed up and started kicking my ass. However, I tried to put a little more effort into this one with some type of character movement, but I ran out of time to really make that *work*. Obviously Aradia was perfect for Halloween. 

tuesjade prompt: Halloween

You've been exploring for a few weeks, and when you come back, the house's decor has changed. The leaves of the trees nearby have turned vivid colors. There are bright orange gourds set out on the front porch which, after you sample one, don't taste particularly good. There's also a cartoonish skeleton dangling from a hook on the front door. You give it a friendly nod as you walk inside.

Jade is the only one in the living room. "You're back!" she says. "Did you find anything interesting out there?"

"It's all interesting," you say. "Not as interesting as here right now, though. What's going on? Are we displaying one of our kills to intimidate the neighborhood? I thought we were taking a more conciliatory stance."

"Oh no." Jade frowns and sniffs the air. "Did Jaspers leave something dead outside again?"

"No, I meant the skeleton."

"Oh." She laughs. "It's for Halloween. That isn't until the end of the month, but we've started early. There was a lot of debate over that addition, actually. Some people thought it might be tasteless. But since it's the first time a lot of us have celebrated, we're going all out. You should see all the tacky shirts we've found at the store.” She taps her chest, which is currently emblazoned with the slogan, “Witch, please.”

Now you remember. Halloween is one of those seasonal human holidays. You've heard it mentioned before, but either it hadn't come up again or you'd been out in space when it had. If it involves decorating things with skeletons, you're all for it, although the gourds you could live without. "What is this tradition about, anyway?"

"I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask. I've never celebrated it myself. It's hard to trick or treat when you're living alone. But in general... it's a chance to get spooky!" She giggles. "And more importantly to dress up and eat yourself sick."

"A lot of your holidays seem to involve eating yourself sick," you observe.

"America is a culture of excess," she says, deadpan. "That is Rose's official position on the matter."

"What's yours?"

She purses her lips for a moment and then nods. "I'm new here, but I think it's kind of fun. I'm going to be Marie Curie. Roxy is going as Ada Lovelace, we will be classy and educational."

You frown, left behind. "Wait, you're going to *be* someone?"

"That's part of the point! Well, you don't actually "be" them." These clarifications are important. You've learned, in your attempts to communicate cross-species, never to assume understanding. "But you dress up and pretend to be someone else! That's part of Halloween, being in disguise. I think it goes back to trying to scare ghosts away by being scarier? But now it's just for fun. Younger kids go around asking for candy, it's called trick or treating."

Scaring away ghosts is a strategy you'd never considered. You'd tried to help, although as a young troll your abilities had been limited. Instead, you'd practiced being polite and understanding. The few times you could make things right (putting a warning sign up by a patch of crumbling cliff, retrieving a favorite token for a grieving moirail) even more spirits had crowded around you, desperate for aid or just someone to talk to. Had humans felt similar pressure, to make a whole tradition off frightening the dead away?

"We have something a little similar," you explain. "Normally it's a cullable offense to disguise yourself as another caste, but we have one day when it's encouraged. You can try to move up a few rungs and claim special privileges for a while. Of course, if your disguise isn't good enough and a highblood notices, they’ll still punish you, probably fatally. I guess that's our version of tricks or treats."

"It's not that high stakes here." Jade frowns. "Is every holiday from your planet that messed up?"

"More or less. At least then the disguises had a point.” You settle onto the back of the couch. Maybe you’re weightless off-planet, but it’s nice to sit down. “You do something similar, when you're younger. I'm not sure I understand why you'd keep doing it. Is the purpose to get away from yourself?”

Jade shrugs. “I guess some people might want to escape being them for a while. But I just like science, and Marie Curie made some important discoveries, even though I'm glad I won't get radiation poisoning. Looking back it's probably a good thing I went God Tier, otherwise all that uranium wouldn't have been good for me."

"I would be dead young myself," you say cheerfully. Jade's eyebrows draw together, and you guess you've misjudged your response, or your tone. That happens a lot. "Thanks for explaining this to me," you say, to move the conversation along. "It sounds interesting."

"Sure. Do you have anything you'd like to dress up as? I bet Alternia must have had some neat intellectuals, although most people would say that's a boring idea." Jade plucks at the fabric of her sleeve. "Mostly I just think it'll be easy to get a lab coat."

You touch your own shirt protectively. "I'm not so sure about that part. I'm happy as myself."

“Whatever suits you.” She picks up her phone. “I’ll let everyone know you’re here. Welcome back!”

 Apparently you didn't miss *all* the Halloween prep, because a few days later everyone makes a trip to the Halloween store. (Almost everyone. Calliope and Kanaya insist on making their outfits by hand and split off to the fabric store instead.) The building is noisy and filled with distractions, plastic skulls that laugh when you press a button, enormous coffins that swing open and closed. It seems like humans save up all their gruesome and grisly impulses and unleash them at once. No wonder the holiday has begun slipping outside its proper temporal bounds. One day isn’t nearly enough.

Everywhere, of course, are costumes. Jade is trying on a pair of fake wolf ears as a joke when Hal shows up with a silvery outfit in a package. You're nearby examining a bust with curled horns a lot like yours, so you overhear. "Check it out," he says. "Sexy robot. Do you think this would make Dirk regret we were born?"

"Halloween is an opportunity to dress up as something you want." Jade returns the ears to the shelf. "Do you want to waste that chance annoying Dirk?"

Hal scowls. He'll give you two the time of day as honorary members of the once prototyped club, but Jade has a tendency to not put up with his excesses. It's hard for him to carry on when she starts using the reproving voice. "I admit I'm not feeling the robo-tits," he says. "But the skirt ain't bad. Not like I can wear an outfit with pants."

"As someone who was a sexy robot for a while out of necessity, I'd vote against it," you say.

"Hmmm." He turns the package over in his hands. "I've got it, what about a Minion?"

Jade brightens. "Oh, those cute yellow guys from Despicable Me? I only ever saw the ads, the world ended before the movie came out. They looked nice, though."

Hal tosses the package back onto a nearby shelf. "That's right, you were spared before their reign of marketing terror. Only Dirk and Roxy would comprehend the full scale of horror. Maybe I'll split the difference, go as a sexy minion."

Jade rolls her eyes. "How about you go tell Dave the animatronic raven over there isn’t alive and he should stop trying to intimidate it.”

He retreats, and Jade wanders off. Before you move on, you reach out and slide the sexy robot costume far back on the shelf, where no one will see it.

 "I'm surprised you didn't come back with three bags of junk from that Halloween store," Sollux says. You've brought some food up for him, since he didn't come down for group dinner again, involved in some sort of project or Internet discussion. He’s accumulated a cult following online, even if he hasn’t made as many inroads as you here. That's not so different than before - back on Alternia he told you and the rest of his long-distance friends that most of his neighbors wanted to kill him. "It's stupid, but it sounds like the kind of intercultural thing you'd be into. No offense. It's even got your aesthetic."

"None taken. I do appreciate the more relaxed attitude toward the morbid. I think hangups like those are counterproductive. That part doesn't bother me." You bite into one of the rolls you brought up for him, and he grumbles and snatches the plate away. "It's the costumes I'm not sure about."

"Hell, you ran around dressed as Troll Indiana Jones half the time anyway," he says, through a mouthful of crumbs. "I don't think it's any different."

"I don't know. Maybe." You're not sure why it feels different now. Only that there's an aversion in you bone deep to pretending you're something you're not. "I'll think about it."

And you do.

Here is what it is to be a Maid: you are made. Grown in a society where you are told what you are and who to be, propaganda pushed from every angle. Reduced to a shade by a vengeful former friend with whatever feelings that were yours buried under the demands of the summoned dead. Game knowledge pumped into your mind accompanied by the reminders that you are meant to play a role and do what the game asks of you. All else is secondary. Even you. Your soul bound in circuitry with programming trying to guide your affections until you tore yourself apart. You'd betrayed friends and doomed timelines and watched thousands of copies of yourself get destroyed by a vengeful demon because you had to, and because so many forces beyond your control had set you on that path. So when you rose, transcendent, from a cracked disc of stone, you were done. No one else would tell you who to be. Especially not some human tradition fixated on hiding what you’ve worked so long to bring to the surface.

 The next time you pass through the common room, Calliope has taken it over with a sewing machine and newspaper patterns spread all over the floor. "Hello!" she says when she sees you, narrowly avoiding swallowing a pin. "Would you mind holding this flat for me?"

You hold two pieces of fabric steady while she guides them through the sewing machine. Several other brightly colored pieces have already been stitched together and piled up. "What are you making?"

"Jake and I are going as superheroes. I suppose we already are that, in a manner of speaking, but we're dressing as our characters from that comic we've made. If this silly hood will sew up right," she adds, as the sewing machine jams.

"Do you think they're better than you?" you ask as she wrestles with it.

She frowns, spitting out a pin onto the table. "What?"

"I don't understand why everyone is excited to pretend to be something else. Aren't you happy with being you?"

"Oh, I see where you're coming from." She pops open the top of the sewing machine and starts extricating a tangled mess of thread. "You know, I used to dress up all the time because I hated the way I looked. I wished I could be a troll, because I thought you were lovely, and I envied you the lives you led."

"You envied us?"

"I had a romanticized notion, to be sure, but anything was better than being chained to a wall." She yanks, and the thread snaps out. "I envied that you weren't alone."

"And you're not anymore."

"I'm not! And everyone has seen my face, and it no longer seems quite so monstrous. I'm not hiding it. That's not what this is all about. It's about... well, I guess it's almost about showing yourself off."

You glance at the sketch she's working from. "That neckline does look a little low."

"Oh, there's going to be a fabric insert, not that I have anything to flaunt. What I meant is, it's a chance to highlight something about yourself. What you like, what you care about. Something you created. It's not self-deprecation, it's self-expression." She flicks the machine on again. "Luckily in my case the skills are transferrable. Now, mind helping me with this last seam?"

You do, and she adds the component to the pile. It’s hard to tell how they’ll go together to form the outfit she’s sketched as a guide. It’s clear she’s put a lot of care into it, though. "I appreciate you trying to explain.”

"Happy to be of help. We're all learning about this world together." She smiles, an expression full of teeth, and you don’t know why she ever would’ve wanted to hide it.

 You never participated in the one day on Alternia when lowbloods went in disguise. It didn't seem worth the risk, and you had no desire to take your turn at bossing people around. You remember the atmosphere though, shot through with dread, people pretending to grasp at what they could never have. The wanting gave them away more than sloppy costuming. Those born into higher castes took it as their due.

The mood here is different. People mill around laughing and talking, running down the halls adjusting wigs or asking someone to zip them up. The doorbell rings over and over, and Jane's father has stationed himself there with a bowl of candy and an obligatory pair of disguise spectacles. Everyone is... happy. Even Sollux has emerged, dressed in what looks like formal wear and still using his husktop, which he's balanced atop a platter. "What are you doing?" you ask.

"I'm a web server," he says drily. "This is what happens when you don't volunteer any ideas."

"I thought you thought this was stupid."

"It is, but everyone else is doing it, and I got bored." He snickers. "You should see what KK got talked into. Bet it itches."

You take a look around, but you don't see Karkat. You do see Calliope in her finished outfit, beaming as Kanaya compliments her on her stitching.

"You're the odd one out, AA," Sollux says.

You roll your eyes and dash off.

 Jade is already in her lab coat costume. "Hey," she says when you approach. "How a-"

"I know it's last minute," you interrupt, "but can you find me a hat?"

"A hat?"

"The kind troll Indiana Jones wears." You shape the outline of its brim on your head. "A fedora, I think it's called."

"I don't think we have any in the house." She bites her lip and then snaps her fingers. "It's too late to go out and buy one. We'll borrow one for the night, but try not to damage it, ok?"

The hat appears in a flash of green, and you grab it out of the air. It'll sit awkwardly over your horns, but that's ok.

"So you've decided to do a costume after all, huh?"

"I used to do this one all the time." You have a jacket that'll work, and of course your whip is always on hand. "I misunderstood before. I thought it was about hiding yourself, but I get it now. You're expressing yourself even more than usual. It’s a day when you can put things in plain sight."

“That’s a nice way of putting it.” She reaches out and settles the hat evenly on your head, businesslike. “We’re going to see if anyone’s willing to give a bunch of teenagers free handouts. See you downstairs in five?”

“I’ll be there,” you say, and race upstairs.

[hermanwatts]

Huge As Sin

This is a guest post by Richard who has contributed a few pieces before:

Edward Frankland’s Forgotten Masterpiece

                       There can be few people these days familiar with the work of Edward Frankland (1884-1958). And even amongst this minority far fewer still will be conversant with his 1932 novel of Viking Westmorland entitled HUGE AS SIN. If Frankland himself can be said to have fallen into unwarranted obscurity over the years then it is no hyperbole to describe his novel as having all but evaporated from existence. Since the time a copy came my way by fortuitous circumstances I have yet to discover even one other being offered for sale anywhere. And as Thor and Odin are my witnesses I have looked hard enough. It is bad in itself that Frankland is being deprived of a readership and acclaim that he merits but the rarity of HUGE AS SIN is doubly regrettable because, in my estimation, it is nothing less than a lost masterpiece.

The setting for the book is Frankland’s adopted county of Westmorland during the third quarter of the 9th Century. The story is placed against the historical backdrop of the Danish invasions of Halfdan Ragnarsson and Ivar the Boneless, and with the wars of hegemony waged in Norway by Harald Luva. Each of these events exerts its own gravitational influence upon the story but this is not a novel of great men and great happenings. Instead it is a largely provincial affair of one man’s personal ambition.

The hero of the novel is a Viking raider by the name of Thorolf Arnvidson, a man who dreams of carving a kingdom for himself out of the fells, becks and dales of North West England. In pursuit of this end he massacres an entire English clan by burning them alive in their own hall. But when his own followers are wiped out almost to a man in a reprisal ambush Thorolf finds himself reduced to the status of a wounded fugitive sheltered by a Welshwoman in her hovel. From this nadir in circumstances the book follows Thorolf’s fortunes as, undaunted, he sets out in renewed pursuit of his ambition.

Thorolf develops over the course of the ensuing months and years into a complex and compelling character. He is described as having “the gloomy splendour of a man marked out by fate for mighty deeds and shifting fortune”. Unlike the majority of the men he comes to surround himself with he is conscious of the strange dichotomy that invests the Vikings of this period with both greed for the land of others and the onus to then defend it against people identical to themselves. But he is also a man flawed by introspective torpors, dawdling when the situation demands urgent action: “Is a kingdom to be lost for the sake of a girl?” he is reprimanded at one point by the girl in question.

Thorolf proves himself to be an essentially humane and far-sighted man by Viking standards. He comes to find more to his liking in the ways of the Swedes who “were content to have good things and use them” rather than with his own countrymen’s relish for wanton destruction. But he does not shirk from brutality when necessity demands it as seen when he hangs Bethoc, son of the king of the Strathclyde Welsh, amidst the sacrificial offerings on the midsummer blot tree.

Thorolf dominates proceedings and considerable emotional capital comes to be invested both in him and his fate. Frankland is far more frugal with the development of the supporting cast who are largely characterized in broad functional strokes. Only the sly and vicious Alkfrith, an English King’s step-son sired by an Irish thrall, and the Norwegian Spear Maid Thora, stalwart in purpose and possessed of the gift of prophecy, really stand out. But even the minor participants like the huge bareserk Arngeir Grettirsbane add their own distinctive dashes of colour to events.

Frankland was able to bring a variety of talents and personal experience to the writing of HUGE AS SIN, all of which contribute to its compulsive quality. He knew Scandinavia well for instance, spoke the languages and was possessed of a convincing insight into the Northern psyche. This equipped him to paint an authentic picture of a pagan society shaped by notions of luck and predestination and in which totems like the Shame Pole – capped by the rotting head of an ox – exert profound influence.

But Frankland was also a farmer and brought a countryman’s eye to the description of the Westmorland landscape, which he clearly loved and which is rendered in rhapsodic prose. The Scandinavian influence has left an indelible mark on both the topography and language of the region which persists to this day and Frankland was a man profoundly aware of that and in evident sympathy with it.

The book has a matter-of-fact attitude to the commonplace brutalities and violence of Dark Age life where the lot of women and servants was less than that of a horse “apt to go its own way if it grew aware of unspurred heels.” There is plenty of action and fighting – including a splendid and vivid recreation of the storming of the Rock of Dumbarton in 870 – but it does not wallow in gouts of blood and viscera. Instead of opening to the stroke of a sword cleaving bones to the marrow as a modern book would HUGE AS SIN beguiles the reader in much the same way as Thorolf himself is beguiled by the fells of Westmorland, drawing them further and further in until before they even realise it they are intractably absorbed in the narrative.

And it is an utterly captivating tale which successfully captures the tragic doom laden timbre of the sagas and which culminates in a powerful and affecting climax; one which, whilst it is hard to imagine any modern author choosing to follow, yet remains perfectly in keeping with the tone and temper established in painstaking fashion over the course of the entire book.

For all his equanimity and visionary virtues Thorolf is ultimately a victim of tradition. His commitment to the vow extracted from him by the Welshwoman Nest at the lowest ebb in his fortunes comes to assume an onerous weight as those fortunes wax in turn and eventually compels him to a compromise which whilst winning him much loses him the very thing he values most. Running in concert with this is the obligation of blood-debt which Thorolf is capable of dismissing intellectually as a ruinous and empty undertaking but which mists his vision with a red cloud regardless to calamitous consequence.

I have read a considerable amount of Viking fiction in my time but I cannot recall any I was ever so reluctant to finish. It is little less than criminal that this magnificent book should remain so stubbornly hard to come by. Should any reader chance upon a copy in their book browsing they should not hesitate to acquire it. Similarly if any enterprising publisher is in the market for a vintage Viking tale to reprint then they should not be looking any further than this one.

Only the certain knowledge that there is more of the same to come can ever provide a crumb of comfort at the finishing of an unputdownable book, which HUGE AS SIN most certainly is. Frankland did not produce a lot of historical fiction, and today whatever reputation he is still able to muster largely rests with his 1944 novel THE BEAR OF BRITAIN which was probably the first novel to tackle the Arthur story in realistic fashion. But as luck would have it in 1935 Frankland published a sequel to HUGE AS SIN entitled THE PATH OF GLORY. This book remains no easier to acquire than the majority of his others, regrettably. Happily those fortuitous circumstances that procured me the copy of HUGE AS SIN likewise delivered me a copy of the follow up too. It would be no chore for me to post something on this book also should anyone be interested in hearing about it.

Huge As Sin published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[ductapefatwa]

Artichoke Circus

(and unresolved dilemmas) Before Ductape died (for my part I think he is dead and I miss him greatly) he and I were writing something together. For this last year, I’ve been unsure what to do with it. On the one hand, it was part of a correspondence which is clearly private. On the other, it was also a collaboration within that correspondence which both of us had intended to be read by others when it was eventually completed. It wasn’t complete last September. But nor did it break off abruptly: we had got stuck a while before that. We had encountered changes that needed making and some basic questions that needed answering before we could keep on writing. And events intervened. The Lebanon was being bombed. In retrospect, I think Ductape's health was failing. Also I was not writing much: La belle dame had dropped by and words had become dangerous creatures. But I think that perhaps had circumstances been otherwise, we might eventually have found a way out of our narrative difficulties. Counterfactuals. As it was, they weren't, we didn’t and I don’t want to change what was written now, since I think some parts of it may be among the last things he wrote. Though not the last. It’s hard (at least I've found it hard) to know what to do with words that have, if only by default, been entrusted to your keeping, but which – at least at some point – were intended to be read by more than one pair of eyes. I thought about what to do about this over the last year, but have reached no conclusion: I still don’t know whether this is a betrayal of trust or not. We didn’t -- and in particular Ductape didn’t – think that it was finished. But I cannot fix or finish it by myself and some of you were his friends, the people for whom he wrote. So. If parts seem clumsy or inept, they are almost certainly mine since Ductape didn't do clumsy or inept. Artichoke Circus. Where did I find this place? In a memory. Look see? Over here. A dubious pause and a raised eyebrow. "Well it's a good enough place to meet isn't it? A place that is no place at all. One can come and go, traceless. Singularly apropos." You follow the voice over to a rather distressed looking picnic table, there in what passes for a park for the kids to run around during the day, letting off steam. It's darker here, away from the floodlit carpark, from the loglo of McDs and Burger King. The air smells of oil and fumes. Beneath that, the smell of stale cooking fat and old fries. Yet catch that midsummer breeze in just the right way and there's a hint of something not yet vanquished, not yet destroyed utterly. "Like Ithilien" she mutters beneath her breath, "Yes. This is my memory of it." Her companion does not hear. He is preoccupied with the discovery of a fire fly, and its periodic hopefully-green glowing. "What's it's name?" he says, looking up. "It doesn't have one. But we called it the United States of Generica. " Out on the highway a military convoy trundles through the night. "So." she says, "What shall we discuss on this shortest night? Manifest Destiny? The End of Empire? "Is there a difference?" the old man asks, smiling down at the firefly, with whom he has made friends. It perches comfortably on his finger, blinking companionably in the gathering dusk. "In their ends, I mean," he eyes his DoodleBurger skeptically. "They have always been symbiotic, like conjoined twins that cannot be separated, that live only a short time, though to their parents, it seems an eternity. The fact is, we are all just people. There is no Master Race, no Manifest Destiny, no Empire. These are more truly fairy tales than fairies and goblins and enchanted forests. Although unlike the fairies and the enchanted forests, they call forth the worst that is in us, worse even than the mischievous goblins." He nods farewell to the firefly, who makes its blinking way off into the sky, and takes a hesitantbite of the DoodleBurger, nods approvingly. "Good. They remembered the extra pickles." "I suspect I'd need more pickles still," she replies grinning, picking lazily at a strawberry parfait. Lifting her spoon, She raises an eyebrow towards her companion. “We are all just people?There is no Master Race, no Manifest Destiny, no Empire?” These things, then, are mere chimeras. Figments of a feverish brain, of paranoid imagining? Will-o-wisps we have been chasing through a forest to our boggy doom.” She smiles. “Windmills. Not giants after all.” She pushes the half-finished parfait aside, not before having extracted, with care, one last strawberry, though not the last. And looks at her companion seriously. “In that case, all of our rejections and denials (flawed though they doubtless have been), all our disruptions, disputations and dissolutions (morally compromised to their core though they may be) – all have been truly full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Harsh words hurled at an imagined foe.” “I wish that were so. I would like to die happy. But it is not. We are not just people.“ She pauses for a moment as a security guard makes her round of the car park. “We are people, yes,” she continues quietly, once the guard is out of earshot, “but we are also the things that people make. And to our great misfortune, Master Races, Manifest Destinies and Empires have been among these made things.” “And are we not so neatly caught between truth and falsehood? For if these things are to be unmade again, we must deny them existence, we must reject them utterly and steadily. Yet if we simply deny their existence – if we say all innocent and unawares, “Oh but there is no such thing as Empire! The Master Race? Who are they? I never heard of them before!” then whether our innocence is sincere or feigned, we cannot help but make invisible its consequences, its damage done.” She looks around the carpark again. The security guard has resumed her post outside Burger King, on the other side of the lot. A worn, sharp vegetable knife has materialised on the table between them. She shakes her head. “Another memory.” She picks it up and rests it carefully in her left hand flat across her palm, fingers folding up and closely over the blade. “It is tempting to imagine that they do not exist, that these things that people make are in some sense not real because they are made and can therefore be unmade. The knife is relatively simple to regard as real, it is material. We can see it, touch it, guess what its effects might be. From here in Generica? Though no less material, perhaps it is true that Empire is not so visible here as elsewhere. But that – as you observed to Alex – is only because in the eye of the hurricane, there is no wind. Slowly, almost reluctantly, she puts the knife down between them. “So. What is to be done?” she asks. "How may we escape this snare?" "Well, yes, they exist in the same way that fat exists on the butt of an insecure and slender young girl, gazing into her mirror." The old man decides not to tell his companion that those are not strawberries, but chunked and formed vegetable protein, not unlike the DoodleBurger itself, only the extrusion settings are different. "And so I suppose we make arguments against them for the same reasons we try to reason with the young girl." The firefly has returned. It seems to like the old man. Or maybe it is hoping for a crumb of DoodleBurger. If so, its hopes are beyond rewarded, as his benefactor decides he has more than achieved his textured vegetable protein requirement for the day,and lays the dubious sandwich down, only a few bites eaten."It is our destiny to fight phantoms," he muses. "All those things that don't exist, with which we seek to destroy ourselves." He pulls a pair of glasses from a pocket in his garment. His distance lenses. He puts them on and gazes out across the parking lot, and is caught by a billboard "WORLD'S BIGGEST ARTICHOKES KIDS AND SENIORS FREE.""Do you like artichokes?" he asks, pointing at the billboard. "I am a senior." He looks around for a few more seconds, and apparently decides he has had enough distance vision, replaces the glasses. "The girl, you see, will starve herself. She will pretend nothing is wrong, and eat her meals, but vomit them up in secret. She will do this until one day her mother catches her unawares, in her underclothes, and sees the bony shoulders, the ribs like a concentrationcamp photo, and then, if it is not too late, the whole family will live around the cause of saving her life. But even in the hospital, hooked to her IV pole, when she looks in the mirror, she will see a fat butt. So it is with Empire, so it is with Manifest Destiny.Just a bunch of white people who think their butts are fat. At least in this particular century, it's white people. A while back it was Persians."He looks quite old enough to have been witness, possibly participant, in events "a while back," but it is with remarkable agility that he springs up from the plastic table, after murmuring his farewell to the firefly in some ancient (or not) language."Let's go see those artichokes!" He rubs his hands together in anticipation, licks his lips. "I hope they will have lemon butter!" She too gets up, casting a brief surreptitious glance at her backside, choosing a moment when her companion’s attention appears to be fully fixed upon the possibility of artichokes. “But it is fat, there’s just no getting around it.” she thinks ruefully. She shakes herself. After all, there are worse things. She’s not hooked up to an IV. The trick is to try and see clearly what is there, fat or no fat, ghosts or no ghosts. Or both, even, depending on which of one’s mismatched eyes one peers through. "Looks like it’s still open” she says, staring out across the car park in the late twilight. “See, there’s lights on and they’ve got seats out on the verandah. This wasn’t here last time.” She picks up the knife – “In case we have to cut the prickly ends off the leaves. Or that pithy stuff” she explains, tucking it out of sight. “I love artichokes. Especially with garlic, but lemon would be good too.” As they amble across the car park, she regales him with a tale of the time she learned to distinguish between anchovies, artichokes and garbage disposal units and why the remnants of the second should never, ever, be put into the third. “Green. Stringy. Stuff. Everywhere. ” she concludes, grimacing. “Who’d have thought one artichoke could have so much of it? .” Taking a seat at a wooden table on the verandah, they take turns looking at a menu and discover a broad assortment of artichoke-devouring options, several of which require thoughtful and detailed investigation, consumption and comparison. “So it is with Manifest Destiny so it is with Empire – yes, I think that we agree. But listen,” she thinks aloud, as they sit there, replete with artichoke in many delicious forms, contemplating the deep blue evening sky, “The girl on the IV, surrounded by her loving family – she will not recover, I think. She may linger but she will not live, until she sees what is there, the delusion, that it is a delusion, and the harm she does by acting on it. Until she sees that, she will not see a need to end it. And where will she learn to see? And how? “We may reason with her – as you said – tell her that she is, in fact, not only slender but dangerously emaciated. We may place the mirror before her face. We may drag her from her bed to measure her height, weigh her body and show her the BMI index, but what she will hear is that we, being fat, lazy and undisciplined are jealous of her determination, her self-control, her wholehearted desire to be thin, her willingness to do whatever it takes to reach that goal. Her single-mindedness. And if we acknowledge this as well – if we say to her that this – our fat, lazy and undisciplined jealousy of your determination – is what she will hear when we say this and it this is a predictable symptom of this illness? Well, sophistry can be added to that list easily enough.” “I remember sitting in a room with someone who had once been a friend, holding my hands tightly together so that I would not hit her with them and realising for the first time that although I had the strength to bodily pick her up and hurl her to the other end of the room – and for that matter, the necessary rage to make such a choice seem attractive – it was not in my power to move her conscience one single inch.” And so beloved ancestor, with the irritating persistence of an uncooperative and childish descendant sitting in the back seat of a car, asking every two minutes “Are we there yet?” I shall repeat my question: what is to be done? He gestures to indicate that he cannot answer just yet, he is still finishing up his Artichokes Rockefeller, wondering whether there really is a difference between anchovies and garbage disposals, he is not fond of either. He smiles to himself as best he can, under the artichoke-stuffed circumstances, at the array of empty dishes at the girl's place, waiting to be collected. Woman, he corrects himself, but he cannot help but think of her as a child, when they cross busy streets, he takes her hand protectively in his own, careful to let her think she is assisting his aged self make the journey safely. He is glad to see her eat. She is too thin. "How to move a conscience," he finally mumbles, almost to himself. "There really should be a pamphlet orsomething. A website. With easy steps and a diagram." "I think it is like teaching," he continues, pushing back his dish, reluctantly acknowledging that he has reached his personal limit of artichoke consumption, and a bit concerned that his astonishing capacity for same may cause the restaurant's management to revise their "SENIORS FREE" policy, at least on the All-U-Can-Eat buffet. "No one ever teaches anyone anything, really. You just make the resources available and sit back and watch them learn." "Where y'all from?" asks the cashier as the girl - the woman - hands her a plastic card. "Y'all ain't from round here," she pops her bubblegum to emphasize her remarkable perceptive powers. "Yourn's free, youknow," she shouts at the old man, unaware that at this moment, he can hear the slurp as a child over at the BurgerDoodle finishes his WildBerryFreeze. "Seniors is free," she explains to the woman, voice lowered to a normal decibel level, swiping the plastic card through a machine, waiting for another machine, somewhere, to respond, and agree that the impressively low sum of $7.99 US may be safely deducted from or charged to, yet another machine somewhere else. "You know who he looks like?" she asks conversationally, as they all wait for the hiss and clicks that will indicate that the electronic question and answer session has concluded, "He looks like the feller they got on the television set, th'terst, you know, that blew up the nine-a-leven? With all them people in it? Oh I know he ain't, he's way too old, plus he's one o' th' nice ones. I c'n tell th' nice ones." She leans toward the old man, grins. "You ain't fixin t' blow up nothin', is ya?" she shouts. "Could we have some bubble gum like yours?" the old man places a coin on the counter, takes the little squares from her astonished hand. It jumps at his touch, as if from an electric shock. "He speaks English real good." The cashier is, after all, a professional, who must be able to recover quickly from shocks to the system. "You speak English real good," she shouts in the direction of the old man's ear. He inclines his head to her graciously. "You will permit me to return the compliment." Sometimes we must lie to be kind, he thinks to himself, as they settle into the car, leaving the cashier to stare at her hand where the ancient fingers brushed it as they took the gum, as if looking for some kind of mark. "Pay-gy," she calls to a waitress, " You got smora them pills like you gimme that night Misty got th' po-leesecalled on Dwayne?" Peggy nods obligingly and goes off to get her purse. The cashier looks as if she might burst into tears. "So it is with moving consciences. We cannot do it, they must move themselves. At best, we can make vehicles available." The old man blows a bubble and pops it, quite pleased with himself, undisturbed by the fact that he is no match for his companion's skills in this department. "The Americans like to say, you know, that Uncle Tom's Cabin changed peoples' hearts, and was the real catalyst for the re-framing of slavery. Even Abraham Lincoln himself is alleged to have indicated as much to Ms. Stowe. But I think this is a myth. The real reasons were economic, as they always are. But the public is always encouraged to attribute such things to something less mundane, more emotionally uplifting, a book, Gandhiji, Patrice Lumumba, Dr. King, Nelson Mandela. Not to take away from any of them. All were the vehicles for moving many consciences, and this is a good thing. But we must not deceive ourselves, and if we look about Soweto today, or the projects a few miles from Dr. King's tomb, if we leave the big city and observe the plight of Dalits in almost any village, we must acknowledge that on the whole, only a small percentage of consciences have been moved."

(Note that this originally at Dove’s blog, In Flight, in 2007. Copyright is obviously hers, and if she asks me to take this down, I will respectfully do so. I have struggled with the ethics of posting this for some time, but decided to err on the side of posting partially because I honestly do not know the shelf life of blogs on the Blogger platform, especially ones that have gone fallow, and partially because this is the 10th anniversary of this story’s publication and Ductape Fatwa’s last published words as a coauthor deserve to be commemorated. If you do follow the link to Dove’s blog, check the rest of it out as well. She, too, had a way with words, and communicated with a sense of candor and empathy that was genuinely a treasure.)