#giving you a little peak into my post canon everyone's back and back together delusion world

[tsubasaclones]

shoves this comic in your hands and then runs away like a tsundere

[ma1dita]

Even though Luke doesn’t cheat on Trouble, I listen to Burn from Hamilton and imagine these two post tlt bc yes i like the pain,, no i don’t need therapy, officer 😀

girl the way this is probably canon anyway bc in the trouble!verse luke is a Hamilton Hater ™ and trouble was known to be singing songs from the musical with her ex-bf

im DYINGGGG but damn if you go to therapy hop in we can carpool

sidenote there's still a lot that can relate in the lyrics and im bored rn so lets feed into the delusion for a bit (guys I'm a fic writer who peaked in the 2010s in the age of bad youtube fan recreations of songs to fit their otps... i know how to work with scraps)

She said, "Be careful with that one, love , "He will do what it takes to survive" // You and your words flooded my senses, Your sentences left me defenseless, You built me palaces out of paragraphs, You built cathedrals // I'm re-reading the letters you wrote me, I'm searching and scanning for answers in every line, For some kind of sign, And when you were mine // The world seemed to burn, Burn

Mr. D warned her from the beginning about Luke, even silently in 'play pretend' because she was becoming more like her old self (reckless and crazy, just like him) when she was falling in love with Luke, and it isn't a bad thing but definitely takes away fro what her and Luke have been working at as THE counselors of CHB. Luke's always been good with words as a son of Hermes to the point that it even fools Trouble to some extent, there comes a point where her as an amazing actress can't tell when he's lying---and he learned that from her...

You published the letters she wrote you, You told the whole world, How you brought this girl into our bed, In clearing your name, You have ruined our lives // Do you know what Angelica said, When she read what you'd done?, She said, "You've married an Icarus, "He has flown too close to the sun" // You and your words obsessed with your legacy, Your sentences border on senseless, And you are paranoid in every paragraph, How they perceive you, You, you, you!

this made me giggle OKAY HEAR ME OUT LMFAOOOO ever since they got together (in the span of a little over a year before his betrayal), they always sleep in the same bed when they can as mentioned in 'now that we're older' because they barely have time to themselves in the day....when 'when the chaos is through' is posted, that's when Luke agrees to side with Kronos in his ultimate belief to protect Trouble from impending war and eventually give her a better life outside of CHB. (imagine kronos dressed as eliza schuyler and we're set because luke essentially brings him to bed with them for half of their relationship and she doesn't know LMFAOOOOO) and well yeah yall know his decline after TLT but he's in too deep to fall back

I'm erasing myself from the narrative, Let future historians wonder how Eliza reacted, When you broke her heart, You have torn it all apart // I'm watching it burn, Watching it burn, The world has no right to my heart, The world has no place in our bed, They don't get to know what I said, I'm burning the memories, Burning the letters that might have redeemed you // You forfeit all rights to my heart, You forfeit the place in our bed, You'll sleep in your office instead, With only the memories of when you were mine //I hope that you burn

The beginning part reminds me of the confrontation scene in 'love is a blister' where the counselors put Trouble on trial for loving Luke---the reality of it is they and everyone at camp only know what Luke & Trouble have shown them, but everything between them is private and their own. They didn't expect him to leave her behind. There are a lot of references throughout the series and especially in 'solipsism' where his last time alive as his waning sense of self he goes to visit Trouble who's fresh from visiting Annie in 'love is a blister' and he literally is burning through his old self as kronos overtakes his body. He couldn't imagine not being able to say goodbye before becoming true vessel and well in TLO, teeeechnically what happens and what i plan to write i--[GUNSHOTS]

me saying scraps and then copy pasting almost the whole damn song... ive said too much. this was entertaining, how'd I do?

[suits-of-woe]

Top 5 Edmund moments? Thank you!

Thank you! I can literally never talk about him enough and honestly it was hard to pick just 5 but honestly if I’d written any more even about these ones tumblr probably would have been broken by the sheer word count so here we go.

(edit: forgot to tag @princess-of-france if you’re interested)

1. “Call by the trumpet: he that dares approach / On him, on you, who not? I will maintain / My truth and honor firmly.” AND “In wisdom I should ask thy name / But…What safe and nicely I might well delay / By rule of knighthood, I distain and spurn.” aka The Duel

I don’t actually know if I’ve ever talked about this but I think this is one of the most likable in Edmund moments in the play. Reasons I love it:

a. He is SO ready to fight. This is what I was talking about when I said Edmund is such an impulsive disaster compared to other villains he often gets compared with, he doesn’t hesitate here, he’s ready to go. And you can’t convince me he couldn’t have found a way out of this – Albany’s all like “I dismissed all the soldiers so now there’s no one to fight for you” but like? This is the same Edmund who got a random captain to agree to kill the literal ex-king and his daughter (who’s also a queen!) basically just by telling him to man up; you can’t convince me Edmund couldn’t find a single champion willing to fight this super poor and sketchy-looking guy for him. But instead he’s all in, he gets into a fight or flight situation and his brain just goes FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT and he does it without a second thought. Amazing.

b. He really doesn’t care about status at all. Like sure it’s all well and good to dismiss social distinctions when you’re a bastard and have been disinherited for it but this scene shows it’s not just opportunism – Edmund SO believes in what he’s been advocating the entire play. He doesn’t care who he’s fighting, even now that he’s risen to the top, he knows the rules of knighthood don’t mean shit. He’s taken everything with the justification that if you can manage to take it then you deserve it and he doesn’t abandon that philosophy here, he sticks to it, even though it ends up costing him everything. How is that not so admirable? Am I actually supposed to not love him or?

c. I LOVE the fact that he clearly could not believe less in the idea of trial by combat. This is a me thing but it honestly makes me so happy. He’s lying through his teeth here with zero remorse, he’s 100% happy to let his innocence be decided in a fight all because he clearly thinks there is no divine intervention here. In his head there’s no reason why fighting for a just cause should have any impact on who wins, and even though the text goes against him on that idea…it’s still great. Because it’s not that he doesn’t have a conscience, he SO does as I’ll talk about later, but it’s not tied at all to to spirituality or the idea that he’s going to be cosmically punished for his actions. It’s all him, and I think that makes it so much more powerful.

2. “I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.” aka The Best Speech

*gasps of shock* Wow who would’ve guessed? But yeah. This is THE defining Edmund moment for me. (I put the other one first bc I’ve said all this stuff before so I don’t care if it gets hidden under a cut, but yeah, this is #1) Like I love it because it’s one of the few moments in Shakespeare that aligns with my irl beliefs without being cartoonishly evil, but also like, it’s more than that, this speech is just SO GOOD. It’s about the FREE WILL okay, it’s about the fact that he takes FULL responsibility for his actions, that’s my SHIT. But it’s also what makes him a villain because he has no delusions at all about what he’s doing, he knows it’s wrong and he still does it but like…I’m still so obsessed. And other things too, like the pointed, razor-sharp references to adultery are everything, I’d love to see this whole speech done as just a scathing and furious condemnation of Gloucester too…okay this is gonna turn into a whole essay if not careful but basically YEAH BEST SPEECH.

3. “Yet Edmund was belov’d.” AND “Some good I mean to do / Despite of mine own nature.” aka The Repentance

Anyone crying yet? I sure am. I had to include both of these quotes here bc “Yet Edmund was belov’d” is definitely another all-time fave but also it’s less of a moment and more just the one line and also I can’t justify not including the WHOLE CULMINATION OF HIS CHARACTER so yeah. Like okay though, sometimes I forget just how radical this moment is, but like!!! This is almost entirely unique in the canon. A villain who actually goes back and changes his mind and his heart and tries to make it right. But it’s not just that, it’s the way he does it, like I’ve been saying. It’s not because he thinks the gods are watching; it’s because he’s listening to Edgar talking about what he and Gloucester went through together and then he finds out that Goneril and Regan died for him and suddenly he remembers that there is love in the world and he was loved despite everything and just because it’s too late for him doesn’t mean it has to be too late for everyone and AHHHHHH. And he’s still pushing back against the limits set for himself while he’s doing it, he starts off the play rejecting the idea that the stars have any influence on his nature, but here he’s even rejecting that, defying the fact that he has to be one thing, he’s still fucking up his idea of the status quo even as he does this one last beautiful good thing. Just…holy shit.

4. “Yours in the ranks of death.” aka I Had To Pick At Least One Sexy One Cause I’m Too Sad

So this wouldn’t be an Edmund post if I didn’t talk about how hot he is. So yeah. This scene. Honestly this is maybe more of an iconic Goneril moment than an Edmund moment because she’s doing almost all the heavy-lifting dialogue-wise but still. I talked about this way more in that one post about how Edmund is lowkey a sub but the power dynamics in this scene okay, the tension. I’ve seen this scene done anywhere from a decently quick kiss to a full-on sex scene – the potential to get really intense is there. And I just love Edmund for it, he’s really out here, sleeping with a princess, making out with her on her husband’s doorstep – ICONIC. The BDE is just through the roof. Also for that line specifically I love how it comes back in 5.3 with “I was contracted to them both: all three / Now marry in an instant” akdlhglkhglaksdg. This is the peak Sexy Bastard moment.

5. “Now gods, stand up for bastards!” aka The Invention of Bastard Energy

Idk how Edmund’s most famous soliloquy is just making the bottom of this list, but I think I spend so much time defining my entire life around his second one and giggling at “Both????” in his third that I sometimes neglect this one a little. But it is That Good – it’s up there with the most iconic character intros in the canon. It’s everything. It’s so GREAT and VILLAINOUS like you get “Well then, legitimate Edgar, I must have your land” and all the set-up for him in all his smug evil glory and it’s HEARTBREAKING with the repetition of “Why brand they us / With base? With baseness? Bastardy? Base? Base?” like you can just hear how often those words have been thrown at him, how much they hurt and it’s SUBVERSIVE like we get Edmund’s whole philosophy here and we see he could give two shits about birth and status and he’s ready to turn the world on its head. My only complaint with this moment (or with any of these moments) is if Shakespeare really wanted me to dislike Edmund then he frankly did a terrible job.