#he can’t even keep secrets

[delinkquent-archives]

Linked Universe Daily fic idea #10:

Four spies on Wild to see if he’s using his new sword correctly. The chain thinks it’s incredibly hilarious to think of Four as a spy, maybe because he’s not all that good at it.

Optional material:

Fluff, blacksmith Four, weapon-breaking Wild, four’s colors, etcetera. (Anything you want to add.)

No credit necessary.

[feelingtheaster99]

I just finished Fourth Wing and I realized that the reason that Xaden never really hated Violet is because he knew about her from her brother and already knew she was a good person and I want to CRY

[anna-scribbles]

regained my 12 year old swag(read an entire new percy jackson book in one sitting)

[vvienne]

I literally woke up in the middle of the night like God will dark rise is so fucking screwed. The line that’s like. “Everyone wanted to kill the Dark King.” What’s the part where he looks at Violet helplessly, haunted, almost pleading for mercy? But of course he reveals nothing of substance to anyone. Elizabeth is too young to understand but the reader knows what “Her relationship with that boy was…unnatural” can mean. Tying him to bedposts? Failing to strangle him? What else? Never not even once seeing beyond a mythological identity Will himself didn’t know he had? What did he think was the reason? That he was just intrinsically hateful? Of course he says nothing. Of course Violet can’t trust him- he’s given her nothing as painfully real as what she’s given him. So he gives her the sword hoping at least he can die at the hands of someone he loved, but even that doesn’t work out - she gives the sword to a Visander still furious at SARCEAN. The pattern continues; no one looks at Will, who vomits when he realizes what’s happened to James, Will who is much of a liar and killer and sneak as Elizabeth accuses but nonetheless wants to be different. Even when he doesn’t remember his own past. There’s no way out for him that doesn’t hurt. Hope this obsession passes soon given the one and a half years of waiting required for book 3

[avirxy]

beauty and beast au but Claire’s the one cursed because she’s the only one I can see literally pissing a sorceress off enough to get cursed. (If we’re going off the original movie Jim would probably offer them a hot meal and a room for the night, knowing him he’d make everything super accommodating)

[cosmic-mechanic]

OKAY BUT GUYS LISTEN. Players returning from Secret Life and noticing that some days they get the urge complete the tasks they never got to finish/failed.

And they know it doesn’t make any sense, because they’re not in the game anymore! They’re out!

But it’s not like they can tell anyone…because if they tell someone what’s going on, they’ll fail.

And they cant fail again.

[compacflt]

I was wondering if you had thoughts about how Ice and Mav's politics don't fully align with their actions? There was a post where you said Ice's politics are more socially liberal than Mav's but Mav is also the one who goes out to La Jolla to hit on guys before Ice, and later again when he's broken up with Ice, but Ice only goes out with women out of fear for his honor or whatever. Same with their respective thoughts on feminism, with Mav's mild respect for Charlie (telling Ice not all women fit the stereotype) but later Ice is the one who sends Juno to Mav's Top Gun class without telling him she's a woman and Ice has a respectful friendship with Juno. I think you said Ice is vaguely on the ace-aro spectrum (demi-homoromantic) which is a sort of fascinating irony that he doesn't have the words for it whereas Mav is the one with the theories about Ice's sexuality. Though with their hypocrisies and inconsistencies this all just feeds into their characterizations of the fact that they keep divorcing their actions from their spoken words from their identities.

okay going to take this point by point

1. yes i have addressed their politics in relation to their actions before, so maybe read this post and this post before you read this one, just to see where my other thoughts line up

2. gay republicans and conservatives do exist (at the very least certainly republicans and conservatives who have gay sex in secret)

3. before maverick is a political actor he is a human being, and the characterization that we are primarily given for him is that he is impulsive and reckless and doesn’t think through his actions. As ive written about many times before—from a story construction standpoint, his thoughtlessness is his number one most important character trait. He is both thoughtlessly dangerous (his hero’s “fatal flaw;” he can’t stop himself from making bad decisions) and thoughtlessly brilliant (the navy’s best and most daring and heroic pilot). He does what he wants without thinking about it; and he makes excuses and hollow promises whenever that plan doesn’t work out (“I know better than that. It will never ever happen again;” [it happens again] “I’m not gonna let you down. I promise.” [goose dies shortly thereafter]). His thoughtless impulsiveness overrides everything else. Maybe the act of having gay sex (to address your “he gets fucked in La Jolla before ice” point) is politically subversive, but for Maverick’s thoughtless character that we are shown in Top Gun, the most subversive possible thing would be to LABEL the gay sex and think through the consequences of it. To call a spade a spade and call himself gay or bi or queer or whatever. That would be the most subversive (and with mav, entirely unbelievable imo) possible thing. That takes conscious effort of thought, something maverick is near-incapable of doing. As long as he can get away with it without thinking about it, he’s politically in the clear, with regards to his character & character arc. If that makes sense. “Don’t think. Just do.” That’s literally his motto lmfao. He represents thoughtless action as an archetype; his politics come secondary to his desires

4. Their “respective thoughts on feminism” are divided into two camps: 1. “Professional as required by the law” and 2. “Sex pest mode.” They’re naval officers in the 1980s. Whether republican or democrat, that’s kind of par for the course. How men treat women can be a performance to other men. Any respect i made them show towards women had broader, more metatextual “need to move the conversation/story from A to B” reasoning behind it. See the first post I linked for much more on that.

5. i never said ice was on the ace/aro spectrum, or if i did i DEFINITELY meant it sarcastically. That could not be further from what i believe. This isn’t something I’ve ever discussed on this blog before, but a MASSIVE part of the philosophical discussion I’ve been trying to moderate within this project over the last year is the question— “do labels even work with characters under these very specific and extraordinarily extreme conditions and societal pressures?” It’s a question I took from my time studying early American history—the contexts of certain environments, and I would definitely count the elite officer ranks of the navy in the 90s and 2000s as one of these certain environments, simply Are Not Conducive to the easier (path of least resistance maybe) ways we civilians handle sexuality and friendship and trauma. There are so many variables and external and internal pressures within an environment like the upper ranks of career navy officers that sexual orientation labels lose all nuance and accuracy. I don’t think Ice (as i have written him) is gay. I don’t think he’s straight. I don’t think he’s bi. I think he’s an unlabelable product of too many variables for labels to have any effect on how he is perceived. Which, in our society built around labels and categories, is admittedly difficult to wrestle with. But doesn’t make it any less worth wrestling with.

6. Yes, ice and mav’s hypocrisy is the linchpin of the entire story.

They’re both trying to have their cake (“honor” and moral superiority based on the harmful traditional subjective morals arbitrated by elite navy officership) and eat it too (a fulfilling relationship with the love of their lives). & the point is that they cant. they have to settle for one.

[sunglassesmish]

i haven’t been able to stop thinking about this since i sent it in yesterday and i don’t regret it. but i feel like i see myself doing another even if i haven’t got the first one yet 😞

[pchelaus]

i read a rus fanfic once where for some chapters these two shared a body, not as in “Sock Opera”, they both have the same amount of control over the body. So i was thinking of an AU where bill somehow gets stuck in dipper’s body, idk maybe dipper touches bill’s statue several years after the wierdmageddon or (insert your own idea cus i have none). Now they have to figure out how to get rid of each other (i guess for the sake of this au there should be a reason bill can’t just kill dipper, let’s say he’s weak or maybe axolotl did give bill a second chance so he has to play nice), also bill may not be as helpful as expected because no way he will let pines family decide which way  they will dispose of him. Basically i just like to think of all the situations and interactions there can be with such set up

[todayisafridaynight]

One of my fave jackets is this green jacket with a fur hood im wearin rn because 1.) its green 2.) my dad gave it to me 3.) it reminds me of saejima. Who also reminds me of my dad

[itspileofgoodthings]

also also it just made SENSE that Davy relied on her too much to be able to see her romantically. When he talks about how if she’d been more mindful of herself and less of him than he might have been able to see it but her perfectly maintained composure and her cheerful stability and her ability to put all of her own feelings aside to aid and counsel him—-there wasn’t any room for romance there. it’s not until the crack at the end, where her control starts breaking down and she starts crying that he suddenly realizes that she could actually need HIM and that makes him able to step in and tell her what she needs to hear.

[rosaacicularis]

human!scar and alien!grian space au <3

[wheelercurse]

oh you had the wheelers are a neglectful family discourse again…

[kyluxforlater]

Goddamnit I need time-travel-meeting-vader-and-temp-working-at-fortress-inquisitoris Kylux and I should write it myself but I fucking ahfncoshwnelfhksganxbchfkdhfkeidnhxinghdhdiwkehbdkandshfhfkshdk!!!!!!

[lieutenant-amuel]

okay i suppose this is not a chapter all about valerio but you revealed so much about him here i can’t even imagine what else you have in store for him

and overall this whole scene is fantastic

This is definitely not.

A chapter all about Valerio will probably turn into two chapters of my usual length aijsjfjlf. Anyway, Valerio told his story super briefly and he didn’t really clarify the setting, so there’s still lots of things he’s hiding. Just Valerio’s story spoke to Emilio, and he couldn’t be suspicious of him anymore. All he thought about then was Verónica.

And thank you! I loved writing that scene.

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread  

Never Been Kissed

adult demi mm romance

a film studies graduate managing his town’s dying drive in theatre is desperate to save it, and tries to convince a reclusive local director to show her lost media film

also his ex crush/best friend is the new social media manger there