#he goes off abt someone not putting away the knives where they actually go; pointing at me

[berryblu-soda]

Punching siblings reeeeal good then turning back time so nothing actually happened should be an option

[daggery]

Jaylos + Evie's knife purse 👀

(this kinda turned into jay/carlos/evie)

so none of the core four know exactly when evie started to collect knives in her knife purse. for as long as any of them have remembered, it's just always been one of her things. also evie is very fussy and protective over it, the knives are her babies okay :) so she doesnt let anyone really handle it except for her

SO. here is something that would probably take place sometime when the core four are newish friends, so the knife purse is still a thing of Great Interest to them. jay and carlos play a game that's basically that game where you guess how many jellybeans are in a jar and whoever is closer to the real answer is correct. the struggle would be like.. first of all their only real glimpse of the knives would be whenever evie opens it briefly to take out a knife and then she closes it back up. second of all, at this point she hasn't collected enough for the purse to be stuffed so there are no useful hints there.

jay and carlos mostly pick a random number. because the REAL fun is trying to actually find out the real number of knives in the purse that evie will not let anybody else touch. also nobody knows where evies stashes the purse when she isn't using it. jay's like PFTT i'm a thief, lemme just turn on the charm and she will hand that thing right over. next time they're in the hideout and evie's got her purse of knives and cleaning them or smth, and jay goes up to her like ;). TWO SECONDS LATER evie is up on her feet and has a knife pointed an inch away from his throat because wow jay, she literally had an entire arsenal of knives on her lap, what did you THINK was gonna happen. evie's like "oh darling, no, i know what you're trying to do <3" all artificially sweet and carlos is in the back unapologetically screaming in laughter at jay's epic fail

later when they're off hanging out alone, jay and carlos continue to bond over their intense desire to count all of the knives in evie's purse. her secrecy has only made them more curious. jay puts carlos into a headlock and carlos starts squawking like "what the HELL did i DO >:((" and jay's like "this is how i cope with failure :'(" carlos's like "ok true" and then he wiggles out and kicks jay in the shin and he's like "this is how i cope." after they get out their mutual "must annoy the other guy to no particular end at least once per day" energy, they get into their more productive planning mode, by which i mean they just walk along the side of a dirt road and brainstorm ideas on the fly and bounce them off one another while also getting distracted by something shiny they see every five minutes.

eventually they cook up a plan that heavily relies on carlos's ability to distract evie bc they are pretttyyyyy sure that she has a softer spot for him. unfortunately they underestimate how on point evie's bullshit sensor is and carlos finds himself in the exact same knife-to-throat position as jay. jay finds himself in the exact same position as carlos from before, where he is laughing his butt off from where he is hiding from view just around the corner.

carlos and jay go on another walk alongside the road, but their plans do not work out ever. knife purse mystery remains a mystery to this day :) instead they just cope together over the Despair of never finding out how many figurative jellybeans evie has in the purse. they may or may not acknowledge how it is lowkey attractive when evie is feeling all dangerous and knife-y

also i mentioned how unlike evie with her showy purse, jay likes to surprise bad guys by randomly jabbing at a knife at their face that he seemingly pulled out of thin air; every knife he uses is a surprise! anyways... jay is like "carlos, it's like the way ur our surprise :)" referring to the way that ppl tend to think carlos's the weak link of the group but the core four know that he's actually very smart and capable and someone to watch out for.. but ppl dont know they should doing that..... :) at this, carlos is like “?????????!!!!!!!!!!” in that way you feel when someone you like says something neat abt you, like “wow you actually think about me???” (also on the flip side, does this make mal the Obvious Purse of Knives?? basically she's capable and LOUD abt it. hmm weird metaphor here but the basic idea behind it is something i've just realized i've thought about to some length before.. but that is for another post!)

hmmm okay that’s what i have in me right now! this is sooo wordy but i do not have the strength in me to reread it and make it concise lmao. but THANK YOU for the ask <333

send me a ship + a word for a headcanon!

[billdenbrough]

so, a while ago, @audraphillipps tagged this post with a tag saying that bichie were on ron/harry levels, and like... i have literally not stopped thinking about it since? i was talking to @neibolttrio when nat’s reblog popped up on my dash and i went completely feral (ara can confirm, and also was right there with me) bc there’s just like. so much there!!

i know i said in the neville/eddie ask that i tend to think mapping characters onto each other is reductive, and i stand by that (there’s a difference between loose parallels and trying to make them fit neatly, you know? and sometimes equating the characters isn’t the most effective way to express that), and it’s not even what nat was saying, but like. there are parallels

just to get the basics down: bill/harry, richie/ron

(which is interesting bc @benverlesbians and i were having a discussion (well, in tags) where i posited stan as logos and eddie as pathos, and bc jem is galaxy brain, she carried it home to position richie as ethos, and i stand by our choices, but for the golden trio, i’d put harry as ethos and ron as pathos and hermione as logos (like i think there’s other combinations that fit too, but i think this fits best for me), which is interesting. not bc i think the parallels need to map perfectly, but it’s just really fucking fascinating to me how people can shift in different contexts, like new dynamics lead to new positionings... [siken vc: what can you know about a person? they shift in the light. you can’t light up all sides at once] anyway tangent over)

like on the most basic of levels, bill leads his friendship group, and richie is his Loyal Best Friend who follows him everywhere, even places he doesn’t want to go (ron LITERALLY invokes the idea of following. “follow the spiders,” he says, twelve and terrified and going anyway, because harry’s going, because hermione’s hurt and needs them, because hagrid’s been accused, because ron loves his friends)

i think something we don’t talk about super often (at least recently, i don’t want to presume about earlier content i missed) is how anger plays its part in bill’s story, in terms of the degree to which it motivates his quest to kill It. like at one point in the book he even frames it as “using his friends, risking their lives — to settle the score for his dead brother”, which i think is indicative of the anger/desire for revenge that drives it (and that’s not all that motivates him, but it’s definitely a major component)—-that sense of revenge isn’t present as much in the films, mostly because bill is desperate to try hold onto the idea that georgie is still alive (haha, harry after sirius goes through the veil, anyone?), but it’s still there, i think, mostly in the moments bill charges off (even when all his friends are shouting at him to wait or not go) bc he’s so determined that It won’t get away, not this fucking time. and that’s something true of harry too, the way his anger can consume him. we see it throughout the whole series, but order of the phoenix is the most relevant part rn, with how enraged he is after sirius’ death. how gasping and jagged and burning with fury he is. he tries to hurt bellatrix, wants to hurt her in ways we’ve never seen from him, and it’s desperate furious grief leading him to chase her from the room with the veil. and there’s a line, a little later, that always hits me in the chest: when harry is shouting I DON’T CARE and destroying dumbledore’s office, the reply is “you care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it”. which honestly is just generally applicable to the losers, given how much heart they have and how much trauma they endure, but i look at baby book bill, with his revenge-seeking, and i look at jaeden’s bill, with his trembling voice but resolute expression as he gives the “walking into this house is easier than walking into my own” speech, and this quote hits me in the chest

(wrt the bill quote abt risking their lives: it’s important, i think, bc it’s incredibly cognisant of what he’s asking, which is illuminating. but ig to balance it against some things losers say, so that it’s... like he leads them there, absolutely, but they all follow him, and that’s important too. they do choose to, and their choice matters, it’s not just on him. anyway something eddie says, while looking at bill (and it’s not like. in the context of dying for bill’s quest, but it’s got the love and hero worship mention that suggests it applies to more than just the moment), “some stuff has to be done even if there is a risk. that’s the first important thing i ever found out i didn’t find out from my mother”. also, when the werewolf has bill, he’s shouting for richie to go, to get out, and richie stays and tries to save him instead. and i think both their choices there matter)

richie, as much as he Jokes, is one of the more pragmatic and resourceful losers, and really fucking smart, and so often underestimated. (hello, master strategist ron weasley. hello, prefect who literally nobody expected. hello, insecurity) like... we all know how richie is brainy, but also, like. when he’s not clouded by his own fears, he sees things with clarity so sharp it could cut you. (“It’s a monster,” Richie said flatly. “Some kind of monster. Some kind of monster right here in Derry. And it’s killing kids.”) there’s a line, bill says it when talking abt richie and eddie in fights, and it’s about how richie simply can’t keep his mouth shut, like he has to insult bowers, even when he’s got his hands on him. which is actually pretty harry energy, but ron’s the closest thing amongst any of the hp characters to a trashmouth, ron’s the one who doesn’t hesitate to be rude on behalf of his friends (harry tends to be worked up when he says these things; ron’s just naturally got that energy. “light reading? that’s light reading?” is the same energy as “can only virgins see this? is that why i’m not seeing this shit?” don’t @ me), ron’s the one who drags harry for filth when he’s being an idiot. ron follows harry, even when he’s mad about it. and boy oh boy. richie is ambitious, richie is always practicing his Voices because he wants them to be worth a damn one day, richie is constantly trying. and ron’s erised is based in simply wanting to stand out in a family full of people he thinks are more interesting or valued than him, amongst best friends who are more incredible, which is a different motivation, sure, but look at his dreams. look at how high he rises when he lets himself want it. richie’s always doing Voices because it’s easier to Pretend to be someone else than be himself, and ron is constantly scrabbling for purchase in a world where he thinks he’ll never be worthy

(there’s room for discussion about how ron’s fears are primarily creature based—spiders, werewolves, the grim; how sirius hurt him, even unintentionally, how he was betrayed by peter, how his father was attacked by a snake, how his brother was attacked by a werewolf—and how richie has his famous werewolf, but that’s more abstract of an analysis than i’m doing here, i’m just thinking about the parallels, so this is more throwing a thought out.)

and, boy oh boy. my favourite part of this. i mean, we get ron and harry always together (consider: neibolt house (in the book, when bill and richie go there; in the film, when they’re confronting the doors, separated from eddie) as their chamber of secrets), them being best friends, ron having harry’s back even against his own family (ron angrily tearing up percy’s letter and calling him a git, esp after harry doesn’t know how to react in a way that doesn’t show how much it upsets him, has my entire fucking heart), harry having ron as “what [he’ll] sorely miss”... but. but but but. we also have the goblet of fire fight. even more crucially, we have the blow up in deathly hallows. they fight, they fight, and it’s bad. harry and bill you could compare a little with their focus, ig, but the crucial part is ron and richie. ron throws harry’s parents in his face when he’s terrified for his family (and under the influence of a horcrux); richie says georgie’s dead and for the first time all film, doesn’t take it back, not when eddie’s gone and stanley’s terrified and ben’s leaking blood and richie doesn’t want to die, doesn’t want his friends to die. it’s best friends fighting viciously, with something too sharp to hold—-it’s words that cut like knives, fists in the middle of the street and leaving when they’ve always followed you.

but. it’s also coming back. when harry needs him, ron is there. they haven’t had a chance to talk about anything, but ron is saving him. when bev goes missing, when bill goes to richie, even though thing are still fractured, still angry, richie comes back. richie follows. even when they haven’t talked about anything as far as we can tell, even when there’s no resolution to their fight, richie’s the one who stands up and makes the choice that mobilises the losers, the one who tells bill everything bad that’s happened from following him but follows him yet again, doesn’t leave him behind, stays and saves him. it’s about the coming back, the saving, the i’d follow you anywhere of it all. like god but georgie/bill is the dynamic that informs chapter one & richie/bill is the dynamic that drives it // lily/harry is the dynamic that informs the hp series but ron/harry is the one that bookends it—-the first person he ever chooses, who ever chooses him in return, and he’s right there at the end, when all is well. billrichie ronharry best friend RIGHTS

not really part of this but other things that make me scream: bill and richie on silver when richie’s catatonic/harry and ron when ron’s out of it bc of the brains (and also, now that i think abt it, injured from sirius’ bite). ron clinging to harry’s side in the forbidden forest w aragog/“i’m stickin’ with you, big bill”. ron imitating harry’s parseltongue to get to the chamber of secrets, taking hermione down the path they took/richie remembering confronting the doors with bill, trying to take eddie down the path they took.

[galimatios]

t/a rambles 1

back on my bullshit part 1

... should look into the tactics ogre games for novel inspo bc my novel is also a political drama ... UNINTENTIONALLY actually id call it a coming of age story in rhe new adult genre since mc is probably 23-25 i have so many feelings about the novel ugh i love my ocs so much and i put them all om opposing sides for this novel the most complex relationship i have in it i think is alex and his mother or rather prince kreutzer in this au queen elaine and her son prince kreutzer .. god its so fucked up bc kreutzer loves his mother- he was largely isolated as a child and his mother was always so loving and sweet and they were so so close but the prince never knew of the shit his mother did as queen she is a tyrant she must have lost a child once. a princess, i think probably to the king who she may have ... overthrew or usurped maybe but regardless of that shes in power now and because she lost a child she became overly protective of kreu and consolidated her power heard of a plot to infiltrate her kingdom and assassinate the son of the previous tyrant king (?) and she just fucking ruled with an iron fist because she has so little trust in the goodness of people that she thinks the only way to achieve good is to force it and as a result she kills anyone who steps out of line thus making the people resent her deeply but to kreutzer shes his mother his loving and doting mother who does all she can to protect him the novel actually starts um after the queen is assassinated h a its not her story but shes a big part of it even after her death bc a big portion of the theme is like coming to terms with the complexity of individuals no one is all good or all bad and kreu starts out unable to understand this he has a very black and white view of moralitt like his mother at the beginning on his coronation day theres an assassination attempt made on him but he gets whisked away by the court jester after that a coup is staged and rebels take over the country and the prince is forced to hide with a traveling circus that the jester brings him to where every performer... is a fugitive or criminal! and thats where his personal growth really begins bc he learns abt these people and realizes his world view was wrong people are complex people do bad things... for just reasons and vice versa esp Keith who makes a major appearance in the novel his entire bg story takes place outside the novel as well hahaha but its a lot after a raid on his village, hes orphaned along w his little sister who is ill so to make ends meet / buy medicine he does literally every fucking crime under the sun starting off with petty theft and scaling up to murder literally sacrificing every last shred of innocence he has for the sake of his ailing sister who... dies anyway! and im thinking, tbh, its a fantine/cosette/thenardiers type sitch where this quack doctor is basically scamming him except instead of fantine dying cosette does anyway thats where he fucking hits rock bottom he could handle things as long as he had someone to fight for you know he was alright with it bc his sister was there, his saving grace but when she dies hes all alone thats probably when lydia finds him i imagine he would he on the verge of suicide or at the very least dying of self imposed starvation and neglect but honestly probably suicide julie's death on top of the crushinf weight of all the crimes hes committed the innocence he lost, the lives he took its just way too much and hes just a naive kid lydia finds him and takes him back to the circus takes care of him gives him food and water and shelter and slowly tries to reach him slowly teaching him that there is still life to be lived that he is so young, and it is far too soon for him to lay down and die that he should live for his dead family, because that is what they would want to keep their memory alive in his heart and he begins to come around slowly starts doing chores for the troup then he finally sees one of their performances acrobats and the trapeze and the glitz and the glamor its the first time in years where he ... wasnt thinking about his dead sister or his trauma he asks lydia to teach him how to "do that" he says while pointing at the stage and so she does and ever since then hes taken up performing full time as a .. daredevil type act doing outrageously dangerous things for the thrill of it it excites him, the risk he loves to see how close to the edge of death he can walk without falling and it fuels him makes him enjoy being alive again and he's.. happy god by the time you meet keith in the novel he's just this happy go lucky teen with this smugness about him a kind of dangerousness belying a sweet exterior he's all jokes and laughs at this point and you'd never be able to tell what he went thru at first glance or at all really bc honestly, at this point he honest to god is okay lies and dirt - Last Thursday at 6:00 AM he... doesnt need anyone's pity. he doesn't need anything but the feeling of being alive now and one of the major points of the novel is prince kreu's relationship with him... bc at first they really clash and kreu is just... he's a fucking criminal and all of then deserve to hang keith plays this off w jokes at first but kreu keeps being antagonistic bc he just cant believe a criminal like him is getting away without punishment but then one day keith snaps at him knife to the prince's throat dangerous, cat like eyes, the usual smile on his face no where to be found you're right. i'm a thief. a liar. a criminal. a murderer. i'm all those things. but i'll tell you one thing, prince: i'm not worthless. he pulls the knife away and walks off leaving the prince stunned after this lydia talks to kreu explaining that maybe he shouldn't judge keith so quickly hinting that the circumstances of his life were... not ideal when i first found him, he was already half dead. perhaps not physically, but in the eyes. you could see the reaper in them. hhmgmgn i need to think more abt the circumstances around this scene ah keith must have been looking for a good place to die

the music from the circus reminded him of better days, when he played songs with his family. i imagine him.. outside the tent, somewhere obscured and there's music flowing from its interior... he's tired. he sits down against a barrel and he's been starving, exhausted... letting sleep take him away on the songs from the circus back to a time he used to be happy...

lydia fines him and shakes him but his eyes look glassy and he's unresponsive

he's taken poison must have been something from his former days working as an assassin something he saved for himself just in case and that's when lydia takes him in and nurses him back to health she's a water mage w healing capabilities so she's able to do it and i imagine at first keith is hurt, angry why am i still alive? i im fucking myself up in the feels i hate this THIS ISNT EBEN IN THE FUCKINF BOOK IT ALL HAPPENS BEFORE IT KEITJS NOT THE MAIN CHARACTER HERE BUT IM SO FUCKED UP ugh after kreutzer learns a bit abt keiiths origins he actually thinks a lot. and tries to make amends. apologizes to keith who doesnt say anything much he's sitting, eyes away from the prince, fiddling with the knives he uses for his performances

"a raid took my parents away. illness took away my sister."

"i did a lot of things for money. most of it i'm not proud of. but i would have done anything to save her... you know?"

"you've got someone you love too, don't you?" kreutzer thinks of his mother. the surrogate brother who disappeared on him and never returned "i do." "then, you get it." after this they start to really bond almost as siblings.. which is really funny bc kreutzer doesnt need to be protective of keith keith can MORE THAN take care of himself but its new for kreutzer to feel.. responsibility for someone else like this he was always the one protected before keith laughs at this a lot what're you trying to do? be my big bro? but secretly he ...really likes having family again as idiotic as kreutzer is ofc lydia has always been there for him but as a surrogate mother an older sib is new and.. kind of nice in canon modern au they really are basically bros LOL actually cousins via mothers but alex/kreu goes to live w keiths family after his mom (lain) dies so they essentially grow up like brothers i didn't even get started w the fucking mess that is alan and kreutzer alan goes by calisto also and he hes the court jester but he was trained from a young age as a snake in the kings court he was supposed to kill the prince when the time was right but alan and his dumb fucking gay ass FALLS IN LOVE WITH HIM INSTEAD spoiler alert: its unrequited btwn alex and alan is NEVER requited in ALL aus its because alan ... doesnt love himself at all. he has no sense of... purpose or identity alex can never love someone like that but either way he becomes the prince's personal servant and entertainer and this idiot falls for him the naivete he displays, the timid stateliness, the unfitting title of prince bestowed on his shoulders- kreutzer is far too soft to be the leader of this kingdom and alan increasingly has the desire to protect him even as kreu grows older and more skilled in his studies there is always the anxious trepidation they also grow up together from around ages 11-present at the time of the novels start god alan loves him so much it hurts me but its so one sided alex loves cyrus in modern au ): alan could never be more than just a phase tbh poor guy alan and his low self esteem and depression the worst part of this thougg is that because alan feels aimless and without purpose when he falls for kreutzer he ... finally has his OWN cause to fight for and he takes it to the extreme betraying everyone that trusted him to do his job for the sake of a man who wont ever love him it bites him in the ass too bc i kill him off as a catalyst for other stuff h ahahahhahahahahahahaha not just kill him off but horribly because HE FUCKING BETRAYED HIS ENTIRE SIDE THEY ARE, UNDERSTANDABLY, PISSED Alan is so fuckong flawed hes a fuckinf mess and i love it ugh im thinkijg of another scene in the novel once kreutzer gets captured bt the coup rebels he actuallt submits himself voluntarily bc keith gets kidnapped and used as ransom keith tells him hes a fucking idiot keiths life doesnt matter dont fucking come for me! but kreu doesnt listen obviously and they torture kreutzer bc i love suffering and after that they make him listen in a mock trial to the testimonials of all the people hurt by his mother death to the queen! death to elaine of koel! all the horrible stories of lives unjustly cut short because of his mother it breaks him because he loves his mother so much but she's done all these horrible things he doesn't know what to do how to make amends the damage was done and he takes their wrath their scorn and anguish and i'm sorry as if sorry could ever fix anything but it is his burden to carry, his punishment to suffer in place of the queen ironically this makes lilya have a change of heart she was infiltrating the queens court just as alan did and she is directly responsible for her death her assassination, i think or the king's? either way shes part of the rebel forces and she DESPISES the queen good fucking riddance as far as she's concerned that woman made her life hell(edited) so she can rot in it for all lilya cares for but seeing kreutzer there bloodied tortured sobbing broken and taking the punishment doled out to him without so much as a word of protest(edited) she thinks... this... isnt right this is wrong. because kreutzer was not responsible for the sins of his mother as much as people want to blame him, take out their anger on him lilya was at first all gung ho about ending the royal bloodline lies and dirt - Last Thursday at 7:02 AM but she reconsiders this moment feels something tugging at her this isnt right

she remembers her sister back at the circus— lydia. who she always loved dearly but clashed with, leading to her abandoning the circus and joining the rebellion.

retribution is deserved, but should it be served? what then makes us different from our oppressors?

or sth like that so she rescues kreutzer takes him back to the circus. and reunites with her sister after so many years after that ik not entirely sure what to do w the novel LOL bc i know there has to he a big battle bc the rebellion forces begin to quell opposition like how the communist regime in other countries started in ernest bc people felt oppressed but then they went too far and started culling the middle class so then kreutzer leads his own rebellion force against them to take back the country then once he wins he uses his kinghood to dissolve the monarchy and embrace democracy instead asking lydia to lead hes much too tired to lead, and she is much better suited for it but hm inhabe to think more about that entire segment after this he takes over lydias spot in the circus as its owner and organizer and with keith he spends the rest of his days helping people just like keith also they properly mourn alans death it takes forever for kreu to come to terms w his mothers assassination and crimes he probably never truly works it out but he begins to be able to recognize that she is both the tyrant queen and his loving mother that they do not cancel eachother out, that they are not mutually exclusive they are one in the same UGH IM SO UPSET I WISH ID FUCKING WRITE THIS BC I WANT TO FUCKING READ IT the message i wanna convey is like people.. are complex, imperfect, and the systems they create are also subjected to that but everyone does things for a reason. no matter what that reason is and i want lydia to address this too when she becomes the new prime minister of koel a democracy is not perfect, because man is not perfect. there will be hardship, mistakes made along the way. but together we can grow, improve, and learn about one another— and better our society for it. and i believe anywhere injustice goes, justice will always follow(edited) sth like that ig