#he’d be the bookends of the series

[thomasbarrowmybeloved]

They need to bring back the duke for the last movie for no other reason than it would be hilarious

[rhysdarbinizedarby]

Couch surfer in his 30s. Oscar winner in his 40s. Why the whole world wants Taika

**Notes: This is very long post!**

Good Weekend

In his 30s, he was sleeping on couches. By his 40s, he’d directed a Kiwi classic, taken a Marvel movie to billion-dollar success, and won an Oscar. Meet Taika Waititi, king of the oddball – and one of New Zealand’s most original creative exports.

Taika Waititi: “Be a nice person and live a good life. And just don’t be an arsehole.”

The good news? Taika Waititi is still alive. I wasn’t sure. The screen we were speaking through jolted savagely a few minutes ago, with a cacophonous bang and a confused yelp, then radio silence. Now the Kiwi ­ filmmaker is back, grinning like a loon: “I just broke the f---ing table, bro!”

Come again? “I just smashed this f---ing table and glass flew everywhere. It’s one of those old annoying colonial tables. It goes like this – see that?” Waititi says, holding up a folding furniture leg. “I hit the mechanism and it wasn’t locked. Anyway …”

I’m glad he’s fine. The stuff he’s been saying from his London hotel room could incur biblical wrath. We’re talking about his latest project, Next Goal Wins, a movie about the American Samoa soccer team’s quest to score a solitary goal, 10 years after suffering the worst loss in the game’s international history – a 31-0 ­ignominy to Australia – but our chat strays into ­spirituality, then faith, then religion.

“I don’t personally believe in a big guy sitting on a cloud judging everyone, but that’s just me,” Waititi says, deadpan. “Because I’m a grown-up.”

This is the way his interview answers often unfold. Waititi addresses your topic – dogma turns good people bad, he says, yet belief itself is worth lauding – but bookends every response with a conspiratorial nudge, wink, joke or poke. “Regardless of whether it’s some guy living on a cloud, or some other deity that you’ve made up – and they’re all made up – the message across the board is the same, and it’s important: Be a nice person, and live a good life. And just don’t be an arsehole!”

Not being an arsehole seems to have served Waititi, 48, well. Once a national treasure and indie darling (through the quirky tenderness of his breakout New Zealand films Boy in 2010 and Hunt for the Wilderpeople in 2016), Waititi then became a star of both the global box office (through his 2017 entry into the Marvel Universe, Thor: Ragnarok, which grossed more than $1.3 billion worldwide) and then the Academy Awards (winning the 2020 best adapted screenplay Oscar for his subversive Holocaust dramedy JoJo Rabbit, in which he played an imaginary Hitler).

Waititi playing Adolf Hitler in the 2019 movie JoJo Rabbit. (Alamy)

A handsome devil with undeniable roguish charm, Waititi also slid seamlessly into style-icon status (attending this year’s Met Gala shirtless, in a floor-length gunmetal-grey Atelier Prabal Gurung wrap coat, with pendulous pearl necklaces), as well as becoming his own brand (releasing an eponymous line of canned ­coffee drinks) and bona fide Hollywood A-lister (he was introduced to his second wife, British singer Rita Ora, by actor Robert Pattinson at a barbecue).

Putting that platform to use, Waititi is an Indigenous pioneer and mentor, too, co-creating the critically acclaimed TV series Reservation Dogs, while co-founding the Piki Films production company, committed to promoting the next generation of storytellers – a mission that might sound all weighty and worthy, yet Waititi’s new wave of First Nations work is never earnest, always mixing hurt with heart and howling humour.

Waititi with wife Rita Ora at the 2023 Met Gala in May. (Getty Images)

Makes sense. Waititi is a byproduct of “the weirdest coupling ever” – his late Maori father from the Te Whanau-a-Apanui tribe was an artist, farmer and “Satan’s Slaves” bikie gang founder, while his Wellington schoolteacher mum descended from Russian Jews, although he’s not devout about her faith. (“No, I don’t practise,” he confirms. “I’m just good at everything, straight away.”)

He’s remained loyally tethered to his ­origin story, too – and to a cadre of creative Kiwi mates, including actors Jemaine Clement and Rhys Darby – never forgetting that not long before the actor/writer/producer/director was an industry maven, he was a penniless painter/photographer/ musician/comedian.

With no set title and no fixed address, he’s seemingly happy to be everything, everywhere (to everyone) all at once. “‘The universe’ is bandied around a lot these days, but I do believe in the kind of connective tissue of the universe, and the energy that – scientifically – we are made up of a bunch of atoms that are bouncing around off each other, and some of the atoms are just squished together a bit tighter than others,” he says, smiling. “We’re all made of the same stardust, and that’s pretty special.”

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We’ve caught Waititi in a somewhat relaxed moment, right before the screen actors’ and media artists’ strike ends. He’s ­sensitive to the struggle but doesn’t deny enjoying the break. “I spent a lot of time thinking about writing, and not writing, and having a nice ­holiday,” he tells Good Weekend. “Honestly, it was a good chance just to recombobulate.”

Waititi, at right, with Hunt for the Wilderpeople actors, from left, Sam Neill, Rhys Darby and Julian Dennison. (Getty Images)

It’s mid-October, and he’s just headed to Paris to watch his beloved All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup. He’s deeply obsessed with the game, and sport in general. “Humans spend all of our time knowing what’s going to happen with our day. There’s no surprises ­any more. We’ve become quite stagnant. And I think that’s why people love sport, because of the air of unpredictability,” he says. “It’s the last great arena entertainment.”

The main filmic touchstone for Next Goal Wins (which premieres in Australian cinemas on New Year’s Day) would be Cool Runnings (1993), the unlikely true story of a Jamaican bobsled team, but Waititi also draws from genre classics such as Any Given Sunday and Rocky, sampling trusted tropes like the musical training montage. (His best one is set to Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears.)

Filming in Hawaii was an uplifting experience for the self-­described Polynesian Jew. “It wasn’t about death, or people being cruel to each other. Thematically, it was this simple idea, of getting a small win, and winning the game wasn’t even their goal – their goal was to get a goal,” he says. “It was a really sweet backbone.”

Waititi understands this because, growing up, he was as much an athlete as a nerd, fooling around with softball and soccer before discovering rugby league, then union. “There’s something about doing exercise when you don’t know you’re doing exercise,” he enthuses. “It’s all about the fun of throwing a ball around and trying to achieve something together.” (Whenever Waititi is in Auckland he joins his mates in a long-running weekend game of touch rugby. “And then throughout the week I work out every day. Obviously. I mean, look at me.”)

Auckland is where his kids live, too, so he spends as much time there as possible. Waititi met his first wife, producer Chelsea Winstanley, on the set of Boy in 2010, and they had two daughters, Matewa Kiritapu, 8, and his firstborn, Te Kainga O’Te Hinekahu, 11. (The latter is a derivative of his grandmother’s name, but he jokes with American friends that it means “Resurrection of Tupac” or “Mazda RX7″) Waititi and Winstanley split in about 2018, and he married the pop star Ora in 2022.

He offers a novel method for balancing work with parenthood … “Look, you just abandon them, and know that the experience will make them harder individuals later on in life. And it’s their problem,” he says. “I’m going to give them all of the things that they need, and I’m going to leave behind a decent bank ­account for their therapy, and they will be just like me, and the cycle will continue.”

Jokes aside – I think he’s joking – school holidays are always his, and he brings the girls onto the set of every movie he makes. “They know enough not to get in the way or touch anything that looks like it could kill you, and they know to be respectful and quiet when they need to. But they’re just very comfortable around filmmakers, which I’m really happy about, because eventually I hope they will get into the ­industry. One more year,” he laughs, “then they can leave school and come work for Dad.”

Theirs is certainly a different childhood than his. Growing up, he was a product of two worlds. His given names, for instance, were based on his appearance at birth: “Taika David” if he looked Maori (after his Maori grandfather) and “David Taika” if he looked Pakeha (after his white grandfather). His parents split when he was five, so he bounced between his dad’s place in Waihau Bay, where he went by the surname Waititi, and his mum, eight hours drive away in Wellington, where he went by Cohen (the last name on his birth ­certificate and passport).

Waititi was precocious, even charismatic. His mother Robin once told Radio New Zealand that people always wanted to know him, even as an infant: “I’d be on a bus with him, and he was that kind of baby who smiled at people, and next thing you know they’re saying, ‘Can I hold your baby?’ He’s always been a charmer to the public eye.”

He describes himself as a cool, sporty, good-looking nerd, raised on whatever pop culture screened on the two TV channels New Zealand offered in the early 1980s, from M*A*S*H and Taxi to Eddie Murphy and Michael Jackson. He was well-read, too. When punished by his mum, he would likely be forced to analyse a set of William Blake poems.

He puts on a whimpering voice to describe their finances – “We didn’t have much monneeey” – explaining how his mum spent her days in the classroom but also worked in pubs, where he would sit sipping a raspberry lemonade, doodling drawings and writing stories. She took in ­ironing and cleaned houses; he would help out, learning valuable lessons he imparts to his kids. “And to random people who come to my house,” he says. “I’ll say, ‘Here’s a novel idea, wash this dish,’ but people don’t know how to do anything these days.”

“Every single character I’ve ever written has been based on someone I’ve known or met or a story I’ve stolen from someone.” - Taika Waititi

He loved entertaining others, clearly, but also himself, recording little improvised radio plays on a tape deck – his own offbeat versions of ET and Indiana Jones and Star Wars. “Great free stuff where you don’t have any idea what the story is as you’re doing it,” he says. “You’re just sort of making it up and enjoying the ­freedom of playing god in this world where you can make people and characters do whatever you want.”

His other sphere of influence lay in Raukokore, the tiny town where his father lived. Although Boy is not autobiographical, it’s deeply personal insofar as it’s filmed in the house where he grew up, and where he lived a life similar to that portrayed in the story, surrounded by his recurring archetypes: warm grandmothers and worldly kids; staunch, stoic mums; and silly, stunted men. “Every single character I’ve ever written has been based on someone I’ve known or met,” he says, “or a story I’ve stolen from someone.”

He grew to love drawing and painting, obsessed early on with reproducing the Sistine Chapel. During a 2011 TED Talk on creativity, Waititi describes his odd subject matter, from swastikas and fawns to a picture of an old lady going for a walk … upon a sword … with Robocop. “My father was an outsider artist, even though he wouldn’t know what that meant,” Waititi told the audience in Doha. “I love the naive. I love people who can see things through an innocent viewpoint. It’s inspiring.”

After winning Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award for JoJo Rabbit in 2020. (Getty Images)

It was an interesting time in New Zealand, too – a coming-of-age decade in which the Maori were rediscovering their culture. His area was poor, “but only ­financially,” he says. “It’s very rich in terms of the ­people and the culture.” He learned kapa haka – the songs, dances and chants performed by competing tribes at cultural events, or to honour people at funerals and graduations – weddings, parties, ­anything. “Man, any excuse,” he explains. “A big part of doing them is to uplift your spirits.”

Photography was a passion, so I ask what he shot. “Just my penis. I sent them to people, but we didn’t have phones, so I would print them out, post them. One of the first dick pics,” he says. Actually, his lens was trained on regular people. He watches us still – in airports, ­restaurants. “Other times late at night, from a tree. Whatever it takes to get the story. You know that.”

He went to the Wellington state school Onslow College and did plays like Androcles and the Lion, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Crucible. His crew of arty students eventually ended up on stage at Bats Theatre in the city, where they would perform haphazard comedy shows for years.

“Taika was always rebellious and wild in his comedy, which I loved,” says his high school mate Jackie van Beek, who became a longtime collaborator, including working with Waititi on a Tourism New Zealand campaign this year. “I remember he went through a phase of turning up in bars around town wearing wigs, and you’d try and sit down and have a drink with him but he’d be doing some weird character that would invariably turn up in some show down the track.”

He met more like-minded peers at Victoria University, including Jemaine Clement (who’d later become co-creator of Flight of the Conchords). During a 2019 chat with actor Elijah Wood, Waititi ­describes he and Clement clocking one another from opposite sides of the library one day: a pair of Maoris experiencing hate at first sight, based on a mutual suspicion of cultural appropriation. (Clement was wearing a traditional tapa cloth Samoan shirt, and Waititi was like: “This motherf---er’s not Samoan.” Meanwhile, Waititi was wearing a Rastafarian beanie, and Clement was like, “This ­motherf---er’s not Jamaican.”)

With Jemaine Clement in 2014. (Getty Images)

But they eventually bonded over Blackadder and Fawlty Towers, and especially Kenny Everett, and did comedy shows together everywhere from Edinburgh to Melbourne. Waititi was almost itinerant, spending months at a time busking, or living in a commune in Berlin. He acted in a few small films, and then – while playing a stripper on a bad TV show – realised he wanted to try life behind the camera. “I became tired of being told what to do and ordered around,” he told Wellington’s Dominion Post in 2004. “I remember sitting around in the green room in my G-string ­thinking, ‘Why am I doing this? Just helping someone else to realise their dream.’ ”

He did two strong short films, then directed his first feature – Eagle vs Shark (2007) – when he was 32. He brought his mates along (Clement, starring with Waititi’s then-girlfriend Loren Horsley), setting something of a pattern in his career: hiring friends instead of constantly navigating new working relationships. “If you look at things I’m doing,” he tells me, “there’s ­always a few common denominators.”

Sam Neill says Waititi is the exemplar of a new New Zealand humour. “The basis of it is this: we’re just a little bit crap at things.”

This gang of collaborators shares a common Kiwi vibe, too, which his longtime friend, actor Rhys Darby, once coined “the comedy of the mundane”. Their new TV show, Our Flag Means Death, for example, leans heavily into the mundanity of pirate life – what happens on those long days at sea when the crew aren’t unsheathing swords from scabbards or burying treasure.

Waititi plays pirate captain Blackbeard, centre, in Our Flag Means Death, with Rhys Darby, left, and Rory Kinnear. (Google Images)

Sam Neill, who first met Waititi when starring in Hunt for the Wilderpeople, says Waititi is the exemplar of a new New Zealand humour. “And I think the basis of it is this,” says Neill. “We’re just a little bit crap at things, and that in itself is funny.” After all, Neill asks, what is What We Do in The Shadows (2014) if not a film (then later a TV show) about a bunch of vampires who are pretty crap at being vampires, ­living in a pretty crappy house, not quite getting busted by crappy local cops? “New Zealand often gets named as the least corrupt country in the world, and I think it’s just that we would be pretty crap at being corrupt,” Neill says. “We don’t have the capacity for it.”

Waititi’s whimsy also spurns the dominant on-screen oeuvre of his homeland – the so-called “cinema of ­unease” exemplified by the brutality of Once Were Warriors (1994) and the emotional peril of The Piano (1993). Waititi still explores pathos and pain, but through laughter and weirdness. “Taika feels to me like an ­antidote to that dark aspect, and a gift somehow,” Neill says. “And I’m grateful for that.”

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Something happened to Taika Waititi when he was about 11 – something he doesn’t go into with Good Weekend, but which he considered a betrayal by the adults in his life. He ­mentioned it only recently – not the ­moment itself, but the lesson he learnt: “That you cannot and must not rely on grown-ups to help you – you’re basically in the world alone, and you’re gonna die alone, and you’ve just gotta make it all for yourself,” he told Irish podcast host James Brown. “I basically never forgave people in positions of responsibility.”

What does that mean in his work? First, his finest films tend to reflect the clarity of mind possessed by children, and the unseen worlds they create – fantasies conjured up as a way to understand or overcome. (His mum once summed up the main ­message of Boy: “The ­unconditional love you get from your children, and how many of us waste that, and don’t know what we’ve got.”)

Second, he’s suited to movie-making – “Russian roulette with art” – because he’s drawn to disruptive force and chaos. And that in turn produces creative defiance: allowing him to reinvigorate the Marvel Universe by making superheroes fallible, or tell a Holocaust story by making fun of Hitler. “Whenever I have to deal with someone who’s a boss, or in charge, I challenge them,” he told Brown, “and I really do take whatever they say with a pinch of salt.”

It’s no surprise then that Waititi was comfortable leaping from independent films to the vast complexity of Hollywood blockbusters. He loves the challenge of coordinating a thousand interlocking parts, requiring an army of experts in vocations as diverse as construction, sound, art, performance and logistics. “I delegate a lot,” he says, “and share the load with a lot of people.”

“This is a cool concept, being able to ­afford whatever I want, as opposed to sleeping on couches until I was 35.” - Taika Waititi

But the buck stops with him. Time magazine named Waititi one of its Most Influential 100 People of 2022. “You can tell that a film was made by Taika Waititi the same way you can tell a piece was painted by Picasso,” wrote Sacha Baron Cohen. Compassionate but comic. Satirical but watchable. Rockstar but auteur. “Actually, sorry, but this guy’s really starting to piss me off,” Cohen concluded. “Can someone else write this piece?”

Directing Chris Hemsworth in 2017 in Thor: Ragnarok, which grossed more than $1.3 billion at the box office. (Alamy)

I’m curious to know how he stays grounded amid such adulation. Coming into the game late, he says, helped immensely. After all, Waititi was 40 by the time he left New Zealand to do Thor: Ragnarok. “If you let things go to your head, then it means you’ve struggled to find out who you are,” he says. “But I’ve always felt very comfortable with who I am.” Hollywood access and acclaim – and the pay cheques – don’t erase memories of poverty, either. “It’s more like, ‘Oh, this is a cool concept, being able to ­afford whatever I want, as opposed to sleeping on couches until I was 35.’ ” Small towns and strong tribes keep him in check, too. “You know you can’t piss around and be a fool, because you’re going to embarrass your family,” he says. “Hasn’t stopped me, though.”

Sam Neill says there was never any doubt Waititi would be able to steer a major movie with energy and imagination. “It’s no accident that the whole world wants Taika,” he says. “But his seductiveness comes with its own dangers. You can spread yourself a bit thin. The temptation will be to do more, more, more. That’ll be interesting to watch.”

Indeed, I find myself vicariously stressed out over the list of potential projects in Waititi’s future. A Roald Dahl animated series for Netflix. An Apple TV show based on the 1981 film Time Bandits. A sequel to What We Do In The Shadows. A reboot of Flash Gordon. A gonzo horror comedy, The Auteur, starring Jude Law. Adapting a cult graphic novel, The Incal, as a feature. A streaming series based on the novel Interior Chinatown. A film based on a Kazuo Ishiguro bestseller. Plus bringing to life the wildly popular Akira comic books. Oh, and for good measure, a new instalment of Star Wars, which he’s already warned the world will be … different.

“It’s going to change things,” he told Good Morning America. “It’s going to change what you guys know and expect.”

Did I say I was stressed for Waititi? I meant physically sick.

“Well…” he qualifies, “some of those things I’m just producing, so I come up with an idea or someone comes to me with an idea, and I shape how ‘it’s this kind of show’ and ‘here’s how we can get it made.’ It’s easier for me to have a part in those things and feel like I’ve had a meaningful role in the creative process, but also not having to do what I’ve always done, which is trying to control everything.”

In the 2014 mockumentary horror film What We Do in the Shadows, which he co-directed with Jemaine Clement. (Alamy)

What about moving away from the niche New Zealand settings he represented so well in his early work? How does he stay connected to his roots? “I think you just need to know where you’re from,” he says, “and just don’t forget that.”

They certainly haven’t forgotten him.

Jasmin McSweeney sits in her office at the New Zealand Film Commission in Wellington, surrounded by promotional posters Waititi signed for her two decades ago, when she was tasked with promoting his nascent talent. Now the organisation’s marketing chief, she talks to me after visiting the heart of thriving “Wellywood”, overseeing the traditional karakia prayer on the set of a new movie starring Geoffrey Rush.

Waititi isn’t the first great Kiwi filmmaker – dual Oscar-winner Jane Campion and blockbuster king Peter Jackson come to mind – yet his particular ascendance, she says, has spurred unparalleled enthusiasm. “Taika gave everyone here confidence. He always says, ‘Don’t sit around waiting for people to say, you can do this.’ Just do it, because he just did it. That’s the Taika effect.”

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Taika David Waititi is known for wearing everything from technicolour dreamcoats to pineapple print rompers, and today he’s wearing a roomy teal and white Isabel Marant jumper. The mohair garment has the same wispy frizz as his hair, which curls like a wave of grey steel wool, and connects with a shorn salty beard.

A stylish silver fox, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if he suddenly announced he was launching a fashion label. He’s definitely a commercial animal, to the point of directing television commercials for Coke and Amazon, along with a fabulous 2023 spot for Belvedere vodka starring Daniel Craig. He also joined forces with a beverage company in Finland (where “taika” means “magic”) to release his coffee drinks. Announcing the partnership on social media, he flagged that he would be doing more of this kind of stuff, too (“Soz not soz”).

Waititi has long been sick of reverent portrayals of Indigenous people talking to spirits.

There’s substance behind the swank. Fashion is a creative outlet but he’s also bought sewing machines in the past with the intention of designing and making clothes, and comes from a family of tailors. “I learnt how to sew a button on when I was very young,” he says. “I learnt how to fix holes or patches in your clothes, and darn things.”

And while he gallivants around the globe watching Wimbledon or modelling for Hermès at New York Fashion Week, all that glamour belies a depth of purpose, particularly when it comes to Indigenous representation.

There’s a moment in his new movie where a Samoan player realises that their Dutch coach, played by Michael Fassbender, is emotionally struggling, and he offers a lament for white people: “They need us.” I can’t help but think Waititi meant something more by that line – maybe that First Nations people have ­wisdom to offer if others will just listen?

“Weeelllll, a little bit …” he says – but from his intonation, and what he says next, I’m dead wrong. Waititi has long been sick of reverent ­portrayals of Indigenous people talking to kehua (spirits), or riding a ghost waka (phantom canoe), or playing a flute on a mountain. “Always the boring characters,” he says. “They’ve got no real contemporary relationship with the world, because they’re always living in the past in their spiritual ways.”

A scene from Next Goal Wins, filmed earlier this year. (Alamy)

He’s part of a vanguard consciously poking fun at those stereotypes. Another is the Navajo writer and director Billy Luther, who met Waititi at Sundance Film Festival back in 2003, along with Reservation Dogs co-creator Sterlin Harjo. “We were this group of outsiders trying to make films, when nobody was really biting,” says Luther. “It was a different time. The really cool thing about it now is we’re all working. We persevered. We didn’t give up. We slept on each other’s couches and hung out. It’s like family.”

Waititi has power now, and is known for using Indigenous interns wherever possible (“because there weren’t those opportunities when I was growing up”), making important introductions, offering feedback on scripts, and lending his name to projects through executive producer credits, too, which he did for Luther’s new feature film, Frybread Face and Me (2023).

He called Luther back from the set of Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) to offer advice on working with child actors – “Don’t box them into the characters you’ve ­created,” he said, “let them naturally figure it out on their own” – but it’s definitely harder to get Waititi on the phone these days. “He’s a little bitch,” Luther says, laughing. “Nah, there’s nothing like him. He’s a genius. You just knew he was going to be something. I just knew it. He’s my brother.“

I’ve been asked to explicitly avoid political questions in this interview, probably because Waititi tends to back so many causes, from child poverty and teenage suicide to a campaign protesting offshore gas and oil exploration near his tribal lands. But it’s hard to ignore his recent Instagram post, sharing a viral video about the Voice to Parliament referendum starring Indigenous Aussie rapper Adam Briggs. After all, we speak only two days after the proposal is defeated. “Yeah, sad to say but, Australia, you really shat the bed on that one,” Waititi says, pausing. “But go see my movie!”

About that movie – the early reviews aren’t great. IndieWire called it a misfire, too wrapped in its quirks to develop its arcs, with Waititi’s directorial voice drowning out his characters, while The Guardian called it “a shoddily made and strikingly unfunny attempt to tell an interesting story in an uninteresting way”. I want to know how he moves past that kind of criticism. “For a start, I never read reviews,” he says, concerned only with the opinion of people who paid for admission, never professional appraisals. “It’s not important to me. I know I’m good at what I do.”

Criticism that Indigenous concepts weren’t sufficiently explained in Next Goal Wins gets his back up a little, though. The film’s protagonist, Jaiyah Saelua, the first transgender football player in a FIFA World Cup qualifying match, is fa’afafine – an American Samoan identifier for someone with fluid genders – but there wasn’t much exposition of this concept in the film. “That’s not my job,” Waititi says. “It’s not a movie where I have to explain every facet of Samoan culture to an audience. Our job is to retain our culture, and present a story that’s inherently Polynesian, and if you don’t like it, you can go and watch any number of those other movies out there, 99 per cent of which are terrible.”

*notes: (there is video clip in the article)

Waititi sounds momentarily cranky, but he’s mostly unflappable and hilarious. He’s the kind of guy who prefers “Correctumundo bro!” to “Yes”. When our video connection is too laggy, he plays up to it by periodically pretending to be frozen, sitting perfectly still, mouth open, his big shifting eyeballs the only giveaway.

He’s at his best on set. Saelua sat next to him in Honolulu while filming the joyous soccer sequences. “He’s so chill. He just let the actors do their thing, giving them creative freedom, barely interjecting unless it was something important. His style matches the vibe of the Pacific people. We’re a very funny people. We like to laugh. He just fit perfectly.”

People do seem to love working alongside him, citing his ability to make productions fresh and unpredictable and funny. Chris Hemsworth once said that Waititi’s favourite gag is to “forget” that his microphone is switched on, so he can go on a pantomime rant for all to hear – usually about his disastrous Australian lead actor – only to “remember” that he’s wired and the whole crew is listening.

“I wouldn’t know about that, because I don’t listen to what other people say about anything – I’ve told you this,” Waititi says. “I just try to have fun when there’s time to have fun. And when you do that, and you bring people together, they’re more willing to go the extra mile for you, and they’re more willing to believe in the thing that you’re trying to do.”

Yes, he plays music between takes, and dances out of his director’s chair, but it’s really all about relaxing amid the immense pressure and intense privilege of making movies. “Do you know how hard it is just to get anything financed or green-lit, then getting a crew, ­getting producers to put all the pieces together, and then making it to set?” Waititi asks. “It’s a real gift, even to be working, and I feel like I have to remind ­people of that: enjoy this moment.”

Source: The Age

By: Konrad Marshall (December 1, 2023)

[jeannereames]

How do you anticipate Alexandros’s and Hephaistion’s respective ways of dealing with each other in their “moments” to change over the course of your series? I think you pretty clearly established in your books that Hephaistion has to learn to carefully navigate Alexandros’s outbursts and spontaneous tendencies.

On the flip side, I wonder how Alexandros learns how to deal when Hep is angry or upset. Do you think it being more so along the lines of him expecting Hep to suck it up and deal, basically? Or would he take a different route? I just find the way you portrayed their dynamic in the series very intriguing and nuanced, and I'm curious to see how it might evolve as the characters age.

What an interesting question! And I’m delighted that you thought their interaction properly nuanced. One of my own personal criteria for judging a book is the presence of layered and complex characters, so I struggle to put them on the page in my own work. (Also, sorry for the delay.)

Among the key elements of the first two books is how much the characters change. It covers seven critical years as they turn from boys into young men. Hence the whole “coming-of-age” thing. Ha.

Because they’re teenagers, they’re inclined to drama, especially in the first book where little things can set them off—but it happens early in book II as well. Hephaistion flails and causes a scene just because Alexandros is busy so often and he, Hephaistion, is insecure. His behavior is silly (and Alexandros calls him on it), but the emotions that drive it are very real. That’s always the struggle, when writing teens. They just haven’t lived long enough for much perspective, so everything’s a crisis. Emotions are BIG, driven by wildly pumping hormones and all those extra neurons in the front of the cerebrum. Yet the author must take seriously whatever tempest in a teapot has them riled up, in order to portray it fairly (for them), even while keeping a bit of distance to signal to the reader that yes, it really is overblown.

By the duology’s end, Alexandros has just turned 20 and Hephaistion 22½; they’ve been friends seven years, and lovers for five. By now, they have history. Yet both are emotional people, even if they display it differently. Hephaistion might seem phlegmatic but is far from it. Erigyios is phlegmatic. Hephaistion is a churning volcano under a calm surface. Alexandros, by contrast, wears his heart on his sleeve. So, they’ll continue to kick up dusk occasionally with each other, but increasingly for real reasons, not manufactured ones driven by insecurity.

Take their fracture over the fact Alexandros didn’t tell Hephaistion about Amyntor’s illness. They learn, thereby, that some things can be forgiven only by a choice. Hephaistion’s flouncing over Alexandros “ignoring” him at the beginning of book 2 should be seen in stark contrast to the very real rage he feels when he learns Alexandros concealed his father’s cancer. Yes, Alexandros did so because Amyntor asked, and yes, Alexandros convinced himself it was out of fear for Hephaistion’s safety. But he does finally recognize, and admit to himself, that wasn’t the real reason. He did a truly selfish thing by keeping Hephaistion with him. Hephaistion’s reaction in each instance is meant to bookend the novel. In the first case, he storms back home. In the second, despite his fury, he doesn’t leave Alexandros. And Alexandros accepts Philip’s pardon not just because he knows he’d better, but also because Hephaistion needs to go back. It’s a maturing moment for Alexandros to fully recognize how much he hurt his friend. He can’t fix it. He can only beg for forgiveness. Hephaistion won’t get back those final months with Amyntor. He can only choose to forgive.

So, the sequence is (to my mind) incredibly important to how they’re learning to be Real with each other. And it lays out how they’ll continue to interact going forward.

Alexandros will still screw up sometimes, in part because he’s king and was raised to assume people will subject themselves to him, as well as because his successes convince him the gods are on his side. But it was always Hephaistion’s refusal to kowtow that made him attractive to Alexandros. Ergo, he must make room for that in their relationship. It’s what makes Hephaistion unique.

In book one, after their physical fight over a different dust-up, Alexandros thinks to himself that the fact Hephaistion was willing to hit a prince had earned him the right to hold one. Alexandros must allow for Hephaistion’s autonomy, which means he must apologize (honestly) now and then. It’s what keeps him human, and grounded. And why Hephaistion continues to enjoy such absolute trust. He expects Alexandros to acknowledge when he screws up, and so Alexandros can trust that Hephaistion will always tell him the truth. Because Hephaistion loves him that much.

[antoine-roquentin]

This series has repeatedly made reference to obscure events in the Dominican Republic from 1961 to 1966 which culminated in an American military invasion. They are relatively unknown and appear murky to outsiders. They united the CIA, the non-violent section of the civil rights movement, and a group of labour movement figures with links to Norman Thomas' post-Eugene Debs Socialist Party of America, the Democratic Socialist Party of today, and the Neoconservative movement that planned the Iraq War of 2003. The next two (maybe three) parts of the series will hopefully elucidate some of these events for readers. The previous part, Part 5, can be read here.

1965 was the fifth time America invaded the Dominican Republic. The fourth was in 1916, initiating an occupation that went on until 1924. America also controlled the nation's foreign trade from 1904 to 1947, collecting 50% of its revenue by heavily taxing its people on imports in order to pay off European powers with Citibank getting a commission to do the counting. These events bookended the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, 1930 to 1961. This resulted in a weak state unable to defend itself or the foreign corporations who wanted to invest in it.

Trujillo's government was a revolution of sorts because he directly took his methods from the mafia to govern. He'd spent years as a plantation overseer by day and gang leader by night, then joined the American-trained Dominican police and became an army officer. He learned how to use violence and manipulation to get what he wanted as well as how to pleas foreigners. In one case, he'd been sent by the occupiers to deal with a guerilla army in the interior. He was so successful that the American troops covered the reports of rapes and tortures he committed while doing so. As one of his trainers said, "He thinks just like a marine!" When the Americans withdrew, he retreated to a former castle that served as a military base, building up power until he could take advantage of a crisis and overthrow the government. Once in power, he set to creating state capacity for his rule by shaking down local industries one by one, collecting revenue and inserting loyalists into their leadership while allowing them the benefits of state backing through investment and coordination. He was so successful that he was the longest serving leader in the Caribbean's history at the time of his death.

Trujillo used a similar system of creating win-win situations to persuade American diplomats and investors to support him. He went on a charm offensive, building a tourism sector internally and using his one-time son-in-law, playboy Porfirio Rubirosa, as an ambassador and press officer. Rubirosa was not only wildly charismatic, he was also reported by Truman Capote to have an eleven inch penis. After divorcing Trujillo's daughter, he married two French actresses and the two richest women in the world back to back, making bank on his divorce settlements. Like much of the Dominican Republic's elite, he lived a charmed life, racing/crashing Ferraris and airplanes (including a B-25 bomber) internationally. Both he and his former father-in-law lived part of the year in lavish apartments in New York City, racing Ferraris and buying out brothels. Some of the money came from Dominican visas that Rubirosa sold to German Jews fleeing the Holocaust and Spaniards fleeing Franco. Trujillo had retreated there to convince the world that he had changed his ways after spearheading the massacre of tens of thousands of Haitians in his country in 1937. In the shadows he worked to mastermind a comeback, making it seem like his people organically wanted him again in the 1942 show elections. He won 100% of the vote.

By 1947, the Cold War was on. Most people forget that this was a process initiated by a strong and muscular liberalism that had just defeated fascism and felt it could do the same to communism. Liberal intelligentsia in American government had undertaken a decade-long march through the institutions and created a new setup for the global economy with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, and Bretton Woods. It seemed to many in the Third World that America had turned over a new leaf and was ready to support democracy abroad. For the entrenched right wing forces in Latin America, however, it seemed like business as usual. Just as he had declared war on the Nazis, Trujillo now worked to find a communist menace to kill  to serve American interests. He used his agents to create a fake Marxist-Leninist party as opposition to run against him in the 1947 election. After picking up 92% of the vote, he used their supposed allegiance to Moscow to crack down on them, winning himself plaudits in Congress.

For many in Latin America, this was the last straw. In Cuba, 1200 men came together in what was termed the Caribbean Legion. Mostly exiles from Latin American dictatorships and sympathizers, they were ready to kill and die for liberalism. Some had fought in the Spanish Civil War and escaped death at the hands of the Franco regime when Trujillo had chosen to accept refugees from Europe as part of his developmental push, only to find their political allegiance was to socialism above all. They were backed by the elected leader of Cuba, Ramon Grau, who saw them as a way to topple a nearby enemy. They also pulled support from the president of Guatemala, Juan Jose Arevalo, who like his successor Jacobo Arbenz was an anti-communist liberal. Among the membership was Carlos Prio, the next president of Cuba, Juan Bosch, the most famous anti-Trujillo Dominican, Romulo Betancourt, a future president of Venezuela, Jose Figueres, the next president of Costa Rica, and a law student/basketball player at Havana University named Fidel Castro.

Figueres was a strange figure, perhaps the most fascinating of the Cold War. A plantation owner, he described himself as a "farmer-socialist". He invested his money in improving the living conditions of his workers, certain that it would make them more productive. He came to power with the help of the Legion in a very odd way, in a civil war that belongs with those pictures of Wikipedia where both sides are in odd alliances, with the right wing Nicaraguan dictatorship backing the Catholic Church and the Communist Party against Figueres' oligarch allies, supported by both America and the Guatemalan government it would later overthrow. Figueres immediately defenestrated those allies and took power for himself despite his talk of democracy, abolishing the army, nationalizing all banks, guaranteeing public education, giving citizenship to black migrants, giving women the vote, instituting social welfare, and banning the Communist Party. He helped establish the School of the Americas where the American military taught torture techniques and broke off relations with every American-backed dictator in the region. At one point, he was the subject of the only shooting war fought between different branches of the American government, when his State Department friends gave him planes to fight ones provided to Nicaragua by the CIA.

The Caribbean Legion would not have any other successes because it faced a classic problem of liberals during the Cold War: its membership was supportive of social reform, and that made the American government suspect they were secretly communists in disguise. The Legion had wanted to overthrow Trujillo, but the Americans convinced Grau to arrest them and confiscate their weapons. Castro managed to escape by jumping off the ship they were captured on and swimming to shore. Even as doors closed for the Legion, however, others opened. Ironically, it was another section of the American government that would save them. Their patron Figueres' liberal anti-communism had its fans in the CIA, which as an organization staffed largely by liberal WASPs from northeastern Ivy League universities felt that the combination would be sufficient to compete with the Soviets for hegemony among the Latin American peasantry. Figueres ended up on the CIA's payroll directly, codename HUMAIL. A lighter hand would be used for the Legion's membership, however.

[blue-dream-rhapsody]

Spoilers for the end of the TYBW manga! If you’re only watching the anime, this will be in like the last two episodes of the whole show, so look away!

This is gonna sound like me being biased again (and I definitely am, don’t get me wrong) but I think I have a universally true argument here.

Renji was a weird choice to have go with Ichigo to the last clash with Yhwach.

To be clear, I’m very fond of Renji. I also think the conversation he and Ichigo have on their way there was a fantastic moment in their friendship, and want to keep it intact as much as possible. It’s just that, when I think of the magnitude of this particular moment, the literal last battle at the end of the series, it just feels odd for Renji of all his friends to have this pretty prominent spot.

Who is Ichigo teaming up with here? Aizen, the major antagonist for basically half the series. Uryu, the enemy-turned-friendly rival-turned-fake enemy-turned-genuine ally just acting as an infiltrator all along because he’s got roots in this battle. And… Renji. The Guy.

Like seriously, I’m trying to pinpoint exactly what narrative function Renji’s presence here serves, and for every one I can find, there’s just someone who does a better job? Like, okay, say he’s serving as the presence of a Soul Reaper. Except Rukia would also do that, down to the rank they have, and given her meeting Ichigo is how the series began, it would additionally be a natural bookend for her to be fighting alongside him at the end. (And obviously I am deliberately ignoring bullshit like power levels or whatever, because of the four in this alliance Ichigo’s ridealong contributes little more than a distraction while Aizen tanks the damage, Uryu fires the arrow, and Ichigo makes the cut.)

Rukia is also the member of his friend group Ichigo probably interacts with the least in this whole arc who isn’t Uryu Away For Plot Reasons Ishida (or maybe Chad, who I’ll talk about in a moment too), whereas he and Renji go through a chunk of the Royal Palace stuff together. So it seems like that final battle would be the chance to actually give her a meaningful interaction with him as, again, a mirror to the start of the series.

(Disclaimer: I don’t mean this in a shipping sense in any way, shape, or form, though you can certainly take it as you like. That’s not the only way their bond can be relevant, though. My point is simply that Rukia has more narrative importance to Bleach itself than Renji does, compared to how little time she spends interacting with the series’ protagonist in the final arc compared to him.)

So as far as all of that stuff is concerned, Rukia carries more weight, but let’s say Renji was chosen as Ichigo’s closest guy friend or something along those lines. Um. Chad??? My beloved Yasutora Sado??? Like of course Kubo seems allergic to giving Chad anything significant to do at any point past his introduction, but come on! He’s supposed to be Ichigo’s best friend! Again, I’m ignoring power levels. Maybe the combination of Aizen and Yhwach’s presence would’ve been too much for him to withstand given Fullbringer scale, but I still think he’d make more narrative sense than Renji, and that should be what matters more.

Friendly rival? Well that’s Uryu who is already there, and has a way larger stake in this than anyone in Ichigo’s friend group regardless. Less that he doesn’t meet the criteria if we can’t count Uryu, choosing Renji for this reason would just be doubling down on the same thing.

You could also argue Orihime should’ve been the one, as the one Ichigo eventually ends up with (although she at least was with him at the fight just before this, so it being someone else this time doesn’t bother me). And Renji is just, not that!

Renji goes with Ichigo because it’s in character for him, and I don’t disagree with that by any means. But this is the conclusion of the entire 74-volume narrative and I’m struggling to explain why he specifically is the one chosen by Kubo to be a part of this battle if anyone had to be at all. It’s like he went out of his way to choose the least impactful character possible to fulfill this role.

So okay, Kubo, I can play hardball. You want somebody who isn’t Rukia, Chad, or Orihime? I can do that. I’ll even give you someone who’s already right there so you don’t have to make them come running up at the last moment!

You know who should’ve gone with Ichigo to that very last confrontation? Kugo Ginjo, obviously!

Don’t leave, hold on, let me explain myself.

First is the kind of obvious thing, which is that while it was on a smaller scale than they were, Ginjo was an arc villain just as much as Aizen and Yhwach were. He’s the mastermind and the climactic battle of The Lost Agent. So wouldn’t it be fun if Ichigo had the help of the first two arc villains in defeating the third?

The quartet of Ichigo, Kugo, Aizen, and Yhwach is also interesting because they all have connections to the Reio in some form, being either candidates for the role inherently, or having attempted to become or usurp him. There’s really no one else who approaches this (barring Urahara, for the hogyoku).

But wait, you may be saying, why would Ginjo fight on the side of Shinigami if his whole thing is that he hates them? To which I say—he wouldn’t! But I think he would be willing to fight to help Ichigo. Maybe not for everything ever, but maybe for the time where if Ichigo loses, everything will very clearly fall apart, including for the people he obviously still cares about in Xcution. (Also, does he know about Soul King stuff at this point, including that the both of them are candidates to replace it? Preventing that being necessary for both their sakes might be good.)

Not to mention, this would be the first time Ichigo and Kugo can fight together consciously as Deputies. It would give us a more concrete picture of how they feel about one another now that the Lost Agent conflict is over, seeing as this gets very little resolution on either side—and give Ichigo back what it was that Kugo had almost given him during that arc, a “big brother” figure he can rely on in a desperate situation, instead of having to be that figure himself.

Plus… fixing Ichigo’s sword was really kind of just Tsukishima’s repayment, wasn’t it? Ginjo shows up and says four lines, (and probably a fifth on the way there that was “Tsukishima do the thing”) and that’s what exactly? Is that supposed to make up for the extremely personal betrayal? Is that a sufficient expression of gratitude for the respect of taking his body back from the Court Guards’ grasp? He still had to say something about paying Ichigo back because debt’s about all the obligation Tsukishima would ever respond to, but what’s his contribution other than holding that “leash”?

Also for the three of them being revealed alive like a hundred chapters ago, that sure is a whole lot of no payoff. Like for Tsukishima it’s great payoff, but for Ginjo? What was the point of the training they all did with Ganju? Was it really about Ganju getting stronger? And we never got an answer why Kukaku took them in in the first place, could that really have just been chance?

If I want to put on my conspiracy cap—I half suspect Ginjo was meant to go from the time of their reappearance, and more of his backstory was supposed to come to light/he was supposed to get some additional development. But as Kubo’s health deteriorated and he got toward the home stretch, just like it would’ve been difficult to give Rukia the proper due if she’d gone, it became too much for him to do Ginjo justice, or maybe to set up for his role in CFYOW, so he decided to not do it altogether, rather than half-ass it. (This is what I tell myself, anyway). He already has a completely justifiable reason to show up at the last minute with the need for Tsukishima’s ability. He’s been training, supposedly. He owes Ichigo something and acknowledges it. He’s thematically fitting, he’s been absent for so much time after being teased, we know he was doing something because he went looking for Ukitake, it really just makes too much sense.

I doubt Kubo is planning any out-and-out rewrites of anything significant as the anime proceeds, but if he were to tweak the ending at all, I certainly think this would be reasonable.

Anyway, we’ll see what part 2 brings. CFYOW content is getting teased for sure, so who knows what’s in store!

[padmerrie]

@panharmonium recently gave me quite the shout-out for my Bookends-verse, so I thought I’d post a series of snippets from various in-progress works for anyone interested. :)

Enjoy!

ᓚᘏᗢ    ᓚᘏᗢ    ᓚᘏᗢ    

“This should be illegal,” Obito grumbles, glowering at the school.  He’s slumped back on the bench, hands stuffed into his leather jacket’s pockets, looking as mutinous as Kakashi feels.  He hums his agreement, too tired to use words.  

“Finally.  We agree on something,” Obito mutters under his breath.  He nudges Sasuke with his elbow.  “You’re grounded, by the way.” 

Sasuke’s head snaps to Kakashi.  Occasionally, Obito’s commitment to zero follow-through has its benefits, and it’s often in moments such as these, where flagrant threats are bandied about like a wooden sword, that Sasuke turns to Kakashi for certain assurances.  Namely that said threats are empty and not to be taken seriously.

It’s a shame that Kakashi has been dragged out of the comforts of his bed and into the cold on Sasuke’s behalf.  He offers his unsuspecting companion nothing more than a solemn nod.  

Sasuke’s eyes bug out of his head.  If Kakashi’s not careful, he may find himself on the receiving end of one of Sasuke’s threats.  Those are real and not to be underestimated. 

ᓚᘏᗢ    ᓚᘏᗢ    ᓚᘏᗢ   

Without looking up Kakashi politely asked, “Can I help you?” 

“When is Naruto going home?”

“He’s only just got here,” Kakashi replied softly, his pen skating purposefully across the paper.  Only when he’d finished did he look up.  He stared dispassionately at the shiny, black nest of hair staring at him, while the remainder of Sasuke’s head lay facedown on the table.

“What’s up?  Didn’t sleep well last night?”

As was often the case, Sasuke’s answer was no answer.  Putting his pen down, Kakashi dragged his glasses off and perched them on top of his head.  He leaned back in his chair and assessed the work that lay before him.  

“Why are you way over there?”

Sasuke bolted up ramrod straight and twisted violently in his chair to - and Kakashi could only speculate since he couldn’t see his face - glare at Naruto squinting over at them.  

ᓚᘏᗢ    ᓚᘏᗢ    ᓚᘏᗢ    

“Show me.” 

Iruka beckoned him inside and led him hurriedly over to the coffee table where a mess of papers lay scattered.  “Here,” he said, barely letting Kakashi get a good look before he tapped impatiently at a spot on the paper.  “See?  That’s me!”

Kakashi blinked down at the drawing, then Iruka.  “You’re kidding, right?”

“Are you blind?” Iruka shoved the paper in his face and pointed.  “He has a scar across his nose!”

Kakashi squinted.  “I think that’s supposed to be blood?”

“Not much better!”

“Iruka,” Kakashi said, very deliberately taking the paper from him and setting it down on the table, “if you’re really concerned, call the kid’s parents.  Call me again and I’ll tell Naruto and Sasuke where you hid the Playstation.” 

ᓚᘏᗢ    ᓚᘏᗢ    ᓚᘏᗢ    

There was no time to warn Sasuke about the chaos he’d just unleashed by opening the door.  It only took the dogs one second to catch a whiff of Rin and all hell broke loose.  

Kakashi had to give Sasuke credit; he managed to keep himself upright, even as he was trapped in the center of the pack’s stampede.  Amidst the barking, Rin gave a cry of alarm, seeing Bull bringing up the rear, and in a blink of an eye Kakashi was there to deftly sweep Sasuke up into the air before his behemoth of a dog could flatten him like a pancake. 

The dogs pawed at Rin with a frenzied excitement, competing for her attention, their antics bouncing off the walls, filling their much too small apartment with noise.  In Kakashi’s arms, Sasuke smacked his hands over his ears.  

“Hey,” Kakashi scolded, raising his voice and punctuating the command with a sharp whistle.  It went unheard thanks to Rin’s repeated insistence to each and every one of his dogs that they were, in fact, ‘the best boy.’  All lies at the moment.  

Shaking his head, Kakashi put Sasuke down a safe distance away.  “Come on,” he said with tired exasperation, pulling the dogs off Rin.  “You’re acting like you haven’t seen her in years.  Don’t encourage them,” he directed at Rin, shooting her a look.  “I’ve already got a noise complaint.  I don’t need another.”

“I thought you said this place was dog-friendly.”

“It wasn’t for the dogs,” Kakashi muttered in an undertone, glancing at Sasuke.

ᓚᘏᗢ    ᓚᘏᗢ    ᓚᘏᗢ   

“I am appalled by your attitude,” Madara said rather pompously.  “Do you realize I could have Sasuke arrested?”

“I do.  In fact, I’m one step ahead of you.”  As Kakashi said this, he turned to Yamato, who looked at him questioningly from the kitchen.  “I have one of Konoha’s finest here now to give Sasuke a demonstration of how our criminal justice system works.  What do you think, Madara?  Should I have him cuff Sasuke and take him for a spin in the backseat of his squad car?  Or maybe we should make some wanted posters, huh?  Set him loose and let the people decide his fate?”

Madara clucked his tongue in disgust.  “Be serious, Kakashi.”

“I am serious,” Kakashi insisted, feigning innocence.  “He’s right here if you want to talk to him.”

Yamato’s eyes bulged and, despite the half wall between them, he backed away, wagging a warning finger at Kakashi.  “Do not hand me that phone!”

Kakashi ignored him and brought the phone back up to his ear, catching Madara declaring, “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”

“Really?  Because I have 45 daytime minutes that say otherwise.”

ᓚᘏᗢ    ᓚᘏᗢ    ᓚᘏᗢ    

“How many college girls do you think Sasuke’s dated” 

Sakura frowned down at the shirt in her hands, taken aback by Ino’s question.

“I don’t know.  I think he’s gone on a couple dates.”

“You don’t talk about that stuff?” Ino asked.

“We don’t not talk about it,” Sakura said carefully.  She picked up the finished stack of clothes and walked them over to the dresser.  “You know how Sasuke is.  He’s really focused on his studies.”

Ino joined her, cradling a small mountain of socks.  She dumped them into the open drawer.  “You’d think he’d have lightened up a bit.”

Sakura smiled to herself and shook her head.  “Not Sasuke.”

She pushed the drawer shut and turned to Ino.  She was watching her.  Smirking. 

“What?”

Ino eyed the dresser behind Sakura.  “I thought you said this was temporary.”

Sakura let out a sound of exasperation.  Best friend or not, she’d had enough of Ino’s commentary on this particular subject for one day.  “What do you suggest I do?” she demanded.  “Dump them on the floor?  Most of his clothes are at school.  He won’t mind.”

“I know he won’t,” Ino said smugly.

A knock at the door saved Sakura from having to respond.  She marched across the room, ignoring the triumphant look plastered on Ino’s face, and pulled open the door, relieved to see Kakashi.

[tinyaibou]

sonic prime wishlist (predictions?)  🔮✨

I’ve already yelled about this on twitter I just like. I have some hopes for what Season 2 will bring 

SP s2 is a roadtrip show where Sonic and Shadow learn to get along through working together ( or maybe less get along and more...finally properly communicate with each other. let’s release the tension surrounding that “it’s complicated” aspect of their relationship. get some catharsis , maybe even a proper “flashback” to whatever caused the schism in their relationship in the first place...or whatever the fuck their deal is. Like already Shadow’s begun to put his trust in Sonic no matter how begrudging it is, so it’d be nice if they got closer just in general-- maybe crack open just a bit of Shadow’s hard outer shell. 

The alternate universe versions of Sonic’s friends are actually essential to getting the Paradox Prism pieces back together - I’m imagining since Sonic can’t physically touch the shards, but -- If I remember correctly: other character’s *can*. The goal then must be to convince whoever in each of the shatterspaces has possession of the shard to come with Sonic to the ghost “Home” shatterspace and arrange the crystals together

What are the consequences of putting the crystal back together - like does it mean that the whole shatterspace is destroyed? Some part of me hopes that even once the status quo is restored that these new friends can still be visited -- give some weight to the fact that they’re separate people from Sonic’s own friends.

Though another part of me feels like it should be a kind of...synching together type of effect: Everything got shattered so everybody and everything is a separate component of themselves....(and more obviously how they would be like without Sonic.). So the first shard in restores part of the appearance of the ghost Home world, make it feel more alive, make the hollow projections of Sonic’s friends more whole. 

alternatively it’s like.. For example, if Nine were involved he’d slowly gain more of Tails’ memories? 

Though again I don’t like that so much -- I do much prefer Nine’s own deal and personality or whatever to be retained and for him to be his own person. (pet peeve of mine stemming from the storybook series LOL) 

I NEED TO SEE WHATS UP WITH THE VOID 

this HAS to happen. 

plus it would be nice -- this episode already has lots of REALLY GOOD parallels between sonic and shadow so for the bookends here um I’m just saying it would be really good if Shadow had to save Sonic from THE VOID!!!!!

or you know. all his friends together. whatever. 

[gay-dorito-dust]

Cute shit I think they’d do: JJK edition.

Buy me a coffee?

Itadori ‘best boi’ Yuji:

This boy would to spend as much time with you as possible so I think he would have movie nights with you where you’d stay up cuddled into each other and ultimately falling asleep in cute little onesies with empty packets of sweets piled up nearby for tomorrow yous’ problem as Nobara sneaks a few pictures in that Itadori may have printed out and stuck on a wall or put in picture frames along with the other pictures he had on display to remind him of what he was fighting for on days when it felt hopeless.

I also feel like he’d leave some of the hoodies out for you to wear because he likes how adorable you look in them and if you own any hoodies yourself he’ll probably steal one or two because that boy defiantly lives by the “what’s yours is mine and what’s mine is yours.” Quote since he stole your heart and you stole his.

Lastly I can imagine him taking you to a golden retriever experience where you just sit with the doggos for awhile until it was time to go witch was always the hardest thing to do when the cute golden fluffs would whine and remain close to you as you were leaving. Yuji definitely cried. I don’t make the rules.

Fushiguro Megumi:

Not massive on PDA but would sit close to you, brush his hand against yours or brush shoulders when you walk together, maybe some cheek and forehead kisses when no one is looking but it’s really cute because he’s trying and that’s all that matters in all honesty which makes it all the more cuter when he’s be visibly flustered if someone were to catch onto his silent affection.

I think he’d read to you. His voice would put you right to sleep as his fingers run across your back/arm. Doesn’t really help that he smells like bookends, mint and a hint of lemon and lime and maybe pine. He’s your personal pillow and he’ll try not to wake you but if he has to be somewhere he’ll move you off of him slowly and put his pillow in your arms as a temporary decoy.

He would make sure your not overworking yourself/ making sure your eating, drinking water and not doing strenuous activities that may cause you harm because I think he has previous experience with over exerting himself in order to get stronger only to come to realise that he wasn’t going to get stronger if he treated himself that way and now makes sure you don’t pull the same stunt.

Inumaki Toge:

-this bit is based off of @ruetaro inumaki hc-

He sends funny videos of whatever happens when you two are apart whether it be Panda tripping and breaking one of Maki’s weapons by accident which causes the green haired female to chase him with the motive of kicking his ass but that wasn’t the best part. The best part was Inumaki trying to hold back a laugh. Cutest shit ever. So whenever the video cuts short it’s highly assumed that Maki and Panda were chasing him for laughing at their predicament and is probably seeking refuge in his room for 3-5 business days.

Likes physical touch Sind she can’t really speak in sentences due to his cursed speech so he thrives off of the smallest of affection and it makes him feel like he’s loved -which he is- and he would most likely become thirsty for cuddles and kisses afterwards that his hand is superglued in holding your own. I feel like if you were wearing an oversized sweater he’d sneak his way under it so he can be as close to your warmth as possible. 🥺🥺

Binge watch series together on his laptop. Your lap? his pillow. Sleep? Nowhere in sight cuz this fucker stays up late so you’ll have to force him to sleep or just say he’s not getting affection if he doesn’t go to sleep to which he would childishly glare at you, puff his cheeks out before going to sleep as though he wouldn’t end up snuggled into your chest after awhile.

Nanami Kento:

I feel like after a long tiering day from work he would love nothing more then to get back home to you and take a nap. It’ll be the thing he couldn’t wait for as it meant holding you in his arms safe from all harm. His velvet voice would be heavenly on your ears when your both sleepy like Fushiguro it would probably put you to sleep instantly. He’d portably be out like a light if you were to run your hand through his hair. That’s just my opinion though.

He’d probably be into domestic shit like you wearing his shirt so he’d pry open an eye just to watch you get changed or watch you wake up from a beautiful dream he hoped he was apart of. Drinking coffee/tea together would be cute as he knew how you take your drink and you knew how he takes his, which may seem small and insignificant but is really a sweet thing to remember as it meant he’d cared about the little details. So I’m addiction to the domestic shit he’d remember the little things.

He might take you to that bakery he frequents because he felt like treating you and that you might like it. Spoiler: you do end up liking the bakery and make it a tradition to go whenever you both had time to spare which was rare but that’s what made it even more special.

Nobara Kugisaki:

You can’t tell me she wouldn’t be able to make aesthetic photos. Cuz she can and she’s incredibly photogenic. I just wanna get that thought out of the way.

Personally I feel like you could binge eat anything and Nobara wouldn’t judge but she would probably smack you if you touch her food but if anyone were to say shit about it Nobara would shut them down so fucking fast cuz what you eat shouldn’t be anyone business. Yuji and Megumi may join you on occasion but it’s mainly a you and Nobara thing as you would watch cheesy shows for entertainment. I just wanna eat with Nobara now.

I feel that she likes a moderate amount of pda -which will increase when jealous- so she would hold your hand, some kisses maybe and probably takes you on a boba date or shopping spree. Or both if you had the time. Either way it’ll be phenomenal date none the less as you make so many cute memories of someone getting their ass handed by Nobara because they were staring way too long for her liking. ☺️ ah good times indeed.

Choso Kamo:

Precious baby boi. 🥺

I think once he gets a taste of affection he will come back for more so after you give him a hug or a kiss on the cheek he will make himself comfortable into your side like cat when they want your attention which melts your heart so you are legally obligated to give him all the affection he requires. It’s against the law to not do so unless you want a sad Choso. No one wants a sad Choso. So your stuck giving him cuddles, kisses and other.

Another one I see liking the domestic shit and would try and make you stuff. The furrow in his brow told you how seriously he was taking this task which was cute but you didn’t want him to hurt himself over not knowing how a coffee machine works. I don’t want anything bad happening to him. I’ll cry.

This’ll be just me but I think he might have an affiliation for some sweets such as dark chocolate or black liquorish. Something not too sweet yet not just enough sweet to become his comfort snack or something. I just think he would but you’d probably have to tell him that having so much isn’t exactly healthy. Though it didn’t meant that the face he makes when he’s caught stealing nibbles when he shouldn’t isn’t the most cutest thing you’ve ever seen.

[merrysithmas]

Obviously the Falcon show should've shown Bucky coming terms with the fact that he should write his OWN name in his book of victims.

It should have been made visually clear by the end of the series that he doesnt have to apologize for heinous crimes committed by Hydra hijacking his body and obliterating his bodily autonomy to incomprehensible levels, easentially using him like a criminal pump n dump. Every new assignment, new agonizing training, new puppetry, another violent rape of his body and mind.

Bucky is not at all even akin to say Tony Stark, who suffered immense guilt during the entire Infinity Saga regarding his former life as a weapons dealer. Tony's (valid) guilt resulted in a compulsive desire to protect the earth, ultimately ending in his voluntary death. Tony is time and again shown as a tortured hero despite his initial complacency in his morally bereft actions. Bucky gets no such luck- even though Bucky, in his former life, committed no such atrocities and in fact was likely one of the most heroic pre-superhero normals in the MCU.

Bucky was a well-liked, smart, athletic, happy boy who cast aside any manner of social expectation to throw in his lot, time, and energy, again and again, with chronically ill, disabled, social menace Steve Rogers. Bucky canonically nursed Steve's injuries, was his stalwart companion through all life's difficulties (his illnesses, his mother's death, Steve's psychological inferiority complex and mental anguish resulting from his social standing) and the Crash, and mostly importantly, Bucky did not want to go to war.

He was drafted (something that seemingly would have been key to bring up in Falcon re: his lifetime as an unwilling soldier). And, emotionally, Bucky ardently tried to dissuade Steve from joining the army, for fear he'd lose him. Despite not wanting to fight and being tortured, Bucky stayed in the military post-rescue from Azzano because he could not fathom leaving Steve. He planted his feet in a burning building shouting "No! not without you!" refusing to leave without Steve even after his rescue from months of torture. Til the end of the line, regardless of what happened to him.

For the next three entire films we see the frankly epic level of value Steve places on Bucky's devoted companionship. How desperately Steve valued Bucky's goodness and innocence (even above his own life, reputation, and safety).

Bucky doesn't have to cross out names he feels guilty about as if atoning for his own sins - and while the thought behind this narrative choice may have been to depict some semblance of retribution, this notion would have been much better expressed in another way. Such as: members of the public or others who were vicitmized in some horrible manner (domestic abuse, sexual abuse, scapegoats, other victims of Hydra etc) coming to Bucky instead to comfort him, welcoming him into a group designed to alieviate this solitary mental burden, or at least comiserate in some manner. Showing him he was not alone and who, exactly, he could be fighting for should he ever choose to fight again. The voiceless and disregarded, who only have Bucky who understands.

Also (though it seems to have engendered some faction of fandom vitriol), the removal of Bucky's arm during battle deserves consideration. This visual act was obviously narratively intended to show the unmatched prowess of the Dora Milaje and the justifiable premeditated cautiousness of Wakanda re: the generous rehabilitation of a dangerous mass weapon.

Though, it has the double-edged effect of showing how Bucky is still not an agent of his own bodily autonomy. His mental and physical freedom, his very ability to do his job and make his own choices therein, is still under the jurisdiction of someone else. His disability is his opposition's advantage (whether well-intentioned or not). Essentially, he is mistrusted. And it doesn't matter how much therapy he goes to, how much he atones for his "sins", his mind is still considered not to be fully and truly his. This is one of the most injurious of all things Bucky suffers - even those who rehabilitate him doubt the complete success of his healing. Therefore, his entire arc in the series is at best questionable simply with that alone.

His entire arc should clearly have been reframed to display his victimhood, and how the fact that he is mistrusted is also another burden and misfortune that he can work through and call others out for, instead of absorbing the guilt for that too.

Falcon does a poor job of showing how this "Bucky can't be trusted" mindset is highly injurious to his status as a victim, while mostly asserting it is a byproduct of his (alleged) villainy. It does not separate "alleged villainy" and "propensity for villainous actions as result of the abuse his suffered for 70 years". Instead of clarification on this for the viewers and Bucky himself we are, among other things, posed with the question - is the Winter Soldier still in Bucky?

Right there, you know the show was not intended to show much closure for the character, but rather wring-out, refresh, and even retroactively assert his alleged villainy over his victimhood in anticipation of perhaps his own solo series (where the Soldat is reactivated). Yet, we are also oddly simutaneously expected to accept that Bucky is "healing" somehow, although we never witness anything truly happen him, internally, to suggest this.

Bucky plays an almost angry motherly role to Sam at the start of the series, initially chastising him for not accepting responsibility. Bucky sees himself as the protector of Steve's legacy, and is disappointed in Sam's (later he learns, complicated) reluctance to wield the shield.

In the end, Bucky is approving of Sam and proud of his rise to the Cpt America mantle in that same manner - bookended with approval from a distance where he almost, again, stands off to the side as a proud mother. He seems to see himself as a mentor in Sam's journey towards self-actualization. Why is he so happy Sam has become the hero he always was inside?

His newfound friendship and respect for Sam as his own hero, of course. However, it is also his love of Steve which is the next obvious answer, his deep pride in who Steve was and what he accomplished, but this is inferred and never said - thus taking away again, from an oppotunity for Bucky's emotional growth and healing. The writers didn't even know where Steve was (or if Bucky knows his whereabouts) but they could have indicated something to that effect.

Once Sam has embraced Cap, the series ends. However, despite the jubilant setting of the finale, Bucky is still narrartively unmoored. We are left with the image of him lighthearted and hopeful, but without much substance towards its sustainability and so there is not much satisfaction in it despite the sweetness of its visual impact. But its depth? We are unsure. This is because Sam's ultimate advice to him, that he "serve" others rather than enact vengeance, strips away another truth about Bucky's situation.

That Bucky's desire for retribution and vengeance against those that abused and tormented him is valid and a real victim response. Bucky's perspective is seen as "wrong" instead of a well-documented step stone on the path to solid mental survivorship. Bucky could eventually want to serve -- but serve who?

Again, obviously the answer is: other victims like himself. But the show won't call him a victim at all, and thus Sam's advice feels hollow (serve... the vague and faceless Greater Good?) and Bucky's emotional security at the end of the show feels as if it lacks substance and permanance for the audience.

The payoff for Bucky's healing is almost nonexistent because no one will ever say why he was hurt in the first place (a victim).

Could go on and on about how this is because of Disney's terror of Bucky's perceived compromised masculinity (victimhood, captured, mentally damaged in WWII and present day), visual femininity (hair, slapped by men for insubordination, physically touched and moved against his will, soft spokeness, powerlessness in the narrarive), queer subtext (Steve, his origin as Arnold Roth Steve's gay jewish best friend, perceived jealousy of Peggy, intense affection for Steve), his juxtaposition to Steve and role in Steve's narrative, and their desire to wipe his slate clean with a new Masc Bucky.

Hint: it doesn't work.

[mod2amaryllis]

the general consensus i’m seeing is the “don’t touch me” was a trauma response, and that’s really heartbreaking and defo has merit, but i’m HELLA FUCKING DOWN to believe Helen and read it as Jon slipping into monstrosity. especially since the tone didn’t match what i’ve heard in scared-jon. maybe that tone has changed since he got powerful, but there was...idk, a GRITTINESS to the delivery that registered as vicious .

Martin is Jon’s romantic partner and the series’ overall secondary main character, yeah, but don’t forget his most important function: Jon’s narrative foil. throughout s5 we’ve watched Jon dehumanize the victims inside nightmares, and Martin is always the one to ground him and remind him that they still hold value. 

just the last episode, we saw Martin take yet another step closer to his own humanity by resolving that he’d sooner be destroyed than feed off the pain of others. this episode, aka Jon’s solo adventure, is a direct contrast. Helen told Jon it could be wonderful if he’d give in to it, and he responded “I KNOW.” he’s been fighting it all season and Jon’s a pretty good person so plenty of the clinging to humanity is by his own power, but A LOT OF IT is certainly dependent on Martin. Jon’s “You’re my reason” Martin.

so with “don’t touch me,” i’m sorry, i know it sucks, i know it’s pessimistic but i really think Jon slipped there. i really think that having a lowly creature dare to touch him just made him instinctually disgusted. and yes, it was bookended by instances of sympathy, so this was just one slip, but........gang, join me. join me in my having-fun-watching-characters-i-love-struggle-with-remaining-human it’s good it’s really good

[astradrifting]

A Dream of Spring, and variations thereof

The phrase ‘a dream [for] spring’ only occurs once in the text of ASOIAF, in the chapter where Jon and the wildlings arrive in Queenscrown. Jon remembers Ned and Benjen discussing a plan to resettle the Gift with new lords.

His lord father had once talked about raising new lords and settling them in the abandoned holdfasts as a shield against wildlings. The plan would have required the Watch to yield back a large part of the Gift, but his uncle Benjen believed the Lord Commander could be won around, so long as the new lordlings paid taxes to Castle Black rather than Winterfell. “It is a dream for spring, though,” Lord Eddard had said. “Even the promise of land will not lure men north with a winter coming on.”

(Jon V, ASOS)

Given that Jon remembers it quite well, this conversation likely happened in the long summer just before the start of AGOT, meaning that the spring Ned was speaking of is actually the one that will come at the end of the series.

It might just be a quirk of how asearchoficeandfire’s search engine works, but searching the phrases “a dream of/for spring” comes up with only two other results within the main books. The first one is from Ned’s POV:

The memory came creeping upon him in the darkness, as vivid as a dream. It was the year of false spring, and he was eighteen again, down from the Eyrie to the tourney at Harrenhal.

(AGOT, Eddard XV)

The second one is from Jaime’s POV:

The castleton outside the walls had been burned to ash and blackened stone, and many men and horses had recently encamped beside the lakeshore, where Lord Whent had staged his great tourney in the year of the false spring. A bitter smile touched Jaime's lips as they crossed that torn ground. Someone had dug a privy trench in the very spot where he'd once knelt before the king to say his vows. I never dreamed how quick the sweet would turn to sour.

(ASOS, Jaime IV)

It’s interesting that throughout the whole series, a connection between dream imagery and spring only ever comes up in association with the Tourney of Harrenhal, set during the year of the false spring. It was a period of time that could be considered ‘a dream of spring’ too, in a much more negative sense. Though everyone thought winter had broken, the warm weather only lasted a couple of months before the cold winds came again. At the same time, the relative peace of the realm was shattering after the tourney. It was possibly intended to be the start of change, as Rhaegar might have planned to use it to gather a council deposing Aerys, but whatever was intended never went through and Rhaegar just caused brand new problems. It was a dream of spring in that the spring wasn’t real, it was fleeting and followed quickly by winter, and a war that ravaged the Seven Kingdoms.

The Ned and Jaime passages both carry on this theme. Jaime states it explicitly, that the sweet turned sour quickly, while Ned goes on to describe the dreamlike, idyllic atmosphere of the tourney, up until the moment it all went wrong:

He could see the deep green of the grass, and smell the pollen on the wind. Warm days and cool nights and the sweet taste of wine. He remembered Brandon's laughter, and Robert's berserk valor in the melee, the way he laughed as he unhorsed men left and right.

[...]

Robert had been jesting with Jon and old Lord Hunter as the prince circled the field after unhorsing Ser Barristan in the final tilt to claim the champion's crown. Ned remembered the moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty's laurel in Lyanna's lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost.

(AGOT, Eddard XV)

The only time spring and dream imagery is linked together positively is in the Jon passage above, which talks about a plan for renewal and stability in an area that has faced a lot of turmoil, but one that must be put off until after the coming winter. That it contains nearly word for word the title of the last book is pretty strong foreshadowing that this plan will become relevant, hopefully that Jon will be able to carry out his father-uncles’ dream to resettle the Gift.

The Tourney of Harrenhal was arguably the beginning of Jon’s story; where his parents first encountered each other, the catalyst for the whole political situation at the beginning of the series.

It’d be poetic if Jon’s story was bookended by a false hope of spring at the start, and the true dreams of spring at the end. The situation after Harrenhal is already being set up in reverse for the end of the series. The harshest winter in years has just arrived. War has already ravaged the Seven Kingdoms, and there are only more wars yet to come. But by the end, even if it’s still winter there will be hope for a real spring - Jon’s attempt to depose an unsuitable monarch is going to go much better than Rhaegar’s, and he’ll get a chance to enact Ned’s plans for the Gift with the wildlings.

Incidentally, the last search result for “a dream of spring” is from The Mystery Knight. Dunk is talking to Daemon II, a Blackfyre prince who has hidden himself as a man with dark hair called John the Fiddler. They have a discussion about John/Daemon’s dreams, during which Dunk recalls a memory of another tourney held in the spring:

"I dreamed it. This pale white castle, you, a dragon bursting from an egg, I dreamed it all, just as I once dreamed of my brothers lying dead. They were twelve and I was only seven, so they laughed at me, and died. I am two-and-twenty now, and I trust my dreams." Dunk was remembering another tourney, remembering how he had walked through the soft spring rains with another princeling. I dreamed of you and a dead dragon, Egg's brother Daeron said to him. 

The tourney Dunk is referring to is, of course, our beloved Ashford Tourney :)

[meantforinfinitesadness]

Hey Kali!!! Any chance you’d be down to make a Sith!Obi-Wan rec list? Obvs there’s a ton of fics from this past Codywan week, but just curious if you’ve seen any other Sith!Obi fics! :) Thank uuuu!!!

Hello Anon!!!! I'm sorry to say that I accidentally deleted your other ask about what ship you wanted, but don't worry! I did read it before I deleted it lol.

Also, I wanted to get this up yesterday, but I...had kind of a rough day because of work. I'm not very rested, but I'm feeling much better and I now present to you your list!!!

Oh, you've probably read all of these. I don't have too many codywan sith Obi-Wan fics at the moment. LMAO JUST REALIZED THE REASON I DON'T HAVE VERY MANY IS BECAUSE I NEVER GOT TO BOOKMARKING ALL THE CODYWANWEEK SITH AU FICS SO THERE'S THAT

That being said, I did rec a few of this years fics, which I realize you mentioned in the ask....lol whoops. I'm also saying that you should read all of the sith au fics from the event.

There are also a few that aren't codywan at the very end. I listed the ship (if it has one) if you're interested.

Oh, and I didn't put any spicy fics in this rec list!!! If I did, and didn't realize it, I'm so sorry.

A Beast Among Bookends; or, How to Domesticate Your Feral Librarian by @the-writing-mill A separation and a tumble on a mission leads Obi-Wan Kenobi down a different path in life.

Years later, during the clone wars, the 212th is sent to take out Darth Libri after failed attempts by both the CIS and Republic to sway him to their sides. The mission does not go well.

But if Cody choosing to stay with the vode's nightmare for a bit can spare his brothers, well... that's not really a choice, is it?

Limited By The Light by @wanderingjedihistorian After watching the missile come so close to killing Cody, Obi-Wan is done. He welcomes the Dark and all the power it brings. He won't be limited by the light any longer. It is time for the war to end.

What came after by @galateagalvanized “Are you all the Council sent, then?” Bo-Katan asks, swinging one leg over the speeder’s seat. Her voice is raspy, and Cody wonders if it’s from smoke inhalation. “Considering they wouldn’t help with the first Sith, I guess I should be glad for any help at all with the second.”

It's the first time he's heard someone use that word to describe Kenobi, and he bristles.

“We’re not here on behalf of the Council, Miss Kryze. We're here for our general.”

Or: Everyone has a breaking point. That includes Obi-Wan.

That includes Cody.

No End in Sight by TreeOfTime Commander Cody serves under General Jinn in the Clone Wars. Since the very beginning a mysterious Sith has been plaguing near victories of the Republic and ripping them out of their grasp. Commander Cody isn't sure what his purpose is or what his intentions are but when they finally meet on the battlefield, things go wrong and he must face this opponent alone.

oh how unreasonably in love I am by @buckytheboss “Hello there,” Obi-wan Kenobi said to him, not even looking in his direction. The Sith was laying in the grass, hands behind his head, and copper hair spread in the grass around him. He turned to face him, and somehow it surprised Cody that his eyes were yellow. That’s just how Sith were, he’d been told. But it seemed…. wrong.

On Reasonable Terms by @wanderingjedihistorian Prince Cody of Mandalore captured the Sith Emperor's interest the first time he saw him in battle. Obi-Wan is only mortal and can't resist making Cody return to Coruscant with him as part of Mandalore's surrender. It is perhaps both the best, and the most foolish, thing he has ever done.

Fallen (series) (jangobi) by @thebisexualmandalorian

Polaris (series) (rexobi) by @bluemaskedkarma What if Obi-Wan Kenobi never went to Bandomeer? What if, instead, he got on a different ship? Those steps set into motion an entirely different future, one where he takes on different names until an unlikely friend gives him one that sticks--Red. All he wanted was to help those in need, but somewhere along the way he became the one who needs. Who will help him?

You Shall Become (Me) by jedipati The Guardian of the Sith Temple doesn’t particularly care for the new breed of Sith, for all that they’ve been around for 1,000 years. But they’re the only Sith the Guardian knows about. Until one day…

Alternately, "How to accidentally join the Sith without really trying."

Changing Fate (quiobi) by @robinasnyder Obi-Wan is the worst Sith in history, only kept alive because of his close relationship with Darth Maul. He begins getting visions from a young age where he became a strong, upstanding Jedi, everything he ever wanted. So when he comes face to face again with the Master who rejected him and sent him off to the nightmare he's been trapped in, Obi-Wan is willing to take a chance. After all, even if he died, his life couldn't get any worse.

[rosesareviolentlyread]

Bakery Box Boy Intro

CW: BBU, modern slavery, hypothermia, vague past references to abuse, this is a pretty light one WC: 1486

This is based on a post I can’t find again about a bakery that gets a box boy! This series will mostly be focused on recovery & fluff, that nice angst that comes with the struggle to heal. Jasper is a refurbished box boy, and I might do some pieces or flashbacks of his previous owners, but otherwise this will mostly be a comf/recovery series. Let me know if you’d like to be tagged! I’ve got a few pieces drafted for this already that I’ll be putting out over the next few days. Thanks to @moose-teeth and @whumpywhumper for beta reading!

847650 felt so, so cold. It was all he felt now, besides tired. The bindings on his wrists, holding them in place in the box as he tumbled and shook and turned in transport, blended in, just another piece of the block of ice that made up his body.

It hurt less though, now. The shivering as rain seeped into the box, soaking around him until he feels cocooned in dampness that freezes first against his skin and then in his skin. It had made its way through him like a serpent, moving through his limbs until its icy poison made his ribs tighten like a vice around his chest, making it hard to breathe. After that, it seemed to slither so deep in him that it was him. Icy numbness incapable of anything. It felt like peace, somehow, leaving him with nothing to do much more than wait, no thoughts besides fighting the drowsy feeling for a reason it was getting harder and harder to remember. 

The frozen world that had become safe, and comfortable, abruptly shattered as he felt himself tipped, the world up-ending himself. He would’ve cried out, if it weren’t for the way he was slammed into the side of the box, pushing out his shallow breath into coils of frosted nothing in the air, setting his skin alight again with pins and needles of agony. 

He couldn’t be aware of anything, even as the world came flooding back in through the sounds of voices and rain and road and movement. It was just a blur, bookended by a second thump as his box slammed harder, throwing him against the other side in a way that felt like it shattered every bone in his body. Still, no sound came, no movement, as he existed only to suffer in his crystallized cocoon of a body. 

For long moments, his brain scrambled, struggling even to find the focus to breathe, let alone listen to the sound of swearing and latches being undone. 

He could only find that as worthy of focus, when the damp walls were unwrapped, and warmth flooded in like mist, sending his body in further pain as molten awareness filled the comfortable cold, pushing it out of him. 

Someone was talking, someone important and 847650 struggled to focus on why. 

“Oh my god, you’re soaked”  The words were spoken with horror, sending panic coursing through 847650 as he recognized the tell-tale tone of a mistake.

This is his owner, his owner towering above him, gray hair and pinched face and shaking hands. The sight makes the breath catch in his throat. He had fucked up. He had fucked up for his new owner before he’d even left his box. 

Adjusting to the light, he can see now it’s a woman, an older one. Hair with more gray than blonde sits loose on her head, damp strands hanging limp. Wrinkles and smile lines dot her face like the memories of a life lived long, but not easily. But her expression. Her expression is stern, and immediately recognizable to 847560, down to his still cold bones. 

Upset.

Fix it, his brain screams from a place of terror, and he tries to force out apologies on dry frozen lips, but it only comes as a wheeze, a whimper squeezed into raw air. 847650 shakes now, and tells himself its from the cold. But memories slam against the walls in his mind, sending shivers down his body. He wants to wilt away, but pulling away from an owner’s touch is forbidden. He isn’t sure how much he even could in the touches that feel gentle but only because his skin is like a shield of icy rubber still. His body feels stiff, unmoving.

Which isn’t good, because the next thing she says is, “Can you get out of there for me? These old bones aren’t as strong as they used to be.” A hand is outstretched, a confusing contradiction to her words. 

It’s like moving the arms of a doll, rather than his, as 847650 twists, putting his arms on the lip and trying to balance on the prickling sensation to push himself up. But all he succeeds is falling out of the box with a pained yelp as the wood slips out from the barely controlled limbs. 

But instead of the ground, warm arms catch his shaking body. “I gotcha big- well, you really aren’t that big, are ya? Just a skinny bean pole.” He looks up and her smile is tight, and strained, the words nervous. 

847650 twists out of her grasp until he’s all the way on the floor. “‘m so’y” the words finally come on numb lips, as he sees the big wet spot on her sweater, the one that had felt so soft and is now covered in dirty rain water. “I-I ‘an do it” He tries to push himself up, but the lingering effects of the drugs, the cold, leave his head spinning, and he slips in the water spilled on the wood floor, landing back down with a thump that sends another jolt of pain. It’s more intense now, the warm air having soaked away some numbness, but only enough that everything feels like pins and needles again. Tears prick his eyes, and he squeezes them shut as he tries to breath through the pain with a whimper.

“Oh shhh, shhh, it’s ok. Oh dear- I’ve never done this before, I just- you stay right there, I’ll be back.” It’s a blessedly easy command as the footsteps retreat, but he can’t stop the screaming in his brain about how much he has messed up. How many mistakes he’s made in painfully short minutes. He tries to pull himself together, to think of what to say, but all he feels is white terror. 

It’s too soon when his owner comes back...and drops something warm on top of him. Gentle hands rub through the fabric, soaking up the damp and cold as she coos gently with sushing noises at him. 

“There, let’s get you all nice and dry. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t think you were supposed to come until next week.” 

847650 doesn’t understand. Is this a precursor to punishment? He was a week early causing problems, being bad before he even was for this owner. But she doesn’t sound mad. She sounds...nice. 

Maybe..maybe she wasn’t his owner? Maybe she was another pet? But she didn’t have a collar, and he’d never met a pet this old. It was so hard to just think right now, with his brain feeling like it’d been left in the freezer.

“A-are you ‘y ow’er?” words tumble out ill-formed, even as he tries to enunciate. To be right. 

The hands stop, adjusting the towel so he can see her more properly, and he struggles to not shake more in fear at the loss of such foreign kindness. “Oh, oh, I’m really bungling this up, aren’t I? I’m sorry, my name’s Adele Brooks, yes, I’m your owner. But, you should call me Della.” 

And then. And then, she smiles at him, a real smile, without a trace of anger or sadism, so warm he feels his limbs tingle, “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“W-wha’e’er you wan’ i’ ‘a be Miss ‘ella.” It was a risk, but he didn’t want to seem rude, using a nickname for an owner. It was unfathomable. He was already rude enough forcing her to dry him off because his body wouldn’t cooperate. 

“I- oh, right. They make me name you, don’t they? I read it online, thank god, since it looks like the booklet is ruined.” He feels enough of his limbs to manage sitting up, feeling her drape the towel around him. It’s...sad. To lose the touch, some deep part of him aching for reasons he doesn’t know why at the loss. 

She pulls a face, squinting at him. For a second his heart skips before he sees her smile return. “How about...Jasper. You look like a Jasper to me. What do you think?”

Does he look like a Jasper? What does a Jasper look like? He didn’t know if he did, and he didn’t want to say the wrong thing. So, instead, he just nods, hesitantly, hoping that’s enough of an answer. 

“Well then, Jasper, why don’t we get you a bit more warmed up? Hmmm, what would you think about a warm bath? I thought they’d..well, have you come more...decent, but you look like you might fit some old things I’ve got laying around.” The hand reaches out again, an offering, and gently pulls him - Jasper - to his swaying, numb feet. He feels light-headed still, shaky, but he determines he will not mess this up. Not make anymore mistakes.

Not if he gets to keep feeling the foreign sense of warmth that had touched his chest with his owner’s smile.

[c-sand]

I’ll never get over that one of the biggest crimes Game of Thrones ever committed was constantly having Sansa Stark saying bad/self deprecating things about herself throughout the series, especially as we started to get towards the ending seasons. She’s a slow learner. She’s stupid. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She needed to be emotionally and sexually abused by all of the evil nasty men she was surrounded by in order to become a ‘strong woman’ instead of the child everyone starts out as. She never learns.

It’s true that Sansa, herself, may be thinking these things about herself. She’s been living in a constant state of fear and danger. She’s been emotionally and sexually used and abused and groomed for years. She’s been beaten and humiliated and sold. She’s been tricked and manipulated, as a pawn, to suit eight million different people’s wills and desires. She’s been looked down upon by basically every person she encounters, who all act like the things she’s saying are as true as the sky being blue -- even though we (as a Non-Sansa-Hating audience, at least), know she’s actually extremely smart and underestimated by the people around her. 

At the front half of the show, when Sansa has lines about how she feels she’s a stupid, slow learning, idiot, fantasy filled child who’s at fault for everything that’s gone wrong, it feels authentic -- for whichever reason she’s saying it, it feels authentic. Whether she’s saying those things about herself, because she’s feeling those things about herself, or because she’s caught in a life or death moment and she’s pleading with the person who’s trying to toss her off a mountain that’s she she’s too dumb to work against them or be any sort of threat, at all. When she talks about being a stupid little bird, even though I hate watching my girl say those things about herself, it feels (whether it’s internal emotion or outward survival) like actual characterization in that moment. 

But, it stops being about that somewhere in the middle. Those lines are no longer about Sansa, as a character, functioning in this world with actual feelings and thoughts. She’s no longer saying what needs to be said in order to make the people around her think she’s incapable. She’s no longer saying what she might emotionally feel in her heart are her own flaws. Those lines are no longer about serving to tell a story with Sansa and for Sansa.

Those lines are about serving to tell a story with and for the audience. The audience who HATE her, because Ned f’d up and because she yelled at Arya a couple of times while Arya yelled back.

Those lines turn into weapons against her in order to *wink wink nudge nudge* at the audience who hates this girl, for no good reason. To say, “Ha, Sansa Stark is the WORST, am I right? lolz don’t worry guys, we know and so does she.” Those lines exist to try and frame her every action, her every sentence, her every moment of having the audacity to draw breath in a room of fan favorite characters, as a springboard for the audience to viscously attack her and undermine the things she does and the moves she makes. They’re lines of permission given to spew unnecessary bile towards her. “You can cheer for her rape and root for her death, even though she legitimately is not at fault for a single thing that’s gone wrong (as if that would make those things justified) don’t worry. Even SHE hates herself! Let’s all hate her together!”

And it’s truly one of the worst things this show did. 

They had this girl (this super smart girl, who was truly one of the best players in the game from the very start) (Sansa Stark is such a good player of the game that she convinced the majority of the audience, FOR NO REASON, up until the very end, that she was Cerse 2.0. FOR NO REASON) (oop she said she learned a lot from Cersei! Sansa’s obviously PLOTTING A TAKEOVER FROM JON!!!) say that she knew she was a slow learning dumbo who takes forever to learn a lesson (she’s not and she doesn’t), while she’s simultaneously taking down the man who orchestrated the entire war. They tried to imply (and blah blah deleted scene) that Sansa was being fooled by Petyr Finger and blah blah. But, Sansa isn’t stupid and hasn’t trusted Petyr Finger for so beyond long. She didn’t even trust him at the Vale, before Ramsay. She didn’t save him there because she was whipped for him and thought he was a miracle, she saved him because he was at least a variable that she felt she understood the desires of -- whereas she didn’t know the people in the Vale, at all -- didn’t know what they would do to her, after they took care of him. And she did, really, know his desires. She just didn’t know what he’d do with those desires and what’d he’d do to her in order to get these desires met.

That line doesn’t exist to show how she’s grown. It’s not a power line in a scene where she tries one of her and her families greatest threats, for the crimes he’s committed. It’s not about her, at all. It’s a buffer for the audience to laugh about how she’s been useless this entire time, even though she hasn’t been. It’s a buffer for the audience to say she finally learned the truth about the people around her and stopped being a fool, even though she actually learned that in season one and has been playing a part ever since.

They had this girl sit down with one of her many tormenters (The Hound saving her a couple of times does not erase that he literally walks around tormenting her) (his desire for her is extremely apparent, as is his constantly backing her into corners and purposefully scaring her, speaking very sexually violent towards her -- don’t even get me started on the ‘broken in’ line) and say that she needed to be abused, beaten, and raped to grow from the little bird she was into the woman she is today. As if something about that is an empowering statement. 

That line doesn’t exist to say, “LOok how stRonG shE iS now!!” It exists to say, “Sansa Stark was a bad and weak child, you’re right audience. She needed to be taught a lesson, she needed be broken, by bad men, to be worth anything. We’ve made her worth something, you’re welcome.”

ect. ect. ect.

The only time in the back half of this show that Sansa was allowed to do anything without having a line making sure to bookend that she’s weak and stupid, but somehow she’s managed to make it here bravo you did it gold star, is when she gets to kill Ramsay after the battle. And the only reason that there isn’t one there, is because they probably knew they could get away with not having to make sure to give a *wink wink* excuse as to why she could possibly be doing something worthwhile in the scene. Everyone hates Ramsay, they’re just going to be so thrilled that he’s dying and that’s she’s killing him with his own dogs, that’s she actually allowed to just exist within the scene without some meta line about how she was dumb for ever getting (being forced) into a situation where she was marrying him, to begin with. She was just allowed to take out her abuser, because they knew you were going to be cheering it on. 

They don’t have to soften the “blow” that it’s crappy useless Sansa doing it, because everyone can look past their hate of Sansa to cheer on their hate of Ramsay.

And gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!! It’s just one of the greatest crimes from Game of Thrones. That they stopped letting Sansa be an actual character with actual story and actual emotions. And they instead made her a sound board of lines for the audience to try and, like, justify her existence. “She’s bumbling through, guys. She’s so stupid, she made it here by dumb luck. You’re all right, you’re so smart. Unlike her. This dumbo.”

We’re so lucky that Sansa is obviously a pivotal character otherwise, based on how often they have her talk her own character down, they probably would’ve just killed her off. Thank god George must’ve been like, “Listen you idiots, here’s my list of ending things, she ends up Queen in the North, you can’t just off her.”

But, boy oh boy did they seemingly retaliate with the next best thing -- having her rip her own self apart every chance they can reasonably get.

[kjack89]

happiness

Sequel to ‘tis the damn season (Tumblr | AO3), gold rush (Tumblr | AO3), closure (Tumblr | AO3) and evermore (Tumblr | AO3).

ExR, modern AU. A happy ending, or, perhaps more accurately, a happy beginning.

It was an unseasonably chilly day in early June, but the sun shining brightly offset the chill enough by late afternoon that Enjolras left his red hoodie in his apartment before heading across the city.

Weather aside, he figured it would probably be overkill to show up at Grantaire’s gallery dressed like he had in high school. Even if it would have been a good bookend to closing the chapter on the worst mistake he had ever made.

He was fine the entire train ride downtown, but when he got within a block of the gallery, his stomach began doing somersaults and his palms started sweating. He paused outside of the unassuming brick building that held his future and took a deep breath.

A breath that caught in his throat as he saw Grantaire through the window.

Ten years and six months later and he was still stupid for this man.

Only now, he wasn’t too proud to admit it. And he wasn’t willing to waste any more time.

Enjolras pushed the door to the shop open, the bell tinkling above his head as he did, and Grantaire glanced up from where he was typing something on a laptop, his eyes widening when he saw Enjolras. 

But when he stood, his expression had evened out into something neutral. “I’d ask if there was something in particular that you were looking for, but I don’t think we have anything on display that matches your revolutionary-chic style,” he said mildly.

Enjolras laughed lightly. “Probably not,” he agreed. “Not to mention, I very highly doubt you have anything in stock that fits my budget.”

“So then what can I do for you?”

Enjolras hesitated. “Are you off work soon?”

If Grantaire was surprised, he didn’t show it. “I was technically off work twenty minutes ago, but I wanted to finish this up.”

He gestured vaguely towards his computer and Enjolras nodded. “Then when you’re done with that, can we go somewhere and talk?”

Grantaire arched an eyebrow. “You can’t talk here?” he asked. “I know you’re not a huge fan of art, but…”

Enjolras’s lips twitched. “I’m not that afraid of art,” he said, “but I also don’t want to put you in a situation that makes you feel uncomfortable, and I know having this conversation at your workplace could easily be uncomfortable.”

“Then why did you come here?” Grantaire asked, sounding more curious than anything.

Enjolras shrugged. “Well, for starters, I don’t have your home address.” He returned Grantaire’s raised eyebrow. “And even if I did, I don’t think showing up there unannounced would be likely to make you more comfortable.”

Grantaire half-smiled. “Touché. So how about this, then – as I reminded you the last time I saw you, my phone number hasn’t changed. Why didn’t you just call me if you wanted to talk?”

Enjolras’s smile faded, just slightly. “I thought this was a conversation better had in person.”

For a moment, it looked like Grantaire had something that he wanted to say to that, but whatever it was, he clearly decided against it. “Fine,” he said instead. “There’s a park a couple blocks from here—”

“I know it,” Enjolras said quickly. “Meet me by the fountain?”

Again, it looked like there was more Grantaire wanted to say, but again, he didn’t. “Sure,” he said. “See you in about…” He glanced up at the clock. “Twenty minutes. Thirty minutes max.”

Enjolras nodded. “Sounds good,” he said, hesitating for only a moment before turning to leave. He could feel Grantaire’s eyes on him as he left, and his stomach was turning even more than it had been before.

He didn’t know what he had expected after six months – hell, he didn’t know what he had any right to expect. It wasn’t like he had expected some big, cinematic reunion, especially not after how the last time they saw each other had gone. And maybe the fact that Grantaire hadn’t immediately ordered him to leave was as good a sign as he was going to get.

And maybe he was reading way too far into a two minute long conversation.

In a desperate attempt to calm his nerves, or perhaps more accurately, to give him something to do besides obsess for the next twenty minutes, he ducked into a coffeeshop to grab two coffees, bringing them to the park with him.

All in all, he wasted maybe five minutes, which left him with fifteen minutes to panic.

That was probably a little overdramatic, even for him, but he’d been building this up for so long that he couldn’t help but feel like he had fumbled it already. Or maybe that’s just what happened when you got this close to getting everything you ever wanted.

He exhaled deeply and focused on the fountain, watching the way the water caught the late afternoon sun, and tried to calm his pounding heart. His therapist would tell him that he needed to refocus on why he was here, and why he was actually nervous. He wasn’t nervous that he was going to screw this up, in large part there was no way he could screw up worse than he had in December.

He wasn’t even that nervous because Grantaire might again rebuff him, though he certainly wouldn’t relish the feeling.

No, he was nervous because for the first time, he wanted to be as open and honest with Grantaire as Grantaire had always tried to be with him. And Enjolras wasn’t historically in a position of making himself vulnerable like that, or vulnerable at all, if he was being completely honest..

But he had to be. Between therapy, Combeferre, and just plain realizing what an asshat he’d been for the past decade, he had realized he had no other choice.

And he was finally ready to accept whatever came of that.

With his stomach finally back where it belonged and his heart returning to its regular speed, Enjolras took another deep breath and closed his eyes, tilting his head back and enjoying the feel of the sun against his face. He stayed like that for a long moment, until— 

“Can you really blame me for calling you Apollo when you look like that?”

Grantaire sounded more amused than he had in the gallery, and Enjolras’s eyes snapped open. “Yes,” he said, giving Grantaire a tentative smile as he sat up. “Here, I got you a coffee.”

Grantaire accepted the outstretched cup but didn’t take a sip. “You don’t know what kind of coffee I drink these days.”

Enjolras shrugged. “No, but I figured what you used to like in high school would probably be acceptable,” he said, before adding, in his best Grantaire impression, “Tall, dark and strong. Blacker than night and sweeter than sin.”

“I have never once in my life uttered the phrase ‘sweeter than sin’,” Grantaire said with a laugh.

“Well, you have now,” Enjolras said, just a little smugly, watching as Grantaire took a sip. “So how’d I do?”

“You’re just lucky that I’m predictable,” Grantaire said, finally sitting down next to Enjolras on the bench. They sat in comfortable silence for a long moment, both men drinking their coffee, before Grantaire turned to look expectantly at Enjolras. “So,” he said pointedly.

“So,” Enjolras repeated, looking at him closely.

Grantaire arched an eyebrow. “You wanted to talk, so...talk.”

“I quit my job.”

Enjolras hadn’t meant to blurt it like that, but Grantaire didn’t look surprised. “Ok,” he said, taking another sip of coffee. “And?”

“And I called Combeferre,” Enjolras said. “And started therapy.”

Grantaire’s brow furrowed. “You say that like you hadn’t spoken to Combeferre in a while,” he said, ignoring the therapy part, at least for the moment.

Enjolras shook his head. “I hadn’t.”

“Your best friend from college?” Grantaire said skeptically.

Enjolras could feel himself flush, just a little, and he sighed as he glanced away from him. “What can I say, you weren’t the only one I lost touch with. I clearly made some mistakes over the years.”

“You think?”

Grantaire said it mildly, and Enjolras barked a laugh. “Remind me to never introduce the two of you,” he said. “I don’t think I would survive it.” Grantaire suddenly looked very occupied with his coffee cup and Enjolras frowned. “Hold on…” he said slowly, before realization hit. “You’ve met Combeferre? How?!”

Grantaire took too big a sip of coffee and choked on it. “Blind date gone spectacularly wrong,” he rasped when he had recovered enough to speak.

“Seriously?”

Grantaire nodded. “Seriously.”

Enjolras hesitated for a moment. “When you say spectacularly wrong…”

“We discovered we had exactly one interest in common.” Enjolras frowned, confused, and Grantaire nudged him gently. “You, you idiot.”

Enjolras shook his head. “He never said,” he told Grantaire, feeling – and sounding – a little put-out by that. “You can bet I’m bringing it up the next time I see him.”

Grantaire rolled his eyes. “I’m sure he didn’t think it was worth mentioning,” he said, a little impatiently. “But that’s enough about that. We’re here to talk about you.”

Enjolras hesitated. “Actually, I wanted to talk about you.” Grantaire looked surprised, at least until Enjolras added, “I just have one thing to say first.”

A sharp smile curved across Grantaire’s face. “One? That would be a miracle.”

Enjolras sighed. “Ok, so more like one series of interrelated things to say.”

Grantaire smirked. “And that sounds more like it.”

Enjolras glared at him. “Is there any chance that you’re going to make this easy on me?” Grantaire mimed zipping his lips and Enjolras rolled his eyes, but he was smiling as well, warmth filling his chest. This was what he had missed, how easy this was – how easy it had always been. Only now, it was easy because they were on the same footing. And he had never before realized how amazing that would feel.

So he took a deep breath, and he told Grantaire, “Like I said, I quit my job. I started therapy. I’m putting in the work. And I wasn’t sure that I was ready, or that I was where you needed me to be for this conversation. I know that I can’t put this on you, and I don’t want to.”

Something pained flitted across Grantaire’s expression. “Enjolras—” he started, but Enjolras shook his head.

“Please,” he said quietly. “I just need to say this.”

Grantaire hesitated before nodding, his eyes not leaving Enjolras’s face. “I’m sorry,” Enjolras said, hoping that the starkness of the words underlined their sincerity. “For a lot of things, for how I treated you, and, probably even worse, for not realizing that I was treating you that way. I know that doesn’t change anything, but I needed to say it.”

He shifted, his knee knocking against Grantaire’s, and only realizing then how close they were sitting. “I’m still figuring a lot of things out,” he said. “You’ve had a decade of therapy, so I’m still playing catch up. And I know that I’m not better. I’m not whole. Not yet.” Enjolras took a deep breath. “The truth is, I lost a part of me when I broke up with you all those years ago, when I first traded something good for what I thought would be better. And I kept losing pieces of myself along the way until I became someone I didn’t even recognize. And I spent a lot of time these past few months trying to find these pieces and trying to get back to where we started. But I finally realized, I can never go back. I’ve lost too much. So I have to rebuild with what I’ve got, and fill in the rest of the missing with something new. And...I want you to be a part of that something new.”

“Enj…” Grantaire whispered, but Enjolras didn’t let him interrupt that time either.

“You said that there was a part of you that would always love me. And if I never truly loved you back then, that doesn’t change the fact that there’s a part of me that will always love at the very least the idea of you, the idea of what we had and the possibility of what we could be.” Enjolras’s throat felt tight. “I know that that’s not a lot to offer.” He huffed a laugh, and ran a hand across his face. “Truth be told, I don’t have a lot to offer these days on any level. Thankfully, I saved a lot of money when I was doing the work I hated, and that’ll hopefully be enough to keep me afloat while I do the work I want to do, but it’s nothing glamorous.”

“I never wanted glamor,” Grantaire said quietly. “I just wanted you.”

Enjolras ducked his head, swallowing hard, before he looked back at Grantaire. “Well, thankfully, that’s all I have to offer: Me, and the fact that I want to try, and the chance that this could actually be something real.”

Grantaire’s expression was oddly closed as he fiddled with the lid of his coffee cup, staring at the fountain. Enjolras didn’t try to interrupt at first, knowing that at the very least, he owed Grantaire time to think about it. But after a few minutes had passed, he couldn’t help himself, clearing his throat before asking quietly, “What are you thinking?”

Grantaire shook his head. “I’m thinking... honestly, I’m thinking that this doesn’t seem real.”

Enjolras frowned slightly. “What do you mean?”

Grantaire gave him a smile that was a little crooked and a little sad. “I mean, you’re sitting here, and you’re saying everything I’ve ever wanted to hear you say, and…” He trailed off, shaking his head again. “I don’t know, it’s like...well, frankly, like it’s too good to be true. Like it’s a dream.”

Enjolras nodded slowly. “I know what you mean,” he murmured, his voice pitched low, his head tilting towards Grantaire. “It does seem like it could be a dream.”

“Exactly,” Grantaire said a little hoarsely, his eyes darting down to Enjolras’s lips and back up again, even as the space between them disappeared. “And if it’s a dream, that means I have to wake up at some point.”

“Mmm.” Enjolras hummed in agreement, his lips now mere inches from Grantaire’s. “That means there’s only one thing to do.”

“What—?” Grantaire started, before letting out a yelp and jerking back as Enjolras pinched his arm. “What the fuck was that?!”

“Proof that you’re not dreaming.”

Grantaire scowled and rubbed his arm, even as a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “Asshole,” he said, but without any real heat. “Was that really necessary?”

Enjolras looked at him evenly. “You tell me.“

All traces of Grantaire’s smile disappeared. “I wish it wasn’t,” he said. “But even with that dash of reality, I still don’t know if I believe it. I mean, people don’t just go back to their high school boyfriend a decade down the line.”

“Maybe not,” Enjolras acknowledged. “But I’m not your high school boyfriend anymore. Literally and in the figurative sense that I’m not that person anymore. And you’re not either.” He took a breath. “And if you don’t still feel it, if you don’t want to try, that’s fine. Say the word and that’s the end of it, I swear.” He squared his shoulders. “But if your only hesitation is that you don’t think this is real, then short of pinching you again, the only thing you can do is believe in me. In this, in us.”

Grantaire went very still for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then he nodded. “Ok,” he said, closing the space between them to kiss Enjolras for real this time.

The move was such a surprise that Enjolras jerked back without meaning to. “What, just like that?” he asked blankly. “Seriously?”

Grantaire shrugged, his hand not moving from where he had rested it against Enjolras’s cheek like he had so many time before. “I told you back in December, I still believe in you.” He brushed his thumb lightly against Enjolras’s cheekbone. “Besides, in case I need to remind you—”

“I know, I know, you’re wild,” Enjolras grumbled. He looked at Grantaire, unable to stop his smile. “You really mean it?”

“I mean thatI can’t make any promises, because it’s been a long ten years for both of us,” Grantaire said evenly. “But I want to try.”

That was all Enjolras needed to hear.

This time, when his lips found Grantaire’s, neither man pulled away. 

Enjolras didn’t remember it ever feeling like this, like he and Grantaire slotted together perfectly, and part of him longed to trace his fingers down Grantaire’s chest, to turn the kiss hot and heady until they would both be breathless, until one would suggest taking this to somewhere more private.

But there would be time for that later.

They had all the time in the world.

And there was still one thing Enjolras had to say.

He kissed Grantaire once more and pulled back, reaching down to take Grantaire’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “Now, for probably the first time since this all started…” Enjolras paused, mostly for dramatic effect, but also to admire the way the corners of Grantaire’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. The years may have been long, and he would spend a lot of time learning everything he could about what life for Grantaire had been like without him, about every moment that he could see reflected in every crease on Grantaire’s face, but he didn’t regret them. Not when it had brought them here, together, and would give them years together to come, at least if he had anything to say about it. “Enough about me. I want to hear about you.”

Grantaire’s smile widened. “What do you want to know?” he asked easily, with none of the hesitation he’d had six months prior.

Enjolras didn’t hesitate. “Everything.”

[mattzerella-sticks]

Thoughts on "Carry On" after I've mulled it over:

Now that I've had time to sit on it, I can be a little more precise on my thoughts of this finale:

- Dean's 'ending': Taken out by a rusty nail... I hate it. Then I heard some opinions - without Chuck there were no magic fixes, and this was bound to happen if they continued hunting because of that. It was a human, ordinary, accidental death meaning the Winchesters are just ordinary. Still, being taken out by a nail or rebarb or whatever wasn't a satisfying death for Dean Winchester. Added to the fact he most certainly wanted to live (Miracle, job application, etc.) And he didn't want to hunt anymore either! He wasn't looking for hunts (like Sam was). They stumbled onto that hunt by accident.

From a writer's point of view, I can say now it makes sense with the plot of the episode (only). Dean's death was a catalyst - to give Sam 'freedom' and to show us, the audience, what Heaven was like now that Jack is God. His own sort of 'freedom', I guess.

Unfortunately the plot of the episode still sucked. Just because it makes sense 'story wise' (and I say that very loosely because Dean didn't even get his loose ends tied up nicely). A death during a hunt was something Dean figured would happen in his youth, and he didn't care because he practically was a ghost without many physical attachments. Now he has so many they decide to take him away and for what purpose? It is the last episode. A series finale should only hurt in saying goodbye to the characters, but not like this.

And a goodbye like this, for a character who has had suicidal tendencies and from the looks of it was moving past that, who never really thought about his wants until this moment, and who was on the cusp of being textually confirmed queer (which would have been monumental just saying), it felt like we as fans were stabbed by the rebarb. Which goes to show how much we love the character, one thing. And I think that's why they knew it would hurt. However, they were so wrapped up in this 'shock' they didn't think about any of the consequences listed above as to why this would hurt not only us but their legacy. They figured it'd be a bookend, only for a book whose story ended a decade ago.

- Cas: A one-sentence reference sucks. That's just it.

Fanfiction was mostly built around Cas, too, and I had a feeling they wouldn't show his rescue because leaving that to us would be a good gift. "Here, Cas is alive and human but we won't tell you how - our last fanfiction gap". But Cas's absence wasn't a fanfiction gap, it's a canyon. So much of this episode doesn't make sense without Cas. And, honestly, a good chunk of outrage could have been avoided if Misha was allowed to film (or, if rumors were true, if they left his scenes in). Like it's been proven the majority of fans love Cas, and Jensen and Jared love Misha, so not having him in the finale gives credence to, that the cast and crew might love Misha, TPTB certainly didn't. And doesn't that tarnish your legacy, that you have a man dedicate 12 years of his life to your show and this is how you repaid him? Even if they decided to 'no homo' Cas's declaration (which i doubt they would have because those optics are much worse) at least show it.

Which leads to why he wasn't included in the finale. If he was there, they'd have to have him and Dean talk. About that night, when Cas told Dean he loves him. And if they did, and had there be a reciprocal confession, I bet things on Tumblr would have felt a little different. An equal exchange instead of plain highway robbery.. Yes we would all still want Dean and Cas to live long, human lives, but at least Dean and Cas's emotional arcs were resolved by the SHOW WRITERS, whose job it is to do so. Not ours! But they never understood how to give Castiel good things. Clearly, they know how to make Castiel give good things (like creating Dean's perfect Heaven for him) but not receive them in kind (reciprocated love from Dean). By not having this, it plays exactly into the bury your gays trope we were all afraid of, even if Cas is back. Because he, a queer character, is still living his life for a character he believes doesn't love him back - even if Cas 'doesn't need to know if that's true'. The audience does, and I'm sure Misha did as well.

The writers set up such an easy win but what this finale did was put every character back to season one, and given Misha didn't show up until season 4, makes sense why he wasn't in this episode.

- Sam's life after Dean: Sam liked being a hunter. We had how many countless episodes show that? He enjoyed saving people, research, being a leader - he was good at it. Hell, they even made it a point to have him find someone in the life who understood what it was like to hunt and wrote a beautiful relationship that also gave disability rep.

Only they never followed through.

Like, with Dean, so much of this lead up was then tossed out the window by Sam starting a family, which he never had any indication he wanted to do in these later seasons. Since season 8, really. What we got was that he liked to hunt, he was good at it. He could have restarted the Men of Letters, America chapter, and made the hunters even more connected than before!

Not saying he didn't do that, but knowing how Sam was raised I doubt he would let himself hunt with a kid. So, by showing him marry and have Dean Jr., it's a non-textual confirmation he retired. Which, like with Dean's ending, didn't make sense with what he wanted. It felt like a "might as well" since Dean wasn't there any longer. Like, whats the point of doing something I love now that I don't have my brother with me?

Instead of leaving the Bunker he should have transformed it into a bustling center of activity so he wasn't alone. Extend the Winchester family further and become the hunters' patriarch. Eileen being the matriarch.

Which, circling back, Eileen should have had textual confirmation, too. They showed a brunette woman standing far back, and I get if the actress couldn't be there to film why they would do that. But why not show pictures of him and Eileen if they did marry? I mean, there's a giant picture of Sam with Dean, Mary, and John I DON'T remember them ever having. Why he would blow that up after having two previous episodes talk about how much of a bad father he is...

Sam's ending falls in the same vein as Dean's in that it's unsatisfactory and doesn't fit the character anymore. Not saying Sam didn't want this in the past, but we all saw him change. Hunting was in his blood, and he was fantastic at it. It used to be a way for him to hang with Dean but it would have also been good to see him carry on the legacy in Dean's honor. A better way then by naming his son Dean.

Which strikes another nail on the head. We have Dean, a subtextually queer/textually ambiguous sexuality character, die, and because of this Sam can go on and live the 'apple pie life'? Cas's confession scene wasn't homophobic, but damned if Sam didn't spend the thirty years after Dean's death yelling 'Straight Pride'.

Textually, giving characters a family is a common trope in these sort of epilogues. Harry Potter, Hunger Games, etc. A way to show they've moved on from trauma and are trying to be happy (albeit in a very antiquated way). But at least it fit with those characters and stories. This was Sam trying to be a person who he wasn't anymore, who clearly would rather be on the road hunting (given that ugly wig scene in the garage with Dean's Impala). Actually, worse, it felt like Sam was trying to live a life Dean always wanted. Which shows that even if he's alive Sam isn't happy with what his life was, he was content. He was waiting for death.

- Dean's time in Heaven: Like I said previously about Dean and his 'death', it makes sense to have Dean die early if the goal was to show how Heaven had been changed. Which hurts worse because that again reinforces how Dean's storyline truly is left unresolved for plot development.

And, honestly, they should have cut this entire sequence if they weren't gonna have the cameos. They should have changed the script so that Dean didn't die, because there was no emotional pay-off of Dean going to heaven. We're told it's freedom, however it's more like a waiting room. For Dean, driving endlessly until Sam dies. And for us, being told we can't start writing until Sam gets there and we finish his montage.

Like, is it beautiful that Jack and Cas remade heaven so Dean would be happy? Yes. Did I need to know this until like maybe the last few minutes? No. Dean could have lived a long life, with Cas/without Cas, and then die first and be taken to Heaven. And then after Bobby gives him the rundown, about how time works differently here, we get the Sam end of life and see him pop up too. And when Sam asks what happened to Heaven, Dean could have clapped him on the back and told him he'd explain in the car and they drive away knowing they lived a good life, and have eternity of peace.

Because having Heaven be an open sandbox, for us, to let characters roam free and see those they love without them being memories - beautiful and exactly how Heaven should be. It definitely is something we as writers would have enjoyed if we didn't get it how we did.

Because it hadn't felt like Dean nor Sam deserved the deaths they got. Making Heaven, ultimate freedom, seem such a dangerous idea. That the only true peace is in death (Dean) and life is spent waiting for death so you can be reunited (Sam). What about any of that makes it seem like any of what Sam and Dean did was worth it? Was good? At least on Earth. Sure, without them (and Cas and Jack) Heaven wouldn't be the way it was. But that doesn't seem like a good reward for them. Their reward should have been living long lives (both of them) and them buttoning it with those five to seven minutes of how Heaven changed (more if they decided to leave Cas as an angel despite that being, again, zero character growth and not aligning with how the story was unfolding)

And after a painful, undeserved death, we get Dean in Heaven but still not happy? It was clear Dean was still waiting to let himself enjoy seeing all his family, his friends, Cas, because Sam wasn't there. Which shows he hadn't broken the sacrificial cycle because he's not putting himself first! "Oh but he has eternity to do it!" Yes, but he shouldn't have had to wait still. His whole life has been spent waiting and he gets killed just before he gets his due, and we never see him particularly 'enjoy' his reward, which is too tragic for a series finale. "He could have done more than drive, we don't know!" Yes, but if they're not showing it then why should I read into it? This finale isn't deep. "But covid-" Yeah, I get that. They should have changed the script because without those cameos Dean's time in Heaven was more than pointless and this whole finale was just an exercise in how to hate your main characters.

What this boils down to is that we, as fans, were told that this was for us, except we already knew Heaven was ours because Heaven was supposed to be the implied. Heaven is whatever we make of it. We didn't need to be told this through the show. Having this be the goal of this episode, of the finale - which sums up the goal of the entire series, really - be totally focused on the life we get after death instead of doing the most to make life on Earth paradise for you, was rotten. And Sam's 'happily ever after' was cheapened because of Dean's death.

- Family Don't End in Blood?: Taking into account all of the above, the show has failed the core message of what we as a fandom loved. Family don't end in blood.

Again, I get that covid stole any chance of reunions in Heaven, but it also stole so many others. Like Sam wouldn't have called Garth, Jody, Donna, the girls and Eileen, to have them here for Dean's funeral? Sam wouldn't have burned Dean alone! We know there was some time that passed since the hunt and Dean's funeral by the dog being there, but it should have been more people. Which, again, they should have axed it from the story if they couldn't get them because, like these side characters have done from the beginning, they change the context of the show! Sam's loneliness would have hit harder if it was a room full of people all telling stories about Dean to then just him, alone, in the Bunker trying to move on.

The writers thought we didn't need all these cameos, but we did because - as we keep repeating - while the show, at its heart, is Sam and Dean, there were so many more people who gave their characters depth and allowed for this show to continue. It should have been a celebration of who the boys became and how it was through these bonds they were able to overcome so much.

Which, if redone in that context, Dean's speech to Sam could have been so much better. More poignant and hopeful instead of sad. I mean, I could barely focus on what was being said because I was in too much shock of what was being done to Dean. If they had a similar speech, given with Dean and Sam parting ways to start new lives. Dean reminding Sam he's done so much good, that he's proud of his brother and knows he can do so much even without him, the emotional beat would have still hit! Probably even better than with his death. Because my takeaway from Dean's death isn't "Dean is proud of Sam" it's "Dean died stupidly".

Going to show that this entire script was a series of choices that were all the worst possible outcome, stitched together and handed in. It didn't feel congruent to the story and, instead, a bunch of items checked off of a list the writers were given. It didn't feel like the culmination of the series like we were promised, instead a 'what if the show skipped fourteen years after season 2, John's dead, Mom's killer dead, and no demon deal'. It felt like (even if it wasn't intended) the writers telling us "don't expect people to change or that happy ending exist in life" which, given current climates and attitudes, is dangerous.

Overall:

They were trying to satisfy an audience built around fandom and fanworks, they wanted to leave so much "up to interpretation" so we can continue crafting our narratives through this open sandbox. What they failed to consider is that we don't care where the brothers, or any of the characters, physically are in this show, we care more about the characters themselves and their emotional goals. That's why we write fanfiction. That's why there's a lot of canon divergence. We thank them for the world and play around in it. So, by giving Sam and Dean these 'half-lives' on screen, letting loose threads hang so we, as an audience, can fill in the blanks (Dean and Cas's heaven reunion, who Sam married, what Dean did while driving for fifty years, etc.) was a poor and lazy decision because we are tired of having to do your job! Supernatural is a collaborative effort yes, but they misunderstood the assignment. We still need textual goalposts, like seeing Cas or Eileen. We needed them to finish what they were saying, so we could then take over and continue the story.

A series finale should feel poignant but the only really emotional moment was Dean's death (not for good reasons), and the rest was filler. Your series finale should not feel like filler. It felt rushed. It felt sloppy and - because of not including a certain character - plain rude. Just... it didn't work. The short of it is that the finale, as a whole, didn't work. It didn't wrap the show up in its entirety like we were promised it would. And if they do revive this show for a mini-series or movie, they best forget what happened in episode 20.