“Less “affection flipped into hatred” and more “backlash out of worry that she [Morgan] hates him.”
“As the chief of the Fang Clan, he hates to see how Barghest gets more attention than him.”
“He’s a kind and tolerant pupper in his interactions with other Fae.”
“All his actions are dictated by a desire to be loved. After deluding himself into thinking Morgan wouldn’t love him anymore, he was tricked by Aurora’s sham love.”
“What made it feel like he lost Morgan’s love was her lack of praise. He got a lot of praise during the period of constant war including the Moss campaigns and the caterpillar slaying, but there was no war in the past 100 years, meaning he got nothing. The Faerie Knights hogged all the spotlights.”
“He knows very well how much Morgan hates typical fae behaviour, and for that reason he defies his own nature and skillfully performs typical human behaviour. That’s why he’s so annoying over proper manners.”
“The fae’s main criticism of him is that the Faerie Knights are stronger and that he became all bark and no bite , but Morgan and Oberon know that Woodwose is actually the strongest individual in Britain.”
[points] Dog. What a Dog. What a Good Dog. Yeah...
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one thing i think people get wrong about Martyn in the life series is he really isn’t loyal
like yeah, we all know him as the Hand, following the Red King as far as their shared grave, but that is… truly the outlier and not the norm with him
i mean, let’s take a brief look at other seasons. i can’t speak to Secret Life, as it came out when i was incredibly busy and i haven’t yet had time to watch it, but what about the others?
he won Limited Life because he’s a chronic traitor! he betrayed Scott, his ally for the whole season, so that he could win, and said he’d been planning it / wanting to do it the whole session. spent a whole season protecting and helping Scott, and laughed in his face to betray as soon as he saw a shot to do so
Double Life was a whole mess of Martyn and weird loyalties. just one example: he spent all of the first session hanging out with Pearl in favor of even looking for either of their soulmates, with no regard for how he’d been putting his soulmate in danger. when their soulmates dumped them due to being ignored all session and stormed off, he dumped Pearl just because. one session in and he’s betrayed both his soulmate and his day one alliance!
Last Life he teamed with the Southlanders and then made the Shadow Alliance in secret, so he was on two teams and never truly committed to either. he tried to kill Grian basically immediately when he got boogeyman, for example, and in the final fight he tried to lure Ren to himself by offering to team and then tried to blow Ren up
of course, i’m simplifying and ignoring a lot. he doesn’t earn the loyal reputation for nothing. he does a lot of things to help his teammates, like giving a life to Ren in Last Life, trying all season to win Cleo over for all of Double Life, or working to protect Scott for all of Limited Life. it’s not like Martyn doesn’t play the part of a loyal friend well, but, well.
the thing about Martyn is that he’s selfish. he’s basically always going to prioritize his own survival over anything else. he’s never going to roll over and die, especially not for another person. he’s good at looking loyal, because having allies will help you survive, and he knows making outright enemies is a bad idea. he knows he can’t make it obvious he’s a traitor, because then he’ll certainly be killed. but, when it comes down to the wire, he will generally bail at the last minute to save his own skin rather than protecting the people around him. when his loyalty is tested, nine times out of ten, he will not only fail, but do so completely without remorse
it doesnt take a lot to become Martyn’s ally, and once you’ve got a foot in the door, he will take his allegiances seriously (at least, to a point). but it takes effort to really earn Martyn’s trust. and, even when it looks like you have, there’s no guarantee he won’t yank the rug out from under you if he decides having you alive is more detrimental to his survival than seeing you dead
and yes, you can especially see all of this in Third Life. Martyn was absolutely not instantly ride or die for Ren—for a lot of the earlier episodes, he won’t say he’s on Ren’s team or that he lives at Ren’s base, and often tells other players he’s simply Ren’s employee rather than teammate and that he’s wandering or homeless. he trusts Ren so little due to Ren’s inability to keep a secret or stand up for himself that even Ren acknowledges in the third session that Martyn is probably going to leave him and find someone else. Martyn’s loyalty had to be earned, and it very nearly wasn’t. if Ren had taken a session more to grow a spine, Martyn probably would have left
but Ren became an ally that Martyn could rely on, who could stand up for himself and keep secrets. it became more beneficial to Martyn’s survival to have Ren around, so he stayed with Ren for the rest of the season, and committed hard to their kingdom. Ren earns Martyn’s trust by becoming a more dependable ally, and because of that, Ren earns Martyn’s loyalty…. probably
(half related, bc i want it in the post and i don’t know where to put it: after the execution, two sessions after Ren officially earns Martyn’s loyalty, Ren admits to being genuinely convinced Martyn was going to take him out of the series as soon as Ren gave him the chance!)
because yes, even here, even after Ren earns his trust and Ren trusts Martyn to execute him and they become King and Hand, Martyn was okay with killing Ren to save himself. Martyn has said he was going to betray Ren in the final session of Third Life. his entire plan was that when he and Ren hit the final 5, he was going to kill Ren. end Red Winter, usher in Red Spring. even the most loyal version of Martyn was a traitor!
now, you can decide for yourself if you believe he could have actually gone through with this—he and Ren were 6th and 7th out of the game, after all. maybe he wouldn’t have been able to steel himself. maybe his loyalty would have, for once, been too strong to kill Ren.
but it’s very possible that even the most loyal version of Martyn—the version of Martyn who has created this “loyal” image of Martyn in fanon—was only loyal because he died too soon to show his true colors
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Bingqiu childhood friends Do Not Separate AU. Blah blah transmigrator SY uses his adult knowledge to squeeze a few more years out of LBH's mom and she only passes away right before they go off to CQM.
SY doesn't have a system, but SQH still does, not that it matters at first. SY wants to get himself and lbh on the animals and demonic creatures peak, but LQG still notices LBH and still gets him snatched by SQQ, only in an attempt to mollify LQG (and since sqq wouldn't have taken him anyway) yqy tells LQG he can take SY.
Waifish, wispy, somehow pale SY.
LQG is Not Impressed and isn't one to be socially pressured into accepting anything, much less s personal disciple, but when teeny SY decides he's going to fight yqy for separating him from the protagonist, well ... That changes the optics a bit.
Frustratingly, training the fairy-like SY takes LQG exactly why SQQ uses such "dirty tricks". Not to mention he's suddenly seeing some similarities between his feral street child and disciple era SQQ and he's not liking the pieces he's putting together.
When he sees sy have a misunderstanding with another disciple and refuse (out of spite?) to correct things, he corners SQH about "was sqq trying to kill me?"
("are YOU trying to kill ME?"
"answer the question")
LBH is, despite everything, somehow flourishing under SQQ. (SY using cheats and LBH desperately believing that if he's perfect he'll get more time with yuan-ge)
So LQG extremely grudgingly allows play dates between the two to keep sy from biting as many people (as many is not none)
SQQ allows it bc LQG is acting bizarrely civil and he suspects something is up.
SQH is sweating bullets because his system tells him Binghe must go in the Abyss Or Else and he's not sure if SY is a transmigrator or some random kid that imprinted on the protagonist and didn't die thanks to his own interference
Somehow
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I think often about how in ACOTAR Book 1, Lucien Vanserra was ready to lay down his life for this human girl, Feyre Archeron. Again and again, he stuck his neck out there for her Under the Mountain and throughout the trials. While I do think it is a reflection of his loyalty to friends, his courage against the evil of Amarantha, and his honor for doing what is right…
I also think it was because of Tamlin. Because Lucien didn’t want the one friend who took him in after his darkest day—who helped save him from his family’s wrath and gave him a Court and a home—to watch the girl he loved be butchered cruelly because of who she was in relation to those in power. He didn’t want Tamlin to experience what he did with Jesminda.
The lesser fae and the mortal girl. Everything he did was for them.
For his friend with the stone heart to not break, just as his once did.
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