#like I’ve been eating my words this whole season on certain plot points

[nobie]

I’ve been in denial over techs death for a year. I have no idea what im gonna do if it’s actually real.

[rawmeanderson]

pretty please ― saturday.

ft. Kevin Hayes plot: with Kevin, Brady, and Jimmy all gone from New York and the new season about to start, everyone gets together for a long weekend. warnings: swearing, drinking, body issues, soft Nolan Patrick content. there’s quite a bit of smut in this tbh. word count: 8.6k many thanks to @danglesnipecelly​ for proof reading and putting up with my ridiculous typos 

THURSDAY / FRIDAY You didn’t sleep well that night, tossing and turning and never feeling like you actually got beyond dozing. Guilt was eating at you, even as you slept, and at one point, you opened your eyes and saw the first bits of daylight peaking through the window. There was a certain numbness to you, as when you rolled over, trying to get back to sleep, you realized you were parched.

Sitting up, you stretched for a moment before getting out of bed. You felt like running. Not like, physically running, but running away from the cabin, from the conversation you were going to avoid for as long as you could. When you checked your phone, you saw that it was barely 7:00am, and you yawned, forcing yourself out of bed anyway. A walk might do you some good, let you wear off some of this anxious energy so you could get more sleep later.

You changed out of your pjs and into a pair of jean shorts and a clean shirt, stuffing your feet into your sandals as you went across the hall to brush your teeth. Your hair was an absolute mess, but you just tied it up in a bun, deciding to deal with it later. 

To say you tiptoed past Kevin’s door on the way to the living room was an understatement. You wondered if he was awake, or if he’d woken up at all in the night and realized you’d left. Your palm itched as your eyes settled on the doorknob, shoving down the urge to go inside and slip into bed with him, but you kept moving. 

The living room and kitchen were empty when you got there, and the cabin seemed peaceful despite the way your brain was running wild. You got yourself a glass of water, leaning back against the cabinet as you sipped at it. Really, you were poised to sprint out the door if you heard any sign of Kevin, your shoulders tense as your heart thundered in your chest. Coffee was already brewing, so someone had to be up already. 

You heard voices a moment later, the sound of footsteps, and just as your fight or flight instincts had you ready to bolt, you realized that it was Nolan and the friend of Jimmy’s whose name you never remembered coming out of the garage. They had fishing poles in their hand, among other things, and Nolan nodded to you in acknowledgement. 

“Morning,” you said, refilling your glass of water as Nolan put down the things in his hands to reach for a mug from the cabinet. He kind of grumbled in response, and you didn’t take it personally as he filled the mug with coffee. “Are you guys going fishing? Like, off the boat?”

“Yeah, that’s the plan,” no name responded, nodding as he got a cup of coffee for himself. 

“Can I come?” you asked before you really thought about it. “I mean, I won’t fish, I’ll just sit there and read. I’ll even keep my mouth shut so I don’t scare away the fish or whatever.” What better way to avoid the problem you created than by sitting in the middle of the lake for a few hours. 

The two guys looked at each other and shrugged. “Yeah, that’s fine, I guess. We’ll be out there for a few hours,” Nolan said, sipping at his coffee as he shrugged again. “We’re leaving in a few.”

You nodded, finishing your glass of water. “Alright, cool,” you responded, deciding that the awkwardness of a silent fishing trip with two people you barely knew was better than the chance of running into Kevin in the next few hours. “I’m gonna grab some stuff from my room, I’ll meet you guys down at the water.”

When you ran to grab your sunglasses and your iPad from your room, the rational whisper in the back of your mind told you this was a dumb idea, that you needed to put on your big girl panties and deal with it. You were too panicked to listen to yourself though, and you tiptoed past Kevin’s door again on your way out of the cabin. Making your way down to the dock, you texted Sophie to tell her you were going out on the boat, and that Nolan and what’s his name were waiting for you.

No one said much as you settled yourself at the opposite end of the boat from them, putting your feet up as the boat pulled away from the dock. The sky was overcast, but you wore your sunglasses anyway, looking out at the water with a sigh. You opened your book on your iPad, but never really got around to reading. The guys decided on a fishing spot, and the boat came to a stop. 

Your mind was cycling, thinking about what needed done at your apartment in the next few weeks ahead of Sophie moving out, thinking about the meeting you had to be in on Tuesday morning, thinking about almost anything besides the 6’5” man you’d slipped out on the night before. As soon as your mind even started to drift to him, you corrected course by thinking about something boring and menial. 

After an hour on the water, you started to realize why people might enjoy fishing. None of you had said a word since leaving the dock, and if your mind wasn’t an anxiety ridden frenzy right now, you’d probably find being on the boat rather peaceful. Nolan had moved seats, sitting closer to your end of the boat as he cast his line into the water. 

You finally did your best to start reading, but after reading the same page four times and still remembering none of it, you promptly gave up. Glancing at your phone, you remembered that your service was hit or miss on the water, and maybe that was a good thing. Feeling a little fidgety, you turned in your seat, leaning against the railing to look out at the water again. All you had to do was withstand another 32 hours or so of avoiding Kevin, then you and Sophie would be on your way home and you could go back to pretending he didn’t exist.

It was the sound of Nolan’s voice after a while that zapped you back to the present. When you looked at him, he was already watching you and you blinked. 

“I’m sorry, were you talking to me?” you asked, eyebrows raised. You could feel your cheeks warm as you straightened up in your seat. 

“Uh, yeah. I asked if you were good, considering you’ve been staring at the same spot of nothing for close to 45 minutes,” he responded, actually chuckling a little bit. You didn’t want to believe you’d been staring off into space for that long, but you checked your phone and it had actually been longer.

“Oh,” you said, not sure what to say. Your response surely told him everything he needed to know, so you didn’t bother trying to act like you were having an awesome morning. “I’ll be okay.”

Nolan nodded, eyes moving back to watch the fishing line. You expected that to be the end of it, and you were already turning your head back to look out at the water again when he spoke. “Is this about Kevin?”

You froze, shoulders tense as you took a deep breath. Looking at him again, you were surprised by how direct he was about it. You hardly knew him, so you weren’t sure how much of your soul you were willing to bare to him in the middle of a lake.

“Kind of,” you said finally, looking down at your lap and picking a piece of invisible fuzz off your shorts. You were being truthful. Kevin was the immediate issue, but of course, it all stemmed back to the fact that you were about to be the last of the group left in New York.

Nolan was quiet, chewing on the inside of his cheek like he was trying to figure out what to do next. After a moment’s thought, he sighed, reeling in his fishing line before getting to his feet and moving closer to where you were sitting. That surprised you more than the fact that he was speaking to you to begin with, and you straightened up in your seat when you noticed that his brow was creased still.

“So, Kev’s probably gonna kill me for telling you all of this, but I don’t see much point in you both being miserable for the rest of the trip because you’re both too afraid to talk about your feelings,” he started, looking at you pointedly enough that you felt like a kid getting a talking to from their teacher. When you didn’t say anything to stop him, he continued.

“I met you two days ago, but I’ve known about you since my third conversation with Kevin. He talks about you all the time. The whole reason he invited me this weekend was because he wanted me to meet you. He invited a few others too, just to meet you, but they weren’t able to make it,” he told you, and you knew your eyes were wide as you listened to him. 

“Well, hopefully I lived up to the hype,” you said, exhaling a breath of humorless laughter.

“I’m undecided, so far,” he responded, his tone flat as the corner of his mouth twitched up in a grin that put you a little more at ease. “He hasn’t gone on more than 2 dates with someone since he got to Philly because he compares them all to you. I know, because I live with him, and he whines about it constantly. I had to stop him from drunk dialing you about nine times last year, then he’d go on and on about how he just wanted to go up to New York and see you, and that he was happy to be in Philly because he was closer to you again. He misses you, and he’s crazy about you, but he’s either too fucking dumb to realize it or too scared to say anything to you about it.”

You ran your tongue along your teeth as you thought over what Nolan had said, and you were grateful that he’d paused to give you a chance to process all of it. The words had surprised you, that was for sure, but thinking back to yesterday and last night...he was never this sweet with you before. Sure, there’d been some light flirting here and there between hook ups, but he’d never seemed to want you this badly before. You thought back to the other night and what he’d said about the two of you dating. This was all stupid, you decided, and you didn’t really know what to think.

“From the things he’s said, I don’t think he fully realized how he felt about you until he was traded to Winnipeg, and then he didn’t know what to do about it,” Nolan said with pursed lips, like he somehow could read your mind. 

You were grateful that your sunglasses were on, because you felt tears burning in your eyes. Taking a deep breath, you swallowed, glancing out at the water again. You hated this feeling, the sinking in your stomach of not knowing what to do, not knowing how to fix the whole situation. Sniffling, you took another deep breath and looked at Nolan again.

“Well, since you’re obviously smarter than both of us, any advice on what to do?” you asked finally, your throat tight with the threat of tears. He looked pleased with the compliment, then continued.

“It’s so painfully obvious to everyone that you’re both waiting on the other to make the first more, so I say just talk to him. You know he’s a good dude, you know he just wants you to be happy, so you both just need to find the time to talk about what’s going on,” he said, shrugging again. Talking about things like this clearly wasn’t his strong suit, but you appreciated the effort that he was making to help you out.

Nodding, you looked down at your lap momentarily, checking your phone again. Sophie had texted you, saying Kevin was looking for you, followed by a sad face, asking what happened last night. You’d respond to those later, after you had time to process your emotions a little more.

“Thanks for this, really,” you said, hoping you sounded as sincere as you felt. 

“You can thank me by getting him to shut up about how much he misses you,” Nolan told you, letting out a dry laugh. “I guess I get the hype, kind of, but Philly and New York are close enough that the only thing keeping you guys apart is the fact that you like to avoid each other instead of talking about it.” You snorted softly, glad to see that he at least had a sense of humor about it.

“I’m glad he had you at least, to whine to enough that you took matters into your own hands,” you told him and he gave you a genuine smile with a nod. 

“I had a rough year too. Kev did a lot for me, so this is just me trying to repay him.” 

You both fell silent then, looking out at the water. It was nearly 10:30 by then. You hadn’t read a single page of your book, but your mind wasn’t racing anymore. Now, the thought of talking to Kevin didn’t make you want to hide, and you decided that was a good start.

Half an hour later, the guys decided they’d had enough fishing and started packing up to head back. Despite your better attitude, nervousness fluttered in your stomach, but you knew you’d survive talking to Kevin, just like you had survived for the last year and a half of carrying around all of the feelings. You made a plan for yourself and felt good about it: get up to the cabin, shower, then find Kevin to fix the problem. 

Your plan immediately went out the door when you realized that Kevin was already sitting on the dock waiting for you. When you looked at Nolan, you saw the corner of his mouth turn up slightly and you gather that he must’ve texted him that you guys were heading back. Nolan raised his eyebrows at you with a look that said ‘if you don’t figure this out, you’re dead to me,’ and you clenched your jaw.

The boat docked a minute later, and the guy who’s name you really should remember started toward the cabin while Nolan stood on the dock for a short moment, talking to Kevin before taking off as well. You stayed where you were as he stepped onto the boat, and when you took your sunglasses off, you realized that your hands were shaking. It was nice to better understand how he felt about you, but that didn’t stop the flood of emotions that rose in you when you looked at him. 

Kevin looked tired, like he’d slept as poorly as you had, and a wave of guilt made your stomach churn. He stood there for a minute, hands in his pockets and neither of you really seemed to know what to say. “Can I sit down?” he asked eventually, nodding to the spot next to you. 

You could feel your bottom lip quivering, and you nodded, trying to swallow the lump in your throat. “Yeah,” you managed to say without your voice breaking. When he sat down, he turned toward you slightly, close enough that his leg was touching yours. By the time you forced yourself to meet his eye, your vision was blurry with tears, your mouth drawn in a tight line. 

“Baby, what’s wrong?” he asked, frowning as he reached for your hand. The contact was all it took for the tears to spill over and you wiped at them quickly with your other hand.

“I’m sorry,” you told him, sniffling as you looked away from him. He squeezed your hand tightly, bringing the other up to cup your face, guiding you to look at him. “I’m sorry I left last night, I should’ve stayed.”

“Jesus, what did Nolan tell you? Why are you crying?” he asked, looking concerned as his thumb swept over your cheek.

“I’m just so sad,” you admitted, stifling a sob as you avoided his eyes. Your face was hot, because you were upset and because you were embarrassed by the fact that you were such a blubbering mess all of a sudden.

“What, about last night?” Now he really looked concerned, and it actually made you let out a breath of laughter as you shook your head. Kevin looked relieved by your reaction, and easily pulled you into his lap before you could say anything else. His arms were tight around you, holding you against his chest as he sighed quietly.

The way he was holding you made you feel so small and so secure, and you just stayed like that for a moment with your face pressed into his neck. “I’m just sad about everything right now, I guess,” you admitted, shifting enough to wrap your arm around him as well as you leaned into his chest. “I’m sad about Sophie again, I’m sad we’re all leaving tomorrow. I’m sad you got traded to begin with, and I’m sad I wasted a year and a half being too scared to talk to you.” Your voice was raw with emotion and tears started spilling down your cheeks again no matter how hard you tried to stop them.

“Why were you scared to talk to me?” he asked, his lips pressed to the top of your head. His hand moved over your back in a firm motion that was hypnotically soothing, making you feel safe to spill your heart out as he held you.

You sniffled, shrugging as you took a shuddering breath. “I just didn’t know what to say to you. I didn’t know where we stood or how you felt. I don’t look like the girls you usually date, so I thought that whenever we hooked up that it had just been out of boredom, since it was always at the end of a night out. I figured you’d be too busy getting settled and I guess I felt like I cared more about you than you cared about me.” You felt bad admitting it after hearing what Nolan had had to say, and you couldn’t help the way your voice was shaking as you spoke. 

Kevin’s hand slid along your jaw gently, bringing your face up to look at him. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way. It was never out of boredom either, I spent so long trying to figure out how to get your attention,” he told you, practically whispering the words. He kissed you softly, his lips just barely brushing over yours. “I was scared to talk to you too, but I shouldn’t have let that stop me.”

Determined to stop crying, you wiped your eyes, already tilting your head enough to kiss him again. Your eyes moved over his face like you were committing it to memory, letting your knuckles drag over the stubble that covered his jawline. “And why on earth were you scared to talk to me?” you asked, your throat still tight even after the tears had stopped.

“Because you’ve always been way too cool and smart for me, and I was so close to finally working up the nerve to ask you out when I got traded,” he told you, a sad smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. His fingers were still moving up and down your back in a way that made you want to press closer to him and just stay like that for the rest of the day. “Once I was in Winnipeg, I didn’t really know what to say to you either. I didn’t know what your feelings were about us, and I didn’t know how to even bring it up. I don’t think I even knew how badly I wanted there to be an us until I was already in Winnipeg. Since I wasn’t sure where I was going to end up once the season ended, it didn't feel fair to you to drag you into something long distance.”

“Then you signed to Philly,” you said softly, feeling tears fill your eyes again as your head settled on his shoulder. 

“Yep, I signed to Philly, then each time I was in New York last summer, you never came around. I figured you had moved on or something, or that you hadn’t felt the same way to begin with.”

He kissed the top of your head and fell silent, both of you letting everything hang between you for a few moments. You still felt sad and angry with yourself, but at least him holding you like he was made it easier to let go of those feelings. 

“What do we do now?” you asked eventually, though really you were content to stay there all day, soaking in the warmth of the sun and Kevin’s body. He seemed to be enjoying the contact as much as you were, and didn’t answer right away.

“Well, are you hungry?” He pulled back a little to look down at you, eyes sweeping over your tear stained face. You nodded quickly, realizing that it was nearly noon and you hadn’t eaten anything that morning. “There’s a restaurant down the road a bit, we can go get lunch if you want, and this is me making it clear that it would be a date.”

Snorting, you grinned, your hands coming up to cup his face. “I like that idea,” you said, kissing him softly. You only pulled back enough to look at him briefly, but his mouth found yours again, making you smile. “I want to take a shower first though, then we can go.”

“Good, you need it,” he responded, already laughing by the time you poked him in the ribs. Before you could shoot something snarky back, he kissed you again, harder this time to make you groan into his mouth. When you pulled back again, you got to your feet, knowing that otherwise, you’d never want to move. 

Lunch was wonderful, honestly. After your shower, Kevin drove you to the restaurant, his arm stretched over the center console to hold your hand. As you ate, he told you about his favorite spots in Philly and about his teammates, and you talked about your family and the ongoing drama at your office. Admittedly, you had one too many mimosas, leaving you giggling as Kevin nudged your foot gently under the table.

As soon as you made it back to the cabin, Sophie was hugging you so tightly that it hurt. Jimmy eventually got her to let go and you laughed as she made you promise to sit with her at dinner. On the way back from lunch, you and Kevin had decided a nap was in order since you’d both slept like shit, and you let him pull you into his room with a grin. 

The making out was kept to a minimum, both of you tired and full from lunch, but it still felt nice to curl up with him, knowing you had nothing else to be doing. With your head on his chest, he asked if you wanted to put a movie on or anything, and you just shook your head sleepily, pressing your face into his neck. His arm was around you, keeping you curled against him, and it occurred to you that this was the first time you’d fallen asleep with him. He kept kissing the top of your head like he was realizing the same thing, murmuring to you that you made him happy. 

The sound of your phone vibrating beside you woke you up a few hours later. Kevin was still asleep, and you stretched as much as you could without disturbing him as you reached for your phone. It was Sophie, as nosey as ever, wanting to be filled in on how lunch had gone, and you grinned to yourself as you texted her back. You stayed put for a while, happy to be right where you were as Kevin continued to doze.

When he woke up, it was with a loud yawn, rolling onto his side and taking you with him. You laughed as he spooned you, immediately pressing his face into the back of his neck. 

“Don’t go back to sleep,” you warned, rubbing your hand over his forearm where it was looped tightly around you.

“Why not?” he murmured, his voice deeper than usual and thick with grogginess. 

“Because we’ll be up all night if we sleep too late,” you told him matter of factly, shivering as he nosed at your hairline lightly.

“Maybe I was planning to keep you up half the night anyway,” he countered. The laugh you let out bled into a soft moan as he tugged at your earlobe with his teeth gently. Your body leaned back against him more, just barely pressing your thighs together when arousal jolted through you.

“Jesus, Kev,” you said, enjoying the soft rumble of laughter that left him. You were both quiet for a moment after that, your heart racing as he alternated between kissing your skin and nuzzling against you.

“What time are you and Soph leaving tomorrow?” he asked, his hand sliding over your waist. He brushed his thumb against the band of your bra lightly, like he was trying to be casual about it and you grinned at the contact. 

“Between 3 and 4, I think,” you responded, squirming as his hand slid over your stomach. Your breathing had quickened from the light touches, and if it didn’t feel so good, you would hate how easily he was able to turn you on. 

“Good.” The word was short, and he said it as his fingers toyed with the button of your shorts. His mouth was still against your neck and you could feel him smirking into your skin. Your mouth was dry, your heart fluttering in your chest as your hips pressed back toward him. You murmured his name impatiently, enjoying that you could feel the hardening outline of his dick against your ass, when a knock at the door made you both jump.

“Kevin, stop hogging Y/N for yourself!” Sophie said from the other side of the door, voice slightly raised as she knocked again. You let out a loud laugh, leaning back against him as he sighed. 

“Finders keepers, Sophie!” he responded as he loosened his hold on you.

“We’ll be out in a minute, chill, Soph,” you said finally, your heart still racing from the touches that surely would’ve gone further had you not been interrupted.

Sophie’s response was to walk away, and you laughed as you sat up. You knew your cheeks were flushed and your hair was probably a mess from your nap, but you were smiling as you looked back at Kevin who was still stretched out along the mattress. 

“Maybe I should’ve warned you that she knew I was awake,” you teased, leaning over him to press a quick kiss to his mouth.

“Mhm, maybe,” Kevin hummed, his hand sliding along your jaw before he kissed you again. You pulled away quickly after that before he could pull you back down to him, because you knew that if Sophie came back, she wouldn’t hesitate to open the door. 

It was a really good evening, honestly. Brady, Jimmy, and Kevin all seemed a little down that it was the last night of the trip and that they probably wouldn’t see each other for a while. You played cards and pong, maintaining a slight buzz through dinner, where you next to Sophie as promised. Kevin was essentially glued to your side, mostly keeping his hands to himself despite the way he was looking at you. 

One simple grin from him had fire jolting up your spine, leaving you to think about his hands on you, the way they squeezed your waist, and the tight grip of them in your hair when you went down on him. He had even texted you at one point, telling you he was thinking about how good you tasted, that he couldn’t wait to be inside you later. Of course, he’d been sitting right next to you when he’d sent it and watched for your reaction, even when you’d been in the middle of talking with Brady about his new place in Raleigh. You’d stumbled over your words a little after reading the message, your cheeks flushing as your clit throbbed. 

Just like every other night of the trip, someone got a fire going once it was dark. Jimmy and Brady were both a little past drunk by then, making s’mores under Sophie’s supervision. You grinned as you watched, letting Kevin pull you into his lap. He kissed your shoulder through your shirt, then the curve of your neck and you leaned back into him. You were quiet, not really having anything to say as you simply enjoyed the togetherness of having your favorite people all in one spot. It was bittersweet, but it no longer felt like the end of the world, especially with Kevin’s warmth as he held you in his lap.

His hands started wandering a bit eventually, brushing his thumb over the clasp of your bra and letting his knuckles graze over your spine. You repaid him by shifting in his lap casually here and there, making sure your ass pressed against his lap to make him grip your hips in a plea to stop. He said your name at one point and kissed you when you turned your head to glance back at him, and you realized that was the first time he’d done that in front of other people. Brady was quick to make a comment that it was about fucking time, rolling his eyes dramatically before giving Kevin a thumbs up. 

Around 10, you stretched slightly in his lap before moving to stand up. Kevin’s arm tightened around you, and you scoffed. “I have to pee, dude, I’ll be right back,” you told him with a quiet laugh, squeezing his wrist when he finally released you. “You want anything from the house?”

“Nah, I’m good,” he said, pressing a quick kiss to your mouth before you got to your feet. 

When you came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, the cabin was dark aside from the string lights on one wall, and you jumped a little when you spotted Kevin on the sofa.

“You really did just have to use the bathroom, huh?” he said, grinning as he got to his feet. The look in his eye as he watched you made your back straighten as he approached. 

“Yeah,” you laughed, licking your lips. “What did you think I meant?”

“I dunno, I figured that was code that you wanted me to follow you up here to fuck you senseless or something,” he told you with a shrug, his hands finding your waist once he was close enough. You snorted softly, shaking your head as you looked up at him. He was grinning at you like he had been all night, like you and your body were the only things on his mind, and anything you’d thought about saying as a response was lost. 

He dipped his head to kiss you, pressing you back against the closed door of the bathroom, and you sighed into his mouth. Your hands came up to grip the fabric of his shirt, letting him keep the slow pace he’d set even as your restraint was threatening to fray. His tongue slid over yours, and he held your jaw tenderly, thumb brushing over your cheek. Your knees already felt weak as you leaned into him, all of the heat from earlier flooding back. 

You couldn’t help the way that you moaned into his mouth, your hips already pressing toward him eagerly. That was when he pulled back, clearly enjoying the way your cheeks were flushed. “You wanna go back out to the fire?” he asked, smirking casually and hellbent on torturing you.

Rolling your eyes, you brought an arm up to wrap around his shoulders, keeping him where he was. “I thought you were gonna keep me up half the night and fuck me senseless,” you responded, surprised that your voice wasn’t shaking as you repeated his earlier words back to him. 

His only reaction was to curse under his breath as he kissed you again roughly enough that you melted against him. Your hand slid along his neck, and when your thumb brushed over his pulse point, you could feel that his heart was racing. You were already wet, and had been since before Sophie interrupted you after your nap earlier. He squeezed your ass firmly, pulling your hips forward against his as his teeth caught on your bottom lip.

“Kev, we need to relocate,” you breathed, tilting your head back as he kissed down your throat. He let out a grumble that made you laugh even as you arched toward him again and he sighed, finally pulling back. 

“Meet me in your room?” he murmured, hands sliding up your waist like he wasn’t ready to let go of you just yet. You nodded, nudging his shoulder lightly to make him move finally, and you took off ahead of him. 

He smacked your ass hard enough to make you gasp before slipping into his room as you kept going toward your own. With the door closed behind you, you tugged off your shirt and kicked your shorts aside, knowing they wouldn’t stay on much longer anyway. You wished you had thought ahead and packed some cute underwear or something that would’ve made you feel a little sexier as you laid back against your pillows. 

You held your breath when you heard his footsteps come toward your door, and he cursed loudly when he saw you, making sure to lock the door behind him. He’d always managed to boost your ego, and damn, you were grateful for that. His eyes were glued to you as he approached the bed, already pulling his shirt off over his head with a grin.

When he set a box of condoms on the end table next to the bed, you laughed loudly. “A whole box, huh?” you teased, beaming as you watched him closely. 

Licking his lips as his eyes slid over your body, he shrugged. “Just trying to be prepared, baby girl,” he told you, smirking as his hands moved to unbutton his pants. 

He kicked his shorts off, and the outline of his half hard dick in his boxer-briefs was enough to make you groan. His body was absolutely stunning, perfectly sculpted by years of training and you had never figured out how someone as hot as him was interested in you.

“My eyes are up here, y’know,” he told you, still smirking as he joined you on the bed. You shrugged, continuing to check him out because you knew he certainly didn’t mind. The ache between your legs was becoming unbearable, and you pulled him over you as soon as he was close enough. 

Settled over you, his body was close enough for you to feel his warmth, and as soon as he kissed you, you were arching toward him for the skin to skin contact you were so desperate for. There wasn’t much restraint in his kiss as his knee sank into the mattress between your thighs. You put an arm around his neck, your fingers digging into his shoulder as you tugged at his bottom lip with your teeth. 

His mouth left yours to move along your jaw in hot, open mouthed kisses and you sighed softly, tilting your head back for him. You already felt like you were burning from the inside out, your clit throbbing as your hands moved to start tugging down his underwear.

He chuckled softly, his lips vibrating against your throat as he swatted your hands away. “So impatient,” he murmured with a soft tsk, letting his mouth slide over your collarbone. You exhaled a loud breath, a shiver running through you from the contact, and you made a pleading sound. 

When he kissed you again, you saw stars, only faintly aware of his hand slipping under your back to unfasten your bra. Pulling the fabric away from you, he cursed under his breath and his mouth was already making its way down your throat again. 

“Kev, baby, just fuck me already,” you whined, dragging your nails over his shoulder. He glanced up at you with dark eyes, and he had the audacity to grin at you before sucking your nipple into his mouth. You nearly jumped out of your skin, moaning loudly as your hips rocked in search of friction. His hand came up to tug your panties down in an easy motion, so at least he was heading in the right direction of what you wanted. 

You were about to whine for him again, damn near ready to beg by the time his hand slipped between your thighs. A loud, grateful moan left you from the contact, even if it was just him sliding his fingers through your folds. 

“How are you always just so fucking wet?” he murmured, mostly to himself as he purposefully avoided your clit. A frustrated sound left you as you squirmed, your hips twitching toward his hand. 

“It might have something to do with the fact that you teased me for half the day,” you responded, voice shaking slightly as you managed to laugh a bit. Sucking a mark against the curve of your breast, he hummed softly like he was acknowledging his role in the matter. 

Without much further teasing, he sank two fingers into you, and you each moaned in unison. You felt so on edge already, barely able to keep still as your body squeezed around his fingers greedily. His mouth moved over your chest and shoulder without much direction, like he was just happy to be able to touch you at all while his fingers rocked into you.

“You’re so fucking tight, sweetheart,” he groaned, nosing at the hollow of your throat. “Can’t wait to feel you around my dick, baby, I’ve been waiting so fucking long.” He said that just when you thought you couldn’t possibly get any wetter, but the words alone made you exhale a pleading whine. 

Your nails sank into his shoulder when his fingers curled against your g-spot and you cursed loudly as you rocked against his hand hungrily. He leaned up to kiss you again, happily swallowing the moans that were spilling out of you. His thumb had started rubbing circles and figure 8s against your clit and you swore that you were on the verge of actually exploding.

The motion of his fingers sped up and you were already so close, desperately trying to meet the motion of his hand to get what you needed. His mouth closed around your nipple again, nearly overwhelming you. Your heartbeat was roaring in your ears and your scalp prickled from the perfect pressure of his thumb against you.

“Fuck, Kev, I’m gonna cum,” you warned, panting as heat threatened to consume your body. He cursed, and just as you were right there at the edge, his fingers were suddenly gone. The sound that left you was practically a sob, your body shaking as you tried to squeeze your thighs together for whatever friction you could get.

Kevin actually chuckled at the sight, using the leg still between your knees to stop you as he leaned to kiss you again quickly. “Not yet, baby, don’t want you to cum until it’s on my cock,” he told you, and all you could do was nod out of desperation.

He brought his hand up to your mouth and you locked eyes with him as you sucked his fingers into your mouth, moaning at the taste of yourself. Eagerly, your tongue slid along his digits and you held his gaze, knowing your eyes were dark and clouded with lust. All you could hear over the rush of your own heartbeat was the soft mumble of his voice as he praised you.

When he pulled away completely, standing to grab a condom from the end table, your head turned to watch him, just as you had earlier. He smirked when he caught you checking him out, your eyes obviously stuck on the hard line of his cock as it strained against the fabric of his underwear.

“Turn over, sweetheart, get up on your hands and knees for me,” he told you, licking his lips as he tore open the condom.

You didn’t even bother to nod, just moving as quickly as you could on limbs that were still shaking. Your knees sank into the mattress, eagerness clawing at you as you heard the sound of his boxer-briefs sliding down his legs. Still trembling, you looked back at him, loving the look in his eye as he stroked his cock slowly, surveyed the way you were presenting yourself to him.

“Kev, c’mon, stop making me wait,” you pleaded, already rocking back toward him hungrily. He chuckled softly, letting his hand rub over your back in a way that made you shake even more. It surprised you when he pulled you to the edge of the mattress where his feet were still planted on the floor. 

“I don’t remember you being this needy before,” he mused, his voice a low hum as he smacked your ass, earning a gasp from you. You gritted your teeth as your hand tightened in the sheets, pressing back toward him again as your pussy throbbed. 

“Maybe because before, I hadn’t spent a year and a half fantasizing about you,” you responded, the words punctuated with a moan as he started to drag the head of his cock through your folds. You figured stroking his ego a little bit might get you what you wanted, and your arms were shaking so badly that you dropped to let your chest rest against the mattress.

“Let’s hope this lives up to the fantasy then, huh?” You had started to laugh at his words, but the sound immediately became a loud moan when he sank into you all at once.

You were so full that you swore you could feel him through every inch of you, your muscles already tightening around him eagerly. A grunt left him as his hands found your waist, squeezing you there while his hips ground against you in a way that left you whimpering.

Just as you were about to whine for him to move, to give you more, he pulled back, almost slipping out of you before slamming his hips into yours again. You cursed loudly, nodding in encouragement as he set a rhythm that was somehow both lazy and desperate.

That pace didn’t last though, not when you were still so close to an orgasm that you found yourself rocking back toward him hungrily. He got the message, starting to pound into you with shallow thrusts that had the head of his cock dragging over your g-spot with each stroke. Moaning loudly into the comforter, it was hard to catch your breath, but the need for oxygen was second to your need for him.

“Right there, Kev, fuck, I’m gonna cum,” you gasped out, not even sure if your words were coherent by then. He seemed to understand well enough though, keeping the current pace as his hand slid up your back to press between your shoulders as he fucked you into the bed. 

When you came, you groaned into the mattress, only faintly aware of the sharp curse that Kevin let out from the way you tightened around him as he fucked you through it. It was the kind of orgasm that left you boneless and panting, clinging to the sheets in the hopes of staying upright as it faded. With your eyes squeezed shut, you may have blacked out for a second, barely aware of the fact that you were now on your back. 

“You good, sweetheart?” Kevin asked softly, leaning over you to press a gentle kiss to your mouth. You nodded, almost feeling drunk as you smiled at him, tilting your head up for another kiss. He was still buried inside you as you throbbed around him, and you were surprised that you were able to move your arm enough to loop it around his neck.

With the buzzing in your mind and body slowing, Kevin’s mouth moved over your throat again as he let you come down a little more. You didn’t need much of a break though, and you gasped when he leaned into you more. The sound made him smirk and his teeth grazed over your pulse point sharply enough that your hips rocked against him. 

“Ready for more?” he asked, straightening up before you were ready to lose the contact of him leaning over you. Looking up at him, you nodded, biting your lip. He swore under his breath again, glancing down between your bodies to where you were joined and started to move. 

Your urgency and impatience returned quickly, leaving you to roll your hips against his encouragingly as you gripped the sheets beneath you. The groan that left him was so hot, and you could practically see his hands shaking as he reached for a pillow to slide under your hips. You managed to wrap your legs around his waist despite the fact that they still felt like jello, and he made a sound of approval, guiding one leg a bit higher.

He was slow for a bit, just like he had been earlier, studying your body as it was stretched out in front of him. You knew you were flushed, your skin hot and there was at least one mark on you left by his mouth. When you said his name, your tone was desperate and he met your gaze as he nodded. His hand squeezed your thigh, moving to hold the crook of your knee as his brow creased in concentration. 

His pace changed quickly after that like he was tired of making you wait for it. The drag of his cock inside you was enough to make you arch toward him and your mouth fell open with a moan. He was far too good at this, he always had been. His jaw was slack as he looked down at you, obviously taking note of the fact that your tits were bouncing each time his hips slammed into yours.

“Fuck, that’s hot,” he breathed, his voice tense as his hand moved from your hip up to your breast to toy with your nipple. The contact made you cry out, your chest rising to meet his hand in search of more.

A smirk flashed across his face at your reaction, his eyes dark as you dug your heel into his back, silently pleading for more. With your hands fisted in the sheets beneath you as you tried to rock against him, you whined his name, already the pressure building in you again. He had such a gorgeous body and you brought a hand up to his abs, letting your nails scratch over his skin lightly.

“Touch yourself, Y/N,” Kevin told you, guiding one of your legs higher on his waist. “I wanna see you make yourself cum while I fuck you, wanna cum with you.” His words were rushed, and the slight increase in pace told you he was growing close, just like you were. 

Your hand dropped from his abs to between your thighs, gasping at just how wet you were. Your clit was swollen and throbbing, and the pressure of your fingers made your body shake as his grip on your thigh tightened.

“Goddammit, Kevin,” you whined, rubbing frantic circles against your clit as he fucked you.

“Good girl, keep going, I know you can cum for me again,” he said, the husky tone of his voice only turning you on more. Your breathing was ragged as your legs tightened around him, still needing him deeper.

He leaned over you, one hand beside your head as he pressed his face into your breasts. Grateful for the contact, your arm wrapped around him and your hand found its way into his hair, tugging at the strands. The new angle had his cock grinding over your g-spot with each snap of his hips, sending you over the edge as you continued to rub hard circles against your clit. 

Your body arched off the mattress as you came, exhaling moans that were semi-pornographic as his mouth closed around your nipple. He moaned loudly, sending a vibration through you as his hips stuttered, and you both lost all sense of rhythm as you came, grinding together almost aimlessly.

As soon as your orgasm passed, your head fell back, desperately trying to catch your breath as Kevin nuzzled against our chest. He was breathing just as heavily as you were, and his skin was damp with sweat when your hand slid over his back. You doubted you were in any better condition, but you were so content to just lay there for a long while, tangled together and blissed out. His weight was slumped against you a little, keeping you from floating away. When you remembered how to move, your hand moved to his hair, and he hummed in appreciation.

“Holy shit, you’re incredible,” he breathed eventually, turning his head enough to kiss your skin lazily. You couldn’t help the quiet laugh that bubbled in you as you continued toying with his hair. He lifted his head to look up at you and a content grin slid onto your face. “Better than the fantasies?”

You chuckled, nodding as you let out a sigh. “Absolutely,” you told him, smiling as his lips moved up your throat to your mouth. The kiss was lazy but left you breathless, and when he pulled away, you couldn’t help but pout. He shot you a wink, making your stomach flutter as you moved lay against the pillows.

Laying on your side, you watched as he disposed of the condom and stepped into his underwear. You felt warm all over, admiring the lines of his tattoo as he climbed into bed again. He was quick to spoon you, pressing kisses along the back of your shoulder as you relaxed back against him.

It was easy to lay there for a while, talking quietly about nothing really, just light conversation as he kept himself curled around you. You had to get up eventually to use the bathroom, and Kevin made a displeased sound over the fact that you pulled on pants as you got dressed again. Scoffing at him, you made sure to remove them again the second you were back and you hit the light before getting into bed in your t-shirt and panties.

Laying together in the dark, Kevin’s legs tangled with yours as his arm held you around the waist tightly. He was so warm behind you, and neither of you seemed to want to talk about leaving tomorrow, so you talked about easier things until you both dozed off.

[wardens-stew]

my review of The Mask Falling - an ode to Arcturus and Paige

For me, the soul of this series has always been the relationship between Paige and Arcturus. It’s apt that this book, the exact middle of the series and as @sshannonauthor​ describes it, its heart, spends so much time with this pair. The intensity and uniqueness of their bond really emerges as the shining jewel of this series.

It’s clear that Samantha Shannon was intentional about putting Arcturus and Paige on equal footing for the first time in The Mask Falling. She manages the power dynamic between them with such attention and nuance, reversing their roles often and fluidly escaping gender roles. The protector role comes naturally to Arcturus, given his immortal strength and anxiety about losing Paige (it’s even part of the etymology of their names), but for much of The Mask Falling he is her silent shadow, trailing being her and supporting her quietly. They negotiate their differences with refreshing candor and in good faith, their arguments free from ego. “My fear is not your cage,” Arcturus tells her. “I will never ask you to mold yourself to it.” His affection for her is empowering, supportive, never constrictive or diminishing. Paige herself is markedly independent, doing the bulk of her fighting and plotting on her own. When she does seek support from Arcturus, there is no sense of her own strength being diminished, and as often as he rescues her, she turns around and rescues him just as easily. 

Indeed, while Arcturus is the immortal god, it is Paige’s power that really shines in this book. Her incredible ingenuity and strength is on full display, getting her out of certain-death scenarios at such a gripping pace I had to cover the pages with my hands to avoid glancing ahead. She couples her incredible powers with extraordinary mental fortitude and an acute conscience; each of her escapades has a satisfying emotional resonance that enlivens her broader quest. Whereas many YA heroines possessed of supernatural power oscillate between immobilizing moral anxiety and moral bankruptcy, Paige tempers her impulsiveness with reason (most of the time) and a powerful motive for justice. It’s clear that she has yet to access the full extent of her abilities, and I’m eager to see what roles she’ll play in the fight to take down Scion. 

While previous installments show Arcturus/Warden on various levels of guardedness, The Mask Falling gives us time and space in excess to see his true character. I was struck by his compassion, his hopefulness despite all that he has endured. He is often reassuring and comforting Paige, his optimism clear-eyed and measured. The contrast is especially stark with his persona in The Bone Season, where he appears cold and calculating, morally gray at best. In this book, he is almost unbearably kind, devastatingly sweet and thoughtful. As Paige remarks, “there was nothing terrible before me now.” The almost unimaginable beauty of his character is achieved with such a soft touch; the books are not about Arcturus being the the epitome of goodness - he simply is. 

A central thread of tension of this book follows Paige and Arcturus negotiating their relationship and coming to terms with their mutual attraction. Samantha Shannon manages this tension beautifully, carrying it forward constantly with poignant moments of intimacy interspersed with Paige’s honest internal dialogue. The smallest interactions and gestures between them felt so heightened. There are all the classic scenes - getting drunk and saying too much, jealousy spirals about past relationships, almost-kiss scenes interrupted, near-death confessions - all building up to a beautiful and satisfying climax. 

Samantha Shannon writes intimacy incredibly well. The love scenes feel specific to the characters, managing to be both meaningful and erotic. Romances between an immortal man and a mortal woman in particular tend to translate the man’s primal instincts and extreme physical strength into a voracious sexual appetite that leaves little room for gentleness and consideration. Arcturus really breaks the mold in this respect. He is so reverent, so sincere, so generous with Paige in a way few male characters with female partners approximate. Rather than relying on an imbalance of power in order to convey eroticism, the sexiness of Arcturus and Paige’s dynamic derives from the equality of their relationship.  It’s so difficult to create a heterosexual romance unsullied by patriarchy, and Samantha Shannon gets close to that here. 

I wonder if it is Arcturus’ immortal nature that makes him such a uniquely engaging character. Samantha Shannon really commits to that aspect of him - he’s not just a hot teenager. The best word I can think of to describe him is mature. He is so beyond the petty concerns of YA love interests, so ego-less and self-reliant. One of my favorite ways he diverges from human men - and traditional male love interests - is his lack of fixation on Paige’s physical appearance. This book has several of the classic moments that would typically elicit a remark or a look from the love interest on the heroine’s appearance, often framed as a cute romantic moment. Yet when Paige dresses up, or dyes her hair - even when she asks him outright - he never comments on the way she looks. “A human might have whispered in my ear, told me I was beautiful or perfect, but not him.” I love that. I’ve never found that lustful, almost predatory demeanor in male love interests nearly as sexy as the author would like it to be, and it always rubs me the wrong way when the man telling the woman she’s beautiful is framed as the epitome of romance. It strikes me as a very lazy way to convey attraction, for one thing, and it reeks of benevolent sexism. Arcturus never plays into those supposedly romantic tropes of disparaging other women in favor of the heroine or being selectively kind. His love for Paige is so pure. 

I continue to be impressed by the sheer scale of worldbuilding in this series. Many books attempt to create fictional tyrannical governments, but few succeed in building one as convincing and elaborate as Scion. The Mask Falling peels back even more layers of this complex world, bringing to fruition seeds planted in the very first book. Although the basic plot leans on some familiar tropes, Samantha Shannon always manages to add an additional twist of the screw. The complexity of this series is truly extraordinary, drawing on etymology and mythology, dropping mysteries and complicating loyalties with incredible dexterity. 

SPOILERS!!!!! --> I am still struggling with Arcturus’s possession and Paige’s failure to connect the dots and realize the reality of his situation. I see Samantha Shannon has pointed out on Twitter that Paige’s trauma and illness may have affected her judgment and decision-making. She says, “There's a particular scene where Paige reacts to an event in a way that is so deeply rooted in her PTSD and past experiences.” (I assume this is the scene she’s referring to.) I think that’s fair - Paige has been so inundated with the Rephaite aversion to humans that it’s almost as if she only needed one piece of evidence to confirm her doubts and destroy her trust in Arcturus. And it’s not as if she just takes it at face value, either - she does question him and try to convince him otherwise. But I still can’t help feeling that it’s a stretch. The Mask Falling makes Arcturus’ character so clear that the prospect that he would be loyal to Nashira the whole time is just ludicrous. Not to mention the fact that Paige somehow overlooked the obvious signs that he was being possessed. His eyes were such a dead giveaway - Paige had already seen that same thing happen when she possessed him! And when he moved to strike her and then suddenly stopped and his eyes flared - come on! That’s a classic mind-control trope. Paige is usually so perceptive, and they had built such a strong foundation… it feels unrealistic that she wouldn’t have connected the dots just because she hadn’t thought there could be another dreamwalker. 

If I had to find fault with this book, and it is difficult, I would say that it leans a little too heavily on some YA dystopian fantasy tropes towards the end - the mind-controlled love interest, for example, instantly made me think of Divergent, The Hunger Games, The Mortal Instruments, etc. Likewise, the forced memory loss is a fairly common fantasy trope that tends to be really frustrating to read. I have faith that Samantha Shannon will keep it from sliding into those tropes, and of course there remains so much mystery still to be untangled from those final 100 pages. /END SPOILERS :) 

This was the kind of book that captivated me immediately, left me lying awake at night and had me eating energy bars for dinner so I could keep reading. It was such a visceral, immersive experience, the kind where returning to the physical reality is almost physically disorienting. It’s been two days since I finished it and I’m still clinging to that fictional world, wishing I didn’t have to leave. Books like these are rare for me, and I’m still marveling at the miracle of finding that book that in Arcturus’ words, exists for everyone: “a book that will sing to them.”

[tomhardysteeth]

u wanna say anything for spn ending? Today's their last day of filming

Yeah sure! I love how you worded this ask, it makes me want to give a very serious answer. I’ve been rewatching random episodes the past few days and thinking about how much of my life was shaped by this random lil tv show, both positively and negatively, so here we go. 

I started watching Supernatural during my junior year of college, when I was grappling with being gay and religious, and had a pseudo-girlfriend who was emotionally abusive. I remember I started watching the show because I had been on tumblr for a while and thought, well this is a popular show on tumblr and looks like something I’d enjoy, so I might as well try it. I remember barely paying attention to the first season and thinking it was kind of silly, and I distinctly remember making fun of it right up until the season 1 finale when that truck slammed into the Impala and I said oh.

I remember sitting in the dining hall between classes, hiding in a corner with my pink headphones and my laptop, watching one episode after the other, completely consumed by it. My personal life was a mess at the time and I was angry and sad and frustrated, but I could forget about everything for a little while when I watched spn. I remember falling in love with Dean Winchester, season 3, when Sam gave him the amulet. 

Because I had already spent a lot of time on tumblr, I knew about Castiel. I couldn’t wait to get to season 4, the anticipation killed me. I didn’t really have a choice in shipping destiel, I literally shipped it before I even watched a single episode of the show lol. My first time watching seasons 4 and 5, I remember how mad I would feel every time the opening credits scrolled at the bottom of the screen and Misha Collins wasn’t listed. I cared about almost nothing but Dean and Cas interacting with each other. I was totally enamored by them, by their potential. At some point I got over that and watched the show because I liked the show, but boy did my heart and brain break for destiel. 

I broke up with my abusive girlfriend. I started coming out to more people, including people involved in the Christian campus ministry I was heavily involved in, and it was very very hard. It was 2013. The first episode of Supernatural I watched live was the episode where Dean turns into a fucking dog. 

I don’t remember when I started reading fanfic, and I had no idea how to read fanfic. A friend invited me to ao3, what is ao3? I didn’t know. I used my email address as my username. I read Twist and Shout and Pie Without Plot and other very popular fics that I knew about because everybody knew about them. I vividly remember the first fics I read because I was 21 years old and had never had an orgasm in my life and believed sex was sinful and so when the sex scenes in fics turned me on, I felt guilty about it. 

I quickly got over that and started writing explicit destiel fanfic. 

I still had no idea what I was doing. I know the very first fic I ever wrote was a mess, I’ve completely erased all traces of it, but other than that I began posting with abandon. Pretty much everything I’ve ever written for spn is still on tumblr and/or ao3. I was running a Hannibal blog at the time and started posting more Supernatural content than Hannibal content, so I created a sideblog, @deancasheadcanons​, and things very quickly got out of hand after that.

I was depressed, I was confused, I was spending my last couple years of college trying to figure out my sexuality, trying to hold onto a religion that was rejecting who I was becoming, trying to find my identity while picking a career path and being sad and being pulled in a hundred different directions. Sometimes I was working three jobs at once, on top of 17-credit-hour semesters. I was getting a degree in a field I did not care about, and I spent every class reading and writing fanfic, scrolling through tumblr, making internet friends, letting my life be consumed by Supernatural. I projected myself completely onto Dean Winchester and partially onto Castiel and did not even realize it. 

I started dressing like Dean, and my sister and brother-in-law noticed and assumed I was gay. They were extremely unsubtle in their attempts at getting me to come out by pointing out the flannel and army jackets, and I did not have it in me to admit to them that I was dressing like a fictional character, but I DID tell them I was bisexual. 

I went to therapy every week during my senior year of college, and I was embarrassed about how often I talked about my “internet life,” as I called it. I remember having the arbitrary goal of getting 1,000 kudos on a fanfic, and I remember the day it happened for the first time and I remember going to therapy that week and saying that I didn’t feel any different, that I thought getting attention for my writing would make me feel better, somehow, but I still felt the same, and my therapist asked me if I would still be writing if I was the only one who got anything out of it and I said yes. But I was still obsessed with writing things that were meaningful, and despite the fact that I would receive 10 negative/mean anons per day, I never turned anon off because I desperately wanted people to tell me that my writing meant something to them, that it mattered to them. I was fighting with myself every day over my sexuality and my identity and my purpose, and I put all of that on the shoulders of Dean and Cas. 

There was also chubby!dean. I had lived my entire life with this inexplicable thing, this shame that I knew I could not share, that I knew I would just have to suffer with for my whole life, and then I joined the spn fandom and found that there were others like me, others that had a fetish and had similar experiences as I did and were drawn to Dean Winchester because there’s no other character that could make eating and gaining weight be as enticing as he makes it (in fanfic). For the first time in my life I had a community of people that I could relate to about a thing that I never thought I would ever be able to talk about with anyone in my life. I don’t remember if I consciously chose to start posting publicly about it, but at some point I did, and I started writing kink fic, but I was still so uncomfortable with myself and so scared of the things I felt, and I tried so hard to temper myself and not offend anyone and not go “too far” and not be too weird and I was so sexually repressed and pent up and full of guilt and shame, and so now when I go back and reread some of the stuff I wrote it feels like reopening an old wound and letting myself bleed out. 

I was constantly comparing myself to others and wondering why I wasn’t getting as much attention as so-and-so, and I always made excuses about how maybe my writing was too weird and I was too much and maybe I just wasn’t good enough and I hated myself and wanted to delete everything I ever wrote, but also I’m awesome and receive a lot of attention and get a lot of good feedback but maybe that means I’m just a narcissist! I acted like an asshole online and justified it by saying it wasn’t really me, that I could be someone totally different on tumblr than the person I was in “real life,” but in hindsight, now when I think back on my early 20s, I cannot separate what I was doing in “real life” from what I was doing in the spn fandom. I shared so much of myself with the spn fandom without even recognizing that that’s what I was doing. 

And I made mistakes, god I made mistakes, and I tried to be so careful about everything I said but I was also presenting a certain version of myself to the spn fandom so that people would like me (for instance: running a destiel blog and trying my best to hide the fact that I also ship wincest) and still I got in trouble constantly, and I grew bitter and mean because you can only receive the “when are you posting the next chapter?” comment so many times before you want to bang your head into a wall. I became defensive and unkind, afraid to check my inbox because it was a nightmare, and yet unable to turn off anon because, like I said, I desperately needed that feedback, I needed people to tell me that they felt what I felt, that they understood what I was writing and why I was writing it.

I expected Supernatural to give me everything I needed. I fantasized about Dean Winchester being canonically bisexual because I thought it would confirm something in me, that it would somehow make my life a little bit easier. I didn’t want to watch other shows that could maybe help me, I wanted Supernatural to do things for me that it had never promised and would never deliver, and it’s because I was defined by it for so many years. Now that I’m back on tumblr, I’ve been going back through some of my old posts on deancasheadcanons and it’s like reading a stranger’s words. Even so, I find myself telling people “I was deancasheadcanons” instead of “I ran a sideblog called deancasheadcanons” because it really was such a huge part of my identity. What’s wild is that every time I’ve tried to explain it to someone in real life, they just look at me like I’m not making any sense. 

It was easy to stop watching Supernatural. I didn’t have cable, and I had been driving to my dad and stepmom’s house each week and watching it on their tv after they had gone to bed. I was in a new relationship with a woman I nearly married, I was back in school for a new career, I was working full time and absolutely did not have time to continue writing fanfic as prolifically as I had done for so many years. I finally reached a breaking point in 2017 and haven’t watched any new episodes since then (I don’t remember the last episode I saw). But now, as I rewatch some old episodes, it is easy to feel the way I felt the first time I watched the show. It’s easy to see why this campy little heartfelt show was a lifeline during my formative adult years.

So it turns out I have never reckoned with any of this, have never written it down, hence the 2k jumble of words you see here. And it’s like, I know that a lot of this may seem silly, trivial, especially for a show that in itself is not very serious, but as it comes to an end I have to reflect on it as a person who put so much of my heart, my creativity, my pain and my floundering identity into it. I am somewhat embarrassed and wish I could respond to this ask with a joke instead, but we’re in a pandemic and I live alone and have had way too much time to think and reflect and become a lot more self-aware, and part of that reflection has definitely been about my time in the spn fandom. I remember thinking the show was never going to end, yet here we are at the end and I felt compelled to type all this out with a desire to, I don’t know, get some closure? Convince myself that I was a whole person, that I wasn’t just a faceless URL posting destiel fics into the void, that my real life was not at all disparate from the time I spent online? In any case, I’ll always think fondly of the time I devoted to Supernatural, and I’ll take the good and the bad and everything in between. Thanks for the nice ask, anon, apparently I needed to get some things off my chest.  

[mallowstep]

I’m thinking about writing a short OC piece about Windclan and I’d love to see your notes about its culture and the hymns you’ve written so far, everything you’ve done for Windclan appreciation month has really inspired me :)

hello anon!

alright, first things first: please send me ur piece when ur done if you're comfortable doing so! i will publish it from you, or if you don't want to be associated with it in Any Way, i will also just read it and add it to the queue with no indication why it's there. or if you don't want me to share it at all, i'd still like to read it.

as for your ask,

hymns?

i'm working on it. however, underneath the read more, i'll include a few snippets for u.

culture

alright, i'm just going to post links with some commentary as i go. feel free to ask any more questions you have.

windclan (search) | windclan (tag) | wcam tag | five clans (narrative essays)

i would link the elders den, but there's no windclan stories in there ATM.

moving on, i'm just going to go through posts in reverse chronological order.

tallstar taking a mate admittedly, this is more about cats and sexuality than windclan, but i provide the commentary that windclan...has a particular view on sexuality and fluidity. one thing i haven't explored but should is the role visiting cats have in windclan.

whoops that's a code word, my plug for solacefruit has been activated. okay, as you may be aware, based on the fact that i have a whole tag for it, i'm obsessed with solacefruit. now, i love everything they do, but i would like to point you particularly to "make a mighty sound" for a fantastic exploration of this idea.

i don't want to spoil anything, but i do think windclan, and maybe cats as a whole, but windclan has a certain view towards relationships that very much breaks them into pieces. i'm a "love is a verb" person, so the idea that you can grow to love someone romantically by going through the actions of love makes sense. not to say you will, but you can.

(to be clear i'm not out advocating for arranged marriages just saying that they can work, they're not destined to be bad, and there's a difference between forced marriage and arranged marriage.)

anyway.

this was a lot of words to say, cats do not have a human (and particularly, western/american) understanding of relationships, which makes analyzing them in those terms difficult.

early hymn talk i'll probably say more below, but it is here.

general ibtwicm notes might get you into the headspace for some of my choices in ibtwicm.

i don't have a ton to say because this pretty much all holds, but uh, yeah.

poetry and language this isn't strictly about windclan, but it does explain some of what i think about when writing hymns.

obviously, i'm writing english translations, but these general themes are what i have in mind. it's also part of why i say i don't think i'll ever release a "full hymnal" for windclan, because i don't know if my weak worldbuilding heart could take it if i only had translations.

names part two very much not about windclan, but just some thoughts on names. as i've said before, i support all names and worldbuilding equally, but if you want my thoughts on names, go buckwild.

clan culture fic rec list just stuff i think does a good job, if you want other sources of inspiration.

general clan culture notes this is really old, but it mostly holds.

i've obviously expanded a lot on windclan since i wrote it, so shrug? idk man.

alright, i'm going to move into hymn discussion below the cut, but best of luck! and i hope u have a good time. it makes my brain shut down to read that i inspired you, straight up got brain juice pouring out of my ears, but i'm really, really happy to hear that.

windclan holds a special place in my heart. (i know my oc avatar is from skyclan shhh it's because of the backstory he sees ghosts.) but i grew up in this super sporty household as a lil asthmatic klutz, and running was a sport i couldn't mess up, so of course windclan appealed to me.

they're actually third on my list of favorite clans, but they. it's a special place in my heart that they hold, especially after reading dawn of the clans and moth flight's vision, where i got an asthmatic cat and an adhd cat, both in windclan.

god i should reread dotc it's good.

alright, here's the deal on hymns: i am not going to fight to get duets to post correctly. there's a 0% chance i can in tumblr's wonky ass new editor with no markdown, not to mention how difficult it would have been in the old editor. so i'm going to talk a lil about what i've got, and post some stanzas that i think don't get explored a lot in ibtwicm.

we're discussing these in the order that they go in. a reminder that these are all sections of one epic poem. that said, i don't know where the gaps are. like, i don't know what's between these, if that makes sense.

the wind

the wind, the very first hymn. this is an ode to, well, windclan. it's a song about everything that makes them them. it's filled with poetry about the wind, about the seasons, and it's just...well, it's a bit of a genesis, in a way.

The wind — like the rain, like the river — calls the name of each star in its breath. The wind — like the earth, like the stone — anchors us to our home. The wind — like the sun, like the sky — is knowable only by name.

i wanted to share this stanza because the last line doesn't show up in ibtwicm (at least so far, i cut the reference), and it really, really, makes a difference imo.

anyway, windclan is basically tying the wind in with every other fundamental part of their life here.

they are the wind, and that's that.

the hare

okay, this one has a line that comes up a lot in ch1, but i already talked about that, so instead, i'm going to talk about this stanza

Speak of the earth and the dens, and you will be answered: By the call of the howling gales, the open earth singing in response. But speak of that which grows above, of the grass and field, And you will be answered by the softness of the buds and the roots.

okay, we get deadfoot thinking about this when he's talking to yellowfang.

i like this stanza because it really tells us what the hare is about. now, hares are not something windclan catches. hares are huge, y'all, there's no way they take one down. i take liberties with ecology, but not that many.

(i.e., a team of cats definitely could take one down, but i know too much, and would prefer letting team hunting stay a plot thing, and not fundamentally alter the environment in the way it would.)

now anyway, all of these hymns come from the time of the tunnelers. and the point of this is, even though the work of tunnelers and moor runners is disconnected, they fundamentally affect each other.

a moor runner must trust the hollows of the earth beneath them won't collapse, and a tunneler must trust that the prey they chase up will be caught.

it's all very symbiotic and is, well, in a way, a love poem. plus i really like the line "the open earth singing in response"

of the warrens

so this has one line, one you might not even know is a hymn, in ch1, but i'll share the whole stanza.

And as for the subject of fallow fields: Fallowed fields make for hungry prey, Yet hungry prey makes desperate rabbits, Who leap into our claws.

and ig my big point is, the hymns are a cultural artifact. just like many of the rules in the old testament have to do with hygiene things being codified into religion, this whole hymn is about hunting advice.

the moon on the river

okay, out of all the hymns, this is the most complete, and because ashfoot and deadfoot sing it together, and deadfoot discusses it, i only have one stanza to share.

Under the coldness, you shine back at me, And I do everything to keep the clouds from threatening you.

now, this poem is about love, grief, and being separated. it's a particular kind of grief, and windclan discourages grief, so this is one of only a few ways to really, fully express it.

and this section, in particular, is about love in times of hardship.

i don't have. a lot to say here. but the way hardship changes how you love someone can be particular and intense.

(temporarily, this happens sometime before "Spare for my chosen few / All I have is given towards the distant ground.")

the gorse in the wind

oh shit! i have so fucking much to say okay first.

the series title does not come from this hymn.

second, this is a challenging hymn okay. fuck. i have so much to say. where to start so! moors are actually relatively wet. think british countryside, not, like, a cool desert.

this is something i always knew? i read the secret garden a lot as a kid. but. i've seen stuff about moors being dry, and it's just one of those things that really...starts to eat under your skin. anyway.

okay, so. gorse is a dry plant. it does not like rain. it grows in sandy soil, etc etc, and yet. aside from everything we know about gorse and warriors, it also grows in this moor. because i say so.

okay, so. so so so. the lines quotes here are really deceptive, and i bet no one understood why, and that makes me just a little sad, but i couldn't find a good way to explain it in text, so uh, yeah, anyway. there's an exchange between ashfoot and deadfoot: "THE GORSE: You called me the heather and I grew stronger. / THE WIND: I called you the heather and brought rain for you to grow."

so...so do you see? do you see the point? it's about communication, needs, challenging each other. fadskj;l i love this. okay, so. the point is that heather is fragile, soft, pretty, and gorse is the opposite. the part of the wind is trying to be kind and complimentary, but the gorse is saying, fuck that, you are not being kind to me by undercutting my strength.

anyway, this passage is sung by the gorse:

In what good company have I set down roots, That even through snow fall I flower. You called me the heather and yet I've weathered, Far more than your sweet-named love.

so uh, yeah, this adds context. gorse! gorse is a hardy plant that continues to flower basically all season round. it's cool. it's cool. gorse is super cool. fuuuck y'all it's such a small thing and i've contained talking about it until now, but now it's too much. the floodgates are open, and i thought about this small detail too much.

okay. deep breath. gorse is a really easy plant to grow, but it's still adapted for dry environments. so the "even through snow fall I flower" part is a little tongue in cheek: gorse itself will flower in the cold, but snow is a type of precipitation, which as we've covered, is not gorse friendly.

then we have some rhyming and puns in the next line, and finally, "yet I've weathered, / Far more than your sweet-named love." like. yes. love as a form of softness is not necessarily helpful.

i mean, consider the damaging "soft trans boi" problem. same energy.

right. okay. so we've got all that? now if you remember, this is sung when deadfoot thinks ashpaw doesn't respect him, and ashpaw says she'll sing with him if she can sing the gorse, so in essence, she's telling him...not to back off, per se, but that...she is the "hard part" of the relationship. like, okay, i refuse to even bring up gender roles in human relationships, but uh, her point is very much, "i am the gorse, and you are the wind," and it's a very monumental moment.

it's anchored, i believe, in the other scenes, but this is a small thing that matters a lot to me.

like a lot.

okay, now that i've talked about like four lines for the length of this entire post, moving on.

the heather and earth

okay, this is the last hymn i have in concrete terms, and i cut a bit of it from the latest chapter, so yeah. it's also, uh, okay everything i have for it is only a line or two, but i wanted to share this closing line (sung together):

Sing a song of forgiveness, of growing together, and we will make madness, And madness from hence will everything beautiful grow.

and i just like these lines. they got cut, it was initially part of an exchange between ashfoot and deadfoot, but i can't share the part of it they talk about, because i'm reusing it for a later chapter and i'll 100% spoil shit if i try to talk about it.

but these lines? mmm they speak to me.

i don't have a ton to say about them, but i just. i like it.

if we apply the same ecology discussion from the gorse and the wind, we see heather is a plant that grows in acidic, infertile soil, and heath (which is not the same as a heather, but also kind of is) is a defining quality of heathland, which is...i'm not kidding, it's hot discourse about the difference between moorland and heathland.

i'm not getting involved, but my point is, if the gorse in the wind is a hymn about finding a working relationship, about mutual respect, etc., then the heather and earth is a hymn about working well together in a terrible situation.

god.

uh, wow! can you tell i like plants? because while parts of my ecology are dubious (see: everything regarding the rabbits in ch1), the plants part are well thought out. this shit is carefully detailed metaphor.

and that's why i won't be releasing a full hymnal. it's hard to as on top of this as i want to be. i'm not kidding, writing even four lines of a hymn usually takes me about twenty minutes, because i pull up a lot of research about how things work, how they interact with each other, etc., and then there's wordsmithing, cat worldview filter, etc.

but i hope this overview of what i've got is a good insight into my general thoughts. and i will eventually release more and more of the hymns i've got written.

[kittyprincessofcats]

RWBY Volume 8, Episodes 8-12

All caught up with RWBY now! (Except for the premium only episode.)

So, two things first: 1. From now on, my blog will no longer be spoiler free for RWBY! I don’t have premium access, so no spoilers for that, but beyond that, I might now reblog spoilers for everything that’s been released to the public. Blacklist “#RWBY spoilers” if you don’t want to see them.

2. I was going to ask what the spoiler policy in this fandom in general is when it comes to premium access. From what I’ve seen, Youtubers usually wait a week before uploading their reaction videos, which I appreciate – but here on tumblr almost no one seems to hold back. I saw a spoiler for “Creation” before it was released publicly. The day episode 13 was released for premium access, I had to unfollow people for posting untagged spoilers for it. And when I went into a RWBY-related tag for one second, I saw a really big spoiler that put me in a very sour mood because it also happened to be very aggressively worded against fans of a certain character (basically, along the lines of “I’m glad X bad thing happened to Y character because I hate them and their fans”). So, that scared the shit out of me and I ended up looking up more specific spoilers about what exactly happened because I wouldn’t have been able to sleep otherwise. So, from what I’ve seen, this fandom’s spoiler policy is just “fuck anyone who doesn’t have premium access” 😒. Always nice to see people being so considerate.

With that said, let’s get into my thoughts on episodes 8-12. Under the cut, because unlike some people, I try to be considerate of others who might want to avoid spoilers.

- So, the Hound really was a person. Specifically, a person with silver eyes and that’s probably what happened to Summer. THANKS, I HATE IT. This is exactly what I feared it would be and what I didn’t want it to be. (I don’t want Ruby and Yang to have to fight and kill their grimm-ified mom, that’s too sad, okay?)

- I love that Whitley really came through and came up with a plan for evacuating everyone! He’s a good bean after all! And that he managed to press that button on the computer before running from the Hound? Amazing.

- Willow Schnee being one hell of a mama bear and summoning a thing to protect Whitley was epic. She was so close to breaking down before that, but then her child was in danger and she just jumped into action right away. Protective mom instincts ftw!

- Blake’s talk about how she looks up to Ruby and how she herself lost the youthful optimism Ruby still has was SO sweet! (Also, Ladybug is an underrated ship/friendship and I really don’t get why people say they never interact? Have you all just forgotten volume 1 and how Bumbleby’s first meeting happened because Yang was trying to wingman Ruby who was trying to befriend Blake??)

- Penny fighting the virus from the inside was amazing, she did so well! I also loved seeing Nora encourage her (and echo Blake’s earlier words back to her).

- Unrelated to these episodes specifically, but I tried to think about who my favourite RWBY charactes even are right now, and I find it super hard to narrow down because I love so many of them, but if I tried to somewhat narrow it down, then (in no specific order because don’t ask me to also come up with an order): all of Team RWBY (though Blake is a personal favourite), Ilia, Penny, Salem, Cinder. (But then again, I also love Winter and Qrow and Robyn and... you get it, it’s hard to narrow down. Oh, and of course Pyrrha, but... you know.)

- “Witch” was honestly my favourite episode of the bunch. That one was just so full of epic stuff. (And now I’m wondering if Salem being one of my favourite characters has anything to do with my love for witches. I used to be obsessed with witches as a kid. In every story I read that had a witch, the witch was always my favourite character.)

- Yang and her team sure found a way inside that whale fast! Also, really handy that Ren’s semblance evolved just in time for when they needed it. But hey, I don’t want to complain about convenient plot stuff too much. Sometimes the heroes are allowed to have a little bit of good luck.

- Hazel listening to Oscar and deciding to get both him AND Emerald out of there was amazing! He really does have a soft spot for kids and wasn’t kidding about not wanting more kids to die – we love to see it! I also think it makes for an interesting parallel that Hazel decided to do this right as Ironwood was sending students to fight on the front lines and Marrow was calling it out.

- I really liked Ren telling Yang she doesn’t have to hide her fear behind jokes. Ren being able to see emotions is going to bring about so many more good moments, I just know it!

- Emerald and “Hazel’s” talk with Salem gets so much better when you know “Hazel” is actually Oscar – Emerald has gotten so much better at illusions and fooled Salem herself! That’s impressive!

- It’s really practical that Ren could sense Emerald’s fear. But also, the group really didn’t have the time to discuss if Emerald was trustworthy – they needed to get out of there asap.

- The way Salem spits out the word “semblance” when she talks to Emerald shows again that she not only underestimates these “new humans” and their powers, but also considers them inferior. It’s a nice little detail how just her tone when she says that word says so much about her worldview.

- Yang straight-up running up to Salem and blowing her up was epic. It didn’t last of course, but it was still a super bold and epic move. I’ve talked before about how cool Yang is and she just keeps getting cooler.

- Yang calling Salem out was amazing and epic, too! And when she referred to Summer Rose as “my mom” that made me tear up just a bit 😢. (I really don’t like Salem’s smile when she says “her again”, though. I don’t want grimm-ified Summer, I really don’t want it, okay? keep it far away from me where I won’t have to see it.)

- I’m a bit sad about Hazel’s death, but it was a really fitting end for his character and a really cool way to go out. The way he looked at all of those kids in danger (proving again that that’s what it’s about for him), whispered “No more Gretchens” to Oscar, punched Salem in the face as she was about to hurt Emerald, injected all of those crystals into his skin (which looked epic, by the way), told Emerald to go, fought an epic fight against Salem and then grabbed her and set himself and her on fire, burning her like a witch – it was epic stuff! RIP Hazel, you died as a hero and went out in an incredibly epic way!

- Hazel’s sacrifice must have been super tough on Emerald. He died protecting her (and JOYR) and it worked. She got away from Salem, but only because someone else, a friend, died for her. Not only must it be awful for her to lose Hazel, she probably also blames herself. (And, as I’ve seen others point out, it was probably the first time in her life an adult did something to protect her. Wow. Someone get this girl therapy, please.)

- The whale getting blown up was an absolutely epic moment. From the music to the cinematography, I loved everything about it. (That said, I will miss the whale. RIP coolest villain lair ever.)

- I loved Watts’ speech to Cinder – and I’m saying this as someone who became a huge fan of Cinder this volume. I love her, but I also love roasting her, and a lot of what Watts said was stuff she desperately needed to hear. I honestly didn’t even like Watts before that moment, but that speech might have made me like him just a tiny bit. The way he just laughed when she dangled him from a building, the way he spelled it out for her that her methods haven’t been working and threw her failures in her face, the ending with calling her “a bloody migraine” – Like I said, I’m a fan of Cinder, but that was glorious and cathartic and beautiful to witness. But what makes it really perfect is Cinder’s reaction: The fact that you’d expect her to kill him or at least scream at him, but instead she spares him and just sits down and cries. I really love what they’ve been doing with Cinder this volume and that they’re finally showing her as someone way deeper than just a power-hungry villain.

- In general, let me quickly talk about Cinder, because even without having seen the last two episodes I can already tell you that she’s my standout character / favourite character of the season. (It was Ilia for Volume 5, Salem for Volume 6, Penny for Volume 7 – and now it’s Cinder.) I said back in my post about Volume 5 that I wish they’d do more with her because after becoming rather interesting in Volume 4 they just went back to making her a pretty flat villain – and I officially have to eat my words and apologize to RoosterTeeth right now! This volume proved to me that they know what they’re doing with Cinder and explained so much about her. I’m sorry for ever doubting the writing. I now want to go back and rewatch the whole show while paying more attention to Cinder and I can’t wait to see where her arc goes from here (yes, I want an eventual redemption, and what about it?). This volume is obviously setting up something big for her – I just have no idea what it is. And at the end of the day, she’s still the Maiden of Choice. She’s the key to the Beacon relic, and that’s going to become important eventually.

- Oh, and can I mention, just by the way, that I think Cinder looks amazing? I don’t understand all the people who say they miss her red outfits when this is clearly her best look yet. The black eyepatch, the cape, the earrings, the short hair, the high boots, the shorts instead of a dress, all the black – this is her absolute best look, period.

- I’ve also noticed that the scene between her and Watts is the first time Cinder has referred to Penny by name. She’s always referred to her with phrases like “some toy” or “Polendina’s creation” before, but this time she just called her “Penny Polendina”, then “Penny” again, and asked Watts how she’s supposed to take Penny’s power “if she’s dead” (not “destroyed”, which is what Watts said, but “dead” – something you say about a person, not a machine). I think somewhere down the line, Cinder has started to see Penny as a person and respect her as the Winter Maiden. Maybe it’s because of how Penny won the fight at Amity, or maybe (though this might be wishful thinking on my part) it’s because Penny questioned why Cinder serves Salem and showed her and Emerald mercy.

- Also, side-note: While I loved Watts’ speech, it sure is bold of him to call Cinder entitled when his own villain origin story is getting overlooked for a science project.

- Neo is an amazing little troll and I love her. From stealing the lamp and skipping along the ruins of the whale happily to those texts to Cinder, all of her moments were brilliant and hilarious.

- Some characters not just forgiving Emerald is totally fair and realistic. But, as I said before (and as Oscar also points out), they don’t have to. People think a “redemption” – or let’s just call it switching sides instead of using such a loaded term – has to include everyone’s forgiveness, but it doesn’t. If Yang and Jaune never want to personally forgive Emerald, that’s okay. They don’t need to forgive her to recognize that she’s changed and work with her. And, as Oscar and Ren point out, Emerald’s abilities would be very useful to have on their side. So, personal feelings are fine and all, but right now they don’t have the luxury to dismiss a potentially very useful ally. (And same for Oz, by the way. It’s fine if they’re still mad at him, but they also need his help.)

- Also, have I already said that I’m very happy for Emerald? Because I’m very happy for Emerald for getting out of there! (Mercury’s and then Cinder’s redemption next, please!)

- F*ck Harriet for trying to get Winter in trouble for letting JYR go. I’m hating her more every second. And then she seriously said “Who cares?” about Ironwood’s plan to nuke Mantle? She’s the most unlikable of them all.

- Everyone’s reunions were so sweet! I loved Ruby and Yang hugging 😭. And Yang cupping Blake’s cheek and their forehead touch had me all 🥰 🥰 🥰.

- After he threatened to nuke Mantle, I hope we can all agree that Ironwood is a straight-up villain now. The most infuriating part is that he didn’t even have to do anything! Whitley and Weiss had figured out a way to save everyone in Mantle and the SDC ships to evacuate people were already there. All Ironwood had to do was let them evacuate everyone to Atlas, and then Penny would have opened the vault willingly and Ironwood could have used the staff to raise Atlas as planned. Problem solved! He should have just sat there and ate his food – but he was so pissed about things not going his way (or maybe he just genuinely hates Mantle that much) that he thought sabotaging the rescue plan and threatening genocide was a better option.

- I loved Marrow’s arc in these episodes and how you could tell more and more that his conscience was making him turn against Ironwood. First he questioned Winter when she was going to nuke the whale before JOYR were back, then he seemed shocked when he thought they were dead, then he tried to talk sense into the other Ace Ops after Ironwood’s ultimatum, and then he straight-up called out Ironwood himself. That last one was dangerous though, and he was lucky Winter was quick enough to jump in and pretend to arrest him, because Ironwood was going to just shoot him in the back.

- Speaking of, I wonder how long Winter has been planning to double-cross Ironwood. How long was she already disagreeing with him, but waiting for the right moment to make a move? Either way, I’m glad she was there to save Marrow.

- The Renora confession scene was so sweet and got me a little choked up 😢. I’m glad they sorted out their issues and told each other how they feel. But like I said before, I think Nora’s arc of trying to find out who she is without Ren is really good and important and Ren respecting that was really good and important as well. It was just a very wholesome scene. Also, I like that we got a little bit more backstory for Nora (her mom abandoned her? that’s awful), and Jaune awkwardly leaving the room was hilarious.

- Robyn telling Qrow he’s a better Huntsman than Clover because he chose to do the right thing was a really important moment for Qrow, imo. (And just a side-note: I’m sure most Fair Game shippers are pretty chill – and I’m a strong believer in ‘ship and let ship’ – but a certain subset of them is starting to get on my nerves with how they ignore Clover’s canon character and story (acting like he would have rebelled against Ironwood if he were alive as if the whole reason he’s dead wasn’t precisely because he cared more about Ironwood’s orders than doing the right thing) and how they make every new plot point about their ship somehow (Oscar’s semblance? Better be a time-travel thing so Clover can come back. Staff of Creation? Better be able to bring people back from the dead so Clover can come back.) It’s so annoying.)

- Yang and Ruby’s talk about their mom was really intense. Ruby’s been holding all of these feelings in for so long, so seeing her say out loud what we’re all fearing (that Summer was turned into a Grimm) and seeing both her and Yang break down over it – that was a lot. I loved seeing Yang comfort Ruby and tell her that her plan for Amity wasn’t useless. Their sisterly bond is so sweet.

- Penny asking Ruby to kill her was another really intense moment. The look on Ruby’s face in that moment really said it all. Ruby has been through so much, has lost Penny before, so hearing that request – even though they fortunately didn’t have to go through with it – must have still been a lot for her.

- I really loved Emerald’s cute “newly reformed villain” moments. (“You guys have been getting your asses kicked… some of that my fault” & “I’m just going to be super pissed if you all finally decide to give up the moment I switch sides.”) I’ve said before (in my She-Ra posts) that my favourite part of any redemption arc is the “former enemies, now awkward around each other” stuff, so this was right up my alley!

- “The girl who fell through the world” was referenced twice now. Between that, the image of everyone falling in the opening, and the lyrics “sometimes it’s worth it all to risk the fall”, I’m going to predict that someone – most likely all of Team RWBY – will fall into that void and potentially end up in a different world.

- The group’s plan to defeat Ironwood, stop the bomb, and get to the vault was amazing all-around. I love the parts Emerald and Winter got to play in it, I love how we saw the plan’s execution before seeing how they came up with it and I love how everyone got to help, even the Schnees and Klein. I also love that the hole Oscar blasted through the ground of Atlas became relevant again.

- The design of the vault and the door are really nice and now I wonder what the other two are going to look like.

- Saving Penny like that was super risky, but they really were out of options. Just the fact that Ruby had to be quick enough to use her semblance and get to the staff before the virus kills Penny… jeesh, that was close.

- Ambrosius is a super fun character! I love that he looked at Penny and said “I’d love to meet whoever did this.” Also, the staff seems more useful than the lamp. The lamp only lets you ask three questions per century, while the staff can be used as often as you want – as long as you’re okay with whatever it previously created disappearing.

- I honestly still don’t completely understand what Penny is now. Is she meant to be human now? Or is she just a being made up of pure aura? How does this work? Ambrosius only created the copy that destroyed herself, so what’s left is Penny’s aura – but she somehow also has a body now? I guess we’ll find out more about what exactly this means later.

- Also, while I wasn’t sure how I feel about this decision re:Penny at first, now that I’ve thought about it for a bit, I think it works. It fits with the Pinocchio story, and I like that they didn’t phrase it as “she’s a real girl now”, but as “this is the girl who’s been in there all along”. Also, Penny saying “wow” after hugging Ruby and then going on a hugging spree was adorable.

- Watching “herself” self-terminate must have been really traumatic, though. Even if that copy was just a robot, it was still a disturbing scene.

- Who shut down communications in the middle of Jaune’s broadcast? I’m assuming it was Cinder, Watts and Neo.

- The whole dimension with the doorways that Ambrosius created looks amazing. (A while before watching this episode, I wondered if Raven could theoretically save Atlas by getting everyone to safety with her portals. It might not have been Raven, but I’m glad I was at least onto something.)

- “Do not fall.” So, about that… they’re all falling in the opening, (and we referenced “the girl who fell through the world” twice now), so I don’t have a good feeling about that. Also, Watts has been dangled from somewhere high twice now, so the third time has to be when he actually falls down.

- And Cinder is there to ruin the plan because of course she is.

[eternally--exhausted]

Merthur Fic Recs

take my hand (there's a world I need to know) 18K words / 3 Chapters

Looking at Arthur, framed in the sunlight breaking through the trees, makes something flutter in Merlin’s chest. He turns away quickly, gripping the reins. “You’re annoying.” He hears Arthur trying to muffle a huff of laughter. “This whole trip is annoying.”

Arthur sighs. “Is that what you’re so grumpy about? You’ve been suspiciously quiet since we’ve left Camelot. Not even one comment about how high the trees are, or something equally idiotic.”

When Merlin and Arthur share a 'thank god you're not injured, I thought you were hurt,' kiss, that's all it is. Or at least Merlin is certain that's all it is, because there is no way Arthur has actual - feelings for him. Now he just has to figure out why Arthur keeps looking at him like that.

(In which Merlin is oblivious and should have just listened to Gauis in the first place.)

Okay so this is amazing I really liked it especially the intimacy that they share before they are together. It makes your heart ache and scream that they need to get together. It shows their relationship so well and how much Arthur cares for Merlin. 

Fool Me Once  18K words / 2 Chapters

Arthur could see his father glaring down - face red and eyes narrowed as he looked at Merlin with clear distaste.

"Once this over, sorcerer...I’ll burn you."

"You’ve already tried that," Merlin’s voice answered and Arthur had to bite his fist to keep from making any noise. “You need to accept you can’t kill me… Hand me that blanket, please.”

“I’m sure there must be some method… Beheading?”

“No, we tried that.”

“Hanging?”

“I just sort of... Swung there, remember?”

There was another pause.

“I should have made you keep that dragon below the castle so I could feed you to it.”

“Kilgharrah? He won’t eat me, but if you want to torture me than making me listen to his nonsense for an hour might do it.” Merlin said and there was a soft sigh from the other end of the room. “I’m glad you agreed to help me though. Usually I have to do the grunt work of saving Arthur myself.”

“I can’t wait to kill you.”

Or

Uther finds out about Merlin’s magic, but can’t seem to kill him. Merlin is just trying to protect Arthur. They become a begrudgingly effective duo. Arthur doesn't understand why they think he isn't noticing this.

Okay no gonna lie this shit was fucking funny. Yes it is a merthur fic but it shows the relationship between Uther and Merlin if the King knew Merlin had magic. Also Arthur is not an idiot just long suffering. I’m going to be honest with you this is actually part of a series (don’t need to read before reading this because they are not related) and the whole series I recommend.

The Last Ten Years  19K words / 3 Chapters

For Merlin the story ends with Arthur in his arms, resting beside a lake, hoping it isn't goodbye forever.

For Arthur the story begins with an insolent stranger opposing him in front of his knights and upending his world.

And in the middle they fall in love.

With this story it is told in both Arthur’s and Merlin’s point of view throughout their years together. It is also technically not in order. It also is a little sad in some parts but it is absolutely amazing. When I read this I almost immediately wanted to re-read it. Please read it.

That's the Spirit 12K words

“You really do have a soulmate.” Arthur said with a frown and Merlin shrugged. “That might be a problem.”

"Can’t stand anybody but you having a shot a true love?” Merlin asked flatly. Arthur wrinkled his nose.

“No, idiot. Spirit animals don’t get along unless they belong to their soulmate. If my bird sees your hideous lion-“

“He is quite dashing, thank you. Besides, your bloody bird is too loud-“

“My bird is just trying to do me a favor and tune you out!” Arthur snapped and took a long breath “The point is they can’t be around each other. So unless you want Emmy to pluck out this lion’s eyes I suggest you tell him to bugger off.” He snapped. Merlin was inclined to tell Arthur to bugger off himself, but was immediately distracted by one word.

“Emmy?” He repeated and smiled. “You did name him.”

Or

In a time of myth and a land of magic, your soulmate’s spirit animal looks after you (even after you meet your soulmate). Arthur and Merlin are oblivious fools. We know this. That doesn’t change here.

Soulmate AU. Really that’s all you need to know but I’ll expand. Merlin and Arthur are kinda stupid but this is a really good story where instead of getting a mark on your body to lead you to your soulmate you get spirit animals. 

I stepped out of time and landed in your lap  5K words

Suddenly he remembers how young Merlin looked in their bed, how he trembled and how he blushes. How he’s dressed in those old rags of his servant days that he hasn’t seen in bloody years. Groaning, Arthur ends the kiss and leans his forehead against Merlin’s. “Please don’t tell me I’ve been sent back in time and took you to bed like a brute.”

So the other ones I recommended had more plot to them but I could not resist this one. It is a time travel fic where older Arthur is sent back in time and as the summary says he has sex with Merlin. Basically it is PWP so do with that as you will.

For Your Information  9K Words

Merlin sighs. "After your...announcement," he explains, "your father decided he needed a bit more information. Which is apparently where I come in. I'm sort of like his gay tutor, it's hard to explain."

I normally don’t like modern day merthur and its because I live in a fantasy that season 5 didn’t happen. Again this is mostly a lot of Uther and Merlin interactions where Uther wants more information and advice on how to handle his son coming out as gay to him. Merlin is long suffering.

-----

I really enjoyed reading all of these fics and I recommend them to you all. If you want more fic recs for them then either comment or send me a message and I will be happy to because I have so many to recommend. I am also thinking about making a geraskier fic rec list so maybe watch out for that. Anyway, as always, thank you for listening friends.

[anonniemousefics]

My Dearest Inej | Chapter Eleven

Chapter Masterlist

Originally posted on AO3

Rating: Teen And Up

Synopsis: A series of letters kept among the personal belongings of Captain Inej Ghafa.

Chapter Eleven: A Balancing Act

My darling Inej,  

Don’t think for a minute I don’t know what you’re aiming at with this letter full of questions. You may have my heart, but you can’t be privy to all of my schemes, especially when I’m now aware that your birthday is next month. Did you think I would forget? My dear, I forget nothing.  

So, no, to all of your questions. I’m not telling you what I’ve been plotting lately. I’m not telling you what has been on my mind. I’m not telling you if I’ve been visiting Jesper and Wylan’s more than usual. You must wait in suspense just as Jesper did. That’s part of the experience.

And don’t make that scoffing sound when you read this. I remind you that this whole birthday gift experience business was all your idea. You have no one to blame but yourself.

How do I sleep at night, you asked? Noisily, I’ve been told, but just fine, thank you.  

With all of my scheming heart,

Kaz  

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To my favorite Inej,

Has he said anything at all to you – regarding the incident in my last letter? We found him on the couch again this morning. It’s at least becoming less startling when it happens. I just wish I understood it. He has that uncanny ability to vanish without explanations, and Wylan and I aren’t sure how to bring it up since he’s so clearly bent on pretending it’s not happening.

I suppose if our sofa and our dog are what he needs right now for whatever is happening inside that ridiculous brain of his, then I’m glad we’re able to help in some small way. He’s not taking advantage of much. We only wish he’d trust us with more.

I mean, we’ve all have nearly died for his schemes on more than one occasion. Should I remind him of that? What could possibly be too much to ask of us at this point?

All my love,

Jesper  

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To our feared and beloved Captain

For her twenty-first birthday:

Cake and kvas and mysteries galore

Are awaiting your arrival

Return to Ketterdam if you wish to know more

Your presence is requested at the enclosed address, at 3 bells the 18th of October.  

No questions. All will be revealed in time.

Love,

Your favorite Crows

(addition in Kaz’s handwriting)

That gods-awful poem was Jesper and Wylan’s idea. Withhold judgment until after the evening. I’ll make it worth your while.  

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Dear Nina,  

I’m sailing away from Ketterdam today having nearly every single one of my birthday wishes fulfilled but one. But I won’t hold it against you. I know why you couldn’t have been there, or at least, I understand why I don’t know the specifics of why you couldn’t be there. Just know that, at the time of writing this and always, you are sorely missed.  

You would be so proud, though, with how our boys outdid themselves. I am impressed and moved and, frankly, still a little speechless. I’m honestly still replaying the memories and recalling the half-starved scrappy little things we all were seven years ago, and the two images side-by-side could not be any more different. I hope, wherever you are, the passage of time is bringing you similar new hopes. You deserve that and so much more, Nina.  

Where to begin? You know, years ago, just before we started the Ice Court, Kaz made me this lofty, insane promise. That, if we did it right, we’d be kings and queens. I’ll be damned if he wasn’t right.  

The day started at a dressmaker’s shop. I’d been given an address and a time to arrive, and that alone was a little jaw-dropping. It was in The Lid – an absolute premier spot I’d never even heard of when I lived in Ketterdam. I was grossly underdressed when I arrived. It’s not that I have anything against dresses – you know this. They’re just not at all practical for my line of work, and so I have none. I confess that sometimes I’ll admire them in a shop window when I’m out and about in a port town, but why in the world would I ever spend the coin on one? I wouldn’t even know what suits me anymore.  

This dressmaker, though, Nina. She knew all everything about the right fabrics, the right cut, the right make. They’d booked me the entire shop all to myself, just me and the dressmaker. She found me an absolute perfect gown – I’m staring at it right now. I have no idea what the hell I’m supposed to do with it now that my birthday’s over. Maybe I’ll prop it up in my desk chair and have tea with it every once and awhile. It’s this breathtaking light, pastel yellow, like sunshine, with all this detailed beadwork and exposed shoulders and what the dressmaker called an A-line waist. You might know what that means. I think it’s just dressmaker code for very pretty. She tailored me into it right there in the shop and fitted me with shoes and a cloak to match.

(My one regret was having no idea what to do with my hair. You’d cringe, but I left it in the braid. A minor detail the boys overlooked.)

It took a good few hours to get fixed up in the dress, and it was nearly evening by then. The dressmaker assured me it was all paid for, and right about that time, a black carriage pulled up in front of the shop. And Jesper and Wylan had their heads out the windows, shouting like madmen at me from the streets. I think the entirety of The Lid knew then about my birthday.

Kaz was in the carriage, too, hiding his enthusiasm as he does so well. I have to tell you, though, Nina, I won’t ever forget the look on his face when I got into the carriage. He was clearly trying his best to remain cool and unaffected, but I saw it, the way his jaw dropped slightly and his breath caught. This is obviously why I can never get rid of this dress. I’m just imagining what he’s going to end up writing in his letter after this, since, verbally, he actually managed to mumble that I looked beautiful, right there in front of Jesper and Wylan.

You know, it’s interesting. When he says it, it’s not at all like hearing a man in the Menagerie say it. When he says it, it’s like it’s not just the dress. I don’t know how else to explain it. It’s the same words, and yet it’s so very different.  

And it only got better from there. The city was getting dusky, and the lamps were being lit. We were still in The Lid, amongst carriages and carriages of the filthy rich from the Financial District, the Government District, and tourists from all over. I kept leaning my head out the window to figure out what was coming next.  

Nina – they had bought us all ticket to the Cirque Euphoric.  

Maybe this means nothing to you. But it’s only the most ancient, most elite, most elaborate traveling circus in the world. It can only be afforded anymore by the wealthiest of tourists. And they were there doing an entire season in The Lid in Ketterdam, under a big top the size of two city blocks.

Nina, you don’t understand. My entire childhood, I kept posters and drawings and any relic that made its way to the markets from the Cirque Euphoric. Their high wire artists set the standard for all other performers in the business. The things they do in the sky, Nina, are things I haven’t even begun to imagine yet.

Sufficed to say, as soon as I figured out where we were going, I lost it. I did not know what to do with myself. I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I burst into tears. It was a horrifying few moments for everyone involved. They were fairly certain they’d done something horribly wrong, instead of so wonderfully right. But that only last a couple minutes. I was able to get it together before Kaz could yell at the driver to take us back to East Stave. And then the merriment resumed, soaked handkerchief and all.

Oh, Saints, Nina, it was everything I’d ever imagined and more.

I don’t know how he knew this, but Kaz had reserved us the very best seats. You don’t want to sit too high at a circus or you’ll miss entertainment on the ground. Sitting too low presents a problem, too, because you want to be able to see the footwork the high wire artists can do. We were right in the middle, just where I’d have picked seats myself. Sankta Alina, I felt like a little girl again. I haven’t been that happy in years. I’d almost forgotten what it was to be that happy. And to watch it all with such beloved friends, who knew me well enough to know I would like this, to watch and hear their reactions to the performances. They might have loved it almost as much as I did. Almost.

We took another carriage ride after, hours later, when it was dark and the streets were bustling with very different crowds. I would have assumed that was the end of it, but Kaz had made us reservations in a private dining room at a fine dining club I’d never heard of.

My entire crew from The Wraith was waiting in the dining room. We ate a meal there fit for royalty, with drinks and a cake big enough that even you might have gotten sick of it after awhile. I don’t think I’ll need to eat again for weeks.

It must have been around midnight or past when we finally rolled ourselves out of the club. We took another carriage ride, stopping first at the Van Eck mansion so Wylan could haul a decently-sloshed Jesper off to bed and hopefully not to the toilet bowl. I actually never heard how he ended up faring that night.

And then it was finally just Kaz and me. If I hadn’t been so tired then, I think I’d have tried to snog his face off the whole way home. I’d been noticing his smug little smirk all evening. He’d planned the whole thing. Like I said, kings and queens. He’d made good on his word at last.  

But we were both exhausted on that final carriage ride – he’d booked me a room at the Geldrenner. And it’s not like I needed anything else at that point. The whole experience had already exceeded my expectations. He leaned back against the window, and I rested against him under his arm. We both dozed off there before the end of the ride.  

Which is another point I realize I haven’t mentioned to you yet. This has been happening lately. Kaz falling asleep in unusual places. Jesper’s been worrying about it for weeks now. I was having a hard time believing it until I witnessed it myself. Tell me this isn’t weird:

We got to the Geldrenner, and I asked him to come up. Oh, calm down. Are we really going to pretend like this is shocking at this point? Frankly, given the number of years, it’s shocking we weren’t sneaking into hotel rooms four years ago. And it’s not like we do much more than kiss. Although, I thought about it. It was my birthday after all, and he had just gifted me the experience of a lifetime and a luxury hotel room to boot. I was definitely thinking about it.  

But that’s not the weird part. Let’s agree that’s not the weird part, anyway. We came up, and we did very little talking. There’d been plenty of talking happening all night, and I was more interested in other things he can do with his mouth. Kissing, Nina, Saints. I can sense you doing that waggling thing with your eyebrows. I’m talking about just a lot of kissing, as soon as he let me get my hands on him. The kind of kissing every grown woman should have on her birthday, kisses that slide into more kisses, like there’s nothing else in the world happening but this.

But then the weird part happened. We’re lying on the bed (fully clothed, Nina, he even still had his gloves on), or at least, he’s lying back on the pillows and I’m kissing him, and then I notice he wasn’t really moving. And I sat back a moment, and I swear to you, he had fallen asleep. Believe me, I called him out on it right then, literally – “Are you sleeping?!” And he flinched right awake and apologized and blamed it on the kvas, and I might have even believed him.  

Except Jesper keeps talking about this strange new habit of his. And, as I replay the night’s memories in my head, it does feel like something was off. He seemed paler. He seemed quieter. He seemed – well, tired.  

Now I can’t kick this feeling like there’s something more happening behind the scenes. I wish you were here, Nina, and you could work your magic like you do and just squeeze the truth out of his brain somehow. I’ll have to settle for my own magic, I guess.  

When I look over my letters from him, he’s off-handedly mentioned feeling overwhelmed, particularly since this kid Artie joined the Dregs. And, don’t get me wrong, the kid is kind of handful. His moods swing wide between murderous rage and affectionate admiration. But he’s not Kaz’s sole responsibility. Pim and Anika do a lot to keep him on task and out of the bad kind of trouble. I wouldn’t think this would be enough to drive him to exhaustion.

But then again, Artie is the same age Jordie was. I wonder how much that gets to him. I wonder how much time he spends avoiding that. I wonder if he allows himself to think of it at all. Would that be enough to push him to the edge? Or is it something more?

It couldn’t be me, could it? Am I becoming exhausting?  

Ugh, Nina, come squeeze this out of my brain, too. And then come dress shopping with me, because it is much more enjoyable than I thought it would be.  

Missing you terribly,

Inej

[the-magnus-archives-wiki]

Red string & Spiders

The Web is obviously gonna be important in season 5 and ive been meaning to dig into some of it’s threads (hah) for a while. Now, I know about Web!Martin and I admit that it’s a possibility, but i dont personally see the narrative taking that route. 

I don’t know that all these connections are intentional manipulations either, but I’m just gonna work under the assumption that they are and see where it gets me. Somewhere behind the scenes, Annabelle and the Mother are playing five dimensional chess and laughing at all of us.

This ended up being a bit long (1.5k words, whoops!) so it’s going under a cut.

123: Web Development. 

“You would have to write out, and post, in full, a horrible event that had happened to you, or someone that you loved.“ This sounds an awful lot like Annabelle is collecting statements, possibly scouting victims and potential vectors through which she can influence the Institute? She starts doing this in early 2015 and that brings me to

16: Arachnophobia & 39: Infestation

Carlos Vittery's name is found in the Chelicerae website. His experience happened in early 2015 and he made his statement in April. Investigating his statement is what brings Martin into contact with Jane Prentiss and sets into motion a chain of events that saves everyone during the Infestation. ie, he ends up living at the archives and stashes the extra fire extinguishers and the corkscrew.

Of course, Prentiss is also forced to start the wormpocalypse early after Jon accidentally discovers it when killing a spider.

147: Weaver & 80: The Librarian

It’s that damn lighter. From 147: “I realise that addiction is one of the strongest vectors of control there is.“ Leitner wouldn’t have been left alone if Jon hadn’t gone for a smoke, or just vaped instead. (Daisy helpfully mentions that he smokes Silk cut brand at one point -.-)

Of course, the lighter was delivered alongside the web table and destroying it is also what directly lead Jon to meeting Leitner in the first place. idk if the goal here would’ve been to actually get Leitner killed or if that was just a side-effect of pushing Jon further along his journey?¨

121: Far Away

The Web sends Oliver Banks to feed Jon a statement and encourage him to go full avatar. It’s just very kind and helpful, huh?

130: Meat

It helpfully points toward using a body part as an anchor when entering the coffin. This whole mess gets Jon marked by both the Flesh and the Buried.

Hill Top Road, pt 1

There’s A Lot Too Unpack Here

So they’re originally using this place to ensnare fresh adults and filling them with spiders. I think it is a place of power and essentially a production facility for the hollow type of spider person that Trevor encounters in 56. These might very well be the “spider husks” that got Daisy sectioned in the first place. 

Then there’s the whole mess with Agnes. I still don’t feel like I fully understand what went down there. Let’s look at these two quotes:

“she had destroyed the place utterly. And yet she remained bound to it, tied to it in some vital way.” (Eugene Vanderstock, 139)

“It let the Mother of Puppets bind me to Agnes, interweave our existences at some… metaphysical level, as it had with Fielding and the house.” (Gertrude, 145)

So we have ties that bind between Fielding/Hill Top, Agnes and Gertrude. The way Eugene talks about it, seems that being bound to Hill Top wouldn’t prevent her from realising her destiny, but being bound to Gertrude did. And while waiting for Gertrude to die, doubt crept into her and made her unfit for their grand ritual.

I still don’t understand why the uprooting of the tree at Hill Top is what spurred Agnes to finally end it though. It seems like that might’ve broken the bond between her and that place, which you’d think is a good thing? idk, maybe we’re not done with Agnes yet, or I’m just overthinking it.

Hill Top Road, pt 2

Season 5 babey!

“I can’t say much about exactly what happened within the walls of that house, but it seems the fight scarred the place in a way far deeper than simple fire. A scar in reality, that I believe has since been compounded by the interferences of other powers.” (Eugene, 139)

“There is something wrong with Hill Top Road. You know it as well as I do. Some strange scar on reality at the center of - whatever it is that the Spider is spinning.” (Helen, 146)

First, idk if it’s anything but this kinda reminds me of how Jon is marked by every fear. 

Second, episode 114. This is the episode I keep coming back to when thinking about Hill Top Road cause what the heck is up with this:

“I went to clean that house on April the 23rd 2009 which, according to all of you, is tomorrow. But it can’t be. That was two weeks ago. I’ve tried to talk to my friends about it. Those of my friends I can find, but they seem distant, like they don’t really know me. Everything is just... wrong. I can’t find my favourite coffee shop. And I don’t know who you people are.“

This whole episode reeks of alternate universe and I’m just ??? Additionally, the lady talks about the tree in the backyard, but it was uprooted in 2006, so even more AU vibes. Of course, it could be mental manipulation, someone altering her memories, but that seems like a weird red herring that Jon doesn’t even pursue. 

Alternatively, we’ve seen NotThem rewrite reality around a person and at this time the NotThem was bound to the Web table. I don’t think that’s anything, particularly given that the table was destroyed, but it’s a thought. (And NotSasha was very recently released back into the world so, hmm)

Ultimately I feel like the lady in 114 may have been a kind of experiment? A trial run to see exactly how they could harness this scar in reality, or to see if they needed to exacerbate it further? Whatever it is, I’m certain it’s gonna be Important™ in season 5.

81: A Guest for Mr. Spider

I don’t think baby-Jon was necessarily targeted beyond being a convenient victim. Him walking away from Mr Spider alive though, that may have made him interesting. I wonder if the Web being the first to mark him carries special significance and that’s maybe why it’s been assisting him? Its highly speculative but the Web did also mark Gertrude and it sounds like it may have been her first mark too. (Assuming the cat thing to be a joke)

Maybe it’s trying to use this to hijack Elias’ ritual somehow? Or to do a second ritual? Or the order of the marks has no significance and all it wanted Jon for was the Mass Ritual?

110: Creature Feature & 136: The Puppeteer

I feel like I know the least about these two. I don’t know to what extent they’re really connected but Neil Lagorio and the film angle seems like a big thing, and Annabelle’s presence makes me think it’s part of something bigger.

So Lagorio is supposed to be creating a spider animatronic but is actually housebound (you could even say homestuck). Annabelle shows up at his place and spends 5 months doing something before he dies. As news of his death break, a big spider monster kidnaps ~100 actors. It doesn’t feel like a big leap to say that he probably created (or was used to create) some sort of spider in the end.

idk what the end goal here is though, why did Annabelle send Lagorio’s original cuts to the Institute? Why is one body a year washing up on a beach? Are they just using them to lay eggs in, or as food? Just killing people isn’t very spider-y but I guess everyone needs to eat?

This whole thing is giving me ritual vibes but I don’t think that’s it? At least not your standard ritual.

Elias & 160

I feel like the Web has definitely helped us get to 160 but I don’t think Elias is directly working with it. They just seem to share the completion of the Mass Ritual as a goal. (Or maybe they are working together and Elias is getting played somehow, that’d be nice.)

Annabelle straight up says “Maybe I’ve occasionally been nudging something here and there to keep you safe, to keep everything on track” and she directly calls out his compulsion to read statements, which Elias’ ultimately uses to set it off. I feel like, if she wanted to stop it, she would’ve just found some way to kill Jon.

I don’t know if the final goal was just to piggyback on Elias’ ritual though, that feels a bit too simple, especially since Hill Top Road hasn’t been resolved. There’s probably some further, sinister plot at play that just needed the fearpocalpyse to be a thing. I don’t know what it is, but it’s gonna involve a big spider and Hill Top Road.

[theseerasures]

Conspicuous Media Consumption, 2020

it’s that time of year again! *saddest toot from the party horn*

for those of you just joining us: it’s a “consume a different content every week for 48 weeks of the year” challenge. for a longer explanation, check out last year’s write-up here, and as always, feel free to pop in and ask questions about any and all of this content.

(same disclaimer as last year too: content for this project ONLY here, and not certain...*looks at my billion Sad Cop Lady posts*...hyperfixations.)

(man remember when i was big into X-Men comics earlier this year? better times than these, if only because no one's discoursing about Emma Frost’s woobie/war criminal ratio anymore--her w/w, if you will)

(...i swear at one point i didn’t exclusively like platinum blondes but alas)

Bitter Root (comic, 1 issue finished 1/1/2020): still very cool on a basic concept level, but runs into the Image Comics problem of just not having enough content to keep my interest beyond that. part of that is on me, for picking it up again BEFORE the second arc rolled out, but the first five issues didn’t really follow (or resolve) any cohesive story either, so...meh.

Immortal Hulk (comic, 3 trades finished 1/17/2020): still not gonna be something i care deeply about (maybe one of Bruce’s Hulksonas dyed his hair???), but i do want to give kudos to Al Ewing for sheer consistency in terms of sustaining this level of quality storytelling month by month for more than two years now. working with the dense archive of the Hulk mythos and managing to make it interesting and thoughtful is impressive even if i personally would not expend the same effort.

Disco Elysium (game, finished 1/18/2020): honestly i should have twigged onto what this year was gonna be like when the third thing i drew from the barrel was pure uncut Eastern European flavored depression. i faintly recall people ragging on it for being pretentiously cynical, but i actually thought its core slid more towards idealism than people give it credit for. also gratified that i haven’t heard anything about Robert Kurvitz using slave labor to finish it, which is a thing we have to say about our video games now!!! fun.

Watchmen (TV, 7 episodes finished 1/27/2020): i am a fool who wants to believe in Damon Lindelof and I WAS RIGHT!!! honestly still cannot believe that he pulled off this highwire act with such deft aplomb. might be my favorite TV this year, which is a pretty high bar given how much TV i ended up watching.

On a Sunbeam (comic, finished 2/1/2020): Tillie Walden rightly deserves all the praise for inventive queer storytelling, but i will say that on reread--since i first read this as a webcomic--there ARE some issues with pacing here that clearly come from the foibles of its original intended medium. still just excellent, even if after some plot significant haircuts i was having trouble telling a few folks apart.

Lazarus (comic, 1 trade finished 2/8/2020): it’s so good and i want moooooorrrreee--though obviously Rucka and Lark have the right to take all the time they need. the newer longer issues work really well with the epic prestige drama vibes of the story! i’m into it.

The Good Place (TV, 4 seasons finished 2/18/2020): i’m gonna be super honest: i actually wasn’t a big fan of the finale, nor the last season as a whole. it felt like all of Eleanor’s flaws vanished for a majority of the season, and the Chidi-centric episode where they tried to give a legible justification for why he’s Like This was...i didn’t care for it. still, it’s so good and unique on the WHOLE that we’ll literally never get anything like this ever again, and that counts for a lot.

The Old Republic (game, finished 2/21/2020): it’s an MMO so it will never actually Be Finished so long as the servers aren’t shut down, but i caught up on the content i’d missed in the intervening months. Onslaught thus far has mostly been...kinda bland tbh; going back to Imps vs. Rebs after all the shakeups in the previous expansions feels like a waste.

High Road (album, finished 2/22/2020): someone should tell Kesha not to say that word!! otherwise i was very happy with this album, and happy FOR her even though we don’t know each other. being able to find joy again in the same genre of music you made while you were being horrifically exploited is very cool.

Young Justice (TV, 13 episodes finished 2/28/2020): given how much the middle stuff dragged--STOP KILLING YOUR HIJABI CHARACTER IN HORRIFIC WAYS--i was...actually kinda mad by how the end managed to stick the landing anyway. the day being saved by Vic’s self-acceptance and Violet’s sublime compassion was A+, and even the Brion/Tara switchup was a pleasant surprise, though it relied on me caring about Brion MUCH MORE than i actually did.

Manic (album, finished 2/29/2020): do people still care for/about Halsey? i feel like even That One Song that was on every tumblr gifset ever has kinda faded into obscurity at this point. this album was...okay. i feel like people give Halsey a pass for extremely obvious lyrical turns that they wouldn’t for other folks because of her subject material--which is fine. not really my cup of tea, but i also listened to lots of Relient K this year, so that’s probably a good thing.

Jade Empire (game, 3/10/2020): the only 3D-era Bioware game that didn’t franchise out, and for good fucking reason!!! the Orientalism and appropriation really haven’t aged well, and even beyond that the story was...standard Bioware faire. even my usual “my wife’s a bitch i love her” Bioware type didn’t do it for me, and i just ended up romancing no one. it did make me think a lot about what level of cultural borrowing is accepted nowadays, and why: people still look fondly at Avatar and talk about how ~accurate and respectful it was, for example, despite it being staffed almost entirely by white folks, and the Orientalism ALL OVER the monk class in DND is still fine for some reason.

Alif the Unseen (book, finished 3/31/2020): interesting to have read this AFTER reading The Bird King last year, because it highlights how the intervening years have shifted G. Willow Wilson’s thematic interest and improved her craft. i’m actually quite fond of how her characterization work is rougher here--Alif is extremely flawed to the point of being insufferable, but it makes his development by the end more satisfying. Dina is also just good and i love her

Baldur’s Gate (2 games, finished 5/31/2020): well, having finally finished the series i’m happy to say that it...still doesn’t really do it for me, sorry. any awesome story moments were overshadowed by the EXCRUCIATING inventory management system and the combat (i still don’t know what a THAC0 is and at this point i’m afraid to find out). these games crucially lack the Home Base that later Bioware games were so good about, and that (coupled with the huge cast of characters you can drop off and never see again) really hurts the intimacy for me. by the time we finally did get one it was the Hell Dimension in Throne of Bhaal, and i was just...trying to get through it. (yes, i did just say that about one of the most beloved expansions ever to one of the most beloved games ever.) THIS particular iteration of “my wife’s a bitch i love her” was very good, but the game wouldn’t let me romance her :(

The Underground Railroad (book, finished 6/19/2020): honestly what is there even left to say at this point! it was exactly as good as every critic on the planet said it was, even with my usual aversion to hype. draining and horrifying in turns but still insistent upon a future for Black folks.

Steven Universe (6 seasons and a mooooooviiieeee, finished 7/11/2020): yes, i DID finish the show and almost immediately begin a rewatch. this series is now one of my top five most formative things, and the amount of love and respect i have for it is incalculable. that said: i once again did not love how the central conflict of Future was resolved (just the resolution--i loved the finale just fine). for all of Steven’s breakdown was built up, resolving it with “EVERYONE HUG HIM UNTIL HE CRIES” felt...cheap, especially since up until this point the show had been so good about treating trauma and mental illness with the respect and nuance it deserves. it made me wish some of the earlier, less substantial episodes had been cut so we could spend more time at the end.

What It Is (comic, finished 8/19/2020): y’all i love Lynda Barry SO MUCH. for the longest time i was worried that One Hundred Demons was more a lightning in a bottle situation but every book of hers i pick up makes me feel obscure emotions i didn’t even realize existed. the compassionate way she’s able to describe her child self and how weird and fucked up she was (and still is) is honestly aspirational.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (TV, 5 seasons finished 9/26/2020): so here’s a reversal of what i’ve been complaining about with other shows: i was mostly lukewarm-to-warm about She-Ra, but the later seasons and the finale made me much more into it as a whole. more shows should improve in stakes and overall quality as they age tbh!! i still don’t actively love Catradora (my sole quibble with season 5 actually has to do with the way Adora kept backsliding as a character to make certain Plot/Relationship things happen), but i’m very happy for them nonetheless. i can certainly appreciate a show that will go for High Feeling over tight plot. dark horse standout moments: trees growing everywhere proving that Perfuma Was Right, and Hordak and Adora seeing each other--that weirdly intimate moment of recognition.

Fetch the Bolt Cutters (album, finished 10/7/2020): again i find myself not having much to say that no one else has said. it’s good! once again love it when an artist reclaims something they’d attached with negative affect (anxiety, depression, disordered eating) for better and brighter things.

Solutions and Other Problems (comic, finished 10/25/2020): i was very into Allie Brosh’s ambition with this book, which feels weird to say but i stand by it. it’s cool to see an artist try to make a new medium work for them instead of just sticking to what already works. not all the experimentation was 100% effective, but it was still delightful and occasionally devastating to read, so.

Legend of Zelda (3 games: Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Link Between Worlds, finished 11/1/2020): this was the third time i’d played Ocarina of Time, which made it the nice, comforting groove i settled into before Majora’s Mask blatted me in the face. i’m not usually a completionist Zelda person because...the gameplay in Zelda is bad, do not at me it just is, but i really felt like i HAD to be one for Majora’s Mask since the whole point is to get attached to the banalities of the town. i’m sure nobody’s surprised that i loved it, even if it gave me an existential crisis about how life goes on in the game for NPCs when you’re not there to save them from it, and there’s not enough time to save them all all the time (also not a surprise to anyone: Romani and Cremia gave Personal Feelings). Link Between Worlds...bad. not like in a “this is a bad story by every measurable gauge” way, but i was already struggling with the 2D playstyle shift enough that for the whole story to end with some “yes it’s v sad that Lorule is Like This but trying to steal Hyrule’s privilege is Even Worse Actually” noblesse oblige bullshit left a VERY poor taste in my mouth, this year of all years. i did audibly gasp when Ravio took off his mask, though. i’m currently playing Breath of the Wild in cautious increments; it’s the first time i’ve enjoyed early Zelda gameplay, but if they wanted fully voiced cutscenes i wish they got voice actors who...knew what words sound like.

folklore (album, finished 11/6/2020): my belief that Taylor Swift is Just Fine continues, i’m afraid. i LIKED this album, don’t get me wrong, and respect her constant drive to innovate, but i didn’t love it substantially more or less than any other Taylor Swift album. mostly i’m just tickled by how she thinks leaning into the indie aesthetic means borrowing Vita Sackville-West’s entire wardrobe, though i will admit to feeling Something when she swore in a song. i think it was like. savage vindication?? you go ahead and swear, Taylor Swift. you deserve it.

Shore (album, finished 11/19/2020): do people still care about the Fleet Foxes? i think there was some Drama with Josh Tillman a while back but i don’t remember where the discourse landed with who was being more problematic. it was nostalgic for me to listen to their new album--made me remember being an undergrad who exclusively listened to men who mumbled and played acoustic guitar all over again.

Star Wars (3 movies: original trilogy, finished 11/27/2020): there is So Much bad Star Wars these days that every time i rewatch the original trilogy i’m afraid that they will suddenly be bad, but guess what! they’re not. i love these children and their hot mess stories, i love that Lando doesn’t know how to say his best friend’s name. what stood out to me this time was the way Obi-Wan described the Force in A New Hope, which strongly implied that ANYONE can be Force Sensitive; that obviously faded with each subsequent movie, but part of me does wish they’d kept it.

X of Swords (comics, 22 issues finished 12/5/2020): i am enjoying Hickman’s X-lines!!! not so much here for the Grand Conspiracy or whatever, but the character work and highkey weirdness is fabulous--they FEEL like X-Men, despite all the shakeups in-universe. this crossover is a nice microcosm of all that: grandiloquently all over the place, but still full of cool standout moments and genuine hilarity. ILLYANA DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO SPELL MAGIC.

Fire Emblem (4 games: Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, finished 12/14/2020): this was the thing that i was closest to giving up early on, but i ended up hyperfixating on it instead. that’s a credit to what the gameplay does to my lizard brain more than anything else, because the story and character writing is...insipid. it was very bizarre to witness this franchise blunder around with its animal-people racism allegory around the same time i was getting back into RWBY, and ITS animal-people racism allegory blunders. Awakening was the first time i felt anything for the franchise beyond “teehee red units disappear make exp bar go up and brain go ding,” so i’m excited for more mature storytelling in subsequent games (they MUST get better. they MUST). the child husbandry thing is...very bad tho, and Apotheosis being “challenging” entirely through the game changing all the rules is also bad.

once again no vidya games that came out this year--i’ll probably pick up Spiritfarer or Hades after the New Year, though (or maybe TLOU II! but probably not. sry Laura and Ashley). more TV and franchises this year, which made me feel In Touch with the Children but was also kinda exhausting. nothing was so egregiously terrible i dropped it without finishing! in a year like this that feels almost like an accomplishment

[dishwater-blondie]

On Gabenath and the Fandom Divide

So this is gonna be a little different. 

You know, I wonder if fandom culture is a lot like literature, in which there is no single right way to engage with it, but there are certainly a few wrong ways.

I have been active in very few fandoms throughout my life, and I would even say that when it comes to ML and Gabenath, I confine myself to a very small and specific corner. I am very shy. I get easily overwhelmed. All I am here to do is write some fan fiction and hopefully find folks who enjoy it. Being reclusive has meant that I haven’t engaged much with a lot of other fans, and certainly not with very many early Gabenath shippers. 

My lack of experience with fandom culture is something I partially regret, because I have built up resentment for this particular section of the Gabenath fan base and have been led to draw conclusions about their views on certain characters and relationships; however, many of them have done the same to newer fans like myself, failing to acknowledge our understandings, our intentions, and our reasons for enjoying Gabenath in the first place. 

Anyone who follows this blog knows where I come from. I’m a young woman who likes to take this silly show very seriously sometimes, but there’s an element of good fun that comes with looking very deeply into things, don’t you think? I would find myself awfully bored if I consumed all content passively, casually, if I let it wash over me and never tried to analyze why I’m finding myself so intrigued. I like to get to the bottom of things. Maybe that’s in my nature as a writer. 

I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. After all, Gabenath shippers take up a pretty humble space in the ML fandom as a whole, especially those who are not as invested in the lovesquare as the majority of watchers are. There will always be those who don’t believe Gabriel or Nathalie deserve the possibility of a happy ending, and those who would like to see it, but cannot envision the show taking the necessary steps to get there. Regardless, anyone who has taken the time to read my analysis posts can see that I don’t pull any of this out of nowhere. I delve into the details the show itself has provided, and I reach my own conclusions. I don’t believe that any “serious” post I’ve made has been baseless. 

That is what’s so frustrating about the divide between older fans of the ship and newer ones. Early Gabenath fans of Season 1 and early Season 2 had a blank slate to work with in developing the dynamic between Nathalie and Gabriel. The newer ones that have flooded in post-Season 2, like myself, are doing so in reaction to the actual events of the show, the established and ongoing portrayal of a relationship that is only continuing to evolve. I have witnessed and attempted to engage in situations between older and newer fans where the older fans have dismissed developments of the most recent episodes in favor of the early characterizations of the first season. 

To pause, I don’t want to generalize here. Not all early Gabenath shippers are like this, of course, just like not all newer fans are like me. We are all coming from different places and enjoying this ship from different angles. There’s nothing wrong with that. 

But it confuses me. I’ve now been made aware of multiple occasions where older fans have shut down some of the newer beliefs that have arisen in the fandom as of late, such as the notion that (and I flinch to speak so controversially) Gabriel could get a redemption and Emilie may come out of all of this being the villain in the end. There’s nothing at all inherently wrong with not wanting or anticipating this to be the outcome. We’re all here for fun. Watch and think the way you choose. But when it comes to engaging with fans who have, like myself, presented actual evidence supporting our own interpretations, I find it insulting to be told that the playful terms “pull the plug” or “Fuck Emilie Juice” are disrespectful, as if they encompass my assessments, as if I have ever genuinely hated this character.

First, I must ask, what character? Emilie, as of now, is a plot device. A symbol at best. She’s spoken not one word. But second, it is awfully unfair and patronizing to assume that newer fans who think of Emilie as a villain or hope for a Gabriel redemption are engaging with these concepts mindlessly. From what I’ve seen, dismissals of conversations about the possibility of redemption, the stakes of the Gabenath relationship, or wouldn’t-it-be-cool-if-Emilie-was-at-the-heart-of-this-agenda have been presumptuous rejections of newer fandom ideas, and by extension, the people who have introduced and explored them, particularly because they haven’t been given the time of day. 

It’s kinda funny, isn’t it? We sure do like to criticize this show for being so stagnant. Yet, in the space of just three seasons, this considerable divide has formed between the older and newer Gabenath shippers. The lovesquare drama has always been the same, for the most part. Fans argue about which of the square’s dynamics is best, argue about how Luka and Kagami fit into this, but until there is any game-changing development, I can’t imagine that there will be this particular brand of divisiveness, between early fans who prefer the first season and the newer ones who emerged once things started to get complicated.

What matters is the way we engage with each other. I don’t intend to imply that either type of fan is better. Newer shippers are not all perfect either. Due to the events of Season 3, I think some of us have a morbid fascination with Nathalie’s suffering and insist on putting her through the worst situations possible. I admit to being guilty of this, and I aim to tackle these issues with as much grace and tact as I can. I don’t want my writing to exist for the purpose of shock value.

But I digress - my point here is not that I’m going to demand people agree with my personal impressions of these characters or relationships, but rather that when we do in fact disagree, we at least can reach a full understanding of where other shippers are coming from. Early fans have conceived their own versions of Gabenath, being given total liberty by the lack information we were provided in the earlier seasons, and these are perfectly valid. They’re entertaining. They’re fun to look back on and play around with now. But I’ve witnessed the opinions of newer fans being looked down upon as if they were senseless examples of character hate, when in reality they are grounded in the evolution of the narrative and speculation on its thematic objectives. From the way I’ve experienced things, this isn’t being acknowledged, and I want to see that change. 

This may have all come out of no where. I’m fortunate enough to have never been directly shut down, and that’s purely thanks to my reserved nature. But it hurts to see newer fans, my friends feel unwelcome in the fandom when they just got here. When they have so much to offer. When all they wanted was to create and have fun and establish themselves. 

So, yeah, this is my Fuck Emilie tirade, ‘Fuck Emilie’, of course, referring to my want for my friends to express these meta topics in either an analytical or comical manner without having to worry about the preceding trends, without having to feel spurned by other fans who haven’t even tried to bridge the gap. Sorry, Emilie, girl. It ain’t personal. 

And hey, if I’m wrong about Gabenath, if I’m wrong about Emilie, and redemption, and the show in its entirety, then I’ll eat my words. And it won’t matter, because this is a sparkly TV show for children and everything I have said on it in the past has been in the spirit of enjoying it. 

Raise your glass. 

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Still Re-Watch and Review by @wdway

The wonderful @wdway recently did a rewatch of Still and shared it with me and @frangipanilove. I’ve gotten her permission to repost her very insightful observations. I hope you both enjoy it!

@wdway:

My review of s4e12 Still, written by Angela Kang, directed by Julius Ransay. I watched this episode with the commentary by Emily and Julius (E/J) and then the one with Norman and Angela (N/A), as I go through I'll talk about certain things including either one of these couples’ comments rather than go through the episode twice.

Even though I've seen this episode once or twice (that's me being funny) I did have a couple of ummmm moments that were interesting. The episode opens with a view of an abandoned car and the long road all lit by a full moon. 

Am I the only one that has always wondered about the lone figure crossing the road? The way it moves makes it obvious that it's not a walker, maybe it's just a nod to the fact that there are people nearby that our characters are never aware of.

Now for the car I'm going to show you two shots, the first is the car as B/D comes upon it. The second when they are climbing out of the trunk.

In the first one we see that both the engine hood and the trunk are slightly ajar but basically closed 

and in the second where we see B/D getting out from the trunk both the front and back of the car are completely opened. 

I had never really noticed that before and this time I realized that it must mean something, because everything has a meaning and it seems very deliberate now that I'm aware of it, I just not sure what that meaning is. Any thoughts?

After B/D strips the car Daryl looks at Beth in a dead stare. I have always thought that was him looking at her like "a dead girl.” He turns without a word (because she's dead) and walks down the road. Beth pauses and then follows, foreshadowing Daryl thinking she's dead and leaving her and her later moving down the road basically by herself and Daryl unaware that she's following.

We next see Daryl hunting and his arrow breaks, and he then kills a snake with his knife (not really Norman). You'll especially like this part @Frangi. Norman and Angela's discussion here, Norman mentions that the snake that was killed actually had a rat in it that it had eaten. We see Beth setting up camp and E/J laughingly talk about how during the shooting this scene Beth was refer to as MacGyver Beth.

We are then shown Daryl skinning the snake (that sounded dirty) Beth watching from afar. I don't know how many times I've watched this episode before I realize that this was again a possible foreshadowing of Daryl (TF) being watched.

B/D eating the snake, both E/J & N /A talk about how it was eel with teriyaki sauce and how Norman almost got sick from eating so much of it. We see Beth take Daryl's knife, this is the second time we see her take his knife, the first was in Inmates. She goes off alone and we see her hide from a group of walkers and mislead them with noise from throwing a stone (hear no evil) turning around Beth sees Daryl who has been watching from afar, again foreshadowing anyone? Another little note I missed above was that AK at one point talked about how it was Gimple's idea coming into the writing room for season 4 about the groupings after the prison fell to put Daryl and Beth together and how surprised the other writers were. To me, just emphasizing that Gimple had Beth and Daryl paired from the very beginning and knew exactly where he was taking the storyline with them. He left clues, eggs, hints behind so that when we went back and re-watched they would stand out to us, just like this shot of Beth where she has a dirty little smudge exactly where she is shot in 5e8 Coda, you know the one where her being shot was a last-minute decision. (Me being funny again.)

@frangipanilove:

Wow, I never noticed the figure moving across the street in the beginning of still. I had to go and see for myself, and you’re right, there is something there. No way to tell what it is though. I really have no idea. The part about the hood of the car being open is something I’ve noticed, and I don’t have a great explanation of it. Also, the dead body by the car has changed position during the night. I don’t know what tptb mean to communicate by doing so, but I feel that it’s sort of then underlining that this sequence is symbolic, that it’s sort of detached from realism. Sort of them saying that Beth and Daryl’s journey together is something out of the ordinary.

Oh, and something I came to realize while I was doing the tree/three/trunk post; the name of the golf club is “Pine Vista”. Pine is a type of tree, and vista means view, or looking at something. It’s an eye/vision reference combined with a tree reference. I thought that was interesting. I didn’t include it in the post because it was already long enough, but it shows how tptb consistently uses this type of symbolism around her.

It’s something I’ve thought about because in 6x15(?) Eugene mentions golf clubs when discussing the route to hilltop. Then a few moments later he says “serious as a coronary thrombosis”. So, a Sirius mention near a golf club mention. In my opinion it qualifies as a nod to “still” in combination with a Sirius mention, which means return/coming back. Also, the choice of the words “coronary thrombosis” is interesting, because 1) it could be a nod to “slabtown”, where we saw a machine that treats deep vein thrombosis 2) corona is one of the most well known brads of beer in the world 3) someone suffering from thrombosis/blood clots would be treated with heparin, right?

@twdmusicboxmystery: I’d noticed the figure crossing the road before, but I guess I always assumed it was a walker. Obviously, I never paid much attention to the movements. Now, it’s being coupled with a half moon. The open car hood strikes me less as an open trunk reference and more as perhaps a battery reference. I’m not sure about the movement of things either. I’ve never studied it in depth. I know when the camera first pans over the bodies, there are some obvious forehead injuries, and isn’t one of them laying with their arm out, the way Beth’s fell in Coda? But that’s all pretty obvious foreshadowing. I’m just now thinking that, plot wise, it’s the walker horde that moved everything around as they passed through and around the car. So maybe that has to do with what they’re trying to symbolize. Like, TF left her behind and when they went back after the horde had gone, her body had moved. Meanwhile, car, trunk, and hood open. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I always love when you bring up Eugene’s line from that episode, @Frangi. And I agree: no way the coronary thrombosis thing isn’t connected to Slabtown. That’s just too specific. @frangipanilove​: There was that Sirius mention when Beth and Daryl play the drinking game. I had somehow erased it from my memory, and had a real facepalm moment when that clip was released on social media the other day. It comes when Beth suggests that Daryl has been in jail. Then she says “I don’t mean anything serious”. It comes in combination with a mention of “jail” which actually qualifies as a cop/police reference (making it a “blue clue”), and that whole sequence became even more filled with symbolism. I already knew it was an important sequence, with the mention of pet ponies, frozen yoghurt, Santa clause etc. And with a Sirius mention in the middle of it, it just got more significant!

@wdway​:

Episode Still continued. Moving on to the clubhouse E/J talked about the scene that was cut out and how Beth didn't drink because of Hershel and the mention of the red cups. B/D goes into the clubhouse dining room, there are 3 people hanging. The fact that there is three now seems significant especially since I believe that there are 3 bodies in the dog Trot room floor.

Of the two women hanging one is in a green flowered shirt (Alpha green dress) the other has on pearls, which is odd since she's wearing very casual clothes. We will see pearls again with the rich bitch, I think these may be an ocean/water symbol since pearls are found in oysters in the ocean. I also want to note in the shot of the dogtrot room to the right a green bean can and towards the center on the top shelf is a tomato can.

Did I ever tell you that it was the clubhouse scene that made me realize water was a Beth symbol? We were discussing fire and how we believed that was a symbol for Daryl and the question was, was it also a symbol for Beth? I was thinking about all the fire extinguishers, the fire pulls in the clubhouse that were around Beth, when the light bulb came on that these are actually water or coolant symbols. Even though Beth is a water symbol, I believe she is also a single flame symbol, a small fire that can light a large fire. She is the candle flame at the end of a long dark tunnel, the single match that starts a shack a blaze in fire.

The reason that I bring up the fire pulls and the fire extinguisher is that I consciously went through and counted them in the clubhouse segment. At first glance, they don't appear to be a large number, but when you think in terms of for each one, they were seen multiple times in different angles with either one or both characters within a scene. There are 5 fire pulls, there are 3 fire extinguishers (one silver two red) a total of 8 (these numbers look very familiar) this is a large number when you realize that the club house scenes couldn't have been more than 10 minutes (another familiar number).

There's two other items that I watched for and counted in the clubhouse. We have seen them in the seasons after Still, but I don't think we saw them before. Tomato sauce cans and green bean cans. As far as tomato sauce, we see them instead of actual tomatoes because there wouldn't be a feasible reason to see tomatoes in this abandoned club house, but we can see a picture of tomatoes on the label.

Years ago, I followed a wonderful TD'er weburythedead (unfortunately he no longer posts) but back in the day he wrote about Beth and Daryl and tomatoes. He felt that we could group tomatoes and strawberries together as a symbol for Beth and Daryl because of the color, also their abundance of seeds a fertility symbol also both are quite sensual and juicy.

The green bean cans well what better remind than the white and green can with the word GREEN on it to help people to think of Beth Greene and we even heard and we Daryl refer to her as Greene later in this episode. Throughout the seasons, we're reminded that Maggie is a Rhee and that Beth is the only remaining Greene.

We see 4 cans of tomatoes and 5 green beans cans. There are also 5 cans where we cannot see the label but let's look at one of these that speaks to me and made me quite excited when I realized what I was seeing.

Daryl with a can with a green rim at the top and a red rim at the bottom. A can of Greene and Dixon haha.

In the closet where Beth reaches for a bottle of cooking wine there are 7 cans alone. 2 clearly are tomatoes, 3 visible green labels and 2 labels not readable because there at odd angles. Along with cans in the kitchen area and also remember there is a green bean and a tomato can in the dogtrot room.

We have seen a lot of tomatoes and green bean cans through the seasons. We've seen them in the AZ pantry. The last time I remember seeing the green and white can the label read, Chunk, but it's similar to the green can so much so that I don't believe it's a coincidence, especially since there is a grouping of candles on top with a single flame burning from each remember Beth = single flame. This was s8e7 How It's Gotta Be.

I have a few things to add before I close out the clubhouse review. These are things mentioned in the commentary that I want to point out. I will have a ramble about the commentary in general when I do part 3 of Still, that will cover the shack. AK said that Gimple is the one that wanted the dog Trot on the wall in the clubhouse. Julius said a lot of was discussed with the grandfather clock, the time and the correct number of chimes.

Something I forgot to mention the other day that happened at the beginning of the Still re-watch, Julius the director said the car that they used was a Lincoln Continental. @Frangi, it proves your car model skills are awesome! I also remember in the after bonus scene of TTD the director came on and mentioned it then also. Imo emphasizes that tptb wanted us to be aware of that car model.

This is in the shack I want you to notice the can on the shelf above /next to Daryl. I talked so much about cans last time I just want to point this one out, we don't see a label on it but since it's red it could be several things, another type of tomato, cherries, strawberry filling?

Then we have these two cans on the table. One we definitely know is a dog food can because that particular label has been seen other times and then the other the label appears to be torn off so we just don't know, but I want to emphasize the fact that in the shack there are 3 cans.

For this last segment I'm not going through the episode because we all know it's so well, instead I'm going on a long ramble about the commentaries. This was the first time in the series that tptb had dual commentaries for a single episode and we could talk about the importance of that, but I'll leave it for another day. I went into this moonshine shack segment review with a couple of questions I wanted to take a close look at and ended up finding side tunnels to my delight. Listening to both EK/JR and NR/AK commentaries back-to-back was the key to the main points I found. 1) that there were certain dialogue moments tptb wanted us to hear. 2) things they wanted reinforced by talking about them with their paired partners. I even wonder if part of NR/AK's commentary was stopped and later sound mixed in order that we would hear the dialogue in a scene. I first want to go over some of my notes from EK/JR that doesn't overlap NR/AK. JR talked about during the argument, it seemed that other members of TF were intimidated by Daryl but Beth didn't seem to understand that she should be intimidated. She was standing up for herself and calling Daryl out on his bad behavior and his feelings. JR talked about how 4 of the producers were crying during the porch scene. In particular, the part where Beth talks about her wish, her hope for how her dad would live out the rest of his life. Sometimes it felt as if JR was checking off a list of things he was meant to mention especially at the end when he said that there was a toy cycle and a real motorcycle somewhere in the yard and was a nod to Daryl's motorcycle. It just seemed as if he was trying to just get that mentioned and it came out a bit odd. JR talked about how Beth almost seemed resigned/come to terms to her death. This was when Beth says "I'll be gone someday," he used the word die or death I can't remember which. Both NR/AK and EK/JR had several mentions that were so similar to each other but I want to point out a few. I first watched EK /JR commentary, a reminder that we hear them but see the episode play without sound unless the commentary stops and then we both hear and see the episode. When it got to the part where Beth hesitates to take a drink of the moonshine, EK/JR stop talking. I paused the DVD to take a note and when I continued it was so long that I wondered if I had somehow turned the commentary off when suddenly they started talking again. I went back to check and it was a full minute and 29 seconds of dialogue that included, going blind, Daryl telling her to drink lots of water, (a water reference) the pink bra, and Daryl's old man's dumpster chair (a dumpster reference). Both the mention of water and dumpster never meant anything to me until I watched it this time.

[@twdmusicboxmystery: I have to insert here that I totally never caught that “dumpster” reference before. Linked to Glenn’s dumpster and how he survived his fake out, if you’re confused. Awesome catch! ;D Okay, back to @wdway.] If you are wondering if we heard the dialogue about moonshine making you go blind during NR/AK's commentary the answer is kind of. AK was talking and NR started to speak, and it just trailed off as Beth said her line and Daryl mentions "drink lots of water," and then Norman finishes his thought. This is what I'm mentioned earlier about maybe there was a sound mix by tptb because the way it trailed off just seemed suspicious if you realize that if he had continued his train of thought we would have not heard the comment about "moonshine making you go blind."

NR then talked about taking the turtle shell for Emily, which is strange because this is where Daryl is talking about his dad's place and how similar it is to this shack. The turtle shell story, while being very nice, just kind of came out of nowhere. I think he got ahead of his to-mention list. AK ask Norman if he had heard of Bethyl and he said yes, Bethyl, Caryl and Rickyl. On both commentaries the couple's stop talking in time for us to hear Beth say "serious." When B/D have their argument outside we hear the Michonne, Carol, Maggie speech. NR talks about the hug from behind and how it must have meant for Daryl to fill her supporting him. When the porch scene starts, Emily mentions the turtle shell and tells a short version of the story. During the NR commentary he again notes the turtle shell in the scene, which makes sense of mentioning it then because we can actually see the shell. A couple of things that EK mentions, we will hear mentioned again by either or both NR / AK. Emily says she loved the porch scene. Just 2 people talking. She spoke about that B/D were being honest during their talk. During EK/JR commentary we do hear Beth says, "I'm not blind." We don't hear it in the other commentary, but I think it was because of what AK was talking about ended up being more important.

Next, I'll jump in with what a AK's response to Norman's honesty statement (below). Just know that this takes up quite a bit of the scene of D/B including when Beth says "I'm not blind.” It really would have been noticeable if AK had stopped abruptly in the middle in order to hear Beth.

AK: "It's not comfortable for Daryl to be intimate with someone, not even romantically but in terms of sharing who he is because there is so much shame. Not so much what you bring to the character or how you've played him. Shame about who he was. There's something about Daryl that's so real and honest. He just is who he is and Beth is kind of the same way, so that even though they're different characters, there's sort of a core kindness and sweetness about them that they can just talk about their real feelings in this moment."

I just love this so much. This is AK defining Daryl's character and I feel she has held true to it through the seasons. We've seen and heard a restating of this especially the last two seasons. But this explains why Daryl will always love his friend Carol but that need of being who he is at his core, honest and kind doesn't align with Carol's guarded, driven way of being and I don't see his qualities being things that Carol admirers or truly understands. I think she sees these as weaknesses and not admirable. Bottom line is she cannot be honest with him. How many times have we heard him this season state that very fact? This speaks to his core, being honest with yourself and the people you care most about.

Connie has many of the same qualities as Daryl but we saw early in the season her asking him to lie for her group or at least not tell. It may seem on the surface to be a small thing but for Daryl, I think he would question if it is a one-time thing or not. It speaks of him not really knowing her Is he drawn to her for who she may remind him of or who she truly is?

I do want to point out that in both commentaries, they talk about the song that Gimple wanted at the end of episode. Norman tells the story of wanting a different song but doesn't go into why he wanted the song that he did. This review has taken much longer than I thought it would, but I hope I was able to uncover a few things that helps in our understanding of tptb and the characters we love so much.

@frangipanilove​

Loved your ramble! Totally agree with you, Daryl is honest to the core, wears his heart on his sleeve. And I think you articulated it beautifully when you said he doesn’t know if he’s drawn to Connie because of who she is, or if it’s who she reminds him of. And we sometimes disagree on Carol, but we’re in complete agreement when it comes to how awfully mismatched they would be as a romantic couple. It is only Beth that has been a romantic love interest for him. I am unsure of how far tptb will go in exploring the relationship with Connie.

However, no matter how they write it, I believe it will always be Beth for Daryl. The Connie situation is interesting though, because tptb HAS written a close relation between Daryl and Connie, and they have written it in a way that the GA will recognize as “potentially romantic”. Of course we, TD, also recognize that they have written Connie as a Beth proxy, so it’s all very interesting I think. But I’ve had enough of “interesting.” I’m ready for Beth now.

@twdmusicboxmystery:

Thanks so much to @wdway​ for doing a re-watch for us and pointing out so many great insights. There were lots of things here I’d never considered before, or simply hadn’t thought about in years. Hope you all found something interesting in here!

[motheatenscarf]

So, I recently recommended Castlevania to people based on the first 2 seasons, and having now seen the 3rd season I’m still keeping that recommendation but with some pretty strong warnings going in.

The TL;DR version is, I still recommend this series with the caveat that your mileage may vary depending on your tolerance for sexual themes and more specifically your sensitivity toward sexual assault. 

So uh, spoiler in the spoiler disclaimer, but content warning for discussion of the above themes. I apologize to mobile readers; this got long. I only feel the need to say all this because I have in the past recommended this show to people before these elements came into play in the first 2 seasons. So, I kind of owe it to those people who may have taken my recommendation to follow through now.

I’m sure it won’t come as a shock to anyone (or at least I hope it won’t) that Castlevania, the show which introduces its wandering drunk protagonist by having him overhear two inbred shit eating peasants in a bar talking about literal goat fucking, has a pretty cynical view on humanity and is a pretty hard R.

Most of that R rating and cynicism has been in regard to gore and Christianity and I’ve been extremely on board and pettily here for it. For all that it’s a gory mess with plenty of colorful language, however, it’s been extremely restrained when it comes to sexuality. 

For my ace ass, that was kind of an appeal. I’m not opposed to sexuality in my media, but people do tend to make it... egregious and often unbalanced. It often feels that any media that gets that R rating just goes “Fuck it, may as well!” regarding shoehorning its nudity and sexuality. And frankly, censorship laws in the United States are FUCKING ANTIQUATED AS ALL HELL, so a rape scene where the camera ogles the woman’s breasts as she’s assaulted? Yeah, sure, that’s an R. Consensual sex scene that shows no genitalia but the woman in clear arousal? That’s an NC-17 for you. And that’s just women; don’t get me started on queer censorship, we’d be here all day. So, given the country I live in, the fact that I like horror and fantasy, and the fact that I’m an asexual woman, you can maybe see where my stance on sexual themes in any adult oriented media is just, an exasperated sigh as I boredly sit through another rape scene.

So, our first scene in Castlevania S3 is of Alucard, having been alone for the last month now, slowly losing his mind to crippling loneliness and overwhelming guilt after having murdered his father where Trevor and Sypha took him at his word when he said he would be the lone guardian standing vigil over Dracula’s castle and the Belmont library. Turns out he was wrong about being fine, which we knew from last season as it ended with him alone in his room sobbing his heart out, but he’s already losing his grip here as he makes little puppets of Sypha and Trevor to carry conversation with. An eccentricity he fully acknowledges is insane.

Our next scene confirms through dialogue that Trevor and Sypha are now in a sexual relationship, even though they’re only ever shown cuddling up in bed talking about The Plot and various happenings a few episodes later. Nothing explicit is ever depicted between them.

Alucard, on the other hand, picks up a couple of strays who were the thralls of one of the vampires killed last season, specifically the evidently Japanese one named “Cho” and our two new characters............ I had to google their names, Sumi and Taka, are also Japanese. They ask him to train them to kill vampires to protect their clan. Alucard, clearly remembering what he said about “Think of all the things Dracula could have done if he’d put all this knowledge toward helping people instead of giving into his rage and destroying them,” decides to agree and help them. He is clearly trying to be the person his mother would have wanted. Aww. 

Except not aww, Taka and Sumi are two clearly traumatized and deeply flawed people from the masses which this series is, again, extremely cynical toward. They are unsubtley fixated on learning more and more powerful ways to kill vampires and Alucard is pretty chill about it because he can’t see through the 4th wall and hear the ominous music or the glances they exchange when he’s not looking. This is purely for the audience. They at one point have a discussion away from him where they try to psychoanalyze him and decide that his isolation is a self imposed punishment for killing Dracula and that this is as close as he can get to killing himself without actually doing it. THIS IS FOR THE AUDIENCE. Then they mentioned they should give him a reward for what he’s done for them.

What happens next is difficult to break down from their standpoint, as they’re not particularly well developed characters, not being Important Characters but just a duo from the masses which the show dismisses, but if you’ve caught a single frame of Alucard this season, is easy enough to explain from his perspective. They come to him at night when he can’t sleep, tell him he deserves a reward, and proceed to make sexual advances toward him, which he seems somewhat embarrassed and confused by at first before quickly becoming a participant in. Again, it is well established by this point that he desperately misses Trevor and Sypha, whom he was already jealous of the connection between last season, and is profoundly lonely. The sex, which he consents to, is clearly a proxy as it’s all he can get for now. The sex is also, unfortunately, initiated under false pretenses, and ends abruptly when the whole thing turns into a Christ allegory and they pin Alucard in the crucifix position after having betrayed him with a kiss (and then some) and demand he show them the secrets they’re certain he’s hiding from them. Alucard tries to reason with them, still insisting he knows they’re scared but that he’s been nothing but honest with them, but they’re too traumatized and broken to believe him, and so he kills them in self defense, all still right there on the bed where they were having sex. He then, reminiscent of Dracula from the series opening, stakes their bodies before the entrance to the castle as a warning to those who would come to harm him, telling the audience that he is Lisa’s son in many ways, but he is also Dracula’s, and is realizing with time and experience now that his father’s sentiment toward humanity may not have been so misplaced.

So you know. Lot to unpack there...

BUT THAT AIN’T IT, FOLKS!

There’s another, far less interesting (unbiased review here, folks) character named Hector. He’s a forgemaster which means he makes monsters which are loyal only to him. He’s no Isaac (whom I’d mentioned his backstory/characterization just kinda left a general bad taste in my mouth before but OH BABY, AM I CHANGING TUNE ON THAT ONE. Could write a whole review on Isaac but I’m gonna stay focused here) but he’s apparently here to stay, so fine. 

There was an evil femme fatale vampire last season who kinda bored me who tricked Hector into betraying Dracula and then took him captive when she got what she wanted out of him. She did not trick him with sex at least but was still “evil manipulative femme fatale” which... *yawn* In S3 she drags him back to her home country and then proceeds to talk to her own sort of war council on how to get him to make a monster army for them to use that won’t just kill them all.

The lesbian vampire war council are fuckin interesting and I love 2 of them. The other one is an actually evil seductress femme fatale who DOES manipulate him with sex. Yay. How original. Well at least there are finally enough interesting, compelling women in the story that this isn’t our token evil female vampire so it’s easy for me to shrug off and forgive. All you need to know about Hector is he played with dead animals as a kid, it freaked his parents out when he kept reviving dead things, he killed them, now he’s a dead critter loving sensitive weirdo who was willing to participate in a “humane cull” that would leave the human race in essentially livestock pens for vampires. 

So the entire time the red headed femme fatale is trying to get him to see that she’s not so bad, vampires can be civil, we don’t want what Dracula wanted, my sister didn’t trick you she appealed to your reason, blahblahblah, she’s calling him a “good boy” and leading him on, i fucking quote, “walkies” with a leash. There’s also a comment that she tended to an injured spider once. So,, y’know, she’s him, which means she’s best suited to manipulating him. And Hector even admits to being aware of what she’s doing and calls her out on it, but he’s trapped and doesn’t have much of a choice other than to go along with what she does and weirdly seems almost content at times. His weird naturalist... weirdness probably gives him some inferiority complex when it comes to vampires, I don’t know, his backstory and motive are not connected in the least and I’m frankly not interested enough in this character to give him much contemplation since it’s pretty clear there wasn’t much going into his creation. Anyway. Long story short, she eventually, with only technically lying to him about the purpose of a particular ring she wears, lures him into having sex with her and in the heat of passion has him swear loyalty to her before slipping a cursed ring on him which binds him exactly as he’d just sworn, essentially making him a slave. The sex, again, also stops here, but she makes some extremely unsettling comments later on about how he was surprisingly good at sex and she might “train him.” Which.... where to begin other than yikes, and why, and, where in the hell was a guy who played with dead animals supposed to learn to eat a bitch out like that anyway??

This is where we also, tying the themes together, learn that one of the allies Trevor and Sypha have been teaming up with was a child killer the whole time. They only learn this after he dies helping them fight the evil that had come to his town (and after the most iconic line of the season; “What the fuck is toilet paper?”) which they accomplish, but not before failing to save anyone in the village, which was consumed in an evil ritual. They’re alone again, with a distraught Sypha realizing what Trevor had tried to forget by getting caught up in her optimism, that, say it with me now;

So there is your mostly unbiased spoilery context for the scenes in question. You can make up your own mind from there if that’s something you can handle, I’m gonna go on to add a few of my own thoughts which do not represent how I believe anyone else should interpret the show, this is purely my own train of thought here.

Sex consented to under false pretenses is still rape. I don’t know that I would personally classify these as “rape scenes,” but that’s just me. The reaction of the characters afterward makes me think Hector’s comes closer than Alucard’s, but the fact that both have appropriate reactions to being sexually betrayed makes me think that’s mostly what people are talking about when they say either one was raped. Hector later falls to his knees in a panic and hopelessness as he realizes “You made me a slave, my life is over,” and Alucard just lays there on the floor where he murdered his father as he weeps silently in contemplation of his own despair. That’s... some heavy shit, and I can, again, easily see where someone with a history of abuse or assault can be completely traumatized all over again watching this. As for the leeriness/attempting to be titilating/making rape “sexy” that a lot of adult fantasy/horror does... eh? I’m asexual, none of it’s sexy to me, and I was paying attention to the visual and audio cues the entire time that were making the audience aware with their ominous music, flashing between sex and battles against evil, and watching the instigators (Taka and Sumi, and Lenore the femme fatale vampire) as the camera focused on their scheming faces. The camera in Alucard’s scene especially just seemed to want to show us how sad and lonely he is, but that was pretty well established by that point and I know a sex scene devolving into a murder scene is jarring for people.

The themes of the season were manipulation, trust, and betrayal. Hector’s story reaches a pivotal turning point the moment the ring is slipped on him. Could it have been implemented differently than through the femme fatale seduction route? Absolutely, the show hadn’t really adopted sexual themes until this season and probably could have done so without it. She’d already lied to Hector an said that the rings were symbols she and her sisters wore to unite them, she could have been lying and welcomed him to join them and gotten him to swear loyalty to them in a ceremony after spending more time getting him to trust her. It was dumb and unnecessary and probably added in there just so maybe Alucard wasn’t the sole bearer of such an experience, or maybe because they shifted his plotline to fit in with the established themes, or maybe they could only sneak a bisexual threesome past the censors if they threw in more straight sex. What can I say? The cynicism of this show is relatable.

Alucard’s was less “Yikes” for me because he was never in a position where he didn’t have emotional or physical power over Taka and Sumi, he was a mentor to them who made no sexual advances whatsoever and seemed to only want to participate in their advances because it temporarily made him feel loved and worthy only to have the rug pulled out from under him and remind him that much more painfully of how alone he is, and how right his father may have been, and how wrong he was for killing him. Could this have been done without a sex scene? Yep, it always can. I know what the writers were trying to convey and I personally don’t have an issue with it and see its effectiveness, but I fully acknowledge another hour of spitballing in the writer’s room would have avoided that. I don’t necessarily think it’s a good or bad thing that they included this, it just... is, for me. I personally think if they’re going to confirm the sexual relationship between Trevor and Sypha, though, and then show us that Alucard is clearly missing them, there’s kinda one natural conclusion to make on how Alucard’s relationship with these two was going to go. I actually think it should have been better established and more time should have been spent on his relationship with them and depicted it as romantic/sexual from an earlier stage rather than just seemingly coming out of nowhere to people who hadn’t realized, “Oh, they’re his proxies,” earlier. I personally found it more tragic than traumatizing, but I don’t have a history of sexual abuse, so that is my own biased interpretation. If someone has that experience, I would not blame them in the least for finding this unpalatable.

Other arguments I’ve seen are, why is the only bi character shown to go through this kind of trauma? I mean, Alucard is our only confirmed bi character left for now, but Isaac is heavily implied to be queer, and again. Cynical universe. And he isn’t the only character period to go through it. They’re not singling him out because he’s bi, he’s just going through a character arc and is bi. I acknowledge again it could have been handled better but I don’t necessarily think this is biphobia so much as it is... unfortunate tone deafness. Tokenism is the problem, not Alucard’s bisexuality, so here’s hoping that we get another bi or queer character soon because as of right now, it’s just rife with unfortunate implications. I had this exact issue with Isaac’s backstory/characterization last season as our lone man of color with a major role and they immediately fixed his arc this season along with introducing several new characters of color and it was honestly the highlight of the season, so... the writers have proven to me that they can learn from their mistakes and spin my suspicion into HYPE, so I’m willing to give them through season 4 to see what they do with it.

I have also seen the argument for, why are the only Japanese characters tricky and sexually manipulative? Well, because they’re human and the show is extremely cynical in its depiction of humanity, we’ve just mostly seen that with white Europeans so far. As I mentioned before, tokenism is the problem. Is it annoying to see a sexually manipulative femme fatale vampire? Yes. Can I live with it and shrug it off a helluva lot easier when we get butch warrior vampire and tactical genius vampire talking back and forth about how they plan to conquer and drink an entire nation while espousing their affection for one another? Also yes!  While we do finally get a lot more characters of color this season who are fleshed out and beautifully complex and sympathetic, I think Taka and Sumi could have been better explored, since their mistrust of Alucard makes sense but their decision to have sex with him in order to get his guard down is... really not apparent other than through speculation with 0 textual evidence to support it. I don’t think they’re sexually manipulative because they’re Japanese, I think they’re sexually manipulative because the plot calls for it and they happen to be the only Asian characters we have for now and the writers made another pretty tone deaf decision. Behind the scenes, I do wonder if they were chosen from specifically Cho’s court just so the animators had an excuse to draw her some more/get that Japanese audience invested. Orientalism is a helluva thing here in the west though, and the sexualization of east Asians is especially fucked up and I’m not gonna say this did not have catastrophically tone deaf implications. I hope we get more Asian characters with a nuanced depiction, and even though they are the only Asian characters, they are not the only sexual abusers and they are far from the only sympathetically broken but dangerous characters we see.  

This is also, I’m fairly certain, a dual-studio production, and I do know Castlevania is a Japanese video game series based on European vampire stories, and in the endless love letter between Japanese and American media, some things gets botched in the exchange. That doesn’t excuse it, and that doesn’t mean it isn’t harmful, but I also don’t think it means “Cancelvania.” But I’m Mexican-American, and Not Asian-American, or more specifically Japanese-American, so, this is purely my perspective. 

I won’t defend the choices, I certainly won’t argue with people who draw a line in the sand and say “This is unacceptable, I won’t watch this,” that’s a valid perspective to have. To me, the writers through Isaac have proven they know when and how to correct course when they need to, so I’m cautiously optimistic that this was all build up for a dynamite season 4 if/when we get it. The show is cynical, I’m cynical, but I can recognize careful writing when I see it, and to me the highlights of this unrepentantly stupid fucking show that I kinda love are gonna be worth sticking through the stuff that makes me wrinkle my nose with concern because I want to see where it goes. A time may come when that stops being the case, but for me it hasn’t reached that point yet. I completely understand if it has for anyone else though.

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, CHARLIE! You’ve been accepted for the role of CRESSIDA. Admin Rosey: Cressida was one of my favorite characters that I’ve ever written -- a petulant bubblegum princess who is unapologetic about who she is and what she is about, on a perpetual quest to find the love of her life, even at another’s expense. Every single portrayal that I have seen of her has been unique and absolutely mindblowing. I love seeing her come to life and Charlie I am so excited to see your plots for her come to fruition! Welcome back to the gang! We stan growth and pain in this household! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

Out of Character

Alias | Charlie

Age | 22

Preferred Pronouns | she/her

Activity Level | 5-6/10. Currently, I only work part-time until fall when I pick up my studies again. However, the past has also shown me that I’m a rather relaxed writer who gets blocked if she feels stressed. Thus, I like to queue my replies and do them whenever I feel motivated. I’m basically around in Discord to plot and chat 24/7, though.

Timezone | CET

In Character

Character | Cressida aka Celeste Duval.

What drew you to this character? | I’ll just boldly assume that most of you recall me writing Celeste for a few months until I decided to leave the rp. While I thought about dipping my toes into a new pond (so to say), explore a new, different story, my fascination with Celeste has never fully gone away. There’s just still so much left to explore in her story, developments she can go through. Not giving her a try again, feels like a premature end, like I didn’t do her proper justice. I’ve also recently read Six of Crows which has increased my muse for Celeste considerably as the character Nina Zenik is just such a great inspiration for Celeste and actually made me realize how much I miss “my” beautiful girl who loves fiercely and bravely as much as she’s unashamed to be her own dramatic self. As silly as it probably sounds, I want to come home to my favorite rp with my favorite character.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

Plot 01: I know, I know, it’s a plot as old as time by now. However, as far as I know the whole Easton plotline has never really had any real consequences for her so far within the game. I want to change that because, after all, the whole thing can only go on so long. I want somebody to get suspicious of her, to confront her with the challenge of having to step up her game to keep the whole blackmail game a secret. Either she manages to get rid of Easton once and for all or she’ll be discovered which could also be very interesting. Because then she’d have to position herself well enough within the ranks of the Montagues to not simply be killed off for treason. Actually, I’d prefer the second option because it’d finally make her realize what she could lose. How important her current position is to her which she’s grown so used to that she doesn’t really value it anymore. All she can see is what she doesn’t have. Even though it might come across a little contradictory to the second plot, in my mind, it isn’t. In my mind, it’d be more a trigger for the second plot to start.

Plot 02: This isn’t her swan song, this is the sound of her wrath coming to everybody who’s ever stepped on or used her. I want her to snap, to finally have enough of being used for nothing but other people’s personal gain. She has a long history in that aspect and although she’s never been satisfied by it, has always known that she’s capable of so much more she’s tolerated it for her family’s sake. She’s married because her parents wanted her to, she’s started working for the Montagues to pay off her family’s debts. She’s allowed Easton to blackmail her to not risk putting the marriage, she’s never wanted in the first place, in danger. She’s done everything she possibly could just to get some of the recognition by her parents she’s been craving for so long. And at some point, she’s finally going to be done with it. She’s going to be done trying to impress people she’ll never be able to impress. She’s going to show everybody that they were wrong by treating her the way they did for such a long time. The last time I played Celeste, I started to put her down the road of starting to harvest her own power. To prove to herself and everybody else that she isn’t just a pawn but somebody with the potential to be powerful. I want her to start making more meaningful alliances around the Montagues, to build connections that could be of personal use to her in the hope of moving up the ranks. Also, I want her to put her on the path of realizing that she doesn’t stay with the Monts because she has to but because she chooses to. Because they’ve become her family, a place where she can grow and flourish.

Plot 03: I want to explore both her relationships with Isabella und Tomas further. The dynamic is quite the intriguing one, after all. Isabella is the love of her life, after all, but right now, Celeste also hasn’t reached the point, where she’d be willing to give up the ideas of what her marriage can do for her, just yet. Not to mention, that I imagine a part of her having grown used to Tomas love. After all, who doesn’t like to be loved and adored? However, I also can’t imagine this whole charade to go on forever. Tomas isn’t stupid, after all. Sooner or later he has to realize that something’s off. At first, she’d definitely fight for her marriage, especially if it should start to crumble at the same time of having her loyalty doubted from the Monts, simply because it’d be the only place where she’d still feel ‘powerful’. I can definitely imagine it to be sort of a cat and mouse game for a while with him doubting her and her trying to prove her faithfulness that never really existed in the first place. Not to mention that the connection Tomas has to Juliana would definitely hurt her ego. Not because she loves him but because the thought of being ‘replaced’ by somebody else, of not being good enough once more, is something she fears. It’s a fear she’s struggled with all her life, after all. However, her heart also craves to be with her lover again, the one person who’s always accepted her the way she is, where she never had to pretend or put on a show. But will Isabella still want her after all the shit Celeste has put her through? Doubtable. It’d actually be quite fun to see to have Celeste be the one doing the courting for the first time in forever, to see what she’d do to earn Isabella back.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Celeste would either demand a dramatic death that steals everybody’s show or sacrifice herself for somebody she cares about, but yes, either way, I’m comfortable with killing her off.

In Depth

What is your favorite place in Verona? | As simple as the question was, Celeste didn’t know the answer. In fact, all she knew for certain was what definitely wasn’t in line for a possible answer and that would have been her parents’ place, the home she grew up in despite it having been portrayed in interior design magazines more than once. Back at school, the other children had envied her for the breathtaking, magnificent house she was living in, had made countless comments on how amazing it must be to have such a house as your home, but how could a house possibly be a home if it was empty of any love and affection? All that came to her mind when thinking of that bloody damn house was how she was never going to be enough. No, the house was just like her parents, pretty on the outside, but cold and empty on the inside. Her current home most certainly wasn’t among her favorite places (or even remotely close to becoming one) either. Another perfect example of how beauty couldn’t always buy your favor. To her, it was nothing more than a cage, golden, yet a cage nonetheless. She might have grown to like it - after all, Tomas had done his everything to furnish it to her likings - if it wasn’t the home they both shared, if it wasn’t just another reminder of everything that kept her in chains. After a moment and after having brushed a strand of fiery red hair behind her left ear as if this had been all keeping her from replying immediately, she finally responded, her head slightly tilted to the right. “I think my favorite place in all Verona is the restaurant The Two Gentlemen. Have you ever been there?” In feigned interest, her eyebrows rose slightly. “Their risotto al tastatal is to die for.” A soft chuckle followed her words as she gave the interviewer a cheeky, kittenish wink. “And nobody can’t possibly say no to a plate of the best food in the city, am I right?”

What does your typical day look like? | The corners of her plump lips tugging up into a smile, the redhead leaned back a little, finding a more comfortable position on the chair. At least this was an easy question, one she could answer without having to carefully choose every single word. “Most days I get up at around 9am. By that time, Tomas has already left work for in general, but the darling that he is he lets me sleep in, even if that means not being able to have breakfast with his wife”, she flashed an (insincere) ‘isn’t he simply the best man a girl could possibly wish for?’ look at the interviewer. “After getting ready for the day, I’ll enjoy a delicious breakfast that’s already been prepared for me by our house stuff - unlike most Italians I actually prefer a proper breakfast with some seasonal fruits, crepes, ciabatta, and some coffee.” Most days she didn’t eat that much, though, she simply liked having a wide selection to choose from. There was no need for admitting that, however. “The rest of my day is usually open, except for some appointments with various charity organizations and causes I support.” There had been a time when she’d spend the day building a fashion empire, those days were long gone though. She hadn’t been working in the typical sense ever since her marriage, concentrating on indeed supporting charity organizations by throwing events of every sort, and, of course, her work for the Montagues which actually demanded most of her time these days. Being a whore with being blackmailed as a side job was pretty time-consuming, she couldn’t help but notice with some bitterness in her mind. Anyways, after all, it wasn’t as if she could let the interviewer in on that. Celeste flashed her best ‘i know you’d all love to be me’ look at him while casually straightening her dress - not that it really needed any straightening, it was perfect, just the way it was supposed to be.

What has been your biggest mistake thus far? | ‘Being born a girl’ was the response that was on the tip of her tongue as soon as she heard the question. Almost just as quickly, defiance took over her thoughts. There was nothing second-class about being a girl. she’d proven time and time again that she was just as capable and impressive as any son could have ever been. Not that her parents cared either way. All her life, she’d heard that her birth alone was a mistake, maybe even a punishment from God because what else could be the reason for it when they’d done everything in their power to ensure they’d get a boy? There was no certainty when it came to bearing a child - apart from the wonders preimplantation diagnostics could do, obviously, and even then there was no absolute certainty -, but, of course, it was easier to put all the blame on the child instead of accepting that it might not have been in the cards for them to get a little boy. Something they’d made sure to let Celeste now every single day. That it was her fault and her fault alone to have turned out such an utter disappointment, such a failure from the very first breath she took. Despite having tried to prove the opposite all her life - mostly to her parents, but also to herself when defiance yielded to insecurity - it still stuck. No matter if she liked to admit it or not. However, there was no fucking chance that she’d ever say that out loud. Especially not in a situation she could be dead sure that it’d be in tomorrow’s newspaper. Thus, the brunette smiled once more, slightly leaning forward in a casual motion and by doing so revealing a little more of her cleavage to the interviewer. If he was into girls, he was bound to enjoy the view - they all did. On many others, it would have been a noticeable movement, one would have known that the girl was trying to hide something. This wasn’t the case for Celeste, though. After all, she’d spent years perfecting this tactic, a little move into the right angle here, a little wink and touch there, it had taken her years to come close to mastering this art, but that was bound to be good for something, right? And she definitely didn’t want him to pester her further until she gave a response to that question that gave him the juicy story he was most likely looking for. She rested her chin on the back of her hand in the most typical thinking pose the world knew, showing off her freshly manicured fingernails. “I think the decision I regret most, if there even is any, is deciding to put my fashion line on the hold after marrying”, she replied, a thoughtful expression in her eyes before she shrugged slightly, “but then again, I don’t really regret that either. After all, I knew this line would take me frequently on trips all across Europe and how could I bare staying apart from my dear husband for so long?” She feigned a soft, girly giggle. “I guess we’re still acting like newly-weds in some ways.”

What has been the most difficult task asked of you? | It was amazing how connected the last two questions were she couldn’t help to realize with some bitterness in her mind. After all, the honest answer to this one was connected to the person who just as well could have posed as the answer to the previous question. In both cases, Isabella Gagliano was involved. One might argue that falling for them could hardly be her biggest mistake for claiming she’d decided to fall for her was claiming the seasons decided to change, that the earth decided to move around the sun. But that was only splitting hairs. Not that it really mattered because there was no possible situation in which she could ever think of her feelings for that gorgeous gift from heaven as a mistake. No matter in what big trouble it got her. And it had indeed gotten her in quite a mess. Even though she’d lived up to the most difficult and painful task she’d ever been faced with. It had been, hands down, leaving them. Of course, it had to be done, there hadn’t been any other way. No matter how tempting it might have been to maintain their relationship on the side, keep them as sort of a mistress when her husband was too busy with work to miss her in his bed. After all, how could she have continued their relationship if the one thing Tomas had asked of her was to be faithful of him? It had broken her heart, no had torn it apart until nobody but them (and maybe not even them) would have been able to put it together again the way it had previously been, but she’d done it nonetheless. Because that was what a good wife, a dutiful daughter, somebody truly worthy of the Duval name did. And she was all of those things. She had to be. Her chin still resting on the back of her hand, the redhead quickly thought of an answer that would satisfy the interviewer without exposing her most vulnerable thoughts. Luckily, she had years of experience thanks to countless galas and press interviews, one of the perfect examples of how practice made perfect (not that being less than perfect had ever been an option for somebody attempting to prove that she was the perfect daughter). “What I’m going to say next, is going to sound incredibly privileged, so I’m begging you not to judge me”, she responded playfully sharing a mischevious, conspiratory smirk with him, “I’m afraid I have to admit I’ve never really been faced with any truly difficult tasks. Most things have been handed on a silver platter to me.” Internally she let out a dry, bitter laugh as couldn’t hardly be further away from the truth. “The burden of being an only child to wealthy parents. I guess my most difficult task is getting dressed each morning and picking out the perfect outfit from the broad collection I’m so incredibly blessed to have.” Those words could have come off as incredibly snobby and spoiled, thanks to her charm she hoped they didn’t however. It was amazing what you could say if you only smiled charmingly enough if you had the right expression in your big doll eyes.

What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues? If she was completely honest, Celeste couldn’t care less. The Capulets and Montagues could both go to hell for all she cared. After all, none of them had ever really done anything but exploit her. Maybe her hatred for the Capulets was burning brighter at the moment considering the kidnapping they’d recently put her through, considering how they used her even more than the Montagues did. But if it was up to her, both mobs could burn at stake and she’d dance on their ashes with a content smile gracing that famous, rosy lips of hers. Of course, giving an answer that came even remotely close to what was going on in her mind would mean signing her own death warrant. And she had no interest in ending her life just yet (or ever before having truly lived her own life, for that matter). So instead of giving an honest answer, her lips curled up into a charming smile, the sort of smile men fell for as easily as moths were drawn to light. “I’m afraid a young woman like me is hardly capable of giving a qualified answer regarding a complicated matter like this”, she responded, an apologizing expression in her emerald eyes, “after all, how can somebody who grew up as sheltered and privileged as I did really say anything meaningful about that?” Casually she tugged a strand of hair out of her face behind her ear, thus stressing her young, girl like appearance. “If you want to get some qualified insight on the latest Prada collection, I’m your girl, though.”

Extras: I actually came up with a pinterest board and a small playlist for Celeste:

This Is What Makes Us Girls - Lana Del Rey High heels in her hand, swayin’ in the wind while she starts to cry, mascara runnin’ down her little Bambi eyes “Lana, how I hate those guys”.

Human - Christina Perri I can fake a smile, I can force a laugh, I can dance and play the part if that’s what you ask, give you all I am. I can do it.

Chandelier - Sia I’m the one “for a good time call”, phone’s blowin’ up, they’re ringin’ my doorbell. I’m gonna fly like a bird through the night, feel my tears as they dry.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Chromatics My mother says, “When you gonna live your life right?”, My father yells, “What you gonna do with your life?”

Unstoppable - Sia All smiles, I know what it takes to fool this town. I’ll do it ‘til the sun goes down and all through the night time. Oh yeah, I’ll tell you what you wanna hear. I put my armor on, show you how strong how I am. I put my armor on, I’ll show you that I am, I’m unstoppable.

Believer - Imagine Dragons First things first, I’m fired up and tired of the way that things have been. Second thing second, don’t you tell me what you think that I can be.

Carmen - Lana Del Rey It’s alarming, honestly, how charming she can be, fooling everyone, telling ‘em she’s having fun.

This Is Me - Keala Settle They say no one’ll love you as you are, but I won’t let them break me down to dust.

[flibbertigiblet]

Episode 1: FORESHADOWING GALORE

Was it a perfect episode? No. The pacing is still a bit iffy, the dialogue bland, and important scenes felt rushed/undeveloped. But did it give me hope and/or satisfaction? Yes. Light on action, but heavy on foreshadowing, this episode lays the groundwork for three of our favorite theories – Dark!Dany, Political!Jon, and Jonsa.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I never thought that we would get all our theories openly confirmed in the first episode. The showrunners are giving us the last moments of calm before the storm, and it makes sense that they allow the viewers to enjoy Jon’s homecoming and the various reunions between several beloved characters before they hit us with the major twists those theories entail. What they do instead is pepper the episode with strong hints of these outcomes. In this post, I’ll be highlighting the plot points and dialogue that support these theories, rather than going through the premiere scene by scene.

Let’s jump right into it. This is a long one.

Arrival at Winterfell

After a heartfelt hug with Bran (and thank the gods that we finally get a semblance of humanity from the Three-Eyed Raven in this), Jon turns to Sansa, who had been watching their reunion with a small but fond smile on her face. As Jon rears up to embrace his “sister”, the camera makes sure to cut away from them to focus on Daenerys and Jorah, watching them from a distance. Bran is kept in frame, observing their reactions. Sansa too, turns her gaze on the newcomers, even as she wraps her arms around Jon.

I will admit to being disappointed that the reunion hug between Jon and Sansa was much briefer and less intense than what we got in the HBO trailer, but in retrospect, that fact makes me go “hmm”. After all, they chose that particular sequence to be the first and only snippet from S8 to show in that trailer, despite the episode’s truncated version of the hug (or any other scene from the season, really) being a possible option. A photo of this scene shot from yet another angle from a Spanish(?) publication was circulating the internet only days ago. D&D want us to pay special attention to the relationship between Jon and Sansa.

Podrick Dany certainly is.

Dany and Sansa eye each other from across the courtyard, before the former approaches the Starks. As Lyanna Mormont and Lord Royce stare at her with suspicion, Jon makes introductions.

“My sister, Sansa Stark, the Lady of Winterfell.”

“Thank you for inviting us into your home, Lady Stark,” Daenerys says with a fixed smile. “The North is as beautiful as your brother claimed, as are you.” (You know, one way of interpreting this line was that it was Jon who told Dany that Sansa is beautiful. Because, well. She is.)

Sansa is not impressed by the transparent attempt at flattery. She looks Dany up and down and leans back slightly in thinly-veiled disdain, but her words and voice are perfectly civil. “Winterfell is yours, your Grace.” Take note: neither she nor anyone else in the courtyard bends the knee to their would-be queen.

Daenerys doesn’t buy Sansa’s act for a second, but Bran doesn’t have time for this catfight and tells everyone what’s what. The Wall has fallen, and the Army of the Dead (+ dragon) are marching to Winterfell. That sobers them up quickly.

Meeting the Lords

Everyone is gathered in the Great Hall. Pay attention to the framing. At the head table, Sansa has been relegated to Jon’s right, where Davos, as the Hand of the King, used to sit. Daenerys has taken up Sansa’s former seat to his left, where the Lady of Winterfell typically sits. In this first shot, however, Dany is standing by the fireplace, leaving a visual and metaphorical gap between the Northern pair and Team Dany, represented by Tyrion, who is seated at the far end of the table.

As acting leader of Winterfell, Sansa is the one running the meeting. She establishes the fact that she has called on all the banners to retreat to Winterfell, and asks for an update from Lord Umber, last of that once-mighty House. A young boy no older than Bran was in season 1 pops his head out from behind one of the nameless Lords. He is small, and cute, and has been singled out by the script, so clearly he is doomed.

He addresses first Sansa - “We need more horses and wagons, my Lady,” – then Jon – “and my Lord,” – who flashes him a quick smile – “and my Queen.” – and only then Daenerys, who does not love being third on this list. “Sorry,” apologizes awkwardly. His business is sorted out, and he is sent off.

Jon instructs Maester Wolkan to send ravens to the Night’s Watch to summon them to Winterfell. “At once, Your Grace,” says the man, out of habit, probably, but it’s all the excuse Lyanna Mormont needs to stand up to sass Jon for renouncing his crown (mostly because D&D have designated her the improbable mouthpiece of the North and have not bothered to introduce us to any of the other lords).

Jon tries to make his case, but nobody is convinced, not even when Tyrion tags himself in. As he tries to sway the Northern lords, the camera cuts to the other three – Jon in between the two women, Stark and Targaryen, black and white. They really couldn’t be more obvious about the symbolism here, but in case you missed it, the showrunners give us more evidence that we’re not about to get The Hair Braiding That Was Promised.

Sansa is facing the lords, addressing Tyrion, but is clearly speaking to Daenerys when she asks just how Winterfell is supposed to feed Team Dany’s massive armies and the dragons. Like the responsible leader that she is – take notes, kiddos – Sansa had spent the past few months stockpiling supplies to help her people through winter. Was the North expected to support these newcomers too? “What do dragons eat, anyway?”

“Whatever they want,” says Dany.

The two women look at each other with no further pretense at friendliness. Battle lines have been drawn.

(Jon sits there, pretending not to notice.)

A Proposed Proposal

Davos, Varys and Tyrion are discussing how to salvage the alliance between their respective sides. Davos tells the others that Northerners do not trust easily, that this trust needs to be earned. But he is hopeful that it can happen. “On the off chance that we survive the Night King, what if the Seven Kingdoms, for once in their whole shit history, were ruled by a just woman and an honorable man?”

He is talking about a possible marriage between Jon and Dany, but at this point the audience knows the truth of their relationship, and by the end of the episode – spoiler – Jon does too. Whether or not the GA realizes it yet, this makes the conversation equally applicable to the Jonsa side of the triangle.

Plus, le gasp! A Stark-Targaryen marriage? How dreadfully romantic.*

*Okay, I am actually strongly anti-Rhaegar, but the show plays them as some kind of grand romantic pairing so I will try to contain my antipathy for the purposes of this review.

A Darker Turn

Down at the courtyard, Daenerys is feeling somewhat put upon.

“Your sister doesn’t like me.”

Jon tries to mollify her. “She doesn’t know you. If it makes you feel any better, she didn’t like me either when we were growing up.”

“She doesn’t need to be my friend. But I am her queen. If she can’t respect me…”

WHAT, DANY? IF SANSA CAN’T RESPECT YOU, WHAT WILL YOU DO?

We’ve been saying it for a long while now, but guys. Dark!Dany is coming. While certain elements of the fandom persist in denying the obvious trajectory of her character arc, the foreboding undertone of this line is hard to ignore. What made this even more chilling was that she said this to Jon, a member of her family, who doesn’t yet know at this point in the episode what Dany’s extreme reaction tends to be for insubordination.

(Oh, but we know.)

When Sam learns of what Daenerys did to his father and brother, he could barely hold it together long enough to excuse himself from her presence before falling apart. Despite what Dany stans would have you think, this is a perfectly human and normal reaction to hearing such dreadful news. Also human and understandable? Mistrusting the kind of ruler who would execute a man for not bending the knee. Especially since Sam has personally seen a more humane sort of leadership before in Jon, who he later urges to take up his birthright as the true heir to the Iron Throne.

Other metas have discussed Dany’s approach to leadership and her increasingly draconian (an apt word, no?) attitude towards what she feels is her rightful position as Queen of the 7K. That she can and will take what is hers. A sense of entitlement not dissimilar to that which she attributed to her dragons earlier in that public display which did not endear her to her Northern subjects…

Side note: We’ve seen the indiscriminate destruction that an unchecked dragon can reap before when one of them – then only half-grown – killed the young daughter of a goatherd in Meereen. We even received a handy reminder of this straight from the mouth of Dany’s staunchest supporter and ally only in the episode before this one: “Dragons don’t understand the difference between what is theirs and what isn’t. Land, livestock, children…letting them roam free around the city was a problem.” – Jorah Mormont, S07E07.

And because it hasn’t been hammered into our heads enough, we are reminded of this again later on, when her Dothraki riders list exactly how much her dragons had consumed just that same day (“only eighteen goats and eleven sheep”, which apparently means “the dragons are barely eating”). This is followed by a powerful shot of said dragons surrounded by the charred bones of the livestock that could have fed dozens of people.

The same people who cowered as the dragons flew over Mole’s Town, and whose fear she appeared to relish.

Foreshadowing much?

That Dragon Flying Scene

Oh boy. I’ll be honest. I wasn’t excited to see this one at all. In the end it was both more and less awful than I imagined it would be. The dragon riding scene is bound to be controversial. Thrilling to some, pandering of the worst kind to others. To me, it smacks of fanservice, but let’s give the show the benefit of the doubt and try to parse its storytelling purpose in the greater scheme of things.

Despite Daenerys’ unsubtle threat towards Sansa in the previous scene – which Jon was conveniently prevented from addressing due to the interruption of the Dothraki – and the sight of Drogon and Rhaegal apparently sulking whilst surrounded by the remains of the food they are “barely eating”, the showrunners made the odd decision to play this scene with a note of levity.

Out of nowhere, Dany oh-so-casually encourages her lover to try riding her dragon, a foolhardy decision based on what, exactly? The one time Jon had a moment with one of her “gorgeous beast(s)”? Dany teases him about his initial reluctance, and laughs at his ungraceful attempts to hang on as the two dragons freewheel over the snow-covered lands of the North before landing in front of a beautiful waterfall for a “romantic” moment.

In dialogue calling back to Jon and Ygritte’s famous cave scene (listen, are D&D just going to troll us by recycling  all of Jon’s best hits?):

“We could stay a thousand years, says Daenerys, looking back at Jon. “No one would find us.”

“We’d be pretty old,” says Jon with uncharacteristic humor.

I believe Jon’s lightheartedness stems as much from his being home with his family at long last as the thrill of dragonriding with a pretty girl by his side. The two flirt using cheesy lines straight out of bad fanfiction before sharing a kiss which I suppose will please the stans.

Not me, though. Romantic music playing in the background or not, like in boatbang, the supposed passion of the moment is interrupted by a third party which makes the whole thing awkward. The final shot of Jon’s eyes widening as he sees Rhaegal staring directly at him as he kisses the Dragon Queen made me snort, but it is unclear whether it was played for a laugh, is meant to underline the awkwardness of this romance, or be an ominous portent of the revelations to come.

And Now For the Good Stuff

That terrible unnecessary Disneyfied brightly lit, panoramic, even mildly comedic sequence contrasted sharply with the scene between Jon and Sansa only minutes later. We are treated to a Jonsa staple: a warm, candlelit scene full of tension, fluttering eyelashes, and heaving bosoms. This time, the air is shimmering with a new emotion – jealousy.

The two start off by discussing a message from Lord Glover, who “wishes (them) good fortune but he’s staying in Deepwood Motte with his men.” This immediately sparks an argument between them about Jon having bent the knee. They’ve had variations of this fight before, and to be honest, it’s a little tired. While I fully understand Sansa’s reservations about the presence of Dany and her armies in the North in terms of logistics, I tend to be more sympathetic to Jon’s insistence that the discussion on Northern independence needs to take a back seat for the moment given the gravity of the threats they are facing. But Sansa clings stubbornly to this old argument, and she (rather unfairly) lays the blame for Lord Glover’s desertion at Jon’s feet (let’s blame who is really at fault here, Sansa – the disloyal lord himself).

But of course, that’s not really what they’re fighting about.

“You didn’t tell me you were going to abandon your crown,” she says, voice shaking with anger as she turns her back on Jon.

Jon, frustrated, moves several steps closer. “I never wanted a crown. All I wanted was to protect the North. I brought two armies home with me, two dragons.”

Sansa spins around. “And a Targaryen queen?” she spits out.

Ah, and here we come to what appears to be the true cause of her wrath. Jon reminds Sansa that without Daenerys (and her martial strength), they don’t stand a chance against the Army of the Dead. Sansa is silent. She cannot argue the need for the armies and the dragons, but she takes particular exception to the woman who leads them. Why, Sansa? TELL US WHY.

It’s in their eyes as much as their words.

Jon heaves a deep sigh, closes his eyes. “Do you have any faith in me at all?” (Y’all, this line just about broke my heart cause he just wants her to love trust him.)

Sansa’s eyes are soft and slightly glassy. “You know I do.”

Jon takes another step or two towards Sansa, never breaking their gaze. “She’ll be a good queen. For all of us.” His eyes move away briefly. “She’s not her father.”

Sansa looks down, gathering herself with a deep breath. “No, she’s much prettier.”

Jon gives a pained smile of acknowledgment. It is his turn to avoid her stare.

“Did you bend the knee to save the North?” Sansa asks him, her eyes unfocused. “Or because you love her?”

Jon glances up at Sansa, but doesn’t respond.

END SCENE.

(Let’s give a standing ovation to Sophie and Kit for acting the hell out of this scene. I want a hundred gifs of this, people. Please get on it.)

The subtext is rich, rich, rich, my Jonsas. The dream is still alive.

One Last Thought - The Importance of Sansa Stark

Nothing made me happier than seeing our Queen in the North Lady of Winterfell given all the credit and respect that is her due after seasons of anti bullshit. See:

The people’s deference to her position and the role that she plays in the North

Tyrion’s acknowledgment of her survival skills - “Many underestimated you. Most of them are dead now.”

Arya’s steadfast defense of her - “She’s the smartest person I ever met.” - when Jon (Jon???) himself was expressing frustration towards her (check out @athimbleful 's recent ask for an explanation for Jon’s behavior in this scene)

Even Dany’s behaviour towards Sansa (first with that cringey introduction), and later when she singles her out for not “respecting” her, despite the fact that none of the Northern lords were showing her any warmth is an indication of her awareness of Sansa’s alpha status, which is right and just and exactly as it should be.

As recent promo materials, cast interviews, etc. seem be strongly pro-Sansa, I am reasonably optimistic that this all bodes well for our girl. For that alone, I will breathe a little easier...

...at least for one more week.

[arcaneranger]

Final Thoughts - Summer 2019

Hey, look who finished the season perfectly on time, even if he did so by dropping a bunch of stuff last minute! (Technically, as of writing, I haven’t finished Re:Stage Dream Days, but you can rest assured that it’s bad.)

I thought I was going to do a first impressions rundown video for the entire season at once, since my impression posts don’t tend to get a lot of engagement anyway, but since I didn’t end up going through with it, I’ll summarize my point - summer started strong, and even here at the end, I can easily say it’s the best season thus far in what’s largely been a letdown year for seasonal anime (and a god damn renaissance for long shows, thanks to My Hero Academia, so if I seem down on a season that had Dororo, or Vinland Saga, or Fruits Basket, remember that I exclude those shows from my considerations until the end of the year).

This season saw several high-profile continuations like A Certain Scientific Accelerator, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls In a Dungeon II, and Symphogear XV, but also new works by creators like Mari Okada, and anticipated adaptations of Astra: Lost in Space and Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest, and in the end, well...a lot of those were mixed bags at best, but the biggest drawback I will remember Summer 2019 for is that it was drowning in bad isekai shows. The aforementioned Arifureta, the basically-counts Danmachi, and also Isekai Cheat Magician, Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks, The Lost Ones, Demon Lord Retry!...it just never ended, and that’s not even counting If It’s For My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord. 

Speaking of all that stuff, let’s get right into it, yeah?

28 shows were simulcast this season, and of those, I…

Skipped 4:

Yami Shibai 7, Starmyu Season 3, A Certain Scientific Accelerator, and Lord El-Melloi II Case Files: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note were all skipped because I have not watched the previous series.

Dropped 15:

Worst of the Season: If It’s For My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord!

I dropped this after one episode because I found the aesthetic and tone to be aggressively boring and I found even the cute daugheroo character to be utterly generic in execution...and then later found out oh boy was I right to drop it, based on how many people compared it to the Bunny Drop manga that we don’t talk about. *shudders*

Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest

Wins the “biggest tryhard” award for being just the most straightforward an SAO award gets, right up to being grimdark for dumb reasons. The first episode alone had inconsistent animation, and that just did not bode well for the future...and the plot instantly reminded me of Slime, which soured on me over time. I let this one go sour after one shot.

Demon Lord, Retry!

The blandest of beige this season, Demon Lord had neither the story nor the production values to reel me in or convince me it was anything but the Overlord wannabe it so clearly was.

Isekai Cheat Magician

This show was a pretty transparent attempt to have an isekai story with a childhood friend romance plot, and while I’m fine with one and a half of those things, it couldn’t execute them in any decent way by the end of the first episode, and just wound up being largely boring.

Wasteful Days of High School Girls

Speaking of boring, what if Nichijou wasn’t funny? You’d get something like this.

Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?

So the tone this one ultimately ended up having was pretty much exactly what I expected after the premiere - it leaned too hard on jokes that weren’t as funny as it thought they were, and too hard on the dumb hentai mom trope, and neither of those things interested me in the slightest. Pretty okay with having left this off the watchlist.

The Ones Within

I have stated multiple times in the last few weeks that Symphogear is great because it can convince you that it’s a work of genius. The Ones Within has, unfortunately, convinced itself that it’s deep social commentary of some kind, rather than a bargain-bin Danganronpa with no real thought put into it.

Are You Lost?

I’m amazed that we got another Eromanga Sensei this season and it flew entirely under the radar. For God’s sake, the first episode featured a young teenage girl eating a bug and drinking her own urine. I just didn’t see myself being particularly entertained by the shock value longer than the premiere.

Ensemble Stars (4/10)

I can’t tell if this one is actually over, but Funimation’s site doesn’t list any new episode premieres coming up, so I’m gonna assume it is? I gave this one a shot and hung onto it because it took UtaPri’s premise and gave it the slightly more serious tone I was looking for, but dropped it after the second episode started to drown us in side characters with no hint that the floodgates were closing, rather than giving ample screentime to a select cast so they could actually become at least two-dimensional before throwing in more people we’re supposed to care about.

BEM

BEM suffered from an unfortunate lack of distinct personality, which sucks when it seems to have had a decent story to tell. Nothing else about the show wound up sticking out to me, though, which has me fully convinced that Production I.G.’s name is only on this to boost recognition, and the second-billed LandQ studios did the majority of the work. And their best-known other show is Swordgai. So...

To The Abandoned Sacred Beasts (5/10)

I have gotten absolutely no pushback so far for my decision to tear into this show because it should have been a different show, so I’m gonna take that as a general agreement of my earlier statement. What a waste of a concept.

Cop Craft (5/10)

This one I still think I was not crazy to pick up after the first episode, because it wasn’t until the third that the animation tanked hard and the pacing went absolutely nuts, and apparently stayed that way. Did they write a thirty-nine-episode story that had to be condensed into twelve or something?

Magical Sempai

This one I probably would have kept watching if the majority of its humor wasn’t just the title character embarrassing herself in lewd ways. It was funny, but I didn’t see myself enjoying anything more than one episode of it.

GRANBELM (6/10)

This one I got halfway through before realizing that, during my end-of-season catchup, I had absolutely no desire to return to. The plot didn’t really start moving until the fifth episode, and in that time I had not gotten particularly invested in the characters, especially since the show makes fun of the viewer for thinking that the big mecha dream battles actually had stakes beyond “you don’t get to be The Thing”. At least it looked nice and the mecha designs were very original.

Are you willing to fall in love with a pervert, as long as she’s a cutie?

There were four shows this season with questions for titles. Just saying! This one actually had me hooked right up until the end, revealing that not only is it a fanservice show, but a fetish pandering one. That being said, if I were attracted to women, I could have seen myself getting something out of it, what with the decently moody tone and good production values.

I put 2 On Hold:

Is It Wrong to Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? II

I’ll probably come back to this when the third series comes around, just to give it one more chance to pull me back in, but ditching my favorite character for harem antics and character shilling just did not endear me to this long-awaited sequel.

Re:Stage Dream Days!!

This one’s not actually on hold, but I don’t have any other good place to mention it. This one I’m gonna make it through just on willpower, not because it’s good, but because it starts out as the most shameless rip-off I’ve ever seen in anime, specifically of Love Live!.

And I Finished 7:

Kochoki (5/10)

I thought I was gonna give this one a 7 at least, for nearly the whole season, for being a decently-told and somewhat new telling of Nobunaga’s early life with great production values for Studio Deen...right up until the structure fell completely apart at the end, almost completely out of nowhere. I’m still in awe of the gall this show had to literally skip over the final battle.

How Heavy Are The Dumbbells You Lift? (8/10)

This one came right the fuck out of nowhere and totally blew my expectations out of the way from the very first episode. Looking at the summary, I was convinced I was gonna drop this after the premiere...and found myself totally hooked by its cheery visual presentation and excellent sense of meta-comedy, not to mention its genuine educational value.

Astra: Lost In Space (8/10)

One of two adaptations I was really looking forward to this season (along with Fire Force), Astra was pretty much what I expected - a very good translation of a very good manga that ran for the perfect amount of time to be divided into twelve-ish episodes. A fantastic and memorable cast of characters enhanced a surprisingly twisty story, and Lerche made it all look just as good as I’d hoped.

The Demon Girl Next Door (8/10)

Speaking of defying my expectations, another show I was expecting pretty much nothing from, maybe one I could compare to Gabriel Dropout or something, that was instead an incredibly charming story of a girl trying to save her family by defeating a magical girl...with a very, very loose definition of the word “defeat” in play. I couldn’t have asked for much more from this one, aside from maybe a sequel?

Given (9/10)

Speaking of “Lerche” and “gorgeous”, this profoundly gripping story of a spacecase and a loner hesitantly making music together blossomed further and further as it went on, and became my new go-to reference point for explicit gay relationships in anime. It went where even Yuri On Ice!!! couldn’t, and left me desperate for a Part Two.

O Maidens In Your Savage Season (9/10)

My write up for this show was one of my longest in recent memory, and I stand by it - even if Okada had to write a few plot contrivances in to get where she’s going, at least she presented her cast in an incredibly thoughtful way and gave them a satisfying payoff, with the knowledge that they’re teenagers and all of their problems can’t be solved in one semester. The high water mark for discussions of sexuality in this medium.

BEST OF THE SEASON: Symphogear XV (9/10)

Anime is wonderful, and so am I.

So that wraps up summer! We’ve got a lot to look forward to in fall, even if My Hero Academia and Food Wars’ fourth series will both ultimately end up on a list in the distant future next year. Will Psycho-Pass 3 redeem the series? Will Azur Lane be better than Kantai Collection? Will Beastars beat Aggretsuko as the biggest furry panderer of the year? Only time will tell. And then I’ll tell you all what I think it said.