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devaneiosinfinitos · 4 years

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My thoughts on ACOSF

!!!!MAJOR SPOILERS!!!!

I was really looking forward to this book and Nesta and Cassian’s story and I really wanted to love it, but it fell really short. If I were to define ACOSF, I'd say: Wasted potential.

After finishing it and rereading some parts, my conclusion is: there are some pretty cool scenes, but that's not reflected in the rest of the book. I was disappointed and frustrated with several things. I was angry with others and found that many points in the plot were not really developed.

Here are some things that really bothered me (and this will be long):

ENDING RUSHED

I thought the ending was rushed. There were many things happening at the same time and none of them got a proper conclusion. For example, the Blood Rite and the birth. At one point we’re reading about the Blood Rite and how Nesta was fighting the other Illyrians so Emerie and Gwyn could win. Then, Queen Briallyn and Cass arrive, Nesta destroys her and gets the crown and then Azriel and Mor arrive and take them to Feyre. And that’s it. All that build-up for what? For a few paragraphs of Nesta meeting Gwyn and Emerie after the birth and briefly discussing it. And then of Nesta reminiscing of when she told Cass and Az the details of it and they pointed out what needed to be corrected. SERIOUSLY? The birth scene totally took the focus out of Nesta’s at Ramiel and the end of the Blood Rite and the AMAZING victory of Gwyn and Emerie and how well they did on the rite. There were chapters and chapters building up to the conclusion of the Blood Rite and what could come of it and then it was just over. So anticlimactic. Why spend so much time on it and then not even having one character acknowledging how incredible they were? That not only they survived it but Emerie and Gwyn won it and Nesta got so far and pulled an Enalius at the end? So few Illyrians have ever gotten that far and it has always felt like such a great accomplishment that Cass, Az and Rhys completed it, and then here we have women kicking the ass out of the challenge which has been unheard of and we don’t even get Cassian saying how proud he was? There was a lot missing at the end of that narrative. I wanted Cass, Az, and Rhys making a big deal out of their accomplishment. I wanted the Illyrians reactions about their victory and performance and what that could mean moving forward. I wanted more of how Emerie and Gwyn felt winning it and what it meant for them and Nesta to have accomplished that together. What a waste.

Not to mention, how rushed the entire thing with Briallyn and the crown was. One moment Nesta is destroying her and there lies the crown. And then, there’s Nesta using all three artefacts to stop time and help Feyre. They didn’t even discuss the fact that Briallyn was gone and that now they had the 3 artefacts. I mean, some people in that room didn’t even get to see the crown (Did they even know they managed to get it in the Blood rite?), let alone discuss the significance of it. One of the main plots of the book was the search for the trove, and then when they have all 3 artefacts, that’s just completely brushed over. Again, SERIOUSLY? All these plots and none with a development/conclusion to match the build up.

NESTA’S POWERS

I don’t even know where to start with this one. Every time I remember that Nesta gave up her powers I get pissed all over again.

Nesta’s powers have been hyped up for a long time. A LONG TIME. Now, we finally have her book where we delve into her journey and where her powers are supposed to be fully explored and WE NEVER GET THAT. Thank you for nothing, Sarah. Her powers are not even fully explored and then she gives them up. We never really get to fully understand her powers and get to see her really using them. THERE WAS SO MUCH POTENTIAL. I wanted to see her wreak havoc and fully embrace her powers and become one of the most powerful and deadly characters in Prythian. I wanted to see more of her being in control of her abilities and being her badass self taking a hoard of bad guys out. I wanted to understand the extension of her powers. But nope, just as she’s starting to learn about them, she loses them. SO ANTI-CLIMATIC (it doesn’t matter that apparently there’s a bit left, that’s not the point). When she was engulfed in silver fire in her room and Rhys came running? That’s what I wanted to read about. Nesta never really used her silver flames and we never got to really understand what they meant. Ok, they were cold rather than hot. WHAT ELSE? Why is the book even called A Court of Silver Flames? Isn’t that supposed to indicate that said silver flames will be significant? The most significant thing about them other than the bedroom scene are the silver flames that appear in her eyes, and that was not even fully developed either. Is it only when she’s about to lose control? Or angry? Or emotional? When the silver flames appear in her eyes it’s always highlighted that “nothing Fae looks through them” (this was pointed out more than once) and Cass even says at one point that that’s the being the Bone Carver whispered about and exalted and feared. We had the Bone Carver, a creature of thousands of years, calling Nesta a queen and saying she was as "ancient as the sea" and we have Lucien saying that maybe some things should not be awoken and "mother spare you all" when he sees Nesta training and I feel like all that foreshadowing never really came to fruition. LOOK AT ALL THIS BUILD UP.

Nesta’s been hyped up as this powerful Death Queen or as this being with great powers and the culmination of her journey in this book resulted in her giving it all up to save Feyre, Rhys and the baby. Rhys, that up until that point hadn’t really done anything that made him worthy of her calling him brother. Since Sarah came up with this death in childbirth plot (I could’ve gone without this one, seriously), yay for Nesta saving them because it’s not like I wanted them to die (I hope they learnt the lesson with that stupid bargain though). But this entire plot could’ve been addressed differently. AND BETTER. In the end, it undermined Nesta's powers narrative. Why build this plot up so much and include so many things that could be considered foreshadowing if you’re not going to fully develop it in the character’s main book?

IC’S BULLSHIT

Ever since ACOFAS, I was waiting for someone (preferably Nesta) to call the IC on their bullshit and their self-righteous hypocrisy. But it never happened. We had that God awful intervention scene and Mor saying bad things and Amren being gratuitously cruel and Rhys insulting Nesta and Feyre taking her freedom away and none of that is ever addressed again. Ok, I get they were trying to help her with their intervention, but they could have approached that very differently and much better. I felt really bad reading that, and they all got away easily with their behaviour towards her. Sometimes it felt like they were kicking a dog who was already down. Especially Amren. She called Nesta a waste of life and Nesta bloody knelt to apologise to her, holy shit, I can’t get over that. And Amren never apologised. I feel like there was a lot of apologising coming from Nesta, but not enough coming from others. The IC were disrespectful towards her many times (and not only in this book), and that’s it. All swept under the rug.

Later on in the book, Rhys says that Nesta always has a choice at the Night Court. REALLY, RHYS? Are you not tired of contradicting yourself? Because it sure as hell didn’t feel like she did. They even try to use Elain as a way to manipulate Nesta to do what they want. Not to mention that it feels as they are really pressuring Nesta to get better soon and fast (with the exception of Cass, who says she can take however long she wants), but the IC should look at themselves. Mor and Az are still dealing with their traumas after hundreds of years. Cass himself says that it took him years to get over what happened to his mom and what he did (and he still deals with the fact that he often feels inferior for being a bastard). And they want Nesta to be a happy healthy version of herself so soon? Please. I think a scene where their behaviour is addressed would’ve felt earned. I’m pissed that we didn’t get that. And that Nesta didn’t get that. And that because the IC are never called out on their often toxic behaviour (it happens towards Lucien as well), they don’t learn.

Also, Rhys and the rest of the IC hiding from Feyre what it meant that the baby had wings was a really infuriating move. So so wrong. That type of thing should not be hidden from the person carrying the baby. It’s her life and her body. To be honest, I didn’t like how the pregnancy plot was written at all. I was already expecting that Feyre would get pregnant, but I hoped it would be later in the series for a myriad of reasons. The way it was done here didn’t really work for me, and I think many things didn’t make any sense such as how the birth would (or wouldn’t) work. I mean, Cassian had his guts hanging out of his stomach and lived, but a C-section is not possible? Come on.

RELATIONSHIPS

I think that by the end of the book there were some key things missing in some of the relationships. For example, the relationship between the sisters. It all appears well in the last scene, but I missed a scene where all three of them ACTUALLY talked and discussed things - their relationship and their parents and their past. You know, a decent conversation where they could explain things and ask for forgiveness or also say thank you where it was due.

I also would’ve really liked if Cassian had said “I love you” to Nesta. I don’t doubt his love for her and I know he has loved her for a long time and he has shown that love with attitudes on several occasions, but I think with Nesta, who had never really said “I love you” to anyone (she said it to Feyre for the 1st time in the birth scene), it would’ve meant something to her to hear those words, especially after thinking so little of herself for so long and not feeling worthy of affection and thinking everyone hated her. I think it would’ve felt nice to close that part of her journey with him saying it as well. Also, I kind of missed soft/tender moments between Nessian thoroughout the book. Yeah, they have an angsty relationship and Nesta was in a healing journey and the smut was great, but I think there could’ve been more sweet moments in the middle, you know? Because they only truly recognise the bond at the end, so the fluffiness is mostly focused in the last pages, and I wanted a bit more of that here and there. Not a lot that would change the dynamics of the relationship, but just a bit more that would balance the smut and angst a bit and make me sigh. Sometimes I thought there were too much smut and angst and not enough relationship growth through conversation and softness.

HIGH KING

I really dislike the High King idea and I have a feeling that’s exactly what Sarah might do. Not long ago, the IC was shitting on Vallahan for wanting to conquer other territories and then there’s Amren saying Rhys should become High King and rule over the entirety of Prythian. Where did that even come from? That entire conversation and everything Amren said was just mindboggling. Not to mention that according to what she said, Rhys would become High King using the weapons that Nesta created. Same weapons that Amren said nobody should use (but it’s ok if it’s Rhys, right? *Eye roll*) and that no one should tell Nesta she could create. Not to mention that the entire idea of all the courts submitting to one ruler/court (in this case, to Rhys) sounds very imperialistic. They should all be aiming to coexist peacefully and harmonically and find ways to work towards that, not using this High King idea as a solution.

Plus, Rhys cannot even unite all of his own court (There’s rebellion building with the Illyrians, there’s the Court of Nightmares and all the problems there…), and Amren wants him to rule over Prythian? Also, something about the Court of Nightmares that I often wonder about. Is Mor the only decent person to be born there? Because I have a hard time believing that there is not another single decent soul in that place. Maybe someone that dreams of going to Velaris and escaping the Court of Nightmares but that just finds themselves trapped there because it’s not like Rhys and the IC give anybody a chance to get away. Do they even look for people that might be suffering there without deserving to? I mean, Mor came from there. Don’t they think there might be others? Even with the agreement they have with Keir in ACOWAR, it’s not like they are open to the idea. And it’s completely fine to want to protect Velaris from the evil and cruelty that exists in the Court of Nightmares, but again, that shouldn’t mean they shouldn’t even contemplate the chance that there might be people there worth of being in Velaris. That doesn’t earn Rhys any points towards the High King thing.

Moreover, that stupid bargain Rhys and Feyre made also doesn’t get him any points. Since learning the baby had wings, Rhys knew the chances of Feyre dying were very high. If she died, he’d die as well. You’d think a responsible ruler would make plans in case that really happened. You know, like talking to the IC and making plans about their next moves and discussing how they should proceed and just analysing the options after his and Feyre’s powers go to who knows who (If it went to Keir… Shouldn’t they prepare for that?). I mean, imagine the chaos that would ensue should Rhys and Feyre die, and it’s never even addressed that Rhys is considering these things. He didn’t even tell Amren, his second in command. Honestly, what a mess. I’m glad Rhys was categorically against it and that it doesn’t seem like he wants that, but it sounds just like Sarah to come up with a plot that the High King title would just fall on Rhys’s lap or be the only way out of a situation and that by becoming High King he’d be saving Prythian of something worse. I’m rolling my eyes just thinking about it.

So… These are just some of the things that bothered me. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t nice things in the book. Like I said in the beginning, there are some cool scenes and specific things that I really liked (such as Nesta, Gwyn and Emerie’s friendship, for example. They are just wonderful. And Nesta and the House of Wind. And Nesta and Azriel (I wanted more of this relationship). And Cassian’s support. And the Valkyries inspiration), but the book in itself? More potential than any other thing. It was a let down.

#ACOSF #A Court of Silver Flames #ACOSF Spoilers #Spoilers ACOSF #Nesta #Nesta Archeron #Cassian #Nessian

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shimmershae · 3 years

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My thoughts on Episode 6--On the Inside

Very appropriate title by the way. Works in a multitude of ways.

As always, my randomness is going beneath a cut again to spare the eyeballs of those of you that don’t want to see it at all and also? Help those of you that have somehow stayed spoiler-free in this brand-new age of early release episodes. It is still so wild to me that I’m a full episode ahead of half the fandom. I don’t know what I’m going to do when we get to the final episode and they decide to make us all suffer together--because somehow I do feel they will do exactly that after spoiling us for the first 23 episodes. It is going to be agonizing.

Anyway. Without further ado, Shae’s stream of consciousness review (of sorts).

Not fair, Angela. Opening the episode with that shot of that big ass spider. I hate those suckers. So naturally, they’re an easy sell for setting the horror scene to me, lol.

Okay. Who the hell’s chasing Virgil and Connie? Walker No-See-Ums?

Barely a minute in and the atmosphere for this episode is moody AF.

What is this? Tara Jr. The Walking Dead? LOL. Where’s the Scarlett for this mini plantation house? Anyway. First three minutes of this episode? Just as attention grabbing as the first five episode openings this season. I don’t think people out there are giving our writers enough love for that. Every episode so far has opened like a mini movie.

With the way the Walking Dead logo keeps crumbling away with each successive episode, somehow it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Carol and Daryl spinoff was eventually titled The Living and had flowers growing out of each letter, lol. I mean, there would be a certain sort of life-affirming symmetry in a show that’s been promised to be much lighter in tone doing just that.

More Carol and Aaron? Yes, please. I don’t necessarily like Carol staying at home and sitting the sidelines like a figurative happy little homemaker in the B story while the rest of the mains are trying like hell to sell the A story, but if she’s going to be totally prohibited from the main storyline until it’s time to blow shit up? I’m going to continue enjoy getting to see her do what she should have been doing for seasons--interacting with others in the community, especially Aaron and the ladies.

Truly. I really am loving my girl getting some quality Aaron and Rosita time. It’s so long overdue.

Bless sweet Kelly. Riding off to her sister’s rescue.

Why isn’t Lydia shown as part of these plans? For someone that could barely read last season, I doubt that big ass map was a piece of cake for her and it’s all just guesswork anyway without her guidance. I mean, why does it feel like they are cutting some of this stuff that might not seem like much plot-wise but would go a long way toward establishing different character beats? Personally, I would have loved to see her involved in the search and sharing scenes again with Carol and bonding with Kelly.

Virgil be having that “I always feel like somebody’s watching me” feeling. Don’t you hate that, lol?

“You haven’t slept in days.” But how many days, Virgil? I’m going to need a number because I’m confused AF about this timeline at this point. What we’re seeing and what different pieces of dialogue is telling us is not exactly lining up. I’m going to find it awful hilarious if it hasn’t even been two weeks since the cave in. For reasons.

Connie’s spidey senses are clearly tingling.

Alrighty, then. She’s clearly got PTSD. Understandable. They’ve all had it. Some have been treated more sympathetically than others, though.

I mean, it never seems to cross anybody’s mind how Carol probably sees Henry’s head on that pike, Mika’s pale and bloody body, Lizzie crumpled face down in a bed of yellow flowers, Sophia with a smoking bullet hole through her undead head whenever she closes her eyes but whatever.

Okay though. But what if Connie had really shitty, impossible to read handwriting? AKA doctor’s handwriting. What then?

Leah’s face honestly twists my insides whenever I see it, lol. It’s quiet a visceral thing. No, that does not make me a horrible person. Not everybody wants or has to drink the awesome, great, redeemable villainess Kool-Aid. IMHO, she’s got a face meant for a Walker. Perfect makeover idea. Eh. Mostly it’s her expression and the deadness of her eyes.

Anyway. Why is it always the fingers? Eff that.

Listen. If ya’ll can’t tell Daryl’s conflicted AF with the situation he’s landed in, you don’t know how to read NR’s face and eyes. He’s not a masterclass like MMB but he’s pretty darn good when he wants to be.

I honestly feel sorry for Redshirt Frost.

“You do what you gotta do.” Frost knows what’s what and he’s willing to walk the walk for Maggie. Impressive loyalty. I’m left wondering how the current, colder incarnation of Maggie inspired it because I’m still struggling to see it. Anywho. My point is the dude knows the score and just gave Daryl the okay.

Daryl taking off his angel vest before stepping into the role of torturer/interrogator=him shedding the persona/the man Judith and RJ and Lydia and Carol know him to be. Pushing away his man of honor status so he can just survive somehow.

Pope never quits chewing whatever the hell he’s got in his mouth. It’s kind of distracting.

Ohhh. We’re back to the Haunted Mansion. I mean house. Where are the Hitchhiking Ghosts?

All the eyes scratched out of those creepy pictures=spooky.

The good old fogged up bathroom mirror shot. Somebody’s been watching and studying their horror movies, lol. Not gonna lie though. I’m legit bracing myself for the jump scares I know have to be coming.

I’m loving the music/score in these scenes.

Truthfully, I could care less about these Reapers. But they are hella attractive, lol. Listen. Angela knows what she’s doing.

Kelly’s horse is so pretty. Prayer chain for that baby.

More dead horses? Why?

Connie’s slingshot? Sorry. I maintain, no matter how much I like these two, that they have the lamest weapons ever. Endless supply of Virginia rocks or not.

So. Did Virgil and Connie enjoy a little equine for dinner? Did they kill it before the Walkers fed? What monsters! Yeah, no. Not if they were starving even if I personally could not have. The more probable story is they fled the camp in a panic and left the horse behind and then it went down. Sorry. I didn’t exactly study the wounds on the poor animal because it is so traumatizing to me to continue to see them meet such dastardly ends on this show. I don’t know who the hell has such a score to settle with horses but stop it.

Days. It’s only been days. Not weeks. So many times with all that Daryl and Company have had to contend with since the cave in? Those do not exist, lol. They’re just a convenient, appeasing piece of dialogue thrown at a fanbase primed and ready to read everything into not much of anything. There’s just not been enough time for it to happen unless Daryl has literally been up 24/7 for all of them. You know, strategizing how to attack the remainders of Alpha’s horde, figuring out how to defend Hilltop before it fell, healing from the wound he sustained at Alpha’s hand, sitting on that log all damn night with Negan waiting on Carol to come home, having a lover’s quarrel with his best damn everything, taking care of the Grimes babies and Lydia, being the reluctant leader. Kang, why you playing them like that? Daryl’s a super guy but he’s not a superhuman with clones. So many times my ass.

Seriously. Who been watching Connie and Virgil? The MIA Oceansiders? Beta’s Fee Fi Fo Fum Ghost?

Nice. A Michonne mention. Maybe the truth will start to trickle out.

LMAO at Connie’s “I’m not staying here.” Me neither, girl. I would be outta that house so fast.

They really “Quiet Placing” this episode. Honestly? I’m kinda loving it.

WTF was that? I know she can’t hear but you telling me all the little hairs on her arms, legs, and neck didn’t stand the fuck up and say fuck this shit, I’m gone? Pardon my language, lovelies, but that moment had my heart kicking up several beats.

Okay, okay. To be fair to Connie, every hair on her body been doing that since the front door closed. Maybe they’re desensitized.

Gollum’s chasing Connie!!! He/She wants their Precious!!!

The knee jerk reactions about this episode sight unseen are OTT, honestly. And I mean no disrespect by saying that. I can understand completely where they’re coming from because we’ve been burned so long in this fandom. But it’s obvious the spoiler source has their particular biases and reads into things in such a way that don’t line up with what’s actually being shown onscreen. Daryl’s loyalty in this episode and all along quite clearly lies with his family and his community. He’s been playing Leah since the start and is truly just trying to survive somehow.

Awful thought. The Reaper that’s so suspish of Daryl--haven’t quite caught his name or really cared to. I feel like he might try to get to Daryl somehow. When he realizes that Daryl cares no more for Leah than any human would care for somebody (they thought) they used to know? He’s going after Dog. Or Carol should she finally join this story.

I refuse to believe Carol isn’t going to be a part of this story. Because they messing with her mans, lol.

“You’re ever with us or you’re not.” Now where have I heard those words before? I wish I could find that Daryl gif because that had to be one of the funniest things ever, lol.

Unrealistic suggestion to Daryl, Leah? Breathing oxygen seems to piss off Carver. Oh look. He finally has a name for me, lol.

I love how all three of the ladies--Carol, Magna, and Rosita--look at Kelly with such indulgent, adoring “little sis, you alright?” eyes.

They are seriously the most beautiful quartet of characters. I mean all of them are lovely but Carol and Rosita this season? Ugh. The unfairness of the pretty.

Human bones. Terminus callback, lovelies. How it all would have eventually gone down if Gareth and Co. hadn’t met the business end of Rick’s red machete.

So many horror movie homages in this one.

Virgil’s like “let’s leave this Texas Chainsaw Massacre behind.”

Connie and Virgil have obviously bonded, ya’ll. I’m surprised by how much I’m enjoying their scenes together when the character mostly got on my nerves with Michonne. He’s a good actor and the core of his character is sympathetic, but I’m not going to lie. I wasn’t super enthused when he was the one that rescued Connie because I didn’t know how their scenes would play out. But there’s a nice synergy there.

Okay. Does Carver want Leah for himself? Because I’m sure Daryl at this point would love to scream “take her, I know where I fucking belong!”

Daryl’s digging in deep because Carver has shown him Leah’s potential weak spot. Nuance is truly lost on some people, LMAO. He cares about Leah as a human being probably. He’s Daryl, after all. The sweet one. But he sees her as his way outta this and he’s going to exploit it.

It’s nice to have a silent Negan for once, lol. I can pretend he didn’t take my baby Glenn away from me and enjoy JDM’s pretty.

So. These cannibal people were the watchers? Hmm.

I’m really digging Virgil 2.0. Yeah. Nobody’s surprised more than me.

Sweet, sweet scene between Virgil and Connie. His determination to reunite her with her family brings back the sympathy I felt for him when he told Michonne “I promised her flowers. Every day.”

Damn. How many of those creepy crawly cannibals are there?

How brave of Connie to confront her fears to save someone she’s obviously grown to care about.

The Kelly/Connie reunion gave me chills and made me cry. Thank fuck Angela didn’t cheapen that moment by having it focus on literally anybody else. Kelly is the most important person in the whole world to Connie and vice versa. Just like Carol is the most important person in the whole world to Daryl and vice versa. Angela fucking knows. Everybody does. Except the people busy building castles out of sand while the waves of Carol’s and Daryl’s converging stories keep crashing closer and closer to shore.

Such a beautiful moment given to us by Angel Theory and Lauren Ridloff. So authentic and sweet. Kelly and Connie are home to each other.

Poor Frost. That’s all I gotta say about that.

WTF, though. Was Mel just not available or what? I want to see more of the ASZ characters that I care about, not the Reapers. Like I’d be fine with the story if all the characters not named Maggie, Negan, or Daryl weren’t surviving on crumbs during it. Especially the 2nd billed actress on the entire show. Angela. Please. Fix this.

One last WTF. Seriously. WTF has Maggie done to inspire Pope’s obsession? It better be juicy after all this shit.

Overall impression of the episode--

One of my favorites of the season so far. The horror aspects were fantastic, IMHO. I truly didn’t expect to like Connie and Virgil’s scenes as much together so that was a nice surprise. She got the reunion that felt most true and earned for the character and her story and I thank Angela from the bottom of my heart for that.

I would have loved more Carol but I always want more Carol. I’m okay with her taking a backseat because ultimately? This was Kelly’s moment with her sister. Carol and Connie will eventually have their time to sit down and talk. And pick back up their blossoming friendship because I truly do not feel Connie blames Carol at all.

I do wish Lydia had been included with the girl group. Last episode felt like it was leading up to that.

The Reaper storyline continues to be the weakest link because every time we see them the dialogue and interactions feel totally recycled from the time previous. I feel like it would have totally been helped by a tighter focus and less stretching out because 8 episodes of this is really diluting what I feel like Angela and Co. are going for. I’m not here for Leah being redeemed or being a bigger focus in any of the episodes because she does nothing of interest for me. I’m just peeking in on that story for the Daryl of it all.

Speaking of the Daryl? You lovelies out there gotta stop taking that spoiler source’s recaps at face value because it’s obvious to me at least that there’ some bias at work. Every action and word coming from Daryl is coming from a place of loyalty to his family and wanting to protect them, no matter how he has to dirty his hands. Leah is just a means to his ultimate end. She’s not his future. She never was. His future’s already spoken for and 2023 can’t get here soon enough. But like Daryl, we have to just survive somehow.

Oh goodie. More Maggie and Negan next episode and looks like no real follow up on Connie and the ASZ reunions. Hopefully, this is yet another instance of the previews being deceiving but I’m not holding my breath.

Until later, lovelies.

Hope my word vomit didn’t bore you too much.

#The Walking Dead #Season 11 #TWD spoilers #things that make me smile and cry #for reasons #ignore all the typos #with something this longwinded?#LOL #there's bound to be plenty

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carversourcebe · 4 years

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Max and Charlie Carver Get Inside Each Other’s Head

Interview for Interview Magazine :

MAX: This is my Barbara Walters moment.

CHARLIE: You prepared questions?

MAX: Oh yes. I have.

CHARLIE: Oh lord. Here we go.

MAX: Let me start with this: We’ve been through thick and thin together. Knowing what I know about you, in terms of disappointments and moments of questioning “if you’re on the right path,” why do you keep doing what you’re doing?

CHARLIE: That’s the first question? [Laughs] I guess part of it is a sense of curiosity about what’s possible. How can I challenge myself? In what ways can I feel like I’ve found my own version of success, and what does that feeling of success afford me as a person, moving forward?

MAX: What do you mean? Define success.

CHARLIE: I love that you have to be kind of naïve to want to work in a creative field. I don’t mean having to be overly simplistic about the world, but you have to maintain a kind of innocence, or a hopeful state of mind. And I can’t imagine getting practical. I don’t think I could do anything else.

MAX: What do you mean?

CHARLIE: Well, I can’t imagine dropping that disposition to go work in a different field. I’m trying to remember what made me want to go into this as a kid, and I think it was being moved in one way or another, and feeling the potential of being able to do that for other people, and understanding in an intrinsic way that that had value. Now, the battle has been trying to convince myself that it still has value, particularly in a world where there are so many other actionable ways to affect people’s lives.

MAX: But the value is you get to empathize with a belief system whether you’re consciously doing it or not. You’re getting to explore parts of yourself that may be dormant. And I think when people see that on the screen, it wakes up that dormant part of themselves. It’s like soul exercise.

CHARLIE: I hear that.

MAX: In terms of Ratched, what did you want to convey that you felt other people might not understand or see in your character?

CHARLIE: Another arrow of a question. I’m not sure I wanted to go in and convey anything. I think you learn from the story in front of you and you discover something in that process.

MAX: What did you learn?

CHARLIE: I always have to battle my own insecurities, or feelings of being limited somehow in actually embodying the character and the circumstances that are in front of me.

MAX: You’re speaking in abstracts.

CHARLIE: Thank you, Max. With Huck, what was being asked of me was to sit with and live with the experience of a war vet—in a very specific, genre show—and I just wanted to trust that the product would come out of that. I’m so grateful to Ryan Murphy, not only for the opportunity, but for how much creative freedom was given to me. We spoke a little bit about the images and things that came to mind for him, and I was on the same page.

MAX: Such as?

CHARLIE: The Elephant Man, and then some of my own stuff. Want to know a funny one? Do you remember that skunk from Bambi? Flower?

MAX: Yeah.

CHARLIE: I kept feeling Flower a lot.

MAX: [Laughs] Just to be clear, these are all leading questions. For me, whenever I get a role, whether it’s just working on stuff on camera, or writing, or whatever, I’m going to start recognizing some belief system that I have that I was in complete denial about. What did this story kick up for you?

CHARLIE: A lot of my own stuff around masculinity. To really believe myself as a war vet in a nursing uniform, the physicality or the posture, was challenging. I think a lot of that comes from the very narrow definition of masculinity presented to me as a kid, and how as a gay man, I didn’t feel inside of that definition. I felt naturally excluded by it. So anytime a character where these traditional tropes of masculinity come in, it always brings up stuff for me. It’s surprising that it does, and I’m grateful that it does, because it always deepens something that I wanted to learn about myself. And I usually find I end up going against those tropes. Having to find my own way in response to them. There’s a core question that I always return to in any work, even if it’s just writing, or the work of being in a relationship: Am I enough?

MAX: Enough of what? You have imposter syndrome when you’re portraying “masculine” characters?

CHARLIE: Yeah, kind of. More that by doing my own thing, I’ve somehow failed at the task. But the sense of fraudulence, or insecurity, or imposter syndrome is somewhat akin to doubt, and I think it’s important to see that for what it is and welcome it. Doubt isn’t a bad thing. I’ve definitely made some peace with that feeling of not knowing what I’m doing and feeling kind of fraudulent while I’m doing it. I would like to believe everybody feels that way.

MAX: Yeah, when I feel doubt, it’s a somatic experience. It’s this empty feeling in my body. Feelings with no label or no name. But I think that’s okay. Not to name it, just to allow it. Gonna change gears here: What do you think is your most attractive quality?

CHARLIE: Really having your Barbara Walters moment. [Laughs] Oh my god. I don’t know anymore. I feel pretty bland these days, I’m not going to lie.

MAX: Are you trying to suggest that modesty is your most attractive quality?

CHARLIE: [Laughs]. Shut up. I’d like to think I’m a good person. I’m open-minded. I think that’s attractive. I say yes to things.

MAX: What’s something you think about a lot that you believe other people should spend some more time thinking about? I know, that’s going to make you sound arrogant, no matter how you answer that question.

CHARLIE: Yeah, it is! What do I think people should sit with?

MAX: Maybe it was a bad question.

CHARLIE: No, it’s an interesting question. Hmmm. You were the one who taught me to use this technique: It’s so important to remember that we were all children. That the person in front of you, whether you’re meeting them with a sense of judgment, or excitement, or whatever, that they were once a child. I think that’s something valuable to sit with.

MAX: Um, I never said that. I think I said that kids will identify with anything. By which I mean, kids get defined by other people around them and that’s not right. I forget who said it, but “the law of the jungle was kill or be killed, now it’s define or be defined”. But maybe don’t bother defining anything or anyone. Let it be a question. You and I have gotten in some arguments about defining oneself through abstract language, through labels, instead of just saying, “Hey, I’m Charlie.”

CHARLIE: Yeah. I think that identities and labels are useful in that they can be ways into finding community and showing solidarity across a real shared experience. But I don’t particularly love using “gay” as an adjective to describe myself. I don’t have an issue with being seen that way, but it’s just such a strange…

MAX: I don’t think you can or should try to boil down your personality or who you are into descriptors. I don’t think it’s possible. I think it’s unwinnable.

CHARLIE: Exactly. And that word in particular, “gay,” has become something monolithic. It stands for something that I’m not sure I want to be in communion with. To clarify, what I mean is that it’s absolutely something I identify as. But I think it’s a word that has come to stand for an exclusionary, very privileged, and largely white experience… Well, I would be in denial if I didn’t fall into that, categorically. But it’s not my identity. It’s not the “all” of who I am. And so I bristle at that word a bit. And don’t want to feel defined by language. Then again, I am happy to identify as one letter in this broader coalition, the LGBTQ coalition, if that makes any sense. It becomes a position from which to speak from and engage with the world. I have no idea how we got here.

MAX: We were talking about you. Now we’re going to change the subject. If you could write the musical of your life, using the music of a known artist, who would that be ?

CHARLIE: I don’t know why there hasn’t been a Dixie Chicks musical. I would feel very represented by that.

MAX: Hm. Why?

CHARLIE: You know the answer. You’re setting me up. [Laughs] “Cowboy, Take me Away” is such a great song! It would really rip on stage.

MAX: Okay. Next question. Did you play The Sims as a kid?

CHARLIE: You ask this question on dates, don’t you? I know you do.

MAX: Don’t deflect. What did you do with your Sims characters? How did you spend your time on The Sims?

CHARLIE: Fine. I know you have this theory that that question is like this Rorschach test.

MAX: Sort of, yeah. For dysfunction.

CHARLIE: The “Red Flag” test. I would build these beautiful houses and then I would separate the family members into rooms and remove all the doors, and watch what happened. So that the people would just be locked in these doorless, windowless rooms. Trapped. That was my big fear as a kid.

MAX: You had a lot of fears as a kid.

CHARLIE: That’s true. But I was really afraid of waking up in a house where it’s like, “Where is everybody”?

MAX: You get to start over today. What age would you pick?

CHARLIE: I would go back to kindergarten.

MAX: You would go back to kindergarten?

CHARLIE: I remember. We’re lucky. We were identified as “twins,” but we really got to separate, I think internally, from each other at that age.

MAX: To add some backstory here, we were always very different. We even went to different boarding schools across the country from one another. We didn’t really grow up together. I mean, we did. We fought so often our parents had to build a wall between us while we were sharing the same room. We went to different boarding schools, pretty much decided we were going to go to different universities.

CHARLIE: And somehow both ended up in L.A. Just a little bit of backstory. But I think at that age, six or so, you’re just responding to the world. You’re not actively trying to do anything differently. You’re learning to survive, or adjust to your environment. You are adjusted by your environment. So I wonder what it would have been like to grow up somewhere else.

MAX: Where?

CHARLIE: I don’t know where. I don’t have a lot of resentment about that time, but I do feel shaped by having grown up in a rural pocket of the world. I will always wonder what other parts of myself could have better and more naturally flourished from that age. And I think a lot of damage comes from feeling forbidden from certain possibilities. I wanted to do all sorts of things in kindergarten. I wanted to dance, I wanted to be a good student, I wanted to make art, I wanted to act, and all of those things were not acceptable because they made you a “queer.”

MAX: And you got teased a lot.

CHARLIE: And so we both found out, in this strange experiment of being genetically identical people with a controlled set of similar circumstances, how different inputs played out.

MAX: But because we’re twins, I still had to witness what you went through. It’s not like I walked away unscathed or untouched by your pain. If anything, I felt I had to compensate for it.

CHARLIE: It’s symbiotic. I don’t think I got away from your pain. I felt all that, too. We’ve already talked some about masculinity and identity and I think you can feel that stuff as a kid, but you don’t know how to do anything about it. Expectations. You don’t have any language to be able to articulate what it is, but you just feel it. So if I could go back – I’m just curious, in this “experiment” that is our lives as identical twins – what happens if you plug in or take out certain inputs? A setting? A time period? How does that shape the person that you are? Had I grown up somewhere else, how might we have diverged in other ways? This also goes back to the acting stuff. When I step into a role as an actor, are the circumstances going to be enough information for me to become that character? Or is there something else that’s beyond what is circumstantial that shapes a person? A kind of spiritual force, or self, independent of those inputs?

MAX: I believe that we get whatever stories we need until we don’t need a story anymore. And in this profession, the stories we need find us. Do you see an underlying pattern in all of the stories you’ve been given? Not just stuff you’ve shot professionally on film, but other stuff, too. Plays, books, stuff you write. I remember you doing Angels in America in college. Life and Limb.

CHARLIE: I often end up playing people who have been maimed, or hurt, or who feel ugly.

MAX: What do you think the common denominator is?

CHARLIE: I don’t know if I can generalize as far as a common denominator. I’ve always been attracted to telling stories where there is an externalization of trauma or a loss, something put into your life that you didn’t choose. Huck was such an important character to me in that way

MAX: Well, if I can reflect on my own stuff, I keep getting stories and I’m realizing that for whatever reason I keep getting a lot of villain stuff thrust upon me, at least on paper. And what I’m learning is, it’s very hard for me to own my goodness, my softness in a vulnerable way. But it’s there, too. In the “bad”. So I’m also learning I can’t compartmentalize in that kind of way with myself. And I want to own more softness in my day to day life.

CHARLIE: And if I’m being perfectly honest, I have a difficult time finding myself beautiful, in a way. There’s something about all these characters and how beautiful these characters are that reflects something back to me like, oh, that is something that I am too. Beauty is a big word.

MAX: Just say it. “I am beautiful.”

CHARLIE. [Laughs]. Anyone can find a time in their life, and this theme goes all the way back to being a kid, of feeling different, of feeling ostracized in some way, and trying to find an explanation for it. I think how I interpreted those feelings was that I was that I’m the ugly duckling. And even though we’re identical twins, in my head that was how I related to the situation. I saw myself as the ugly duckling compared to you. And the work I’ve gotten and I’m interested in, well, it’s just a theme that’s preoccupied my life.

MAX: Are you sick of that story?

CHARLIE: We are so predisposed, even in our conversations not on the record, to talk so seriously about things, Max. My turn to ask you something. How do you hope to have fun in the next five or ten years?

MAX: My idea of fun is getting out of L.A., in a car, not having a plan. Driving up the 33, north of Ojai, and finding a hot spring and running around naked. And not bringing cameras, not recording it, not trying to do anything. It’s to be in nature with no plan no feeling that needs to be accomplished. It’s just butt naked in a natural spring. That’s fun.

CHARLIE: Well, I’m always down to do that, too.

Read the article here

#Charlie Carver #max carver #Carver Twins #teen wolf #desperate housewives #the leftovers #interview #interview magazine

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patricianandclerk · 5 years

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Peace

My Ask | My Ko-Fi | My Ao3 | Requests always welcome!

When Anders entered the little shack the Hawkes called their home, neither Gamlen nor Leandra were to be seen. Gamlen was no doubt out at the Blooming Rose, and as for Leandra, Anders couldn’t be sure – he wasn’t able to get an incredibly good handle on her, much as he tried, and…

Did she disapprove? Of his interest in Hawke, of their spending time together? He didn’t think so. But how could he be sure?

It was a big shack, by the standards of Lowtown. Badly made, and freezing cold even in summer, but it was big, had a lot of space to it, and Anders leaned down to gently stroke the dog’s head. Felix was snoring softly, but he opened one eye to look up at Anders, yawning, and then flopped forward again.

He was still sleeping off their last hike up the Sundermount, Anders supposed, and he stepped over the dog, leaning to look through the door that led to Gamlen and Leandra’s room, but it was empty. The door to the other room, the bigger one where Carver and Hawke slept, and stored their armour, was closed, and when Anders brushed his fingers against it, he felt the glow of magic on the other side.

Shivering, Anders knocked his knuckles against it.

“Come in,” came Hawke’s voice, and Anders pushed open the door, inhaling the familiar ozone tang of magic on the air, but fresh and sweet – the smell of the Fade. Hawke was standing in the middle of a runic circle, his back straight, his hands spread out before him, and hovering on the air were a dozen blue-green balls of flames that floated, gently orbiting the mage at their centre…

Anders could hear the whisper and murmur that came from them, those flames. Even as he stared at them, mouth open, his eyes wide, they began to slowly dim and sink down to the ground, disappearing entirely before they touched the stone floors, and when Hawke turned to meet Anders’ gaze, he looked…

Tired.

“Oh, good,” he said softly, “it’s you. I love Merrill, merely that… I wasn’t ready for her particular baseline of energy.”

“Spirits,” Anders said. “You were— talking to them?”

“Studying,” Hawke said, gently shrugging his shoulders, and Anders watched as he got to his knees, taking a wet cloth and beginning to scrub away the chalk lines he’d left on the floor, soaking them away. “I’m not as good of a healer as you are, Anders. If I don’t put in the hours on the theory, I won’t ever be able to meet you on the practice.”

“Spirit healing isn’t a common field of magic,” Anders said in a low voice.

“No,” Hawke agreed. His voice was almost serene as he continued to wipe over the floor, on his hands and knees, working to clear up the chalk there. “Why are you here, Anders?”

“I was…” Anders trailed off, almost ashamed of the answer that came to his lips. He had been to the Hawke residence before, of course. He’d walked around everywhere with Hawke, had met Leandra, or Carver, or Gamlen, each their own variety of unpleasant to deal with. He had never come here, unescorted. “I needed a break. From the clinic. I didn’t know where else to go.”

Hawke stayed on his knees, but his hand on the cloth stopped, and he kept his gaze on the floor, on the chalk-dusted cloth gripped between his hands. Anders swallowed, hard, and heard Justice in the back of his head, irritable, demanding they return to proper work, demanding—

“Was your sister a spirit healer?” Anders asked. “Your father?”

“No,” Hawke said, standing to his feet and setting the cloth on one of the tables, wiping off his hands as he did so. “Bethany, she… She liked elemental magic. My father, too.” Anders stared at his back, at his exhausted shoulders, the way his head tipped forward slightly, his fingers touching the top of the desk. “Look, Anders,” he said, turning his head. “I’m sorry if you were hoping to go to the Hanged Man for a drink, but frankly, I’m tired. I’m still recovering from the hike last week, and I can’t come help you in the clinic, not today. I wish I could, but—”

“No, no, I wasn’t going to ask you to,” Anders said, stepping forward, the door closing shut behind him, and Hawke watched him, cautiously. “I’m… sorry, Hawke, I didn’t come here to disturb you.”

There were bags under Hawke’s eyes, Anders noted as he stepped closer. Bags under his eyes, and his breathing was a little heavier than usual – he wasn’t slouching exaggeratedly, but enough to be noticeable. Anders ignored Justice’s complaint in the back of his mind as he reached for Hawke’s shoulder, and touched it, gently.

“I can’t sleep in the clinic, sometimes, for people knocking on the door,” he admitted. “I suppose I just thought I could rest here, and it should have occurred to me that you have the same problem.”

“I was just about to lie down for a nap,” Hawke murmured, shrugging his shoulders, and his hand came slowly up to touch Anders’, cupping the back of his knuckles. He smiled, exhaustedly, and Justice was absolutely silent as Anders leaned closer, interlinking their fingers. “You could lie down with me, if you wanted.”

“I do want,” Anders said, nodding. “Yeah.”

Hawke didn’t even try to kiss him. Anders would have initiated it, once upon a time – a few years ago, he’d have dropped to his knees in front of Hawke in whatever cupboard he could shove him into first, would have shoved his tongue down Hawke’s throat at any available opportunity.

Times were different, of course. Hawke didn’t try to kiss him, so Anders didn’t try it first: they lay down together on Hawke’s cot, smaller than the one Anders had in the clinic, their legs tangled with one another.

Anders lay his head on Hawke’s chest, breathing in the Fade-smell that clung to him, and Hawke’s breathing was slow and even, Hawke’s hands rested in a comforting weight against his shoulders.

To Anders’ surprise, when Carver came in, he swore under his breath and irritably muttered to himself, but he didn’t open the shutters or light any candles, didn’t raise his voice to get Hawke to wake up. He just closed the door again, and was quiet in the other room, let his brother and Anders sleep together, uninterrupted.

“What was it that drew you to spirit healing?” Anders asked the next morning, burning with curiosity, when Carver was still asleep in the other bed, and Hawke looked at Anders through lidded eyes. “If it wasn’t your father?”

“Spirits aren’t like people,” Hawke murmured. “They’re kind without expectation. They’re kind because kindness is the done thing. They don’t do it for reward, or recompense, but because kindness is what they know.”

“Some people are like that,” Anders said softly, ignoring the warning rumble of Justice in the back of his mind, and Hawke rolled them over, pressing his nose against Anders’ neck, lying on top of him, heavy, warm… He was so unlike Karl, but Anders’ chest ached, anyway.

“Not enough,” Hawke agreed, his breath hot against Anders’ skin, making him shiver. “But enough to make everyone worth saving.”

Anders shuddered, feeling a shiver run over his skin, and a warmth burn underneath. He swallowed, consumed with want all at once, want and affection and a desire to pull Hawke’s mouth against his no matter that Carver was asleep in the cot beside them, no matter, no matter. Hawke, who wasn’t angry, but was so, so kind; Hawke, who cared, who put all his free hours into working alongside Anders at his clinic; Hawke, who lay on top of him like Anders had done anything to earn him.

“Maker, what did I do to deserve you?” Anders asked.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Hawke whispered, and Anders closed his eyes, tangling his fingers in Hawke’s hair and pulling him closer. It was remarkably easy, to sleep like that, Hawke’s body on top of his.

A man could get used to that.

#as defined by dictionary #handers #hawke #anders #fanfic

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shannaraisles · 5 years

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Comfort & Ploy - Chapter 6

Carver Hawke needs a girlfriend for the festive season. Filipa Trevelyan needs an excuse not to spend Satinalia with her parents. Best friends pretending to be lovers … what could possibly go wrong?

[Read on AO3]

*****

"Remind me again why Pip and I had to be dressed up and driven separately to this farce?"

Garrett eyed his brother with a wry quirk of his brow, still adjusting Carver's bow-tie as they waited on the steps of Fort Drakon for their respective dates to arrive. They weren't the only ones in limbo - several other men and women were also waiting impatiently for their evening escorts to arrive.

"You really think 'Bela was going to let the opportunity to see your jaw bounce off the ground pass her by?" he pointed out, gently slapping his younger brother's shoulder. "You did good, Carver. The two of you match up perfectly."

Carver glanced away, unused to being praised by his older brother without some ulterior motive. He rubbed at the back of his neck, rolling his shoulders to make the tuxedo jacket settle more comfortably.

"I can't believe it took so long for me to notice how much I - how important she is to me," he said, not ready to admit to that out loud in front of Garrett. Ideally, that initial confession belonged to Filipa. If he could bring himself to express it.

"Well, you've never been quick on the uptake, baby brother," Garrett pointed out with a grin, laughing as Carver shook his hand off his shoulder.

"What are you up to?" he asked his older brother suspiciously. "You're never this nice without an ulterior motive."

"Me?" Garrett endeavored to look shocked and only half managed it. That grin was not helping matters. "I am as innocent as the driven snow, I assure you."

"Driven being the operative word there," Carver said. He would have liked not to be quite so suspicious of Garrett, but a lifetime had taught him never to trust unsolicited praise or open approval from the eldest of the Hawke children. "I'm fairly sure Isabela has driven every ounce of innocence out of you by now."

"Cruelly mocked by my own flesh and blood!" was the dramatic response. "I'm hurt, Carver. Look, this is my hurt face."

"Shut up."

Despite himself, Carver cracked a smile, chuckling as Garrett slapped his back encouragingly. All right, so their relationship had never been exactly cordial, but things were definitely improving as they got older. Having different lives in different cities was definitely helping. The only thing that would have made this Satinalia better would be having Bethany here with them, but she was busy in Starkhaven, being the prince's betrothed to a court full of weirdos who were stuck in the past. That wasn't how she described it, but that was what Carver had taken away from his twin's explanation of Sebastian's day job.

A familiar throat was cleared behind the two men, urging them to turn around, where they found Isabela and Filipa standing side by side, both wrapped up tight in highly inappropriate coats for their evening attire. Carver had to bite down a snort of laughter at Filipa, who appeared to have twinned a long red dress and exquisitely twisted updo with the more familiar and definitely more worn padding of her quilted parka. It was quite the look.

"Ah, my dulcet darling, there you are," Garrett announced, offering his arm to Isabela.

The gorgeous woman winked at him as she took it, glancing over her shoulder at Carver.

"She says you're a gentleman, pup," she challenged with impish good humor. "I think you should prove it."

"I do know how to do this, thank you, 'Bela," he complained, offering his own arm to Filipa, who took it gratefully.

The reason for the gratitude became immediately obvious, given the sheer amount of leaning on him that was required to get her up the steps and into the Fort. High heels had never been her thing, but arguing with her sister seemed to be a case of picking your battles. It didn't take more than a few minutes to check their coats, and finally Carver got a good look at the woman he loved.

As Isabela had predicted, his jaw dropped like a stone.

Filipa had been talked into an ostensibly modest dress in the rich red of the season - a dress that twinned long sleeves with a deep V in the back and front, and a slit that flashed her thigh if she moved too fast. She looked ... Utterly stunning. I am the luckiest man here, no doubt about it.

Flicking a stray lock of dark hair out of her eyes, she met his gaze challengingly.

"Well, don't you look gorgeous," she informed him, smiling as he unconsciously straightened up, all but preening at the praise. "And incredibly uncomfortable."

He laughed, offering her his arm once again as his brother headed toward the ballroom with a gold-clad Isabela on his own elbow.

"That makes two of us," Carver answered Filipa. "You look beautiful, but I am never going to let you wear heels again. You feel like you're going to topple over at any second."

"That's why I have you, to keep me upright," she countered, wrapping her arm through his. "I feel ridiculous."

"Trust me, you look far from ridiculous," he promised, smiling down at her. "Ready to go and be grumpy at every stranger who dares look at us sideways?"

"Gosh, what fun!"

Laughing together, they followed in the wake of Garrett and Isabela, joining the line to enter the main hall, from which came the sound of music and many, many people talking and moving around. A formal ball was not their scene at all, but since this was his brother's chosen activity for Satinalia Eve, Carver couldn't complain overmuch. He was genuinely looking forward to the more traditional, less stuffy family Satinalia planned at the Rutherfords' house for tomorrow.

"So, big boy, doesn't she look delicious?" Isabela asked when they finally found the other couple again. "Don't you just want to lick her all over until you find the cherry sweet center?"

"Maker's balls, Isabela, can you lay a filter on it for one evening?" Carver managed in a strangled voice. He didn't need thoughts like that in his head when he was wearing a tuxedo whose pants had been rather more fitted than he was used to.

"Oh, where would the fun be in that?" Isabela chuckled her rich, silken chuckle, absently, adjusting the hang of Garrett's jacket. "You look particularly delectable yourself tonight, pup."

"Oh, I absolutely agree," Filipa piped up, and again, Carver felt himself straighten, proud to be praised by the gorgeous woman on his arm. "But then, you could put him in glittery dragon boxers and fairy wings, and he'd still look amazing."

He looked down at her, surprised and more than a little pleased to hear her say something like that. Maybe there's hope for me yet, he mused. Sweet Andraste ... what if she likes me, too? Was that too much to hope for? It would be amazing if it was true. He could already feel himself edging toward being tongue-tied, and that had never happened around Filipa. He couldn't let it happen now, not when he actually had something of substance to blurt out.

"There you are!"

Another familiar voice caught his attention in time to see Mila Rutherford slide her arms around her sister's waist from behind and grasp Filipa's breasts, jiggling them as she said,

"Doesn't she look gorgeous?"

Filipa's face was a picture. He had no idea how she managed to stay so calm as she answered her sister.

"Mila, get off my tits, would you?" she said politely. "There's every possibility I might just step backwards and accidentally impale your foot with one of these spikes you made me wear."

"So combative, Pip."

Mila laughed, but she did release her sister, coming around to give her a proper hug before bestowing one on a genuinely surprised Carver as well. Cullen wandered out of the milling crowd a moment later, apparently not at all ill at ease with the fact that his wife had essentially run away to find their friends without him. He nodded to Carver, expertly fielding Mila as she stepped back, and tucking her against his side.

"Play nicely, sweetheart, we're in public."

"How much has she had to drink already?" Filipa asked, edging carefully into Carver's side until he had to put his arm about her waist or risk being knocked sideways into the mingling crowd around them.

"I'll have you know I'm sober as a judge," Mila objected in amusement, only for Garrett to butt in.

"I don't know, ravishing Mrs. Rutherford," he mused, "I've known a few judges who couldn't get through the day without a stiff drink or twelve."

"Darling, that was usually because you were the one driving them to drink," Isabela reminded him sweetly.

"They didn't need to know that part." Garrett rolled his eyes at his lover, unable to keep himself from laughing at her innocent expression. "You're just as bad."

"And proud of it, I'll have you know," was Isabela's shameless response, drawing a warm laugh from their little group. It was hard not to enjoy yourself when Garrett and Isabela got started.

A waiter passed them by, pausing to offer them each a glass from his tray. To Carver's surprise, both Filipa and Mila politely declined with almost identically awkward smiles.

"Do you have anything other than champagne?" Mila asked the waiter.

He nodded reassuringly, gesturing over the heads of the chattering guests toward the far wall.

"Of course, ma'am. There is an open bar, at which you may obtain wines, spirits, beers, ales, and soft drinks."

"Thank you."

As the waiter moved on, Isabela beat Carver to the obvious question.

"You don't like champagne, ladies?"

"We're allergic to champagne," Mila told her with a smile.

"And wine," Filipa added.

"Oh, and beer, too," Mila finished up, much to her husband's amusement. Cullen, however, buried his laugh at the rather childlike back and forth in a sip from his flute.

"How dreadful," Isabela said mildly. "You can't spend the whole ball sober, you'll have a terrible time."

"I'll go and get you some drinks," Carver volunteered, but was prevented from rushing off by Filipa's hand on his arm.

"Don't worry about it," she told him firmly. "We can get our own drinks. You hold a table somewhere so I can sit down once I have enough liquid courage to walk in a straight line without help."

He chuckled, conceding her point. After all, he had no idea what Mila liked to drink, and she struck him as a woman who would order a complicated cocktail just because it was free and she could. Cullen took Filipa's place beside him as the sisters headed off into the crowd toward the tighter gathering around the open bar on the opposite wall.

"You didn't know about the wine thing?" he asked curiously.

Carver fought down the urge to blush, as though he had been caught in a lie. There was no lie. He had known Filipa over a year and, yes, he'd noticed that she didn't drink wine, but he had never thought to ask her specifically about it.

"It never came up," he told the older man. "I know she prefers spirits, but not why."

"It's the sulfites in certain types of alcohol that gets them," Cullen explained, suddenly lurching to one side to claim a briefly unoccupied table as their own. "Don't ask me quite why it's just that, but apparently it runs in the family."

"Don't they make wine, though?" Carver asked, confusion touching his mood even as he glanced over the heads of the crowd to locate the ladies. He found them in the middle of the crush around the bar, apparently doing wonders at getting close enough to order without having to do any bodily harm at all yet.

"Their uncle does," Cullen told him. "He employs people he trusts to do the taste testing and such, as I understand it."

"But if I drink this, won't I give her an allergic reaction later?" was Carver's next query, gesturing with his champagne flute.

Cullen shook his head.

"Keep it to one glass and follow it up with whisky, that's what I do," he suggested. "Mila's never caught hives after a champagne kiss from me, I know that much."

"That brings up all kinds of questions about where you've been kissing her after drinking champagne, you know," Isabela began, breaking into laughter at the resigned look Cullen offered across the table. "You always shut me down before I reach the punchline!"

"I know you too well," was his response.

Carver chuckled, sipping his own champagne as the others settled into conversation. He couldn't quite bring himself to sit down, wanting to keep an eye on Filipa as she maneuvered through the crowd. She seemed to have made a friend at the bar - a tall gentleman whose smile looked just that little bit too friendly for Carver's liking, even from this distance.

And why shouldn't the man be interested? Filipa was beautiful and easy to talk to, and if he didn't pull his finger out, Carver was going to lose his opportunity to convince her that she really wanted this pretense to be the real thing. He could feel the panic rising in his chest, worsening when he saw Filipa take the man's arm to allow him to escort her back toward her party. It made sense that she would, of course - she wasn't exactly steady on those heels, and having a man to lean on who didn't mind was a sensible thing to do, but Carver could feel his teeth grinding at the sight of the man's too friendly gaze taking in the view that was tantalizingly visible from his loftier height.

A firm hand gripped his elbow. His head snapped around, ready to bark at the gripper, only to find Garrett right beside him with a warning expression on his face.

"Don't let it bother you," his brother advised. "Her opinion is the only one that matters, and trust me - he's nowhere near as interesting to her as you are."

Biting down his instinctively harsh reply, Carver frowned, glancing to the advancing Filipa, and her escort. He'd completely forgotten that Mila was trailing them closely, too.

"I know, I just ..."

He trailed off, disappointed in himself for his jealous reaction. Garrett released his elbow and gently patted his back.

"You'll get better at it," he predicted. "Especially once you tell her how you feel."

Carver jerked, startled by the comment, turning a searching look onto his brother.

"How did you ...?"

"I'm not a complete idiot, Carver," his brother assured him with a grin. "Like I said, you're a good match. Get on with it."

Just as Carver opened his mouth to ask how, exactly, he was supposed to do that, Garrett plastered on his best smile, reaching out a hand toward the arriving newcomer.

"Teagan, good to see you," he declared, drawing Carver's rival into conversation at their table and away from Filipa with smooth expertise.

The younger Hawke blinked, impressed with his brother's surprisingly apt social skills, automatically stepping back to let Mila slip past him and into the chair beside Cullen.

"You look like you just swallowed a whole lot of humble pie," Filipa commented, lifting his arm up and sidling into the space she had created for herself. "What did I miss?"

Absently tucking his fingers into the curve of her waist, Carver blinked down at her for a moment longer, making a brave attempt to drag his thoughts back from where they had flown to. One, that his apparent rival was Teagan Guerrin, brother of the Arl of Redcliffe; two, that Filipa seemed to have completely forgotten the man now she was back beside him.

"Can I talk to you for a second?" he asked abruptly. "In private?"

It was her turn to blink up at him, curiosity warring with concern in her pretty eyes as she considered him.

"Uh ... sure," she agreed. "If you can find somewhere private around here."

"Try the balcony," Cullen suggested, though he looked for all the world as though he was talking to his own drink. One hand gestured in the right direction. "Should be a few private places out there."

Carver flashed the man a grateful smile, squeezing Filipa's waist gently.

"Thanks. Come on, Pip."

"After you."

She smiled, leaving her glass with her sister to join Carver in attempting some kind of smooth motion through the mingling guests toward the balcony. Thankfully, the doors were already open; once they were in the right sort of area, the Brownian motion of the crowd ushered them straight out and onto the balcony that overlooked the city, heated with discreet lamps to hold the snowy chill at bay. A few others had left the main hall to brave the chill, but Cullen had been right - they were few and far between, offering space for a relatively private conversation.

Carver swallowed as he drew Filipa over to the furthest corner, where an overhanging honeysuckle heavy with fresh snow cast them into deeper shadow. She was still smiling, her expression more curious now than concerned, more amused than worried. It was a good look on her, he realized, releasing her waist to catch her hands in his and pull her about to face him. He supposed he had never really paid attention to how expressive her face really was; she couldn't hide anything.

"So ...?" she prompted, green eyes bright with encouragement.

"So, yes. Talk." He drew in a deep breath, looking down at their joined hands for a moment. "Pip, I, um ... I think we should stop. The pretending, that is. I mean, it's pretty obvious that Garrett's rumbled us, you know?"

He was surprised to see her expression suddenly droop, a flash of hurt in her gaze before she covered it with a smile that he knew was nothing more than a mask.

"So I suppose there's no point in keeping it up then," she said.

Carver frowned, tilting his head to keep her eyes on his as she made a move to look away. He had a feeling he had missed something here, but if he didn't make headway, he was never going to get this off his chest. He'd make it up to her another time. Right now, he had something to say, and if he didn't say it now, he might actually explode with jealousy every time she so much as looked at any man who showed an interest in her.

"No, there isn't," he agreed, tightening his fingers about hers at the merest suggestion that she might be about to pull away. "Because I don't like lying to you, Pip. I know this might destroy our friendship, but I'm hoping it won't."

He hesitated, watching her forced smile fade into watchful interest once more.

"I haven't really been pretending," he admitted, feeling awkward just saying it out loud. "I didn't realize until a couple of days ago. I, um, I like you, Pip. Shit, no, that's not what I mean ... I don't like you, I-I -"

He stuttered into silence, mumbling for a moment behind the fingertips she pressed against his mouth to shut him up. And there was her smile - her real smile, the soft quirk of her lips that lit up her eyes and made her shine. The smile he had always taken for granted, all these months, suddenly in front of him, holding up the flame of hope that he hadn't just made a terrible mistake.

"I love you, too," was all she said, gentle words in a moment of stillness that nonetheless deafened him with their impact.

He actually felt his knees threaten to buckle, dropping the one hand she had left in his grasp to clasp her about the waist in an attempt not to sink to his knees in front of her. She wobbled, laughing as her arms snapped up about his neck and shoulders, both of them tottering on the edge of a very ungainly collapse for a moment before he pulled himself together.

"But I never ... I didn't say it," he muttered, almost annoyed that she'd got there first.

She raised a brow, and he felt a shiver ripple deliciously down his spine as her fingertips teased their way into the short hair at his nape.

"Does it really matter who said it first, when we both feel it?" she asked softly.

He couldn't have stopped his smile from becoming a grin even if he had wanted to, for the first time utterly unashamed of how goofy he might look in this moment. She was absolutely right.

"No," he said, laughing with quiet good grace as he hoisted her up off her feet, nose to nose with him in the shadow of the honeysuckle. "I love you, Pip."

"Good," she responded, brushing the tip of her nose to his affectionately. "Because ravishing is definitely on the cards tonight, Carver Hawke."

"I feel like I should salute," he teased, all the tension and worry sweeping from his body in the face of a confession he had actually been afraid would not be reciprocated in the slightest.

"If you drop me, I will leave a mark somewhere embarrassingly obvious," she informed him sweetly. "I'd much rather you kissed me. Properly, this time."

"Oh, last time wasn't proper enough for you?"

He didn't give her an opportunity to argue, pressing smiling lips to hers in a kiss that promised to wipe the lie of their first kiss clean from his memory and lay the foundation for every other kiss to come. And this time, he felt no shame in coaxing her lips to part, in tasting her breath on his tongue as her fingers combed into his hair, her feet dangling several inches off the floor. How much trust did she have in him to let him hold her up and kiss her, he wondered. Then the thought fled as she delicately nibbled his lower lip; Isabela was going to be so proud of herself for having his tuxedo jacket cut a little longer than was usual.

What was it they said about Satinalia wishes? Carver couldn't quite recall, and, if he was honest, he didn't care. His Satinalia wish had just come true, and there wasn't a damned thing anyone could do to make his holiday any better now. She loved him.

"Mmm ..."

His lips vibrated with her voice as she drew back just far enough to meet his gaze, smiling impishly as her fingers smoothed his hair.

"Took us long enough, didn't it?"

He laughed, lowering her down onto her feet, delighted to feel her press herself into his arms in a warm embrace.

"You know my brother is going to be insufferably smug about this," he murmured, careful not to put her hair into too much disarray or risk the wrath of Isabela.

"Let him be," Filipa said, lifting her head to match his smile to her own. "I have everything I want right here."

Carver didn't think his smile could get any broader, yet in the face of that confident statement, there he was, stretching his smile beyond all limits. He gathered her closer into his arms, stretching his neck down to kiss the tip of her nose fondly.

"Let's go and watch him drown in his own smugness, then," he suggested. "And then we can skip out on this ridiculous night out."

"Oh, not a chance," she insisted, straightening up and wrapping her arm through his. "You and I are going to dance at least once. I did not get all dressed up just to leave at the first opportunity."

She cast him a teasing flicker of a grin as they walked back toward the main hall.

"The ravishing comes later."

#comfort & ploy #dragon age #modern au #dear friend universe #carver hawke #garrett hawke #filipa trevelyan #isabela #mila rutherford #cullen rutherford #fake dating #friends to lovers #carver x filipa #festive ball #all dressed up #mild jealousy #THE BIG MOMENT #one more chapter to go!#pure fluff

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buttsonthebeach · 5 years

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I love that commissions allow me to write about pairings and world states that I have never written about before, and to dive into new characters, so I should be the one thanking @spectrestatus-recognised for trusting me with writing about Artur Hawke and Fenris during the Legacy DLC, struggling with the fallout of their tryst during Act II.

So thank you, new friend! I loved working on this.

My Ko-Fi || My Commissions (Slots currently open as of 9/16/19)

Pairing: Artur Hawke x Fenris

Rating: Teen for sexual references

*************

In hindsight, bringing up the rumors he’d heard circulating Kirkwall while walking through the desolate ruins in the Vinmark Mountains, shortly after fighting Carta dwarves who were making even less sense than usual, knowing they were headed straight for an even larger Carta hideout, was not Artur Hawke’s finest decision.

But there, away from the city, they seemed so big that he could not ignore them. They filled the wide desert sky the way they’d filled each night since the night, which was the only way he would allow himself to think of what had happened. There amongst the scrubby plants and yellow sand, where there was only Carver, Varric - and, of course, Fenris - he could think of nothing else.

However much he wanted to.

And then they encountered Gerav, Varric’s old Carta contact, and as it became clear that they were after Artur and Carver’s blood, he just had to make the comment.

“Why do you want his blood so badly anyway? If you’re after eternal youth, I have to tell you, he’s no virgin.”

And even though Artur knew he should be more focused on the interrogation, he could hardly breathe now, and his hands were trembling, because that was the first time he’d heard someone say those words out loud, and Varric was saying them to a stranger, and Fenris was right here, and Carver was right here, and he wanted the earth to swallow him whole and be done with it.

So he said something once Gerav had been dealt with. Quietly, while he and Varric were at the head of the party.

“Varric, I’ve heard… stories of a personal nature being spread around town.”

“And you want me to set the record straight? I’m flattered.”

He should have noticed then that Varric’s voice was not pitched as low as he would like, that Carver and Fenris were close behind them, but his blood was still up from their fight, and his carefully wrought control - the greatest treasure he owned - was already balanced on a knife edge, because here he was fixing another thing magic had torn asunder, and likely righting another wrong of his father’s own making. Varric turned to look up at him, and then raised his eyebrows at the stony expression in Artur’s eyes. He was lucky he couldn’t see beneath the mask Artur wore to obscure the rest of his face. Artur willed that to be enough to end the matter, to grant him some peace from his own foolishness, to make it easier to be out here with the man he could not stop thinking about, to ease some of the shame.

“I haven’t told anyone about you and that, uh, angsty Tevinter elf. Try looking closer to home for that intelligence leak.”

And the same way that a fireball sucked up all the air around it before it exploded into life, all the air around Artur was sucked up by Varric’s words. There was a quick inhale behind them - Carver sucking in a lungful of his own. Artur felt his face lighting up hot as fire, felt the parts of it covered in fractal scarring puckering and stiffening as his lips drew tighter and tighter. He fidgeted with the edge of his mask, ensuring they stayed covered.

“Varric,” he managed to grit out.

“What? If Gamlen knows about your passionate night together, it can’t be that much of a secret.”

Artur’s mind was a clanging whirl of thought. Crazed Carta and strange murmurings about Hawke blood be damned. Magic had controlled - had ruined - everything about his life. He could hardly believe anything else could rise to a place in his life where it upset that balance - but here they were. Ground to a halt in the Vinmarks, not moving urgently through the Carta hideout towards the Warden Tower that promised to be the solution to the attacks he and Carver had faced, because -

Because one night, around a month ago, Artur had thought things were changing.

He had thought that all the destruction magic had wrought might be leading somewhere beautiful - that his father denying him the chance to enter the Circle, damning him to flee Ferelden with his family, to watch Bethany die, to fight to survive on Kirkwall’s streets - that teaching himself to control the very power that marked his skin with scars, that haunted his every night - that it might all have been leading to Fenris. Steady, forthright, principled, disciplined Fenris. If Fenris could look at Artur and see someone to love - someone to cherish - perhaps he could begin to see that in himself.

But that wasn’t what happened, of course. Artur had bared himself - had bared every inch of scarred, ruined skin - for the first time, and Fenris had delved in, had seemed, perhaps, to cherish it.

And then he’d turned away. Left without a trace.

Artur should have known not to expect anything else.

“I’m sorry,” Carver was saying, though the words may as well have come from a hundred miles away. “Are you saying…?”

“That Hawke and Fenris spent some quality alone time together?”

“Yes. That.”

“Well, yeah. Again, I didn’t think this was exactly a secret. I mean, where did you think the little red handkerchief came from?”

And now Artur’s whole body was locked up with anger, fear, dismay. Because of course Varric had noticed the token Fenris still wore, the token that tormented Artur himself, because why was Fenris wearing it if he had run away from their night together? Why wear a brand you had not wanted in the first place?

And why, on the Maker’s good green earth, was Carver asking Varric for more details?

“Angsty Tevinter elf?”

Fenris’s voice shook Artur free from the prison of his own body. They were spoken in that low drawl that sent heat up his spine even now, because he knew what it sounded like when the only light came from candles, when it was only the two of them. Artur turned back at last to see Fenris. His heart twisted in the desert wind, seeing the arch of Fenris’s pale eyebrow. The disdain written clearly on his face.

“I strive for nothing if not accuracy,” Varric said, his chin acquiring a haughty lift.

Fenris looked at Varric a moment longer. Then his eyes flickered over to Artur, so quickly that he immediately began to doubt whether or not it happened. Then back to Varric.

“Are we going to continue on at some point, or are we going to continue to allow bloodthirsty criminals to run rampant?” he drawled.

Varric turned back to Artur.

“Well, fearless leader? What say you? Am I exonerated in the case of who leaked the story of Hawke and the angsty Tevinter elf and their one night affair?”

Just like that the tension returned, radiating up his back, and the shame coiled tight in his stomach. Tears welled up and he had to speak around them, his voice coming out strangled and broken.

“Enough. We’re headed out.”

He turned away from all of them and headed down the path.

Except that wasn’t the end of it, of course.

They pushed through the Carta hideout, through a grueling fight with a man called Rhatigan, and into a passage down into the earth, down into the promised prison. They decided to make camp there, in the base of the prison, to give themselves time to recover. Varric hadn’t made any further comments, but Carver was glaring at him nonetheless whenever he caught the dwarf’s eye. Artur himself was exhausted enough that he could almost hope he would sleep without dreams, without the relentless circling of demons looking for the slightest weakness. Without any of them taking Fenris’s face, tempting and beckoning and shaming him.

But before he could slip off to that hopeful oblivion, Carver pulled up a seat next to him at their campfire, and Artur knew what was coming next.

“I’m sorry, how is it that half of Kirkwall, including the mouthy dwarf, seems to know something that I don’t?”

“Because the Grey Wardens, unlike half of Kirkwall, are actually focused on the duties they need to uphold. They don’t have time for gossip.”

Carver rolled his eyes. “What happened? With you and Fenris?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Carver.”

“Well you obviously talked to Varric about it.”

“A mistake which I both recognize and regret now. Can we drop it?”

Carver raised both his hands up, defensive. “Fine. I’m just - surprised. And I would have been happy that you let your guard down and let someone in if it wasn’t for Mother’s letter. She didn’t seem to know exactly what was going on, but she said until the Carta attacks started, you were barely leaving your room. Barely sleeping, barely eating. For an entire fortnight. And that was all because of Fenris? Was it really that bad?”

Artur’s heart ached. It had ached before, when his father died, when Bethany died, when Carver was bitten by the darkspawn in the Deep Roads, and then carted off by the Wardens. It ached whenever he saw the Gallows and thought of how much simpler and safer his life would have been within its stone walls. He thought he knew all the different ways it could ache. But this bruise was new, and fresh, and Carver wanted to keep pressing on it.

“I let Fenris in and he changed his mind,” Artur said finally, curtly. “End of discussion.”

Carver’s eyes widened - and then his face softened, and for a brief instant he looked so much like the sister they’d both lost that it closed up Artur’s throat. Then the anger resurfaced, and he was Carver again.

“I see. Well, then that says more about what kind of man he is than what kind of man you are.”

He didn’t raise the subject again that night, even though there was a part of Artur that wanted the chance to disagree with his little brother. To tell him that Fenris was the one who was right. That he had never deserved him. But Artur slept first, so exhausted that he remembered nothing of what he’d dreamt when Varric woke him for his turn on watch. This time it was the waking hours of the night that haunted him. Sitting there at the campfire, in the damp closeness of the prison with its eerie green light, replaying it over and over again - Fenris coming to the mansion after their confrontation with Hadriana on the Wounded Coast, Fenris’s lips on his, the shock of finally feeling another person’s body so close and warm against his own, finally crossing that barrier, finally letting go for once, instead of holding tight. Then Fenris lit by firelight, saying he could not stay, snapping shut the hopeful door Artur had opened within himself, seemingly for good. The images played over and over again on a loop in his mind, and at a certain point he stopped fighting them, let them wash over him, turned them this way and that, examining each moment for something new to cherish, something new to be wounded by.

Fenris was the one he needed to wake for the next guard rotation, though. It was the order they’d taken on previous excursions - Varric, Artur, Fenris, Carver, or Sebastian in the years that followed their disastrous Deep Roads expedition, and Carver joining the Wardens. But this was the first time after what had happened that he would be going into Fenris’s tent, seeing him sleeping there, touching his strong, solid shoulder, seeing him bleary and quiet in the dark for that split second before all his own walls came up, before he was alert and watchful again. He used to live for that moment of softness that only he got to see. He used to think that Fenris did, too. In the weeks leading up to the night they spent together, he’d sometimes catch Fenris lingering in that soft moment, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Artur went to Fenris’s tent, pulled back the flap, called his name. Did not dare to touch him, as he once had. He heard the rustle of blankets and then saw Fenris sitting up, the gleam of his elven eyes in the near-total darkness. The single, curt nod that indicated his understanding. He saw nothing of the softness he used to know. He pretended that it did not matter. This was what he had always expected out of his life. Fenris was right after all, about what he’d said when he killed Hadriana.

What did magic touch that it did not spoil?

Artur, lying in his tent, seeing the indistinct shape of Fenris as he settled in for his watch, knew that it had spoiled this.

It was hard to tell that it was morning based on how dark it was within the tower, but their watches told them it was, and so they ate their rations and packed up camp and prepared to head onwards, upwards, through the tower, to whatever awaited them at the top. Things were getting serious now. The base of the tower was full of darkspawn, and deepstalkers, and a man called Larius who seemed to know the answers to the questions they were afraid to ask. It was full of memories, too, of Malcolm Hawke. Of his own demons, real and imagined. That had to mean that Fenris and Artur’s - indiscretion - would take a back seat.

Right?

“Hawke looks like he could use some help over there moving the debris out of that doorway. Fenris, why don’t you offer assistance?” Varric said, even though Carver was closer, and already moving towards Artur to help shift the rocks that had fallen in their fight with one of the imprisoned shades.

“The situation looks to be well in hand,” Fenris returned dryly, evenly, refusing as ever to rise to anyone else’s bait, and wasn’t that one of the things Artur so admired about him? That no one - not even Anders - could ruffle him? Artur did not miss that Carver shot a glare at Fenris, and again he almost wanted to intervene, to defend the man who had shattered his heart.

“Somehow I doubt that Carver’s hands are the ones Hawke wants to be in.”

Artur didn’t even have to turn around to know what Varric’s face looked like. Smug, pleased with himself, with his own wordplay. He prayed silently to the Maker and his Bride for a moment for guidance, discernment, calm, self-control.

“How about instead of witty comments, you help next time?” Carver said when they were done, bristling with anger, staring Varric down.

“You should always play to your strengths, Junior. Witty repartee is mine.”

So of course, it still wasn’t over.

Because Varric was nervous.

There were darkspawn about, and crazed Wardens, and ancient demons and magical wards, and ancient dwarven secrets, and all of those were things that made Varric uneasy, and Varric’s way of dealing with unease was to engage in said witty repartee. So when they discovered the grave of a dwarf named Tethras Garen, and Artur said the rites to lay him to rest, what Varric said next was probably inevitable.

“That was sweet, Hawke. Now let’s get out of here before you see me cry. Unlike you, I don’t have a strong shoulder to go and bury my face in.”

That strike drove true, lodged deep. Artur remembered the smell of Fenris’s skin when he buried his face there. It overrode every other scent surrounding them in the present moment. He remembered the sound of Fenris’s heart pounding in his ears.

“No one here has any shoulders to cry on,” Carver said. “Onward. I think I see the next stairs up.”

“You know, you’ve been away too long, Carver,” Varric sighed. “I’ve missed having a lovable lug with more sword than sense along for one of our wild rides. Now, speaking of wild rides, I do have to ask if -”

“No.”

Artur said the word louder than was strictly necessary, and brushed past Varric as he did so. There were images that threatened within his mind that he would not allow himself to replay, or the shame would burn too bright, and there was shame aplenty here, with his father’s voice ringing in his ears.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow. In their blood the Maker’s will is written. The Maker’s will is in me, and I am safe. He had the will to withstand possession, temptation, destruction, despair. He had the will to overcome this.

It still wasn’t over there, though. Varric’s ability to find a joke was boundless, and perhaps even keener for the constant danger surrounding them, and after they defiled the foul Altar of Dumat they found in the base of the tower, he returned to the subject.

“So I’m curious” he said, panting, still exhausted from the effort of fighting the demons that poured forth when the altar was defiled. “Which of you made the first move? Purely for posterity’s sake, of course. I may not have started the rumors floating around Kirkwall, but now that they’re out there, you’ll want someone to help keep the story straight, right?”

“Varric, enough,” Carver said. “Can you not see the looks Artur’s face? And Fenris’s too, for that matter, though I have to confess I care a little less about his feelings on the matter.”

Artur had been doing his best not to look at Fenris as all of this happened. Or to look at him much more than normal, anyway. He’d caught that one glimpse when Varric first broached this subject, and he’d read it as disdain. He looked again now, more closely. Fenris was looking away from them, mouth set in a hard, thin line, fists clenched at his sides.

He was ashamed. Willing himself to be anywhere but here. Like he had been that night by the fire.

This should never have happened.

“Yes, I can see the look on their faces. Have you ever seen a pair that needed to lighten up more than these two? Or anyone who really needed to kiss and make up, for that matter? Because I sure haven’t.”

Carver made an exasperated, almost wounded sound.

“We don’t have time for this. We’re getting close. I can feel it. Hear it. Like - like a Calling.”

“Junior, I don’t know about you, but I need a rest after that fight,” Varric said. It was true. He was leaning on Bianca for support.

“Fine,” Artur said. “We’ll take a quick breather.”

The instant the words left his mouth, Fenris strode away from them, off into the damp darkness, far enough to be outside of earshot, and Artur’s heart broke again. He should not have brought Fenris along. He should not have subjected him to this shame. Even if he’d only caught wind of the rumors about them right as they left the city, he should have known that it was too soon. That mere weeks would not be enough to erase what had happened, the bottomless guilt Fenris must feel for violating his principles, for getting close to someone who did not deserve it, someone damaged. Artur felt the hard knot that had choked him for those weeks that he had stayed inside the mansion rising up from the pit of his belly into his throat once more, threatening to cut off his breath, to make moving impossible.

“Should you go talk to him?” Carver asked, voice pitched low.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Carver threw his hands in the air. “Well, I guess we’ll all just be miserable all the way up then. Wonderful.”

“We’d be fine if it wasn’t for that blasted dwarf,” Artur finally said, his voice cracking. “We were fine all the way from Kirkwall to the Vinmarks. You saw it. Fenris was polite. He even stood up for me when Varric made his blasted comment about me - rolling around in pudding and gravy or whatever nonsense he came up with this time.” Although, had that really helped? Fenris, the only person who’d seen him beneath the clothes and mask, insisting that Artur wasn’t at all fat? Didn’t that just kindle the shame even further?

“I swear, if Varric doesn’t stop, I’ll tell him that Sebastian is more of a friend than he has ever been. That will shut him up,” Artur said, his voice cracking again, and he hadn’t felt this on edge in so long, and it only made the flame of his shame burn higher, hotter.

“Still,” Carver insisted. “If you and Fenris had a fling, and it ended badly, why did you bring him along?”

“It wasn’t a fling,” Artur countered. “It was -”

It was supposed to be a beginning. And it had been. It was a beginning the way a stillbirth was, the way a candle that flamed to life and then guttered and died in the same breath was. A beginning that never got to really begin. His eyes drifted over to Fenris again, standing ramrod straight, arms folded, staring off at something Artur could not see.

“It wasn’t a fling,” he went on finally. “And I brought him because I knew we would face heavy opposition from the Carta, whatever they were up to. I needed the best warrior I knew to help keep us safe.”

Not all because Artur was hoping that a change of scenery, that getting out of dreadful Kirkwall, that fighting alongside each other, might fix things. Might at least save their friendship. Not at all because he had gone so many weeks already without seeing Fenris, and he didn’t want to wait longer. He was not a fool. He wasn’t.

“You already had me. What more could you need?” Carver said, a wry, cocky little grin on his face. Artur rolled his eyes. “Come on. Smile. Everyone has had their heart broken before.”

As if this was the first time Artur’s heart had been broken. As if the world didn’t break it every day.

Carver clapped his hand to Artur’s shoulder. It shook his whole body. When had his little brother stopped being so little?

“Thank you for trying, Carver,” he said. Carver nodded, smiled, went to sit down.

Varric sidled over a few moments later, hand rubbing the back of his neck.

“So - I may have possibly, once or twice, just a little, crossed a line today.”

At that, Artur could not help but snort, even if full on laughter felt impossible, even if it had for weeks.

“But - look, you and Fenris are tough reads on a good day. I genuinely couldn’t tell at first if this was just the two of you being intensely awkward about a budding romance, or if things really had gone sideways.”

“And at exactly what point did it become clear to you that it was the latter?”

“Oh, right after that first exchange.”

“And yet you persisted?”

Varric raised his hands in a placating gesture.

“Look - I don’t do my best work in caves. Or surrounded by darkspawn. Or demons.”

“I don’t think you have to be at your intellectual prime to recognize when something is private and should be left that way.”

“Alright, alright, alright. Message received. But - I’ve gotta ask - why did it go sideways?”

Artur wondered why anyone would keep asking such an elementary, obvious question. He had only ever shown his scars to his family - and to Fenris, on that night - but he knew they manifested in places other than his face. That his magic alone should have made it obvious why he was an unworthy partner. The Chantry was wise to separate them, to prevent them from having families. To contain the danger they represented. And then there were the changes his magic had wrought in him - how it had made him cautious, controlled, afraid. How it had filled him with loathing.

“There was never a way that it could have gone otherwise,” Artur said finally.

Varric looked at him for a good long moment.

“I know you have a hard time seeing it, but you’re the hero in this story, Hawke. You deserve to be happy. If Fenris makes you happy - isn’t it worth reaching for that happiness?”

He had been happy the night that Fenris came to him. Blindingly, stupidly happy. Artur glanced towards Fenris once more, and then looked away again. The memory of that feeling would have to be enough.

“Varric - I just need you to leave us alone. Please.”

Again, the hands raised in the placating gesture.

“I hear you. But, Hawke - I know when a story is over. And this one - this one isn’t yet.”

Artur knew that Varric meant for the words to be soothing, but instead they felt ominous. Wasn’t that what Artur had wanted all his life? For things to just be over? Resolved? Safe, the way they would have been within the thick stone walls of a Circle? He couldn’t have Fenris. He’d accepted that. Now he just wanted the pain to go away.

“I hope it is over,” he said, and Varric saw his cue to leave.

They went on through the tower, its madness, its twists and turns and dangers. Towards this ancient evil named Corypheus, who Malcolm Hawke had used his own blood to seal away. By the end the focused edge that was necessary for combat had shorn away most of Artur Hawke’s other feelings and thoughts. But then there was a moment, near the very top of the tower, knowing what was next, when they caught their breath, and Fenris was standing there, tan cheeks flushed, green eyes bright, white hair mussed, and Artur could think of nothing but how he wanted to cross the space between them and kiss him, and speak the truth.

I don’t want this to be over.

Fenris caught his gaze that time, and a shock coursed down Artur’s spine, like ice water. For an instant, there was that softness again in Fenris, the kind that blurred every line, dulled every hurt. Then Fenris looked away again, and Artur took a deep breath, centering himself, preparing for what came next, and climbed to the top of the tower.

They came home in one piece, Corypheus defeated, another of his family’s mistakes corrected. Fenris melted back into the shadows of Hightown, and for all that they lived close to one another, Artur did not see him for several more weeks. It was for the best. He needed to let the wound close up, scar over. One more mark to join all the others.

Varric couldn’t quite seem to stop himself from bringing it up, whatever he’d promised while they were in the tower. Artur was sure he meant well. But he found himself closing off from Varric as well, too wounded by the invasion of his privacy, that one square foot of space he tried to reserve for himself alone in a world that seemed determined to take all the rest. The others wasted no time joining in on the cajoling. Sebastian was the only one who politely refused to join in, who sent Artur sympathetic glances whenever the topic came up. They discussed it only once, standing on the steps of Kirkwall’s chantry, looking out over the city. The endless rows of houses leading down to the harbor and the Gallows, the endless problems that always found ways to lay themselves at Artur Hawke’s feet.

“If Andraste has taught us anything,” Sebastian said. “It is that we have to pass through the fire to reach our true potential. Perhaps even to know the truth of anything. You and Fenris are passing through the fire now. Only the Maker knows what is on the other side. All you need to do is put your trust in Him, and keep putting one foot in front of another. He will not lead you astray.”

Artur took in each word, held them close in his chest, refused to let them just slide away. He took the first real, deep breath he’d taken since that night.

“You’re right,” he said. “Nothing is over until the Maker says it is so.”

Sebastian clapped his hand to Artur’s shoulder, gave it a squeeze. Artur closed his eyes, the better to take in that sensation, the warmth of the sun on his face, the smell of incense and the quiet murmur of the Chant coming out of the chantry. He pictured Fenris’s face, and for the first time he was filled with more hope than fear.

#beach does commissions #beach writes #spectrestatus-recognised #artur hawke #fenris #m!fenhawke #dragon age fanfic #da2 fanfic

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orionsangel86 · 7 years

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Death is never the end... Not on this show anyway.

well. that was... um... yeah.

I’m not quite done processing.

The thing is, we have been speculating for so long now about Cas dying in the finale that it was almost expected for me. When he died I didn’t even react (certainly not in the way that Misha probably wanted when he asked for reaction vids) I just kinda went ‘Oh’ and that was it.

I got up, took a walk to Sainsbury’s because I had to get some food, and spent the entire walk there and back pondering this new turn of events.

I need to sort out my thoughts properly, but this post will more likely be me screaming into a void because I just need to type right now.

Cas is not dead.

Lets just get that one out there. No matter how real that whole stabbing, flashy light, burnt wings thing looked. It didn’t happen. Not the way we think it happened. Absolutely not. Cas’s story is unfinished. This is Andrew Dabb we are talking about after all, the master of Cas’s story arc in Carver era and into season 12. Cas hasn’t answered any of the questions they have been throwing at him since season 8. He hasn’t found his place, accepted who he is, learned to love himself...

My biggest issue with the finale (aside from Lucifer’s mere presence) was that Cas wasn’t Cas. He was off, he wasn’t himself, he was kinda cold. Just like in 12x19. I have so many questions and there is no fucking way that this is the end for him. We still don’t even really know what happened to him in heaven, let alone what the Nephilim did to him. What was with the golden glow when he healed Dean? That was all wrong.

I don’t know whether the alternate universe thing means we will get au versions of Cas now, or whether the Cas that was killed WAS an au version himself and real Cas is trapped somewhere? Or maybe Nephilim Jack will bring Cas back on the spot?

Other than being great emotional fodder for shippers, and a chance to see Dean at his absolute best when he is an emotional wreck (just like my fave scene in 12x22 with Mary - WOW), it just seemed kinda flat. I’m upset about it, but probably not in the way Andrew Dabb wants me to be.

One thing is for sure, when Cas comes back (and he WILL come back) he better still be HIM, OUR CAS and not some au version. Cas still has so far to go with his own story and Dabb hasn’t finished telling it. I don’t doubt that we WILL get OUR Cas back eventually, but I am sure that we will get more than a few episodes of Dean suffering serious man pain before we do.

Crowley is Dead

As a great compare and contrast to Cas��s shock death, Crowley’s was perfect. It was exactly how I have always wanted Crowley to go out. He finished up his story arc. He admitted he was done with hell, he wanted more, or something different, and then he gave his life to save and protect the family he loves. It was beautifully done, and I was happy about it, and also sad because I will miss Crowley. He was a fantastic character, but I am glad to see him go.

Also, it works as proof that the writers DO know what they are doing with the characters. The fact that they were able to round off Crowley’s story and give him a decent send off means they DO know how to write a decent death scene and CAN do it well. They KNOW they have unfinished business with Cas, hence Cas WILL RETURN as the Cas we all know and love. Crowley’s story however, is now finished.

HOWEVER - with Earth 2 looming and a character born who can open up alternate worlds, it is entirely possible that they will bring back Mark Sheppard to play an au version of Crowley from now on. Perhaps we will actually get a truly evil demon Crowley again just like in season 6? Perhaps they will start his story over again? it is entirely possible that we may see a whole bunch of versions of Crowley. Just because the REAL Crowley’s story is now over, doesn’t mean we couldn’t have different Crowley’s come back into the story just like how they brought Bobby back.

Rowena’s death pissed me off

Yeah this one hurt the most actually. Because unlike Cas’s flat shock value/shipper fodder death that did him no justice, and Crowley’s perfect send off, this was just utter bullshit. It was Bucklemming levels of bad. Damn Dabb are they getting to your head or what?

The fact that they didn’t even give Ruth Connell the chance to come back and send off our Queen with pride and a decent fight has royally upset me (and again, not in the way Dabb probably wants me to be upset). The burnt corpse on the floor was just cheap and crappy and have I mentioned that I am so over Lucifer already?

I am hopeful that she will also come back, but that it will be an au version of her as I think they made it pretty clear that the real Rowena is dead. Since her story ties in closely with real Crowley (I’m gonna have to start referring to the original characters as Real!Character from now on arn’t I?) it makes sense that the original Rowena is gone for good. Though au evil witch Rowena coming back to bother the Winchesters? Badass fighter witch Rowena from Earth 2? Hell yeah I am all for that. Bring it on. Still doesn’t make real!Rowena’s death right though.

Alternate Realities are an anything goes area

Seriously though. How many fanfics do we read that start ‘au this’ and ‘au that’. practically everything we write is an au. Imagine where they could take this?

(I’m thinking about that beautiful fanfic called The Mirror right now and OMG IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES?!?)

I would like to see an au version of Cas. BAMF Cas in a black trench who doesn’t know or care about Dean at all. Just to see Dean’s reaction. OR an au where destiel is REAL?

Imagine if they get fem!Cas back? An au where Cas never left his original vessel? Dean may actually get to meet fem!Cas!

(Once again I am thinking about The Mirror because suddenly this is something that we could actually get on the show and I may be freaking out about this... Dean goes to an au and meets himself and fem!cas and they are married and she is carrying his child?!?! IMAGINE how much THAT would hurt NOW with Dean believing that HIS CAS IS DEAD?!?!?)

Okay the more my mind wonders into AUs the more excited I get. This is the big pull for me next season. This is what I want. That and Cas back. Obviously. Which, as I said above, we WILL get.

Lucifer

OMG just be dead already I don’t fucking care I just want your stupid face off my TV screen just fucking DIE.

Mary Winchester

Again, won’t die. They only brought her back last season. I reckon AU Bobby will save her (along with real!Cas maybe?!?) and they’ll kill Lucifer (PLEASE) and find a way to escape.

To be honest, other than that amazing scene in 12x22 in Mary’s head I didn’t really engage with her all that much. I don’t think she’ll die at all, she may be trapped, but she won’t be trapped for long. I am interested to see how she deals with Lucifer now.

Dean

Oh Dean, you poor sweetheart. Everything he said and did in 12x22 just broke me. He was so open and honest and he actually talked about his feelings. He has come so far, and I am sure we will be picking apart that scene with Mary all summer.

Then, in 12x23, Cas’s death. I said it was all for shock value and for shipping fodder. I mean this, but not entirely negatively, not on Dean’s side anyway. The way Sam had to pull Dean back through the portal when Cas stormed up to Lucifer, the way he screamed when Cas was stabbed, the way he just fell to his knees in front of Cas’s body, the way he looked up to the sky in disbelief, in prayer to a God he doesn’t believe will ever help him...just... wow. THAT was where the emotion was. Dean is well and truly back in his place as the emotional heart of this show and I couldn’t be happier with that.

I full expect season 13 to become a sort of season 7 for him. I can predict that Dean will believe Cas is well and truly dead for a good few episodes, even if it revealed to the audience far sooner that Cas is fine, or brought back, or however else he manages to survive that. I expect Dean to be truly mourning Cas, and I hope that this time around it won’t be hidden under other layers like guilt for killing your brothers monster friend for example. They have been nearly completely candid about Dean’s feeling towards Cas all season (and last season) so there would be no reason NOT to show him completely in mourning and non functioning because of it. I wanna see the pain, and I wanna see just how much that pain differs from Sam’s pain over loosing Cas.

Sam and the Nephilim

Yep, this is Sam’s problem now. His brother will be useless I guarantee it. Sam will be all business and logic and be all about dealing with the Nephilim, as well as getting Mary free, whereas I fully expect Dean to become withdrawn and broken.

We will see Sam take control, take the lead on everything they do in the first few episodes until they can rescue Mary, take out Lucifer, and reunite with real!cas however that pans out. It will be interesting to see.

The Nephilim was weird. I didn’t like it. I knew we weren’t gonna get a baby because a baby is useless, but it just becoming a creepy guy like that? I dunno. Found it weird. Not sure how I feel about it. I reckon he will be all about alternate worlds... I dunno if he will be traditional bad guy either. I kinda hope he is at least kinda good because otherwise the whole deal with Cas makes even LESS sense. I am so annoyed we didn’t find out what the deal was with Cas? Urgh.

I hope that they pick up all the plot points they dropped next season. I don’t want the Nephilim to become just another big bad, because it truly does just make the whole thing with Cas just seem ludicrous. I NEED TO KNOW WHAT THE HELL THAT NEPHILIM DID TO HIM DAMMIT!!

Anyway. Thats as much as I can type down right now. I’m all a buzz of speculation and thoughts so feel free to send me an ask about the episodes and I’ll hopefully be blogging about them over the weekend.

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nerdylittleshit · 8 years

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The Sinner, the Saint & the Fangirl

Female archetypes in 3x12 & 5x01 aka The Great Meta Scavenger Hunt Round 4

In this weeks challenge our task was to take a closer look on both 3x12 and 5x01, with bonus points if our focus is on the female characters of the episodes. And obviously this meta challenge is not a comnpetion and the real prize is the friends we made along the way or so I have been told, but I also really wanna win this thing (whatever this thing is), so bonus points here we come. Instead of comparing the two episodes and/or their female characters though, I decided to place each of them in a certain category. Namely is that woman a sinner or a saint? (Or because this Supernatural, a fangirl.)

The sinner/saint dynamic is something that exists as long as movies exist, and of course it is the kind of stereotype reserved exclusively for women. It is very prominent in old western, but not limited to it. The names are already self-explanatory; the saint is a woman of virtue, symbolizing innocence and purity. They often end up being either a victim or at least the damsel in distress, and if they survive they are the reward for our hero. Opposed to that is the sinner, women who have a low social stand for whatever reason and are often portrayed promiscuous. They usually don’t survive the movie. And at least if you watch an old western chances are big our saint is portrayed by a white woman with light hair, whereas the sinner is almost always portrayed by a woman of colour (because next to misogynist those movies were also racist).

(As you can see during my time at university I also had a beginner’s course of film study)

Of course this kind of archetypes evolved over time and today female characters get to be more complex. That doesn’t mean they aren’t used anymore, or at least their basics. Because it’s something most viewers are familiar with, and whenever these archetypes appear the audience doesn’t need much time to decide how to view this character (basically: good guy or bad guy?). But it is also used to subvert our expectitations towards certain characters.

Some time ago I wrote a meta about Supernatural from a feminist point of view, with a special look at the Carver era (which you can read here). In it I also noted that during the first years (the Kripke era) almost all female characters end up in one of three categories: antagonist (sinner), love interest or mom/sister characters (saints). Especially during the Carver era female characters have become more complex, but even today it seems like Donna might be the only current female character who doesn’t fit in either character, but is instead one of the few female friends the Winchesters have (Jody is also a mom character, whereas Charlie was portrayed as a little sister). And looking back it made us realize that even in Supernatural early years there was a group that didn’t fit in either to one of the three groups: female law enforcers (which Donna is of course as well). (More on this here and here). But I digress. Going back to 3x12 and 5x01 we can place almost all characters in the sinner or saint category, with the exception of Becky, who gets her own category.

So let’s have a look.

3x12 Jus in Belo

Bela:

The episode starts with a reminder that Bela stole the Colt from the Winchesters. Dean assumes she just wants to sell it to the highest bidder, when in reality Bela tries to exchange the Colt for her soul.

Of course we as an audience don’t know this yet, and neither does Dean, so we just assume she is a horrible person, who is okay with hundreds of people getting possesed and causing mayhem, only to get some extra cash.

Of course one could argue that her goal only to save her own soul when the Colt could save so much more people isn’t any better. It is still a very selfish reason for her to steal the Colt. And it places her opposite to Nancy, who considers sacrificing her own life in order to save many more people.

If anything Bela is a great example of how our expectations get subverted. Until 3x15 we only think of her in terms of a sinner. None of her actions are selfless or in any way heroic. The way we view her character is only changed once we learn the reason she made a deal in the first place: to escape her abusive parents. It doesn’t make her a saint, but it removes her from being a sinner as well. If anything it places her near characters like Bobby or Dean who both suffered from abusive parents as well, but eventually made different choices (and is also a comment how different male and female characters with the same backstory are treated at Supernatural, just saying).

Nancy:

Nancy is probably the character who fulfills any stereotypes the most, mostly because she only appears in one episode and it is usually the recurring characters who are allowed to get more complex.

Nancy is a classic saint, no doubt. She is introduced wearing a cross and a rosary, telling us at first glance that she is very religious. The very first thing she hears about the Winchesters? That they are “ Satan-worshipping, nutbag killers”. Her fear of them is not just based on the fact they are criminals (she works at a police station, she is used to them), but that they are satanists. And yet it appears she believes in the good of the people after all, or otherwise Sam’s trick to get her close enough to their cell in order to steal her rosary wouldn’t have worked.

After Victor Henriksen and the others learn the truth - demons are actually a thing - we get this little exchange.

Dean: How you holdin' up, Nancy?

Nancy: Okay. When I was little, I would come home from the church and start to talk about the devil. My parents would tell me to stop being so literal. I guess I showed them, huh? That should hold.

It further confirms Nancy’s religious nature, as well as showing us that Nancy at least as a child divided the world into black and white, evil and good. We can only assume her morality got more complex over the years, as she wasn’t completely hostile towards Sam and Dean even when she still believed them to be the bad guys.

As the plot thickens Ruby appears and offers a spell to get rid of all demons, though it includes killing a virgin. Which is how we learn that Nancy is still a virgin. Interesting enough Ruby speaks first of a person of virtue, before she specifies her request that she needs a virgin. We can argue therefore that in Supernatural a virgin automatically translate as a person of virtue. Furthermore virgins seem to symbolize purity and innocence. The only other time virgins were brought up again was in 6x12, where again their virginity was tied to the mythology of the show, in that case dragons who were after virgins. (And then of course Eve, who chose the body of a virgin as her vessel, subverting the image of the pure and innocent. But furthermore also a body nobody had used before (so to speak) and the irony of course of a virgin mother.)

Of course this is also bullshit. Your decision wheter to have sex or not (and with whom and how often) doesn’t say anything about your virtue. Deciding to stay a virgin doesn’t make you a good person, the same way that having sex doesn’t make you a bad person (especially not as a woman, no matter what people say). But its an image so old - virginity = purity - that we buy it without a second thought. That is the way arechetypes work after all, because they are familiar.

It is also the reason why Nancy never becomes a love interest. Apart from the fact that she appears to be rather young, the fact that she is a virgin immdiately not only places her in the category of a saint but also regarding the Winchesters in that of a little sister.

The reason though Nancy is a person of virtue/a saint is not her virginity but her willingness to sacrifice herself in order to save all the people the demons have possesed. She is also doing this while everyone around her (Sam, Dean, Ruby, Victor) still argue whether it is the morally right thing to do, reminding them it is her choice.

As I said before Nancy functions here opposed to Bela. Whereas Bela’s actions are based on selfish motives, Nancy is willing to do the ultimate sacrifice, a completely selfless act. We could further argue her decision is based on her faith as well, as Christianty is about altruism.

The episode ends however with all of our sinners surviving (Bela, Ruby, Lilith) whereas our only saint dies, despite the fact Sam and Dean tried everything to save her. Portraying her as the genuine good person she is, her loss perhaps hurts the most.

Ruby:

Enter Ruby. The great thing about her character is that during the whole of season 3 and 4 she is written ambiguous enough that we are never quite sure in which category she belongs, until her final reveal in 4x22. She is without a doubt no saint, but the show up until the end of her story makes us wonder if she a sinner either. And we are reminded of this here, because the very first thing Sam says about her, is that she is here to help them, marking her her as an ally.

Ruby, or more specific her spell, represents the moral dilemma of the episode. Is it okay to kill one person in order to save many others? Especially if said person is willing to sacrifice herself?

It leads to a great display of the different kind of moralities Sam and Dean have ( @postmodernmulticoloredcloak wrote a great piece about it here). Sam is willing to think about it, whereas Dean pretty much says that Ruby’s choice is no choice at all.

Henriksen: We do not sacrifice people. We do that, we're no better than them.

Ruby: We don't have a choice.

Dean: Yeah, well, your choice is not a choice.

Dean’s position here equals Victor’s. You can’t fight monsters if in order to do so you become a monster yourself.

Dean: It doesn't mean that we throw away the rule book and stop acting like humans. I'm not gonna let that demon kill some nice, sweet, innocent girl, who hasn't even been laid. I mean, look, if that's how you win wars, then I don't want to win.

Ruby on the other hand thinks certain sacrifices are neccessary in order to win a war. She even points out that doing the spell would kill herself as well, a sacrifice she is willing to do if it helps the Winchesters. This particular part made me wonder if Ruby didn’t secretly count that Sam and Dean wouldn’t go through with her plan. Because what would have been her gain if she died? Her offering along makes us wonder about her true nature. If Nancy’s virtue is displayed by her willingness to sacrfice herself, can’t we say the same about Ruby?

This explanation makes a lot of sense. Ruby offers to sacrifice herself, therefore she places herself in the category of “good”. But it would also include the sacrifice of someone else, testing if Sam would be willing to consider it (he is, and we see the exact same dilemma in 4x22, where Sam kills a nurse because he believes it is the only way to defeat Lilith). She knows the Winchesters won’t go through with it, with Dean basically preventing it (because Sam only gives in to Ruby fully once Dean is gone). She still survives, leaving the police station once the Winchesters don’t agree with her plan and probably told Lilith where they are, to finish the episode with a great “I told you so”, showing them that her way would have been the right way all along.

Ruby: Don't thank me. Lilith killed everyone. She slaughtered your precious little virgin, plus a half a dozen other people. So after your big speech about humanity and war, turns out your plan was the one with the body count. Do you know how to run a battle? You strike fast and you don't leave any survivors. So no one can go running to tell the boss. So next time… we go with my plan.

In hindsight Ruby is a classic example of a sinner, including her seducing Sam. But up until the big reveal in 4x22 the show plays with our instinct reaction to her (she is a demon, she must be bad), making us constantly wondering in which category she fits (just as Bela’s story only gets complete with her last episode).

Lilith:

Aka the big bad of the season. I love how Dean after Ruby tells him there is a new big bad out there instantly assumes it is a he, until she correts him. You know, men don’t have the monopoly on murder.

This marks also the first episode we actually see Lilith, and it is interesting what kind of vessel she chooses: that of a young girl. Just as with Nancy we instantly assume the little girl to be innocent, only to get that expectation subverted as well. It is not the only time she appears as a little girl - she does the same thing in 3x16 (in a really creepy way I might add, causing the moral dilemma if it is okay to kill a child if said child is possesed by a demon).

We only see her in an adult vesel in season 4, still wearing white and having long blonde hair, both visual signs of purity, while also presenting her in suggestively way. Furthermore I might add Chuck’s vision in 4x18 of Sam and Lilith having sex, which by then has become a little theme, after sleeping with Ruby and presenting Meg initially as a love interest.

Lilith of course is a classic sinner. From a demon’s perspective though she could be seen as a saint as well, sacrificing herself for a greater goal (the rise of Lucifer).

5x01 Sympathy for the Devil

I don’t count Lucifer disguised as Nick’s dead wife here, because I think Lucifer mostly identifies himself as male.

Becky:

And this is where we add a third category, the fangirl. Becky is of course no sinner, but also no saint. For this episode she is merely a plot device. And another example of the shows long list of consent issues, as she seems to have a problem to let go of Sam.

Furthermore Becky is a comment of TPTB of how they view their audience/fandom. And it is not a very pretty picture.

When she appears again in 5x09 she is yet again just a plot device (getting the Winchesters to the con in the first place, telling them later about Crowley and the Colt). 7x08 is so full of consent issues I’m not even going there.

It seems like once Becky fulfilled her job (giving the Winchesters information they need) the writers didn’t really know what to do with her, and transformed her into a big joke about fans and their delusional way to see the world. Not really funny.

It took one Robbie Thompson to give us Charlie Bradbury instead, and later 10x05, to show us that fandom and fans can be portrayed in a much mure postive way.

Meg:

And the last one on the list. Meg’s journey starts as someone who looks like an ally/love interest back in 1x11, only to be revealved to be a sinner all along. She pretty much stays this way in the first five seasons, but eventually works together with the Winchesters in season 6, 7 and 8, as they have a common enemy in Crowley, leading to her sacrficice in 8x17. It doesn’t make her a saint of course, but again we can’t put her into the category of sinner either. What is interesting here is that she stays a sinner all along in the Kripke era and only becomes something more, more complex once Sera Gamble and later Jeremy Carver took over.

In 5x01 we see her in all her evil glory though. She kisses Dean against his consent (demons and sexual assault is a topic of its own), and arranges it that Bobby gets possesed and almost kills Dean. Like she could have killed Dean a million different ways, but she wanted his surrogate dad to do the job, punishing Bobby along the way.

Tl, dr:

Archetypes, such as the sinner and the saint, are used frequently in Supernatural, especially in the first five seasons. They are used especially if a character only appears one time, because the audience is already familiar with this kind of characters. Recurring female character tend to be more complex, with the show often subverting our expections. Also, sacrificing yourself is kinda a big thing.

#supernatural #the great meta scavenger hunt #round 4 #jus in bello #sympathy for the devil #my meta #ruby #meg #lilith #becky rosen #nancy fitzgerald

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