#like. terrible combination of circumstances and his own failures

[genderjester]

Have so many thoughts abt geto but also i cannot articulate any of them

[wordsandrobots]

Since you’re THE biggest IBO understander, I’ve wanted to get your input on something that’s been circulating in my mind for a while.

What do you think was Tekkadan’s biggest flaw that led to their downfall?

Heh, well, first off, I can't claim the definite article. Prolific output does not equal authority. But I can certainly try to give you both my understanding of what the text is aiming for and my opinions about the final result.

I have seen Orga Itsuka's biggest flaw termed a 'lack of conviction', although I would argue it's fairer to call it confusion over how to enact his convictions. Because Orga absolutely believes from the bottom of his heart that the most important thing in the world is to create a future for his friends. He just doesn't know how to do that, long-term. He's a tactical thinker, reacting to what's in front of him rather than taking a bigger-picture view. And he's willing to risk everything, including the lives he's trying to protect, to get immediate results. This works well for short-term victories but tends towards blind recklessness. Moreover, since Orga has not actually established for himself what a good future for everyone should look like, he latches on to other people's versions of it. First the CGS, then Naze, and finally, fatally, McGillis. For all his own intense charisma, he falls hard for that of others, and misjudges badly as a result.

This would be bad enough in isolation, but it's combined with Tekkadan's generalised 'all or nothing' attitude to truly terrible effect. I touched on this in the context of Mika and Orga's relationship in a previous essay: the rest of Tekkadan are behind Orga 110% and that creates its own inexorable momentum. We see multiple characters express dismay at looming problems-- Eugene, Biscuit, Merribit, even Shino -- only to set their doubts aside for what they perceive as the greater good. They believe in Tekkadan, more than anything else, this dream Orga has sold them on, and protecting it and advancing its fortunes becomes an all-encompassing goal for which they will gladly lay down their lives.

[As an aside, Shino's conversation with Eugene right before the 'final battle' is a great example of this problem playing out. As much as I rag on him, Shino isn't stupid. He shows repeatedly that despite his gung-ho attitude, he can recognise a losing fight. But he's quick to mask or go back on his doubts and act like Tekkadan is going to pull through regardless, because Orga has gotten them this far, right? Set alongside Eugene's failure to replace Biscuit as the voice of reason, it serves to underline how deeply enmeshed the boys are by this point. They've bet everything on Orga, and can't bring themselves to break with him. Not unrelatedly, it's Shino himself who talks Orga into the gamble that costs him his life.]

This combination -- the boy who doesn't know where he's going and the people willing to follow him anywhere he leads -- is what the show positions as Tekkadan's key flaw and the results of it steadily ramp up as the story progresses. They scrape through Season 1, making a big name for themselves, and reach their zenith by taking down the Dawn Horizon Corps with minimal losses. But then the 'Silent War' hits, dragging them more directly into political power-plays. It goes appallingly badly: they are betrayed from within, their legitimate connections to the Arbrau bloc are severed, and they lose their presence on Earth.

Next they uncover the mobile armour, and while they mange a victory over it, Mika definitively proves that he won't let Orga stop under any circumstances, McGillis is inspired to throw caution to the wind, and Tekkadan's tenuous position inside Teiwaz implodes. They just about got away with jumping on board with McGillis' coup plans, but once they've taken out the 'armour and embarrassed Iok Kujan into the bargain? A lot of chickens come home to roost.

Naze -- the one person Orga respects, listens to, and who actually has the potential to reign him in -- dies as a result of Tekkadan's display of power. Afterwards, Orga knows killing Jasley in return will mean breaking with Teiwaz. He hesitates, visibly, over going through with it -- only for the pressure of everyone wanting vengeance on behalf of Naze, Amida, Lafter and the rest to tip him over the edge. From there, the only possible route to achieving what he wants is the alliance with McGillis, who turns out not to be able to deliver on his promises. Everything falls apart.

Now. The way this is presented carries judgement. Orga is repeatedly castigated for his decisions, including the loss of one of his closest friends. Likewise, the Arbrau/SAU war arc serves as a microcosm of Tekkadan's failings, with Aston's death stemming from Takaki blindly acting according to their ethos. Crucially, Takaki chooses to change for the better, taking one of the other options available to him (with Kudelia's help) -- notably in the same moment Orga is doubling-down on his existing path.

Tragedies are built from characters making the wrong choices and this juxtaposition serves to underline that they are wrong, and could be approached differently. Takaki is correct to hold on to what he has instead of risking it for the sake of an imagined 'better place'. He recognises something Orga does not until after Shino is killed (and lots of other people, of course, but it's framed around Shino's death).

There follow several scenes of Ogra being directly called out. 'He died for you!' Eugene snarls, taking charge of getting everyone to safety. 'You're whining?' Yamagi demands, when Orga reaches his lowest ebb and comes close to abandoning Tekkadan's cause. 'I was under the impression you had a spine,' sneers Rustal Elion, assuming moral authority and refusing to blunt the consequences of Orga's actions.

[When @prezaki asked me to explain my stance on Rustal Elion's intentions, I talked about his gestured-to positive traits. That's not what I mean here: Rustal takes control over the setting and imposes his morals upon it. The tenor of his exchange with Orga is of someone in the right looking down on someone pleading for unearned leniency. Whatever you think about that -- and I view it as a great demonstration of Rustal's inherent contempt for 'little people' who don't meet his standards -- this is functionally what's happening, and Orga is powerless against it.]

In light of this, the manner of Orga's death -- finally taking up a gun and sacrificing his life for his comrades after two seasons of doing the opposite -- is both fitting and a form of redemption. Given the director's original conception of the show being one that ended with every named protagonist dead, a thread of 'just desserts' is undeniably present. Tekkadan are not placed in a positive light for their determination, which comes with a bloody cost, both on their side and on their enemies'. They are fools and upstarts in a world that violently rejects change.

However, like many of the show's components, its authorship is a two-part affair. Mari Okada and other writers argued against the kill 'em all direction, and the end result is far more ambiguous than clean-cut condemnation. To be clear, it is absolutely still saying that Orga and Tekkadan as a whole make terrible decisions. But the more-hopeful-than-it-might-have-been ending allows space for greater nuance. (Which is good - I doubt I would be as enamoured with IBO if it had concluded by thoroughly punishing a group of child-soldiers for being what they are and committed to their never being anything else.)

In light of the actual ending, we can look seriously at the ways the show demonstrates why its characters behave as they do. Mika and Orga's ingrained behaviour is responsible for a lot of what goes wrong, but we are shown quite blatantly that they would not have survived into adolescence if they hadn't developed it. The ever-present threat of what would happen if Tekkadan *didn't* strive to grow stronger and resist the harmful forces surrounding them frames every decision. Even the individuals who mean them ill are the products of the systems that created this whole miserable situation. Nobliss, Ein, Gaelio, Carta, Iok, Jasley, Galan, Rustal -- they each have major personal failings but are equally shaped by their positions in society, just as the boys are shaped by theirs. By being so thorough in constructing an exploitative world, the writers and director hew against reducing the characters down to simply being flawed people.

They are instead flawed people doing their best with limited resources in oft-times impossible circumstances. The story at once highlights the brutality of its protagonists and that they are children, abused by those who see them only as tools, within systems that encourage that perspective. Tekkadan is itself a microcosm of larger patterns, of might making right and human life being exchanged for money. Throughout, lines are blurred between 'proper' soldiers and teenage mercenaries, between businesses and the mafia, between pirates and police. The whole is rotten and while struggling may not be a path to survival, it is at least clearly a path, if you can stick to it.

Thus, any discussion of Tekkadan's flaws must account for the show's refusal to place them in a vacuum. I don't know to what extent Iron-Blooded Orphans is the result of a push and pull between competing ideas about how the tale should go. Yet what was put on screen frequently refuses easy categorisation into straightforward condemnation or sympathy. It's just not the kind of story that allows us to neatly assign blame to zealousness, recklessness or a murderous attitude. All these have too demonstrable a cause and within that context, it's hard to argue they are incorrect as responses. They are, at the very least, eminently understandable.

Errors of judgement on Orga's part and the failure of those around him to moderate his haste play a role in what happens, without question. But to a large degree, no one involved is allowed to be otherwise. Takaki's path is contingent on too many factors to be a widely-viable alternative. Likewise, for all that the eventual escape of the survivors is facilitated by wiser and cooler heads prevailing, it is nonetheless paid for in blood, past as well as present. Heck, Kudelia's character development is about learning the cost of improvement and accepting that cost as necessary -- the same calculation performed by every boy who steps on to the series' battlefields.

In the end, perhaps the most honest answer to 'what caused Tekkadan's downfall' is simply that they existed as part and parcel of the world they were born into. Their 'mistake' was responding to it on its own terms, meeting violence with violence and oppressive hopelessness with desperate hope. They tried to win a rigged game, not because it was the only one in town, but because it looked better than the alternatives and once committed, there was no easy way to turn back.

I think that's a startlingly mature approach to a subject too often reduced to power-fantasies or personal horror. The existence of child-soldiers is a flaw in the real world. Through the way it fleshes out its tragic structure, Iron-Blooded Orphans manages to capture some of what that entails.

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

Thank you for the ask! I don't know to what extent this is the answer you were after. I tend to view Tekkadan's naiveté as a significant single contributing factor, but it's really only a facet of their being stuck where they are, socially speaking. And I wanted to discuss the narrative treatment of Orga's flaws because it's something that could be a lot more clear-cut than it actually is.

[Index of other writing]

[go-go-devil]

14, 22, and 40 for Lei :]

14) Do they look up to anyone?

When Lei was a little girl she used to look up to a lot of people. This came from the fact that her immense social anxiety combined with her internalizing her parents’ belief that she won’t amount to anything more than a house servant gave her abysmally low confidence in herself. Thus, she put her trust in nearly everyone who were willing to engage with her or were what she considered amazing, like knights and sorcerers and especially dragons! Her Aunt Tabitha was and still remains the one shining light in her life, and she also undeniably looked up to her far-more sociable and scheming big brother, though definitely not anymore…

Nowadays Leiurus rarely holds such adoration for others. All the failures and traumas of her life have left her soul hardened to the idea of wanting to follow the path of another seemingly-spectacular person. However, after becoming an undead exile in Lordran she’s found herself experiencing strange feelings toward a certain sun-drenched knight. How could one of his ilk ever dare put his faith and trust in a lowly dreg like herself, let alone offer her help in her own battles? Perhaps she might like to talk with him again.

22) Have they ever hurt or lost anyone?

Oh boy...

The chaos in Leiurus's life first started when her brother ran away when she was but 10 years old, taking their parents' savings and some of their most precious trinkets with him. Her father went after him in a murderous rage, only to be found dead days later, having seemingly fell down a cliff. With no means of supporting herself, Lei's mother made the decision to join up with her sister Tabitha on the road despite her distaste for her lifestyle and the sneaking suspicion that she's hiding something from her. Several months later Lei's mom also perished via unknown circumstances, Lei wasn't there to see it, so her Aunt Tabby took her in and raised her as she would her own child.

Leiurus loved her aunt more than anyone in the world, finally getting to soak up the feelings of encouragement and adoration her own parents had never fully given her. She was the one who helped Lei realize she was capable of preforming magic, and even scrapped tooth and nail for enough gold to send her to the prestigious Vinheim Dragon School so that she may further excel in her abilities. Even when Lei ended up dropping out after seemingly losing her magical abilities, she knew she could safely return to live with her aunt.

Unfortunately, her precious Aunt Tabby had a terrible secret she'd been hiding from her niece-daughter: she was undead. While for over a decade since her death she'd been able to slow the hollowing to a crawl, it was slowly weakening her soul, and by the time Lei returned home she had fully turned into a mindless, violent creature. Lei found her in her bedroom, clutching the bandit's knife that had originally slain her long ago and rocking back and forth, only to charge at her niece when she finally noticed noticed her presence. She struggled to defend herself, but was able to take the knife from her aunt and jam it into her heart several times until she became a still carcass on the floor.

Even if the killing was in self-defense, Lei will never forgive herself for what she did.

40) What is their moral alignment?

Certainly a dark shade of moral grayness.

Leiurus The Scorpion is a professional thief. Her entire livelihood revolves around stealing from others, sometimes even having to hurt or in worse case scenarios kill to get what she wants. While Lei likes to assert that she has standards in her practices, those noble rules of her can and have occasionally fallen to the wayside in hard times.

She could mostly follow her code of refusing to hurt the innocent and not taking a scrap from the poor, but when she's starving and see's a unoccupied kid carrying some smoked ham home to his sickly father she's going to take the easy meal, and when a vigilante tries to catch her to relive their neighborhood of her robberies she's going to defend herself, even if that means delivering unto them a fatal backstab.

Yet the one thing that Leiurus dreads most about her morality is the fact that, despite all the pain and grit, she does enjoy the title she's gained as a feared thief. Never in the past had she ever believed she'd be capable of not only being independent, but also having any notable power within her. That long-awaited, vile pride was simply too intoxicating for her let go of. Of course, now that she's been granted the title of Chosen Undead she's been wrestling with her morality to an even harsher degree than before. Maybe her life fell apart, but now she can truly be a hero to those around her?

...Right?

[pollylynn]

Title: Folk WC: 1100 Episode: That ‘70s Show (6 x 20)

He is failing the family dynamics portion of the exam that life is throwing at him. In fact, it feels like this is one of those anxiety dreams where he has not studied for the last forty-odd years and today is the midterm and all of his pants have turned into electrified eels who refuse to drive the bus to school like they’re supposed to. 

He’s aware that he has failed all the prep quizzes for the daughter portion of things pretty hard, but in his defense, he has done the make-up work that the universe has so very generously granted him. He feels pretty back on track when it comes to the daughter portion, thanks to the very hot study buddy he’s hooked up with who lets him cheat off her homework sometimes and smacks him with a ruler when he’s falling back into old habits—or sometimes if asks nicely, because . . . well, okay, the hot study buddy is off topic. 

Except she isn’t off topic. The hot study buddy is a very important section on this exam, but in the throes of his anxiety dream, he keeps flipping the page to work on that section and it’s blank. Or lately, it’s filled with atrociously over-the-top questionnaires about color stories and which repulsively spiky parasitic orchids would be best for rendering his nostrils, which, by the way, are of truly alarming proportions when blown up to wall size. 

He has handled everything about his mother badly. And that very badness has been amplified by the grace with which she has handled everything about his mother—by the emotional labor that she has been doing, that she still is doing in reminding him that Martha Rodgers, monstrosity though she undeniably is, is a well-intentioned monstrosity. She shouldn’t have to do that. She shouldn’t have to do any of this, particularly when she has so recently, so shyly and bravely admitted to him how much it aches not to have her own mother on hand for all of this.  

But as he watches her twirling around on the dance floor with his mother, with his daughter, with the rest of the sprawling, wonderful mess of their chosen family, he thinks that even thinking that way about how she’s handled all of this is another kind of failure. He watches  her duck, laughing and alight, so that his mother can bestow her own crown of daisies on the undisputed queen of the dance floor, and when she catches his eye and strikes a pose so he can admire her new accessory, there is nothing long-suffering in any of  it. 

She has her frustrations with his mother. She has her fingernails-meet-spinal-column moments, because how could she not, even if they weren’t planning a wedding? How could the three of them—the four of them now that Alexis is back, and that is largely thanks to her in ways he doesn’t understand—not drive one another occasionally up the photo-realistic flower wall? 

But he sees tonight, maybe for the first time, that his mother has nothing to do with her mother. His pre-existing family in no way threatens her, and likewise, she in no way threatens it. It’s a startling thought to be having in this raucous atmosphere with its lights sweeping, strobing, flashing as the bass pounds and soprano harmonies shatter the air into a million diamond-bright, diamond-hard pieces. It’s a realization that wants to be sobering. It wants to make him sit with the terrible idea that some part of him is still dealing in such ridiculous zero-sum ideas. It’s an epiphany tailor-made for The Smiths or The Cure, and here he is rolling with the Bee-Gees tonight. 

He can’t be somber or self-flagellating, given the circumstances, given the easy way her fingers twine with his mother’s, and the casual sling of her arm around his daughter’s waist. It’s simply not possible, and yet he knows that he has make-up work to do. There’s plenty of interior monologging on the horizon, but that’s for some future date  when he’s not worrying about the impossibility of any more future Little Ryans, given the clearly deadly combination of those splits and those pants. And opportunities will surely abound for self-recrimination regarding this very special episode of Martha Rodgers: Project Manager. 

But there are conversations to be had out loud, too, and despite the sweep of the lights and the thump of the bass—despite the fact that he foresees some unexpectedly heavy emotional lifting in his immediate future—this seems like another good moment to jump on the extra-credit the eternally kind universe is once again dangling in front of him. The universe gifts him with a little Barry White for the occasion, “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything.” 

He glides his way over to her and plucks her from the center of her court. He pulls her in for a slow dance, heedless of Barry’s tempo. She laughs and twines her arms around his neck, willing to play the game. 

“I wanted to talk to you about my mother.” It’s not quite a blurt, but it’s not exactly a suave, Barry-worthy introduction, either. He’s too afraid of losing his nerve for that.

“Castle,” she grazes his cheek with an impatient kiss. “It’s fine. Martha is fine. Everything is fine.” She rolls her eyes at that last bit, letting him know she concedes nothing in the long term, but is over his crazy plans for the moment. 

“I know . . . and  thank you.” He drops a slow, earnest kiss on her lips. His nerve will have to last him through that. “Thank you,” he says again, “but I want—I’m not making excuses for not handling things better—but she’s never . . .” He looks across the dance floor to where his mother is lifting reverent hands to the disco ball like some time-traveling Ophelia. “I’ve never had to deal with her wanting to be part of—“ He clears his throat. He has to clear his throat. “This is the first time she’s wanted to be involved.” 

“Oh.” She tips her head back to take in his face as the lights sweep and pulse and strobe over it. There’s a flicker of sadness behind her eyes, and maybe a little triumph, because she is poised to be the favorite daughter-in-law. But mostly there’s interest. She’s interested in his life, in the other times, in what has and has not happened. “Oh, wow.” 

A/N: It is known that disco is the genre with the least morphousness

images via homeofthenutty

[carolyncaves]

It’s been three days since I posted a ficlet, but that’s because my hand Really slipped this time and I wrote a canon divergence ‘post-Burial Mounds Wei Wuxian actually goes to Gusu’ fic. I’ll call this Day 19: Journey, but it also includes days 17 and 18 Rest and Breath for bonus points. 3680 words, WWX, LXC, LWJ, JC. Alcohol, vague mental illness (it’s post-burial-mounds wwx), strong undercurrent of wangxian (it’s lwj), angst, tenderness, golden core reveal.

also on ao3

“You do not necessarily need to take up the sword at once,” Lan Xichen called after Wei Wuxian, perhaps too desperately, but it mercifully stopped him in his tracks. “You can come to Cloud Recesses and simply consider it further there.”

“So instead of agreeing to take up the sword, Zewu Jun would like me to agree to agree to it in time. A grand distinction.” Wei Wuxian tipped his head back and drained the rest of the jar of baijiu. When he drew it down and looked at it, the rigid arrogance etched into his profile was mixed very briefly with a desperate despondence. Lan Xichen might not have noticed it, were it not for his conversation with Wangji.

Wei Wuxian had been somewhere terrible for three months, and he was not well. Wei Wuxian needed help. Wangji was forbidden to come, so Lan Xichen had to do this in his place, and please, Xiongzhang, you must get him to agree to come to Gusu, whatever it takes.

After what he’d seen so far of Wei Wuxian’s state, Lan Xichen was not sure it would be within his power. But Wangji had placed his trust in him.

“You will not be required to do anything, if only you will come.”

“I do not recall when Zewu Jun gained the authority to require things of me.”

That hostility could bring them to failure. Lan Xichen needed to shift to his reserve approach. He thought, given the circumstances, Wangji would consent. “To speak even more plainly, it would please Wangji very much to see you. You were correct when you said so yourself. He has been anxious since the close of Sunshot, and lonely at Cloud Recesses. I am asking you for this favor, as his closest confidant, for the sake of my brother’s happiness – so I will not be easily discouraged.” Those words were all true; it had become clear Wangji’s happiness depended very much on Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian’s expression softened once again, this time toward affection. Lan Xichen gave his words time to sink in, and then followed them with a wager: “It will be an opportunity for you to rest.” Despite Wei Wuxian’s bright smile and earnest greeting when they’d met on the street, Lan Xichen had sensed underneath it that Wei Wuxian was haggard and worn.

Wei Wuxian finally turned and looked at him again, and his agitation had fully melted back away. Lan Xichen felt the gentle lift of hope.

“I’m a member of the Jiang sect, aren’t I?” Wei Wuxian asked. “My brother has been named Sect Leader, and needs me now more than ever in his life. How can I go to Gusu with you?”

“Please allow me to ask him,” Lan Xichen said immediately. “On my own behalf, please give me your leave to request of him that you come visit us.” He did not mention, and only barely allowed himself to think, that if Wei Wuxian was here in town drinking baijiu in the middle of the day, he was probably not giving his brother the support he needed regardless.

Wei Wuxian stared at the floor for a very long time. He gave a hollow laugh. “All right. If Jiang Cheng gives you his blessing, I’ll go to Gusu with you.”

Lan Xichen had swayed one immovable stone, only to find another in its shadow.

/

Jiang Cheng received him almost immediately in Lotus Pier’s Sword Hall. He sat on the carved lotus seat, looking every inch a Sect Leader despite his youthful face. Wei Wuxian stood slightly to one side, looking carefully at the opposite wall instead of either of them.

“Take Wei Wuxian to Cloud Recesses?” Jiang Cheng kept his voice even and respectful, for now, but his features clearly displayed his incredulous irritation. “And you want to go, I suppose,” he added, much more acidly, to Wei Wuxian. “You’d like to run off and see Hanguang Jun, nevermind Yunmeng Jiang.”

“Zewu Jun has asked it of me,” Wei Wuxian said lowly. “Should I just refuse him out of hand?”

Jiang Cheng’s eyes narrowed, and Lan Xichen could almost hear his rejoinder – So you make me do it instead? “Have you been drinking? I needed you today. Look at you.”

“Sect Leader Jiang, I am asking this of you as a personal favor,” Zewu Jun said, hoping to coerce Jiang Cheng into discussing it with him instead. “I’m hopeful spending a measure of time together at Cloud Recesses will be beneficial for both my brother and yours.”

“Hanguang Jun is more than welcome to come to Yunmeng,” Jiang Cheng countered.

“Currently Wangji has sect matters he is required to attend to,” Zewu Jun answered, before immediately wincing.

“And Wei Wuxian doesn’t?” Jiang Cheng snapped. He looked incensed with a fire more furious than this one conversation would ignite, implying Wei Wuxian’s truancy today was not an isolated incident; this request was precisely the fuel to grow a smolder into a blaze. “Not that he’s been doing them. Are you planning to stand by my side and help me at any point, Wei Wuxian? Have you no sense of responsibility?”

Lan Xichen saw those words hit Wei Wuxian like a blow, but he was surprised when Jiang Cheng flinched as well. Perhaps he had not intended the second meaning – the implication of blame, as well as duty.

Jiang Cheng took a breath to recover, and apparently that gave him the time he needed to reconsider.

“Forget the thing I just said. You should go with him.”

Wei Wuxian looked right at him, then, for the first time in that conversation, and his face was masked with slow confusion and hurt. “Jiang Cheng …”

“Don’t argue with me! Go cheer up Lan Wangji and yourself, and come back. You’ve been impossible and stubborn since you got back from wherever on earth you were, and I need you to get your head back on straight.” Wei Wuxian’s face had gone blank again during that tirade. Jiang Cheng snorted in exasperation and added, “Don’t forget to take your sword with you, and see if you can come back riding it.”

Wei Wuxian stiffened, and Lan Xichen was briefly terrified the situation would collapse mere inches from success. He stepped forward, clamped a hand down hard on Wei Wuxian’s shoulder, and said, “We will bring the sword with us.” He hoped Wei Wuxian would remember the assurances Lan Xichen had given him, so he wouldn’t have to repeat them in front of Jiang Cheng. “Where is it, Wei-gongzi?”

/

Lan Xichen escorted Wei Wuxian to collect the sword and some personal effects from his room – thankfully, Jiang Cheng remained behind. Suibian was tucked behind a chest of drawers, where Wei Wuxian would not see it as he went about his daily life. Wei Wuxian retrieved it and stared at it like it was alien in his own hand, in contrast to the dark flute he held as at his side as an extension of himself in the other.

He thrust his arm toward Lan Xichen.

This disturbed Lan Xichen, the way Wei Wuxian seemed actively averse to the sword’s presence, but he said nothing; he was on the verge of achieving his mission. All this could be discussed in the fullness of time once Wei Wuxian was safely at Cloud Recesses. He took Suibian in his own hand, for the time being. He would bear this person and his sword to Wangji.

Wei Wuxian was slow and lethargic in his movements, some combination of mood and intoxication. It took all of Lan Xichen’s discipline not to rush him. It felt as if every moment that elapsed could bring some unforeseen stimulus that would knock Wei Wuxian off this vital and fragile course. Eventually he was ready, and as soon as they had sky over their heads, Lan Xichen took him on Shuoyue and maneuvered them into the air.

Lan Xichen relaxed, since they were now underway, which seemed a significant milestone in making this more difficult to stop. Wei Wuxian clung to him in strange desperation with the arm that wasn’t holding Chenqing. He stared down and around and out, face wide and wild as they climbed into the dusky sky, and as the minutes passed he began to shake. Did he feel unsafe relying on someone else to maneuver the sword? Had something happened that had instilled in him a fear of heights?

“Hide your eyes, if you would be more at ease,” Lan Xichen told him. “I assure you, Wei-gongzi, I will deliver you safely.”

Wei Wuxian’s fingers tightened ever so slightly in Lan Xichen’s robes, like he was hesitating, fighting a silent battle. Finally, his head collapsed onto Lan Xichen’s shoulder, his face angled into the side of his neck. Otherwise he said nothing, and did nothing. It was so far distant from the buoyant young man who had come to Gusu for lectures and even the sharp, bright, terrible one he’d seen glimpses of during Sunshot. Wangji had been correct. Wei Wuxian was deeply not well. Lan Xichen had been moderately convinced by the end of their conversation at the inn; now he was beyond certain.

The flight was long, but at the end of it, the patch of garden in front of Wangji’s jingshi came up to meet them, and Lan Xichen set them safely down. Wei Wuxian had made the journey.

///

Lan Wangji heard a sound he quickly placed as Xichen maneuvering Shuoyue, and he was out the door of the jingshi as quickly as he could physically manage it. First, because Xichen would not maneuver the sword within Cloud Recesses if he were not on some urgent mission, and second, because Lan Wangji would not have been able to hear him if he were alone and unburdened.

Sure enough, he was met with the sight of Xichen ushering a rigid Wei Ying from the steel onto the grass. A relief so intense it threatened to send him to his knees expanded through Lan Wangji.

“Wei Ying,” he said reflexively, closing the space between them.

Wei Ying turned to him with glazed, hazy eyes.

“He may still be intoxicated,” Xichen said, “and he has been harrowed by the flight.”

Lan Wangji stopped just before he touched Wei Ying, remembering him step away from him at Yiling Supervisory Office, turn away at the cliffs at Nightless City. This time, Wei Ying let him slowly move in and take him by one wrist. It was hope, and forgiveness, and a plea.

“Let’s get him inside,” Xichen said, which meant Lan Wangji had to release him. He followed as Xichen escorted Wei Ying up the walk. By the time they reached the open doorway, Wei Ying had recovered some of his senses, and he pulled himself out of Xichen’s hold.

“You don’t have to … you didn’t have to,” Wei Ying said coldly. “I shouldn’t be here. I should go back.”

Lan Wangji’s stomach sank, but Xichen just said, “Wei-gongzi, surely you aren’t suggesting I fly you back to Lotus Pier by sword this very moment.”

Wei Ying flinched, even as he scowled at himself for it.

“You must at least take dinner with us, and stay the night,” Xichen continued. “We can discuss it further in the morning if you like. You’re no prisoner here, just a welcome guest.” Xichen extended his arm, gesturing for Wei Ying to continue into the jingshi.

At length, he did.

Wei Ying stopped in the center of the room, standing aimlessly as Xichen and Lan Wangji came in around him. “I’ll go have someone prepare us a meal,” Xichen said. He held out Suibian, which for the first time Lan Wangji noticed he was carrying.

Wei Ying stared at him. He made no move to take it.

Xichen smiled sadly and went to set the sword at one of the places at the table.

Lan Wangji said stepped forward and took Suibian from his hand. “Xiongzhang,” he said, bowing formally with Wei Ying’s sword clasped in his hands, “thank you for bringing Wei Ying here. Now I will speak with him.”

Xichen briefly looked taken aback. Then his gaze floated from Lan Wangji to Wei Ying before returning. “I told Wei-gongzi we would not force him to take up his sword if he came here. That we would not require anything of him if he was unwilling.”

Lan Wangji imagined how the conversation must have gone, for Xichen to make that assurance. “Thank you,” he said again, and he hoped Xichen understood him.

Xichen nodded. “I will have the meal sent over for you.” Xichen acknowledged Wei Ying and left, surrendering Wei Ying into Lan Wangji’s custody.

Wei Ying was here. He had come to Gusu, however tensely. Lan Wangji was not helpless any longer. He could do something. He looked at the sword in his hand. Wei Ying’s wild Suibian. “I will play Clarity for you until the dinner comes,” he said.

“Lan Zhan, you can’t help me.”

“You said you would allow me,” Lan Wangji pushed back, pacing around Wei Ying to face him. “You came here.”

“No, Lan Zhan. You can’t help me.” Wei Ying looked up at him, expression gaunt. He was still thin, from wherever he’d been when he was away. If he was intoxicated, it was the morose kind. “You can play Clarity for me until your fingers bleed. I still won’t take up the sword again.”

“Why not?” Lan Wangji bit out, clenching Suibian in his grip. “What happened, Wei Ying?”

Wei Ying’s gaze was heavy on the sword in Lan Wangji’s hand. He thought for a great, long silence. “You have to believe me this time,” he said, swaying a little on his feet. “If I tell you, you have to believe me.”

Lan Wangji had not believed him when he spun a tall tale about a book and a cave with a dark, haughty grin. He had been afraid to believe him when he mentioned the Burial Mounds with a smile. Now, with Wei Ying standing empty in the jingshi, a silent tear rolling down his face, having relented and left his home so Lan Wangji could help him, Lan Wangji was prepared to believe anything he had to say. Lan Wangji nodded.

“It’s a secret,” Wei Ying pressed instantly, and more tears followed the first. “You need to swear to me you’ll keep it a secret. From Zewu Jun, from your uncle, from everyone. I would die rather than have it be known. Do you understand, Lan Zhan? It’s a secret I was going to die to keep.”

That image, the one of Wei Ying dead, frightened Lan Wangji more than anything had previously in his life. A year ago, it would have seemed impossible – his overloud, overfamiliar other, taken by death. Now, it seemed possible. Now, Wei Ying was barely held together by resentful energy and thin wire.

Lan Wangji raised his head, decided. He crossed the room, to the sword stand where his own Bichen stood. He put Suibian to rest alongside it. Then he turned. Wei Ying had turned to watch him.

Lan Wangji held out his hand, palm up. “Then tell me. We will keep it together.”

Wei Ying looked at his hand like a man going to his death. He looked at it like a man who wanted to be saved. He barely took his eyes off it as he took the three steps sideways necessary to walk over and place Chenqing on the corner of the table. Then he took the three steps back – toward Lan Wangji – and Lan Wangji’s hand in his own.

He drew it toward him and pressed it against his lower abdomen.

It took Lan Wangji a second to process this strange action, and another to follow its implication. He controlled his spiritual energy, reached in to touch Wei Ying’s spiritual core.

Nothing.

Lan Wangji’s hand clenched, pulling in a handful of Wei Ying’s clothes. He could feel his own breath begin to accelerate. Wei Ying’s cultivation was a match for Lan Wangji’s own. How could Wei Ying lack a golden core?

Wei Ying had bit his lip so hard he bled. Lan Wangji raised his other hand instinctively, to wipe the blood and tears away.

“Hanguang Jun,” came a voice from outside, and the door slid open.

The junior disciple holding the tray with their dinner froze on the threshold. Fortunately, Wei Ying was facing away from the door, so the tears on his face would not be visible. Lan Wangji could not begin to imagine what his own showed.

The disciple opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“Place it quickly and go,” Lan Wangji said, his voice harsh even in his own ears. The disciple leapt forward to obey, practically diving across the room and setting the tray on the table. Her sleeve brushed against Chenqing as she withdrew, sending it clattering to the floor. She winced and reached for it.

“Leave it,” Lan Wangji commanded. The disciple gave the quickest bow he had ever seen and fled the jingshi, banging the door closed behind her.

Wei Ying gave a wet laugh. Lan Wangji’s hand was still on his face. “Lan Zhan, that disciple surely thought you were in the middle of ravishing me. By morning, every junior in the Lan sect will be talking about Hanguang Jun and his secret lover.”

Lan Wangji drew Wei Ying into the circle of his arms and crushed him to his chest.

“Wei Ying,” he said into the side of his head. He clutched at him, dug one hand into his hair. “Wei Ying.”

“It’s all right, Lan Zhan, really,” Wei Ying said, voice hollow. “It’s not so terribly bad. I’m practically used to it at this point. But you see why I can’t take up the sword anymore.” Wei Ying was still babbling. “Do you see, Lan Zhan?”

“Enough talking,” Lan Wangji said. His mind was beginning to seek causes and effects. “Wen Zhuliu?”

“I thought you said enough talking,” Wei Ying deflected.

The Wen soldiers had said things that hadn’t made sense to Lan Wangji. They’d said the heir to the Jiang sect had been burned down into a mediocre person. The pieces rearranged themselves, and Lan Wangji spat, “Jiang Cheng. Wen Zhuliu, and Jiang Cheng.”

“Enough talking,” Wei Ying whispered, but his hands finally came up and wrapped around him. He finally took hold of Lan Wangji. And he began to cry. It was quiet. Listless. Unlike everything Wei Ying was.

Lan Wangji held him until he stopped.

He didn’t realize tears were on his own face until they dampened Wei Ying’s shoulder and he felt the coolness.

When eventually they pulled back, Wei Ying was barely on his feet. Lan Wangji walked him over to the table. He food had gone cold, but he needed to eat. Wei Ying picked up Chenqing and placed it back on the corner of the table with a shaking hand. Lan Wangji sat beside him instead of across from him, an arm still wrapped around his waist. He did not know when he would be willing to let go of Wei Ying again.

When Wei Ying finished eating, he realized he would have to.

“I will play Clarity for you,” Lan Wangji said, though it came out more stifled than he intended.

Wei Ying shook his head ruefully. “I’ve taken you too off-guard, Lan Zhan. I’m sure you could if my life depended on it, but you don’t need to play it tonight.”

Perhaps that was best. Lan Wangji did not feel even remotely clear himself. He shifted so he could draw Wei Ying back against him, back pressed against Lan Wangji’s chest. As if it were possible to hold him close enough to make this all right.

“Ah, Lan Zhan, I didn’t know you were going to be quite so possessive of my spiritual power,” Wei Ying said – joking even now, joking already. He tipped his head back on Lan Zhan’s shoulder, showing his exhaustion. “Ah, well, now you know the truth. You can send me back to Lotus Pier tomorrow with a clear conscience.”

Lan Wangji shook his head. Slowly, several times. How could Wei Ying say such false things, even in jest? Lang Wangji cupped a hand under his chin, angling his face up slightly.

Wei Ying stared up at him. “Lan Zhan …”

Lan Wangji leaned down and kissed him.

It was brief and light. Lan Wangji could taste the whisper of baijiu on his breath. Then it was over.

Wei Ying stared up at him, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, lips hanging ever so slightly agape.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji said. “You said you would allow me to help you.”

“Oh,” he said, as if he were truly surprised. His chin drifted back down, and he stared across the jingshi unseeing in thought. Then he took one of Lan Wangji’s hands in both of his own and raised the back of it to his lips. “Thank you, Lan Zhan.”

It was barely seven thirty, long before even the Lan sect’s curfew, but soon Wei Ying was starting to drowse in his arms. Lan Wangji wanted to continue to hold him, but he had been exhausted even when he stepped off Shuoyue. He needed to rest.

Lan Wangji might have carried him to the bed, but he woke and was already pulling himself up before Lan Wangji could arrange it. Instead, he walked at his side, supporting him.

Wei Ying slept the sleep of the bone-weary. Lan Wangji sat beside him and watched. This was worse than anything he’d imagined. But now he understood, and he could stop wasting energy on the false problem and help Wei Ying with the true one.

Wei Ying had dark circles under his eyes and alcohol in his blood and no golden core, but he was safe in Lan Wangji’s bed at Cloud Recesses. As long as that was true, hope was not gone.

part two

[eriisaam]

Old scrapped concept of Teru, the missingno summoner.

His design arguably didn't change a whole lot in the overall idea, but he did shift in clothes from time to time, alternating between this "lazy" look and his "I had the spoons to dress more fomally" one, occasionally seen in my more recent stuff (in particular with Reinhardt). He still dresses like this from time to time, just after a while, I've shifted on revolving everyone's wardrobes around anyways, so his "bare minimum" clothing style isn't seen quite as often or consistently lately. He also got floofier in bangs more cuz I was better equipped to draw him with more details than changing all that much in overall idea otherwise.

Character details under the cut.

---

He and Kyo originally hailed from the World of Pokemon, and the two were subjected to the same intense, cruel experimentations that left them in the state they were and with the powers they had. While they originally attributed this to Team Rocket, eventually it was revealed that the ones responsible for these experiments spanned across multiple worlds, primarily hailing from the World of Zoanthropes, a world far away from Zenith's scope until Thorr's and Loki's interventions.

Whereas Kyo was rescued eventually partially though his own resourcefulness and his time-travelling supports, their efforts bought Teru enough time for his Breidablik to summon him into a new Zenith, where he was left scrambling to pick up the pieces of his traumas while having to also suddenly take up the helm as his Zenith's designated summoner. This ended up going terribly, as while he barely had the time to recover and fully grasp his sudden physical changes or losing the majority of his pokemon, the Garon of his Conquest-flavored world kidnapped Teru in mistaking him for Alfonse, subjected him to cruel and abusive treatment in trying and failing to get Teru to use his "Askran" powers to his own benefit. In the process, he fell in love with Ryoma when the samurai recognized Teru's circumstances under Nohr and felt pity and protective of him, only for Garon's forces and Corrin's overall inability to stop him to lead to his death, right in front of Teru. After the constant abuse, broken promises, failures to help him, and his pre-existing stress, Ryoma's death became the catalyst for his powers as a missingno to go unhinged and haywire, causing the total destruction and collapse of that World of Fates. When the events of Book III eventually caught up to him, he was able to flush out and retreat most of the heroes in the world, but was unable to escape the Heart's Rite despite trying to evacuate much of his own pokemon into his convoy. His unstable genetics rendered him unable to be killed by the Heart's Rite, but painfully aware it claimed the life of one of his pokemon, and following the total collapse of his Zenith and the rise of his Lif and Thrasir, he wound up going haywire once more in causing his world to collapse in totality, killing Lif, Thrasir and Hel in the process.

When he was summoned to Erin's Zenith (the primary setting next to Sparrow's), it was while he was still trapped in his fully monstrous form as a direct aftermath of all his traumas combining into one, and it took Erin steeling herself to look past his grotesque and monstrous state, combined with her empathy and stubborn will to help ease him enough to take a human form again that their friendship cemented, and he's since made efforts in his time to mostly retire as a lower-key summoner to self-heal and grieve. Much of his time as summoner was spent finally having the room to breathe and time to process the sheer collective amount of shit he's been through (while the other summoners took charge), and over time, he was better able to control and realize his powers while better processing his past, albeit still sharing far too much shame to be a more engaged summoner even in his better states.

His power revolves around not just his role as a pokemon trainer, but also his powers from being a missingno. While he primarily focuses his efforts in his semi-retirement to raise and train pokemon for the enrichment of Zenith and other worlds in his road of self-healing and atonement, his powers as a missingno is a fluctuating mess that can make him simultaneously the most powerful and dangerous of all summoners in concept, but also the most fragile and unpredictable as well. He can cause all manner of things that outright break the foundations of physics, but because of the unpredictable and unstable nature of his powers, it also deeply impacted his form and health, causing him to randomly exhibit body-horror esque minor or major transformations, and especially left him chronically ill and struggling to get by without his supports or the other summoners closely monitoring him. It's also due to his illnesses that he's constantly pressured to get rest (a request he doesn't always fulfill), and leads him to sometimes dress the laziest and simplest out of all the summoners depending on how many spoons he has to muster the effort on what to dress up in. He laments constantly of his life prior to his massive spike in illnesses and weaknesses, when he originally was a trained kimono dancer in a long line of kimono dancers in his family, which still reflects on his deep affinity for Johtonian myths and legendaries. Even if he's seen significantly better days in the present, there's still times he's still haunted by the past, such as his aversion to taking charge with Alfonse and co, or his trauma leading to him to grow out his hair (so as not to be mistaken for Alfonse again).

His power as summoner revolve heavily around his pokemon, able to not only substitute the typical rules and restrictions to mega evolving pokemon, but in some cases, outright causing new ones in empowering his pokemon who previously don't have recorded mega evolutions. One such case was his shaymin, Papri, whose bond with Teru was so unwaveringly strong, that Breidablik can power her into a mega evolution form that is far more elaborate even by conventional mega evolution standards, and in absence of a mega stone or core. He is also inherently capable of sometimes influencing the area around him or other creatures, but he's utterly terrified of the unpredictability of trying willingly to do such, fearing drastic and dangerous results. Often, this winds up being entirely accidental, or something he refuses to even try, knowing and guessing the outcome. (Such as him accidentally cloning Papri, leading to the hoard of unusual baby shaymins she takes on as her children, or refusing to clone legendary items like Siegfried or Fujin Yumi, knowing it's highly impractical).

[padme-amitabha]

Is Anakin and Vader the same person?

I think I have talked about this before but I’ll reiterate the main points.

Of course they are the same person at different points in life. I don’t choose to follow Disney’s interpretation of anything about Star Wars. They hire writers and pay them to write their own fanfiction and interpretation and it’s far from George’s vision so I don’t see any reason to. Only 1-6 movies are canon to me with few exceptions such as 2003 Clone Wars and a few legends material but I’ll always put more emphasis on the movies.

Now from Revenge of the Sith movie we see Anakin become Vader (and by that I mean undergoing a surgery and being put into the suit). While the mask is being lowered we can see the fear in his eyes and his face is still recognizable. Fast forward 23 years and there’s no reason to believe he’s a different person. The only time he talks about his name is when Luke brings it up and he says “that name no longer has any meaning for me” not “I destroyed Anakin” or something similar to that. He is completely right because obviously it doesn’t hold any meaning for him - everyone who called him and knew him by that name (Shmi, Obi-Wan and Padmé) were all dead and his master called him Vader. And he had gotten used to the name in over two decades. Also, Palpatine probably preferred that he distance himself from his past hence referring to Luke as “the offspring of Anakin Skywalker.” Vader wasn’t a personality; it was just a new name he went by and since the mention of his real name brought back unpleasant memories he tried not to think of himself as the same person as a coping mechanism. This is why Vader tells Luke it’s too late for him to redeem himself - because he knows he commited some terrible deeds and hurt his loved ones and he can’t ever take that back. If he wasn’t Anakin, he wouldn’t feel that guilt or remorse for Anakin’s wife and mentor.

It’s the same as Padmé in TPM really - we see Padmé first as Queen Amidala who is a regal authoritative figure and then we see her true self when she’s in disguise.

Anakin winced, then quickly picked up another holograph, this one showing Padmé a couple of years later, wearing official robes and standing between two older and similarly robed Legislators. He looked back at the first holo, then to this one, noting that Padmé’s expression seemed much more severe here. “My first day as an Apprentice Legislator,” Padmé explained.

Then, as if she was reading his mind, she added, “See the difference?” Anakin studied the holograph a moment longer, then looked up and laughed, seeing Padmé wearing that same long and stern expression. She laughed as well, then squeezed his shoulder and went back to her packing.

Anakin put the holographs down side by side and looked at them for a long, long time. Two sides of the woman he loved.

This is from the AOTC novelization and this can be applied to Anakin as well. (More about similarities between Darth Vader and Queen Amidala in this post.) Just like Queen Amidala is really Padmé Naberrie, in the same way Darth Vader is really just Anakin Skywalker.

The reason why he has a different demeanor in OT is mostly due to his age and because he had years to adapt to his new persona. Vader in ROTS didn’t immediately become all stoic and impassive - he got very emotional on hearing Padmé’s death just like he would as Anakin. Vader isn’t some kind of demon possessing Anakin - Vader is Anakin after he has lost everything and he isn’t holding back as he did as a Jedi. It sounds very poetic to state both Anakin and Padmé died on the same day but Anakin truly didn’t though. Anakin lived on for years and died a redeemed man on the death star. The ROTS novelization supports this and it was approved by Lucas so it’s authentic to me.

And there is one blazing moment in which you finally understand that there was no dragon. That there was no Vader. That there was only you. Only Anakin Skywalker.

That it was all you. Is you.

Only you.

You did it.

You killed her.

You killed her because, finally, when you could have saved her, when you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself …

I do think it was Anakin who choked Padmé on Mustafar even though some people like to blame it on “Vader”. Anakin was unhinged on Mustafar but even in the beginning of ROTS, he was beginning to show some aggression. Though people complain the first part of ROTS is slow and too much happens in the latter half and he falls too suddenly, that’s not the case. This moment has been building up from the very first movie to the first half of ROTS. The fall isn’t just that one action of attacking Mace Windu, he was gradually falling to the dark side for years starting from his mother’s death and he only made the actual decision in the rumination scene. That’s when he finally sheds a tear and makes the conscious decision to join the dark side.

For the record, I think conflict has always been a part of Anakin Skywalker. The prequels portray him in a negative light, particularly in the last two films. Anakin in the movies is a very, very flawed individual and even meant to be unlikable at times. He struggles with his emotions, he struggles to communicate with others and he struggle to fit in the order. I wouldn’t say he was mentally stable either - he could be unpredictable and his actions depend on his mood. But the movies also show the good aspects of him, especially about people he cared about. He even starts off as a kid with a good heart. The conflict and his flaws cause him to fall to the dark side and his good qualities (like selflessness and loyalty when it comes to family) ultimately redeem him. 

So I don’t think “Anakin” was the good side of him and “Vader” was the dark side. Vader is Anakin after he has lost everything he cared about and since he is not a Jedi anymore he is no longer required to hold back on anything. Ambition and desire to rule the galaxy is often associated with “Vader” but I think people forget Anakin was just as ambitious and in ROTS being denied the rank of Master deeply upsets him and increases his resentment towards the Jedi. He admitted that he wanted more in ROTS even though he knows he shouldn’t. He also told Padmé in AOTC that he would prefer dictatorship over democracy so it’s not like his ideals changed either. Vader until he discovered he had a son had no interest in ruling the galaxy. Later on he essentially offered Luke the same choice he gave Padmé on Mustafar. From the conversation in AOTC, it seems he’s more dissatisfied with the system and being from a lawless and harsh world he sees dictatorship as the solution. While he doesn’t want to actively take part in it, he wants to enforce the system which is exactly what he does later on (and perhaps he preferred leaving the actual ruling bit to Padmé or Luke). I don’t see Vader as “evil” - I mean the only times he killed people were for failure and he did keep Admiral Piett alive since he proved to be competent. Vader in OT (when Luke isn’t concerned) is just doing his job and punishing inefficient people who aren’t letting him do his job. He only serves the emperor and does his bidding. After Luke rejects his offer, Vader still plans to seek him out but in ROTJ his resolve definitely grew weaker and it’s more like he’s imploring him to reconsider than being forceful. 

Anakin as we have seen in AOTC is very much capable of mass murder (and confessed that he felt they deserved it) so should he really be defined as the good side? You could even argue as Vader he killed people for legitimate reasons whereas Anakin killed defenseless people when he was blinded by rage. And even in ROTS he kills Dooku as revenge. I’m not saying Anakin is evil (that would be grossly oversimplying things); I am saying he was a complex character. The reason why he turned out the way he is has already been explored in the prequels but I also believe it’s a combination of nature and nurture. Anakin as a child has a good heart, wants to help others and free the slaves but in TPM script/novelization he lashes out at a Rodian who claims he won the race by cheating, meaning he didn’t handle accusation very well. It might be dismissed as a childish reaction but we see he struggled to control his temper in later years as well. A person has both good and bad qualities and that’s the case with Anakin here, though his negative traits were expressed more. But the prequels are all about exploring his downfall so it was necessary to highlight them. 

Anakin to me was never a “hero” who fell to the dark side due to circumstances; he was a complex character who made some hard choices. If the roles were reversed and Padmé was the Jedi with Anakin’s life at risk, I don’t think she would go that far to commit murder. Sure Palpatine is very manipulative but at the same time he understood that it was in Anakin’s nature to be manipulated very easily. You need to have some form of fear, insecurity and resentment in you for someone to utilize them. 

I blame TCW, Rebels and the fanboyish Marvel comics for dissociating Anakin from Vader. “Anakin Skywalker was weak, I destroyed him” again makes him very one-dimensional than accepting the fact that people can be morally complex. Not to mention the Marvel comics’ tendency to make him react violently and unnecessarily ruthless to prove he isn’t Anakin drastically reduces his character depth for me. It may also have to do with the fact that movie Anakin was not well-received so they are trying to distance him from Darth Vader, whom fanboys worship. Anakin’s story is incomplete without Vader - he made a choice to embrace the dark side and sacrifice his morality so like the tragic hero he is, he has to suffer and face the consequences for his actions. Similarly, Vader’s story is incomplete without Anakin - without Anakin he is a faceless man. Sure he’s mysterious but without his past we would not know what a complex character he was or sympathise with him.

If Vader wasn’t really Anakin, he wouldn’t have felt remorse for his actions or believe it was too late for him. If he wasn’t Anakin he wouldn’t refer to Luke as his son and if he was so desperate to erase any trace of Anakin, he would have definitely killed Luke as he was a reminder of his past. It was Vader who saved Luke in the end and while it is fine to figuratively say “Anakin was back”, taking it literally undermines his sacrifice. It takes a lot to come back from the dark side, face your demons and after being that way for decades, attempt to redeem yourself when you believe you’re far too gone. He redeemed himself as an old man after a long life full of sorrow and regrets, which also sounds much better than saying “he was evil no longer” and that “Anakin was back”. It makes everything seem black and white and the prequels were essentially all about exploring the gray area. Luke didn’t even know “Anakin” and really where was Anakin when “Vader” cut off his hand? Or fought him? Vader’s inner struggle was between accepting he was far too gone and going on as he did for years, and accepting change, letting it go and forgiving himself for his son’s sake - not a struggle between two personalities fighting to take control. If they were different personalities, Anakin wouldn’t have almost all of Vader’s qualities; he wouldn’t be morally conflicted both as Anakin and Vader. George said the reason why he later replaced his force ghost as a younger version was because he stopped being Anakin after he fell to the dark side and I have to say that’s the only time I disagree with George because Anakin in prequels still had dark tendencies so I do believe Vader never stopped being Anakin hence the original version with the old force ghost made more sense to me and the new version does rob some of the depth from his character. I’m sure George has his reasons - he might have wished to preserve the black and white simplicity of the OT but after the complexity of the prequels, it seems more appropriate for the saga to have a more imperfect, realistic ending. In retrospect, it seems to me they are very much the same person when you study his personality and consider his whole life, which was full of ups and downs.

[your-turn-to-role]

new opinions of the cerberus assembly (etgw spoilers!!)

somewhat inspired by the conversations the other day, bc it’s reminded me i have a lot to say about these motherfuckers

let’s start with the obvious:

Master Trent Ikithon, Archmage of Civil Influence (Chaotic Evil Human)

Book Text: [Trent is respected as the acclaimed Propagandist of the empire and the third oldest member of the assembly. Once an instructor at the Soltryce Academy, he only returns every few years to collect young students for his experiments in the mental conditioning that he calls “awakening.” Many of these students go mad and are locked away, but those who endure become zealots for the assembly and join the Volstrucker, an elite group of arcane thugs commonly known as Scourgers, who perform the assembly’s dirtiest work under Trent’s direction.]

Most of this we knew. I hate this guy. Though, as a point of interest - Caleb’s for sure not the first person this has happened to. They account for a certain number of aspiring Volstrucker never completing the program, Caleb was just another statistic. Which means somewhere in Vergessen is a lot of other people with the same backstory who never managed to escape. That’s, something worth looking into, maybe.

Martinet Ludinus Da’leth, Archmage of Domestic Protections (Lawful Evil Elf)

[Ludinus is the oldest and only original member of the assembly, as well as the master of warfare and conflict. Charged with overhauling the military structure of the Dwendalian Empire, Ludinus directed the construction of the garrisons on the Xhorhasian border and often oversees their maintenance. He was one of the mages who survived the destruction of Molaesmyr and fled to Bysaes Tyl, but he saw the opportunity to achieve greatness within the empire and left his culture behind to continue his arcane pursuits. Wise, if emotionless, he bears a deep hatred for the Kryn Dynasty and spares no effort gathering information on their weaknesses and secrets. Ludinus spends most of his time developing arcane weapons of war and shoring up the military might of the empire, while subtly challenging the leadership of Crown Marshal Damurag.]

This guy’s old. That's the scariest thing about him really. Like, this guy's been in the empire since it was half its current size. This guy saw the destruction of Molaesmyr, and knew many of its residents. But he also rejected that society, purely for his own ends. He's at least 400 years old, more likely at least 500, and for the past 3-4 centuries has been focusing entirely on magic and warfare. That's a long time to hone those skills. Ludinus may say it's hard to compare power in the Assembly, but if I had to pick one of them for an end game boss, it would be him, no question. Trent's more of a wild card, sure, but he's only like 60, 70 years old. He's a baby compared to Da'leth. Keep an eye on this dude, and under no circumstances trust him.

Lady Vess de Rogna, Archmage of Antiquity (Neutral Evil Half-Elf)

[A public recluse for most of her life, Vess is both a brilliant mage and dedicated historian. She assumed this post after replacing her criminal predecessor, Lady Delilah Briarwood. As an instructor at the Soltryce Academy for over two decades, Vess has studied and unraveled a number of historical mysteries and pre-Calamity riddles — and hoarded some of the spoils for herself. Always eager to pursue forgotten lore and artifacts of eons past, Vess has been known to quietly vanish to Xhorhas for weeks at a time, returning with fewer guards and more uncovered secrets.]

Canon confirmation that this is who took over from Delilah Briarwood, and from what we’ve seen, they’re rather similar people. They're both scientists and historians, ruthlessly efficient, far more concerned with what they can learn and what they can do than what's good or safe for those around them. Liable to be found breaking the law in the name of science and progress. At least Vess has lasted longer than her predecessor.

Headmaster Oremid Hass, Archmage of Cultivation (Lawful Neutral Earth Genasi)

[The current headmaster of the Hall of Erudition in Zadash, Oremid is tasked with watching and grooming the next generation of mages and arcane specialists outside Rexxentrum. While he himself is a gentle soul who adores animals, he puts on the façade of a strict man with no sense of humor, which is further enhanced by the elemental influence of his earth genasi blood. He teaches students that failure is not an option, and that emotion is a barrier to one’s true ability. Equally feared, respected, and privately loathed by the students (and some instructors), Oremid personally dismisses those who break under his school’s curriculum and heaps joyous praise on those who endure their training.]

So, I've had teachers like this. And they stick in your mind, because, even a decade later, I still have a hard time getting over their instilled fear of failure. I can believe that, in general terms, Oremid's not a terrible person. I think he looks the other way on a lot of things, which precludes him from ever qualifying as good in my books, but he hasn't committed any major acts of torture or murder himself. Still though. You don't teach like that if you view your students as people. You teach like that if you view your students as potential assets. So like.... not as bad as some of his colleagues. Potentially someone they could work with if they had to. But still probably someone to stay away from.

Headmaster Zivan Margolin, Archmage of Conscription (Lawful Neutral Human)

[Zivan Margolin inherited the position of headmaster from his father, the late Jorma Margolin. Zivan has been the headmaster of the Soltryce Academy in Rexxentrum for nearly twenty years. Calm, patient, and quietly imposing, Zivan walks the halls of the Academy with a keen eye for talent. He is in charge of the curriculum and also watches for any latent powers that may be worth grooming as future allies of the assembly, dangers to be monitored, or prospective minds for Ikithon to conscribe into the Volstrucker. Zivan has rarely had the opportunity to demonstrate his full power, for he is typically busied with keeping the peace between the feuding members of the assembly. Those who have witnessed his true might, however, now know that his words are backed by some of the most powerful magics within the Cerberus Assembly.]

I think @lostsometime said it best, having the archmage of conscription be in charge of your elite magic school really sums up everything wrong with the empire. Like, if that's out in the open, your problems are unfixable. Get a new government. Jeez.

Master Doolan Tversky, Archmage of Dysology (Chaotic Neutral Gnome)

[The second-oldest member of the assembly, Doolan is in charge of the study and understanding of abnormal creatures and deviants of arcane creation that might threaten the empire’s way of life. She is an absentminded yet brilliant gnome who is obsessed with all beasts, aberrations, and creatures of legend. Doolan imports creatures from around the world to study, disassemble, and use in her attempts to revolutionize magical practices. She resents the Library of the Cobalt Soul, as her reputation has caused them to bar her from their facilities. She wishes to catalog the unstudied horrors of Xhorhas and has covertly obtained the services of the Myriad to retrieve new specimens.]

Now, Doolan is fascinating to me, not because I think she's a good person, but because she's just so delightfully weird. She's probably done some evil as fuck shit but she's also a gremlin of a gnome who loves weird fucked up arcane experiments and magical meteors that created eldritch ducks and all sorts of bizarre things like that. I'd love to see more of her, because there's always room in fantasy stories for more weird morally ambiguous old ladies who are banned from libraries on the grounds of "is about as likely to eat the books as she is to read them" and "last time we let her in here she somehow combined five forbidden rituals and created a new species of demon that haunts the halls of the rexxentrum archive spreading toxic slime everywhere and we can't figure out what it wants or how to make it go away".

Lord Athesias Uludan, Archmage of Diplomatic Union (Neutral Good Human)

[Athesias’s charm and bombastic personality serve him well as a diplomat. His duty is to foster a positive relationship with people of power both within and beyond the borders of the empire. He was originally one of the most effective instructors at the Soltryce Academy, but his penchant for spectacle and his rampant narcissism made him a difficult ally to trust with state secrets. When the office of Diplomatic Union opened, he was quickly and quietly reassigned. Athesias finds great pleasure in ruining or usurping the plans of his counterpart in the Crown’s employ, Emissary Lord Zeddan Graf.]

We’ve talked a bit about Uludan already - the Gilderoy Lockhart of the group for sure. Though I’m sure he has layers to him, so I’d be interested to find out what exactly they are.

And, saving the most interesting for last,

Baroness Jenna Iresor, Archmage of Industry (True Neutral Doppelganger)

[One of the younger members of the assembly, Jenna is known for her business acumen and her extravagant lifestyle. By hiding her nature as a doppelganger and using memory-altering magics at a young age to fabricate a false past, Jenna constructed her human persona from the ground up, leveraging her powers of deception to essentially write herself into history as a Clovis Concord expatriate. She helps oversee central guild business in Rexxentrum under Guildmaster Kai Arness, and helps Exchequer Aethia Drooze organize the collection of tithes through starostas across the empire.]

I am, insanely curious about how a doppelganger ended up in the Cerberus Assembly. She’s definitely ambitious for sure, doppelgangers already have a fair bit of innate magic - they’re natural shapeshifters and have a fair amount of psychic powers (like reading minds of anyone who happens to be near them), but to get here she had to be extremely committed. Which means she probably has plans for this position, or had plans that she’s already put into motion. Very interested what those are, especially for the archmage of industry.

[galaxywhump]

For Wren 4, 7 and 17; for Daniel 2, 18 and 8 (don't really know what SAT is, but seems like some kind of school exam?) -faewhump

@faewhump thank you!

Wren:

4. What’s your OC’s response to being asked for money by a homeless person?

He gives them money and offers to buy them a hot meal.

7. Realistically, could your OC (in their normal circumstances- i.e. at thier own house/battlecamp/spaceship etc.) keep a small child alive for a week if they had to?  A Dog?  A Houseplant? A rock with a  smiley face painted on?

If he had no other choice he probably could, but he’d be extremely stressed the entire time. He wouldn’t be able to take care of a houseplant though, he’d probably water it too often.

17. How does your OC sabotage themselves?

How doesn’t he?

He isolates himself. He feels the need to be around people, but he always worries that people don’t necessarily want to be around him. So outings with his squad are okay, especially if they involve alcohol that helps him relax, but other than that? Nope. 

Daniel:

2. What are your OC’s food preferences (flavors/textures/spiciness/calories/ when and how they eat) and how did they get that way?

Growing up he was used to terribly bland food - idk how common it is outside of Poland but here dinners usually consist of some kind of meat, potatoes and flavorless boiled vegetables that no one likes but you gotta eat them because you gotta eat vegetables; that’s what I imagine he used to eat with his family. Then he left for school in the city and he became a huge foodie, going with his friends to interesting places to try new flavors. On SV-240 he’s had more than enough time to experiment with cooking, and he usually makes something with interesting combinations of flavors and textures, very often quite spicy.

8. If your OC had to take the S.A.T. tomorrow with one night to prep, how would they do?  both emotionally and academically.

Oh, that would be terrible, he doesn’t exactly cultivate school/academic knowledge on SV-240. And he’d be frustrated and quick to blame the entire education system for his failure.

18. What’s the trashiest item in your OC’s wardrobe, when was the last time they wore it and why do they still have it?

I adore this question.

Berkeley regularly gifts him absolutely terrible t-shirts that he stuffs deep in his closet - they’re always workout related (’friends don’t let friends skip leg day’ and similar delightful quotes). But the trashiest and the one Daniel always forgets to just burn until nothing is left is one of these bad boys:

[malecsecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, @thelightofthebane!

Happy holidays to you and I hope you like this! Anyways, I've always had a penchant for Magnus as a god and this is the closest I got to lmao

Read on AO3

*****

The Universe Doesn’t Love

The universe doesn’t love.

It exists, an omnipotent bystander. A guardian of some sort, and watching over the goings on of one hundred billion galaxies, two hundred fifty billion stars, and three trillion planets makes it easier for on objective approach. If the cosmos is the physical, tangible thing of all that exists, the universe is its sentience. Two things, completely different but just as the same.

The universe looks within itself and sees everything ebb and flow by some meticulous design. The universe may be old, just as old as the cosmos it governs, but it is not <i>the being</i> above all. As all encompassing as it may be, the universe is still predetermined by a power even greater than itself—chance. 

If the universe believes in something, it’s chance. The coming about of all the forces in existence to bring about <i>something</i>. It is how the universe and the cosmos itself came to be. Just the small particles that happen to be the foundation of <i>everything</i>, decaying and combining as the entirety of this mass become colder and colder and colder and then—first light breaks through. It could’ve not happened that way. One seemingly inconsequential thing could have changed in the most minuscule of ways and everything would have been different.

Chance is powerful. It sits on a throne above the universe, seemingly invisible, but starkly everywhere.

It is when the universe is deciding how close to brush a meteor to the atmosphere of one of its minuscule planets called earth that chance exerts its power. The universe peers into the galaxies, solar systems, planets it governs, deeper than it usually does when making decisions like this, and somehow, a human stands out from the rest. 

A minuscule thing. A singular cell in the body of a cosmos that is billions of years old. Shining brightly like a beacon, the mere existence of him telling the universe to do <i>something</i>. 

<i>Feel something. </i>

The universe resists. Earth is small, barely there, inconsequential. There are five hundred different earths spread across a hundred billion galaxies, and this specific one is decaying fast, anyway. There’s no point. 

But the beacon is <i>ethereal</i>, his soul singing like something begging to be found. The universe doesn’t even think this human know within himself what his soul have been wanting so strongly.

The universe doesn’t love. It’s too subjective, too human. 

But—maybe it would like to feel. 

It plucks the soul and ushers it softly, changing the angle of his trajectory. It takes a star and breaks it apart to its fundamental elements—hope, joy, peace of mind—and drapes it over this one human soul. It gives him a chance at contentment.

And the universe, for once in it’s billions of years of merely existing, watches with anticipation.

The universe watches as the human draws his arrow, feet drawn shoulder-width apart, right hand pulling the string of his bow taut, left hand shakily holding a bow that’s far too big for him to use. 

It is in the middle of watching two galaxies come into collision with each other (always a beautiful sight to behold, and the universe almost always watches) when it notices the tremble of the human’s hands against his instrument of choice. Curious, it abandons Helena and Messir’s bright coalescence and focuses on earth instead.

<i>I can do it</i>, the human boy whispers to himself, <i>I can do it. </i>

If the universe could smile, it would. It feels how much the boy loves his bow and arrow, like it’s an extension of his heart from behind the ribcage of his chest. He grips it the way a musician would hold his violin, lovingly, endearingly. To the boy it is an instrument, not a weapon.

The human takes a deep breath, his exhale passing and brushing the hand that softly rests against his mouth. Seconds stretch as he waits quietly, patiently, until time finally tips and his fingers gently loosens its soft hold.

The arrow sails in a slight curve, the stored energy from the full drawn bow propelling it forward like a missile seeking its target—and then it lands, aim terribly off. 

The human lowers his bow, taking stock of his failure, shoulders sagging minutely. Dejection fills the color of his eyes, and it changes the way he holds is body. He is so young, yet carries the weight of the world, the universe thinks. It feels something stir in its center, an emotion that he’s seen on many humans before. It’s a deep ache, sullen, heavy, like a sorriness that is hard to shake off.

<i>Oh</i>, the universe realizes, remembering the word from a conversation he unwittingly overheard from two humans walking the street of Florence, <i>Pity</i>. 

The universe is just about to revel in the feeling of it when it sees the human suddenly holding his head high, already nocking another arrow onto his bow, and aiming for another. The disappointment that seemed to permeate his eyes just a few seconds ago gives way to brazen determination, like there’s nothing in existence that could stop him from making this shot. The universe regards the boy and his unyielding persistence, agape. It feels wonder within its very center.

The human doesn’t make the next shot.

Nor the next. 

Nor the one after that.

But the he continues on. Over and over again, refusing to give up.

And the universe stays and watches over him, hopeful.

An arrow flies across the room on the fiftieth try, and lands, dead center.

The universe stirs, the realization of it dawning on it slowly but surely. 

The human stares wide-eyed at the arrow impaled on the bright red of the target, unbelieving. A small laugh bubbles from his chest, rising like air to his throat, and it escapes into the air, light and musical, tired and relieved. He shoots both hands into the air in rejoice, jumping up and down, <i>yes, yes, yes, I did it! </i> If the universe could jump around in joy it would, but it can’t, so it makes the northern lights in Churchill dance in the sky instead. 

It flourishes joyously, akin to a galactic version of an unbelieving laugh.

The universe decides never to feel pity for this human again. 

This human has a strong heart. 

There is no need for pity. 

The universe finally hears the name it’s been hoping to find.

<i>I’m Alexander</i>, he says, hand outstretched, and it meets the hand of another boy, blonde, blue eyes. Jace, the other says. This other human’s soul also sings, but differently. There’s something about this chance meeting that feels cosmic, that feels like it’s exerted by the powers of chance, and the universe wonders whether Alexander and this boy are two halves of a whole. Their souls both want to be found, and maybe, with this machination of chance, they already have. 

The universe is introduced to a new human emotion that day.

Heartache.

The universe doesn’t understand much about humanity.

Humans have been fortunate enough to sit at the pinnacle of evolution, and this has made them smart. Sentient. Self-aware. They are also tightly governed by time, yet another concept that they’ve made for themselves. They have many systems of belief that it’s impossible to take stock of it all. The universe doesn’t fully understand spirituality, and it is completely lost on the mechanics of religion. It doesn’t appreciate prejudice, and abhors disparity. Class systems, colonization, slavery, warfare—all concepts it could not parse through if it could. It has witnessed civilizations wipe each other off the face of the earth in defense of principles that is intangible, non-existent, human-made. For a while, the universe looks at earth and only sees the muck of disaster and despair. 

Until it doesn’t.

Until the universe looks deep enough to see pockets of goodness where malevolence exists. People fighting for the good of other people. Community in the face of tragedy and catastrophe. A high school student helping his neighbor carry groceries from her car. Big and small acts of kindness that doesn’t take away the bad, but dilutes it. The universe appreciates this in humans. 

For as much as they fail, they try.

They try to be good. 

Alexander, despite the poison of his parents, tries to be good, and the universe sees this so starkly in the way his soul gleams like the sun of a solar system. He is fiercely protective of his sister. He is the catch all to the mistakes of his adopted brother. He is sacrificial, almost to a fault. And the universe knows Alexander is not immaculate, but despite what has been ingrained into him by his environment, he truly tries. 

<i>This is as much as I can go</i>, the universe hears Alexander say, breathless, like he’s been running, <i>I can’t take you any farther than here. </i>

The girl looks back at him with fear in her eyes, the seelie markings along her neck glinting in the moonlight. <i>Why did you help me? </i> 

The forest sings as Alexander keeps his silence, thoughts swirling in his mind. He finally answers.

<i>You are not your parents</i>, he says, and says so like he plucked the words out from his very own heart, <i>their sins are not yours. And I won’t see you burn. </i>

The girl mourns, shameful in the way she hangs her head. 

<i>You’re just</i>—Alec struggles, eyes glassy, <i>you’re just a child. How can I let a child die? </i>

They both stand there in the dark, grieving their own losses, of childhoods taken by circumstance, of parents who wants to see their offspring molded in their image. They look at themselves and find a person they don’t even recognize anymore.

<i>Go</i>, Alexander finally says, sniffing.

The girl passes the back of her hand against her cheeks. <i>How about you? Won’t they punish you? </i>

Alexander shakes his head, smile bitter on his lips. <i>I’m used to it. </i>

The thank you Alexander gets is not through words, but through magic, a soft spell draped over his body like a veil. He stares agape, wondrously watching the golden wisps flutter around him. 

<i>One day, you will not be used to punishment, but love</i>, she murmurs, an incantation akin to a prayer. Alexander feels it curl like tendrils into his heart, where it makes its home. With a final parting smile, the girl runs as fast as her feet can take her. 

Just as she disappears into the other side of the woods, he hears the footsteps of the soldiers who have been on their tail since they broke out of the guard. He doesn’t see them as much as he feels the brute force on his arms being wrenched behind his back, wrists bound by cuffs. 

<i>Alexander Gideon Lightwood, you are under arrest for insubordination</i>, one of them says. Alexander doesn’t say anything. He already knows the punishment that fits the crime, knows the runes that will be used to coax out discipline in young mutinous shadow hunters. 

<i>One day, you will not be used to punishment, but love. </i>

Alexander holds onto those words like a life raft.

The universe is a billion years old. 

It has seen civilizations rise from the earth and crumble into dirt. It has watched as stars are born and reborn in endless cycles of gaseous nebulas collapsing and contracting. It has seen the birth of language, time, physics. Only the universe knows what the cosmos sounds like, and the sound is the most beautiful thing in existence. 

(Alexander <i>screams</i>, the sound of it ripping through Alicante, past the atmosphere, through the vastness of space. It ripples through the cosmos and the cosmos shudders in response, like it hasn’t heard a cry so desperate in a long time.) 

The universe is a billion years old, but all it could do is listen as the human it treasures cries out in pain, the markings on his arm glowing like molten lava under the touch of a silver device. It mourns and grieves and weeps at the sound of the strongest heart cracking at the pith. Its stars burn a fiery red, galaxies crumpling in frustration, comets streaking down the atmospheres of planets like tears. 

The universe is a billion years old, omnipotent, all encompassing, but where it matters, it cannot do anything. It breaks apart stars in search of relief, angles trajectories of everything and everyone that is intertwined with Alexander’s pain, tries to unravel time and push it forward to just make it all end. Nothing works.

The universe uses its last bargaining chip. <i>Make it stop</i>, it calls to chance, <i>I’ll do anything, please. </i>

Chance sits on its throne, absolute, all encompassing. It says simply, no.

The universe grieves. <i>Why him? Why out of everything and everyone, why him? </i>

<i>You ask me this as if there is a reason</i>, chance says, unfazed, <i>there isn’t. You know there isn’t. </i>

If the universe could cry, it would. 

<i>And you? </i> Chance asks, <i>why him? Why out of everything and everyone, why him?</i>

The center of the universe burns brightly, warmly, in contrast of how it feels.

<i>His soul sang to me, </i> the universe softly says, <i>in a cosmos with a hundred billion galaxies, in an earth with seven billion people, I heard him calling out. </i>

<i>His is the soul that made me want to find mine. </i>

The universe softly watches.

It watches as Alexander moves through the motions of the life that he has, his environment trying to shape and mold him into what it thinks he should be. His mother gives him stern looks more than she gives him a warm embrace, and his father chants <i>you need to be better</i> with every missed arrow and every clatter of his blade, like an incantation meant to change the son that stands before him. The bow and arrow he has once regarded dearly as an instrument is now just a weapon. There is no music in the way he nocks his arrows and draws his bow string. There is just stinging, unrelenting silence.

The beacon of light that once called out to the universe grows weaker as time passes, and it becomes harder and harder to find Alexander in the throng of seven billion people.

The universe mourns this. 

It mourns Alexander like a human would mourn the death of family. It has known that chance can be cruel, and it has always accepted this fact objectively, but Alexander is different. The universe breaks apart its own stars and blankets Alexander’s soul with as much hope it can find. It tries to reach out, call out using the same beautiful sound that the cosmos makes, but space is vast, and the music it plays is not made for human ears. 

So it finds Alexander in ways it could. 

It becomes the earth underneath Alexander’s feet, giving him stable ground to stand on in times of uncertainty. It becomes the grass that cradles his back as he rests under the shade of a tree in the rare moments he has for himself. It becomes the rays of sunlight that slips through the foliage, gently touching the lines of his eyes. The crosswind that mistakenly pushes his arrow off course. The water that embraces him as he washes his face of the blood and ichor that clings to him after a long hunt. 

The universe finds Alexander, and tries with all its might to fend the darkness away, strains itself to listen for the call of his soul, but the shadow is strong, and the sound is soft. Alexander slowly loses himself in the protection of his Lightwood name; his parents’ beliefs become his, their prejudices his prejudices, their words, his words. Years of punishment, verbal and emotional, finally taking in its toll.  It hurts the universe to see him like this. 

The universe cradles Alexander’s head, the bark of the tree that it is strong and sturdy. Its leaves sway gently with the wind that sifts through the hilltop. Alicante sprawls out below him, like a reminder of what he’s supposed to be.

The universe whispers, and it knows Alexander can’t hear, but does anyways. Its own words murmured through the mouth of a seelie girl Alexander once saved. Seelies, so akin to nature, hears the universe like no other creature could. The universe couldn’t help but take the opportunity. 

<i>One day, you will not be used to punishment, but love. </i>

Alexander breathes, and the universe takes the carbon dioxide for itself and returns to the earth, oxygen. 

<i>Don’t lose yourself, Alexander.

I can’t lose you. </i>

The universe comes to consciousness, and just like it does every time, looks within the same spot in the entire cosmos, past bright stars, ringed planets, slow moving, sunflower shaped galaxies, to find the one human that is more luminescent than all of these bodies combined. It searches for the beacon of light that has served as the universe’s guiding star, the lighthouse by the sea.

The universe sees seven billion people.

But it doesn’t find Alexander.

That day, the universe feels something it’s never felt before.

Loss. 

<i>How do you decide what is meant to happen and what isn’t? </i> The universe asks Chance, its words quiet, lost.

Chance swirls where the cosmos is empty, imbuing its entirety with its will. <i>I don’t. </i>

The universe shifts, its center plunged in darkness, barely burning. <i>The forces that come about to lead to something, there must be some orchestration to it. There must be some things that you meant to make happen. </i>

Chance brushes against the andromeda galaxy. It speaks bluntly, like it knows what question the universe really is asking. <i>Alexander Lightwood was lost because he became lost. Do not try to find something to blame for his misfortune. </i>

<i>Alexander is good. His heart is good</i>, the universe says hotly, <i>and there are humans out there who is equally good but their circumstance twist them into something they never want to be. Should we not give them a fighting chance?! </i>

<i>No.</i> Chance firmly says, <i>this is what humanity is. Existing in their circumstance and still being the best version of themselves they can be. That is how they advance. That is how they learn. And you and I, we are nothing but the things that turn planets and collide galaxies. </i>

<i>Then I don’t want to be just this</i>, the universe says, and if it had lungs it would be breathless, if it had a voice, it would splinter, <i>I’ve lived a billion years. </i>

<i>I didn’t think, I didn’t feel, I just</i>—the universe is filled with desperation—<i>was. </i>

It regards Chance, gently, softly. <i>Until him. </i>

<i>You and I, we’ve existed side by side for a long time, </i> the universe says, and it carries within it a decision made, <i>And you are the closest thing I have to a family, </i>

It seems futile using such human concepts on a being that has been alive since the birth of the cosmos, but it’s the most fitting word the universe could find. 

<i>Closest thing I have to a friend. </i>

If Chance could sigh it would. It is despondent with its reply, like it already knows what the universe will ask of it. <i>What is it you want? </i>

The universe musters all its courage, remembers the determination it sees in the archer boy who shot an arrow fifty times. The universe looks at an earth with teeming with seven billion people, the one it needs lost in its current. 

<i>Let me go. </i>

Chance stills.

<i>I don’t want to live a billion years</i>, the universe says, the words brighter than Milky Way, <i>I don’t want a thousand lives. </i>

<i>I want one. And I want it with him. </i>

Chance regards the universe quietly.

The universe is a billion years old. 

Or was a billion years old.

It opens its young eyes to a world it doesn’t know. It has a mother, a father, a small wooden hut in the middle of a field, and it knows its been dropped in a time too early. So it—<i>he</i>—lives his life, trudges through the muck of human existence, battles his own demons, suffers through his own scars. He lives years and years and years of his life, one that is longer than what most people have, waiting for Alexander. He is not omnipotent anymore, and so the bright beacon of Alexander’s soul is lost to his human eyes, and the song if his soul is nothing but silence to him.

Sometimes he feels like losing hope.

Sometimes he finds souls that he thinks could measure up, but never does. 

So he waits, and waits, and waits, and waits.

Until one day, a familiar face passes him by, almost undecipherable in the darkness of the club. His heart, the one that he now has, the one that beats a steady rhythm against his ribs, thrashes in its place with a force comparable to two galaxies colliding. He is breathless at the sight. He has finally found home. 

He doesn’t see Alexander for a while, and he aches, but he has waited for five hundred years. 

He can wait a few days more. 

When they finally cross paths, Alexander knows nothing.

He knows nothing of how far this being before him has come to see the color of eyes. He knows nothing of the hundreds of stars it has broken apart just to see an end to his pain. He knows nothing of the billions of years of existence he has turned his back on for a humble fifty years with him. But the universe knows. That’s all that matters. 

“I’m Magnus.” The universe says, voice almost a whisper, like there’s nothing more wondrous in the cosmos than the person before him. He chuckles under his breath, shaking his head softly. “I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced.”

Alec, for some reason, finds himself smiling for the first time since Clary Fairchild imposed herself into his life. It’s an awkward, disjointed smile, but he smiles anyway, eyes bright with muted elation he’s never felt before. The usual sirens that blare within Alec’s mind when faced with strangers—thus potential threats—remain quiet. There’s something about Magnus that makes Alec want to divulge himself fully. 

Magnus feels safe. Familiar. 

Like he’s known him all his life.

He remembers familiar words, like it’s whispered to him by a memory so long ago, when he looked at the mirror and saw a person he was content to be. <i>One day, you will not be used to punishment, but love.</i>

So he fumbles with the string of his bow, oddly happy, and takes a leap of faith.

“I’m Alec.”

The universe doesn’t love.

Or it used to not love. 

Now it does, truly, deeply, quietly. 

And Chance, for once in it’s billions of years of merely existing, watches with anticipation.

[lostjonscave]

meta: once more w/feeling

all right so it’s extremely funny and entertaining to go off about how dumb and obtuse jon is, i enjoy it, i do it myself, and i do NOT wanna be No Fun Allowed up in here, but there is a little more nuance to it and i have some thoughts  like there really is something to be said for the fact that jon is actually very intelligent and highly competent in specialized areas (hello autistic headcanon how are you), and also that he’s been pretty constantly deprived of sleep and the ability to take a break for the past, like, two entire ass years, combined with the very genuine circumstance that virtually EVERYONE has it out for him, even the people who are technically supposed to be on his side. i really do empathize with the fact that perhaps his decision making is much more strongly informed by the desperate need to act and to fix something rather than, say, a more measured, logical, big-picture approach à la gertrude. 

big-picture approaches have also never been jon’s forté (hello again). he sees one problem and wants to do something about that before he moves on to the next thing. and that is what he’s been doing! helped melanie. made a continued effort with martin for a while but that isn’t progressing so, the next step is to help daisy- and basira, because it’s very clear basira wants and needs someone she can rely on and for her daisy has always been that person. i honestly don’t think this newest terrible decision on his part is borne out of stupidity so much as exhaustion, and the desire to have something to show, finally, when basira gets back, almost like cleaning house for your roommate while they’re out if they got mad at you. he knows he can’t just keep telling her “i’m trustworthy” without giving her a reason to believe it. 

so no, jokes aside, jon isn’t simply a bumbling dumbass, he’s been effectively isolated and cornered into making the same type of off-the-cuff misinformed call that lead to him destroying the table in season 2. jon’s failure here is not a lack of wisdom, it’s that he still can’t make the essential judgement call of waiting for backup, and that’s because he’s convinced it is not an option. he can’t rely on anyone to provide help, so it’s a moot point to recognize that he needs it- it’s not going to happen. that’s the reason he’s so frustrated with martin- martin COULD ask people for help, and they would readily provide it! but in jon’s own case, even if he thought anyone was equipped to help him, he doesn’t deserve it. he isn’t stupid. he just needs therapy. 

[makeroomforthejolyghost]

this started off as navelgazing about a line from a book, then turned into an anxious rant about current events

“Inborn in nearly every artist is a tendency to accept injustice if it creates beauty” (Death in Venice, 21). well, idk about inborn, bc i had to go out of my way to shed the opposite tendency, but i do think it’s true that this mentality is necessary for… art and also other kinds of thought, anything where you need unfettered curiosity. but the painting of it as a vice interests me lately, because i’m starting to think i may have gone too far in this direction? the quoted line speaks to an assumption that indignation is a thing you should practice whenever relevant so you don’t lose it. that if something strikes you as unfair, you should always prioritize that impression over everything else you might notice about the situation that provokes that response. in this scene, that even though it’s not clear how it would help anyone for aschenbach to disapprove of this family’s treatment of the three daughters, it’s still a vice for him to brush it aside because he likes watching the son whose personality he thinks results from this favoritism.

i think we assume this because we fear that failing to deplore an instance of injustice when we see it makes us complicit? which, in and of itself, is clearly not true; that’s just thoughtcrime. like: unless you maintain that it’s his responsibility to tell the parents off, or to do something nice for the girls to compensate,* there’s no reason to view aschenbach’s feeling of “yeah well that sucks but it’s interesting to watch” as any worse than thinking “those terrible parents! how dare they deprive three out of four of their kids in this way”? bc there’s no consequential difference.

but. i think… maybe there is something to be said for cultivating this habit? because, at least for me, this kinda has led to a sort of complacency, a feeling that it’s not my place to judge people (or that there’s nothing i can do to fix injustice when i see it, but mostly the first thing: i tend to assume i don’t know enough about other people’s situations to judge, much less to try to correct or advise people). and that’s true??? like, in part i think this mental habit must have grown out of the axiom not to give medical advice to chronically ill people. i… have a tendency to internalize advice across the board, rather than situationally. i.e., to take this as meaning, “people know more about their own problems than you do,” and also, as meaning, “they’re already doing their best; nobody fails on purpose.” and generalizing that to situations where the “failure” is one of cruelty rather than of just not being as healthy/happy as it seems to you people should be. like: i have rooted out just-world hypothesis so thoroughly, i have so much contempt for that “obviously it’s possible to be better” mentality, that i apply it even when what i see looks to me like. someone being mean to their children. and to a certain extent this seems right to me??? like, parents fearing everyone around them thinks they’re evil because their kid is crying, when really all they deprived this poor child of is a piece of candy she found on the floor, is a real thing, and, i honestly cannot think of a time when i’ve seen a parent say or do something harsh to their child where something like this couldn’t easily have been the explanation. plus, the possibility they might take it out on their children still exists!

but i think maybe the specifics here are confusing the question? either that or the question is so abstract/fake that it’s not one i need to answer. so here: the root of my anxiety is this: i sometimes worry there’s something wrong with me because i’m not obsessed with the BLM protests going on, or at least, not in the way so many people imply i should be. it’s not that i lack empathy for the victims?—i do tear up when i think too hard about george floyd, or that man with the food cart who used to serve the cops for free. it’s just… that this sense of injustice doesn’t lead to any conviction. i don’t feel the righteousness of the protests; i’m detached enough to wonder intellectually about their effectiveness. although?? i guess that’s not wholly true either, because when i first heard about them my very first thought was “OH GOD NO NOT THIS AGAIN! YOU’RE ALL GONNA GET KILLED!”—a combination of fear at what might (…would, from today’s perspective) happen to the people involved, and dismay at the knowledge i was going to have to perform supportiveness about it.

for the record: i do think police brutality is evil, and that the police are corrupt and overpowered and groomed to be racist; also, from what i’ve heard, the protests have helped create a lot of policy changes, so from that standpoint i guess i support them. or, at least, congratulate them on a job well done. but: i think holding protests during a pandemic is fucking insane, especially since the thing protestors demand a stop to is unnecessary death. people keep telling me this is a crucial moment for the black community, and i think that at this point that’s true, but, afaik there’s no good strategic reason we can point to for why it had to be now, and i don’t like… well ok, let me start again. i wouldn’t mind having to say “yeah, well, straw that broke the camel’s back,” if i didn’t feel like that excuse precluded all criticism of the protests’ timing.** in my own life, when i reflect on times in my life when i’ve done things whose consequences i regret, i often have to conclude that under the circumstances i can’t have expected anything better from myself. but i still get to say i shouldn’t have done that. maybe i’m being greedy with my cake here, i just. ugh. it just pisses me off, the hypocrisy about covid, because the whole point of lockdowns and social distancing &c. was that no one person’s or group’s interests outweigh the risks to the human race at large. but now it’s apparently more important for even the unaffected members of said human race to stand in solidarity with the minorities who are affected by this latest crisis--as in, literally stand there, in public, right next to them, even if that means that two weeks later they come down with the plague. like?? you can’t even say “but this is a matter of life and death”! because covid is an even wider-reaching matter of life and death!!!!

also, the most common justification i hear is that the number of horrible things we’ve seen the police inflict on protestors proves we need to keep protesting. and politically speaking that does seem to be working? but IT’S STILL KIND OF FUCKING GHOULISH to hear that we as a nation have a responsibility to give the cops more opportunities to kill innocent people. like. i can intellectually say “yes, you’re right, i think it’s working,” but i can’t seem to feel that as a duty or a righteous cause.

…what was my point again? oh right: that i worry this makes me a Bad Person, or at least that everyone around me would think i was a Bad Person if i told them how i felt. and that i specifically worry my emotions are wrong, because i should be having… the kind of patriotism proust talks about (though for BLM and the left &c. rather than for america itself, obviously), but instead i’m like “aaagh ok fine if you have to but GOD I WISH THIS WOULD STOP.” and apparently, wanting it to stop means siding with the oppressors. and i guess… god, do you know what it is? honestly, i’m so short-sighted that a return to the status quo does sound better to me than this chaos. i don’t disbelieve people who assert that only a bitter fight like this can force change? intellectually i think maybe that’s true. but emotionally, i hate it, and on an animal level i don’t really believe it. the animal in me believes only that positive change is slow and unsatisfying, regardless of how you accomplish it.

*both of which seem to me Too Risky because option a might end with their harassing the girls over it (e.g., “this stranger over here thinks you’re being mistreated. if he only knew you like i do…!”), while option b, coming from an older, solitary man, might strike both the girls and their parents as a creepy, lecherous thing, in which case the girls might view it as insulting or even traumatizing rather than as a favor to them.

**especially the timing of protests like the one in my own town last weekend. they marched to the city police station--even though the one widely-known violent incident in our town in the last decade was perpetrated by the university police department--on, afaict, general ACAB principle. my friend who attended says the anger felt real, not just like a performance, but they weren’t agitating for any concrete changes here, you know?? so idg why it was worth infecting people.

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

“Another Life” Review: Another Hour of Mine I Won’t Get Back

One of the good things about Netlix (particularly compared to traditional TV channels) is that its ability to deliver a wide variety of content simultaneously allows it to experiment with things that might not have wider appeal. This is particularly important where genre fiction is concerned, because you can’t rely on formula to develop something genuinely good in that area. Who’d have thought that a ‘cursed object’ story set exclusively in the art world where everyone talks like they’re delivering a devastating Gustav Klimt review would turn out to be one of the best horror movies of recent years? And yet Velvet Buzzsaw blew me away and gave me a reason not to give up on western culture completely. Likewise, who expected a revenge saga about classical music with (at most) one or two truly graphic scenes to be the most gut-wrenching and powerful psychological thrillers of recent years? Yet The Perfection was one of the only truly transcendent films I’ve ever had the privilege of watching. The same goes for series- it’s hard to imagine that an overwhelming blend of surreal and dystopian imagery, hard-to-grasp technological concepts, semi-obscure literary references, needlessly brutal violence, gleeful depravity, whip-smart humour and a borderline-sociopath with a Hello Kitty rucksack would ever be aired on a proper channel. Altered Carbon, however, turned out to be one of the best sci-fi series of the last decade, missing the top spot only thanks to the existence of Rick and Morty.

The reason I’ve started with all this gushing praise, however, is merely to provide context and a necessary counterbalance to the excoriating review that follows. For you see, an ability to deliver niche or experimental content can lead to abject failures as well as shining successes. For every underrated gem, there must be a meticulously-polished turd waiting to ambush the unsuspecting connoisseur. Ladies and gentlemen, Another Life is that turd.

On paper, Another Life sounds like good, solid sci-fi. A starship captain has to travel across the universe to ascertain whether an alien race that recently dropped probes on Earth is hostile or just curious. Along the way, her journey will be complicated by a crew who’s used to working under a different captain with a radically different style of leadership and all the usual, real-life-plausible dangers of travel through uncharted space (along with a few blatantly made-up ones). It’s not a terrible idea, but every bad creative decision that could be made is made and so the whole things collapses like a poorly-made soufle before the end of episode one.

For a start, let’s talk about the show’s aesthetics and visual decisions. the CG budget clearly wasn’t huge (which is fine), but the show tries to realise as many of its effects as possible using CG anyway, which stretches that minimal budget far too thin and draws attention to how artificial and contrived everything looks. For example, the decision to make the alien probes on Earth giant shimmering walls of crystal that can only be realised through CG is particularly baffling, given that they could just have been big fuck-off metal things that could have been physically built as a set. Meanwhile, the show‘s overall look is... well, bland. If you’ve seen literally any space sci-fi before, you’ve seen the individual elements of the tech in Another Life. I think it’s aiming for Archetypal, but it just looks lazy. It doesn’t help that they liberally borrow terminology from other sci-fi. I know that ‘Impulse Engine’ is technically (probably) the correct name for a slower-than-light engine that works in a particular way, but calling your space engines that just invites comparisons to Star Trek, which won’t be favourable. Back to the point, though: in addition to cribbing heavily from superior shows, Another Life also makes everything look far too smooth and clean. A spaceship is a working vehicle filled with people doing dangerous, difficult, often dirty jobs. Its interior shouldn’t look like an iPhone fucked a trendy west-end bar. Seriously, the ‘future’ set in fucking Crystal Maze looks more convincing.

The problem of everything seeming too smooth and clean extends beyond the visuals and into the casting. Practically everyone in the core cast is in their early twenties. They’re not bad actors, necessarily, but they clearly need older, more experienced hands around them to guide their performances and the absence of these more seasoned actors is felt acutely. There’s a reason why mature sci-fi shows usually cast across a broad age range- you’re asking your cast to deal with conceptual and scientific abstractions that can be challenging for people who don’t have a few performances under their belt. It also feels wildly implausible that a dangerous space-mission would feature a bunch of hormonal twenty-somethings who’s personal drama might get in the way of them making clever decisions. The main lass (whose name I’ve already forgotten), is played by a noticeably older woman. Indeed, that age difference is a big part of her character: can she win the trust and respect of the young hotheads? Unfortunately, one older actress does not a seasoned cast make. Besides, the character she’s playing just isn’t worth rooting for. It’s not that she’s a terrible person- she’s coldly aloof, but so was Picard and everyone loves that dude. It’s just that she has no depth. She has a family back on Earth, and we’re told that she’s missing them and trying to ensure the mission’s success so she can see them again, but the supposed internal conflict has no effect on her behaviour. She just goes about robotically calculating and minimising risk, even though doing so ensures that she’s going to be in space, away from her loved ones, for much, much longer. Within the narrative of the show, she’s making the correct, mature decisions, but shouldn’t they be causing her some introspective strife? No? Yes? Does this fucking show care one way or the other?

Of course, janky characters and budget set designs are kind of par for the cause with sci-fi of a certain type. Sometimes it can be endearing (the fact that the sets literally wobbled sometimes in early Doctor Who was part of its charm, for example). A much bigger problem is Another Life’s total lack of narrative logic. The main character (no I still can’t remember her name, nor be bothered to check) managed to get ten people killed the last time she was in charge of a starship. Surely that’s the point at which you politely ask someone to retire? Even if there were mitigating circumstances (which there probably were because showing fallibility in its lead is not something this show feels comfortable with), why on Earth would anyone put her in charge of a crew of emotional 20-somethings she’s never met before while their previous, trusted captain is still on the fucking ship and clearly feeling mutinous? That’s just bad management on behalf of planet Earth’s top brass. I can only hope that someone in HR got the sack for that one. Or, better yet, that a giant hammer will spontaneously fall out of the sky and hit this show’s script-writer so hard in the head that he loses control of his motor functions and bowels and is forced to retire to a convalescent home for the incontinent.

The captain’s own decision making processes are just as baffling as her bosses. There’s a bit where the crew figures out that they can get back on course and cut down on journey time by slingshotting around a slightly temperamental star using the same shielding they use when traveling at FTL (yeah- FTL space travel is a common thing in this universe, yet humans have somehow never met another alien race before- make of that what you will). They already tried to slingshot round the star once and were forced to abort and break orbit because of the strain on the ship. The plan has an 89% chance of success. The 11% chance of failure doesn’t equate to instant death or anything- logically, it just means the shield would fail and they’d have to break orbit again (because that’s what happened before: remember that we’ve already established that slingshotting around the star doesn’t do anything worse than rattle the ship and give everyone plenty of time to back off). For some reason, Captain Caution decides that the high chance of success, negligible risk of serious repercussions and massive potential benefits just aren’t good enough and vetoes the plan, thereby adding months to the voyage. Isn’t establishing whether the new, technologically superior alien neighbours are friendly or not something of a time-critical op, by the way? Naturally, the crew mutiny (under the leadership of the previous captain), try their plan and it fails miserable.

And there’s the final nail in the coffin for Another Life. It doesn’t play by its own rules. Its established that the FTL shields can’t use much power, because they’re on all the fucking time during FTL. It’s established that nothing particularly terrible happens when you try to slingshot round a star and have to abort. It’s established that combining those two facts to get a speed boost has an 89% chance of success. And yet, when the crew try it without the Captain’s express permission, bits of the ship start to explode, everything goes to shit and the vessel ends up in a decaying orbit around the sun, somehow drained of power. The show’s in such a hurry to show that it’s main character is right and correct and noble in everything she does that it forgets rules it laid down literally five minutes earlier.

The whole shoddy shebang has a weirdly patronising and conservative ethos. “Listen to your elders and official superiors”, it whispers smugly. “They always know best, even when they’re responsible for the deaths of ten or more people in the quite recent past. Don’t think for yourself. Don’t try to improve your situation. The old, safe ways of doing things are always best, even when they seem neurotic or unworkable.” It’s weird, because it’s the exact opposite problem that sci-fi normally has. Normally, sci-fi tries so hard to be forward-looking that you end up with a bunch of wide-eyed fuckwits trusting the power of friendship and love over a more measured, carefully-planned approach. Both sides of the coin are equally annoying since they involve sacrificing the internal logic of the fictional universe on the alter of Some Hack’s personal ethos. However, Another Life earns my full, unmitigated disapprobation, not just a mild slap on the wrist, because it doesn’t even bother to be a good sci-fi show before jumping into the message-mongering bullshit. Remember, all this shit is from episode one. My advice to those of you craving some hard space sci-fi is to re-watch Nightflyers instead. It’s weird as balls, well-scripted, has a properly-established set of hard sci-fi rules and there’s even a romantic subplot involving the hologramatic projection of a hideous mutant. Yeah. Go watch that instead. I think I might, too, come to think of it.

[dabidevito]

[fic] noctuary

read on ao3

rating: G // words: 4585

summary: (n.) - the record of a single night’s events, thoughts, or dreams

An airport adventure between two sort-of strangers, in the liminal space between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

a/n: this is a gift for @howellaf as part of @phandomficfests​ holiday exchange, which was an absolute joy to be a part of.

thanks as always to @knlalla​ for her beta work and constant encouragement. 2019 is not ready for our combined writing power ✨💛

10:21 pm, December 24th (Christmas Eve)

Phil clicks into the Virgin Atlantic app for about the hundredth time that evening, just to check that the departure time hasn’t changed in the last five minutes. He’s always been an anxious flyer. People have begun to congregate around the check-in desk, rounding up kids and various belongings in anticipation of their 10:40 pm boarding call. Phil lingers in the back corner of the gate area, where he’d been lucky enough to secure one of the few charging ports for his phone - one of the perks of being a habitually early traveler.

He bounces his leg restlessly as he waits for the app to refresh. Beyond the terminal’s foggy glass windows, the planes are beginning to accumulate a thin layer of snow. He debates switching over to the weather app on his phone, but knows if he has to look at the cataclysmic blues and purples sprawled over the radar map of New York one more time, his simmering panic will turn into a full-on spiral.

When the departures page finally loads, no thanks to JFK’s terrible WiFi, it's all of Phil's horrible traveling nightmares brought to life.

Virgin Atlantic Flight 154 to London (LHR) - CANCELLED DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER Please proceed to the gate agent for rebooking. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Moments later, a collective groan ripples out from the crowd as the news is spread over the loudspeaker, the cancellation now displayed in blazing red font on all the overhead screens. A desperate shuffle towards the ticket counter begins almost immediately, but Phil feels paralyzed in his dingy corner.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Filming for his studio’s latest production was supposed to wrap three days ago, and he should've been settled under a blanket with a cup of his mum's Christmas cocoa by now. Not stranded in bloody America on Christmas Eve after weeks of being away from home. But there'd been delay after delay on set, and with the holiday looming, the entire crew had worked through last night in order to get the final scenes filmed. He’s exhausted and more than a little cranky and suddenly feels totally unprepared to deal with his current worst-case scenario.

He locks his phone and closes his eyes, trying to breathe through the panic of having to book a new flight and find somewhere to stay tonight, and he's all alone in a country that isn't his and do planes even fly on Christmas? What if there's suddenly a problem with his work visa and they don't let him on the plane back to England anyway and no one at the production company will answer the phone because they're all cuddled up under blankets with cups of their mum's hot cocoa and -

"Hey."

Phil jumps as a hand comes down lightly on his shoulder, almost tilting out of his chair from the sudden jolt. The owner of the hand steadies him, fingers curling gently into the fabric of his jumper.

"You okay?" The stranger asks, except when Phil finally follows the line of the man's arm up to his face, he realizes that this person is not a stranger at all. In fact, Phil’s spent nearly every day for the last month with him in some capacity or another. The film that’s the source of his current travel predicament had been resplendent with minor speaking roles, one of which happened to be filled by a certain curly-haired actor with a posh accent. Phil’s sure that the B-roll from his set camera is overflowing with lingering shots of the man who’s currently waiting for him to get his act together and respond to a simple question.

"Oh, it's you," Phil begins, ever a beacon of eloquence. He digs around in his muddled brain for the man's name, trying to blink past the haze of panic that’s taken up residence there.

"Dan," the man supplies, retracting his hand from Phil's shoulder. "From, uh, the movie?"

Phil forces a smile onto his face. "Of course. Sorry, I was just…” He gestures vaguely around his body, not really sure what sort of excuse would play well here.

Dan offers him kind smile, one that’s more genuine than should be possible given the circumstances. “I don’t mean to bother you,” he says, “it’s just that, uh, pretty much everyone’s gotten rebooked already? I sort of - this makes me sound like a weird stalker, I swear I’m not - I just sort of noticed that you hadn’t moved since they made the announcement. And that you looked upset. But it’s really gonna be fine, I think there’s still seats on the first plane out tomorrow morning.”

Phil looks past Dan to the nearly-deserted gate area. A lone mother wrangles her son back into a buggy, various bags scattered around her. The gate agent frowns down at her computer, looking exhausted and like she’d rather be just about anywhere else. She glances wearily between two men standing in front of her desk who appear to be arguing about which flight is better. But the hundreds of other inconvenienced travelers are nowhere to be seen, making Phil feel acutely aware of just how long he’s been sitting here in silent panic. His hands feel clammy with embarrassment, that someone he kind-of-sort-of-not-really knows had to witness him being such an unfunctional, dithering failure of an adult.

“Oh! Right. Um, thank you. For, uh, saving me from sitting here and sulking all night,” Phil says as he begins to gather up his belongings and stuff them into his backpack. Dan shifts from foot to foot in front of him, scuffing his shoe against the off-white tiles.

“Right, yeah, I’m a regular old hero, huh?” Dan mumbles.

Phil glances up the long line of Dan’s body, already feeling a hundred times more at ease than he had just moments ago. “My knight in shining travel accessories,” he says, nodding at the pillow hanging around Dan’s neck and trying to suppress a laugh at his own dumb joke.

Dan flushes pink immediately at the remark, reaching up to touch the shimmery grey material of the pillow. “Oi,” he says, “if you’re gonna be hanging out with me until the bloody snowpocalypse is over, know that I won’t tolerate being made fun of for having a sense of both fashion and practicality.”

(The way his bottom lip sticks out in a little pout is illegal in about ten countries, Phil thinks. Or at least it should be.)

Phil finally gets to his feet, hoisting his backpack over his right shoulder.

"Oh, are we, uh? You want to hang out with me?" Phil honestly hadn't expected that. He'd begun to resign himself to a night alone at the airport, wandering around and lost in his own anxieties.

Dan starts reversing course immediately, much to Phil’s dismay. "Sorry, uh, we don't have to, of course, you probably want to uh, get a hotel or something. Not hang out with some guy you barely know all night. I'll just uh, see you around, or something." He's already started walking backwards and away from Phil, refusing to even meet his gaze.

"Wait, no," Phil says. "Sorry, I didn't mean - ugh." He breathes out a laugh at both of their awkwardness. Dan is looking at him with something like curiosity, or maybe hope. "Just - would you mind waiting for me? While I go see about getting on a new flight?"

Dan smiles, looking immensely relieved. "Yeah. 'Course. There's one that departs around 8 am, that's what I've got."

The gate area is well and truly deserted now as Phil makes his way over to the desk. He manages to get the final seat on the morning flight, and he shoots Dan a smile and a thumbs up as the gate agent prints out his new ticket. Phil pockets the slip of glossy paper and thanks her profusely, wishing her a happy holiday before wandering back over to where Dan's sat typing something into his phone.

He looks up as Phil approaches, locking his phone and getting to his feet. "Hey," Dan says. "Fancy a coffee? There's a Starbucks in Terminal 5 that's open til 1 am."

"Now you really are my knight in shining armor," Phil says, grinning. "C'mon, if I have to stare out at the snow-covered planes any longer, I'll go mental." He bumps his shoulder lightly into Dan's, nudging him towards some promising-looking directional signs.

  11:47 pm

Dan presses some of America's weird green paper money into Phil’s hand as they enter the Starbucks, waving away Phil's protestations before they can even leave his mouth.

"I'll get us a table. Surprise me," Dan says, nodding towards the festively-patterned menu hanging above the counter before disappearing in the direction of an empty corner table. Phil stares up at the options, racking his brain for a memory of watching Dan fill a paper coffee cup from the catering table on set. There'd been a bottle of caramel syrup, staunchly ignored by the rest of the cast and crew, that he’d noticed Dan drain into his own cup day after day.

The barista coughs pointedly to get Phil's attention. "What can I get for you, sir?" she asks.

"Um, two grande caramel macchiatos and two of whatever pastries you've got left. Surprise me," Phil says, deciding to take a page out of Dan's book. He's pretty sure the barista rolls her eyes at him, but she produces two chocolate croissants from the case anyway and starts on preparing the drinks. Phil drops some stray American coins from his pocket into her tip jar. It's Christmas, and he (hopefully) won't have any use for them after tonight anyway.  

Dan is staring out the window at the runway as Phil makes his way over to the table he's claimed. Stupid planes. Part of the glass has fogged over from the temperature difference, and Dan's drawn a frowny face into the condensation.

"Draw a Christmas tree at least," Phil says lightly as he sets down their feast and pulls out the opposite chair for himself. Dan begrudgingly obliges him, dragging his left pointer finger against the glass again. He smiles at Phil when he's finished, a dimple appearing in his cheek.

"Better?"

"Now our Christmas celebrations can really begin," Phil says with a laugh, pushing one of the red cups towards Dan. "Cheers."      

Just then, Phil's phone screen lights up from with a text from his mum. Merry Christmas darling, see you soon. We all miss you xx, it reads. His lockscreen mocks him with the time in large white font: 12:01 am. Despite the winter weather and the cheery Christmas tunes playing softly over the speakers, his heart feels heavy in his chest. He wasn't supposed to spend Christmas like this.

When he glances across the table, Dan is looking down at his phone as well, frowning. Phil wonders what his text says, if it's from his own mum too. It makes his heart ache even more, to see Dan's dimple disappear into sadness. Under the table, he nudges his foot gently into Dan's.

Dan glances up, thumbs still poised over his phone. "Hey," Phil says softly, "Merry Christmas?" He's not sure why it comes out as a question.

Dan tilts his head a bit but offers him a small smile. "Yeah," he says. "Merry Christmas, Phil." He stretches his leg out under the table and leans it fully into Phil's, warmth seeping in even through two layers of denim.

  1:05 am, December 25th (Christmas Day)

The Starbucks employees kick them out at precisely one o'clock.

They wander aimlessly through the terminal, past closed shops and a handful of weary travelers. Phil's always thought that airports exist in another dimension, one where nothing is quite right and anything is possible.

Here, a pretty boy who Phil's camera lingered on for too long takes giant, caffeine-fueled strides forward on the skywalk only to make a show of running back towards Phil against the direction of the moving walkway. He finally makes it after a few missteps, giggling as he trips and falls against the railing. Phil's laughing too, taking Dan by the arm and guiding them both off the end of the conveyor belt. In a fit of bravery (or maybe stupidity), Phil doesn't let go once they're on solid ground; instead, he links his arm through Dan's and leans minutely into his side. Phil watches a small rosy patch bloom on Dan's cheek as they keep walking, Dan tugging him closer with every step.

  1:13 am   

There's only a few open establishments in their terminal at this hour, one of which is a small tiki-themed bar complete with gaudy straw decorations and a lone bartender polishing some pineapple-shaped glasses. Phil immediately drags Dan over to two of the many open barstools - he feels like they deserve a drink after all they've been through tonight. Dan doesn't put up much of fight, just drops his backpack next to Phil's and takes a seat.

"What can I get ya, fellas?" The bartender asks them in a thick Texan accent. Or maybe Phil just thinks all American accents sound Texan. Phil swivels in his stool to face Dan. "What d'ya drink, mate?" He asks.

Dan leans onto the bartop, propping his head up in his right hand. "You look like a piña colada kind of guy," he says to Phil.

"Oi, what gave me away?" Phil says, laughing and turning back to Mr. Maybe-Texan. "Two of those, please."

Two turns into four turns into six, until they're both hunched over Phil's phone laughing at the absurdity of his Instagram explore page. Dan's curls are wild from the way he keeps pushing them out of his eyes, and the alcohol has given his face a pink flush that spreads down and under the collar of his shirt. Phil's about three coconut-infused sips away from saying something incredibly stupid like you're so fucking pretty or I'm glad I got stuck here with you or a slew of even more problematic things like do you live in London? I'd love to see you sometime.

"Alright, last call boys," says their bartender, startling Phil out of his rum-induced daydreams. Dan wrestles Phil's phone fully out of his hands, squinting down at the time.

"'S'not even three yet!" He exclaims, clumsily getting to his feet and leaning fully over Phil’s lap to protest more directly at Mr. Definitely-Not-Texan, who’s stood at the other end of the bar. He steadies himself with a hand pressed directly onto Phil's thigh, the other splayed across the bartop. Phil's piña colada brain knows that it only makes logical sense for him to wrap an arm around Dan's waist, to hold him close so that he won't topple over. Dan seems to comply with this genius plan, leaning even further into Phil's side and continuing his lament.

"There's not - d’ya know, it can't be last call because, because. Because! You haven't - we haven't even had any pizza yet! Phil, Phil, tell 'em, everyone knows you can't have last call until there's pizza! Isn't that - this bloody country has no good laws, I'm telling ya, pizza is the law! Phil - " Dan accentuates his point by poking Phil in the chest. "Tell me I'm right. You know I'm right. We need pizza."

"We need pizza," Phil confirms, nodding his head solemnly at Dan who is so close, so close and soft and warm against him, and -

"You're out of luck there," the bartender says. "Most everything's shut down for the night. You'll have to sleep it off instead, but you can't do it here. Sorry boys."

Phil has the distinct sense that Dan's about to turn up the dramatics to method-actor levels based on the deep inhale he takes. Regretfully, he nudges Dan out of his lap in order to sign the check, effectively cutting off his inevitable rant, and Dan sits back on his own stool to pout.

3:02 am

With nowhere else to go, they wander back towards their new plane's gate. At least, Phil's pretty sure they're headed in the right direction. Mostly he's just been following Dan.

It feels like they walk for ages, the buzz of the alcohol steadily wearing off and being replaced with a wave of exhaustion. Phil lags behind Dan for long enough that he finally stops and turns around, holding out his hand and waiting for Phil to catch up.

Phil stops too, admiring the way Dan looks like this. A bit hazy around the edges from the outdated prescription of his spare glasses, smiling and asking without words for Phil to hold his hand. It's a good image. Probably the best he could've asked for, given the circumstances. It's more than enough to motivate him to drag his heavy feet across the floor and slip his hand into Dan's. In this moment, he’d happily miss another plane just to keep Dan looking at him the way he is right now.

They walk for another eternity before reaching their gate, where a handful of people are slouched awkwardly in the small chairs. Some are asleep, some are illuminated by a blue electronic glow, and some are just simply staring off into space. Phil spots a lone outlet in a corner, but there aren't any chairs near it. He tugs Dan towards it anyway, knowing that both of their phones are low on power.

The carpet's not pristine but it looks clean enough, so they both collapse happily against the wall.

Dan digs around in his bag awkwardly for his phone charger with his right hand, still holding onto Phil's with his left. Dan's hand is warm and soft in his, and Phil takes the opportunity to examine it in more detail, holding it up in front of his face in the dim light.

"Oi, do you have some weird hand fetish you haven't told me about?" Dan’s got a laugh behind his eyes and that damn rosy patch in bloom on his cheek again and Phil is so, so done for.  

Phil folds the limb in question under both of his own hands, clutching it protectively to his chest. “Hands are the best part of a person!” He asserts. “I won’t be kinkshamed in public, Daniel.”

“How about in private, then?”

Surely Phil hasn’t heard that correctly. He’s got rum and coconut sloshing around in his veins and surely Dan hasn’t just insinuated that he and Phil might see each other after this whole travel fiasco is finished. He opens his mouth to reply but can’t find any words to properly express just how much he’d like the opportunity to do just that.  

Dan’s fingers tap out a quick rhythm against Phil’s t-shirt. “Your heart’s racing.”

“You make me nervous,” Phil replies, finally. Maybe he’s still got some of that liquid courage left.

Dan pulls his bottom lip in between his teeth, considering. “Good nervous?”

“Yeah,” Phil laughs. “Good nervous.”

  4:38 am

Even in the middle of the night, airports are never truly quiet. But in the little corner they’ve settled into here, Phil feels the calmest he’s been in a good long while.

Dan’s head is a warm, solid weight on his shoulder, soft brown curls tickling at his jaw. The pair of earbuds split between them plays something unfocused and dreamy and instrumental from Dan’s phone, lulling Phil into a weird sort of 4 am trance as he stares out at the darkness of the runway. It’s not the kind of music Phil would ever pick for himself, but he kind of likes the way it lets him drift to thinking about other things. Like Dan’s long, slow, half-asleep breaths. The way he curls the fabric of his hoodie over his knuckles.

They’re still a good three hours from sunrise but he knows that the airport will wake up painfully soon, that people will begin to arrive in short order and drag themselves onto the first early morning flights and they’ll be swept up in the rush of it all. He and Dan will board the same plane but sit twenty rows apart on opposite sides of the aisle, and that just feels so fundamentally wrong in a way he can’t understand.

Dan shifts against him and blinks open his eyes, straightening up and dragging a hand over his face. “Mmpft. Sorry. Think I dozed off for a minute there.”

He looks over at Phil, sleepy and fond. An intrusive thoughts worms its way into Phil’s brain, of seventy-five more Christmases of seeing Dan like this.

“You should sleep a bit longer,” he says softly, “before it gets too loud in here.” There’s already more and more people walking past their gate every minute. Phil tugs gently on the sleeve of Dan’s hoodie, and Dan comes easily, reaching for his phone and skipping through a few songs before settling back down against Phil. He wedges Phil’s arm out from between their bodies, draping it across his shoulders instead. “Need coffee,” he grumbles, already sounding half-asleep again.

“We just had coffee,” he tells Dan’s hair. Hadn’t they? It sort of feels like an entire lifetime has transpired between now and then.

“Ugh, that was ages ago. Need something festive this time, it’s Christmas now.”

Phil makes a little noise of agreement. Perhaps the festive beverage ranking he’s been working on could use a second opinion. He sets an alarm for an hour on his own phone, tapping slowly and awkwardly with his left hand, before returning to staring out the window. There’s a small army of snow ploughs clearing the area around the parked planes, and Phil can see a few stray snowflakes still falling in the glow of the floodlights.

He makes sure that their backpacks are still tucked in securely between his body and the wall and that the boy he’d fancied from afar just 24 hours ago is resting soundly at his other side before letting his own eyes drift closed.      

  5:54 am

It’s a different barista than the one who’d politely kicked them out five hours ago, but they still manage to claim the same corner table in Terminal 5’s Starbucks, condensation issues and all. A ghost of Dan’s Christmas tree still lingers in the morning fog.

Phil shows Dan the festive ranking in his Notes app, which Dan is more than happy to tear apart and completely rearrange. The destruction is worth it for the way Dan’s dimple keeps appearing in his cheek each time he moves anything with white chocolate further down the list. Phil stretches his legs fully into Dan’s space under the table and stubbornly refuses to look at the clock.

  6:28 am

There’s nothing to do besides talk, which is just fine by Phil. He’s never been one to overshare but he likes hearing Dan’s voice, likes hearing about his life. About how he technically works as a law consultant but only really finds joy in acting, even though he’ll probably never land enough roles to quit his day job. About how missing out on extra time spent petting his family’s dog is the true tragedy of Christmas. About how he doesn’t usually make a habit of flirting with his cameramen, thank you very much, but he might just make an exception for ones who let him sleep on their shoulder all night.     

Maybe it’s fine that the clock keeps ticking, that they’re now within an hour of their boarding call. New York’s been pretty good to him, but he has a feeling that being back home in London is going to be even better.

  7:31 am

They find actual chairs to sit in at their gate this time, despite the crowd that’s gathered there. Dan’s talking on the phone with someone, presumably his mum by the way his entire side of the conversation is yeah and mhmm and I know. He’s sat cross-legged in his chair, long limbs somehow tucked up neatly under his ` body, one knee overlapping casually with Phil’s thigh. Phil traces shapes into the denim of his jeans there, stars and squiggles and something that he imagines would be a cross between a chinchilla and an armadillo if he could actually see it.

“Attention passengers, in just a few moments we will begin boarding for British Airways Flight BA178 to London, currently on time for an 8:05 am departure. At this time we’d like the begin pre-boarding for customers with...”

“Yeah, okay mum, listen, I gotta go, we’re boarding now. Okay. Yeah. Love you too, see you soon. Mhmm. Okay. Bye.” Dan ends the call, glancing around at the hectic departure scene before turning to Phil with a small smile. He takes Phil’s restless fingers and slots them between his own, a gesture that Phil is already fully addicted to.

Dan nods down at the boarding pass clutched in Phil’s other hand. “What number are you?” he asks.

“Four. You?”

Dan scrunches up his nose. “Five. How were you literally the last person to get a seat on this plane but still able to end up boarding before me?”

Phil can’t help his grin. “Guess I’ve just been lucky recently, hmm?”

  8:01 am

Phil leans as far into the window as he can, watching the last few suitcases get loaded onto the plane. His brain has finally slipped into overtired and cranky mode, and he really has no desire to be in close proximity to any grumpy stranger sat next to him right now.

Well. Maybe there’s one grumpy sort-of-stranger that he wouldn't mind.

The man in the aisle seat makes a disgruntled noise as someone stops to hover over him, but Phil keeps his eyes trained out on the runway. Probably it’s just the flight attendant closing up the overhead compartments.

“Hey, I’ve got a seat up in 21B that I’ll trade you for,” says a decidedly not-flight attendant voice. “It’s first off after business class, and the guy in the window’s already asleep. Won’t be any trouble for you, unlike this one.” He nods at Phil, smiling his stupid dimpled smile like this is the best plan anyone’s ever executed in all of airplane history.

(It kind of is, in Phil’s opinion.)

The actual flight attendant comes up the aisle behind Dan. “Sir, I really need you to sit down now.”

“C’mon mate,” Dan says, as though the swap is already a done deal. Mr. Grumpy McGrumpFace looks between him and Phil before unbuckling his seatbelt and brushing past them towards the front of the plane. The flight attendant sighs and turns to follow him, and Dan swings his bag up top before slouching down dramatically next to Phil.

“Hello,” Dan says, cheeky smile still on his face.

Phil just shakes his head fondly, trying unsuccessfully to hide how pleased he is at this turn of events. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Hm. Guess that’s something you’ll just have to get used to.”

The plane rumbles to life under them, someone speaking too softly over the tinny intercom. Dan produces his phone from his pocket, unraveling his headphones once again and handing one to Phil. “Your turn to sleep this time,” he says, reaching across to pull the windowshade down against the morning sun.

“Only if you play music that will give me Christmassy dreams.”

Dan just laughs and tugs Phil closer, typing ‘Mariah Carey’ into the search bar as they start to lift into the sky.

[pass-the-bechdel]

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend season three full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

100% (thirteen of thirteen).

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

41.16%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Seven, so just over half. Three of those are 50%+.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty-four. Thirteen who appeared in more than one episode, five who appeared in at least half the episodes, and two who appeared in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Thirty-nine. Eighteen who appeared in more than one episode, seven who appeared in at least half the episodes, and one who appeared in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

Not nearly as good as you might expect or hope. As with previous seasons, the show’s most impressive content is not the feminist stuff at all, and on the feminist front it feels sometimes as if the show spends more time denouncing different aspects of the feminist movement as ‘the wrong kind of feminism’ than it does declaring and upholding the aspects it does approve. I tend to feel that it spends time talking the talk on women’s issues, but doesn’t often get up to walk the walk (average rating of 3).

General Season Quality:

Easily better than the previous two seasons, despite a deflated ending. It takes a much more focused approach to its storytelling in the beginning of the season, in a manner which briskly becomes refreshingly confronting and leads in to a powerful middle. Unfortunately, it never sustains quality for very long, and overall the show still suffers for being too easily distracted. It’s not infuriating, but it can be frustrating.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Ok, let me explain something about myself first, something I’ve mentioned in other (non-Crazy Ex) posts which have gone live long before this one will, but for anyone who missed it in any of those other places, here it is: I am, right now, pregnant. In fact, I am pregnant with a child conceived non-traditionally with a gay friend of mine, and as such, Darryl’s non-traditional quest for biological parenthood in this season struck a very personal chord (though, unlike Darryl, I used the phone-a-friend option as my first choice, not a fallback. Would recommend, if it’s ever relevant to your life). I bring all of this up because I can categorically declare that there are certain plot threads that you absolutely will NOT have the same reaction to if you don’t have that very personal chord being struck, and even moreso if that chord is relevant to your life right now, rather than being something that you’ve experienced in the past but has since slipped from the forefront of your attention. Thus, when I talked about feeling like the emphasis was in all the wrong places for Darryl’s part of the narrative, and expressed irritation with Heather’s pregnancy and birth? I sure ain’t mad about it for no reason. I am extremely, extremely aware of what those processes are actually like right the heck now.

I’m not going to linger on all the details, but I am particularly annoyed at the writers for dropping the ball on the pregnancy/birth part, specifically because it’s something which is so often badly dramatised in tv and film already, and the writers not only know that, they openly reference it as if they’re somehow doing better. The same way that medical professionals sometimes find it too frustrating to watch hospital dramas because of all their inaccuracies, or someone in law enforcement might cringe their way through all the egregious breaches in procedure in a cop show, there’s always a significant risk that anything depicted in fiction will make you want to tear your hair out over the way the plot warps or disregards reality that is pertinent to your life, either through a lack of proper research or understanding of the subject matter, or a conscious choice to prioritise desired storytelling beats/developments over actual logic and realism. Suffice to say there are a LOT of concessions Crazy Ex-Girlfriend asked me to make to their storytelling with this little subplot, some of which most people who have never been pregnant wouldn’t notice, and yes, some of which I would probably dismiss if I were not in the midst of the reality right now. I’m someone who has been present at actual births before and has been raised with an above-average understanding of what’s involved, so I’m used to gritting my teeth and hoping to just not be too annoyed by the way pregnancy and birth is typically depicted on screen. The fact that I am currently immersed in the reality of preparing to give birth makes me less forgiving of fictional contrivances, yes, but in the case of this show’s approach, it’s also more than that: it’s the fact that this show actively promotes itself as a feminist text. And if you’re gonna do that, and criticise the way other things (”written by men!”) depict labour, but then you also choose not to include any education/empowerment of your pregnant character, rattle off a variety of (uneducated, disempowered) cliches anyway, and then handwave it all with ‘nevermind, she just got an epidural!’ as if that ‘solves’ the difficulties of birth (and post-birth recovery, for that matter), frankly that’s just...a really unimpressive failure of feminist storytelling. Congratulations, you neglected the subject completely, at the same time as actively claiming your intent to do better than all that written-by-men schlock out there! What a tiresome charade this turned out to be.

Setting that aside though (difficult for me, as I am...very preoccupied with it), there was actually a good lot of things to like about this season, even if I do still feel that I ultimately have more criticisms than I do praise. Having Rebecca actually reach crisis point in the form of a suicide attempt, and consequently getting a diagnosis for her mental disorder and finally being able to move forward in learning to live a balanced life with BPD? Frankly, it’s not a move that I anticipated, and if you’d asked me where I thought Rebecca’s mental health plot was heading, I probably would have just shrugged it off as an unfocused thread where the ultimate goal was just ‘figure out how to be happy on your own terms instead of defining happiness through someone else’ (which is solid advice, but generalised advice, not something that would require the show to commit to a genuine mental illness). Acknowledging that Rebecca’s behaviour comes from a more distinct source than just the nebulous idea of being ‘crazy’ is a vitally important development, and it ushered in some of the best storytelling the show has offered thus far, at least when the plot maintained steady focus and made an effort to be responsible and mature in its exploration of the issue. As ever, there were still times when the show used Rebecca’s mental state for comic relief in a manner which made me uncomfortable, and times when I couldn’t interpret the intentions of the narrative - I have come to the conclusion that this show and I are on completely different wavelengths, which makes us a bad match, regardless of any elements which I do appreciate. 

On the subject of things I appreciate, I’m going to discuss the true character highlight of the show, someone I wanted to talk about after last season, not realising that if I held off until this review instead, he was gonna wind up so terribly underused in the meantime that it’s almost weird that he’s still technically part of the main cast at this point: Josh Chan. Josh Chan is...kinda the most believable part of this show, both in the bumbling good-natured balance of the character himself, and in other character’s feelings about him. Being able to buy the idea that someone would give up their whole life as they knew it to chase after this guy is kinda important to selling the concept of the show from the outset, and honestly, Josh Chan is the only time I’ve ever seen a central male love interest for whom the hype seemed to make sense. Is he perfect? Not by a long shot, but that’s fine because ‘perfection’ is as conditional as it is unattainable. The problem with male love interests, often, is that they’re written by heterosexual men who treat the character as some kind of masculine wish-fulfillment, a combination of ‘guy I wish I could be’ and ‘guy I think women should want (me)’. Josh Chan is a great example of a love interest written by women for women: he displays positive masculine-coded traits (protective, physically capable), while rejecting negative, toxic-masculine elements (aggression, possessiveness), and he embraces key ‘feminine’ traits (non-threatening, kind, soft, emotionally expressive, family-oriented), while his flaws are unobtrusive and potentially even endearing (the main one is that he’s quite stupid, which is something a lot of straight women will happily admit to liking (at least in theory), and other traits such as Josh’s childish streak can be a source of joy under some circumstances, as well as being something Josh mostly keeps a hold on so that it doesn’t become a burden to his partners). Also, it would be remiss of me to neglect to mention how refreshing and meaningful it is to have an Asian male love interest. I really enjoy not being bored to death by Josh Chan, and I am annoyed at how little of him we got this season while we wasted time with that generic slice of white bread, Nathaniel. Bring back the Chan plots, season four. Do it for me.

[pjbehindthesun]

Character Profile: Cora

Hey hi hello. When I asked you how you wanted to celebrate the latest reader milestone, you voted to see Cora's character profile in full. Here it is! Or, here it is, current as of chapter 23 (I had to take some stuff out, you know how it is). So if you're not through chapter 23 yet, there may be some undesired spoilers. And if you’re current up through chapter 23, then maybe some mild desired spoilers, who knows. Enjoy!

Name: Cora Lane Shaw

Age: 22 when the story starts. She’ll be 40 when it ends. (I told you guys, we got a whiiiiile yet to go…)

Nationality: American, with mostly Scottish and Irish ancestry.

Socioeconomic level as a child: Very poor early on, but became more solidly middle class once her mother remarried.

Socioeconomic level as an adult: At the start of the story, she’s able to make ends meet, but she’s pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and sharing living expenses with Alex.

Hometown: The general Asheville, NC area is all she’s ever told anyone. She has not told anyone the actual name of her hometown yet. She’s kind of embarrassed by it.

Current residence: At the beginning of the fic, she lives in Seattle WA.

Occupation: PhD student at UW College of Forest Resources, also a part-time waitress at Cyclops cafe. Her career will obviously change over the course of the fic.

Income: She gets a small stipend from working as a teaching assistant in her department, and picks up a little extra money waitressing.

Talents/Skills: Her biggest skill is being extremely book smart. She has decent wilderness skills. She had to learn some basic thriftiness skills like knitting and sewing, although she hates all that stuff. She does like to cook and bake but only because it appeals to her inner scientist. She also plays guitar (badly) and mandolin (worse).

Birth order: Oldest of two.

Siblings (describe relationship): She has one younger brother, Patrick, who she calls Patch and who is four years younger than her. Patch is 18 at the start of the fic. The two are extremely close, although nothing alike, and Cora is very protective of him. But she also relies heavily on his opinion.

Parents (describe relationship): Her biological parents are Shirley and Paul. Paul left when Cora was 8 years old and she has not seen or heard from him since. She has fond (albeit childlike) memories of him, but of course, his departure had a deep impact on her ability to trust people and her view of what commitment means. She has a terrible relationship with her mother, which has more to do with John, the man her mother remarried, than anything else. Whenever she has to go back to North Carolina, she stays with her childhood best friend's parents instead of her own.

Grandparents (describe relationship): She doesn't know her dad's parents or anything about them. Her mom's father died when her mom was very young, and her maternal grandmother is in a nursing home with dementia after having suffered a stroke a few years ago.

Significant others (describe relationship): At the beginning of the fic, she is dating Alex Henderson. Alex is a year older than her but they were the same year in college and met during the first month of freshman year. They used to have a very relaxed, fun-loving, easy relationship in which neither of them expected much from the other. But moving across the country together has exposed some of the fault lines that they hadn't noticed before. They do not share many worldviews or hobbies, and they never developed good communication skills as a couple. Their sex life used to be great but has dwindled to essentially nothing at all. They don't really fight, they just fall into cycles of ignoring/dismissing one another until one of them feels compelled to put more effort into the relationship to keep it going. Alex is the first boyfriend she’s ever had. She will have other relationships as the story progresses.

In a relationship: She throws herself entirely into everything she does, relationships included. Recently, things with Alex have gotten more distant and complicated, but generally, her relationship style is to be very loving and loyal and committed. She tends to develop huge blind spots, and she has terrible communication skills, preferring to hide from uncomfortable truths and lashing out when she’s called on it. But she’s good at using her sense of humor to diffuse bad situations and get things back to normal. Despite a heavy-handed religious upbringing, she enjoys sex and is... not particularly repressed about it.

Height: 5’3 if she stands up straight

Weight: 125 lbs

Race: Caucasian

Eye color: Very dark brown

Hair color: Bright red

Glasses or contact lenses? She wears glasses when she reads sometimes but not routinely.

Skin color: Very pale, very freckled.

Shape of face: Oval

How does she dress? She’s definitely a tomboy. She wears a lot of jeans and grandpa sweaters. (One pair of jeans in particular has a bunch of raggedy holes from a literal acid wash thanks to a lab accident.) She owns three skirts and zero dresses (with the exception of the Day-Glo orange bridesmaid’s dress). Footwear of choice is either Converse or Doc Martens.

Habits: (smoking, drinking etc.) She will smoke occasionally but only socially, not as a habit. She does drink a lot of bourbon, like, way too much bourbon. Can be a bit of a pothead, although not as much in grad school.

Health: She’s pretty healthy, but it’s almost by accident. She’s a vegetarian, and she likes to ride her bike more than drive (or she did, before she gave away her bike...), but those habits have to do with her environmental convictions, not being a fitness nut. She does not generally sleep well or take great care of herself outside of those activities, although she does periodically go for a run to clear her head.

Hobbies: Reading, running/biking/hiking/anything that gets her outside, cooking and baking. And sometimes playing guitar. Again, badly.

Speech patterns: She speaks very quickly and moves her hands a lot when she talks. She has a faint NC accent despite having tried hard to shed it. Her favorite swears are religious, like “sweet merciful zombie Jesus.”

Greatest flaw: Perfectionism in the unhealthiest way. This applies to her standards for herself (personally and professionally) as well as a rigidity in how she navigates her life. She also has a short temper.

Best quality: Her idealism drives her to make the world better. Not just in her planned career, but in how she deals with other people as well. She’s not an optimist but she wants to make a difference.

Short-term goals in life: On the immediate horizon, pass her prelim exams, get a fellowship, and publish her first paper from her research. In the initial months of the fic, her other primary short-term goal was to keep her relationship with Alex thriving, although she has become less committed to that idea recently.

Long-term goals in life: Finish her PhD, get a tenure-track job at a research university, and use evidence to impact people's decisions for the greater good. She’s always seen that happening through a career in scientific research. She doesn’t have distinct personal goals like “get married, have kids,” because she prizes her independence and has misgivings about some of those life choices, at least as she understands them right now.

How does she see herself? She second-guesses herself constantly, both personally and professionally. She doesn’t have a very high opinion of her looks, but she doesn’t get bent out of shape about it either. She finds other things to have low self-esteem about, like her foot-in-mouth tendencies or her perfectionism in school or her worry of hurting other people.

What would most embarrass her? She hates it when she puts her foot in her mouth and says something rude to a person she really cares about. She would also be very embarrassed to be seen as vulnerable in any way.

Strengths and weaknesses: Strengths are intelligence, altruism, humor, stubbornness, and generosity. Weaknesses are emotional fragility, stubbornness, short temper, inflexibility, anxiety. 

Introvert or Extrovert? Introvert

How does she deal with anger? Her temper flares. She's not good with it at all. 

With loss? Not well. She internalizes it and it sometimes causes her to hold on to people she probably shouldn't. 

What makes her happy? Being in nature, being with her (very few) loved ones, and scientific discovery. 

Rude or polite? Rude for sure.

What motivates her? Fear of failure and loss. Altruism and ideals.

Is she ruled by emotion or logic or some combination thereof? Almost always logic, although there are certain circumstances where she can be swept up in a moment.

Does she believe in God? Absolutely not. She was raised Catholic and still carries a lot of Catholic guilt around in her personality, but she’s pretty dismissive of spirituality in general.

Relationships with others:

1. Alex: They start out dating. They met when she was still a very naive 17 year old, and he’s been her whole world ever since. She’s starting to lose patience with him and doubt how truthful he’s being. And of course, she’s keeping a secret from him too.

2. Lucy: Best friend. Lives downstairs. You haven’t heard how they met yet but it’s a good story and you’ll hear it eventually from one of them. Suffice it to say they hit it off immediately.

3. Chris: Chris is the first member of the “Seattle scene” she met, out on their hike in an undisclosed location in the Northern Cascades. They have a deep friendship but they don’t see each other very often due to their respective schedules.

4. Jeff: Neighbors. They formally meet for the first time at the Off Ramp and don't really hit it off right away. He is annoyed by her sense of humor. Gradually he warms up to her as he understands her relationship with Lucy better. But they are always a little at odds.

4. Stone: She meets Stone at the Off Ramp at the same time as Jeff. They form a friendship very quickly, although Stone has feelings for her from the very start. She realizes slowly that she has feelings for him as well. Then... some things happen. It gets complicated, and not complicated.

4. Eddie: It takes a while for Eddie to stop being “that new guy” to anyone, including Cora. But she initially strikes up a conversation with him because she feels bad for how lonely he looks, and they hit it off well. They have a habit of oversharing with one another.

5. Patch: Little brother. Adores him, thinks the world of him, needs his validation for everything she does, is extremely protective of him.

How she is different at the end of the novel from when the novel began: Obviously much older, and much more flexible in her ideas.