#lmao jon is so dramatic

[remosdeerica]

I wrote a thing while bored at work. If you don't wanna click the link it's all here>>>>

~~~~

Jon loved Damian. He loved him more than anything. More than Ma's apple pie, more than warm sunny days, more than flying. More than life itself. 

Rationally, Jon could see how that might be a problem for his parents. They got married thinking they would have to adopt if they ever wanted children; human and Kryptonian genes were just too incompatible to conceive a child. The fact that Jon existed at all was a miracle, one that he knew his parents had tried and failed to replicate. 

But Jon couldn’t help it. Damian was everything to him. Damian was the reason he got out of bed in the morning, the reason he was able to face each and every day with a smile. He was the reason Jon became Superboy. Damian was his whole world.

You've only known him for a couple of months. 

You're too young to know what real love is.

He's your first real friend, you're just a little overexcited.

Just some of the things his parents had said to him when Jon had told them his feelings for Damian. They thought it was a phase. 

Until The Hunter showed up. 

One of the many assassins Ra's al Ghul periodically sent after his grandson, the Hunter was meticulous. Vicious. Once he set his sights on his prey there was nothing on earth that could make him give up the hunt.

The day the Hunter caught Damian was one of the worst of Jon’s life. Seeing his love strung up by his wrists like a piece of meat ready to be devoured was an image that would haunt him to his dying day.  

What wouldn't haunt him, however, was the feeling of satisfaction he got as he looked into The Hunter's terrified eyes while plunging his fist through his stomach, pulverizing his insides. 

His father and Uncle Bruce had been the ones to find them after the fact. With Damian still unconscious and held protectively in Jon's blood-soaked embrace.  They never did find The Hunter's body.

Needless to say, they didn't think his feelings for Damian were 'just a phase' after that.

His parents blamed Damian for Jon's behavior, saying he was dangerous and a bad influence. Uncle Bruce himself begrudgingly agreed though he argued that Damian simply wasn't adjusted to 'normal life' yet. 

It infuriated Jon. How dare they? Damian was perfect. Jon was more than old enough to make his own decisions. And the decision to kill The Hunter was his and his alone. Damian hadn’t even been conscious for the confrontation for crying out loud! 

Jon made sure to inform his parents of this fact. He wanted to make them understand that Damian was not some evil corrupter. Jon would have killed to protect anyone he loved. With Damian, he was just a little more brutal. 

That conversation landed his butt firmly in therapy. 

Obsessive, his therapist, Ms. Tate called him. Codependent. Overly attached. Unhealthily fixated. 

Jon remained bitter and agitated during their sessions. Refusing to give an inch. Jon didn’t see what was so wrong with protecting Damian. Damian was his. And Jon would do whatever it took to keep him safe. Ms. Tate did not seem to like this answer. 

Apparently, Ms. Tate had suggested that his parents keep Jon separated from Damian for a while. That some time apart might help Jon find balance in his everyday life. 

It did the exact opposite.  

His parents hadn't explicitly told him that he wasn't allowed to see Damian. Being a whole city away from him meant they couldn't spend as much time together as they liked anyway. And his phone and computer privileges had been revoked, on account of the, well, murder. So, not seeing Damian hadn't been a surprise. It wasn't pleasant, especially after what Damian had gone through, but he figured it would be temporary. 

Two weeks after the incident his parents revealed that they had no intention of letting him see Damian at all. 

To be honest, Jon doesn't really remember what happened. One minute he was arguing with his parents, the next he was waking up strapped to a bed in one of the Watchtower's containment cells, red sun lamps glaring down on him. 

His parents watched him through the observation window as he struggled against his restraints. How could they betray them like this? They were his parents! They were supposed to love him! Why were they hurting him?

For weeks they kept Jon in that cell. Strapped down and bathed in the red glow of the lamps. After the first few days, his anger had died down, leaving him feeling hollow. Numb. 

His parents came and went, never entering the room. Only observing him through the window. He was pretty sure he saw Uncle Bruce once or twice, with his deeply set frown and stiff shoulders. And he had a vague sense that Kon had tried to fight his way into the cell to see him, though ended up being convinced by the Justice League to go back to Titan Tower. He may have been dreaming that last part up, though. It was hard to tell.

Jon just wanted to see Damian. He wanted to hear his voice. See one of his rare but heart-stopping smiles. To feel his calloused fingers thread through his as they held hands. That's all he wanted. Damian was all he ever wanted.

But that was looking more and more like it would never happen. 

Until one night, Jon was abruptly awoken by a hand jostling his shoulder. 

"Jon."

"Jon!"

"Come on, Hayseed. Wake up!"

Hayseed? Only Damian called him Hayseed…

Jon bolted up in bed as far as his restraints would let him. 

"Damian!?"

Damian was dressed head to toe in black with a mask covering the bottom half of his face. 

"Who else, Jon?"

Jon stared at him in wonder, even with half of his face covered, Damian was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. 

"You came for me…."

Damian slowly raised his hand to rest on Jon's cheek.

"Of course, Beloved. I would never abandon you."

Tears of love and gratitude pooled in Jon's eyes. 

"I love you, Dami."

Damian’s eyes softened.

"And I, you."

[atlabeth]

weight of the world

series masterlist

pairing: luke castellan x daughter of poseidon!reader

summary: percy returns to camp after a successful quest. luke battles his guilt.

a/n: a lot of you guys seemed to like the percy pov and the pure angst of luke doing all this stuff to his first love's brother percy jackson instead of just percy jackson and first and foremost i would like to say you're all crazy but i also agree. so here you go. title from the jon bellion song

wc: 5.6k

warning(s): reader is dead (i feel like i have to tag this every time lmao). angst made angstier with fluffy flashbacks. tlt betrayal scene (pit scorpion edition). everyone is so sad

When Percy returned to camp with Annabeth and Grover, they were hailed as heroes. 

It might not have felt like it on the road, isolated with just the three of them, but they’d prevented a third World War. They certainly stopped camp from getting destroyed, if what Luke told them was true about the cabins taking sides. 

Burning their burial shrouds felt even better, especially with the Ares cabin’s expert craftsmanship. Apparently it was a tradition because demigods died so frequently on quests—Percy took pride in breaking that unsettling standard. 

It turned out all he needed to come into his own was to go on a quest everyone thought would kill him and not die. 

He excelled during his sword fighting lessons—going against a god would do that for you—he’d gotten much better at using his powers—going against a god would also do that for you—and his team always dominated on the lake during races, though that might’ve just been him cheating. 

He’d even started getting used to the Poseidon cabin in all its emptiness. It still felt too lonely, but he was working on it. The first thing he did when he got back to the cabin was pin your photo on the wall—Cabin Three belonged to you as much as it did to him.

And of course, everyone wanted to hear about how Percy saved the world. He’d told the story of his quest about a hundred times since he got back, sometimes with Annabeth piping in to set the record straight, sometimes with Grover dramatically setting the scene, always with a million different questions in between about how everything went down. 

Tonight was no different in the amphitheater—a group of Athena kids wanted to hear about his fight against Ares again—but he managed to get out of giving them the excruciating play-by-play courtesy of campfire songs. Percy didn’t really mind, though—any night with a large, golden fire was a good night in his books. 

Which was kind of how he ended up giving Luke the play-by-play of his quest. Maybe it was bragging, but he hadn’t seen who he considered his first friend at camp in a while. And yeah, sue him, but he wanted to impress Luke. He was cool and nice and good at everything, and Percy wanted to prove he’d made him proud. 

“—And I thought I didn’t stand a chance, but she taunted me and told me to jump into the water if I was really Poseidon’s kid. So I did, and it worked, and somehow I lived.” Percy shook his head with a slight laugh. “It ended up all over the news. I was a nationally wanted criminal for a couple days. We also blew a bus up, and rode with a zebra and a lion to Vegas, and went to the Underworld— gods, we did so much. It was crazy, honestly.” 

Luke chuckled. “I’m sure.” 

Percy glanced over at him, his brows creasing when he saw his distant gaze. He didn’t think Luke heard a single word. “You good, man?” 

He blinked and focused back on Percy, and though he smiled it was strained. “Yeah. Sorry—spaced out for a second. You were talking about your quest?” 

Percy nodded slowly. “Yeah. The whole criminal thing.” 

His smile turned a little more genuine. “You made front page news, too. I think you became the idol of a lotta kids here.”

“Oh, god,” he said with a frown. “You guys get news here?” 

“Couple New York papers,” he nodded. “You’re camp-famous.” 

Percy huffed a laugh and shook his head. “It feels crazy. I just got here a month ago, and everything’s already changed so much.” He looked over at Luke. “What did you do after you got home from your quest?” 

“...It takes some getting used to,” he admitted with a shrug. “I mean, getting to camp after so many years on the road was rough—coming back to camp after getting this—” he tapped his scar— “didn’t help.” 

“How did you get that?” he asked. 

“You’re always trying to get the saddest stories out of me,” Luke said wryly. “You know you can read books, right?” 

“I can’t, actually,” Percy said. "Not well."

Luke laughed and shook his head, his gaze falling back to the fire. Percy took it as him moving on. 

“I— I know I’m kind of proving your point, but… I wanted to ask you if I could have a couple more pictures” Percy cleared his throat, brushing a few dark strands of hair out of his face. “Of my sister, I mean. Obviously, you have way more of a right to them than I do, but— but Cabin Three’s a little bare. I thought adding a couple current things to the old stuff she put up would be nice.” 

His throat bobbed, and it took him a second, but he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah— sure.”

“Tomorrow after breakfast?” he asked. “I’ve got some free time before I have to go down to the forge.”

Luke nodded again. “Sure. You still have that picture I gave you?”

“Of course,” he said. “I already put it up on the wall. Do you want it back?”

His smile was bittersweet as he shook his head. “Nah. Like I said, you deserve to have a piece of her with you. And I’m sure she’d say the same.”

“I asked my dad about her, y’know,” Percy said. Luke’s eyes widened a bit as he looked back at him. “I went to Olympus on my own to return Zeus’s bolt, and the two of them were there. My dad and I got some alone time, and…” he shrugged. “I already annoyed two gods that day. Figured a third wouldn’t be that crazy.”

“What did he say?” 

“That it was one of his greatest regrets,” Percy said. “And he’d never forgive himself for letting her die, and for what it did to her mom.” He glanced at Luke. “And to you.”

Luke’s chest stilled, his gaze going out of focus for a moment as a muscle worked in his jaw. He hid it well, but Percy knew. He’d spent enough time at home with his mom and step-dad, overheard enough one-sided arguments. 

“You’re braver than me,” he finally said, and he stood up. “I’m gonna turn in—it’s been a long day.”

“I’m sorry, Luke,” he said. “And Poseidon is too, for whatever it’s worth.” 

Luke didn’t look back at him as he started towards the path. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Percy.” 

-

“Are you sure you’re allowed to put lights up?” Luke asked. 

“Okay, Chiron,” you said cloyingly. “I didn’t know you were such a stickler for the rules.” 

“I’m just worried about fire safety!” he exclaimed. “The Hephaestus kids nearly burn down their cabin at least five times a week.” 

“They’re working with actual fire. These are just Christmas lights.” You glanced down at him and he handed you the next strand. “Besides, this is the safest cabin for possible fire hazards. And they look pretty—that’s all that matters.” 

Luke chuckled as you hung them up, and he took a step back as you jumped off the chair and moved it to the other side of the room. You usually hung fairy lights, but with the holidays just around the corner, you wanted to make the place more festive. You asked Luke if he wanted to hang out with you while you decorated, and he obviously accepted. He took all the time he could get with you. 

“It’s so quiet in here,” Luke said as you got back up, taking the next strand with you. “I’m not used to an empty cabin.” 

“That’s what happens when you’re not supposed to be alive,” you mused. 

“You of all people can’t say that.” He huffed a laugh and shook his head. “Do you ever get lonely in here?” 

“‘Course not,” you said. “I’ve always got you following me around.” 

“Can you blame me?” he asked. “Your company’s the best.” 

You grinned and looked back down at him, and Luke gave you the next string of lights. “Or maybe you’re just a little crazy. You’ve gotta be to spend three years on the road with me.” 

“Being around you is what’s kept me sane,” he corrected. “Especially in the Hermes cabin of chaos.” 

You got up on your toes and lifted a leg up so you could lean to reach the last hook. “Oh, come on. Your siblings are so fun to be around!” 

“Maybe in small doses,” he said wryly. “And be careful, gods—” 

You looked down at him, your grin only growing. “Are you saying you’re worried about me?” 

“Always,” he said, still watching you, “but the last thing you need is to break your leg.” 

“It’s a five foot fall, Luke,” you said, amused as you got back on even footing. You hopped back down and tilted your head. “I’ve survived much higher falls.” 

Luke frowned. “You don’t get to joke about that.” 

“I thought you were dead too,” you defended. “That means it’s fair game.” 

His chest twisted. He’d played that day over in his head thousands of times since he first lost you, wondering if he could have done something different or if he should have searched more—he stayed in those woods for a week and a half searching for you before another monster attack forced him out of the area. It was the whole reason he came up with a designated meeting area with Thalia and Annabeth if they got separated—he never wanted to lose someone again the way he lost you. 

He shook his head with a sigh. “Sometimes I still can’t believe it, y’know? 

“Thank my dad,” you said. “I would have died if I didn’t fall into water. And he’s the reason I got to camp.” 

He’s also the reason you ended up on the streets in the first place, Luke wanted to say, but he held his tongue. You’d never shared his disdain for the gods, and he didn’t want to spoil your mood with his bitterness. 

So he doesn’t. He tilted his head and focused back on you. “Do I ever tell you how thankful I am that you're still alive?”

You smiled as you pushed the chair in front of your desk. “I could always stand to hear it more.” 

“Well, I’m thankful that you’re alive,” Luke said. He could have stared at your smile forever. “Mourning you was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.” 

“With any luck, you won’t have to do it again,” you joked. “I get it, though. Sometimes it feels like a dream. I thought I was hallucinating when you came over that hill.”  

The best and the worst day of his life—he found you again and lost Thalia in the same five-minute span. It wasn’t fair—Luke had told Thalia so many stories about you, and she was the one that brought him back from the edge your supposed death sent him to. On his worst days, Luke blamed himself for both. 

“Luke,” you said, jarring him out of his thoughts. “What do you think of the lights? Tacky, or festive, or both?” 

He blinked, then took a step back with you so you could get the full view. He nodded. “Festive, definitely. Where’d you even get them?” 

“The Big House attic,” you said. “It’s not just full of Oracles and spoils of war.” 

He chuckled. “And how did you convince Chiron to give you those?” 

You shrugged. “You know I’m persuasive.” 

Luke shook his head. “I’m jealous. No one else really gets to decorate their place like this.” 

“No siblings means full creative control,” you mused. “And Big Three dad means a big cabin all for me.” 

“And yet you still get a twin bed,” he said with a smile. “We’re all equal, really.” 

“Like you wouldn’t prefer a full.” You fluffed your pillow then set it back down. “You spend as much time in here as I do.” 

“Can you blame me?” Luke shrugged. “There’s no privacy there. We can get away with basically anything in here.” 

“And because you love me,” you said cloyingly as you rustled your hair with his hand. 

“Yeah,” he said with a smile. “I really do.” 

Your smile widened and you gestured at your box of decorations. “Wanna prove it, loverboy? Help me get the rest of this up before sword lessons.”

“Y’know, I’m leading them today,” Luke said, picking up a stack of snowflake cutouts. He was pretty sure you just took all the rejects after you were in charge of the crafts for a week. “Technically, that means we’ve got as long as we want.” 

“Oh, Luke Castellan,” you said airily, pressing a hand to your chest. “You know the way to my heart.” 

-

“Oh,” Percy said. “Wow.” 

“Yeah. And this is only one of them.” Luke set a cardboard box full of things on an empty bed and sighed. “She made this place her own while she was here.”

Percy took out a stack of baseball cards on top—Red Sox, of course, the only bad thing about you—and shuffled through them. “Everything’s a little dusty.” 

“No one really wanted to come in here after she died,” Luke said. He had a tangled mess of Christmas lights in his hands. “All this stuff stayed up for a year or two before I took it all down.” He huffed a mirthless laugh. “You’re probably the only one apart from me to be in here since she left.” 

Percy set the cards down. “Do you mind if I put some of it back up?” 

Luke glanced at him. “Why do you always ask me? This is your place.” 

“It’s not just my place,” he said. “I… I want to make sure I’m honoring her well. And I don’t wanna make it harder for you. Especially if you took it down for a reason.” 

Luke was silent for a moment as he stared at the lights. He brushed off some dust with his thumb. 

Percy felt bad for pushing the matter every time he was around Luke, but there was a tug inside of him—an innate need to know more about her, a desperation to honor her life despite never meeting her. 

“I appreciate it,” he finally said. “But go for it, man. You don’t have to get my permission.” 

Percy nodded, and he took a poster out, wedged in the side of the box. A Blondie poster, based off the huge block letters above a blonde singer stylized in pop art. It had a torn corner, and bits of tape had been folded over some parts of the edges. 

Luke chuckled. “She was a huge Blondie fan. She brought her Walkman when she ran away—I lost count of how many times we listened to Parallel Lines. Definitely put that one back up.” 

Percy nodded and set it on his bed. He looked at the lights in Luke’s hand. “Why’d she have those?” 

“She loved to light the cabin up,” he explained. “Said it made it feel more homey, and she liked to change it with the seasons. And when she enlisted the Aphrodite kids, it was like a— a HomeGoods warzone.” Luke shook his head with the most genuine smile he’d seen all day. “She really was something special.”  

Again, Percy’s heart clenched. It wasn’t fair he only got to learn about you through stories, only through the past tense. If he could get his mom back, why the hell couldn’t he get you back? Why couldn’t his dad have stepped in? 

What good was regret when you have all the power in the world to stop it? What good was being a god if you couldn’t save your family when it mattered most? 

“Y’know, I decorated this place a million times with her,” he said, and Percy was thankful for the interruption with his thoughts. “She wanted it to be a welcoming cabin, open to the whole camp if they ever got homesick.” 

“So the opposite of what it used to be,” Percy said wryly. 

“Yeah,” Luke nodded. “You two are the first Poseidon kids in a long time because of the oath—it was just here for respect. She didn’t just make it into her home, she made it into a home for anyone that needed some extra warmth.” 

Percy looked around, trying to imagine you and a younger, unscarred Luke putting all this stuff on the walls, him helping you hang Christmas lights. You sitting on a bed, maybe what he’d chosen as his bed, talking a younger camper through their fears or their homesickness. You forcing the innate coldness of Cabin Three out and replacing it with warmth of your own. 

“Did you bring any pictures?” he asked. 

Luke nodded again and took a few out of his pockets, offering them to Percy. He took the one sticking out the most and smiled a bit. 

“Very Poseidon of her,” he commented. 

“She loved the beach,” Luke said, smiling wistfully. “No matter what state we were in, she would always try to find one. We could’ve walked twenty miles that day, and the moment she stepped into the water she would be good as new. I should’ve known who her dad was a lot sooner.”

Percy’s hand lingered on the picture he’d just put up. You stood on a sandy shore with your arms spread and head tilted back, and you looked wholly in your element. 

He wondered what you would think of Montauk. 

“This was one of those times?” he asked. 

Luke nodded. “North Carolina. A year and a half in, I think. We missed the East Coast after being in the Midwest for so long, and naturally, she found a beach immediately.” His eyes softened. “She was always so happy around the water, even after she knew what it meant.”

Percy frowned. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Finding out the thing you’ve always loved is the domain of the father who abandoned you is a little rough.” 

Luke always spoke with more nerve towards the gods than any other camper he knew. Funny, considering he was one of the first ones to tell him that names had power.

And he’d been acting weird since Percy got back from the quest. He thought maybe he was jealous, but Luke didn’t really seem like the jealous type—especially when he was already so cool. 

Then again, they did just come back from the brink of a possible world war. Percy should’ve been surprised more people weren’t acting weird. 

His attention drifted to the clock on the wall in the midst of his thoughts—Chiron’s last ditch effort in a camp full of time-blind kids—and his eyes widened. 

Percy muttered under his breath—Annabeth had taught him some Ancient Greek curse words on the road, and he was sure his mom would love them—and looked up at Luke. “Sorry, man. I’ve gotta go. Time really got away from me.” 

“I get it,” he nodded. “Have you gotten any better?” 

He glanced away bashfully. “Not really. But Beckendorf has the patience of a saint. Maybe someday I’ll make an actually functional sword.” 

Luke chuckled, though it was wistful. “Good luck. You mind if I stay here for a bit? I can put up some of her things.” 

“Yeah,” he nodded, “of course. Stay as long as you want.” 

Percy stopped once he got out of the door. Luke’s gaze was glued to a picture of you on the wall, his expression softer than he’d ever seen before at odds with something indistinguishable in his eyes. Again, Percy felt that all-encompassing dread, and he swallowed the lump in his throat. 

He left before it could consume him, but the haunted look in Luke’s eyes didn’t leave his head for the rest of the day. 

-

You took in a deep breath of salty air. The sea breeze blew over you as waves gently rolled into shore, and you smiled. You never felt more like yourself than when you were at the beach, and when you and Luke were constantly on the run fighting for your lives, sometimes you desperately needed to feel like yourself. 

You exhaled long and slow. It had been a particularly rough week—Luke did his best patching up your shoulder, but it would definitely scar—and this was just what you needed to wind down before you started moving again. 

You and your mom went to Cape Cod a lot when you were growing up, and though this wasn’t anywhere close to the same, it made for an alright stand-in.

The click of a polaroid camera interrupted your peace, and you opened your eyes and turned your head to see the culprit. 

“And you made fun of me for constantly taking pictures,” you said wryly. 

Luke smiled. “I made fun of you for taking up valuable space in your bag to bring your camera with you. I can’t not take pictures of you—especially when you’re so photogenic.” 

“Flatterer.” 

“Not if it’s true,” he remarked. He held out the camera to you. “Wanna get any pictures of the sea? You’ve got a better eye than me.” 

“Well, the sea’s a better subject than me,” you said. “Hold onto it.” 

He chuckled and took it back, drying out the newly printed picture. “How’re you feeling, by the way? I know it’s been a hard few days.”  

“Never better,” you said. “I needed a break from the road.”

“I get why you wanted to stop here,” he said. “It’s… calming.”

“Isn’t it?” You spread your arms out, breathing in deep once more. “I always feel better out here. More free.”

Another camera click, and your smile grew. “How do you feel?” 

“Better too, surprisingly. But that might just be because we’re walking instead of running.” You heard his footsteps and he came up next to you. You took the picture he offered and chuckled. You had your head back and your arms spread, soaking up every bit of sun and sea air you could. 

“I look like a stock photo.” 

“Does that mean I can get a job as a photographer?” he asked. “We could use some extra cash.” 

“Half of the pictures are either random parts of nature or me,” you said. “Who’d buy those?” 

“Me,” Luke said. “But I don’t think that would help with our money problems.” 

“All this flattery won’t get you anywhere,” you said. 

“It got me here,” he said. “I think it’s worked out pretty well.” 

You smiled as you looped arms with Luke, and after you gestured with your head, you started walking down the sand together. Whereas you always felt like you were blurting out the first thing that came to mind when you were around him, Luke always knew exactly what to say to make you feel better. “Do you like it here?” 

Luke nodded. “It’s nice. I get why you like the water so much.” 

“At least one beach a week going forward now that we’re on the coast again, then,” you said. “Deal?” 

“Deal,” he agreed. 

“Good,” you said with a smile. “I’ve been wanting to go back to Virginia Beach. Last time, those giant ant things ruined it for us.” 

“Gods,” Luke grumbled, and you felt him shiver. “Don’t remind me of those things. I’ll never forget what their poison smelled like—and I’ll never forgive them for ruining my favorite shirt.” 

“Don’t worry,” you said. “I’ll get you a Red Sox one someday, and it’ll become your new favorite shirt.” 

Luke shook his head. “Your Boston baseball propaganda isn’t gonna work. I was raised as a Yankee.” 

“And I’m here to undo that awful brainwashing,” you said sagely. “Next time we go through Massachusetts, I’ll have to get you one. And we can stop by Cape Cod—I think being close to the water is good for my health.” 

“And I like seeing you happy,” he mused. “So I guess it works out for both of us.” 

You laughed. “We’ll have to stop at a music store before the day ends, too. I’ve nearly worn out my Cyndi Lauper tape, and I need to get some new ones. You should pick out an album you like too.h” 

“‘Course,” he said. “I think we’ve got some extra cash saved up. And if we have to—” 

“We shouldn’t steal anything yet,” you interrupted. “I don’t wanna get the cops on our backs so soon.” 

“You say that like I would get caught,” Luke remarked. “It’s literally in my genes. I’m making my father proud, and I’m helping you. I see no reason not to do it.” 

“Cool it,” you said. “We’re not becoming Bonnie and Clyde at the ripe old age of eleven.” 

“Fine.” You couldn’t see it, but you could sense his smile. “I’ll hold off. For now.” 

That got another laugh out of you as you leaned your head against his shoulder. It felt like you’d been on the run for a week straight—this was the best break you could have asked for. Maybe the sea was good for your health, you thought. Or maybe it was just Luke. 

Either worked for you. 

-

Percy could hardly breathe as he stared down at the scorpion, slowly inching its way up his pants leg. It wasn’t every day one of your friends betrayed and tried to kill you in the woods, but this seemed like the year he started checking things off his bucket list. 

“So this was your plan all along,” he said, attention split between the pit scorpion and the traitor. “Gain my trust, send me to Tartarus, start a war for Kronos.” 

The air got colder, and Luke tilted his head. “You should be careful with names.”

“And you should do the job yourself,” he challenged. “You want to kill me? Fight me like a man.” 

“I’m not Ares,” he said tartly. “You can’t bait me.” 

“So you’re a coward too?” Red hot anger rose within him, and the words left him before he could really think about them. “Did you also lie about my sister? Got a hobby of killing Poseidon kids?”

“Zeus got her killed, Percy!” Luke yelled. There was something wild in his eyes as he gestured with his sword. “I loved her more than anything—I held her as she died, and your dad let it happen. If it weren’t for the gods, both her and Thalia would be alive!” 

Maybe it was a good thing Percy didn’t know that until now. If he knew the king of gods was responsible for his sister’s death, he would’ve gotten himself burnt to a crisp on Olympus. 

“This isn’t what my sister would have wanted,” he said. “She—”

“Don’t you dare talk about her!” His voice continued to rise. “You don’t know her— you don’t know what she would have wanted!” 

“She couldn’t have wanted this!” he exclaimed. Percy’s breath caught momentarily as the scorpion inched closer and he forced his muscles to remain as still as possible as his gaze flicked back over to Luke. “This isn’t the way to fix things, Luke. I promise.” 

He shook his head, and he could have been a son of Ares the way fire seemed to blaze in his eyes. “She died because of Zeus, Percy. She was so close to sixteen, and that meant she was a threat to his power. He sent monsters to kill her, and your dad could have saved her, but he didn’t do a damn thing about it. And y’know,” Luke huffed a laugh, cold and mirthless, “the same thing’s gonna happen to you.” 

His blood had turned to ice. “He knows the pain of losing a daughter. Why would he—” 

“Because they don’t care, Percy!” he yelled, his sword cutting through the air again. “All they care about is keeping their power and their position. Your dad would rather send you on a death quest than stop stroking his ego for one measly second. Hades sent monsters to kill Thalia, and Zeus sent monsters to kill your sister—they can’t punish each other, so they punish us, and the cycle will never stop until we make it stop.”

“And you think that this is the way to do it?” he asked desperately. “By betraying camp and all your friends? We’re in the same position as you are!” 

“And anyone that’s smart will join our cause,” Luke said. “Do you really think I’m the only one that’s upset with the gods? I’ve been here for five years—I’ve seen kids leave for the school year and never come back. I’ve seen kids die without ever being claimed. My own dad turned me away at every opportunity. Our numbers are bigger than you know, Percy.” 

“You say I don’t know my sister,” Percy said, “but I know her enough to know she wouldn’t want this. Not in her name. Not against our father.” 

“You don’t know her at all,” Luke said, voice trembling. “If she knew that Zeus killed her for nothing but paranoia over a bullshit prophecy, she would be fighting against the gods right beside me.” 

“I lost her once,” he continued, shaky but full of anger, “and then I got her back, just to lose her all over again. The gods will never know that kind of pain—if they did, they wouldn’t have let it happen in the first place.” 

The scorpion was at his knee now. Percy was running out of time, and his mind was working in overdrive on how to get more, but he found himself rendered speechless. What could he say to a boy who’d lost everything? 

Luke was the lightning thief, he’d fully intended to kill Percy with those shoes, he meant to turn the gods against each other and raise Kronos, and now he was really trying to kill him.  

And yet, he couldn’t help but feel sympathy.

Percy thought he’d lost his mother, but now she was back. He’d met his father in person. He had a sister he’d never meet, that he would never be able to fully grieve. Luke loved her and grew up with her and grieved her twice.

Percy didn’t care—anyone who his sister loved couldn’t be a bad person. Not fully.  

“Please, Luke,” he said, voice low. “I don’t know how to solve it, but this isn’t the way. You think the gods are using you? Kronos is doing the exact same thing.” 

“You’re twelve, Percy, and you’re already the chosen one,” Luke said. “Hades and Ares would have both killed you if they got their way, and it was your job to stop a war between the gods because they couldn’t see beyond their egos. How is that fair to you?”  

“There was no other choice,” Percy insisted. “If either of them backed down, they would look weak. We’re the only ones that can do quests like this.” 

“Exactly,” he said. “They start petty fights that they can’t finish and it gets taken out on us. We have to be their heroes, and we have to praise them as we die.”

Percy remembered their bus exploding. Medusa, an innocent woman favored by Poseidon and punished by Athena for it. The endless souls in the Asphodel Fields, and even more waiting in line for their chance to be judged. Luke’s quest given to him by his father permanently scarring him, Thalia Grace sacrificing herself for her friends, his sister never getting the chance to see sixteen—Percy himself being used as a pawn to enact Kronos’s plan. 

“You don’t have to be a hero,” Luke continued, almost begging at this point. “You can join our cause—you can prove you’re so much more than the prophecies want you to be. Say the word and I’ll call it off.”

Percy wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of godly respect. He tricked Hades, insulted Zeus, and actually fought Ares. But his dad loved him—or loved his mom, at least. Annabeth’s determination and Grover’s steadfastness and all the friends he’d made at camp—all innocent children like himself. He couldn’t turn his back on that. 

Percy clenched his jaw. “I will never serve Kronos.”

Pain flashed in Luke’s dark eyes, but he shut it down just as soon. “So be it.”

He slashed his sword through the air and a ripple of darkness appeared, the void bleeding into the forest. 

“I really am sorry it came to this, Percy,” Luke said quietly. “But it’ll be quick. And that’s a bigger mercy than Zeus gave your sister.”

Luke disappeared into the darkness and it vanished soon after. Percy didn’t have time to think about his words—the scorpion had reached his thigh. Sixty seconds, Luke had said, then it was over. 

Percy had about five seconds to think of a plan before it lunged at him. He batted it away with one hand and uncapped his sword with the other, cutting the scorpion in half before it could reach the ground. 

He thought he did it. Then he looked at his hand, a red welt already sweltering on his palm, oozing sticky yellow liquid. 

Percy stumbled to the creek and submerged his hand, but nothing happened. He muttered a delusional prayer to his dad, then to his mother, then to you as he stumbled his way towards camp. Nymphs emerged from their trees, and he croaked a plea for help. 

As Percy collapsed, barely caught by nymphs on either side, he swore that he saw you. Did that mean he was dying? You had kind eyes like his mother, an aura of warmth unlike the feverish heat in his body, and it made the idea of it a lot less scary. 

He wondered if he’d meet you in Elysium. 

Percy reached a leaden arm out to you, mumbling your name despite his cottonmouth, and then his vision went black. 

[onceinawhilemoon]

Finished the Mycroft’s Pride DLC and you bet I have some thoughts to share. Long read ahead and Spoilers if you haven't 100%-ed the DLC!

Interesting how you can look at the DLC as Mycroft's way of distracting Sherlock from uncovering the past, like if he can't talk him out of it, he might as well distract him as much as he can and hope for a miracle, similar to how Jon distracts him with all the childhood memories and the treasure hunts and challenges. The psychological implications/interpretations of that last one are vast: Sherry is deep down dreading the truth enough that he wants to stall as much as possible, or maybe he realized he missed Cordona so much and wants to spend as much time as possible here before leaving for good, or maybe it's a coming-of-age thing where he sees it as a chance to revisit and relive his best childhood memories and interests before he grows old and out of them, or all the above.

Either way, I really appreciate FW making Mycroft more prominent in Sherlock’s life and depicting him as a parental figure who clearly takes so much pride in having raised him and, in Mycroft's words, shaped him into the fine and productive young man that he is today. Despite all the miscommunication and the bickering and arguing, the only thing that remains solid and unwavering in their turbulent relationship is that Sherlock is Mycroft's pride and joy. (omg look i said the thing)

I lose it every time Sherlock goes into tsundere mode and makes a show out of how much he does NOT want to accept the request.. before he accepts it. He goes “let me guess.. it's urgent and important and lives are at stake and Mycroft’s too busy with his tea parties and keeping the Crown's jewels to do it himself? Alright, give it here. I'll handle it. I'm far better equipped anyway.” like stop you’re killing me with those lmao especially since I'm sure this is a nod to the canon ACD universe where Mycroft is portrayed as lazy and can't be bothered to make his own bed whereas this Mycroft is too diligent for his own good; running multiple operations at the same time and losing agents left and right and probably losing his mind with stress and not to mention the constant worrying over where Sherlock is and what he's doing and what sort of trouble he's got himself into and whether it's serious enough to require intervention. I mean, the man has long earned the right to ask for some help lmao.

Funny thing is, I finished the Muse From Abroad case and unlocked the cabinet of curiosities just before finishing the DLC, so they just had a tense argument and Mycroft stormed off and then sent Sherlock a letter right away asking him to drop everything and pursue one more thing for him, even said it like "consider it a holiday!" and Sherlock was like sheeeeeesh Mycroft and his errands and then, as usual, he went and did the thing anyway.

Like no matter how tsundere he wants to get about it, this man still can't find it in himself to refuse his brother’s requests (for the most part) and I think that's freaking adorable, like don't tell me he doesn't secretly revel in his older brother's "Well done" and “Great work” just like when Mother used to praise him for figuring shit out and Jon said it’d be the happiest Sherlock’s ever been. This boy is still at an age where he craves and cherishes praise. After all, he made up an entire person to be his cheerleader (among other things) and to constantly tell him how great he’s doing and how much he’s proud of him.

I can also see Sherlock begrudgingly agreeing to take Mycroft's requests as him never wanting to miss on a chance to outperform his older brother, and probably even keeps a record to guilt-trip Mycroft into returning him favours, like "remember that one time you sent me to all sorts of ungodly places just to fetch a book? How about when I almost died busting a gang operation for you? See how much you owe me? now give me all the dirt you can on this dude." (the "almost died" is dramatic exaggeration. It was me who almost died fighting the Eels. Sherry on the other hand is a badass I'm sure it was a piece of cake for him lol) I love this headcanon also because him having a little competitive sibling rivalry thing going on with Mycroft is even more adorable, no matter how one-sided it is because I doubt Mycroft cares as long as Sherlock gets the job done and learns a few more tricks of the trade.

And it makes me sad to think this has all probably changed now that their relationship is in a blender dangerously set to start blending on the highest speed...

Anyway, here's the real reason why I made this post:

... to tell you how loud I screamed

(Ngl I was hoping for like a bonus Mycroft cameo at the end or something but THIS made me giddy like a schoolgirl)

But back to serious talk..

Jon said something in the Missing Shopkeeper case when they found the body along the lines of “the ugly reality of being Mycroft's agent,” and I agree. These requests serve to give Sherlock a glimpse into the nasty reality of Mycroft's day-to-day job; he's getting to learn just how grim and dangerous it actually is—that it's not all cushy and royal tea parties and getting to rub shoulders with the rich and powerful as Sherlock would like to think, if only just to poke fun at his older brother's career choices.

I also love how even Mycroft's agents and acquaintances have depth and intrigue and backstories.

Like Ursula Oni, the well-respected chief archivist in City Hall. She's so good at her "other job" that she managed to hide a whole other- other job as a grave robber for a considerable time, so much so that even Mycroft himself (probably) was unaware of her nightly exploits. (For real though, discovering her body genuinely saddned me. She seemed nice enough, and I kept interacting with her every time I was in City Hall hoping she'd give me a quest. Alas..)

There's also Yeasmin, the Cordona Chronicle editor-in-chief, who's not only a hardcore Holmes stan and just here for the tea, but turns out to be the wife of the murdered agent/shopkeeper. And the way she reacts when Sherlock tells her the truth by leaving Mycroft's service is interesting; like there are layers here: there's distrust and resentment toward her boss for hiding the truth from her, indicating that there's limit to Mycroft's elusive and covert methods that his agents won't tolerate, and there's some light shed on how messy things turn out when interpersonal matters become entangled with the professional.

What boggles me is that Mycroft specifically gave the letter about the husband going missing to Yeasmin of all people to deliver it to Sherlock, with strict orders not to read it, and, with total faith in her boss, she complied without asking any questions.

I'm starting to actually consider if this case was a test to see what Sherlock would do and how he'd handle the situation. Will he tell Yeasmin about her husband's death? or keep it from her knowing that Mycroft will never tell her. I mean it's all possible. I mentioned in an earlier ramble how I believe Mycroft carefully researches and chooses the "errands" he sends his brother on beforehand to ensure his safety. Anything could be a carefully planned test.

Quick two cents on In for a Penny:

I wonder why Mycroft has a particular dislike for the Manghir? I assume since it was gifted to him by the mayor, it's having to do with how corrupt Sinclair is.

Headcanon: maybe the mayor offered it to him as some sort of lowkey bribe to keep some dirt on him in the ground aka "invaluable help" and Mycroft begrudgingly accepted it because he knew his little brother would be ecstatic to have it among his collection? (or maybe it's just the fact the manghir has a freaking cthulhu head engraved on it and Mycroft’s prophetic big brother senses were itching…)

But yeah, again, Mycroft making time in his overpacked schedule to put together the coin quest for his little brother is the sweetest thing, like I can totally see that being his love language. He knew exactly what kind of things interested Sherlock and what would keep him entertaind (and educated, Mycroft not wasting a single opportunity to subtly train his little brother in espionage is kind of hilarious) I appreciate the mentor-protégé dynamic that FW set for them in this adaptation.

It's a shame that Sherlock never got to finish the coin quest in time before shit hit the storm and they had to leave Cordona for good, thus he never got to have that meeting with Mycroft and report his findings and share what he'd learned, something that Mycroft was looking forward to with great anticipation as he expressed in his quest letter… it would have been a precious bonding moment for them and it's a real shame that they never got to have it...

Anyway, back to the outfits. Look at Jon???

Look at him!!!

More screenshots because I couldn't help myself:

(don't pay attention to Jon's feet clipping through the carpet lmao)

He looks so embarrassed here and I totally get it. Sherry you're so brave I could never wear my sibling’s clothes in good faith. And you look stunning btw.

I wonder if this game also changes your outfit back to default in serious scenes because I would do ANYTHING to see Sherlock confront Mycroft like this. I'm sure the exchange won't suddenly spike to 90 degrees awkward; your brother catches you screwing around in Cordona dressed as him… can't begin to imagine the level of embarrassment.

Anyway, time to run around town and fuck shit up officially. 🕴🕴🕴🕴🕴

[agentrouka-blog]

One of the things that drives me crazy in regard to Rhaegar apologia is that a lot of them use the fact that no Martell has directly blamed Rhaegar in the text for what happened as proof they don't blame him and it's absolutely mind boggling how dumb this is. First of all, Rhaegar has been dead for close to two decades, whereas the Baratheons and Lannisters are still very much alive so obviously the Martells' wrath will be directed towards them. Second of all, we barely have Martell POVs and POVs are not some omniscient, all-knowing insight into every character's opinion on all of the 456732 characters that have been introduced across five books. The lack of indictment re Rhaegar does not mean they don't blame him. Also, GRRM is not the kind of writer that is going to spell something as obvious as this out in crayon. If you need the author to directly tell you that Doran and Oberyn would be apoplectic at Rhaegar's actions toward their sister, maybe this is not the series for you. These are the same people that say, 'Well, we never got E's reaction to L being crowned at the tourney so we can't know if she was offended....' Like, these people really need the narrative to explicitly state that E was humiliated because her husband crowned another woman at a public tourney in front of nobles from across the 7K. I just.....these people are Not Very Bright and appear incapable of connecting even the most simplest dots. There are certain things that do not need to be and will never be spelled out because GRRM assumes his readers have at minimum a high schooler's level of reading comprehension and media literacy but here we are lmao.

Ned never thought much about Aerys either, the guy who murdered his brother and father. Are we to surmise he didn't terribly mind?

GRRM waited until book #3 to create a dramatic and righteous confrontation with the crime perpetrated against Elia and her children, even though the bare facts have been with us since the beginning. He waited until book #4 to introduce the Dornish perspective and vengeance plan in actual POVs, and until book #5 to introduce Elia's surviving son. Dorne, Elia, Aegon - it is a long game.

It slots well into his use of the POV trap with Dany and the comparatively slow dismantling of any positive patina on the Targaryen dynasty. We don't get a proper face on the horror of it until Jaime's confession in the baths of Harrenhal in ASOS. Maester Aemon was practically presented as a saint up until AFFC where he suddenly revealed himself to be a prophecy truther who had been corresponding with Rhaegar about exactly when he tried to impregnate Elia with his comet-fuelled wonder sperm - all this time, without telling anyone in the Watch about this supposedly fundamental savior concept. Dany's veneer of good intentions is falling apart for anyone paying attention.

Questions the reader could have asked from the very beginning, because the facts were always on the page, are being fleshed out and dragged to the forefront in the latter stages of the book series.

Considering Jon Connington and Aegon - son of Elia and Rhaegar - are about to collide with the Dornish plotline, the question of the Tourney at Harrenhal and Rhaegar's character is going to be much less subtly handled from this point on.

There are going to be a whole lot of revelatory collisions in TWOW.

[eliamartel]

So, I'm way more critical of GRRM than, like, 90 percent of the fandom so I have a very low opinion of how he will handle R/L. I 100 percent think that when he conceived of the story back in the 90s he meant for R/L to be an unambiguous, consensual love story. He once called R 'lovestruck' and a fool in love in a few interviews which lmao. I am not saying this as a R/L shipper, I actually intensely despise both characters. But this is the same man that called the Dani/Drogo wedding night a 'seduction' and included a J*n/Ar*a romance in his original outline. Keep in mind, J*n knew Ar*a while she was literally IN UTERO but people somehow think GRRM will frame R/L as some parable on the dangers of an older man grooming a young girl lol. Do I think that now, in the post-me too era where everyone is super cognizant of issues like age gaps and grooming, etc. he realizes that he needs to 'fix' that relationship? Yes. A big reason I think it's taking him so long to finish the books and why he never will is because a lot of his ideas back in the 90s are now deeply unpalatable to modern audiences. That's kinda what happens when you procrastinate for three decades on finishing a series - social mores change dramatically and now you have to course correct. I just don't think he has the effort, care, or energy to critically reappraise his framing of R and R/L as a couple. I do think prophecy played a part in R's actions, but GRRM also meant for R/L to be in love. Now, do i hope GRRM does not frame it this? Yes. But I have almost zero faith in him lol.

Hi anon, I think you're saying that since Grrm has a warped view of consent because he called Dany/Drogo's first night as seduction (when it's clear it was rape), you think he might not view R/L as problematic and might depict them as a love story because he has also called Rhaegar a love-struck prince before, and paired Jon with Arya in the original outline... I don't agree. Grrm is wrong for what he said about Dany and Drogo, but in the text, though Dany views Drogo positively, their relationship is still depicted as abusive.

I'm just basing my thoughts on what we know from the main series here because I have no idea what Grrm initially intended for them in the 90s.

If Grrm intended this relationship to be consensual and positive, I don't think he would characterise Rhaegar as someone obsessed with siring three children, nor would he give Rhaegar a wife who he reproductively abused for children before he left for Lyanna.

Remember, Rhaegar and Aerys' main purpose in the story is to incite events that bring the end of House Targaryen in Westeros; their actions and their crimes are supposed to spark the rebellion that destroys their dynasty. That's why GRRM has characterised Rhaegar as prophecy mad: he was obsessed with siring three children; he impregnated his chronically ill wife in quick succession and humiliated her in front of the nobles from across the kingdoms at Harrenhal; he knew something had to be done to remove his father from power but chose to make everything worse by disappearing with a Lord Paramount's daughter. He left his family and the realm at the mercy of his mad father for months before reappearing and promptly dying in his first battle.

I don't see Grrm positively depicting such an irresponsible character or giving him any narrative triumph or hero-like treatment just because he contributed sperm that created one of the protagonists. I think GRRM intends for Rhaegar to be glorified through the eyes of some (very flawed) characters, and then later dismantle his romanticised image by exposing his true nature. Alongside Rhaegar's romanticization, Grrm has also written many instances that hint that Rhaegar was not as great a man as his admirers say.

In ASOS, Jorah Mormont tells Dany that "there was no higher honour than to receive your knighthood from the Prince of Dragonstone." To readers, it looks like Rhaegar was an incredibly noble and admirable person; however, that line is a callback to AGOT (Sansa II), where we read that Rhaegar had knighted Gregor Clegane, the man who brutally murdered his wife and children. This shows GRRM didn’t intend to depict Rhaegar as a good man, even when he published AGOT in 1996.

Since Rhaegar's faults are not yet as emphasised in the text compared to his romanticised image, readers may not notice or give importance to them. However, Grrm is not the type of writer to continue glorifying a character whose actions brought so much pain and suffering to others, so I'm certain he will negatively depict Rhaegar in the future.

My take on R/L is this. I think Grrm is only making R/L seem like a love story when what actually happened is much darker. I really can't see how he could have intended for R/L to be unambiguously consensual once Rhaegar is implied to desperately want 3 children and it's implied that he might have raped Elia for conceiving Aegon because he impregnated her when she was on bed rest recovering from the birth of their first child, Rhaenys. It was only after Elia was said to be too weak to give birth to another child that he took Lyanna. He hid Lyanna in a secret tower in the middle of nowhere, and she died giving birth with not even a maester to assist her. It sounds like Rhaegar cared more about her staying hidden and giving birth in secret than about her health.

Also, when Grrm glorifies Rhaegar through the eyes of characters like Jorah, Barristan, Cersei, Kevan Lannister, and Jon Connington, he uses that character's (and the reader's) prejudice regarding misogyny, racism, and ableism to depict Elia. Many of them call Elia unworthy and blame her for Rhaegar cheating on her and for the war. Elia is also sidelined without a voice. I'm pretty sure Grrm characterises Elia like this for now in order to build Rhaegar's image and Rhaelya's 'love'. If Elia was given more space in the backstory, readers would sympathise more with her than with the mirage of noble Rhaegar and his beautiful romance with Lyanna that birthed our hero Jon Snow.

And notice how none of Rhaegar's admirers care about Lyanna either! Some of them romanticise Rhaegar's love for her, but they don't care that he was said to have abducted her and she later died because of it. It's interesting that Rhaegar is romanticised through characters who don't sympathise with the women he harmed. It's only a bunch of randos who personally never knew Rhaegar that are shown to admire him (Dany, too, is only idealising an image of Rhaegar that Viserys and Barristan fed her). I'm certain that in the next book, GRRM will condemn Rhaegar and dismantle his legacy.

[janiedean]

I read your metas on why you think GRRM always meant for Bran to be KITN, not King of the 7K as per what he told Benioff and Weiss during their decades-long intimate working relationship on the show adaptation and I have to say I disagree lol. I don't really understand how someone can think that Benioff and Weiss were told 'yeah Jon sits the throne and the irrelevant 8 year old fourth son of the Stark family becomes KITN' and D and D were like, 'ummm no we're going to blow our legacy by putting BRAN of all characters on the IT, and not giving our fan favorite character his shining moment on the IT.' I don't like Bran as King and neither did D and D, but they had to maintain that GOT was some semblance of an adaptation so they had to use Martin's endgames. It blows my mind that people still deny this. I do think the north being independent and Sansa being QITN was fanservice tho. She will likely be Lady of Winterfell, not queen. Anyone that thinks she ends her story in the Vale is deeply unserious.

Jon's a chosen one deconstruction because once he finds out about his parentage, it's not going to be a good thing that gives him a renewed sense of self like in the thousands of other chosen one fantasy arcs. It will be a devastating revelation for him and cause a very negative identity crisis. Also, his parentage was always meant to be a red herring, why do you think GRRM set it up in a way that there is literally no way for Jon to prove he's actually R and L's son? Much less prove he's a legitimate son born from a valid, legal marriage? I don't think anyone outside of Jon's very close inner circle will ever know the truth about who his real parents are, it's not something he will want to ever be made known lmao. The show conflating Jon with YG, not adapting YG, and basically being a Jon Snow is So Great Fanservice vehicle in the last few seasons has made the fandom think that's where his arc is leading, it's not. Not that GRRM will ever publish another book, but anyway.

Also, Jon is not AA, it is Dany. The thing is.....that's not a good thing lol. The AA prophecy is basically prophesizing the coming of Khal Stalin, not a savior lmao. That's the twist and the double edge sword with prophecies that is so very Martin. The constant debates among the fandom as to who is AA is so hilarious because they fundamentally don't understand that it's a negative prophecy. The dramatic irony of house targ thinking they need to bring about the AA prophecy to save humanity when in actuality they are unleashing a new evil that needs to be defeated is deeply delicious dramatic irony. But the fandom is too bogged down into the most basic fantasy tropes to see it and refuses to acknowledge that GRRM is cynically deconstructing these tropes. Almost as if he's trying to say that being the son of the crown prince actually sucks and will make the supposed 'chosen one's' life hell, the ethereal looking princess with the sympathetic backstory is actually an authoritarian tyrant who's bloody conquest for the iron throne using her hordes of brainwashed killing machines will cause destruction not restore some great dynasty, and the 'broken' disabled boy with special mind powers who is able to look into all of history to learn from the mistakes of all the monarchs that came before him is the 'best' ruler for a 'broken' realm.

I'm uuuuh, gonna try and reply to this as briefly as I can but like with the premise that everyone can agree or disagree with anything and text interpretation can't be set in stone until like the entire thing is over... in order

I don't really understand how someone can think that Benioff and Weiss were told 'yeah Jon sits the throne and the irrelevant 8 year old fourth son of the Stark family becomes KITN' and D and D were like, 'ummm no we're going to blow our legacy by putting BRAN of all characters on the IT, and not giving our fan favorite character his shining moment on the IT.'

anon I don't wanna sound rude but.... they lit set jon up to kill the night king and then made arya of all ppl do it NONSENSICALLY just to make ppl surprised, they literally shat all over the entire text since S2 if not S1 already, just the robb storyline shows they didn't understand anything about the point of the red wedding which they said they WANTED to adapt and they basically made shit up since s4 onwards without anything making literal sense including making c*rsei the ultimate boss when there is no shred of text evidence she's that important and grrm is pissed with the ending so like... I can 100% think that both of them didn't gaf about what grrm had to say and just understood what they wanted to, also because we're talking abt the ppl who made stannis go agamemnon on shireen because they hated his ass when if shireen dies like that no way it's stannis ordering it by any shred of textual sense so I absolutely will say dnd didn't gaf about what grrm said and threw their legacy in the trash, that because.... everyone thought the finale was trash and they haven't had a gig like that since bc no one wants them after got, with good reason, so like ppl can say that because there is nothing dnd have done as showrunners that shows they gaf about the og text, end of story

I don't like Bran as King and neither did D and D, but they had to maintain that GOT was some semblance of an adaptation so they had to use Martin's endgames. It blows my mind that people still deny this. I do think the north being independent and Sansa being QITN was fanservice tho. She will likely be Lady of Winterfell, not queen. Anyone that thinks she ends her story in the Vale is deeply unserious.

except the jc endgame is obviously not the book endgame, lit no one's endgame except imvho jon's (hahaha) and possibly tyrion/davos is the actual book endgame and I'd like everyone to remember there's no shred of textual evidence rickon doesn't die in the books but anyway like... sorry but dnd not wanting to put jon on the IT for shock value (which is obvious since everyone expected it) and not giving bran kitn to give it to sansa so ppl who wanted her to be queen would be happy makes absolute sense to me, also like... again I'm not gonna go over it again bc you said you read the meta but: bran is a deconstructed version of a kingly arthurian archetype which by himself means that he has to become king while being disabled/in virtue of having lost his legs so like sorry but bran being king is absolutely in the text but no way it makes sense it's 7k since he's directly tied to his land and its magic same as the fisher king so......

Jon's a chosen one deconstruction because once he finds out about his parentage, it's not going to be a good thing that gives him a renewed sense of self like in the thousands of other chosen one fantasy arcs. It will be a devastating revelation for him and cause a very negative identity crisis

I agree and I wrote a longass meta about jon being a chosen one deconstruction but being AA/his inheritance absolutely does not rule out it being a deconstruction imvho

Also, his parentage was always meant to be a red herring, why do you think GRRM set it up in a way that there is literally no way for Jon to prove he's actually R and L's son?

howland reed was there when he was born and lyanna could have told him and ned they were married, also bran can lit travel in time and prove it/see it happen, but even if he's not legitimate wrt rhaegar it doesn't matter because in the book he's legitimate wrt robb's will so he's gonna get kitn title at some point even just for that but like... point is if howland reed corroborates it and he gets a pet dragon or smth and no one has reasons to disagree esp because they'll need to kill zombies whether r/l were married doesn't matter at all

Much less prove he's a legitimate son born from a valid, legal marriage? I don't think anyone outside of Jon's very close inner circle will ever know the truth about who his real parents are, it's not something he will want to ever be made known lmao. The show conflating Jon with YG, not adapting YG, and basically being a Jon Snow is So Great Fanservice vehicle in the last few seasons has made the fandom think that's where his arc is leading, it's not. Not that GRRM will ever publish another book, but anyway.

we can't know about wrt grrm publishing something else or not but again: howland reed knows and he's still around and kicking and there is no reason for people to not make it known especially when it comes out and they have to treat with dany, also the show conflated young griff with both jon and cersei and jon connington with jorah and daenerys which makes no sense whatsoever so like that argument holds zero water bc they didn't know what they were doing and it shows

Also, Jon is not AA, it is Dany. The thing is.....that's not a good thing lol. The AA prophecy is basically prophesizing the coming of Khal Stalin, not a savior lmao. That's the twist and the double edge sword with prophecies that is so very Martin.

anon the second maester aemon said on page AA is daenerys out loud it went out of the window, the way asoiaf prophecies are structured everyone who's rumored to be X by other people/themselves before it actually happens won't be that, and jon only ever was deemed a candidate by a vision melisandre had... which she immediately discarded bc she didn't understand what the hell her own god was telling her so sorry but I don't agree and it's not gonna happen

The constant debates among the fandom as to who is AA is so hilarious because they fundamentally don't understand that it's a negative prophecy. The dramatic irony of house targ thinking they need to bring about the AA prophecy to save humanity when in actuality they are unleashing a new evil that needs to be defeated is deeply delicious dramatic irony. But the fandom is too bogged down into the most basic fantasy tropes to see it and refuses to acknowledge that GRRM is cynically deconstructing these tropes. Almost as if he's trying to say that being the son of the crown prince actually sucks and will make the supposed 'chosen one's' life hell, the ethereal looking princess with the sympathetic backstory is actually an authoritarian tyrant who's bloody conquest for the iron throne using her hordes of brainwashed killing machines will cause destruction not restore some great dynasty, and the 'broken' disabled boy with special mind powers who is able to look into all of history to learn from the mistakes of all the monarchs that came before him is the 'best' ruler for a 'broken' realm.

anon I don't even disagree with all of this but:

i do not think that in any way shape or form jon is not AA - there is no way he's not, he's lit the only one who actually came back to life in the show if we wanna show truth and there's no other character who lit resurrected and no one else will so there's that, he died according to the prophecy and no one in text would ever put a cent on AA being him, like.,........ what we know is not what they do and for westeros jon snow is the least likely candidate soooo like sorry but I don't think it makes sense that anyone else is AA, you can think it's dany but idt there's a chance in hell

I think the evil is already there and it's zombies, like... ik the show made it look like the long night was nothing but it's the actual ultimate big bad so there's no need for AA to be another evil, rhaegar would have misunderstood the og prophecy well enough as it is without getting that far

jon being the chosen one and AA would still make his life hell

idt dany is written in the book as an authoritarian tyrant and idt it's where she's headed and I'm saying it as someone who doesn't gaf about dany and doesn't care either way but the show version was just ridiculous and nothing in the text says she's headed there whatsoever

I also agree this fandom cannibalizing itself over who is AA is ridiculous... because it's jon and there's no reason to further argue over that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

bran can absolutely be the best ruler for a broken realm,..... the north, which has been mauled and will be further mauled by the zombies, and it makes no sense he is 7k anyway given his background and stuff, again you can disagree with it as you want but idt anything that happened in the show except an extremely selected amount of things which are absolutely out of context has a chance in hell of happening in the books and from the way grrm reacted to the finale it seems obvious to me, then... again you can agree or disagree with me but I wrote so much meta on the topic I honestly feel like I'd be rehashing myself over and over if I went about it again but like

of course everyone believes in their own interpretation but there's no way I'm gonna be swayed by any argument agains kitn!bran and 7k!jon who then abdicates and goes to the wildlings by anything that's not grrm publishing ados and writing differently, godspeed and that's mvho ;)

[nag-mamahal]

ARCHIVIST

...But no-one escapes at the end.

[WITH EFFORT, THE ARCHIVIST STABS DEEPLY]

[EXTENDED SOUNDS OF CHOKING & GURGLING DEATH RATTLE]

[BODY SLUMPS HEAVILY]

JONAH/ELIAS

(Wetly) Good… luck.

is there not an inherent sense of tragic romanticism in the act of stabbing? <3

Yesterday I found this cool painting called "The Fall" by Alan Stephens Foster:

I wanted to make a study of it, but bc of jonelias brainrot I decided to focus on the couple at the bottom of the painting. I used them as inspiration for this drawing, which depicts the final stabby confrontation between Jon and Elias. The actual scene likely involved less flair and movement, but it's always fun to draw things more dramatically hshs. I was also inspired by the Hannibal finale where Will throws himself and Hannibal off a cliff bc I am obsessed with jonelias/hannigram parallels :D)

I'm thinking of making a follow-up drawing of Jon's death by Martin but this literally took me 9 hours to make so I might also take a break lmao

Anw if you've read this far, thank you for bearing my rambling! Let's be friends if you like 👉👈 (scream at me my ask box is always open!)

Alternate versions of the drawing

[irritablepoe]

Little rant about my friend and consuming media lmao

Ok how do you consume media and still have NO IDEA who even the main character's name is? I recommended tma and bsd to a friend - well he started both. I ask him about it - like who his favourite character is or what he thinks of it - and he's so.... Confused almost? Like he just shrugged and said that he actually had no idea what was going on - which ok is kinda fair with bsd but like. you know the characters at least. Each one of them is introduced in some dramatic way, you can't MISS any of that and surely there's at least one character that gets your attention/that you relate to/that you find interesting. I mean ok maybe you forget the name or sth, but you at least remember the characters when I describe them to you, right? But no, my friend had no idea who for example Dazai was - DAZAI?! Like. What???? Or Atsushi.. the fucking main character???? Or chuuya???? Or - anyone??? I was so perplexed. How can you watch something and still have no idea about what you're watching?

The same happened with tma. I recommended it, he listened to the first few episodes. I asked him what he thought of Jon. HE DIDN'T KNOW WHO JON WAS I MEAN WHAT???? Oh idk he's just the guy reading the fucking statements. Before every statement he says "audio recording by Jonathan Sims" like how can you... miss that?

Idk, am I just consuming media so intensely or is he just... I don't even know.... Disinterested in engaging with the media one is consuming? It's not even that he doesn't like it. I asked him and he said it was good. But what exactly does he find good when he has no idea about. like. anything.

[zaachknight]

since u guys wanted it... christmas with saturday

- cause zachs bday is like so close to christmas the others try to put the tree and stuff up after his bday but he's always insistent on them feeling the christmas fever when most people do so he puts the christmas tree up like halfway thru december

- in addition to the last one zach puts up the tree with jon, ruben hands them the lights and baubles, angel sits in the corner jon assigned him beforehand trying to make all the snowflakes in a snowglobe his parents bought him float

- the christmas songs parodies theyd do for fun is eating away at me lmao

- angel is always really dramatic with his reactions to presents. he just gives me a 'AWWH YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE' vibe idk

- zach hates 'all I want for christmas is you' so angel just blasts it through his speakers at full volume to piss him off (I have a whole post on this lmk if u want it)

- they make gingerbread together (jon has to stop angel from eating the batter several times) and decorate them as theirselves

- jon cooks christmas dinner. that's it that's all.

I'll post more of these cause I'm brainrotting

[starship--aurora]

episode one liveblog (sort of) let’s go

jon sims you dramatic fucker. /aff

did not miss the four minutes of ads LMAO

you can HEAR the contempt in his voice as he talks about gertrude.

”i don’t count martin” giggling, i love asshole jon.

”tim, sasha, and. yes, i guess, martin.”

ANGLERFISH ANGLERFISH ANGLERFISH.

”recording by jonathan sims, head archivist of the magnus institute, london” DUDE. i don’t know why that took me so aback.

mike. like michael. goddamnit jonny sims, what’s it with mikes and michaels.

THE STATIC.

“can i have a cigarette?”

i love the background music so much.

i remember thinking how much he got into it, how much of a theatre kid he seemed to be.

ANGLERFISH.

”i looked at their feet, and saw that they weren’t quite touching the ground.”

torch. i always forget that torches are the same thing as flashlights.

“statement ends, this was fucking stupid”

sasha mention <3

”look at this drunk creeper, ell-oh-ell.” i hate how he says lol, i don’t know what it is about it LMAO.

episode two!

JOSHUA GILLESPIE <3

i remember one time while rambling to my mother about joshua, she kept thinking i was saying “lesbian” and not “gillespie”.

got bored this is being continued hours later.

joshua gillespie you absolute fucker, i love you and want to kiss you on the mouth.

oh no, what ever shall you do, waking up with the key.

”perhaps a bit elaborate” Joshy Boy Elaborate Is What You Need.

”it’s odd how fear can become as routine as hunger.”

yeah, my living room coffin is making weird noises, Music Time.

ooo, knock knock.

hi john. surprised to see you, shocked to see me.

smash smash on the ground.

breekon and hope, let’s go. i love.

joshua gillespie, the hero. we salute you.

”it’s always nice to hear my hometown isn’t always devoid of odd happenings”

giggle that was great.

episode three!!

tmagp ad, oh em gee (<- this loser listened to tmagp premier today and is very normal about it)

”she sleeps with other women” what is this ad, i want to listen to this podcast. /hj

”rusty quill presents… the magnus archives…” stop with your verbal ellipsis, dude. LMAO

”jonathan sims, head archivist of the magnus institute, london”

GRAHAM!!!!! I love Graham so much.

”hey man, i always see you writing, how’s your notes coming along?” “i. i don’t take notes?”

sexy graham rights.

the amount of times i’ve had to rewind because i didn’t process it.

“hey graham” “HOLY SHIT”

public transport is scary, no judgement there.

i honestly never understood the statement giver’s discomfort with graham. to the point you couldn’t even let him see which building.

yeowch graham what did you do. 😔

“apparently he was gay.”

weird hooks weird hooks weird hooks woo.

graham’s notebooks 🥰.

graham honestly sounds like an interesting guy, i think if i’d ever met him, i’d befriend him.

TABLE. WAIT, IS IT THE TABLE USED TO TRAP NOTTHEM?

wait. wait wait wait. oh my god.

it is i think.

stalking your coworkers is Creepy. jon, please don’t take ideas. (jon then proceeds to take ideas)

driving through ohio at night is fun, ngl.

i saw him take one of his notebooks. he ate it.

wowza, all sexy gay people eat notebooks, do you eat notebooks?

“i even saw him freak out at the ice cream truck” that is honestly me. any loud sound? i panic like there’s no tomorrow

memorizing his pizza order <3

fuck capitalism. (“i had to drop out of the college course to work late nights”)

notthem notthem notthem wooohooo

okay i take it back, ohio backroads are NOT fun at night.

notthem <3

yeah i kinda. just stood there.

the background music slow rising!!

”from my months of watching” haha

not!graham!!

imposter? like…… among…

i love the description so much.

aw man, bye notebooks ✌️

hey amy, i’m going to come to your house.

statement ends!

tim mention ❤️❤️❤️.

“i trust coworker testimony as far as i can burn it.”

ohio hills and sharp turns at night are not fun, my stomach is in my throat.

JOURNAL JOURNAL JOURNAL JOURNAL

KEEP WATCHING.

[pezboisworld]

(this is your same Warden anon from before, hello!) Love ALL those thoughts. I agree that she probably didn't do too much prison time - there's so much in the thematic exploration of justice and I think it would've unfortunately been true to life for something extremely messed up like that to happen. I saw a recent interview from the 20th anniversary where apparently, both Louis Sachar and Sigourney Weaver didn't want the evil trio arrested, whereas Andy Davis and Jon Voight did.

THANK YOU for reminding me of the existence of the Survival Guide! Man, I scoured that thing during my first Holes hyperfixation approximately uhhhh 13 years ago lol. Such a delightful quick read between the OG book and Small Steps.

Just about died laughing at the thought of the Warden essentially becoming Miss Hannigan - talk about another formative milf lmao. And while I do agree very much with your thoughts on her possible queerness, I'm too on board with Jon Voight's very obvious playing Mr. Sir as hopelessly in love with Lou to commit to it haha. I'd love to know how Sachar intended their relationship. In my head, they're That Pair of Exes who can't stand each other and also maybe had great sex when they were 20, and mayyyyyybe they just kept running into each other over the years and weren't entirely mad about it, and mayyyyyyyyyyybe if they are both somehow out of prison in the future and he lost the beer gut, lou would *consider* it. no promises tho.

maybe one of these days i'll come off anon lmao but for now, enjoy my stupid brain musings!!

Can definitely see Mr. Sir and Miss. Walker having a former fling, but I find the Warden to be too toxic for Mr. Sir.

They bring out the worst in each other.

And it is my personal headcannon that Mr. Sir is a trans man. And some old school transmen don't completely seperate themselves from their past lives as lesbians (not to say that all trans men start as lesbians, but a decent amount do). And so wouldn't mind dating lesbian women.

The too may have met decades before the events of Holes. Before the camp even started. Imagine Mr. Sir as a he/him butch lesbian motorcyclist passing through the desert. Finding an oasis in a younger less jaded Miss. Walker. She was there for his entire transition.

They stayed in each other's lives even after their romance went sour.

Only for Mr. Sir to get thrown in a woman's prison cause he didn't believe in giving the government that much information and so never looked into updating his paperwork.

I like to think he gets the support he needs there from an arts program. Something music or theater related to put the man's dramatics to good use.

[tsustuff]

tmagp episode 11 thoughts. no or not a lot of context but still read at your own peril

index of these posts

2:50 AGAIN?????????

3:10 jack.........

3:55 alice is dropping some Dramatics today already

6:05 alice ................

6:30 she's haunted by the manky holes

9:10 an expert huh

10:35 immediate hezekiah wakely vibes

11:10 david got got by the sahagins

12:20 ink5oul back??????????? excited about recurring characters

13:20 DAVID *DID* GET GOT BY THE SAHAGINS

14:00 the tone here lmao

14:40 this just sounds like jon being mad about being told to be more lovely which is really funny

15:20 stop talking about the water alison doesn't like it lmao

16:00 get in the water.

17:15 sam can't help it though

18:00 if i was gwen and alice was talking to me like this i feel like i'd lose it right then and there lmao

18:25 "wait you were nice to me?"

18:55 celia sdkjgsgk

19:40 nvm i'm off gwen's side again lmao

20:20 alice's priorities are correct

20:40 gwen haunted by mr bonzo

21:25 lena is so chill about this

21:35 DID YOU SCREAM LMAO

22:30 lmao

prev | next

i have a kofi with a singular $1 tier if you like this and want to help me keep doing it

[whumpy-wyrms]

are u in any fandoms? what are ur interests besides whump? u don’t have to answer i’m just curious!!

someone’s asking me about my interests i can’t NOT answer

this got a bit long tho so i’m putting it under the read more for people who don’t care/are only here for the whump

OKOK. so i’m kinda in the starkid/nerdy prudes must die fandom rn but i know for a fact if i finished adventure time and started watching fiona and cake, that would quite literally become my entire personality for the next 3 months because simon and prismo (and marceline and princess bubblegum and all my other favorite characters) make me insane. but i haven’t done that because well. i’ve gotta write tllr yknow..

anyway, my absolute most favorite pieces of media of all time are undertale and deltarune guys. i cant put in words how much those games mean to me holy shit. as i’m writing this i’m sitting next to my jevil and sans and spamton plushie and they are saying hi. anywayyy yeah i was in the deltarune fandom for a bit it was fun. spamton is silly fucked up creature. jevil is my all time favorite tho

AND THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES… my favorite thing ever fr. y’all. LISTEN TO TMA SERIOUSLY YOU’LL PROBABLY LIKE IT!! it’s a horror podcast and it’s seriously the best fuckinf thing ever it’s so amazing seriously. it’s a bit hard to get into at first because season 1 is less story driven BUT HOLY SHIT. AHHHH ITS SO FUCKING GOOD. jon is one of my favorite blorbos ever and so is michael because he’s a silly distortion guy. just trust me and listen to TMA it will actually change your life.

also i love the amazing world of gumball so fucking much. i wasn’t allowed to watch cartoon network as a kid (idk why??) so i first watched tawog last year and holy shit holy shit it’s my favorite thing ever. rob. ROB!!!! ROB IS MY ALL TIME FAVORITE CHARACTER. SO IS MR SMALL. AHHHH!!!! anyway i love tawog i’ve drawn a lot of fanart and even wrote a 60k word fanfiction (about what happens after The Inquisition because that ending fucked me up) that i’ve Never and will probably never show anyone because it’s probably Not that good. but it was sooo Important to me back then. tawog just means so much to me it :))) it changed me as a person. nobody’s a nobody and everybody is weird like you and me.

i also really like hollow knight! i haven’t played it in a while but i was at 111% completion on one of my playthroughs (CURSE YOU PANTHEON 4). i’m also super fucking excited for silksong obviously and i will say this now: WHEN SILKSONG FINALLY RELEASES… i will probably go on hiatus here LMAO. sorry but guys. SILKSONG…. honestly same for new deltarune chapters. the second chapters 3, 4, and 5 release it is sooo over for me. i probably won’t post much here for a few months during that. but that’s fine!! i’ll never abandon tllr but sometimes some things are more important to my silly little brain :3

gravity falls quite literally changed my life in 2018. like i can’t even explain it, but it’s how i was introduced to online fandoms and fanart in general. dipper LITERALLY made me trans (not literally but pretty much). it’s how i started watching other amazing cartoons and series i love, it’s literally what made me get into drawing art and writing and stuff. it’s what made me start making ocs. it literally made me an artist guys. which is how i started writing. without gravity falls and it’s effect it had on me, this account might have never existed?? i’m being super dramatic but wowww. i was so autistic about that silly cartoon

minecraft i love. i’ve been playing minecraft for over a decade and won’t stop because it’s like, probably a special interest of mine? i’ve watch minecraft youtubers forever too, hermitcraft and the life series are my favorite. i’m a huge grian fan too, been watching him since the evo days. anyway if u play minecraft and wanna play with me sometime, feel free to ask!!! :D i love making new friends and playing video games with people!!! let’s make a world together!!!

also i like terraria and stardew valley, and animal crossing new horizons but i haven’t played that in a few years. hmm other games i like are oneshot game, NITW, omori, celeste, cuphead, fnaf (although i’ve only played the first 5 games and am super super behind on the lore), ori, dead cells, untitled goose game (this is for u anon), and probably more i’m forgetting! feel free to recommend me some video games and we can even play together :3

other series i love are the umbrella academy. soooo autistic about this show it’s fucking AMAZING!!!!!! klaus is my favorite character. anyway i also like what we do in the shadows. it made me super autistic about vampires (before i watched this show i kinda thought vampires were cringe IDK WHY I’M SORRYY). the netflix show lucifer made me insane a few years ago and is what probably indirectly inspired me to give Dew wings. i also like our flag means death, breaking bad, moon knight, and camp here in there (another podcast i HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend, will wood made the soundtrack!)

i LOVEEE FINAL SPACE!! avocato has been my pfp on this account forever and now i feel like i can’t ever change it (i don’t want to). final space is seriously amazing!!! but it was cancelled and basically got fucked over by the networks- infinity train style. idk, stuff happened and it was removed from hbo max so there’s not really anywhere to watch it (legally) except for netflix international iirc? but it’s getting removed from that too i think. super fucking sad :( it ended on a huge cliffhanger too BUT there is a graphic novel being made!!!! super excited about that!

other cartoons i like are over the garden wall (dressed up as wirt for halloween last year), the owl house, adventure time, regular show, steven universe, infinity train, bojack horseman, rick and morty, mlp, the midnight gospel, and so much more i’m forgetting. OH anime i like are death note, demon slayer (haven’t caught up yet on the latest seasons tho), and MOB PSYCHO 100!! vampire in the garden on netflix is really amazing as well.

this is sooo long but now i gotta talk about my favorite music artists. WILL WOOD (AND THE TAPEWORMS) IS MY FAVORITEEE. I ALSO LOVEEE JHARIAH!!! AND HARLEY POE!!!!! top three of all time. i also like toby fox obviously, and glass beach (LITERALLY GOING TO SEE THEM IN MARCH AND I AM SOOO EXCITED!!!), mcr, shayfer james, weezer, mitski, lemon demon, set it off, tally hall, gerard way, and probably more i’m forgetting. i also like musicals!! (i was in the spongebob musical earlier this year for school! i was larry the lobster :))

so guys. GUYSSS. IF YOU LIKE MUSICALS, GO WATCH NERDY PRUDES MUST DIE!!!! OR JUST WATCH THE ENTIRE HATCHETFEILD TRILOGY!!! WHILE UR AT IT, WATCH ALL THE STARKID MUSICALS ACTUALLY!!! this is my current hyperfixation. the lords in black are amazing, npmd is amazing. i love everything about it. go watch it seriously, it’s fucking awesome and the soundtrack is AMAZING!!!

i think this is it. this got super long but i’m super passionate about my interests so yeah. this is pretty much everything. one very important thing (literally my special interest) that i didn’t mention are my other ocs. i have wayyy more ocs that are completely separate from the tllr ones. i don’t wanna post about them here though, cuz they’re not whump related and i want to keep my main account separate from this account. but they’re my favorite blorbos in existence so…

if u WANT to know about my other ocs, u can feel free to dm me for the username of my other fandom/oc account. that’s where i post other stuff that i don’t post here, like my fanart and my other oc stuff. i don’t post writing or anything like that there, so ur not missing out on that.

anyway those are most of my main interests! things i didn’t mention that im also really interested in are reptiles (snakes specifically), and animals in general. i have two leopard geckos named Lars and Alphys and i reallyyyy want a pet snake but my family hates snakes :(( anyway i’m rambling

thanks for the ask!!

[tmabutlesbian]

oliver study time? oliver study time. lets get to know ollie boy!!

i had tons of fun with mike crew so i'll be doing this to oliver banks now since i always get confused with his personality n also death so.

avatar of the end, duh. he sees tendrils tied to ppl who are abt to die. so like only ppl who r close to dying have those tendrils then? i'm assuming so.

originally he dreamed of ppl's deaths 10 days before their death. around 2014, maybe 2013, he started seeing the tendrils awake as well.

he has 3 aliases: antonio blake, the coroner (cool ass title), and Dr. Thomas Pritchard (random ass name but we move on)

he died by satellite impact but came back ofc, at a research vessel near Point Nemo

descriptions: tall, dark n handsome. lmao, he's tall, he's black, he's careworn???? don't know what that means. n also has worry lines on his face. boy is anxious. oh careworn means "tired and unhappy because of prolonged worry". boy is depressed and anxious, mood.

2000-2006: boyfriend Graham!! in 2000-2001. dated 6 years, lived together, broke up before 2007. Ollie moved to london around 2005 "to do his undergraduate degree at the London School of Economics and started working at Barclays directly after graduating" boy went to school! undergraduate means this is his first degree btw! also wtf is barclays? oh i googled it its a back. heh oliver banks. works in a bank. hehe. oh shit, boy got too stressed, had a breakdown after barely a year n had a dramatic exit from his job around 2007. his dreams started soon after.

ok i just saw graham's page. he died in 2006. no wonder they broke up, oliver probably realized smth was wrong or the notthem ruined their relationship. poor boy :( but also i cant remember if graham broke up with ollie before or after his death. hmm. they might have broken up since graham was obsessed with that table n eating notebooks n shit.

around 2013: 2015, oliver was working on a magick shop. king. they sold crystals n tarot cards. jane prentiss mentioned him looking at her with deep sadness n even fear. this is where jane worked not oliver

oliver worked on a shop that in soho that had a sign saying "Crystals. Books. Tarot" pretty straight to the point. he asked jennifer what she was listening to even tho she had no headphones on n when altered to this he just walked away muttering a warning abt protecting her ears. so. he's awkward as well. how cute

march 2015: he gives a statement, under antonio blake, abt gertrude's death. so gertrude died around this time then.

mid 2015-2018: "Oliver assumed the identity of a chemist and boarded an unnamed research vessel in the hopes of getting some restful sleep" boy what. how do you go from A to B here. i'll read the statement in a bit to get more context but this sounds WILD w/o context. n then when he notices theyre all abt to die cuz of the vines he. kills the captain? n leads everyone to a location that gets hit by a satellite killing them instantly.

2018: oliver gives the statement to coma jon, saying the web sent him, which is interesting how the web has so much power but its all so behind the scenes. when georgie encounters him he uses his alias antonio blake again, but she knows shes an avatar of the end right away n that he reminds her of someone evil which. yikes!

post-change: he has his own domain, corpse roots, n gives jon another statement, also theorizes abt the ruined world. he's a nerd <3

still unsure of his age but! if he started his undergratuate in his 20's in 2005, then by 2016, the start of the podcast, he's around his 30's, probs 31.

let's get into the statements

mag 11: Dreamer: ok so his work stress also had a hand on the breakup actually, n he left their home to stay with some friends. he slept on his friend's Anahita's sofa, n thats when he started having the dreams.

the dreams were irregular throughout the years, so at least it wasnt everyday. he read tons of books abt esoteric dreaming but found nothing of value.

he also saw his father's death, n couldnt stop it. even after his death, he saw his father in his dreams for a month and a half

he lied to get into the institute to give his statement to gertrude, knowing she would die soon. poor boy just wanted to help somebody, even if he couldnt help his father :(

mag 42: Grifter's Bone: interesting that jennifer did not die but oliver still warned to protect her ears. she didnt even suffer damage since she took precautions. how did he know? did he see a ton other ppl with tendrils in their ears? did he actually change the trajectory of her death by being a puzzling man warning her to protect her ears?

she did kill herself by hitting her head with a hammer. does this mean that, even tho she didnt die by the grifter's bone, she still did die? like oliver sees when ppl r going to die n the only thing he can maybe change is the way that it happens? thats fucked up

mag 121: Far Away: he can feel the tendrils when they appear irl! he feels a chill when he touches or brushes against one. he isolates himself since he doesnt want to see ppl's deaths, but he cant escape that entirely. probs saw neighbors n shit, or when he went grocery shopping. or just looked out the window, oof

point nemo is a point in the ocean that is the furthest place away from any civilization. the lonely must like him a little as well, damn. he cant dream abt the place since the vines dont let him. he finds out theres a scientific voyage going to point nemo, he replaces one of the members who is fated to die n takes his identity, deposing of the corpse. him n martin are so alike sometimes how fun. no wonder martin felt threatened lmao.

he has dreamless sleep for a while, keeping to himself. finally got the context lmao. but the vines return when they get to the destination, n he understands their fate n his purpose (as an avatar of the end? as a bringer of death? damn). he makes it so they reach the place where the vines originate from n they all die. this time, he's the one to cause the deaths, not just be a bystander. i bet he also wanted to die a little bit, loosing hope of having a normal life and just wanting it to stop :((

oliver embraces death, becoming an avatar. he also states he's going along with what "she" wants, which could be annabelle cane or just the mother from the web.

mag 168: Roots: (iconic "martin, are you jealous?" episode, just fyi) his alias here is The Coroner, which is rad as shit. he sees the veins of the end, n he has no power to stop the fate of death, but even if he could he wouldnt. "for to rob a soul of death is as torturous as its inevitable coming" grim poet over here lmao

interesting that he measures how close somebody is to death by "stretches" which are "waves" of terror or whatever. some ocean terms here, probs since oliver died in the middle of the ocean, so nice lil detail.

he likes to watch ppl be afraid of their inevitable deaths, even the inevitable deaths of others. we love a lil evil in out handsome men ofc.

he also has his concerns. the ppl will die, but without ppl to die there's no End. he may need other victims from other domains, but that will result in conflict. theres probs not new humans being created, so the humans will eventually run out if the apocalypse keeps going. and when that happens, all the fears will end and this reality will be rid of them. even then, there's no action to be taken to prevent this. the other fears will feed into The End, n he will see this happen, n while this might have terrified him before, he's too much of an avatar to be what he was before, he's more of the end than oliver banks now.

so! oliver is a handsome, tall, black man. he is anxious n also very sad, and awkward. a pretty chill guy regardless. he cares abt ppl, even those he doesnt know. he slowly comes to terms with death tho, n he just starts to like. not care less but just understand that it doesnt matter if they will all die n shit. he will also lie to get his way, n he has mostly good intentions, he's just desensitized to death now. also he might be into magick's. n he used to be a banker but that didnt go well. n also he's gay. king <3<3<3

[magnoliamyrrh]

also hold up, stupidest house of the dragon fandom moments:

1. uwuing viserys and seemingly forgetting his flaws bc old sad man stood up for his daughter (seemingly forgetting that he was a weak king, he sliced open and murdered his first wife, cousin, and supposed love of his life without her consent in his quest for a male heir, he ignored rhaenyra for years in his quest for a son, he made her heir out of guilt, he didnt teach her how to properly rule, his lack of want for conflict lead in part to the dance, he ignored his other 4 children, he also fell for alysent a literal 14-15 year old child bride and fucked her several times and ignored her and her kids, he got remarried and got her pregnant when he didnt technically need to)

2. uwuing daemon and being shocked at him grabbing rhaenyra by the neck (okay yea i ship them too but im well aware their relationships is absolutely fucked and theyre both war criminals like oh my god none of this is good this is just fun what made you think this man is some sort of goals also this man is literally renound for being fucked in the head and also. hes her uncle)

3. endlessly arguing to such a dramatic level between Adults about team green vs team black w a seeming forgetting that Both Of These Teams Suck ass (both sides wanting to forget the morally fucked aspects of the other side, while also not taking into account that all this is a critique of the medieval and royal system and its a tragedy and thus much arguing about rightful this and that is kinda missing the point)

4. generally looking for things like morality heros and whatnot when the whole point of game of thrones is complex characters which break general writing tropes and are both good and bad in one person and who you both hate and like. also by the end theyll all be war criminals. theres no jon snow here w the morality and even he hung a kid lmao

5. making alicent, a 14-15 year old traumatized child bride into the most evil bitch villan somehow when clearly in the show she is not the older in age manipulator from the books but a Girl Child essentially pimped out by her father to the king who again, is clearly very traumatized

6. endless arguing about how "the show shows what really happaned in the books and youre not allowed to think otherwise" like well okay great but also the ages of several characters are very different from in the books which changes a lot and also. in the books a dragon didnt burst through the floor killing hundreds of smallfolk and threathening all the greens which would have definetely been recorded so,,,,,,, nah man

7. excitement over rhenys girlboss floorboards moment not realizing this is the stupidest most unrealistic thing

[riddle-me-ri]

i’m gonna follow the pattern here lol:

your thoughts on…the different scarecrows? especially MOF jon?

Oohh spooky Twig Boys that I may or may not slightly slightly enforce my southernness on (only the good southernness like cooking, music, hospitality none that other shit) I'll be more than happy to oblige anon hehe. It's not often I get to talk/discuss the masters of fear.

Again gonna just kinda discuss all the ones I write for since I'm the most informed on those versions so sorry if I missed one and the post got long lmao

Masters of Fear Scarecrow: since you asked for him specifically I put him first lmao. And this Jon is just incredibly endearing? I think he's an adorable spry kinda guy that, like most, deserved better. I'm also super fond of his design. Also as someone who writes for "x reader" it was nice to see him...actually have a romantic interest? (albeit she was a bully bitch) listen listen...any extra info in a romantic sense of a character I will take

Arkhamverse Scarecrow: Uhh can I just say, absolute whiplash in design and mannerisms lol. While I enjoy both its like...such a bizarre change? Like yeah he did go through something traumatic (being very close to dying) but like...a total voice change? Maybe there's some behind the scenes explanation or something I don't know but yeah...I do enjoy him being whimsy and silly in Asylum and brooding and stoic in Knight with his waxing poetic lectures...but also also...does anyone have any idea how Knight Scarecrow's face works? Like his mouth and such?

TNBA Scarecrow: Definitely a more gritty and intriguing take, especially considering its a revamp of BTAS. Allegedly this is the idea of Scarecrow with a noose started? And now we've seen it incorporated in other designs which is pretty cool.

BTAS Scarecrow: Much like Jervis and I think Batman as a whole, this was my first Scarecrow encounter, and cause of such there's a wee bias to him being one of my favorites lol. Super rich voice, I don't care if he's terrorizing me, I will die of fear peacefully. Solid design and a super strong depiction of the character overall? Also my god his theatrics, top notch such a dramatic lad I love him.

Dark Knight/Nolanverse Scarecrow: pretty eyes...pretty eyes..strong jawline..pretty pretty scarecrow..huh, what? Oh..uhh yeah he's...fine I guess..I mean like not just fine as in fine as hell just...meh? I don't know I just remember him being stupidly criminally pretty. Although to be fair I don't recall much about him..sorry (granted I don't recall much about nolanverse as a whole...its been at most five years rip)

Year One Scarecrow: it took me an embarrassingly long time for me to actually read Year One rip. But it was very gut wrenching. It was the best updated take I've seen on Jon's origins and just how deeply rooted he is in his obsession, and it was a unique way too? Like it was an interesting take on the broken family scenario, I dunno I just thought it was super enriching.

Fear State Scarecrow: so I will say the designs for him are jarring as there's like..a different artist between the beginning, middle, and end of Fear State. But I like both looks, especially in the middle where he looks a lot like his BTAS counterpart. It was an amazing surprise to see the spikey red hair and wide eyes again in comic form and more realistic but still animated? I hope that makes sense. But I loved the story, and he was especially cunning and ruthless here.

Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo! Scarecrow: asdgggh this boomer asshole lmao. But definitely one of my top three favorites. He's a decent blend of old and new for me. Like he bears resemblance to BTAS but also some other comic appearances, he doesn't even need to he in the costumer and you can just tell he's Jonathan Crane. Also his voice is amazing, and I will forever be grateful to the writer that decided that Scarecrow was a fucking Elvira fan boy. Like of fucking course he'd love Elvira, Mistress of the Dark asdfghjj one of the few times where canon got it right lmao