#something about no longer knowing how to exist without a patron

[regainingparadise]

I have a half formed but very persistant thought about how Gerry Keay's relationship to Mary Keay is fundamentally the relationship of a reluctant avatar to their patron.

[lordgrimwing]

The Big 5-0-0

(Or, Glorfindel has a gift for his husband)

[for Glorfindel Week, hosted by @glorfindelweek, Day 7]

“Five hundred years!” Exclaimed the shocked tavern keeper.

Glorfindel shrugged as he helped the Man lift the roasted lamb from the cooking fire that also heated the dining room. “Five hundred years is not so long for elves.”

The Man scoffed, taking up a towel in one hand and pushing the steaming carcass from the spit. She wagged a finger at him. “For an Elf with a thousand years ahead of him, maybe, but any marriage that endures longer than kingdoms ought to be celebrated to the fullest.”

A thousand more years felt like pitifully little time to Glorfindel. He certainly would take every opportunity to celebrate every memory if he knew his time in Arda was so limited. How Men, who were lucky if they lived within a stone’s throw of one hundred, went their whole lives without bursting into song and dance in celebration of existence, he’d never understand. 

“I saw that horse you rode here on, so don’t bother saying you don’t have the means to throw a proper party.”

Asfaloth, being an Elvish steed, demanded a certain level of finary when he went out. The bells, however, were entirely Glorfindel’s idea.

“Erestor detests parties, and he says adorning a horse in gems and bells will get me killed—again!” 

She snorted at the jest, passing Glorfindel a platter for the meat he was stripping from the bones, unbothered by the heat that would burn her hands. “And in five hundred years, have you learned only what he dislikes and nothing of what he likes?”

He smiled softly. He knew much of what his beloved liked.

“Should I call all those men back in and ask them to recount tales of wives whose husbands didn’t bring them an anniversary gift?” The tavern keeper threatened. 

She’d cleared the dining room of local patrons until the meal was ready. The gleaming Elf-lord had garnered more raucous attention than she liked when it was her building, table, and chairs at risk, and it hadn’t felt right to ask him to wait in his room until everyone was distracted by good food. The other Men went willingly enough, though Glorfindel could still clearly hear them milling about outside.

“That won’t be necessary, good lady,” he said. “Duty brought me this way, but I made time to find something he will treasure.” He patted the purse tied to his belt.

She shot the purse a dubious look, doubtlessly skeptical that anything that fit in a small bag could adequately encompass the magnitude of a couple’s 500th wedding anniversary. 

“Well,” she settled on. “Don’t say no one warned you if he kicks you out on your ear.”

--

When Glorfindel finally arrived in Imladris, Erestor met him in the narrow pass leading down into the valley, too impatient to wait longer.

“My brightest night star!” Glorfindel said, alighting from Asfaloth’s saddle to sweep the loremaster into his arms. He planted a kiss on his forehead, thrilled by the absence of an audience to their reunion: Erestor disliked people kissing in public almost as much as he disliked parties. “Oh, how I’ve missed you.”

Erestor huffed but did not pull away. Reaching up, he pulled Glorfindel’s head down to return the kiss, leaving his husband blushing with excitement. 

“You took your time, Dandelion,” the black-haired Elf accused when they separated. “Elrond expected you back a fortnight ago.”

“I admit to tarrying longer than needed for the task he gave me,” Glorfindel said, leading the dusty stallion as the lovers continued down the path hand-in-hand. “But I promise it was not without reason.”

“It had better be a good reason, and not just that you had to climb some mountain to return one of Manwë’s foolish birds to its nest.”

Erestor was with him on that particular occasion, about fifty years before they married, though he had no interest in scaling the last cliffs to return the unfledged eagle to her home. Glorfindel insisted on it, knowing the young bird couldn’t survive the fast-approaching thunderstorm alone in the open and was too wild to keep in with them until the weather cleared. Trusting his skill and light step, Glorfindel climbed alone, the bird wrapped in a cloth to keep her wings and talons contained and secured in a sack over his shoulder, only her head poking out. The task wouldn’t have been challenging if not for the storm. He made it back to the sheltered test just fine, reassuring the flustered eagle parents with a song as he freed their lost eaglet. On the way down, however, his hands split on the rain-soaked stones and fell—only a few feet down to the next ledge, true, but it was enough to leave his heart pounding and senses ringing with the echos of dragon-thunder and flash of balrog-whips overlaying the storm. 

Erestor threatened to knock him out and tie him up the next time such madness came over him when he eventually made it back to safety, dripping wet and jumping at every clash of thunder that came too close. Glorfindel agreed to let him.

“Oh, no, you will find this delay was entirely to your liking,” he promised.

“A lofty claim, indeed,” Erestor said. “I will require proof.”

“When we are both safely home and done with our duties, I will show you.”

--

Glorfindel was sitting, comfortable and cozy, in bed with his embroidery when something hard bounced off his head and landed on the covers next to him.

“I cannot believe you!” 

Erestor’s sitting in an armchair by the window, using the last rays of the setting sun to inspect his gift—Or he had been. Currently, he was standing, slate tablet in one hand, the other still extended from slinging the little dog figurine from the side table at the golden-haired fool sitting in bed. His face was scrunched up, mouth pinched like he’d bitten into a lemon (except he usually had too much self-control to ever react to the unassuming citrus, but the comparison was good enough). 

“Where did you find this? How did you find this?” He brandished the old slate aggressively, for a moment looking as though he might throw it too.

Glorfindel set aside his project. “Is it not to your liking?” 

Perhaps he’d misjudged entirely and he would end up out on his ear just like the tavern keeper warned.

“Not to my liking? Not to my liking?” Erestor lifted the tablet high, gesturing to the small drawings on it with his other hand. “Sunflower, The elf who made these stories died four thousand years ago. How did you come by this?”

He sounded more shocked than angry, and Glorfindel relaxed. “Through much patience and the exchanging of many letters with various collectors of first age relics. I made a detour to collect that on the way back. That’s what delayed my return.”

“Did it not cost a small fortune? I spied no gems missing from your horse’s daft accoutrements.” 

A grin broke across Glorfindel’s face. “I dare say it is worth as much to you.”

Softness spread across his husband’s face and he touched the old slate now with tender, almost reverent fingers as he caressed the time-warn drawings. His eyes clouded with old memories of the past rarely recalled from the careful places he stored them in. “I laughed over this depiction of Lords Celegorm and Curufin when it was only days old! I helped Vekkawë hide his collection in our mattresses when Captain Crímainya came to destroy the ‘defaming misinformation’. I thought I’d never see one again after the Valar sank Beleriand.”

Eyes clearing, he brought the tablet, with its child-like depiction of long-gone beloved lords, to his chest and said, “This is a great treasure. No fortune can take it from me.”

Glorfindel laughed. “I’m glad the Dwarf I bought it from did not know the true value, then, for I am not sure I could have gotten it honestly for that price and would not have departed without it.”

Erestor snorted, muttering “Six pounds of that hideous tack you insist on dressing your horse in would have covered it, no doubt” as he turned away for a moment of privacy to wipe his eyes clear before he accidentally shed tears over the small remnant of his past.

“Asfaloth cannot be parted from his gems when he is afield.” 

Glorfindel opened his arms, and Erestor—after setting the tablet carefully on the side table like it was as fragile as a hollow dove egg and not slab or stone almost as old as the world itself that had survived devastations and travesties unnumbered—fell into his embrace. 

They spent the rest of the night in bed, though neither got much sleep.

[wolven91]

Lucky Human Feet

Vix stared at the thin pink thing as it bumbled around its workshop. It had sequestered itself into what was essentially a storeroom off from main engineering and converted it into a workshop suited for its smaller size.

Vix gnashed her teeth in confused frustration. Humans were pointless on a voyage like this, why would they bring such a ridiculously fragile thing? She was going to grab it by its pathetic little neck and shake it until an answer fell out!

As she got up to stomp over to him before she made it even a few feet from her desk, her pile of sensitive components fell over. They themselves didn’t bother her, but the lopeljack’s cover required her to keep up appearances and made a mad grab for them. By the time she had finished restacking the tokens of her disguise, the human had left and for the time she forgot about the human and his infuriating existence until later on in the evening.

That evening. Vix was sat in the bar on board the large craft with the rest of the crew that were no longer on shift. The only reason she remembered her original thought now was because she saw the human trying to pull himself up onto the bar stool nearby. He was her target, she was not to move against him yet, only observe and report back to her contact. 

She rolled her eyes at the childlike display; they truly were useless creatures.

"Why must we be laboured with those cretins?" The lopeljack asked the group who were also sitting at her table, it was more as a rhetorical question, Vix not really expecting an answer. 

"''Cos we'd be stupid not to." Replied her superior, and lead engineer, plainly. 

She had to defer to this superior for the time being. Only for as long as she needed. 

She respected him; he knew his stuff and had the scars to prove he learned his lessons. But her barely hidden look of contempt should have told him her opinion on his statement. He smiled ruefully before going into more detail, interpreting her disdain for lack of experience, rather than frustration. She was one of the highly trained lopeljacks, she had travelled further across the galaxy than he may have, seen, met and killed more species than him. 

"I get you're new, but I think there's something you should know about our 'pathetic' friends. No ship with something important to do, should ever leave port without a human on board." He said 'sagely'.

"For hellspawns sake; Why?!" She demanded.

"They're lucky."

She gave him a withering stare, there was no such thing as luck. Only skill.

"Despite a whole galaxy worth of creatures that would eat them with ease, they live. Despite their world, statistically, having killed them off millenia ago, they live. Despite all the hardships their people have been subjected to getting to the stars; they live." He shook his head, mane whipping back and forth before he continued.

"Every time something terrible is to befall them, something gets in the way. They aren't invincible, their conservation status can attest to that, but it's as if invisible spirits will always try to tip the scales in their favour… If one is allied with a human, one is protected by this unseen force."

Vix looked back at the human, currently chatting up the bartender. The inherent ability to survive and succeed despite multiple moments of destruction, it was beyond chance. Perhaps there was something to this old fool’s ramblings?

As the lopeljack watched the human, she observed them absently moving their drink to the otherside of them just as another patron fell backwards onto the bar. If the human's drink had remained... it would have spilt.

"How?" Vix demanded, turning back to her ‘boss’. 

He shrugged, while drinking.

"I heard something about them having lucky feet. Apparently they used to keep lucky feet of some kind on a chain around their necks, that's just rumours though.”

Vix scratched at her chin while staring at the boot-clad appendages of her target, dangling from the bar stool.

"...lucky you say..."

[folcanta]

Shape shifter

i essentially said this in my folken post but my posts are too long so i'll put it in its own.

In episode 10, not knowing his name, Hitomi is asked to do a reading on "the prisoner." As soon as Miguel Lavariel breaks out of prison, Hitomi draws a blank card mid-reading— because Miguel is no longer "the prisoner." Miguel is the only one of Dilandau's guys for whom we get a surname, and the function of providing an identity in this episode is to tell us about how Hitomi's— and Folken's— power works.

Similarly, Folken can't read/predict Dilandau the way he can with Van. Because "Dilandau" isn't a person.

If we could see the pendant in these moments, we might imagine it swinging wildly, never settling on a point. Dilandau exists in name only— a false identity propped up by Zaibach as an experiment. There's no one there. Celena is buried under a warped artificial fate, and Folken doesn't know Celena. He tells Allen this in episode 24. Maybe he's bullshitting, maybe he's not— it would be weird for him to know nothing about Dilandau, but, that weirdness is also in keeping with his inability to keep Dilandau in line. Equally, Dilandau doesn't know anything about Folken! He had no idea he was from Fanelia or that he was Van's brother, had no idea how or why Folken could control Escaflowne. He doesn't figure it out until Folken tells him in the drama CD, and based on Dilandau's account (for whatever that's worth,) they only met when they were paired up.

Dilandau's fate never takes the place of Celena's. Arguably, Dilandau's fate could never be Celena's— Dilandau's fate, if it existed, is more like Van's fate, if Van continues on the same path, leaning into bloodlust. Dilandau claims to have killed dragons, something Van needed help to accomplish.

Dilandau is an obfuscation. The very first purpose he serves is to appear as more than he is. Dilandau has a crown, a throne, and servants. He obscures Folken's position. Then, quickly, although Folken lacks these things himself, we're shown evidence after evidence that Folken greatly outranks him. Dilandau is an image. A phantasm. A mascot.

okay now i'm thinking about the colour symbolism we're all already well aware of, blue elder siblings and red younger siblings... since Jajuka and the Dragonslayers are coded blue/purple, maybe that information serves a dual/different purpose for Dilandau in-universe, where it's intended to pacify him, making him more likely to carry out his role if he subconsciously associates blue with trustworthiness. i don't think this is true but it is An Idea.

Whether or not the Dragonslayers themselves are captives, Folken does tell us that the sorcerers experimented on children plural. While i'm at it, i'll briefly note here that Alseides is the name of some nymphs in Greek mythology. Oreides... well that just means imitation gold (copper/zinc alloy) doesn't it? And what about Oread?

Dilandau is somehow their "patron," but we see over and over that he's much more reliant on them than they are him. They are sacrificed again and again to keep him safe. They offer themselves up readily as targets in spite of his abuse. They may as well be empty vessels... much the same as him.

Based on Dilandau's function, and Jajuka's to him, it seems pretty clear that the Dragonslayers' primary and literal function is to exist for Dilandau. Let me rephrase that: their singular purpose is to substantiate the idea of "Dilandau." Programmed to never let the mask slip. They don't need him any differently than an ant needs a queen. We see very clearly just how much Dilandau needs them, torn apart and unable to bear his own weight without them. They are part of his planned identity too, as if all together they're a composite organism.

That's why his deterioration is so sudden and devastating... the truth of the emptiness revealed by their absence. The trauma of losing them, unmooring Dilandau, isn't necessarily due to losing them as friends— the type of relationship they have isn't one Escaflowne rewards with "friendship". It's more like losing the links in a chain, the locks on a safe, the flotation devices waterlogged, left drowning in a shallow pool.

[elfhunk]

if i may ramble for a moment:

i need to start volunteering in some youth programs again when my health stuff is sorted out.

i have been dealing with a lot. i am definitely pretty sick in the brain. i will remain private about the gruesome detail, but i have had to check in with myself a lot lately. it hasn't been scary. just a new phase.

but i am walking away with a singular feeling of needing to survive so i can be a better role model for men & boys than they have currently. they deserve better than this.

like... what are their options presently? twitch streamers and youtubers who are affable nice boys? grindset libertarian gym rats & supplement shills? or, y'know, fascists?

or in... increasing frequency, a combination of the three!

in an environment where we mock or patronize even the slightest deviations from hegemonic masculinity to declare carrying a tote bag as fruity.

i can't help but observe a tendency to either minimize yourself into a harmless clown, or become addicted to the pursuit of power & superiority.

i can't help but see people who describe their ideal man as a golden retriever and take pause. a feeling of dread that hits my stomach every time i look in the mirror in the gym bathroom.

i often wonder if anyone wants us to be more than that. i don't know what to do with that feeling. but i know what many other men have done with that feeling. you do, too.

it's not an insignificant piece of how we got here.

i've joked with other people who've worked in youth programs that our job was to keep young white boys from becoming nazis.

and i need to be direct. this is an issue white boys & men are facing. this is our problem.

i am looking at exit poll data and remembering how important that job was.

because i have talked to a lot of boys who still feel like there's no space for them to be a complete human being in contemporary culture.

they feel like their existence is fundamentally harmful, and that the only way to achieve a "positive" masculinity is to ask for nothing and to receive nothing in return. to be stoic and stalwart. to be an impenetrable knight in shining armor with nothing inside. they live in a perpetual state of dimly simmering shame, worried that they are only making the world worse by their existence.

most suffer silently. brief admissions of vulnerability shared usually around some kind of fire. they worry they're burdening their partners with the emotions labor. so they shut up. they man up.

or, they fall prey to the ideology promising them that their rightful place in the world has been stolen. there is a reason they're sad. there's a reason they're angry. the reason is that they no longer have the mandate of heaven. and that it must be reclaimed by force.

and that is why am worried about men.

i want to help. even if i can barely help myself out of these cyclical & self-destructive expectations.

i can't pretend that i am above this as a gay man. it's important that i don't pretend. it's important that i acknowledge the parts of me that beg me to be less of a faggot so i could just fit in and get that power back. i have to shut that part of me up. the parts of me that still fetishize images of male power and domination without a second thought.

i have to start having these conversations with the other men in my life.

there's something really not okay with us.

that's it. thank you for listening, if you are reading the thoughts of one horse who has been without ADHD medication for well over a month but has entered a sort of dissociated zen state.

it's just been the one salient thought i have had all day on the matter.

[mugenmcfugen]

Basic Deadlock character analysis, please tell me if I'm missing something:

Vindicta's killed a lot of humans to protect supernatural beings. Shiv's killed a lot of monsters to protect people. Without external influence they should be bitter enemies. Which brings me to how they would interact with other characters...

Warden would be a corrupting influence on Shiv, encouraging his brutality towards the supernatural. Wraith would be another corruptor but towards crime. Ivy, Infernus, and Grey Talon could make Shiv be more accepting of someone like Vindicta.

Lady Geist and Seven would definitely push Vindicta (all three of them are no-longer-human) towards seeing humans as having little value. On the other hand, Mirage, Ivy, and Grey Talon know how humans and monsters can coexist and could share that knowledge with her.

Does any of this correspond to relationship charts you may have created?

Not really, because for what it's worth, Shiv doesn't strike me as a guy who's against supernatural, but he's well aware that Patrons are fucked up and not to be messed with. To me, it seems there's difference between ''monster looking people'' and real monsters that wreak havoc on humans, thus why Baxter society came into existence. Grey Talon himself isn't against super natural, but they do keep things in check.

And by Talon's words Vindicta is his friend, and her vengenace is complete separate issue, I have feeling Talon respects her enough to turn a blind eye towards her. Sure, one thing that's questionable is her quest to eradicate whole bloodline from existence which does make her monstrous, this is one of the reasons why she piqued me hard as a character. That said, I don't know if Geist or Seven would push anybody, both of them are self serving assholes who do thing for only their own sake and don't think they would be bothered to drag someone like Vindicta down. Nor I think Vindicta would also be bothered by two of them, I get a feeling she lives in her own bubble with occasional contact, I mean her weapon is named ''Wallflower Revenge''. And why I get kick out of the possible dynamic between her, Grey Talon and Shiv. Warden on other hand, I unfortunately didn't think about him that much, Shiv does tell him that if he were to get his wish it would fuck up New York for good, so that's other hint I got for Shiv that he isn't against supernatural.

[conquerthenight]

I’ve been thinking nonstop about the time someone on ao3 mentioned that Maxim took on some of Rebecca’s worst traits as a way to cope with (or that some of his own worst traits were exacerbated by) the abuse he endured by Rebecca’s hand. And that honestly makes so much sense.

None of this an excuse for how he behaves, but I think it could be an explanation.

I mean, think about it. We know he has quite the horrible temper. In the musical Beatrice states that he was “the same way as a child” meaning that his anger issues have always existed in some way. Of course that is most likely true, but take that and add in years of emotional abuse and it’s certainly a recipe for disaster. What used to be an ordinary bad temper became something border lining on volatile over the years. We see that in those moments Maxim snaps at his second wife. In the musical, during the first boathouse scene, Maxim rushes after his wife who had run offstage in terror, as if he was about to hit her before ultimately realizing what he was about to do and stopping himself in his tracks.

We know that Maxim can be quite cold and distant when he wants to be. At times he is also super patronizing and mocking. In the musical it’s a bit less so (but even that has the “you react like a child” line) but in the book he’s constantly talking down to his wife. Perhaps he does so because Rebecca did the same to him? Of course, Rebecca definitely didn’t compare him to a child as Maxim did to his second wife, but she could have mocked him with his insecurities (his obsession with holding up his family’s reputation, his intense desire to be seen as a strong figure and the toxic level of pressure he puts on himself as a result).

And of course, we can’t talk about Maxim or Rebecca’s worst traits without mentioning manipulation and the abuse of power dynamics. And what’s more is that both of them are fully aware that they are manipulating the situation. Rebecca sought to control Maxim by holding her affairs, Manderley’s standing, etc. over his head knowing full well he either wouldn’t or couldn’t (or a combination of the two) divorce her. See the lyric in “Kein Lächeln war je so Kalt”: “Divorce was taboo for the de Winter family. The family honor was worth more to me than my pride, and she relished in her triumph”.

Likewise, Maxim knows full well that his second wife came from basically nothing. He knows she’s financially dependent on him and that should their marriage fail in some way, she would have nowhere to go and no one to turn to. He even outright admits to her that he “did a selfish thing” marrying his second wife and that he “should have waited and let [his wife] marry a boy of [her] own age”. He knows that he has (and arguably still is) manipulating the dynamics in his own favor until the very moment he confesses to Rebecca’s murder and the power shifts from Maxim to his young wife.

Both Maxim and Rebecca know that they are absolute monsters. But it’s important to also note where they differ. While Rebecca revels in her absolute assholery and abusiveness, Maxim’s situation is the opposite. He hates himself for his own assholery and has basically condemned himself to a suffering of his own making.

Ironically, Mrs. Danvers said it best: “He’s made his own hell, and he has no one but himself to thank for it”. Was Mrs. Danvers just trying to get under the new Mrs. de Winter’s skin and hit her where it would hurt most? Yes. Was it said out of bitterness over Rebecca being replaced? Yes. But was she correct in her assumption? Also yes.

And of course, the key difference between Rebecca and Maxim is that all important shift in power. Rebecca held the power for almost the entirety of their relationship, and Maxim sought to take that power back through any means necessary resulting in Rebecca’s murder. When Maxim eventually confesses to said murder, it serves as an act of giving up that power he had claimed by killing Rebecca. He can no longer hold the weight of it because he knows he is damned and thus power transferred itself to his second wife. Where he was previously codependent on Rebecca, his second wife became codependent on him upon their marriage, and ultimately he became codependent on his wife upon his confession.

This is where the adaptation of Rebecca’s traits begins to fade. Maxim becomes basically a shell of himself, barely keeping it together through the rest of the story if not for the influence of his wife. He becomes as reliant on her as she had previously been reliant on him. This toxic cycle is only truly broken with the burning of Manderley. Only then are they equals. Only then do they begin to truly grow.

Rebecca, on the other hand, never got that chance. It was taken from her by the very man she had ill used. She knew that her “pregnancy” was a lie. She knew that her cancer diagnoses would damn her to a slow and painful death. Did that stop her from perpetuating the cycle of abuse? No. Instead she continued with it until her last breath, passing the torch to Maxim in the process.

Maxim certainly was no innocent. He perpetuated this toxic cycle as well. The only difference was that the person he passed it onto ended up not only breaking the cycle, but also gave him the opportunity to heal from it. He knows he isn’t worthy of it. We as the reader/viewer somewhat know that too. And yet the second Mrs. de Winter unknowingly grants him this post Manderley fire. Maxim has the opportunity to redeem himself where Rebecca did not.

Whether he takes the opportunity or ultimately succumbs to his inner demons (figuratively or literally) is completely up to the one consuming the story.

Personally my opinion is ever changing. While the optimistic part of me believes that he does work to better himself and ultimately succeeds in doing so, the realistic part of me wonders whether that’s the case. Of course, when I am of the realistic opinion I don’t think he reverts back to the traits he took on from Rebecca and those that were made worse during his relationship with Rebecca, but rather he wallows in a state of being that is just numb to it all. He is stagnant in his recovery because he believes, he knows, that he is beyond help. Things don’t get worse, but they certainly don’t get better either.

Ultimately Maxim de Winter is a character that foretells the tragedy of abuse and how the cycle of abuse can continue in ways that those trapped within it don’t comprehend until it’s too late. He is and isn’t a victim. He is and isn’t a perpetrator. We root for his relationship with his second wife on our most hopeful days and yet we don’t on our most cynical. He is an asshole. He is a dick. He isn’t exactly the best of men. And yet he is also broken. He is lonely. He is lost.

He finds what he is looking for in the end to an extent. A love that, while not exactly the healthiest, sets him on a path to becoming a better person. The relationship between Maxim and his second wife is in a way just like the drive leading to Manderley itself. Constant twisting and turning, plenty of bumps in the road, obstacles that temporarily prevent them from moving forward. And the beauty of it is that they do, in their own twisted way. They move on from the cycle of abuse they started in, however irreparably damaged and emotionally numb Maxim may be by the end.

“Love that liberates”. I’ve seen plenty of debate over whether that signature line from the musical is applicable to the story of Rebecca and the journey the de Winters take. My two cents is that it is, although the love itself isn’t what liberates the de Winters, Maxim in particular. Maxim may delude himself into believe that the love his second wife shows him despite his crimes is what liberates him, but while it certainly sets the foundation for their liberation from the cycle, in the end it is he who must crawl out of the hell he created for himself. No one can pull him out of it but himself.

[cfr749]

I totally, totally agree with your view of their relationship. The Barnes episode is one I can’t watch and I just pretend it doesn’t exist. The whole situation with Chris and Ashley was just…unnecessary and written horribly. I feel like Tim treated Lucy better when he was her TO and respected her and didn’t treat her like a child which is mainly what he does now. He became more patronizing AFTER she was no longer his rookie. Additionally, he didn’t say anything after Lucy told him he would do great in Metro - just gave her a half smile and left. He acted like a teenager during the Valentine’s episode when he gave her the silent treatment when he found out she did the five-player trade. And it ended with LUCY apologizing and Tim never once apologizing for his immature behavior. He also treated her horribly in the episode when Isabel came back. He invited her to LUCY’S apartment without asking Lucy, gave her a half-hearted apology only when Isabel was AT THE DOOR and then proceeded to joke around with his ex-wife ABOUT Lucy and IN FRONT of Lucy and then regressed to his TO voice with his “Chen!” later at the station, right after making fun of Lucy trying to help him relax. Like, hello, that’s your girlfriend! Why are you snapping at her when she didn’t do anything??? Chris was absolutely a shitty partner but Tim is a becoming a very, very close second. He treated her better when she was his rookie and especially before they dated. And im so bummed about it because I had such high hopes but the way they write Tim’s character is just ruining it for me.

Hi anon!

First off, I'm glad you got to get all of that off of your chest 😂. I know how isolating and frustrating it can be to have all of the feelings about choices the show is making, but feel like you can't share those frustrations without pissing people off or experiencing backlash. So while I can't control anything other than my own response, I'll just say, you're always welcome to vent to me!

I'll be honest and say I didn't notice / react to all of the things you mentioned in the same way, but I can see your points and understand why those moments may have rubbed you the wrong way. Especially since, like I mentioned in my last post, the issue isn't any 1 isolated incident. The issue is a repeated pattern in the storytelling and messaging.

Something I want to be clear about before I go any further though:

This is not about my head canons or what I'd like to believe the writers were trying to convey.

Of course I think the idea of Lucy liking Tim more than Tim likes Lucy is ridiculous. That's why I can't figure out what on earth the writers were doing.

Of course I don't hate Tim (I literally could never!!) --- I love both of these characters deeply, and close to nothing excites me more than the idea of the two of them falling in love.

This is specifically about choices the writers made and what we actually saw unfold on our screens.

And if my takes seem to be more pro-Lucy, that's specifically because, IMO, the way the story unfolded was much more favorable to Tim that it was too Lucy.

Which isn't even surprising. Women often get the short end of the stick. Women of color almost always do. And that is literally the entire point of why this conversation is important. It's why shrugging off repeated instances of Lucy's character being eroded in service of the ship or maybe just as a result of the thoughtlessness of the writers really bothers me. It's why I'm not the only one who feels this way.

So, anon, for now, I'm just going to dig into the first item you mentioned as one of the first examples of this pattern -- the Katie Barnes of it all (sorry Katie - you were lovely - I promise it's nothing personal 😂). Setting aside the confession prank in 3x09 (which is it's own essay), this was the first time I started to really question the direction the show was going with making the ship canon. At the time, I hoped it was a blip, because we all remember that look in 3x14, and... yeah.

I believe this was the first appearance of jealous Lucy. And don't get me wrong, I have no problem with using jealousy to tell a story -- as long as it serves a purpose and as long as it's not completely 1-sided.

But instead of moving Chenford forward, this actually moved them several steps backward for me.

Like you mention anon, in seasons 1 and 2, despite Lucy being his rookie, I felt that they were very much portrayed as equals. They helped each other in different ways. I’d argue Lucy often showed she was more emotionally intelligent than Tim and used that to help him navigate through the end of his marriage, and Tim obviously poured everything he had into getting her as ready as she possibly could be to move on to the next step in her career.

But this scene in 3x11 managed to re-assert the Rookie - T.O. dynamic in a way that slapped me harder than any moment when he was actually her T.O. -- asserting Tim's view of Lucy as someone he needed to teach not how to be a capable police officer, but someone he needed to teach about the world.

He said this to Lucy. Lucy! LUCY!

If you don't understand why this is categorically absurd, please go re-watch season 1 right now.

The fact that it was couched in compliments and we got to see Lucy go squee over his praise doesn't make this any less patronizing.

Literally, I don't need to hear any man say this to any woman ever. I especially don't need to hear a white man saying it to a woman of color. And I sure as hell did not need to hear Tim say it to Lucy.

So where'd we end up?

Lucy took some major hits to her character, blurring the lines between personal and professional by accusing Tim of giving Katie special treatment because he found her attractive, and ultimately came off as jealous, immature, insecure, and unprofessional amongst probably some other less than flattering things. And note, I'm not saying I think she is these things. I'm saying she was portrayed to the general audience as being these things.

Tim, on the other hand, got a windfall -- not only did he get to be the wise, all knowing teacher (let's not forget his deep love of meditation), he got to have all his past sins erased under the guise of helping sweet Lucy understand the world is a scary place.

***

So obviously you mentioned a bunch of other examples, but this is already too long and probably not at all what you were looking for in a response, so I'm going to wrap up here. I got another ask about the Valentine's Day plot, so I'll tackle what I did and didn't like there eventually (yes, I am capable of liking things. it's rare, but possible).

Thanks for the ask! 🥰🥰🥰

[overthinkingtaleblr]

What's your personal take on Spencer's godly-hood?

Anon asked this in July of last year, what a long time to wait…

This was probably gonna be used for a masterlist, but have this Essay Format instead.

TL;DR: I think he was like. A god of hyperfixations and stuff, got killed by other gods, and while he Had a good amount of power, he’s since lost most of it thanks to Billy. I think that he no longer remembers he was a god, but it won’t take much to make him recall, and once he remembers he may revert to previous foul behavior.

I think that The Mighty Spence is a god that is apart of a broader pantheon, though Who makes up that pantheon I am unsure… I think that he is apart of the same pantheon as the Housekeeper though. Possibly same family tree, but I’m not sure about that. The question of how these gods came to be and what their power consists of is one for the broader pantheon at large.

The Mighty Spence, or whatever he was referred to when he was a worshipped god, was a god of knowledge and discovery in my opinion. He may have also been a god of strategy and war. I think he was a very prideful god, but also fallible in that there are things in the world that he is not aware of, and if someone were to discover something he did not know, they could use it against him. In whatever mythos he takes part in, I believe there is a story with tons of versions that’s just about finding out how to do something Spence declared impossible in order to best him at his own game during an ego trip and making it so he was honor-bound to NOT kill them.

I think ultimately he was a Patron god for people with a goal, essentially. Like, the desire for something to the point of it bordering on obsession are his favorites (lmao god of hyperfixations) so long as he can show off and give them a guiding hand. He starts disliking them when they know More than him in any particular subject, but so long as your drive isn’t centered around knowledge, you should be good.

Now, Spence was dead, like fully dead, and I don’t think this was done by mortal hands. I think for some reason, Spence managed to piss off another god or two in his pantheon and wound up on their shit list. I interpret his grave as essentially being an attempt to Get Rid Of Him Entirely. Like, it exists Only during a period of time where it stands above a molten sea on a landmass that will Not last the day. Essentially, without time travel, there was noooo resurrecting that man. Sadly, seems some members of his cult figured it out. Of course, for a guy whose whole thing is that his followers are people who tend to obsess about things. It makes sense that they might obsess over how to bring him back.

However the gods seem to work, they 100% gain power through sacrifice. Channeling the return of the Mighty Spence into a younger human body was a start, but it took him killing his other followers to have a stable amount of power in order to push himself to sneak into the home of the Acachalla’s. It probably took a lot of juice to even get to the point where he arrived, and he probably wasn’t anywhere close to properly ascending again. I think that he was looking for some means to regain more power— maybe something with the 13th dimension, or maybe he was waiting for whatever was on its way? Either way; Spencer did Not intend to stay with the Acachallas, and despite not being fully powered, he was still essentially… an incredibly weakened god, maybe a Very strong demigod.

Like. I don’t think that Spencer had to eat or sleep or anything in order to survive when he first arrived at the home of the Acachallas. I don’t think he aged at all either, and he had access to some degree of metacognition. And I think this all changed when Billy sacrificed him.

Billy at some point sacrificed Spencer to raise Maxwell Acachalla from the dead as a ghost, and I think that was a turning point for both Maxwell and Spencer. We already established that human sacrifice is very important for this pantheon, with some of the “power” from the dead human going to the thing they were killed for, incidentally meaning that a good Chunk of Spencer’s power was ripped from him and dropped on Maxwell, which is why Maxwell is so Weird for a poltergeist.

Ever capable of holding a grudge, Spencer has never forgiven Billy for this incident. A good chunk of Maxwell’s stubbornness actually Comes from the Mighty Spence’s power channeled in his body.

Spencer, anyways, is after this incident… almost human. Still a demigod, probably, but he ages now, he can’t survive on styrofoam alone anymore— he’s still INCREDIBLY smart, that knowledge doesn’t just go away, but that understanding of What he is starts to fade the longer he recognizes his own newfound humanity. Like, he starts to believe as he gets older that his claims of godliness were just. The claims of a traumatized child trying to wrestle back feelings of control. He opens up more to the other Acachallas and actually like. Lets himself live. Plans for the future, accepts the Acachallas as his family but still makes plans to grow up and possibly move out.

I will say, I don’t think that he concludes that he is a human until after the incident where the Acachallas bury him in the garden and he tries and fails to rally an underground civilization to take over the house. I think… even if there Is an underground civilization under the house, which isn’t likely, Spencer spent like. The entire time in that garden just… actually dead. He was in denial about it for awhile, but when he saw how much time had passed it became impossible to pretend because there’s no way it took him like a year to claw out of a shallow grave. After that he started contemplating his mortality and his NEED to be in charge of EVERYTHING and eventually started leaning on Gertrude for support.

One of the ways Spencer has stayed nonhuman is that his respawns are essentially just repairing his shell. Most people vanish and reappear, Spencer just comes back to life where his body was before, and he can respawn fully healed at any time (because at some point Billy doesn’t respawn people, he makes zombies. That time limit doesn’t exist for Spencer). There is one exception to the “his shell just repairs itself” rule, though, and that’s Right after he got sacrificed to Maxwell. He respawned at home for the first time ever and immediately went upstairs to set Billy’s bed on fire out of rage. And then collapsed going up the second flight of stairs because losing years worth of siphoned energy and having to adjust to a frail human body is exhausting.

He has mixed feelings as Sally’s own relationship with divinity progresses.

Something about it is so. Familiar. It’s almost uncanny that he got so much of what being a god is Right in his childhood insistence that he was something special. Gives him a headache just thinking about it.

So yeah, Spencer is a god in a human shell. There’s a lot of ways to make him remember what lies under the surface… he could even come to that conclusion on his own. It’s bound to happen eventually— but how he reacts to that information is its own beast. I have fic ideas about it.

[danidoesathing]

Please, please talk more about witch forms in pmmm au the names alone sound so interesting, I really want to know more about the symbolism you gave them

YAY ok so Witches are like. weird and abstract. like im still not sure how Kyoko would end up as the Witch of Wǔdàn. like there's definitely a reason for it but idk what it is. so i tried to match the energy of that. its also. pretty mean! Witch forms are like physical forms of personal hell.

Vivian, the Witch of Rabbits. Her nature is misfortune. A witch who is prone to violent fits. Everything she creates ends up blowing up in her face. Her labyrinth is in a constant state of destruction. She flips between different temperaments on a dime. She dislikes staying in one place for long, making it difficult to catch her.

Vivian is Jinx's witch form. The name comes from a variation of Saint Bibiana, patron saint of mental illness, insanity, and torture victims. The "Rabbit" thing references a few things in Jinx/Powder's past, and it's one thing she isn't able to escape. From Vi's rabbit (the one she sees during the arcane bomb in ep3) to Isha, to Jinx's quickfire nature and Powder's appeared fragility. It's something she can't seem to escape from, similar to how she can't really escape from Powder. It's a part of her, and she has to either accept that as herself or become this.

Her body is made up of the same colorful scribbles as her hallucinations, and is a constantly changing form, though she always reverts back to a twin eared blue rabbit in the end. Whether this is by choice isn't clear. She's a flick witch that constantly flips between manic joy, rage, and sorrow seemingly without any reason. Sometimes she will ignore any humans that wander within her labyrinth, and during others she will attack violently on sight. On occasion she may try to coerce them to play with her, though this rarely ends well. The few times she is calm, she seems to enjoy drawing and building things, though the latter always end up being blown up anyway. All of her labyrinth is covered in her artwork, though it's been drawn over so many times that it's completely nonsensical to everyone, even her own minions. She's constantly on the move, both in terms of her labyrinth and her place within it, so she's a hassle to track down and hunt for most Puella Magi.

(Initial) Aster, the Witch of Fools. His nature is devotion. A witch lost within his own ever changing labyrinth. The hammer he drags with him has become unbearably heavy. Nearly blind, he cannot remember who or what he is searching for, but refuses to give up hope.

(Rebellion) Aster, the Witch of the Underworld. His nature is devotion. A once noble figure left to rot. The thing most important to him remains forever out of reach, and without a point for existence, he seeks salvation in his own execution. But only a hero can slay the monster of the Labyrinth, and he is no longer a hero.

(The shifting in forms/domains is in reference to the changes that can happen when the same Witches are formed under different circumstances. ie Homulily switching from the Karma/Mortal World Witch to the Nutcracker Witch, as well as her switching form both between the karma-nutcracker forms, but also having a secondary Nutcracker form when she develops the desire to die to protect Madoka (she loses her head, is bound in an execution march and develops more "death" imagery.)

Aster is Jayce's Witch form. His name comes Asterion, the Minotaur of the Labyrinth from Greek myth. I picked out Asterion because, when one thinks of greek myth, they tend to think of the great heroes immortalized in poem, statue, and song. Or even specifically the story of the Minotaur, they tend to think of him getting slain by Thesus (who im gonna be honest. is kind of a dick! even for greek hero standards! but it fits well here) when the reason the Minotaur was imprisoned to begin was simply being born as he is, and is due to circumstances caused by his parents, the ones who imprisoned him. It's supposed to call back to Jayce's naivety, the heavy and unfair expectations placed upon him to be an ideal, his desire to do good and be hero being twisted against himself, and his inevitable feeling of being failure in all aspects by becoming a Witch at all. The "Fool" part of it comes from him feeling like well. naive and fool. as well as paralleling Viktor's canon assigned Arcana of the Magician.

His initial form is a cracking, marble statue. Parts of the stone have broken open or fallen off, showing the inside to be hollow and infected with some iridescent plant roots growing within. His face as completely broken off, leaving the memory of who he was supposed to resemble a mystery (ive already talked before about Jayce and his complicated relationship with fame, heroism and exception. it doesn't matter who he is or once was, it was about what he was meant to represent). His lower half bears a likeness to that of a bull. He drags a massive hammer wherever he goes, destructive and heavy even for him (weight of expectations and family's legacy). He's nearly blind, and frequently to mistakes anything that moves for the person he is searching for. He's often not hostile, but is rather clumsy and does not know his own strength. Most humans that come across him tend to end up crushed by his attempts to help them. Those he doesn't tend to starve in the endless halls of the Labyrinth. He too is just as clueless as those poor souls, forever lost in a constantly changing labyrinth in search of something he cannot remember. Still, he foolishly believes that it can be found just around the corner.

The "rebellion" form is in a worse off state. The "Underworld" comes from another Greek myth; that of Orpheus going into the Hades to save his wife, but ultimately fails and they are separated across worlds once again, referencing Jayce's own perceived failure surrounding viktor's ascension + having failed in dragging him down in the labyrinth and putting him in danger. (it also calls back to the story of Hades and Persephone, for. other reasons :) ). The cracks and holes have grown and are nearly overrun with strange shimmering plants. His head has completely fallen off, and the cavern left in it's place is infested by butterflies. His hands are welded to his hammer (permanent sense of obligation, both as talis and as a hero, and ultimately failing at both). His goal has become unobtainable, the thing he cares for the most now gone, and now has no point for his existence. He now seeks salvation in his own death, a last act of devotion, but cannot perform the act himself as he has deemed himself "the monster" of the story and can only be slay by a hero. It's all supposed to call upon the imagery of Homulily's execution march while switching it over to fairy tale elements, which is more in line with Jayce's themes

(Initial) Apollyon, the Witch of Machinery. His nature is loneliness. A witch constantly striving for perfection. He attempts to fix his body with metal, but it will inevitability decay and fall apart rather quickly. Most of his arms get entangled in their own wires, requiring him to build new ones constantly. He is rooted at center of the labyrinth and, much to his frustration, must rely on his minions to bring him materials.

(Karmic) Apollyon, the Witch of Fractals. His nature is loneliness. A witch constantly striving for perfection. He believes humanity itself is a flaw, and has taken it upon himself to heal such an affliction. Anything he comes into contact with will evolve and become one with his labyrinth. His patterns, in time, will envelope the world.

Apollyon is Viktor's witch form. The name comes from the greek variation of Abaddon, the angel of the abyss, the Destroyer and a key figure in the Christian apocalypse (it also appears in the Hebrew bible as a term for destruction). It calls back to the Christian symbolism that follows Viktor throughout season two, as well as his. lets call it apocalyptic tendencies. I picked out the greek equivalent specifically both as a parallel to Aster's greek inspirations, but also because (if memory serves correct) "Apollo" was the name used during the concept/creation of the Defender of Tomorrow. also i just like it better

The initial form takes more inspiration from the game's machine herald than the arcane herald. The upper half is humanoid, though what it may have looked like originally, as it's replaced most of itself with rusting metal scrap (think more like the heavy bulky armor lol viktor has). He is, however, constantly dissatisfied with the result and will try and build onto it. He's got multiple arms (viktor has a lot of weird symbolism around hands, arms and touch), but as stated above, they tend to get caught in it's own wires and break off constantly (feeling lack of control and frustration with his body and disabilities). His face is covered by a crudely made mask to prevent him from clawing at it (identity issues yaaay) The lower half is made up with a metal mass/box (it looks something similar to the Iterators from Rain World, though in a much less clean state of repair) that's fused with the floor of his labyrinth, meaning he's unable to move from the center. Because of this, he's forced to rely on his minions to bring him materials. (again frustration with his disability and dislike of feeling helpless/relying on others, as well a lack of a control over his emotions). The minions themselves are crude, metal creatures that resemble animals or robots (blitzcrank reference everyone say hi blitzcrank) made by the witch himself. Similarly to everything else he makes, they have a tendency to break and fall apart rather quickly. But they are deeply loyal and dedicated in their task of acquiring materials (whether or not the materials are actually metal, wood, plastic, dead or living humans, as they often cannot tell the difference) Despite his frustrations and their clueless natures, he does care for the minions as his creations.

The "Karmic" form (which is to say Viktor's karmic destiny has built up enough for his Witch form to become a literal apocalyptic threat, similar to kriemhild Gretchen) however is much in the arcane herald territory. The "fractal" switch is both to reference the change between Magic over Machine, but also the general fractal patterns shown within the Wild Runes/on anything that gets Hexcorized. while he loses a lot of the bulky mechanical look, he makes up for it in sheer fucking size (much more akin to that of Iterators, ironically). It is on par with Timeline III's (or IV?) Kriemhild Gretchen. and for reference

yeah! he's fucking huge. He's also lost the raw/machinery look, instead going with the thin organic metal-flesh-wire thing Viktor had in S2A2. Somewhere between beautiful and alien. Most of the core elements from his first form still remain. His mask is now made and shaped from his face rather than built on top of it. He still cannot move from the spot he is born into. His arms are no longer bound, though the wires remain as gold threads that entangle victims. Those that get caught are "perfected" and turned into minions of the ever expanding labyrinth. The "patterns" that mutate and transform the world are more or less exactly like the Hexcorized world, where it's a cross between organic and metallic and everything is infused into the Witch and his labyrinth. still, new life somehow thrives (ie the plants, mutated lizards, the iridescent insects). It acts similar to the Shimmer in the movie verison of Annihilation

It acts similar to the Shimmer in the movie verison of Annihilation, where it's a slow growing danger that is not inherently malicious and life still grows from it but still a threat to everything and everyone around it through it's mutations.

There's more obviously for vi caitlyn and ekko but GOOD GOD have i yapped. perhaps another time

[catadioptrics]

Late to the Cyrus question party, but what made him decide to try removing the human spirit? Like, how did he come to the conclusion that was a possible solution? Would he try it again?

Although Cyrus had a very secular upbringing by Sinnohan standards, the region's culture is heavily influenced by mythology and the lake guardians are a crucial part of it, so it was inevitable for him to grow up with an in-depth knowledge of their stories. In fact, most of the places where he studied had a shrine for Uxie as the patron deity of scholars, a constant reminder of the influence of the divine in everyday life.

Basically, while he may not care much about mythology and folklore as a personal interest, he definitely knows that the three lake guardians represent and govern different aspects of the human spirit, such as the emotions that define one's preferences, the willpower required to take action and the knowledge informing people's decisions. It all started as wishful thinking, as he thought that if he could just see proof that they exist then he'd know that it's possible to create a better world by using their powers in just the right way.

Feelings are messy. Compared to the beauty of machines, who do their duty efficiently as long as they're properly maintained, humans are prone to lashing out and refusing to see reason by prioritizing their emotions, making unwise decisions that benefit no one by lacking control over their willpower and letting themselves be led astray by personal biases because of their incomplete knowledge. The lake guardians gave those gifts to humanity, but they weren't properly appreciated. If he could take the reins, then he'd make humans perfect, polished and efficient, just like the machines he adored so much. As those ideas continued to fester in his mind, eventually he figured that he could as well investigate for himself and see if he can find proof that they're actually real.

After all, anything that can be observed and proven to exist can be tampered with given enough time and patience. In fact, if he could control the lake guardians, then why stop there? The greater deities of Sinnoh, the ones governing over time and space, could allow him to literally rebuild everything from the ground up instead of just rewriting what already exists. With that in mind, his opinion of Sinnohan folklore changed, and now it was no longer just something he was supposed to know by living in the region. No, if he could prove that the gods really do exist, then he could reach forward and pull them down to take their place.

In the present, wherever Cyrus is, he knows for a fact that he did manage to prove that not only the deities of Sinnoh are real, but they can be tampered with and his ambition to become a god himself is definitely possible. However, his previous failed attempt meant that he lost the element of surprise, and now he also knows that even if he does everything right a second time it's pointless if he can't do something about Giratina interfering. A part of him hasn't given up, but his logical side knows that doing anything without a plan won't get him anywhere.

[townofcadence]

The longer this conversation goes, the worse he feels. At first, the sheer fucking bafflement at how she could spin this is almost--- funny in its absurdity, wild enough to overtake any other thoughts. But the longer she speaks, the more she just reminds him of other things. Twisted feelings edged with something sharp start to rise. They peak with a sudden and rapid crescendo when she admits-- to following him. Stalking him? How long? Since when? He hadn't noticed-- why hadn't he noticed?

It's like a cable unplugs, how quick he disconnects. He's pulled out from the back of his body like a wire tugs him clean through his navel. He's staring at her while she talks but he's not.... here. He's watching from somewhere above. His head is both full of static and empty. He can't picking up what she's saying. He-- kind of hears it, like a distant vibration. Distorted, like he's under water. Even the tremble in his hands and the quiver in his chest is louder. The static is getting louder too. His eyes glaze over as he's subsumed by the white noise. His free hand digs into his shirt at the chest.

He doesn't acknowledge the squeeze in his hand. He almost forgot someone else's was in his own. Or... he knew but...it had been numbed out like the rest. The squeeze was like a reminder that he existed. It's lost as quick as it comes as the hand slips his own.

The ringing is louder and he feels like he moves with the reflexes of a cadaver with rigor mortis. A thought slips in when he sees the match:

Library.

The coordination he and Peyton move with is almost impressive. She moves near as fast as Butch had, to snatch her checkbook back. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" Her face is bright red, a grimace set on her lips as she cradles it to her chest. While Butch would have no knowledge of such numbers, they were rather pivotal ones to bank accounts-- and Butch burning them, or even threatening to, seems to especially offend her. "You just said the information wasn't free! Now I'm a creep and sick for wanting it? Make up your minds! And what do you even know, pipsqueak? I'm doing a community service and finding real criminals and you're just-- a thug and a vandal! I could get you arrested for arson and sue you into the ground for destruction of my property you-- you---- what wait-- where are you going?!"

In that same effort she made for the checkbook, Artair had wrapped his arms around Butch from behind, beneath his own. He'd hoisted him, not unlike one might a rather large plush, clutching him to his chest. Without saying more, he turns as if on auto-pilot and starts walking, with Butch still held tight. Artair hardly knows where he's going, but he doesn't stop at Peyton's questions. Butch's feet drag the floor just a bit at the height and other patrons at the book-fair are staring between the actions and the words; he hardly notices. He just needs to be out. Away. Not here, somewhere outside where it's cold and crisp and he isn't caught in feelings and--what is carving up his insides and crawling around his throat.

"I-- Sure! Run away, Arthur! I know you had something to do with it!" Peyton yells after him. "I know you did! You were involved when Elias disappeared the first time! And then it just so happens to happen again when they stop talking to you? Give me a break! I don't buy that 'I don't know anything' sob story. You're convincing but--- I know you had something to do with it! I know about the Weston case too!"

His heart constricts and his lungs strain in cement. He's losing himself to a lack of color and an unsteady sway. He keeps moving. The librarian has been summoned by the commotion and is bee-lining right for Peyton, his face likely hosting a degree of severity for the commotion. He can't focus enough to tell.

"You can't stop me from finding the truth!" Peyton calls, a final hurrah, before she's doing damage control. Artair doesn't respond, whisking towards the exit and out onto the street. His feet pick a direction and without a thought at the helm, he steers that way.

Butch’s confusion begins when she clarifies that she’s not a journalist but some other thing he had no idea existed. What even was that? A podcaster?

“A true crime pod—er, what now?” He questions, squinting his eyes some in confusion. She goes on to explain what exactly she does and that clears things up for him, but only slightly. It told him all he needed to know and that’s what mattered. She was some kind of wannabe detective, and just by the look of her, he could quickly deduce that she wasn’t exactly qualified for such a thing. Call it a hunch.

His confusion only persists and he quickly realizes his mistake when she begins on some hair brained conspiracy about how it was their intention to get her to pay Artair in the first place—like hell! He can only assume that this is some roundabout way of justifying her behaviour towards Artair, or atleast the fact that she had followed him here and voluntarily shared that information. Disbelief is all too apparent on his face at how quickly she switches gears, accusing them of exploitation one second and then inquiring about their offer next. It’s unbelievable the lack of self awareness in her words, and that was coming from him.

….Even still, the offer is enticing, and boy is he tempted to speak for the both of them. Back then he might have. Tried to play it off like that was indeed his intention, lied about some information just to get himself a quick buck. It was too easy. But—… he doesn’t think it’s fair to Artair. To essentially sell a piece of his reputation (if he was involved with whatever they were talking about) to god knows who, and what the hell she planned to truly do with that information was beyond him. Artair didn’t deserve to be caught in the mix of all of this anyway, he was clearly uncomfortable and he had been disrespected repeatedly to boot! Butch didn’t want her filthy money.

Instead, he feels as though this is a perfect opportunity to make her feel as stupid as she sounds. His hand gives Artair’s another comforting squeeze as if to say ‘I got this’. Oh dear lord.

“What th’ fuck’re ya goin’ on about? There ain’t no price, lady!” He says in exasperation, snatching that checkbook from her hands. He releases Artair’s hand in favor of fetching a match from his pocket—you can probably guess where this is headed. “Y’wanna know why..? ‘Cause yer a creep! More ‘mportantly, ya don’t deserve t’know squat about him, s’pecially f’yer just talkin’ t’em fer some gossip that ain’t yer business!” He scowls. By now, he’s sparked that match and is just about the let its flame consume her precious check book.

“Truth is—Artair’s too good fer you, lady! Yer lucky he even bothered t’give ya th’ time’f day an’ I’M insulted on ‘is behalf that ya’d ever think fer even a second he’d settle fer a price on somethin’ personal. Yer sick!” A little dramatic, maybe, but he felt very strongly about this. To disregard his privacy so simply, his comfort, and that’s not even mentioning the accusation that he had something to do with someone’s disappearance. Artair would never hurt someone intentionally, even if he was involved in a messy situation, Butch was certain. And even if for some reason it was intentional, Butch could still put a positive spin on it in his head. Call it his own delusion but Artair was perfect in every way, shape, and form—flaws and all. Peyton was barking up the wrong tree if she thought she could press his boundaries, especially while Butch was around.

[why-am-i-here-someone-save-me]

Hi there! 🎵 Anon here.

First of all thank you! i loved the last scenario!

Second of all i had a thought while playing Golden Archipelago and listening Fischl's and Oz's dialogues.

So we know that Teyvat has a common tongue that everyone spaeks. And we know that all the nations are based of off true places (ex: Mondstad-Germany, Inazuma-Japan)

So what if the other languages exist. But they're more like secret codes or something ex: just like Fischl and Oz combine some German words with the common Teyvat tounge when they speak, what if in Snezhnaya the Tsaritsa has edtablished a secret code based on Russian made for the Fatui to communicate, or in Lyiue and Inazuma using codes based of Chinese and Japanese to send secret messages and letters.

And Now imagine Impostor SAGAU with a linguistic majesty/darling, that knows some of the languages and understands what they speak. It would be chaos.

(Ps. Sorry for any grammar mistakes. It's quite late here.)

If one were to inquire about the current state of things from anyone of significant rank in Teyvat, they’d likely receive an answer consisting of a frustrated sigh and a muttered “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Why? Well, because the nations of Teyvat have been being toyed with quite a bit lately.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It started with the Knights receiving tips from the Mondstadt branch of the adventurers guild, written in the unmistakable flowery dialect of Fischl. However, upon attempting to ambush the imposter at the given location, they were met with the local bartender of the Cait’s Tail, who needless to say, was rather miffed at being startled by a group of knights emerging from the shrubbery. Diona has recently been charging any knights a heightened price for their drinks, and one patron swears to have overheard the girl muttering about how “maybe Diluc has a point about these imbeciles”. When the knights confronted the guild about it, Kathryne remarked that Fischl had not been in Mondstadt for several weeks; but had taken a trip to the islands.

Shortly afterwards, Liyue had experienced a similar strange occurrence, though the number of people who knew of it was very small. The Adepti had been quite surprised when they each received a letter, and even more so when they opened it only to find it written in traditional tongue. The modern language had all but completely replaced the more traditional dialect that they still used, so needless to say they paid attention. Later the funeral parlor would receive several immortal visitors who claimed to have been asked there by a certain ex-archon. Zhongli was 100% certain he sent no such messages, not that he could say so without blowing his cover. The event had quickly caught the attention of the local guards, leading to the involvement of the equally confused Millielith.

Inazuma was not exempt from the chaos either, numerous reports being sent to General Kujou Sara about sightings of the imposter, only for every one of them to have been a false lead. Detective Heizou had been called upon to investigate the matter, but the shogunate soldiers who submitted the reports showed no signs of having known the information they were supplying was false. He had carried on the investigation a bit longer before declaring it an impossible case due to lack of evidence. Though if one looked closely enough maybe they would’ve caught the amused knowing look in his eyes.

Watatsumi Island was not faring much better. Sangonomiya Kokomi had been studying a series of cryptic notes left around the island, seemingly written in the script of Enyokimiya; something that by all means, should be impossible. Her family alone had access to the only remaining texts preserving the language of their ancestors; yet the notes were clearly not her own. Frustratingly enough, when she finally translated the notes, each one was seemingly addressed to her! ‘Make sure to get enough rest!’ ‘Remind your soldiers that they need to look out for one another on the battlefield.’ ‘Try reading some light fiction, you might enjoy it more than the same old strategy books!’ The blonde slumps back in her chair with a defeated groan. “I’m being toyed with aren’t I?! Well… I suppose whoever it is, they don’t seem to be malicious…”

Even the Fatui themselves were at a loss, several important documents containing orders having be unknowingly swapped out with edited duplicates. While the handwriting was a tad odd, orders were orders, and it’s not like any of the locals knew enough Scheznayan to pull off a convincing replacement maneuver! …right?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A figure sits on part of a collapsed ruin wall, laughing hysterically to themselves as their monster companions tell them the results of their actions. They wipe tears from their eyes as they manage to regain their breath.

“Hahahahah! Gottem! Victory for [Name] yet again!”

[daryl-dixon-daydreams]

Words: 10,097 Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader Reader pronouns: she/her Era: the prison, post-Negan Alexandria, The Commonwealth Warnings: language, chronic illness Summary: Daryl has always watched out for the reader and done everything he can to help her bear the weight of her chronic illness. They've been close ever since she confided in him during the flu epidemic in the prison. Now, with Alexandria needing repair and medications almost unfindable, Daryl comes up with a plan to make sure she gets what she needs. A/N: The patron and requester for this fic is the lovely goddess ellerelly! Thank her for the existence of this fic, without her it would not have happened! Thank you SO much for trusting me with writing this fic, love. Seriously. A/N: The reader in this fic suffers from a real condition, postpartum cardiomyopathy. I did some research on this so hopefully it is fairly accurate, but I'd encourage everyone to give it a Google for awareness and further info. MUAH! Much love to you, ellerelly! I appreciate you so much.

Your name: submit What is this?

Daryl was drenched in sweat, having spent the better part of the day burning or burying the dead. The flu swept through the prison like a poisonous gas, seeming nearly indiscriminate in who it seeped into and who it passed over. But Daryl was beyond grateful for one thing; so far, you weren’t sick.

He made his way through the catacombs of the sprawling prison and into the administrative part of the building with its neat rectangular little offices. He needed a break from all the death and dying… and hearing your voice was all he wanted. After checking on Beth and Judith, he made his way to the small office you were in and knocked lightly on the door.

You shot up onto your feet, your heart pounding as you waited for the delivery of bad news. Who else hadn’t made it? “Yeah?”

Your voice sounded thin through the heavy door of wood and glass. “Hey. S’me. Ya alrigh’?”

Daryl. You sighed with some relief. “I’m fine,” you said, moving toward the door. He could see you press a hand to the frosted glass, see the shadows of your fingertips and the blurred shape of your hand ghosting behind them. He had to suppress the urge to place his hand against the glass too, to line up his fingers with yours and see how small your hand looked against his. “How—how are you? Are you okay?” He easily heard the worry in your voice.

“Yeah. Yeah, ‘m okay. ‘M alrigh’. Ain’t sick,” he drawled.

You wrung your hands even as you breathed in a sigh of relief. “Good. Thank God.”

Daryl wiped the drips of sweat running down from his hairline with his forearm. “Somehow I dun think God’s got anythin’ to do with it,” he said. He was surprised when you didn’t respond, a thick silence lingering. “Y/N? S’goin’ on?”

You squeezed your eyes shut for a moment and wondered where to start. “I—I have something to tell you,” you started. “It’s—not easy to talk about. But I want you to know.”

Daryl’s heart did a full stop and dropped through the floor. “Alrigh’… Ya ain’t sick, righ’?” he asked urgently.

There was another long pause, longer than was needed to answer that question.

“Y/N? Hey.”

“No. No, not exactly…”

Daryl gulped. That wasn’t the response he wanted or expected.

“I don’t have this flu or whatever it is but there’s a reason Dr. S and Hershel rushed me in here as soon as they realized what was happening.” You had to stop and force air into your lungs. “I—I have heart failure. A heart condition called postpartum cardiomyopathy. I’ve had it for a long time. It’s not new.”

He heard the words but he couldn’t process them. “Heart failure,” he repeated, and this time they materialized and loomed in the air in front of him in a dark cloud, greying his vision.

“Yeah…” You wished you could see his face. Somehow, even through the frosted glass and heavy oak of the door, you could feel his tension and anxiety. It seemed to only inflate your own.

“What—what’s that mean? You’re dyin’?”

“It’s manageable. For now… but there are special medications I need and—I can’t count on having those forever. Not in this world. It’s a miracle that I’ve managed to find them as long as I have. And it does make things harder…”

Daryl had to lean heavily on the door and hung his head, shutting his eyes. His jaw clenched and a tightening across the back of his head manifested, like a band someone was stretching tighter and tighter.

Inside, you sank back down to sit on the floor, your back leaned up against the door. You could sense that he was still there, even though he was silent. You always felt him like a warm fire, comforting and secure and glowing.

Finally, Daryl’s southern drawl slipped back to you again. “What’s it—I mean, how and why? What’d ya say it’s called?”

You wet your lips. “Postpartum cardiomyopathy.”

There was a beat where he mulled this over. “Wait—postpartum… Ain’t that like—like babies? After pregnancy?” Oh. Oh… The sinking feeling in his core intensified until he felt like he may be pulled down through the floor.

Your voice was even quieter now. You sounded fragile and faraway as you answered. “Yeah…” Idiot. Dumbass. Fuck. Why didn’t he fuckin’ think for a goddamn minute before he spoke? “Sorry,” he said hurriedly. “Shit… ‘m sorry. Y/N, ‘m so sorry…” He rubbed both his hands over his face and you felt the door move as he leaned against it more heavily with his shoulder. “Uhh—I—”

It had been a while since you’d have to give someone what you thought of as “the talk.” Dr. S had been the last person you’d told, out of necessity for continuing to monitor your condition and keep up with necessary treatments. It wasn’t an easy thing to explain to anyone, but was especially difficult to tell to someone close to you. And with Daryl, it almost felt like you’d lied to him, not explaining until now. You knew he wouldn’t see it that way, but it felt like a significant lie of omission to you. And then there was the realization it carried with it—that you had been a mother, and now you weren’t. Or you still were a mother, and always would be, and yet you were childless. You were speaking again before you even realized it. “I had two kids before The Turn. A son first, and then my daughter. Not too long after I’d delivered her, I couldn’t catch my breath… I was weak, tired. My heart rate was too high. We ran tests. The doctors told me that I had this rare kind of heart failure. Basically, my heart was weak and not pumping blood efficiently the way it should. It can happen at the end of pregnancy or just after. Many women recover most, if not all of their heart function over time but—I didn’t.” You paused and shifted, wrapping your arms around your bent knees, steeling yourself for a moment. “If I catch this flu,” you hesitated for a moment, “I’d most likely die. I’m already prone to fluid collecting in my lungs, and I just—I wouldn’t make it, not without a hospital and special treatment.”

Daryl hated the door between you at that moment. He wanted to see you. He wanted to look into your eyes while he told you everything was going to be fine, but he also knew that that door was going to keep you safe. He cleared his throat and shifted again. “Well, that ain’t happenin’,” he said forcefully. “Yer gonna stay righ’ here until this all blows over and ya ain’t gettin’ sick.”

He didn’t ask about what had happened to your kids or their father. He didn’t need to. They weren’t here. That was enough to know.

Daryl straightened up from the way he had been slumped against the door, leaning on it to keep himself standing while he tried to absorb blow after blow. “Listen, ‘m goin’ on a run with a few people. We’re gonna get meds to get everybody who’s sick through this. Just tell me what ya need and I’ll find it while ‘m out there.”

“Daryl, you should just focus on what the others need. I—I don’t want to be a—a burden any more than I already am.”

“Hey,” he said, now pressing his hand to the glass. You felt the door move again behind you with his weight. “Ya ain’t a burden. Dun ya ever think that, ya hear me?”

You felt tears start to well up in your eyes. “I am,” you insisted.

“No, ya ain’t,” he said again. “Ya ain’t. This thing—we’ll take care of it. S’just somethin’ ya need a little extra for, tha’s all. Righ’? That ain’t bein’ a burden.” He heard you sniffle and that ache in his chest became even more pronounced. “Righ’, Y/N?”

You climbed to your feet and stood at the glass again. You could make out the vague shadow of his broad-shouldered frame. “Okay,” you said.

He nodded, but the pit in his stomach was still there, like he’d swallowed a weighty stone, cold from frigid water. “Good. Now tell me what ya need and I’ll find it.”

“Hershel or Dr. S can give you the names of the meds,” you said. “Or if you happen to run into a heart transplant surgeon with a new one available that’d be even better.” There was a hint of sarcasm and laughter in that second part and Daryl felt a small sense of relief.

“I’ll keep my eyes open,” he said. His tone was lighter now too. “Just stay safe in here and this’ll all be over in no time,” he said.

“Daryl…”

“Yeah.”

“Please be careful,” you urged him, your fingers coming to the glass again, right toward the center of his shadow.

“Pfft. Ya know me. I’ll be back better than when I left,” he said.

“One more thing,” you murmured. “If you could just keep all this to yourself…”

“Of course. Nobody else knows?” he asked. That was like you to want to keep it quiet. You didn’t want anyone to worry about you, didn’t want to be a bother.

“Just Dr. S and Hershel. That’s it.”

He nodded. “Alrigh’. It’ll stay that way. Ya have my word.”

“Thanks. I know. Stay safe,” you breathed one last time.

“You too.” And with that, his footsteps retreated.

_ _ _ _ _ _

Many Years Later 

You knew that knock on the door of your apartment easily. It was Daryl. He always knocked the same pattern. You wondered if he was aware of that fact. You were glad you’d left the door unlocked so you didn’t have to move from your place on the couch, ensconced beneath a blanket and your little gray cat, who hardly twitched an ear at the rapping sound. “Come in,” you yelled back.

You lowered the novel in your hands and looked up to see Judith bursting through the door, trotting toward you with a smile on her face and a paper fluttering in her hand. Daryl ghosted behind her, his hands shoved into the back pockets of his dark pants.

“Well, hi there,” you greeted Judith, mustering the best smile you could. Your cat leapt down from your lap and Judith threw her arms around you in an embrace. You gladly hugged her back tightly. “Wasn’t expecting you!”

“Rosita said you weren’t feeling well. So, RJ and I made a card for you,” she said, holding out the paper in her hand. Daryl was standing across the room still, now leaning on the top of an armchair and chewing on his bottom lip anxiously.

You had to fight back a few tears as you looked at the little folded paper, charmingly decorated with sweetly drawn hearts and flowers and a big orange, glowing sun. “You did make me a lovely card, didn’t you?” you cooed to her. Judith beamed proudly. “Thank you.” You hugged her again and she sank into it, turning her head to rest it on your shoulder. “I’m going to keep it right here where I can see it.”

Daryl straightened up with his heart equal parts warmed and worried. You were pale and seemed somewhat listless. “Alrigh’, Jude. Ya gotta go meet up with Gracie and Aaron. Let’s go,” he drawled.

Judith gave you one last long look, her warm brown eyes a bit wide. She always had that look, the one that was understanding and perception beyond her years. She grabbed your hand in both hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Feel better,” she said softly, and you gave her a small smile.

“I will. Say hello to Gracie and Aaron for me?” She nodded and bounded past Daryl to the door. He glanced back at her.

“Ya good gettin’ there?” he asked her. She nodded. “Alrigh’. I’ll see ya back at the house later.” And with a small flurry of energy, she was gone. Daryl turned back toward you. You were still holding the card and looking down at it with a faraway expression on your face. His attention was broken when your little gray cat, Ashes, rubbed against his ankles and purred. He bent to pet her and heard you hum a noise of amusement. Your eyes met his when he glanced up, still running his hand along her silky fur. “Hmm?” he prompted.

You shrugged, setting the card down on the coffee table beside you. “She knows you so well now. Remember when she used to hide when you came over?”

Daryl nodded and crossed the room to sink down beside you on the couch with a sigh, his blue eyes fixed unwaveringly on your face. He shook his hair out of his eyes. “Yeah. I remember,” he drawled. “Tell me how ya are. Really.”

“Daryl, I’m fine.”

He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, looking skeptical, his brow knit. “Y/N… c’mon. Tell me.”

You ducked his gaze and shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just… tired,” you said. “Feels hard to breathe today,” you admittedly quietly. “But I’m fine.”

He didn’t answer, but frowned softly. Daryl stared at the dark circles beneath your eyes and the pallor of your skin. The ache in his chest became more pronounced. “Ya eat anythin’ today? Lemme make ya somethin’.” He knew the answer without you answering and got up to go into the small kitchen. “Ya still got them eggs I brought over yesterday?” he called over his shoulder.

“On the counter,” you answered, shivering a little beneath the blanket over your lap. You huddled more deeply beneath it. You heard him putting the kettle on the stove and lighting the burner and clinking around with the skillet. In a few minutes he returned with a plate of eggs and hot cup of tea for you. You accepted them gratefully and felt warmed already as he sunk back down beside you again, propping his feet up on the coffee table.

“Thanks,” you said, taking a bite. You paused and warmed your hands around the mug. Daryl watched you eat in silence, absently petting Ashes when she jumped up and rubbed his arm with her head.

When you’d finished and he was satisfied that you’d at least had some sustenance, he shifted anxiously beside you. You picked up on the action immediately and glanced back over at him. “What?” you prompted him.

“How’re yer legs today?” he asked.

You shrugged. “Swollen. The usual.”

He shifted again, grabbing a throw pillow and placing it on his lap before sweeping an arm beneath your legs, blanket and all, and resting them over his lap.

“Daryl, you don’t have to—”

“Hush up,” he scolded you. “Jus’ lemme make ya feel a little better if I can.” Your ankles and feet were often swollen, a side effect of an inefficient heart, and when Daryl had found out he’d insisted on propping them on pillows to elevate them and sometimes gently massaging them to help your circulation. You still often felt stupidly embarrassed about the swelling, but he never acted like it was anything… His rough hands were surprisingly gentle and you always felt yourself melting into relaxation when he was around. “‘M sorry,” he said suddenly after several long minutes of comfortable silence, snapping you out of your quiet musing.

You looked over at him with a question on your brow.

“I keep tryin’ to think of anywhere else to go look for yer meds and I—" His voice caught in his throat as it suddenly tightened. You realized then that he was fighting hard not to cry and you felt a vast emptiness in your chest. You swung your legs off him and scooted closer.

“Hey,” you soothed him. “Hey. It’s okay. It’s not your fault,” you said. “Don’t do that. You’ve always done everything for me. More than enough. And I’m so grateful to you. Hell, I’m probably alive still because of you.”

His head was bowed and his face screwed up a little as he struggled to force the emotion back into some dusty corner in his chest. “It just—” he cleared his throat so his voice would come out more freely. “It just ain’t fair that ya—that ya gotta go through this. And I can’t do shit about it…” His hands fiddled aimlessly, his eyes fixed on this little nick or that callous or the scar that was still pink.

You sighed and linked your arm through his, tipping to lean your head on his shoulder. He glanced over at your touch, his anxious fidgeting stilling immediately. You sighed, settling in against him. “Whoever said life was fair?” you mused. He knew it wasn’t as much as anyone. You’d seen his scars many times over the years. He’d confided in you about his childhood, his past. Life wasn’t fair most of the time.

His other hand came and rested on top of yours and the two of you sat tucked together that way until the afternoon light cooled and he had to get back to Judith and RJ. “Alrigh’,” he sighed, climbing to his feet. You could sense that his mood was still significantly dampened. He was inside himself, in his own head. It made his voice sound somewhat thin, like it was fraying at the edges. “I’ll come back and check on ya in the mornin’.”

You reached for your book on the coffee table. “You don’t need to do that.”

“Yeah, well, ‘m gonna. Hey—ya got bread in there and some of them canned vegetables. I want ya to eat ‘em,” he instructed you, pointing toward the kitchen. “’M serious, Y/N. They better be gone when I get back in the mornin’.”

You couldn’t help smiling at this and gave him a salute and a small smile, earning a head shake in return. You laughed. His heart jumped at the sound. Fuck, he wanted to hear that more often. He couldn’t help but think back to times when you had your meds more consistently, when your health was better, and you had been… something to see. You still were. But back then you were vivid. Trouble walking around in boots. He’d found every possible excuse he could think of to invite you outside the walls, just you and him together. Hunting. Scavenging. Teaching you to shoot different kinds of guns. Recon. Tracking lessons. Anything. And somehow even when everyone was struggling to survive, when that line between life and death became thinner and thinner, you still always had this light that didn’t dim. Sure, you had your dark moments just like he did. He could remember prying a whiskey bottle out of your hand one time as you went on about the pointlessness of it all, raged and broke down about what you had lost, struggled to cope with the reasons why. Why you? Why this world? Why any of it?

He’d grabbed you by the shoulders and made you look at him, practically shaken you out of it. And he’d almost kissed you then. You were red-eyed with tearstained cheeks and messy hair, but he still thought you were the most beautiful damn thing he’d ever seen, and probably would ever see. But you were drunk. And that was somethin’ he sure as shit wouldn’t do. He couldn’t do that in a vulnerable moment of yours. He couldn’t take advantage. He wouldn’t. So, he didn’t. And then he just never could seem to find the courage or the right time or… or any other stupid excuse he told himself. And now so many years had gone by and he knew you were afraid of how much time you had left, knew you were tired of the constant struggle… He’d squandered so much time.

Daryl suddenly realized he was on the front porch back at the house. He didn’t even really remember saying goodbye to you. He hoped he hadn’t seemed as distracted as he was as he left you in your little apartment. He pulled in a deep breath and arranged at least a neutral expression before pushing inside to find Judith and RJ with Rosita, who had baby Coco in her arms.

That night Daryl slept even less than usual. Your face swam in his mind’s eye, pale but smiling, and it was like there was a tether attached to his heart being yanked over and over again, like someone was trying to jerk it right out of his chest. He rolled from one side to the other, kicking off his blankets before pulling them up again the very next moment. And as he laid there on his bed, staring up at the shifting shadows, he came up with a plan.

When he knocked on your door the next morning, your voice sounded even thinner and farther away than it had the day before, and he felt as if he’d swallowed a stone. He pushed inside and the first thing he did was make his way into the kitchen to put the kettle on for you and check to see if you’d eaten the bread and vegetables he’d “prescribed”. The bread was gone, but the veggies were still sealed in their glass jar, the top undisturbed. Better than nothing though.

He came back out into the living room. You were sitting up now from your previous prone position on the couch and looking at him with curiosity. He had the sense that you could read his anxiety, knew already that he had something on his mind. You pulled your blanket aside to create an empty space beside you. “Come sit with me,” you asked. Of course he would.

He sighed as he sank down next to you, glancing over and trying to compare the color in your face to the day before. He thought you looked paler. There was still light in you, but it was colder, like the light of a distant star compared to the bursting warmth of the sun. You’d always been his sun. But now he felt a sinking feeling in his midsection and bit his bottom lip anxiously.

“Daryl,” you prompted him.

“Hmm?” he hummed.

“You look worried sick,” you said. “Do I look that bad?” you asked with a wry laugh.

He ducked his head, his face tightening and drawing lines between his eyebrows.

You linked your arm with his, the way you had the day before, resting your other hand on his forearm, leaning toward him so he could feel the weight of you. “Talk to me.”

He glanced over as you rested your head against his shoulder. His fingers fidgeted with the edge of your blanket and you felt the muscle in his forearm tensing and relaxing. “I can’t just sit here while ya get sicker,” he said in a low murmur.

“Daryl—”

“No. I won’t.” This he spoke louder, with determination. You lifted your head and angled your body toward him, your eyes meeting his. Yours were sad, questioning. It almost looked like pity, and that flared his resolve further. “I—I came up with a plan last night.”

You straightened, looking apprehensive. “What plan?”

He gulped. “We go to the Commonwealth.” You stared back, unmoving. “And ya get what ya need. And who knows, maybe somebody will die and they can give ya a whole new heart.”

You stiffened. “Daryl—” you said again.

“Nah, jus’ listen to me!” He seized your hands in his and you were surprised by his vehemence. “The Commonwealth is helpin’ with repairs here. And I know they want me up there. They know I can fight. They know what our group can do.” He hesitated, nervous now that it came to it. “If I can get in good with ‘em, I can make sure ya get what ya need. I’ll pull whatever strings need to be pulled.”

You shook your head, looking apprehensive. “I can’t ask you to do that. You’d be taking on some kind of debt, and I don’t trust them. Everything costs something. We’ve seen it over and over again. Daryl—”

“Ya didn’t ask. S’my choice, my idea.” He found himself smoothing his thumbs over the silkiness of the skin on the back of your hands and you looked down at the action, your brow furrowed. “And ya really think I trust ‘em? Me? Hell nah. Somethin’ ‘bout that place stinks like black mold. I just ain’t quite figured it out yet… But if it can help ya I don’t give a shit. I ain’t just gonna give up. I can’t.”

Your eyes searched his face, wide and uneasy. “But what if what it costs is—is you? What if they send you out somewhere, send you to do something dangerous and—and you don’t come back? How could I ever live with that?” He saw your eyes welling up with tears at just the thought and it was with a shameful sense of satisfaction that he watched your emotion at the thought of him gone. It felt shitty to be pleased by your worry, but at the same time he couldn’t help it… Could it be that you couldn’t bear the thought of him gone, just as much as he couldn’t bear the thought of losing you? “What if it’s just trading a little more time for me with your life? Or if not even that, then your freedom. Daryl, we—”

“Hey. C’mon. That ain’t gonna happen. This is me we’re talkin’ about.” His mouth twitched up in a small half-smirk. “‘S’gonna take a hell of a lot more than those assholes or the dead to take me out. Ain’t happenin’.” He tried to swallow the nervous lump in his throat again. “Just hear me out on this… You, me, RJ, and Judith. We go as a family. It’ll be… better for the kids there anyway. They’ll get enough to eat, go to school again, see other kids. I let ‘em assign me whatever bullshit they wanna come up with and in exchange they treat ya. They—they gotta take care of my wife if they want my skills,” he said, glancing up to gauge your reaction. Your hands were still in his. You were stunned for a moment.

“Your wife,” you repeated, a lilting question in your voice.

He shrugged nervously. “Yah. I mean—I think that’s the best way for me to make sure ya get what ya need. S’weird, right? S’almost like the old world… Fuckin’ health insurance or some shit.”

Your eyes were flitting over his face again. He could almost see the revolving of your mind. “Wouldn’t they know by now if you had a wife?”

“Nah. ‘M a pretty hard to read kind of guy. Righ’?” he added, with a pointed look at you that did make one corner of your mouth twitch up. “Beside, ‘m private. And it’s safer not to go around tellin’ everybody what yer weakness is these days—Err… wait—not that yer—Shit,” he hung his head. “Goddammit.”

If you weren’t so worried about this idea of his you may have seized on what had accidentally just spilled out of him. But you were worried. Terrified, actually.

He cleared his throat again. “Y/N, lemme do this for ya. Please.”

His voice cracked slightly and you crumbled. You always crumbled when it came to Daryl. “I can’t say ‘no’ to you, Daryl,” you breathed.

He tugged you in against him and wrapped his arms around you tightly. “Thank you. Thank you.” He got away with tucking his face into your hair and breathing in your smell as he held you. “Ya ain’t gonna regret it. S’gonna be—s’gonna be worth it.” He finally became self-conscious and pulled back, a fluttering in his chest and a wash of relief drifting over him.

A small laugh bubbled up out of you and Daryl thought just maybe it was hope. “Um… Does this mean you’re asking me to marry you, Daryl Dixon?”

He gulped. “Uhh… “ he hummed a vague noise and you laughed again, annoyed that you felt a warmth growing in the apples of your cheeks.

“I know… just for the plan,” you said, ducking your eyes a little bashfully. “A fake marriage.” But Daryl’s heart was pounding in his chest. This felt somehow dangerous. He was suddenly picturing what day to day life would be with the four of you living together under one roof. You were of course all family, but this felt different… you’d feel like… his. He could take care of you even more than he did now, see you first thing in the morning when he woke up and last thing in the evening before he tried to chase sleep. What if he got used to it? He would. He knew he would. He tried to remind himself this was just the way things needed to be for the plan to work, for you to get all the care you needed. You couldn’t possibly work enough in your current health to pay for the services and medicine you needed on your own, so he would shoulder it. And he didn’t mind. In fact, it felt like part of his purpose right now; caring for Judith and RJ and taking care of you the best he could.

“We’ll need a ring or something,” you said. Your voice snapped him out of his deep well of thoughts.

“Huh? Oh. Yeah, righ’. I’ll see what I can find,” he drawled, looking at you with bright blue eyes that seemed at once both soft and uncertain.

You sighed, trying to release some of your stress. “So… when is this happening?” you asked anxiously. “I mean, when are we going?”

Daryl shifted beside you and his arm brushed against yours. “Soon as we can. I’ll talk to Aaron and Rosita ‘bout it today. She’s been thinkin’ of goin’ with Gabriel and Coco anyway, ‘til things are fixed up around here. Judith and RJ will be excited.”

“Are you going to explain to them…?”

Daryl nodded. He knew what you were implying. The kids would have to be in on the plan, have to know you would be Daryl’s “wife”. “Yeah. Jude will be fine. And RJ will do what she does,” he said.

You gulped nervously, nodding again. “Okay… But Daryl—if we get there and it’s too much—too dangerous for you or—something… I don’t know, if something isn’t right, we stop. We stop, and we get out, and we just come home. Promise me.”

He studied the worry line near your left eyebrow. Finally, he nodded. “Alrigh’. I promise.” But it wouldn’t be too much. Not if it made all the difference for you.

You seemed satisfied and relaxed somewhat. He noted again how tired you looked. The kettle whistled on the stove and he managed to force himself apart from you, even though he didn’t want to.

Daryl stayed with you for a few hours while you drank tea and tried to shake the cold that seemed to sink into your bones every night. But then he couldn’t wait any longer to set things in motion and he headed to the door, looking back over his shoulder, and hoping that within a couple days you’d be getting what you needed.

_ _ _ _ _ _

You were nervous as the four of you approached the checkpoint, each with only a small bag of belongings. The journey could have been smoother—the car had blown a tire and then the radiator had sprung a leak at some point. You all had to walk the last stretch. Daryl tried to carry your bag for you, tried to give you water from his canteen, but you stubbornly refused, always refocusing on Jude and RJ. His heart ached as he watched you with the kids, making jokes to cheer everyone even when he could read the exhaustion on your face. Luckily, you hadn’t run into any herds of walkers or troublesome people and you’d even happened on a patrol from The Commonwealth that escorted you all the last few miles to the checkpoint.

You stared straight ahead at the nondescript buildings and the long stretches of chain link fence topped with razor wire. You gulped and your stomach churned. “I’m—having some flashbacks to Terminus suddenly,” you said in a low voice to Daryl.

He glanced over at you. “Yeah… I get that. But that ain’t this.” Whatever was rotten in The Commonwealth, and he knew something was, it was more subtle. At least for now.

“Do you think they’ll separate us?” you asked nervously, moving closer to him as the entry gate loomed closer and closer. Your shoulder brushed against his arm, and his stomach jumped at the simple contact. Jesus Christ. He needed to get a hold of himself—a hold of his feelings. He didn’t need emotion clouding his judgement now of all times. But it was nearly impossible when he was around you.

“I dunno,” he finally answered you. “But hey—we ain’t gonna have a bad time of it. S’gonna be okay. Alexandria has already got a relationship with ‘em. Our group has been vetted. Hopefully it’s just a few questions and we’re in. A formality, ya know?” He could still read anxiety on your brow. “Y/N. S’gonna be alrigh’. We’re almost there. And then ya are gonna get the care ya need, okay?”

You nodded, still wide-eyed, and surprised both of you when you moved closer to him again and grabbed his hand, lacing your fingers with his.

He looked down at your hand in his, bewildered, but managed to hold it together and fix his eyes ahead on the gate, even while his heart hummed in his chest. He felt you give his hand a gentle squeeze as you all stopped in front of the uniformed soldier.

_ _ _ _ _ _

Daryl had been right. You’d had a reasonably easy time at the border. The only questions they asked more intensely were about you, challenging him about why he hadn’t mentioned his wife before, asking what your condition was, what kind of medications and other care you would need. He’d squared his shoulders and told them firmly that his family wasn’t any of their damn business and that seemed to shut them up. But you had answered the questions about your heart as clearly as you could, anxiety building in you all the while, worry that you would be turned away as being too needy, something you’d told yourself your whole life—that now you were a burden. Daryl had always told you differently, treated you differently. You held tightly to his hand the entire time, and held RJ’s in the other.

But they hadn’t turned you away, They’d only instructed Daryl on where the barracks were where you would all stay while he “trained,” whatever the fuck that meant. You’d almost laughed. You had a feeling that he should be the one teaching the training.

Now the four of you were standing in a small dingy room in a tiny apartment. There was a couch and a bedroom with a bed, but not much else. You’d have to make up some beds for the kids in the living room with their bed rolls. They’d told Daryl that the accommodations would improve after his training, depending on how he advanced.

As Judith and RJ ran to stare out the window again at all the bustling activity and people below, Daryl was all too conscious of the small space that you’d occupy together. He felt a fluttery nervousness in his stomach as you walked to the doorway of the bedroom and looked inside at the scant furnishings. He came to stand beside you.

“Sorry it’s kind of a shithole compared to what ya had at home,” he said, his cheeks coloring a little with shame. He’d hoped to do better for you from the beginning here. But you only glanced over at him and gave him a small smile.

“Don’t apologize. We’ve both had worse,” you said kindly. You looked back at the dim space. “There’s a roof. And we’re safe. And the kids will have food and school. That’s more than enough these days.”

Daryl glanced down nervously at his hands, picking at the side of his thumb nail. “I’ll sleep on the floor,” he said.

You laughed. “Don’t be silly,” you said, a lilt still in your voice. “You’ll sleep in the bed with me. There’s no way I’m letting you sleep on the floor. It’s plenty big.”

He felt his ears and face grow hot and he had to avoid looking at you out of fear that you’d see and somehow read his mind.

Instead, he simply felt your fingers lace between his again and he gulped nervously.

“Daryl, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you,” you breathed to him quietly. His head was ducked and you wished he’d meet your eyes, but you allowed him his shyness, sensing his nerves. “Thank you.”

He shrugged. “ ‘S’nothin’,” he drawled. “You’d do the same thing for me.”

You leaned against him and rested your head on his shoulder, giving his hand another gentle squeeze. “Yeah. I would.”

He cleared his throat and snuck a glance down at you. “Ya know where to go for yer appointment tomorrow?” You nodded. “‘M sorry I can’t go with ya, but those assholes said I gotta report first thing.”

“That’s okay. And actually, Yumiko said she’d go with me. She wants to introduce me to her brother. He’s a surgeon… she seemed more hopeful than I am about a heart transplant…” you trailed off. Now you avoided Daryl’s eyes.

He couldn’t help but seize on that. Maybe it was possible. God, he hoped so. If he’d been a religious man, he would have been praying for that every damn day. “Good. That’s good,” he said. “Listen, why don’t ya get settled with the kids, alrigh’? ‘M gonna go see about gettin’ us some food.” You lifted your head from his shoulder, and he regretted speaking. When your hand slipped apart from his, he regretted it even more. But after he grabbed the first decent meal you all would have in days, after you were all settled, he realized he’d sleep beside you that night. That instead of lying on his back on his cot in Alexandria, wondering whether you were getting any rest, wondering if you were cold or hungry or awake from an endless cough, he’d be right beside you. He’d know. And he could help. And that was worth anything they could throw at him in this new place.

_ _ _ _ _ _

Yumiko had accompanied you to your doctor’s appointment as promised. You’d been given the medication you needed and they’d marked down something about the cost beside Daryl’s name. You still felt anxious about it… You were determined that once you had more energy that you’d find some job to do to help contribute, but for now you desperately needed to rest and let the medications work. The doctor had also told you the same old things about diet you’d practiced as much as you could. So often now, you didn’t have a choice about food, but maybe here you would. The kids were still at school and you walked with Yumiko over to the part of the hospital that Tomi worked in, a small bag of your meds in hand.

The surgeon was kind and warm to you, but he told you to be realistic about the chance of a heart transplant. “Even in the old world it was like winning the lottery,” he said. “If anything, it’s worse here.”

Yumiko had stiffened at this. “I’ll pull some more strings for you if I can,” she told you. “I’m sure Daryl is doing the same.”

“Please,” you said, shaking your head. “Don’t. I don’t want any special treatment. It’s enough just to have some medications again that will help.”

Yumiko sighed and put a friendly hand on your shoulder. “There’s something you should know about this place…” she started. Your brow furrowed deeply over your eyes. “There’s a certain segment here that is always pulling strings.”

“…what do you mean?”

She sighed, wondering how much to say. “This place is more like the old world than you realize.” She glanced around at the couples meandering on the clean sidewalks, the busy shop windows, a nearby man emptying a garbage bin. “Just—they don’t play fair here. Everyone isn’t equal.”

“Yumiko—”

“It’s alright. My point is that you should let me and Daryl help you. Because the system is already rigged. We may as well take advantage of it for someone who deserves it,” she said. She gave you a friendly smile and suddenly started, glancing at a nearby clock. “Dammit, I have to go. You can find your way home alright?” she asked. You nodded and thanked her again, still puzzled by what she’d told you.

You recounted it to Daryl that night when you couldn’t sleep, lying on your back on your side of the bed. You could feel the mattress sloping toward his weight and he was unusually quiet and still. “Daryl,” you murmured. “Are you still awake?”

“Yeah,” came his voice in the darkness near you. “Ya alrigh’?”

You rolled onto you side so you could face toward him. “Yes…”

He sensed the ‘but’. “But?”

“It’s just something Yumiko told me…” You repeated the conversation to him as best as you could remember.

You heard him sigh in the darkness. “I get why yer worried,” he started. “But she’s righ’ ‘bout the system and ‘bout you. Ya deserve whatever good things we can get to come yer way.”

“But what if helping me means someone else doesn’t get what they need, what if it—"

Daryl suddenly reached out and his fingertips grazed your cheek. Warmth and electricity shot through you. He could barely make out your silhouette in the dark. “Jus’ let us do this for ya.” His touch lifted almost as quickly as it came. “Jus’ for once, think about yerself before e’rybody else.”

You didn’t say anything, but you quieted. Daryl heard you shift softly in the sheets beside him.

“I ain’t tryin’ to tell ya yer wrong, or dismiss ya, Y/N. I just—I need to do this for ya. Alrigh’?”

You moved closer toward the middle of the bed until you could almost feel his warmth. “Alright,” you agreed softly. And then the two of you were soon asleep.

You all fell into a comfortable routine over the next few weeks. As the medicine had more time to work, you began to feel better and have more energy than you remembered having in a long time. Daryl would rise early to report for work most days, but sometimes he had to work late shifts, and then the apartment felt empty without him. You were sharply aware of his unoccupied side of the bed, and realized that you almost needed him there to be able to sleep.

One night, he’d had a late shift and collapsed into bed beside you at nearly three in the morning. You weren’t sure if it was because he was so tired or what, but shortly after he’d gotten home and fallen deeply asleep, you felt him move in against you. His arm draped over your waist and his body pressed against yours. At first you were so stunned you weren’t sure what you were feeling, but then a warmth and joy washed over you, and a feeling of such complete safety and belonging that you could scarcely bear to think about how in only a few short hours you’d have to separate to start the day. You wanted to stay there with him tucked up behind you… You pressed back against him and smoothed your hand over his where it was resting over your waist, lacing your fingers between his as was becoming a habit. And you slept deeply and soundly, until the sound of the kids in the other room, up and preparing for school, roused you.

You extracted yourself from Daryl’s embrace as gently as you could, hoping you wouldn’t wake him, but he stirred almost immediately. You were already on your feet by the time he was fully awake and his blue eyes blinked open.

He realized he was in the middle of the bed instead of over on the edge where he usually tried to stay, too fearful of encroaching on your space or making you uncomfortable. But you were smiling at him with a serene sort of look he hadn’t seen before and he pushed himself up stiffly and sat on the edge of the bed. He rubbed a hand over his face. “Shit… looks like I was takin’ up more than my fair share last night,” he drawled, his cheeks reddening. “Sorry.”

Your smile widened and you ducked his eyes. He thought he could see a blush on your face too but he didn’t know why. “No worries.” You watched him try to stretch but a wince quickly crossed his face and you frowned. “Are you alright? Did something happen at work yesterday?”

He hummed a non-committal noise in an attempt to put you off, but you wouldn’t have it. His muscles had stiffened overnight. He and Rosita had had quite a time clearing out an unexpected herd while on patrol, and he’d apparently been slammed around and more banged up than he thought.

“Let me see,” you insisted.

“Nah, ‘m fine.”

You crossed your arms over your chest and gave him a stern look. “You have to change anyway; you might as well let me take a look.”

Daryl sighed and started trying to get his shirt over his head, but his shoulders were stiff and achy and his movements were labored. You crossed the bedroom to him and tugged it off over his head. Your face flushed at his strong chest and torso and broad-shoulders bared before you, but then your heart sunk as it always had when you saw his scars, many and varied now from a life that began hard and only stayed hard. He deserved so much better than what he’d been handed.

“Daryl…” His back and ribs were bruised and scraped in wide, darkening marks. For now, they were various shades of dark red but moving toward purple. In another day, they’d be black and deep blue.

He glanced down at his own body and pressed a few fingers over a smudge of blood on his ribs. “Ain’t that bad,” he drawled. “I’ve had worse.”

You shot him another look, but your eyes were soft and sympathetic this time. “Of course you have. But that doesn’t mean this isn’t—” you couldn’t find the right word and pushed your hair away from your eyes.

“Auntie Y/N!” Judith’s voice came from the front room. “We need to go to school or we’ll be late!”

“Oh—okay, Judith! Just a minute!” you called out. “Just stay here,” you ordered Daryl. “I’ll be right back.”

“Y/N, I gotta go to—"

“It’ll take one minute!” you argued. “Don’t move.” You let yourself out into the main room of the apartment and asked if Judith was okay walking herself and RJ to school. She agreed eagerly and even seemed excited at the prospect as you quizzed them about strangers like you always did when they went anywhere without you or a member of your extended family. “Okay. Have a good day at school. Daryl or I will pick you up later, okay?” You kissed both of them on the tops of their heads and sent them off with lunches in hand. Then you went to the little sink and filled a small bowl with warm water and a washcloth and returned to the bedroom.

Daryl was still sitting there without his shirt on, fidgeting. He tried to argue as soon as you came back in but you quieted him with another look. “Just let me at least get this dried blood off you,” you said, sinking down beside him. You squeezed the excess water from the rag and dabbed at a cut on his side. Daryl licked his lips and let himself study the focused expression on your face, the contraction of your eyebrow and the way your tongue occasionally poked out the corner of your mouth as you concentrated. He felt like he was filling up with warmth, feeling the bruises and bumps less and less with each pass of your gentle hands and the warm cloth. He couldn’t take his eyes off you but you hadn’t seemed to notice.

An involuntary shiver ran up his back as you moved behind him and your fingertips lightly tickled his skin. “Sorry,” you said quickly. But you didn’t know it was an electric shock that had shot through him from your touch, not some result of sitting bare-chested and the cooling water. You worked your way around to his other side, and though it had probably only been a few minutes, Daryl felt like time had slowed. You wiped away the last bit of dried blood on his ribs and dropped the cloth back into the bowl, shaking the now faintly pink water from your fingers and setting the bowl on the nightstand.

Now you caught his eyes and were stunned by the look in them. “Thanks,” he said vaguely.

All you could do was nod, your throat suddenly tightening for some reason… Flutters erupted in your stomach and your heart started to race, something that was all too common for no reason at all. But right now… you knew why. You raised a hand and pressed it over your rushing heart and Daryl’s brow furrowed.

“Are you alrigh’?” he asked quickly.

You nodded again. “Yeah. It’s just—my heart is racing a little,” you managed. Your voice came out slightly breathy.

Daryl’s eyes darkened as his brow furrowed even more deeply. “What can I do?” he asked. And for some reason you smiled. His heart jumped.

“Stop looking at me like that,” you said softly.

He was mildly confused, and you watched it flash across his handsome face. “Like what?” he drawled.

Your eyes lowered for a moment and then lifted again, your eyelashes fluttering. His heart jumped again. “I suppose—the way you always look at me.”

Daryl felt suspended. He shook his head slightly. “Nah. I can’t,” he drawled. Was this a dream? Was he still asleep? But he was awake. He knew it, because the intensity of feeling welling up in him was far too profound for any dream, and it was only another moment before he crashed his lips into yours, his hand clasping your face and his fingertips reaching into your hair.

You reached for him in turn and kissed him back eagerly, sinking into it, reeling with electricity as his other hand pressed hesitantly into the small of your back. You smiled into his lips. You were breathless, weightless, consumed by only the sensations of him, and he was consumed by you.

It was far too soon when you pulled back. Your eyes flickered between his. He took a few seconds to catch his breath, to find his voice.

“Ya got no idea how damn long I’ve wanted to do that.” That wide smile that drove him mad graced your face again.

“Same,” you said. You leaned in and kissed him again, but this one was softer and sweeter. He never wanted to stop kissing you. Your lips were silky and tasted like the cinnamon tea you drank, and you moved together like you belonged, like you’d always been kissing. You were almost shaky with adrenaline. “You’re gonna be late for work,” you said dreamily.

Daryl shook his head slightly. “Fuck ‘em,” he said, running his fingers through the ends of your hair briefly before resting his hand along the graceful curve of your neck. He was just about to wrap you up in his arms and kiss you again when there was a loud banging on the apartment door. You both startled apart.

Daryl was on his feet in a moment, pulling a shirt on hurriedly. “Stay here,” he said. But before he could even get to the threshold, a familiar voice was calling out.

“Y/N! Y/N, answer the door! It’s urgent! It’s Yumiko!”

You and Daryl rushed to the door, still feeling vaguely rootless, and he opened it wide. “Yumiko? What’s happened? Are you okay? Is everyone okay?” you asked. She breezed right into the apartment past you and spun in place.

She had a hurried and bubbling kind of energy, like a pot of boiling water about to overflow. “Somebody fell off a ladder,” she said suddenly.

Your hand flew to your mouth. “Oh my God. Who?” you asked with horror.

“No,” she said, stepping up right in front of you. She grasped both of your hands. “Y/N. Somebody fell off a ladder.” You still weren’t getting it. But a nervous and wildly overjoyed smile broke out on her face and she laughed. “Y/N. There was an accident, and—yes, it’s very sad—but you’re getting a new heart.”

You stared at her, suddenly frozen and wide-eyed. You blinked once. Twice. You were trying to process what she’d just said. “What?”

“You’re getting a heart!” she said again. “Tomi is doing the surgery and we need to go to the hospital now!”

You were just frozen again. But then Daryl was suddenly beside you and Yumiko withdrew, dropping your hands and apparently sensing something between you two for the first time. Or maybe not for the first time… maybe she’d always known. Her smile was a little knowing.

Daryl clasped your face. “Y/N. Are ya okay?” he asked you. You reached up to grip his wrist and nodded slowly, in disbelief, your vibrant eyes still wide. “Ya wanna do this? There’s risks but—” He felt suddenly sick as the realization crashed into him. This could be everything, give you everything, or if something went wrong—it could take everything.

“I—I don’t know,” you said suddenly. And then another voice inside you answered. “Yes. Yes, I want to do this.” You studied Daryl’s face. You had too much left to do. You had to live this new life with Daryl and you wanted it to be long and happy. You wanted to do all the things you hadn’t been able to do for so long, to hunt with him outside the walls, to run, to climb, to explore, to rebuild Alexandria, to play and lift and toss RJ and Judith as much as you wanted. And even if something went wrong, you’d go to sleep knowing that you had kissed Daryl Dixon, a man you’d loved for so long, and he loved you back. “Yes. I want to do this.”

Daryl gulped and nodded, emotion sticking in a lump in his throat. “Okay. Okay, then we’re doin’ this,” he said. He didn’t care that Yumiko was standing only a few feet away. He kissed you and he tried to put every thought and every feeling he had about you into that kiss, and it never would have lasted long enough, but it built courage in both of you. Then he grabbed your hand in his and gave Yumiko a nod. “We’re ready,” he said.

_ _ _ _ _ _

Daryl paced the length of the sterile, white corridor endlessly. The surgery was long and each passing minute increased his anxiety further. He heard footsteps down the hallway and hoped that it would be Tomi emerging to tell him that everything had gone perfectly, that you were coming out of anesthesia well and that he’d be able to see you in a moment. But instead, it was Rosita and Gabriel with Coco, Carol, Yumiko, Kelly and Connie, Magna, Judith and RJ, Ezekiel carrying a bunch of daffodils… it was all of them. It was his family. Carol rushed up and hugged him.

“Any word?” she asked, her brow knit.

He shook his head and pulled away, shifting anxiously on his feet. “No. Not for—not for a few hours.” Three hours and 26 minutes to be specific. Yes. He was keeping track. He glanced at his assembled loved ones. “Thanks for bein’ here, ya’ll,” he said. His voice was a bit weak with worry. He sounded unlike himself. He was sick over this. Had they made the right choice? Open heart surgery during the fuckin’ apocalypse… what the hell was he thinkin’? He collapsed into a nearby chair, his stomach churning with nerves. The others exchanged a few glances and settled into chairs nearby, except for Connie who stopped in front of him and bent down so she was in his eyeline.

“It will be okay,” she signed to him. She gave him a reassuring smile. She spelled your name and then signed “strong.”

Daryl sighed and nodded, but the tension in his face was unchanged. He got up and resumed his pacing, tearing the cuticle of his thumbnail with his teeth until he tasted the metallic tang of blood.

It was another hour before Tomi stepped out, mask and gloves off. Daryl had paced down to the opposite end of the hall and he tore back at full speed to meet the surgeon. As he got close, he saw that Tomi was smiling…

_ _ _ _ _ _

You’d been sleeping for some time since you’d been wheeled into the designated ICU. Daryl had gowned and masked up, insisting on being there by your side when you woke up. The day had been such an insane whirlwind and seemed to have passed in a blaze of emotions. It was dark now and Rosita had taken the kids home and the rest of your collected family had eventually drifted off too.

Tomi had warned Daryl that you’d be groggy when you woke and that the most important thing was for you to rest. He sat perched on the edge of his chair, your hand in his, watching your peaceful face for any change, good or bad.

Finally, you began to stir against the pillow and he rocketed to his feet. He smoothed his free hand over your hair and kissed your forehead. “Y/N?”

Your eyes opened with some tremendous effort. The fog of your breath was steady in the oxygen mask. You were on a ventilator and connected to so many wires and tubes it was hard to bear, but despite all this, despite having your chest cracked open, despite the fog in your brain, the first thing you saw when you opened your eyes was Daryl, and you smiled.

And that was the way it would always be from then on.

[fankhx-invasion]

The Kitstune

┍━━━━━━━ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ━━━━━━━┑

The realm of kissteria had been ruled under the Elder's authoritative hand since the dawn of time. The Elder was not to be trifled with and their commands were not to be questioned. Amongst their ruling, for eons, kitsune were no longer allowed amongst the realm. They were to be captured and, in extreme cases, executed, in order to stray away from any madness they may bring. Of course, some kitsune really don't give a shit.

Eric treaded carefully through the market, ears and tails hidden, face presenting itself as a regular kissterian, all to keep his status out of sight. He didn't want anyone after him just because he wanted to ponder the merchants during one of the most exciting events in centuries! Today, a prince of kissteria was to be crowned, and Eric sure as hell wasn't going to miss out on the opportunity. Every race seemed to be enjoying themselves on such a festive time, dancing, singing, eating, laughing, chatting to one another. He grinned, passing by a stall, and when the man running it had his back turned, snatched a pear up and continued to walk, taking a bite from the sweet fruit. A perfectly refreshing snack after a long trip.

He continued to walk, hoping not too many noticed how he walked across the hot stoned pavement completely barefoot; he didn't have fancy footwear like everyone else. Then, he saw it, the grandeur castle, looming above all, practically looking as if it blended in with the rest of cosmos. Eric pushed through crowds, making his way closer, trying to find every way to get himself entry inside. He didn't want to miss the crowning, uncaring of the small complaints as he weaved between others, stopping when he finally managed to see the inside of the building. Eric looked up in awe, taking in all of the paintings on the walls, the crystal pillars, the several floors and the grand staircases leading up to each one. It was absolutely elegant, the way light seemed to exist in that castle without a source, almost as if it were the brightest star itself in the sky.

"I'd wish my coronation would be this elaborate," a voice mumbled next to him.

Eric turned, and it was as if his world had really stopped in place. A young man, about his height, adorned in gold, heavy black eye makeup highlighting his bright, emerald eyes, and painted, plush lips, stood before him. The kitsune had never, not once in his life, seen anyone as beautiful and radiant as him. He made Eric's heart skip a beat, forget all about the beautiful decor around him, took his breath away, almost made him completely lose all control, only snapping back to attention when the young man raised an eyebrow, tapping his shoulder curiously and hiding a small grin. He wanted to say something to him immediately, wanted to get to know him, but the sound of chatter dying down drew his attention to a balcony overlooking the floor. The Elder was dressed in the finest silks, face covered by a white mask, their movements calculated.

"I appreciate all of you for showing yourselves to this one of a kind event. This has not happened since my own coronation, and as you are all fairly aware, this marks the beginning of a new era. Your prince shall be the one to guide you; his people; to victory, in the pursuit of happiness. He has learned well from my teachings. He will be just, he will be fair, and one day, he may take my place upon the throne."

Cheering and applause erupted from each patron, watching as a man stepped forward out onto the balcony. His top was sheer but looking like thousands upon thousands of stars adorned the sleeves and his chest, face covered in a layer of white makeup, a black star was painted on his left eye, and his round lips were painted rose red. He was luminous. He looked down at everyone there, Eric noticed maybe a hint of worry or doubt passed through his eyes, before quiet took over once more.

"Starchild," the Elder spoke, now holding a crown adorned with crystals, "do you swear to lead your people, and one day, the entire realm, to a glorious future?"

"I swear on my immortal life."

"You'd spill your blood to keep kissteria safe?"

"I'd spill my blood and break my bones for all."

The Elder lifted the crown, all bowing down, Eric following them, placing it atop the star child's head, nestling itself in his soft, curly hair.

"Then, it is with my greatest pleasure, and with the power in me, to bestow this crown, and the title of Prince of The Stars, to you."

The cheers rang once more, the sounds of trumpets playing triumphically. The starchild scanned the crowd with a smile, stopping when he made eye contact with Eric, at first confused then seemingly shocked. The kitsune felt uneasy, he almost felt too seen, as if the star prince could see right through him. He wanted to back away but the prince's gaze kept him trapped in place, and before he knew it, attention was on him. He looked around, confused as to why everyone had their eyes fixated on him now. He turned to the man in gold next to him, noticing he too was in shock, looking over Eric's body. The kitsune was confused, until he realized in the reflection of the walls; his disguise had been removed. The truth was revealed.

Eric stumbled, backing up slowly, some guests moving out of his way out of.. was it fear? His face had strange markings in white, black, and orange, four tails pulling themselves closer to his body. The Elder said something in a booming voice, but the kitsune was already in a panic, unsure of how to make his body move now, feeling his wrist grabbed and pulled out quickly, dragging him outside as fast as they possibly could.

"Run, you fucking idiot!" A voice rose up as both ran.

Eric couldn't see the person pulling him along, their face covered in a dark cloak, but he did what they said, following behind this stranger. They pulled him through the market, between buildings, dodging kissterians left and right, most of whom gawked at Eric's appearance. The cloaked stranger then pulled him through the forest line, stepping over roots, rocks, deep between all of the trees where the light barely filtered through the canopies. Both went further and further in until they reached a small clearing, where the stranger stopped, leaning against a tree for support as they panted heavily. The fox was now curious, tilting his head when the stranger pulled their hood off, revealing a man with dark hair and a fairly attractive face.

"You could've gotten yourself killed back there.." he breathed out, shaking his head. "What is a kitsune doing in kissteria of all places, anyway??"

Eric looked around, confused by his actions.

"So you.. don't hate me?"

"Luckily for you, no."

He looked off into the forest blankly, processing this new information.

"I heard about the event. I wanted to see it. What's your name?"

"...Bruce. Bruce Kulick."

The kitsune smiled, clawed hand extending out towards him.

"I'm Eric."

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[dashboarddiaries]

Dashboard Diaries is a production of Atypical Artists, hosted by Lauren Shippen (@thelaurenshippen) and Cher McAnelly (@overchers). Our theme was composed by Lauren Shippen and mixed by Brandon Grugle. Art by Shae McMullin. Transcription by Laudable.

For bonus clips, ad-free episodes, and more, become a patron at atypicalartists.co/support.

[intro music]

Lauren: Hello, Internet! I’m Lauren Shippen, professional writer who never really got into YouTuber fandom or RPF despite the fact that I was a YouTuber for a time and did meet my partner through my creative career. 

Cher: Hi! I’m Cher McAnelly, semi pro shit poster who briefly attempted to become a YouTuber back in the day-

Lauren: Oh, interesting!

Cher: Yeah. With a grand total of one video. 

Lauren: Hell yes. I’m going to need more details on that. But first, this is Dashboard Diaries, a podcast for you – the folks who are in this internet bunker with us. We talk about what’s going on in our favorite hell site, get into what we like to call “tumbl-lore,” do fandom deep dives, and share the times when we’ve gone feral over a new ship.

So, Cher, how has your last month on Tumblr been?

Cher: Lauren, it has been a huge last month on Tumblr, perhaps one of my biggest months on Tumblr ever. I do have some news. After ten amazing years working as a member of the Tumblr staff I am officially logging ... or I have officially logged off as a staff member. I’m still a user. 

Lauren: Huge news!

Cher: Yeah. I am no longer working at Tumblr. So, more to come on what’s next for me. But overall just had the most fantastic ten years, a third of my life, working at Tumblr and I’m really excited to be on Tumblr again as a user. Which I haven’t been in a while. 

Lauren: Yeah, I mean as somebody who has a hard time sometimes listening to audio dramas as just a fan of audio dramas because I spend so much time listening to them for work, even if it’s something you love it can be really hard to then interact with it as a fan of the thing. So, I am very excited for you to get to be in the Tumblr eco system without it reminding you of the work that you have to do.

Cher: Thank you. I am so excited about that, too. I obviously was on Tumblr pretty much all day every day for the past ten years. But really not in a working capacity. And my re-blog activity on my personal Tumblr went down significantly. When I came to Tumblr I think I re-blogged in total 40,000+ things. When I started working there. And I’ve re-blogged less than 10,000 things in the ten years since I worked there. So, really, I have to step it up again. I have a lot of catching up to do in the re-blog eco system.

How was your last month on Tumblr, Lauren?

Lauren: It was good. Pretty normal in a lot of ways. Still seeing a lot of Interview With A Vampire stuff and enjoying that after season two. But one of the things that kind of consumed a lot of my personal dashboard and a lot of my own sort of thoughts about art and the current state of things in the world is this Atlantic article that came out at the beginning of the month. I don’t know if you have read this or seen any discourse about it on Tumblr, it’s been a lot on my dash but then again I sort of exist in a specific corner of Tumblr as everybody does. 

Cher: I don’t think I’ve seen it. No.

Lauren: So, it’s an Atlantic article called “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books.” And it kind of sent ripples through a particular corner of the internet. Sort of bookish internet and author internet. And the article is about exactly what the headline says – the fact that all of these college professors are reporting that over the last couple of years they are having to assign fewer and fewer books because students get to college and they’ve never read a full book for school before. 

Apparently this is just a thing that has been happening. Obviously is part of it is due to COVID, right? And the fact that everyone’s attention spans and school ... obviously anybody who was in middle or high school in COVID, I’m so sorry. You got the shortest end of the stick. It sucks. But another piece of it is the fact that education has been moving towards testing metrics sort of being the measurement of success for the last couple of decades. Right? With “No Child Left Behind” and stuff from the 2000s. 

So, to that end, teachers have been having to focus more on using excerpts or sort of just getting the information that’s going to be on the test into kids’ heads rather than taking the time to read an entire book as a class and then discuss it in depth. And so there’s just been a LOT of discourse about this on Tumblr. Because I think that Tumblr is a really interesting intersection of like fandom culture that is very pro fan fic and very pro guilty pleasures don’t exist and you shouldn’t feel embarrassed about anything you’re reading or doing or whatever. But then also a lot of people who take art very seriously. And I think there’s a lot of overlap in those two groups. Right? 

I think, yeah, a lot of people who read and write fan fic take art very seriously and a lot of people who are very serious about classical literature or whatever also enjoy reading things that aren’t that without sort of defining it as a guilty pleasure. Right? But there is sort of these two different sides of the debate in some ways where people are like, “Well, it’s totally like fine to just read YA, Romance, and Fan Fic because reading is supposed to be escapism and if that’s all that I want to read then that’s fine.” And then other people being like, “Yes, that is fine but also like no, you do need to read more than that.” You actually do need to read nonfiction books and adult literature and essays and short stories. Whatever else. But you do need to actually diversify your reading diet. 

I don’t know, what’s your view on this? Not having read the article but being given the overview.

Cher: I mean, I think I agree with the diversify your reading diet POV. Not from a “you can only read a little bit of your guilty pleasure” in the same way that I guess you would try and balance out what you’re eating and eat mostly fruit and veg and whole foods. Versus the desserts and the more “processed” things that maybe we’re equating the guilty pleasure reads to in this. I think read as much as you want but do make sure that there is a little ... check in ever so often and make sure that there’s a little variety in what you’re reading. I think we kind of become what we absorb and the information that we know. Yeah. So, I think even if it’s articles here and there and then the big meat, the big books that you’re reading are the fun reads. I do think it’s important to have some kind of variety in there. Especially educationally, I think a lot of the books that you’re assigned growing up become really formative in your development. It’s kind of shocking for me to think about people going through school and not reading these entire books or an entire book at any point.

Lauren: Yeah, specifically for school, right? Because we know that readership is up in a lot of ways. Especially in adults. But being assigned a book and having to read it and hating it and having to talk about it in a critical analysis way I think is vital. Over the summer, I went to a New York public school, right? And part of the curriculum for us was, yeah, we would read certain books throughout the year as a class but then also over the summer it was here is a list of 25 books you have to pick six off of them and read these six books in the next three months. And both that ... there’s so many books that I read in high school that I fucking despised. Right? 

The Scarlet Letter I think is just one of the worst books ever. I hate Nathaniel Hawthorne. But also Frankenstein rips. That’s a classic for a reason. Right? That book is so good. And I had a teacher my senior year of high school ... and to be fair I took an AP course. I don’t know how this interacts with AP or IB courses, what have you. But she was an ex-Catholic nun. And so needless to say, we did not see eye to eye on anything politically speaking. And she assigned a lot of religious writers to us, which was not great and I have opinions about but it also meant that I read Till We Have Faces by CS Lewis. Which is a book that I just simply would not have picked up because despite loving The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and the whole Narnia series, I didn’t necessarily ... I sort of thought that CS Lewis’s adult fiction would be super, even more sort of directly Christian. But Till We Have Faces is just a phenomenal book.

So, I don’t know. I think that it’s important to read books that you hate and have to talk about them and explain why you didn’t like it in a way that is more than just, “I didn’t like it.” And I think it’s important to, yeah, have to read books that you wouldn’t have picked up and maybe discover that you love them. Especially since we have so many studies about how reading is a unique tool in developing empathy as you are growing up. And the ways in which you step into other people’s perspectives and shoes in reading specifically. Right? Obviously we don’t have the same amount of research into TV watching or video game playing or whatever else. But we know this about reading. And so I do think that a lot of what an art snob might see as the more fluffy things, like Young Adult stuff or Romance or whatever else. I think a lot of those things can still be great works of literature. 

I think one of the best books I’ve ever read is “I’ll Give You The Sun” by Jandy Nelson. It is a YA novel and has some of the most beautiful writing ever. But yeah, to your point about diet, yeah, you can’t just eat potato chips for your whole diet. And also you shouldn’t restrict yourself from eating potato chips. You have to do both things. That’s healthy.

So, anyway, it’s just been really interesting to kind of see the discourse on Tumblr about this and I would love to hear what our listeners have to say about your view on what we should be doing with youth and reading. Because I think there’s just a lot of interesting stuff happening in that particular sphere right now.

Cher: I really like your point about being assigned to read things that we don’t like or we’re not enjoying and then having to explain and find a way to articulate why we don’t like it and what about the book or the writing or whatever it is that we’re not a fan of or doesn’t draw us in. I feel like as you’re saying in the development of empathy and the development of interaction with others, being able to communicate why and how you feel what you feel is so important. And something that you can’t just do. You have to learn it. How many times are you feeling a certain way and you’re like, “how to say it??” 

Lauren: Right!

Cher: I feel like even critical discussion about a book that you’re not a fan of and why you might not like it is, yeah, flexing or developing that really key muscle that I think is huge developmentally. 

Lauren: Absolutely. I think it expands outwards into all kinds of art conversation, right? Another piece of discourse that I’m constantly seeing on Tumblr is sort of this tendency now to moralize when you dislike something. Right? To say, oh, I didn’t like that because it was problematic in these ways. Or because this particular thing sucks or this person involved with the project sucks and therefore this thing is bad.

The reality is that terrible, terrible people can still make good art and you have to be able to hold those two things in your head. Which I feel like maybe we’ve talked about before. I was having this conversation the other day and I can’t remember if it was the last time that we did an episode or a conversation I was having the other day. But I think that Buffy The Vampire Slayer is still one of the best TV shows of the ‘90s and I think an incredibly important piece of television and a very critical piece of feminist television. And it was made by, as we later discovered, a shitty misogynist. Right? And of course there were lots of people on that show who were wonderful and that shows owes so much to Sara Michele Gellar being the wonderful actress that she is. And I think the wonderful person that she is. But those two things are true. 

And so I think that not only is it good to be able to break down, “I didn’t like the Scarlet Letter because of these literary devices, or because of this narrative thing, or because of this particular style.” I think that it’s important to do that so that then when you get to the end of that thing – for instance, “A Farewell to Arms” that we read in high school that I just did not like. And by the time we sort of got done with analyzing it I’m like, fine, yes, Hemmingway is a good writer. This is constructed well. I can’t actually pick apart that much with the construction of this book. The reality is, I just don’t like it. And it’s just not for me. And that’s okay.

And that’s enough of a reason to not like something but I think that people want to sort of put a condition on disliking something that somehow makes them ... better?

Cher: Like have a moral high ground?

Lauren: Yeah, like have a moral high ground. Or just makes them seem smarter or more moral or whatever it is and it’s like, no, you can just ... that thing can just not be for you. And it’s fine.

Cher: Yeah, it’s almost like if you don’t like something that’s regarded as “highly intellectual work” or whatever, or it might be an important piece of literature – you need to qualify it with a moral justification or else you’re the “stupid one” or whatever in the scenario. Or that’s what people might deem you as for not liking something that everyone else thinks is such an incredible work of art. But I think art is subjective. So, yeah.

Lauren: Totally! 

Cher: I was thinking as you were saying ... “Grapes of Wrath.” I hated that book.

Lauren: Oh, I never had to read that book. Thankfully!

Cher: Oh my god. And we were assigned to read that entire book over spring break. And so naturally I waited until the day before spring break was over and had to spend the whole day reading “Grapes of Wrath.” Great work of literature. Important piece. Important book. I’m glad it exists. I will never open it again. 

Lauren: Yeah. (laughs)

Cher: I’m sitting here thinking of some of the really visceral moments and scenes in it and I’m just like [crosstalk 00:14:56]

Lauren: Sure.

Cher: I’m glad I read it and I’m glad I had to read it as a high schooler and I’m glad I don’t have to do that again.

Lauren: Yeah. I think that it’s important to be challenged and also I should say, you saving it for the last minute ... (laughs) you had all of spring break to read it. I want to be clear. I think that students should be assigned full books to read in high school. I don’t expect high schoolers to read all of them. I think a lot of high schoolers now do this in their spare time, but between the books that I was reading for school and the books I was reading for myself, I was reading 12 books a month. I was burning through stuff. Also because I didn’t have a lot of friends. And not a lot of stuff to do. But did that mean that I read every book that was assigned to me in full? Abso-fucking-lutely not.

I was on Spark Notes every week looking at something, trying to fake my way through some discussion about some book. And I think that’s also an important part of the experience. 

Cher: Faking it till you make it is also a key part. I wrote an entire essay on Othello without ever having opened the book. I did not know what Othello was about or how it ended or what happened in it. I got an 81 and I was so proud. (laughs)

Lauren: Amazing. 

Cher: I saw Shakespeare in the Park and it was Othello and I was like, “Oh, that’s how that ends!” 

(laughter)

Lauren: That’s amazing. Oh my god. To any English teachers out there that might be listening, we’re so sorry! We love you. You’re doing great work.

[guitar riff]

While we’re thinking about the crimes of our past, should we go into our Dashboard Confessionals?

Cher: Absolutely, Lauren. I picked a couple of key moments – both from my time working at Tumblr. I thought it was only relevant for my first episode as a non Tumblr employee. So, these are both from 2015. I started working at Tumblr full time in September 2015. And I started as an intern the year before. So, the first one is my Halloween costume that I asked a co-worker to take this photo of me.

Lauren: Incredible.

Cher: And for our listeners, it is a photo of me in a taco costume in front of a giant Tumblr sign that has a skeleton next to it. And the caption is “20 minutes into Taco Bell and chill and she gives you this look.” 

Lauren: It’s so good.

Cher: So, that’s that. I do have that costume. I am considering wearing it for Christmas ... uh ... I am considering wearing it for Halloween this year.

Lauren: Wear it for Christmas! It also appears to me that you are potentially eating tacos as well, or some sort of nacho bowl.

Cher: Oh. Yeah. I am eating a taco bowl at the same time. So, a lot to unpack there. A lot to taco-bout.

Lauren: A little bit of taco on taco ... (laughs) Excellent. 

Cher: And i did have Taco Bell for dinner last night.

Lauren: Nice.

Cher: So ...

Lauren: So, still Taco Bell and chilling.

Cher: I love Taco Bell. This is not, we are not sponsored by Taco Bell unless Taco Bell you want to sponsor us, because I love Taco Bell.

Lauren: Oh yeah! As a counter balance, I have never in my life ever had Taco Bell. 

Cher: LAUREN. Oh my gosh!

Lauren: I know.

Cher: If we lived in the same city we would be doing the next episode from a Taco Bell. 

(laughter)

And the next post we have here is a video of me and one of my co-workers. Shout out Mary Canon. Hi, Mary! This is a video from Tumblr hack day. And it’s just a short video of the two of us sitting on inflatable chairs with our computers and when it pans over to us it looks like we’re coding, but the funny thing is neither of us know how to code. So, we’re just typing stuff.

Lauren: It does look convincing though. It’s like the green on black background. 

Cher: Right? 

Lauren: Also, I didn’t realize those chairs were inflatable. 

Cher: So, when you say “at staff fics the website” this is who you’re saying it to. I just want you to remember that.

Lauren: These “pro” hackers. SO GOOD.

Cher: So, Lauren, what do YOU have for us this week?

Lauren: So, I went into my October 2014 archive. So, ten years ago. And I had four posts that I had re-blogged / made. One post that I made ... the post in our shared document is not the post that I made but it is essentially the same video. So, it is this interview of Benedict Cumberbatch on the Graham Norton Show from like, I don’t know, 2014 I guess. And it’s him talking about ... have you seen this? Do you remember this?

Cher: I remember this. Lauren. I don’t know how ... I just re-watched this video this weekend! 

Lauren: No way! 

Cher: We have a uni-mind going on here.

Lauren: Well, so I was talking, and I need to show him this ... I was telling my partner about this video the other day because I was like, “Have you ever seen ...” basically it’s a video of Benedict Cumberbatch being incapable of saying the word “penguin.” And as I’ll talk about later in the Feels Corner, I’ve been watching The Penguin on HBO the new DC show. And my partner and I ... we have just been calling it “le pen-gween.” We keep sort of saying penguin in various ways. And I was like, “Have you seen this Benedict Cumberbatch video where he pronounces ‘penguin’ in seven different insane ways?” And he had never heard of the video. And I was like ... and the fact that I look back ten years ago and I had re-blogged this video ... the stars have aligned. So, I cannot believe that you also just watched this video! 

That’s so good. 

Cher: Oh my gosh. The penguins are all marching to the same place. Again, my puns are really not on point today, Lauren. I got to step it up. 

Lauren: You know what? They’re always great. Even at your-

Cher: The penguins are really ...

Lauren: The penglings, the pengweens, the number of ways that he pronounces it, it’s amazing. 

Cher: Are there any words, Lauren, that you have trouble pronouncing?

Lauren: Oh, there definitely are. And I’m trying to think of what they are. Do you have some?

Cher: For the longest time, when I would mean to say “ethereal” I would say “urethral.”

Lauren: (laughs) Slightly different thing. 

Cher: Slightly different.

Lauren: That’s so good. Oh my god. Oh, actually, the thing ... so I have a couple of weird pronunciation quirks. But the one that I have no idea where it’s from. Me, my sister, and my mom all say it, so it’s got to be a thing from my moms’ family is that we say [KESH-SHOO] rather than [KASH-OO] (cashew). And i don’t know where that came from. I didn’t realize that it was weird until like five years ago. 

Cher: I almost want to say, “Bless you,” when you say it. 

Lauren: Right. No, that’s the thing. I never noticed that it was strange. But yeah. I’ll have to think about what else I cannot pronounce. But [KESH-SHOO] is definitely a big one.

[game show trill]

I feel like we’ve been on a real sort of 2014, 2015 kick recently. 

Cher: We have!

Lauren: Our main topic today I feel like fits into that quite well. And fits into the topic of last month’s episode of just like, “It’s 2014 again.” Right? Because one of the things that’s been trending recently is Dan and Phil. And I remember them trending a lot back in 2013, 2014, 2015. Cher, what is your knowledge of Dan and Phil? What was your knowledge back when they were first coming onto the scene? What is your knowledge now? Where are we starting?

Cher: So, my knowledge of Dan and Phil I would say is pretty general, pretty surface level. I have been aware of them for as long as I’ve been on Tumblr, especially since I started working there. They both were and are very, very active on Tumblr. My knowledge essentially, yeah, two best friends who Tumblr ships pretty consistently, who now may or may not be together, I think they are? But I don’t know if they are. Which I think is part of their shtick perhaps? Yeah, so they’re just to OG YouTubers who just get it and I feel like they’re very engrained in the Tumblr culture. 

They are both two of the people who have the biggest fandom’s on Tumblr and they are also I think two of the biggest super users of Tumblr on the other side of things. They really get it. And yeah, I think the Tumblr community has really followed them through and grown with them. I think there have been ... did they have a hiatus at some point? Did I make that up?

Lauren: They did. No, they did. Yes.

Cher: And yes, so now they’re back. They have a tour coming up. And actually there was some big Dan and Phil just like internet moments in the last couple of days as well. I don’t know if you saw that.

Lauren: Not in the last couple of days but leading up to it I did see that, yeah, October 18th is when I think one of them posted their first video or something, or they posted their first video ... so it was kind of an anniversary. So, yeah, have there been any major updates in the last couple of days?

Cher: Yeah, so they did on that day, I think it was ten years ago or 15 years ago, they did a video where they kissed or almost kissed and it was a big thing.

Lauren: Oh!?

Cher: They did again this week another video where they almost kissed. And so everyone was like losing it over the video. If you go to our drafts for Dashboard Diaries I have re-blogged ... or saved as drafts tons of posts, largely about this, because everyone is losing their minds over it. 

Lauren: Amazing. 

Cher: On the note of always being 2014 again ... I feel like there’s a really good post that sums it up that I also saved from user: rayghosts who said “Bill Cipher is alive, David Tennant is the doctor, a new Supernatural season might come out, Homestuck is updating, MCR and Fallout Boy will headline a tour together, Dan and Phil are gay, Ian and Anthony are making smosh videos again, and MCU Loki has his own show, new Scott Pilgrim show used the same cast as the movie, Josh Hutchison is being thirsted after.” It is 2014!

Lauren: It is 2014. It really is. (laughs)

Cher: So, what is your level of knowledge of Dan and Phil? Are you a member of the PHandom?

Lauren: Yes, PH, yeah. Because PHan is kind of their collective name. So, right before we hopped on to record this episode I re-watched a video that I made back in I think it would have been 2015, 2016 ... because as I’ve mentioned on the show before and as this show is somewhat inspired by I used to do a YouTube channel called According to Tumblr where I would try to explain things I knew nothing about based on just the Tumblr tag alone. 

And I did one on Phan. It was pretty much what you just explained. Right? The fact that these two guys are YouTubers. They’re best friends. I believe that they became best friends because of YouTube. They met on YouTube and then became best friends and moved in together. And they’ve been roommates for the last decade, I guess.

Cher: And they were roommates ...

Lauren: And they were roommates! And they’re British. In the video, which if you’re an Atypical Artist supporter you will see this video at some point. According to Tumblr videos are no longer public, but I have been sharing them in sort of a drip feed to the Atypical Artist Pals. So, if you want to support what we do here, you can also see those videos. But one of the things I talk about is how they both had in 2013, 2014 these swoopy emo haircuts and they’re British and that was just catnip for Tumblr at that time. Right? Those two things. 

But it’s interesting because in all of this I’ve sort of realized, and I’m curious to hear your perspective as somebody who also tried to be a YouTuber for a time, I want to hear what your one video was about ... WHAT are their videos about? What kind of YouTuber’s are they? Are the vloggers? What were they making videos about? 

I know they do video game streams and stuff now sometimes. 

Cher: I’m pretty sure they’re just vloggers. Like, “here’s what’s going on.” A lot of their videos were diving into ... they did one actually very similar to your series, Lauren, they dove into their tag on Tumblr. 

Lauren: That’s right!

Cher: And were going through a bunch of posts. This is a ten year old video. Did I drop the link in? No, I have it in my notes that aren’t on the dock but I’ll drop it in. I have so many YouTube videos. The amount of posts that they were scrolling through that were just first off incredibly chaotic. And second off I must find them. I don’t know how ... if I’ll go into their archive and see if they re-blogged them ... but they were incredible.

Also, a few years ago they wrote fan fiction about each other. Did you find this, Lauren?

Lauren: No! That’s incredible.

Cher: Each wrote a piece ... I didn’t write who wrote what, so I need to double-check but one is called “The Urge” and the other is called, “The Hand.” So, yeah. They’re just best friend vloggers. Very I would say ... came up around the same time as Tyler Oakley and very similar content wise. 

Lauren: Yes.

Cher: It’s like, here’s what’s going on in my day. Here’s what people are talking about kind of content. Yeah, lots of gaming. And I feel like the best friend angle and kind of shenanigans and adventures is a big part of it. 

Lauren: Well, I think we know that Tumblr is full of queer teens. And I think that Tyler Oakley is a great example of this. And these two being really appealing to queer teens, especially ... it’s so funny when I think about 2013, 2014 because it doesn’t feel that long ago. Right? But then I have to remember that in 2013 gay marriage wasn’t legal in the country. And it’s like, oh right! 

Cher: Wild to think about.

Lauren: We’ve made so much progress in the last ten years. It’s nuts, right? So, yeah, I think 2013 ... sort of early days of YouTube, that sort of 2007 to 2013 period, like, a lot of queer teens didn’t necessarily have other queer teens in their lives, like noticeably queer teens, and so they really gravitated towards these YouTube, the older sister, older brother kind of thing. Or like a crush or whatever, right? And so that was in the video that I made back in 2015 or whatever. One of the things that I mention and one of the things that’s a huge part of the fandom is shipping these two people. Right?

And in the video, ten years ago or whatever, I’m like, “I want people to do whatever they want on the internet,” but I’m not going to talk about this in-depth because real person shipping makes me kind of uncomfortable and I don’t know that I love it. I don’t do it. But whatever. People do whatever they want. I’m curious kind of if you are willing to talk about whatever view you have on real person shipping. It’s totally fine if you’re not. Yeah, what you think.

Cher: Yeah, I think it’s definitely something that I have felt ... at least personally not something that I’m a huge fan or have been a huge fan of. I always kind of try to avoid that para-social relationship with I guess especially with the air of celebrity or people that we’re talking about. Re-humanizing people, because I think people get so deep into fandom and shipping that they kind of start ... they forget the humanity of who they’re talking about a little bit. But I also can’t ... I think there’s a difference between being like I’m actively a huge ... I don’t know if I’m saying this correctly ... actively a huge shipper of someone versus these two people I would love if they ended up together, seeing that. I definitely ... despite those feelings about it, which are obviously very complicated and I’m working on articulating them, maybe I should have talked more about Grapes of Wrath in school, maybe it would have helped me articulate this more. But you do feel that warm fuzzy feeling when there’s a public couple that you think is so sweet or cute, or when there are people that you want to get together, that you’re like, “oh, it’s so cute that they’re together.” I feel like Tom Holland and Zendaya are a great example of this.

Lauren: Oh my god! Yes‼

Cher: No para-social relationship, obviously, but they must stay together forever. 

Lauren: They HAVE to stay together for my mental wellbeing.

Cher: Yeah. So, I have that kind of conflicting feeling about it where I’m like, I want to make sure to remember the humanity of people but also there is some fun aspects to it or like sweet aspects when you see couples happen in real life and you feel like ... they kind of feel like they know Dan and Phil, right? They’ve been following them for years. They’ve been watching their videos. It’s easy to get that kind of para-social relationship or feel that connection b because you do know a lot about their lives. I think it’s totally valid to then feel happy if/when they end up together and that’s something you wanted.

Lauren: Absolutely. Yeah, and I think that for the most part when we’re talking about para-social relationships tehse days we are talking about things like Chapelle Roan’s fans stalking her family and kissing her on the mouth. And things that we all agree are NOT OKAY.

Cher: Let’s not do that.

Lauren: Let’s not do that at all, please. But also I think that there are absolutely healthy para-social relationships, right? I think that I have a couple of podcasts that I listen to where it’s like these people are my friends and I’m just listening to my friends talk about something and it’s nice. It feels like I’m hearing my friends talk about something I don’t know something about. And I think that’s totally fine. I think that, yeah, a queer teen looking up to a queer YouTuber or whatever and feeling like that person is taking care of them in some way, is a role model to them in some way, cares about them in some way – I think that’s okay. I think that actually can be a really positive thing. 

I’m with you. I think what you articulated about real person shipping is basically what I feel now. I think the danger comes when it’s being thrust in the subject’s face. Right? Or it’s being commented on their videos. Or it’s being sent to them. Or it’s being replied to them on Twitter or tagged them on Tumblr. If you are directly putting that in someone’s face or harassing them about it ... right? And this is where I think the Dan and Phil thing is really interesting. Because a lot of queer teens gravitated toward them. But they were not out, right? So, part of this shipping was also people speculating about their sexuality. And eventually they did both come out as gay, I believe. And they’ve said that they’re very private people and that they have been in a romantic relationship at one point but it’s unclear if they are now. But I think they still live together. So, it’s like who knows? Right?

But it’s absolutely none of our business!

Cher: Yeah.

Lauren: And that I think is the important part, right? It’s the same thing whenever an actor who plays a queer character gets bullied into coming out. That stuff drives me fucking insane. 

Cher: I was sitting here thinking about Kit Harrington as you said that.

Lauren: Wait ... Kit Harrington?

Cher: Jesus, not Kit Harrington ... Kit Conner.

Lauren: I was like Kit Harrington!?

Cher: Kit Conner. Thank you.

Lauren: Absolutely. Yeah.

Cher: A different British Kit.

Lauren: Yeah. I was also thinking of Kit Conner. That breaks my fucking heart.

Cher: Yeah. It just truly, no words. Especially I mean obviously at any age but for especially a young actor just coming into the space. Playing this role. And just immediately getting piled on and feeling forced to share this intimate part of himself that frankly is no one’s business. Unless he wants it to be. Unless he wants to share it. And also just ... coming out is such an important and pivotal part of the queer journey. And to feel forced to do that – oh gosh, it just feels so icky that ...

Lauren: It sucks. Yeah.

Cher: Yeah. And the things is, I feel like largely the people who forced him are the people who are supposed to be supporting him and his fans!

Lauren: Exactly! Yes, exactly! I think that ... obviously I have no idea how Dan and Phil feel about this but it seems to me like they just basically ignored this sort of speculation for years and years. And eventually, I hope, came out on their own terms. As the world got more accepting and they got older and maybe got more comfortable with themselves or whatever. And I frankly love that they haven’t confirmed if they’re in a romantic relationship or not.

Cher: I hope they never do.

Lauren: Yeah, I hope they never do! And I hope that they continue to live together and I hope that one day we just see them with wedding rings on and they never confirm anything. I love that shit. 

Cher: They just keep acquiring more children and you’re like ...

Lauren: Exactly. Are they just co-friends or ...

Cher: [crosstalk 00:36:09] Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah, we are not ... even though they are vloggers and they are celebrities in part due to them letting people in on their personal lives, they still get to decide what that looks like, right? 

Cher: Yeah.

Lauren: And I totally agree with you, too, on despite the fact that I’m not really inclined to real person ship, I’ve never written or read fan fic for it. There’s not like any celebrity relationship that I actually care that much about. But yeah, when Tom Holland and Zendaya got together I was like, fuck yes, this is great! And same thing with Carrie Russell and Matthew Reese being a married couple in The Americans and then one day just being like, “Oh by the way, Carrie is pregnant and we’ve been in a relationship for the last couple of years.” (laughs)

Cher: I love it.

Lauren: I love that shit. And then them talking about how they would sneak off set to make out in the first season.

Cher: Are you kidding me!?!

Lauren: That’s so great. 

Cher: I love it when fan fic becomes fan fact. That’s so nice.

Lauren: Exactly. 

Cher: I’m just thinking about the Tom Holland umbrella lip sync battle video which everyone is like, is this him courting Zendaya? Which ... yes!

Lauren: Yes, it was. 

Cher: Which never gets old. Iconic. Amazing. If someone did that dance I would marry them. 

Lauren: Oh, 100%. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think that a lot of people enjoy celebrity gossip but I think that for the most part, again, that’s mostly okay and I know that there’s been so much ... I have seen a lot of chatter in the last couple of months about Ben Affleck and JayLo breaking up and then people shipping Ben Affleck and Matt Damon since the dawn of time. And that whole thing.

Cher: Which I do love their friendship.

Lauren: Oh, their friendship is so great. Yeah, again, I think that stuff is mostly fine but that’s the kind of stuff that I don’t really have an opinion on. I don’t really care if celebrities break up as much as I care ... yeah, when two people are like, oh by the way, we actually have been in love for a long time. That always makes me really happy.

Cher: Yeah. It’s interesting to see ... I think it was much bigger maybe 10-15 years ago than it is now, with those very obvious post film PR relationships because people would be so into shipping the leads from the movie or the show or whatever it was. Rachel McAddams and Ryan Gosling. Were they really together after The Notebook? I think so ... but definitely helped with PR for it. I can think of so many movies where the main couple were “dating” for a time around press season. Which I think yeah ties ... it’s clearly what people want to see. I think people love love and want to see it. It’s overall a positive thing as long as you’re keeping it positive and not shoving it in people’s faces or replying to them. Yeah. 

But yeah, to be happy for people or to want them to fall in love ... look, I shipped four of my friends, two of my friend couples, very strongly. And they’re both married to each other. 

Lauren: Yeah, exactly!

Cher: Shipping works. 

Lauren: You know what, it does. Ship the people in your real life. 

Cher: Stop shipping celebrities, ship your friends. 

(laughter)

Lauren: Yeah, I’m totally with you. I do just think people love love. And it’s nice when love stories turn out to be true. And so yeah, Dan and Phil, keep doing what you’re doing. I’m just really happy for their fans that they’re back and doing things and being more of who they are. I think that’s something that’s been really nice since scrolling through the tag is sort of like a lot of these fans who were very young when they first started watching these guys, who are now adults, and kind of seeing like these two people become more of themselves, become more open with who they are and more comfortable with who they are, in the same way that the teens who watch them have become more open with who they are. And sort of just like it’s one of those – look at how far we’ve come. Look at us both! 

Cher: Yeah, very wholesome. Very sweet. And it does feel like, as I was prepping for this episode, I just had their videos up and I just had them playing as I was doing stuff. And it does feel like you’re hanging out with your friends. You’re just sitting there, they’re chatting, it kind of almost feels like you’re kind of in the conversation, too. And yeah, I think growing up with a fandom as a fan of something is so special and I think it’s especially special as you said ... Dan and Phil’s fans have grown up with them. 

Lauren: Yes.

Cher: And as you said, as they’ve come into themselves more, as they came out, things like that, shared these things about themselves, I am sure so many of their fans felt inspired to do the same, or empowered to do that same, or just a little more comfortable in their own skin because someone or two people that they look up to are comfortable in their skin.

Lauren: Exactly.

Cher: Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah. No, I love that. I think I’ve had those types of para-social relationships before. Right? Lee Pace and Janelle Monae were two celebrities that when I was a teenager i was like obsessed with them. And when Arc Android came out I was entering college and I was just watching Janelle Monae music videos over and over again. Because both of those people just give me a lot of bisexual and also gender feelings. I think part of me, as I was figuring out my sexuality and figuring out sort of how I felt about gender and things like that, I think that a part of me hoped that what I was sort of seeing in both of these people was something similar to what was inside of me, right? 

Yeah, I did feel really happy when they both eventually came out. Right? I was sort of like, oh, yes, we are part of the same family. I don’t know. I totally understand that particular impulse I think.

Cher: Absolutely. I very much felt the same amount and honestly it ties well into our next Feels Corner segment. I’ve been re-watching Twilight. It’s one of my comfort series. And in these past couple of weeks when I’ve had a big life change I’ve been watching Lord of the Rings and Twilight and those kinds of things. And yeah, I very much felt the same way you’ve been describing about Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. Didn’t even realize I was bi at the time. But was like, I love both of them in a very intense and similar way. 

And growing especially watching Kristen Stewart come into her own and come out and clearly become so much more comfortable in herself and you can see it just kind of radiate out of her. Her self love and self acceptance and how the way that she’s carried herself has changed. I love her style and the way ... I don’t know, I just think it’s been very special to have ... definitely t his para-social relationship with someone. Maybe I’ll meet her ... probably won’t, you never know. But I definitely think I was able to ... when I was still trying to figure out and maybe struggling a bit more with my sexuality or queerness, it helped me love myself more because I was like, she is so badass ... I too am.

Lauren: Totally.

Cher: We are similarly badass in that way. 

Lauren: Yes, totally.

[gentle music]

So, beyond that, what else has you in your feels? Let’s head on over to our Feels Corner.

Cher: Yeah, honestly, I think the biggest thing that’s had me in my feels the past couple of weeks has just been feeling so much gratitude for Tumblr. Tumblr has me in my feels. I love this website. I cannot believe how lucky I am that I got to spend a decade working there. On my favorite place on the internet, working for my favorite place on the internet. I love it so much. And it’s just such a special place and community. Yeah, I think just that definitely – just Tumblr as a platform has me in my feels for the impact that it’s had on our lives, on so many people’s, on Dan and Phil and their PHandom. So yeah, that’s what has me in my feels. Just a small thing.

Lauren: Just a small thing ... just a HUGE seismic shift in your life ... 

(laughter)

Cher: What about you, Lauren?

Lauren: I’m trying to remember if I’ve mentioned this on one of our recent episodes. Have I talked about The Penguin yet? Other than earlier for this episode?

Cher: No, you haven’t.

Lauren: Okay. Good. So, yeah, The Penguin has me in my feels. Have you watched it yet?

Cher: I don’t even ... I have never heard of it. 

Lauren: Oh my god. OH MY GOD! Okay. Wow. So, are you familiar with the Batman villain, The Penguin?

Cher: Yes.

Lauren: Okay. So, HBO Max, whatever we’re calling it now, has made a TV show kind of like origin story of The Penguin called The Penguin. 

Cher: Amazing.

Lauren: So, it’s DC comic book franchise thing. And it’s like franchise shows are ... can really run the gambit of quality. Right? And they certainly have in the last couple of years. But this is starring a truly, truly unrecognizable Colin Ferrell. Every episode I’m like, how are you under there? It’s got some of the most amazing prosthetic work that I’ve ever seen in television. He just looks like a different person. But it doesn’t seem like he’s wearing a costume. You think that’s what that’s person looks like and it’s actually just Colin Ferrell under there doing an old school New York accent. It’s incredible.

So yeah, we watched the first episode of this ... we watched the fifth episode last night. It’s now been on for five weeks. And after the first episode we were like, wait a second, that was good! Right? We just watched a franchise show that where the pilot was good. And then we watched it next week and we were like, wait, this show is really good. It’s really good. It’s just good, strong storytelling, and it’s funny ... I’m not a mob person. I don’t really find mob in media inherently interesting. I’ve never seen The Sopranos, I’ve never watched Sons of Anarchy. I just don’t find that ... I just don’t like it really. It’s not something that appeals to me. But this is very much along those lines. It’s also got Cristin Milioti just absolutely a most unhinged hot in this show, this daughter of a crime lord. 

But I am so emotionally invested in this show. A huge part of it is the fact that in the first episode ... this isn’t really spoiling anything ... The Penguin kind of ends up taking this character Vic under his wing as a mentee. And this kid is ... I want to wrap him in cotton wool and just protect him from the world. And I can already tell that it’s going to be very much a Walter White / Jesse Pinkman type of relationship. That’s already what it’s growing into, except Vic is in such a sweeter, softer place than Jesse Pinkman was when he started. And so I’m just like, I’m very, very in my feels about that. 

And to call up one thing in particular that I think was especially well done and that I think will appeal to Tumblr in particular, because I know that Tumblr is always looking for good meaningful representation of things that are not often shown on screen, there’s this scene in either episode two or three where Oz, The Penguin, and Vic are talking about ... they’re having lunch at this fancy place and they’re about these underdogs trying to kind of move their way up in this crime world, and they’re talking about kind of the way that people perceive them and Oz trying to sort of always overcome the way people perceive him. Because he’s in the show ... I don’t know what it is in the comics but in the show he’s called The Penguin because he waddles. And does that because he has a disability in one of his feet and wears a brace on his foot. And has a limp, essentially. He also has a lot of scars on his face. And Vic has a stutter.

And they have this conversation that’s like so subtly about being disabled in a way that I’ve just never seen on TV before. I’ve never seen two characters who have disabilities talk about the way that the world perceives them. And it’s done in a way where it’s like ... after the episode I was talking to my partner about it and I was like, “I just love that scene so much. I’ve never seen two characters with disabilities talk about that in that way.” And he was like, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t even think about it that way but you’re so right.” And it’s like, well yeah, it’s good writing. It’s not like shoving the representation in your face but I have arthritis and for many months when I first got it I did use a cane and I ... but it was also like an invisible disability, right, I was in a lot of pain so unless I had my cane you couldn’t really tell that I was disabled. And it still sometimes is disabling if I have a really bad flare-up. 

So, I was coming at it from that perspective. And it really rang true to me in a lot of ways. And so I don’t know, I just ... it’s really good writing. I want to protect Vic with everything in my life. And I’m so worried that he’s going to be murdered in some terrible way. So, that’s my long, long pitch for why you should watch The Penguin. 

Cher: Well, I definitely will. I have a lot of time. And I love ... I similarly will watch any comic book spin off show. The bar is always on the floor. I never have hopes for it. I’m always excited for it to be ... Agatha all along, another one where, holy shit, this fantastic. 

Lauren: So fun.

Cher: So, yeah, I will definitely be watching it. And I also, on the note of representation and talking about disabilities in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s being shoved in your face, I think that nuance is so important in television and film. Where it’s like just tell the story and this character happens to have an aspect about themselves that would be representative of perhaps a community or group of people that don’t regularly get represented in film. And just integrate it in as you would integrate in any other thing into a scene. You know? I don’t know why-

Lauren: Exactly.

Cher: ... it needs ... I feel like so often it’s like, okay, we’ve cast this character to be representation, we’re going to make this big statement, and it’s going to be very obvious, and that is the exact thing that makes people get all up in arms for lack of a better phrase I guess about, oh, it’s just representation. It’s like, no, no, that’s sloppy representation. 

Lauren: Right. It’s bad writing. 

Cher: Yeah. When you tell a story that is representative of the world in which we are in, it will naturally have a variety of people and identities and disabilities and what have you to represent if you look for them and telling it on a story. You know what I mean? As you’re saying – good writing. It makes such a dramatic difference. I feel like this is my gripe with Grays Anatomy, a show I will never stop watching because I’m not a quitter. Recently it’s like I feel like they just were like, “What boxes do we want to check this episode?” 

Lauren: Yeah ...

Cher: You know? I mean, they’re on season 20 whatever and this is a brand new prestige DC spin off ... so I realize it’s different. But it’s really great to see that type of good writing is becoming so much more common place and we just see more and more representation across the board in more entertainment and in a way that is woven in such a way that, yeah, you might not even notice it. But it’s there. And it being there will help change people’s perspectives and viewpoints and I don’t know just help people be more aware of the world in which we live. And that it’s not just the same story.

Lauren: Exactly. Yeah. And I think another thing that The Penguin has done really well is the fact that The Penguin is inherently a fat character who waddles. That’s why he’s called The Penguin. And so Colin Ferrell is wearing, I believe, unless he gained a lot of weight for this role, I believe he is wearing a fat suit and I think a lot of people have problems just inherently with actors wearing fat suits. Right? You should cast a fat actor for a fat role. And so I can’t speak to that sort of particular part of it because I am sure there’s lots of varied opinions on him doing that. And a lot of those opinions I’m sure are very valid. But I will say that he is a villain, we are watching a story in which the Villain is the protagonist, and there’s also no hero. He’s not fighting Batman, right? He’s against other villains. It’s crime lord against crime lord, right? But he is a villain and has a villain origin story in many ways. And he does a lot of villainous things. But the fact that he is disabled, the fact that he is fat, the fact that he has facial scars – the world treats him a particular way because of those things but he is never villainous because of those things.

Right? And I think that’s a very fine line to walk because so many ... especially comic book characters are either disabled in some way or they’re queer coated in some way and it’s sort of like this comparison of, oh, these qualities sort of make you inherently a villain, right? Or all villains have a slash through their face, right? Some big scar. And I don’t think that the show is doing that really. And also for what it’s worth, I think it’s also doing a lot of great stuff around being a woman in the world. And it is mostly written by women. It was created and a show run by a woman and there just aren’t a lot of franchise shows that are that way. So, anyway ... I could talk about The Penguin for another 30 minutes. (laughs) 

Cher: Well, why don’t we do ... we should do a DC spin off, or comic book spin off episode or something.

Lauren: Yeah, we totally should.

Cher: Yeah, diving into character stories or something. Because I’ll watch The Penguin and then we should talk about it more. 

Lauren: Please do, yeah. But for now ...

I’m Lauren Shippen, and you can find me at TheLaurenShippen.Tumblr.com.

Cher: And I’m Cher McAnelly and you can find me at OverChers.Tumblr.com. 

This has been Dashboard Diaries. And ... 

[outtro music]

Lauren: May your anons always be loving.

Cher: Your dash always refreshed.

Lauren: Your gifs always be loading.

Cher: And your ships always canon.

Lauren: May the fics you’re reading always be finished.

Cher: And the answers you seek always in the re-blogs.

Lauren: Thanks for scrolling with us!

This month, we talk about the return of Dan and Phil and the strange realities of having your life be entertainment. Also, Cher has some HUGE news and Lauren gets emotional over a penguin (no, not Pesto).

Credits and transcript in our reblog. You can find transcripts for this, and every other episode, here.

Find the posts discussed in this episode in this tag!